Franklin Delano Roosevelt and His Allies

FDR Research Notes * The Jews Standpoint * The Debates never end to the reasoning of why the 6 million Jews were not saved by the US Government * The Jews had already taken heavy fire, and now their voice cannot be heard * In 1942, as details of Hitler’s Final Solution reached the Allies, it was difficult for the public and many government officials to grasp the extent and significance of the Nazis’ systematic, mechanized killing. * On December 17th, 1942, the US joined 10 other Allied governments in issuing a solemn public declaration condemning Nazi Germany’s â€Å"bestial policy of cold-blooded extermination† of the Jews. Franklin Delano Roosevelt t believed that the surest way to stop the killing of innocent civilians was to defeat Hitler’s Germany as quickly and decisively as possible. * Assessment of Roosevelt’s role during the Holocaust is made difficult by the relative lack of communication. * Roosevelt and Churchill chose not to sing le out German mistreatment and mass murder of the European Jews as a key focus of the conflict, preferring to refer in general to the aim of ending the mistreatment and murder of civilians under Axis rule. From the American Standpoint * Most Americans at this time were clueless about World War II due to the Government’s president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, by our 32nd president not informing us on many things, may have just had prevented the 2nd Civil War in history * The President did not also inform many government officials due to the germination of the news at the time. * The President also had many in-depth conversations with the British Prime Minister to make sure that the Allies can certainly win this war. The President is also reminded by the British Prime Minister to not forget the lives that were lost during this World War and also to save the rest * Once the World War was finally making some progress with the 101st Airborne, the riots began. * The Americans were n ot impressed with the government’s president and the officials could only say, â€Å"Do not lose faith in the nation we lie in, the United States of America. † * The Americans did finally come to an agreement with the situation, and that is, â€Å"try harder. † * The Other Allies The 3 major allies, or known as â€Å"The Big Three†, are Joseph Stalin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill * Joseph Stalin at this time during WWII was in charge of the Soviet Russian’s, which have been recently betrayed by Nazi Germany. * Franklin Delano Roosevelt at this time during WWII was in charge of the United States of America, and has kept many secrets from the Nation that can never be seen. * Winston Churchill at this time during WWII was in charge of the British Commonwealth and has many questions on why FDR had backed out on rescuing millions of Jews. Soviet Russia (WWII) * The man with the heart for the mix of democracy and communism. Joseph Sta lin was the Soviet Union leader until his death in 1953. * In August 1939, the Union had gone into a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany that was violated in 1941 and the Union was being attacked by Nazi Germany. * After the capture of Berlin in 1945, Soviet Union became the 1 of the 2 Superpowers with the Allies (the other being the United States of America. ) * The British Commonwealth Winston Churchill, Born on November 30th, 1874 and Died on January 24th, 1965 * The one of the few prime ministers to actually serve twice as the prime minister. * Fought in WWII and had a very good relationship with FDR and was basically the provider of Ammo and supplies to the US during the time of Nazi Germany. * When Hitler invaded the USSR, Winston famously said, â€Å"If Hitler invaded hell, I would at least make a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons. † * Franklin Delano Roosevelt * Born January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945 Was involved with the Holocaust and was also partnered with the USSR and the British * FDR was not preparing to save the Jews anytime soon not because of their race, but because of the expenses. FDR had to make sure that Allies win this War and do it with as little money as possible. * FDR was being supplied by his good friend, Winston Churchill, while the Russian Joseph Stalin, provided experimentation so that the Allies could be far more ahead than the Axis (even though we were 2 years behind the Airplane)† Bibliography

