Why L.A. Used as Setting for Most Disaster Movies.

HENOS WOLDE Instructor: STARR GOODE English 1 Essay 3 10/29/2012 Why L. A. used as setting for most disaster movies. Through decades of disaster films, Los Angeles has been targeted by aliens, toppled by temblors, sunken by tsunamis, leveled by lava, and a rogue tornado once took out the Hollywood sign. Even though in real life los angels is not such a disastrous it nonetheless faces constant destruction in movies, on television, and in books; in the collective imagination, the city burns and burns.Los angels is used as a setting for most disastrous movies because the city is home to Hollywood and the movie business, so the artists who write about, direct and execute mass destruction in Los Angeles are often intimately familiar with the territory and find it convenient to destroy los angels in their films. Los Angeles is a popular disaster movie locale because it is home of the entertainment capital of the world Hollywood, its famous landmarks, and its geography. Los Angeles is home to the entertainment capital of the world Hollywood, which explains why L. A. is often used as a setting for most disaster movies.To destroy a big city in movies takes a lot of time and work. It would make it even harder to travel far away to shoot these movies. To make the destruction look realistic, Hollywood movie makers have to work extra hard and film non stop making sure they get every little detail right. It would make it very challenging to film these movies far away from the studio. For these reason Hollywood apparently wants to destroy all of Los Angeles. For example, the city is going down in flames in DEMOLITION MAN, turned into an island in ESCAPE FROM L. A. , and obliterated in THE BIG ONE: THE GREAT LOS ANGELES EARTHQUAKE.Perhaps Hollywood has no particular malice toward Los Angeles but simply destroys it cinematically because â€Å"it’s there,† at hand, nearby, easy to drive to and blow up, burn down, and shake apart while the cameras roll. With these d isaster movies Hollywood has perfected the cinema of conspicuous destruction, certainly a defining aspect of American movie technology. Los Angeles is also a city filled with internationally recognized landmarks. The Hollywood sign, the Capitol Records building, City Hall and the skyscrapers of down town makes the movies convenient for cinematic shorthand.Almost everybody recognizes these landmarks and when they see it being destroyed in movies, it allows the scale of the disaster to strike the audience greatly. By far, L. A. ‘s biggest cinematic target is the famous nine-letter landmark perched in the Hollywood hills. When people see the Hollywood sign being destroyed by natural disaster or alien attack, the idea behind it is to exaggerates the power of the destruction and to shock viewers with a realistic image of these familiar monument’s falling apart. Apart from its landmarks, L. A. s a popular disaster-movie locale because of its geography. Sitting in a seismic zo ne on the western edge of the continent, it is surrounded by beaches, mountains and deserts. In real life, the city is subject to floods, fires, earthquakes and big waves, so seeing freeways collapse or Santa Monica swallowed up by the sea isn't such a stretch. Hollywood takes great advantage of these landmarks to destroy Los Angeles. Some People also love watching Los Angeles get destroyed because they believe It's nice to mess up the great weather and see it being destroyed by natural disasters.But regardless of the on screen devastation, Fire, earthquakes, floods, volcanos, and a few alien invasions have destroyed the City of Los Angeles. Even though 1000's of disastrous movies have been made in the City, these movies have made the City a Famous landmark. Ultimately, heaving destruction on Los Angeles also shows Hollywood's sense of humor and optimism. It's an odd kind of Western optimism where Los Angeles always seems to start over again, like a phoenix rising from its own destr uction.Los angeles also makes it easier for Hollywood actors to destroy it because of its geography and world wide recognized landmarks. L. A. is good at playing itself in film. It's a familiar face and it is always expected to get blown up and somehow miraculously reappear in the next summer blockbuster. Interestingly, there are always a few survivors in these films, along with a message of hope. Even thought Los Angeles is used as a setting of disaster in most of its movies, there's always hope for change and resurrection as well.

Delta Sigma Theta

The book is affluent in narration of not only the sorority but also of the struggles and fortitude of African American women who often found themselves as a double minority, facing issues of their race and also their sex. It takes you ahead of the conventionality and the existing paranoia, the stride shows and the parties and provides an insight into the more profound rationale and significance of the ‘sisterhood'.‘In Search of Sisterhood: Delta Sigma Theta and the Challenge of the Black Sorority Movement’ provides a perfect certified chronological reference. It is the detailed history of the organization on paper written in a very convincing manner. It sheds light on the founders, the various events, and the chronology of the events, and other important information about the growth and intensification of the organisation which stood for 90 years. It also talks about the national presidents through 1988, the conventions, the Delta oath and the hymn of the organisat ion.The book talks not only about the history of the largest block women's organization in the United States but also tells of the increasing involvement of black women in the political, social, and economic affairs of America. The foray of the black women in the American politics has been a focal point. This organisation was founded when liberal art tutoring was extensively considered as futile, treacherous, and unrealistic for blacks. They were not provided with enough space and platform to exhibit their talent. Women especially were devoid of any advancement in studies, knowledge and arts.This book is a convincing manifestation of how they overcame the initial prohibitions and challenges to find a place for them in the competitive world and color the canvases of their aspirations. It also gives a reflection of how they gave meaning to their existences by providing platforms to the dreams of the society which was suffering. Paula Giddings remarks that contrasting the aims of other organizations which propagated racial goals, Delta Sigma Theta was formed to transform and assist individuals rather than society.She says that it basically emphasises on the benefit of an individual which would in turn benefit the society. As a sorority, it was formed to bring women together as sisters. If women fought for one cause it could prove beneficial to them as well as to the society. There were certain issues which would create division, often class-related issues involving black women in our society. Giddings also mentions the way these women get together to face the divisive and to address the problem of class related issues.Giddings has given a vision that is obscure because certain goals and aims of the women of Delta Sigma Theta form a mesmerising microcosm. This talks about the struggles, the hardships faced by the black women. It also states the problems faced by the organization. There are many tribulations that Gidding has beautifully mentioned giving an insight into the actual situation that persisted before Afro-American women found a place for themselves in the society.The members stated in Delta Sigma Theta includes a list of renowned women namely Mary McLeod Bethune, Mary Church Terrell, Margaret Murray Washington, Shirley Chisholm, Barbara Jordan, and, on the cultural side, Leontyne Price, Lena Horne, Ruby Dee, Judith Jamison, and Roberta Flack. In Search of Sisterhood Delta Sigma Theta and the Challenge of the Black Sorority Movement is full of gripping, absorbing, fascinating anecdotes told by the Deltas themselves. The anecdotes are nicely illustrated with uncommon early photographs of the Delta women.

The world is fast becoming a borderless place

I have come to a point in life that many people have not.   I have made a firm decision to recommit myself to pursuing my dreams.   While there are those who believe that with an ounce of luck and a ton of persistence anything can be accomplished, I believe that there is no reason to expend so much energy and rely on luck.I believe in taking hold of my destiny and carving out a future for myself based on the decisions that I make in life.   Life is simply too short and too precious to be left to luck alone.   This is why I have chosen to apply for this major in electrical engineering at the University of California Los Angeles.As the world continues to change and the workplace becomes more and more challenging and competitive, it becomes imperative for anyone looking for a successful career to not only have the drive to succeed but also the training and expertise to do so.I am not saying that I do not have the training and expertise at the moment but I do believe that there i s still room for more.   The rich and diverse academic community at the UCLA will definitely be the perfect place for me to learn and be prepared for the challenges that lie ahead.There have been so many opportunities in life that I have not been able to take advantage of because of the competitiveness of the working environment.   I believe that this experience and background of mine will help me pursue this dream.   Being a (insert career) is only the beginning of a long journey for me.I realize that it will not be easy and I look forward to that challenge.   In the short term, I see myself completing this degree and fulfilling the requirements for this course.   I believe that this experience will be sufficient to prepare me for the next step which is applying for a good internship position that will give me the training that I need.   I eventually plan to pursue larger goals such as taking a doctoral degree and perhaps starting my own business.The world is fast becom ing a borderless place.   Cultures, races, beliefs and ideologies are blend together and interact because of the growing advances in communications.   In order to succeed in this world, one needs to be able to adapt to the various cultural differences as well as be able to maintain a certain sense of individual identity.This is the advantage that I feel I can get at this fine academic institution; the training to be competitive in the global economy and at the same time the flexibility to be able to deal with the different cultures in the diverse business world.That is why I believe that this course is a crucial step for me.   My success and my accomplishments here will herald the beginning of the fulfillment of my personal and professional goals.   It is said that the one thing that nobody can ever take away from you is your education and that is the one thing that I plan to not only gain for myself but for others as well.I am currently a student at Pasadena City College in California taking up electrical engineering.   My interest in this field comes from my exposure during my childhood in Shanghai, China, which is one of the largest industrialized cities in the world.As a national of China and a resident of the United States of America, I strongly feel that technology holds the key to the future of not only the people of China but the entire world as well.   The evolutions and advances in technology have indeed expanded the frontiers of man.   Every facet of man’s life has been changed by the new technological innovations that have been introduced.   Life has become so much easier yet at the same time it seems however that life has also been turned into something more complicated; presenting new challenges and providing new frontiers to conquer.It is for this reason that I plan to be able to find gainful employment in one of the industries and do more research in this field.   I am confident that my studies in college have adequatel y prepared me for further study.I am now learning differential equations, general physics and programming. I have also been particularly interested in electrical power circuits’ generation, electrical inspection and codes.   In the near future, I intend to develop skills in physical science and engineering, skills in management science and skills in problem solving in engineering field as well as solving computer related problems.As an active participant in extra-curricular activities such as soccer, badminton, I have participated in charity and community service within the community and back at home. I usually visit senior center and volunteer donations such as foodstuffs and essential items to them. Also I am the member of AGS club and Math Club. Last spring semester I got dean’s award and William Miller Scholarship (This is a scholarship from Math Division).

