Knowing and Knowledge Essay Example for Free

Knowing and Knowledge Essay Of Mary TMCCA Patterns of Knowing and Knowledge It is suggested that there are five patterns of knowing and knowledge in nursing. A nurse must develop and balance all of these patterns of knowledge in order to be effective. As in all of nursing, nurses refine these patterns with experience and reflection throughout his or her career. This knowledge is interrelated, interdependent and overlapping. Nurse, as any other profession develop their own pattern of knowledge as part of their profession, nursing being a unique profession with a unique pattern of knowledge because it requires intellectual knowledge, technical skill and is considered an art (Rutty, J. E. 1998). The first pattern of knowledge is emancipatory knowledge. This concept challenges the nurse to recognize the sometimes-subtle social and political ramifications influencing his or her practice and patient care. The nurse must first recognize that something is wrong, and then have the courage to meet the challenge to attempt to change the status quo (Chinn amp; Kramer, 2011). Hegemony is the ability of a certain group or dominant class to influence or control another population or group and influence them to accept their view. The hospital environment and relationships within them can be considered hegemonic, therefore, nurses learn early in their education that is conflict is common between hierarchies within institutions. Nurses learn early in their careers that hegemony can cause disharmony in their practice (Clare, 1993). In order to utilize this practice or pattern of knowing the nurse must question not only what is wrong with the picture but also who is benefiting from the status quo. It is assumed that the disadvantaged population or individual is not free to choose from the options that more advantage persons would be able to choose. The nurse must ask critical questions such as what is wrong with this picture and who is benefiting by keeping the status quo (Chinn amp; Kramer, 2011). Ethical knowledge in nursing has to do with doing no harm and doing what is right. Ethics asks what is right and who is responsible? Nurses are challenges daily in clarifying their values and exploring their alternatives when ethical dilemma’s occur in practice. Various techniques that can be utilized for this process, however the nurse must be aware that this process is likely to be emotionally charged, as it will challenge his or her deeply held values and belief system. The nurse must also explore other avenues of resolution to the problem from the viewpoint of facts and logic. The use of an ethical decision tree is often useful when making an ethical decision, as it add clarity to the situation. Ethical knowledge in nursing operates within fundamental principal and codes. These include such principles of autonomy and benevolence. These are guides to our practice of what the right thing to do (Chinn amp; Kramer, 2011). Griepp’s model of ethical decision making suggests that the nurse has personal belief systems and values however through education and knowledge development has the ability to change his or her beliefs or values. The nurse has the responsibility to always be aware of outside influences on his or her decision-making and carry out right behavior and knowledge (Griepp, 1992). Ethical and Moral Comportment is a term that refers to how nurses or individual behaves or acts morally relative to what they know ethically. This requires the nurse to integrate all patterns of knowledge into the decision-making process. Ethics being the knowledge of what is right, morality being the behavior or heart of what is right and is based on values. An individual has moral integrity when they behave in a manner that is consistent with their ethics. When nurses are unable or unwilling to maintain moral integrity they get moral distress. There are four types common ethical perspective in nursing. Teleology refers to what is right produces good. This concept often refers to the justification for the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Deontology refers to the principle that what is right may not necessarily produce a good outcome. When this principle is followed, it may be the right thing to do in the circumstance, but may cause harm. These two principles are often in conflict. The principle of relativism suggests that what is right in one culture or society may be different on another. This suggest that depending on time and place in history, what is right may change. Virtue ethics suggests that the person involved is important in the decision- making. The character and values or virtues of the person determines the ethical decisions made. The definition of virtue can be troubling when utilizing this principle, especially when referring to nurses as it is comprised of a high percentage of women, whose virtues tend to be obedience, submissiveness and self-sacrificing (Chinn amp; Kramer, 2011). Personal knowledge is the most difficult knowledge for nurses to describe and develop as it takes much introspection, interaction and experience. It is complex and unique to each person yet fundamentally one of the most important patterns of knowing (Rutty, 1998). Personal knowing is rooted in the central questions of; do I know what I do? And Do I do what I know? This concept is spiritual in nature as ones values, attitude and hopes are linked to what they know about themselves and how they view the world, joy and suffering, realities, and how each person learns to be authentic and genuine. Personal knowledge is guided and learned by self-reflection, personal stories and being ones genuine self. The creative process of opening and centering guides it. This process allows the nurse to be present fully with other individuals, and develop the strength and character to be authentic and genuine with others. This allows the nurse to give meaning to the experiences he or she has lived (Chinn amp; Kramer, 2011). Once knowledge is obtained, it becomes personal knowledge; this is part of our humanness. At times, the nurse must become uncomfortable in order to seek out personal knowledge as he or she explores and reflects (Sweeney, 1994). Personal knowing is how a nurse just knows something is about to happen or about a situation or another person. Personal knowing is the experience of the situation without conscious reason (Chinn amp; Kramer, 2011). Personal knowing is what leads the nurse to intuitive thinking. He or she cannot tell you why she has this feeling that this will happen, he or she just knows (Sweeney, 1994). When the nurse has a strong sense of personal knowing it is empowering and gives the nurse a sense of community. The nurse values human life more fully and is more giving to others as he or she is more authentic and genuine both with him or herself and with others as they must attempt to view the perception of others (Chinn amp; Kramer, 2011). Aesthetic knowledge is the art of nursing and how nurses find meaning and significance in each situation. This pattern of knowledge provides the nurse with insight into the human condition. This insight gives the nurse appreciation and inspiration for the practice of nursing. This pattern of knowing and insight allows the nurse to know the unique meaning to unique situations and transform problematic situations into therapeutic situations instantaneously. As in other patterns of knowing this pattern utilizes creativity by the nurse. The nurse must envision the possibility of the best outcome for a given situation and design through experience of past knowledge and present relationship and state as the situation takes place. This must integrate all patterns of knowing in order to be effective. While this is underemphasized in nursing practice, it is and integral part of nursing history. It is the heart of nursing excellence as it embodies mind, body and spirit to form the art and caring of nursing. This pattern of knowing takes discipline on the part of the nurse, as he or she must rehearse situations in advance (Chinn amp; Kramer, 2011). This pattern of knowing requires the nurse to be fully engaged and he or she must interpret each situation by looking beyond what is happening at the moment and envisioning various possibilities. One cannot fully explain in the form of language the art of nursing, however the nurse shows the art through interactions and skills (Mantzorou amp; Mastrogiannis, 2011). This pattern of knowing requires the nurse to know what it means to experience health as well as illness. Synchronous movements with ones language are important in this knowledge. The art of body language and touch is embodied with language skills. Eye contact, touch, facial expressions, tone and language skills are all important. When the nurse’s body language and tone matches what he or she is saying and he or she engages in therapeutic touch, language skills and body language skills a therapeutic environment is created. This therapeutic environment translates to aesthetic nursing (Chinn amp; Kramer, 2011). Empiric knowledge can be viewed as the science of nursing. This is the knowledge that is based on the senses. What can the nurse see, hear, touch, smell and possibly taste. They are the facts, figures, graphs, descriptions, and predictive relationships. Empirics can be validated and are viewed the same by all individuals, they are concrete (Mantzorou amp; Mastrogiannis, 2011). This being said, there are several dimensions to empiric knowledge as one must define the conceptual meaning of any given word or concept as it may have different meaning dependent on culture, the situation it is used, or past experience of the person imagining that word. Some concepts are based n continuums. The concepts of cardio-vascular health can be defined in many ways along the continuum. It would need to be more specifically defined along the continuum in order to be valid and clarifies an empiric concept. This creates identifies assumptions, clarifies context for theories, and designs relationship statements. Empiric theory can be defined in a number of ways. Chinn and Kramer (2011) describe empiric theory as â€Å"A creative and rigorous structuring of ideas that projects a tentative, purposeful and systematic view of phenomena†. This process requires creativity, rigor, structure, purpose and tentativeness on the part of the nurse (Chinn amp; Kramer, 2011). The fundamental concept of the servant leadership is relationship. One must have relationship with self and with others. This relationship relates to nursing as relationships and personal knowledge and self-reflection is an integral function of all patterns of knowledge. Listening, self- awareness, empathy, foresight and personal and professional growth all contribute to healing of self and others by a servant leader.

