Introduction to Gender differences

Gender differences are mostly determined by social behaviors. Men and women are different; therefore, they are treated differently by society. The gaps become more apparent as we grow up, in the way children are raised today. Later, boys and girls start to think and speak differently, because of the influence of the environment. Finally, the impact of society shapes the behavior of individuals, widening the gap between both sexes.

            The gender differences start to appear early in the way the children are raised. Those can be as simple as dressing girls in pink as opposed to boys wearing blue. The parents teach girls to be nice and gentle, when boys are taught to be tough and never to cry. The differences deepen, when as teenagers, girls try to be the most popular among friends, using their appearance to attract attention. Boys want to be popular too. But they do not try to be nice to each other or mingle with other boys. They try to imitate adults. To be popular, they need to show leadership and toughness. They get involved in contact sports and anything that shapes their endurance. Parents and school are the most influential tools in shaping young lives in which differences between genders broaden in time.

            One of the differences existing between genders and created by society is the way men and women speak. From the youngest age, the girls are taught to “temper what they say so as not to sound too aggressive” (Tannen, Women and men talking on the job, 442). Because of that, their self confidence is not as strong as men. Girls do not think of themselves as strong leaders, simply because they are taught to think this way. In contrary, men are taught to speak their mind, not to be shy and fight the obstacles. They think of themselves as born leaders, therefore, they are more prepared to speak firmly, which gives an “impression of confidence” (Tannen, 445). That firm and confident way of speaking give men the advantage over women in the current business world.

            Men and women behave differently, because society demands it. The effects of that are easy to observe in the current and aggressive business world. Women tend to “phrase their ideas as suggestions rather then orders” (Tannen, 444). They do not want to be perceived as bossy, because they want to be likable. They use their feelings in every aspect of life, whereas men can easily separate feelings from business. The impression of power and superiority is highly admirable among men. They are expected to “give orders” (Tannen, 445) and push others around. As oppose to women, they do not need to be likable. Such a behavior would be perceived as weakness, a lack of leadership. The society and stereotypes demand from men to be strong and aggressive. The demand of society toward men and women are different, which create two different ways of behavior.

Conclusion

It is claimed that differences between genders are the result of surrounding society. From an early age, boys and girls are treated differently by their parents. The influence of the environment can also be observed in the way boys and girls think and speak when they become teenagers. As they become adults, the impact of society on the behavioral differences becomes vivid and result in widening the gap between both genders.

What we understand by Country Risk Analysis?

Country risk analysis (CRA) attempts to identify imbalances that increase the risk of a shortfall in the expected return of a cross-border investment. This paper describes the general process used to create risk measures and discusses some of the weaknesses of this process. It then examines the degree of association of six measures and analyzes the ability of these measures to predict returns for a manufacturing investment. The paper concludes that company analysts may improve the performance of risk measures available from commercial services by adjusting risk measurement to fit the company's specific type of foreign direct investment.

Introduction

All business transactions involve some degree of risk. When business transactions occur across international borders, they carry additional risks not present in domestic transactions. These additional risks, called country risks, typically include risks arising from a variety of national differences in economic structures, policies, socio-political institutions, geography, and currencies. Country risk analysis (CRA) attempts to identify the potential for these risks to decrease the expected return of a cross-border investment.

Risk" implies that an analyst can identify a well-defined event drawn from a large sample of observations. A large sample contains enough observations to develop a statistical function amenable to probability analysis. An event that lacks these requirements moves toward uncertainty on the continuum between pure risk and pure uncertainty. For example, the probability of death from an auto accident classifies as a risk; the probability of death from a nuclear meltdown falls into uncertainty, given a lack of nuclear meltdown observations. Many of the individual events investigated by country risk analysis fall closer to uncertainties than well-defined statistical risks. This forces analysts to construct risk measures from theoretical or judgmental, rather than probabilistic, foundations.

Uncertainty makes CRA more similar to a soft art than a hard science. Analysts deal with the soft nature of CRA in different ways, which can result in widely varying views of the risk level of a country. For this reason, users of risk measures developed from commercial country-risk services must understand analysts' construction methods if they wish to analyze a company investment risk appropriately. As demonstrated in the sections below, company analysts should be able to improve upon outside measures by adapting risk systems to their specific company investments.

Theory vs. Practice

Country risk analysis rests on the fundamental premise that growing imbalances in economic, social, or political factors increase the risk of a shortfall in the expected return on an investment. Imbalances in a specific risk factor map to one or more risk categories. Mapping all the factors at the appropriate level of influence creates an overall assessment of investment risk. The mapping structure differs for each type of investment, so an imbalance in a given factor produces different risks for different investments.

This fundamental premise provides a simple theoretical underpinning to CRA. Unfortunately, no comprehensive country risk theory exists to guide the mapping process.  In practice, most country-risk services create risk measures using an eclectic mix of economic or sociopolitical indicators based on selection criteria arising from their analysts' experiences and judgment. The services usually combine a variety of factors representing actual and potential imbalances into a comprehensive risk assessment that applies to a broad investment category. Most CRA literature emphasizes a number of common points, then slips into a detailed discussion of ways the respective authors enumerate risk for various investments. The best authors emphasize the necessity to adapt their analyses for a specific investment decision given the judgmental nature of their methods.

