Understanding Attitudes and Behavior Essay Example for Free

Understanding Attitudes and Behavior Essay The results support three out of the four hypotheses. The subscales knowledge, affect, intended behaviour and actual behaviour have a significant correlation, that is a change in one generates changes in another. Finding that knowledge is significant could be because the participants are University students and are likely to have a greater depth of general knowledge that the norm. On the other hand having a low knowledge score could be irrelevant to the actual behaviour. This is the conclusion of Maloney et als` study. Another consideration is maybe the hypothesis is wrong; knowledge could be significant in the ecological behaviour of an individual. Maloney et al did not find a correlation but Yule and Knussen (1998) did although to a lesser degree than the other subscales. It might be that it is not the specific knowledge across the spectrum of ecological issues that prompts to action. The items used may have had no relevance in the pro environmental attitude of the participant. Breadth of knowledge may lack significance however having a general, superficial knowledge of the subject or a deep knowledge of a specific area might correlate. In psychology it is generally regarded that knowledge of a subject has no significance with actual behaviour however it is unlikely that one would act to preserve the environment without some knowledge however unclear to prompt to action, especially in areas where recycling involves more effort than separating the items and putting them out for collection. Although there may be a smaller correlation with the other subscales it could be that knowledge is indeed significant but results may be forthcoming only when the inventory tackles the areas the pro-environmentalist is interested in and has a greater knowledge, e.g. a person may decide to recycle because they wish to conserve earths natural resources whereas another may do so because pollution kills. Both may recycle but for different reasons and their knowledge could be in-depth in separate but related areas. Possible behaviour needs a certain amount of knowledge to motivate but knowledge in itself does not necessarily activate behaviour. Ajzen and Fishbein concluded, from their studies, that traditional methods of attitude measurements were flawed but possibly modern attitude and behaviour measurements are also flawed. Perhaps when building the items to be used for the attitude measurement there would be a need to fit the items to particular social groups e. g. lower working class or long term unemployed may not buy environmentally friendly products as they are too expensive for a limited budget. Perhaps their contribution to recycling goes as far as reusing supermarket carriers as nappy sacks, using empty jars for home made jam, buying second hand goods, or using food scraps for humus in the garden but it is still recycling and is not included in CALECOL. Likewise a person with limited finances may have no way to get any items to a recycling point as a lot of local councils do not have collection days for recyclable goods. Their actual behaviour score would be reduced as a result of this biased slant to those that are financially able to buy environmentally friendly products. In the CALECOL Inventory (see appendix ii) there are a few items that may be irrelevant to certain areas of the population and as a result give a distorted score. For example actual behaviour subscale item 4 and intended behaviour item 9 12 mentions politics and environmental issues. Some religions actually prohibit voting for political parties and this item would affect the scoring. Transport difficulties mean taking items to be recycled is not possible for a lot of people(Item 9, actual behaviour. This Inventory is also biased towards the able bodied. Some environmentalists are disabled and unable to get out to clean up, use public transport, deliver leaflets or take items to a recycling point. This highlights the problems with measuring attitudes using inventories. The items used cannot be measured on everyone and therefore gives an unrealistic evaluation of their attitudes and the relationship to their behaviour. Age may affect the scores as most young people live at home and their actual behaviour may largely be under the control of their parents. So they may have the knowledge, strength of feeling and intention to be ecological but lack the means e. g. they will not usually decide which products to buy for the home or whether to recycle items. Age may also be a significant factor in revealing a correlation between the subscales. It would be interesting to find out if say the 18 24 age group subscales scores are significantly lower than the 36 44 age group. The evidence from this small study was that it might be as it was mostly the older members of the class that had the highest scores. This could be because as one ages one might ponder on the consequences of ones actions more. Pollution could be directly affecting their children and parents might want to make a contribution to their offsprings future environment. Another area that could be investigated is location. Do rural areas recycle more than towns or cities? What role does local social norms play in recycling behaviour? Measurement scales could be tailored to suit a particular class of individual, whether grouped by area, social class, disabled etc, to gain a more realistic measurement of their attitude. As attitudes are hypothetical constructs, theories and investigations will continue to be made. Through time, no doubt, measurement scales will grow more sophisticated in their search to accurately measure attitude components and their links with actual behaviour but without tailoring it is unlikely that all the items in an attitude inventory will apply to all participants in equal measure. REFERENCES Ajzen, I. , Fishbein, M. (1982). Understanding Attitudes and Behavior, Theoretical Implications. In J. C. Brigham, L. S. Wrightsman (ED. ), Contemporary Issues in Psychology (4th ED), pp127 137. Monterey, California, Brooks/Cole Publishing Company. Aijzen, I. , Fishbein, M. (1980). Understanding attitudes and predicting social behaviour. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Cited in Zimbargo and Leippe, (1991). The Psychology of Attitude and Social Influence. United States of America, McGraw Hill Maloney, M. P. , Ward, M. O. Braucht, C. N. (1975). A revised scale for the measurement of ecological attitudes and knowledge. American Psychologist, 30, 787-790