Criminology Delinquency and crime the general strain theory

Criminology Delinquency and crime the general strain theory General Strain Theory (GST), introduced by sociologist Robert Agnew in 1992 (Cernkovich, Giordano, Rudolph, 2000), focuses on the individual effects of strain, and how it is that that strain then leads a person towards delinquency and crime. This essay looks at the background of strain theory, its explanation of crime and deviance, evaluates the theory and ends with the writers opinion of general strain theory. General Strain Theory is more individualised than the first Anomie and Strain theory that was introduced by Emile Durkheim and Robert Merton. Agnew, Brezina, Wright, Cullen (2002) suggest that it is personality traits within the individual that result in their reaction to strain, and it is then these certain traits that end up in the individual turning towards delinquency and crime as a way to relieve the tension that the strain has brought into their life. The major traits associated with individual strain are those traits of constraint and negative emotionality (Agnew et al., 2002), which when provoked by strain, lead the individual to such emotions as anger and to delinquency and crime to relieve this anger. Also known as negative affect states (Seigel, 2003), these adverse emotions of anger and frustration can be controlled by many individuals, but coupled with those traits of low constraint and high negative emotionality in an individual, other individuals have trouble with con trolling these negative affect states and delinquency is often the result when strain is added to their lives. General strain theory does do the good deed per se of explaining both crime and deviance as a theory, as most individuals who react negatively to strain do so mainly in a delinquent way, but not always in a criminal way. If the reaction is in a criminal way though, it is only to the extent of income-generating criminality, and rarely results in crimes of a hurtful nature (Cernkovich, et al., 2000). Many researchers have found that the main type of strain that results in crime occurring is the strain of an individuals economic situation (Cernkovich et al., 2000), and thus most crime and delinquency to relieve this strain tension is ways in which income can be obtained. While some individuals only go as far as delinquency (such as acting out against someone) to relieve their tension from strain pressures, others do go the extra distance and commit a crime, such as robbing another individual. The difference between committing a delinquent act and committing a criminal act is explained b y general strain theory as a direct result of the level of constraint and negative emotionality that individual possesses (Agnew et al., 2002). In support of general strain theory, Agnew et al. (2002) looked at 2300 children between the ages of 7 and 11 in 1976, and again five years later in 1981, measuring their individual strains (both at home and at school), and comparing it with their level of constraint and negative emotionality. Teacher and parental survey reports for each child were also used at each time period. Agnew et al. (2002) believed that it was mainly juveniles who reacted negatively to strain, and thus the researchers wanted to test whether the children with low constraint and high negative emotionality in 1976 were more likely in 1981 to act criminally and/or delinquently, if their levels of constraint and negative emotionality were the same or worse as previous. In response to their surveys, Agnew et al. did find that those juveniles with low constraint and high negative emotionality in 1981 were more likely to act in a delinquent or criminal manner as a reaction to parental and educational strain that occ urred in their lives. Cernkovich et al.(2000) took a different approach in testing general strain theory, instead looking at race and the so-called American Dream and the effect that these factors had on certain individuals. Two samples were used in the design: the first a sample of individuals living in private households, and the second a sample of previously institutionalised offenders. As in the previous study by Agnew et al. (2002), the samples were interviewed as adolescents in 1982 and then again in 1992 (household sample) and 1995 (institutionalised sample) (Cernkovich et al., 2000). When conceptualised in career and materialistic terms, the African-American commitment to the American dream was strong, although high levels of unemployment and low incomes were still common occurrences. While lacking access to money and materialistic objects, the importance of the American dream to many African-Americans was still quite high, resulting in the occurrence of delinquency and criminality in an effort to improve their chances of achieving the American dream (Cernkovich et al., 2000). Thus it would seem that racial factors do play a role in general strain theory, in addition to those trait factors of low constraint and high negative emotionality. Either way it is looked at, general strain theory explains how it is that delinquency and criminality can both occur. In one case it is because of the extent of traits within an individual, in another case it is based on the importance one race holds towards materialism and status quo. Evaluation While it is true that general strain theory does do the job of explaining both crime and deviance, at the same time general strain theory does include some shortcomings as a criminology theory overall. General strain theory has done a job of explaining why it is that those races other than Caucasian (or White) do commit crime and delinquent acts, but then why is it that Caucasians commit many of the delinquent and criminal acts in the world? General strain theory has no real explanation for this, other than the fact that they might possess the traits of low constraint and negative emotionality. But what about those people who commit crimes and delinquent acts and do not possess these traits? Why is it then that they are doing what they are doing? General strain theory has no explanation for this occurrence. Agnew et al. (2002) stated that it was mainly juveniles who possessed the traits of low constraint and negative emotionality, and thus were the ones to react negatively to strain, but what about those who are not juveniles? Obviously these individuals must possess these traits as well, but what if they do not? What is it then that has made them commit the act that they did? Seig el (2003) writes that negative affective states such as anger and frustration result in criminal and delinquent acts, but what about those psychopaths and sociopaths who do not have these feelings at the time of their crime, or those individuals who commit crime just because and not as a result of a negative state? General strain theory, while on the micro level, may be too much on the micro level, for it is not only those individual issues, but the larger macro societal issues as well that interact for an individual to commit a delinquent or criminal act. Another issue that general strain theory does not take into account, when explaining crime and deviance, is the crimes committed by those who have already achieved the American Dream. With their economic situation already high, why is it that some people choose to risk it all for a few more dollars? General strain theory does not explain why many of the so-called white-collar crimes occur. And in keeping with the American dream, what about those individuals who do not adhere to the American dream? Why is it that people in little villages halfway around the world commit crimes? They have no reason to adhere to the American dream of the Western world, so what is their reason for committing crime? It can not be a racial issue, for they are the only race that is around in their part of the world, wherever that may be. And low constraint and high negative emotionality are not issues to them as traits, so why is it then that they have committed their crime? General strain theory has no exp lanation. According to general strain theory, those who commit crime should be non-white, poor, with low constraint and high negative emotionality. So why it is that poorer people are not committing crime? What about those who are okay being poor? Should they not be adhering to the American dream? What about trying to strike it rich by any means possible? General strain theory states that juveniles commit crimes and delinquent acts because they do not have the means by which to properly deal with their low constraint and high negative emotionality (Agnew et al., 2002). This explains why desistance occurs later in life for these juveniles, but what about for those who do not desist from crime as they get older? They have the means now of coping with their educational and parental strains, or those strains have gone away, so why are they still committing criminal and delinquent acts? And what about those individuals who do not commit these such acts as juveniles but begin to do so later on in life? Why is it that with the means to cope with life strains some people choose to ignore their coping mechanisms and instead turn to a delinquent and criminal life? A general strain theorist would argue that the individual has the coping mechanisms to deal with life strains that they did not possess as juveniles and so should be able to desist fr om crime and delinquency, but what if they do not? General strain theory has no reason as to why this occurs. It is a statement of fact that crime does occur in the slum areas, and this coincides with the views expressed in general strains theory, but what about those crimes that are not committed in the slum areas? Why are these crimes occurring? General strain theory would say that it is because that person has low constraint and high negative emotionality, but what if the individual is not a juvenile? Should they not have grown out of these traits by now? Another issue not explained by general strain theory is why hate crimes occur. Why is it that gays, lesbians, transvestites, transsexuals are discriminated against? Why does discrimination occur at all? Why is it that terrorism occurs? Why is it that wars occur? General strain theory has no real solid explanation for any of these occurrences of crime. It can be explained why those who are discriminated against would feel strain and commit a crime or a delinquent act, but why is it exactly that they were discriminated against in the first place? In many instances those people who are non-white are not further ahead in the American dream than are whites, and discriminating against someone does not further an individuals chances of achieving the American dream, so why is it that discrimination occurs at all? Another shortcoming of general strain theory is in concordance with achieving the American dream. General strain theorists state that crimes are committed to improve an individuals economic situation. What about the crime that is violent and non-monetary? Why does it occur? Yes, it is true that it could be a result of negative affective states, but once monetary gain is achieved, then the negative affective state that an individual is in is supposed to dissipate without the occurrence of violence. But what if this does not occur? General strain theory also does not explain why it is that females commit crimes. Agnew et al. (2002) found that more males than females were prone to having the traits of low constraint and high negative emotionality, and Cernkovich et al. (2000) found the same to be true in their looking at race and adherence to the American dream, so why is it that some females still do commit crime? According to general strain theory, females are highly unlikely to possess high negative emotionality and low constraint, and do not put much importance on the American dream, so why do some not conform to these factors? What is it that makes some people commit delinquent and criminal acts under the same circumstances that others will not? General strain theory has no answer to these questions. Overall, general strain theory does have its shortcomings, and only further research in more diversified areas such as those mentioned above will be able to improve on the shortcomings of the theory, as is the case with any theory that has inadequacies. Once these many questions have answers backed by research, then and only then will general strain theory be able to adequately explain all areas of crime and deviance as they occur in society. Opinion I believe that general strain theory does a fairly adequate job of explaining crime and deviance. While mentioned in the previous few pages that general strain theory does have a few shortcomings in explaining crime and deviance, I believe these shortcomings to be minor in the overall picture of things. General strain theory does what many other theories have trouble doing, and that is explaining both crime and deviance. Many theories only explain one or the other, but general strain theory does the job of explaining both. Depending on the level of constraint and negative emotionality an individual possesses, coupled with the amount of strain that individual then faces, will result in whether or not their way of relieving that strain is criminal or delinquent. Another thing that general strain theory does do is that it explains why both instrumental crimes and expressive crimes occur. One is for monetary reasons, and has the achieving of the American dream to back it; the other is for lack of coping mechanisms to deal otherwise, and has low constraint and negative emotionality as reasoning behind it. General strain theory explains why some classes and races are more likely to commit crimes and delinquent acts than are other classes and races, even if it does not completely explain why it is that white collar crime occurs, or why some people of the lower class do not commit crime. Maybe they have stronger coping mechanisms than other people, maybe other factors are involved. This issue of other factors is where I think many theories go wrong, and why it is that I think general strain theory does an adequate job of explaining crime and deviance. No criminology theory ever really takes into account those outside factors that may change things on a day-to-day basis. Extenuating factors and circumstances are hard to control for when testing if a theory really works or not, and in accordance with this, allowances must be made for all theories when deciding if they really do their job or not. It is for the above-mentioned reason that I think general strain theory does do what a theory is supposed to do: it offers an explanation as to why something is occurring or happening. General strain theory can be applied to crime and deviance, and most crimes are found to be the result of strain or monetary issues, and it is for these reasons that I think general strain theory does an adequate job of explaining crime and deviance. With the use of emotions and money as the background on which general strain theory is based, the occurrence of crime and/or deviance in todays society is fully explained. The occurrence of terrorism and hate crimes are definite reasons as to why general strain theory does not do its job of explaining crime and deviance, but again allowances must be made. No theory completely explains everything that is supposed to; everything cannot be completely explained. General strain theory does its best and integrates a number of things into explaining why it is that one thing (crime) occurs in the world. It does not just deal with one issue as an explanation, as some theories are prone to do, but focuses on a few different things instead. Overall, general strain theory is found to be a fairly sufficient theory when used to explain why it is that crime and deviance occur in todays society, and in the societies of the past. Money makes the world go round and it is because of this that many crimes in the world do occur. General strain theory just takes this into account with emotions added to the equation to state why it is exactly that some people commit criminal and delinquent acts while others do not. While it is true that the theory has its faults and shortcomings, this can be found to be true of any theory; no theory is perfect, and that is something to be taken into account.

