Unemployment Rate or GDP OR CPI Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Unemployment Rate or GDP OR CPI - Research Paper Example Thus, since GDP is a full representation of economic growth and production, it has a relatively large impact on nearly every aspect in the economy. When a certain economy is considered healthy, there are a number of related characteristics; low rate of unemployment and an increase in the level of wages as many businesses demand more labor in order to cater for the ever growing economy (Brezina, 20). Any slight change in the level of GDP is significant to a given economy since it affects the entire stock market. Economists have always argued that any bad economy is always associated with lower profits which implies that there are lower prices o stock in the markets. Thus, many investors in any economy will ever worry about the negative growth of GDP as it is a sole factor used to determine if an economy is on recession or not. A recession is associated with declining revenues in businesses, unemployment and layoffs (Lochner, 3). Moreover, when the growth rate of GDP is relatively fast, most Federal Reserve raise the rates of interest in order to stem inflation or rather the increasing prices in an economy. This could imply that the loans which are meant for homes and cars will become more expensive and thus businesses will experience high cost of borrowing. GDP is an extremely important measure in any country’s economy. Despite the fact that GDP cannot be easily determined, its value represents so many aspects in any given economy. This measure is significant to overall spending of a nation since depressions and recessions of a particular country are largely caused by the overall rate of spending. Furthermore, GDP is a measure of confidence since when the government, companies and individuals spend; it is a likely indication of a growing economy. However, when no one is spending, it is a likely indication of a contracting economy. Therefore, this

Management Control System of a Commercial Bank XY

Management Control System of a Commercial Bank XY This paper attempts to examine the management control system in a Pakistani commercial bank. The commercial banking sector in Pakistan is very competitive. The majority of commercial banks have customer retention on its top priority. Commercial banks are encouraging employees to upgrade their knowledge and skill. The working environment is also congenial in Pakistani commercial banks. Management control systems are essential tool to help management to steer an organization towards its strategic objectives. Designing and implementing an appropriate management control system based on Pakistani national culture can improve both the short and long term performance of commercial banks. This will make commercial banks more efficient and cost effective in extending banking services to all the customers. However, the future research needs to examine the relationship between management control system and effectiveness of the commercial banks of Pakistan. Introduction The introduction part begins with historical background of management control and management accounting. This leads further to an establishment of the purpose of the study and its limitations. 1.1 Historical Background The Management Control and Management Accounting The need for management control arose after the Industrial Revolution and gave companies the opportunity of greater growth and expansion than what had been possible earlier. Larger parts of the value chain were situated within these new and greater companies instead of being spread on different locations in smaller companies or single persons. After these great changes, companies started to require financial measures as business ratios and transfer pricing, and from that point the development of different types of management controls and accounting controls began ( Kaplan Johnson 1987). The Dupont Company is often considered to be the inventor of the modern management control (Kaplan 1984). In the early 1900s, DuPont decided to organize itself by dividing the organization into separate functions, e.g. manufacturing, sales and purchasing. Every single one of these functions had their own manager who could be very specialized in how to manage the specific function. Hence, the senior managers did not have to be involved much in those activities and could fully focus on things as long- term strategies. It was this type of decentralized organization that made Dupont realizes that they needed a performance measurement system. They launched a new accounting measure, return on investment (ROI), because they thought it would be more accurate to use than the old measures which measured earnings and profits as a percentage of sales or costs. Dupont along with General Motors are considered as the pioneers in this area and were also involved in creating different types of decent ralized organizations, budgeting and planning cycles (Kaplan, 1984). In an article from 1984, Kaplan discussed what had happened in the development of the area from 1925 to that point. He considered that not as much as expected had happened between 1925 and 1984. Of those new ideas that had been presented, many were just academic theories which had little or no influence on the real organizations, who should be the beneficiaries. As of today the opposite problem from what Kaplan said in 1984 can be spotted. Today there are almost too many choices in accounting and management control, and they are not as well studied as the older theories and tools (Malmi and Granlund, 2009). There is also another problem with the new theories and tools, companies and organizations seem to have too much faith in them and use them in an uncritical way. They are considered as the solution of all management problems. Examples of these new theories and tools are, activity- based-costing (ABC), business process reengineering (BPR), balanced Score cards (BSC) and total quality management (TQM). These systems are often expensive to acquire and use, and companies perhaps, do not evaluate the relation between costs and benefits of the systems they use, or why they use it at all. Are they used just because they are modern and all the competitors use it, or do they really create value for the company (Siverbo and Akesson 2009). 1.2 Contribution of the Study The banking sector serves as the main source of resource mobilization in developing economies. Commercial bank play significant role in the economic development. Today and more precisely in future, companies, organizations (banks) and other decision making entities whether profit making or not, will face major management challenges. Irrespective of whether the main goal of the organization is to make profit or not, it becomes necessary to institute a mechanism in those entities to control the activities of managers so that they remain on track of the proper routes as established by management. In order to keep activities of the organization in track a management control system is essential (Rijal S., 2006). With the background just proposed I find it interesting to see how a company like a commercial bank XY has commenced its banking operations from November Ist, 1997 as a public limited company is currently operating a large network through 223 branches in Pakistan, with the registe red office at B.A. Building, I.I. Chundrigar, Karachi. The bank perceived the requirements of customers and matches them with quality products and service solutions. During the past five years, bank has emerged as one of the foremost financial institution in the region endeavoring to meet the needs of tomorrow as well as today. To continually upgrade the quality of service to the customers, training of team members in all the integral aspects of banking, customer service and MCS was specially focused. The portfolio concentrates on all aspects of conventional banking as well as the financial needs of corporate sector. Dynamic and high value product includes Car Financing, Home Financing, Rupee Travelers Cheques, Credits Cards, Debit Cards, Online Banking, ATM and consumer Durables. In addition to this, Islamic Banking Division is a recent initiative, which operates as separate branch. With such a huge expansion of branches network, the importance of a well-functioning management cont rol system becomes crucial for their success. People have different beliefs and goals that they want to achieve, which makes it challenging for the management of the company to make every employee take actions in line with what is desirable(www.scribd.com). In this case study author aim to describe the management control systems of a commercial bank with its virtual name XY from Pakistan, since it is expanding and growing with good speed as compared to other banks due to its good MCS system. 1.3 Problem Formulation Bank XY is a commercial bank in Pakistan that is growing rapidly and expanding its branches network in the country. Bank XY has had a huge success and uses almost the same control systems in every branch all over the country (Telephone Interview, 2010), which makes it interesting for me to describe and analyze one of them. My principal research question is that, What management control systems are used at different levels of the commercial bank XY in Pakistan? 1.4 Purpose of Study The main objective of this study is to analyze and describe the management control system of commercial Bank XY in Pakistan. I shall also try to explain how the different management control systems are used in the bank. 1.5 Limitation of the Study The focus of this study is to describe the management control systems used by managers to direct employees, behavior. Considering the size of Bank XY,s organization and the time I have deliberated to this study, it is reasonable for me to limit the study to include few bank branch and the management control systems controlling these branches from higher levels of the organization. I shall also focus on the internal environment, which means I shall not consider most of the external environment that is not crucial to the understanding of the management control system within the bank branch. Data and Methodology This case study will be written by the qualitative school of thought, since author aim is to understand the management control system of the certain company he has chosen. Author has no ambitions to make any general assumptions based on this single study, in contrast to if he had chosen to do a quantitative research study on several companies. The type of case study he has chosen to use is the abductive ase study, since he wanted to have the opportunity to return to the theory even after empirical materials had been collected (alvesson Skoldberg, 1994). The paper is based on both primary and secondary data. Primary data have been collected by phone interview developed for branch manager and employees at different branches. The responses were received from the 12 managers and supporting employees of 12 bank branches. Secondary data have been collected from the website of Bank XY, Pakistan. The data, collected from various sources have been analyzed with the support of previously developed theory. Theory In this chapter, I shall examine the main theories of management control. Before explaining the definitions of management control systems (MCSs), Author shall try to explain management and management control. 3.1 Management and Management Control Literature written on the subject, management is defined in several ways, but all have something to do with the process of allocating resources and direct activities to fulfill the organizations overall objectives. Management is a broad subject and can be divided into smaller elements such as operations, finance, marketing/sales and product development. The management process can also be separated into smaller parts that are objective setting, strategy formulation and management control. Objective setting is a necessary process to formulate and sometimes reconsider the direction and destination of the company. If the objectives are not set it is impossible to determine if the resources are allocated in the right way and if the right activities have been performed. Strategy formulation is the process where organization finds out how to use their resources to meet their objectives. The management processes of objectives setting, strategy formulation and management control is a process of continuum (Merchant and Van der Stede, 2007). 3.2 Merchants Management Control Alternatives According to Merchant and Van der Stede (2007) companies and other organizations have four management control alternatives i.e., result control, action control, personnel controls and cultural controls. 3.2.1 Result Controls The basic idea of results controls is that you do not tell your employees how to do things but what you want them to achieve and how they will benefit if they achieve it. For example, a manager tells an employee that he wants him to produce ten units a week, and if he succeeds he will receive a reward of $50. By these actions the manager may control his employees to do what he desires without interfering too much in their work practices. The process of result controls include four steps, the first is defining the dimensions on which results are desired, the second is measuring performance on these dimensions, the third is setting performance targets for employees to strive for and the last is providing rewards to encourage the behaviors that will lead to the desired results. Results controls are usually used on professional employees who are considered to be able to work effectively without being told how to do things, but instead work efficiently towards targets (Merchant and Van de r Stede, 2007). 3.2.2 Action Controls Action controls are somewhat the opposite of results controls, employees are told what to do and how they should do it, e.g. by rules and procedures. The difficulty with this is that the rules and procedures must be optimized, or else the employees will do everything wrong, despite their doing what they were told by their managers (Merchant and Van der Stede, 2007). 3.2.3 Personnel Controls Personnel controls refer to the assumption that employees by nature want to control themselves. Managers do not have to tell employees what to do and then monitor their every moves to be sure that they do the tasks that that where intended. The assumption is that employees like to perform well for themselves and this should result in a well performing company. Unlike, or at least not as much as results and action controls, these types of controls require more careful selection of employees. Everyone have to fully qualified for the position they occupy on the organization to make it possible to use personnel control. Motivation is another important aspect to make this work; managers have to keep their employees constantly motivated. This may be achieved by training, further work related education or different types of rewards (Merchant and Van der Stede, 2007). 3.2.4 Cultural Controls When personnel controls trust the ability that people want to perform well, cultural controls rely on the ability that group to keep up the values and approaches the organization aims at. In the group organization everyone is supposed to take responsibility and care of everyone else and the peer pressure is important. The idea is that the group should motivate itself; the assignment of the managers is in this case to instruct the group in what to be motivated to do. To their help managers can use things as codes of conduct or group rewards and if the group performs well the group will receive a reward. If only group rewards are provided the individual employee will try to do his/her best to make the group perform well, instead of just caring about themselves (Merchant and Van der Stede, 2007). 