Computer Information Systems :: Computers Technology Training Careers Essays

Computer Information Systems It is essential for every company to look into types of training. In the day and age that we live in technology and computer information systems are always changing. By the time people learn new information there is something else new to learn. This has been evident throughout history. There will always be the need to for companies to train employees. Many companies rely on computer information systems that work with human relations, marketing, and other essential departments in the company. For many businesses, the computer information systems have become a necessity. In order to compete and grow many companies rely on theses systems. They have proven to be great investments when successfully implemented. As a company expands its business to use computer information systems, there is a need to train staff, and in many instances hire experienced people. Even if the new staff knows all about computer information systems, it is highly recommended that other employees become familiar with the new type of business. This is important so the employees can be agile without the need to train new people. Many areas of training go along with having computer information systems. Some of these areas are web development, graphics, database management, operations management, and marketing. All of these areas are taught in various training courses. Some of the topics require vast amounts of training, such as graphics and database management. On the other hand, much of the web maintenance can be done easily and without much training. When deciding on the type of training, many factors must be taken into account. It is up to management what types of training they should use based on time, money, and many other factors. In real world cases there have been failures with the implementation of computer information systems, whether they were ERP or any other type of system. It is essential for management to take the necessary precautions and steps in order to have a successful immersion of the new system. Possible Computer Information System Training Methods There are many ways that a company can train its employees. When the decision is made that training is needed, one might chose to hire a company to come in and train the employees. This is referred to as onsite training. Many companies do this and many advantages are associated with it for example, the company keeps the employees on site and removes the need to travel.

