Risk-based Access Control Model for the Internet of Things

Risk- base approach shot code Control Model for the Internet of ThingsDeveloping an adaptive Risk- ground entree get over perplex for the Internet of ThingsHevery F. Atlam a, c Gary B. Wills a, Robert J. Walters a, Joshua Daniel ca electronic and Computer Science Dept., University of Southampton, UKb Security Futures Practice, BT Research Innovation, Ipswich, UKc Computer Science and Engineering Dept., Faculty of Electronic Engineering, Menoufia University, EgyptAbstract The Internet of Things (IoT) is creating a mutation in the second of connected devices. Cisco reported that there were 25 billion IoT devices in 2015 and modest estimation that this number will almost stunt woman by 2020. Society has become dependent on these billions of devices, devices that atomic number 18 connected and communicating with severally other all the conviction with culture constantly grapple amongst drug affairrs, services, and internet providers.The emergent IoT devices as a technolo gy are creating a huge certificate rift between drug users and usability, sacrificing usability for security created a number of major issues. First, IoT devices are classified under Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) that blows each organization security boundary and grow them a target for espionage or tracking. Second, the size of the data generated from IoT makes big data problems pale in comparison non to mention IoT devices need a real-time response. Third, is incorporating secure portal and delay for IoT devices ranging from edge nodes devices to application take (business intelligence reporting tools) is a challenge because it has to account for several hardware and application trains. Establishing a secure annoy keep back lay between different IoT devices and services is a major milestone for the IoT. This is important because data leakage and unauthorized advance to data receive a high impact on our IoT devices. However, traditional bother suss out sets with th e static and nonindulgent infrastructure fundament non provide the required security for the IoT infrastructure. on that pointfore, this report card proposes a run a take a chance- base entrance hold pretense for IoT technology that takes into account real-time data information request for IoT devices and gives dynamic feedback. The proposed ride uses IoT environment features to gauge the security essay associated with each doorway request using user context, resource sensitivity, action causticity and seek history as inputs for security jeopardy estimation algorithm that is responsible for entre decision. Then the proposed model uses refreshful contracts to provide adaptive features in which the user manner is monitored to detect any abnormal actions from authorized users.Keywords Security, Internet of Things, Risk, access hold up, Adaptive, Context.The Internet of Things (IoT) is growing in different ways. The adoption rate of the IoT is at least five times fa ster than the adoption of electricity and telephony 1. Moreover, it is neat the backbone of the future of the Internet that encompasses various applications and devices. The IoT devices are interconnected using different communication technologies such as wireless, wired and mobile ne iirks 2.The concept of the IoT was stolon mentioned by Kevin Ashton in 1999 3. He has said, The Internet of Things has the potential to change the world, just as the Internet did. Maybe even much so. Later, the IoT was formally presented by the internationalist Telecommunication Union (ITU) in 2005 4. The ITU defines the IoT as a global infrastructure for the Information Society, enabling advanced services by interconnecting (physical and virtual) things establish on, existing and evolving, practical information and communication technologies5.The IoT faces some(prenominal) challenges that stand as a barrier to the successful implementation of IoT applications. The security is considered the most difficult challenge that needs to be addressed. This challenge is more complicated due to the dynamic and heterogeneous nature of the IoT ashes 6, 7. Authentication and access nurse models are the essential elements to address the security issue in the IoT. They can prevent unauthorized users from gaining access to system resources, prevent authorized users from accessing resources in an unauthorized manner and allow authorized users to access resources in an authorized manner 8, 9.The main purpose of the access give is to reject unauthorized users and limit operations of authorized users using a trusted device. In addition, it tries to prevent the activity that could cause a security breach 7. A powerful access project model should satisfy security requirements of confidentiality, integrity, and availableness 10. Traditional access control approaches are static in nature as they depend on pre define policies that always give the same outcome heedless of the situation. They a re context insensitive. Furthermore, they require a rigid authentication infrastructure 11, 12. So they can non provide for distributed and dynamic environment as the IoT systems 13. Dynamic access control approaches are more appropriate to the IoT. This is because they are characterized by using not only the policies but alike environment features that are estimated in real-time to go steady access decisions. The dynamic features can overwhelm trust, stake of infection, context, history and in operation(p) need 14, 15.This paper presents an adaptive risk-based access control model for the IoT. This model can dynamically estimate the security risk associated with each access request to make the access decision. It uses real-time user context attributes, resource sensitivity, action severity and risk history as inputs to estimate the security risk shelter of each access request. In addition, the user behavior is monitored to detect any abnormal misuse.This paper will start by discussing concepts of access control in the IoT in section II constituent III presents access control challenges in the IoT Section IV introduces different access control models Section V discusses the concept of risk-based access control model Section VI presents the proposed model Section 7 illustrates the do flow of the proposed model Section VIII presents the think conk outs, and Section IX is the conclusionThe IoT devices send and receive a variety of information to the highest degree owners behavior. Therefore, it is important to protect not only the communication do work between IoT devices but also authentication and access control of IoT devices 16. The access control process works with many layers of the IoT reference model that is shown in figure 1. The control process flows from top to down. Therefore, the access control works with different data whether at storage, at motion, or at IoT device itself. Therefore, the access control is a big issue in the IoT that n eed addressing.Fig. 1. The IoT reference model 16The main theatrical role of access control is to dispense access rights only to authorized users. Also, it prevents authorized users from accessing system resources in an unauthorized manner 7. A powerful access control model should fulfill security demands of confidentiality, integrity, and availability 10. In the IoT, the access control is required to ensure that only authorized users can update device software, access sensor data or command the actuators to perform an operation 17. There are three ways to implement access control in the IoT systems centralize, centralized and contextual, and distributed 18.In the centralized approach, the access control logic is implemented at a central entity. This entity could be a server with direct communication to IoT devices that it manages or another entity in a different location. Therefore, IoT devices send their data to the central entity that is responsible for making access control d ecisions 18.In the centralized and contextual approach, IoT devices are not completely passive entities this is because they participate in the access control decisions. The access control logic is implemented at a central entity as in centralized approach, but the contextual features from IoT devices are sent to the central entity. These features are use to make access decisions 18.In the distributed approach, all the access control logic is insert into IoT devices. These devices are being provided with necessary resources to process and send information to other services and devices. Therefore, IoT devices have to have the ability to perform the confidence process without the need for a central entity 18.Due to the distributed and dynamic nature of the IoT, there are many challenges that should be addressed when implementing an access control model. These requirements includeInteroperability with multiple users Access control policies should be designed to back multiple organiz ations. For instance, each organization creates its own policies and respect other collaborating organizations policies 24.Dynamic interaction Access control policies should be cryable and specified in a dynamic and continuous way by considering context changing during the access control process 25.Context awareness The context is considered one of the core features since it enables intelligent interactions between users and IoT devices. Using the context will make access decisions dynamically determined based on surrounding environment features 17.Usability The access control model should be easily administrated, expressed and modified. It also should provide suitable easy to use interfaces for twain consumers and devices needs 26. curb resources The resources associated with IoT devices such as energy, memory, and processing power are limited due to devices lightweight. Therefore, the access control model designed for the loT should support efficient solutions 17.Scalability The IoT connects billions of devices. The access control model should be extensible in size, structure, and number of devices 17.Delegation of authority In many IoT scenarios, there are many devices that are operating on behalf of a user and other scenarios where a device may operate on a third partys behalf for a detail period of time. The access control model should implement delegation of authority to provide more usability and flexibility to the IoT system 24.Auditability Any and every access control needs to be auditable. Hence, collection and storage of evidence necessary for context awareness. This becomes a challenge when utilizing a distributed approach 17.To ensure confidentiality and integrity of system resources, the access control is utilise to guarantee that only authorized users granted the appropriate access per bearings. There are several access control models which can be divided into two classes traditional and dynamic access control models 19.Traditional access co ntrol approaches are based on policies that are static and rigid in nature. These policies are predefined and always give the same outcome regardless of the situation. Therefore, this static approach fails to adapt to varied and changing conditions during making access decisions 20. There are three main traditional access control models Discretionary Access Control (DAC), Mandatory Access Control (MAC) and Role-based Access Control (RBAC).DAC model was designed for multi-user databases and systems with a few previously known users. All the system resources are under full control from the user. DAC grants access depending on the user identity operator and authorization, which is defined for open policies. The owner of the resource can grant the access to any user 19. While MAC model is concerned with confidentiality and integrity of information, so it mainly utilize in military and government applications. In MAC, the security policy is controlled by a security policy administrator and the user does not have the expertness to override it 19. RBAC model is consists of three elements users (subjects requesting access), roles (collection of permission) and operations (actions on target resource). Access permissions are related to roles and the appropriate role is granted to the user. A single user can be associated with one or more roles, and a single role can include one or more user. RBAC provides a classification of users based on their roles 21.Dynamic access control models are characterized by using not only the access policies but also dynamic contextual features which are estimated in real-time at the time of the request 22. These real-time features can include trust, risk, context, history and operational need 23, 14. In this paper, we propose a risk-based access control model that uses the security risk as