Causes and Strategies for Aggressive Customers

Causes and Strategies for Aggressive Customers INTRODUCTION Tourism and hotel industry is growing among other world industries due to its significant impacts on the social and economic development of a region or country (Avelini, 2003, p. 130). The tourism industry worldwide generated US $ 944 billion sales in 2008. In year 2008, international tourists arrivals reached 922 million and World Tourism Organization (WTO) forecasts that approximately 1.6 billion new arrivals of international tourists are expected worldwide in 2020. The tourism industry has fourth rank after fuels, chemicals and automotive products among other categories. These facts and figures shows that tourism industry is key industry in worlds economy because it gives employment both directly and indirectly and thousands of families are relying on the income of tourism industry (WTO 2009 Publications). Clearly in the hotel industry, customer service is the backbone to customer satisfaction which is depends on the employees. In other words, in the tourism industry, hotels and other accommodation are one of the most important organizations for providing services. That is why Chebat and Kollias, (2000, p. 67) argued that, customer service employees are the key players in molding customer experiences as they finally manage the manners in which the service transaction delivered and employees provide tangible services in the form of delivering food, helping customer into their particular rooms and also give intangible services in the form of making visit again to the hotel. Others also argued that Sperdin and Peters (2009, p. 171), customers want professional services and satisfying experiences with full of good performance. Because hotel industry shows that there is higher frequency of interaction with customers if we comparewith other service industries (Hoffman Chung, 1999, p. 73). More over according to Chen and Yu (2009, p. 8), service employees with knowledgeable and caring characteristics are able to influence the perceptions and thinking of the customers. Customer service has verbal and non-verbal behaviors between service provider and the customers (Clive Muir, 2008, p. 241).Effective customer service is attained through using these four areas: the services provided by service sector, the customer service employees hired by service companies, the customers served by service companies and the service managers hired by service companies; customer service could fail if there is any lack in one of these four areas (Layman, 2001, p. 80). However, a unique but distressing feature during the service role is that service companies are expected to face aggressive behavior from customers. For this reason Baron,(1993, p. 142) identified three levels of aggression linked to service employees. In first level, withholding cooperation, spreading rumors and using offensive language behaviors are shown from customer side, in second level, intense arguments and verbal threats are shown. Lastly in third level, frequent displays of intense anger, physical fights and the use of weapons kinds of behaviors are shown from customers side. In this paper, we pay attention to the first and the second levels of aggression as they are very common in the service arena of the hospitality industry. In addition, aggressive behavior could arise during service encounters especially when things are going wrong (Smith Bolton, 2002, p. 5). When customers got angry, most of them behave aggressively, say something bad and try to hurt an individual (Bougie et al., 2003, p. 379). The study of organizational behavior and psychology give remarkable attention to the study of anger and it is also important for managers to know under what circumstances, customer got aggressive and is important for optimum resource allocation, staff development and training (Kennedy et al., 2010, p. 2). Several service companies realize that they always face the high level of stress due to customer aggression. In explaining what the service employees can do towards aggression, Lemmink and Mattson, (1998, p. 506) developed research about friendly employees behavior with customer satisfaction. Their study showed that personal warmth by customer service employees leave positive impacts on aggressive customers. So it is argued that, service employees have significant impacts on aggressive customers to mold their aggressive, anger, noisy behavior into normal behavior and make loyal with the particular service company. Then again, all the reviewed articles clearly show that the most important part of delivering superior services includes: how to deal with customers who are frustrated or angry and must know how to turn the situation. In spite of the growing trend of handling aggression, several tools can be used to resolve the situation in a way that will leave the customer satisfied: 1. Keep a positive attitude. 2. Encourage customers to vent their emotions. 3. Find out the facts. 4. Understand the customers feelings. 5. Suggest a way to solve the problem. 6. End on a positive note. Of course taking these proper steps, give motivation to managers and their employees to calm angry customers and turned their behavior into satisfied customers which encourage customers to continue doing business with the department and company (Levine Debra, 1992, p.27). In this regard, specific term emotional labor is used in service marketing and management literature, which is the interaction of employees and customers, it focuses on front line employee when they interact with public and it requires to produce an emotional state for another person (Pugliesi, 1999, p. 128,131).Hochschild, (1983, p. 7) defined emotional labor in her book The Managed Heart that â€Å"the management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display, emotional labor is sold for a wage and therefore has exchange value† (p. 7). This definition illustrates that emotional labor is the act of showing emotions in front of customers as a part of job. According to Karatepe,(2011, p. 280)research regarding customer aggression and its detrimental impacts on employee outcomes in front line service jobs is sparse. For this reason Chu and Murrmann, (2006, p. 1181-82) argued, it has been seen that there is little empirical research concerning emotional labor in service marketing and management literatures. In summary in consumer behavior dealing with aggressive customers is important to effectively manage aggression but this is not an easy task which means that customer while behaving aggressively; customer service employees need to mold the behavior of such customers through using emotional labor. In this regards, critical identification of aggressive customers and in response appropriate mechanism to mold their behavior should be put in place .This study will fill the gap by making some contribution on the existing literature through empirical and theoretical examinations. 