...sector in US. This was a huge organization having 26,000 employees working for Lehman Brothers (Join Bain & Company-Our Mission, 2012). On 15th of September 2008, the organization was filed in chapter 11 as bankrupt with $639 billion in assets & $619 billion in debt and had an incredible effects in financial markets and economies not only in US but worldwide and it leads to financial crises. The collapse of Lehman Brothers Holding, Inc. was the largest in US history (Nightmare mortgages, 2008). The key ethical words we are looking in these report are: Massive accounting fraud, failure to government policy and regulation, 26,000 employees lose their jobs worldwide, world economy and financial crises. The key players we are looking in these report are: employees, government, Lehman Brothers, other subordinate organization like Ernst & Young, shareholders, stakeholders, and customers. Bain Capital: Bain capital is one of the world’s foremost private investment firms which was found by Mitt Romney in 1984 (About Bain Capital, 2012). The culture of Bain capital and its organization was full of unethical who always find a way to bias and break laws in order to gain huge profits for its firm and for Mitt Romney as individual. In this report, we will discuss about the unethical behavior by Mitt Romney towards their employees. The stakeholder for this unethical issue can be Bain Capital itself, Mitt Romney and their employees, other shareholders, Local people, and other external...
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...Organization Studies http://oss.sagepub.com ‘Subterranean Worksick Blues’: Humour as Subversion in Two Call Centres Phil Taylor and Peter Bain Organization Studies 2003; 24; 1487 DOI: 10.1177/0170840603249008 The online version of this article can be found at: http://oss.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/24/9/1487 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of: European Group for Organizational Studies Additional services and information for Organization Studies can be found at: Email Alerts: http://oss.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://oss.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav Citations http://oss.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/24/9/1487 Downloaded from http://oss.sagepub.com at SAGE Publications on July 31, 2009 1487 Authors name ‘Subterranean Worksick Blues’: Humour as Subversion in Two Call Centres Phil Taylor and Peter Bain Abstract Phil Taylor University of Stirling, UK Peter Bain University of Strathclyde, UK This article engages in debates stimulated by previous work published in Organization Studies, and more widely, on the purpose and effects of workers’ humour and joking practices. The authors emphasize the subversive character of humour in the workplace, rejecting perspectives which see humour as inevitably contributing to organizational harmony. Drawing on methodologies, including ethnography, which permitted...
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...Business Week – Case in the News [LO 1, 3, 5] Chapter 4 When W. James McNerney Jr. decided that Boeing Co.'s (BA) top managers needed a loud wake-up call, the new chief executive chose the obvious place to sound the alarm: the company's annual executive retreat on Jan. 4 and 5. A year earlier, the event had been held at the posh Mission Hills Country Club in Palm Springs, Calif., and nobody apparently had a better time than McNerney's predecessor, Harry Stonecipher. After a day devoted largely to socializing and playing golf, the former CEO, surrounded by Boeing's elite, closed down the bar and then fired up a cigar. It was at the same event that the married Stonecipher began a relationship with a female vice-president at Boeing -- a misjudgment that ultimately paved the way for his humiliating ouster on Mar. 6, and for McNerney's appointment as CEO on July 5. Stonecipher could not be reached for comment. The "Palm Springs fling," as it became known at Boeing, marked an all-time low for the company. It followed a three-year binge of widely publicized corporate misbehavior highlighted by the jailing of Boeing's former chief financial officer for holding illegal job negotiations with a senior Pentagon official, the indictment of a manager for allegedly stealing some 25,000 pages of proprietary documents from his former employer, Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT), and the judicial finding that Boeing had abused attorney-client privilege to help cover up internal studies showing that female...
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...Consultancy P.O Box 1234, Kitgum 30th March, 2010 RE: CONSULTANCY MEETING PROFESSION OR NOT - A CASE OF BAIN & COMPANY 1.0 Background information Bain & Company was established in 1973 by a group of seven former partners and managers from the Boston Consulting Group headed by Bill Bain. The company was originally headquartered in Lexington, Massachusetts on Militia Drive. By the end of the decade, the firm's headquarters were in Faneuil Hall Marketplace in downtown Boston. Under Bain's direction, the firm implemented a number of unconventional practices in its early years. Notably, Bain & Co. would work with only one client per industry to avoid potential conflicts of interest. Partners did not carry business cards and clients were referred to by code names to enforce client confidentiality. The company won clients by boardroom referrals rather than marketing, and claimed its consultants worked on increasing a company's market value rather than simply handing clients a list of recommendations. To win business, Bain demonstrated the increase in the price of their clients' stocks relative to the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The firm's founding was followed by a period of growth in the late 1970s and early 1980s as the firm opened offices in Menlo Park, California, London, Munich, Paris, and Tokyo. Another consulting approach used at Bain & Co. was accepting equity in lieu of fixed fees. An estimated 10% of Bain's revenue is derived from this equity...