the main criterion for making the access permissions.The risk can be defined as the possibility of loss or injury. Generally, the risk is about some event that may occur in the future and cause losses. unity such risk is the leakage of sensitive information by users. The access control is one of the approaches used to mitigate against the security risk 27. Risk-based access control model permits or denies access requests dynamically based on the estimated risk of each access request 20. This model performs a risk analysis on each user access request to make the access decision 7. Mathematically, the most common formula to represent the risk in quantitative wrong is (1)Where likelihood represents the probability of an incident to happen while impact represents the estimation of the esteem of the damage regarding that incident 20.Quantified risk-based access control models are divided into two types non-adaptive and adaptive. The fundamental distinction between adaptive and non-adaptive approaches is that the adaptive model requires a system monitoring process and the risk estimation module adaptively adjusts user permissions based on the users activities during access sessions. While non-adaptive approach only calculates the risk during each session creation and does not have run-time monitoring and abnormality detection capability 11.Dynamic access control approaches use real-time environment features to make the access decision. One of these features is the security risk associated with the access request, which will be used in our proposed model to make the access decision. The proposed model is shown in figure 2.The proposed model has four inputs user/agent context, resource sensitivity, action severity and risk history. These inputs/risk factors are used to estimate the security risk value associated with each access request. The final risk value is then compared with risk policies to make the access decision. To make the model adaptive, the user behavior is monitored to detect any abnormal actions from authorized users. This model can provide an appropriate security level while ensuring flexibilit y and scalability to the IoT system.Fig. 2. The proposed adaptive risk-based access control modelAs shown in figure 2, the user/agent context represents the environmental features that are embedded with the user/agent at the time of making the access request. These contexts are used to determine the security risk value associated with the user requesting the access to the system. place and time are the most common user contexts 28. Resource sensitivity represents how valuable the resource/data is to the owner or to the service provider. Data is delegate a level of sensitivity based on who should have access to it and how much damage would be done if it were disclosed. A risk metric is assign to each resource in the IoT system depending on how valuable the resource data is to the owner. For instance, the higher the data sensitivity, the higher the risk metric associated with the resource. Action severity represents the consequences of a certain action on a particular resource in h urt of security requirements of confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Different operations have different impacts and so have different risk values. For instance, the risk of a view operation is lower than the risk of a delete operation. The user risk history is used to estimate the risk value of each access request. This is because the risk history reflects previous users behavior patterns. Moreover, it is used to identify substantially and bad authorized users and predict the user future behavior. Risk estimation module is responsible for taking the input features to quantify the risk value that is associated with the access request. The ultimate goal is to expand an efficient risk estimation process. The access decision determines whether access is granted or denied according to the risk policies. Risk policies or access control policies are mainly used by the risk estimation module to make the access decisions. These policies are created by the resource owner to identi fy terms and conditions of granting or denying the access. The boilersuit risk value is examined with the risk policies to determine the access decision.The proposed model is trying to improve the flexibility of access control by monitoring the user behavior during the access session. In current access control models, if the decision is to grant access to the user, then there is no way to prevent any abnormal and unusual data access from the authorized user. So a monitoring module is needed to adaptively adjust the risk value based on the user behavior during the access session. Applying smart contracts to accomplish this process is a big challenge especially it will be the first time to use the smart contracts in this context. Smart contracts are treated as a software code that runs on a blockchain 29. It can force a structural implementation of particular demands and can confirm that certain conditions or terms were met or not 30. Hence, the monitored user behavior information wi ll be compared with the smart contract to ensure that the user acts according to the terms of the smart contract so as to prevent any potential security breach during the access sessions.The process flow of the proposed model is shown in figure 3. The flow starts when the access control manager receives an access request from a user. After that, the access control manager asks for the system contexts (user/agent, resource, and action) of the requested user in addition to the user risk history. The risk estimation module uses these contexts with the risk history to estimate the overall access risk value related to the requested user, then the estimated risk value is compared with risk policies to determine the access decision. At this point, we have two decisionsa) If the access is granted, then the monitoring module will track the user behavior. The smart contract will use the monitored data to determine if the user follows the contract terms or not. If yes, then it will keep monito ring the user behavior, while if not, then it will return to the risk estimation module to reduce user permissions or terminate the access session to stop any security breach.b) If the access is denied, then the system asks the user to provide additional proof of appointment so as not to block an authorized user and reduce the false-positive rate. If the user provides the required identification, then the access is granted and the flow continues as in the first decision, while if not, the system denies the access.Fig. 3. The process flow of the adaptive risk-based access control modelThis section provides a brief summary of the models that are related to the proposed model. A number of studies have been conducted the security risk for dynamic access control models. The JASON report 31 proposed three main elements for a risk-based access control model estimating the risk value associated with each access request, identifying acceptance levels of risk in a certain domain, and control ling information sharing based on the estimated risk and access control policies.Risk Adaptable Access Control (RAdAC) model has been proposed by McGraw 32. It is based on estimating the security risk and operational needs to grant or deny the access. This model estimates the risk associated with each access request then compares it with the access control policy. After that, the system verifies the operational needs if the associated operational needs and the policy are met then access is granted. However, the author did not provide details about how to quantitatively estimate risk and operational needs. Also, Kandala et al. 33 have provided an approach that identifies different risk components of the RAdAC model using attribute-based access control approach.A dynamic and flexible risk-based access control model has been proposed by Diep et al. 12. This model uses the risk assessment to estimate the risk value depending on outcomes of actions in term of availability, confidentialit y, and integrity. However, this model did not provide a standard about how to appraise the risk value for each state of the environment and for each outcome of action, did not use user context, and lacked risk adaptive features.A framework proposed by Khambhammettu et al. 34 that based on estimating object sensitivity, subject trustworthiness, and the difference between object sensitivity and subject trustworthiness using a risk assessment. However, the model did not provide how to estimate the risk value for each situation of the environment. Besides, the model requires a system administrator to give a reasonable value for each input feature in the early state of the risk assessment process and lacked risk adaptive features.A fuzzy Multi-Level Security (MLS) access control model has been proposed to manage risk information flows based on estimating its operational needs, risk possibility and environment features 20. It estimates the risk based on the difference between subject sec urity level and object security level. Similarly, Ni, Bertino, Lobo 35 have proposed a risk-based access control model that based on fuzzy certaintys. It showed that fuzzy inference is a good approach for estimating access security risks. However, both models ignored the past behavior of users in the risk estimation process, lacked risk adaptive features and time overhead of fuzzy inference system is high.A fuzzy-based risk access control model has been proposed by J. Li, Bai, Zaman 27 to estimate the risk of health care information access. A risk metric is associated with data sensitivity, action severity, and risk history as a fuzzy value to determine the appropriate control of healthcare information access in a cloud computing. However, this model did not provide how to quantitatively estimate the risk. Also, no clear risk boundaries are defined and lacked risk adaptive features.A dynamic risk-based decision method has been proposed by Shaikh et al. 14. This method is based on using the past behavior to identify good and bad authorized users. It depends on granting reward and penalty points to users after the completion of transactions. However, the past user behavior (reward/penalty) values are not enough to limit the access decision. Besides, no risk prediction technique is used and lacked risk adaptive features.A risk analysis approach has been proposed by Rajbhandari Snekkenes 36 to provide access decisions dynamically. This approach is based on preferences or values of benefit which subjects can provide rather than subjective probability using the game theory. A undecomposable privacy scenario between a user and an online bookstore is introduced to provide an initial perception of the concept. However, using only benefits of the subject to determine the access decision is not enough to develop a flexible and scalable access control model. Also, it lacked risk adaptive features.A task-based access control model has been proposed by Sharma et al. 37 to estimate the risk value using functions that based on the action a user wants to perform. The risk value is computed in terms of different actions and corresponding outcomes. The outcomes and the risk probability are determined along with the level of data sensitivity. The previous users behavior patterns are then used to estimate the overall risk value. The estimated risk value is compared with the risk threshold to determine the access decision. However, it lacked risk adaptive features.A contextual risk-based access control model has been proposed by Lee et al. 13. The model gathers all useful information from the environment and evaluates them from the security perspective. Risk assessment with multifactor evaluation process (MFEP) technique is applied to estimate the associated risk value. The risk value is based on outcomes of actions in term of availability, confidentiality, and integrity. This model is evaluated to manage the access control in a hospital. However, this model ignored the past user behavior and risk adaptive features as well.A risk-based access control model has been proposed by Dos Santos et al. 7. This model employed the notion of quantifying risk metrics and aggregating them. It is based on the idea of risk policies, which allow service providers and resource owners to define their own metrics, allowing greater flexibility to the access control system. However, this model requires a system administrator to ensure the minimum security is achieved.Table 1 provides a summary of the related risk-based access control models. It contains the risk estimation technique used to estimate the risk value in each model, risk factors used to