1.2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS After formulation the research problem, following research questions have been found: * What are drivers of aggressive behavior? * How to handle aggressive customers and how to mold their aggressive behavior from the side of customer service employees? 1.3 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY The purpose of this thesis is to explore the behavior and pattern of aggressive customers reaction in the Hotel industry in Sweden. To accomplish our purpose, we are going to study different features of consumer behavior and customer voice for the success of the industry. Detail analyses of the approaches and reactions taken by customer employees at the hotel industry will be explored.In this paper we want to make contribution on the existing service marketing management specifically emotional labor literature. Finally, the outcome of our research may bring important implications for business practices in the hospitality industry. 2. Theoretical Frame work 2.1 Understanding the Customer wants The key to customer service is doing the right thing at the right time. According to Barcal, (2004, p. 10) here are the most important customer wants and needs which create positive customer perceptions about the customer service employees and the company that leads to better customer relationships. These customer wants are described below which customers expect to be done according to their wants. Customers always want their problems to be solved. But sometimes, if service employees cannot solve the customer problems, they can create positive perceptions through addressing the other less customer wants. Customer expects that their wants, needs, expectations, feeling, and words should be acknowledged and understood. It means service employees should listen to the customer. When customers feel understood and acknowledged it gives good impression to customers which lead to good customer relationships. Customers also want availability of possible choices and options that helps the customers to make the decisions. But when they feel helpless or powerless, they could exhibited frustrated, angry, and aggressive (Barcal, 2004, p. 10-11). Customers also want â€Å"positive surprise†. It means that service employees must go beyond customers hopes and expectations, like offering discount or providing some extra benefits which are not available to them before. Positive surprises are most useful when dealing with angry or aggressive customers. Consistency, reliability, and predictability are also important customer wants. This explains that customers are expecting to be treated in a consistent way. After acting accordance to these wants, customers feel sense of security and confidence with service employees and with company as well. This kind of behavior leads to loyalty. Beside customer wants value against their time and money investment. When customers consider value, they also consider how they are treated by customer service employees. It is very hard for service employees to affect the value of prices of services or products but they can add value through helping the customer in other ways (Barcal, 2004, p. 11 ). Reasonable simplicity is also an important customer want. It implies that service employees should make things easier instead of provision of complicatedservices; otherwise customers will be frustrated and aggressive. Speed and prompt service is the important want of customers which are expected from service employees. Customers want their problems be solved quickly and efficiently, as well as how fast they are being served. Confidentiality is an important aspect of customer service. Customers want some degree of privacy when talking with service employees and they feel uncomfortable if there is other staff or other customers around them. At the end, customers want the sense that they are important. Listening to and acknowledging customers demonstrate that they are important. The importance can be given through specific phrases and techniques through which they feel important. (Barcal, 2004, p. 11-12). Based on the arguments present above, all these customer wants need to be acknowledged by service employees, fulfilling customer wants make organizations attractive, otherwise leads to frustration/dissatisfaction which in some cases leads to aggressive behavior of customers. 2.2 Concept of aggressive behavior Customer aggressive behavior is relatively new area due to which its attraction is increasing from last decades areas, including social sociology (unethical behavior, lying and unethical decision making), organization behavior (e.g: dysfunctional employees behavior, fraud) and literature on criminology, taxation and insurance fraud have already been researching on aggressive behaviors for last many decades Fisk et al., (2010, p. 5) but research on customer aggressive behavior is mostly inspired by Lovelocks (1994) research work. As a result, it has been generally observed that aggression is common in businesses (fitness, 2000, p. 148). For this reason it is important to look at neighboring concepts linked to aggression that are developed and used by different scholars. Regarding aggressive customers, popular terms include â€Å"Jay customers† (Lovelock, 2001, p. 73), â€Å"deviant consumer behavior† (Moschis Cox, 1989, p. 732), â€Å"Aberrant consumer behavior† (Fullerton Punj, 1993, p. 570), â€Å"consumer misbehavior† (Fullerton Punj 1997a, p. 340), there are also less common terms including â€Å"problem customers† (Bitner el al., 1994, p.101), â€Å"dysfunctional customer behavior† (Harris Reynelds, 2003, p. 145) and â€Å"inappropriate behavior† (Strutton et al., 1994, p. 253). Of the popular terms, Christopher (1994), originated the term â€Å"Jay customers â€Å"and provided broad definition of the concept , Jay customers are defined as â€Å"ones who act in a thoughtless or abusive way, causing problems for the firm, its employees and other customers† (Lovelock, 2001, p. 73).These kind of customers  ´misbehave ´ bases for some kind of benefit and he also stated that these customers have following characteristics including labels thieves, breaking rules, the aggressive, criminals and dead beats (Lovelock, 1994, p.47). In viewing other important less common terms connected to aggression behavior of customers Harris Reynalds, (2003, p.145) defined dysfunctional customer behavior â€Å"Actions by customers who intentionally or unintentionally, overtly or conversely, act in a manner that, in some way, disrupts otherwise functional service encounters†. These norms are formed through customs, manners, rules and regulations, laws, and mores ´ (Moschis Cox, 1989, p. 732). In