Free Essays - Business Essays

We have now opened up part of our essays database to give you, the user, access to our free business essays, please remember to use these as research material and reference them if you use any quotes.

• Business Essays: Electrical and Electronic Sector - The purpose of this essay is to explore the importance of sustainability within the sector of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. Before a detailed discussion of the topic can be made, the concept of sustainability must first be defined. Brundtland defined sustainability as: “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. This definition, whilst widely used, is somewhat incomplete, since it does not directly address the importance of social, political or environmental factors within sustainable development. In 1992, The United Nations agreed upon “The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development”. This declaration contains twenty-seven key principles, two of which are shown below:“Human beings are at the centre of concerns for sustainable development. They are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature”. Read more...

• Business Essays: How to Improve the Working Lives of Staff of a Company - The project scope is outlined below - The purpose of the dissertation is to investigate ways to improve the working lives of people in order to create a ‘win-win’ situation that results in overall higher productivity due to an improved work/life balance. The study has been identified as important to all stakeholders in the company that will result in benefits at all levels. The goal is to identify how, if possible, to enable staff members to lead a more balanced lifestyle while holding down a career, regardless of their personal circumstances. Currently the company is traditionally run, including the human resources management and its procedures that govern work practices and procedures. Management identified the need for change, they work in a highly competitive market and it is vital to retain highly skilled staff that is scarce and difficult to replace; effectively putting a restraint on future company growth. The staff turnover levels appear to be increasing, a cause for concern to the company and the basis for initiating this study. Management has decided to bring in an external consultant researcher to conduct the study, to ensure it is unbiased and remains confidential. Read more...

• Business Essays: Employee Relations - The last quarter of the twentieth century saw the decline of traditional industries and the enormous growth of the service sector that coincided with a steady decrease in British union membership from 13 million in the early eighties, to 8 million in the late 1990’s. This paralleled the increase in the use of human relations practices and new forms of work organisation that provided the basis for a new win-win relationship between employees and managers. This contributed to the introduction of employee relations as a concept that broadened the study of industrial relations from a union focus to include wider aspects of the employment relationship, including non-unionised workplaces, personal contracts, and socio-emotional, rather than contractual arrangements. Read more...

• Business Essays: Business Cycles - Business cycles relate to fluctuating growth in economies and are measured using the gross domestic product for respective countries.  A business cycle has four phases, i.e. recession, slump, growth and peak.  Task 1 includes a brief look at the business cycle of the UK economy over a five year period and explains the usefulness of business cycles to business organisations that need to plan for the future. The business cycle relates to repetitive fluctuations of expansion and recession in an economy.  Over the longer term an economy would normally experience a positive growth in output.  Therefore, the business cycle can be defined as the ‘short-term fluctuation of total output around its trend path’. Read more...

• Business Essays: SWOT Analysis - The airline industry has always been and continues to be the most fiercely competitive business sector in all facets of its operations. Operating on paper thin margins the drop in passenger traffic brought on by the events of September 11th, 2001 have affected domestic United States airlines as well as all global carriers. The events of that day have caused governmental intervention in the form of loan guarantees, compensation for terrorist attack losses, as well as insurance related to war risk (Shane, 2003). The Associate deputy secretary of Transportation stated that the industry is in its “…worst financial crisis…”(Shane, 2003), since the industry was deregulated in 1978. It is important to understand that two differing types of airline carriers exist in the United States. The majors refer to airlines earning revenues in excess of $1 billion USD annually and generally they provide national as well as international service. Read more...

• Business Essays: Business Plan - To assess the viability of Star of India’s business plan, it is useful to consider three aspects of the plan. As mentioned previously, ROCE, gross margin and net margin forecasts are impressive indeed and would no doubt exceed the management’s expectations especially during the first year of operation.  There is also a positive cash flow in all but one month.  This is important for the business to be able to honour its credit commitments as they fall due.  Star of India can also use the profits to grow the business.  The plan also indicates an increase in the customer base, starting with 1820 customers in April and ending the year with a forecast of 7000.  Again, this indicates a growth plan, which should be acceptable to the owner. Read more...

• Business Essays: Change Process Dynamics - The dynamics of change is a critical part of the entire change process in any organization. Annick Bourguignon (2003) argues that any system or implementation plan especially changes in the business environment have numerous dynamics (i.e.) the factors whose behaviour affect the overall change process itself, and the efficient identification and management of such dynamics re essential for the successful implementation of the change itself. Further more, he argues that in a change environment, the dynamics not only attribute to the change but also to the overall business process that is anticipated to be accomplished through implementing the change and hence a dynamics based approach to the management of the change process is essential for its success. Read more...

• Business Essays: Ethical Business Behaviour - Ethics in academic terms has many definitions, and thus can potentially make it difficult to draw the lines between what is ethical and what is not. But how is ethics defined in layman's terms? If people were asked to give their own definitions of ethics, would it still be as hard to draw the line around ethical behaviour? And considering that many companies who arguably behaved "unethical" are still very successful in business, do people actually care about ethical behaviour of firms? Would they choose one product over another due to the knowledge that the company behind it is "more" ethical? If they don't, how does ethical behaviour then pay off? And if they do, how much influence could they potentially assert? The dissertations aim is to give some insights on whether corporate social responsibility and ethical behaviour really matters to consumers. And in such has it a potential power to influence corporate behaviour, as then ethical behaviour would really pay off? Read more...