estimate the risk value and the limitations of each model regarding our proposed model.In summary, one can say that the problem of the access control, especially in the IoT, needs more investigation. Current access control models concentrate only on providing access decisions without providing any way to prevent any abnormal and unusual data access from authorized users, whereas our approach is based on providing the access decision and monitoring the user behavior to detect any abnormal actions. The novelty of our approach is based on providing the adaptive features and requesting user context attributes to the risk-based access control in the IoT system. To the best of my knowledge, using smart contracts to monitor the user access behavior will be the first try.Table 1. Some of the risk-based access control modelsPrevious workRisk Estimation methodRisk factorsLimitations20Fuzzy MLS ModelDifference between subject security level and object security levelThe user past behavior has not been used to detect user future behavior and lacked adaptive features.27Fuzzy ModelData sensitivity, action severity, and user risk historyNo clear risk boundaries are defined and lacked adaptive features.35Fuzzy InferenceObject security level and subject security levelTime overhead of fuzzy inference is high and lacked adaptive features.34Risk AssessmentObject sensitivity, subject trust and difference between themUser risk history has not been used and lacked adaptive features.14Risk AssessmentHistory of reward and penalty pointsLimited risk factors, no risk prediction technique is used and lacked adaptive features.36Game TheoryAccess benefits of the subjectLimited risk factors and lacked adaptive features.37Mathematics FunctionsData Sensitivity, action severity, and risk historyNo risk prediction technique has not been used, lacked adaptive features and user context.13Risk AssessmentOutcomes of actionsLimited risk factors, lacked adaptive features and user context.12Risk AssessmentOutcomes of actionsLimited risk factors, no risk prediction technique has been used, lacked adaptive features and user context.7Mathematics FunctionsRisk policiesLimited risk factors and lacked adaptive features.The IoT has become a wide examined subject that takes the attention of many researchers, specialists, and experts. Due to the dynamic nature of the IoT, traditional access control approaches cannot provide required security levels as they are based on a static and complex authentication infrastructure. Therefore, the scope of this paper is to develop a dynamic and adaptive risk-based access control model for the IoT. This model can adapt to IoT changing conditions. The proposed model can be realized by estimating the security risk using IoT real-time features at the time of the access request to make the access decision. The model uses user context, resource sensitivity, action severity and risk history as inputs to estimate the overall risk value associated with each access request. The model provides adaptive features to monitor user behavior and prevents any misuses from authorized users using smart contracts.The above work is still in the first stage. In future work, choosing the most appropriate risk estimation technique for a specific IoT context is our highest pr iority to proceed to implement the model as well as creating different IoT access control case studies with data to evaluate the model.AcknowledgmentWe acknowledge Egyptian cultural affairs and mission sector and Menoufia University for their scholarship to Hany Atlam that allows the research to be undertaken.References1S. Li, L. Da Xu, and S. Zhao, The internet of things a survey, Inf. Syst. Front., vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 243-259, 2015.2M. Elkhodr, S. Shahrestani, and H. Cheung, The Internet of Things Vision challenges, IEEE 2013 Tencon Spring, TENCONSpring 2013 Conf. Proc., pp. 218-222, 2013.3K. Ashton, That Internet of Things Thing, RFID J., p. 4986, 2

Frequency Swept Source using Xilinx DDS Compiler

Frequency Swept Source using Xilinx DDS compiling programAbstract This paper presents a module which basically is a relative frequency brush source (chirp signal), which sweeps from 1MHz to 10 MHz in 10 microseconds. The module was designed by using the DDS IP core in Xilinx. It is designed to be run on the ZedBoard Zynq Evaluation and Development Kit (xc7z020clg484-1).Keywords-frequency swept source chirp signal DDS CompilerThis module was designed as a crack up of the coursework assignment of ECE 580B4 FPGA Signal Proc/Software Defined Radio. The purpose of this assignment was to design a frequency swept source which will be extensively employ in testing the Digital FIR filters that are to be designed and implemented as a part of the future coursework.A. DDS IP Core CompilerThe Xilinx DDS core compiler implements high performance microscope stage generation and phase to sinusoid circuits with AXI-4 stream compliant features. The core sources sinusoidal waveforms for use in man y applications. This module comes with an inbuilt sine and cosine Look up table and a phase generator. For the purposes of this assignment, the DDS compiler was configured to receive a streaming phase input and the phase width resolution is set to 8 bits to make the design more space efficient and to make the simulations run faster.B. Frequency swept Source DesignThe Frequency Swept source is coded as a synthesizable Verilog module. In this Verilog Module, The DDS Compiler was instantiated and appropriate phase info is streamed by feeding the data into the s_axis_phase_tdata. s_axis_phase_tvalid is always set to 1 for the purposes of this assignment.The frequency swept source is expected to sweep from 1 megacycle per second to 10 Mhz in 10 micro-seconds. This basically translates to an emergence of 1Mhz in every microsecond. So, initially the addition has been calculated to generate a 1Mhz signal and then the growth is ramped up linearly to generate the coveted chirp signal. Th e next expression has been used to derive the phase increment value.Fout = fclk* (dt)/ (2(B))Here, fout is the output frequency, fclk is the clock frequency, dt is the phase increment and B refers to the phase width. The above equation, for an 8bit phase width, 100 Mhz source to generate a 1Mhz output signal basically expects a phase increment of 2.56. But in this design this has been rounded off to 3. So, a phase increment of 3 refers to an output of 1Mz signal and a phase increment of 6 refers to an output of 2Mhz signal etc. The value of phase increment should realistically increment upto 25.6, so this number will be rounded off to 25. Now, is basically comes down to generating 22 different values for phase increment in a matter of 10 microseconds. In out design, the timescale has been set to 1ns. Now to figure out the delay to increase the value of phase increment in steps of 1, we need to impart a suitable amount of delay. This delay is calculated as shown belowDelay = 10u/(22 ) * 103 nano seconds. Assuming a delay of one unit refers to one nano second.The value of delay comes out to be 454.54 cycles. So, basically, we increase the value of phase-increment in steps of 1 from a startle value of 3 after every 455 clock cycles. This makes sure we are getting appropriate ramping up of the phase increment value to generate the desired sweep. module freq_sweep( input clk, output reg 70 sin, output reg 70 cos ) reg70 phase_data wire phase_valid wire 150 nco_data wire nco_valid integer i assign phase_valid =1 initial begin phase_data = 3 end dds_compiler_0 DUT( .aclk(clk), .m_axis_data_tdata(nco_data), .m_axis_phase_tvalid(nco_valid), .s_axis_phase_tvalid (phase_valid), .s_axis_phase_tdata (phase_data) ) always (posedge clk) begin if (phase_valid == 1) begin sin = nco_data 158 cos = nco_data 70 end end always begin for (i=3 i

Impact of Corporate Culture on IT Company Growth and Profits

partake of Corporate civilization on IT telephoner Growth and ProfitsThe Impact of Corporate socialization on the Growth and lucrativeness of IT Companies The Case of GoogleAbstractIn todays global economy, companies from dis ex transformable industries ar trying to take a curious competitive advantage to stay in tune and maximize their sh arholders equity. In doing so, companies should analyze their giganticst expenses and try to minimize these apostrophizes while utilizing their resources in order to constrain the well-nigh from these expenditures.The largest direct expense in U.S. companies is salary. To maximize this expenditure, businesses should devise ways in which to motivate their employees to be to a greater extent productive. compriseling employees to come to deform is lento, entirely how move companies motivate their employees to create to their entire subject matter? One way in which this derriere be accomplished is by creating a suitable, attract ive, and tension-free put to works surround for employees. In doing so, companies can create a plastered collective gloss which could offer a competitive advantage. As an example, Google has turn everywhere one of the largest IT companies in the sphere in fewer than 2 decades from its establishment. Not tho has Google drawn to be one of the largest IT gild in the world, it has besides developed unique and innovative products, a lofty suppose suppuration, and a secure condition as one of the top quintuplet companies for which to work. Google has managed to achieve this not only by create prehend business strategy, exactly also creating a hale integrated agri finis that concentrates mainly on employees and customers. In this re look, I go away try to analyze Googles achievements. I volition conduct a small accompany to examine the adaptability of Googles compromising incarnate stopping point in IT companies located in Utah.Introduction Statement of the tro ubleThe old saying, You can lead a clam to water, but you cant make him drink may hold true for employees as well you can make employees come to work, but it is not easy to make them work to their full capacity. Companies may use diametric methods to obligate their employees to make them work to their fullest on the wrinkle(p) capacity, but this does not always succeed.To understand employees work satisfaction and engagement in their work, it is useful to analyze a survey conducted by the Gallup Management daybook (GMJ) (Ho exploiter, 2009). The GMJ surveyed U.S. employees to understand how engaged they argon in their work and their attitudes toward their managers. harmonise to the cartoon, there argon three slips of employees1. Engaged employees Those who work with passion, motivation, and see deep feelings toward their company. These people be the ones who move the make-up.2. Not-engaged employees Those who ar physically present in the company but mentally absent. The se employees are not motivated, and they dont care about their company. They come to work scarce to put in hours. The survey refers to them as walk of life through and through their workday.3. Actively disengaged employees Those who are not only unhappy, but they express their unhappiness in diametrical ways. They may undermine what their engaged coworkers accomplish.The turn over results showed that 26% of respondents are engaged in their work, 56% of the respondents are not engaged in their work, and 18% of the respondents are actively disengaged in their work. The spare- cartridge clip activity chart illustrates the purpose of this ruminate.The respondents of the survey were asked if they would fire their manager, given the opportunity. Respondents indicated that 24% would fire their manager if they were given the chance. Of this number, 6% of those respondents were engaged in their work, 23% of the number were not engaged in their work, and 51% of the respondents were ac tively disengaged in their work. Therefore, less engaged employees tend to dislike their managers, and would fire them, given the opportunity. concord to the study, this lack of productivity costs companies trillions of dollars. Approximately 24.7 one thousand thousand employees age 18 and over are actively disengaged this represents 18% of the totality hands. From 2000 to 2007, actively disengaged employees in the U.S. cost the countrys economy from $334 to $431 one thousand million every year in low productivity.The Cost Of DisengagementIn this study, I will analyze the contrasting reasons why employees are disengaged from their work, and I will suggest recommendations to solve this fuss by taking as an example a successful company in the U.S.Purpose of the studyToday, contrary companies are trying to mention a unique competitive advantage. One competitive advantage that was overlooked for many years is an attractive judicatureal