the service encounter context, norms are based on lodgers of role theory which states that humans behave dynamically but surely depending on their social identities and situations (Biddle, 1986, p. 68). In this context, customer behavior is considered to be deviant when it violates the accepted standards of exchange behavior (Fisk et al., 2009, p. 8). In addition , â€Å"Aberrant† also describing the customer behavior† behavior in the exchange setting which violates the generally accepted norms of conduct in such situations and which is therefore held in disrepute by marketers and most customers† Fullerton and Punj (1993, p. 570). Moreover they also stress that deviant behavior by consumers is the representation of overall customer behavior rather than signifying psychologically or physiologically type of behavior. But in later studies, Fullerton and Punj (1997a; 1997b; 1997c; 2004a) exchange the term ‘aberrant with ‘customer misbehavior. This term has been used widely within the customer misbehavior literature and various authors like Albers-Miller, 1999; Tonglet, 2002; and Freestone and Mitchell, 2004) have applied this term in their research works. One can easily understand that it is hard to provide a single comprehensive definition of the concept aggressive customers. However aggression can be looked as a situation in which customer behave out of rules and regulations, norms and customs of the company.Beside their action goes to the extent disturbing the routine day to day activity of the customer service employee at those particular moments. This could be because customers have been treated unfairly and unhappy with overall service of the company or unpleasant environment. 2.3 Causes of Aggressive Behavior Customers are playing significant role in organization. Due to the importance of customer, marketing and management researchers have keen to know the better understanding of the customer emotions especially the negative emotions which leads to customer aggression and created in customer employee interactions (Smith Bolton 2002, p.5). Furthermore, the interaction between employee and customer is routine work but when things go wrong with customer it shows negative emotions which normally leads to aggressive behavior. (Kennedy et al., 2010, p. 2). Several researchers have investigated the causes of aggressive customer behavior. There are various causes due to which aggressive behavior among customers is created. The traditional way of looking at aggression in service arena shows that customers misbehave up on service for example Deffenbacked et al.,(2001 p.718) described in such a way that aggressive behavior created due to the poor service provision from service employees and customers consider that they have been treated unfairly. At the general level, some other also looked at aggression from social psychology point of view, across service settings, customers experience fair or unfair situation of services for this reason experiences could be classified in to different categories of justices (i.e distributive, procedural and interactional justice)(Clemmer, E. C. 1993, p. 197). As a result Kennedy et al., (2010, p. 1) highlighted that customer is directly related to the perceived source of violation which includes (distributive, procedural and interactions justice). It means that anger on a company or organization is related to the violations of distributive justice but anger on an employee is related to the violations of both procedural (response time) and interactional justice. Secondly, they pinpointed that attributes of sins of omission (things could and should have been done by the employee) and low levels of interactional justice (treatment received) fully mediate anger that targets the employee. From another point of view Kennedy et al., (2010, p. 2) stated that , aggression also occur when required behavior violates an acceptable standard of behavior in the particular manner where the customer does not feel valued, respected or not treated with dignity during interaction with employees. In support of this idea,Mc Call-Kennedy and Spark (2003, p. 255) exploratory work showed that customer compare how they have been treated and how they should be treated during service failure and recovery attempts. Moreover when customer believe that they should be treated in acceptable standard but the service provide could not manage to do it , then at the end customers show negative emotions in term of aggressive behavior. Fullerton Punj (1993, p. 571) model suggests that there are two main important factors on which aggressive behavior is based on and can be seen in line with cause of aggression * Customer traits * Customer disposition Both of these characteristics include psychological, demographic and social/group influences due to which aggressive behavior occurs where psychological characteristics represent traits of personality, attitudes and moral development traits (Katz, 1988, p. 177). Fullerton Punj(1993, p. 571), also identifies wide range of demographic factors that affect aggressive behavior; these factors include age, sex, education and economic status. In contrast, a social influence contains a variety of group-level issues such as socialization, norm formation, and peer pressure (Moshcis Cox 1989, p. 732). However, this model also describes that there are also contextual factors due to which aggressive behavior occurs, these factors include the physical environment, the types of products/services offered and as well as the public image of the firm and most importantly, Fullerton and Punj (1993) said that aggressive behavior is more dependent on the interaction characteristics between customer service employees and customers. Therefore, at this stage it can be conclude that customer aggression emanates from provision of poor services; customer experiences of unfair situation in service setups and at the time the customer feel not valued, respected or treated properly. Customers would express their aggression in different ways. However, the most common type of aggression in service arena is supposed to be through verbal. 2.4 Verbal aggression As argued by Hutton R (2003, p. 2), verbal aggression is anger expressed vocally. It is a common behavior as it is rather easy expression of anger only words and sounds are involved. By looking at how problematic verbal aggression is, one should make a distinction between verbal aggression to oneself and to others. â€Å"Cursing at oneself, for example, is a possible reaction to ones own behavior when this behavior is considered negative and attributed to oneself†. While for an outsider this verbal aggression may still be interpreted as unfriendly and as an indication that the verbally aggressive person is easily irritated or bad tempered. (Smith, D et al 2004, p. 537). Customer verbal aggression, which refers to customers verbal communications of anger that violate employees social norms (Grandey et al., 2004 and Boyd, 2002; Grandey et al., 2007; Harris and Reynolds, 2003 cited in Karatape et al 2008 pp 713-714 ) such as swearing, yelling, threats, condescending remarks, and sarcasm. Hence, it would be reasonable to think that these types of aggression are followed by possible consequences which affect the employees and the organization as well as the customer. In this paper, we sought to emphasis on behaviors this type of aggressive behavior thatoccurs frequently, instead of extreme or rare situations. 