Country Risk Categories and Measurements

Analysts have tended to separate country risk into the six main categories of risk shown below. Many of these categories overlap each other, given the interrelationship of the domestic economy with the political system and with the international community. Even though many risk analysts may not agree completely with this list, these six concepts tend to show up in risk ratings from most services.

I. Economic Risk

II. Transfer Risk

III. Exchange Rate Risk

IV. Location or Neighborhood Risk

V. Sovereign Risk

VI. Political Risk

Economic Risk is the significant change in the economic structure or growth rate that produces a major change in the expected return of an investment. Risk arises from the potential for detrimental changes in fundamental economic policy goals (fiscal, monetary, international, or wealth distribution or creation) or a significant change in a country's comparative advantage (e.g., resource depletion, industry decline, demographic shift, etc.). Economic risk often overlaps with political risk in some measurement systems since both deals with policy.

Economic risk measures include traditional measures of fiscal and monetary policy, such as the size and composition of government expenditures, tax policy, the government's debt situation, and monetary policy and financial maturity. For longer-term investments, measures focus on long-run growth factors, the degree of openness of the economy, and institutional factors that might affect wealth creation.

Transfer Risk is the risk arising from a decision by a foreign government to restrict capital movements. Restrictions could make it difficult to repatriate profits, dividends, or capital. Because a government can change capital-movement rules at any time, transfer risk applies to all types of investments. It usually is analyzed as a function of a country's ability to earn foreign currency, with the implication that difficulty earning foreign currency increases the probability that some form of capital controls can emerge. Quantifying the risk remains difficult because the decision to restrict capital may be a purely political response to another problem. For example, Malaysia's decision to impose capital controls and fix the exchange rate in the midst of the Asian currency crisis was a political solution to an exchange-rate problem. Quantitative measures typically used to assess transfer risk provided little guidance to predict Malaysia's actions.

Transfer risk measures typically include the ratio of debt service payments to exports or to exports plus net foreign direct investment, the amount and structure of foreign debt relative to income, foreign currency reserves divided by various import categories, and measures related to the current account status. Trends in these quantitative measures reveal potential imbalances that could lead a country to restrict certain types of capital flows. For example, a growing current account deficit as a percent of GDP implies an ever-greater need for foreign exchange to cover that deficit. The risk of a transfer problem increases if no offsetting changes develop in the capital account.

Exchange Risk is an unexpected adverse movement in the exchange rate. Exchange risk includes an unexpected change in currency regime such as a change from a fixed to a floating exchange rate. Economic theory guides exchange rate risk analysis over longer periods of time (more than one to two years). Short-term pressures, while influenced by economic fundamentals, tend to be driven by currency trading momentum best assessed by currency traders. In the short run, risk for many currencies can be eliminated at an acceptable cost through various hedging mechanisms and futures arrangements. Currency hedging becomes impractical over the life of the plant or similar direct investment, so exchange risk rises unless natural hedges (alignment of revenues and costs in the same currency) can be developed.

Many of the quantitative measures used to identify transfer risk also identify exchange rate risk since a sharp depreciation of the currency can reduce some of the imbalances that lead to increased transfer risk. A country's exchange rate policy may help isolate exchange risk. Managed floats, where the government attempts to control the currency in a narrow trading range, tend to possess higher risk than fixed or currency board systems. Floating exchange rate systems generally sustain the lowest risk of producing an unexpected adverse exchange movement. The degree of over- or under-valuation of a currency also can help isolate exchange rate risk.

Location or Neighborhood Risk includes spillover effects caused by problems in a region, in a country's trading partner, or in countries with similar perceived characteristics. While similar country characteristics may suggest susceptibility to contagion (Latin countries in the 1980s, the Asian contagion in 1997-1998), this category provides analysts with one of the more difficult risk assessment problems.

Geographic position provides the simplest measure of location risk. Trading partners, international trading alliances (such as Mercosur, NAFTA, and EU), size, borders, and distance from economically or politically important countries or regions can also help define location risk.

Sovereign Risk concerns whether a government will be unwilling or unable to meet its loan obligations, or is likely to renege on loans it guarantees. Sovereign risk can relate to transfer risk in that a government may run out of foreign exchange due to unfavorable developments in its balance of payments. It also relates to political risk in that a government may decide not to honor its commitments for political reasons. The CRA literature designates sovereign risk as a separate category because a private lender faces a unique risk in dealing with a sovereign government. Should the government decide not to meet its obligations, the private lender realistically cannot sue the foreign government without its permission.

Sovereign-risk measures of a government's ability to pay are similar to transfer-risk measures. Measures of willingness to pay require an assessment of the history of a government's repayment performance, an analysis of the potential costs to the borrowing government of debt repudiation, and a study of the potential for debt rescheduling by consortiums of private lenders or international institutions. The international setting may further complicate sovereign risk. In a recent example, IMF guarantees to Brazil in late 1998 were designed to stop the spread of an international financial crisis. Had Brazil's imbalances developed before the Asian and Russian financial crises, Brazil probably would not have received the same level of support, and sovereign risk would have been higher.

Political Risk concerns risk of a change in political institutions stemming from a change in government control, social fabric, or other no economic factor. This category covers the potential for internal and external conflicts, expropriation risk and traditional political analysis. Risk assessment requires analysis of many factors, including the relationships of various groups in a country, the decision-making process in the government, and the history of the country. Insurance exists for some political risks, obtainable from a number of government agencies (such as the Overseas Private Investment Corporation in the United States) and international organizations (such as the World Bank's Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency).