External environment for banking industry Essay

Standard Chartered is the world’s leading emerging markets bank headquartered in London. Standard Chartered employs 30,000 people in over 500 locations in more than 50 countries in the Asia Pacific Region, South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, the United Kingdom and the Americas. It is one of the world’s most international banks, with a management team comprising 70 nationalities. Standard Chartered has been committed to Hong Kong and China for nearly 150 years. Standard Chartered Bank opened its first branch in China in 1858 and is the oldest foreign bank in the country. The Bank has operated in Hong Kong since 1859 and has been issuing Hong Kong banknotes since 1862. Standard Chartered PLC listed on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong in 2002. The bank is listed on both the London Stock Exchange and the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong and is in the top 25 FTSE-100 companies, by market capitalization. It serves both Consumer and Wholesale Banking customers. Consumer Banking provides credit cards, personal loans, mortgages, deposit taking and wealth management services to individuals and small to medium sized enterprises. Wholesale Banking provides corporate and institutional clients with services in trade finance, cash management, lending, custody, foreign exchange, debt capital markets and corporate finance. Standard Chartered is well-established in growth markets and aims to be the right partner for its customers. The Bank combines deep local knowledge with global capability. The Bank is trusted across its network for its standard of governance and its commitment to making a difference in the communities in which it operates. The new millennium has brought with it two of the largest acquisitions in the history of the bank with the purchase of Grindlays Bank from the ANZ Group and the acquisition of the Chase Consumer Banking operations in Hong Kong in 2000. These acquisitions demonstrate Standard Chartered firm committed to the emerging markets, where it has a strong and established presence and where it foresees future growth. With the acquisition of ANZ Banking Group, StanChart became the largest foreign bank in terms of branch network and profitability in India. The merged entity has a combined network of 61  branches and 74 ATMs across 15 cities of the country. Understanding the global, political, technological and socio-cultural segments of its environment is obviously critical to Stanchart’s success. It has acquired companies in order to consolidate its global operations; operates in 50 countries; seeks to display environmental and social responsibility; and deals with communications technology. It strives to take advantage of opportunities in the dynamic environment, the need to deal innovatively with new acquisitions, the problem of reframing the public’s view of banking and ongoing cut throat competition from other commercial banks and non banking entities. The bank therefore has to make clear the communication challenge and make clear the global nature of its operations to the wider community, governments and the population at large. Research evidence suggests that external environment affects a firm’s growth and profitability over time. Changes in political, regulatory features, the strength of different nations’ economies at different times, and the emergence of new technologies are a few examples of conditions in the external environment that are affecting banks like StanChart and several other firms throughout the world whether in manufacturing or services sector. The companies in attractive environments perform better than the companies that are in less attractive environments. Therefore strategy development is about ‘fit’ i.e. identifying opportunities in the environment and building strategy matching resource capabilities to those opportunities. The resources and competences of organizations also play an important role as they explain the differences between organizations, potential uniqueness and therefore superior performance. The ‘stretch’ view argues that strategies should be built on the unique competences and resources of an organization by seeking out markets in which competences have special value or by trying to create new markets on the basis of such competences Another consideration is the stakeholders of company. Organizations have different stakeholders (shareholders, customers, employees, government) who have expectations of the organizations and may exercise considerable influence and power over the strategy to be followed As said earlier, the external environment plays an important role for banks. Most of the external factors are beyond the control of a bank. The factors such as competition; political, economical, legal, government rules and regulations influence the firm’s choice of direction and action and also affect the internal environment of a bank. The external environment influences a company’s strategic options as well as the decisions made in light of them. The firm’s understanding of the external environment is matched with knowledge about its internal environment. Matching the conditions of the two environments is the foundation the firm needs to form its strategic intent, to develop its strategic mission, and to take strategic actions in the pursuit of strategic competitiveness and above-average returns. The external environment encapsulates many different influences which makes the tasks of CEOs more difficult. Identifying the different environmental influences though makes sense, is not very much useful as the overall picture of these influences does not emerge. The second difficulty is that of the speed of change. The impact of technological changes on businesses is much faster than ever before. Technology has transformed the way in which the banking business is carried out. In addition the competitive pressures are also driving more banks to diversify their product range in response to market demands. We can broadly categorize this environment into two types: remote environment and operating environment. Remote environment: This environment consists of a set of forces that originate beyond a firm’s operating environment. This comprises of political, economic, social, technological and industrial forces which create opportunities, threats and constraints to the firm. For example macroeconomic instability in an economy characterized by chronic inflation, fiscal imbalances and periodic balance-of-payments crises also affect all the banks. Operating environment: The operating environment involves the factors that provide many of the challenges a bank is facing when attempting to attract  or acquire essential resources or when striving to profitably market its goods and services in the immediate competitive position, customer profile, reputation among suppliers and creditors and accessible labor market. The operating environment is also called the competitive or task environment. Hence by considering conditions in the operating environment business can be much more proactively planned. An organization’s external environment is shown in the figure below. The figure depicts the firm’s business area, remote environment and the operating environment cutting into an area of total external environmental impact on the firm. In the banking industry if the Reserve Bank increases the reserve requirements for the commercial banks it would affect all the banking companies in the economy. This is an operational risk. Over the past two decades, commercial banks across the globe have aggressively repositioned themselves to compete under new economic, technological, and regulatory conditions. These institutions are no longer protected by regulatory entry barriers, and are confronted with a marked transformation in telecommunications and computer technology. Banks can no longer rely on traditional banking models and therefore have invested huge amounts of resources in the search for new competitive strategies. While many of these attempts had fruitless results, the most successful strategic innovations have set a new paradigm in banking and have changed the way banks compete. The manner in which commercial banks currently underwrite their loans, finance their activities, grow their franchises, distribute their services and market their images can hardly be compared to ones that bankers adopted in 1970s. Coming to the regulatory environment, banks still do not compete in a completely unregulated environment. Regulations continue to shape banking strategies for example, in US, the federally insured deposits are the basis of community bank business strategy. The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) loans are a mandatory for all banks (in India, priority sector credit is mandatory for all commercial banks, this would be dealt in detail in subsequent pages). Investment decisions of every bank are influenced by capital regulations. The system of multiple regulators can affect the choice  of organizational form of banking companies. While most banks are regulated by the RBI (Reserve Bank of India), some are under dual control of government and RBI. In India, all banks are subject to RBI’s regulation but the framework is not uniform in the sense that public sector banks, cooperative banks, and private banks are governed by significant differences and not all of them have access to the payments system. The Department of Company Affairs (DCA) regulates the deposit taking activities of non-banking non- financial companies and also some activities of Non Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs). SEBI regulates the capital markets and supervises stock exchanges, mutual funds, securities dealers and brokers, merchant bankers, credit rating agencies and venture capital funds. Companies in the insurance sector are regulated by IRDA. Banks are permitted to be involved in insurance activity through joint ventures/equity participation/selling agency type arrangements. Thus, the object of regulation itself is susceptible to some overlap. Several scandals in banks have led regulators to make increased informational demands on banks. As banking markets grow more concentrated, anti-trust laws may increasingly limit the scale and scope of bank mergers. At a minimum, regulation is simply a fixed cost that must be borne by banks, which does not influence a bank’s behavior. At the other extreme, and perhaps in a more realistic situation, regulation can significantly affect banks’ strategic choices and influence competition in financial markets. Innovations introduced in the markets are often driven by, and in some cases succeed exclusively because of the prevailing regulatory environment. Similarly, commercial banks’ competitive strategies are shaped by both new technologies, and the limitations of technology. Retail banking had traditionally been built around the paper-based payments, but IT has created new strategic possibilities for it. Electronic delivery of banking services can reduce a bank’s overhead costs to a great extent. However abandoning bank branches can also give rise to disastrous strategic costs. New technologies have a led to a great transformation in the risk management practices of commercial banks, but application of such techniques may also create some unforeseen new risks. After generations of technological stasis  in the banking industry, the ongoing rapid pace of technological change has made â€Å"strategic innovation† a viable competitive strategy for banks.

