Freedom of Press

From an online encyclopedia (Wikipedia), the article defines freedom of press as giving the complete right for everyone to express his/her opinions and point of view in writing or in any kind of expression. Freedom of press extends to cover freedom of information gathering and news distribution as well. Freedom of press was practiced highly in some countries and lowly in some other countries. In 2003, Finland, Iceland, Netherlands, and Norway ranked the best practice of freedom of press. In 2004 however, besides the mentioned countries, Denmark, Ireland, Slovakia, and Switzerland joined in the top list of the best practice of the freedom of press while North Korea, Cuba, Burma, Turkmenistan, Eritrea, China, Vietnam, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, and Iran ranked the worst practice of press freedom with North Korea as the top. At practicing freedom of press, journalists are completely accountable of what they write if they were given their complete rights at the first place. In other word, in the article Code of Ethics: National Associations of Journalists, as a part of the journalists’ rights, “A journalist cannot be forced to do an act or express an opinion that would be contrary to his convictions or his conscience. In such a case, he will invoke the clause of conscience and the accompanying benefits.” However, what is being published is not only the journalist’s accountability, but also the media’s. In this article Associate Media and Publications Officer (AMPO) the media’s editors and publications officers are accountable to supervise what is being published considering some issues that deal with the culture and government’s regulations. Moving to the media’s role in democracy, the media is an important part of democracy, but probably a negative part of it. In this article Rich Media, Poor Democracy, Robert W. McChesney says that the media was one of the factors that led the U.S. democracy to reach to a woeful state. The powerful media make decisions with an unaware public. “The corporate media cement a system whereby the wealthy and powerful few make the most important decisions with virtually no informed public participation,” McChesney says. A huge number of essential political issues and events are not covered by the media and many others are filtered to match some purposes removing the essential notion of “public-be-informed.” Media’s decision on how to interpret and distribute news or information could also depends on certain biases such as ethnic (racial), class, political, and corporate biases to achieve specific goals that an owner or the elite desires. In conclusion, what happened in Kenya reflects exactly the crisis of press usage. The Kenyan government’s decision to arrest the three journalists probably wasn’t right, but it wasn’t wrong either. In order for a newspaper or any other media tool to survive, journalists and media officers must be aware of the practice of press freedom and must be also aware of government’s regulations and policies. Arresting the three Kenyan journalists for criticizing the Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki work doesn’t mean that information they sent to the public was wrong, it could be 100 % valid. However, what seemed to be wrong is that they weren’t meant to communicate it to the public.

Creativity consultants: how do they help?


In this article by Paul and Sarah Edwards, Starting a Creativity Consultant Business, the subject of creativity consultants is being discussed. They say that only the organizations that center in innovation will be able to attract the interest of investors. Only innovative companies stay in the competition. The author Richard Florida points out in his book, the flight of the creative class, that they face tough, worldwide competition for creative talent. And that’s where creativity consultants started. Creative consultant help individuals develop creative thinking to compete, to be effective, and to stand out in the current economy. They also help organization discover a problem, analyze it, and find a creative solution through recognizing opportunity. Creativity consultants often provide a combination of project consulting and training to client organizations and companies. The first part (project consulting) involves facilitating task groups organized to points out a problem a company faces and help them recognize the opportunity to benefit from it. The training part involves presenting workshops to develop creativity in participating employees. Some companies are interested in creativity consultants to get help in their marketing tasks such as choosing a product, slogan, and logo. Sometimes creativity consultants doesn’t only help in a companies’ task, it also tracks the development of their tasks. Creativity consultants usually start their service with non-profit organizations or with smaller organizations.

Use Relationship Skills to Stand Out in The Workplace


The author Phyllis Davis suggests eight different ways for managers to charm their employees in his article “8 ways to charm your employees”. Davis starts his article by reminding us that everyone wants to be recognized in his/her field. He says that professional people should try to rise above their feeling and work by achieving the goals of their jobs. To do that, professionals or managers should master the leadership sills to become admired and trusted by their employees. As a result, employees will be loyal to their managers and they will all try to reach that manager’s position by increasing their productivity. However, Davis raises a question saying “Do you consider it manipulative to practice high levels of rapport skills related to verbal and nonverbal communication for effective leadership?” so basically he is wondering if it’s really important to have high level of relationship skills with employees to gain a certain position. He answers by saying that many businesses spend millions to equip employees with important skills to help them become productive.

Anyhow, Davis suggests some tips that help to create good relationships, and loyalty in the workplace.