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...recession, many retail and consumer businesses had to deal with a hit in profit and financial gains. Typically, mass retail giants cut down locations as well as employees, making it difficult for workers to get bonuses or raises, and possibly take losses in corporate offices as well. However, some big retail companies, like Home Depot, Best Buy, and Bain & Company were able to turn some of these downturns into positives and give more to their employees and continue to grow their companies. The behavior and attitude of management can drastically affect a company’s outcome during a recession, so being proactive and seeking out the positive is always the most effective during times of need. According to Shalom Schwartz, who created the theory of personal values in the workplace, there are values managers hold that can influence behavior unknowingly at work (Kreitner and Kinicki, 152). Amongst the ten values, Bain & Company, Home Depot, and Best Buy all hold on to universalism. Universalism, the “understanding, appreciation, tolerance and protection of the welfare of all people and of nature” in the workplace creates a positive work environment for everyone involved (153). Bain & Company’s CEO Steve Ellis took the proactive approach during the recession and added even more employees to his team. “This is an opportunity to grab very talented people,” Ellis stated, when talking about how many former consultants became stranded during the recession (176). He is giving them the opportunity...
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...leaders, over the years, have come to appreciate the merits of a strong culture. However, a strong culture is not foolproof. Organizations with a strong culture outperform their peers, but only by embracing diversity and constantly reappraising their values can they avoid pitfalls in a rapidly changing corporate landscape. Firms benefit from a strong culture. Definition varies from a study to study, but it is agreed that a strong culture is one in which values are “simple, widely shared, and strongly held” (O’Reilly 1991). In a quantitative analysis by John P. Kotter and James L. Heskett, the correlation between two variables, culture strength and performance, was measured based on surveys from managers and return on investment. After removing market differences, relative performance and culture strength correlated 0.51 across 180 firms, generating a 7.4 t-test (exhibit 1; Kotter and Heskett, 1992). Simply put, 1 point increase in their culture strength scale translated into 3 percent increase in performance. Another empirical study proved a similar outcome. The performance of insurance companies strongly correlated with the strength of cultural values shared (Gordon and DiTomaso, 1992). Some critics note that such analyses ignore other variables by assuming a monotonic relationship; however, the strong correlation calls for an explanation. Three interrelated benefits of a strong culture account for its influence on organizational outcomes: cooperation, control, and cost. First...
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...Case study: Companies are trying to improve Employee attitudes during the recession. This is a case study which revolves around the steps taken by managers and corporations in improving the attitudes of employees towards recession. Real life examples are given in the form of consumer services giants like Bain & Co, Home Depot and Best buy. Now let us look at the facts and the answers to the questions asked. Facts Presented in the case: 1. Bain & co.’s CEO Steve Ellis hired people even during the recession. He added consultants in the hot-growth areas such as emerging markets and targeted experienced consultants who were left stranded during the hard financial times. 2. Home Depots chairman and chief executive Frank Blake set realistic goals to boost employee morale in spite of handing pink slips to some of the employees. This resulted in many employees getting high bonuses thus resulting in high employee morale. 3. Companies which took advantage of employees in the downturn were rewarded with many employees leaving the company. 4. Best buy found ways to boost employee morale by getting them involved in the organization. 5. JetBlue has cut back across the board and over the past year –delaying aircraft orders, trimming head count through voluntary unpaid leaves and even shedding the free pillows from its aircraft in order to cut costs. Identifying the Key issues: The key issues that can be observed from the above case are as follows. 1. Corporations...
