Advancement in Construction Technology Essay

1.1General Background Back in the day before there were computers the whole construction process was done by pen and paper from the bidding process to the actual drawings themselves. Since the innovation of the computer and interactive software these processes have gotten much more efficient. There have been many programs that ease the construction process. Such programs include, drawing software (AutoCad), spreadsheet software (Microsoft Excel), programs to assist with estimating (Plan Swift), planning and scheduling software (Microsoft Project), the internet as well as e-mail. There have always been minor updates on these programs but have mostly remained with the same basic purpose. Within the last 5 years a new state of the art program developed by AutoDesk using 3D Modeling has been integrated into many large jobs in Canada while in the USA it has been used regularly for about 10 years. This program is called Building Information Modeling and for short, BIM. There are many companies that do not know about BIM or have heard of it but have never used it or seen it being used. 1.2Specific Background The purpose of this report is to inform people within the construction industry about the available software and the importance of 3D modeling throughout the entire construction process. Hopefully this report will convince many people to incorporate BIM into their projects more often. Also, students should be learning about BIM in college programs and should also be an elective within high schools along with AutoCad. 1.3Thesis Statement Can 3D Modeling technology improve production control in the construction process? 1.4Explanation of Methodology Throughout this technical report, research on the rise of 3D Modeling will be analyzed and broken down to the reader through secondary research obtained from various online newspaper and magazine articles and academic articles recarding the subject. This research will be used to identify the need for 3D Modeling within the construction industry. It will then prove that the process behind 3D modeling will improve production from initial budgeting to maintaining the finished product. The primary research that will be used within this report will be presented through an online survey and face-to-face interviews with a number of industry professionals. The opinions and experiences of these professionals will be used within this report to support the presented question or establish background information regarding the subject. Each of the interviewees will be presented with the same set of questions in order to properly compare and compile the data received by them. 2.0Secondary Research Review 2.1Building Information Modeling: Safety Benefits & Opportunities, Professional Safety In this article Rajendran and Clarke argue the benefits of Building Information Modeling (BIM) in Health and Safety. They also mention several ways it helps with the overall construction process. The article starts of by defining BIM and its processes and Stating that it is becoming more popular within the architect, construction and engineering industries. They write that BIM allows builders to foresee any complications that may occur even before the construction process begins. They list major benefits BIM has regarding the construction process. There are many figures portraying how BIM can be used to assist with site layout and identify potential risks. Concluding this article they state that BIM had many benefits that can improve construction safety (Rajendran & Clarke, 2011). I will use parts of this article to argue the importance of BIM in the construction process. The major issue I am focussing on is how it will improve the construction process and prevent further complications. This article has some good points on benefits of using BIM regarding my topic. 2.2Implementation of Building Information Modeling (BIM) in Construction In this article Rowlinson, Collins, Tuuli and Jia, analyse the impirical impacts of Building Information Modeling (BIM) into construction. They review two cases where BIM was used successfully. In the first case the process started traditionally and after many issues causing delays, BIM was implemented and with the help of a BIM team they created the model and resolved the issues quickly. In the second case the BIM was implemented from the beginning and the process was much smoother and saved time. They find that BIM allows companies to deal with RFI’s (Requests for Information) much easier. Also, states that BIM allows builders to see conflicts between each parties system and resolve them before they clash on site and delays the project. On concluding this article, the authors find that success alone is not a sufficient driver for managers to justify implementing BIM (Rowlinson, Collins, Tuuli & Yunyan, 2010). I will use this article to strengthen my argument that the use of BIM will help with production control within the construction process. This article clearly outlines the issue I am trying to prove; BIM can make the construction process run smoother. This is a very important article to my research and has a lot of useable content. 2.3Building Information Modeling (BIM): Trends, Benefits, Risks, and Challenges for the AEC Industry. Leadership & Management In Engineering Azhar starts off this article by suggesting that building information modeling (BIM) has potential to reduce project costs and delivery as well as increase productivity. He states the building information model after construction is completed can be used for operation and maintenance. He then lists a number of applications of BIM such as, fabrication/shop drawings, estimating, sequencing and conflict detection. The results of two secondary source surveys says, 82% of BIM users believed that it had a positive impact on the company’s productivity, 79% of users indicate improved project outcomes and less RFIs. He then proceeds to report on 4 case studies illustrating cost and time savings. There are many data tables with different information, in one of them there is an analysis of different projects return on investment using BIM. He also states several potential risks and future complications related to BIM. On concluding this article Azhar suggests that the increasing use of BIM will likely enhance collaboration and reduce fragmentation in the industry (Azhar, 2010). I will use this article to help prove that BIM will help with the overall construction process including the start up. I will also use this back up the use of BIM to save money and make a considerable return. 2.4Construction industry goes high-tech In this magazine article the author Michael Douchette begins by introducing Autodesk which is the company that created AutoCAD and BIM. Both are industry revolutionary programs. He states that AutoCAD was a big step in the drafting works and BIM is quickly finding its way into being the industry standard. A primary source says that all stakeholders are able to interact on a 3D model (referring to BIM). Autodesk is working with institutions to make sure students are trained in the new (BIM) technology. He explains BIM allows designers, architects and engineers to identify deficiencies early in the process. Douchette then explains what Building Information Modelling (BIM) is. He says it’s not for only buildings or infrastructure. It is usable through the whole process of the project from Design through construction. Referring to a Smart Market Report he states that more than 70% of non-users think that competitors are using BIM. Everyone within the process will be using BIM. Trades workers will use a specific layer of the software and be able to make changes in real time. He concludes by stating, the future of construction is BIM (Doucette, 2012). I will use this to help improve my argument that it BIM is an aid to the construction process. This article has a lot of point referring to training new students to use BIM and in turn that proves that it is going to be a major part in the construction process in the near future.

