Month: January 2023

SAMPLE PAPER: RESEARCH IN BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT

The current review is a critical evaluation of the company’s new business opportunity for selling bottled water as well as the marketing opportunity in marketing the new product through social media. Together, the process will contribute to the informed decision-making of organizational strategy. The literature by George and Desmidt (2018, p.133) highlights the criticality of collecting and exchanging information to make informed and qualitative decisions. A rational planning practice for decision-makers in whatever capacity is to inject information relevant to decision-making into the decision-making process to improve strategic decision quality. The rational model of decision-making is systemic (step-by-step) and relies on facts and informational analysis to arrive at a decision. Ultimately, the choice of a strategy depends on what the decision-maker perceives to have the most benefit as opposed to cost (Uzonwanne, 2016, p.3). Ideally, the goal for any business is to maximize the value of outcomes, while reducing the risk and inherent cost associated with the strategy.

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Sample Paper: State Surveillance and Dissent: Apple Inc’s Encryption Dilemma

Introduction

Law enforcement agencies (LEAs) have, since the 1990s, contended that the increasing adoption of advanced technologies could facilitate the criminal organization’s communications through encrypted and secure communication channels, and ‘going dark’ in the process (Kehl et al., 2015). Cutting-edge technologies have undoubtedly had a significant impact on the state powers’ ability to gather and efficiently analyze large volumes of data on its citizenry to help deliver better services. Nonetheless, criminal organizations have also leveraged the power of such technology to either perpetrate crimes or evade detection as it is challenging to intercept digitized means of communications from a technical viewpoint (Açar, 2017). The revelations of Edward Snowden and the rising privacy concerns have brought scrutiny to client-to-client models, with technology companies shifting more towards centralized cryptographic foundations, reducing client control over private communications. Hence, it becomes impossible for service providers to comply with judicial orders to intercept and gather content data. Also, service providers do not suffer liability for criminal activity conducted through their products or services since they are unaware of what happens on their platforms. The current report seeks to establish whether the government can force tech companies, such as Apple in the recent Pensacola shooting, to help it break into the phones of known/ suspected terrorists.

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Sample Paper: Offshoring versus Reverse Offshoring

Introduction

Globalization, broadly defined as the increasing interdependence between countries, has changed the rules of competition in business by enhancing capabilities that allow the transfer of information, skills, technology, products, and culture (Bodislav et al., 2015; Wiesmann et al., 2017). It has allowed companies to develop critical strategy approaches that leverage the different alternatives available to them to survive in complex, dynamic, and competitive global value chains. One such type of strategic approach is offshoring/outsourcing. Offshoring is a popular strategic practice where companies disaggregate fine pieces of activity from their value chains and relocate them across national objectives to save on cost, enhance performance, or learning opportunities (Mykhaylenko et al., 2015). Companies will typically outsource their services from high-cost to low-cost environments, mostly characteristic of developing countries. However, the success of this offshoring depends on the ability of the low-cost environment to balance supply and demand. The failure to which the offshoring company could seek alternatives in the form of reverse offshoring. According to Wang & Song (2017), reverse offshoring can involve a backflow of offshoring where companies move their offices back home from developing countries, outsourcing tasks of enterprises in developed countries, and developing countries becoming contract issuers. 

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SAMPLE PAPER: Annotated Bibliography

Williams, David R., Jourdyn A. Lawrence, and Brigette A. Davis. “Racism and health: evidence and needed research.” Annual review of public health 40 (2019): 105-125.

The article is a peer-reviewed publication in the Annual Review of Public Health journal by authors based at Harvard University and the University at Cape Town. It provides an overview of the evidence linking the primary racism domains – structural, cultural, and individual-level discrimination – to mental and physical health outcomes. It is a qualitative research paper, with some limitations, as the authors identify. The research provides compelling literature to inform the current research article on the psychological impact of racism – stereotyping. The article provides information that establishes a relationship between the Native American people’s cultural racism through the use of Indian mascots and the ethnic group’s psychological well-being. It is relatively recent, meaning the information is highly relevant and reliable. 