Few quantitative measures exist to help assess political risk. Measurement approaches range from various classification methods (such as type of political structure, range and diversity of ethnic structure, civil or external strife incidents), to surveys or analyses by political experts. Most services tend to use country experts who grade or rank multiple socio-political factors and produce a written analysis to accompany their grades or scales. Company analysts may also develop political risk estimates for their business through discussions with local country agents or visits to other companies operating similar businesses in the country. In many risk systems, analysts reduce political risk to some type of index or relative measure. Unfortunately, little theoretical guidance exists to help quantify political risk, so many "systems" prove difficult to replicate over time as various socio-political events ascend or decline in importance in the view of the individual analyst.

Conclusion

Country risk analysis in the 197Os and 1980s tended to focus on the risk a private lender such as a bank incurred when it made a hard currency loan to a sovereign government outside its home country. Risks were segmented to identify potential shortfalls in either the foreign currency value of the investment or in the investor's home currency (returns hold up in local currency, but decline when measured in the investor's own currency). Quantitative risk analysis generally focused on factors related to a country's ability to earn foreign currency to repay the debt. Qualitative analysis attempted to ascertain a country's willingness to repay the debt. This type of analysis tended to focus on the sovereign, transfer, and short-term exchange rate risk categories. With minor adjustments, this analytical approach also was used to assess risk in short-term investments in foreign private financial assets.

A multinational enterprise (MNE) that builds a plant in a foreign country faces different risks than a bank lending to a foreign government. The MNE must consider a longer time horizon and risks from a much broader spectrum of country characteristics. Some categories pertinent to a plant investment contain a much higher degree of risk simply because the MNE remains exposed to risk for a much longer period of time.

Managerial Accounting

INTRODUCTION

With the continuing development of business processes, whether the change in various manufacturing processes, or the automation of most business activities, the cost accounting procedures that companies use to calculate for the unit cost of an individual product, service or activity have also become outdated. From a managerial accounting perspective, the changes in the economy, in industries and individual firms alike, must be supported by the firm's accounting and control infrastructure (Bromwich & Bhimani 1994). Accounting is, after all, a financial model of business. When changes occur in the business, accounting should change to reflect them. Managers of companies that fail to make appropriate modifications in their accounting systems will find they have inaccurate product/service/activity cost figures and lack data for making decisions. They may lose their competitive edge because they do not have the necessary information for operating in the constantly changing business environment. Systems for accounting for costs date back several centuries. Cheatham & Cheatham pointed out that cost systems were of greater concern to early merchants and craftsmen than what is now called financial accounting (1993). When there were no income taxes or regulatory government agencies to demand the preparation of financial statements, all accounting were managerial accounting -- accounting done for management to meet its information needs. One basic difficulty in costing is that an individual product, service or activity does not drive all the company expenses. Even within a factory, there are many questionable costs, not directly driven by the type, number or volume of products. In addition, there are costs that are driven by substantial material vendors and customers. This paper presents suggestions on how to go about calculating the unit cost of an individual product, service or activity, in par with the marked changes in the field of management accounting to maximise the benefits that effective costing has to offer.

CALCULATING UNIT COST

At the turn of the twentieth century, the most important dimension of management control was cost control. Innovations in management accounting such as activity-based costing, capacity cost management, balanced scorecard, and target costing have emerged and, to a limited extent, they have affected the design of management accounting systems in many enterprises (Gosselin 1997; Guilding, Cravens & Tayles 2000). In all cost accounting activities that help shape management accounting decisions made by the company, identification of the components of the cost being calculated should be listed to account for all that matters to the computation. In production, such cost items as manpower, raw materials, electricity, transport, rent, water, machinery, equipment, tools, etc. should be included in the computation, in order to come up with the cost as close as the amount of resources that the firm has spent. In the management area, manpower and the entrepreneur’s salary form part of costing, as well as other costs expended for making the business run. Most companies view cost per unit as ‘labour per unit’. This can be very deceptive when each unit consumes its share of overhead, maintenance, machine wear, raw material, etc. In selling and finance, cost items as publicity, promotion, commissions, interests, etc. should form part of the costing activity. In all these business aspects, there are two kinds of mistakes that could be made in accounting costs: cost measures that should be ignored have been included; or, ignoring costs that should be included. As a rule, costs that will not vary as a result of a decision should be ignored; and all costs that will vary as a result of a decision should be included.

The advent of technology in the manufacturing industry, the recently formulated taxation policies, surfacing novel lines of expertise, new business processes, growing number of participants in the supply chain and the ever-changing rules, improved accounting systems and regulations of global trade are some of the more immediate additions that should be considered in the computation of the unit cost of an individual product, service or activity. Atrill & McLaney 1997 also observed that changes have taken place in the industry between the time the system was developed and the 1990s: (1) from direct labour-intensive and direct labour-paced to capital-intensive and machine-paced production; (2) from a low level of overheads to a high level overheads relative to direct costs; and (3) from a relatively uncompetitive to a highly competitive international market. Fixed and variable costs are affected by these marked developments in the business field, and it is only through an initial correct identification of the fixed and variable costs that a calculation of the said cost per unit of each of its products, services and activities commence.