Change of Position Defence

The defendant may claim the defence of change of position. Whether the defendant can successfully establish this defence depends of whether he can prove that his position is so changed that he will suffer an injustice if called upon to repay or repay in full (Lipkin Gorman v Karpnale) * In order to prove a change of position defence, first there must be an adverse change of position by the recipient in good faith and in reliance on the payment (New Zealand Banking Group v Westpac Banking Corporation) * The current position in Australia with regard to the availability of the defence is that the defendant must have (1) changed their position (2) irreversibly (3) in reliance on its receipt (4) in good faith (Australian Financial Services)(1) CHANGE THEIR POSITION / SUFFER DETRIMENT * The defendant must first be able to prove a change in the relative net assets of the defendant which shows that the defendant has acted to his detriment on the faith of the payments received from the plaint iff. In other words, the change must involve a net loss.FACTUAL GAIN BUT NET LOSS * Even where a woman who had purchased new furniture and had got rid of her old furniture on reliance on her receipt, where the court accepted that she was factually enriched by her receipt since her net assets were worth more than what she had before, the change of position defence would nevertheless apply since if she was required to make restitution, she would be left with a net loss. * The mere fact that she continues to benefit from the money does not defeat the defence of change of circumstances. The furniture acquisitions represent replacement of items the plaintiff had in her possession when she would not have replaced the items except for the error. The expenditures were not to meet ordinary expenses or pay existing debts.(RBC Dominion Securities v Hills Industries)IS SPENDING ON ORDINARY LIVING EXPENSES CHANGING YOUR POSITION? In general, expenditure on ordinary living expenses will not be re garded as a detriment or that the defendant changed his position because the defendant has to prove that he acted differently from how he would have ordinarily acted on the faith of the belief that the benefit conferred by the plaintiff was the defendant’s to spend (Australian Financial Services & Leasing v Hills Industries) * However, a defendant is not precluded from relying on the defence of change of position merely because she has spent the money on ordinary living expenses, provided the expenditure is a substantial detriment stemming from her reliance on receipt of the payment. The defence can apply where the defendant does not simply spend the money on such expenses but applies for and is denied benefits to which she is entitled as a result of her receipt (TRA Global Pty Ltd v Kebakoska) In that case, the respondent had been made redundant by her employer who told her she was entitled to a redundancy payment equivalent to 12 weeks pay on severance and accordingly p aid her the sum. She in fact had no such legal entitlement.She subsequently applied for unemployment benefits from Centrelink but was denied them because she had declared receipt of the redundancy money. She was forced to used the bulk of the redundancy money to pay living expenses until she found work eight months later. When the appellant employer sought restitution of the payment on grounds of mistake, the court held that the plaintiff had a defence of change of position despite having spent the money on ordinary living expenses since the expenditure is a substantial detriment stemming from her reliance on receipt of the payment and was denied benefits to which she was entitled as a result of her receipt.DISCHARGING AN EXISTING DEBT * It is not a detriment to pay off a debt which will have to be paid of sooner or later (RBC Dominion Securities v Dawson) In that case Mr Dawson had a Visa debt which he liquidated in a manner he would not have otherwise done had it not been for the mistake on the part of the appellant to overpay him. However, since the Visa debt and those to family members was incurred prior to the mistake, it would have been paid in any event and cannot be said to be to Mr Dawson’s detriment because the payment would be a payment of a debt already owed. (2) IRREVERSIBLY * The second element is that actual, non-speculative and irreversible detriment (Australian Financial Services & Leasing v Hills Industries) The nature of the change must be such that it cannot now be undone such as money received which has been irretrievably paid away or incurring unconditional contractual obligation as a result of receipt. In Australian Financial Services, the plaintiff finance company was duped by a fraudster and two of his companies into advancing money to several legitimate businesses including that of the second defendant to whom the fraudster and his companies owed money so as to discharge their debts. The plaintiff was led to believe that th e purpose of the money being advanced to the defendants was to finance the purchase of equipment they were supplying to the first company when the equipment never existed. Each of the defendants was accustomed to receiving payments for their equipment from finance companies so they were not immediately suspicious of receiving money from the plaintiff.The plaintiff then claiming unjust enrichment against the defendants on the ground that it had made payments under the mistaken belief that the invoices made by the fraudster to the plaintiff, purporting to be from each of the defendants, were genuine and that it would obtain title to the equipment named in the invoices. * In this case, the court held for the defence of change of position to succeed that there must be evidence of an irreversible detriment. The second defendant having foregone default judgments already obtained against one of the fraudster’s companies was in reliance on receipt of the money from the plaintiff was such evidence. * In TRA Global Pty Ltd v Kebakoska, the detriment to the plaintiff such that she was denied benefits to which she was entitled to stemming from her reliance on receipt of the payment was irreversible. In RBC v Dawson, the fact that the purchased new furniture and had got rid of her old furniture on reliance on her receipt would have caused her in the circumstances a loss that is unjust for her to bear and which is not easily reversible. * Thus it seems that the defendant must show at the very least, significant hurdles to getting the money back. (3) In reliance on the receipt/on the faith of receipt * This third element shows that there must be a causal correlation between the detriment suffered and the receipt of the payment. A BUT-FOR TEST IN UK * The mere fact that the recipient may have suffered some misfortune is not a defence unless the misfortune is linked at least on a but-for test with the mistaken receipt (Scottish equitable) There a variety of conscious de cisions which may be made by the recipient in reliance on the overpayment.A CAUSAL CONNECTION IS SUFFICIENT IN AUSTRALIA – ONE CAUSE * In Co-Buchong v Citigroup Pty Ltd, it was held that for the purposes of a change of position defence, a payment is made ‘on the faith of the receipt’ if it is causally linked to the receipt. This requires that the payment would not have been made unless the receipt has been recognised as valid. There is no further requirement that the information upon which the payer was acting be such that, if it were true, the payer would have been entitled to pay the money away in the way that id did. * In this case, Citibank had received instructions purporting to be from the plaintiff to transfer 500,000 from his account to a second account in his name at the NAB.Citibank examined the instruction and determined that it was genuine and paid. NAB then received similar instructions to pay the money away to various overseas bank accounts. Here th e instructions were all forgeries perpetrated by an unknown third party. Citibank claimed restitution of its payment to NAB on grounds of mistake. The issue was whether NAB was entitled to a defence of change of position and whether those payments had to various overseas bank accounts had been made ‘on the faith of its receipt’ of the money from Citibank. It was held that NAB did make those payments on the faith of its receipt and all that was required was a causal link between the payment and the receipt. The fact that a third party fraudster had instructed the bank to make out the payments should not necessarily negate the causal connection between the receipt and its payment so as to defeat the defence (rejecting State Bank v Swiss Bank Corporation) * In such a case, the bank’s good faith receipt may still be a cause of a change of position even if it was not the only cause and this should be enough. * This follows the reasoning in the NSWCA case of Perpetual Trustees Australia Ltd v Heperu. Perpetual had paid away sums to Mrs Cincotta funds represented by the units credited on the faith of the receipt of payments by the respondent who had been induced by fraud to do so.The respondents submitted that Perpetual had not proven that the payments of funds out of the account were made on the faith of the receipt because it paid out the funds represented by the account on the faith of what it was told to do by Mr Cincotta in the original forgery of Mrs Cincotta’s signature at the opening of account and in telephone redemptions. * This was construed to be far too narrow an analysis of what is meant by â€Å"on the faith of the receipt†. Payments on the faith of the receipt meant that they would not have been made unless the receipts had been recognised as valid. Just because there was the element of dishonesty of Mr Cincotta which also was the occasion for the withdrawal of funds, this did not negate the causal connection between the receipt and the payments. The change of position remain causally linked to the receipt. Thus while the test seems to involve a causation element, this is not a but for test but rather that the payments of the money were caused or linked to the receipt of payments from the plaintiff. ANTICIPATORY EXPENDITURE – DOES IT COUNT? * Can a defendant be said to rely on the faith the receipt when there is anticipatory expenditure on the part of the defendant? * Can reliance be understood as something other than an essentially causal concept where the effect of the defendant’s expenditure follows the cause which is the defendant’s receipt of the enrichment? Or does it mean that the defendant can be said to have acted on the faith of the receipt where it had a reasonable expectation of receipt? * In the case of Dextra Bank, Dextra Bank drew a cheque on its bankers, Royal Bank of Canada in favour of the Bank of Jamaica.Dextra drew its cheque intending to lend the sum spe cified to the Bank of Jamaica against the security of a promissory note executed by the Bank of Jamaica. The Bank of Jamaica intended to buy the specified sum of US dollars in exchange for the equivalent in Jamaican dollars which it paid to individuals understood to be nominated by Dextra. Dextra sued BOJ for restitution of the moneys paid. BOJ claimed that it had the defence of change of position. However Dextra argued that BOJ was relying on actions performed by BOJ before it received the benefit from Dextra and this amounted to anticipatory reliance which could not amount to a change of position. The issue was thus whether anticipatory reliance on the plaintiff’s payment can amount to expenditure on the faith of the benefit of the payment and thus whether an effective change of position defence can be made out. * It was held that it is no less inequitable to require a defendant to make restitution in full when he has bona fide changes his position in the expectation of rec eiving a benefit which he in fact receives, than it is when he has done so after having received the benefit.The court thus held that there should be no effect on the availability of the change of position defence whether the payment is made when the benefit is received or on a reasonable expectation that it is to be received. Anticipatory expenditure can be recognised as payments made on the faith of the benefit of the receipt. This was also recognised in South Tyneside v Svenska Internation where the court held that it does not follow that the defence of change of position can never succeed where the alleged change occurs before the receipt of money, as seen from the facts of Lipkin Gorman where the defence succeeded despite the winning being paid out before getting other gambling bets in. * In Commerzbank, the court held that the relevant question in whether the change of position defence would succeed was whether his decision to change his position was caused or contributed to b y the receipt of the payment. The crucial point the courts have emphasised is the causal relationship between the detriment and the receipt and not the strict when the detriment and the receipt or occurred. 4) In good faith * The defence is not open to a recipient who had changed his position in bad faith as where the defendant has paid away the money with knowledge of the facts entitling the plaintiff to restitution (Lipkin Gorman) * What is crucial to the good faith element is whether the payee had actual knowledge of all the facts constituting the wrongdoing or else had knowledge of such facts as would reasonably raise a suspicion of wrongdoing so that the payee was put on enquiry (Mercedes-Benz v National Mutual Royal Savings Bank Ltd) * Does a person act in good faith unless he acts dishonestly? (Niru) * NO. A person can act in bad faith where the recipient knows that the payer had paid the money to him as result of a mistake of fact or mistake of law and it will in generally b e unconscionable or inequitable to refuse restitution. Just because he is not guilty of dishonesty does not make him innocent. Will knowledge of the mistake bar the defence? * Waitaki- mere knowledge of the fact that the money is not due probably doesn’t bar the defence if d acts reasonably: d knew that the money was not its money to keep and in fact put the money on deposit, ready to repay. D was allowed the defence (albeit partially) when the money was lost through the collapse of the company with whom the sum had been deposited, even though it knew about the mistake when it put the money on deposit. * Lipkin Gorman: In cases where the payee had grounds for believing that the payment may have been made by mistake but cannot be sure, good faith may well dictate that an enquiry be made of the payer.The nature and extent of the enquiry called will of course depend on the circumstances of the case but I do not think that a person who has good reason to believe that the payment was made by mistake will often be found to have acted in good faith if he pays the money away without first making enquiries of the person from whom he received it. * English courts to date appear generally more relaxed about defendant fault, although they have tended to be thinking about fault with regard to the initial receipt of the money (â€Å"should defendant have known about the error†? ), as opposed to fault with regard to what is then done with it. * Whether fault is relevant to good faith? * In both Dextra and Niru, the CA aid that the defendant will only be denied the defence if he was in bad faith when paying away the money * The way the CA in Niru defines bad faith actually comes quite close to a negligence standard – acting in a â€Å"commercially unacceptable way† or with â€Å"sharp practice falling short of outright dishonesty†. If negligence in not realising the mistake is insufficient to bar the defence, then it seems unlikely that negl igence in a decision about how to dispose of the money will be. Also, it would seem strange if a good faith payment to charity could give rise to the defence, but a good faith (but negligent) investment couldn’t? * A different approach is taken in NZ . In Waitaki, fault is relevant. The facts are that the defendant received 50,000. He takes the money and puts it into an investment with the finance company which eventually goes under.The bank then realises they paid him the money under mistake and sue him. * The defendant had relied on the receipt because the bank had forced him to take it. However he had never thought it was valid. The court held that the defendant had partly been at fault in the ultimate loss of the enrichment because he had chosen an insecure investment. Where defendant failed to obtain sufficient security for a risky investment, he had defence reduced by 10%. This introduces the uncertainties of the â€Å"contributory negligence† model of COP, which requires a relative balancing of the fault of p and d in proportioning the amount repayable. The approach was expressly rejected in Dextra as being â€Å"hopelessly unstable†.DEFENDANT WHO ILLEGALLY CHANGES HIS POSITION AS A WRONGDOER * Recently suggested that a defendant who changes position illegally is a ‘wrongdoer’ cannot invoke the defence (Barros Mattos) * The recent case of Barros Mattos now indicates this is highly likely to be the case. In reaching this conclusion, Laddie J drew support from Lord Goff’s ‘wrongdoer’ limitation in Lipkin Gorman: this indicates that defendant can be disqualified from the defence either because of his knowledge of the claimant’s rights before changing his position, or because the change of position itself is â€Å"wrongful†. * Should this affect civil wrongs? This result does not specifically affect restitution for wrongs, since civil wrongs are not considered illegal as such.Despite the co ncept of ‘illegality’ by its very nature being hard to define, it is clear from both Tinsley v Milligan [1994] 1 AC 340 and Nelson v Nelson (1995) 184 CLR 538 that it relates to claims which would run seriously counter to public policy. In Lipkin, Goff suggested that COP should not be open to wrongdoers, but it is not clear that he was referring to those guilty of an innocent breach of duty. DEFENDANT WHO INDUCES THE MISTAKEN PAYMENT IN THE FIRST PLACE * Deliberate: No defence- Goff in Lipkin Gorman- defendant will be in bad faith and bad faith precludes reference to the defence. Note that it is assumed in Niru that dishonesty is sufficient to amount to bad faith, even if it is not always necessary.It is clear from Niru that dishonesty amounts to bad faith, even if defendant can sometimes be in bad faith even where there is no actual dishonesty. * Negligent: No clear authority on this. Defence probably still available, but not if it amounts to â€Å"bad faith† as defined recently in Niru. There, defendant was denied defence on the basis that it had documents in its hands which were forgeries, which it ought to have realised might be forgeries and into which it had failed to make reasonable inquiries. This amounted to failure to act in a â€Å"commercially acceptable† way, tantamount to bad faith and denying the defendant access to the defence, even though defendant was not dishonest in the sense of appreciating the risk of fraud.It is arguable that in the light of Niru, plaintiff would be in a strong position to argue that the defence should be denied to defendant here on the grounds that defendant’s inducement was not â€Å"commercially acceptable† behaviour. * Innocent: Defence probably still applicable, since, if inducement was â€Å"innocent† in the sense of being non-negligent, it might be commercially acceptable behaviour, as per Niru. DOES THE DEFENCE ACT AS A COMPLETE DEFENCE? * No it can apply pro tanto. (Australian Financial Services & Leasing Pty Ltd v Hills Industries) * Meaning you give back to the extent of what you still have. * How does this compare with estoppel? * Estoppel by representation remains available as a total defence to restitutionary claims even in circumstances in which the defence of change of position is available.Properly understood, it does not undermine the defence of change of position as they are based on different elements. In estoppel, one had to prove representation and detrimental reliance. Whether one can plead estoppel however depends on how equitable it is for to make such a claim to the overpayment received. In TRA Global, the court held that equity may intervene to prevent the latter’s unconscientious assertion in certain circumstances. It may be inequitable to assert a full defence of estoppel when you are overpaid 1000 and remain in possession of 500 which was mistakenly paid to you. * Under a defence of change of position, your ent itlement will be 500. |