Mechanism Of Trade Dispute Settlement In The Light Of International Dissertation

Mechanism Of Trade Dispute Settlement In The Light Of International Trading System - Dissertation Example Dispute settlement is one of the fundamental components of these. This research will identify these dispute settlement mechanisms and examine whether these are effective, problematic or insufficient. In order to achieve the primary objective, the secondary objectives, which follows, would also be pursued: 1. identify and define the types of dispute settlement mechanisms; 2. cite actual cases that has been acted on and formed part of the global system’s trade jurisprudence; and, 3. examine the efficacy and the success of each identified mechanisms in dispute resolution. Methodology This study is primarily a descriptive research. Hence, it will exclusively use the qualitative method of inquiry with the idea that such approach would be able to reveal a comprehensive and credible picture that would contribute to the achievement of the study’s objectives. The qualitative approach is important because of the study’s focus on examining issues related to the efficacy of dispute settlement mechanisms in relation to the needs and interest of each trading nation. There is a need to deal with the dispute mechanisms by investigating through specific individual cases of disputes and settlement. This researcher is of the opinion that, in this context, the method is the best tool to uncover weaknesses and unique strengths among the dispute settlement mechanisms. An important component of the research methodology is the case study. According to Katsirikou and Skiadas (2010), it is the preferred strategy in order to answer how and why research questions and that it is a well-suited method to empirically investigate contemporary phenomena.1 Following the... This study is primarily a descriptive research. Hence, it will exclusively use the qualitative method of inquiry with the idea that such approach would be able to reveal a comprehensive and credible picture that would contribute to the achievement of the study’s objectives. The qualitative approach is important because of the study’s focus on examining issues related to the efficacy of dispute settlement mechanisms in relation to the needs and interest of each trading nation. There is a need to deal with the dispute mechanisms by investigating through specific individual cases of disputes and settlement. This researcher is of the opinion that, in this context, the method is the best tool to uncover weaknesses and unique strengths among the dispute settlement mechanisms. An important component of the research methodology is the case study. According to Katsirikou and Skiadas, it is the preferred strategy in order to answer how and why research questions and that it is a well-suited method to empirically investigate contemporary phenomena. Following the descriptive and exploratory parameter cited earlier, case studies will be employed in order to explain in detail a particular case and that it could provide the basis for comparison and theory building. The Literature Review section will play an important role as well. For example, policy- and decision-making are likely to employ more than one synthesis method. This, would lead to different types of evidence identified as relevant to the range of research objectives outlined.

Encyclopedia of Nursing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Encyclopedia of Nursing - Essay Example How could you as a nurse assist persons in this experience? What would the nurse use to promote better-coping skills? These questions form the core of nursing in my opinion. All of this can sometimes be difficult for nurses. In the workaday environment of a hospital, practitioners too often â€Å"glaze over† or become somewhat automatic. Everyday routine can sometimes numb them to their surroundings, making it difficult to connect with patients that require special attention. It is not hard to imagine the situation: nurses are human just like the rest of us—the fact that there are terrible suffering and pain all around them is something they will eventually adapt to after a certain amount of time. Patients who come into a hospital have many fears and anxieties about their experience: just how sick are they? What do all these new confusing words mean? How will their problem affect the quality of their lives? It can be very difficult to cope. For nurses who have seen it a ll before it can be difficult for them to be patient and supportive. It is the same basic biological principle as hypostasis. This model argues that it is vital to be mindful and keep in mind the various prejudices and fears all humans harbour—and try to use these feelings to help shape positive relationships with patients under care. The nurse and patient need to come up with what some call a â€Å"shared story.† This is my vision for nursing. This focus on a shared story is very important. The relationship between the patient and the practitioner in a very real sense a developing narrative. In order to live out my philosophy of nursing, every day I must remember this, that a nurse and his or her patient must form a shared story. Those people and professionals who work at a hospital form a family.  

Service Marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Service Marketing - Essay Example The company has been globally accepted and has a high visibility of their brand. (Source from website http://instruction.bus.wisc.edu/obdemo/may%20not%20need_2/starbucks.htm) Starbucks has been renowned for its customer service. A "service" is any act of performance that one party can offer to another, that is essentially intangible and does not result in the ownership of anything. Its production may or may not be tied to a physical product. ( Kotler, 2000) By creating a unique atmosphere, Starbucks has differentiated themselves from their competitors and catered to their customer's preferences. A company's offering to the market place will include some kind of service. It may be a major or minor part of the product. It may be purely tangible goods that require no service, a mix of goods and services in varying proportions, or just pure service. Services can be equipment based or people based. Some services require the client's presence while some do not. Services may be a personal need or a business need. It could be for profit or non-profit and be private or public depending on ownership. ( Kotler, 2000) Intangibility- Services cannot be seen, tasted, felt, heard or smelled. This makes evaluating service quality very difficult. Service quality is therefore ascertained by the potential consumers by perusal of other evidences like place, people, equipment communication etc. as indicators of quality. Inseparability- Services are produced and consumed at the same time and cannot be separated from their providers. There is no stocking or distribution. The provider and client must interact for the service to occur and therefore both parties become part of the service provided. Both of them influence the outcome of the service. Variability - As the consumer and producer are both part of the service, the quality of services depends largely on who, when, where and how they are provided. Therefore, service providers become the representative of the organization as a whole and service quality depends on the quality of the service providers themselves. Perishability- Services must be consumed as they are provided and cannot be stored for future use. Therefore, a missed opportunity will create a loss of service that needed to be rendered. The demand and supply needs to be carefully monitored and services offered as needed during the time period. Non-Transferability- Services cannot be owned by the user. An excellent service has good retentivity though and acts as an incentive to the customer to opt for the same service again. Starbucks has survived and grown in the new economy because of its innovative capability to adapt to a dynamically changing environment. Their customer-focused strategy has allowed them to garner sales selling the humble coffee at a premium value due to the perception of value inculcated in the customer. Quality of Service Providing the level of service to desired expectations is of prime importance. Quality management is a way of doing business that allows an organization to design products and services that meet or exceed customer needs and build operational processes that achieve high levels of performance and quality. A good service company understands the psychology of the consumer, adds in a qualitative

Psychology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 6

Psychology - Essay Example rts claim that mental illness is nothing but a brain disorder like other illnesses, and there are no causes of mental illness such as ill-fated or bad deeds in the past/previous life. Analysis of the material (Corrigan & Watson, pp. 162-179, 2003) related to mental illness has indicated that mental illness has now become a usual notion in contemporary era, and most of the studies have specified that mental illness does not have a physical existence, and thus, it always required support of a theory or concept for its justification. For instance, during ancient and medieval periods, and even today in some parts of the globe, people relate magic, fate, witches, and unseen forces as causes of mental illness. Such perspective has increased the efforts of organizations and experts (Corrigan & Watson, pp. 162-179, 2003) to claim that mental illness is a brain disorder and that people with mental illness should acquire treatment accordingly rather than confront detestation, isolation, and magical interventions. Further analysis has indicated that experts (Farmer, pp. 40-46, 2001) have related intoxication of brain, and particularly, syphilis of brain as the major cause of mental illness in humans. Although very few experts (Stein, pp. 37-41, 2004) have accepted this notion, however, introduction of recent technologies in medical science has resulted in efforts made to prove such intoxications. In psychology, experts (Nestler, pp. 61-68, 2008) believe that abovementioned intoxications enforce patients to confront certain disorders in their thinking patterns that justify the unpredictable behavior of people confronting mental illness. In addition, experts have indicated that usually all types of brain disorders cause alterations in thinking and behavior patterns similar to mental illness, and thus, mental illness is a brain disorder that has been able to influence an enormous number of experts and psychologists globally. On the other hand, adversaries (Corrigan & Watson,

Developing Good Business Sense Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Developing Good Business Sense - Essay Example McDonalds is one of those organizations that are known for continuous development in their systems. Employees at McDonalds are not only involved in manufacturing of food and different aspects of operations management, they are also well-supported by automated system, hi-tech equipments and effective supply chain management system (McDonalds-UK, 2013). A critical analysis of McDonalds’ operations helped in understanding that minimum wastage, customer-oriented approach and environmental considerations are main features that govern the performance of its employees. Hence, effective cold chain, customer services and just-in time delivery by the supplier are the main features of McDonald’s operations that also govern the task performance of its employees. Like McDonalds, KFC is also supported with highly skilled labor and automation in its system. However, there is limited attention paid to materials management in terms of supplier’s selection and waste management. Wh ere McDonalds has strategic alliances to limited suppliers, KFC has a rather extensive pool of suppliers. Yearly assessment of suppliers helps in selection for the next year. Unlike KFC and McDonalds, Amazon chose to identify the top selling items and have a readily available stock of such items. It is important to note that more than warehouse management; Amazon relies on its alliances with suppliers in different regions of the world and courier services. Therefore, employees working with Amazon are more supported with IT-based interventions than the actual manufacturing processes. McDonalds and KFC use flexible operating system when it comes to operations and materials management. They have computer-aided manufacturing programs with human intervention in a supervisory role than direct involvement in production. However, as far as delivery of ready-to-cook items and real-time cooking is concerned, it is performed through their employees. Such practice helps in ensuring that a suita ble quantity of finish product is available to meet the demands of consumers without incurring actual wastages. On the other hand, Amazon focuses on small-batch production when it comes to selection of operations and materials management. The storing capacity of Amazon is rather limited and it focuses on having strategic alliances in different regions for catering customers all around the world instead of having physical facilities across the globe. Only limited items are stored based on their past selling patterns and consumers’ demands. As far as their operations and materials management costs are concerned, McDonalds and KFC incur costs in terms of raw materials purchase, plant management and basic manufacturing, labor, inventory management and distribution (Jones, 2007). All these components are inevitable to incur as these fast food chains cannot outsource manufacturing processes. On the other hand, Amazon incurs costs because of products’ purchase, warehousing an d distribution along with human resource management. Since it does not perform direct manufacturing i.e. publishing, CD burning etc, itself, therefore it purchases ready products from publishers and vendors in different regions and deliver them to customers accordingly. Main source of costs is expected to be warehousing and d