2.5 Consequences of Aggression Customer dissatisfaction response following a service failure accompanied by s specific emotion like anger , disappointment, regret and worry influences consumer behavioral intension such as complaining, switching, spreading negative word of mouth and doing nothing (Mattila ,S and Ro ,H 2007 p. 90). Earlier research done focusing on the aggressive component of the relationship between customer and service employees have also identified that the extreme stress of aggression by customers results in service worker burnout from the side of service employees (ZureYagil, 2005, p. 83).This frequent hostility from customers creates non conducive working environment that customer service employees may want to avoid whenever possible (Grandey et al., 2004, p. 6). Moreover Yagil (2008, p. 146-147) supported this view by stating that regular contact to negative behavior customers results can be viewed from three different points i.e: negative emotional reaction, negative attitude towards work and physical harm on the employees. In explaining the consequences of aggressive customers up on the service setting understanding conceptual distinctions that has been provided by this scholar are very important: These concepts are also described below Emotional reaction customers having threatening and rude behavior affect mood of the employees and reaction of intimidation, feeling of anger and depression. Beside some others also feel high degree of stress due to customer aggression on the service providers. Work related attitudes and behaviors: employees lower job satisfaction accompanied by decreased organization commitment is potential consequence of customer aggression Physical harm: aggressive customer in some situation may goes to the extent of causing physical harm to employees. This happens to be the less frequent consequence of aggression in the in most service rendering organization. In general.by the same token customers aggression affects the organization due to the prevailing customer misbehavior in effect such behavior decreases employees commitment, loyalty and performance level towards their work. 2.6 Customer Service Employees 2.6.1 Myth of Good Customer Service for Customer Service Employees â€Å"The Customer is always right† Its a great slogan provided by H. Gordon Selfridge. But according to Barcal), 2004, p. 8), it is wrong and misleading. He said that customer is not always right because customers always demands unreasonable requests and expectations. It is very important for the customer service employees that they do not perform their day today activities under this assumption. Instead customer service employees should consider following two phrases. The customer always deserves to be treated as if he or she is important and his or her opinions need, and wants are important to listen. Of course, customer deserves to receive maximum effort from customer service employees who are serving him or her. Service companies not only need to focus on what they are providing to the customers but also how to provide products or services effectively which is the realistic excellent customer service (Barcal, 2004, p. 9). 2.6.2 Importance of Customer Service employees â€Å"People are your most important asset,† is wrong. The right people are your most important asset. (Jim Collins, 2001, p. 171).This is to show the importance of having diligent, motivated and service oriented employees in organization. According to LiverlockWirtz (2007, p.311), the most important demanding jobs are the front line positions in service firms. Employees are expected to be fast and efficient to do operational tasks, as well as become courteous and helpful in dealing with customers. In this context, the front line employees are the key input to deliver service excellence and become source competitive advantage especially in the hotel industry. 2.6.3 Relationship between Service Employees Behavior and Customer Satisfaction Many studies have tried to examine the relationship of service attitudes of employees with customer satisfaction in hotel industry. Trumble (2004, p.1) argued that according to norms of culture, smiling is a â€Å"mask exchanged out of politeness†. Researchers found different effects of smiles in business studies. According to Kattara et al., (1999, p. 321) human interaction is salient factor for determining customer satisfaction. When the customers are satisfied, they may be forgiving other problems. Hospitality industry majorly depends on the customers responses and the positive customer experiences. In hotel sector, superior services are dependent on employees and employees are the foundation of competitive advantage. They stated that actions of customer service employees are the foundation of service quality and customer satisfaction in hotel sector. Because customer service employees increase hotel image, actual and perceived service quality. They also found that hotel managers should focus on employee development through allocating resources. Chun Min Chu (2007, p. 1083) determined four factors of customer service employees behavior in his study with perspective to customer service employees behavior and customer satisfaction in hospitality industry: Friendliness Empathic feeling Enthusiastic service Problem solving He concluded that service companies must give more attention to front line employees with proper training and emotional support which is necessary for them to cope with the increasing demands of customer service 2.6.4 Service personnel; source of competitive advantage According to LiverlockWirtz (2007, p.311) from a customer ´s perspective, the encounter with service staff is the most important aspect of the service industry. From a firm ´s perspective, the service levels and how the service delivered is important source for creating competitive advantage through front line service personnel. Service employees are important with respect to customer and firm perspective because front line staff is: Is a core part of the product:Service employees are the most visible element of the service during delivering service and significantly responsible for quality of service. Is the service firm: From the customers perspective, a front line employee is the service firm. Is the brand:The service which provided by front line employees are the core part of the brand. 