Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and problems for University

Evaluate and Select Suppliers

The most important duty of purchasing is the right to evaluate and select suppliers. This is what purchasing personnel are trained to do.

The selection decision in sourcing teams requires that members reach a consensus in selecting suppliers.

Review Specifications

The authority to review material specifications is also within purchasing’s span of control.

Purchasing should also lead or coordinate negotiations with suppliers. This means that purchasing retains the right to control the overall process, act as an agent to commit an organization to a legal agreement, and negotiate a purchase price.

E-Procurement and the Procure-to-Pay Process

We examine in detail the purchasing process, which includes all the steps that... Continue reading "Procurement: Supplier Selection and Purchasing Process" »

Realistic Job Preview A realistic job preview (RJP) conveys both positive and negative job information to the applicant in an unbiased manner.

Interviewer Bias Often, a problem arising in interviews is interviewer bias, where interviewers make incorrect assumptions about interviewees, influencing selection decisions.

Reference checks validate information from applicant contacts, providing additional insight and verifying accuracy.

Negligent hiring is an employer's liability for failing to reasonably investigate an applicant's background, assigning a potentially dangerous person to a harmful position.

Selection Decision

Medical Examination: Typically, a job offer is contingent on the applicant passing this examination, determining their physical... Continue reading "Effective Recruitment and Selection Practices" »

Job Analysis

Job analysis is the systematic process of determining the skills, duties, and knowledge required for performing jobs in an organization.

A job consists of a group of tasks that must be performed for an organization to achieve its goals. A position is the collection of tasks and responsibilities performed by one person;

Job analysis is performed on three occasions: (1) when the organization is founded and a job analysis program is initiated for the first time; (2) when new jobs are created; and (3) when jobs are changed significantly as a result of new technologies, methods, procedures, or systems.

The Job Description

The job description is a document that provides information regarding the essential tasks, duties, and responsibilities... Continue reading "Understanding Job Analysis and Job Descriptions" »

Human Resource Management in Small Businesses

The Small Business Administration (SBA) defines a small business as one that is independently owned and operated.

Country Culture in Global Business

A country's culture is the set of values, symbols, beliefs, languages, and norms that guide human behavior within that country.

The Strategic Planning Process

Corporate Mission

A company's mission is its continuing purpose or reason for being. The corporate mission is the sum total of the organization’s ongoing purpose.

Objective Setting

Objectives are the desired end results of any activity. Objectives should have four basic characteristics:

1. They should be expressed in writing.
2. They should be measurable.
3. They should be specific as to time.
4. They should be challenging

Human Resource Management (HRM)

Core Functions of HRM

Staffing

The staffing process ensures an organization has the right number of employees with the appropriate skills in the right jobs at the right time. It involves:

• Job analysis: Determining the skills, duties, and knowledge required for jobs.
• Human resource planning
• Recruitment: Attracting qualified candidates.
• Selection: Choosing the best candidate for the position.

Performance Management

Performance management is a goal-oriented process that maximizes employee, team, and organizational productivity.

Human Resource Development

This function encompasses:

• Training and development
• Career planning and development
• Organization development
• Performance management and appraisal

Compensation

Compensation provides... Continue reading "Human Resource Management: Essential Functions and Practices" »

What is Communication?

Communication involves exchanging messages to generate meanings.

Key Communication Concepts

Nonverbal Communication

• Body Orientation: How your body is positioned during nonverbal communication.
• Proxemics: The study of how space and distance impact communication (studied in 1969).
• Paralanguage: The way a message is spoken, including tone, pitch, and volume.
• Haptics: The study of touch as a form of communication.
• Emojis: Graphic icons that can illustrate emotions in digital communication.

Listening Skills

• Advising: Offering guidance or solutions, often considered the opposite of active listening.
• Paraphrasing: Restating a message in your own words to ensure understanding.
• Silent Listening: Paying attention and demonstrating engagement

Five Bioethical Principles

• Autonomy: A person's rational capacity for self-governance or self-determination; the ability to direct one's own life.
• Nonmaleficence: Not to intentionally harm others.
• Beneficence: To constitute the very soul of morality (doing good to others).
• Utility: This principle says that we should produce the most favorable balance of good over bad for all concerned.
• Justice: People getting what is fair or what is their due.

Six Key Moral Theories

• Utilitarianism: A consequentialist moral theory that insists the rightness of actions depends solely on their consequences or results.
• Kantianism/Deontology: Kant's principle of respect for persons says that we should always treat persons never merely as a means to an end; i.e., don't use

Cardiac and Respiratory Assessment Findings

Dizziness and Cardiac Conduction Issues

The blackouts do not seem to have had any relationship to posture. They have been a mixture of dizziness and loss of consciousness. The one witnessed episode seems to have been associated with loss of color. This suggests a loss of cardiac output, usually associated with an arrhythmia. This may be the case despite the absence of any other cardiac symptoms. There may be an obvious flushing of the skin as cardiac output and blood flow return.

The normal ECG and chest X-ray when the patient attended hospital after an episode do not rule out an intermittent conduction problem. On this occasion, the symptoms have remained in a more minor form. The ECG shows third-degree... Continue reading "Clinical Assessment of Complete Heart Block and Asthma Diagnosis" »

Official Protocol: Set of Norms

Social: Agreements that with time become universally used and accepted.

Business: Set of Conduct Agreements

Etiquette: Set of norms that have been created to facilitate our coexistence.

• Internal: Communication codes between employees
• External: Communication and behavior with third parties

Behavior of an Executive

• Set the rules
• Value their team
• Guide an organization internal conduct and its relationships with its customers, partners, and shareholders.

Introduction Rules: 12 Golden Rules

1. Respect hierarchy
2. Loyalty
3. Time management
4. Become part of the team with an open, flexible, collaborative attitude
5. Know how to follow leadership directions

Business Travel

• Unexpected: Crisis, emergency, require fast thinking and action
• Scheduled:

Understanding the Endocrine System: Glands, Hormones, and Functions

Exocrine vs. Endocrine Glands

Exocrine glands have ducts that secrete substances such as mucus, saliva, cerumen, sebaceous oils, and sweat.

Endocrine glands produce hormones (chemical messengers) and secrete them directly into the bloodstream.

The Pituitary Gland: Master Regulator of Hormones

The pituitary gland (hypophysis), often called the "master gland," primarily functions to secrete vital hormones into the bloodstream.

Key Pituitary Hormones and Their Functions

• ACTH (Adrenocorticotropic hormone or corticotropin): Stimulates the release of steroid hormones by the adrenal cortex.
• TSH (Thyroid-stimulating hormone or thyrotropin): Targets the thyroid gland and triggers the release