Cost Volume Profit Essay

Some things we know: The objective of every business is to make money (profit) for the owners Profit = Revenues – Expenses Revenues = Sales = Quantity sold x price per unit Expenses = the costs related to: the specific revenue (COGS) or the specific accounting period Matching Principle Role of Management is: Planning, control and performance measurement, and decision-making Decision-making relates to future events and involves risk Full costing (full-absorption costing) is a good historical tool but may not Be the best indicator of future activity because it is based on past events. Cost Behavior Variable Costs – total dollars change with volume, Cost per unit is constant Fixed Costs – total dollars are constant, cost per unit changes with volume Mixed Costs – include some variable costs and some fixed costs Total Cost = Fixed Costs + Volume(variable cost per unit) Fixed Component Variable Component Purely Fixed $25,000$ 0 Purely Variable 0 5.00 per unit Mixed Costs 10,000 2.00 per unit Total Costs $35,000$7.00 per unit Graphing Total Costs X axis (horizontal/across) = volume Y axis (vertical/up & down) = dollars Estimating the Composition of Mixed Costs Account Analysis Scattergraph – Visual inspection of plotted points High-Low Estimation Theory: The change in total costs between the high volume point and The low volume point, must be purely variable costs Linear Regression (computer assisted scattergraph) Contribution Margin Income Statement Ignores the function of the expenses Focus is on cost behavior (fixed and variable) Used extensively in forecasting future potential outcomes (planning & decision making) Because Profit = Revenue – Expenses(Costs) Where: Revenue = Volume x price per unit AndTotal Costs = Fixed Cost + (Volume x Variable cost per unit) Therefore: Volume x price per unit Less Volume x variable cost per unit Less Fixed costs Profit Revenue Less Variable Costs CONTRIBUTION MARGIN Less Fixed Costs Pretax Profit KNOW THIS FORMULA FRONTWARDS AND BACKWARDS Margin of Safety = the difference between the expected level of volume and the break-even point (normally using sales dollars but could also use units sold). When comparing two or more alternatives it may be helpful to look at the Margin of Safety as a percentage of sales. Contribution Margin Ratio = CM per unit / Selling Price per unit OrContribution Margin / Sales Operating Leverage = Fixed Costs / Contribution Margin Or Contribution Margin/Pretax Profit Cost-Volume-Profit (CVP) Analysis Break-Even Point = the point at which profit = zero (i.e. we break even) = The point at which Contribution Margin = Fixed Costs Once we know the break-even point, we can begin to plan for target profit Target Pre Tax Profit versus Target After Tax Profit Pretax Profit$100 Less Tax Expense 40 After Tax or Net Profit$ 60 Effective Tax Rate = Tax Expense / Pretax Profit(40% above) Tax Expense = Pretax Profit x Effective Tax Rate Net Income = Pretax Profit x (1- effective tax rate) Pretax Profit = Net Profit / (1- effective tax rate) Multiple Product CVP Analysis Weighted-Average Contribution Margin (also referred to as blended average) PRODUCT MIX IS CRITICAL Product 1Product 2Total Units Sold10020 Selling Price$10.00$50.00 Variable Costs 5.00$30.00 Sales$1,000$1,000$2,000 Contribution Margin 500$ 400 900 CM Ratio 50% 40% 45% SO LONG AS THE PRODUCT MIX REMAINS AT 5:1 THE PROJECTED CM RATIO WILL STAY AT 45%. Therefore if sales are expected to be $20,000, AND WE SELL 5 of Product 1 for every 1 unit of Product 2, Contribution Margin should be $9,000 ($20,000 x 45%) However if sales of Product 1 are only $1,000 and the remaining $19,000 are sales of Product 2 the Contribution margin is only $8,100 and the CM Ratio drops to 40.5%. $ 1,000 x 50% = $ 500 plus$19,000 x 40% = $7,600 $20,000 $8,100 = 40.5% of sales or (1/20 x .50) + (19/20 x .40) .025 + .38 = 40.5% When computing the Weighted-Average Contribution Margin USE SALES DOLLARS as the weighing factor (NOT UNITS). Constraint = a limitation of resources To maximize profits given a limited resource, produce the product that generates the highest contribution margin per limited resource. This may not be the product with the highest contribution margin ratio. Illustration: A company manufactured two types of beer, premium and regular. Both types of beer are brewed in the same kettles. A regular batch brews for 15 days and yields 12,000 bottles. A premium batch brews for 30 days and yields 12,000 bottles. Regular beer sells for $1.00 per bottle and has variable costs of $0.40 per bottle. The premium sell for $1.50 per bottle and has variable costs of $0.50 per bottle. Assuming unlimited demand of both products, which product should the company brew? PremiumRegular Per Batch: Sales$15,000$12,000 CM$12,000$ 7,200 CM % 66.67% 60.00% CM per Limited Resource (Days) CM$12,000$ 7,200 Divided by days 30 15 CM per day of limited Resource use $400 $480 Regular beer has a higher CM per limited resource. Therefore, given unlimited demand of both types, produce only regular. Proof: In 30 days we can make one batch of premium, which will yield $12,000 in CM. In the same 30 days we can make 2 batches of regular, which will yield $14,400 in CM. We are in business to make money for the owners, not percentages. You can’t deposit percentages in the bank!

Human Resource management PBL 3 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Human Resource management PBL 3 - Essay Example Their performance can spell a difference between a business’ failure or success especially in today’s very competitive environment (Guld 2007). Business organisations with a committed and motivated workforce does not only have higher productivity but also ensure the viability of the business in the long-run. Such, it is critical that businesses should motivate its workforce not only for them to commit and perform but also to keep them in the organisation. Keeping valuable employees motivated in an organisation is not only intended to make them commit and perform but also to keep them over the long haul (Frasch 2010). There are many implements used by business organisations to motivate their employees. The most common notion about motivation is to shower them with fat paychecks but this proved to be inadequate in keeping employees motivated (Herzberg 1987). As what organisational theorists have reported, committing employees to perform towards a common goal involves an i nterplay of various factors that involves not only remuneration, but also the social and psychological dimensions of work that keep employees motivated and thus, productive. ... ate employees to encourage commitment and performance among employees was first conceived by management classical theorists such as Taylor, Maslow, Mayo, McGregor, Vroom and Herzberg. While modern management and organisational theorists will argue that their concepts of motivating employees to commit and perform are inadequate, it cannot be denied that these classical theorists provided the basic building blocks of the know-how to motivate employees. From a simple idea of Taylor that adequate remuneration motivates employees, it later expanded to include the other dimension of human needs and aspects with the aim of fulfilling these needs that would enable employees to commit to the organisation. Such, it would be necessary to cite and expound the ideas of these classical theorists for us to better understand the motivational implements used by modern organisation whose concepts can be traced back to the ideas of these classical theorists. The classical theorists of motivation a. Fre derick Winslow Taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management Taylor first conceived the idea that workers are mainly motivated solely by wage. He posited that management has to possess the control and knowledge of the methods of production so that it would have a greater control of achieving efficiency in an organisation that includes motivating its workforce (Jaffe 2008). For Taylor, the breaking up functions into small quantifiable tasks is necessary to make the time-piece rate pay possible that will encourage employees to work harder if they can see that they are being paid with more work (Taylor 1911). This theory assumed that employees are more motivated with more pay and confined motivation to solely addressing the economic needs of a business organisation’s employees. Old as it

Read the dis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Read the dis - Essay Example Usually Starbucks like firms have both long term and short term strategies to sustain its business in the market. It is difficult for a firm to rely entirely either on short term or long term policies to compete effectively in the market. Judicious implementation of short term and long term policies will help the firm to achieve its objectives and targets. Short term objectives should be specific, time bounded and accountable in order to become effective. Starbucks concentrated heavily on short term strategies to achieve success. Between 1987 through 1990 Starbucks entered new markets, and continued to grow. At the end of 1987, there were 17 Starbucks locations, and by 1990 there were 84. During this four year growth phase Starbucks entered the markets of Chicago, Vancouver, and Portland. In 1988 the company started a mail order catalog for it's fine dark roasted coffee beans and high quality coffee equipment (Kembell) Starbucks never tried to undertake a comprehensive expansion stra tegy. They focused on establishing few more outlets every year rather than establishing numerous outlets at different countries at the same time. This strategy helped them to give more attention to all the newly opened outlets till such outlets became profitable. The above short term strategy of establishing only few outlets every year helped Starbucks to achieve its long term objective of establishing outlets at different parts of the world and manage all of them with success. In other words, the short term strategies of Starbucks are linked to the long term objectives of the firm. They have given priorities to their short term strategy of establishing few outlets at a time and manage them well in order to achieve their long term strategy of establishing as many units in different countries and manage all of them well. Business strategies and functional tactics of a firm have direct relationships. In fact business strategies are usually implemented using different functional tactic s. For example, coffee lovers always like variety while taking a coffee. They don’t like the same taste every time when they take a coffee. Starbucks know this consumer psychology very well and they have introduced many flavors in their coffee products. Starbucks introduced ‘walnut flavor of Colombia Narino Supremo, the creamy sweet Caf Verona and the smooth, buttery Sulawesi† (Kembell) etc as a result of their realization of the above consumer psychology. Some of the other functional tactics employed by Starbucks are the selling of coffee-related products, Expresso machines, stainless steel coffee filters etc. Through the selling of coffee-related products such as brewing equipment and accessories, many consumers can enjoy high quality coffee at home rather than traveling out of their way. The equipment available includes Expresso machines, stainless steel coffee filters, and Starbucks cleaner and canisters. This is another example of how Starbucks is meeting the needs of current customers as well as increasing its attractiveness to potential customers (Kembell) The above functional tactics helped Starbucks to spread the popularity of Starbucks coffee from its outlets to home. Moreover, these strategies helped Starbucks to polish its face more and to popularize its products more in the market. The name Starbucks is currently fixed firmly in the hearts of the coffee lovers because

JOURNAL ENTRY Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

JOURNAL ENTRY - Essay Example As noted by Covey, a college education opens one’s future doors (65). The other people in my life who will embrace this transformation are my parents. My parents believe that getting a college education is the ultimate gift that a parent can give to their child because it empowers the child. My mother always says that with a college education, I will be in a better position to understand the changing markets and how they will impact on the family’s retirement accounts. My father says that I will be in charge of the finances in my family and to understand every aspect of management, finance and dealing with financial issues, a college education will be useful. They also constantly remind me that with the college education, the purpose is not to get a great job in future, but build a strong mind. My parents always say I have their full support. My father says he will ensure that my school fee is always paid on time, but I have to assure him that I will not miss the classes without valid reasons. My mother is enthusiastic and says that she looks forward to getting school transcripts with high-test scores. My friends will also embrace the transformation as they are also looking forward to getting a college education. The support from my friends and my parents is critical. The financial and emotional support from my parents matters because I believe without their help I would not be in school. The emotional support from my friends matters because I am always encouraged to see their optimism even in bad situations. Luckily, I am happy to say that there is no one who does not support this

Miguels Hourly Performance Evaluation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Miguels Hourly Performance Evaluation - Essay Example Moreover, this has gained a positive influence on my production efficiency the total output. Besides is the variety of duties and responsibilities that describe my job that necessitate properly organized planning of activities, which has been finely exhibited from end to end in my work priority and output. I have acquired business analysis to identify and define the action and potential consequences comparing and contrasting them against predetermined criteria, which help to identify task commanding more might than another does, and accomplish it effectively with efficiency and quality. The outcomes of these traits have been shown in my acknowledgement as the most prolific personnel for The Tech, most important, this has resulted to the gradual soaring of the company growth (DelPo, 2007). To enhance my achievements still maintaining an outstanding social collaboration with colleagues within the company, I possess a set of personalities that make my distinction from the rest of workforce attributed to my open mindedness and free for discussion. In addition, I voluntarily engage discussions with workmates and accept contrary opinions where it has proved worthy to converge to an amicable solution. I explore new knowledge from within and beyond the organization and appreciate new ideas in the spirit of cooperation. Furthermore, where opinions controvert and I am disapproved, I share the lessons learnt, credits for the team accomplishments, and recommend necessary improvement to facilitate the collaboration. Moreover, I am capable of undertaking challenging goals with simultaneous varied tasks and results of multitasking still fall within the threshold of superior quality. Conversely, I have not fully accomplished my excellence in team discussions though efforts to improve this for better results are still underway. However, I look upon teamwork when confronted by severe challenges in my