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SAMPLE PAPER: Policy, Politics, and Global Health Trends

School nurses serve as case managers, bringing together healthcare providers, families, and schools to support student health and well-being. Schools are the primary locations for addressing student health issues, while school nurses are the healthcare providers that students see regularly (Dolatowski et al., 2015). School nurse performance and consequent health outcomes in a school depend on several factors. The focuses is on nurse workload as a contingent factor determining healthcare outcomes and academic achievement among students. It includes the amount of time, competency, patient care demands, physical exertion, and the complexity of care provided for a given caseload – the number of patients assigned to an individual (Jameson et al., 2018). The policy change analysis hopes to reduce school nurse workloads to enhance their ability to promote and deliver quality care where necessary.

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SAMPLE PAPER: FINTECH COMPANIES AND THE DIGITAL DOLLAR

Introduction

The term “FinTech” describes businesses and companies that combine financial services with modern innovative technologies as their primary service model (Dorfleitner et al., 2017, p.5). FinTech companies aim to automate the financial service sector, providing more efficient, transparent, and friendly user-centred services than traditional bank offerings, presenting a competitive landscape for the banking sector (Dorfleitner et al., 2017, p.5; Romānova and Kudinska, 2016, p.22). FinTechs face surmounting pressure to comply with strict regulatory measures to protect service consumers, similar to traditional banks. However, the difference in capabilities, through financial resources and human capital, make the ability to keep up with these sometimes-changing requirements quite challenging (Lee and Shin, 2018, p.44). It is an expensive affair to make changes to FinTech startup’s’ service model, especially if the venture belongs to a single individual. Nonetheless, the primary challenge is perhaps customer management, which is key to start-up growth. FinTech business competition to acquire and retain customers is quite high, especially given the concerns regarding privacy and security, or the ability to provide services at par with traditional banks. 

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                                                        Proposed Solution

Most FinTech companies follow a market development strategy for customer acquisition, a common strategy for most Silicon Valley tech giants. However, such an approach can be significantly costly, especially when competing against other start-ups and incumbents. According to Lee and Shin (2018, p.44), FinTech companies need to understand their market niche and then optimise their service provision model in that niche. It proposes a strategy for product development, which introduces new products and services to an existing market (Loredana, 2017, p.144). It should involve critical innovation strategies to develop products or services to integrate into their business models, with the goal being to increase FinTech service usage, uptake, and increase earnings from the target market, which is a source of competitive advantage. Product development seeks to help the company adapt to market changes, technologies, and competition types (Abdullah, 2019, p.37).

FinTechs can leverage this product development strategy by honing down on three key approaches. The first is motivating increased usage of existing products by improving user experience. It can be through feature enhancement in its technologies, making it more attractive to enhance in-depth and frequent use of its products and services. User experience is a key area of leverage for FinTech companies, as they provide convenience and efficiency that traditional banks may not provide users (Varga, 2017, p.29). However, it must be noted that a human element in financial service provision is a crucial aspect that most consumers consider when deciding whether to adopt FinTech services (Lee and Shin, 2018, p.44). Regardless, the internet and development of mobile technology have made it possible to provide users with convenient and ready access through smartphones, tablets, laptops, and even smartwatches in some cases. With digital mobile devices, customers can access financial services at convenience, doing away with queuing for services like credit transfers or open accounts. FinTechs can leverage these capabilities to improve user experience, attracting consumers to use their services, while noting various other regulatory and compliance requirements of customer service (Varga, 2017, p.29). In any case, infrequent use of a product can be costly to a business that has already invested time and resources into acquiring the consumer in the first place.

The second is to find ways to broaden the product and service portfolio offered to the existing market, by specialising to meet the customers’ specific needs. It requires significant knowledge development, with the business studying customer-specific needs to craft its products and services as solutions to address these needs. Lee and Shin (2018, p.44) argue that providing more personalised service to many people is critical for customer acquisition and retention. An example they provide is Robo-advisor, whose design is to provide more personalised 24/7 service to consumers. Doing so enhances the business’s potential to achieve customer satisfaction, retention, and loyalty in the end. Being adaptive and flexible to technological change is a vital component of technological business in the information era. It enhances the business’s ability to respond to changing consumer preferences and providing higher appeal to a more tech-savvy population whose technological use and requirements can serve as a competitive advantage point for FinTechs. 