coating. Not only will a grea sieve arr angemental last help in attracting and retaining the top hat employees, it can also be used to create a loyal customer base.In this paper, I will investigate the organisational culture of Google, Inc. in the selective information technology (IT) industrial area. I will analyze how Google has capitalized on its brass instrumental culture to become one of the largest reckon engines and IT companies in the world. I will conduct a small survey on organisational culture on IT companies located in Salt Lake City, Utah to de edgeine useful recommendations by analyzing the results of the survey and comparing these to Googles organizational culture.Before analyzing organizational cultures, it would be beneficial to answer some questions as to why this topic was selected as well as other related issues. wherefore I concentrate on Organizational CultureMany companies cook tried to come up with a competitive advantage to maximize the shareholders profits. For years, an attractive inc orporate culture was not considered as vital to the success of an organization. contradictory orthogonal factors of business, which are not right off controlled by organizations, corporate culture is an internal surroundingsal overstretch which can be manipulated by organizations in their favor.Why I Emphasized the EmployeesEmployees are the executers of the plans and strategies of the organization. Most companies consider employees as their as caboodle, but, in my opinion, employees are much to a greater extent(prenominal) than this. According to a study conducted by the fall in States Census Bureau, companies largest operational expense is salary. (U.S.CensusBureau, 2000) (See charts below). By taking care of their employees, organizations can get the outstrip results from them. The following charts show the breakdown of operating expense for different industries in 1997 as it was studied by the U.S. Census Bureau under the Economic and Statistics Administration in the U .S. Department of Commerce. Even though, this study was conducted more than a decade ago, I absorb entangled it, because I believe it shows the general trend of the breakdown of operating expenses indoors U.S. industries.Merchant wholesale companies fuck off five major operating costs. Of these, payroll was by far the largest operating expense. If payroll expense and belt improvements, which are operating expenses toward employees, are combined, more than half of the total operating expenses go toward employee salaries.The breakdown of operating expenses of retail trade has the same tendency as that of the merchant wholesaler. In fact, the only difference is that the expenses for rent by retail trade businesses are a niggling bit higher than that of the merchant wholesaler.The breakdown of operating expense for business service, which include IT industries, shows a large expense toward employees. Payroll, consisting of 51% of total operating expense, contract labor, consist ing of 5% of total operating expense and fringe benefits, consisting of 8% of total operating expense makes up a total of 64% of the total operating expense.The breakdown of the operating expenses for legal services follows the same trend as for business services.The following chart compares payroll expenses of different sectors of businessAccording to the above chart, business services, health services and legal services pay the highest portion of operating expenses to payroll. Clearly, if companies are remunerative the absolute majority of their operating expense toward the salaries of their employees, they should try to get the most from their workforce.Another study conducted in 2007 by the AmericanTimeUseSurvey through the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (AmericanTimeUseSurvey, 2007) showed that of the total work people in U.S., those who were betwixt the ages of 25 to 54 living in households with children under the age of 18 worn out(p) most of their time either working or in work-related activities. The survey was provided from data get throughn on non-holiday weekdays. Out of the total 24 hours, those between the age of 25 to 54 living in households with children under the age of 18 spent 8.7 hours working or on work-related activities, 7.6 hours sleeping, 2.6 hours on leisure and sports, 1.2 hours fondness for others, 1.1 hours on household activities, 1.1 hours in eating and boozing and the stay 1.7 hours on other activities. The following chart illustrates these hours in percentiles.Based on this survey, people with children between the ages of 25 to 54, who were part of the labor force, spent the majority of their time at the workplace or doing work-related activities. If companies created a suitable and abiding environment, this labor force would be motivated to work harder to help companies maximize their profits.This study will question and analyze how companies could create a competitive advantage by attracting and retaining the best e mployees through a superior corporate culture.Why I localizeed on ITIT, by any comparison, is the fastest growing industry in the world. Companies are spending billions of dollars every year, which has made the IT industry one of the most profitable industries in the world. According to a study conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2005 and published in 2007 (U.S.CensusBureau, Information and Communication Technology 2005, April 2007), the information industry by itself contributes 52.4 billion dollars to the IT industry through purchases of hardware and packet system package annually. The finance and insurance sectors spent $44.2 billion the manufacturing, professional, scientific, and technical services sectors spent $32.5 billion the health care sector spent $27 billion and the social dish upance business sector spent $19.9 billion on IT hardware and software components in 2005 alone. Based on this study, more than $200 billion was spent on IT hardware and software by dif ferent business sectors in 2005.According to this study, the noncapital and capital expenditures for computer software were higher compared to IT hardware. It is a general assumption that if companies are investing more on computer software, the software industry is generating a lot of money. In 2005 alone, the noncapital expenditure for computer software was $54.2 billion, whereas the capital expenditure for the same sector was $49.8 billion. Therefore, this re face will focus on computer software companies.Why Focus on Google?Google is one of the fastest growing companies in the world. It has grown sevenfold over the last decade. According to Fortune, Google was listed as the 4th best company to work for in 2009 (100 Best Companies to build for 2009 Google GOOG from Fortune, 2009).Even though Google was listed as the quartetth best company to work for in 2009 by Fortune, it has the highest job growth rate when compared to the other companies listed in the top ten. While Googl e has a 40% job growth rate, NetApp, which was listed in first place, only has a 12% job growth rate. Edward Jones and Boston Consulting Group, listed second and third, have only a 9% and 10% job growth rate respectively (100 Best Companies to devise for 2009 Google GOOG from Fortune, 2009).Google has shown tremendous growth over the past few years. As the following chart indicates, from 2004 to 2008, the net income of the company increased tenfold. Even when the world economy was in a recession at the end of 2007 and 2008, Google managed to secure a high net income (GoogleInc, 2008).Google has an interesting workforce distribution. As of December 31, 2008, 40% of Googles total workforce was in sales and marketing, 36% in re appear and development, 15% in general and administrative positions, and the remaining 9% in operations (Google Inc., 2008). According to this data, Google places close to as large an emphasis on research and development as it does for sales and marketing. H aving a large staff in research and development will ensure a wholesome future market when it is supported with an appropriate corporate strategy.Even if it is vexed to conclude that Google will have a fulgent future based on the distribution of its workforce, it is certain that this strong contingency of Googles research and development police squad has proven to be valuable by developing new and exciting technologies, making it difficult for competitors to catch up.Literature ReviewIn todays globalized and integrated world, change within industries and organizations occurs speedily. Understanding the impact of an organizations environment could assist organizations in coping with this change. The organizational environment includes all elements existing outside the boundary of the organization that have the say-so to affect the organization (Daft, Organization possibleness and Design, 8th ed., 2004).The organizational environment consists of the outside environment and the internal environment. The external environment is made up of those forces that exist outside of the organizations boundaries and have an effect on the organization. The external environment is further divided into the general environment and the task environment. The general environment is the outermost layer that is widely dispersed and affects organizations indirectly (Daft, Management, seventh ed., 2005). The general environment includes technological, socio-cultural, economic, legal/political, and international factors. On the other hand, the task environment is closer to the organization and includes the sectors that conduct day-to-day transactions with the organization and directly influence its basic operations and performance (Daft, Management, seventh ed., 2005). The task environment includes customers, labor market, suppliers and competitors.The internal environment includes the elements within the organizations boundaries (Daft, Management, seventh ed., 2005). It includ es employees, charge and culture of the organization. In this paper the focus is on the culture of the organization and its affect on the performance of the organization.A corporate culture is defined as the set of call look on, beliefs, understandings, and norms shared by members of an organization (Martin, 2002) (Kilmann, Ralph H. Saxton, Mary J. Serpa, Roy, 1986) (Smircich, 1983). It could also be defined as an interdependent set of beliefs, value, ways of behaving, and tools for living that are so park in a community that they tend to perpetuate themselves, sometimes over unyielding periods of time. This continuity is the product of a variety of social forces that are ofttimes subtle, bordering on invisible, through which people learn a groups norms and set, are rewarded when they accept them, and are ostracized when they do not (Bemowski, 1995) (Wilhelm, 1992).Corporate culture is derived from twain the counselling and the organization itself. The management, through its philosophy, values, actions and the organization through its roles, structure, systems and technology comprise the corporate culture. Feedback is received from the corporate culture to the management and organization. The following illustrates this process.Classification SchemesThere are different classifications of corporate culture defined by different authors. The different views of four authors will be considered in the following1. hydrogen MiglioreAfter studying 24 organizations, Henry Migliore included 20 cultural factors, which he referred to as the Corporate Culture Index (Migliore, Henry R.T. Martin Tim Baer and Jeffrey L. Horvath, 1989). These factors include the following characteristics.