3.2.5 Control System Tightness The benefit from any well functioning MCS is that the likelihood that the company will achieve its objectives increases. This benefit can be described in terms of MCS tightness (or looseness), where a tight MCS increases the probability that the employees will take actions that is desirable by the organization. Managers often use more than one kind of management control alternative to tighten control. Sometimes these controls overlap and sometimes they are complementary, which enables the combination of them to create tight control over all of the factors critical to the organizations success (Merchant and Van der Stede, 2007). Whether a results control is tight or loose depends on the characteristics of the definitions of the desired result areas, the performance measures, and the reinforcement or incentives provided. According to Merchant and Van der Stede (2007), for management control to be considered tight in a results controls system, the results dimensions must be congruent with the true organizational objectives, the performance targets must be specific, with feedback in short time increments, the desired result must be effectively communicated and internalized by those whose behaviors are being controlled, and if results controls are given exclusively in a given performance area, the measures must be complete (PP 118 119). Congruence problems can exist because the management does not understand the organizations true objectives or the measure dimensions do not reflect the organizations true objectives (Merchant and Van der Stede, 2007). For a results control system to be tight, the performance measures also have to be precise, objective, timely and understandable. If the performance measures used do not possess these characteristics the control system cannot be considered tight since behavioral problems are likely. Furthermore, if rewards (or punishments) are directly and definitely linked to the accomplishment or non-accomplishment of the desired targets, the MCS is more likely to be tighter (Merchant and Van der Stede, 2007). Action control systems can be considered tight only if it likely that employee will consistently perform the actions desired to achieve the companys objectives and not take any undesirable actions. The tightness of the action accountability controls depends on characteristics of the definitions of desirable and undesirable actions, the effectiveness of the action-tracking system and the reinforcements (rewards and punishments) provided. An effective action tracking system is where employees can be certain that their actions will be noticed relatively quickly. Punishment is more common in action control contexts than in a result control context, since they often include employee violation of rules and procedures (Merchant and Van der Stede, 2007). Tight personnel/cultural controls are most likely to be found in charity and voluntary organizations where employees feel some kind of satisfaction by doing good, in family businesses, where the interest of the family employees are same as the organizations (Merchant and Van der Stede, 2007). Empirical Data The first section of this chapter includes history and other essential facts of a commercial bank XY, Pakistan. The next section includes the empirical information author obtained during his telephonic interviews with the managers and employees at Bank. 4.1 History and facts about Commercial Bank XY Bank XY was founded in June 21st, 1997 its banking operations started from November1st, 1997. The bank engaged in commercial banking and related services. The bank is currently operating through 223 branches. Bank XY target market conceits of individual client as well as number of business organization. Bank XY has segment the market on demographic, psychological and behavioral style to target maximum number of segments with different varieties of products suitable for each segment. Dynamic and high value product includes Car Financing, Home Financing, Rupee Travelers Cheques, Credits Cards, Debit Cards, Online Banking, ATM and consumer Durables. In addition to this, Islamic Banking Division is a recent initiative, which operates as separate branch. This facilitates their commitment to a culture of innovation and seeks out synergies with clients and service providers to ensure interrupted services to its customers. The bank perceived the requirements of customers and matches them wit h quality products and service solutions. During the past five years, bank has emerged as one of the foremost financial institution in the region endeavoring to meet the needs of tomorrow as well as today. To continually upgrade the quality of service to the customers, training of team members in all the integral aspects of banking, customer service and MCS was specially focused (www.scribd.com) 4.2 Telephonic Interviews at Bank XY All the empirical material in this section was obtained during the telephonic interviews. Author interviewed managers at different levels with involvement in personnel, sales, financial and business related areas at Bank XY. Author also made phone interview with an employee at the Bank XY Head Office. 4.3 MCS in Commercial Bank XY 4.3.1 MCS for Selection of Employee Every new employee is carefully selected to fit the profile of how Bank wants them to be and the employees need to know how important the core values are for the bank. The education and banking experience have important consideration during selection of new employees. The personality and which values you have are also important. Hence, selection of employees is important and tries to employee people that already have the right values and beliefs to fit the culture. They also think it is important that the applicants have an interest for bank job. They believe that if the applicant has visited their own website to look for employment, they have taken the first step to show to show interest in bank job. When a new person is employed he or she undergoes an introduction education and training for few days. 4.3.2 Generic Strategy of Commercial Bank The generic strategy of commercial bank XY is divided for two main areas of business, deposit and lending. The different branches of the same commercial banks at the different geographical location are adopting result, action, personnel and culture controls jointly. In case of lending majority of branches uses result and action control simultaneously. 4.3.3 Marketing of New Services Most of the commercial bank branches promote their products/services very aggressively by using result and action control. The majority of the commercial bank branches are concentrating in maintaining customers and only some branches are competing for customer acquisition. 4.3.4 Target setting Practice The commercial bank set target for their branches for the purpose of planning and controlling the activities. In most of the branches target is fixed in terms of number of clients, amount of deposit and the amount of lending. Individual target are also set and properly communicated to them. 4.3.5 Performance Measurement The commercial bank compares actual performance with predetermined target of their branches frequently. 4.3.5 Reward System In commercial banking sector, benefit/reward/salary/promotion is mostly determined by performance followed by education, experience, new relationship/ customer marketed in deposit or lending and factors respectively like majority get benefit for better performance and some did not get performance benefit. The commercial bank provided bonus to their employees out of profit. The amount of bonus is based on the amount of salary the employees are getting. Some bonuses are related to outstanding performance also. 4.3. 5 Encouragement to employees to learn new Skills The commercial bank is encouraging his employees to discharge better performance and enhance educational qualification and attain trainings. The majority of employees working in the bank get leave sanctioned from their bank to attain training related to their jobs. It also supports that the commercial bank is encouraging employees to learn new skill and knowledge. 4.3.6 Cooperation Majority of the employees feel they get complete cooperation from their coworkers. It indicates the working environment is very conducive in the bank to discharge better performance. Analysis In this chapter author has analyzed the empirical data collected at the interviews on the basis of the theories described in the theory part. 5.1 The Combination of Merchant,s Control Alternatives at Bank XY As described by Merchant and Van der Stede (2007) the benefit from a MCS can be expressed by the tightness or looseness of the MCS. As specified, a tight results control system must include results dimensions that are congruent with the organizations true objectives, performance targets that are specific, feedback in short time intervals, effective communication of the desired result and complete measures if the results control system is used exclusively (Merchant and Van der Stede, 2007). As author shall argue below, he thinks that all these factors are met at the Bank branch. First, the measures that the branch working seem to be congruent with the true organization objectives since they measure advances/loans, deposits and costs such as personnel, branch office and operational cost very carefully. They also use non-financial performance measures such as the customer satisfaction index which enables them to overcome the shortcoming of the financial performance measures. Since they take customer satisfaction into consideration they decreased the possibility of increasing result at the expense of decreasing customer satisfaction, which is congruent with their true organizational objectives. Secondly, the targets they use seem to be specific since they use detailed measures to evaluate their performance, e.g. they not measure the number of borrower and depositor, but also borrowed and deposited amount per each customer. Furthermore they set specific targets of how high percentage of customers should be satisfied with their services e.g. the turnaround time for loan application, the waiting time in the counters. Thirdly, the employees get feedback in short time intervals since performance is communicated on a daily basis as well as more detailed feedback weekly at meeting, and yearly when they e.g. see the target achievement report. Lastly the desired results are communicated effectively through their regular meetings and the process of setting the business and action plans. According to Merchant and Van der Stede (2007), a tight results control system also have comprise performance measures that are, precise, objective, timely and understandable. Furthermore they argue that the results control system is likely to be tighter if rewards or punishments are directly and definitely linked to the accomplishment or non-accomplishment of the desired targets. I think that the performance measures of Bank Alfalah meet the characteristics described by Merchant and Van der Stede (2007). The salary system used by the bank is also linked to their performance on the desired targets. Hence, it seems like the results control system of the bank can be considered as tight. The action control systems of a commercial bank does not include as many rules, but instead they have a quite strict organization and governance structure. They also use daily, weekly, monthly performance follow up sheets and manuals to control the actions of employees. According to Merchant and Van der Stede (2007) examples of action controls are behavioral constraints, preaction reviews and action accountability. They further argue that the action control systems can be considered tight only if it is likely that employees will consistently perform the actions. Bank branch does not use as many physical constraints but rather more administrative constraints such as restricting some decisions making to higher levels of the organization. However, in general, the bank branch managers and supporting employees have quite a high influence on their own department of the branch and can make many decisions on their own. The employees actions are supervised by their closest manager and since bank has many different organization levels and each has their own manager it is likely that the managers can track their subordinates actions quite carefully. Furthermore, since the results control system is tight it is also reasonable to believe that undesirable actions will be discovered fairly quickly. Reinforcements used are group rewards such as one basic or two basic salaries that will be paid if the bank employees have achieved the targets. To sum up, there is no doubt that bank uses action controls and action control systems but I would not consider them either tight or loose, but rather moderate or average. As concluded by Merchant and Van der Stede (2007) the personnel/cultural control systems are rarely tight, except in organizations whose corporate cultures are strong. Bank culture includes customers care-consciousness, equality, advances/loans and deposits target focus. These values are prominent and present in their vision, mission as well as in everything they do. They also emphasize the importance that every employee should share their values to fit in. This implies that bank corporate culture is strong which enables me to conclude that their personnel/cultural control is tight or at least moderately tight. Conclusion The Pakistani commercial banking sector is very competitive. The commercial banks are competing mainly in services in order to put in competitive position, to retain customers services at top priority. The majority of the commercial bank branches have been using results control system. All the commercial bank branches are applying the concept of management control system by setting targets for their branch and at individual and comparing it with actual performance. The target for a branch is fixed in terms of number of clients, amount of deposit and lending. Target is also fixed for the majority of the individuals employees. The target of the branches and individuals level is frequently monitored against their performance. The manager of the different branches of the commercial bank desire to evaluate the performance of the branch. According to individual employees responses, their financial and non financial benefit is based on performance followed by education and training and experience respectively. But the yearly bonus is based on salary they are getting. The managers of different bank branches encourage employees to participate in decision-making process. The commercial bank encourages employees to upgrade their knowledge and skill as the benefit is based on educational qualification and training after performance, they provide paid leave to participate in training and for further education. The working environment in commercial bank is very congenial as the majority of the employees felt that they get very much cooperation from their coworkers. However, the future research needs to examine the relationship between management control system and effectiveness of the commercial banks in Pakistan.