Greatest Communicator Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Greatest Communicator - Essay Example Bill Clinton is a notable personality whose skill communication make audience yearn to listen more from the personality. Bill Clinton was at some point the president of US and pulled crowd with how he presented his speech. Additionally, Bill had good leadership skills that made him unique. Leaders need to be multi-talented so as to be there for the people. Bill Clinton displayed all these characteristics making him one of the most prominent and notable leader of all time. Bill Clinton had the most impressive communication skills any leader would want to possess. When addressing the audience, Bill Clinton would use gesture sync with words to ensure that a given message is efficiently grasped by the audience (Marcus par 3). To guide audience’s emotion and attention, he would extend his arms facing up or out. Additionally, Bill Clinton overlapped arms across the chest to show emphasis on a given statement. Moreover, he used hard-stop pacing in his word to ensure that points mention got the stress required. Use of frequent pause in statements helped to gather the attention of the audience. Visuals enabled Clinton to pass information clearly. Policy used was fewer words but more visual to ensure that the audience enjoyed the speech. In most of Clinton’s speech, monotony breakage was fostered by the addition of a story in the middle of a speech. Excellent communication skills by Clinton impacts individuals on a significant margin. When presenting a speech, it is crucial that the audience needs to enjoy the speech. Use of gestures like Bill Clinton ensures that the audience gets information clearly as well as enjoys the speech. Moreover, involving the audience in the presentation of speech makes them ride along. Direct eye contact is vital in enhancing emphasis to a given statement or speech. Moreover, it ensures that the audience’ attention does not get diverted. Bill Clinton’s good communication skills influence individual’s speech

Need to come up with one from you Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Need to come up with one from you - Essay Example The first microscopes enabled the human eye to magnify an object up to 20-30 times but today a microscope can magnify an object up to 1500 times. With the invention of microscopes, the vision changed and it opened the doors to many other associated fields of inventions (Wilkin, 1911). Micro organisms were studied and cellular structures were discovered. Biological uses include tissue and cell analysis to examine for any diseases in the body, whereas in modern times, it is also used to see finger prints for evidence collection at a crime sight. Not only this, several enhancements were made to the original microscope including Compound Microscopes, Transmission Electron Microscopes, Scanning Electron microscopes and Dissection Microscopes (Strain, 2006). Later, when the curiosity to know more about the universe around us grew, telescopes were invented which changed the lives drastically. As the first step, the depressions on the surface of moon were noticed, the sunspots, the rings of the Saturn and the moons of the Jupiter were discovered using a telescope. Not only this but scientific reasoning methods, mathematical laws and logics were applied to understand how the universe works, which laid the foundations of modern astronomy. An exceptional discovery was made by Galileo about the surface of moon which was previously considered as smooth (Wilkin, 1911). He discovered that there are dark areas and shadows on the moon which change in accordance to the positioning of the sun. He concluded that these shadows were the craters and mountains on the surface of moon. Another stunning discovery was made by the use of telescopes that there are four large moons around Jupiter which also rotate. Later, Sir Issac Newton proposed the usage of a curved mirror instead of glass lens in the telescope. Soon after, in the seventeenth century binoculars were designed based on the idea of telescopes. Camera Obscura (the dark chamber) was used

Torts problem question-Negligent misstatements Case Study

Torts problem question-Negligent misstatements - Case Study Example Whoever makes a claim due to somebody's negligence besides proving duty of care, breach and damages, must also show extra factors under 'duty' As pure economic loss caused by negligence is not a tort but liability under common law negligence. In Hedley Byrne & Co Ltd v Heller & Partners Ltd [1963]1 UKHL 4 (28 May 1963, it was held by the House of Lords that respondents were not liable as bankers for giving negligently favourable opinion about their client whom the appellants dealt with as a result. The reason was that the bankers had no fiduciary relationship with the appellants nor had any duty of care to them as there was no contract. Besides they had cautioned the appellants that their opinion was without owning any responsibility. Applying the same principle in the above case, it can be argued that though the bankers had been in the process of making a fiduciary relationship subject to the surveyor's opinion, such a relationship had not been established. There was also no negligence on the part of the bankers. Besides they also had relied on Surveyor's opinion and lost business as a result. In fact Helen and the Bank are in the same position. On the other hand whether Helen as well as Andrew can claim compensation from the Surveyor depends on the principles of duty of care, fiduciary relationship, and negligence. ... But proximity of relationship could be deemed to exist as two of them have suffered due to his negligent opinion. Therefore both Helen and Andrew can claim damages from him. In fact, valuer was held liable in Can v Wilson2, wherein the valuer was held responsible to the mortgagees for negligent undervaluation and was asked to pay loss incurred by the mortgagees due to mortgagor's default. In this case, the defendant who was the valuer sent his valuation report to the agent of plaintiff (mortgagee) in order to induce him to advance money against the mortgage of the property he valued. As the valuer had knowingly placed himself in that position, he had a duty of care in the preparation of a valuation document. In somewhat identical cases, Smith v. Eric S. Bush and Harris v. Wyre Forest District Council [1989]3, both the plaintiffs purchased houses relying on valuations of the surveyors who acted under the instructions of the defendant mortgagees and their fees were paid by the plaintiff purchasers. The valuations of the surveyors turned out to be defective resulting in serious financial loss to the plaintiffs. Even though the terms of agreement excluded liability for both the mortgagees and the surveyors for any loss due to inaccuracy in valuation, the House of Lords held that surveyors had a duty of care to the plaintiffs and the terms of exclusion of liability was struck down by virtue of section 2(2) and 11 (3) of the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977. B In the case of B.Pen & Co, Charles lent money to James to buy the business of B.Pen & Co, relying on the Accountant's report which later turned out to be untrue to the detriment of both Charles and John. Although it was

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Essay Example for Free

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Essay The novel Frankenstein is about a man named Victor Frankenstein who wanted to tamper with life and death by exploring unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation (Shelley, pg.44). The novel Frankenstein has had continuing popularity ever since its publication in 1818 for many reasons. The main reason is that Frankenstein is a book that teaches lessons and morals that readers of all ages can appreciate and learn from for years to come. Frankenstein is a book that has been read and enjoyed by successive generations. In other words Frankenstein can be considered a classic novel. Frankenstein is a novel that shows the reader there is a way to achieve immortality, but also reveals many important things about human nature and emotions. Frankenstein is a novel about how to defy death. Ever since Egyptians and their beliefs of a life after death, people have found overcoming death to be fascinating. Death is something that is not understood completely by humans, it is frightening as well as scary. This is portrayed in Frankenstein when the creature is looked down upon by society because he looked different from them and they did not understand him. People are scared of what they do not understand, which is why they were frightened by Victors monster. The novel fascinates people because death has been overcome. Being able to create life from something that is non-living is just like cheating death. People like to have control over it, which is what people want in the first place. Frankenstein is a novel that shows the reader there is a way to defy death, which is why the novel has enjoyed continuing popularity ever since publication in 1818. Frankenstein reveals many things about humanity. The creature has the same feelings that all humans do including love, anger, sadness, happiness, confusion and so on. When talking of the family that the creature lived beside in the woods he says, when they were unhappy, I felt depressed; when they rejoiced, I sympathized in their joys (96). Just because the creature is able to distinguish between these emotions and have feelings for other forms of life is enough to say that he is human. The only thing that makes him different from human beings is the way he looks and the way he was brought into the world. Just because a baby is born with a deformity that  makes them look different from other people does not mean they are not human, they are just different. Since the creature is considered human, Frankenstein shows the reader what can happen to the human nature when it is abandoned of all forms of communication and love from others. The author is trying to show that the creature had the ability to be a kind and decent being, but because it is denied the basic human needs of communication and love from others, it resorts to an evil attitude. The unfortunate creature was abandoned and everything it knows about life and values was completely self-taught. The creature resorts to evil doings because no one has taught him right from wrong or how to deal with the emotions that he is feeling. Victors creature feels abandoned by his creator and does not know how to deal with these feelings. He does not even know why he was created in the first place after the cottagers that he has grown to love turned their backs on him. The creature curses his creator and questioned his existence by saying, Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live?(98) These feelings towards abandonment are similar to the emotions that humans feel when people that are supposed to love them abandon them. The novel reveals many things about humanity that are not often discussed or thought about by humans. In conclusion, Frankenstein has experienced such continued success for several reasons. In one aspect it is a simple novel about defying death and achieving what many people have been fascinated with for centuries, which is immortality. On the other hand, it is an emotional story about a tragic creature that is forced to live in society that rejects him. It offers a close up into the creatures emotions and shows a side of humanity that people do not normally have the chance to see. Because Frankenstein fascinated the simple concept of death as well as the idea of the power of humanity to affect human emotions and reactions, it has become a novel that has been and will continue to be read for ages. Frankenstein is clearly a classic novel.