1. Watch the way your standing: men usually stand side by side while talking while women usually face each others. Also, when a gentleman approaches another gentleman, he should face him with an angle. When approaching a lady, he should move his torso to stand face to face.
2. Put a spotlight on everyone you’re speaking to: instead of entertaining your employees with your ales and experiences, use active-listening skills to explore them and benefit form their comments.
3. Avoid touching yourself while talking to others: when touch yourself your indicating that you’re relaxed, so it tells others that you’re not really paying attention.
4. Smile while you are talking: it’s powerful to smile while you’re speaking to others.
5. Subtly mirror people's gestures when you're speaking to them: and while mirroring, be very graceful and move very slowly; show that you are making nature movement and not mirroring.
6. Talk 20 percent of the time and listen 80 percent of the time: while people are talking, ask them questions and nod positively as they speak, and don’t interrupt them until they finish talking. When listening most of the time, you’re in control of people’s conversations.
7. Avoid offering unsolicited advice in public or in private: try to avoid giving advices that people didn’t ask for. Giving advice sometimes tells the listeners that they wrong somehow. You can give advice indirectly by some for example “That’s another way of looking at it”
8. Thank people at the job they’ve done: some people like being thanked for stuff they’ve done, but avoid commenting them personally, some people might perceive it as harassment.

Downsizing is good or bad? If it's bad, how do we cope with its effects?


In the article, dealing with the effects of downsizing, in The Hindu newspaper the author discusses the issue of how to cope with the effect of downsizing. The author says that although downsizing has good effects on organization in some situations, it also has bad effects on organizations and its employees who remained there. Downsizing might help organizations cope with economic pressures, it might increase efficiency, but it could put employees down in different ways. It brings the shame of defeat, and it destroys the future of loyal employees. The remaining employees might also face psychological issues if downsizing occurs. Employees will lose self-esteem; they will lack initiative, and they might also feel guilty for remaining with the company laid their friends off. The book also mentions that those employees who retain their job might feel frustrated, anxious, and lost because of t

he stress, the increased workload, feeling guilty, and unfair (p216-217). However, to cope with the effects that downsizing brings, some tips were proposed. Firstly, employees must be aware of the reasons of the organization making such a decision about downsizing through an honest communication. Secondly, employees should question themselves honestly about issues concerning their feeling toward their job and how they’re going to satisfy themselves in the certain position and situation they occupy instead of thinking about the existing problem. Thirdly, employees should perceive the situation brought by downsizing as an opportunity that they should exploit for advancement for their career. Also, employees should be secure about their jobs because otherwise, downsizing will be perceived as threat if they were insecure. Furthermore employees should give themselves priority in doing their jobs. And finally, employees must not get discouraged; yes, it might be a-bad-depressing process, but it’s a fact and it happened thousands times before to millions of people. The book says that managers can help employees cope with such a problem by creating an open discussion about how the employees feel such as guilt, anger, and anxiety (p217).

But I have no money!!!
you can still reward..


In the article, how to reward employees when your budget is tight, Scott Miller gives tips about how to reward employees when an organization’s budget is low. Obviously, happy employees produce more. Statistics showed that when employees’ attitudes improved by 5 percent, customer satisfaction rose 1.3 percent and revenue grew 0.5 percent. However, in tighter companies, rewarding employees is harder; increasing salaries is almost impossible. Employees always accept competitive salaries, in other word, employees are satisfied if they’re paid the same as those in competitive fields, but money is not always a satisfying factor. Surveys showed that the highest factor that employees consider when choosing a job is an open communication factor, where salary ranked the 16th most important factor. Other studies showed that being recognized by managers is the most important factor of choosing a job. The book says “to maximize motivation in today’s diversified workforce, management needs to think in terms of flexibility” (p335)

Salaries are not the only incentive of being motivated in a job. Companies with tight budget can always reward their employees in different ways.

1. Managers can personally thank employees on specific work done showing personal appreciation about the quality of the outcome.
2. Managers could send thank- you note in a letter. An employee will feel recognized when he/she knows that his/her boss spent time in writing a special letter for that employee.
3. Sharing information about the company with employees even those who are not really involved in a certain issue.
4. Managers should make employees part of the decision making process.
5. Gives opportunity to learn skills while working. So many employees, especially those new ones, are concerned about learning and gaining experience, a manger should exploit this chance to gain employees’ satisfaction.
6. Mixing fun with work and celebrating success: managers must celebrate with employees after each project’s completion, or any other job done.
7. Provide free time and flexibility.