Measurement of Sevice Quality of Apollo Using Servqual

Dissertation Project Report On Measurement of Quality at Apollo Hospitals using Servqual Submitted by Richa Kumari A0102208164 MBA (M&S) 2010 Under the Supervision of Faculty Mentor Prof. (Dr. ) P. K. Bansal Faculty Amity Business School AMITY BUSINESS SCHOOL AMITY UNIVERSITY UTTAR PRADESH SECTOR 125, NOIDA – 201303, UTTAR PRADESH, INDIA 2010 DECLARATION I Richa Kumari, student of Master of Business Administration (Marketing &Sales), Class of 2010from Amity Business School, Amity University, Uttar Pradesh hereby declare that the dissertation done by me on the topic â€Å"Measurement of Quality at Apollo Hospital using Servqual† is true to my knowledge. The information collected by me is authentic & is done through data analysis & interpretation & I have a thorough knowledge of the project. The content of this report is based on the information collected from visiting Indraprastha Apollo hospitals in Delhi. I further declare that the matter embodied in this project report has not been submitted to any other university or institute for the award of any degree or diploma. PLACE: Noida DATE : Richa Kumari Amity Business School Amity University, Uttar Pradesh CERTIFICATE FROM FACULTY GUIDE This is to certify that Richa kumari, student of MBA (M&S), Amity Business School, Amity University; Uttar Pradesh has successfully completed the dissertation project under my guidance. The project report and data submitted by her is authentic and genuine to my knowledge. Prof. Dr. P. K. Bansal Faculty guide Faculty, Amity Business School Amity University, Uttar Pradesh ACKNOWLEDGEMENT It takes immense pleasure for me to express my sincere gratitude to all the helping experience I had during my dissertation. The Project was done by me under the guidelines of my Faculty Guide Prof. Dr. P. K. Bansal was a source of enormous learning for me. I am highly obliged to him for their continuous unconditional support & guidelines. A special word of thanks from me to all the respondents whose cooperation and interaction was a great help. As a student of AMITY BUSINESS SCHOOL, NOIDA I got the golden opportunity to work on the topic â€Å"Measurement of Quality of Apollo Hospital using Servqual†. I also feel highly obliged to my program leader Mrs. Aparna Goel and some of the faculties in ABS who in several ways were my inspiration & helped me to put in the best of my efforts. I am deeply indebted to my parents, family members & friends for their support during the course of my dissertation. Last but not the least; the report was completed successfully because of the grace of God. Richa Kumari Amity Business School EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Service firms like other organizations are realizing the significance of customer-centered philosophies and are turning to quality management approaches to help manage their businesses. This paper starts with the concept of service quality and demonstrates the model of service quality gaps. SERVQUAL as an effective approach has been studied and its role in the analysis of the difference between customer perceptions and expectations has been highlighted with support of measurement of quality at Apollo Hospital. Outcomes of the study outline the fact that although SERQUAL could close one of the important service quality gaps associated with external customer services, it could be extended to close other major gaps and therefore, it could be developed in order to be applied for internal customers, i. e. mployees and service providers. Quality Health Care  is an achievement of optimal physical and mental health through accessible, cost-effective care that is based on best evidence, is responsive to the needs and preferences of patients and populations, and is respectful of patients’ families, personal values and beliefs. The report covers the survey of Apollo Hospital Services, Delhi. It focuses on the dynamics of the the overall service provided, the trends over a period of time, and the key challenges faced by the industry. TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION I * CERTIFICATE FROM FACULTY MENTOR II * ACKNOWLEDGEMENT III * EXECUTIVE SUMMARY IV * CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION * CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW * CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY * SAMPLE DESIGN * RESEARCH DESIGN * DATA COLLECTION METHOD * SAMPLE SIZE CHAPTER 4 DATA INTERPRETATION * DATA ANALYSIS * FINDINGS * LIMITATIONS * CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION &RECOMMENDATION * APPENDICES V * REFERENCES VI * BIBLIOGRAPHY VII CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Earlier in the medical literature, the quality of service i. e. the  characteristics that shape the experience of care was rarely discussed beyond technical  competence. This research measures and analyzes  some routine encounters in Apollo, a hospital of international standard from a service quality point  of view. The study has led to the following two premises: First, if high-quality service had a greater presence  in practices and institutions, it would improve clinical  outcomes and increased satisfaction of patient and doctors while reducing  cost. It will also create competitive advantage for those who  are expert in its application. Second, many other industries  in the service sector have taken service quality to a high level,  their techniques are readily transferable to health care, and caring for patients can learn from them. Healthcare industry The healthcare industry in India comprising of hospital and allied sectors, is projected to grow at 23 per cent per annum and to touch US$ 77 billion by 2012 from the current estimated size of US$ 35 billion, according to a Yes Bank and ASSOCHAM report. The sector has registered a growth of 9. 3 per cent between 2000-2009, when compared with the growth rate of other emerging economies such as China, Brazil and Mexico. According to the report, the growth in the sector would be driven by healthcare facilities, private and public sector, medical diagnostic and pathlabs and the medical insurance sector. Today Hospital industry is an important component of the value chain in Indian Healthcare industry. It renders services and is recognized as healthcare delivery segment of the healthcare industry. It is growing at an annual rate of 14%. The hospital industry accounts for half the healthcare sector’s revenues and was estimated to be worth USD $25 billion in 2008. The dismal performance by the Indian government in providing healthcare infrastructure has created tremendous opportunities in the private sector. The huge pent up demand for quality healthcare and increase in healthcare spending in the long-term are fundamentally strong drivers in this market. The factors contributing to its bright future is based on increased healthcare  consumption, increasing instances of lifestyle-related diseases, medical tourism, and growing  health  insurance. The key challenges for the industry include significant capital requirements and a shortage of medical professionals. Ensuring high quality of healthcare service is another key issue for service providers. Healthcare spending in India accounts for over 5 per cent of the country’s GDP. Of which the public spending in percentage is around 1 per cent of GDP. The presence of public health care is not only weak but also under-utilized and inefficient. Meanwhile, private sector is quite dominant in the healthcare sector. Around 80 percent of total spending on healthcare in India comes from the private sector. Inadequate public investment in health infrastructure has given an opportunity to private hospitals to capture a larger share of the market. In addition the demand for hospital services has been increasing due to the rise in lifestyle related diseases that accompany prosperity. Hospitals serve an important function in India’s healthcare system. They provide in-patient and out-patient services and also support the training of health workers and research. Indian hospitals can be broadly classified as public hospitals, private and not-for-profit hospitals. Corporate hospital chains that provide tertiary healthcare services in large towns and cities have also been established. However, the number of hospital beds in India is around 1. 1 per thousand people. This is significantly lower when compared to most developed economies. The current outlook for the hospital services is positive. Technological innovations in service delivery, increased affordability, improved service quality and supportive government policy initiatives are some of the factors that are likely to impact growth of the sector. This is a pointer to significant opportunities that exist for service providers. Moreover, the future of healthcare is not restricted to the large domestic market alone. Emerging trend of medical tourism indicates the possibility of Indian healthcare services opening to the whole world. Health Care and Service delivery Health  Service delivery  refers to the way inputs such as finance, staff, treatment, equipment and drugs all deliver a range of health interventions to consumers seeking to access health care. Improving Service delivery  depends on having key resources that are well organized and managed. Health services include personal health services that are preventive, diagnostic, therapeutic or rehabilitative; whilst non-personal services cover areas such as mass health education/ promotion programs, health legislation and the provision of basic sanitation facilities. Incompetence or breakdown in the process of care-giving may be the result of problems in practice, products, procedures or systems. A key issue facing development agencies is the utilization of health services as they are often inaccessible or mistrusted by consumers. Lack of managerial capacity at all levels of the health system is increasingly cited as a binding constraint to scaling up services and achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Apollo Hospitals With over  8065 beds across 46 hospitals in India and overseas, neighborhood diagnostic clinics, an extensive chain of Apollo Pharmacies, medical BPO as well as health insurance services and clinical research divisions working on the cutting edge of medical science, Apollo Hospitals is a healthcare powerhouse one can trust with their life. Apollo Hospitals, India is a union of exceptional clinical success rates and superior technology with centuries-old traditions of Eastern care and warmth, with 16 million patients from 55 countries. Apollo Hospitals Group is at the Forefront of Medical Tourism to make India the Global Healthcare Destination. Its mission is to bring healthcare of international standards within the reach of every individual. They are committed to the achievement and maintenance of excellence in education, research and healthcare for the benefit of humanity. Dr. Prathap C Reddy is the Founder & Chairman, Apollo Hospitals Group. Led by Apollo Hospitals Group, Indian Healthcare today has developed International delivery capabilities and has demonstrated International excellence in all specialties with major cost advantages for people from overseas. Apollo Hospitals has successfully treated over 60000 foreign patients from across the world in last five years and the numbers are looking up every year. By constantly measuring our deliverables, they have succeeded in creating infrastructure that meets the needs of the future that incorporates the latest technology and provides superior healthcare delivery systems. Their immediate agenda includes setting up of healthcare facilities in all major Indian cities, 23-hour hospitals, pharmacies, a pharmaceuticals business and finally, a Health Maintenance Organization that will give millions of people access to all these facilities. The telemedicine technology that has been successfully introduced by Dr. Reddy in India will be a key enabler in transforming the healthcare delivery in India. His blueprint for the nation includes setting up of many rural hospitals. Apollo Hospitals Group is the acknowledged leader in bringing super speciality world-class healthcare to India. It is presently the largest integrated healthcare company in Asia. Apollo Hospital  would mean any of the hospitals owned by  Apollo Hospitals, a  healthcare  corporation that operates 38 hospitals in South Asia. It is the largest healthcare provider in Asia and the third largest in the world and is headquartered in  Chennai, India. Apollo Hospital  Delhi  is the first hospital in India to be accredited by the JCAHO and is affiliated with  Johns Hopkins  international, the  Mayo Clinic, and many major hospitals in the United States and Europe. In addition to hospitals, Apollo operates Nursing and Hospital Management colleges,  pharmacies, diagnostic clinics, medical transcription, third-party administration and telemedicine. Through its wholly owned subsidiary, Apollo Health and Life Science Limited, the Apollo Group has set up a chain of nearly 60 branded day-to-day retail clinics on a franchised basis across India and the  Middle East. This is the first time healthcare delivery has been successfully franchised in India. Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, the largest healthcare group in Asia. Indraprastha Apollo is one of the largest corporate hospitals in the world. It is the third super specialty tertiary care hospital set by the Apollo Hospitals Group, jointly with the Government of New Delhi, India's capital. It is a 695 bedded hospital, with the provision for expansion to 1000 beds in future. The hospital is at the forefront of medical technology and expertise. It provides a complete range of latest diagnostic, medical and surgical facilities for the care of its patients. The hospital started functioning from July 1996, its mission being Medical Excellence with a Human Touch. Cost of treatment Apollo Hospitals is considered one of the most expensive treatment facilities when compared to their local counterparts. A similar treatment and care in a regular hospital would cost significantly lesser. However, their facilities, infrastructure and quality of medical faculty are far superior to anything else in the country, seemingly justifying this increased cost. Medical Milestones * Employs over 4000 specialists and super-specialists and 3000 medical officers spanning 53 clinical departments in patient care * Achieved a 99. 