Relationship Between HRM and Employee Attitude

Relationship Between HRM and Employee Attitude The relationship between HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes Introduction The concept of human resource management (HRM) has received focussed attention for around 20 years, with the catalyst being that many US companies found they were being rivalled and in some instances overtaken, in markets they had dominated (Ehrlich, 1994, p. 492). As Lodge (1985, p. 319) observes: By the early 1980s there was still little disagreement that US corporate managers, employees and trade unions would have to change their ways in order to compete successfully for markets in America and abroad. Harvard university academics introduced a new compulsory component of HRM into their MBA syllabus and reinforced this so-called Harvard Model with influential books and articles (Beer et al., 1984; Walton, 1985b; Walton and Lawrence, 1985). While there would surely have been a genuine desire to help US business, US society, and even US employees, there was also a long-term effort to ensure that the Harvard Business School faculty provided leadership in human resource management (Walton and Lawrence, 1985, p. xx). The Harvard concept stresses that HRM should lead to employee commitment not simply as a means to employer objectives of improved productivity and profits, but because the fulfilment of many employee needs is taken as a goal rather than merely a means to an end (Walton, 1985a, p. 49). At about the same time as the Harvard concept was being developed another viewpoint was being promulgated by academics who supported a strategic concept of HRM, with the major work edited by Fombrun et al. (1984). This work emphasises that the four generic human resource activities of all organisations: selection/promotion/placement process; reward process; development process; and appraisal process (Tichy et al., 1984, p. 26) need to be strategically aligned with the organisations overall strategic objectives. Hard and soft HRM British writers have focused on the differences between the Harvard commitment concept of HRM and the strategic HRM concept. Keenoy (1990, p. 368) sees the Harvard concept as philosophically grounded in the recognition of multiple stakeholders and the belief that the practice and benefits of HRM can be achieved through neo-pluralist mechanisms, while the strategic concept is almost uniformly unitarist in orientation and displays a quite singular endorsement of managerial values. The former is frequently referred to as soft HRM, while the latter is hard HRM. In theory, soft HRM fulfils employee needs as an end in itself, and the favourable attitudes generated from the use of appropriate HRM practices (Guest, 1997) together with communication, motivation and leadership (Storey, 1987, p. 6), result in commitment to the organisation and improved performance. Hard HRM is only concerned with the effective utilisation of employees (Guest, 2002) and emphasises the quantitative, calculative and business strategic aspects of managing the head count resource in as natural a way as for any other economic factor (Storey, 1987, p. 6). If the reality of soft HRM practice was that it produced the benefits referred to in the rhetoric of academic evangelists such as Richard Walton then it should be highly favoured by both employees and employers. Questions have been raised by a number of researchers, however, about the ability of soft HRM to achieve these benefits. There are two concerns. The first is that the real motive behind its introduction is to undermine unions (Sisson, 1994). Indeed, going back to the introduction of the Harvard concept of soft HRM, Lawrence (1985, p. 362) writes about a seminal colloquium on HRM between 35 senior executives and Harvard academics. He claims that the question as to whether HRM was designed to keep the union out was emphatically denied, and he protested that all but three of the firms represented were at least partially unionised, with several having had a significant number of units of both kinds, with their older plants unionised and the newer ones not. An unreasonable interpr etation therefore would be that these leaders of commitment HRM will happily dispense with unions given the opportunity. Indeed, Lawrence (1985, p. 362) admits that there was a general view that in a well-managed unit with decision-sharing, a union was not needed to represent employee interests. Guest (1990, p. 389) concludes, the main impact of HRM in the United States may have been to provide a smokescreen behind which management can introduce non-unionism or obtain significant concessions from trade unions. The second concern is that meeting the needs of employees has never been an objective in itself, and has simply been the normative view of what Harvard academics would like to see as the employment relationship. Truss et al. (1997, p. 70) in a study of soft and hard models of HRM, concluded that even if the rhetoric of HRM is soft, the reality is almost always hard, with the interests of the organisation prevailing over those of the individual. Similar conclusions have been reached by Keenoy (1990), Poole and Mansfield (1992), Guest (1995) and Legge (1995a, b, 1998). If the soft model of HRM has validity, then there should be a clear relationship between the experience of soft HRM practice and positive employee attitudes (reflecting their needs are being met) and increasing employee commitment as well as improved productivity. Surprisingly, however, most of the research and reporting on HRM has ignored the views of employees. Legge (1998, p. 14) points out: when reading accounts of HRM practice in the UK and North America it is noticeable the extent to which the data are (literally) the voices of management. Guest (1999, p. 5) agrees, claiming that from its conception human resource management reflected a management agenda to the neglect of workers concerns. Some studies have considered employee reactions to HRM (Gibb, 2001; Appelbaum and Berg, 2000; Mabey et al., 1998) but Guest (2002, p. 335) is perceptive in his criticism that a feature of both advocates and critics of HRM is their neglect of direct evidence about the role and reactions of w orkers. Even the exceptions noted which gave employee reactions to HRM did not relate the employee experience of HRM practices to their reactions, and Guest (1997) argues for a research agenda that addresses this gap. This paper aims to contribute to this gap by fulfilling two major objectives. The first is to add to the limited number of studies which have tested to see if there is a relationship between HRM practice and positive employee attitudes. The second objective is to see if there is a significantly stronger relationship between HRM practice and employee attitudes if employee perceptions of HRM practice are taken as the measure of HRM rather than employer perceptions, which has been the approach taken in general by previous researchers. HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes The soft model of HRM, as stated previously, suggests a relationship exists between the use of appropriate HRM practices and positive employee attitudes, and while theoretically these relationships remain poorly developed (Guest, 1997, 2001), a number of attitudes are nonetheless widely considered to be an outcome of soft HRM. For example, levels of job satisfaction, which is the affective perception that results from the achievement of desired outcomes (Harber et al., 1997), are found to be related to levels of HRM practice (Guest, 2002; Ting, 1997). High levels of employee commitment have also been found to be related to the use of appropriate HRM practice (Guest, 2002), and results from investing in HRM practices which benefit employees. For example, the provision of opportunities for training and skill development benefits the employee by equipping them with the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes to function autonomously and responsibly (Guest, 2002). Furthermore, it impro ves retention and enables them to cope with change in the work environment (Guest, 2002). Organisational fairness is the term used to describe the role of fairness as it directly relates to the workplace and is concerned with the ways employees determine if they have been treated fairly in their jobs and the ways in which those determinations influence other work-related variables (Moorman, 1991, p. 845). The HRM systems, policies, and procedures that operate in an organisation have been identified as impacting on an individuals perceptions of bias and fairness (Kurland and Egan, 1999; Greenberg, 1990). Studies show that where employees believe they are treated fairly in the workplace then they hold positive attitudes towards the organisation (Moorman, 1991), whereas HRM practices that are perceived to be unfair have been found to result in the employee feeling bewildered and betrayed and thus less committed (Schappe, 1996). As far as the relationship between HRM practice and employee attitudes is concerned, the HRM practice dimension has been measured by collecting data from employers in one of the two ways using additive measures of HRM practice or self-reports about the extent to which particular HRM practices have been operationalised. A possible third approach would be to collect employee views about the operationalisation of HRM practice and then relate these reactions to their attitudes. These approaches are described below. The additive approach To date the most common approach for assessing the relationship between HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes is the additive approach. This involves employers indicating, using a yes/no response format, which HRM practices from a predetermined list currently operate in their organisations. The yes responses are then added together, and the assumption is that a higher sum indicates better HRM. Researchers using the additive approach usually correlate the total number of practices with the HRM outcomes being examined. Research exploring this relationship show a strong correlation between high numbers of HRM practice and positive employee attitudes (Fiorito, 2002; Guest, 1999; Guest and Conway, 2002; Appelbaum and Berg, 2000). While this approach is frequently used, it has attracted criticism (Fiorito, 2002; Guest, 1997, 2002). The additive approach is very simplistic. If an employer claims a practice is utilised there is no differentiation on the basis on how well, or to what extent the practice exists. For example, there could be token training and development, or a high level of commitment to a professional and effective training and development programme. Both examples are credited as a yes. This perceived weakness has led some researchers to use employer self-reports about the strength of HRM practice. Employer self-reports about the strength of HRM practice Guest and Peccei (1994) suggest that an improvement on the additive approach is to assess the extent or strength of practice using response bands such as those contained in Likert scales. Such an approach sees employers self-reporting, either on the extent they consider particular HRM practices to be effective (Delaney and Huselid, 1996), or alternatively on the extent to which HRM practices have been operationalised (i.e. to what extent practices are practised) in their workplace (Kane et al., 1999). Guest (2001, p. 1099) claims further research is needed to test the extent that employer and employee views on HRM practices coincide or differ. Specifically he suggests: There is now a need for more research comparing the responses of managers responsible for developing and overseeing HRM practice and employees to identify levels of agreement about the operation of practices such evidence as it is possible to glean from reports about levels of autonomy and consultation suggest that levels of agreement might be quite low. Support for this assertion has already been found. For example, Appelbaum and Bergs (2000) study comparing supervisor and employee perceptions about participative initiatives in US organisations found wide differences. Similarly, Kane et al. (1999) also found evidence of perceptual differences about HRM between different organisational stakeholders. While managers and employers are important stakeholders, so too are employees. This has led to a strong call for employee voice to be heard in HRM research (Guest, 2001). Employee self-reports about the strength of HRM practice Given the apparent perceptual differences between employers and employees perceptions of HRM then a third approach that could be used