* Member Identity the layer to which employees identify with the organization as a whole in their type of job or airfield of professional expertise* Team Emphasis the course to which work activities are organized around teams rather than individuals* People Focus the degree to which management em offices the employees within the organization* Autonomy the degree to which departments within the organization are encouraged to operate in a coordinated or interdependent manner* Control the degree to which rules, regulations, and direct supervision and used to control employee behavior* Risk Tolerance the degree to which employees are encouraged to be aggressive, innovative, and risk-seeking2. Geert HofstedeGeert Hofstede believes the behavior of organizations is affected by a national and regional cultural grouping. To study this point, he looked for a national difference among over 100,000 of IBMs employees in different parts of the world. He came up with five dimensions of culture that influence national regional groupings (Hofstede, 1980). These are* Power aloofness the expectation of society on the directs of power an individual possess in the society. A high score of power distance reflects the expectation of the society that some individuals possess more p ower than others. A low score of power distance reflects the expectations of the society that all people have equal rights* Uncertainty avoidance the degree to which a society accepts uncertainty and risk* Individualism vs. socialism the degree to which people stand up for themselves or act as part of a group* Masculinity vs. Femininity the degree to which the society gives value to the male or female* Long vs. short Orientation the degree to which a society values long term or short term orientation3. Deal and KennedyAccording to Deal and Kennedy, organizational culture is the way things get done in an organization (Deal Kennedy, 1982). They measured an organizations culture using different elements. These elements include* Feedback response from the organization* Risk the degree of uncertainty in the organizationUsing these two elements, Deal and Kennedy suggested four classifications of corporate cultures (Deal Kennedy, 1982). These are* The Tough-Guy macho Culture The feedba ck, which is the response from the organization, is quick and the reward is high.* The Work Hard/Play Hard Culture Few risks are taken, but the feedback, which is the response from the organization, is rapid.* The Bet Your Company Culture This involves high risk, but it may take a long time to know the outcome of the closing or action.* The Process Culture This is associated with bureaucratism in the organization. It is common in organizations where there is little or no feedback.4. Charles HandyCharles Handy developed Roger Harrisons work of 1972 which linked organizational structure to organizational culture (Handy, 1985). According to this idea, there are four types of culture. These are* Power Culture A few will rule the organization from the middle.* Role Culture Employees have clearly delegated authority and the structure of the organization is highly defined.* Task Culture Teams are formed to solve particular problems this is a common organizational culture for a matrix stru cture.* Person Culture Employees focus on individualism rather than team work. These organizations will face a hard time staying above water.A corporate culture has two levels, visible and invisible. The visible level of culture can be seen at the surface level. It includes symbols, stories, heroes, slogans and ceremonies. The invisible level is deeper values and shared understandings held by organization members who include expressed values, assumptions and deep beliefs. The following illustrates the levels of corporate culture.It is difficult to express the invisible level of corporate culture since it cannot be seen as compared to the visible level of corporate culture. The visible level of corporate culture has different entities. These include* Symbols an object, act, or event that conveys meaning to others. Symbols can be considered a rich, non-verbal language that vibrantly conveys the organizations important values concerning how people relate to one another and interact wit h the environment (Pratt Rafaeli, 2001).* Stories narratives based on true events that are repeated frequently and shared among organizational employees (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005).* Heroes s who exemplify the deeds, character, and attributes of a strong corporate culture (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005).* Slogans a phrase or sentence that succinctly expresses a key corporate value (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005). Companies use slogans to convey their core values and missions. Examples of slogans are Googles Dont be evil, and Microsofts Our passion, your potential.* Ceremonies a be after activity that makes up a special event, and is conducted for the benefit of an audience (Trice Beyer, 1984).According to research conducted at Harvard on 207 U.S. firms (Kotter Heskett, 1992), corporate cultures can be divided into accommodative and unadaptive corporate cultures. The study undercoat that a strong corporate culture by itself does not guarantee company success. However, when strong corporate culture adapts to the external environment, it will bring success to the companys business.In both adaptive and unadaptive corporate cultures, there are visible behaviors and expressed values. In the adaptive corporate culture, managers are concerned with their customers (external environment) and employees (internal environment). On the other hand, in an unadaptive corporate culture, managers are concerned only with themselves. Therefore, they dont want change or risks. A strong corporate culture should always be adapted to the external environment (Kotter Heskett, 1992).Table 1 Adaptive and Unadaptive Corporate CultureAdaptive Corporate CulturesUnadaptive Corporate CulturesVisible expressionManagers pay close attention to all their constituencies, specially customers, and initiate change when expected to serve their legitimate interests, even if it entails taking some risks.Managers tend to bear somewhat insularly, politically, and bureaucratically. As a result, they do not change their strategies quickly to adjust to or take advantage of changes in their business environments.Expressed determineManagers care deeply about customers, stockholders, and employees. They also strongly value people and processes that can create useful change (e.g. leadership initiatives up and down the management hierarchy).Managers care mainly about themselves, their immediate work group, or some product (or technology) associated with that work group. They value the orderly and risk-reducing management process much more highly than leadership initiatives.Types of CulturesThere are four types of corporate culture, which can be further classified into two matrixes. These are the needs of the environment, which could be flexible or stable, and the strategic focus, which can be external or internal. The four categories associated with this are adaptability, achievement, involvement, and consistency (McDonald Gandz, 1992) (Denison Mishra, 1995).The fou r types of corporate cultures are1. Adaptability culture A culture characterized by values that support the companys ability to ascertain and translate signals from the environment into new behavior responses. It emerges in an environment that requires fast response and high-risk decision making. Managers encourage values that support the companys ability to rapidly detect, interpret, and translate signals from the environment into new behavior responses. Employees have autonomy to make decisions and act freely to get word new needs, and responsiveness to customers is highly valued. Managers also actively create change by encouraging and rewarding creativity, experimentation, and risk taking (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005).2. The achievement culture A results-oriented culture that values competitiveness, personal initiative, and achievement. It is accommodate to organizations that are concerned with serving specific customers in the external environment but without the intense need for flexibility and rapid change. This is a results-oriented culture that values competitiveness, aggressiveness, personal initiative, and willingness to work long and hard to achieve results (Hooijberg Petrock, 1993).3. The involvement culture A culture that places high value on see that needs of employees and values cooperation and equality. It has an internal focus on the involvement and participation of employees to rapidly meet changing needs from the environment. This culture places a high value on meeting the needs of employees, and the organization may be characterized by a caring, family-like atmosphere. Managers emphasize values such as cooperation, consideration of both employees and customers, and the avoidance of status differences (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005).4. Consistency culture A culture that values and rewards a methodical, rational, orderly way of doing things. It has an internal focus and a consistency orientation for a stable environment. Following the rules and being thrifty are valued, and the culture supports and rewards a methodical, rational, orderly way of doing things, since there is no stable environment. It is rather difficult to have this build of corporate culture (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005).The Start of Search EnginesMost people agree that the first pre-web search engine was Archie created by Alan Emtage in 1990, while he was a student at McGill University. At that time, the net profit was used by learning institutions to store different kinds of documents on shared machines. Since there were no search engines at that time, if one did not know the exact machine address and bill name, it would not be possible to find the document. Emtage created an interface for the search engine, business it Archie, and used an world powered filing system. In order to use Archie, a user would log in to an Archie horde via a command line interface and type in keywords that matched the read title being searched. The resu lt from Archie would display the possible machine locations in which the file could be found. The user then had to log in to each machine and look for the individual file. Archie provided the machine name where the file could be found, but the user had to know a keyword in the title of the file being searched. This may seem useless today, but it was the best technology available at the time.In 1993, students at the University of Nevada created another search engine similar to Archie, which they called veronica. The main difference between Archie and Veronica was that Veronicas search results showed the possible document names. As the Internet started to grow larger, from 130 localizes in 1993 to 600,000 in 1996, the glory of Archie and Veronica also faded.Matthew Gray, a detective at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, created a web based search engine known as WWW roamer. The Wanderer had a list of indexed sites at the back end and a search interface that allowed users to search the index at the front end.In 1994, Brian Pinkerton, a researcher from the University of Washington, developed a more powerful search engine by the name of WebCrawler. WebCrawler could index the full text of a web document it found and also use a linking of different web pages, just as Googles PageRanking algorithm does.Alta persuasion was the succeeding(prenominal) stronger search engine invention. Unlike other search engines, Alta Vista was created to test the performance of the superfast alpha processor. After Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) made a superfast Alpha processor, the company was looking for a way to test its performance. One of DECs researchers, Louis Monier, was working at Western Lab in Palo Alto, California, and came up with the idea of building a search engine that could load the entire Internet onto the Alpha computer to show the processors speed. Not only did Monier come up with the idea, he also built the search engine. However, the management of DEC did not garner the magnitude of this discovery. Some believe that the management could not understand the marketability of Alta Vista, because they considered DEC to be a hardware, not a software company.In January 1998, Compaq purchased DEC for $9.6 billion dollars. Compaq recognized the marketability of Alta Vista and started to invest more into it. Rod Schrock, a Compaq executive, was given the responsibility of Alta Vista, and developed the site to look like Yahoo. In June 1999, Compaq sold Alta Vista to CMGI, an Internet holding company, for $2.3 billion dollars, mostly in stock. CMGI could not hold on to Alta Vista for long since it lost 90 percent of its value. In 2003, CMGI was oblige to sell Alta Vista to Overture Services, Inc. for $140 million. Yahoo acquired Overture Services, Inc., and Alta Vista became owed by Yahoo, its former boisterous competitor.Yahoo had opened its doors two years former in March 1995. Yahoo was started as a project to win a fantasy baske tball game league by two Stanford PhD candidate students, Jerry Yang and David Filo in the early 1990s. Both were studying electronic design automation, which was a popular field when they began studying but the subject got cold when these students reached their fourth year of their doctorial work. The prospects of finishing and getting on with life were pretty grim. The real story is that we were bored with our PhDs and we did everything we could to avoid written material our thesis, (Battelle, 2005) Yang recalls. To win a fantasy