• Business Essays: Motivation In Business - Motivation has been defined as the psychological process that gives behaviour purpose and direction (Kreitner, 1995); an internal drive to satisfy an unsatisfied need (Higgins, 1994); and the will to achieve (Bedeian, 1993). In psychology, motivation refers to the initiation, direction, intensity and persistence of behavior (Green, 1995). In simplistic terms, we can define motivation as the desire and willingness to do something and the inner force that helps individuals achieve their goals.  Understanding what motivates employees and what can employers do to motivate their internal customers has been the focus of research by many researchers and the topic has gained special prominence in recent years. This is mainly because motivated employees can provide a firm with a distinctive advantage and a comptetitive edge and by being more productive they can help organisation thrive and survive. There are two schools of thought on motivational theories, the scientific school of thought and the behavioural school of thought. Read more...

• Business Essays: Studying Tourism Management - Tourism studies including tourism management are novel concepts and have only evolved in the past 30 years. Tourism management is a subject that consists of many facets. "The subject area of international tourism management is so wide and varied, covering aspects as diverse as economics, accounting, marketing, politics, physical planning, sociology and environmental studies (just to mention a few) that it makes the production of a comprehensive textbook a most difficult task" writes Edmund Heery from Kingston Business School about the book "The Management of International Tourism" from Witt et al. But not only are the areas copious, also will they vary depending on what kind of tourism management is examined; is it the activities of a tourist manager in a large hotel on the Balearic Islands or is it a tourist development planner in the Gambia. Other writers believe that the main principles of tourism management focuses on how to influence visitors' choices of location, access, timing and product provision and to develop local understanding and knowledge of appropriate balance between demand and supply. Read more...

• Business Essays: Customer Service Proposition - Crosbie (2005) has produced one of the most recent studies on the value of soft skills training; challenging the role of training as a single methodology for the development of personal and interpersonal "soft skills" for leaders. A design/methodology approach is used to make a case for the importance of soft skills development for leaders and then to explore the role of training, along with other critical elements, in helping leaders develop these skills. This is done through an explanation of the complex process of learning, concluding that learning soft skills takes significant time, and the learning of the complex personal and interpersonal skills of leadership takes even more time. Statistical analysis is used to support the recommended methodology outlined in this paper, and the practical implications are also examined. Read more...

• Business Essays: Global Marketing Strategy - Researchers Park and Ungeson argue that most strategic alliances including joint ventures that fail do so as a result of problems that can be generally described as either interfirm rivalry or managerial complexity. They propose that generally alliances fail as a result of the opportunistic hazards as each partner tries to maximize its own individual interests instead of collaborative interests. The sheer technical difficulty of coordinating the goals and operations of two separate companies around similar goals and interests, and aligning operations at the alliance level with parent firms' long-term goals is daunting, and it is no surprise that many firms are unable to successfully navigate a path to success. Read more...

• Business Essays: Interpersonal Group Work - Fook ( 2002 ) noted that interpersonal group work tend to increase individuals ability to choose and influence, somehow as a leader, my participation in the interpersonal group work has enhanced my abilities to communicate effectively, confidence, problem solving and empowered [Brown, 1992]. It was however important to note that dilemma could arise in relation to who gets to participate, Norman [1997] argue that groups do not necessarily speak with one voice and some interest groups can be dominant and serve to exclude others. Douglas (1995) argue that if the rhetoric of participation is in place then the non-participation of certain group give fuel to the view that their difficulties are to do with their own inadequacies. Douglas [1995] maintains that it is essential to discriminate positively so that some people do not feel neglected and it is equally important that participation is well put in place and avoids the criticisms that it is a little more than a widow dressing activity, which gives the impression of open and democratic, decision making. Read more...

• Business Essays: London Cinema Plan - Negotiations have been undertaken to purchase the West London cinema in Hammersmith. This is a small, family run cinema which has been having trouble competing since a new multiplex cinema opened in the new shopping centre in Shepherd's Bush. The purpose of this business plan is to seek funding for the purchase of the West London cinema and for the transformation of part of it into a Gold Class or VIP type cinema. This transformation will involve the renovation of one of the screens, decoration in a classy, movie theme style and the building of a kitchen and bar area. Gold Class will give patrons the opportunity to watch blockbuster movies from the comfort of luxurious, reclining lounge chairs while enjoying food and drinks brought directly to them. If this concept works, then the prospective owners intend to repeat their success in other run down cinemas across the country. Read more...

• Business Essays: Marketing Strategies HSBC - One of the largest banking and financial services organisation in the world is known as the HSBC Group. It has established businesses in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, the Americas, the Middle East and Africa. In 1991, HSBC holdings were incorporated in England, with its head office based in London. In 1999, the company established its international brand name, which ensured that the Group's corporate symbol became a familiar sight all across the world. HSBC differentiates its brand name from those of its competitors by describing the unique characteristics which distinguish HSBC, namely being, 'The world's local bank'. As at 31st December 2004, its total asset was valued at £660 billion. It has over 9,800 offices worldwide. It employs over 253, 000 people, across different countries and territories. Read more...

• Business Essays: Trumpton College Course - Trumpton College is only a small local college, serving the tertiary education needs of a medium sized town, as such it needs to try to focus on creating a new, or exploiting an existing niche market, rather than competing with major universities. It's 100 staff are in a ratio of 1:15 with the students, however without data on teaching versus support staff it is hard to estimate class sizes, and thus potential teaching quality. Despite the college catering to students from age 16, the average age of the students is ten years higher, thus indicating that the college's strengths may lie in teaching a more mature audience. Indeed, with the Business Administration Course currently satisfying the training needs of junior staff in small local businesses, the new Business Management Course seems an ideal new course for the school to launch. However, the success of the course relies mostly, in my opinion, on three key aspects. Read more...

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