would see employees reports on the strength of operationalised HRM practice analysed in relation to their levels of work-related attitudes. There is now growing support for assessing HRM from the employee perspective emerging in the literature (Fiorito, 2002; Gibb, 2001; Guest, 2001), and given that where the concern is employee attitudes, then it is intuitively logical to relate that to employee rather than employer perceptions of the effectiveness of HRM policies and practices. Method The most common approach employed in studies assessing the relationship between HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes is the survey (Cully et al., 2000; Guest, 1999), and this is the method of data collection used in this study. Four areas of HRM practice are examined good and safe working conditions, training and development, equal employment opportunities (EEO), and recruitment and selection. These areas of HRM have been selected because they have previously been identified as those likely to have the greatest impact on employee behaviour and attitudes (Guest, 2001). Three employee work-related attitudes are examined organisational commitment, job satisfaction and organisational fairness. These attitudes are generally considered to be desirable outcomes that result from the use of soft HRM (Meyer and Smith, 2000; Guest, 1997). Measurement Three approaches are used to measure HRM practice an additive measure completed by the employer, and two perceptual measures, one completed by employers and one completed by employees. All three measures relate to practices characterised in the literature as soft HRM or best practice HRM (Guest, 1999; Guest and Peccei, 1992; Johnson, 2000; Kane et al., 1999). They are employee-centred (i.e. they should produce benefits for employees when operationalised), and thus should impact on employee work-related attitudes. The additive measure, as stated, is the one most commonly used in research of this type. The additive measure used in this study asks employers to indicate, using a yes/no response format, which practices, from a comprehensive list of 80 practices (20 for each functional area covered), currently operate in their organisation (for example, Do you consult employees on their training needs?). A 20-item scale consisting of statements about HRM practice is used to assess the strength of HRM practices (five items for each of the four functional areas). Respondents are asked to indicate, using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree, the extent they consider each practice occurs in their organisation, for example, EEO is promoted within this organisation (see Appendix 1 for a full list of statements). The same scale is used for both the employer and the employee groups, with the wording amended to reflect their different perspectives. Employer and employee assessments of HRM using this measure are, therefore, concerned with the judgements these groups make about the extent a particular HRM practice has been operationalised in the workplace. The ÃŽ ± coefficients for the five item measures relating to each of the four areas of HRM practice examined ranged from 0.83 to 0.88, suggesting high internal consistency exists (Browne, 2000). The s tatements about HRM practice on the perceptual measure closely reflect the ones used in the additive measure, but there is not a direct correspondence as that would have resulted in an excessively long measure. Three widely accepted measures of employee attitudes are used. Guest (1997) suggests organisational commitment should be measured using the standard measure developed by Mowday et al. (1979) the organisational commitment questionnaire (OCQ) because this scale captures the extent the employee identifies with the organisation, their desire to remain in the organisation and their willingness to exert effort on behalf of the organisation. An adapted and shortened version of the OCQ is used in this study to measure organisational commitment. Again, respondents are asked to indicate the extent to which they agree with each of the statements using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree (ÃŽ ±=0.8535). To measure job satisfaction, an adapted and shortened form of the Minnesota satisfaction questionnaire (Weiss et al., 1967) is used. The scale has six items and respondents are asked to indicate how satisfied they are with respect to each of the statements, using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1=very dissatisfied to 5=very satisfied (ÃŽ ±=0.8664). While organisational fairness has two dimensions distributive and procedural this study is concerned only with procedural fairness and HRM policy and practice. The measure used is an adapted and shortened six-item version of the procedural justice scale used by Moorman (1991). This measures employees perceptions about the way formal procedures are carried out. Respondents are asked to indicate the extent to which they agree with each of the statements using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree (ÃŽ ±=0.9160). Employer and employee respondents were also asked to provide a range of demographic information. Analysis Data are analysed using SPSS, Version 11, using matched employer and aggregated employee data from 37 organisations. Correlations, using Pearsons r, are completed to explore the relationships between HRM practice and employee attitudes. The multiple linear regression technique is used to explore the differential impacts of the three approaches being tested. The sample In total, 234 organisations were originally contacted to participate in this study. A total of 40 organisations agreed to participate. The person most responsible for operationalising HRM practice was requested to complete the employer survey. Employee participation was voluntary, and the company fully endorsed their participation. The employer participant was requested to distribute the surveys to a representative sample of their workforce, in terms of occupational classification, ethnicity and gender. The targeted population of employees consisted of a total of 1,075 full- and part-time employees from the 40 participating organisations. A total of 626 employees responded (a response rate of 58 per cent) by completing the survey and returning it in the reply-paid envelope provided. In total, 37 usable matched sets of data were obtained. These 37 matched data sets comprise one completed employer questionnaire (total usable employer responses=37) and on average 15 employee questionnai res for each organisation (total usable employee responses=572). The number of actual employee responses received for each organisation varied with workplace size, and ranged from eight to 31. The demographics for the employer and employee samples are reported in Table I. New Zealand is a relatively small country and organisations employing in excess of 100 employees are usually classified as large, with those having between 50 and 99 employees classified as medium and organisations with under 50 employees as small. Three-fifths of the organisations participating in this study can be classified as large; one-fifth are medium, and the remaining five small. Of the 37 participating organisations, 19 are located in the private sector, 18 in the public sector. Around 35 per cent of the participating organisations are located in the service industry, with this group being evenly represented across both sectors. All other organisations are classified in the manufacturing, transport, retail, sales, education and health industries. Both the employer and the employee samples are reasonably a representative of organisations and the composition of the workforce in New Zealand, with the only notable exception being the employee sample is skewed in terms of occupation towards professional and semi-professional groups. Results The first analysis examines the relationship between additive measures of HRM practice and attitudes. The number of practices for each functional area varied considerably between organisations. Generally it is found that there are relatively high levels of practice for the areas of good and safe working conditions (M=15.95, SD=3.22), training and development (M=16.77, SD=2.76), along with recruitment and selection (M=16.52, SD=2.50). EEO is the one area, on the other hand, where a considerably lower mean level of practice exists (M=12.17, SD=5.96). According to prior research, high numbers of HRM practice are associated with positive employee attitudes (Guest, 1999). The results of the analysis for this relationship are reported in Table II. These findings differ from those previously reported. Using aggregated employee means, when levels of organisational commitment (M=3.72, SD=0.78), job satisfaction (M=3.72, SD=0.79) and organisational fairness (M=3.70, SD=0.86) are correlated with the combined additive measure of HRM practice, the results show that higher index scores in the number of HRM practices are not related to higher levels of organisational commitment (r=0.155, df=35, p=>0.05), job satisfaction (r=0.085, df=35, p=>0.05) or organisational fairness (r=0.146, df=35, p=>0.05). When this relationship is examined by functional area the correlations are also found not to be significant. Next the relationship between HRM practice and employee attitudes is examined using first employer self-reports, and second employee self-reports. These results are also reported in Table II. Statistically significant correlations are found to exist between the three attitudes measured and employee assessments of HRM practice for all the functional areas examined. However, no significant correlations are found between employer self-reports about the strength of HRM practice and employee attitudes. Data are then analysed using a regression technique, enabling the predictive qualities of each of the three approaches for assessing HRM practice to be explored. The model used for regressions is shown in Figure 1. All the measures of HRM practices were entered into a multiple regression[1] equation so that the character of the relationship between different measures of HRM practice and employee attitudes could be explored. It is found that nearly 51 per cent of the variance in organisational commitment (R 2=0.506, p The results of the regressions for the three measures of HRM practice, along with the three measures of employee attitudes, are presented in Table III. When the results of the regression for the three different measures of HRM practice are analysed it becomes evident that employee assessments have the greatest level of predictive power for attitudes. The regression reveals that numbers of HRM practice and employer assessments about the strength of HRM practice account for very little of the variance in attitudes. On the other hand, employee assessments of HRM practice appear to be very influential. Around 47 per cent of the variance in organisational commitment is explained by employee assessments of practice across the four HRM areas examined, with even larger and equally significant levels of variance being explained by this for job satisfaction and organisational fairness. If we exclude employee assessments related to EEO from the analysis, as it uniformly records the lowest ÃŽ ² across all three attitudes, the ÃŽ ² statistic for the remaining three functional areas of HRM practice implies that for every increment in employee assessments, levels of attitudes increase by between 0.17 and 0.34. The most statistically significant and consistent increments are in relation to employee assessments of good and safe working conditions, along with training and development, and these are found to apply to all aspects of work-related attitudes measured. Also worth noting is that, not surprisingly, assessments of recruitment and selection practices accounted for the largest variance in levels of organisational fairness. Discussion and concluding remarks Consistent with the work of Appelbaum and Berg (2000), Cully et al. (2000) and Guest (1999), this study also finds that a significant relationship exists between HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes. There is a strong statistically significant relationship when HRM is researched from the employee perspective. However, there was no significant relationship when HRM practice was measured using the additive approach or employer self-reports. These results have implications for current approaches used to assess the HRM practice-employee work-related attitudes relationship. This study demonstrates that by far the greatest correlate of employee attitudes are employees own assessments