To Kill A Mockingbird Stock Market Analysis - 907 Words

The story To Kill A Mockingbird is about a lawyer named Atticus defending a black man named Tom Robinson in a poor country full of racism. His kids Scout and Jem are being taking care of by a black lady named Calpurnia. Atticus want’s everyone to be treated equally. Harper Lee, author of To Kill A Mockingbird, gives the reader a gist of the 1930’s in many ways using real life situations. Harper Lee describes life during the 1930’s by comparing Maycomb to the Stock Market. In the book To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee shows how Atticus is not worried about money even tho he and his town is poor. Harper Lee shows this when Mr.Cunningham a poor white man in Maycomb paid Atticus with wood. Atticus took it with no questions or complaints. The†¦show more content†¦Tom Robinson case was similar because he was falsely accused of raping a poor white lady just as those 9 boys were falsely accused of raping 2 white women. Mob leaders threatened to break out the nine boys in Scottsboro, Alabama and take them if the sheriff refused to let them get them like Attics did with Tom. In Harper Lees story, the Old Sarum Bunch threatens Atticus at the jailhouse because they want Tom Robinson handed over to them but Attics refuses. Tom Robinson was found guilty even though he was not guilty. Atticus proved that he was innocent, but since the county was prejudice the Judge put Tom on a jury death penalty. Atticus was trying so hard to defend Tom, but his county didn’t like Atticus taking up for tom which caused Bob Ewell to spit in his face. In the Scottsboro case the 9 boys was proved innocent but since the judge was prejudiced the kids were put into prison just like Tom Robinson in To Kill A Mockingbird. With the cases being alike with the men the women were alike to because they were actually raped by white men but tried to cover it up by blaming it on a black man because the women knew that the men and boys were going to be put into prison. Moreover it shows how people in the 1930’s acted towards white lawyers defending a black man. Harper Lee also shows how everyone is Separate yet Equal. In the story black and white people arent as equal as they should be. This is said because in the 1930’s was when blacksShow MoreRelatedKill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee Essay3689 Words   |  15 PagesWhat it Means to Kill a Mocking Bird: an in depth analysis of the morals in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird Subject: Category 1 Test Session: May 2016 Sami Aranki Diploma Charter Oak High School Word count of essay: 3,384 Table of Contents Content Page Number Abstract