Alan Mulally, CEO, Ford Motor Company Case Study

Alan Mulally, CEO, Ford Motor Company - Case Study Example The study also contains the leadership style of Alan Mulally. Alan Mulally has also applied his own strategies and made certain changes in the company due to which the company has been able to recover and has shown the potential of growth in future. The evidence based management has been applied in this study to identify whether the style of management of Alan Mulally comes under this aspect. It has observed that under Alan Mulally, there is transparency in the company, as every aspect is communicated to everyone in the company. Personality of Alan Mulally The personality can be judge on the basis of five fundamental elements which is known as the Big Five Dimensions of personality. The researcher of personality has projected the fundamental feature for evaluation of a personality (Coon, 2009). This theory is growing since the last 50 years. The big five is a broad class of personality traits which reflects a personality or behavior of an individual. The five categories are discussed as follows: Extraversion: It includes character of an individual as, sociability, assertiveness, talkativeness, and excitability and high level of ‘emotional expressiveness’. Agreeableness: It includes aspect such as, altruism, trust, affection, kindness and prosaically behaviors. Conscientiousness: It includes thoughtfulness, impulse as well as goal-focused behaviors. Neuroticism: It includes individual having emotional insecurity, irritability, nervousness, and unhappiness. Openness: It includes features of individuals such as imagination as well as insight and dept of life (Coon, 2009). According to the Big Five Dimension of Personality, Alan Mulally is a leader who especially focuses on the goals or objectives. He has high desires to achieve the objectives, thus it can be said that he is an individual having conscientiousness personality. He is involved in making the company more focused in its core business as the company was unsuccessful and had incurred loss of about $12.6 billion in 2006. It can be observed that, Alan Mulally visits the operation unit every week to assess the performance level of each unit (Coon, 2009). It can also be said that he has characteristics of openness as his thoughts and expectations for the company is really quite high. He had thought of manufacturing electrical car in 2010 and to be ahead from his competitors such as GM as well as Chrysler/Fiat. This characteristic has made him more challenging and thus enhancing his leadership quality. His behavior such as respect, discipline and listening to others as well as appreciation of others views shows that he has characteristics of extroversion and agreeableness. He is open to everyone, as he shares all the strategies with his executives. He had been an initiator as he developed a new strategy for operational unit of the company (Coon, 2009). Leadership Style Leadership is an act of making others to do the work with different techniques so as to achieve a common go al. Alan Mulally’s style of leadership is to approach employees to attain the company’s objectives is participative style. This style engages Alan Mulally along with other executives while taking the decision related to the company. The process of decision making helps to determine executives to do their work in an appropriate way to achieve the common goals. However, Alan Mulally has given an authority to their executives to contribute in the process of deci

The Mexican Peso Crisis Essays -- Economy Economics Mexico Essays

The Mexican Peso Crisis This paper argues that the Mexican peso crisis of December 20 should have been expected and foreseeable. In the year preceding the crisis, there were several indicators suggesting that the Mexican economy and peso were already under extreme pressure. The economy bubble was ballooning to burst so much so that it was simply a crisis waiting to happen. Evidences Signaling the Crisis 1.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Decreasing Current Account Deficit versus Increasing Capital Account Balance Mexico was running an increasing current account deficit from US$7.5 billion in 1990 to US$23.4 billion in 1993. This indicates an excess of private investing over private savings. However, the country was able to maintain an improving fiscal account from US$3.6 billion deficit in 1990 to US$0.7 billion surplus in 1993. The deficit in current account was financed through capital funds from abroad resulting the capital account to increase from US$8.4 billion in 1990 to US$33.8 billion in 1993. The over-dependent on foreign capital flows had made the Mexican economy very vulnerable to any sudden and major flux of this capital fund which was very much dependent on the investors? confidence level in the Mexican economy. The fact that majority of the capital funds was in the form of portfolio capital instead of foreign direct investment (FDI) had also worsen the situation. The ratio of portfolio capital to FDI had increased substantially from 1:1.3 in 1990 to 1:6.5 in 1993. Given the volatile nature, portfolio capital tends to respond with greater speed to changes in the environment. 2.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Depletion of International Reserve The central bank of Mexico has built up at high level of international reserve. The huge reserve was the result of the Mexican government?s policy of exchange intervention to prevent large fluctuation in the peso. In the beginning of 1994, the reserve amounted to US$26.4 billion but was depleted to a low US$6.7 billion in Mid Dec, flagging red light that the exchange mechanism had been pushed to the limit and the government can no longer hold on to the pegged peso to US dollar. 3.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Increasing Fed Rate but Decreasing Mexican Interest Rate Federal funds rate has risen the fifth time in 1994 on Nov 1994 and reaches 5.5%. This resulted in stronger dollar against peso as the quantity of US dollar reduced. This signaled problems for Mex... ...ssibility of a devaluation of the peso  ·Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  According to Euromoney, Mexico?s ranking among borrowing countries improved between March and September 1994 Conclusion The decreasing current account, increasing capital account, depleting international reserves, declining real GDP growth and increasing dollar-denominated tesobonos all pointed towards the vulnerability of the Mexican economy. In view of the repeated political unrests, Mr. Woo and the others should have expected this crisis. But they based their decisions on surface information and market sentiments that had over-valued the market potential. References : The Mexican Peso Crisis : the Foreseeable and the Surprise Nora Lustig, Brookings Institution, June 1995 Mexico 1994 versus Thailand 1997 Thailand Development Research Institute, 1997 Exchange-Rate Regimes, Speculative Attacks and Currency Crisis University of Essex An Early Warning System for Financial Crisis Dominic Barton, Roberto Newell and Gregory Wilson, Mc Kinsey & Company, 2003 The Impact of the Mexican Crisis of 94-95 on the Maquiladora Industry Paul Cooney, Queens College What NAFTA Brought to Mexicans? Jim Callis, March 1998