            Job costing, as an integral part of the cost accounting system, should include the preparation of source documents (materials used to accumulate the costs for an individual job) such as the job cost sheet, entering of the information in a journal (book of initial entry) and the determination of overhead rates. According to Khan (2000), the simplest way to calculate a predetermined overhead cost is to divide the estimated overhead for, say an entire year, by an appropriate base, such as direct material hours, direct labor hours, etc. While the method is simple, there is a problem with it in that if the agency budget constitutes an unusually large (or small) fraction of the total budget, it may overestimate (or underestimate) the overhead allocation. Also, when money is frequently transferred between funds, it may misrepresent the overhead allocation by the amount of the transfer. The alternative is to remove the effects of interfund transfers before the method can be used. This costing facet should then be integrated in the computation of the cost per unit of a product, in order to more closely have an estimate of how an individual product, service or activity made use of a particular job in the firm. As there is a marked increase in the specialisation of jobs and a different rate apply to them, it is important that they, too, be included in job costing, noting the difference between the them and standard work performed for a product, a service or an activity, and taking them into consideration when making costing decisions. In process costing, an equally vital aspect of cost accounting, the weighted average method or the first-in first out (FIFO) approach can be used to determine number of equivalent units in an inventory. Once the number of equivalent units in an inventory is known, the computation of the cost of total equivalent units as well as the cost per equivalent unit for a department can ensue, more known as the cost analysis schedule. The procedures for calculating these costs are quite simple: the former is obtained by simply adding all the costs in an inventory, whereas the latter is obtained by dividing the total cost by the number of equivalent units (Khan 2000). This costing phase should also be integrated in unit costing, as the product, service or activity is, in one way or another, involved in various business processes. The drawback to including process costing in calculating for unit cost is that it complicates the whole process of unit cot computation, since a separate set of schedules will have to be prepared for each business department and the corresponding work in process will have to be reconciled in the final account. As various high technology processes have cropped up over time, adjustments for previous process costing computations should be made. As computation of the cots per unit depends on the nature of the business that one is engaged in, there are different items that need to be considered in its calculation. As such, the process costs and job costs are two integral parts of the computation.

CONCLUSION

Management accounting systems are designed to supply information to internal decision makers of a given organization, to facilitate their decision making, to motivate their actions and behaviour in a desirable direction, and to promote the efficiency of the organisation (Riahi-Belkaoui 1992). The cost accounting system of a firm largely helps shape the decisions made by management accountants. An exposure to either a proliferation of courses in the computer, quantitative, and behavioural sciences, or to an integrated multidisciplinary approach would be supportive to advocating up-to-date cost accounting procedures to cope up with the demands of the ever-changing business environment. As Walker (1999: 18) claimed that “In fact there is no single correct cost figure”. Product costs are always calculated from the financial transaction data of the cost centres of the organization. Several methods exist, and each company uses a method of its own. It should therefore be noted that a host of possible cost accounting systems can be designed from the various combinations of the already existing cost accounting systems, although not all of the alternatives are compatible. Selecting one part from each category should provide a basis for developing an operational definition of a specific cost accounting system.

            During the past decade cost accounting has come under vigorous attack on the grounds that traditional approaches to allocating costs are fraught with considerable arbitrariness and contain substantial errors which can lead to misguided decisions dealing with such matters as pricing, outsourcing, capacity planning, and profitability analysis for various product lines and other segments of business activity. The above suggestions for cost per unit calculations would be useful for decision-making processes to be made by the administration as a whole or the accounting department in itself. Recognising that there are limitations to such method, it is best that cost accounting systems be combined with one or the other in order to produce the most fitting for the organisa

International business (IB) is not the bed of roses

Background

As the world grows smaller because of increasingly efficient global communications and multinational corporations, chances are good that your business will take you outside your home country. All types of businessman and consultants are all finding that international business can provide an avenue for growing their business. Sometimes a customer's international operations will require your services in other countries. Even if you never plan on opening an office outside your national borders, you may find that your best customer has. Your customer may want to count on your involvement in equipping his or her international installations. In any of those scenarios, you should know what you're getting into before jumping in.

Most of Nepalese are at more of a disadvantage in being prepared than their international neighbors. For reasons having to do with geography (as well as perhaps an historical proclivity toward isolationism), international travel and multilingual and multicultural awareness do not come naturally to Nepalese, unlike citizens of many other continents. But during the past several decades, for many countries citizen’s international business has become a matter of survival in many industries.

Challenges doing IB

High-profile design consultants and businessman are also increasingly involved in international work. Most agree that having an international presence is easier if offices are run by local nationals. That obviously helps with issues such as language, cultural differences, and local government connections. Sometimes the biggest challenge in doing international business simply understands that people in different cultures conduct business differently. Decision making and negotiations are conducted in ways that may be totally foreign to a Nepalese -based contractor or consultant. First of all, you learn to be accommodating and you also need to understand cultural differences, work process, work ethic — all of these are key elements if you intend to operate on an international basis. You have to be hypersensitive to all of these issues.” In some cultures, business body language can differ to the extent that miscommunication occurs, even when negotiating in the same language. For example, in some Asian cultures, head shaking from side to side accompanied by verbal agreement can be interpreted as conflicting messages to a Western businessperson, when that is not the message at all. Being aware of subtle aspects such as differences in international body language is one example why it is important to consider some of the less obvious challenges. Most of the costs and risks result from barriers created by distance. By distance I don't mean only geographic separation, though that is important. Distance also has cultural, administrative, or political and economic dimensions that can make foreign markets considerably more or less attractive. His CAGE Distance Framework (“Distance Still Matters,” Harvard Business Review, September 2001) for analysis of the impact of distance on the viability of international business considers many factors that don't usually occur to a novice global businessperson. These factors are applicable whether you are considering opening a branch office or providing installation services in another country

Tips for doing Successful International Business

Some management Guru (consultant) has recommended following tips for making easier of doing   international business:

1. Lose your tunnel vision. Forget the misconception that conditions around the world are just as they are in the country — or should be. They aren't, and they never will be. The sooner you embrace that essential truth, the faster you'll latch on to other salient issues for doing business overseas.