Life in the 1960s was Better than Life Today Essay examples -- essays

Life in the 1960s was both better for the people and significantly different to life today. When comparing the 1960s and today, there are many significant differences. The 1960s held events that were unique to that era, such as the Vietnam War and the landing on the moon, and today we are trying to find ways to advance technology further. The two eras also had different lifestyles, clothing, technology and pass-times. Life in the 1960s was better than the life today because the world hadn?t yet advanced too far, and life was revolved more around friends and family then other things. Events in the 1960s changed the people of that era. People who did adventurous things such as Neil Armstrong walking on the moon and those men who returned home from the Vietnam War inspired them, feminism bettered the life for women, teens began to enjoy life more as the counter culture began, the cold war made people aware of the danger of nuclear technology and the JFK assassination gave people a topic of conversation. Important events today include the discovery of cloning, which is a way of c...

Internet Marketing Assignment Essay

E-Commerce describes any business to consumer transactions that take place partly or solely online and is not limited to the purchase of physical products from a website – although that does make up a key component of most e-commerce businesses. Some services or products are sold purely online while other companies may have physical stores or headquarters in addition to their online presence. E-Business describes any business to business transactions that take place online. For example a Web Design company often doesn’t sell products directly to consumers, but instead creates websites as a service for other companies, which will in turn be used to sell products or services to consumers. The internet has revolutionised the way companies do business. The shift in the way people shop has had a big impact on both the micro environments – the individual companies and their direct stakeholders; and the macro environment – politics, economy and society as a whole. â€Å"The death of the  high street† has been an obvious effect of these changes with many stores shutting down. Those who fail to keep up with these changes will be more likely to feel the negative consequences – as was the case with HMV and Blockbuster, who were forced into administration as competing online services took over their market share. For those who do keep up however, business is booming. iTunes, Amazon and Netflix are Blockbuster’s and HMV’s online equivalents and all three have billions of users from all around the globe. While the amount of jobs available in retail positions has been on a steady decline over recent years the demand for skilled workers in the IT sector is bigger than ever – so much so that there is a shortage of candidates and many roles go unfilled. A report issued by the government regarding the UK cyber security strategy highlighted that the â€Å"current and future ICT and cyber security skills gap† was a â€Å"key challenge† in implementing the strategy. (National Audit Office, 2013) To address this problem the education system needed to be changed, as of 2014 children as young as 5 will be learning advanced computing as part of the curriculum. Higher Education institutes will also likely have to reassess their course material to accommodate the new generation of students who will be leaving school with more in depth knowledge of computer systems and software development. Consumers gain many benefits from e-commerce, they now have the choice of shopping from an almost unlimited choice of companies from all around the world. Comparing prices and finding out what other customers thought of a product is also made much easier by the internet. The change in peoples shopping habits has changed the way companies advertise, huge marketing budgets for prime-time TV commercials are no longer the only way to get noticed and the potential audience is now global. Elements of Internet Marketing Traditional styles of advertising such as TV, newspapers, magazines, billboards etc are based on an â€Å"interruption† model. A show is interrupted by TV advert; music is interrupted by a radio advert; the flow of an article is interrupted by a magazine article, etc. This style of advertising persisted and still exists today in many places – but more and more companies are realising that demanding a customer’s attention in this way online does not yield good results. Some elements of internet marketing are examined below. Search Engines Organic search results account for a significant percentage of internet traffic. (The actual number is hard to measure for reasons discussed in the â€Å"Internet Marketing Tools† section on page 11). Regardless of the specifics it is widely accepted that organic search results are where a huge amount of a websites visitors come from. Search Engine Optimisation is therefore a vital part of a marketing strategy. Paid advertising through search engines may also be considered for extra exposure but is no substitute for a properly designed site structure and key word rich, quality content for search engine robots to crawl. Often good practices for SEO also embody good practices for UX design and accessibility; humans and robots alike prefer sites that are easy to navigate and have well-structured content that makes use of headings and sections to make it easy to read; as well as alt tags on all images that give a clear description of what that image depicts; with internal and external links within the content when the context is relevant. In the early days of search engines keywords were all that mattered, so it was easy to rank high on Google simply by stuffing as many keywords into the headers meta-tag as possible. Key word meta-tags are now obsolete and search engines have become much more sophisticated. (Google, 2011) As well as  crawling site structure and content to determine the quality of a page search-bots also judge the integrity of a page. They do this by keeping track of how many external sources link to it – at first, this encouraged â€Å"link farms† (a company would pay for a web traffic boosting service, which would churn out their site’s URL over a network of dummy sites set up purely for the purpose of creating links) – as search engines evolved this method is no longer as effective. Google now has algorithms that also measure the integrity of the sites that the links come from to provide users with more relevant results. Ranking high on Google for certain keywords is a long process, a new website has to build up a reputation, get their content shared and linked by others in an organic way – by having an article shared on social media for example – not through a link farm. Google strives for excellence by constantly improving its algorithms, they want to offer their visitors relevant search results so people continue to use their service and marketing strategies have to adapt if they want to keep up. Organic search results are a perfect example of marketing that doesn’t feel like marketing to potential customers. They are using search engines to find something specific – the hard work has been done for you, they already want to buy something or have some sort of problem solved – and if good practices for SEO have been implemented there’s no reason a website they find through Google would be irrelevant and not what they’re looking for, Google’s algorithms make sure of that and there are no shortcuts or cheats to trick them. A site filled with links and crammed with keywords for the sole purpose of getting more people to visit your website achieves nothing, if they click on it and it isn’t relevant to what they’re looking for they won’t just buy your product or service anyway, they will leave. The amount of time people spend on a website and the actions they take there (signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, et c) is all tracked by Google and used as part of the algorithms to determine the quality and integrity of a website. Banner Ads Banner Advertisements are based on the classic interruption model and the  vast majority of internet users don’t like them; and a huge percentage use software to block them completely. This has been determined multiple times over the years by a number of different researchers. One study conducted by the Norman Neilson Group, experts in Usability Heuristics, found that most users will completely ignore anything that looks like an advert – even when it’s not; and even when it provides them with the information they are looking for. In one study participants were asked to find the population of the United States using the U.S Census Bureau website – which was presented in large red numbers on the right hand side of the home page. 86% of users ignored it because it looked like an advert, it was bold and placed in the location that adverts are traditionally placed so was disregarded, despite containing the exact information they were looking for. The pie chart shows an overall representation of the behaviour exhibited by users on the site. In a different study eye tracking software and real time observation was used to measure exactly where people look on a website and how they interact with its various elements. In summary the study found that: â€Å"Users rarely look at display advertisements on websites. Of the 4 design elements that do attract a few ad fixations, one is unethical and reduces the value of advertising networks.† (Nielsen, 2007) The four design elements in question that users have been found to give their attention are: text, faces, cleavage/other body parts (â€Å"sex sells† still rings true for internet marketing) and obnoxious, intruding banner advertisements. Banners that sit and do nothing are considered a more ethical way of advertising, unfortunately studies show that ones that make sounds, pop up into the users line of sight or are animated attract more attention. However, just because a person is more likely to look at an obnoxious ad, that doesn’t mean they will click on it and be prepared to hand over payment details. I feel â€Å"Banner Blindness† should be taken more seriously than it currently is and companies need to find alternative methods of advertising, as this form has been proven to be ineffective for well over a decade now. (The same study with the same findings was first conducted by the NN group  in 1997.) Social Media Websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc are no longer just the domain of a young tech-savvy audience. Data collected from a survey conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International found that Social Media usage has increased by 800% since 2005. In contrast, TV viewership has decreased by 50% in the same time frame. The graph below shows the findings, broken down by age  Social media marketing can connect businesses with millions of potential customers. Not only that, it can be done for free; unlike television and other traditional methods of advertising that require a substantial investment up front with virtually no guarantee of a return. Paid advertising on Social Media can also be tailored to target a specific audience. The ads can be set up to only display to those who will be the most likely to click on it. A bar advertising for fresher’s week for example could target their ads at students who were over 18 and living in the local area. Strategic Content The use of strategic content ties in with SEO and Social Media marketing; it involves creating content (as a blog for example) that is useful or interesting in some way (as well as relevant to the business) to encourage visitors to come to a website. From an SEO standpoint this will make the site rich with content, keywords and links which can result in higher rankings on search engines which means visitors are more likely to find your website. For example a company specialising in web design may have a design and technology blog providing expert information and up to date news on technology, or perhaps a section featuring tutorials and templates. Providing free content that’s similar to what you’re trying to sell can seem counter intuitive but it helps cultivate trust, it provides evidence that the company knows what it’s talking about and gives potential customers an overview of how things are done. Content can be shared around social media, and if it’s interesting or informative people may share it with their  friends which results in more exposure. Partnerships Forming mutually beneficial deals with other companies and cross promoting each other can widen the audience they both reach. Youtube and Twitch for example are used as platforms for gamers and game publishers to work together; publishers provide high influence content creators with early access to games, which they broadcast to all their fans. The content creators gain more views and in return more people get to hear about the game and see how it plays – making them more likely to buy it. This kind of promotion doesn’t cost either party any money but is beneficial and profitable for everyone involved. All of these elements (and others) tailored to fit the needs of the company combine to create what’s commonly referred to among marketing professionals as â€Å"The Marketing Mix.