The book also gives three tips to reward employees and improve their motivation and morale and decrease their absenteeism. The first one is what’s called “flextime” which is a scheduling option allows employees to select what their work hours will be within some specified parameters. The second is “job sharing” which is a type of part-time work that allows two or more workers to split a traditional 40- hour-a-week job. The last tip is the “telecommunication” which is a system of working at home on a computer that is linked to the office (p340,341).

Management VS Leadership



In this article, The Difference Between Managing and Leading, the author Stever Robbins raises a question of the difference between leadership and management and he questions himself about his role as a leader in the business that he owns. Robbins differentiates leadership and management by giving them simple definitions. He defined leadership as the heart of a business; a leader's main job is to inspire groups to achieve a common good by motivating, consoling, and work with them. In other word, a leader sets directions for employees to follow. On the other hand, managers are defined as the brain of a business. Managers deal with business not with people; they create systems, rules, and operating procedures. However, Robbins says that business executives are not completely leaders nor managers, CEO's and owners mostly have a mixture of both leadership and management skills. Both skills are important because they work in harmony. Anyhow, the book differentiated leadership and management in different way. The book says that managers "have legitimate power that allows them to reward and punish". Managers' ability to influence is based on formal authority in the position they have in an organization. On the other hand, the books defines leaders as the "people that are able to influence others and who can possess managerial authority". Leaders can affect others' performance beyond the actions commanded by formal authority p (354).

Many people believed that management is essential, but leading is even more important for tangible results in a business. Setting goals in a business (managing) tend to achieve less if it lacked direction setting (leading); every company has goals, but they don't seem to achieve as much without directions which is mission and operating principles (directions are broader than goals). Talking about the role of leaders in a business, the book says that people don’t have to be leaders to direct people, manager can definitely do that. The book also said that leaders’ job is part of that of managers' p (354).

After Robbins has differentiated between leadership and management, he starts describing the leader's job in today's businesses. All executives must have the characteristics of leaders; they must be aware of their business's directions. Directions must not be neglected especially in the heat of new market development. A leaders' job firstly is to bring people back to the company's directions consistently and challenge them to share and evaluate ideas and decisions. secondly, a leader must know that employees lose sight of the big goal of an organization, so in that case as a leader you should bring people back to the big picture. Finally, a leader must track employees’ steps and check if they stray from the company's objectives and make sure to bring them back to the right track. However, the book gave general descriptions of leaders concerning their behaviors. Firstly, leaders have high desire to achieve and to lead others. Secondly, they build trusting relationship between themselves and followers by being truthful. Thirdly, leaders have self-confidence and they lack self-doubt. Fourthly, job leaders are intelligent and have high level of knowledge about companies, industries, and technical matters p (355).

How to build motivation in today’s workplace

In this article, How to build motivation in today’s workplace, Gregory M. Lamp resembles employee in the workplace as trapped as they go to their jobs because they don’t feel comfortable at their own jobs. The book shows an analysis was done by Frederick Herzberg that claims that people’s attitude toward their jobs can cause success or failure. Herzberg asked both satisfied and dissatisfied people what they like or dislike about their job. However, the replies of both groups varied totally. Satisfied people gave answers that involve them such as achievement, recognition, and advancement. Dissatisfied people gave answers that blame their job or boss such as supervision, company’s policy, and salary (p 324). Anyway, People tend to stay in their jobs although they don’t like their jobs because they think that there is no opportunity to find a better one. Lamb says that employers and employees should exert more effort to find a better place to improve their morale. However, high salary isn’t the supreme in bringing employees satisfaction; statistics showed that 83% of 500 employees were motivated by the challenge at work, and employees rank salary as the third most important motivating factor. Anyhow, motivating employees by a negative attitude like threats aren’t any good; Joseph Wellesley says that you succeed more when you’re in the success mode than in a survival mode. Experts suggest that people managing in today’s organizations should stick to six different ways to motivate their employees; these ways are called motivators as it said in the book they are the factors that increase satisfaction (p325):

1. Employers can provide continuous opportunities to learn and to grow, even without
promotions.

2. Praise those who perform better: managers don’t have to spend any money or efforts to do that, they can do that as they say “hello” in the morning.

3. Take employees’ own goals into account: that can be done by asking “what is important to you (the employee)?”

4. Make pay and other decision as equitable as possible: employees’ motivation will certainly go down when an unfair decision is taken. Managers must carefully make decision; decision has to be fair and clear showing reasons of doing so to the employees.

5. Negotiate for perks other than pay raises: employees like it when they have authority of making decision or authority over their work and time.