FinTech companies should develop and enhance their terms of service to keep consumers engaged. It involves developing pathways towards consumer retention, as it provides a means through which consumers can co-create value. Co-creation occurs when customers can personalise their experience using the company’s products or services while doing some tasks for the company, which can occur through word-of-mouth marketing or feedback mechanisms (Piligrimiene et al., 2015, p.453). It is an essential strategy, especially for customers seeking to transform their financial behaviours. When FinTechs enhance how they approach financial issues faced by consumers like credit scores, borrowing, lending, and repayment, they may increase their chances of growth and competitiveness. The reason is that the FinTech may attract individuals interested in the specific terms provided, who may then influence their social spheres of influence, creating a chain of interactions that help companies to grow in the long-run.

Given the above conditions, it is evident that value is more vital than developing markets for existing products and services. FinTechs can enhance their markets by providing utility and tailored financial services to consumers. However, there are risks to this focused strategy. The first is the potential returns from all the innovation going into product and service development. While product development scenarios may benefit customer engagement, acquisition, and retention, there is no guarantee that the strategy is sustainable, given the rising competition from rising start-ups overcoming incumbent digital firms. An example is the company Zoom, which acquired significant traction during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. It is an example of how quickly consumer tastes and preferences change relative to technological advancement, determined by the service quality provided. It requires that FinTechs be privy to market changes, and make significant changes or improvements to remain relevant, which can incur significant cost to the business model. 

Within that retrospect is the competition from banks to provide similar services, with research into how they can integrate FinTech models into traditional banking. It will serve as a deterrent growth factor because many individuals may not see any utility in switching to FinTechs if their traditional institutions provide similar digital currency services. Banks may have significant leverage as they have a ready backup should disruption to digital operations occur. They can switch to the traditional mode of operation and ensure continuity and service provision – an aspect that can be burdening to FinTech start-ups. Nonetheless, these traditional institutions acknowledge the increasing importance of digital currencies, meaning that it is an asset that, if well cultivated, can provide long-term gains for business and better services for consumers.  

References

Abdullah, N.H.N., 2019. Gaining competitive advantage through new product development capability in Malaysian Government Linked Companies. Indonesian Journal of Economics, Social, and Humanities1(1), pp.37-49.

Dorfleitner, G., Hornuf, L., Schmitt, M. and Weber, M., 2017. Definition of FinTech and description of the FinTech industry. In FinTech in Germany (pp. 5-10). Springer, Cham.

Lee, I. and Shin, Y.J., 2018. Fintech: Ecosystem, business models, investment decisions, and challenges. Business Horizons61(1), pp.35-46.

Loredana, E.M., 2017. The use of Ansoff matrix in the field of business. Annals-Economy Series2, pp.141-149.

Piligrimiene, Z., Dovaliene, A. and Virvilaite, R., 2015. Consumer engagement in value co-creation: What kind of value it creates for company?. Engineering Economics26(4), pp.452-460.

Romānova, I. and Kudinska, M., 2016. Banking and Fintech: a challenge or opportunity?. In Contemporary issues in finance: Current challenges from across Europe. Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Varga, D., 2017. Fintech, the new era of financial services. Vezetéstudomįny-Budapest Management Review48(11), pp.22-32.

SAMPLE PAPER:The Effects of Nature/Plants on Stress

Introduction

The body comprises an interconnected network of physiological systems fine-tuned throughout evolution to achieve and preserve a relatively stable internal state – homeostasis (Everly & Lating, 2019). Sometimes this equilibrium will be in a state of disharmony arising from intrinsic, extrinsic, real, or perceived forces, known as stressors, which the body needs to counter to maintain or reestablish the threatened homeostasis (Tsigos et al., 2016; Cool & Zappetti, 2019). The disharmony reflects the body’s inability to allocate sufficient resources to restore the balance, meaning that the body is in a stressed state. When the brain perceives stress, it activates coordinated neurophysiological responses in the brain and the periphery to initiate behavioral and physiological responses that facilitate allostasis (stability through change) and adaptation (Cool & Zappetti, 2019). It takes place through a process referred to as adaptive stress response, which enhances resilience and facilitates coping mechanisms to prevent future adverse impacts from stress stimuli (Suri Vaidya, 2015). However, there is a notable variation in individual response mechanisms to stress, perhaps due to people’s uniqueness, which is why it would be prudent to consider this aspect when recommending stress management strategies. Consequently, the current review explores the significance and feasibility of nature/plants as a stress-reduction strategy.