† The Marketing Mix The Marketing Mix: a phrase first used by Neil Borden in his paper â€Å"The Concept of the Marketing Mix† has become a well-known term for describing the strategies formulated to advertise services and products. One of the most widely used marketing mix paradigms is â€Å"The Four Ps†; proposed by E J McCarthy in 1964. The Four Ps are: Product Whether it be a tangible item or a service, first and foremost you need something to sell. What do customers want to buy? What features does your product or service need to fulfil the needs of your potential customers? Place In the past, brick and mortar stores and catalogues were the only two options  to consider, the internet has made a global market much easier to reach but has also made the market much more competitive. Companies need to consider where customers might look for their product. Is a physical location required or can the business exist solely online? The pros and cons of each would need to be considered, for example a small start-up clothing store would be competing with huge corporations such as Primark, Debenhams, etc while paying for expensive running costs of a brick store, stock storage and paying for staff wages. Online, that same start-up company would still be competing with those same corporations as on the high street, plus a huge other array of smaller or medium sized online outlets. However the running costs and risks of an online-only start-up are minimal. A company can exist solely as a part of a larger organisation such as Ebay or Etsy; many who start out this way and find success then choose to invest in their own website for selling their products without the middle man. Some then may also go on to open high-street stores, for example Simple Be existed as a purely online business at first before investing in physical stores; which have an advantage over online only clothing stores as customers can try things on and won’t have to worry about complicated returns procedures. Price Finding the right price for a product or service is a balancing act. Price too high for your target market and nobody will buy. Pricing too low not only means lower profit margins but can also label your product as â€Å"cheap† which may not be an image the company wants to convey. Apple are a perfect example of hitting the perfect price to quality ratio for their products target market. Apple products are hugely popular despite being comparable in technical specifications to other, lower priced competing devices. Ken Segall, Apples former marketing executive, said himself that â€Å"Apple doesn’t do cheap† stating in his blog that Apple â€Å"makes products for people who care about design, simplicity, quality and a great experience — and are willing to pay more for these things. For Apple to compromise in any of these areas would be a violation of the Prime Directive.† (Segall, 2014) Apple products are desirable because they’re seen by their fans as the most prestigious and high quality brand, this image would be diminished if the products were  cheaper; as was demonstrated by the relatively low sales of the iPhone 5C which was made of plastic and lower in price than other Apple devices (Though still much more expensive than competing brands). Promotion A great product won’t sell if nobody knows about it, but similarly a terrible product won’t sell well no matter how much time and money goes into advertising. The point of advertising is to convinced potential customers that your product or service will add value to their life in some way that’s relative to the price they would pay for it. This model can be applied to a wide range of services and products as it is non-specific and can easily be tailored to fit the needs of the business using it. It all boils down to putting the right product in the right place at the right price. Several alternatives and additions have been suggested by marketing experts and academics alike in the interest of creating a marketing mix that’s more relevant in an industry that has changed in ways nobody could have predicted. When the 4P’s were first introduced in the 60’s the internet as we know it today did not exist so it’s reasonable to say new strategies and updated methodologies are required. Some additions that have been suggested include â€Å"people† – encouraging good customer service and a good working environment for employees. â€Å"Process† – looking at ways to streamline and reduce costs in both producing the product and how the business is run. â€Å"Physical Evidence† – Could be in the form of endorsements, customer testimonials and feedback or any awards the company may have achieved. Another popular paradigm that evolved from the original 4P’s is the â€Å"Four C’s† model – proposed by R.F. Lauterborn in 1993. Customer/Clients The customers are the driving force behind any business, so an organisation  should ask themselves what they can do for their customers – what needs and wants to they have and how can you help? Cost How much will it cost the customers, are they getting good value? If your product is more expensive than competitors, why? Does it offer superior quality? If it’s cheaper, again customers will want to know why, will they be compromising on quality? Or does the business create lower costs by streamlining internal processes and passing the savings on to the consumer? Convenience People buy things that they believe will make their lives easier or enhance it in some way; and when they want something they want it to be easy to find and simple to purchase. For example a clean, uncluttered website that makes finding and buying products easy will tend to sell more than one with confusing navigation and a lengthy checkout process. Communication All promotion and advertising is a way of communicating with customers, a way to get your message and brand out into the world and let people know what your product is and why people should buy it. Companies who stay engaged with their customers cultivate trust and loyalty which earns them repeat business and recommendations. This model is essentially the same as the original version but is designed to encourage organisations to look at things from the customer’s point of view. There are merits to both sides of the debate over whether the 4P’s need revamping. On the one hand the original is broad enough for marketing executives to use as a very rough guide to shaping their own unique strategy. On the other hand in an ever changing industry improvements on old practices is a good thing – how can the world evolve if change is not  embraced? Doing things simply because that’s the way they have always been done may cause a company to stagnate and lose market share for not being innovative enough. I would like to propose my own take on the marketing mix, the 4E’s model: Excellence No matter the product or service, striving to be the best at what you do is a good goal to aim for. This is more easily achieved if a business focuses on one particular area rather becoming a jack of all trades and a master of none. Take for example the gaming company Mojang, who were recently purchased by Microsoft for $2.5billion. They developed one game – Minecraft – and they did it so well that it became more than just a simple browser game. It’s now an integral part of pop culture for this generations gamers with a huge diverse community that’s still growing 5 years on. Similarly, Facebook bought Instagram for $1billion after it dominated the mobile photo sharing market and WhatsApp for a staggering $19billion – a simple messaging service that took off in popularity and quickly overtook market share from the big players like Microsoft and Google. (CNN Money, 2014) Facebook itself started as a simple project and is now one of the most powerful corporations in the world – buying off any competitors is one way to keep that lead. A simple concept executed well can change the world. Engagement Social media and the internet in general have made communicating with customers easier than ever before. The best way to figure out what consumers want is to ask them. A business selling food products for example could engage with their customers by making a post on social media asking what different flavours they would like to see. This not only gives the company a firm idea of how popular a new product would be, it also generates buzz and makes the customers feel more involved in the process – making them more likely to actually buy said product when it’s released. Creating quality, relevant content for a website – perhaps in the form of a blog – gives  customers a reason to regularly visit a website. Using a food company as an example again, they could have a recipe section on their website. Maybe even a community section where others could post and share their own recipes. If these recipes are good quality it can lead to people thinking: â€Å"If the free recipes are this good, just imagine how great the food they sell will be!† – turning casual visitors into paying customers. Ease Allow potential customers to make informed decisions by providing them with information about what’s on offer in a way that’s easy to understand and easy to access – similarly ensure to make the process of handing over their money once they’ve decided to buy quick and easy. With an uncountable number of websites in existence a potential customer can be lost very easily if they can’t find what they’re looking for or find any part of the process difficult – they will simply go elsewhere. Economy Finding the right price for a product or service can still be as tricky today as it’s always been with one exception – information on competitors and target markets is readily available. Even in a niche market there are likely to be several competitors operating at varying scales of price and quality. The goal is not necessarily to undercut everybody and become the cheapest but to find the right balance of cost and quality – most people are happy to pay a little bit more for a higher quality product as long as they can justify that it will be worth the investment. Similarly there are many people who will buy the cheapest option available regardless of quality. Establishing a target market and researching purchasing habits can give a company a good idea of where to price themselves to be competitive and profitable. An expensive product can still be considered economical if its benefits are proportionate to its cost. In the end, any model is only as good as the implementation. Knowing the concepts behind a good marketing strategy isn’t the same as having the  skills to plan, implement and maintain them. Internet marketing campaigns take time. It takes time to gain enough followers on social media to start fully engaging with a target market; it takes time to create a catalogue of high quality strategic content and it takes time to build up consumer trust. Internet marketing isn’t as simple as making a Facebook page and uploading the company logo – the internet is an interactive medium. It’s not a billboard, it’s more a large ongoing focus group. Internet Marketing Tools One of the biggest advantages internet marketing has over traditional marketing is the fact the effectiveness of a campaign can be more accurately measured and analysed. Television adverts are measured in terms of how many people have viewed it; beyond that it’s mostly guesswork; it’s very difficult to measure how many people saw a television advert and then went on to perform the desired action (such as go to a store and buy a product, or make a phone call to enquire about a service). With internet marketing everything that happens as the result of a campaign can be tracked every step of the way. An email marketing campaign for example can be tracked to see how many people opened the email, how many then visited the website (known as the click through rate) – from there it can also track what the visitor did while they were on the website. How much time they spent there, which pages they visited, whether or not they purchased something – or if they abandoned their cart in the process of trying to make a purchase. Other details such as which device the customer was using, their location, age and previous browsing habits may also be tracked. Making use of tools such as Google Analytics can show at a glance the raw data related to any aspect of a visitors habits. There are many other tools on the market but Google Analytics is the most widely used and it integrates well with SEO – Google have built up a giant network of partners and billions of websites have tracking codes. Individual companies can access their own data to analyse but Google has access to everything and have built  up a database of browsing habit data they use to improve their algorithms – as well as sell to third parties (such as Facebook). This creates a constant feedback loop for everyone involved. This raw data however, is fairly useless if a company does not know how to analyse it and make use of the information. Some raw data has obvious implications – for example if a company finds that the majority of visitors are using a mobile device and their site is not fully accessible on mobile, they should look into optimising their site for mobile users to accommodate the needs of their customers. Other times the data is only the starting point, it must be analysed before it becomes useful information that can be applied in a practical way. Tracking tools can give answers to the questions â€Å"how†, â€Å"when† and â€Å"where† with a high degree of accuracy. â€Å"Who?