basketball league, Filo came up with an Internet crawler that collected data from basketball sites using protocol and compiled the data based on different categories like players performance, trade amount, history, etc. Yang and Filo won the fantasy basketball league using their project (Battelle, 2005).After the first browser was released in 1993, Yang started surfboarding the Web and maintaining a list of sites he was most interested in. Filo continue d to develop software, and later wrote Jerry and Davids Guide to the World Wide Web, which helped to automate the list of sites Yang was collecting. Yang created a home page for the software Filo developed and called it Akebono, named later on a famous sumo wrestler (Battelle, 2005). Jerry and Davids Guide to the World Wide Web became quickly famous, first among Stanford refine students and then throughout the Web.In 1995, Yang and Filo realized the potential of Jerry and Davids Guide to the World Wide Web, and decided to invest more time into it. First and foremost, they wanted to have a catchy name for the site. Both, Yang and Filo, were inspired by computer science acronyms that started with YA for yet another. They began to search the dictionary, and when they got to Yahoo, they knew they had a winner (Reid, 1997). The dictionary defined the term as a rude, unsophisticated, uncouth person, but the word also lent itself to reverse engineering by way of an acronym Yet Another Hi erarchical Officious visionary (Battelle, 2005).Filo and Yang tried to sell their project, Yahoo, to different companies. However, they were unable to findImpact of Corporate Culture on IT Company Growth and ProfitsImpact of Corporate Culture on IT Company Growth and ProfitsThe Impact of Corporate Culture on the Growth and Profitability of IT Companies The Case of GoogleAbstractIn todays global economy, companies from different industries are trying to create a unique competitive advantage to stay in business and maximize their shareholders equity. In doing so, companies should analyze their largest expenses and try to minimize these costs while utilizing their resources in order to make the most from these expenditures.The largest operating expense in U.S. companies is salary. To maximize this expenditure, businesses should devise ways in which to motivate their employees to be more productive. Controlling employees to come to work is easy, but how can companies motivate their emp loyees to work to their full capacity? One way in which this can be accomplished is by creating a suitable, attractive, and tension-free working environment for employees. In doing so, companies can create a strong corporate culture which could offer a competitive advantage. As an example, Google has become one of the largest IT companies in the world in fewer than two decades from its establishment. Not only has Google grown to be one of the largest IT company in the world, it has also developed unique and innovative products, a high job growth, and a secure position as one of the top five companies for which to work. Google has managed to achieve this not only by developing appropriate business strategy, but also creating a strong corporate culture that concentrates mainly on employees and customers. In this research, I will try to analyze Googles achievements. I will conduct a small survey to examine the adaptability of Googles flexible corporate culture in IT companies located i n Utah.Introduction Statement of the ProblemThe old saying, You can lead a horse to water, but you cant make him drink may hold true for employees as well you can make employees come to work, but it is not easy to make them work to their full capacity. Companies may use different methods to control their employees to make them work to their fullest working capacity, but this does not always succeed.To understand employees work satisfaction and engagement in their work, it is useful to analyze a survey conducted by the Gallup Management Journal (GMJ) (Houser, 2009). The GMJ surveyed U.S. employees to understand how engaged they are in their work and their attitudes toward their managers. According to the study, there are three types of employees1. Engaged employees Those who work with passion, motivation, and have deep feelings toward their company. These people are the ones who move the organization.2. Not-engaged employees Those who are physically present in the company but mentall y absent. These employees are not motivated, and they dont care about their company. They come to work simply to put in hours. The survey refers to them as walking through their workday.3. Actively disengaged employees Those who are not only unhappy, but they express their unhappiness in different ways. They may undermine what their engaged coworkers accomplish.The study results showed that 26% of respondents are engaged in their work, 56% of the respondents are not engaged in their work, and 18% of the respondents are actively disengaged in their work. The following chart illustrates the finding of this study.The respondents of the survey were asked if they would fire their manager, given the opportunity. Respondents indicated that 24% would fire their manager if they were given the chance. Of this number, 6% of those respondents were engaged in their work, 23% of the number were not engaged in their work, and 51% of the respondents were actively disengaged in their work. Therefore , less engaged employees tend to dislike their managers, and would fire them, given the opportunity.According to the study, this lack of productivity costs companies billions of dollars. Approximately 24.7 million employees age 18 and over are actively disengaged this represents 18% of the total workforce. From 2000 to 2007, actively disengaged employees in the U.S. cost the countrys economy from $334 to $431 billion every year in low productivity.The Cost Of DisengagementIn this study, I will analyze the different reasons why employees are disengaged from their work, and I will suggest recommendations to solve this problem by taking as an example a successful company in the U.S.Purpose of the studyToday, different companies are trying to find a unique competitive advantage. One competitive advantage that was overlooked for many years is an attractive organizational culture. Not only will a superior organizational culture help in attracting and retaining the best employees, it can a lso be used to create a loyal customer base.In this paper, I will investigate the organizational culture of Google, Inc. in the information technology (IT) industrial sector. I will analyze how Google has capitalized on its organizational culture to become one of the largest search engines and IT companies in the world. I will conduct a small survey on organizational culture on IT companies located in Salt Lake City, Utah to determine useful recommendations by analyzing the results of the survey and comparing these to Googles organizational culture.Before analyzing organizational cultures, it would be beneficial to answer some questions as to why this topic was selected as well as other related issues.Why I Focused on Organizational CultureMany companies have tried to come up with a competitive advantage to maximize the shareholders profits. For years, an attractive corporate culture was not considered as vital to the success of an organization. Unlike external factors of business, which are not directly controlled by organizations, corporate culture is an internal environmental force which can be manipulated by organizations in their favor.Why I Emphasized the EmployeesEmployees are the executers of the plans and strategies of the organization. Most companies consider employees as their asset, but, in my opinion, employees are much more than this. According to a study conducted by the United States Census Bureau, companies largest operating expense is salary. (U.S.CensusBureau, 2000) (See charts below). By taking care of their employees, organizations can get the best results from them. The following charts show the breakdown of operating expense for different industries in 1997 as it was studied by the U.S. Census Bureau under the Economic and Statistics Administration in the U.S. Department of Commerce. Even though, this study was conducted more than a decade ago, I have included it, because I believe it shows the general trend of the breakdown of operating expenses within U.S. industries.Merchant wholesale companies have five major operating costs. Of these, payroll was by far the largest operating expense. If payroll expense and fringe benefits, which are operating expenses toward employees, are combined, more than half of the total operating expenses go toward employee salaries.The breakdown of operating expenses of retail trade has the same tendency as that of the merchant wholesaler. In fact, the only difference is that the expenses for rent by retail trade businesses are a little bit higher than that of the merchant wholesaler.The breakdown of operating expense for business services, which include IT industries, shows a larger expense toward employees. Payroll, consisting of 51% of total operating expense, contract labor, consisting of 5% of total operating expense and fringe benefits, consisting of 8% of total operating expense makes up a total of 64% of the total operating expense.The breakdown of the operating expenses for le gal services follows the same trend as for business services.The following chart compares payroll expenses of different sectors of businessAccording to the above chart, business services, health services and legal services pay the highest portion of operating expenses to payroll. Clearly, if companies are paying the majority of their operating expense toward the salaries of their employees, they should try to get the most from their workforce.Another study conducted in 2007 by the AmericanTimeUseSurvey through the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (AmericanTimeUseSurvey, 2007) showed that of the total working people in U.S., those who were between the ages of 25 to 54 living in households with children under the age of 18 spent most of their time either working or in work-related activities. The survey was provided from data taken on non-holiday weekdays. Out of the total 24 hours, those between the age of 25 to 54 living in households with children under the age of 18 spent 8.7 hours working or on work-related activities, 7.6 hours sleeping, 2.6 hours on leisure and sports, 1.2 hours caring for others, 1.1 hours on household activities, 1.1 hours in eating and drinking and the remaining 1.7 hours on other activities. The following chart illustrates these hours in percentiles.Based on this survey, people with children between the ages of 25 to 54, who were part of the labor force, spent the majority of their time at the workplace or doing work-related activities. If companies created a suitable and stable environment, this labor force would be motivated to work harder to help companies maximize their profits.This study will research and analyze how companies could create a competitive advantage by attracting and retaining the best employees through a superior corporate culture.Why I focused on ITIT, by any comparison, is the fastest growing industry in the world. Companies are spending billions of dollars every year, which has made the IT industry one of the mos t profitable industries in the world. According to a study conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2005 and published in 2007 (U.S.CensusBureau, Information and Communication Technology 2005, April 2007), the information industry by itself contributes 52.4 billion dollars to the IT industry through purchases of hardware and software annually. The finance and insurance sectors spent $44.2 billion the manufacturing, professional, scientific, and technical services sectors spent $32.5 billion the health care sector spent $27 billion and the social assistance business sector spent $19.9 billion on IT hardware and software components in 2005 alone. Based on this study, more than $200 billion was spent on IT hardware and software by different business sectors in 2005.According to this study, the noncapital and capital expenditures for computer software were higher compared to IT hardware. It is a general assumption that if companies are investing more on computer software, the software ind ustry is generating a lot of money. In 2005 alone, the noncapital expenditure for computer software was $54.2 billion, whereas the capital expenditure for the same sector was $49.8 billion. Therefore, this research will focus on computer software companies.Why Focus on Google?Google is one of the fastest growing companies in the world. It has grown