6% success rate in cardiac bypass surgeries, over 91% of these were beating heart surgeries * Conducted over 55,000 cardiac surgeries First Indian hospital group to introduce new techniques in Coronary Angioplasty, Stereotactic Radiotherapy and Radiosurgery. Performed over 7,50,000 major surgeries and over 10,00,000 minor surgical procedures with exceptional clinical outcomes * Pioneered orthopaedic procedures like hip and knee replacements, the Illizarov procedure and the Birmingham hip re-surfacing technique * Pioneered the concept of preventive healthcare in India * First ho spital group to bring the 64 Slice CT-Angio scan system * First hospital group in South-East Asia to introduce the 16 Slice PET-CT Scan * First to perform liver, multi-organ and cord blood transplants in India * Equipped with the largest and most sophisticated sleep laboratory in the world CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW Kotler (1999) points out an unchangeable principle for a successful business are to satisfy the customers’ need. Consumer service is closely related to customer satisfaction and consumer satisfaction has a critical influence on the profits and performance of institutions and organizations (Fornell, 1992; Mittal & Lassar, 1998; Wong, 2000). That is why organizations emphasize the importance of consumer service and satisfaction. Just as the dashboard of a car provides timely feedback on vital performance measures, so should an organization’s dashboards inform decision makers and board members on where the organization is headed and how it is progressing toward its strategic objectives. The consumer service perspective is closely associated with the evolution of the business strategies in the Health Care industry. To manage and improve quality, these successful organizations are coming to the conclusion that quality must be measured. This ensures accurate measurement of customer satisfaction versus that delivered by competitors. Service Quality is a service that is consistent with customer expectations and stated obligation in Customer Care, performance & Value. Quality itself has been defined as fundamentally relational:   ‘Quality is the ongoing process of building and sustaining relationships by assessing, anticipating, and fulfilling stated and implied needs. ‘ One cannot separate the process and the human factor, therefore there is a believe that Quality, when built into a product, generates emotions and feelings within those who have taken part in it's creation. Quality is doing the right things right and is uniquely defined by each individual. Error-free, value-added care and service that meets and/or exceeds both the needs and legitimate expectations of those served as well as those within the Medical Center. Organizations that constantly measure themselves in relation to competitors are able to quickly capitalize on their emerging strengths and address weaknesses before they become problems. Service Quality Quality applies to every product either it is physical product, information product or service product. But when Service Quality is talked about it is all about satisfying the targeted customers through meeting their requirements (Zulfikar Ali). Quality cannot be measured without a clear definition or standard. Likewise, Measuring Quality leads directly to the identification of areas for improvement or enhancement—the first step in Improving Quality. Service Quality models There are a number of models which try to capture and define Service Quality. Each has their strengths, and weaknesses. The core definition of Service Quality is â€Å"Customers thinking they're getting better service than expected†. This is often referred to as the perception gap, i. e. the gap between what the customer expects and what they think they got. It's worth noting that both sides of the gap are in the customers mind. You may actually deliver better Service then your competitors, but if the customer thinks that your Service is worse then that's all that matters. Because the perception gap is based on the difference between what a customer expects to receive from a Service and what they think they received both sides of the gap are â€Å"soft† – they are based on customer impressions rather than a â€Å"hard† definable quality. This means the perception gap is difficult to measure, difficult to manage and is likely to change with time and experience. Nevertheless it's vital to business success. Elements of the model A management model should identify and relate those key elements that require systematic management attention (Brogowicz et al. , 1990). The elements proposed to fit in the model are: * Management’s perceptions of customer expectations and perceptions about the service; * Vision, mission, service strategy and directions to eliminate the gaps; * Service analysis, translation of perceptions into service quality specifications and service design; * Financial and human resources (HR) management; * External communication; * Service delivery system (production, delivery and ‘part-time’ marketing). Some models which are the result of some significant research are: The KANO Model states â€Å"What do customers expect as a minimum standard†, and â€Å"what actually makes a difference if the service provider does it better†. Professor Noriaki Kano (1984, the Japanese quality guru), introduced a two-factor quality model, commonly known as â€Å"Kano's Curve†. The curve illustrates the difference between must-be attractive and linear quality elements. The strength of the Kano model is that it identifies that some aspects of service are simply required to be there whereas others serve to genuinely provide competitive advantage and that there are diminishing returns to be gained from simply focusing on must-be qualities. However Kano does not provide diagnostic tools to identify or measure the different aspects, and suggested the changes with time or environment. The PZB Service Quality Model The service quality model and the role of consumers’ and learners’ satisfaction is an essential part of service quality studies. The â€Å"GAP† model of service quality from Parasuraman et al. (Zithaml & Bitner 1996) offers an integrated view of the consumer-company relationship. It is based on substantial research amongst a number of service providers. According to the PZB model, there are five gaps. The first gap refers to the difference between customers’ expected service and management’s perceptions of customers’ expectations. This gap means that management may not correctly perceive customer expectations. The second gap refers to the difference between management perceptions of customers’ expectations and service quality specifications. This gap means that although the people in management level may perceive the correct expectations of the customers, they may not have suitable and sufficient service quality specifications. The third gap refers to the difference between service quality specifications and the real service delivery. This gap means that although the service providers may have suitable and sufficient service quality specifications, they may not have the satisfactory service delivery in the real situation. That may be because service providers lack well-trained employees to deliver satisfactory service. The fourth gap refers to the difference between the service delivered and external communication about the service with customers. That is, the service providers may not have suitable and sufficient communication with the customers or the service providers may have commitments that exceed what they can do or they may not sufficiently inform the customers of what they have done. The fifth gap is the difference between consumer expectation and their perception of service quality – measured by the difference between what customers expect and what customers perceive about the service. In addition, gap 5 is a function of gap 1, gap 2, gap 3, and gap 4; that is, Gap 5= f (gap1, gap2, gap3, gap4). This means that the service quality is closely related to management perception, marketing, personnel management, communications with customers, service specifications and delivery. Based on theoretical development of the PZB Service Quality Model, the SERVQUAL (SERVice QUALity) instrument was proposed. RATER A complementary analysis of the perception gap is the RATER model also produced by Zeithaml (1990). RATER identifies the 5 key areas which together form the qualities of a service offering from a customer perspective. Where the Gap model describes how the provider can minimize the perception gap. RATER focuses on the dimensions of customers expectations. The RATER factors help provide specific dimensions which can be used to analyse and measure customer expectation. Figure 1: PZB Service Quality Model A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and its Implications for Future Research. Journal of Marketing, 49(4), 41-50. Source: Parasuraman, A. , Zeithaml, V. A. & Berry, L. L. (1985). | RATER dimensions sorted by relative importance (Zeithaml 1990)| Dimension| Description| Relative importance| Reliability| Ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately| 32%| Responsiveness | Willingness to help customers and provide prompt service| 22%| Assurance | Knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and confidence| 19%| Empathy| Caring individualised attention the firm provides its customers| 16%| Tangibles | Appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel and communication materials| 11%| THE ASSESSMENT INSTRUMENTS-The SERVQUAL and SERVPERF Based on preliminary knowledge about the service quality model and the consumer satisfaction concept, there are two major assessment instruments (SERVQUAL and SERVPERF). The SERVQUAL (SERVice QUALity) instrument was proposed by the Parasuraman et al. (1988). They initially developed a 97-item instrument to measure the service quality attribute. After eliminating the items with low correlation, they extracted five factors (tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy) with 22 service quality items, and claimed the generic nature of the five-dimension instrument. Because the disconfirmation-based SERVQUAL instrument has advantages such as better diagnostic power (Jain & Gupta, 2004), and the parsimony of the instrument (Rohini & Mahadevappa, 2006), most researchers in the service quality area tend to prefer the disconfirmation-based SERVQUAL instrument (Abdullah, 2006; Brady, 2001). However, some researchers have been questioning its drawbacks related to the disconfirmation-based model (Redman & Mathews, 1998), process orientation, dimensionality, measuring scale, and the gap scores (Buttle, 1996; Coulthard, 2004; Clewes, 2003; Wetzels, Ruyter, & Lemmink, 2000). To resolve problems related to the disconfirmation-based SERVQUAL instrument, Cronin and Taylor (1992) propose the performance-only SERVPERF (SERVice PERFormance) instrument to measure service quality. Comparing the validity and reliability of the SERVPERF with that of the disconfirmation-based SERVQUAL, they claim that SERVPERF is better than SERVQUAL in overall service quality measurement in empirical tests (Cronin & Taylor, 1992; Brady, Cronin, Brand, 2002; Jain & Gupta, 2004). The debate related to adoption of SERVQUAL or SERVPERF in service quality studies is not yet resolved. SERVPERF has better explanatory power in overall service quality measurement. On the other hand, SERVQUAL has better diagnostic power because of the P-E score measurement. Thus, selection of the service quality instruments will be determined by the intention of the researchers, service providers or decision-makers (Jain & Gupta, 2004). Research Papers â€Å"Provider Competition and Health Care Quality: Challenges and Opportunities for Research†, by HERBERT S. WONG, PEGGY, M NAMARA states that during the last several years, health care quality issues have emerged as important considerations in developing and implementing public policy. This report highlighted health care delivery problems, patient safety concerns, and health disparities issues. Health care quality is difficult to define because different audiences view health care quality from. Clinicians may define quality based on medical outcomes or processes. Economists may define quality based on concepts of social welfare and may include features that consumers happen to care about, but that clinicians do not (e. g. , the appearance and size of hospital rooms). Health plans may further differ and focus on concepts of preventive care or organizational efficiencies. Researchers need to understand what their measures are capturing and should interpret their findings accordingly. Once health care quality has been defined, investigators interested in conducting applied empirical research are confronted with the challenges of creating proxy measures that capture the essence of the health care quality of interest. An initial problem is whether data even exist to create proxy measures for quality. The physician services market was one of the two health care provider groups on which the conference focused. However, the lack of available data about the care administered by physicians has stymied research on physician competition and quality. With literally hundreds of thousands of patient care physicians, current data systems are not structured in a way that makes accessing data and using data for research purposes pragmatic. Even if data were available, researchers must still overcome the challenges of how best to measure physician quality—an area that is currently not well understood. Patient satisfaction measures, which seek to quantify patients’ experiences with healthcare services, represent another dimension of quality still in the developmental stages. The article by Patrick Romano and Ryan Mutter in this supplement documents the studies that examined hospital competition and hospital quality, identifies the variety of hospital quality measures employed, and highlights the challenges of measuring hospital quality. As Romano and Mutter noted, the science of creating hospital quality measures has focused primarily on the clinical definition of quality, and such research is still largely in its infancy. At the heart of the challenges confronting researchers is determining whether observed differences in hospital quality measures are â€Å"true† differences. Confounding factors that may influence their accuracies include severity of illness, underlying patient risk, and the hospital’s overall case mix. Moreover, how well specific data elements are coded varies widely and ultimately affects the accuracy of the corresponding hospital quality measures. Many observers of medical markets believe that hospitals should compete on the basis of health care quality. However historically, hospital merger cases have focused on their effects on prices, costs, and the nature of the competitive environment, largely discounting health care quality issues. Health care markets are unique and extremely complex. While this invitational conference focused only on hospital and physician providers, the research opportunities and challenges outlined here apply to other health care markets as well. Mark Pauly’s article provides some preliminary thoughts on the concepts and the history of the relationship between competition and quality in health care markets. Health care markets are complex. Hospitals compete with one another, physicians compete with one another, and hospitals and physicians interact in many ways. Multiple external factors may influence hospital and physician competitive behavior. Measurement Challenges As mentioned earlier, the science of quality measurement is largely in its infancy and will continue to develop. The main challenges confronting researchers are determining the validity of the current set of measures and improving or developing new measures. The research field involved in inpatient quality measurement appears to be moving in three broad directions. First, researchers are exploring ways to further evaluate and validate the current set of inpatient quality measures. One approach being considered compares existing inpatient quality measures based on administrative data with information from medical records. Organizations such as individual health plans and veterans’ hospitals often have access to a richer source of clinical information, which could be used for this type of assessment. Second, current inpatient quality measures could be improved if the quality of the information collected is better. For example, in their article, Patrick Romano and Ryan Provider Competition And Health Care Quality Mutter mentioned that external-cause-of-injury codes (i. e. , â€Å"E Codes†) are sometimes under reported and vary substantially across the different organizations collecting such data. Many inpatient quality measures rely on accurate coding to identify the relevant observations. Existing measures could be improved if E Codes are collected more consistently. Finally, another broad approach is to supplement current administrative information with additional clinical information that could be used to refine or to create new measures. The availability of this clinical information could be used to improve measures of quality. As the science for better quality measures advances, analysts face a number of important research questions. While some critics argue that existing