† can be answered to a point, the approximate age of visitors can be tracked, as can their previous browsing habits which may give some insight into their likes and needs. The one question raw data cannot answer is â€Å"Why?† – Why do visitors behave the way they do? Why do some e-commerce shoppers add items to a cart and then abandon it during the checkout process? Why was the click through rate low/high for a particular campaign? Surveys and social media can be used as tools for getting answers to these questions. Once the quantitative data from tracking tools have provided a starting point, specific questions can be posed to collect qualitative data. Together they can give a company a lot of valuable information to help them improve future campaigns and the way they do business in general. Facebook has its own analytics tools called â€Å"Facebook Insights† – it works in a similar way to Google Analytics but is more focused around Facebook pages and ads. Facebook insights shows how many people saw a particular post (reach), how many responded to the post (engagement), and other information such as visitors ages and interests – based on what other pages they have â€Å"liked† on Facebook. Facebook Insights can be used to determine which posts get the most likes and  shares, which lets companies know what their audience is likely to respond to so they can tailor future posts accordingly. It can also provide information about when visitors engage with the page so future posts can be scheduled to post at a time when the highest reach is likely to be achieved. Combined with the data from Google analytics social media marketing campaigns and posts can be tracked down to the fine details. If these posts lead to strategic content tracking can be broken down into stages to measure the quality of a websites content. Many websites use this strategy, Cracked being one of them. Cracked are an entertainment website who post funny/interesting articles, columns, videos and podcasts. When a new piece of content is posted, their social media team make posts to advertise it to followers. Facebook Insights will provide the tracking information about reach, likes and engagement and Google Analytics takes over once visitors have clicked through. Cracked split up their articles into several pages – they could easily fit the content onto a single page – so why split it up? One reason is usability, pages load quicker with less content on and readers are less likely to feel overwhelmed by a huge wall of text than they are several manageable chunks. Another reason is SEO – the more pages and links robots have to crawl, the higher the site is likely to rank on search engine results. Instead of one page per article related to certain keywords – there are 2-4 pages per article. Finally, splitting articles up into several pages allows tracking analytics to be performed in stages. How many people got to the end of the first page and deemed the content interesting enough to click on the â€Å"read more† link? How many read the whole thing? How many dropped out and where did they tend to do it? This can help determine weak spots in content and the company can then  formulate a plan to improve the situation. It can also be used to further engage visitors who seem to be enjoying the content – the final page of an article could for example act as a trigger for a pop-up box that prompts to visitor to sign up for a newsletter. If a visitor has enjoyed an article it’s relatively safe to assume they would like to see more – the same is not true for a visitor who has only just landed on the home page. They haven’t read anything yet, why would they want to sign up for a newsletter? As mentioned in a previous section, tracking data does have its limitations that marketers have to be aware of to properly interpret the data their tools produce. Specifically – direct traffic can be difficult to differentiate from all other types of traffic. This makes analysing the effectiveness of marketing campaigns less straight forward than it seems. In a nutshell, whenever a referrer is not passed traffic is marked as direct. What this means is a glance at an analytics report may suggest that 50% of a sites traffic is direct, meaning the visitor typed the URL directly into their browser. The report could for example state organic search accounted for 40% and advertisements 10%. If a company is putting significant resources into advertising and seeing those kinds of numbers they may decide it isn’t worth it and seek to make changes. While in reality direct traffic may only account for 20% while ads account for 30%, making the cost per conversion rate much more favourable. There are a multitude of reasons a referrer may not be passed to the tracking software that results in traffic being incorrectly marked as direct. For example many people make use of ad blocking software – that often have clauses that allow for non-intrusive advertising. While users of this software can see and click on non-intrusive ads, the software blocks the server response required to pass the referral to the tracking software. Many browsers now offer a â€Å"do not track† option to offer additional privacy to users, turning on this setting also blocks tracking requests. Some people may perform a search for something or click on an advertisement but not make a purchase right at that moment and instead choose to come back later – by  typing in the URL directly; so their visit and subsequent purchase is marked as direct when it was really the result of a campaign. As more users become increasingly concerned with privacy tracking and tailored advertising becomes more difficult. Making use of marketing tools makes the process easier but they are still only tools – their usefulness is determined by the skill of the person utilising them. Interactive Order Processing Order processing is obviously an important part of e-commerce, an online catalogue isn’t much use if people can’t actually purchase anything. As mentioned in previous sections, the process of placing an order should be made as easy as possible for the customers. Once a customer has decided they would like to hand over some money – a company should not distract them in any way. Some companies at this point might be tempted to upsell, cross promote or place advertising on the checkout pages but in almost all situations this is a mistake. If the customer gets annoyed at the ads they will leave. If they can’t figure out how to continue with the checkout process because the design is cluttered or otherwise hard to use they will leave. If they don’t feel confident about the legitimacy of the company or doubt the security of the checkout process they will leave. Upselling attempts should be handled carefully. Bombard customers will too many options and they may get distracted by browsing, decide not to check out and instead leave it for later – they may not come back. Relevant promotions should be advertised at this point or ideally added to the cart automatically. For example if orders over a certain amount receive free shipping this should be prominently displayed within the cart and applied automatically when the threshold is reached – customers like to feel like they’re getting good value so if they see it will only take them a small amount extra to receive free shipping they may decide to add a few more items. Argos successfully uses this technique every year during the build up to Christmas – they offer a  £5 voucher for anyone spending over  £50 and  £10 for anyone spending over  £100. This promotion is prominently displayed all over their website, catalogues and physical stores. Rather than offering a discount on the current purchase, they encourage repeat business by offering money off the next purchase. This has a twofold effect – customers will buy a little more than they planned in order to get the voucher and then spend even more after that to use said voucher (not many items can be bought for under  £5 or  £10 and no change is issued – to further encourage customers to use their voucher in full and pay a little extra on top rather than waste any of it). If adding additional items can be done without the customer leaving the checkout this will further increase the success of upselling attempts. Both Domino’s and Asda integrate upselling into the checkout process. Dominos uses a sidebar next to the main checkout area displaying a selection of small items (sides, desserts, drinks) with a small discount applied – visitors can click â€Å"add to order† and the total is updated on the page without taking them elsewhere. Asda displays a selection of items that the customer has previously ordered, but are not currently in the cart with the heading â€Å"Have you forgotten anything?† This can be helpful to the customer because they may have indeed forgotten something, and Asda in return make additional sales. Businesses can track the behaviour of their customers and analytics tools can be used to determine if a checkout design is working. The tale of â€Å"The $300 Million Button† published in Luke Wroblewski’s book â€Å"Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks† contributed by Jared M. Spool is an excellent example of just how important the design of the checkout process is. The piece describes a company who decided to examine their checkout process – which featured a login and registration screen after customers clicked  Ã¢â‚¬Å"checkout†. Their designers reasoned that making registration non-optional would encourage repeat business; and customers wouldn’t mind logging in to take advantage of quicker checkouts in the future. Spool was called in to analyse the checkout design; his team put together a focus group, gave them all a budget and a shopping list and asked them to checkout from the site. Upon being presented with the login form many participants were not sure if they had used the site before; and attempted many unsuccessful logins before clicking the â€Å"Forgot Password?† button. Many times this was unsuccessful as they couldn’t remember which email address they used. Others who were sure they had not previously registered were reluctant to do so. One shopper is quoted as saying â€Å"I’m not here to enter into a relationship. I just want to buy something.† Many stated that they felt the company just wanted to use their details for spam and others were concerned about privacy. Upon examining tracking analytics for the site the team discovered that 45% of users had multiple registrations and over 160,000 â€Å"Lost Password† requests were being sent every day. 75% of these never returned to the site to complete the lost password process and ergo did not complete the checkout process. Spools team suggested the design was changed to make registration optional. The â€Å"register† button was changed to â€Å"Continue† with the message â€Å"You do not need to create an account to make purchases on our site. Simply click Continue to proceed to checkout. To make your future purchases even faster, you can create an account during checkout.† This simple change resulted in the number of customers purchasing increasing by 45%. The extra purchases resulted in an extra $15 million in the first month and $300million after the first year. Businesses also need to take into consideration security when implementing an e-commerce system. A secure payment gateway must be used to make submitting customer financial and personal information safe. Similarly this data needs  to be stored securely and kept up to date to comply with the Data Protection Act. Any company accepting card payments (not only online) must also comply with PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard). If a company does not comply with PCI and DPA standards they run the risk of customer details being leaked which could lead to fraud. This is obviously bad for the customers whose details get stolen but would also damage the reputation of the company and destroy consumer trust – as well as earn them huge fines from governing bodies. For small or start-up companies the cost, time and knowledge required to set up and maintain a payment gateway may feel like too much. In that case there are 3rd party services such as PayPal and Google Checkout which can act as a middle man between the merchant and customer. The business doesn’t have to worry about keeping customer details secure if they don’t store them and instead allow PayPal or similar to handle it. There are fees involved that work on a percentage basis, the more you earn, the more you pay. Additional fees are also charged for withdrawals. PayPal in particular has become an internationally recognised brand and most shoppers are now happy to use them – so a small company won’t lose out on too many customers from not offering alternative payment options. Most third party payment processing companies offer a â€Å"free† (other than fees) service which hosts the shopping cart external to the main e-commerce site; and a premium subscription service which allows full integration of the shopping cart into the website. For minimal cost and effort a small company can use the externally hosted cart while bigger companies may choose to invest in a more seamless user experience for their customers. The web environment allows for scalability, businesses are free to start small with minimal risk and expand at their own pace. References CNN Money, 2014. Facebook buys WhatsApp for $19 billion. [Online] Available at: http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/19/technology/social/facebook-whatsapp/ Google, 2011. Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking. [Online] Available at: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html Mojang, 2014. Yes We Were Bought By Microsoft. [Online] Available at: http://mojang.com/2014/09/yes-were-being-bought-by-microsoft/ National Audit Office, 2013. The UK cyber security strategy: Landscape review. [Online] Available at: http://www.nao.org.uk/report/the-uk-cyber-security-strategy-landscape-review/ Nielsen, J., 2007. Banner Blindness Old and New Findings. [Online] Available at: http://www.nngroup.com/articles/banner-blindness-old-and-new-findings/ Optimize Smart, n.d. You’re doing Google Analytics all wrong, here’s why. [Online] Available at: http://www.optimizesmart.com/google-analytics-wrong-why/ Segall, K., 2014. Apple’s adventures in plastic. [Online] Available at: http://kensegall.com/2014/02/apples-adventures-in-plastic/ Figure 1: How users interacted with the Population Finder4 Available at: http://www.nngroup.com/articles/fancy-formatting-looks-like-an-ad/ Fancy Formatting, Fancy Words = Looks Like a Promotion = Ignored JAKOB NIELSEN September 4, 2007 Figure 2: Social Media Useage over time, broken down by age5 Available at: http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/08/05/72-of-online-adults-are-social-networking-site-users/ 72% of Online Adults are Social Networking Site Users OANNA BRENNER, AARON SMITH August 5, 2013

Summary and Reflection

The article contains a piece of history because in a way, it talks about how the Cold War started based on the point of view of an editor named Charles L. Mee.As can be readily ascertained from the title, the author is merely presenting his educated opinion pertaining to the contribution of different countries like the United States, Russia, Germany and other countries , their hidden conflict, how they acted and reacted, and how they each played their role in the beginning and ending of the Cold War.The author also discussed some of the so-called behind -the-scenes strategies that came into play which involved famous political figures, and he is leaning to the possibility that what these authorities did may have mitigated or aggravated the circumstances that further ignited the beginning of the Cold War (Mee, 2009).The author opens the article by painting a picture of two scenarios: The first one focuses on how President Truman expressed his uncensored sentiments about the Russians t o Foreign Minister Molotov who only arrived to pay his respects to the remains of President Roosevelt, and the second one talks about how Winston Churchill kept thousand of captured German troops and prepare them against Russia (Mee, 2009).In both of these pictures, the author is trying to illustrate sarcastically that the behavior of these people was a sure fire way to start a conflict. It is not unknown to many that the Cold War began after the World War II. Sensitivity should be exercised at all cost during these trying times when talking about matter relevant to national security and diplomatic relations and the author is trying to say that these political figures showed the exact opposite of being sensitive.The author goes on to discuss how the different countries picked the strategy that would work best for their country economic- and military- wise, and they also picked on the countries which they would deem as allies.The Cold War resulted in a battle between the strongest of countries, the east against the west. This view of the author is strengthen when he mentions that the Big Three does not care about what happens to other countries as long as they did their part right and make sure that they can have everything going in their direction.He further extends his argument when he said that these contenders were just using the weak ones as pawns because during these times, the power is up for grabs and they need all the help they can get. The Big Three that the author is referring to are Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill (Mee, 2009).

Macroeconomics Test 2 Review Essays - National Accounts, Free Essays

Macroeconomics Test 2 Review Essays - National Accounts, Free Essays Macroeconomics Test 2 Review CHAPTER 7 GDP (Gross Domestic Product): Aggregate output as the dollar value of all final goods and services produced within the boarders of a country during a specific period of time Expenditures Approach: The method that adds all expenditures for all final goods and final services to measure the GDP GDP= C + Ig + G + Xn oPersonal Consumption Expenditures (C): Covers all expenditures by households on goods and services oGross Private Domestic Investment (Ig): Expenditures for newly produced capital goods and for additions to inventories Net Investment= Gross Investment Depreciation oGovernment Purchases (G): All government expenditures on final goods and all direct purchases of resources oNet Export (Xn): Exports (X) Imports (M) Income Approach: The method that adds all the income generated by the production of final goods and final services to measure the GDP Wages Rents Interest Profits Statistical Adjustment Intermediate Goods: Products that are purchased for resale or further processing or manufacturing. Value Added: The values of a product sold by a firm less the value of the products (materials) purchased and used by the firm to produce that product Net Domestic Product: The nations total output available for consumption or additions to the capital stock. NDP= GDP Consumption of Fixed Capital (Depreciation) National Income= (NDP Statistical discrepancy) + Net Foreign Factor Income Personal Income= National Income Taxes on Production and Imports Social Security Contributions Corporate Income Taxes Undistributed Corporate Profits + Transfer payments Disposable Income= C + S Nominal GDP: GDP based on the prices that prevailed when the output was produced Real GDP: GDP that has been deflated or inflated to reflect changed in the price level Price Index: A measure of the price of a specified collection of goods and services, in a given year as compared to the price of an indentical collection of goods and services in a reference year Price Index Price= (Price of market basket in specific year) / (Price of some market basket in base year) Chapter 8 Economic Growth: An increase in Real GDP occurring over some time period; An increase in Real GDP per capita occurring over some time period Real GDP Per Capita: The amount of real output per person in a country Real GDP per Capita= Real GDP/ Population Rule of 70: Provides a quantitative grasp of the effect of economic growth It finds the numbers of years it will take for some measure to double, given its annual % increase, by dividing that percentage increase into the # 70 Approximate # of years 70 / required to = Annual Percentage double real GDP Rate of Growth Chapter 9 Four Phases of the Business Cycle: Peak, Recession, Trough and Expansion Peak: Business activity is at maximum, price level rises, economy is at or near full employment, level of real output is at or close economys capacity Recession: Decline in total output, income, and employment Trough: Output and employment bottom out at their lowest levels Expansion: Real GDP, income, and employment rise oInflation can occur in expansion because there can be more spending than production capacity Unemployment Rate: The percentage of the labor forced unemployed Unemployment Rate= Unemployed / Labor Force oUnemployed= Labor Force Employed Three Types of Unemployment: Frictional Unemployment, Structural Unemployment, and Cyclical Unemployment Frictional Unemployment: Workers who are either searching for jobs or waiting to take jobs in the near future Structural Unemployment: Workers who skills are not demanded by employers Cyclical Unemployment: Caused by sufficient spending and begins in the recession phase Natural Rate of Employment: The economy is said to be producing its potential output Opportunity Cost of Unemployment? Lost production output GDP Gap= Actual GDP Potential GDP Okuns Law: For every 1% by which the actual unemployment rater exceeds the natural rate, a negative GDP gap of about 2% occurs Consumer Price Index: Measures the prices of a fixed market basket of some 300 goods and services bought by a typical consumer CPI= (Price of the most recent market basket in the production year) / (Price estimate of the market basket in 1982-1984) X 100 Rate of Inflation= (CPI from one year CPI from previous year) / (CPI from previous year) X 100 2 types of inflation: Demand-Pull and Cost-Push Demand-Pull Inflation: Too much spending chasing too few goods Cost-Push Inflation: Increasing the price level resulting from an increase in resource cost Per-Unit Production Costs: The average cost of a particular level of output Per-Unit Production Cost= (Total Input Cost) / (Units of Output) CHAPTER 10 Income Consumption and Saving have a direct or positive relationship Disposable Income=

Relationship Between Rewards and Employees Motivation

Relationship Between Rewards and Employees Motivation Literature review Employees are among the fundamental stakeholders in almost all organisations and their wellbeing is normally paramount if an organisation wants to succeed in the vibrant business world.Advertising We will write a custom research paper sample on Relationship Between Rewards and Employee’s Motivation specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More As the commerce world and its management grow towards a more complicated business and organisational environment, which has been a challenge to thrive through, a continuum of challenges is gradually becoming eminent. Hence, keeping employees on board is essential for corporate growth (McCooey, 173). Organisational management together with its competence and its strategies towards managing human capital coupled with how it maintains the paramount rapport amongst workforces has been forming numerous global businesses controversies (Zingheim, Schuster, and Dertien 3). A culminating numb er of researches like studies by Elton and Gostick (56-98), Gordon (84-112), and Kaye (106-139) have actively engaged on common approaches that organisations employ to recruit, retain, and retrench their employees with substantial evidence indicating that these factors have been invariable core controversies in numerous organisations. The willingness of an employee to remain loyal and dedicated to his or her organisation depends on reasonably several factors and most of them have always remained underrated and miscalculated by organisations and governments. On global synopsis, surveys and studies conducted within developed nations, especially the United States of America have indicated that despite the audacious unemployment rates that are constantly becoming pandemonium to economic growth, there is considerably an acute talent shortage in these countries. The U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) â€Å"reports an increasing trend in voluntary terminations, and the rate of unemplo yment for people with college degrees is about half of the national unemployment rate and is decreasing† (Scott, Mullen, and Royal 2).Advertising Looking for research paper on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More From this statement, one would then understand that retention of critical talents especially the skilled and experienced employees who are active performers is paramount during economic recoveries particularly in the recent decades where aggressive market competition is eminent. As stated by Scott, Mullen, and Royal, key talent normally contributes to current and future organisational performance since they become reliable movers of firm success (2). A continuum of studies demonstrating a positive correlation between employee reward strategies and employee Retention is growing exponentially. Employee