Freedom Of Speech By The First Amendment Of The Constitution

Words are significant; they enable us to be expressive and create individuality amongst ourselves. According to Literacy, â€Å"The right to speak without censorship or restraint by the government†¦ is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution.† (Literacy, 2005) This definition describes the most important freedom in my eyes. Without freedom of speech, I am unable to be the individual that I strive to be, which is to stick out and be unique, which is why I treasure freedom of speech the most. I am going to take advantage of my freedom of speech and use it to cultivate and progress my business goals in life to make me successful as a woman in the business world. Freedom of speech had to take gradual and extensive steps in order to†¦show more content†¦These questions did not consume of knowledge, these questions had opinions in them. He made his audience think through what he was saying and find a logical conclusion. He began to challenge the Greek wi sdom, and that is when his freedom of speech began to come to an end. Peers felt threatened by his speech, and they decided to sentence him, later leading to his death. Even though Socrates was advocating for it more than 2000 years ago, freedom of speech as a legal right did not exist until the 17th Century. (Henderson, 2001-2015) As learned previously through the works of Socrates, it can be inferred that freedom of speech was always being challenged by specific individuals; however, it takes a special individual to be able to make historical and ratifying changes towards the ability to have freedom of speech. Besides the era of Socrates, freedom of speech also took place in other decades that has trailed to impact us today. A specific doctrine to help guide freedom of speech was the British Bill of Rights and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which was written by the National Assembly of the French Revolution in 1789. This was aimed to stop monarchy, and help use the principles of Enlightenment into the picture. The Age of Enlightenment is when they began to put reason into their lives. It was no longer just one way or no way, people finally put their own opinions into

Adults Resistance to Change in the Workforce Free Essays

string(98) " the employees especially the aging ones offer their first resistance to change in the workforce\." Change has become an integral part of all organizations for bringing about innovation and creativity in their work procedures. Bringing about change is a complex process since change in one area affects the other area in the organization directly or indirectly. Change is extremely important if companies and businesses want to survive in the long-run. We will write a custom essay sample on Adults Resistance to Change in the Workforce or any similar topic only for you Order Now This is due to the changing needs of the organizations as well as the customers and due to changing internal and external environment. Today, there is an increasing trend towards the development of a learning organization where managers and employees are committed to bring about continuous improvement in the processes and capabilities. Such type of an organization can only be formed when everyone working in the company develops a positive attitude towards adapting change. Change might result in efforts to deal with existing problems or with the opportunities available in the external environment. Though change is important and should be initiated in an organization but this does not mean that it can be easily implemented (Hultman, 1998). Planning Change Initiation and implementation of change requires proper planning and this planned process should be used to carry out change. If proper planning is not done then the change can fail and the employees’ fear and uncertainty related to it might come true. If the change fails initially in the organization then it would be highly difficult for the employees to support change in the organization. Firstly, the organization must see a need for change and the forces triggering change may be from the internal as well as external environment. Internal factors may be related to the company goals and objectives or problems facing the organization whereas the external factors are largely related to the environment such as changing customer tastes or the changing strategies of the competitors (Harvard Business School Press, 2005). These factors make the organization realize the need for change and then this must be studied properly. The organization should critically evaluate its strengths and weaknesses as well as threats and opportunities so that the right change could be initiated at the right time. After evaluating the need for change, the management should initiate change and this can be done through different ways. Initiating change requires the recruitment of new and creative employees and this is where the problem starts arising since the adult employees began to resist their recruitment. The management should search for proper solutions which can used to meet the perceived need for change. Search involves observing and analyzing different organizations and making use of knowledge to meet the need. Creative employees are hired to find the correct solution in order to establish a creative and learning organization. Creative individuals are important since they are open-minded, original