Crime and The American Dream Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Crime and The American Dream - Essay Example The American has adopted a capitalistic society that leads to lack of social control and deviant behaviour. The American Dream refers to broad cultural ethos that has a goal of success open to competition. Americans are socialized to believe that they can achieve it regardless of nay obstacles, since it is a free country of equal opportunities (Messner, & Rosenfeld, 2012). This Dream has a distorted the values of Americans where they focus on monetary success and disregard happiness with commitment to acquire material gains. This has created a culture of prioritizing material gain using illegitimate methods to gain success that results in anomic imbalance in the society (Maume, & Lee, 2003). The Anomies means disintegration of social controls that produce high likelihoods of deviant behaviour that leads to the breakdown of morals in the society. America has a set of norms and values that distinguish its culture from others which explains the foundation of Americans are resistance to social control and hence culpable to criminal temptation, This means that norms and values that are supposed to mould the cultural and social stamina in America is the main motivator of high rates of criminal behaviour, and the values are individualism, achievement, orientation and materialism. The American society looks at its social worth by what it accomplishes since it is the primary objective. The methods used to get to such a point are disregarded since the focus is the end goal. In the pursuit of success, this means that one must also achieve their own success thus creating competition in the society rather than moulding collaboration. This demotivates use of legal means especially to those with limited resources (Agnew, 1992). These values mould the minds of Americans in such a way to legitimize harmful means of achieving success, and this creates an obsession with crime. The Anomie theory integrates the concepts why American Dream leads

To what extent does HRM differ from past management practices Essay

To what extent does HRM differ from past management practices - Essay Example Bratton & Gold (14) acknowledge that personnel management was a caring activity aimed at satisfying employee’s work-related needs as well as solving their problems. Traditional organizations were highly bureaucratic hence employee involvement was not essential in ensuring organization success. As the environment continued to change, personnel management could not be able to respond quickly hence the emergence of a more responsive approach; human resource management. However, there is a lot of controversy as to whether HRM evolved from personnel management or it is just a broadening of scope of personnel management. HRM is strategic in nature and commitment-oriented and is concerned with human relation issues. Armstrong (2003, p. 1; 2006, p 3) defines HRM as ‘a strategic and coherent approach to the management of the organizations most valued assets: the people who individually and collectively contribute to achievement of its objectives’. For Heathfield (2011), HR M is ‘a strategic and comprehensive approach to managing people, workplace culture and environment’. ... FedEx is a parcel delivery service and among the 100 â€Å"best companies to work for† as indicated by the fortune magazine 2003 (Casestudyinc.com). Blues is a garment factory with 800 employees. The paper will compare the past management practices with HRM in light of the above organizations. Personnel Management and Human Resource Management Though some scholars argue that there is no difference between personnel and HRM and that one is an extension of the other, some differences can be observed in how employee relations are handled, the way modern management is linked to business strategy, emphasis on high employee commitment, employee development, outsourcing, increased role of line managers, increased use of technology in HR systems, use of team work among others. One of the most significant differences is treating employees as an asset rather than a cost that needs to be minimised (Armstrong 2003, 4; Armstrong 2006, 10; Aswathappa, 7). The employees are thus very importa nt in an organization as they ensure organization retains its competitive advantage. As an asset, investments are done on the employees through training and development, talent management and ensuring employee retention. In so doing, the organizations recognize that employees are valuable and essential for an organization to be profitable. At FedEx, the employees are encouraged to be innovative and its people-service-profit philosophy ensures employees’ needs are taken care of. The survey –feedback –Action program is used to get data on employees and then it is used by management to detect any problems such as training needs and address them. They also show how effective HR policies are in ensuring high performance and achievement of goals. It also has