sevenfold over the last decade. According to Fortune, Google was listed as the fourth best company to work for in 2009 (100 Best Companies to Work for 2009 Google GOOG from Fortune, 2009).Even though Google was listed as the fourth best company to work for in 2009 by Fortune, it has the highest job growth rate when compared to the other companies listed in the top ten. While Google has a 40% job growth rate, NetApp, which was listed in first place, only has a 12% job growth rate. Edward Jones and Boston Consulting Group, listed second and third, have only a 9% and 10% job growth rate respectively (100 Best Companies to Work for 2009 Goo gle GOOG from Fortune, 2009).Google has shown tremendous growth over the past few years. As the following chart indicates, from 2004 to 2008, the net income of the company increased tenfold. Even when the world economy was in a recession at the end of 2007 and 2008, Google managed to secure a high net income (GoogleInc, 2008).Google has an interesting workforce distribution. As of December 31, 2008, 40% of Googles total workforce was in sales and marketing, 36% in research and development, 15% in general and administrative positions, and the remaining 9% in operations (Google Inc., 2008). According to this data, Google places nearly as large an emphasis on research and development as it does for sales and marketing. Having a large staff in research and development will ensure a strong future market when it is supported with an appropriate corporate strategy.Even if it is difficult to conclude that Google will have a bright future based on the distribution of its workforce, it is c ertain that this strong contingency of Googles research and development team has proven to be valuable by developing new and exciting technologies, making it difficult for competitors to catch up.Literature ReviewIn todays globalized and integrated world, change within industries and organizations occurs rapidly. Understanding the impact of an organizations environment could assist organizations in coping with this change. The organizational environment includes all elements existing outside the boundary of the organization that have the potential to affect the organization (Daft, Organization Theory and Design, 8th ed., 2004).The organizational environment consists of the external environment and the internal environment. The external environment is made up of those forces that exist outside of the organizations boundaries and have an effect on the organization. The external environment is further divided into the general environment and the task environment. The general environmen t is the outer layer that is widely dispersed and affects organizations indirectly (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005). The general environment includes technological, socio-cultural, economic, legal/political, and international factors. On the other hand, the task environment is closer to the organization and includes the sectors that conduct day-to-day transactions with the organization and directly influence its basic operations and performance (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005). The task environment includes customers, labor market, suppliers and competitors.The internal environment includes the elements within the organizations boundaries (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005). It includes employees, management and culture of the organization. In this paper the focus is on the culture of the organization and its affect on the performance of the organization.A corporate culture is defined as the set of key values, beliefs, understandings, and norms shared by members of an organization ( Martin, 2002) (Kilmann, Ralph H. Saxton, Mary J. Serpa, Roy, 1986) (Smircich, 1983). It could also be defined as an interdependent set of beliefs, values, ways of behaving, and tools for living that are so common in a community that they tend to perpetuate themselves, sometimes over long periods of time. This continuity is the product of a variety of social forces that are frequently subtle, bordering on invisible, through which people learn a groups norms and values, are rewarded when they accept them, and are ostracized when they do not (Bemowski, 1995) (Wilhelm, 1992).Corporate culture is derived from both the management and the organization itself. The management, through its philosophy, values, actions and the organization through its roles, structure, systems and technology comprise the corporate culture. Feedback is received from the corporate culture to the management and organization. The following illustrates this process.Classification SchemesThere are different classific ations of corporate culture defined by different authors. The different views of four authors will be considered in the following1. Henry MiglioreAfter studying 24 organizations, Henry Migliore included 20 cultural factors, which he referred to as the Corporate Culture Index (Migliore, Henry R.T. Martin Tim Baer and Jeffrey L. Horvath, 1989). These factors include the following characteristics.* Member Identity the degree to which employees identify with the organization as a whole in their type of job or field of professional expertise* Team Emphasis the degree to which work activities are organized around teams rather than individuals* People Focus the degree to which management empowers the employees within the organization* Autonomy the degree to which departments within the organization are encouraged to operate in a coordinated or interdependent manner* Control the degree to which rules, regulations, and direct supervision and used to control employee behavior* Risk Tolerance the degree to which employees are encouraged to be aggressive, innovative, and risk-seeking2. Geert HofstedeGeert Hofstede believes the behavior of organizations is affected by a national and regional cultural grouping. To study this point, he looked for a national difference among over 100,000 of IBMs employees in different parts of the world. He came up with five dimensions of culture that influence national regional groupings (Hofstede, 1980). These are* Power distance the expectation of society on the levels of power an individual possess in the society. A high score of power distance reflects the expectation of the society that some individuals possess more power than others. A low score of power distance reflects the expectations of the society that all people have equal rights* Uncertainty avoidance the degree to which a society accepts uncertainty and risk* Individualism vs. Collectivism the degree to which people stand up for themselves or act as part of a group* Masculinit y vs. Femininity the degree to which the society gives value to the male or female* Long vs. Short-term Orientation the degree to which a society values long term or short term orientation3. Deal and KennedyAccording to Deal and Kennedy, organizational culture is the way things get done in an organization (Deal Kennedy, 1982). They measured an organizations culture using different elements. These elements include* Feedback response from the organization* Risk the degree of uncertainty in the organizationUsing these two elements, Deal and Kennedy suggested four classifications of corporate cultures (Deal Kennedy, 1982). These are* The Tough-Guy Macho Culture The feedback, which is the response from the organization, is quick and the reward is high.* The Work Hard/Play Hard Culture Few risks are taken, but the feedback, which is the response from the organization, is rapid.* The Bet Your Company Culture This involves high risk, but it may take a long time to know the outcome of the decision or action.* The Process Culture This is associated with bureaucracy in the organization. It is common in organizations where there is little or no feedback.4. Charles HandyCharles Handy developed Roger Harrisons work of 1972 which linked organizational structure to organizational culture (Handy, 1985). According to this idea, there are four types of culture. These are* Power Culture A few will rule the organization from the middle.* Role Culture Employees have clearly delegated authority and the structure of the organization is highly defined.* Task Culture Teams are formed to solve particular problems this is a common organizational culture for a matrix structure.* Person Culture Employees focus on individualism rather than team work. These organizations will face a hard time staying above water.A corporate culture has two levels, visible and invisible. The visible level of culture can be seen at the surface level. It includes symbols, stories, heroes, slogans and ceremoni es. The invisible level is deeper values and shared understandings held by organization members who include expressed values, assumptions and deep beliefs. The following illustrates the levels of corporate culture.It is difficult to express the invisible level of corporate culture since it cannot be seen as compared to the visible level of corporate culture. The visible level of corporate culture has different entities. These include* Symbols an object, act, or event that conveys meaning to others. Symbols can be considered a rich, non-verbal language that vibrantly conveys the organizations important values concerning how people relate to one another and interact with the environment (Pratt Rafaeli, 2001).* Stories narratives based on true events that are repeated frequently and shared among organizational employees (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005).* Heroes s who exemplify the deeds, character, and attributes of a strong corporate culture (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005).* Sloga ns a phrase or sentence that succinctly expresses a key corporate value (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005). Companies use slogans to convey their core values and missions. Examples of slogans are Googles Dont be evil, and Microsofts Our passion, your potential.* Ceremonies a planned activity that makes up a special event, and is conducted for the benefit of an audience (Trice Beyer, 1984).According to research conducted at Harvard on 207 U.S. firms (Kotter Heskett, 1992), corporate cultures can be divided into adaptive and unadaptive corporate cultures. The study found that a strong corporate culture by itself does not guarantee company success. However, when strong corporate culture adapts to the external environment, it will bring success to the companys business.In both adaptive and unadaptive corporate cultures, there are visible behaviors and expressed values. In the adaptive corporate culture, managers are concerned with their customers (external environment) and employees (i nternal environment). On the other hand, in an unadaptive corporate culture, managers are concerned only with themselves. Therefore, they dont want change or risks. A strong corporate culture should always be adapted to the external environment (Kotter Heskett, 1992).Table 1 Adaptive and Unadaptive Corporate CultureAdaptive Corporate CulturesUnadaptive Corporate CulturesVisible BehaviorManagers pay close attention to all their constituencies, especially customers, and initiate change when needed to serve their legitimate interests, even if it entails taking some risks.Managers tend to behave somewhat insularly, politically, and bureaucratically. As a result, they do not change their strategies quickly to adjust to or take advantage of changes in their business environments.Expressed ValuesManagers care deeply about customers, stockholders, and employees. They also strongly value people and processes that can create useful change (e.g. leadership initiatives up and down the manageme nt hierarchy).Managers care mainly about themselves, their immediate work group, or some product (or technology) associated with that work group. They value the orderly and risk-reducing management process much more highly than leadership initiatives.Types of CulturesThere are four types of corporate culture, which can be further classified into two matrixes. These are the needs of the environment, which could be flexible or stable, and the strategic focus, which can be external or internal. The four categories associated with this are adaptability, achievement, involvement, and consistency (McDonald Gandz, 1992) (Denison Mishra, 1995).The four types of corporate cultures are1. Adaptability culture A culture characterized by values that support the companys ability to interpret and translate signals from the environment into new behavior responses. It emerges in an environment that requires fast response and high-risk decision making. Managers encourage values that support the com panys ability to rapidly detect, interpret, and