Answered Questions- Case Studies

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Institution’s Name

Date

Week 5 – Perception: Film Critique

The most fundamental aspect instrumental in analyzing the story of a film is through evaluating the plot of the film which can be complex, simple, timeless or believable. Further, investigating the characters and symbolic elements is vital in comprehending the story in the film (Conklin, 2004). In Olympus Has Fallen time is handled in a linear sense. It is also crucial to note that the climax and denouement are revealed in a believable manner. Additionally, the film accentuates a sense of believability by portraying the universal truth of the world as it is. This follows from current terrorist threats to the United States and the world at large especially from the North Korea extremists (Eagan, 2013). These aspects make film generally believable and alleviate the viewer’s doubt so as to enjoy the movie.

In carrying out a critical evaluation of a film it is vital to consider its genre. It is imperative to note that the genre classification of a film carries with it an instantaneous recognition of given accepted truths about the film. The genre of the film is successful by either following these given concords or by simply breaking them (Boggs & Petrie, 2004). Olympus Has Fallen can be said to belong solely to one particular genre, specifically the political thriller film. However, the film can be said to have borrowed some cinematic elements from action films subject to the violence aspects in the film. While Fuqua does not present any new grounds in the political thriller genre, Olympus Has Fallen demonstrates a very taut, sharp adventure that manages to keep the audience engrossed from the beginning to the end. Adding splendidly to the suspense is the excellent visual effects and surprising twists the film delivers.

The fights and the violence in the film are poorly choreographed which demonstrates the movie as an apparatus for delivering bereavement. From the film, splattered skulls, crushing bodies in the debris and disintegrating limbs from high-caliber bullets has demonstrated an ugly, grin film although it does demonstrate to a greater extent the fears and realities emanating from terrorist threats (Eagan, 2013). Contrary, during the climax and at the end of the film, the greatest lesson portrayed is that America prevails and that the terrorist attacks and threats cannot disintegrate the American spirit and extremists heinous acts cannot infringe upon the citizen’s freedom.

Week 6 – Motivation

Gradually, organizations are appreciating the need to establish a justifiable balance between the contribution of an employee to the organization and the contribution of the organization to the employee. There are various fundamentally prime components of a reward system that an organization focuses on in creating the balance following a strategic approach. These components of a reward system include compensation, benefits, motivation and recognition. Studies have indicated that there is a connection between the achievements of an organization and highly motivated employees who are creative and productive. It is thus paramount to appreciate the link between the motivation and performance. In principle, the behavior, in terms of emotions and attitudes, of an employee could be enhanced through the use of rewards and motivation. Reward and motivation has been reported to lift the employee’s satisfaction and engagement as well as business success (Aguinis, 2011).

Reward and recognition leads to employees feeling good and thus they are motivated which ensures that their performance increases. It is crucial hence that organizations need to look beyond rewards, at what drives people to succeed, and instead give provisions on how reward and recognition can be coupled as an instrumental motivational tool. In considering how to reward employees’ cash is often considered the easiest option (Sarvadi, 2005). However, giving money-based rewards would not generate the gains that organizations could achieve if they were to not to focus more on recognition that is tailored to the individual.

Week 7: Group Behavior & Team at Work

Case Study: “Why don’t teams work like they’re supposed to?”

Based on Tuckman model of team development, every team goes through five stages of team development namely: forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. Forming occurs when the team first meets each other. During storming stage, the team begins to work together. During this stage members compete for status as well as recognition of their ideas. At the norming stage the team starts to effectively work together. The team begins to perform effectively at higher levels at the performing stage. On the last stage, adjourning, the team member leave the team and move to different directions (Shang & Seddon, 2002). Lack of essential resources such as dynamic capabilities, access, and skills to develop any tangible output from the team will play as a major setback in the implementation.

There is need to formulate good team development strategy in order to formulate successful knowledge sharing and disseminating tools. Mittal et al. (2010), bulkpostulates that there are two primary knowledge management strategies namely; codification and personalization. The codification strategy encapsulates the people-to-document approach where databases and intranets are loaded with the best practices, how-to-do guides and case studies intended to aid people in the daily work and information management. On the other hand, personalization makes use of a people-to-people strategy. This approach links up people to other people in a bid to grow networks and communities of management practices and emphasis is placed on information-knowledge sharing.

Week 9 (Power & Politics): Delegate Power, or Keep It  Close?

As the CEO of Sparks, Samantha Parks should endeavor to evaluate all teams mandated with various projects and proceed to identify their assets (strengths) and feebleness and split the projects among the teams subject to ensuring there is enhancing of their strengths as well as lessening their weaknesses. Essentially it comes down to the fact that if the task is something that you could trust others to do that and is not of major importance than you can delegate the task to someone else. That does not mean that you are not in the loop as to what is going on it just means that you should not try to do everything.

Parks can handle these disquiets through elucidating the guiding principle of her expectations are, as well as highlighting her contribution in the projects will be. Subsequently, individuals will comprehend from the onset what to expect and what is expected of them. It would not be deemed that Parks is micromanaging them to in a bid to ensure they are handling their obligations right. Rather, it would seem to imply that its meant to follow up on what is going on and aiding in directing them for purposes of the staying in line with the businesses direction. 

It is imperative to uphold the spot of authority in the event that that position is sincere. The regulation of projects ought to be limited in a bid to expound the stronghold while at the same time preserving superior employee relations. Such implementation is complicated and this forms the rationale for Organizational Behavior management. Following up with what is going on is a practice that executives ought to invariably do. In the event they have an idea of occurrences and happenings in the business could lead the company in the right direction. There is need work with all of the staff in a manner that works for both parties in particular scenarios.

References

Aguinis H (2011). Performance Management. Edinburgh Business School Heriot-Watt University. Retrieved from <https://www.ebsglobal.net/documents/course-tasters/english/pdf/h17pe-bk-taster.pdf>

Conklin M. S. (2004). How to Critique a Movie: A Short Guide for Amateur Film Critics. Retrieved from < http://www.whitcraftlearningsolutions.com/Resources/How-To-Critique-A-Movie.pdf>

Eagan D. (2013). Film Review: Olympus Has Fallen. Film Journal International. Retrieved from http://www.filmjournal.com/filmjournal/content_display/reviews/major-releases/e3if77d045f31f6658754ec2e66dced7938

Grant, A. M., & Shin, J. (2011). Work Motivation: Directing, Energizing, and Maintaining Effort (and research). Forthcoming in R. M. Ryan (Ed.), Oxford handbook of motivation. Oxford University Press.

Mittal Y.K., Roy S., and Saxena M. (2010). Role of Knowledge Management in Enhancing Information Security. IJCSI International Journal of Computer Science Issues, Vol. 7, Issue 6. Retrieved from <http://ijcsi.org/papers/7-6-320-324.pdf>

Sarvadi, P. (2005). The Best Way to Reward Employees. Solutions for Growing Business. Retrieved from <http:www.entrepreneur.com>

Shang S and Seddon P. (2002). ‘Assessing and Managing the Benefits of Enterprise Systems: the

Business Manager’s Perspective’. Information Systems Journal, 20(12): 271-299