How much has US succeeded in building democracy in the world since Term Paper

How much has US succeeded in building democracy in the world since world war 2 - Term Paper Example The Cold War, with its potential threat of nuclear conflict, was a very big threat to democracy in the world, and the United States, in the presidency of John F. Kennedy kept the world from a third major war. In this period, America played the role of peacemaker, and counter-balance to Soviet power. The difference between Communism and Capitalism expressed itself both economically and politically, and it took many years for Communism to fall, and the forces of democratic capitalism to take over. In this phase, too, America promoted democracy and proved in the end to be successful. Although America failed to establish military dominance in the Cold War, during this time from the 1950s to the 1980s America supported the creation of world agencies like NATO, the United Nations (UN), the World Trade Organization, the World Bank and the International Monetary fund (IMF). These non-state entities represent crucial attempts to spread a Western style democracy across the world. In her article about global democracy, A.M. Slaughter notes that â€Å"Power is certainly military. It is certainly economic.† (Slaughter, 2000, p. 225) and makes the point that it is in America’s own interest to promote systems and organizations which operate along American style lines. Through these agencies the United States promoted democracy and pursued its own interests at the same time. This joint objective is in fact the reason why the United States has in the end only partially been successful in building democracy across the world. Some of the military interventions that have happened seem to focus more on the United States’ desire to advance its own agenda, such as resisting communism in Korea, or fighting Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan. The line between stopping human rights atrocities, as in Kosovo, and implementing regime change as in Iraq

Tourism Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Tourism - Assignment Example These serve well. The first article captures the true spirit of international tourism, published in the Washington Post written by David Nakamura. The news article is how and why President Barack Obama has amended policies to support the growth of tourism in the country. Visa process will become fast so people who want to visit the United States will find it easier to enter and enjoy the sights of the US and more importantly bring in the much wanted revenues for the US. Reading the second half of the article, opposing politicians (republicans) are not thrilled, but they are never against the plans of expanding on tourism, they are merely ridiculing the fact that Obama can’t pull it off. His dreams are high but there is no ground to build the dream on. Criticism has its own place but there is no second argument that the global tourism has changed the way we think about economy and even foreign relations. Tourism constituted 2.7% of the GDP and provided 7.5 million jobs in the U S back in 2010 (Nakamura, 2012). But the message of Obama is more important as to what he means when he says that he wants to speed up the visa process for tourists; â€Å"We’re all here today to tell the world America is open for business,† (Nakamura, 2012) The second article is about the luxuries that attract people and how a hot desert landscape can become one of the most sought after tourism destination of the whole world. This is a blog article published in the New York Times, written by James Kanter. The way Kanter talks about the impact of ‘global tourism’ on the economy, is very interesting. Talks are that in Dubai a cool beach is being built only to take care of the filthy rich international tourists who want to enjoy lying on the sand under the sun, but the sand needs to be of perfect temperature. Just like the artificial beach on Dubai coast. In one glance the picture becomes clear. Global tourism doesn’t have an impact on the economy in s single dimension. It is not a matter of how many coconuts a vendor sells at a beach as a result of more tourists visiting the place. Tourism does have its footmark on the economy but it also has a giant hand print on the face of green planet. But the industry is growing at a splendid rate. It is predicted that by the 2030, there will be 1.6 billion tourists traveling the globe (Kanter, 2009). The third article gives a very unique view into global tourism and its impact on historical places. The article is published in Telegraph and is written by Charles Starmer Smith. World Monuments Fund (WMF) is an organization set up to protect the historic buildings and places of the earth. Most of the antique architectural structures are quite fragile and when more people visit these places, they get into a worse shape. Plus there is an ever increasing threat of global warming and extreme changes in weather and temperatures that make it very hard for historic fragile structures of the world t o stay stable. As a consequence the buildings won’t be able to stand the test of time for very long. No matter how positive the impact of the global tourism on the economy, this fact can’t simply be ignored that increasing visitors to world’s monuments are having a bad effect on the buildings. When the buildings won’t be there any more there will not be any tourists to visit that place. Without a doubt WMF has worked very hard in organizing funds to take care of t

Business Plan Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 1

Business Plan - Research Paper Example Goal setting is an integral part of a business plan. This helps to have a clear idea of the objectives of the company and assists to formulate its strategies in alignment with the goals set. Following are the goals which would be phased in this business plan. â€Å"The economic structure of an industry is not an accident. Its complexities are the result of long-term social trends and economic forces† (Ehmke, Fulton & Akridge, n.d). The industry analysis will determine the competitive rules and strategies which are required to be formulated by the business. Learning about the industry structure will offer essential insight into the business strategy. Michael Porter has identified five forces which are widely used to evaluate the industry structure. The five forces, together, determine the profit potential of an industry by putting an impact on the costs, prices and necessary investment for a business. Stronger forces are mostly associated with a more challenging environment. The industry analysis identifies and evaluates the significant structural factors for competitive success. In the following section, an industry has been carried out to understand the key factors in solar water heater industry. In the solar water heater industry, there are a large number of suppliers. The organization would establish its production houses in India, where the production cost would be quite low than that in Australia. In this industry, the bargaining power of the suppliers is quite low as the companies do not have to incur any switching cost while changing their suppliers. The concentration of the solar water heater industry is not quite intensive. As a result, suppliers cannot have much power over the manufacturers. The products are mainly made for the rural areas, where the concentration of the buyers is moderate to high.  Ã‚  

I.T. Assesment of ABC Inc Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

I.T. Assesment of ABC Inc - Essay Example The firm that is analyzed in the paper is ABC Inc., a multinational corporation based in the United States of America and deals with the designing and selling of computer software, personal computers as well as consumer electronics. The company has produced some of the well-known types of computers that are being used allover the world. The company has more the four hundred retail stores in fifteen nations, together with an online store. The company is the largest publicly traded worldwide by market capitalization. Whereby it overtops the Exxon Mobil by about sixty billion dollars, and also the largest and most popular technology corporation in the world in terms of profit and revenue, making it worth more than Microsoft and Google put together. As of November 20, 2011, the corporation had more than sixty five thousand permanent employees working around the clock and three thousand temporary full-time workers all over the world; its total annual sales hit the sixty five billion dolla r mark, moving up to one hundred and eight billion dollars in the year 2011. The company was even in the year 2008 named by the Fortune magazine as the most admired company in the United States of America. Therefore, this means that this is the biggest company in the industry of the production of computer-related products. The assessment of the company’s general control environment should be done determining the level at which the General Accounting Office management control standards are included in the plans, strategies, procedures and guidance that govern operations and programs. In its assessment, the following have been ensured (English 87). Compliance with the law: All costs, obligations and operations adhere to the applicable regulation and law. The allocation of resources is effectively and efficiently done for the rightly authorized purposes. Reasonable safeguards and assurance: The management controls give rational assurance that the company’s assets are prot ected or safeguarded against misappropriation, loss and waste. The management controls are rationally complete, logical, efficient and effective in the accomplishment of the objectives of management. Competence, attitude and integrity: Personal integrity is encouraged among the workers and managers. All personnel are compelled to support the programs of agency ethics. There is also effective communication between and within offices. GAO Specific Management Control Standards The following specific control standards have been addressed: Delegation of Organizational responsibilities and Authority: The management has ensured that there is appropriate definition and delegation of responsibility, accountability and authority in accomplishing the company’s mission statement. The company also has an appropriate organizational structure for the purposes of effectively carrying out the program responsibilities. Supervision and Separation of Duties: The key responsibilities and duties i n authorization, recording, reviewing and processing of official agency operations are separated or delegated among different individuals. There is proper managerial supervision for the purposes of ensuring that duties and responsibilities assigned to various individuals are not abused or exceeded (Albrecht and Albrecht 63). Accountability for and Access to Resources: There are some measures in place for limiting

The Patchwork of Reality and Fiction in Tim O’brien’s the Things They Carried Essay Example for Free

The Patchwork of Reality and Fiction in Tim O’brien’s the Things They Carried Essay The Patchwork of Reality and Fiction in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried Tim O’ Brien, in his recent fictional story The Things They Carried, illustrates the struggle to unravel and grasp ambiguities of the war in the most unusual way, by understanding it through the mind’s eye. He resolutely transgressed the boundary between fiction and reality, and struggles to demonstrate that the illusory dimension can frequently be more real, particularly in the events leading to the Vietnam War, than reality itself. Communicating the view of ambiguity of an ordinary soldier about what really took place in Vietnam by narrating the imagined domain as though it is the real work, and afterwards challenging these realities once more, can be viewed as a deviation of the poignant and disturbing statements American soldiers use to express their own doubt about what took place in Vietnam. They drew on these expressions to transform the inexpressible and horrifying and ambiguous into reality. Likewise, O’Brien narrates tales and realities that are merely fleetingly definite and factual. In the section ‘Notes’, O’Brien illustrated the process of merging illusion and reality (O’Brien 1990, 152): By telling stories, you objectify you own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths. You make up others. You start sometimes with an incident that truly happened, like the night in the shit field, and you carry it forward by inventing incidents that did not in fact occur but that nonetheless help to clarify and explain. In the above passage, O’Brien shows that impossibility of knowing exactly what took place. He urges his readers to become aware of the events in the Vietnam War that they do not know and perhaps will never be aware of. The Things They Carried brings the readers to the Vietnam War through the author’s webs of narratives. O’Brien informs us that we will never truly know what exactly happened in Vietnam. And the realities of the Vietnam War will die alongside the people who experienced the ‘real’ and ‘unreal’. References O’Brien, T. The Things They Carried. New York: Mariner Books, 1990.