measures do not capture all clinical information, proponents argue that if there are no systematic biases across hospitals, precise patient-level information may not be needed. Consequently, is the science of quality measurement â€Å"good enough† for aggregate studies of competition and quality? Are they good enough for individual hospital comparisons? How will new measures with better information compare with existing measures? The Evolving Science of Quality Measurement for Hospitals: Implications for Studies of Competition and Consolidation PATRICK S. ROMANO The literature on hospital quality is young; most studies have focused on few conditions and outcomes. Measures of in-hospital mortality and complications are susceptible to bias from unmeasured severity and transfer/discharge practices. We describe the strengths and limitations of various approaches to quality measurement; summarize how quality has been operationalized in studies of hospital competition. three mechanisms by which competition may affect hospital quality, and propose measures appropriate for testing each mechanism. To evaluate the effects of competition and consolidation in health care markets on quality of care, it is essential to understand the capabilities and limitations of the tools currently available for measuring quality. The number and scope of these tools have grown considerably over the past two decades. These developments have created new opportunities to understand how competition and consolidation affect quality of care, although critics may still challenge the validity of any particular quality measure. The fundamental problem is that quality of care has multiple dimensions, and organizations that perform well on one dimension may not perform well on others. It is all too easy to arrive at the wrong conclusion if one focuses on a single measure, or even on multiple measures of a single dimension. In this paper, a standard definition of health care quality and an associated typology of quality problems is set. It describes the three general approaches to quality measurement, focusing on their strengths and limitations for studies of the impact of hospital competition and consolidation. Next summarizes how these measures have been applied in previous studies, and how the authors of those studies have dealt with concerns about confounding and endogeneity. It describes a conceptual framework that may be helpful in identifying promising measures for future studies in this area. 1. Definitions of Quality and Quality Problems In this paper, they have adopted a clinical perspective on quality of care. Avedis Donabedian (1980), one of the founders of the modern science of health care quality measurement, defined the quality of medical care as â€Å"the management that is expected to achieve the best balance of health benefits and risks (taking) into account the patient’s wishes, expectations, valuations, and means the social distribution of that benefit within the population. † The American Medical Association (1984) defined high-quality care more narrowly as care that â€Å"consistently contributes to the improvement or maintenance of the quality and/or duration of life. Perhaps the most authoritative definition was published by the Institute of Medicine (1990), which defined quality of care as â€Å"the degree to which health services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes and are consistent with curren t professional knowledge. † All of these definitions attempt to distinguish between quality and other non-price aspects of service, which might be classified as â€Å"amenities. † Amenities include aspects of appearance, comfort, and convenience, such as the number of television channels available to hospital patients, the number of menu choices, and the quality of decoration. In making this distinction, they acknowledge that the line between amenities and quality may become blurred, especially with important patient-centered measures such as telephone response time, wait time for appointments, clinic hours, prompt complaint resolution and claims payment, and patient satisfaction. Nonetheless, this distinction is useful because it focuses attention on whether provider organizations expend resources in ways that were likely to improve patient outcomes, or in ways that are designed to give the appearance of quality. this paper, also follow the Institute of Medicine’s (1999) typology of quality problems (Chassin et al. , 1998) as involving inappropriate overuse (i. e. too much care), inappropriate underuse (i. e. , too little care), and misuse. Although this conceptualization may state Pauly’s (2003) definition of quality as â€Å"everything about some good or service relevant to consumers’ well-being that is not measured by quantity,â⠂¬  we prefer to place all provider judgments and recommendations regarding appropriate care in the category of â€Å"quality† rather than â€Å"quantity. † 2. Approaches to Quality Measurement Donabedian (2003) has described the three broad approaches to quality measurement as structure, process, and outcomes. This useful schema has been widely adopted by the health services research and quality improvement communities. Structural measures describe the conditions under which care is provided, and encompass material resources such as facilities and equipment, human resources such as the credentials and experience of health care providers, and organizational characteristics such as patient volume and team nursing. Process measures describe the content of health care, and encompass health care providers’ activities in the realms of screening, diagnosis, pharmacotherapy, surgery, rehabilitation, patient education, and prevention. Finally, outcome measures describe changes attributable to health care, and encompass mortality, morbidity, functional status and pain, as well as patients’ health-related knowledge, behaviors, and satisfaction. Although this schema remains conceptually useful, it is sometimes difficult to apply. For example, the shared features of â€Å"high-reliability organizations† (Reason, 2000) include both the structural conditions under which professionals work and how that work is performed. 3. Integrating Outcome and Process Measures of Quality Given that quality of care is a complex and multidimensional concept, no single measure of either process or outcome is likely to provide an adequate summary of the effects of competition and consolidation. Hospitals that perform well on risk-adjusted outcomes for one condition often perform poorly for unrelated conditions (Rosenthal, 1997; Chassin et al. , 1989), making it useful to consider a spectrum of conditions. Similarly, explicit process measures must be developed and implemented on a condition-specific basis (Ashton et al. , 1994). It may be particularly useful to consider outcome and process measures together, as an integrated approach would offer a more complete assessment of quality and elucidate the pathways by which market forces affect patient outcomes. Observed agreement between process and outcome measures at the provider level would support the construct validity of each measure. Disagreement would suggest: (1) information bias attributable to misclassification on either measure; (2) confounding of outcome measures due to unmeasured severity of illness; (3) selection bias due to selective enrollment or dropout of high-risk patients; or (4) an incorrect conceptual model, based on an assumed process-outcome linkage that does not actually exist Competition in Medical Services and the Quality of Care: Concepts and History MARK V. PAULY Consumers of medical services care about both the price they pay (directly, or indirectly through insurance) for that care and the quality of the care for which they pay. While both an unambiguous measurement of quality and the process by which quality is produced are in many ways unknown, it is surely possible for producers, consumers, and regulators to detect and analyze large (enough) variations in relevant qualitative characteristics. Sometimes, in some places, and with some providers, quality is higher than at other times, places, and providers. To some extent the final level of quality is (from an analyst’s perspective) going to be random; some quality variation is bound to be due to unknown forces and accidents. However, to some extent as well the supplier decisions which affect quality are explicit and rational, and likewise the consumer choices about which provider or which supplier to use depends on perceived quality. Economically Efficient (Optimal) Quality From an economist’s perspective, â€Å"quality† in its most general sense just means anything and everything about some good or service relevant to consumers’ (actual and perceived) well being that is not measured by quantity. Since the definition of quantity is somewhat arbitrary—for hospitalization for example, is it the number of hospital admissions, the number of hospital days, or some amalgam of inpatient services and outpatient services? the definition of quality will depend on how we define quantity. If we define quantity by surgical admissions, then average length of stay would be one dimension of quality, prevalence of wound infections would be another, and patient satisfaction would be a third. Th ere can also be qualities that do not have this ordering—for example, the color of the walls, the temperature of the room, or even the length of stay—but these factors are usually not very important. It is focus on â€Å"ordered† qualities. However, just because people prefer more of some characteristic to less does not necessarily mean (or even usually mean) that the market will or should â€Å"maximize quality† in that dimension. If we think of some unequivocally-ordered characteristic, from an economic viewpoint the optimal level of quality, given some total quantity, is that level at which the marginal benefit from additional quality (measured in money) just equals the marginal cost of adding to quality. The optimal length of stay is not infinite, the optimal amount of space in a patient’s room is not enormous, the optimal number of medical errors is not zero (though it could be much lower than at present). Of course, it is possible, indeed, likely, that optimal quality will be different at different quantities (quality and quantity can be substitutes or complements). It is certain that the optimal level of quality, given quantity, will be different for different people, depending on the value they attach to quality. The â€Å"right† quality depends on the patient as well as on the illness or procedure, and it depends on the patient’s preferences (backed up by ability to pay) as well as on the patient’s physiological state. A more complex question is the optimal variety of quality levels when people have different preferences but it is too costly to produce a different quality level for each person. This definition of optimal quality when applied to medical services certainly includes everything that would be embodied in a clinical definition of quality. However, there are some differences between the economic and what we might call the â€Å"health services research† perspective. One difference is that the economic definition will probably include more features (that consumers happen to care about but clinicians do not). One can think of cases in which consumer preferences about such things as â€Å"travel time,† â€Å"bedside manner,† â€Å"respect,† and â€Å"discomfort† do become important. The other difference is that the economic definition will probably require a more careful consideration of marginal cost relative to marginal benefit than would be embodied in the clinical view of â€Å"ideal quality. † 2. Quality Options with Inefficient Suppliers: A Diagrammatic Analysis Although the foregoing seems fairly basic, there are some aspects of the normative notion of optimal quality that may be controversial in both health policy and health services research, and some aspects of the positive aspects of market supply that are both confusing and contentious. A key issue for much of the literature is that of the existence of tradeoffs. The previous discussion implicitly assumed that higher quality costs more—that cost (which really just represents an index of the sacrifice of all other goods consumers value) and quality trade off. Yet many observers of medical care markets in the United States have the strong opinion that cost and quality don’t usually trade off—that higher quality implies lower cost or that it is at least an open question (Leatherman et al. ,2003). Improving the Service Quality of Distance Education( Rui-Ting Huang,USA / Taiwan) states that the success of a distance learning program is dependent on the quality of supporting services. This research relates to services, gaps in service, business models, continuous quality improvement, and maintaining a competitive edge. Distance Learning has become an important learning option for education systems (Yilmaz, 2005) and training solutions in the Human Resource Development (HRD) area (Felix, 2006). The growth of the distance learning industry has been faster than expected (Huynh, Umesh & Valacich, 2003). Most importantly, in terms of organizational training, an investigation from the Fortune-500 companies indicates that over 80% of companies use distance learning or plan to do so (Hammond, 2001). Through distance learning, organizations have a more convenient, practical and cost-effective way to train the employees (Hammond, 2001; Whitney, 2006; David, 2006). Due to the growth and competition in the distance learning market (Huynh, Umesh & Valacich, 2003), DL research includes the study f consumer aspects such as consumer services and satisfaction (Shaik, 2005; Granitz & Greene, 2003; Huynh, Umesh & Valacich, 2003). Feedback from learner give the instructor important data to determine how well the instr uctional program satisfies individual learner needs (Steyn & Schulze, 2003; Long, Tricker, Rangecroft, Gilroy, 1999). This in turn offers service providers in the marketplace important information to streamline the business process to improve the quality of distance learning services (Granitz & Greene, 2003; Steyn & Schulze, 2003). Quality services and support will help the service providers, institutions and organizations in DL get a competitive advantage in the marketplace (Shaik, 2005). As the distance learning industry has become mature in the educational marketplace (Huynh, Umesh & Valacich, 2003), it is providing learners with convenient and flexible learning alternatives (Alexander, 1999; Tarr, 1998). It is also giving organizations alternative cost-effective and timely training solution to effectively and efficiently implement the human resource development plans (Hammond, 2001; Whitney, 2006; David, 2006). ). The focus on consumer service may offer the service providers new insights (Moisio & Smeds, 2004) to help them streamline the business process, improve the quality of future service in distance learning (Granitz & Greene, 2003; Steyn & Schulze, 2003) and gain long-term competitive advantages (Shaik, 2005). Mary Nugent ( 2002, vice president and general manager of Subscription Services for BMC Software Inc. a leading provider of enterprise management)said that an increasing number of companies are relying on service providers to manage their mission-critic al applications, service providers are realizing that they need an improved method for consistently delivering reliable and highly available service at a competitive cost. Measuring the performance and availability of Web and enterprise applications is inherently difficult. Without accurate and timely measurements it is all but impossible to measure customer satisfaction and Quality of Service (QoS). Due to the cost of developing and implementing such a solution, service providers are finding they need to partner with others in the marketplace to ensure service level agreements (SLAs) are being met and the end-user experience is optimized. A quality end-user experience is what service provider clients require service providers must deliver in order to survive. Online shoppers are not tied by brand loyalty since they can get what they need at many different sites. Companies that want to achieve customer loyalty must deliver value through the customer experience. By outsourcing to service providers for this expertise, companies are entrusting their business and reputation on the solutions they offer. This makes it doubly important that service providers choose solutions that deliver on their SLAs. Principles Of Quality Customer Service 1. Quality Service Standards -Publish a statement that outlines the nature and quality of service which customers can expect, and display it prominently at the point of service delivery. 