Analysis of the Hotel Industry in Malaysia

Analysis of the Hotel Industry in Malaysia CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Overview Basically, this chapter is an introduction of the research topic. In the Section 1.2, it briefly introduces the background of this study. Introduction of hotel industry in Malaysia is included in Section 1.3. Next, problem statements are explained in Section 1.4 while the research objectives are laid out in Section 1.5. Besides, Section 1.6 and Section 1.7 have included the scope of study and the significance of this study respectively. Lastly, Section 1.8 is about the explanation of the organization of this study with a flow chart attached depicting the tasks to be carried out. 1.2 Background of Study In todays increasingly competitive and complex business environment, being sustainable in the business arena is no longer the mission of any of the organization, but to grow. Competitive advantage gives organization to shield and isolate itself temporary from the intensive competitive environment. This advantage could be taken away when competitors improved their products or services that potentially make more appealing to customers. Therefore, organization requires a never-ending process of continuous improvement. The word kaizen has been used by Japanese for describing this ongoing process of unending improvement by setting and achieving of ever-higher goals that involves both managers and workers (Imai, 1996; Heizer Render, 2006). Over the years, organizations from every industry keep coming out new products, either with a different exterior or equipped with better and more advanced features. For example, todays mobile phones have almost the same function as a computer except with a smaller screen and size, auto industry comes out cars that strongly emphasize on performance, safety, comfortably, elegance and so forth. Same thing goes to services, organizations come out with services that are tailored to every customers. As a result, this provides what the customers are really wanted and undoubtedly, customer satisfaction increased. For instance, Tune Hotels has made all services as optional, from breakfast, air-conditioned room to water-heated bathroom (TuneHotels.com, 2009). All of these are normally being provided as a package in any other hotels. As a consequence, customers have the right to select which services they want and they are being charged according to what services they have selected. To sum it u p, organizations in 21st century are being very innovative in serving their customers. Instead of merely come out with novel products and services, organizations have to look into the quality issue of the products or services produced. Customers will never be satisfied if the products or services they received have no quality, regardless of how novel and unique it is. Here we need to look into quality issue. According to Blankenship and Petersen (1999), W. Edwards Deming is known most widely for his work in quality management. Demings 14 points help Japan in achieving very high levels of quality in products and turn out to be a great shock for the westerners because Japanese goods were perceived at low quality and cheapness before this. He used statistics to examine production processes for flaws and greatly influenced Japanese industry as it rebuilt in the years after World War II. Today, TQM is a popular topic for quality management. TQM is called total because it entire the whole organization, from the supplier to customer (Sharmma, 2008). In other words, TQM talks about the satisfaction of customer, supplier, and employee. Furthermore, quality assurance systems such as statistical process control, quality control and better conformance quality are lined to better business performance (Dick, 2000). Other than that, people in todays world are relatively concern with the quality of the products and services they purchase. With the advancement of Information Technology (IT), gathering information regarding quality for various products has no longer a time-consuming task. All of this information can be gathered with only a few clicks. For that reason, quality has become one of the considerations at customers pre-purchase stage. Since the quality has become more and more important nowadays, a non-govermental organization (NGO) named International Organization of Standardization (ISO) has published the ISO 9000 series of quality standards at year 1987 (Dick, 2000). The ISO 9000 series of international quality system standards provides a framework for a basic quality assurance system and a good starting point for achieving total quality (Evan Lindsay, 1999). Generally speaking, businesses can base the development of their products and services on reference documents which have broad market relevance. This, in turn, means that they are increasingly free to compete on many markets around the world. As on the customer side, the worldwide compatibility of technology which is achieved when products and services are based on International Standards brings them an increasingly wide choice of offers (ISO, 2009). By implementing TQM, both the organizations and customers can enjoy ever greater benefits. From the aspect of organizations, in reality, both the tangible and intangible ones are offered by TQM, such as cost savings for the employer and greater job satisfaction for the employee (Gunasekaram, Goyal, Martikainen, Yli-Olli, 1998). According to Shemwell, Tavas, Bilgin (2008), the key to sustainable competitive advantage lies in delivering high quality service that will in turn result in satisfied customers. In addition, Dick (2000) has proven that better quality does have a consistent positive relationship with improved business performance. Figure 1.1: Two Ways Quality Improves Profitability (Adapted From: Heizer and Render, Operations Management, 2006.) Also, Heizer and Render (2006) says profits can be increased by improved quality as the figure depicted above. Firstly, improved quality generally leads to both sales gains and reduced cost. This is because improved response, higher prices and improved reputation are all make sales gain happened. Moreover, reduction of cost happens when productivity increases, rework and scrap costs decreases and warranty costs decreases. Therefore, profits will be increased when expenditures (costs) have been lowered and revenue (sales) has been increased. 1.3 Hotel Industry in Malaysia As a sub-sector to services sector, tourism has an increase in foreign exchange earnings from RM17.3 billion in year 2000 to RM46.1 billion in 2007 (Bank Negara Malaysia [BNM], 2008). It shows that tourism had a growth in its revenue for 166% in a period of only 7 years. This is largely due to the effects of campaigns â€Å"Visit Malaysia Year† (Poon Low, 2005) and â€Å"Cuti-cuti Malaysia†. Up-to-date, tourism has recorded total receipts of RM49,561.2 million for the year 2008, an increment of RM3,491.2 million from year 2007 (Tourism Malaysia Corporate, 2009). Spillover effects have been generated by the increase in tourism activities into other sectors of the economy. In other words, the steadily growth of tourism industry has contributed to the growth of all related industries and businesses. These included hotel industry, retail businesses, restaurants and transportation (Bank Negara Malaysia [BNM], 2008). Hotel industry plays a very important role in complementing tourism as it provides accommodation to travelers and tourists. Nevertheless, hotel industry has been a major player in the growth of the Malaysian economy, which contributing approximately 50 percent of the nations real GDP (Awang, Ishak, Radzi, Taha, 2008). As today, there are approximately 105 hotels with different ratings and sizes in Kuala Lumpur alone (Malaysian Association of Hotels [MAH], 2009). This has shown that Kuala Lumpur has an incredibly high density of hotels. Here the problem arises, how is the hotel industry in Kuala Lumpur cope with the never ending increase of tourists and travelers? In this context, it seems not possible to provide more rooms by simply adding the number of hotels in Kuala Lumpur. This is because the land area of Kuala Lumpur has only 244km ², meaning that there will be 1 hotel in every 2.3km ². In this sense, hoteliers have to find other ways to increase their productivities. In recent years, governments from all over the world have been putting more and more emphasis in developing services industry in their countries. They are all now aware of the unique characteristic of services and its importance in supporting a countrys economic growth. Business services showed the strongest growth in terms of value added and economic productivity (Wirtz Ehret, 2009). Theoretically, any organization in developing countries must endeavor continuously to improve productivity in order to increase profitability (Oluleye Olajire, 2001). As a consequence to the Malaysia economy, a higher amount of GDP will be recorded, more and more employment will be provided and so on. Hence, these have made hotel industry as a key sub-sector to services industry and these social responsibilities should not be overlooked by hoteliers in Malaysia. 1.4 Problem Statements In general, Malaysian will have perception saying that things made by western countries and Japan have higher quality, things from China have no quality and so forth. This is partially true in reality, majority of the Malaysians opt to buy import goods where there is an option for them. Therefore, local made products are usually having less supports from Malaysian as it has been perceived to be low quality in terms of unreliable and unattractive (Damodaran, 2009). This shows that local made products have lesser competency even in local market. Consequently, government encourages both the manufacturer and services provider to look seriously in quality issue by giving several incentives (Malaysian Rubber Export Promotion Council [MREPC], 2009). However, the outcomes of it are not up to the expectation. This may due to the inadequate research carry out in Malaysia. Thus, organizations especially the small size ones will definitely lack of information when trying to implement quality man agement system. Kuala Lumpur is one of the major cities in Malaysia with an estimated of 1.6 million of population at the year 2005 (KL City Plan 2020, 2009) and it is to be said as the fastest growing region in Malaysia. This figure says that Kuala Lumpur is the most densely populated district in Malaysia. Moreover, Kuala Lumpur has a vast number of tourists and it increases over years. Just to name a few, its major tourist destinations include Dataran Merdeka (the Independence Square), House of Parliament, the Istana Budaya, the Istana Negara (National Palace), the Kuala Lumpur Tower, the Muzium Negara (National Museum), Petaling Street and etc (Tourism Malaysia, 2009). With the limited land that Kuala Lumpur has, it is almost impossible to build more hotels in order to cater the increasing number of tourist in the near future. Therefore, several actions have to be taken in order to best serve the tourists with the limited number of hotels in Kuala Lumpur. This is to ensure that the receipts from tourism will not be negatively affected while the hotel industry can continuously contribute significantly to GDP. As time goes by, Human Resource Management (HRM) has become a popular topic than ever before. Organizations have understood the importance of employees (human resources). At the same time, empirical research studies have been done by researchers to further understand and prove those theories related to motivate and compensate employees. Dessler (2005) says that employee satisfaction and performance are positively related. Therefore, hoteliers must understand the importance to maximize their employee satisfaction as this could lead to greater business performance. However, by solely compensating employees with both monetary and non-monetary rewards has its limitation. Performance will stop increasing when the problem arises