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Role of Nature in Stress Management

Nature provides a range of services and benefits to the ecosystem, much of which past research has extensively covered. The least appreciated is perhaps the impact it has on psychological well-being and health through what Bratman et al. (2019) refer to as psychological ecosystem services. These services encompass a range of cognitive and psycho-physiological outcomes stemming from two mechanisms, considered to be the two primary environmental psychology theories (Jiang et al., 2020). 

Attention Restoration Theory (ART)

The first is Kaplan & Kaplan’s (1989, as cited in Ohly et al., 2016; Jiang et al., 2020) Attention Restoration Theory (ART). The basic premise underlying the theory is that natural environments contain elements that provide a relaxing space through which humans can relax and reduce mental fatigue, which helps restore voluntary/direct attention. Direct or voluntary attention refers to the human ability that allows people to pay attention to a particular task requiring effort (Ohly et al., 2016). However, this ability is finite and becomes exhausted with use, especially if overworked or overloaded with mental processes. For example, focusing requires the individual to exclude other thought stimuli from nearby environments. Voluntary attention makes this possible by suppressing distractions that may be inherently more interesting. Nonetheless, fatigue may set in when there is no motivational draw to rest or restore the ability. Attention fatigue leads to poor decision-making and self-control, potentially threatening individuals’ health through neural and behavioral pathways to cause conditions like obesity (Ohly et al., 2016). ART proposes that individuals experience nature as it offers a relaxing and refreshing environment that facilitates and enhances their ability to reflect and consider any unresolved issues. According to Jiang et al. (2020), the “softly fascinating” aspect associated with natural elements like trees, water, and sunsets helps capture an involuntary attention sphere in humans, which provides a means through which rest and recovery can take place. The reason is that the inherent characteristics associated with these elements that draw human interest require minimal mental effort to process, thus causing no strain on the voluntary human attention paid to them. 

Stress Reduction Theory (SRT)

The second is Ulrich’s (1991, as cited in Jiang et al., 2020) Stress Reduction Theory (SRT). The primary argument is that the natural environment presents an unthreatening setting that provides humans with the space to calm down, generate positive feelings, and reduce arousal. Ultimately, natural environments will promote stress recovery by reducing the adverse psychological and physiological signs of stress (Jiang et al., 2020). According to Ulrich et al. (1991), humans may not have the same capacity to recover from stress in artificial settings as natural ones because human evolution mostly occurs within the latter context. Essentially, the argument Ulrich drives with SRT is that the natural environment can improve individuals’ positive affect and attention following a stressful event. It can operate as a remedy or solution in stress management as the natural environment possesses certain qualities that provide the individual with an incentive to adapt due to the positive affective appraisals derived from them (Ratcliffe et al., 2013). These qualities can either be aesthetic or semantic. Aesthetic elements may feature as perceived complexity, patterns, texture, or environmental mystery, while semantic elements through such aspects as absent threats or resource availability. Whichever the case, human beings can make use of natural spaces to reduce stress because these inherent characteristics reduce blood pressure, lowers cortisol levels in the body, self-reported stress, and increases positive mood (Jiang et al., 2014; Ewert & Chang, 2018). The SRT and ART environmental psychology theories support the idea that nature facilitates restoration from mental fatigue, stress, and negative moods, thus improving individuals’ health and well-being. 