The Definition Of Downsizing Management Essay

The Definition Of Downsizing Management Essay Given the issues relating to this research field are introduced and research objectives are also be proposed carefully in Chapter 1. In Chapter 2, the researcher would like to continuous introduces the concepts, definitions and theories relevant to the issues that already mentioned in Chapter 1, through that, Chapter 2 will provide and build research hypothesis for research. Basically, Chapter 2 includes the main parts as follows (1) The definition of downsizing, (2) The definition of Survivors Syndrome, (3) The research hypothesis (4) Chapter summary. Definition of Downsizing In the economic context of continuous competitive, developing, changing and unpredictable, organizations suffering severe downturns in their business or facing difficulties, downsizing strategy is being used by many organizations in every industries and sectors with different goals and visions. There is not a single downsizing definition accepted by all researchers (Davis, Savage, Steward Chapman, 2003). There are many different definitions or understanding about downsizing, for example Cameron, (1994:194) defines downsizing as a positive strategy which do as a purpose of organizations: a set of organizational activities undertaken on the part of management of an organization and designed to improve organizational efficiency, productivity, and/or competitiveness. In another the way, downsizing is not something just happen to the organization, it is something that the organization knows and act purposively. Downsizing is may be implemented as a defensive reaction to decline or as a pr oactive strategy to enhance organizational performance (Kim S Cameron, 1994). Many organizations for a long time that no longer considered downsizing as a situation solution in the hard time period, but they considered downsizing as an effective strategy to reduce costs, human focus, create job opportunities, increased job challenge and promotion. The expenditure cost can be cut effectively due to better decision making and effective human resource controlling if the organization can maintain the right sized of company. It develops a culture of work where employees can have opportunities for growth, they can easily participate and involvement in making decision. Moreover, employees easily feel be part of organization that they should better participate with more collaboration, fidelity, and accuracy. According to Mishra and Spreitzer (1998) defines downsizing has become the strategy favored by many organizations attempting to cope with fundamental, structural changes in the world ec onomy. Downsizing as a deliberate reduction in size or complexity of a firms activities intended to improve the profitability, productivity, and/or competitiveness of the firms continuing operations(Legatski II, 1998). But in conclusion, most researches have defined downsizing as any reduction in the size of the organization (e.g. Budros, 1999; Cascio, 1993; Freeman Cameron, 1993; Kozlowski, Chao, Smith Hedlund, 1993). Downsizing, in general, refers to the reduction of work for certain organization. For employees, downsizing is considered as a management weapon to enforce greater control over the workforce. To management, it is a strategic measure to bring optimized operation efficiency and productivity in organization. Cameron and colleagues (e.g. Cameron et all., 1991, 1993; Cameron, 1994b) have identified three organizational strategies to achieve downsizing: workforce reduction strategy, work redesign and systematic change. The first strategy is workforce reduction is typi cally a short-term strategy, which simply focuses on reducing organizations headcount. In a confirmatory study, Mishra and Mishra (1994) found that such strategy might lead to loss in valued organizational competency or negative outcome of those who remains. Human resource is essential and is a factor that makes the decision for the development of organizations. Lack of human resource will increase workload, anxiety about losing their jobs at any time, and these feeling leads to insecurity psychological, these are reasons that cause labor productivity reduced. Work reduction is applied by organizations through some programs such as attrition, early retirement or voluntary severance packages, layoffs and terminations. The second and third strategies are work redesign and systematic change strategies. While work reductions resulted is lead to reduction, rather than improvement, the work redesign and systematic change are positively related to organizational performance in term of both cost reduction and quality improvement (Cameron et all.,1993; Mishra and Mishra, 1994) and to survivors (people who remains) of downsizing having a positive learning orientation (Farrell and Mavando, 2004). Many previous researches indicated that the use of workforce reduction is increasing and become popular despite the harmful impacts may arise for organization. Workforce reduction or simply called workforce downsizing is becoming the most popular strategy and a plethora of workforce reduction strategies for downsizing of employees has been proposed (e.g. Greenhalgh et al., 1988; Gutchess, 1985; Leana Feldman, 1992; Price, 1990). Whenever reduce equipments, machinesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ organizations can find out the outcome and its impact through simple calculations, but in workforce downsizing, the emotions, loyalty, and human effort cannot simply calculate. In an organizational context, employees not only contribute their individual skills and knowledge, they also collaborate and integrate their separate skills toward creating firm capabilities. As such, both human and social capital-and therefore the commitment and the loyalty of employees-play an important role in dictating a firms ca pacity to create competitive advantage. Reducing headcount may lead to immediate labor cost savings, but it can also seriously erode employee commitment and loyalty, with negative consequences for firm competitiveness and performance. So the questions are what the impacts of workforce downsizing to organizations are, how it effects, and what the advantage and disadvantage of the impact are? Some researches indicated the opinion that organizational downsizing may create better productivity or better performance for organization; while, others indicate downsizing may create negative impact or threat to human resource, break of existed organization culture. Downsizing has been defined as an attempt to increase organizational effectiveness(Kozlowsky, et. al. 1993). Freeman Cameron (1993) and Tomasco (1990) from their finding indicated that organization downsizing created some benefits to organization such as faster decision making, more flexibilities, and increase in productivity. Cascio (1993:97) suggested that proponents of downsizing generally expect the following benefits: lower overheads, less bureaucracy, faster decision making, smoother communications, greater entrepreneurship and increases in productivity. Dow nsizing can suggest to financial markets or government funding agencies that an organization is cutting costs and reducing waste, which may increase availability of capital for subsequent activities (Cascio, 1993; Dial Murphy, 1995; Palmon, Sun Tang, 1997. Downsizing for some individuals is also a chance to demonstrate the capacity himself, or an opportunity for career development. The people who still remain with organization will be the one who give the most effort for the development of organization, if they can prove themselves at this time, success may comes to their organization and will come to them as well. However, in contrast with the benefits that downsizing may bring, many other previous studies indicate their strongly disagree with those arguments. Downsizing may provide a decrease in operating expenses in the near term, but the long term impacts may not be so positive (Difrances, 2002). Downsizing can lead to a loss of knowledge and experience base because of some laid off will be the people who worked for a long time with organization, old people, who may not have a fast and efficient action in work like young people, but they have extensive knowledge, experiences that young people learn in short time, loss available mentors for existing and new employees, loss of corporate culture, and downsizing can have direct impaction to the customers such as loss of established customer service and contacts. Therefore, whenever workforce downsizing is chosen by organizations in hard time or peaceful time, there is definite and obvious impact good or bad on organizations. But in all the affected elements, the human factor is probably the most affected element. Human capital (i.e., the knowledge, skills, and abilities of employees) is one of the primary factors a business can rely on to differentiate their products or services and build a competitive advantage (Hargis Bradley, 2011). Human resource is one of the 5Ms (Man, Money, Machine, Method, and Material) of management process of production; they are five input resources for any businesses. (http://www.setpointusa.com/blog/lean-manufacturing-5-ms/). Even when the world economy is continuous developing, many modern machines are developed and can somehow a part replace human resource, but no organization can flourish without human resource. Human resource is a decisive factor that can determine the working of remaining four factors, peo ple is the one who ensure flexible operation of machine, the reasonable use of material as well as appropriate use of money and method, all these actions will help the organization achieve their goals. During crisis situation as well as in the peaceful time, man or human resource is the only factor that helps businesses overcome or limit the adverse impact of crisis. Man is the most important Ms among five Ms, the right and stable number of human resource in appropriate jobs will enable the success beyond imagination of the organization. They are staffs of organization, they dedicated their soul to the development of organization, they are people who be laid off or people who lucky enough to keep their job. The individuals who lose their jobs (called victims) are obviously the most affected by downsizing. Numerous researchers have focused on the impact of downsizing on workers whose employment is terminated due to reasons independent of job competence (Cappelli, 1992). These individ uals are often known as the victims of downsizing due to research that documents the devastation of job loss, focusing on negative consequences in terms of psychological and physical well-being (e.g., Bennett, Martin, Bies, Brockner, 1995; Cappeili, 1992; Fallick, 1996; Leana Feldman, 1992). The real pains of downsizing cannot be minimized. Careers change, families struggle, and downsized victims suffer loss of prestige, income and security. While a few downsized individuals may be victims of their own past inefficiency, the vast number are those who have performed well and played by the rules but have become the victims of a changing economic environment. However, several researchers have analyzed those who remain in the downsized organization called survivors (e.g., Allen, Freeman, Russell, Reizenstein, Rentz, 2001; Appelbaum Donia, 2001; Brockner, 1988a; 1992; 1995; Brockner, Grover, OMalley, Reed, Glynn, 1993; Cascio, 1993; Mollica Gray, 2001; Noer, 1993; ONeill Lenn, 1995; Shah, 2000). The survivors of downsizing are not the happy campers, grateful to have their jobs, but rather that surviving is so difficult that continuing employees experience higher levels of stress than displaced employees (Collins-Nakai, Devine, Stainton Reay, 2003). The existent psychological contract between employees and their managers within the organization may be affected by the downsizing. Many researchers reported that it would create feeling of anxiety, uncertainty, distrust and decrease in productivity. The fear and anxiety of survivors who still remain with the organization is increasing due to the increasing feeling of uncertainty, instabili ty and insecurity that downsizing may brings. This is called as survivors syndrome. Definition of survivor syndrome The literature suggests a condition referred to as survivor syndrome, or a set of attitudes, feelings and perceptions that occur in employees who remain in organizational systems following involuntary employee reductions (Collins-Nakai, Devine, Stainton Reay, 2003 p.109-110). Survivor syndrome is defined by some human resource professionals as being the mixed bag of behaviors and emotions often exhibited by remaining employees following an organizational downsizing (Appelbaum, Close Klasa, 1999 p.424-436). Survivor syndrome has become known as the emotional and attitudinal characteristics of those who have survived from a downsizing (Mossholder et al., 2000; Iverson and Pullman, 2000; Allen et al., 2001). The emotional responses of each survivor are different. There are not many previous researches confirmed the positive response for survivor when downsizing occurs, some note that concentrating on core operational competencies can reduce unnecessary management layers and increase the speed of decision-making (DeWitt, 1993; Tomasko, 1989), some researches even suggest that fear of termination may increase individual effort among employees who wish to retain their jobs (Kraft, 1991). A few active survivors feel themselves so lucky because they still have their job, survivors may work more hours without compensation to help the organization through the transition. They believe that they quite understand the difficulties as well as the main reasons why organizations choose to apply downsizing strategy, they are willing to stick with organization for a long time and continue add their efforts to the development of organizations. Contrary to a few positive responses, a lot of previous researches have provided many evidences to prove the harmful impacts of downsizing may bring for survivors such as lower morale (Armstrong-Stassen, 1993), increase stress (Leana and Feldman, 1992), and anger, envy, and guilt (Noer, 1993). According to Collins-Nakai, Devine, Stainton Reay (2003) consistent with the terminology of a syndrome, this collection of symptoms includes anger, depression, fear, distrust, and guilt, or Baruch and Hind (2000) indicates that survivors exhibit a plethora of problems, such as de motivation, cynicism, insecurity, demoralization and a significant decline in organizational commitment. Termination of co-workers may lead to perceptions of organizational injustice and distrust of top management (e.g. Brockner Greenberg, 1990; Mishra Spreitzer, 1998; Noer, 1998). Kinnie, Hutchinson and Purcell (1998) indicated the survivors syndrome include increased levels of stress, absenteeism, distrust as well as decreased levels of work quality, morale and productivity. Lecky (1998) identified the survivor syndrome will le ad to decrease employee commitment, increase concern about job security. A lot of research shows that in case of downsizing, the organization breaks the existed psychological contract between employees and their managers, which is the relationship that make employees get along to their organization or their manager, feel commitment to work, trying their best to the development of the organization. It is a loyalty, commitment with organization. But its consequences may brought by downsizing can create the dependent psychological within employees, they did not want to try, to give their effort because of their worried, uncertain and the loyal feeling may be replaced by a sense of betrayal. Downsizing survivors often curious about management and spend their times to observe the intention of management after downsizing occurs; they have greater concern on their future with the organization. It creates stress among employees in the organization; it affects their next attempt and the willing to stay with the organizations. With