are not come from employees but the management. For instance, it could be lacking a well-planned system in executing tasks, ineffective communications in organization and so forth. In other countries, TQM has been so popular for a period of time as it helps organiz ations to achieve even higher of performance. In other countries, plenty of research studies have been carried out to investigate which TQM factors are the most influential to the particular country. Unlike in Malaysia, the number of TQM study that can be applied is limited and lacking of guidelines for hoteliers is still a major problem. Someone could say that hoteliers can simply use the findings from other countries as a guideline for implementing the TQM. But, there is always a high possibility that those mentioned as important factors are not important in Malaysia, when compared to the original country that the research is carried out. In other words, it is imperative to understand the applicability of the findings from other countries. The applicability of some of the findings from research still remains questionable. For example, information and analysis, one of the TQM factors is said to be extremely important to developed and developing countries but it is not persuasive enough to apply on third world countries. This is because they probably lack of necessary infrastructure. Therefore, it can be said that Malaysias hoteliers are actually lack of a blueprint when initially applying TQM to their respective hotels. In other words, hoteliers may not known which factors of TQM can generally lead to better performa nce in the Malaysia. Furthermore, with the limited of number of such research available to Malaysia, it has nothing to show hoteliers how strong the impact of TQM factors is to labor productivity, thus lack of motivation to change their routine and ways of doing business. When this occurs, Malaysia hotel industry can never be improved, previously owned competitiveness can be competed away and GDP can be affected. 1.5 Research Objectives The general objective of this study is to identify the impact of each of the selected TQM factors towards the labor productivity. Next, it is then to be expressed in term of its level of correlation between each of the independent variables and the dependent one. Therefore, this result could be used by the Malaysia hoteliers in increasing their labor productivity as these findings will show which of the independent variables plays a more important role in achieving higher labor productivity in the Malaysia context. The following objectives are specifically derived from the problem statements: To identify the relationship between the chosen independent variables and dependent variable; To investigate the level of impact for each of the chosen TQM factors towards labor productivity; To determine whether high TQM commitment hotels will generally generate higher labor productivity than the low TQM commitment hotels; and To provide insights and recommendations for improvement to Malaysias hoteliers at the end of the research. 1.6 Scope of Study The scope of this study covers a discussion on TQM as well as the importance of productivity. As the scope of both TQM and productivity are broad, this study will primarily focus on the aspect of TQM factors and labor productivity. Besides, this study investigates the relationship between selected TQM factors and labor productivity. Theoretically, those selected TQM factors is to be said to have influences on the labor productivity. Therefore, this research is also carried out with the intention to identify the degree of impact of the selected TQM factors towards labor productivity, either a stronger or a weaker one. Moreover, this research is intended to provide useful and relevant findings for hoteliers in Malaysia, in order to achieve the ever higher labor productivity in Malaysia hotel industry. Therefore, it is targeted to hoteliers in Malaysia primarily located in Kuala Lumpur. Lastly, a questionnaire has been included in this study and carried out on hoteliers of Kuala Lumpur in order to measure the impact of TQM factors towards labor productivity. 1.7 Significance of Study The importance of this study is to explore the relationship between the selected TQM factors and labor productivity in the context of Malaysia hotel industry. Similar research studies have been done to prove the relationship between the TQM factors and productivity. However, most of it were not focusing on the hotel industry. Some of them might have focused in hotel industry, but the issue of applicability remains noticeable. For that reason, this study is focusing in the Malaysia hotel industry as an applicable guideline and reference for the Malaysia hoteliers. Besides that, this study will be able to contribute relevant information to the Tourism Malaysia Promotion Board (Malaysian Ministry of Culture, Arts and Tourism). In Section 1.3, it shows the importance of tourism is to the nation GDP. Furthermore, hotel industry is relatively important to the country as an accommodation means for tourists to visit Malaysia. In addition, through this study, government is now able to identify unsuitable approaches and strategies. Therefore, essential action such as coming out new incentives scheme can be taken to effectively replace the old ones. Thus, national resources can be distributed and used even more effective and efficient than ever. As to hoteliers, this study helps to lighten their worries when first implementing the TQM as they are now getting more supporting evidence from this study. According to Yesawich (1997), building customer loyalty is one of the biggest challenges for the hotel industry. Successfully implemented TQM contributes to customer satisfaction. From customer satisfaction, loyalty and profits are positively related. In other word, TQM can potentially overcome one of the biggest challenges in hotel industry. At the same time, organizations can enjoy the benefits from TQM such as creating competitive advantage, providing unique services and so forth. 1.8 Organization of Study The organization of this research study comprises of 5 chapters. This research study begins with Chapter 1 that covers the introduction for the chosen topic. It consists of the background of study and hotel industry in Malaysia. Next, problem statements, research objectives, scope of study and the significance of study are laid out in different section. Lastly, organization of study that shows the overall flow of this study ends the Chapter 1. Chapter 2 provides the literature review for the chosen topic. It includes all the related empirical studies that have been done by the previous researchers. Several of viewpoint, definition and argument have been included in this chapter as well. For instance, different point of views from different researchers for the same variable can be found here. Chapter 3 outlines the overall methodology being used in this research study. It shows the research framework together with the explanation and hypothesis of the framework. Besides, data collection method, sources of data, sampling method and sampling size will be discussed in separated section. Furthermore, there is the outline of the questionnaire development and scaling techniques before discussion of data analysis and measurement close the chapter. Chapter 4 discusses the findings and the results of this research study. Therefore, all related chart, graph, data will be included in this chapter. This chapter basically ends with the interpretation and discussion regarding all of the findings. Finally, conclusions and recommendations will be formed and given to readers. It concludes which TQM factors have a stronger effect and vice versa. Besides that, limitations of this study will also be included. The following figure shows the overall outline of this study. Figure 1.2: Flow Chart of Study CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Overview This chapter develops and provides the foundation for this research study. Previous works done by other researchers that relate to labor productivity, total quality management, customer focus, human resource management, information analysis, leadership and strategic management are all presented in this chapter. Besides, in order to gain a better understanding of this research, viewpoints from different researchers are then compare and contrast in this chapter. 2.2 Labor Productivity In the 21st century, productivity growth plays an important role in GDP growth of any nation. According Chapman, Murray Mellor (1997), the use of sales per employee has been widely used to measure labor productivity for individual companies. Besides, Sauian (2002) says that in knowledge-based economy, competitive advantage can be maintained through â€Å"high productivity† and efficiency. In the other way round, labor productivity is an important element used to gauge competitiveness in producing goods and services (Sauian, 2002). Moreover, Hoffman Mehra (1998) argues that high productivity effects are impossible to sustain without a quality-based process-oriented environment which emanates from the support of employees, upper management, and the organization. Malaysia registered a productivity growth of 2.9 percent from RM 48,113 in year 2007 to RM 49,526 in year 2008. Furthermore, productivity contributed 62.2 percent while employment contributed 37.8 percent to the GDP growth of 5.98 percent. This growth surpassed several major countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). As shown in Figure 2.1, the Rep. of Korea recorded a productivity growth as much as 3.6 percent, the USA (2.1 percent), the Japan (0.8 percent), the Australia (0.4), the Germany (0.1 percent) and the rest had zero or negative growth (Malaysia Productivity Corporation [MPC], 2009). Figure 2.1: Productivity Growth of Malaysia and Selected OECD Countries, 2008 (Adapted From: MPC, Annual Productivity Report 2008) Thomas (1994) defined the simplest form of labor productivity (LP) as the hours of work divided by the units of work accomplished. In general, LP is a measure of output from a production as per unit of input. Therefore, it can be expressed as: LP From the above formula, LP consists of the total output and total input. It can be in terms of a particular production, a department, an organization or even a nation. In general, if we want to increase productivity, it is necessary to increase the systems output, if the input is to remain constant. Similarly, if the systems output is to maintain the status quo, then we need to utilize less input. From a different aspect, if both output and input are increased, then it is mathematically obvious that the rate of increase of output should be higher than the rate of increase of input, if productivity needs to be improved (Sauian, 2002). Therefore, in order to achieve higher LP, input and output should be manipulated in various ways. Schonewille (2001) said the effectiveness of training is lower compared to initial education when comes to contributing to labor productivity. Even thought training has smaller effects on labor productivity, still the estimated coefficient is positive (Schonewille, 2001). A number of researchers have proven the positive impact of quality on productivity, whereas both can influence positively profitability (Bylund Lapidoth, 1994). This relationship has been generally accepted within the manufacturing industry (Chase Aquilano, 1995). However in reality, LP is a much more complex phenomenon which largely depends on quite diverse factors such as workers competence, motivation, supervision and so forth. Also, management does affect LP (Enshassi, Mohamed, Mayer, Abed, 2007). Chapman and Al-Khawaldeh (2002) has investigated the relationship between TQM implementation and labor productivity in industrial companies in Jordan, as shown in Figure 2.2. The results of data analysis indicate that there is a positive relationship between TQM (and each TQM element) and labor productivity. Interestingly, it is found that companies with ISO 9000 certification has high positive slope whereas companies without ISO 9000 certification has low positive slope. 