and focused in their approach. They are persistent and committed and use teams to work for initiating change. These creative individuals generate innovative ideas and these individuals are called idea champions. They form new-venture teams for developing and initiating innovative changes in the organization. It is these idea champions and new-venture teams to which the adult employees offer resistance since they perceive them as a threat to their position. They think that their employment by the organization underestimates their capabilities and qualifications. Sometimes the employees’ resistance is so high that it is impossible to implement the change. For implementing change, this resistance must be overcome or else the process will not proceed further (Hultman, 1998). There are huge obstacles and problems to be dealt with when implementing change successfully in an organization. This is because employees offer resistance to change and this resistance can be attributed to several reasons: Â ·One of the reasons that employee resist change is that by implementing the new strategy or innovative idea, it will take away something valuable from the employees. It might be the loss of power, position or any other pay benefit. An employee’s self-interest is the most important to him and this loss can become the biggest obstacle in the way of implementing change (Hultman, 1998). Â ·Another reason is that employees are unable to understand the purpose behind the change and therefore, they cannot trust the organizational move. If the employees have a negative attitude towards the change initiator then they will offer their full resistance to implementing his idea. They cannot trust his idea for change and might think that its implementation will bring something negative to them. Therefore, lack of understanding and mutual trust becomes another factor for resisting change in organizations (Harvard Business School Press, 2005). Â ·Employees are also afraid of implementing change due to the uncertainty factor associated with the change. They get worried about the consequences of change and thus, do not offer their support towards it. They might also be worried as the new technology or new procedure requires more talent and creativity which they might not be able to provide (Markham, 1999). Â ·Lastly, the goals of the employees may be different from the goals of the organization. They might not be able to assess the change from the organization point of view and therefore, they disagree over the benefits resulting from the change (Jellison, 1993). These are the main reasons why employees offer resistance to change in an organization. Once an organization has the need for change then it looks for possible solutions through which the need can be overcome. Change requires innovation and creativity in an organization without which an organization cannot progress and will stagger behind. For initiating innovative and creative ideas, the organization starts hiring creative individuals in different departments. There are idea champions and new-venture teams formed with creative individuals who see the need for change and initiate it productively. Now here is where the main problem rises and this will center our research paper. By hiring creative individuals to form new-venture teams for developing innovation the organization attempts to change the workforce of the organization. Before offering resistance to change itself, the employees especially the aging ones offer their first resistance to change in the workforce. You read "Adults Resistance to Change in the Workforce" in category "Papers" The research paper will focus the discussion on this issue of adult’s resistance to change in the workforce (Goldstein, 2001). Change in the workforce The way a business is done is determined by its workforce. And changing workforce changes the way of doing business or in other words, bringing a change in the way of doing business requires a change in the workforce. Companies are recruiting and hiring young employees due to their creative and dynamic personalities. They are able to see things differently and want transition in things that are still being done in traditional way (Pihulyk , 2003). Their ideas and solutions are different from what their parents had to offer and thus, they want the traditional approaches and strategies to change in an organization. They show their dissatisfaction in different areas of the organization and want them to change for the good. They are practical in their approach in that they can see the organization strengths and weaknesses and are aware of the threats and opportunities in the organization external environment and thus, develop a desire to change accordingly. But there is also a darker side to this brighter situation and this darker side is due to the existing employees and workers of an organization. Organizations have usually experienced and committed workers who are working their since years and thus are quite adult. These employees work in their own traditional and routine way and do not want any change in their style of working. When an organization feels a need to hire young employees, the adults feel a threat to their power, position and prestige since they are not capable enough to work like the young ones. They feel threatened by the young employees who have more creative and novel solutions to organizational problems and work for bringing about change. At