Participative Management – Workers Participation in Management

Human Resource Management

Case Study on Entrepreneurship: Larry Page

Business Analysis

The Boundaryless Career: Modern Contemperory Perspective on Career

Human Resource Management

How to Meet Costa Rica’s 2026 VASP Requirements Without Expanding Headcount

General Business Articles

Concepts of Throughput Accounting and Theory of Constraints

Financial Management

Brand Case Study: Virgin Atlantic, Adidas, Xerox, Ikea and Accenture

VIRGIN ATLANTIC Virgin Atlantic was born in the 1980s. Richard Branson, the British entrepreneur, had already created a successful brand with Virgin Group, particularly in the music business. He had founded the group when he was 20 as a mail-order record company and shortly after opened a music shop in London’s main shopping thoroughfare, Oxford Street. The original brand slogan of these stores was ‘Cheap and nasty’. A music studio was built in Oxfordshire in 1972, where one Mike Oldfield recorded his massively successful album Tabular Bells for the Virgin Records label. This album sold 5 million copies and was the catalyst for Virgin Records, which signed a range of successful artists, including The Rolling Stones, Culture Club, Janet Jackson, Peter Gabriel, Simple Minds and The Human League. Virgin was to become one of the six biggest record companies in the world. By the early 80s Virgin Group was well Continue reading

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Ethical Issues in the Banking Industry

Over the years, banks have undergone tremendous growth in many aspects of their operations, starting with the type of customers they deal with to the manner in which information is received, recorded, transformed, and finally used. Ultimately, banks have unraveled the whole mystery of discrimination as to what customers to offer services to or not by categorizing their clients in terms of their income structure. This classifying of customers is meant to assist in the decision making process as to what customer receives what treatment, but it is also meant to assist the banks in understanding the type of customers to offer better services to. Therefore, regulated by their policy of information non-disclosure, banks would obtain very crucial information about various customers (their age, sex, race, employment status, as well as income level) with a notion that they are adhering to the Know Your Customer policy. This information is supposed Continue reading

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Modern Methods of Performance Appraisal

Most traditional methods of performance appraisal emphasize either on  the task or the worker’s personality, while making an appraisal. In order to bring  about a balance between these two, modern methods have been developed. The modern methods of performance appraisal place more  emphasis on the evaluation of work results, i.e. job achievements than the  personal traits. Modern methods tend to be more objective and worthwhile.  These methods are briefly discussed below. 1. Behavioral Anchored Rating Scale (BARS) The problem of judgmental  evaluation inherent in the traditional methods of performance evaluation led to  some organisations to go for objective evaluation by developing a technique  know as BARS around 1960s. It is an approach that has received greater  attention in recent years. It combines major elements of the ‘Critical Incident’  and ‘Graphic Ratings Scale’ approaches. The appraiser rates the employee on  specific job behaviors derived from specific performance dimensions (on a  given Continue reading

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Portfolio Construction Phase in Investment Portfolio Management

Investment portfolio construction refers to the allocation of funds among a variety of financial assets open for investment. Portfolio theory concerns itself with the principles governing such allocation. The objective of the theory is to elaborate the principles in which the risk can be minimized subject to desired level of return on the portfolio or maximize the return, subject to the constraint of a tolerate level of risk. Thus, the basic objective of portfolio management is to maximize yield and minimize risk. The other ancillary objectives are as per the needs of investors, namely: Safety of the investment Stable current returns Appreciation in the value of capital Marketability and Liquidity Minimizing of tax liability. In pursuit of these objectives, the portfolio manager has to set out all the various alternative investment along with their projected return and risk and choose investment with safety the requirement of the individual investor and Continue reading

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Keynesian Theory of Trade Cycles

John Maynard Keynes, one of the most influential economists of the 20th century, never worked out a pure theory of trade cycles, though he made significant contributions to the trade cycle theory. Keynes states, “The trade cycle can be described and analyzed in terms of the fluctuations of the marginal efficiency of capital relatively to the rate of interest.” According to Keynes, the level of income and employment in a capitalist economy depends upon effective demand, comprising of total consumption and investment expenditure. Changes in total expenditure will imply changes in effective demand and will lead to changes in income and employment in the country. Therefore, in the Keynesian system fluctuations in total expenditure are responsible for fluctuations in business activity. Now, according to Keynes, consumption expenditure is relatively stable, and consequently it is the fluctuations in the volume of investment that are responsible for changes in the level of Continue reading

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The Insurance Regulatory And Development Authority (IRDA)

Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) is regulatory and development authority under Government of India in order to protect the interests of the policyholders and to regulate, promote and ensure orderly growth of the insurance industry. It is basically a ten members’ team comprising of a Chairman, five full time members and four part-time members, all appointed by Government of India. This organization came into being in 1999 after the bill of IRDA was passed in the Indian parliament. The creation of IRDA has brought revolutionary changes in the Insurance sector. In the last 10 years of its establishment the insurance sector has seen tremendous growth. When IRDA came into being; the only players in the insurance industry were Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) and General Insurance Corporation of India (GIC), however in last decade 23 new players have emerged in the field of insurance. The IRDA also successfully Continue reading

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