2.6.5 Characteristics of customer service employees According to LiverlockWirtz (2007, p.313) following are the important characteristics of customer service employees; 2.6.5.1 Boundary Spanning In every service company, customer service employees are boundary spanning. It means that they link the inside of the service organization to the outside world. In boundary spanning, customer contact employees focus on operational and marketing goals. Service employees perform triple roles, creating service quality, improving productivity, and making sales. This multiplicity of roles in service jobs creates role conflicts among service employees which must be identified by management of the organization to improve their performance. Sources of Conflict Service employees have three main causes in role stress: person/role, organization/client, and inter-client conflicts which can affect their performance towards customer satisfaction. Person/Role Conflict Service employees have conflicts between their job requirements and their own personality, self-perception, and beliefs. For example, service job require smiling with customers even with rude customers and they must show friendly behavior with rude customers. These factors create personal conflicts between service employees and management. Organization/Client Conflict Service employees face the dilemma in many cases when they should follow the company ´s rules or follow to satisfy the customer demands. This conflict is called two bosses dilemma. This dilemma arises due to exceptions in customer demands a sit violates the organizational rules. So in this case customer service employees faces conflicting customer needs and requests, as well as organizational rules, procedures and requirements. Inter client conflict This conflict is stressful and unpleasant because it is difficult to satisfy both sides; customer and organization. When service employees trying to satisfy the both sides during service delivery process, inter client conflict creates. 2.8 Emotional labor Emotional labor means that service organization are expecting to show emotions in front of customers. Customer service employees are expected to be cheerful and sincere with customers. Emotional labor occurs when there is a discrepancy between front line staff, way of behavior and the emotions that management requires them to show in front of customers. The main aspect in emotional labor is that services firms must know about the ongoing emotional stress among their employees and train employees how to deal with such stress and to cope with pressure arise from customers(Pugliesi, 1999, p. 126). More overemotional labor is the controlling of service employees behavior to show the suitable emotions (Chu, 2002. p. 1). Emotional labor is only used for workplaces but also uses every aspect of persons life. But we will discuss emotional labor according to service industry context. Emotional labor is relatively new term described byGuy, M. E. and Newman, (2004, p.289) that, â€Å"Emotional labor applies to both mens and womens work, but is the ‘softer emotions, those required in relational tasks, such as caring and nurturing, that disappear most often from job description, performance evaluations, and salary calculations†. It means that a person changes behaviors (emotions, verbal cues, body language) according to the suitable situation. According to Hochschild 1983, there are two types of emotional acting: * Surface acting * Deep acting * Surface Acting In surface acting people do acting and show emotions without feeling and realizing that emotion. This type of emotional labor is mostly used in workplace. Surface emotional labor involves changing the negative emotions such as anger, sadness, aggression into happier emotions such as happiness, care, excitement etc. * Deep acting While in deep acting, there are two different emotional actions are involved. In first emotional action, person show actual emotions what they feel. The second emotional action is true method acting, in which person use past emotional experiences to encourage real emotion which is not felt before (Hochschil

Essay --

For over twenty years, gun control has been a major topic in the United states. With countless amounts of public shootings taken place, our country is starting to question our second amendment which states â€Å" a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed†. It was adopted into the United States Constitution on December 15, 1790. It stated basically that people have the right to keep and bear arms. These rights were thought of as â€Å"natural rights† or â€Å"God given rights†. Written as a reminder to the government that they should not try to stop the people from having this right. Should a person have the right to own a gun for protection? Should we completely take away this right to prevent mass murder shootings in public places? A lot of citizens feel uncomfortable to the fact of not having protection and having their privilege’s taken away due to other people and cruel decisions. Although times have changed from when the amendment was passed on December 15th, 1791, U.S. Citizens still feel it is a mandatory thing to have ownership of guns and have them in their daily lives. Public shootings came about in the early 1700’s when the first shooting took place at Pontiac’s Rebellion school on July 26, 1764. Four Lenape American Indians entered the schoolhouse near what today is Greencastle, Pennsylvania, shot and shilled the schoolmaster, and killed nine or ten children. Shootings such as the ones taken place in Virginia Tech, Colombine High School, Sandy Hook Elementary, the movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado; all have effected the country in a drastic sense and really impacted us Americans to take change and mak... ...ll waiting to be passed explaining that expanded background checks on gun owners or potential gun owners was to be done. Turns out the senate squashed that bill. President Obama has pushed for gun restrictions after the devastating shootings that have been happening and blames the senate for the failure to expand background checks. Without the full cooperations from both sides of this debate nothing will ever be solved. Banning weapons is not going to completely stop crime. This has just turned into a war against the rights of the individual stated in the constitution. Stricter gun regulations is not the solution but tougher punishments might be. Gun control is not the answer to this problem and that just needs to be accepted so that crime rate can finally be decreased and everyone can live happy with the fact that something is being done in this situation.