2.3 Total Quality Management (TQM) TQM emerged in the mid-1980s in response to Japans invasion of US markets with their high quality-low price automobiles and electronic products. Quality has been defined differently as conformance to requirement (Crosby, 1979), fitness for use (Juran, 1979), continual improvement (Deming, 1982) and as define by customers (Ford, 1990). Whereby, Spitzer (1993) called TQM â€Å"the only source of sustainable competitive advantage†. Also, TQM is continually satisfying agreed customer requirements at lowest cost through harnessing everyones commitment (Burton Franckeiss, 1994). In theory, TQM seems to assure performance improvement for any organization. But, in practice, TQM works for some organization and not for others (Terzioski, 2006). According to Chapman and Al-Khawaldeh (2002), TQM is a key strategy for maintaining competitive advantage and is a way of managing organizations to improve its overall effectiveness and performance towards achieving world-class status. During the last two decades or so, simple inspection activities have been replaced or supplemented by quality control, quality assurance has been developed and refined, and now most companies are working towards TQM (Dale Bunney, 1999). Dale (1999) indentifies four discrete stages: inspection, quality control, quality assurance and TQM, as shown in Figure 2.2. Figure 2.3: The four levels in the evolution of Total Quality Management (Sources: Adapted from Dale Bunney, Total Quality Management Blueprint, 1999) Inspection is defined as â€Å"activities such as measuring, examining, testing or gauging one or more characteristic of an entity and comparing the results with specified requirement in order to establish whether conformity is achieved for each characteristic† (BS EN ISO 8402, 1995). Quality control is defined as â€Å"operational techniques and activities that are used to fulfill requirements for quality† (BS EN ISO 8402, 1995). Quality assurance is defined as â€Å"all the planned and systematic activities implemented within the quality system and demonstrated as needed to provide adequate confidence that an entity will fulfill requirements for quality† (BS EN ISO 8402, 1995). TQM is the highest level which involves the application of quality management principles to all aspects of the business, including customers and suppliers. It is then defined as the management approach of an organization, centered on quality, based on the participation of all its members and aiming at long-term success through customer satisfaction, and benefits to all members of the organization and to society (BS EN ISO 8402, 1995). A number of research studies have been carried out to investigate the impact of TQM factors and implementation (Sila Ebrahimpour, 2005; Khan, 2003; Terzioski, 2006). Miller (1993) reported that success with TQM depends on the facilitating conditions. Leadership, human resource management and some other TQM factors are found to have positive impact on business results (Sila Ebrahimpour, 2005). Therefore, these findings can be reasonably useful in assisting managers so that they can allocate resources to improve their typical routines to obtain the best results. Next, five TQM factors have been selected as the independent variables for this study, namely (1) Customer Focus, (2) Human Resource Management (HRM), (3) Information and Analysis, (4) Leadership and (5) Strategic Planning. It is said that customer focus pays more attention on the customers whereas the rest of TQM factors have focused on the internal aspect of the organization. As for HRM, it focuses on the practices involved in carrying out the â€Å"people† of a management position. Information and analysis is said to be the information and communication technology used to further enhance labor productivity as automation has been widely used. Leadership is important as it creates synergy for achieving favorable business results whereas strategic planning is a set of process undertaken in order to develop a range of strategies that will contribute to achieve organization direction. Further elaboration and review for each variable will be discussed in different sub-section lat er. 2.3.1 Customer Focus According to Dean and Bowen (1994), customer focus is as important as many other TQM practices to organizational performance. Being customer-focused keeps us aware of quality, or rather it focuses our quality initiatives on what really matters to the customers (Cox, 1997). Also, Piercy (1995) says that TQM has too much focused on the internal aspect of the organization and much less attention on the customers. Customer satisfaction begins by discovering precisely what customers want and gearing every practice to their exact expectations (Kearney, 1994). Customer focus has changed mass production to mass customization. In addition, being far from depersonalizing the world, technology has the power to return us to being treated as individuals while getting all the benefits inherent in large-scale enterprise (Cox, 1997). Sousa (2003) pointed out the importance of customer focus lies in the fact that it is the starting point of any quality initiative. However, it has not received enough attention from quality management researchers (Cai, 2009). In the final decade of twentieth century, the term, customer-centered competition has been introduced. Customer-centered company is a company that focuses on customer developments in designing its marketing strategies and on delivering superior value to its target customers (Kotler Armstrong, 2008). It is common to hear the statement â€Å"customer is always right† in any organization. This could be the trend that organization is to focus on customer needs to be customer-led, to be market-oriented, to care for customers and so forth (Piercy, 1995). These are to make total customer satisfaction a strategic foundation for achieving competitive advantage (Kearney, 1994). Customer focus has been therefore defined as the degree to which firms continuously satisfy customer needs and expectations (Philips, Chang, Buzzell, 1983). The difference between customer focus and customer understanding is, according to Lagrosen (2001), mainly a matter of perspective. Customer focus means the activities of the companies are intended to benefit the customer but the customer is seen from the companies own perspective. Therefore, effects are usually being made to gain information about the customers needs and wants, although always in a set framework that originates in the companies view of the product and its features. Whereby, customer understanding needs perspective to be shifted. It means the company needs to gain entry to the customers own perspective and adopt the customers framework of viewing the product (Lagrosen, 2001). Cai (2009) found that organizational customer focus affects customer relationship practices, which subsequently influence production performance and customer satisfaction, and production performance and customer satisfaction lead to financial outcomes. Ooi, Bakar, Arumugam, Vellepan, and Loke (2007) says TQM practices such as teamwork, reward and recognition, customer focus and organizational trust are positively associated with job satisfaction within their organization. For instance, customer focus was found to have a direct influence on emplo Analysis of the Hotel Industry in Malaysia Analysis of the Hotel Industry in Malaysia CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Overview Basically, this chapter is an introduction of the research topic. In the Section 1.2, it briefly introduces the background of this study. Introduction of hotel industry in Malaysia is included in Section 1.3. Next, problem statements are explained in Section 1.4 while the research objectives are laid out in Section 1.5. Besides, Section 1.6 and Section 1.7 have included the scope of study and the significance of this study respectively. Lastly, Section 1.8 is about the explanation of the organization of this study with a flow chart attached depicting the tasks to be carried out. 1.2 Background of Study In todays increasingly competitive and complex business environment, being sustainable in the business arena is no longer the mission of any of the organization, but to grow. Competitive advantage gives organization to shield and isolate itself temporary from the intensive competitive environment. This advantage could be taken away when competitors improved their products or services that potentially make more appealing to customers. Therefore, organization requires a never-ending process of continuous improvement. The word kaizen has been used by Japanese for describing this ongoing process of unending improvement by setting and achieving of ever-higher goals that involves both managers and workers (Imai, 1996; Heizer Render, 2006). Over the years, organizations from every industry keep coming out new products, either with a different exterior or equipped with better and more advanced features. For example, todays mobile phones have almost the same function as a computer except with a smaller screen and size, auto industry comes out cars that strongly emphasize on performance, safety, comfortably, elegance and so forth. Same thing goes to services, organizations come out with services that are tailored to every customers. As a result, this provides what the customers are really wanted and undoubtedly, customer satisfaction increased. For instance, Tune Hotels has made all services as optional, from breakfast, air-conditioned room to water-heated bathroom (TuneHotels.com, 2009). All of these are normally being provided as a package in any other hotels. As a consequence, customers have the right to select which services they want and they are being charged according to what services they have selected. To sum it u p, organizations in 21st century are being very innovative in serving their customers. Instead of merely come out with novel products and services, organizations have to look into the quality issue of the products or services produced. Customers will never be satisfied if the products or services they received have no quality, regardless of how novel and unique it is. Here we need to look into quality issue. According to Blankenship and Petersen (1999), W. Edwards Deming is known most widely for his work in quality management. Demings 14 points help Japan in achieving very high levels of quality in products and turn out to be a great shock for the westerners because Japanese goods were perceived at low quality and cheapness before this. He used statistics to examine production processes for flaws and greatly influenced Japanese industry as it rebuilt in the years after World War II. Today, TQM is a popular topic for quality management. TQM is called total because it entire the whole organization, from the supplier to customer (Sharmma, 2008). In other words, TQM talks about the satisfaction of customer, supplier, and employee. Furthermore, quality assurance systems such as statistical process control, quality control and better conformance quality are lined to better business performance (Dick, 2000). Other than that, people in todays world are relatively concern with the quality of the products and services they purchase. With the advancement of Information Technology (IT), gathering information regarding quality for various products has no longer a time-consuming task. All of this information can be gathered with only a few clicks. For that reason, quality has become one of the considerations at customers pre-purchase stage. Since the quality has become more and more important nowadays, a non-govermental organization (NGO) named International Organization of Standardization (ISO) has published the ISO 9000 series of quality standards at year 1987 (Dick, 2000). The ISO 9000 series of international quality system standards provides a framework for a basic quality assurance system and a good starting point for achieving total quality (Evan Lindsay, 1999). Generally speaking, businesses can base the development of their products and services on reference documents which have broad market relevance. This, in turn, means that they are increasingly free to compete on many markets around the world. As on the customer side, the worldwide compatibility of technology which is achieved when products and services are based on International Standards brings them an increasingly wide choice of offers (ISO, 2009). By implementing TQM, both the organizations and customers can enjoy ever greater benefits. From the aspect of organizations, in reality, both the tangible and intangible ones are offered by TQM, such as cost savings for the employer and greater job satisfaction for the employee (Gunasekaram, Goyal, Martikainen, Yli-Olli, 1998). According to Shemwell, Tavas, Bilgin (2008), the key to sustainable competitive advantage lies in delivering high quality service that will in turn result in satisfied customers. In addition, Dick (2000) has proven that better quality does have a consistent positive relationship with improved business performance. Figure 1.1: Two Ways Quality Improves Profitability (Adapted From: Heizer and Render, Operations Management, 2006.) Also, Heizer and Render (2006) says profits can be increased by improved quality as the figure depicted above. Firstly, improved quality generally leads to both sales gains and reduced cost. This is because improved response, higher prices and improved reputation are all make sales gain happened. Moreover, reduction of cost happens when productivity increases, rework and scrap costs decreases and warranty costs decreases. Therefore, profits will be increased when expenditures (costs) have been lowered and revenue (sales) has been increased. 