2. Get to know the culture. Someone once said that it's an incredible faux pas to offer a Japanese executive your business card without first turning it around so that he or she can read it right away. That detail illustrates the importance of understanding the traditions and nuances of the cultures with which you wish to do business. Check out Web sites that discuss various cultures; if possible, talk with businesspeople from foreign countries to gain a sense of appropriate business practices. Is a handshake sufficient to close a deal? Is bribery an accepted element of business leverage? “We think the ways of Nepal are the ways of the world, and they're simply not.”

3. One size does not fit all. Granted, barriers are breaking down worldwide, but that still doesn't mean that one product will work in every situation. Expensive, proprietary software likely will not command the attention of a developing third-world nation that it would in Western Europe. Part of getting to know a country's traditions and culture understands interest and demand. That, in turn, can help better direct marketing and other sales efforts.

4. What price is right? Likewise, it's essential to understand what pricing structure is going to be attractive — but nonetheless profitable for you — in various parts of the world. Again, less developed nations may not be suitable if a product or service is too expensive. By the same token, more affluent cultures may be able to obtain like products less expensively than you can offer. This can really be an overwhelming task, one that often happens through trial and error. It's usually a good idea to start prices a little bit high and then come down if need be the right way.

5. How are you going to ship your product and at what cost? Depending on where you want your wares to go, it's essential to gain a realistic grasp of prospective shipping costs (likely more than you think). Equally important is establishing who's going to pay that bill. If you're setting up an international network, make certain you negotiate whether you or your customers will be covering shipping (or, by contrast, if you can share costs). For example The European Union has that Value Added Tax that always adds to the cost of goods. You should also pay attention to the culture of the country in which you're doing business. That may dictate who should pay shipping.

6. How will you get paid? Credit card use is far less common in Nepal then internationally. Give just consideration how you're going to set up a reliable payment structure. Look into wire transfer systems or, if you're doing business on the Internet, online payment programs (it's a way of getting what's owed you, and many also offer currency exchange features).

7. Consider language differences. If you operate a small business on an international scale, not everyone who stops by your Web site is going to speak English. That means another salient issue is making sure your site content also offers services in a sufficient number of languages. On top of that, recognize that the time will come that an overseas customer, like his or her Nepalese counterpart, will want to speak with a living customer rep. So don't overlook staffing, or having access to, bilingual customer-service personnel.

8. Pay attention to politics. Lastly, never overlook the political environment — or even worse, the threat of terrorism — in areas where you hope to do business. That's particularly true if you're planning on sitting a warehouse or some other facility overseas. Make certain you gauge the economic and social stability of prospective markets, not merely to protect any resources that happen to be located there but also to ensure that any goods shipped will, in fact, arrive at their intended destination.

Conclusion

Doing IB is not easy job. We need to better prepare to over come all the difficulties as we have mentioned in above. We have keeping mind the physical and societal factors of that country like political and legal practices, cultural factors, economic forces, geographical influences. And competitive factors are also equally important. Like major advantages in price, marketing, innovation or other factors, number and comparative capabilities of competitors and competitive differences by country. As we know there has growth in globalization in recent decades due to many factors mostly: Technology is expanding, especially in transportation and communications. Governments are removing international business restrictions. Institutions provide services to ease the conduct of international business. Consumers know about want foreign goods and services.

Competition has become more global. Political relationships have improved among some major economic powers. Countries cooperate more on transnational issues and Cross-national cooperation and agreements. This is very reasons we need be better prepared and educated to take step in the international Business and we easily can realized the doing IB is not the bed of roses. There are many thons around it, we should prepared and efficient to overcome all difficulties.

TRAINING NEEDS ASSESSMENT

The training needs assessment is a critical activity for the training and development function. Whether you are a human resource generalist or a specialist, you should be adept at performing a training needs assessment. This paper will begin with an overview of the training and development function and how the needs assessment fits into this process, followed by an in-depth look at the core concepts and steps involved in conducting a training needs assessment.

Background

Designing a training and development program involves a sequence of steps that can be grouped into five phases: needs assessment, instructional objectives, design, implementation and evaluation. To be effective and efficient, all training programs must start with a needs assessment. Long before any actual training occurs, the training manager must determine the who, what, when, where, why and how of training. To do this, the training manager must analyze as much information as possible about the following:

• Organization and its goals and objectives.

• Jobs and related tasks that need to be learned.

• Competencies and skills that are need to perform the job.

• Individuals who are to be trained.

Overview of Training and Development

The first step in designing a training and development program is to conduct a needs assessment. The assessment begins with a "need" which can be identified in several ways but is generally described as a gap between what is currently in place and what is needed, now and in the future. Gaps can include discrepancies/differences between:

• What the organization expects to happen and what actually happens.