Literature Review

Several past authors have conducted tests and analyses to determine the relationship between nature and stress management, focusing on consequent impacts like performance, attention, health, and well-being. For example, Dravigne et al. (2008) sought to investigate whether having indoor plants in the office and having windows overlooking green landscapes could influence employees’ job satisfaction levels. The underlying motivation was that recreating a natural environment in the office or exposure to one could reduce employees’ stress levels by creating a calming and comfortable working environment to foster job satisfaction. The study results showed that employees perceive work environments exposed to nature as more comfortable, consequently influencing their job satisfaction and quality-of-life scores. A more recent study by Toyoda et al. (2019) corroborates the finding that plant or nature-oriented work environments enhance employee well-being by reducing office workers’ psychological and physiological stress. The author identified three levels of involvement that can help with promoting mental health in the workplace. These include passive observance, the prescribed activity of staring at the plant, and active involvement in selecting and caring for the office plant (Toyoda et al., 2019). These observations within a work setting context align with the SRT and ART functional mechanisms of stress management.

Nonetheless, the findings are not always consistent, as some authors find a very minimal association between nature exposure and improved performance and mental well-being. Bringslimark et al. (2007) carried out a study to explore the potential benefits of placing indoor plants in a work setting. The findings indicated a minimal association between nature exposure and proxies for employee well-being like self-reported stress, sick leaves, and productivity. These may infer that nature may not significantly impact mental health and well-being, as indicated in the SRT and ART theories. Authors like Korpela et al. (2017) and Lottrup et al. (2012) corroborate the outcomes by finding limited support for the link between employee well-being over time and nature exposure in a work setting. These investigations show that nature exposure studies can only explain a small portion of stress reduction variance within work settings. These studies may have differing opinions on the significance of nature/plant exposure in work settings to improve employee well-being and productivity. However, it is important to acknowledge that they do not return negative associations, meaning that nature exposure does have relevance in psychological and physiological balance. Furthermore, most people spend much time at work over their lifespans, inferring that these small associations could culminate in an overall significant impact in the long term. 

It would be plausible that the pattern is limited to the work and office setting context, so exploring other stress settings would be appropriate to elucidate the outcome in other stress-associated settings. However, partial positive findings are consistent with the meta-analytic review conducted by McMahan and Estes (2015). An excellent example is school and learning institution contexts. Here, class and learning settings, including high expectations for success, schoolwork, low performance, fear of failure, and conflict, impose pressure on students, possibly leading to stress (Deb et al., 2015; Hirvonen et al., 2019). In one study, Daly et al. (2010) investigated the impact that indoor plants would have on student reading, spelling, and analytical outcomes. The results reported a 10-14% improvement, which categorizes as significant progress by educationists. The results also exhibited a lack of change in one of the schools. However, it could be perhaps due to the active gardening program involving ornamental and vegetable species, meaning that students were already exposed to nature and had a continuing relationship with it compared to those introduced to nature during the investigation. 

Further studies have explored various other attributes related to the learning institution environment, focusing on performance, creativity, health, and well-being. The study by Studente et al. (2016) examined various attributes associated with nature, such as the use of live plants, nature views, and the color green and their impact on visual and verbal creativity. The results found that exposure to nature enhanced visual creativity among students and no impact on verbal creativity. There are three critical implications to these findings. The first is that it proves exposure to nature or green landscapes can improve creativity, which is a core tenet of performance as part of the critical thinking ability that enhances achievement (Gajda et al., 2017). The second inference is that creativity is domain-specific, meaning that practitioners must take caution in the approach used to mitigate stress. Some stress management methods may not have any impact if directed to the wrong domain (Studente et al., 2016). Nonetheless, the research does acknowledge that nature exposure has a positive impact on creativity but can also extrapolate to infer positive outcomes on well-being – the third implication. The assertion stems from Schutte et al.’s (2017) revelation that there is a significant relationship between visual stimulation or exposure to green landscapes and students’ positive affect and well-being. These observations 

Aside from the work and educational contexts, using nature in stress management has also received attention for its use in general contexts. Given the progression of contemporary living and conditions, there is a need to evaluate the consequence of nature exposure and interior plants’ use in practice.  The positive outcomes within learning institutions reflect those observed within the work context. Earlier studies like Lohr et al.’s (1996) observed a general impact of using interior plants on productivity. The research proved that plants and nature could resolve attention deficits and foster greater reaction times to tasks requiring some visual concentration. They can do so because the visual stimulation of plants possesses physiological and psychological relaxing effects, as observed in Ikei et al. (2014). The study recommended using foliage plants to help shift the sympathetic/parasympathetic balance to improve mood as a simple method strategy for reducing stress and improving mental health for high school students. 