1.3 Hotel Industry in Malaysia As a sub-sector to services sector, tourism has an increase in foreign exchange earnings from RM17.3 billion in year 2000 to RM46.1 billion in 2007 (Bank Negara Malaysia [BNM], 2008). It shows that tourism had a growth in its revenue for 166% in a period of only 7 years. This is largely due to the effects of campaigns â€Å"Visit Malaysia Year† (Poon Low, 2005) and â€Å"Cuti-cuti Malaysia†. Up-to-date, tourism has recorded total receipts of RM49,561.2 million for the year 2008, an increment of RM3,491.2 million from year 2007 (Tourism Malaysia Corporate, 2009). Spillover effects have been generated by the increase in tourism activities into other sectors of the economy. In other words, the steadily growth of tourism industry has contributed to the growth of all related industries and businesses. These included hotel industry, retail businesses, restaurants and transportation (Bank Negara Malaysia [BNM], 2008). Hotel industry plays a very important role in complementing tourism as it provides accommodation to travelers and tourists. Nevertheless, hotel industry has been a major player in the growth of the Malaysian economy, which contributing approximately 50 percent of the nations real GDP (Awang, Ishak, Radzi, Taha, 2008). As today, there are approximately 105 hotels with different ratings and sizes in Kuala Lumpur alone (Malaysian Association of Hotels [MAH], 2009). This has shown that Kuala Lumpur has an incredibly high density of hotels. Here the problem arises, how is the hotel industry in Kuala Lumpur cope with the never ending increase of tourists and travelers? In this context, it seems not possible to provide more rooms by simply adding the number of hotels in Kuala Lumpur. This is because the land area of Kuala Lumpur has only 244km ², meaning that there will be 1 hotel in every 2.3km ². In this sense, hoteliers have to find other ways to increase their productivities. In recent years, governments from all over the world have been putting more and more emphasis in developing services industry in their countries. They are all now aware of the unique characteristic of services and its importance in supporting a countrys economic growth. Business services showed the strongest growth in terms of value added and economic productivity (Wirtz Ehret, 2009). Theoretically, any organization in developing countries must endeavor continuously to improve productivity in order to increase profitability (Oluleye Olajire, 2001). As a consequence to the Malaysia economy, a higher amount of GDP will be recorded, more and more employment will be provided and so on. Hence, these have made hotel industry as a key sub-sector to services industry and these social responsibilities should not be overlooked by hoteliers in Malaysia. 1.4 Problem Statements In general, Malaysian will have perception saying that things made by western countries and Japan have higher quality, things from China have no quality and so forth. This is partially true in reality, majority of the Malaysians opt to buy import goods where there is an option for them. Therefore, local made products are usually having less supports from Malaysian as it has been perceived to be low quality in terms of unreliable and unattractive (Damodaran, 2009). This shows that local made products have lesser competency even in local market. Consequently, government encourages both the manufacturer and services provider to look seriously in quality issue by giving several incentives (Malaysian Rubber Export Promotion Council [MREPC], 2009). However, the outcomes of it are not up to the expectation. This may due to the inadequate research carry out in Malaysia. Thus, organizations especially the small size ones will definitely lack of information when trying to implement quality man agement system. Kuala Lumpur is one of the major cities in Malaysia with an estimated of 1.6 million of population at the year 2005 (KL City Plan 2020, 2009) and it is to be said as the fastest growing region in Malaysia. This figure says that Kuala Lumpur is the most densely populated district in Malaysia. Moreover, Kuala Lumpur has a vast number of tourists and it increases over years. Just to name a few, its major tourist destinations include Dataran Merdeka (the Independence Square), House of Parliament, the Istana Budaya, the Istana Negara (National Palace), the Kuala Lumpur Tower, the Muzium Negara (National Museum), Petaling Street and etc (Tourism Malaysia, 2009). With the limited land that Kuala Lumpur has, it is almost impossible to build more hotels in order to cater the increasing number of tourist in the near future. Therefore, several actions have to be taken in order to best serve the tourists with the limited number of hotels in Kuala Lumpur. This is to ensure that the receipts from tourism will not be negatively affected while the hotel industry can continuously contribute significantly to GDP. As time goes by, Human Resource Management (HRM) has become a popular topic than ever before. Organizations have understood the importance of employees (human resources). At the same time, empirical research studies have been done by researchers to further understand and prove those theories related to motivate and compensate employees. Dessler (2005) says that employee satisfaction and performance are positively related. Therefore, hoteliers must understand the importance to maximize their employee satisfaction as this could lead to greater business performance. However, by solely compensating employees with both monetary and non-monetary rewards has its limitation. Performance will stop increasing when the problem arises are not come from employees but the management. For instance, it could be lacking a well-planned system in executing tasks, ineffective communications in organization and so forth. In other countries, TQM has been so popular for a period of time as it helps organiz ations to achieve even higher of performance. In other countries, plenty of research studies have been carried out to investigate which TQM factors are the most influential to the particular country. Unlike in Malaysia, the number of TQM study that can be applied is limited and lacking of guidelines for hoteliers is still a major problem. Someone could say that hoteliers can simply use the findings from other countries as a guideline for implementing the TQM. But, there is always a high possibility that those mentioned as important factors are not important in Malaysia, when compared to the original country that the research is carried out. In other words, it is imperative to understand the applicability of the findings from other countries. The applicability of some of the findings from research still remains questionable. For example, information and analysis, one of the TQM factors is said to be extremely important to developed and developing countries but it is not persuasive enough to apply on third world countries. This is because they probably lack of necessary infrastructure. Therefore, it can be said that Malaysias hoteliers are actually lack of a blueprint when initially applying TQM to their respective hotels. In other words, hoteliers may not known which factors of TQM can generally lead to better performa nce in the Malaysia. Furthermore, with the limited of number of such research available to Malaysia, it has nothing to show hoteliers how strong the impact of TQM factors is to labor productivity, thus lack of motivation to change their routine and ways of doing business. When this occurs, Malaysia hotel industry can never be improved, previously owned competitiveness can be competed away and GDP can be affected. 1.5 Research Objectives The general objective of this study is to identify the impact of each of the selected TQM factors towards the labor productivity. Next, it is then to be expressed in term of its level of correlation between each of the independent variables and the dependent one. Therefore, this result could be used by the Malaysia hoteliers in increasing their labor productivity as these findings will show which of the independent variables plays a more important role in achieving higher labor productivity in the Malaysia context. The following objectives are specifically derived from the problem statements: To identify the relationship between the chosen independent variables and dependent variable; To investigate the level of impact for each of the chosen TQM factors towards labor productivity; To determine whether high TQM commitment hotels will generally generate higher labor productivity than the low TQM commitment hotels; and To provide insights and recommendations for improvement to Malaysias hoteliers at the end of the research. 1.6 Scope of Study The scope of this study covers a discussion on TQM as well as the importance of productivity. As the scope of both TQM and productivity are broad, this study will primarily focus on the aspect of TQM factors and labor productivity. Besides, this study investigates the relationship between selected TQM factors and labor productivity. Theoretically, those selected TQM factors is to be said to have influences on the labor productivity. Therefore, this research is also carried out with the intention to identify the degree of impact of the selected TQM factors towards labor productivity, either a stronger or a weaker one. Moreover, this research is intended to provide useful and relevant findings for hoteliers in Malaysia, in order to achieve the ever higher labor productivity in Malaysia hotel industry. Therefore, it is targeted to hoteliers in Malaysia primarily located in Kuala Lumpur. Lastly, a questionnaire has been included in this study and carried out on hoteliers of Kuala Lumpur in order to measure the impact of TQM factors towards labor productivity. 