• Current and desired job performance.

• Existing and desired competencies and skills.

A needs assessment can also be used to assist with:

• Competencies and performance of work teams.

• Problem solving or productivity issues.

• The need to prepare for and respond to future changes in the organization or job duties.

The results of the needs assessment allows the training manager to set the training objectives by answering two very basic questions: who, if anyone, needs training and what training is needed. Sometimes training is not the solution. Some performance gaps can be reduced or eliminated through other management solutions such as communicating expectations, providing a supportive work environment, arranging consequences, removing obstacles and checking job fit.

Once the needs assessment is completed and training objectives are clearly identified, the design phase of the training and development process is initiated:

• Select the internal or external person or resource to design and develop the training.

• Select and design the program content.

• Select the techniques used to facilitate learning (lecture, role play, simulation, etc.).

• Select the appropriate setting (on the job, classroom, etc.).

• Select the materials to be used in delivering the training (work books, videos, etc.).

• Identify and train instructors (if internal).

After completing the design phase, the training is ready for implementation:

• Schedule classes, facilities and participants.

• Schedule instructors to teach.

• Prepare materials and deliver them to scheduled locations.

• Conduct the training.

The final phase in the training and development program is evaluation of the program to determine whether the training objectives were met. The evaluation process includes determining participant reaction to the training program, how much participants learned and how well the participants transfer the training back on the job. The information gathered from the training evaluation is then included in the next cycle of training needs assessment. It is important to note that the training needs assessment, training objectives, design, implementation and evaluation process is a continual process for the organization.

Needs Assessment

There are three levels of needs assessment: organizational analysis, task analysis and individual analysis.

Organizational analysis looks at the effectiveness of the organization and determines where training is needed and under what conditions it will be conducted.

The organizational analysis should identify:

• Environmental impacts (new laws such as ADA, FMLA, OSHA, etc.).

• State of the economy and the impact on operating costs.

• Changing work force demographics and the need to address cultural or language barriers.

• Changing technology and automation.

• Increasing global/world market places.

• Political trends such as sexual harassment and workplace violence.

• Organizational goals (how effective is the organization in meetings its goals), resources available (money, facilities; materials on hand and current, available expertise within the organization).

• Climate and support for training (top management support, employee willingness to participate, responsibility for outcomes).

The information needed to conduct an organizational analysis can be obtained from a variety of sources including:

• Organizational goals and objectives, mission statements, strategic plans.

• Staffing inventory, succession planning, long and short term staffing needs.

• Skills inventory: both currently available and short and long term needs, organizational climate indices: labor/management relationships, grievances, turnover rates, absenteeism, suggestions, productivity, accidents, short term sickness, observations of employee behavior, attitude surveys, customer complaints.

• Analysis of efficiency indices: costs of labor, costs of materials, quality of products, equipment utilization, production rates, costs of distribution, waste, down time, late deliveries, repairs.

• Changes in equipment, technology or automation.

• Annual report.

• Plans for reorganization or job restructuring.

• Audit exceptions; reward systems.

• Planning systems.

• Delegation and control systems.

• Employee attitudes and satisfaction.

Task analysis provides data about a job or a group of jobs and the knowledge, skills, attitudes and abilities needed to achieve optimum performance.

There are a variety of sources for collecting data for a task analysis:

• Job description-- A narrative statement of the major activities involved in performing the job and the conditions under which these activities are performed. If an accurate job description is not available or is out of date, one should be prepared using job analysis techniques.

• KSA analysis-- A more detailed list of specified tasks for each job including Knowledge, Skills, Attitudes and Abilities required of incumbents.

• Performance standards-- Objectives of the tasks of the job and the standards by which they will be judged. This is needed to identify performance discrepancies.

• Observe the job/sample the work.

• Perform the job.

• Job inventory questionnaire-- Evaluate tasks in terms of importance and time spent performing.

• Review literature about the job-- Research the "best practices" from other companies, review professional journals.

• Ask questions about the job-- Of the incumbents, of the supervisor, of upper management.

• Analysis of operating problems-- Down time, waste, repairs, late deliveries, quality control.

Individual analysis analyzes how well the individual employee is doing the job and determines which employees need training and what kind.

Sources of information available for a individual analysis include:

• Performance evaluation -- Identifies weaknesses and areas of improvement.

• Performance problems -- Productivity, absenteeism or tardiness, accidents, grievances, waste, product quality, down time, repairs, equipment utilization, customer complaints.

• Observation -- Observe both behavior and the results of the behavior.

• Work samples -- Observe products generated.

• Interviews -- Talk to manager, supervisor and employee. Ask employee about what he/she believes he/she needs to learn.

• Questionnaires -- Written form of the interview, tests, must measure job-related qualities such as job knowledge and skills.

• Attitude surveys -- Measures morale, motivation, satisfaction.

• Checklists or training progress charts -- Up-to-date listing of current skills.

Results of the Needs Assessment

Assuming that the needs assessment identifies more than one training need, the training manager, working with management, prioritizes the training based on the urgency of the need (timeliness), the extent of the need (how many employees need to be trained) and the resources available. Based on this information, the training manager can develop the instructional objectives for the training and development program.

All three levels of needs analysis are interrelated and the data collected from each level is critical to a thorough and effective needs assessment.