translate signals from the environment into new behavior responses. Employees have autonomy to make decisions and act freely to meet new needs, and responsiveness to customers is highly valued. Managers also actively create change by encouraging and rewarding creativity, experimentation, and risk taking (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005).2. The achievement culture A results-oriented culture that values competitiveness, personal initiative, and achievement. It is suited to organizations that are concerned with serving specific customers in the external environment but without the intense need for flexibility and rapid change. This is a results-oriented culture that values competitiveness, aggressiveness, personal initiative, and willingness to work long and hard to achieve results (Hooijberg Petrock, 1993).3. The involvement culture A culture that places high value on meeting that needs of employees and values cooperation and equality. It has an internal focus on the involvement and participation of employees to rapidly meet changing needs from the environment. This culture places a high value on meeting the needs of employees, and the organization may be characterized by a caring, family-like atmosphere. Managers emphasize values such as cooperation, consideration of both employees and customers, and the avoidance of status differences (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005).4. Consistency culture A culture that values and rewards a methodical, rational, orderly way of doing things. It has an internal focus and a consistency orientation for a stable environment. Following the rules and being thrifty are valued, and the culture supports and rewards a methodical, rational, orderly way of doing things, since there is no stable environment. It is rather difficult to have this kind of corporate culture (Daft, Management, 7th ed., 2005).The Start of Search EnginesMost people agree that the first pre-web search engine was Arc hie created by Alan Emtage in 1990, while he was a student at McGill University. At that time, the Internet was used by learning institutions to store different kinds of documents on shared machines. Since there were no search engines at that time, if one did not know the exact machine address and file name, it would not be possible to find the document. Emtage created an interface for the search engine, calling it Archie, and used an indexed filing system. In order to use Archie, a user would log in to an Archie server via a command line interface and type in keywords that matched the file title being searched. The result from Archie would display the possible machine locations in which the file could be found. The user then had to log in to each machine and look for the individual file. Archie provided the machine name where the file could be found, but the user had to know a keyword in the title of the file being searched. This may seem useless today, but it was the best technolo gy available at the time.In 1993, students at the University of Nevada created another search engine similar to Archie, which they called Veronica. The main difference between Archie and Veronica was that Veronicas search results showed the possible document names. As the Internet started to grow larger, from 130 sites in 1993 to 600,000 in 1996, the glory of Archie and Veronica also faded.Matthew Gray, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, created a web based search engine known as WWW Wanderer. The Wanderer had a list of indexed sites at the back end and a search interface that allowed users to search the index at the front end.In 1994, Brian Pinkerton, a researcher from the University of Washington, developed a more powerful search engine by the name of WebCrawler. WebCrawler could index the full text of a web document it found and also use a linking of different web pages, just as Googles PageRanking algorithm does.Alta Vista was the next stronger search eng ine invention. Unlike other search engines, Alta Vista was created to test the performance of the superfast Alpha processor. After Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) made a superfast Alpha processor, the company was looking for a way to test its performance. One of DECs researchers, Louis Monier, was working at Western Lab in Palo Alto, California, and came up with the idea of building a search engine that could load the entire Internet onto the Alpha computer to show the processors speed. Not only did Monier come up with the idea, he also built the search engine. However, the management of DEC did not realize the magnitude of this discovery. Some believe that the management could not understand the marketability of Alta Vista, because they considered DEC to be a hardware, not a software company.In January 1998, Compaq purchased DEC for $9.6 billion dollars. Compaq recognized the marketability of Alta Vista and started to invest more into it. Rod Schrock, a Compaq executive, was gi ven the responsibility of Alta Vista, and developed the site to look like Yahoo. In June 1999, Compaq sold Alta Vista to CMGI, an Internet holding company, for $2.3 billion dollars, mostly in stock. CMGI could not hold on to Alta Vista for long since it lost 90 percent of its value. In 2003, CMGI was forced to sell Alta Vista to Overture Services, Inc. for $140 million. Yahoo acquired Overture Services, Inc., and Alta Vista became owed by Yahoo, its former fierce competitor.Yahoo had opened its doors two years prior in March 1995. Yahoo was started as a project to win a fantasy basketball league by two Stanford PhD candidate students, Jerry Yang and David Filo in the early 1990s. Both were studying electronic design automation, which was a popular field when they began studying but the subject got cold when these students reached their fourth year of their doctoral work. The prospects of finishing and getting on with life were pretty grim. The real story is that we were bored with o ur PhDs and we did everything we could to avoid writing our thesis, (Battelle, 2005) Yang recalls. To win a fantasy basketball league, Filo came up with an Internet crawler that collected data from basketball sites using protocol and compiled the data based on different categories like players performance, trade amount, history, etc. Yang and Filo won the fantasy basketball league using their project (Battelle, 2005).After the first browser was released in 1993, Yang started surfing the Web and maintaining a list of sites he was most interested in. Filo continued to develop software, and later wrote Jerry and Davids Guide to the World Wide Web, which helped to automate the list of sites Yang was collecting. Yang created a home page for the software Filo developed and called it Akebono, named after a famous sumo wrestler (Battelle, 2005). Jerry and Davids Guide to the World Wide Web became quickly famous, first among Stanford graduate students and then throughout the Web.In 1995, Yan g and Filo realized the potential of Jerry and Davids Guide to the World Wide Web, and decided to invest more time into it. First and foremost, they wanted to have a catchy name for the site. Both, Yang and Filo, were inspired by computer science acronyms that started with YA for yet another. They began to search the dictionary, and when they got to Yahoo, they knew they had a winner (Reid, 1997). The dictionary defined the term as a rude, unsophisticated, uncouth person, but the word also lent itself to reverse engineering by way of an acronym Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle (Battelle, 2005).Filo and Yang tried to sell their project, Yahoo, to different companies. However, they were unable to find

If I See A Ghost Are My Senses Essay example -- essays research papers

IF I SEE A GHOST ARE MY SENSES TO BLAME?To complement the full snatch of the terms which will be used throughout this argument, a number of meanings taken from The Lexicon Webster Dictionary is providedGHOSTThe soul or spirit of a inanimate person. A disembodied spirit.HALLUCINATION(psy) an apparent perception, as by sight or hearing, for which there is no real external cause, as distinguished from legerdemainILLUSIONA false impression or belief. False perception or conception of some object of sense. A perception of a amour which misrepresents it, or gives it qualities not present in reality.GODCreator and ruler of the universe, eternal, infinite spirit, the Supreme Being.&8220Hobgoblins, ghoulsand other malevolent forces are part of our cultural heritage. alone can these nightmares simply be dismissed as superstitious by-products of the medieval mind? Introduction to Creatures from Inner Space by S. GoochThe subject will be argued from the two possible, yet opposite, sides t he &8220ghost as a non-existent and the &8220ghost as an existent spirit. This will be done through the elements of perception. Perception, although being so complex, is the medium by which individuals develop information from the surrounding world.Let us consider the situation where a person believes that s/he has perceived a ghost. This can be an visual illusion created by the classical example of shadows, or by sound (the wind) which when applied to them the Gestalt psychology we can understand how anyone of us can derive a form from the few elements perceived and rush to a conclusion. Gestalt psychologists have shown how humans use their interests to structure the information perceived, therefore not considering the different parts making it up.As we can see clearly, in an illusion it&8217s the minority of the outer senses which are stimulated. Same thing with hallucination, but this time the inner senses do probably play a stronger role. We all know how young persons, when ex posed to ghost stories, do have nightmares and/or restless nights. From this we can understand how this recuperation of memory together with imagination and lack of &8220common sense can bring about hallucinations. In fact these same &8220tricks are what wannabe mediums use in order to deceive their clients. The client has already a strong ... ...e. I do profoundly agree with the Kant&8217s philosophy that all knowledge is achieved through experience and filtered through our reasoning processes. It is just that most of the times we are not aware of the input, or else we are not ready to acquire it believably this is the factor that creates humans with (the so called) paranormal potentials.BibliographyS. Gooch, Creatures From Inner Space, Hutchinson Publishing Group London, 1984S. Borella, L&8217Io Nella Percezione, Citta Nuova Rome, 1983W. G. Chase (Ed.), Visual Information Processing, Academic Press New York, 1973R. grunter and N. Blundell, The Worlds Greatest Ghosts, Hamlyn Lo ndon, 1995C. Green and C. McCreery, Apparitions, Hamish Hamilton London, 1975The New American Bible, Good Counsel Publishers Chicago, 1971D. F. Kellerman (Ed.), The Lexicon Webster Dictionary, Lexicon, 1977S.P.I.R.I.T, Psychokinesis available www.ghosthunter.org/archives/ philip.htmJ. Ritchie, Inside The Paranormal, Fontana London, 1992READING Ahttp//www.ghosthunter.org/archives/philip.htmlREADING BCreatures From Inner SpaceREADING CInside The ParanormalREADING DThe Worlds Greatest Ghosts

Coffee Essay -- Essays Papers

CoffeeIt is 900 A.M. on a Monday morning. By this time, many people are out and about, fully charged. I am still close in bed, sleeping like a log. The alarm begins to beep. I press the snooze button. Nine minutes later, it beeps again. I press the snooze. One more time. Beep. Snooze. Finally, wardrobe the button has drained my energy and the next time it begins to beep, it goes on for a good five minutes. The incessant beeping pounds on my brain so I she-bop up, unplug my alarm, crawl out of bed, and to my closet. Thus, the struggle through the day begins. Yet, this morning picture isnt the same picture of happiness and energy that I usually am at about 1130 A.M. This drastic change is due to one vocalise. This one word brings light to the eyes of non-morning people. Thisword means hope. This word is coffee. Ive become addicted to the frothy warm drink. Five minutes late to class, I still have to stop by the cafeteria to fill up a 16 oz. Styrofoam cup. Without it, my day is in complete. It gives me the energy I need to get through the day. It told me to try and climb that tree. It gave me my jump. It gives me the bright outlook that I have on life. It tells me that everything bequeath be just fine, even if I havent studied for that exam that I will be taking in the next hour. I would be a walking zombie without my French Vanilla cappuccino. I would be lying on a bench, asleep, without my French Vanilla cappuccino. Its my one true love. When I tincture its sweet perfume, m...