1.7 Significance of Study The importance of this study is to explore the relationship between the selected TQM factors and labor productivity in the context of Malaysia hotel industry. Similar research studies have been done to prove the relationship between the TQM factors and productivity. However, most of it were not focusing on the hotel industry. Some of them might have focused in hotel industry, but the issue of applicability remains noticeable. For that reason, this study is focusing in the Malaysia hotel industry as an applicable guideline and reference for the Malaysia hoteliers. Besides that, this study will be able to contribute relevant information to the Tourism Malaysia Promotion Board (Malaysian Ministry of Culture, Arts and Tourism). In Section 1.3, it shows the importance of tourism is to the nation GDP. Furthermore, hotel industry is relatively important to the country as an accommodation means for tourists to visit Malaysia. In addition, through this study, government is now able to identify unsuitable approaches and strategies. Therefore, essential action such as coming out new incentives scheme can be taken to effectively replace the old ones. Thus, national resources can be distributed and used even more effective and efficient than ever. As to hoteliers, this study helps to lighten their worries when first implementing the TQM as they are now getting more supporting evidence from this study. According to Yesawich (1997), building customer loyalty is one of the biggest challenges for the hotel industry. Successfully implemented TQM contributes to customer satisfaction. From customer satisfaction, loyalty and profits are positively related. In other word, TQM can potentially overcome one of the biggest challenges in hotel industry. At the same time, organizations can enjoy the benefits from TQM such as creating competitive advantage, providing unique services and so forth. 1.8 Organization of Study The organization of this research study comprises of 5 chapters. This research study begins with Chapter 1 that covers the introduction for the chosen topic. It consists of the background of study and hotel industry in Malaysia. Next, problem statements, research objectives, scope of study and the significance of study are laid out in different section. Lastly, organization of study that shows the overall flow of this study ends the Chapter 1. Chapter 2 provides the literature review for the chosen topic. It includes all the related empirical studies that have been done by the previous researchers. Several of viewpoint, definition and argument have been included in this chapter as well. For instance, different point of views from different researchers for the same variable can be found here. Chapter 3 outlines the overall methodology being used in this research study. It shows the research framework together with the explanation and hypothesis of the framework. Besides, data collection method, sources of data, sampling method and sampling size will be discussed in separated section. Furthermore, there is the outline of the questionnaire development and scaling techniques before discussion of data analysis and measurement close the chapter. Chapter 4 discusses the findings and the results of this research study. Therefore, all related chart, graph, data will be included in this chapter. This chapter basically ends with the interpretation and discussion regarding all of the findings. Finally, conclusions and recommendations will be formed and given to readers. It concludes which TQM factors have a stronger effect and vice versa. Besides that, limitations of this study will also be included. The following figure shows the overall outline of this study. Figure 1.2: Flow Chart of Study CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Overview This chapter develops and provides the foundation for this research study. Previous works done by other researchers that relate to labor productivity, total quality management, customer focus, human resource management, information analysis, leadership and strategic management are all presented in this chapter. Besides, in order to gain a better understanding of this research, viewpoints from different researchers are then compare and contrast in this chapter. 2.2 Labor Productivity In the 21st century, productivity growth plays an important role in GDP growth of any nation. According Chapman, Murray Mellor (1997), the use of sales per employee has been widely used to measure labor productivity for individual companies. Besides, Sauian (2002) says that in knowledge-based economy, competitive advantage can be maintained through â€Å"high productivity† and efficiency. In the other way round, labor productivity is an important element used to gauge competitiveness in producing goods and services (Sauian, 2002). Moreover, Hoffman Mehra (1998) argues that high productivity effects are impossible to sustain without a quality-based process-oriented environment which emanates from the support of employees, upper management, and the organization. Malaysia registered a productivity growth of 2.9 percent from RM 48,113 in year 2007 to RM 49,526 in year 2008. Furthermore, productivity contributed 62.2 percent while employment contributed 37.8 percent to the GDP growth of 5.98 percent. This growth surpassed several major countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). As shown in Figure 2.1, the Rep. of Korea recorded a productivity growth as much as 3.6 percent, the USA (2.1 percent), the Japan (0.8 percent), the Australia (0.4), the Germany (0.1 percent) and the rest had zero or negative growth (Malaysia Productivity Corporation [MPC], 2009). Figure 2.1: Productivity Growth of Malaysia and Selected OECD Countries, 2008 (Adapted From: MPC, Annual Productivity Report 2008) Thomas (1994) defined the simplest form of labor productivity (LP) as the hours of work divided by the units of work accomplished. In general, LP is a measure of output from a production as per unit of input. Therefore, it can be expressed as: LP From the above formula, LP consists of the total output and total input. It can be in terms of a particular production, a department, an organization or even a nation. In general, if we want to increase productivity, it is necessary to increase the systems output, if the input is to remain constant. Similarly, if the systems output is to maintain the status quo, then we need to utilize less input. From a different aspect, if both output and input are increased, then it is mathematically obvious that the rate of increase of output should be higher than the rate of increase of input, if productivity needs to be improved (Sauian, 2002). Therefore, in order to achieve higher LP, input and output should be manipulated in various ways. Schonewille (2001) said the effectiveness of training is lower compared to initial education when comes to contributing to labor productivity. Even thought training has smaller effects on labor productivity, still the estimated coefficient is positive (Schonewille, 2001). A number of researchers have proven the positive impact of quality on productivity, whereas both can influence positively profitability (Bylund Lapidoth, 1994). This relationship has been generally accepted within the manufacturing industry (Chase Aquilano, 1995). However in reality, LP is a much more complex phenomenon which largely depends on quite diverse factors such as workers competence, motivation, supervision and so forth. Also, management does affect LP (Enshassi, Mohamed, Mayer, Abed, 2007). Chapman and Al-Khawaldeh (2002) has investigated the relationship between TQM implementation and labor productivity in industrial companies in Jordan, as shown in Figure 2.2. The results of data analysis indicate that there is a positive relationship between TQM (and each TQM element) and labor productivity. Interestingly, it is found that companies with ISO 9000 certification has high positive slope whereas companies without ISO 9000 certification has low positive slope. 2.3 Total Quality Management (TQM) TQM emerged in the mid-1980s in response to Japans invasion of US markets with their high quality-low price automobiles and electronic products. Quality has been defined differently as conformance to requirement (Crosby, 1979), fitness for use (Juran, 1979), continual improvement (Deming, 1982) and as define by customers (Ford, 1990). Whereby, Spitzer (1993) called TQM â€Å"the only source of sustainable competitive advantage†. Also, TQM is continually satisfying agreed customer requirements at lowest cost through harnessing everyones commitment (Burton Franckeiss, 1994). In theory, TQM seems to assure performance improvement for any organization. But, in practice, TQM works for some organization and not for others (Terzioski, 2006). According to Chapman and Al-Khawaldeh (2002), TQM is a key strategy for maintaining competitive advantage and is a way of managing organizations to improve its overall effectiveness and performance towards achieving world-class status. During the last two decades or so, simple inspection activities have been replaced or supplemented by quality control, quality assurance has been developed and refined, and now most companies are working towards TQM (Dale Bunney, 1999). Dale (1999) indentifies four discrete stages: inspection, quality control, quality assurance and TQM, as shown in Figure 2.2. Figure 2.3: The four levels in the evolution of Total Quality Management (Sources: Adapted from Dale Bunney, Total Quality Management Blueprint, 1999) Inspection is defined as â€Å"activities such as measuring, examining, testing or gauging one or more characteristic of an entity and comparing the results with specified requirement in order to establish whether conformity is achieved for each characteristic† (BS EN ISO 8402, 1995). Quality control is defined as â€Å"operational techniques and activities that are used to fulfill requirements for quality† (BS EN ISO 8402, 1995). Quality assurance is defined as â€Å"all the planned and systematic activities implemented within the quality system and demonstrated as needed to provide adequate confidence that an entity will fulfill requirements for quality† (BS EN ISO 8402, 1995). TQM is the highest level which involves the application of quality management principles to all aspects of the business, including customers and suppliers. It is then defined as the management approach of an organization, centered on quality, based on the participation of all its members and aiming at long-term success through customer satisfaction, and benefits to all members of the organization and to society (BS EN ISO 8402, 1995). A number of research studies have been carried out to investigate the impact of TQM factors and implementation (Sila Ebrahimpour, 2005; Khan, 2003; Terzioski, 2006). Miller (1993) reported that success with TQM depends on the facilitating conditions. Leadership, human resource management and some other TQM factors are found to have positive impact on business results (Sila Ebrahimpour, 2005). Therefore, these findings can be reasonably useful in assisting managers so that they can allocate resources to improve their typical routines to obtain the best results. Next, five TQM factors have been selected as the independent variables for this study, namely (1) Customer Focus, (2) Human Resource Management (HRM), (3) Information and Analysis, (4) Leadership and (5) Strategic Planning. It is said that customer focus pays more attention on the customers whereas the rest of TQM factors have focused on the internal aspect of the organization. As for HRM, it focuses on the practices involved in carrying out the â€Å"people† of a management position. Information and analysis is said to be the information and communication technology used to further enhance labor productivity as automation has been widely used. Leadership is important as it creates synergy for achieving favorable business results whereas strategic planning is a set of process undertaken in order to develop a range of strategies that will contribute to achieve organization direction. Further elaboration and review for each variable will be discussed in different sub-section lat er. 2.3.1 Customer Focus According to Dean and Bowen (1994), customer focus is as important as many other TQM practices to organizational performance. Being customer-focused keeps us aware of quality, or rather it focuses our quality initiatives on what really matters to the customers (Cox, 1997). Also, Piercy (1995) says that TQM has