Machiavelli: Realism over Idealism

Luke Pelagio Due 5/27/2011 Period 4 Machiavelli: Realism Over Idealism Nicolo Machiavelli is known as being an archetypical realist; in other words, he was someone who originated the idea that we should not try to figure out how people should be, but rather accept and deal with the world as it literally is. Unlike Machiavelli, Plato posited an idealist view of a philosopher king reigning through virtue. To Machiavelli, this is an extremely dangerous delusion for it ignores what he considers the reality of the human condition: humans are brutal, selfish, and fickle (Machiavelli and Power Politics).You don’t need a philosopher king to secure off enemies and reinforce order/stability; on the other hand, you need a prince or a leader who understands what it takes to lead. It is better to be feared than loved if you can’t be both. â€Å"Nevertheless a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hated; because he can endure very well b eing feared whilst he not hated, which will always be as long as he abstains from the property of his citizens and subjects and from their women,† (Machiavelli, The Prince).Machiavelli applied force to get what he wanted, but he always kept his hands off the property of others. This is because men more quickly forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony (Machiavelli, The prince). In The Prince, Machiavelli demonstrates how to obtain and keep political power. This is what he did using witty tactics. 1 A prince must always pay diligent attention to military circumstances if he wants to reside in power, so the most desirable and beneficial type of army are native troops, composed of one’s own citizens or subjects.The prince has many characteristics that are crucial to his standing in a society such as: it is better to be stingy than generous, it is better to be cruel than merciful, it is better to break promises if keeping them would be against oneâ⠂¬â„¢s interests, and princes should choose wise advisors rather than flatterers. All these attributes are key to how well a Prince thrives (Public Bookshelf, The Prince). A prince must learn not to be limited to morality when unavoidable; a leader has to be able to use lies, force and deception if required in the world. Whether it is better to be feared or loved clearly addresses the reason for this.You can’t trust people, for they will turn on you. It is inevitable. Human nature means that doing what you must do at all costs according to any moral code simply puts you at a disadvantage. In addition, humans are generally under agreement to throw out such moral concerns if it is to their advantage. â€Å"Men have less scruple in offending one who is beloved than one who is feared, for love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails,† (Machiavelli, The Prince).This quote perfectly demonstrates Machiavellian realism. First, it is a very opposing and adverse view on human nature. Second, it is realistic and logical. If, by any chance, you are a prince or a leader, and you do not understand the atrocious inherent in 2 men, you will fail. Those who are most ruthless will have power; this is just reality. â€Å"For my part I consider that it is better to be adventurous than cautious, because fortune is a woman, and if you wish to keep her under it is necessary to beat and ill-use her; and it is seen that she allows herself to be mastered by the adventurous rather than by those who go to work more coldly.She is, therefore, always, woman-like, a lover of young men, because they are less cautious, more violent, and with more audacity command her,† (Machiavelli, The Prince). Machiavelli politics is definitely aimed toward the masculine side. It is power and control, so fortune is feminine and more ana rchy. If not under control, it will be unstable and chaotic. His influence stretches far beyond Italy in the sixteenth century and lies with us today in how we think/understand the world of international relations.Everything I have read such as: ideas about Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes, and Nicolo Machiavelli are all extremely important to my knowledge and insight about political concepts/background. I believe that to be educated one must have familiar knowledge with those who have shaped today’s political society and government. Machiavelli’s ideas, in particular, are used everywhere today. One who has not been informed of Nicolo Machiavelli would be living in ignorance, for that individual would be clueless of how ideas today became what they are/how they are.When President Nixon organized the Watergate Scandal in 1973, the public had 3 no inclination that their leader was capable of such corrupt and unscrupulous means. Nixon, under the impression that his campaig n was vulnerable, manipulated for power in the only way he saw fitting, hoodwinking. Take a look at President Truman; he dropped a bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki reaching casualties of 120,000. According to him, survival of the United States was so admonished that the use of such insignificant means was necessary.Even President Obama has his faults. The ideas of hope were what we, the people, needed to hear. It would allow us to be optimistic, and contain a false sense of protection thinking that everything would work out. Barak Obama made many promises; he said everything that we would ever want to hear. However, none of his promises have come true. Maybe in extremely insufficient ways we are approaching the goals of what he promised. This is barely noticeable though. In conclusion, the tactics and ideas formed and created by Nicolo Machiavelli are ingenious.President Obama noticed that Machiavelli’s ideas â€Å"work,† and he used them to his advantage to help him bec ome the President of the United States of America. Lastly, I don’t think that I could live in a Machiavellian-ruled/based society. While the Prince or ruler thrives, the people are lied to and don’t have very much value. One thing is absolute, though: Machiavelli’s ideas can’t be ignored or discarded simply because we do not wish them to be true. We must accept the reality of everything, and do something positive for our country. 4

Management and Quality Control

Chatammour Henderson Marketing Management Seminar 640 February 25, 2012 Asterand Memorandum: â€Å"What is the ultimate goal of Asterand’s quality control initiative? † Asterand clearly did not have an effective quality control system in process prior to accepting its contract with Amgen to supply human tissue samples.Although Asterand is a new supplier to the biopharmaceutical and pharmaceutical industry, it will need to immediately establish quality control methods that will allow them to process orders correctly and deliver the final product to the standards and requirements of the procuring company. This will demonstrate Asterand’s ability to provide consistent and reliable human-tissue samples that meet the rigorous regulatory standards that the FDA places on all biotechnology and pharmaceutical products.As indicated in the case study, Asterand failed to meet Amgen’s quality standards on four occasions with different reasons. Asterand’s quality control challenges did not begin with Amgen. Asterand also faced challenges with implementing standardized protocols for storage and data collection across laboratories and hospitals, organizing and storing samples over long periods, and meeting the stringent regulatory requirements for clinical testing.It is imperative that Asterand addresses these challenges in order to stay in business and to expand the company. Human-tissue sampling is a new and innovative process that can be rejected by its target consumers if it does not have good quality control methods. Asterand’s ultimate goal of the quality control initiative is to be well received in the niche human-tissue sample market so that the company can increase sales growth, secure financing, attract investors and ultimately expand its operations.