survivors, organization may think s they are lucky, but in the reality of many people, their emotions are anger, loneliness, feel lost in broken team work because of missing their colleagues, they do not feel confident enough for work due to their wondering about their job. Downsizing occurs that means organization is left with fewer employees who are expected to put in their best effort in a manner that enhances organizational productivity (Kets de Vries Balazs 1997). They are the ones who organization put their faith in; expect long term commitment, but with few people, it may lead to workload, role conflict, and role ambiguity tend to be high among the remaining staff after downsizing (Hellgren et al. 2005; Parker et al. 1997; Tombaugh White 1990). Workload reflects the perception of having too much work to do in the time available (Beehr, Walsh Taber 1976). Workgroup membership changes also may be associated with the loss of important organizational knowledge (Fisher White, 2000). Role conflict concerns the experience of having to deal with conflicting terms, instructions, and demands in the work environment (Rizzo, House Lirtzman 1970). Role ambiguity relates to the individuals experience of not knowing what is expected of her at work (Caplan 1971). Besides that, survivors may view downsizing as a threat to their job security, an indication of poor organizational performance, or a symptom of unfair management behavior. Survivors may also develop negative feelings toward the organization, as well as perceiving that organizational goals are difficult to achieve. According to Isabella (1989) has noted that while organizations are usually take care of the needs of those being laid off, they are often forget and unprepared for the changing emotions, lower morale and productivity often experienced and expressed by survivors. Managers may expect survivors not only to be grateful they were spared and to forgive what happened to their friends, but also to put their feelings aside and work har der. But the reality is not that, a bag of survivor behaviors or called survivors syndrome has always existed, it is like a contract between employees and organizations, the contract gives survivors psychological control over their work environment, which lets them freely invest themselves in caring for customers. Trust Granovetter (1985) and Lewis and Weigert (1985) define trust as a willingness to be vulnerable to others, based on the prior belief that those others are trustworthy. Another definition of trust is offered by Mayer, Davis and Schoorman (1995), who proposed that trust is the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based on the expectation that the other will perform a particular action important to the trustor, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control that other party. Or according to Mishra Spreitzer (1998) trust is related to psychological contracts since trust is the expectation of a future action based on the action in the past by observing the rules of behaviors in relationships. If these expectations are not met, the expectation becomes hopeless, frustrated and will lose confidence, distrust will appear instead of trust (Robinson, Kraatz Rousseau, 1994). The trust is an essential part of managing people and building a high performance, productivity organization. Trust is the foundation of all relationship from top to bottom in the organization. If employees believe in their manager, their organization, this relationship will always help to create good working conditions, employees are willing to stand up for their organization at any situations, they will naturally want to do a good things, contribute their best effort for the success of their organization. Conversely, if there is no trust between employees and managers, employees will have negative actions, will not devote their energy to the development of their organization, the relationship is broken. Downsizing organizations appear to suffer a deterioration of trust (Buch Aldridge, 1991; Cascio, 1993) and an increase in fear (Buch et al., 1991). The occurring of downsizing makes employees feel uncertain about organization, stress à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ the responses tends to score lower in problem solving, creativity and the ability to learn new skills, uncertainty and anxiety reduces the focus of work. Trust between employees and organization also reduced because downsizing is usually a headache thought of managers, they need a long time for making the decision, but with employees, downsizing is just a sudden result, sometimes they do not have a chance to prepare or may not believe that they will be the one who be laid off. According to ONeill Lenn (1995), survivors who believe that management is competent and reliable, may view downsizing as less threatening because they believe that the managers will keep their promise, be honest and open for what is going on with their employees. Trust is instrumental in overcoming resistance to change, for it shapes how individuals interpret the implementation process (Kotter Schlesinger, 1979). If they have trust, survivors are willing think that all the things that organization do, have a reason, it is a good thing for them, for organization, downsizing just helps organization stand in difficult time as well as creating opportunities for employees in the future. In other words, trust in top management minimizes the categorization of threat by helping survivors to understand and believe in managements intentions and expected behavior. If they do not have trust, survivors will have negative thinking such as the decision of manager is wrong, or managers put their personal interests above the interests of employees. Without trust, employees are likely to feel threatened by downsizing, leading to resistance and retaliation, rather than the constructive cooperation that is necessary to facilitate deep change (Quinn, 1996). Commitment There are a lot of definitions about employee commitment such as A force that stabilizes individual behavior under circumstances where the individual would otherwise be tempted to change that behavior (Brickman, 1987), or The relative strength of an individuals identification with and involvement in a particular organization (Mowday et al, 1979) or simply A psychological state that binds the individual to the organization (Allen Meyer, 1990). Commitment is loyalty to the organization. A loyal employee identifies with an organization and is involved in being an employee of that organization (Price Mueller, 1986). Committed employees feel that there is a tight string between them and the organization, which, in the positive form, makes them more willing to perform their job. Organizational commitment is the driving force behind an organizations performance (Suliman and Iles, 2000, p. 408). The multidimensional approach poses that organization commitment is influenced by three constru cts: emotional attachment (affective commitment), perceived costs (continuance commitment) and moral obligation (normative commitment) (Allen and Meyer, 1990). Affective commitment is mean that employees stay with organization because they want to, they believes in organization and feel it like their home. Normative commitment is mean that employees stay with organization because they feel obligated to continue to work for many different reasons and purposes. Continuance commitment is mean that employees stay with the organization because cost of giving up the job is too high for them. (European Motivation-Index.com). It has also been proposed that different types of commitment can have different effects on behaviors and attitudes (Iles et al., 1990). For example, continuance commitment can have detrimental effects on job satisfaction compared to the beneficial effects of affective commitment (Suliman and Iles, 2000). Affective commitment has been shown to be the best predictor of i ntention to leave (Stallworth, 2004) and found to be more important than job satisfaction in determining service quality of customer-contact employees (Malhotra and Mukherjee, 2004). It can be seen that in human resource management process, organizations should pay attention to the affect commitment group because these people will add value, increase productivity and quality to the organization, but they also be the most affected by downsizing, or in other word maintaining a high level of employees affective commitment to the organization is assumed to be a critical factor for successful downsizing, but downsizing tends to reduce employees affective commitment to the organization (Lee Jaewon, 2002). According to many research about employee commitment, in downsizing context, employees commitment to an organization is challenged. Moreover, commitment has been shown to positively influence other variables related to survivor syndrome, such as job satisfaction (Liou, 1995; Fletcher and Williams, 1996; Mowday et al., 1974; Wong et al., 1995; Vandenberg and Lance, 1992), performance (Hartmann and Bambacas, 2000) and perceived organizational support (Eisenberger et al. , 2001). A negative relationship has been shown for absenteeism (Iverson and Deery, 2001; Metcalfe and Dick, 2000) and turnover intention (Schnake and Dumler, 2000) Stress According to Casico Wynn (2004) stated that the downsizing create a breach of an unwritten rules that constitute the psychological contract between employer and employee leads to a rise in stress and a decrease in satisfaction, commitment, intention to stay and perceptions of an organizations trustworthiness, honesty, and caring about its employees. Stress has been defined as a stimulus, a response, or the result of an interaction between the two, with the interaction described in terms of some imbalance between the person and the environment (Cooper, Dewe ODriscoll, 2001). When downsizing occurs, like the victims, the survivors often lose control over their employment status and work situation. Survivors often feel angry and overwhelmed by the sudden disruption of the workplace, similar to people who be laid off, survivors also have feelings of betrayal and fury when downsizing occurs. Research also indicates that other stressful characteristics tend to emerge when work has to be carried out by fewer employees (Hellgren Sverke 2001; Hopkins Weathington 2006; Pfeffer 1998). The lack of people to work become overwhelmed, constant anxiety because of imbalance as well as job losses can be happened anytime that creates stress to survivors. Employee stress can take many forms and significant impact on both employees and organizations; it can manifest as anxiety, irritability, dependency, depression and it results in reduced productivity, employee burnout, absenteeism (Valueoption.com). It has been suggested that the stress of the survivor may be great or even greater than the stress of those who has been laid off (Kaufman 1982). Job insecurity Job insecurity is the exact opposite of job security, is defined as the perceived powerlessness to maintain desired continuity in a threatened job situation by Greenhalgh and Rosenblatt (1984). Job insecurity represents one of the most frequently investigated stressors in the context of organizational change and downsizing (e.g., De Witte 1999; Sverke/Hellgren 2002). The string sticks employees with organization is job, in other word, any organization keeps their employees by proper job with many opportunities to learn, to develop, and above all of them, the job has to be durable and security. When downsizing occurs, survivors feel like the promise of organization has broken down, they see their colleagues lose their job and they fear of losing their jobs at anytime, fear of instability of income, loss of status or self esteem. They believe that their work will no longer be safe, if the organization was willing to let the employees go in the past, they would be willing to do it again in the future. Job insecurity leads to dissatisfaction, people intent to leave the organization and come to a safer place; it also leads to greater absenteeism, higher turnovers and disability claims (Boroson and Burgess, 1992; Koco. 1996; Mishra and Spreitzer. 1998; Tombaugh and White. 1990). Previous studies such as Moore, Grunberg Greenberg (2006); Ashford, Lee Bobko (1989); Brockner et al. (1992) or Hellgren Sverke (2003) have concluded that job insecurity are related with organizational downsizing both in short and long term perspective and the worried about future job loss is associated with impaired work attitudes and well-being. Theorists have emphasized that job insecurity is a multidimensional phenomenon (Ashford, Lee Bobko, 1989; Greenhalgh Rosenblatt, 1984; Jacobson, 1991). The first dimension, called severity of threat, consists of the range of work features at risk, the valence of these features, probabilities of losing each feature, and the number of sources of threat. The second dimension is perceived powerlessness, or ones ability to respond to risks. Job insecurity can also be thought of in terms of expectancy (i.e. probability of loss) and valence (i.e. value of job features) from expectancy theory (Jacobson, 1991). Job insecurity is a broad concept , including threats to any desired work features including opportunities for career development or wages. Perceptions of job insecurity also can be considered as stress inducing, so reports of worry and stress are sometimes used as proxies for perception of job insecurity. Results showed that perceived job insecurity increased over time as layoffs unfolded but no new information arrived. Job insecurity was lowest among those employees who had no contact with workforce downsizing, with higher insecurity among those who had friends or co-workers laid off, and the highest insecurity among those who had been warned that they would be laid off or who had been laid off and then rehired. Hypotheses Many organization managers apply workforce downsizing strategy for their organization, often focus their attention and effort for those employees who be laid off and pay little attention to those who remain with organization As the large commercial bank in Vietnam, Techcombank is also applying workforce downsizing like many other organizations to overcome the current difficulties. Get to know the survivors syndrome is very important not only for Techcombank but also for many other organizations. Organizations that understand the causes of survivor syndrome at an early stage can a better chance to find an appropriate way to go. Based on the previous studies, in the scope of this research, researcher would like to find out the impact of workforce downsizing to the behavior such as trust, commitment, and stress and job insecurity of Techcombank staffs to see how they were affected by workforce downsizing and how trust, commitment, stress and job insecurity will be changed between before and after workforce downsizing is applied. Through this research, researcher hopes to put some help for Techcombank managers in order to have a better understanding about their employees so that they can looking for an appropriate direction as well as specific plan to minimize the harmful impacted that may arises from downsizing. Based on the above theory discussion, the Hypothesis is formulated as following: (H1) There is a significant difference in stress of respondents before and after workforce downsizing is applied (H2) There is a significant difference in stress of respondents before and after workforce downsizing is applied (H3) There is a significant difference in stress of respondents before and after workforce downsizing is applied (H4) There is a significant difference in stress of respondents before and after workforce downsizing is applied Chapter Summary Throughout the chapter, the researcher gives a deeper review of previous research on workforce downsizing and its impacted on survivors. There are many different opinions about the effects of workforce downsizing on organizations, some studies indicated