of the strength of HRM practice. Interestingly, higher levels of HRM practice, using an additive measure, are not found to be significantly associated with attitudes across any of the four functional areas of HRM examined. In fact, it is revealed that higher levels of HRM practice are in some cases related to decreased levels of job satisfaction and organisational fairness. For example, looking at the data for each functional HRM area, it is possible that higher levels of EEO practice may actually have no, or even a negative, effect on employee attitudes, with a strong inverse relationship being found for job satisfaction. Similarly, weak relationships are found when the relationship between employer assessments about operationalised practice and attitudes are examined. So while Guest and Peccei (1994) suggest these areas are important aspects of best practice HRM, this study finds them to be unrelated to attitudes when data are collected from employers. Put together these results suggest that if managers want to maximise employee attitudes, then implementing lots of practices is not sufficient. Practitioners need to be aware that the way they implement their HRM practices may be a more important determinant of employee attitudes than the number of practices they put in place. This builds on the research findings of other recent studies (Armstrong, 2001) that suggest it is possible that it is the quality of the practice that counts and not the quantity. It may be that practitioners may need to undertake regular attitudinal surveys to assess employee reactions to current HRM practice and assess these on a longitudinal basis to identify what is working and what is not. It was beyond the parameters of this study to examine the complex relationship between HRM practice, employee attitudes and business performance; it has, however, explored the narrower relationship between HRM practice (for the areas of good and safe working conditions, training and development, EEO and recruitment and selection) and three employee attitudes (organisational commitment, job satisfaction and organisational fairness). While regressions tell us nothing about the cause-effect nature of relationships between assessments of HRM practice and employee attitudes, these findings strongly suggest that incorporating the employees experience of HRM into analyses exploring the HRM practice, employee attitudes relationship will contribute further to our understanding about what aspects of HRM have the potential to yield the greatest performance outcomes. Arguably, more so, it would appear, than exploring this particular relationship solely using additive measures or employer self-re ports. This study has some limitations. This study found the standard deviations for assessments of HRM practice and work-related attitudes amongst employee groups within each organisation to be reasonably low, showing close agreement. Nonetheless the aggregated data has been developed from a relatively small sample, thus it may not be representative of the bulk of employee views. The evaluative nature of the questions used introduces the possibility of common method variance (i.e. an artificial correlation across questions due to mood or other contaminants (Fiorito, 2002)). Also, the HRM practices used in this study are supposedly best practice; however, there is still insufficient evidence available to confirm that they are indeed best practice. Finally, Gibb (2001) suggests effective HRM is about implementing best practice. While this may very well be true, it is clear from this study that simply introducing best practice, or even assessing the effectiveness of practice from the employers viewpoint, is no guarantee that they have been successfully implemented. If the organisations objective is to improve employees workplace attitudes, then possibly a better way to confirm which HRM practices are having the greatest impact, and hence are effective, is to correlate employees assessment of them with employees attitudes. Further studies in this area are now required. References Appelbaum, E., Berg, P. (2000), High performance work systems: giving workers a stake, in Blair, M., Kochan, T. (Eds),The New Relationship: Human Capital in the American Corporation, Brookings Institution Press, Washington, DC, . [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Armstrong, G. (2001), The Change Agenda: Performance through People, The New People Management, CODE, London, . [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Beer, M., Spector, B., Lawrence, P.R., Mills, D.Q., Walton, R.E. (1984), Managing Human Assets, Free Press, New York, NY, . [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Browne, J.H. (2000), Benchmarking HRM practices in healthy work organizations, American Business Review, Vol. 18 No.2, pp.54-61. [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Cully, M., Woodland, S., OReilly, A., Dix, G. (2000), Britain at Work: As Depicted by the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey, Routledge, London, . [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Delaney, J.T., Huselid, M.A. (1996), The impact of human resource management practices on perceptions of organizational performance, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 39 No.4, pp.949-69. [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Ehrlich, C.J. (1994), Creating an employer-employee relationship for the future, Human Resource Management, Vol. 33 No.3, pp.491-501. [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Fiorito, J. (2002), Human resource management practices and worker desires for union representation, in Bennett, J., Kaufman, B. (Eds),The Future of Private Sector Unionism in the United States, M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, NY, . [Manual request] [Infotrieve] (1984), in Fombrun, C., Tichy, N., Devanna, M. (Eds),Strategic Human Resource Management, Wiley, New York, NY, . [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Gibb, S. (2001), The state of human resource management: evidence from employees view of HRM systems and staff, Employee Relations, Vol. 23 No.4, pp.318-36. [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Greenberg, J. (1990), Organisational justice: yesterday, today and tomorrow, Journal of Management, Vol. 16 pp.399-43 Relationship Between HRM and Employee Attitude Relationship Between HRM and Employee Attitude The relationship between HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes Introduction The concept of human resource management (HRM) has received focussed attention for around 20 years, with the catalyst being that many US companies found they were being rivalled and in some instances overtaken, in markets they had dominated (Ehrlich, 1994, p. 492). As Lodge (1985, p. 319) observes: By the early 1980s there was still little disagreement that US corporate managers, employees and trade unions would have to change their ways in order to compete successfully for markets in America and abroad. Harvard university academics introduced a new compulsory component of HRM into their MBA syllabus and reinforced this so-called Harvard Model with influential books and articles (Beer et al., 1984; Walton, 1985b; Walton and Lawrence, 1985). While there would surely have been a genuine desire to help US business, US society, and even US employees, there was also a long-term effort to ensure that the Harvard Business School faculty provided leadership in human resource management (Walton and Lawrence, 1985, p. xx). The Harvard concept stresses that HRM should lead to employee commitment not simply as a means to employer objectives of improved productivity and profits, but because the fulfilment of many employee needs is taken as a goal rather than merely a means to an end (Walton, 1985a, p. 49). At about the same time as the Harvard concept was being developed another viewpoint was being promulgated by academics who supported a strategic concept of HRM, with the major work edited by Fombrun et al. (1984). This work emphasises that the four generic human resource activities of all organisations: selection/promotion/placement process; reward process; development process; and appraisal process (Tichy et al., 1984, p. 26) need to be strategically aligned with the organisations overall strategic objectives. Hard and soft HRM British writers have focused on the differences between the Harvard commitment concept of HRM and the strategic HRM concept. Keenoy (1990, p. 368) sees the Harvard concept as philosophically grounded in the recognition of multiple stakeholders and the belief that the practice and benefits of HRM can be achieved through neo-pluralist mechanisms, while the strategic concept is almost uniformly unitarist in orientation and displays a quite singular endorsement of managerial values. The former is frequently referred to as soft HRM, while the latter is hard HRM. In theory, soft HRM fulfils employee needs as an end in itself, and the favourable attitudes generated from the use of appropriate HRM practices (Guest, 1997) together with communication, motivation and leadership (Storey, 1987, p. 6), result in commitment to the organisation and improved performance. Hard HRM is only concerned with the effective utilisation of employees (Guest, 2002) and emphasises the quantitative, calculative and business strategic aspects of managing the head count resource in as natural a way as for any other economic factor (Storey, 1987, p. 6). If the reality of soft HRM practice was that it produced the benefits referred to in the rhetoric of academic evangelists such as Richard Walton then it should be highly favoured by both employees and employers. Questions have been raised by a number of researchers, however, about the ability of soft HRM to achieve these benefits. There are two concerns. The first is that the real motive behind its introduction is to undermine unions (Sisson, 1994). Indeed, going back to the introduction of the Harvard concept of soft HRM, Lawrence (1985, p. 362) writes about a seminal colloquium on HRM between 35 senior executives and Harvard academics. He claims that the question as to whether HRM was designed to keep the union out was emphatically denied, and he protested that all but three of the firms represented were at least partially unionised, with several having had a significant number of units of both kinds, with their older plants unionised and the newer ones not. An unreasonable interpr etation therefore would be that these leaders of commitment HRM will happily dispense with unions given the opportunity. Indeed, Lawrence (1985, p. 362) admits that there was a general view that in a well-managed unit with decision-sharing, a union was not needed to represent employee interests. Guest (1990, p. 389) concludes, the main impact of HRM in the United States may have been to provide a smokescreen behind which management can introduce non-unionism or obtain significant concessions from trade unions. The second concern is that meeting the needs of employees has never been an objective in itself, and has simply been the normative view of what Harvard academics would like to see as the employment relationship. Truss et al. (1997, p. 70) in a study of soft and hard models of HRM, concluded that even if the rhetoric of HRM is soft, the reality is almost always hard, with the interests of the organisation prevailing over those of the individual. Similar conclusions have been reached by Keenoy (1990), Poole and Mansfield (1992), Guest (1995) and Legge (1995a, b, 1998). If the soft model of HRM has validity, then there should be a clear relationship between the experience of soft HRM practice and positive employee attitudes (reflecting their needs are being met) and increasing employee commitment as well as improved productivity. Surprisingly, however, most of the research and reporting on HRM has ignored the views of employees. Legge (1998, p. 14) points out: when reading accounts of HRM practice in the UK and North America it is noticeable the extent to which the data are (literally) the voices of management. Guest (1999, p. 5) agrees, claiming that from its conception human resource management reflected a management agenda to the neglect of workers concerns. Some studies have considered employee reactions to HRM (Gibb, 2001; Appelbaum and Berg, 2000; Mabey et al., 1998) but Guest (2002, p. 335) is perceptive in his criticism that a feature of both advocates and critics of HRM is their neglect of direct evidence about the role and reactions of w orkers. Even the exceptions noted which gave employee reactions to HRM did not relate the