Prison Overcrowding Essay

Abstract This research paper is to explore the impact of prison overcrowding. The United States has a, what seems to be everlasting, prison overcrowding problem. Not only does the United States have this dilemma, but also many other countries have overcrowded prisons as well. Many issues need to be addressed; ways to reduce the prison populations and how to effectively reduce prison cost without jeopardizing community safety are major issues that need attention. Successfully rehabilitating inmates can play an important role in the fight to Prison Overcrowding There are overcrowded prisons all over the world. In 2011, the United States federal prisons housed around 219,000 inmates. In 1980, the United States federal prison population was 25,000. A total of 1,598,780 adults were incarcerated in county jails and federal and state prisons at the end of 2011, according to Urban Institute. There are many issues that need to be revisited until there is a solution. A number of impacts are the product of the overcrowded prisons. Health, safety of inmates and correctional staff, as well as, economical problems all need some solution, and quickly. Not only are prisons affected, communities are also directly and indirectly affected by prison overcrowding. Even though the government can’t just start releasing prisoners that haven’t served their full sentences to reduce the populations, the cost of incarceration, the health and safety of inmates and staff, and the affect that overcrowding has on communities are all issues that cannot be put on a back burner. With United States prisons being filled 38 percent above their capacity, some issues are of greater importance than others when it comes to the overcrowding of prisons. How to decrease prison populations is the main objective. California has started a program that has reduced prison populations significantly. Nonviolent, non-serious, non-sexual offenders are sentenced to local facilities like county jails  instead of state prison. The Department of Corrections has programs that alternative to incarceration and are more cost effective that have been given more funding in recent years also. The cost of incarceration, and the effect it has on the economy, in the United States is a major issue. It is very costly to house inmates in prison every year. An article in Impaired Driver Update. Show that it cost $27,000 to hold one inmate for a year, and that approximately $50 billion a year is spent on incarceration. It cost 20 times more to have an inmate incarceration than to have them on probation. Of $50 billion dollars spent on correction, $6.8 billion is spent on probation. An article published in Federal Probation in 2013 states, â€Å"recidivism rates average between 43 and 67 percent and supervision violators constitute on third of the persons admitted to state correctional facilities,† and â€Å"on, average, persons under supervision have five prior arrest; 16 percent violated a federal, state, or local community supervision, and 8 percent have a history of absconding.† Sentencing offenders to alternative programs would help cut cost and also help decrease prison overcrowding. Alternative programs for offenders in lieu of prison or inmate programs that help rehabilitate offenders and prepare them for re-entry co uld also help prison overcrowding. If inmates are able to attend programs for drug treatment, social disorders, and dealing with issues like abuse as a child the prison population could decrease. Inmates that have successfully rehabilitated have contributed to society and thus show that more money towards rehabilitation instead of incarceration could have a positive impact on population and society. In 2012, supervisees paid around $645 million in restitution, fines, and assessments. They contributed $4 million in community service. If more inmates are successfully rehabilitated an estimation in the Federal Probation shows that a savings of around $115 million could be cut of the budget with supervisees contributing by paying taxes, supporting dependents rather than on welfare, satisfying ordered financial obligations, and performing community service. The probation system cannot solve the whole overcrowding problem but could help immensely. Inmates that are released from prison that have no family, no real friends, no one to help them are really set up to fail off the top. They are given $200 and sent out to survive in what is one of the most expensive countries in the world. $200 now days will not even get you a hotel room for a week.  So many of them revert to selling drugs, stealing, or worse to manage. If there were more programs to help find them housing, employment opportunities and teach them how to be productive members of society, maybe the prison population would continue to decrease. There are also many effects of prison overcrowding on inmates and correctional staff health as well as the effects on correctional staff safety. The Corrections Manager Report in Dec/Jan 2014 reports an incident of a BOP officer killed, â€Å"while working alone in a unit housing 130 inmates.