this stage the adults offer resistance to the recruitment of young employees in the workforce because it will not only threaten their position but also bring about a change in their style of working (Hultman, 1998). Aged employees consider themselves experienced enough and are not ready to tolerate younger employees imposing themselves and their ideas for change. They want a stable work environment and get negative feelings if some one tries to challenge their style of working. This is mainly the most important reason why adults and aged people offer so much resistance to recruiting ever energetic and efficient young employees in the organization’s workforce. It has been always said that new and young employees are important for the success of an organization because they are able to see things from a different perspective which requires change, innovation and creativity. They want the organization to become a learning organization progressing on the path of continuous improvement and innovative problem solving. An organization becomes successful by the way a business is done it which in turn is determined by the employees working there so for making an organization successful talented young employees should be hired and trained for working with the organization (Harvard Business School Press, 2005). Today, the business expectations are rising and customers are becoming ever-demanding. The competition is becoming fiercer with everyone striving to attain the competitive edge. The organization that develops a positive attitude towards welcoming change will be able to continuously improve itself at the times of problems and opportunities and thus, this requires the contribution of the talented young working people who have just graduated and are fresh with the knowledge of business management. They have a tendency to work in teams because they realize the fact that a team can accomplish more what individuals can achieve. On the other hand, the adults do not appreciate collective working and work individually instead. The young workers are more popularly known as Generation Y whereas the adults are being referred to as Generation X. It has been estimated that 70% of 21-year old Generation Y people are in the US workforce today which shows an increasing trend towards young employees (Jellison, 1993). Moreover, the new generation adapts to technology changes easily and want to work with new and modern procedures but the older generation sees technology with a negative eye and does not adapts to it readily. This is not to say that adults and aged people are unimportant in an organization, in fact they are the most important assets of an organization. These assets can not be replaced because their age has given them an experience to deal with problems which is hard to find. Young people find most creative and novel solution to a problem whereas the experienced employees find accurate solutions through their experience. This means that both generations should be made to work together if the organization wants to rise higher than any other organization in the industry or outside the industry. There is an increasing amount of Generational Conflict in the organizations and it is predicted that by 2010 it is going to increase considerably (Hultman, 1998). By Generational Conflict, we mean the conflict between two or more generations and here we are referring to the two generations of X and Y (Pihulyk , 2003). This is due to the age diversification in the workforce as young and talented employees are being increasingly hired by the businesses. The new generation will cause the erosion of old work ethics and they will require a more flexible workplace. Moreover, women representation will increase hundred percent in the upcoming years. There exists a multi-generational and multi-cultural workforce and this will continue to grow in the future years. Since this is going to increase therefore, management must properly plan for accommodating this change in their business as the demographic change can have positive as well as negative implications. The policies and procedures must be adapted for accommodating this change so that there should be new values for the new generation (Rosenburg, 2005). 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RBC Analysis free essay sample

Executive Summary In today’s demanding market, it is essential to know how to make good investments. The following is an in depth qualitative and quantitative analysis of the Royal Bank of Canada. First, RBC and its subsidiaries will be introduced including information about its history and current situation. The qualitative analysis will consist of RBC’s general information, history, business segments, and corporate social responsibility. Secondly, ratios and other quantitative information pertaining to RBC’s investment situation will be analyzed. Finally, with respect to the qualitative and quantitative data, an investment recommendation will be made Investment Criteria A company’s ethics and proper management are just as important for their success as their financial data. In order to decide whether or not to invest in a company one must research the company inside and out starting with where the company has come from all the way to their current situation. A company’s history is of the utmost importance because it reveals management trends and past ethical decision making that could reoccur. Another important