employee experience of HRM practices to their reactions, and Guest (1997) argues for a research agenda that addresses this gap. This paper aims to contribute to this gap by fulfilling two major objectives. The first is to add to the limited number of studies which have tested to see if there is a relationship between HRM practice and positive employee attitudes. The second objective is to see if there is a significantly stronger relationship between HRM practice and employee attitudes if employee perceptions of HRM practice are taken as the measure of HRM rather than employer perceptions, which has been the approach taken in general by previous researchers. HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes The soft model of HRM, as stated previously, suggests a relationship exists between the use of appropriate HRM practices and positive employee attitudes, and while theoretically these relationships remain poorly developed (Guest, 1997, 2001), a number of attitudes are nonetheless widely considered to be an outcome of soft HRM. For example, levels of job satisfaction, which is the affective perception that results from the achievement of desired outcomes (Harber et al., 1997), are found to be related to levels of HRM practice (Guest, 2002; Ting, 1997). High levels of employee commitment have also been found to be related to the use of appropriate HRM practice (Guest, 2002), and results from investing in HRM practices which benefit employees. For example, the provision of opportunities for training and skill development benefits the employee by equipping them with the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes to function autonomously and responsibly (Guest, 2002). Furthermore, it impro ves retention and enables them to cope with change in the work environment (Guest, 2002). Organisational fairness is the term used to describe the role of fairness as it directly relates to the workplace and is concerned with the ways employees determine if they have been treated fairly in their jobs and the ways in which those determinations influence other work-related variables (Moorman, 1991, p. 845). The HRM systems, policies, and procedures that operate in an organisation have been identified as impacting on an individuals perceptions of bias and fairness (Kurland and Egan, 1999; Greenberg, 1990). Studies show that where employees believe they are treated fairly in the workplace then they hold positive attitudes towards the organisation (Moorman, 1991), whereas HRM practices that are perceived to be unfair have been found to result in the employee feeling bewildered and betrayed and thus less committed (Schappe, 1996). As far as the relationship between HRM practice and employee attitudes is concerned, the HRM practice dimension has been measured by collecting data from employers in one of the two ways using additive measures of HRM practice or self-reports about the extent to which particular HRM practices have been operationalised. A possible third approach would be to collect employee views about the operationalisation of HRM practice and then relate these reactions to their attitudes. These approaches are described below. The additive approach To date the most common approach for assessing the relationship between HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes is the additive approach. This involves employers indicating, using a yes/no response format, which HRM practices from a predetermined list currently operate in their organisations. The yes responses are then added together, and the assumption is that a higher sum indicates better HRM. Researchers using the additive approach usually correlate the total number of practices with the HRM outcomes being examined. Research exploring this relationship show a strong correlation between high numbers of HRM practice and positive employee attitudes (Fiorito, 2002; Guest, 1999; Guest and Conway, 2002; Appelbaum and Berg, 2000). While this approach is frequently used, it has attracted criticism (Fiorito, 2002; Guest, 1997, 2002). The additive approach is very simplistic. If an employer claims a practice is utilised there is no differentiation on the basis on how well, or to what extent the practice exists. For example, there could be token training and development, or a high level of commitment to a professional and effective training and development programme. Both examples are credited as a yes. This perceived weakness has led some researchers to use employer self-reports about the strength of HRM practice. Employer self-reports about the strength of HRM practice Guest and Peccei (1994) suggest that an improvement on the additive approach is to assess the extent or strength of practice using response bands such as those contained in Likert scales. Such an approach sees employers self-reporting, either on the extent they consider particular HRM practices to be effective (Delaney and Huselid, 1996), or alternatively on the extent to which HRM practices have been operationalised (i.e. to what extent practices are practised) in their workplace (Kane et al., 1999). Guest (2001, p. 1099) claims further research is needed to test the extent that employer and employee views on HRM practices coincide or differ. Specifically he suggests: There is now a need for more research comparing the responses of managers responsible for developing and overseeing HRM practice and employees to identify levels of agreement about the operation of practices such evidence as it is possible to glean from reports about levels of autonomy and consultation suggest that levels of agreement might be quite low. Support for this assertion has already been found. For example, Appelbaum and Bergs (2000) study comparing supervisor and employee perceptions about participative initiatives in US organisations found wide differences. Similarly, Kane et al. (1999) also found evidence of perceptual differences about HRM between different organisational stakeholders. While managers and employers are important stakeholders, so too are employees. This has led to a strong call for employee voice to be heard in HRM research (Guest, 2001). Employee self-reports about the strength of HRM practice Given the apparent perceptual differences between employers and employees perceptions of HRM then a third approach that could be used would see employees reports on the strength of operationalised HRM practice analysed in relation to their levels of work-related attitudes. There is now growing support for assessing HRM from the employee perspective emerging in the literature (Fiorito, 2002; Gibb, 2001; Guest, 2001), and given that where the concern is employee attitudes, then it is intuitively logical to relate that to employee rather than employer perceptions of the effectiveness of HRM policies and practices. Method The most common approach employed in studies assessing the relationship between HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes is the survey (Cully et al., 2000; Guest, 1999), and this is the method of data collection used in this study. Four areas of HRM practice are examined good and safe working conditions, training and development, equal employment opportunities (EEO), and recruitment and selection. These areas of HRM have been selected because they have previously been identified as those likely to have the greatest impact on employee behaviour and attitudes (Guest, 2001). Three employee work-related attitudes are examined organisational commitment, job satisfaction and organisational fairness. These attitudes are generally considered to be desirable outcomes that result from the use of soft HRM (Meyer and Smith, 2000; Guest, 1997). Measurement Three approaches are used to measure HRM practice an additive measure completed by the employer, and two perceptual measures, one completed by employers and one completed by employees. All three measures relate to practices characterised in the literature as soft HRM or best practice HRM (Guest, 1999; Guest and Peccei, 1992; Johnson, 2000; Kane et al., 1999). They are employee-centred (i.e. they should produce benefits for employees when operationalised), and thus should impact on employee work-related attitudes. The additive measure, as stated, is the one most commonly used in research of this type. The additive measure used in this study asks employers to indicate, using a yes/no response format, which practices, from a comprehensive list of 80 practices (20 for each functional area covered), currently operate in their organisation (for example, Do you consult employees on their training needs?). A 20-item scale consisting of statements about HRM practice is used to assess the strength of HRM practices (five items for each of the four functional areas). Respondents are asked to indicate, using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree, the extent they consider each practice occurs in their organisation, for example, EEO is promoted within this organisation (see Appendix 1 for a full list of statements). The same scale is used for both the employer and the employee groups, with the wording amended to reflect their different perspectives. Employer and employee assessments of HRM using this measure are, therefore, concerned with the judgements these groups make about the extent a particular HRM practice has been operationalised in the workplace. The ÃŽ ± coefficients for the five item measures relating to each of the four areas of HRM practice examined ranged from 0.83 to 0.88, suggesting high internal consistency exists (Browne, 2000). The s tatements about HRM practice on the perceptual measure closely reflect the ones used in the additive measure, but there is not a direct correspondence as that would have resulted in an excessively long measure. Three widely accepted measures of employee attitudes are used. Guest (1997) suggests organisational commitment should be measured using the standard measure developed by Mowday et al. (1979) the organisational commitment questionnaire (OCQ) because this scale captures the extent the employee identifies with the organisation, their desire to remain in the organisation and their willingness to exert effort on behalf of the organisation. An adapted and shortened version of the OCQ is used in this study to measure organisational commitment. Again, respondents are asked to indicate the extent to which they agree with each of the statements using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree (ÃŽ ±=0.8535). To measure job satisfaction, an adapted and shortened form of the Minnesota satisfaction questionnaire (Weiss et al., 1967) is used. The scale has six items and respondents are asked to indicate how satisfied they are with respect to each of the statements, using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1=very dissatisfied to 5=very satisfied (ÃŽ ±=0.8664). While organisational fairness has two dimensions distributive and procedural this study is concerned only with procedural fairness and HRM policy and practice. The measure used is an adapted and shortened six-item version of the procedural justice scale used by Moorman (1991). This measures employees perceptions about the way formal procedures are carried out. Respondents are asked to indicate the extent to which they agree with each of the statements using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree (ÃŽ ±=0.9160). Employer and employee respondents were also asked to provide a range of demographic information. Analysis Data are analysed using SPSS, Version 11, using matched employer and aggregated employee data from 37 organisations. Correlations, using Pearsons r, are completed to explore the relationships between HRM practice and employee attitudes. The multiple linear regression technique is used to explore the differential impacts of the three approaches being tested. The sample In total, 234 organisations were originally contacted to participate in this study. A total of 40 organisations agreed to participate. The person most responsible for operationalising HRM practice was requested to complete the employer survey. Employee participation was voluntary, and the company fully endorsed their participation. The employer participant was requested to distribute the surveys to a representative sample of their workforce, in terms of occupational classification, ethnicity and gender. The targeted population of employees consisted of a total of 1,075 full- and part-time employees from the 40 participating organisations. A total of 626 employees responded (a response rate of 58 per cent) by completing the survey and returning it in the reply-paid envelope provided. In