Summary

The purpose of a training needs assessment is to identify performance requirements or needs within an organization in order to help direct resources to the areas of greatest need, those that closely relate to fulfilling the organizational goals and objectives, improving productivity and providing quality products and services.

The needs assessment is the first step in the establishment of a training and development Program. It is used as the foundation for determining instructional objectives, the selection and design of instructional programs, the implementation of the programs and the evaluation of the training provided. These processes form a continuous cycle which always begins with a needs assessment.

A Case Study of Five Classic Hardball Strategies

Any strategy that provides a decisive competitive advantage is a hardball strategy. Although there are countless ways to play hardball however, there are five classic hardball strategies that have proved, over the decades, to be particularly effective in generating competitive advantage.

Unleash massive and overwhelming force.

Hardball players prefer the indirect attack; however, sometimes to overcome their competitors, they launch a full frontal assault. But in such a situation, it must be noted that this strategy should not be adopted until the company is ready to put all its energy behind it. The company must also be sure that the competitive advantage it believes it has is actually available for action. HP, after acquiring Compaq, tried to eat into Dell's share by using its direct to consumer channel, but Dell, aware of the loses that HP was incurring on its PC business, started using its profits from its PC business to fund Dell's low cost printer business in order to hit back at HP as printer business is the most profitable segment of the company.

Threaten your competitor's profit sanctuaries.

Profit sanctuaries are the parts of a business where a company makes the most money. The hardball player can influence a competitor's behavior and gain competitive advantage by attacking a competitor's profit sanctuaries.

However, this strategy is risky; it takes the player deep into the caution zone. Also, the competitor is likely to retaliate by attacking your profit sanctuaries. Classic example here would be that of Toyota, how it overran the profit sanctuaries of GM, Ford and Chrysler - light trucks and SUVs, where they earned between $10 and $15 thousand dollars per vehicle.

Take it and make it your own.

Often companies like to think that their bright ideas are sacred however, hardball players are willing to take any good idea they see (any one that isn't restrained by a patent or other legal protection) and use it to create competitive advantage for themselves. This isn't restricted to borrowing from competitors. Ideas can be picked from one geographic market and transplanted to another. Ideas can also transplant between industries. But the "making it your own" part is more important than "taking it." so that it's not just a me-too copy. An example in Indian context would be that of Priyagold biscuits who are matching almost the entire range of biscuits being offered by Britannia but at a lower price.

Entice your competitor into retreat.

Sometimes, based upon a superior understanding of business and industry, the hardball players can take actions that confuse their competitors and entice them to behave in ways that they believe will be beneficial to them but that actually will weaken them. This opportunity is contingent on the existence of certain customers that are not worth having because they are high cost to serve. These customers may be willing to pay a premium for the concerned offering, but it usually is not enough to be truly worth the effort. These are the customers that the hardball players want their competitors to have.

Enticing your competitors toward business that drives up their costs is one of the most complex strategies of hardball competition. For example, you can set prices so your competitors respond by seeking business that they think will be profitable for them, but that will, in fact, drive up their costs and depress their profits. This is a risky, bet-the-company strategy. It works best in complex businesses where costs may be misallocated.

Deceive the competition.

This strategy revolves around making the competitor to set up or move in a way that puts him off balance and reduces his ability to meet attack. The high technology industry has employed fakes for years - for example - to attract customers and to distract competitors a software company may announce software which isn't ready for prime time. However, this has to be used with caution as this tactic deceives not only the competition but also the investors.

Conclusion

These strategies in Hardball are classics, but "classic" does not mean "static". The game of hardball is dynamic and always evolving. New barriers to achieving competitive advantage emerge, several issues will affect the way hardball must be played in the future and will change the rules for players who wish to be winners, especially on the global field.

To ensure that while playing hard the companies do not ignore business ethics, it is important that every move must be evaluated in the light of the following questions: -

• Will the proposed action break any laws?

• Will the proposed action be bad for the customer?

• Will competitors be directly hurt by an action?

• Will an action hit a nerve with a special interest group in a way that might damage the company?

• Will the action harm the industry or society?

If the answer to any of the questions is "yes", it means the company has ventured too far into the caution zone. The leader must immediately take corrective action.

Hardball companies are great for business. They cleanse markets. They motivate their people to do their best and make them excited about what they do. They set customers' expectations high and meet them. And hardball executives set good examples for other leaders, executives, and managers. Low-cost consumer commodities, bundled financial services, low-cost, no-frills airfares, are some of the byproducts of companies' successful hardball strategies.

The Leadership Styles of Women and Men

Abstract

As women increasingly enter leadership roles that traditionally were occupied mainly by men, the possibility that the leadership styles of women and men differ continues to attract attention. The focus of these debates on sameness versus difference can obscure the array of causal factors that can produce differences or similarities. Adopting the perspective of social role theory, we offer a framework that encompasses many of the complexities of the empirical literature on the

Leadership styles of women and men. Supplementing Eagly and Johnson’s (1990) review of the interpersonally oriented, task-oriented, autocratic, and democratic styles of women and men, we present new data concerning the transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership styles.