too much focused on the internal aspect of the organization and much less attention on the customers. Customer satisfaction begins by discovering precisely what customers want and gearing every practice to their exact expectations (Kearney, 1994). Customer focus has changed mass production to mass customization. In addition, being far from depersonalizing the world, technology has the power to return us to being treated as individuals while getting all the benefits inherent in large-scale enterprise (Cox, 1997). Sousa (2003) pointed out the importance of customer focus lies in the fact that it is the starting point of any quality initiative. However, it has not received enough attention from quality management researchers (Cai, 2009). In the final decade of twentieth century, the term, customer-centered competition has been introduced. Customer-centered company is a company that focuses on customer developments in designing its marketing strategies and on delivering superior value to its target customers (Kotler Armstrong, 2008). It is common to hear the statement â€Å"customer is always right† in any organization. This could be the trend that organization is to focus on customer needs to be customer-led, to be market-oriented, to care for customers and so forth (Piercy, 1995). These are to make total customer satisfaction a strategic foundation for achieving competitive advantage (Kearney, 1994). Customer focus has been therefore defined as the degree to which firms continuously satisfy customer needs and expectations (Philips, Chang, Buzzell, 1983). The difference between customer focus and customer understanding is, according to Lagrosen (2001), mainly a matter of perspective. Customer focus means the activities of the companies are intended to benefit the customer but the customer is seen from the companies own perspective. Therefore, effects are usually being made to gain information about the customers needs and wants, although always in a set framework that originates in the companies view of the product and its features. Whereby, customer understanding needs perspective to be shifted. It means the company needs to gain entry to the customers own perspective and adopt the customers framework of viewing the product (Lagrosen, 2001). Cai (2009) found that organizational customer focus affects customer relationship practices, which subsequently influence production performance and customer satisfaction, and production performance and customer satisfaction lead to financial outcomes. Ooi, Bakar, Arumugam, Vellepan, and Loke (2007) says TQM practices such as teamwork, reward and recognition, customer focus and organizational trust are positively associated with job satisfaction within their organization. For instance, customer focus was found to have a direct influence on emplo

Essay --

10. In approximately 250 words, describe the status of woman in Egyptian society. Consider the following: Content: †¢ Jobs and tasks for woman In Egyptian society, women were given good standing status in the home and were customarily accommodated in mud brick homes, which were very useful in carrying out various works in the home such as: making the good and other stuff. The women frequently visited the marketplace to obtain items, which were obligatory for daily life in Ancient Egypt. †¢ Positions of responsibility for woman In Egyptian society, women were much on the higher side when associated to other empires around Ancient Egypt. In cooperation with gender which belonged to the same class that will be treated alike given the circumstances of Ancient Egypt society. Let along Women in Ancient Egypt were privileged to all the given rights, which men had. However, women had the right to manage property, which belonged to belonged to them, and if she wished, she could sell the property to buy and property she wanted without there being a barrier between them. More importantly many of the attributes to recognize the significant role of women in Ancient Egypt society †¢ Rights of marriage and divorce In Egyptian society, one of the many rights that belonged to women was whether they chose to marry. Nonetheless woman in Ancient Egypt were not vital marry. Countless women who chose to marry did so at quite a young age. †¢ Unique female leaders Many women in Ancient Egypt were ahead of own time. Hatshepsut was the first women to have held a rank as pharaoh and then began her rule as a pharaoh in 1,500 B.C.E. In addition, Hatshepsut also took care of her people as well as constructed place of worship to the gods in addition to o... ... Nile River. The inundating period persisted from June to September, depositing on the river's banks a coating of mineral-rich sediment perfect for rising harvests. Subsequently the floodwaters had retreated; Egypt expected little precipitation, so agronomists trusted on the Nile to water their harvests. Ancient Egyptians cultured emmer and barley, as well as more than a few other cereal iotas, all of which were used to create the two important food staples of bread and stout. Papyrus emergent on the banks of the Nile River and was used to produce paper. †¢ The succession of the pharaoh Nevertheless, the label of Pharaoh was inherited, consequently ideal that it was passed down from father to oldest son. More importantly, there were voluminous circumstances where the successor would be assassinated or even die by "chance" as well as have some else take his place.

The Roots Of Blues Music :: essays research papers

The Roots of Blues Music Blues is a very important type of music. Most music that you hear today has some form of blues in it. If it wasn't for the blues there wouldn't be any rock and roll, country, rap, pop, or jazz . Blues is also important for African American culture. African Americans were also the people who started the blues. The Blues started in the late 1800's in levee camps or plantations in places like Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas were many African Americans lived. The blues of that time was called country blues. It was a mixture of African music, field hollers, work songs, religious music, and ragtime. The main influence of blues music was African music which has a strong and steady beat using drums or other instruments. Its beat and singing showed in the blues. Work songs and field hollers were an influence on blues. They were mostly made up as the musicians were singing. They were a mixture of story telling and talking with a definite call and response. Religious music was very important in forming blues music. Because most blacks went to Christian churches from an early age and were exposed to Christian hymns. Ragtime was an influence that came later and is a faster blues played with the piano and someone singing which was usually played in bars called barrel houses. The first country blues that was written and published was "Memphis Blues" by W.C. Handy in the early 1900's. The first recorded blues was " Crazy Blues" by Mamie Smith in 1915. Most country blues were played with an acoustic guitar and with someone singing. It also has a definite call and response between the voice and guitar. Guitars were used because they had a broad range of notes, they were portable, affordable, and they were permitted by slave owners at that time. The slave owners didn't permit drums because they thought the drums could be used to signal to each other. There were many beginning Blues musicians but only a few had their songs written, published, or recorded. The Roots Of Blues Music :: essays research papers The Roots of Blues Music Blues is a very important type of music. Most music that you hear today has some form of blues in it. If it wasn't for the blues there wouldn't be any rock and roll, country, rap, pop, or jazz . Blues is also important for African American culture. African Americans were also the people who started the blues. The Blues started in the late 1800's in levee camps or plantations in places like Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas were many African Americans lived. The blues of that time was called country blues. It was a mixture of African music, field hollers, work songs, religious music, and ragtime. The main influence of blues music was African music which has a strong and steady beat using drums or other instruments. Its beat and singing showed in the blues. Work songs and field hollers were an influence on blues. They were mostly made up as the musicians were singing. They were a mixture of story telling and talking with a definite call and response. Religious music was very important in forming blues music. Because most blacks went to Christian churches from an early age and were exposed to Christian hymns. Ragtime was an influence that came later and is a faster blues played with the piano and someone singing which was usually played in bars called barrel houses. The first country blues that was written and published was "Memphis Blues" by W.C. Handy in the early 1900's. The first recorded blues was " Crazy Blues" by Mamie Smith in 1915. Most country blues were played with an acoustic guitar and with someone singing. It also has a definite call and response between the voice and guitar. Guitars were used because they had a broad range of notes, they were portable, affordable, and they were permitted by slave owners at that time. The slave owners didn't permit drums because they thought the drums could be used to signal to each other. There were many beginning Blues musicians but only a few had their songs written, published, or recorded.

Alexander The Greats Struggles :: essays research papers

Alexander The Great’s Struggles Alexander the Great was most likely the greatest leader ever. His tactics and reasoning are still studied all over the world even after 2,000 years ago. Being a teenager from a divorced family and forced to rule at such a young age intensely impacted Alexander’s Life. According to records, he was said to be a heavy drinker and because of his mother’s excessive praise, believed himself to be a god. His loyalty, ego, and ambitions are a few of his life struggles that are still scrutinized today.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Alexander was very loyal to his country and parents. When he was still a young teenager, his father gave him the task of ruling the small region of Pella. This allowed Alexander to prove to his father that he could be a competent ruler. When Alexander and his father, Philip, fought Macedonia, Philip was surrounded. Alexander bravely jumped in and saved his father from sure death. Alexander demonstrated loyalty to his mother by staying with her through her exile from Philip. This showed how much pulling and tugging went on to win Alexander’ favor that enviably killed Phillip by not knowing who to be loyal to. Upon their return three years later, Alexander’s mother requested to be allowed to rule with him, once Alexander became king. She knew that would be the only way she could regain power. When Alexander turned twenty, his father was brutally murdered by Alexander’s friend. This demonstrated once again how loyal Alexander was to his father, and how difficult a decision it was to pick sides between his father and mother.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Alexander had a strong ego beginning at birth. Even from the cradle, his mother taught him that he was a god, so he grew up believing it was true. There were many reasons why Alexander’s mother believed him to be a god. When he was born, earthquakes shook the ground, there was a comet, two eagles perched, and lightning a temple and burned it to the ground. She believed those were signs from the gods. When Alexander was just a young buy, he went into the woods and killed a mountain lion with his bare hands to prove he was a god. This act convinced almost everyone that was Alexander indeed, was a god. Aristotle, his teacher for many years, said that Alexander had one of the greatest minds ever. He taught Alexander to trust no one and to learn how to be alone because one day, he would.