2. Equality/Diversity -Ensure the rights to equal treatment established by equality legislation, and accommodate diversity, so as to contribute to equality for the groups covered by the equality legislation (under the grounds of gender, marital status, family status, sexual orientation, religious belief, age, disability, race and membership of the Traveller Community). Identify and work to eliminate barriers to access to services for people experiencing poverty and social exclusion, and for those facing geographic barriers to services. 3. Physical Access -Provide clean, accessible public offices that ensure privacy, comply with occupational and safety standards and, as part of this, facilitate access for people with disabilities and others with specific needs. 4. Information -Take a proactive approach in providing information that is clear, timely and accurate, is available at all points of contact, and meets the requirements of people with specific needs. Ensure that the potential offered by Information Technology is fully availed of and that the information available on public service websites follows the guidelines on web publication. Continue the drive for simplification of rules, regulations, forms, information leaflets and procedures. 5. Timeliness and Courtesy -Deliver quality services with courtesy, sensitivity and the minimum delay, fostering a climate of mutual respect between provider and customer. Give contact names in all communications to ensure ease of ongoing transactions. 6. Complaints -Maintain a well-publicised, accessible, transparent and simple-to-use system of dealing with complaints about the quality of service provided. 7. Appeals -Similarly, maintain a formalised, well-publicised, accessible, transparent and simple-to-use system of appeal/review for customers who are dissatisfied with decisions in relation to services. 8. Consultation and Evaluation -Provide a structured approach to meaningful consultation with, and participation by, the customer in relation to the development, delivery and review of services. Ensure meaningful evaluation of service delivery. 9. Choice -Provide choice, where feasible, in service delivery including payment methods, location of contact points, opening hours and delivery times. Use available and emerging technologies to ensure maximum access and choice, and quality of delivery. 10. Internal Customer -Ensure staff are recognised as internal customers and that they are properly supported and consulted with regard to service delivery issues. Performance measurement In Health care, the patients’ satisfaction has been widely used as a critical dependent variable to evaluate success of the service provider. The patient is one of the important stakeholders in the health care arena (Yeung, 2001; Yang & Cornelious, 2004). And it is reasonable that the patients’ perception will be considered as a crucial indicator to evaluate the quality of service(Steyn & Schulze, 2003). In the business area, consumer satisfaction often denotes whether the service provider met the consumers’ need (Steyn, & Schulze, 2003). Anderson, Fornell and Lehman (1994) propose there are at least two viewpoints in the definition of consumer satisfaction. The first viewpoint is a transaction-specific perspective, which refers to the consumers’ post-purchase appraisal or judgment of the products or service based on expectations at the specific purchasing time or location. The second viewpoint is cumulative satisfaction, which refers to consumers’ overall appraisal of purchasing and consuming experience toward the products or service. Therefore, we may regard patients’ satisfaction as the patients’ overall post-use evaluation toward the health care service. Performance measurement is a fundamental building block of TQM and a total quality organisation. Historically, organisations have always measured performance in some way through the financial performance, be this success by profit or failure through liquidation. However, they do not map process performance and improvements seen by the customer. In a successful total quality organisation, performance will be measured by the improvements seen by the customer as well as by the results delivered to other stakeholders, such as the shareholders. A simple performance measurement framework includes more than just measuring, but also defining and understanding metrics, collecting and analysing data, then prioritising and taking improvement actions. It is important to know where the strengths and weaknesses of the organisation lie, and measurement plays a key role in quality and productivity improvement activities. The main reasons it is needed are: to ensure customer requirements have been met, to be able to set sensible objectives and comply with them, to provide standards for establishing comparisons, to provide visibility and a â€Å"scoreboard† for people to monitor their own performance level, to highlight quality problems and determine areas for priority attention,to provide feedback for driving the improvement effort Quality-related activities that will incur costs may be split into prevention costs, appraisal costs and failure costs. Prevention costs are associated with the design, implementation and maintenance of the TQM system. They are planned and incurred before actual operation, and could include: Product or service requirements – setting specifications for incoming materials, processes, finished Products/services;Quality planning – creation of plans for quality, reliability, operational, production, inspection; Quality assurance – creation and maintenance of the quality system; Training – development, preparation and maintenance of programmes. Appraisal costs are associated with the suppliers’ and customers’ evaluation of purchased materials, processes, products and services to ensure they conform to specifications. They could include: Verification – checking of incoming material, process set-up, products against agreed specifications; Quality audits – check that the quality system is functioning correctly; Vendor rating – assessment and approval of suppliers, for products and services. Failure costs can be split into those resulting from internal and external failure. Internal failure costs occur when the results of work fail to reach designed quality standards and are detected before they are transferred to the customer. They could include: Waste – doing unnecessary work or holding stocks as a result of errors, poor organisation or communication; Scrap – defective product or material that cannot be repaired, used or sold; Rework or rectification – the correction of defective material or errors; Failure analysis – activity required to establish the causes of internal product or service failure. External failure costs occur when the products or services fail to reach design quality standards, but are not detected until after transfer to the customer. They could include: Repairs and servicing – of returned products or those in the field; Warranty claims – failed product that are replaced or services re-performed under a guarantee; Complaints – all work and costs associated with handling and servicing customers’ complaints; Returns – handling and investigation of rejected or recalled products, including transport costs Effective quality improvements should result in a future stream of benefits, such as: †¢ Reduced failure costs †¢ Lower appraisal costs †¢ Increased market share †¢ Increased customer base †¢ More productive workforce Service Quality Management (SQM) Service quality can be defined as â€Å"the collective effect of service performances which determine the degree of satisfaction of a user of the service†. In other words, quality is the customer’s perception of a delivered service. Service-quality management, refers to the monitoring and maintenance of end-to-end services for specific customers or classes of customers. As larger varieties of services are offered to customers, the impact of network performance on the quality of service will be more complex. It is vital that service engineers identify network-performance issues that impact customer service. They also must quantify revenue lost due to service degradation. The service-mapping tool comes in next. Performance data is mapped onto service-quality data. Take a customer using Multimedia Messaging Services, or MMS. If a video download is interrupted many times during a session, the customer will lose interest. The operator’s revenue will be lost with it. To avoid this situation, key quality indicators (KQIs) like availability can monitor the QoS offered to customers. From a customer’s point of view, the availability KQI measures how successfully he or she can access and use the MMS service. With the service mapping tool, it’s possible to combine KQIs from multiple key performance indicators (KPIs) across different service resources. KPIs measure a specific aspect of the performance of either a service resource or a group of service resources of the same type. A KPI is restricted to a specific resource type and derived from network measurements. By following this top-down approach, the service-mapping tool provides several benefits. It helps operators manage end-to-end quality of service from a customer’s perspective. It also allows them to reuse key performance indicators and key quality indicators across services and products. Lastly, it helps operators drill down to the service elements that are responsible for quality degradations. Service quality also demands a simple and easy-to-use user interface. With this interface, Network Operations Center (NOC) staff and service managers can monitor service-quality objectives against thresholds. These thresholds may be internal targets for the network operator. Or they could be derived from Service Level Agreement (SLA) definitions. When the service quality falls below the contracted levels, managers could then initiate corrective actions. They could focus on the service degradations that affect the greatest number of customers. A set of standard reports for different user communities should also be available. For new services, marketing and sales may be interested in reports on service usage and service uptake. National regulators may also request historical service quality against given service objectives. CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY Cooper and Emory (1995) defined research as a systematic inquiry aimed at providing information to solve problem. This chapter will present a detailed idea about how the research will be conducted. In this chapter research methodology, the sample selection methods, data collection methods & data extraction from the Questionnaire and data analysis will be studied and explained. At the end of this chapter validity and reliability issues will be discussed to follow the quality standards of the research. Research strategy will be a general plan of how researcher will go about answering the research questions that has been set by researcher. It will contain clear objectives, derived from research questions specify the sources from which researcher intend to collect data and consider the constraints that researcher will inevitably have such as access to data, time, location and money, ethical issues. (Thornhill et. al. , 2003) Based on three conditions 1) form of research question 2) requires control over behavioral events and 3) focus on contemporary events Yin (1994) identified five research strategies in social science. These are – experiments, surveys, archival analysis, histories and case studies Most important condition for selecting research strategy is to identify the type of research question being asked. â€Å"Who†, â€Å"What†, â€Å"Where†, â€Å"how† and â€Å"Why† are the categorization scheme for the types of research questions. Two possibilities need to investigate by asking the â€Å"what† question. First, some types of what questions are justifiable for conducting an exploratory study and the goal is to develop pertinent hypotheses and propositions for further inquiry. Any of the five research strategies can be used in that situation- exploratory survey, exploratory experiment, or an exploratory case study. The second type of what question is actually form a â€Å"how many† or â€Å" how much† line of inquiry and the outcomes from a particular situation. The survey or archival analysis is more favorable than other strategies. If the researcher needs to know the â€Å"how† question, the better strategy will be doing history or a case study. (Yin 1994) Research Purpose Research can be classified in terms of their purpose. Accordingly, they are most often classified as exploratory, descriptive or explanatory (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill 2003). Exploratory research is useful when the research questions are vague or when there is little theory available to guide predictions. At times, researcher may find it impossible to formulate a basic statement of the research problem. Exploratory research is used to develop a better understanding (Hair, Babin, Money & Samouel 2003). Exploratory studies are a valuable means of finding out what is happening, to seek new insight, to ask questions and to assess phenomena in a new light. It is particularly useful if researcher wish to clarify the understanding of a problem. There are three principle ways of conducting exploratory research: a search of the literature, talking to experts in the subject, conducting focus group interviews (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill 2003). Descriptive research describes some situation. Generally things are described by providing measures of an event or activity. Descriptive research designs are usually structured and specifically designed to measure the characteristics described in a research question. Hypotheses, derived from the theory, usually serve to guide the process and provide a list of what needs to be measured (Hair, Babin, Money & Samouel 2003). The object of descriptive research is to portray an accurate profile of persons, events of situations. It is necessary to have a clear picture of the phenomena on which researcher wish to collect data prior to the collection of the data (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill 2003). Explanatory Research establishes causal relationships between variables. The emphasis here is on studying a situation or a problem on order to explain the relationship between variables (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill 2003). Explanatory studies are designed to test whether one event causes another (Hair, Babin, Money & Samouel 2003). The purpose of the research is mainly descriptive and explanatory. It is descriptive because descriptive data has been collected through detailed interviews and it is also explanatory since we will explain the relationship between the service quality variables and customer satisfaction and how these dimensions affect customer satisfaction. It is somewhat exploratory nature since Data Collection Method Data was collected by primary as well as by secondary data c