Mesos and Kubernetes : A Comparative Analysis

Mesos and Kubernetes : A Comparative Analysis Abstract Containers and application containerization have fast gained traction as the most promising aspects of Cloud Computing. A massive increase in the number and variety of applications has created a need for smooth integration between developer and live environments with quick service time. The amount of user data being handled by todays applications requires heavy computing resources which further require large clusters of hosts. Management of these large clusters is very challenging and containers provide a viable solution. Containers provide an operating system level virtualization for deploying and running applications in a distributed node topology, eliminating the need for configuration of a complete VM per application. Open source technologies like Docker have developed a method that provides better portability for containers. This paper presents a proposal for performance evaluation of two of the most widely used open source orchestration systems Kubernetes and Mesos for cloud native applications. We also provide a brief overview of the importance of choosing the right container orchestration tool to deploy and manage cloud-native applications. Keywords: Kubernetes, Mesos, Cloud native applications, Locust, GCE. With the fast spread of internet hegemony, the conventional and niche web applications are increasing in number. Deployment and maintenance of each of such applications requires a myriad of hardware and associated software designed to perform several generic activities. Rapid progress of cloud computing technologies have aided in decentralizing the implementations, leading to distributed systems. Docker technology provides containers for easy deployment and management of applications. Carefully managed by cluster management tools like Kubernetes and Mesos, replication, failovers, as well as APIs can automate integration and lead to a seamless deployment over clusters of host machines, thereby eliminating disruption of service caused by inherent downtime. Kubernetes: Kubernetes is an open source cluster manager project that integrates cluster management capabilities into a system of virtual machines. It is a lightweight, portable, modular, responsive and fault-tolerant orchestration tool that is written in Go and comes with built-in service discovery and replication utilities. Fig 1.1 shows the architecture and important concepts of Kubernetes. Fig 1 Kubernetes Architecture Important components of kubernetes are : Pods : Pod is the building block for schedul- ing, deployment, horizontal scaling and replication. It is a group of tightly coupled containers that are located on the same host and sharing the same IP address, ports, resources and the same localhost.[7] Kubelet is the agent that runs on the worker nodes that manages Pods, their containers, container images and the volumes if any. Replication Controllers : They control and monitor the number of running pods for a service, and provide fault tolerance.It is the high availability solution of Kubernetes. Kubectl : The command to control the kubernetes cluster once its running. Kubectl runs on the master node. Kubernetes has a policy driven scheduler (Kube-scheduler) which considers availability, performance and capacity constraints,quality of service requirements, and workload. kubernetes can also work with multiple schedulers. Users can add their own schedulers if other constraints are required.[7] Mesos: Apache Mesos is an open-source cluster manager, developed by Benjamin Hindman, Andy Konwinski, and Matei Zaharia at the University of California, Berkeley as a research project along with professor Ion Stoica. Its designed to scale to very large clusters involving hundreds or thousands of hosts such as hadoop tasks, cloud native applications, etc. It enables resource sharing in a fine-grained manner thus improving cluster utilization.To deploy and manage applications in large-scale clustered environments more efficiently, Mesos plays role between the application layer and the operating system and makes it easier. It can run many applications on a dynamically shared pool of nodes. The major components in a Mesos cluster are: Fig 2 Mesos Architecture [6] Mesos follows 2 level scheduling. Each framework asks Mesos for a certain amount of resources it requires, in response Mesos offers a set of resources. Framework scheduler evaluates the offered resources based on its own criteria and accepts or refuses.[7] Apache ZooKeeper acts as a central coordination service to achieve high availability. The design comprises multiple masters, where one is an active leader and ZooKeeper handles the leader election. For high availability setting, a minimum of 3 master nodes is needed. Marathon is a framework that is designed to launch long-running applications, and serves as a replacement for a traditional init system. It provides many features such as high availability, application health checks, node constraints, fault -tolerance and an easy to use web UI for long running application. Marathon Framework is composed of executor and scheduler. The UI of marathon provides an option to start, stop and scale the long running applications. Kubernetes and Mesos makes the process of setting up multiple virtual clusters simpler, allowing for stack management to shed unwanted layers of software which bog down systems. Using Kubernetes and Mesos for cluster management allows for high-level task monitoring, resource allocation and application scaling, whilst offering the control needed to ensure applications run smoothly. Setting up of either Mesos or Kubernetes on Windows means developers and organizations that work between Linux and Windows platforms may use their own tools without requiring heavy resource management. A. Container Orchestration tools and its importance: With the usage of containers, running cloud-native applications on physical or virtual infrastructure is made easy. Containers facilitate easier application management to dynamically adapt to the changing needs of service. It also enables seamless migration of application instances to different environments. Multiple containers need effective management utilities that manage the resources and enable running of containers on different environments, over multiple hosts. Orchestration tools manage applications of different complexities that are distributed for computing over cluster of machines. These tools abstract the cluster systems as a single entity for deployment of application and managing the resources. Orchestrations tools can handle configuration, scheduling and deploying of applications, along with maintenance and support for automatic failovers and scaling. Kubernetes acts primarily as a container orchestration tool whereas Mesos provides a platform to run orchestration frameworks like Marathon or Aurora to manage applications, which may or may not be containerized. Comparing the stand alone Kubernetes orchestration and Marathon with Mesos is effective in understanding the right choice for implementation. B. Proposed solution on Google Compute Engine: There are no synthetic benchmarks that exist to evaluate the performance of Kubernetes and Mesos. This paper aims at evaluating orchestration methods on Google Compute Engine (GCE) for hosted cluster installation and management. A single cluster in GCE for all purposes will have a master VM and four worker VMs. Setting a baseline comparison through a simple cloud application deployment . This is the first proposed benchmark which analyses user experience with minimal containers on Kubernetes cluster and Mesos . Having a Google Cloud Platform account and installing Google Cloud SDK is the first step for this. Cloud application is then deployed on the created cluster to compare their respective processes of deployment. Streaming Engine using Docker clusters on GCE to check the delivery speed , scheduling , and scalability of container orchestrations. This is also to test the feature of pods on Kubernetes where all containers in a pod have single networking point. Standalone analysis using existing tools to test performance and known limitations of both these systems. cAdvisor that collects data about running containers, Heapster which gives the basic resource utilization metrics on Kubernetes and marathon-lb tools on Mesos marathon. This paper aims to provide qualitative as well quantitative metrics to compare and contrast the working of Kubernetes and Mesos. The objective is to compile a substantive list of criteria analysing the performance of both the orchestration tools. The study intends to bring to light comparative results that hitherto do not exist in related literature and also to build upon the existing knowledge through the results of the experiments in this paper. Some of the comparative points are:Load balancing, Scalability, User experience . Kubernetes Mesos Distinctive features Offers a combination of pods which are controlled by replications controllers . IPC between pods systemv semaphores or posix shared memory . Do not support colocation of multiple containers on same mesos. Application distribution Supports master-worker nodes , where the applications are deployed on pods on worker nodes. Supports master-agent nodes , and applications are deployed on different agent nodes. Resource schedulers Has a policy driven scheduler (Kube-Scheduler) Has a 2 levels scheduling approach. Scalability Kubernetes 1.3 supports 2000 node clusters Mesos has been simulated to scale up to 50,000 nodes [9] Load Balancing Supports both internal and external load balancing.. Mesos DNS (rudimentary load balancer), Marathon-lb (haproxy based load balancer for Mesos marathon) Monitoring tools Heapster, cAdvisor and Google Cloud Monitoring .InfluxDB and Grafana as backend tools for visualization. Sysdig and Sysdig Cloud (full metrics and metadata support for Apache Mesos and Mesosphere Marathon framework) The implementation was done on Google cloud platform, using the Google Compute Engine (GCE). Under the scope of the account setup for implementation, following are the details of the resources available. For this implementation, two of the available 4 machines have been used. Resource Machine Names n1-standard-1 n1-standard-2 Virtual CPU 1 2 Memory (GB) 3.75 7.50 Max No of Persistent Disks (PD) 16 16 Max PD Size (TB) 64 64 A. Kubernetes ecosystem Kubernetes ecosystem is spread over two setups as shown below. Two Node Setup Four Node setup Master node VMs 1 1 CPU 1 1 Machine type N1-standard-1 N1-standard-1 Worker nodes VMs 1 3 CPU 2 each 2 each Machine type N1-standard-1 N1-standard-1 Table 3 Kubernetes ecosystem Production grade kubernetes is available open source and can be installed from its official page [10]. After the installation of kubernetes , start up script kube-up.sh can be used to spin up a cluster. A cluster consists of a single master instance and a set of worker nodes each of which is a Computer engine virtual machine.This process takes about ten minutes to bring up a cluster and once the cluster is running , IP addresses of all the nodes can be obtained from the computer engine. Cluster specifications can be specified using environment variables like NUM_NODES , MASTER_SIZE, NODE_SIZE or can also be specified in config_default.sh. kubectl is the command line interface for kubernetes clusters. It supports command types like create, apply, attach , config, get, describe, and delete and resource types like pods, deployment, and services. B. Mesos ecosystem Different approaches were used to implement a Mesos cluster system as per the available resources. The procedure followed for each implementation and the associated complexities are described briefly. The third implementation method, which was incorporated into this project, is described in detail. Single master Single Slave In the first method that was tried for setup, the system was formulated as a single node cluster consisting of zookeeper, marathon, a single master and a single agent processes. The images for these were pulled from the Docker hub, using Docker installed on the GCE shell. Four containers, one each for the process listed were started. The Mesos master UI was accessible through the browser on its designated IP address, at port 5050. Marathon UI was accessed through its external IP address at port 8080. This implementation posed two constraints for successful implementation. The set up used up all the available CPU and a multinode configuration could not be implemented. Further, a public Docker image poses trust issues for a system implementation. It was, therefore, decided