Park & Mattson (2009) at a similar conclusion but within hospital settings, noting the therapeutic value possessed by plants in hospital environments. Plants provide a non-invasive, affordable, and effective complementary medicine for surgical patients. The authors recommended their use to medical practitioners to enhance the healing environment for their patients. Lee et al. (2015) explain how this therapeutic mechanism operates in their study The therapeutic mechanism through which this occurs. The authors found that using interior plants in places requiring significant mental effort can reduce mental strain. Plants suppress the sympathetic nervous system activity and diastolic blood pressure, thereby promoting comfortable, soothing, and natural feelings that enhance one’s self-control. In so doing, individuals can more realistically and practically engage tasks with optimal outcomes.

In conclusion, there appears to be a bulk of literature that supports the idea that exposure to nature, green landscapes, or the use of interior plants in different settings induce positive feelings and mood, reducing or preventing instances of stress among individuals. The available literature has not yet identified any observation suggesting a negative relationship as yet. However, more empirical research should help provide a more comprehensive and detailed understanding of the potential benefits natural environments provide when dealing with stress. Nonetheless, the current literature supports its use as a stress management approach, even with minimal improvements as there is no notable shortcoming or loss from its application.

References

Bratman, G. N., Anderson, C. B., Berman, M. G., Cochran, B., De Vries, S., Flanders, J., … & Daily, G. C. (2019). Nature and mental health: An ecosystem service perspective. Science advances5(7), eaax0903.

Bringslimark, T., Hartig, T., & Patil, G. G. (2007). Psychological benefits of indoor plants in workplaces: Putting experimental results into context. HortScience42(3), 581-587.

Cool, J., & Zappetti, D. (2019). The physiology of stress. In Medical Student Well-Being (pp. 1-15). Springer, Cham.

Daly, J., Burchett, M., & Torpy, F. (2010). Plants in the classroom can improve student performance. National interior plantscape association.

Deb, S., Strodl, E., & Sun, J. (2015). Academic stress, parental pressure, anxiety and mental health among Indian high school students. International Journal of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences5(1), 26-34.

Dravigne, A., Waliczek, T. M., Lineberger, R. D., & Zajicek, J. M. (2008). The effect of live plants and window views of green spaces on employee perceptions of job satisfaction. HortScience43(1), 183-187.

Everly, G. S., & Lating, J. M. (2019). The anatomy and physiology of the human stress response. In A clinical guide to the treatment of the human stress response (pp. 19-56). Springer, New York, NY.

Ewert, A., & Chang, Y. (2018). Levels of nature and stress response. Behavioral Sciences8(5), 49.

Gajda, A., Karwowski, M., & Beghetto, R. A. (2017). Creativity and academic achievement: A meta-analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology109(2), 269.

Hirvonen, R., Yli-Kivistö, L., Putwain, D. W., Ahonen, T., & Kiuru, N. (2019). School-related stress among sixth-grade students–Associations with academic buoyancy and temperament. Learning and Individual Differences70, 100-108.

Ikei, H., Song, C., Igarashi, M., Namekawa, T., & Miyazaki, Y. (2014). Physiological and psychological relaxing effects of visual stimulation with foliage plants in high school students. Advances in Horticultural Science, 111-116.

Jiang, B., Chang, C. Y., & Sullivan, W. C. (2014). A dose of nature: Tree cover, stress reduction, and gender differences. Landscape and Urban Planning132, 26-36.

Jiang, B., He, J., Chen, J., Larsen, L., & Wang, H. (2020). Perceived Green at Speed: A Simulated Driving Experiment Raises New Questions for Attention Restoration Theory and Stress Reduction Theory. Environment and Behavior, 0013916520947111.