The Leadership Styles of Women and Men Whether men and women behave differently in leadership roles is a much-debated question. Although there is general agreement that women face more barriers to becoming leaders

Than men do, especially for leader roles that are male-dominated, there is much less agreement about the behavior of women and men once they attain such roles. This issue is usually discussed in terms of leadership styles, when style is understood as relatively stable patterns of behavior that are manifested by leaders. Differences in styles can be Consequential because they are one factor that may affect people’s views about whether women should become leaders and advance to higher positions in organizational hierarchies. To approach this issue, we first analyze traditional thinking about the leadership styles of women and men. Then we present our own theoretical framework for understanding these issues and examine and interpret relevant research findings.

Leadership Styles of Women and Men Theoretical Rationale for Sex Differences and Similarities in Leadership Style Analysis of the situation that women and men face as leaders provide a rationale for expecting differences and similarities. From the perspective of social role theory of sex differences and similarities, this analysis begins with the Principle that leadership roles, like other organizational roles, are but one influence on leaders’ behavior. In addition, leaders elicit expectancies based on people’s categorization of them as male and female. These expectancies constitute gender roles, which are the shared beliefs that apply to Individuals on the basis of their socially identified sex. These roles are assumed to follow from perceivers’ observations of men and women as concentrated in different social roles in the family and paid employment.

Communal characteristics, which are ascribed more strongly to women than men, describe primarily a concern with the welfare of other people–for example, affectionate, helpful, kind, sympathetic, interpersonally sensitive, nurturing, and gentle. In employment settings, communal behaviors might include speaking tentatively, not drawing attention to oneself, accepting others’

Direction, supporting and soothing others, and contributing to the solution of relational and Leadership Styles of Women and Men interpersonal problems.

Simultaneous Occupancy of Gender Role and Leader Role

Managers and other leaders occupy roles defined by their specific position in a hierarchy but also simultaneously function under the constraints of their gender roles. Although it would be consistent with a structural interpretation of organizational behavior to predict that men and women who occupy the same leadership role would behave very similarly, gender roles ordinarily continue to exert some influence, with the result that female and male occupants and potential occupants of the same organizational role may behave somewhat differently. Consistent with this reasoning, many argued that gender roles spill over to organizations, and maintained that gender provides an “implicit, background identity” in the workplace.

Despite the likely influence of gender roles on leaders’ behavior, formal leadership (or managerial) roles should be of primary importance in organizational settings because these roles lend their occupants legitimate authority and are regulated by relatively clear rules about appropriate behavior. This idea that the influence of gender roles can be diminished or even eliminated by other roles was foreshadowed by experimental demonstrations of the lessening or disappearance of many gender-stereotypic sex differences in laboratory settings when participants received information that competed with gender-based expectations. In contrast, research in natural settings suggests that, although some gender-stereotypic differences erode under the influence of organizational roles, other Differences do not. Particularly informative is a field study that examined the simultaneous influence of gender roles and organizational roles. These Leadership Styles of Women and Men Study used an experience-sampling method by which participants monitored their interpersonal behavior in a variety of work settings for 20 days. In general, agentic behavior was controlled by the relative status of the interaction partners, with participants behaving most agentically with a supervisee and least agentically with a boss. However, communal behaviors were influenced by the sex of participants, regardless of participants’ status, with women behaving more communally than men, especially in interactions with other women.

Congruence of Leader Roles and Gender Roles

Female leaders’ efforts to accommodate their behavior to the sometimes conflicting demands of the female gender role and their leader role can foster leadership styles that differ from those of men. Gender roles thus have different implications for the behavior of female and male leaders, not only because the female and male roles have different content, but also because there is often inconsistency between the predominantly communal qualities that perceiver’s associate with women and the predominantly agentic qualities that they believe are required to succeed as a leader. People thus tend to have similar beliefs about leaders and men but dissimilar beliefs about leaders and women, as demonstrated. Nonetheless, the degree Leadership Styles of Women and Men of perceived incongruity between a leader role and the female gender role would depend on many factors, including the exact definition of the leader role, the activation of the female gender role in a particular situation, and individuals’ personal approval of traditional definitions of gender roles.

As argued, perceived incongruity between the female gender role and typical leader roles tends to create prejudice toward female leaders and potential leaders that takes two forms: (a) less favorable evaluation of women’s (than men’s) potential for leadership Because leadership ability is more stereotypic of men than women and (b) less favorable evaluation of the actual leadership behavior of women than men because agentic behavior is perceived as less desirable in women than men. The first type of prejudice stems from the descriptive norms of gender roles–that is, the activation of descriptive beliefs about women’s characteristics and the consequent ascription of female-stereotypic qualities to them, which are unlike the qualities expected and desired in leaders. The second type of prejudice stems from the injunctive (or prescriptive) norms of gender roles–that is, the activation of beliefs about how women ought to behave. If female leaders violate these prescriptive beliefs by fulfilling the agentic requirements of leader roles and failing to exhibit the communal, supportive behaviors that are preferred in women, they can be negatively evaluated for these violations, even while they may also receive some positive evaluation for their fulfillment of the leader role.

In summary, the social role argument that leadership roles constrain behavior so that sex differences are minimal among occupants of the same leadership role must be tempered by several more complex considerations. Not only may gender roles spill over to organizational settings, but also leaders’ gender identities may constrain their behaviors in a direction consistent with their own gender role. Also, the female gender role is more likely to be incongruent with leader roles than the male gender role is, producing a greater potential for prejudice against female leaders.  Such prejudice could produce negative sanctions that affect leaders’ behavior.