to explore other options. Datacenter / Operating System (DC/OS) DCOS is a product of a company called Mesosphere which makes applications and solutions based on Apache Mesos. DCOS is designed as a distributed operating system with Apache Mesos serving as its kernel. The intent is to abstract the different functionalities of multiple machines so as to club them as a single computing resource. DCOS can offer container orchestration as it has Marathon scheduler built into its design at the backend. [11] Installation of DCOS on the Google Compute Engine requires the setting up of a primary bootstrap node on which the GCE scripts shall be run to create the cluster nodes. A yaml format installation file is to be run via Ansible playbook to create and configure the cluster nodes with DCOS running on them. Several environment variables have to be customized such as setting up RSA public/private key pairs that shall allow for a SSH based login into the cluster nodes. The team was unsuccessful in setting up a DCOS running cluster on GCE. The support community for DCOS is not very mature and the installation issues faced by the team could not be resolved. Exploring the services of DCOS has been included as one the future work possibilities in this paper as DCOS promises great potential in terms of effective container orchestration. Installing VMs on GCE In this method, Mesos ecosystem implementation is over 6 virtual machines, using four n1-standard-1 and two n1-standard-2 machine types. The system consists of 3 master nodes and 3 agents, with the Marathon and Zookeeper processes running on VMs 1, 2 and 3, as shown in the figure below. The VMs with two CPUs indicates n1-standard-2 machines. Fig 3 Mesos Implementation Diagram The following processes are run on each of these VMs to establish a self sufficient ecosystem. Marathon Marathon runs as a scheduling framework on Mesos and is deployed over VM1. Zookeeper Zookeeper is a process that manages which master process to run as active and which to keep as standby. Zookeeper processes are run on VM1, VM2 and VM3, to keep a backup zookeeper process running to facilitate automatic failover of a master process. Mesos Master Three mesos master processes are run, each in VM1, VM2 and VM3. The quorum associated with Zookeeper selects one of these three masters to be active and the rest to be standby. Mesos Agents Mesos Agents processes run on VM4, VM5 and VM6. Mesos agent on VM6 runs on an n1-standard-1 machine, as compared to agents on VMs 4 and 5. The Kubernetes and Mesos Cluster systems were set up as described in the implementation section. Each ecosystem was evaluated in different scenarios and the behaviour of the systems were analysed for each of the scenarios in terms of scalability, load balancing and failover capabilities. Kubernetes System: Creating and deploying the application on kubernetes is primarily carried out by the specifications on pod.yaml , deployment.yaml , and service.yaml files. pod.yaml deployment.yaml service.yaml Operations Group of containers tied together for networking Used to schedule the creation of pods and check their health. To expose the created deployment to the outside of clusters. arguments specified -docker image -shared volumes -CPU restrictions on single pod -LivenessProbe -ReadinessProbe -replicas : to ensure the minimum number of pods that needs to be running at all times. -loadbalancer -clusterIP Table 4 Kubernetes :application deployment components Kubernetes Scalability : Setup used for understanding scalability in kubernetes is described in the kubernetes ecosystem section. This process is aimed at gauging kubernetes scalability against the CPU resource utilization of clusters, auto scaling of pods , and API responsiveness. Web based WordPress application was chosen for this purpose. Scaling in kubernetes is achieved by horizontal auto scaling of pods .It dynamically adjusts the number of pods in deployment to meet the load/traffic. Horizontal Pod Autoscaler(HPA) can be created via the kubectl command kubectl autoscale deployment wordpress cpu-percent=14 min=1 -max=10 . This means that the horizontal autoscaler will increase and decrease the number of pods to maintain an average CPU utilization of 14% across all Pods. It also facilitates automatic failover of pods. Locust was used for creating load on WordPress application. Locust is an easy-to-use python based load testing tool which is used to find out how many concurrent users a system can handle . It swarms the web applications with a number of users which is specified by using the web UI. Once the application was hosted by kubernetes , load was initiated to its load balancer ingress IP using locust .The intention was to learn how the auto scalers react on the load as generated by locust. The results of the experiment can be better explained using the tabular format as below. The parameters like minimum and maximum number of pods , target CPU utilization were kept similar to both the setups. Number of requests in the table suggests the total number of users created by locust. Two node setup (Total 7 CPUs) Number of Pods 10 50 150 Target CPU 14 14 8 Max Number of requests 575 966 3158 Failure % 23% 23% 41% Table 5 Kubernetes: Scalability in two node system Four Node setup (Total 3 CPUs) Number of Pods 10 50 150 Target CPU 14 14 8 Max Number of requests 611 1433 7513 Failure % 24% 20% 2% Table 6 Kubernetes: Scalability in four node system Observations from the above tabulated results : The number of pods from 1-10 did not have any significant impact on the failure percentage . The significant difference in the results were spotted as the number of pods were increased. As number of requests increased , the increase in the number of pods was witnessed. And with the load going down pods were downsized automatically. Fig 4 Kubernetes pods in running and terminating states The failure percentage was drastically reduced between the two setups with high load and higher number of pods . The failure percentage is almost similar between the two setups with less load. Setup was benchmarked at 150 for maximum number of pods. It was observed that going beyond this value left many pods in pending state for longer than seven minutes. Starting a pod takes lesser than four seconds in other cases . More number of pods will be created when the target CPU percentage specified in the horizontal auto scaler command is less. CPU resource utilization of four node cluster is as shown below .This shows that the newly created pods were allocated equally across the worker nodes.The below graph is as seen from stackdriver utility. Fig 5 CPU usage of a Kubernetes cluster Fig 6 Load distribution over the worker nodes. Mesos System: Application scalability, in terms of Mesos using Marathon is represented as number of instances that are created and successfully run on the active agent nodes. Marathon provides an option to simulate application instances to be distributed over the agent nodes through the Scale option in the User Interface Dashboard. Applications are specified as JSON files, either through the Create Application option of the Marathon UI or through a JSON file in Git which is imported, built and deployed over Marathon for distribution and scheduling, through the use of continuous integration tool called Jenkins. Deploying an application: Mesos using Marathon forms an orchestration tool for managing application instances on the different active agent nodes. These nodes are managed by a master instance, which is effectively managed by the Zookeeper processes. Distribution of application instances on agent nodes depends on the resources allocated to each of the agents. For this implementation, we consider an application that is not CPU intensive. This application abstracts any data intensive application, that is based on a request response model. Following table summarizes the different scenarios simulated to test scalability of the application, each with the different configurations employed. Cluster configuration represents number of active agent nodes, as number of masters remain at 3. Sl No Cluster Configuration Effective CPUs available CPU Usage per instance (%) Memory usage per application instance (MB) Maximum instances scaled for the CPU available 1 2 Agents 4 10 32 40 2 3 Agents 5 10 32 50 3 2 Agents 4 2 10 200 4 3 Agents 5 2 10 250 Table 7: Scalability analysis with a Data Intensive application The tabulated results indicate the effective operation of Mesos cluster with Marathon scheduling framework, which suggest the easy scalable property of a Mesos cluster system. When there are more number of instances of application that need servicing, a mesos cluster starts new agent process and effectively distributes the application load over the running agents. Load Balancing Increase in number of application instances require more number of agent nodes running to service all the requests. However, the request handling is not efficient, if all of the requests are directed to a single agent. The workload is distributed effectively among all the agent nodes. For the scaling test scenarios described in the previous section, CPU usage was monitored using Google Stack Driver utility. The graph below shows CPU usage at different timelines. The rapid rise or fall of the usage attributes to the increasing/decreasing number of application instances that need servicing. Fig 7 CPU usage of a Mesos cluster with changes in application instances The distribution of workload on all the processes is tabulated, using the Stack Driver utility, as illustrated by the figure below. Fig 8 Load distribution over the six processes There is a significant workload over master node 3, as the marathon process utilizes the core of VM3, even though the process is run on VM1. Master nodes have least CPU usage, owing to the fact that the only operation performed by the nodes is distribution of application tasks over the agents. The agents are represented as three processes named mesos-slave-1, mesos-slave-2 and mesos-slave-3. The workload distributed on these appear even. However, the agent-3 runs only on a single core and it uses 22.9% of the total allocated core. This summarizes the effective load balancing that a Mesos system incorporates. Failover Mesos Cluster system runs additional master processes as standby to facilitate automatic failover of the system. In this experiment, as an initial condition, the quorum of Zookeepers elected Mesos-master-2 to be primary and Mesos-Master-1 and Mesos-Master-3 as secondary. Application deployment was initiated as per the previous procedure, using a JSON file through Marathon. The active tasks on Mesos-master-2 were checked at port 5050 of the master-2 external IP address to check the delegation of tasks to the active agent nodes. To test failover, the mesos-master-2 process was killed. It was observed that the presence of Zookeeper effectively switched the application deployments over the agents through mesos-master-1. The delegation of tasks to slave was now observed through the browser on the external IP address of mesos-master-1 at port 5050. With this project, the implementation and experimentation enabled a better understanding of the concepts related to orchestration, containerization, scalability and load balancing properties of a cluster based environment. This will ease the initial understanding of deployment and management of cloud native applications, and to better setup and environment that houses them. With the help of this documentation, along with the link provided through github, it would be easier to setup an orchestration environment, as the team has tried to collate the steps involved in implementing a cluster with orchestration tools. Through research and experimentation, the team was able to put together enough literature to understand, compare, contrast and conclude on various aspects of orchestration systems and understand the major difference between Kubernetes and Mesos based systems. Lack of resources for implementation of Mesos based systems, and equivocal distinction among the several example implementation required for a better compilation of materials, which was achieved through this project work. In a survey conducted by P Heidari et al [7] on some of the well known orchestration tools with a primary focus on QoS capabilities, the authors have concluded that not all of the solution tools provide a guaranteed healthy running replicas to effectively maintain the quality of service. They have cited that tools like Marathon and Fleet tend to go into a state of unprecedented wait due to the need for appropriate resources. There is a need of an elasticity e