total, 37 usable matched sets of data were obtained. These 37 matched data sets comprise one completed employer questionnaire (total usable employer responses=37) and on average 15 employee questionnai res for each organisation (total usable employee responses=572). The number of actual employee responses received for each organisation varied with workplace size, and ranged from eight to 31. The demographics for the employer and employee samples are reported in Table I. New Zealand is a relatively small country and organisations employing in excess of 100 employees are usually classified as large, with those having between 50 and 99 employees classified as medium and organisations with under 50 employees as small. Three-fifths of the organisations participating in this study can be classified as large; one-fifth are medium, and the remaining five small. Of the 37 participating organisations, 19 are located in the private sector, 18 in the public sector. Around 35 per cent of the participating organisations are located in the service industry, with this group being evenly represented across both sectors. All other organisations are classified in the manufacturing, transport, retail, sales, education and health industries. Both the employer and the employee samples are reasonably a representative of organisations and the composition of the workforce in New Zealand, with the only notable exception being the employee sample is skewed in terms of occupation towards professional and semi-professional groups. Results The first analysis examines the relationship between additive measures of HRM practice and attitudes. The number of practices for each functional area varied considerably between organisations. Generally it is found that there are relatively high levels of practice for the areas of good and safe working conditions (M=15.95, SD=3.22), training and development (M=16.77, SD=2.76), along with recruitment and selection (M=16.52, SD=2.50). EEO is the one area, on the other hand, where a considerably lower mean level of practice exists (M=12.17, SD=5.96). According to prior research, high numbers of HRM practice are associated with positive employee attitudes (Guest, 1999). The results of the analysis for this relationship are reported in Table II. These findings differ from those previously reported. Using aggregated employee means, when levels of organisational commitment (M=3.72, SD=0.78), job satisfaction (M=3.72, SD=0.79) and organisational fairness (M=3.70, SD=0.86) are correlated with the combined additive measure of HRM practice, the results show that higher index scores in the number of HRM practices are not related to higher levels of organisational commitment (r=0.155, df=35, p=>0.05), job satisfaction (r=0.085, df=35, p=>0.05) or organisational fairness (r=0.146, df=35, p=>0.05). When this relationship is examined by functional area the correlations are also found not to be significant. Next the relationship between HRM practice and employee attitudes is examined using first employer self-reports, and second employee self-reports. These results are also reported in Table II. Statistically significant correlations are found to exist between the three attitudes measured and employee assessments of HRM practice for all the functional areas examined. However, no significant correlations are found between employer self-reports about the strength of HRM practice and employee attitudes. Data are then analysed using a regression technique, enabling the predictive qualities of each of the three approaches for assessing HRM practice to be explored. The model used for regressions is shown in Figure 1. All the measures of HRM practices were entered into a multiple regression[1] equation so that the character of the relationship between different measures of HRM practice and employee attitudes could be explored. It is found that nearly 51 per cent of the variance in organisational commitment (R 2=0.506, p The results of the regressions for the three measures of HRM practice, along with the three measures of employee attitudes, are presented in Table III. When the results of the regression for the three different measures of HRM practice are analysed it becomes evident that employee assessments have the greatest level of predictive power for attitudes. The regression reveals that numbers of HRM practice and employer assessments about the strength of HRM practice account for very little of the variance in attitudes. On the other hand, employee assessments of HRM practice appear to be very influential. Around 47 per cent of the variance in organisational commitment is explained by employee assessments of practice across the four HRM areas examined, with even larger and equally significant levels of variance being explained by this for job satisfaction and organisational fairness. If we exclude employee assessments related to EEO from the analysis, as it uniformly records the lowest ÃŽ ² across all three attitudes, the ÃŽ ² statistic for the remaining three functional areas of HRM practice implies that for every increment in employee assessments, levels of attitudes increase by between 0.17 and 0.34. The most statistically significant and consistent increments are in relation to employee assessments of good and safe working conditions, along with training and development, and these are found to apply to all aspects of work-related attitudes measured. Also worth noting is that, not surprisingly, assessments of recruitment and selection practices accounted for the largest variance in levels of organisational fairness. Discussion and concluding remarks Consistent with the work of Appelbaum and Berg (2000), Cully et al. (2000) and Guest (1999), this study also finds that a significant relationship exists between HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes. There is a strong statistically significant relationship when HRM is researched from the employee perspective. However, there was no significant relationship when HRM practice was measured using the additive approach or employer self-reports. These results have implications for current approaches used to assess the HRM practice-employee work-related attitudes relationship. This study demonstrates that by far the greatest correlate of employee attitudes are employees own assessments of the strength of HRM practice. Interestingly, higher levels of HRM practice, using an additive measure, are not found to be significantly associated with attitudes across any of the four functional areas of HRM examined. In fact, it is revealed that higher levels of HRM practice are in some cases related to decreased levels of job satisfaction and organisational fairness. For example, looking at the data for each functional HRM area, it is possible that higher levels of EEO practice may actually have no, or even a negative, effect on employee attitudes, with a strong inverse relationship being found for job satisfaction. Similarly, weak relationships are found when the relationship between employer assessments about operationalised practice and attitudes are examined. So while Guest and Peccei (1994) suggest these areas are important aspects of best practice HRM, this study finds them to be unrelated to attitudes when data are collected from employers. Put together these results suggest that if managers want to maximise employee attitudes, then implementing lots of practices is not sufficient. Practitioners need to be aware that the way they implement their HRM practices may be a more important determinant of employee attitudes than the number of practices they put in place. This builds on the research findings of other recent studies (Armstrong, 2001) that suggest it is possible that it is the quality of the practice that counts and not the quantity. It may be that practitioners may need to undertake regular attitudinal surveys to assess employee reactions to current HRM practice and assess these on a longitudinal basis to identify what is working and what is not. It was beyond the parameters of this study to examine the complex relationship between HRM practice, employee attitudes and business performance; it has, however, explored the narrower relationship between HRM practice (for the areas of good and safe working conditions, training and development, EEO and recruitment and selection) and three employee attitudes (organisational commitment, job satisfaction and organisational fairness). While regressions tell us nothing about the cause-effect nature of relationships between assessments of HRM practice and employee attitudes, these findings strongly suggest that incorporating the employees experience of HRM into analyses exploring the HRM practice, employee attitudes relationship will contribute further to our understanding about what aspects of HRM have the potential to yield the greatest performance outcomes. Arguably, more so, it would appear, than exploring this particular relationship solely using additive measures or employer self-re ports. This study has some limitations. This study found the standard deviations for assessments of HRM practice and work-related attitudes amongst employee groups within each organisation to be reasonably low, showing close agreement. Nonetheless the aggregated data has been developed from a relatively small sample, thus it may not be representative of the bulk of employee views. The evaluative nature of the questions used introduces the possibility of common method variance (i.e. an artificial correlation across questions due to mood or other contaminants (Fiorito, 2002)). Also, the HRM practices used in this study are supposedly best practice; however, there is still insufficient evidence available to confirm that they are indeed best practice. Finally, Gibb (2001) suggests effective HRM is about implementing best practice. While this may very well be true, it is clear from this study that simply introducing best practice, or even assessing the effectiveness of practice from the employers viewpoint, is no guarantee that they have been successfully implemented. If the organisations objective is to improve employees workplace attitudes, then possibly a better way to confirm which HRM practices are having the greatest impact, and hence are effective, is to correlate employees assessment of them with employees attitudes. Further studies in this area are now required. References Appelbaum, E., Berg, P. (2000), High performance work systems: giving workers a stake, in Blair, M., Kochan, T. (Eds),The New Relationship: Human Capital in the American Corporation, Brookings Institution Press, Washington, DC, . [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Armstrong, G. (2001), The Change Agenda: Performance through People, The New People Management, CODE, London, . [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Beer, M., Spector, B., Lawrence, P.R., Mills, D.Q., Walton, R.E. (1984), Managing Human Assets, Free Press, New York, NY, . [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Browne, J.H. (2000), Benchmarking HRM practices in healthy work organizations, American Business Review, Vol. 18 No.2, pp.54-61. [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Cully, M., Woodland, S., OReilly, A., Dix, G. (2000), Britain at Work: As Depicted by the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey, Routledge, London, . [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Delaney, J.T., Huselid, M.A. (1996), The impact of human resource management practices on perceptions of organizational performance, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 39 No.4, pp.949-69. [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Ehrlich, C.J. (1994), Creating an employer-employee relationship for the future, Human Resource Management, Vol. 33 No.3, pp.491-501. [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Fiorito, J. (2002), Human resource management practices and worker desires for union representation, in Bennett, J., Kaufman, B. (Eds),The Future of Private Sector Unionism in the United States, M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, NY, . [Manual request] [Infotrieve] (1984), in Fombrun, C., Tichy, N., Devanna, M. (Eds),Strategic Human Resource Management, Wiley, New York, NY, . [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Gibb, S. (2001), The state of human resource management: evidence from employees view of HRM systems and staff, Employee Relations, Vol. 23 No.4, pp.318-36. [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Greenberg, J. (1990), Organisational justice: yesterday, today and tomorrow, Journal of Management, Vol. 16 pp.399-43