Analysis of brand tribalism

Analysis of brand tribalism In the view of earning profit, marketers should develop as deeper, more affective relationship with their customers as they can. Some scholars reveal that competitive advantage can no longer be sustained on the basis of product attributes and perceived position. Today’s Consumers are now developing unique and vibrant relationships with their brands (McAlexander et al 2003). And strong brand relationship has also been characterized as cults or tribes (Cova and Cova, 2002). In this sense, the brand gathers passionate consumers in a structured social relationship, binding members together through a shared social and interpersonal experience (Cova 1997, Muniz and O’Guinn 2001). Brand managers are advised to go beyond the common marketing theory to establish a more stable relationship with the group of tribal people. In this case, the discussion of the way to make stable relationship with these tribal members is receiving more and more attention. The aim of this paper is to analyze the definition of brand tribe and some relevant literatures to evaluate how marketers engage with the phenomena of brand tribe to build a long term relationship with tribes. Overview Concept of Brand tribalism â€Å"A brand tribe can be defined as a social network of varied persons -who are linked by a shared belief around a brand; its members are not simple consumers, they are also believers and promoters† Patrick Dixon (2010) Says. A brand tribe does collective action and therefore it is implicated as post-modern business. The emergence of brand tribalism represents tribal consumptions. Some scholars define the concept of tribal consumption as â€Å"Tribal Based Views of Brand†. Cova (1997) says that Brand tribalism emerges because there is a group of consumers who adore this brand emotionally connected by some values and usage of consumption, using the social â€Å"linking value† of products and services to create a community and express identity. Ac cording to Bagozzi’s (2000) concept of international social action, social associations are the most important influence on an individual’s consumption decisions. In terms of this point, the phenomena of tribes can be presented as an expression of both self and social identity. Furthermore, Maffesoli (1996) establishes that consumer social identities and consumption choices shift depending on situational and lifestyle factors. So, the phenomena of Brand tribalism can also be understood and accessed through their shared beliefs, ideas and consumption. Due to this point, one individual consumer who has different categories of identity, may be involved in several different brand tribes at the same time. Practical Analysis Socially interconnected groups have been found to act loyally as a group because personal relationships are maintained through shared, regular consumption (Gainer, 1995). Brand just likes an art and consumers just like its diverse audiences bounded by a shared passion for â€Å"performance†. Meanwhile, studies of consumer-consumer relationships and their influence on individual consumption have focused on brand communities (Berger et al., 2006; Muniz and O’Guinn, 2001; Schouten and McAlexander, 1995). This research expands the focus on social relationships in the consumer behavior area and looks into the dynamics of a group of consumers focusing on one brand (brand tribe) for marketing opportunities.

Etruscan - Byzantine Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Etruscan - Byzantine - Essay Example It is also characterized by neighboring columns, superimposed and engaged, serves as an embellishment to the structure. Roman style is also characterized by an elevated high base steps rising to a deep portico which was a strong influence of the Etruscan style of architecture. Hagia Sophia, which is located in Istanbul formerly Constantinople, on the other hand, is one of the best examples of the Byzantine architecture. Although there are a lot of existing styles that concentrated on a religious theme, Byzantine architecture’s strong feature is that the structures built during this time were meant to glorify the church. This style is set apart by great domes, smaller domes and half domes supported with pedentive, huge columns, round arches and abundant use of color, decorative and glass mosaics. Both architectural styles have a distinct characteristic that distinguish it from others. Pantheon has a top heavy appearance and an imposingly large entrance like most temples in this era. Hagia Sophia, however, is somewhat inviting. Although Byzantine also uses columns in their architectural design, the Roman style has more columns that somewhat overlaps each other just by looking at it. Both structures made use of domes, the difference however was that Pantheon has only one while Hagia Sophia has several. Initially, Pantheon was believed to be created as a temple for the gods.