Illogical Campaigns Against Vending Machines

Vending machines are ingenious inventions that come in all sizes and shapes giving customized and quick services in efficient manner at a cheap cost. In recent times, there has been a rigorous campaign to kick soda vending machines out of schools in the US owing to the perceived problem of increment of obesity among many American children.Soda vending machines should be included in schools but in the teachers lounge because for them (teachers), are mature enough to make decisions about their health. Contained therein in this paper are arguments in favor of this proposition and misconception of the same through facts that are present and are hard to ignore.For starters, these vending machines generate a lot of income for student organizations. A survey released at Roosevelt showed that these machines raked in about $40,000 in a recent year. Elimination of the machines from schools may result in the bankruptcy of student programs that depended on revenues from the vending machines.Clos ely related to this is the fact that these machines might be supplying less than par calories but this can not possibly eliminate obesity in the American society. Vending machines might be a part of the problem, but their contribution is negligible because obesity problems start at home with unhealthy eating habits of living on fast foods only.These campaigns are about patronizing students by parents and school administration in their thinking that they know what is best for them and forgetting that these students can choose for themselves from a rich menu of drinks that is offered by these machines.These students are aware of the side effects that are associated with consumption of sodas and many parents think that the machines only sell drinks that contain over added artificial sugars. In these same machines, you get sugar free diet sodas with no calories, bottled water, juices and even milk which are as popular as any other carbonated drink.Another baseless argument for banning v ending machines in schools is to rid our schools of commercialism claiming that this is detrimental to students learning. This is a very interesting argument that borders absurdity and ridicule. US is a capitalist country and the current culture trend supports this idealism through splashing of the whole country with advertisements from our TVs in our living rooms to erection of billboards on every available space in out cities.Soda companies are not the only companies that have their advertisement in our school but we have other companies erecting their billboards in schools like Nike cloth line labels. Most of the materials that we use in classes come with signatures of the manufacturing companies which then defeat the nonsensical idea of routing commercialism from our schools.ConclusionImportant and vital concerns have been raised about the influence of unhealthy sodas in our schools which might be contributing to the glide into abyss of obesity of obesity by the American society .Sodas are healthier compared to plain water available in taps and therefore it is better to take a soda than nothing. About riding commercialism from our schools, this is an argument that neglects to address other commercialism through advertisements that surround students around school and at home.The bid to kick vending machines from our schools is a campaign that tackles real concerns about obesity and commercialism in our society but from the wrong angle. This will only result in failure of the noble cause and therefore there is no point of denying our students much needed services of the machines and also the revenues associated with them.

The Role of Architecture in Art History - 1373 Words

Architecture has proven to be an important part of society and culture in both art history, and human history. Art is created to reflect the values of the society that creates it, and architecture is no different. Each piece of architecture can be identified by certain characteristics that makes it a part of a specific culture. Both the Great Stupa at Sanchi, located in central India, and the Parthenon, located in Greece, are examples of architecture that share similar characteristics, however can be specified to their location and time period because of their differences. The Great Stupa at Sanchi and the Parthenon, although created for different purposes, proved to be important because of its functionality to society. Building upon an existing temple dedicated to Athena Parthenos, leader Perikles wanted to expand and build upon the temple that was unfinished because of the invasion of the Persians on Akropolis. In 447 BCE, he assigned architects Kallikrates and Iktinos to the job. In order to execute the job properly, Kallikrates and Iktinos needed to have extraordinary mathematical and mechanical skills. The Parthenon required a large group of intelligent architects, and sculptors to come together and construct the temple (Stokstad, Marilyn. Art of Ancient Greece.† Page 131). Pericles wanted to show the wealth and dominance of the Athenian power. The majority of the funds that went into building the Parthenon cane from the Delian League funds, which was a treaty createdShow MoreRelatedDifferences Between Eastern And Western European Architectural Styles1223 Words   |  5 PagesGothic architecture is often characterized just by the visual aspects that define it; however, there is much deeper influence in the structure and form of the style. The term is sometimes used to define a time period, but some critics believe there is no true definition of the term gothic. 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