6. Show your value-and be visible: a boss should show his/her values to the employees to encourage working hard to achieve the boss’s or the organization’s goals.

Questions of motivations are most likely to be asked by the interviewers. These questions are designed to find the subjective aspects of job applicants. Examples of questions about motivation are “what motivates you? How do you motivate others? What are the best and the worst aspects of your previous job? What are you interested in this position or this job?

Centralization and Decentralization IT Organizations:

Which One Is Better?


In this article, Is a Centralized or Decentralized IT Organization Better?, Barbara T. Bauer basically says that the issue of whether to centralize or to decentralize IT organization was and still a really confusing issue. So many reasons were causing that confusion in choosing the structure for IT organizations. For example, because of the expense of computing technology and expertise required made centralization the only structure for IT organizations. However, the decrease in the cost of computing technology in the 1980's made employees work on their own and be desperate of working for a local service organizations. That forced companies to decentralize parts of their IT organizations. Anyhow, companies now are confused about which structure is best for IT operations, and which one they should apply. Both centralized and decentralized structures have good and bad aspects.

Centralization occurs when all strategy and planning, application development and maintenance, and operations report directly to a senior executive. A more general definition is found in the book, it says "it's a function of how much decision-making authority is pushed down to the lower levels" (p168). However, centralization appear to be good in a way that it eliminates many important functions such as multiple help desk support groups in which centralized data results in cost-saving. On the other hand, very centralized structure requires a very efficient decision, so if a deficient decision occurs; it will negatively affect the organization as whole.

Decentralization occurs when a decision-making is done by each unit closest to the problem. So decentralization as said in the book is the pushing down of decision-making to the lower levels of an organization. The benefit of decentralized structure is that it produces a more efficient decisions because each business units has a complete knowledge and choice over the allocation of IT recourses to support business priorities. The book also says that many managers believed that decision must be done by those closer to the problem. Anyhow, what appears to be a disadvantage of decentralization is that its really hard to introduce a new technology to all the decision-making authorities.

The book says that managers don't choose a complete centralized or decentralized structure, but they choose the amount of both structures that allow them to achieve the maximum benefit for their organization. Applying both structures in IT organizations is called hybrid or federal IT organization. In this structure, the decision-making of different function is split into the both structures, but the decision made by the business unit functions must rolled up the overall organizations plan.

Shortly, the answer of the question concerning the better structure for IT organizations is not clear. IT managers should choose the structure that support functions that they think would be beneficial for their organization.

Job-Related Stress: How to get over it?

In this article, Job Stress... Are You Being Controlled by it or Is It Controlling You, Bill Malone basically says that stress “is a problem when demands get so great that a person’s normal level of coping no longer is liable to handle the amount of stress” which is similar to that in the book that says stress is “a force or influence a person feels when s/he faces opportunities, constraints, or demands that s/he perceives to be both certain and important”; Malone says when that happens, some phenomena occur such as to hate or going to another meeting or wishing it to be postponed, the increase conflict between you and the co-workers, and losing the zest, creativity, and enthusiasm about your job. However, the book also clarifies some similar symptoms of stress (psychological symptoms) such as boredom, procrastination, and the increased tension that occure because of the job (p247).

Malone has suggested two different approaches to overcome job-related stress. The first one is that employee should claim that as he said “I’m tough as nails”; and that’s done by trying to do whatever is hard, work twice as much, not to let anyone take your task, not to take a break, and blame everything on someone else. This approach convinces one’s self that what you do is neither hard nor stressful. Anyhow, Malone doesn’t recommend that approach although it helps stressed employee to overcome stress. The second approach he suggested contains two parts. The first one is done by the individual to help him/her self overcome the situation. The second one is done the employer to reduce the amount of stress produced by a specific job.

The first part of the second approach implies that an employee can help him or herself to get over stress. There are four ways to achieve that. Firstly, an employee should be organized, s/he should get their priorities straight that will tell them where they’re going and help them reach their goals. Secondly, an employee should always remember the average working hours which is 9 hours a day and consider not exceeding that. Thirdly, one should always think that nothing is perfect. Fourthly, Malone calls this step “Drop the superman approach”, and that means that everyone gets into troubles even superman was affected by kryptonite. Finally, an individual must always hold a positive attitude; to be positive about what you do.

The second part of the second approach implies that managers are meant to reduce the level of the stress a job creates and help employees overcome their stress-related problems. Basically, to be able to do that, several steps must be done. Managers should show employee some importance, or how valuable they are in the organization. Also, manager should look at each employee equally, it doesn’t matter the position that an employee has; the same values should be given by mangers to employees. Furthermore, the employer ought to show each employee different need which gives them sort of importance in a specific part of the organization. Finally, managers must communicate with their employee, share problem and opinions, and give clear directions.