Korpela, K., De Bloom, J., Sianoja, M., Pasanen, T., & Kinnunen, U. (2017). Nature at home and at work: Naturally good? Links between window views, indoor plants, outdoor activities and employee well-being over one year. Landscape and Urban planning160, 38-47.

Lee, M. S., Lee, J., Park, B. J., & Miyazaki, Y. (2015). Interaction with indoor plants may reduce psychological and physiological stress by suppressing autonomic nervous system activity in young adults: a randomized crossover study. Journal of Physiological anthropology34(1), 21.

Lohr, V. I., Pearson-Mims, C. H., & Goodwin, G. K. (1996). Interior plants may improve worker productivity and reduce stress in a windowless environment. Journal of environmental horticulture14(2), 97-100.

Lottrup, L., Stigsdotter, U. K., Meilby, H., & Corazon, S. S. (2012). Associations between use, activities and characteristics of the outdoor environment at workplaces. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening11(2), 159-168.

McMahan, E. A., & Estes, D. (2015). The effect of contact with natural environments on positive and negative affect: A meta-analysis. The Journal of Positive Psychology10(6), 507-519.

Ohly, H., White, M. P., Wheeler, B. W., Bethel, A., Ukoumunne, O. C., Nikolaou, V., & Garside, R. (2016). Attention Restoration Theory: A systematic review of the attention restoration potential of exposure to natural environments. Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part B19(7), 305-343.

Park, S. H., & Mattson, R. H. (2009). Ornamental indoor plants in hospital rooms enhanced health outcomes of patients recovering from surgery. The journal of alternative and complementary medicine15(9), 975-980.

Ratcliffe, E., Gatersleben, B., & Sowden, P. T. (2013). Bird sounds and their contributions to perceived attention restoration and stress recovery. Journal of Environmental Psychology36, 221-228.

Suri, D., & Vaidya, V. A. (2015). The adaptive and maladaptive continuum of stress responses–a hippocampal perspective. Reviews in the Neurosciences26(4), 415-442.

Toyoda, M., Yokota, Y., Barnes, M., & Kaneko, M. (2019). Potential of a Small Indoor Plant on the Desk for Reducing Office Workers’ Stress. HortTechnology1(aop), 1-9.

Tsigos, C., Kyrou, I., Kassi, E., & Chrousos, G. P. (2016). Stress, endocrine physiology and pathophysiology. In Endotext [Internet]. MDText. com, Inc..

Ulrich, R. S., Simons, R. F., Losito, B. D., Fiorito, E., Miles, M. A., & Zelson, M. (1991). Stress recovery during exposure to natural and urban environments. Journal of environmental psychology11(3), 201-230.

SAMPLE PAPER: Managing Human Capital at Google Inc.

  1. Critical Analysis of Google HR Policies

Every department must have a working policy detailing how to achieve objectives in the organization’s interest, including its workforce (Joshi, 2013). HR policies are an outcome of these working principles and rules of conduct governing the firm’s relationship with its employees. There are two perspectives from which do discuss Google’s HR policies. The first is the employee motivation perspective, which essentially focuses on how the company motivates employees and creates a comfortable working environment. According to Thomas & Karodia (2014), Google’s ability to attract a talented workforce stems from its attractive packages, which act as the pull factor. It offers employees competitive salaries, bonuses, and stock awards at regular time intervals. It also encourages and rewards outstanding performance achievement amongst the employees. The Google campus has a series of facilities, leisure and recreational activities, and benefits to promote a comfortable working environment, enhance employee wellbeing, creativity, and consequent performance (Samani et al., 2014; Aksoy, 2017). Google also offers its employees flexible work hours, work from home opportunities, telecommuting, and generous vacation policies to help maintain a proper work-life balance, reducing stress and increasing job satisfaction levels and performance (Adnan Bataineh, 2019). Finally, Google also offers employees career development opportunities by emphasizing 20% work, allowing them to dedicate 20% of their time to be creative and innovative. It an exciting feature for existing and prospecting employees, as it provides them with some level of autonomy, thus serving as an attractive tool to retain employees in the organization (Thomas & Karodia, 2014)

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