Reflection paper about the annishnaabe people Research - 1

Reflection about the annishnaabe people - Research Paper Example Clearly, the residential schools system had a massive effect on the culture of the Anishinabe. While the white Christian faithful saw the system as a way of assimilating them and promoting peaceful coexistence, the school stream eroded the culture of the Anishinabe. The federal policy of residential schools made the engaged Anishinabe unacceptable in their society. They were detached from their system while the federal system did not fully accept them. The federal policy did more harm than good. It was wrong for people who claimed to follow the Christian guidelines to put Anishinabe children forcefully in residential schools and force them to disown their language and cultural practices. The white community of the time showed double standards as they advocated autonomy in their society. In God is Red, Vine Deloria condemns the hypocritical nature of the white people in the society and the government. More so, Deloria sees the religious imposition on the Anishinabe as hypocritical (43 ). These claims are very accurate. It is regrettable that the white people in the residential schools mistreated the Anishinabe children, degraded them and eventually made them lose their cultural identity. Basically, the white people used religion hypocritically to pursue their agenda of dominion over the native people in the region. The Anishinabe’s resistance to residential school was justified. After all, the residential schools only made them lose their identity, face physical and sexual abuse and become physiologically crippled. Though they were overwhelmed due to the superiority of the white Christian settlers, their cause was worthwhile. They could not have experienced relief later on such as the right to conduct their traditional rites if they did not rise against the residential schools. Benton-Banai writes, the clan system of the Anishinabe was instrumental in directing resistance. As a governing body, their actions were entirely

Do you think that theories of authorship are incompatible with the Essay

Do you think that theories of authorship are incompatible with the industrial context of film production - Essay Example The auteur theory is one of the most important theories of authorship. The term, politque des auteurs was coined by Francois Truffaut, who realized that American Directors often worked within strictly circumscribed parameters in reference to the kinds of films and the scripts they could direct, since these were often predetermined and allowed the directors little room to experiment with their own ideas (Keller 1930). The notion of the Director being the true author of a film first emerged through the views of Andrew Sarris on the distinctive nature of a particular director’s work. According to Sarris, Hitchcock was â€Å"great† and Welles was classed as â€Å"brilliant†, based on the view that over the course of preparation of several films, a director may reveal certain recurring characteristics of styles or themes, which are like his or her personal signature or stamp upon the film, identifying it unmistakably as their product (Sarris, 1979:650-665), irrespective of the collective nature of film production. It may be argued that American cinema in earlier decades was circumscribed by the industrial context of production and the concentration of power in the hands of studio top executives. The power wielded by the writers and directors of the film was considerably less than that wielded by studio heads and their creative control over the film much lower. Yet, despite these restrictions, some directors such as Hitchcock were able to achieve a personal style that was uniquely their own. In particular, where some directors such as Orson Welles and Jean Luc Godard are concerned, some recurring themes may occur in all their works, or their work may demonstrate a particular worldview or personal vision that becomes evident through their work. They bear the unmistakable personal imprint of the author, despite the plethora of external market and commodity pressures that may fashion the final products. For example, in the works of Godard, the

Financial Administration in the City of San Antonio TX Essay

Financial Administration in the City of San Antonio TX - Essay Example The researcher states that budgeting in the City of San Antonio TX is done by the office of Management and Budgeting. It is meant to act as a financial guide, a policy paper and a financial plan. The city of San Antonio TX budget is well formulated and executed. The budget presents an adequate overview of the entity and its financial position. This is so because it provides a summary of all the budget components, its allocation and the role of these components in enhancing the objectives of the city. The budget summary covers the element of public safety, where the police and the fire department of the city are committed to respond to the safety needs of the city residents. The budget seeks to increase the number of officers in patrol and also the fire vehicle technicians. Street maintenance is another element covered by the summary, with an additional $ 1.8 for pavement preservation and some more $6 million provided to cater for advanced transport. Animal care services will be cater ed for by a $1.7 million while education and library services will be funded to a tune of $30.6 million, which will cater for the construction of new libraries and fund the operations of the already existing ones. Employee compensation and Economic development are the other components of the budget, allocating $32 million towards civilian salary adjustments and $7 million to support the creation of new jobs, support new business development and encourage new investments. (Maria, 2011). This gives a brief overview of the budget and its components, while giving information about the city objective at a glance, to make the city government smarter and more efficient. The greatest percentage of the operating budget is accounted for by public safety, which involves fire and police department, financed to a tune of $343 million, in a total adopted budget of $948 million. The reason for such huge funding of the department is because the public safety is the priority of the city of San Anton io TX (Maria, 2011). To enhance this public safety through community policing and neighborhood teamwork, the budget seeks to increase the number of officers in patrol for narcotics by 17 more. It also seeks to add another 25 officers to the service of the people and an additional 4 fire vehicle technicians to enhance rapid response services to the public. The department is also to be awarded with two more management analyst to enhance the management of the police and the fire department, and to enhance its effectiveness and efficiency. The technology used by the department is to be advanced through new software development and installations, meant to improve the payroll division of the department. Owing to the above needs for improvements in the department of fire and police, and due to the crucial role it plays of providing public safety, the city’s office of management and budget sought to allocate more fund to this department (Paul, 1998). The department alone accounts for close to 40% of all the funding done in the annual budget of 2012. This is a clear indication that the interest of the city residents takes priority in the city’s management issues. Police protection is the category within that area that accounts for the greatest budget, being a key service that is very crucial for the wellbeing of the people. A total of $1.5 is to be dedicated to the improvement of neighborhood and narcotics patrol. This is meant to increase the presence of police in all the areas of the city, thus reduce the rates of crimes and drug abuse. $850,000 is meant to reassign 17 police officers to patrols, while $597,000 is meant for increasing the number of officers serving the community neighborhoods. A new helicopter mechanic, and another new helicopter mechanics supervisor are to be hired to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of services delivered to the people by the fire and the police department. This will be funded to a tune of

Book Review Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 6

Book Review - Essay Example One such example is of Texas which is under the territory of United States of America. It is analyzed that around 3.8 million people living in Texas were below the poverty line specified by the government in 2006. And if the previous records are analyzed it can be said that the rate of poverty is going to increase further in the recent years. The book that this essay would analyze is Poverty and Discrimination by Kevin Lang an economist. Poverty and discrimination are two broad topics which are usually not portrayed correct and are not supported enough by the evidence given. However in the book Poverty and Discrimination by Kevin Lang he explains using the broad points on both poverty and discrimination. The books gives many researches and analysis which help the readers to understand what the topics of discrimination and poverty are to this world. He further examines the level of poverty prevailing in this world with the help of his methods and tells how these two subjects are being handled by different governments of this world. Poverty in this world is created by several reasons and in this book Kevin Lang puts out several of these reasons which cause poverty. The determinants of poverty particularly in the United States are emphasized with reference to the discrimination taking place in the States. He particularly points out discrimination amongst black taking place in the United States of America and how it cau ses poverty amongst the different races. He also provides an overview about labor market and how the labor market discriminates between these different races. Here he particularly points out at the education level that the black receive and the level which the whites receive. The vast difference in both these classes causes discrimination to occur. The book gives out policies which have been implemented all over the world regarding poverty and discrimination. And he further analyzes these policies in regard to

Education mis in East African countries - Tanzania Dissertation

Education mis in East African countries - Tanzania - Dissertation Example The creation of the MIS model will serve the purposes of empowering decision makers and the creation of capacity to deliver better education services across the sector. In the area of requirements analysis, the creation of the specification for the MIS model was executed through incorporation of national and international standards of education, regarding the needs of the users of the Tanzanian education sector. Communication with the users was executed through interviews, as this model offered unbiased information on the viewpoints of the user population. Feedback surveys were also helpful towards reaching the desired information base, as collected from social networking and other ICT-related data sites. Areas of constraints included the vague knowledge of the specifications desired by the user population, the unreasonable timelines of the end-users, and the communication gap between implementation teams and the end-user population. The rationales for the choices made were based on rationale capture and rationale representation, which were verified using argument-based choices. The software requirements specification was designed to emphasize on and foster the usage of management information systems throughout the creation, processing and consumption of information. Performance indicators revolved around the service delivery of service personnel to the documentation of students, and offering a complete picture of the educations sector. The features of the model under implementation include capturing baseline statistics like the demography of users to school performance capacities. Data flow across the sector was created to improve the practice and quality of management across the different user groups. The schedule for the implementation of the model will extend across 2011 and 2012, prior to expansion depending on the depicted implementation needs and uptake capacity. Under design specification, the model was split into two sub-phases: the top level design an d the detailed design level. The implementation of the model covered the development of the model, creation of data collection forms, data entry models and checking of the quality of the application. In the area of testing, the MIS model was tested on a number of areas, including the presence of bugs, model usability, and model compatibility. The model will offer a platform from which the education sector can run in a more effective manner, following the more effective transfer and communication of relevant information across the sector. INTRODUCTION AND DESCRIPTION OF THE FUNCTIONALITY OF THE MIS MODEL UNDER CREATION The education sector at Tanzania has historically faced numerous challenges, including the lack of basic infrastructure like electricity at local