The book also suggested some similar ways that managers can do to reduce employees’ level of stress. Firstly, managers should make sure that employees are properly matched to their tasks. Also, managers should define goals for employees to lessen the role ambiguity even if that will make them redesign some jobs. Finally managers are supposed to show employee some involvement of employees in the organization that will give them motivation. However, the book also implies that even if managers are done their job reducing stress, employees will still be stressed; that’s the part employees should help themselves overcome stress because they are more aware of their personal issues (p248).

Sexua l Harassment: How to recognize it . . . What to do about it


In this article, Sexual Harassment: How to recognize it . . . What to do about it, J. E. Tagudin says that sexual harassment has been an unpopular subject to talk about; so many people don’t know actually what generates sexual harassment even though they’ve been through such an experience. Some people usually blame them selves when face sexual harassment, by either claiming that they encouraged it, blaming the fault on them selves, or assuming that they’re being isolated or so sensitive. Tagudin says that these self-blaming thoughts can definitely affect one’s level of performance and therefore will influence the organization as a whole. The book says that sexual harassment might cause absenteeism, low productivity, and turnover. Additionally, it might cause suing by the employees that were exposed to sexual harassment which leads a financial loss in the organization.

According to Tagudin, sexual harassment is defined as a matter of power. The person with power misuses that power. For example, some times an employee is harassed by his or her boss and that employee tolerates that sexual harassment in order to keep his/her job or job benefit which might implies acceptance to the harasser that leads to an increase in sexual harassment. However, sexual harassment can also happen between two people from the same level of an organization and even from the same gender. Anyhow, what makes sexual harassment so coerced is that sexual harassment involves forcing, and threat in non-reciprocal place (the workplace). What also considered bad aspect about sexual harassment is that it assesses someone’s grade or level on the basis of the sexual favors which will influence one’s job performance.

Generally, sexual harassment falls under two categories; verbal and physical harassment. Examples on verbal harassment would be (sexual innuendoes, suggestive sounds, humor about sex, sexual invitations). Physical harassment examples would be (pinching, patting or touching in general, attempt or actual kissing, and coerced sexual intercourse).

Many people get confused about what they should do when they face sexual harassment, but Tagudin supported that in his article by claiming that ignorance will not make it go away because someone might not realize that an action is harassing or offensive. He says that communicating the case with the harasser would be the best solution whether it was by confrontation or writing a letter because the harasser might handle consequences that he/she doesn’t deserve. The book’s solution lies under educating employees on sexual harassment issue, and to use mechanisms available to monitor employees. The book also says that the harasser might be right and no action should be taken against someone until it’s well-investigated, to be fair at solving the situation.

Russia's boom exposes business education vacuum

This article’s Russia's boom exposes business education vacuum main point is the importance of the MBA in the business field nowadays and the changes that Russia went through considering the MBA.The Russian government has established over 100 business schools after the Soviet Union has collapsed to raise the standard of education to the international standards, and that is because the low level of business education in Russia was one of the reasons of the economical breakdown in Russia. Only .00003% has (MBA) degree, where in the United States, and Europe is much higher than that (0.0007% and 0.0002%) and that number is still increasing, so apparently the MBA degree seems to be the way for success in Europe and the US. The students with the MBA tend to gain double the salaries of those who do not have it; so Russian top students started to go get there degree and career abroad. However, that caused lack of either good quality managers or teachers to teach business in Russia, so that is simply the reason of the hold back of the Business education in Russia. What else was the reason for the business hold back in Russia is that people refused to take a year or two off to get the MBA fearing to miss opportunity. However, UFG's Ryan said that the opportunity cost for giving a job temporarily to get a degree is less because organizations became more institutionalized. Anyhow, the shortage of highly educated employee attracted many highly educated employees from abroad who ended up gaining three times higher salaries than those in Russia. Accordingly, Russia spent so much effort and money to establish schools and create opportunities for business students to complete their education and for non-business student to join the business studies. Why do you think the MBA is so important? The answer simply lies under the material the MBA teaches. Unlike other business courses, the MBA is an active business course; it teaches you case studies and real life (life like) problems, which enables business student to be more prepared to the job they're getting soon or the life they're going to experience soon. The MBA lessens the chances of causing mistakes in the job, and even if the employees cause a mistake, they are more likely to fix it than the others are; that why employers prefer graduates with an MBA degree.