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...However the biggest problem in the Chinese luxury market is that Chinese consumers make most of their purchases overseas. Bain & Company's China luxury market study (2014) demonstrates that Chinese consumers contribute to more than one third of global consumption of luxury goods, which is nearly 380 billion RMB, but only 30% of consumption, which was contributed by Chinese consumers, is done in Mainland China, and the rest is from overseas purchases. Admittedly, consumption of the luxury products is beneficial for economy, but overseas purchase is an issue that has negative impact on economic development of China due to capital outflow. World Tourism Cities Federation (2014) shows that 44% of the Chinese tourists travel abroad for shopping. The huge price gap between Mainland China and some other countries is the most important reason that result in overseas purchase. Therefore, there is a debate about whether or not to cut down tariffs of the luxury products to solve this problem. Although cutting down tariffs of the luxury goods seems to be an effective way to attract Chinese consumers to make their purchases domestically, in this case, cutting down the tariffs of the luxury products is useless, because reducing import duties has little effect on the price of domestic luxury products. Instead, it is the pricing strategies of international luxury companies that play a more important role in the Chinese market, which price the luxury products very high in the Chinese market...
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...Case Study Chapter 6 The two values I believe Schwartz created that are affecting Bain & Company, Home Depot and Best Buy include: conformity and universalism. In regards to universalism, Bain & Company and Best Buy began to lower the goals for employees’ sales, which resulted in their receiving bonuses still plausible. In addition, Best Buy tried to keep their employees engaged through the hard time by setting up online surveys for them to give the company general ideas for cost cutting. This showed that the companies understood the employees’ situations, appreciated them the best they could and tried to protect them from losing their jobs. The companies showed restraint and tried not to make the employees upset in their conformity values. For example, instead of firing employees, Steve Ellis began to hire people he thought would be successful for after the recession was over. This gave additional talented people an opportunity to work instead of going through lay offs during this time. During the recession, Ellis used his affective, cognitive and behavioral components of his attitude to show employees that he cared about how they felt, displayed his beliefs and ideas, and how he intended to move forward instead of back. Ellis made it possible to hire more people during the recession. He did not see this as a setback but an opportunity to bring talented workers on board with his company. Best Buy created online surveys for their employees to give their ideas for cutting...
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...great workplace is one where they: 3. ACHIEVE ORGANISATIONAL OBJECTIVES; 4. With employees who GIVE THEIR PERSONAL BEST; and 5. WORK TOGETHER AS A TEAM / FAMILY in an environment ofTRUST 4 things that makes companies great place to work for : A strong positive culture, firmly grounded in a meaningful purpose. ’Culture’ has, too often, come to mean ‘perks.’ But while a ping-pong table in the break room and coupons for burgers are fun – they’re not the core of a great culture. What people are looking for is an environment that supports and rewards excellence, honesty, mutual support, and fair dealing; where people get great results and they’re treated well….and neither is optional. Truly strong cultures are supported from the C-suite on down: the employees report that their boss – and their boss’ boss, and so on – live by the espoused values. That’s when a culture comes alive. People also want to feel that their strong culture exists to support meaningful work. For example, Twitter, ranked second on Glassdoor’s list, has a sentence on the company website that says, “At Twitter, your work will be immediately felt by many millions of people around the globe.” That’s meaningful. Real chances to grow professionally. Although great companies focus on providing substantive growth opportunities for their employees, this doesn’t necessarily mean ‘career pathing’...
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...consumer behaviour Studying consumer behaviour helps a company to set up its goals and marketing strategies. To understand a consumer’s psychology in order to improve an organisation’s marketing tactics is essential; it helps firms and organisations to study the behaviours, choices and needs clients make to consume a product or service. Hawkins (2007, pg.22) stated, “The consumer decision process intervenes between the marketing strategy and the outcomes. That is, the outcomes of the firms marketing strategy is determined by its interaction with the consumer decision process. The firm can only succeed if consumers see a need that its product can solve, become aware of the product and its capabilities, decide that it is the best available solution, proceed to buy it and become satisfied with the result of the purchase.” Marketers use a number of ways to analyse consumer behaviour including behavioural, emotional and cognitive. Solomon (2013, pg. 3) concluded that various factors influence consumers to make choices to buy products including their friends, social media, society and culture. Kumar (2009, pg. 181) proposed that it is very important to keep the values, beliefs and morals of customers in mind. Especially, while introducing gadgets like mobile phones, laptops and tablets, it is vital if the product is more environment-friendly and has a positive impact. Advantages There are numerous advantages a product launching company can get by learning its consumer’s behaviour before...