retention and its status in ME Any organisation determined towards achieving its missio n, vision, and objectives or even gaining a competitive edge in the market, has to understand the imperativeness of respecting and bearing in mind the significance of having potential employees, customers and other stakeholders. The quest to improve performance in organisations is driving the business world into understanding aspects concerning employee attraction and retention, and successive years may rip much from the current interventions (Philips and Connell 93). In its most straightforward manner, employee retention may refer to management strategies placed by organisations to maintain their personnel, workforce, or labour force. Naris and Ukpere assert, â€Å"Qualified employees are scares and therefore institutions should be proactive when developing retention strategies and that retention should start with the job descriptions, orientation program, recruitment and selection† (1078). Human resources retained and respected by their organisations, while provided with di verse professional and economic expansion opportunities including empowerment and rewards on their substantial performance, feel motivated and in turn reward their firms through positive working (Hafisa, Shah, and Jamsheed 327).Advertising We will write a custom research paper sample on Relationship Between Rewards and Employee’s Motivation specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Employers employ reward strategies for employee retention. Employee retention in companies operating within the Middle East countries where market for both human capital and industrial products is growing significantly has been an affair of great socio-economic concern. Drawing lessons from their counterparts in most developed nations including Germany, The United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and China, companies in the Middle East have slightly began noticing the significance of utilising reward strategies in retaining their workforce. However, it is still a paradox. According to a recently concluded 2012 survey conducted by Deloitte, â€Å"employee morale has been dwindling in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) as Europe struggles with debt crises, the future of the euro, and increased borrowing costs† (11). In this same survey, of all industrial workforce, interviewed, approximately half of EMEA that accounts to 47 per cent reported decreased levels of morale for the past year, as contrasted to 38 per cent in American companies and only 33 per cent Asian Pacific zones (Deloitte 11). For the successful companies with these nations, reward strategies were eminent. Common Forms of reward strategies As a way of appreciating and recognising the imperativeness of rewarding key talents and skilled workforce that are core features of firm’s growth, some companies have been using a variety of rewards strategies. Typically, two forms of reward strategies are employed by organisation in compensating their workforce and t hey include financial and non-financial rewards (Hafisa, Shah, and Jamsheed 332).Advertising Looking for research paper on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Financial rewards are monetary endowments that employers offer to their workforce depending on different organisational rewarding protocols principally to enhance motivation. According to studies by Podmoroff (72-108) and Thomas (63-127), rewards that do not involve monetary payoffs form part of the critical reward strategies that employers use to motivate employees. This form of intrinsic motivation is the best form of motivation and it applies socio-psychological approaches. Not surprisingly, â€Å"financial incentives help drive employee satisfaction, with nearly seven in ten (68 per cent) highly satisfied employees†¦reporting good pay package, but the quality of a company’s non-financial incentives s also a strong indicator of overall satisfaction† (Deloitte 5). This aspect means that both of these rewarding employee schemes have always been significant in ensuring employee job satisfaction, motivation and more importantly, organisational success or aims accom plishment. Reward strategies and high employee turnover While trying to understand the significance of reward strategies as approaches towards employee retention, one must understand the unforeseen challenges resulting from employee turnover. Since employee turnover simply implies to the rate at which an organisation depending on its employment policies lose or acquire its workforce, a subject of interest from current research is rising from this angle (McCooey 172; Silverstein 84). An auspicious relationship linking lack of reward strategies and the continually growing challenges regarding controlling high employee turnover is diverse and convincing. Employer’s lack of commitment to improve their rapport with their workforce is raising questions about the high labour turnovers experienced recently within the contemporary global employment realm. Rewarding dedicated, competent, and skilled critical professionals in a given organisation have associated with greater possibiliti es of reducing high employee turnover and enhancing productivity as well (Naris and Ukpere 1081). With organisations blindfolded and incapable of seeing the direct cost relating to high turnover resulting from tyrannical leadership ignorance studies reveal that constant lose and gain of workforce results in organisational ineffectiveness since production becomes inconsistent. High labour turnover influenced by highly qualified and experienced employees, coupled by poor management in organisations normally results to loss of morale among workers. Reward strategies on retention As prospective affirmative correlation exists between reward strategies and employee satisfaction, motivation, empowerment and finally retention, much has protracted on the levels of labour turnover that is becoming difficult to manage. Labour turnover has been on regular debates in companies operating within Europe, Middle East, and Africa, with evidence revealing that high turn is becoming unmanageable due to lack of strategic management approaches that involve employee retention measures (Shields 130). From the same investigation by Shields (130), failure to provide favourable working conditions, coupled with minimal or non-existence of employee motivation-centred initiatives is creating unimaginable paradox in maintaining human resources in organisations, as organisations are overwhelmed to succeed with high staff turnover than keeping miniature, but skilled workforce. Most successful organisations have recorded paranormal perseverance in economic adversities by ensuring that they have engaged in employee comfort and motivation. Both financial and non-financial rewards have been key actors on motivating employees across broad business spectrums, with researchers and philosophers linking firm’s success to comprehensive utilisation of reward strategies. For employers to understand the significance of rewarding employees to maintain their rapport and retain them, one thing they ha ve never noticed is that hiring momentary workers with skills and professionalism becomes much expensive as they bargain for soaring payments on unreasonable contracts. Naris and Ukpere assert, â€Å"Implementing an innovative retention strategy will motivate staff members and commit them towards improving their qualifications† (1083). To understand well how rewards can or have been movers towards employee recruitment, or most importantly employee retention, literature has provided numerous cases in which awards contribute to employee retention. Prior literature from researchers has been crucial in explaining the correlation between reward strategies and employee retention. Some of the probable ways through which individuals can understand this aspect is first by examining the prevailing association between reward strategies and motivation, reward strategies and employee-satisfaction reward strategies and cooperation as well as reward strategies and productivity. The aforemen tioned elements, according to Breaugh and Starke (367), are pointers that underscore how rewards contribute to employee retention. Reward strategies and motivation Motivation comes from the word motive, which may refer to a force or intention that pushes individuals towards undertaking activities or performing certain duties. Reward schemes or programs are essential since any form of compensation, incentive, or remuneration given to promote talent or as recognition towards job well done creates substantial employee motivation (Randall 45). Both financial and non-financial rewarding strategies have a significant impact on employee motivation. Employees are normally willing to continue serving their organisations competently and diligently and dedicatedly, if they notice that there leaders trust them, respect them, and feel concerned about their wellbeing (Randall 41). A motivated worker usually possesses a self-driven motive towards performing specific organisational duties including voluntary ones, feels secure, appreciated and in turn respects his or her employer, and hence a reciprocated relationship subsists. It is only in organisations where workers have motivation, created through financial and non-financial incentives that constancy, trustworthiness and competence become part of organisational culture. Labour turnover is becoming a controversial matter in numerous organisations and empowering a little, but competent workforce is paramount for success of an organisation. According to Scott, McMullen, and Royal, labour turnover is always costly in its management and it usually affects business performance directly, especially during economic hardship moment (3). Therefore, retention of key employees and skilled labour force becomes the most appropriate way of ensuring that organisations are in a position to control labour turnover, and subsequently enhances trustworthiness. A survey undertaken by Scott, McMullen, and Royal reveal that major issues that lea d to employees having a sense of job insecurity is lack of organisational appreciation, towards employees, lack of motivation and unawareness of their performance abilities (5). When reward strategies, policies and programs are in place, organisational workforce remains loyal to its company even when there is a significant downturn in the economy. In their study, Naris and Ukpere noticed that financial rewards, job contentment, and short of career opportunities motivate employees to relinquish (1082). Reward strategies and employee satisfaction Job satisfaction has been a critical matter in the contemporary organisation management paradigm and its pursuit is rising. Akin to issues pertaining motivation at work, rewards are focal in determining employee satisfaction in the sense that material and psychological wellbeing are crucial in employee performance and subsistence in a company as noted by research (Brown 211; Brown and Armstrong 90). After having a deep sense of motivation, wh ich is brought about by recognition where organisations compensate workers efforts through reward schemes, job satisfaction thereby becomes evident (Zingheim et al. 10). Poor working environment, unconcerned employers, coupled with challenging socio-economic issues in persistence, motivate workers to turn down their jobs. A substantial number of studies have revealed a significant correlation between availability of reward strategies in organisations and job satisfaction, which in turn results to high employee retention (Hafisa, Shah, and Jamsheed 329). By organisations dedicated their resources to improve employee’s welfare by offering rewards as employee compensation techniques, cases of misconduct especially relating to material and financial swindling, impunity and cheat reduce and thereby enhancing trustworthiness. Human satisfaction depends on material wellbeing and psychological comfort, and the two are paramount to social success and potency in undertaking duties. Dra wing empirical evidence from studies undertaken by Hafisa, Shah, and Jamsheed, external or extrinsic rewards including good pay package or simply comfortable salary, incentives, bonuses, job security, fringe benefits and job promotions are part of job satisfaction which results to employee’s willingness to stay in an organisation (327). Reward strategies that involve the provision of bonuses, fringe benefits, and incentives by organisations normally enhance the employee’s commitment and dedication towards their job and subsequently increase their possibility of staying within their organisations. Every employee seeks for jobs that provide favourable working atmosphere including excellent salaries, bonuses and other incentives (Zingheim et al. 8). Rewards involving on-job promotion gives an employee a sense of greater job security, confidence, and comfortability knowing very well that their organisation trusts them. Given the vibrantly growing competitive markets, manag ers in HR