aspect of a company’s history is their international expansion and the companies they have done past business with. The industries companies choose to merge with are a good indicator of where they will invest their money in the future. More specific to the banking industry, sustainability has become one of the most important criteria for investment. Especially after the financial collapse of 2008, banks with strong sustainability stood out and gained ground on the high-risk high reward banks. From a quantitative perspective, data trends can help predict if a company is on a small skid or headed toward future collapse. Ratios can help determine how quickly a company can pay back their liabilities as well as how efficient they are being with their shareholder’s money. A company’s stock may rise or fall depending on their current situation and how the market is fairing overall. The amount of assets and acquisitions a company makes can lead a potential investor to believe they are expanding. Usually good financial data investment criteria are a current ratio 2:1 and an ROA 5%. Company Introduction The Royal Bank of Canada is Canada’s largest bank by assets and market capitalization. The bank has offices in Canada, United States and 49 other countries. Currently, there are 80,000 full and part time employees at RBC with close to 15 million clients worldwide. The company has a good balance between retail and wholesale banking with over two-thirds of their revenue coming from Canada. The other main geographical markets include U. S. (16%), while all other revenue is distributed internationally (17%). (See Appendix A) Qualitative Analysis History The history of a company, industry it is present in, and prior success are some of the main factors when considering investing in a company. RBC has been a leading Canadian bank since June 22, 1864 when it was incorporated as the Merchants Bank of Halifax. Its name was changed to The Royal Bank of Canada in 1901. Twenty-four year later it merged with the Union Bank of Canada on the basis of 1 share of Royal Bank stock for two shares of Union Bank stock. Since then, RBC has taken advantage of many international joint ventures and foreign acquisitions. Most notably in Cuba, Britain, and West Germany. Post-1980, the bank created joint ventures in China with China International Trust Investment Corp. and began acquiring financial companies in North America. All of the sudden, RBC found themselves competing with large new international banks. During this time, the bank also made a larger commitment to their corporate social responsibility as their charitable donations reached 25. 5 million in 1999. Most recently, RBC has been striving to become a more broad-based financial services group rather than a traditional commercial bank. Although RBC wanted to keep with it’s main goal of being the #1 banker in Canada, they also wanted to build a stronger overall North American identity. Technology based products took the lead in the bank’s new American market strategy. In going along with this strategy, RBC acquired the world’s first Internet bank in order to take advantage of e-banking services. Finally, the bank has developed a new global brand strategy in response to their growing North American presence, which requires the RBC financial group banner to each business platform and operating subsidiary. Business Segments The Royal Bank of Canada has five main business segments. The largest of these segments is their personal and commercial banking segment, which makes up 56% of their earnings. RBC was named the largest and most profitable retail banking in Canada as well as the 2nd largest bank by assets in English Caribbean (†Corporate Profile†). The bank provides cross-border banking for Canadian clients and U. S. wealth management clients. Their second largest business segment is their capital markets sector. Their capital markets department deals with corporate and investment banking, equity and debt distribution as well as trading. This segment is recognized as the 10th largest global investment bank by net revenue and was also named the best investment bank in Canada across equity, debt, and MA five years in a row (â€Å"Corporate Profile†). The third business segment of RBC, which makes up 11% of their earnings, is their wealth management division. Investment, trust, credit, and other wealth management and asset management solutions are all included in wealth management. The division was named top six global wealth mangers by assets as well as ranked #1 in Canada in both retail and asset management (â€Å"Corporate Profile†). Finally, their insurance and investor treasury services make up the last 11% of the bank’s total earnings. The insurance segment deals with life, health, home, auto, travel, and wealth accumulation solutions. Achievements of the insurance segment include receiving high marks for â€Å"Likelihood to Recommend† and â€Å"Ease of Doing Business† (â€Å"Corporate Profile†). Their investor treasury services provide global custody, fund administration, and asset servicing to institutional investors. (See Appendix B) SWOT Analysis Strengths: Leading Market Position: RBC is Canada’s largest bank measured by assets and market capitalization. Leading market position in Canada enables the bank to gain economic economies of scale. Significant Presence in the US and UK RBC is the sixth largest full-service brokerage firm in the US and operates