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...the case interview Up front planning The case interview is only one dimension of the recruiting process, but it is typically the part that raises the most anxiety. We hope this guide will help you to prepare for the case so that you can be confident and enjoy the interview. You must have the ability to: • Break a complex problem into its component parts • Apply business judgment to identify value • Generate a creative range of solutions to a problem’s component parts • Identify the most likely/attractive solutions through logical reasoning • Generate thoughtful questions and ask for clarification of case data, as necessary • Translate analysis into actionable recommendations • Effectively communicate solutions in a concise and persuasive manner Preparation: A case study consists of a business problem taken from a real life business situation, or an example drawn from your resume. It focuses on your analytic approach to the problem, rather than specific business knowledge. First and foremost, you can succeed in a case interview without specific industry experience. Don’t panic if the case you are given is based on an industry with which you are unfamiliar. Remember, we are interested in how you analyze the problem, not how much you know about the industry. Practicing for the case interview is helpful. Practice by constructing examples from your resume and walking through steps 1—5. Finally, the answers mentioned demonstrate only one way to respond to the case; there...
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...DOI: 10.7763/IPEDR. 2012. V46. 10 A Study on Why Luxury Goods Sell and their Effects on the Economy Seung Yoon Rhee+ Hankuk Academy of Foreign Studies, 449-854 Gyeonggi-do Yongin-si Mohyun-myun Wangsan-ri Hankuk Academy of Foreign Studies, South Korea Abstract. Despite recent global economic downturns starting from 2008, luxury goods have maintained their popularity as some of the most popular products in the world, while the sales of other goods have fallen significantly. In fact, the sales of luxury goods have increased in many cases. The aim of this paper is to identify the causes to this phenomenon, and go more in-depth into the consumer psychology of buying luxury goods. Recent statistics concerning the modern economy were examined, particularly the sales of luxury goods and their consistency in sales. After, the sales of luxury goods were studied from the perspective of consumer psychology. Luxury goods are not bought for the same reasons that normal or inferior goods are, as they do not adhere to the conventional wisdom of economical decision making. Instead, consumer decision making plays a huge role in the sales of luxury goods, particularly status consumption, and the motivations for status consumption were identified according to different types of motivations. By analyzing this data, the economic effects of luxury goods were identified. Because their primary consumer base is not affected severely by economic hardships, the sales of luxury goods are able to...
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...Publication on the Print Media Words : 3 733 strategic shift with the influx of new means of dematerialization of information. A study conducted in 2010 by Bain & Company1 reports that in 2015, 15 to 20% of the population should be equipped with a digital book, an electronic reader (called an Ereader) or multifunction tablet (not including Smartphones). These last may even represent the majority of the market, reaching a wider audience, if prices, still exceeding € 300, were to fall. Also according to this study, the digital book and digital media in general should know a better situation and favorable growth in the coming years, most users remaining faithful to the paper (including books), seeing the new devices with only additional functions. In addition, unlike the music industry or the audiovisual industry, there are very few parallel market, where users can illegally download works. If this phenomenon were to grow, then it may be as difficult for the publishing industry as the entertainment industry. Currently, there are three main schools of thought on the so-called traditional print media and its evolution towards digital media. Some see through this trend the death of newspapers and even the journalists (the professional ones). We cannot give them completely wrong, when you look at recent news. We can talk about the particular case of the French newspaper "France Soir"2 put into administrative closeout on July 23th, 2012, and the last paper edition was completed on...
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...scale of people affected by its introduction. The national minimum wage has increased by a staggering 59% in the last ten years; from £3.60 in April 1999 to £5.73 in October 2008. (HRM, 2008) According to George Sayers Bain (1999) as from April 1999, the year of its instalment , “some two million low paid workers will gain. To put that into a different context is one in twelve employees; one in three house workers; one in five part time workers. The obvious reason for its introduction was to reduce poverty pay levels while at the same time decreasing the wage differentials of the minimum wage to the median wage of all workers. This is known as ‘the bite’ and is commonly used to assess the effectiveness of the minimum wage. (LPC, Low Pay Commission, 2007) As stated above the intention of this review is to firstly establish the effect of the National minimum wage on employment; justifying it as a positive, negative or mutual effect. Secondly to help incarcerate the purpose even more the retail sector will be focused on purely because it entices the most jobs of low paid workers. Although literature was most desired based solely on the United Kingdom some are well known International studies but they all confine to the same principles making them in most cases equally relevant. The literatures that have been used were carefully selected in order to give the view of both sides of the coin. Review Perhaps the...
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