† The Urban Institute also states, â€Å"health and safety hazards from over used toilets, showers, and food service equipment,â⠂¬  are some of the many issues that need to be addressed. The Supreme Court ruled that California prisons were so bad they violated the 8th amendment and CDRC needed to reduce prison population by 30,000 inmates. Releasing inmates also has an effect on communities. When inmates are release it can affect their communities. If in the future there are more alternatives to incarceration to help reduce prison population people will be affected. Of course, not all inmates are going to follow their rehabilitation program and their offense will affect their community. They many rob, steal, or possibly assault someone in their community. They could begin to sale drugs that can also directly affect a community. There are positive ways though too that the community could be affected and the community could also positively affect the offender by participating or starting programs that help offenders start following a new path, and become successful members of society. Some communities have started outreach programs that help offenders. By having alternative programs available to offenders, who meet certain criteria it will help with the prison overcrowding problem that much of the United States continues to have a serious problem with. Prison overcrowding is a serious problem all over the world. It has economic effects. Prison overcrowding also has health risk to inmates as well as correctional staff. Safety risk for both inmates and correctional staff pose a great problem to with prisons being overcrowded. There are both pros and cons when it comes to effects on communities with this issue. Although we can’t just start releasing inmates to solve prison overcrowding, we can start focusing on ways to solve this problem. Prison overcrowding is a very complicated issue and should be given great attention by Congress, the Board of Prisons, and the Department of Justice. References Gershenhorn, Karen & Myers Ryan. 2013. Prison Math. Impaired Driver. Winter 2013. Vol. 17. Issue 1, p 5-19. Harding, Richard. 1987. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology. Australian Academic Press. Mar.1987. Vol. 20 Issue 1, p 50-62. Mobley, Alan & Owen, Barbara. 2012. Western Criminology Review. Aug. 2012. Volume 13. Issue 2. p 46-57. Rowland, Mathew. 2013. Federal Probation. Sept. 2013. Volume 77. Issue 2. p 12-12. Schiffner, Bill. 2013. Corrections Forum. July/Aug 2013. Vol. 22. Issue 4, p. 38-39

Delta Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Delta - Assignment Example It is clear from the facts provided in the case study that JetBlue and Southwest adapted technology and blended it perfectly with the customer needs. The use of live TV, paperless environment, online ticketing services, effective and use of laptops by the pilots as well as use of routes which were less served by others was some of the key activities performed by these firms to remain profitable and leading airlines in the industry. Pilots were using emails to forward their suggestions whereas the flight maintainece records were being computerized thus making the technology the key part of the overall operations of these airliners. It is however, critical to note that both these firms also actually focused upon meeting customer needs. The CEO of JetBlue used to interact directly with the customers thus offering a firsthand experience of customer expectations and these airliners responded to such expectations by offering customers what they needed. It is relatively difficult for the larger airliners to actually maintain the low cost carriers due to various reasons. Not managing disruptive technology effectively is one of the reasons as to why such larger airliners actually could not keep pace with the more agile and low cost carriers. The complacency of the organizations along with the already established rigid procedures may have further restricted the ability of these firms to actually execute the low cost strategy. These services were operated by already the same people who were also responsible for operating the premium services of the airliners. Bureaucracy, established unions and other organizational factors made it relatively difficult for larger firms to actually capitalize on the opportunities offered by the low cost carriers. Though the airliners industry was deregulated during 1970s however, the presence of the unionized labor actually made it relatively difficult for such firms to focus on reducing the cost and achieve

Economic issues for a country in Africa Annotated Bibliography

Economic issues for a country in Africa - Annotated Bibliography Example They further stated that the nation’s credit ratings have been decreased by both S&P and Moody’s rating agencies and this has happened for the first time since the apartheid ended. S&P stated that they have decreased their ratings as a feedback to the strikes and the uncertainty of the political conditions of South Africa. The article further asserts that a huge part of the workforce and in accordance to the findings of the Deutsche Bank, 30% of the total mining workers are at strike. The Bank has even made a calculation of decline in the GDP that is targeted to decline by 2.5% if the strikes continue. The mining industry happens to be the backbone of South Africa and it is a huge producer and exporter of minerals such as palladium and platinum. These strikes pose a very significant issue to the economy of South Africa as the 50% of the exports gained by South Africa are backed by mining industry. These strikes are not only impacting the nation in a negative manner, the effect has been experienced by nations that import minerals from South Africa as an example of Anglo American company has been stated that has experienced reduction in production as a result of these strikes. South Africa’s strikes in the mining sector has increased concerns for people all over the world as these strikes have entered different areas of mining such as coal, gold and metal. The most interesting point of this article is that issues that are caused in one nation do not only impact the nation in a negative manner, they even impact other nations around the globe. For example: in this article the strikes conducted by the South African miners have negatively impacted industries that acquire minerals and commodities from South Africa. If the South African strikes continue to exist, they will not only impact the South African economy, they will