in a network of 42 states. In the UK, RBC is considered a Gilt-edged market maker and actively trades in either conventional or index-linked gilts (â€Å"Welcome to ALADIN†). Strong Balance Sheet RBC has a strong capital ratio and common ratio that are much greater than those required under Canadian standards. Also, the bank’s operating leverage declined between the years 2008 and 2010 showing potential from raising new capital (â€Å"Welcome to ALADIN†). Weaknesses: Asset Quality Deterioration RBC’s asset quality has been deteriorating since 2007. More specifically their gross impaired loans to total loans and acceptances ratio has grown between the years 2008 to 2010. Growth and profitability concerns at US operations Although RBC realized an overall growth in revenue in 2009, they also experienced a loss of net income. The US is RBC’s second largest market and can deeply impact the companies overall growth as a whole. Opportunities: International Expansion RBC has a rich history of international acquisitions over the past 30 years. Continuing with this aggressive strategy paves the way potential increases in revenue and profit expansion. Canada’s Promising Economic Prospects Canadian GDP has shown positive growth within the past two years. Attributing to this growth has been an increasing demand for commodities and improving global financial market conditions. Threats: Increasing Interest Rates As Canadian interest rates rise, so does the potential for a decrease in demand for financial services. High Taxation Banks in Canada are taxed at a much higher rate than other countries. In addition to Canada’s high taxation, the bank also faces high tax rates in the US; it’s second largest market (â€Å"Welcome to ALADIN†). Corporate Social Responsibility RBC has a clearly defined community and sustainability mission as they have been contributing to building a better future since 1864. Emphasis is put mainly on investing in the future by delivering quality products, protecting the environment, and sustaining a productive workplace. In respect to the community, RBC invests millions of dollars in health, sports, and the arts. More specifically they created RBC Play Hockey, which provides hockey gear to under privileged children. RBC believes that the game of hockey can bring a community together and provide a fun, competitive atmosphere among kids. Twenty grants, each of which was $25,000, will be awarded across North America (â€Å"Corporate Profile†). In respect to the environment, climate change, biodiversity, and water are weighed heavily upon. The RBC Blue Water Project helps educate people about the importance of preserving clean water in order to have enough fresh water for the future. The main component of the program is a ten-year, $50 million donations program, which supports not-for-profit organizations that protect watersheds and ensure access to clean drinking water (â€Å"Corporate Profile†). In RBC’s workplace is built upon the notion of shared values, and a sense of responsibility toward others. They look to provide a safe and flexible working environment with career growth opportunities. Also, the bank provides short and long term savings and wealth accumulation programs for their employees. Quantitative Analysis (See Appendix C) Balance Sheet: RBC has realized a 14% increase in assets over the last three years. This growth in assets is an indicator for an increase in stock returns. However, many times a growth in assets leads to sluggish returns as too many assets weigh down the bank (â€Å"Welcome to ALADIN†). Basic accounting procedures require all financial information on the balance sheet to even out. Therefore since RBC’s assets grew by 14%, so did they liabilities and shareholders equity. This increase in the bank’s liabilities can be attributed to inventory being purchased, issuing bonds payable at a discount, retirement costs for current employees etc. Paid-in capital, the year’s net profits, or a new share offering can increase shareholder’s equity. Shareholder’s equity is especially important for banks such as RBC because of the amount of capital they are given to invest. Cash Flow: Net investments cash flow represents the gain or loss in cash flow from investments made in the financial market and operating subsidiaries. In 2009, RBC had a positive cash flow indicating they were not investing heavily at the time. However, in the next two years, huge investments were made which made their net investments cash flow to go far below zero. Having a negative overall cash flow is not necessarily a bad thing, but instead may be a result of heavy investments. Nevertheless, RBC has maintained sustainability and kept their overall cash flow positive despite their large investments. Income Statement/Retained Earnings: RBC’s total revenue has decreased by 5% over the last three years. However looking deeper will reveal a huge increase in the company’s revenue over the past five years. In 2007 and 2008 the total revenue was $22,462 and $21,582 respectively (â€Å"Welcome to ALADIN†). This data revels an overall increase in revenue of 22% between 2007 and 2011, which any company would be proud of. In addition, RBC shows their continued effort toward sustainability as their retained earnings increased by almost 20% in the past three years (â€Å"Welcome to ALADIN†). In effect, this increase shows that a healthy profit exists even after dividends are given out to the shareholders.