must consider rewards to improve workforce retention. Reward strategies and Cooperation Reward strategies have been much imperative in developing and maintaining cohesion and teamwork among workers, with research insisting that collaboration results in a positive working environment and changed attitude among workers, hence high possibilities of employee retention (Scott, McMullen, and Royal 9). Employees usually are willing to continue offering their services to an organisation where aspects of cooperation, teamwork, collaboration, assistance and mutual aid prevail that allows them to share ideas, engage in decision making and interactively build working alliances in an organisation. Using a contingency model of pay system design, Boyd and Salamin (780) noted that, coupled with high levels of motivation that rewards provide to workers, psychological and physical comfort, employees create positive feelings about their work and working environment and thereby enhancing rete ntion. Employees manage to share their skills and talents when they engage in autonomous groups that result from cooperation and any feeling of misused abilities may lead to resignations. A company survey by Deloitte revealed that a â€Å"majority (42 per cent) of respondents seek new employment for their organisations make diminutive use of their skills and abilities† (12). Moreover, in the same survey, â€Å"a considerable number of respondents (employees) cited their willingness to switch jobs and companies following lack of career progress (37 per cent) and insufficient job challenges (27 per cent)† (Deloitte 17). These are core factors that generally influence their career decisions, whereby if maximum cooperation triggered by rewards and motivation are capable of minimising their influence. Drawing lessons from a survey undertaken by Scott, McMullen, and Royal, who surveyed finance, insurance, real estate, manufacturing, utilities, oil and gas companies among oth ers, the aspect of interactive working in relation to employee retention eminently appears (9). Of all the respondents interviewed in this study (approximating to 38 per cent in total) strongly agreed and agreed that lack of organisation cultures such as trust, work cohesion, teamwork, and collaboration are core motivators of employee acquiescence from their jobs. A strong intuition is that the existence of reward strategies increases competence, especially with the presence of teamwork and this aspect makes employees become competitive and focus on their present jobs. Reward strategies and productivity The primary objective of any organisation is to prove productive within its market share (Boyd and Salamin 780). The gradual development of the above-mentioned factors fuelled by rewarding employees in an organisation is what brings about the achievement of company’s stated targets, aims, missions and its anticipations. Given the growing number of empirical evidences from stud ies that are constantly culminating on these issues, denoting a greater positive correlation between rewards and high employee retention, productivity is what concludes the entire argument. Employee’s willingness to make decisions to continue offering services to an organisation principally hinges on the levels of personal productivity and organisational reputation. According to Ramlall, all organisations normally like affiliating with highly productive workforce and workers, in turn, feel attracted to organisations with a good public reputation that may be high productivity, good corporate social responsibility, among other related issues (66). It is with no concession or any compromise whatsoever, that very few managers would prefer hiring unproductive workers (Schuster 183). On the same note, as noted by Smith (119), the productivity of any given workforce hinges on the administrative techniques that the management team adopts. Numerous prior studies have concluded that th e chances of managers frustrating or disbanding an industrious workforce are minimal and the mutual understanding between management and workers is what determines the productivity of an organisation and retention of workers. It is only through rewarding and appreciation strategies aimed at motivating workers that make them to feel safe and trusted by their management. A study conducted by Ramlall noted that a good number of the respondents, accounting to 22 per cent believe that employees feel motivated, rejuvenated and advanced when they associate with competitive organisations, something which improves their productivity as they reciprocate through hard work and thus increase their chances of continuity with an organisation (66). Deloitte argues, â€Å"Rewards can reap the benefits of greater employee productivity and engagement by improving their talent strategies, developing leadership opportunities, and tailoring their retention practices† (14). Therefore, reward strate gies as postulated earlier are possible movers to successful organisations as they enhance employee productivity that in return triggers corporate efficiency. Research Methodology In a bid to examine the effects of reward strategies on employee retention, this study will employ a first study to ascertain the presumptions protracting from different prior studies over this topic. The primary purpose of this study is to examine the effects of reward strategies in employee retention, employee turnover and its impact in Air Arabia international Company. Certain principles and approaches will lead this study into achieving desirable finding over the argument inherent in this research. Reward strategies and employee retention are two distinct and independent variables in this study. This research will be a case study research design where only Air Arabia international Company will be the primary respondent to this study, with a large number of employees involved in enriching data to this a rgument. The study will utilise a triangulation method to collect data pertaining to the status of reward strategies and retention from different working departments in Air Arabia international Company. Research design In this case study research design, the study will include both qualitative and quantitative approaches to ensure that all the necessary information is in place for a thorough analysis to yield data that will result in knowledgeable conclusions. There will be a review of available literature on reward systems backed by the findings of this study. Research has revealed that much of the industrial and organisational research studies have always been successful when researchers employ a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches (Borrego, Douglas, and Amelink 54). A combination of qualitative and quantitative research design as postulated by researchers and as per the aim of this study will aid in enriching the argument since descriptive data and prescriptive data are always imperative in industrial research. The study will combine figures and facts achieved from the collected data to solidity its argument in relation to the two variables identified in this case. Targeted Respondents and selection technique In determining the effects of rewards on employee retention in Air Arabia international Company, identifying specific respondents to participate in the study will be significant since perception may differ from different levels of working in this company. There is a possibility that a manager may provide information in favour of their justification towards the related subject, and employees likewise. To avoid capriciousness of data collected from the study, the study will involve all employees in Air Arabia international Company, especially lower management and subordinates who may have no personal interests in the company, since top management may fail to confide essential data. In selecting respondents, this study will use random s electing method where any employee may be capable of providing substantial facts about the prevailing situation. Purposive selection will only apply in managers since there are normally few and distinctive managers in organisations. Stratified sampling will be useful in assisting workers to discuss important responses before coming up with informed data. About 150 respondents from Air Arabia international Company will participate. Variables, data instruments, and collection methods Reward strategies and employee retention are the two main variables that will remain significant in gathering information in this study. Self-designed questionnaires and interactive face-to-face verbal interview will be so useful in ensuring achievement of reliable data to comprehend this argument. Questionnaires have been the most common utilisable data instruments that are simple to design, easy to interpret and undemanding in analysis data incorporated using simple questions (Lietz 250). The study will administer questionnaires to all respondents targeted in this study acquire quantitative data while face-to-face interviews will yield qualitative data. The study will conduct a piloting study in some few departments in Air Arabia international Company, which is always an essential approach in familiarising with the study area and useful in validating the reliability of research instruments. Before the collection of data from the company, the researcher will avoid breaching valuable company and intuitional regulations by ensuring that both sides provide convincing permission. Borrego, Maura, Elliot Douglas, and Catherine Amelink. â€Å"Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Research Methods in Engineering Education.† Journal of Engineering Education 98.1 (2009): 53-63. Print. Boyd, Brian, and Alain Salamin. â€Å"Strategic reward systems: a contingency model of pay system design.† Strategic Management Journal 22.8 (2001): 777-792. Print. Breaugh, James, and Mary Starke . Research on Employee Recruitment: So Many Studies, So Many Remaining Questions. Journal of Management 2.1(2000): 305-434. Print. Brown, Duncan, and Michael Armstrong. Strategic Reward: Implementing More Effective Reward Management, London: Kogan Page Publisher, 2006. Print. Brown, Duncan. Reward Strategies: From Intent to Impact, London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, 2001. Print. Deloitte. Surveying the talent paradox from the employee perspective, 2012. Web. Elton, Chester, and Adrian Gostick. Managing with carrots: using recognition to attract and retain the best people, Utah: Gibbs Smith, 2001. Print. Gordon, Gil. â€Å"Managing for improved employee retention.† Employment Relations Today 17.4(2011): 285-290. Print. Hafisa, Nadia, Syed Shah, and Humera Jamsheed. â€Å"Relationship between rewards and employee’s motivation in the non-profit organisations of Pakistan.† Business Intelligence Journal 4.2 (2011): 327-334. Print. Kaye, Beverly . Love em or Lose em: Getting Good People to Stay, San Francisco: Berret-Koehler, 2002. Print. Lietz, Petra. â€Å"Research into questionnaire design.† International Journal of Market research 52.2 (2010): 249-272. Print. McCooey, Dawn. Keeping Good Employees On Board: Employee Retention Strategies to Navigate Any Economic Storm, New York: Morgan James Publishing, 2010. Print. Naris, Sylvia, and Wilfred Ukpere. â€Å"Developing a retention strategy for qualified staff at the Polytechnic of Namibia.† African Journal of Business Management 4.6 (2010): 1078-1084. Print. Philips, Jack, and Adele Connell. Managing employee retention: a strategic accountability approach, Burlington: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2003. Print. Podmoroff, Dianna. 365 ways to motivate and reward your employees every day: With little or no money, Florida: Atlantic Publishing Group, 2005. Print. Ramlall, Sunil. â€Å"Managing Employee Retention as a Strategy for Increasing Organisational Competitiveness .† Applied H.R.M. Research 8.2 (2003): 63-72. Print. Randall, Stacey. â€Å"Understanding Employee Attraction and Retention as Drivers in a Down Economy.† World at Work Journal 2.1 (2009): 41-47. Print. Schuster, Jay. Pay People Right! Breakthrough Reward Strategies to Create Great Companies, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2000. Print. Scott, Dow, Tom McMullen, and Mark Royal. â€Å"Retention of Key Talent and the Role of Rewards.† World at Work Journal 2.1 (2012): 1-11. Print. Shields, John. Managing Employee Performance and Reward: Concepts, Practices, Strategies, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print. Silverstein, Barry. Best Practices: Motivating Employees: Bringing Out the Best in Your People, New York: Harper Business, 2007. Print. Smith, Gregory. Here today, here tomorrow: transforming your workforce from high turnover to high-retention, Chicago: Dearborn Trade Publishing, 2001. Print. Thomas, Kenneth. Intrinsic Motivation at Work: What Really Drives Employee Engagement, San Francisco: Berret-Koehler, 2002. Print. Zingheim, Patricia, Jay Schuster, and Marvin Dertien. â€Å"Compensation, Reward, and Retention Practices in Fast-Growth Companies.† World at Work Journal 18.2 (2009): 22-39. Print.