Traditional Business Concepts Essay Example for Free

Traditional Business Concepts Essay Business concepts of marketing and economics have proven to be valuable to the success of many business organizations. This is due to the fact that business concepts know the techniques of understanding and reaching out to clients. Thus, it is useful to integrate some of these concepts into the healthcare industry, with the aim of further improving the delivery of healthcare services.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Understanding and application of economic concepts to healthcare are useful in solving many of the controversies in the field. Healthcare is an aspect of government that is always on crisis. For example, one recurring crisis in healthcare is the huge number of population that is uninsured. This crisis could be better understood and addresses through the application of the economic concept of demand. Thus, the number of people who wants healthcare coverage increases because they want to be healthy (Drummond, 2001). Moreover, there is a corresponding increase in incomes and improvements in medical technology, which affect their expectations on healthcare coverage. Since this understanding gives insight to the reason for increasing demand for healthcare, healthcare organizations would have a better starting point when dealing with their clients, thereby further increasing the care with which they deal with the latter.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Another important business concept that could aid healthcare organizations is Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM), which helps organizations manage their customers. CRM is useful because it would allow healthcare organizations to ensure that they could access customer information at any point and at any time within the organization. Having information at one’s fingertips would, without a doubt, help healthcare organizations personalize their services according to the specific needs of their clients. Thus, while CRM is initially a business concept, it would not reduce the caring aspect of healthcare organizations (Garcà ­a-Murillo Annabi, 2002). References Drummond, M. (2001). The Use of Economic Evidence by HealthCare Decision Makers.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The European Journal of Health Economics 2(1), 2-3  Garcà ­a-Murillo, M. Annabi, H. (2002). Customer Knowledge Management. The   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Journal of the Operational Research Society   53(8), 875-884

Cultural Differences in the Workplace: Australia and US

Cultural Differences in the Workplace: Australia and US Tim Johnson Anthropologist, James Downs, defined culture as â€Å"a mental map which guides us in our relations to our surroundings and to other people† (Linsell, 2011). This definition supports the idea that culture influences the way in which individuals behave. America and Australia are connected in many ways, and both countries’ success is blatantly predominant even at a quick glance. Both countries are far more superior to the majority of countries around the globe, and a reason for that is their culture sets higher standards in their attempts to continue towards greatness. Although there are many similarities between the Australian and U.S. workplace culture, there are characteristics that illustrate the distinctions between the two cultures. The United States and Australia have very similar upbringings, which is the result of their ties to the British colonies. The United States was formed as a result of immigrants fleeing from religious persecution, while Australia was settled by government workers and convicts. Both countries have similar cultures because the ancestors were predominantly Anglo- Saxon/ Caucasians, and both â€Å"cultures grew through liberal immigration policies† (Linsell, 2011). The reason both nations illustrate similarities in culture is because they share connection to British involvement. The Australian workplace culture differs from most, but Australia has found ways to promote excellence while still promoting happiness. Australia has a community-oriented heritage and is supporters of egalitarianism (Linsell, 2011). Egalitarianism can be defined as equality for all of man with respect to economics, politics, and society. The Australian workplace is also very multicultural, and one in every 4 workers is from another culture (â€Å"Spectrum MRC†, 2012). Australia also embraces different practices compared to the United States. These practices are reflected in their sometimes informal business meetings and interviews. The informality can be illustrated through their non-verbal communication such as proximity when interacting and body language (â€Å"Spectrum MRC†, 2012). To an outsider the Australian workplace culture may seem informal, but within many domestic organizations this is common practice. Australian organizations prefer autonomy and flexibility in the workplace (Linsell, 2011), because it promotes a positive atmosphere that results in higher productivity. The United States workplace culture is centered on command- control leadership and is hierarchy based, because equality is not deemed as important (Linsell, 2011). The hierarchy that the U.S. practices creates competition within the workplace to strive for success, while endorsing a selfish mentality among the employees. The United States takes a â€Å"business first approach†, and favors when employees separate their business and personal lives (â€Å"U.S. Business Culture†, 2011). This approach statistically encourages a more focused workplace, but at the cost of employees not finding enjoyment in their work and with their colleagues. To this day, America is still commonly referred to as â€Å"The Melting Pot† even though the individuals that use this term do not know the true origin. This term was coined in the beginning of the 20th Century to characterize how the immigrants were all mixing together and creating one blended culture. Most individuals improperly use the term to describe different cultures simply living among one another. Australia is wonderful because there are so many diverse cultures, but all of the cultures remain unique and avoid merging in to one. The lack of combining promotes individuality, which aids in the citizens and in turn the employees becoming better developed and appreciative of their positions. The American culture is about demonstrating assertion and never displaying weakness, because weakness is commonly associated with failure. Even though the United States exhibits superiority and their practices are effective, they sacrifice the personal connections that aid to create higher team morale. The workplace culture of Australia and the U.S. take different approaches to how they operate their organizations, but similarities overlap in both cultures. The similarity that is predominant in both countries is the controversy of gender inequality (Leahy, 2011). Currently women in the workforce aren’t â€Å"able to access and enjoy the same rewards, resources, and opportunities† (Workplace Gender Equality Agency, 2013) that men receive in the same workplace. Even in modern society discrimination still resonates and women are unfairly forced to deal with this injustice. The term most commonly used to describe the gender inequality present in the workplace is â€Å"the glass ceiling† (Cotter, Hermsen, Ovadia, Vanneman, 2001). The glass ceiling alludes to a woman’s ability to see to a further point than she can actually reach. Even if the average woman attempted to work towards a higher ranking position, she will typically come across difficulty when tryi ng to advance to that position. Women are still facing discrimination in employment (Doughney, 2007) and more men reach higher paid executive and specialized positions (Ross-Smith McGraw, 2010). Australia and the United States have similarities and differences, but even though they are both global leaders they still have room to expand and change from their current discriminatory practices. My experience in an Australian workplace has been eye opening and led me to a culture that has many positive differences from my own. An aspect of Australian culture that differs from my experiences in the United States is the desire to promote a community based workplace. At Greenwood Dental the employees were completely welcoming and personable; this was the beginning to my acceptance in to their workplace family. After interning for a few days, they began to see my hard work ethic and my willingness to assist anyone’s needs. My determination to benefit their business in any way possible illustrated to them that I was serious about becoming a part of their team, and from that point on I was viewed as a team member. A prime example of their communal persona is seen in their lunch break room. The break room has qualities similar to a family room in a household and they also bring food for everyone to share. This may not seem like much, but promoting this type of workplace led to a productive and friendly environment. Typically in the United States, everyone keeps to themselves and does their own work, but in Australia they believe in a civic based culture. Australian culture favors equality and during my time at Greenwood, I never felt underappreciated or like an outsider. In the U.S. it is very common to feel isolated and unacknowledged, because everyone is trying to advance themselves instead of working collaboratively. All the employees know their position within the company and that the dentists are the priority, but everyone’s position is necessary in order to run a successful business. Greenwood Dental was made up of many different cultures and it was exciting working with such a diverse group of individuals. It is imperative that individuals submerge themselves in additional cultures in order to understand others and even more importantly develop themselves. Greenwood Dental’s staff consists of employees from seven different countries, so being immersed in such a culturally rich environment aided my development towards better understanding and respect for equality. Australia and the United States come from related backgrounds and as a result the cultures share comparable characteristics, but when analyzing workplace culture the distinction is tremendously clear. The Australian workplace culture tends to be more communal and flexible, while the U.S. encourages hierarchy and competition. A positive workplace culture is a result of motivation, productivity, quality work, and retention (â€Å"Building a Positive†, 2013) and in my opinion Australia is better at acquiring the positive workplace with respect to America. Australian culture strives for positivity and satisfaction, while the United States attempts to improve only their economic status. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States, once said, â€Å"Happiness is not the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort†. After my experiences in Australia, I can assert that Australia’s workplace with respect to the U.S. has a more positive, enjoyable, and overall better atmosphere to be a part of. The Australian workplace culture chooses to sacrifice uniformity in order to allow for individuality and happiness. Bibliography Attitude Works. (2013).  Building a positive workplace culture. Retrieved from  http://www.attitudeworks.com.au/AW_pages/attitudes/positive/positive.html Cotter, D., Hermsen, J., Ovadia, S., Vanneman, R. (2001). The glass ceiling effect.  The  University of North Carolina Press,  80(2), 655-682. Retrieved from  http://www.vanneman.umd.edu/papers/CotterHOV01.pdf Cross Border Management. Cross Border Management LLC, (2011).  Us business culture.  Retrieved from website: http://www.crossbordermanagement.com/en/guides/business-culture-in-the-us Doughney, J. (2007). Women and leadership in corporate australia: questions of preference and  adaptive preference.Advancing Women in Leadership Journal,  24, Retrieved from  http://www.advancingwomen.com/awl/spring2007/doughney.htm Leahy, M. (2011). Women and work in australia.  Australian Policy Online, 1-4. Retrieved from  http://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/Women_and_work_in_Australia_APO_guide_Mary_Leahy_0.pdf Linsell, D. (2011, Sept 07). Australia and America arent that different, right?.  Dynamic  Business. Retrieved from http://www.dynamicbusiness.com.au/export/australia-and-america-aren’t-that-different-right-792011.html Ross-Smith, A., McGraw, P. (2010). Eowa 2010.  Equal Opportunity for Women in the  Workplace Agency, 1-32. Retrieved from https://www.wgea.gov.au/sites/default/files/2010_census_tag.pdf Spectrum Migrant Resource Centre. Spectrum Migrant Resource Centre, (2012).  Understanding  australian workplace culture. Retrieved from Receivers to Givers website:  http://www.spectrumvic.org.au/content/download/5667/28832/file/Spectrum MRC    Understanding Australian Workplace Culture.pdf Workplace Gender Equality Agency. (2013).  About workplace gender equality. Retrieved from  https://www.wgea.gov.au/learn/about-workplace-gender-equality