Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 7, Maastricht University (Economics), language: English, abstract: "e;Human resource professionals are often treated as if they were the lowest form of managerial life"e; (E.P. Lazear, 1998). Usually, personnel skills are perceived as too soft and are thus not valued as an essential tool for managing a company efficiently. Moreover, personnel people had to get used to receive little respect from their colleagues in the last century. Human resource managers were viewed as the "e;company police"e;, who created unnecessary stepping-stones for others. This impression has reasoning. Until recently, there existed no systematic guide, on which human resource decisions could be based. In fact, personnel matters were regarded as too soft and too human to be treated rigorously. One of the main reasons is the fact that in the past as well as today most managers are technical experts. Sequentially, this led to the conclusion that human resource management indeed does not matter. However, today's managers perceive human resource management as an important tool in order to run a company smoothly, effectively and cost-efficient. Indeed, human resource management determines how the company's resources are managed. Human resource planning is essential in order to ensure that an organization's human resources are capable of meeting the firm's operational objectives. Thus, the following problem statement arises: Does the way of managing human resources diverge in different cultures and institutions?In the following paper, the relative importance of human resource management between different cultures will be evaluated. Special attention will be given to the Czech Republic, Asia und the public service sector in the USA. First, a general definition of human resource management will be provided heavily influenced by U.S.-originating thoughts. Afterwards, the different cultures with respect to personnel matters will be explained and compared. Of special importance are the areas assessing, hiring and training of new employees. Finally, a conclusion will be provided, including an answer to the above stated question.

Seminar paper from the year 2001 in the subject Business economics - Investment and Finance, grade: 9, Maastricht University (Economics and Sociology Faculty), language: English, abstract: In all aspects of our daily live, we seek to anticipate or forecast events. Especially organizations and companies are engaged in producing and using a full range of different economic forecasts. The widespread usefulness and application of forecasting systems and statistical and econometric modeling techniques has become solidly entrenched. Being aware of this fact, has led to a fundamental need for better quantitative analysis and business planning. Private and public sectors alike have found it both practical and essential to employ more rigorous analytical framework. Accordingly, more sophisticated forecasting techniques to enhance the level of predictability and confidence are required to foresee future events. The need for such forecasts arises because people are taking positions and enter into commitments about the future. Therefore, a need to form a view about the possible future consequences of these positions or commitments exists. Thus, in economic and business life, forecasts are essential, and errors can be very costly. According to those facts, now the question arises: What factors influence the accuracy if forecasts? In the following paper, three different forecasting methods will be explained and evaluated according to their accuracy. There exist diverse techniques of forecasting; those methods may be either formal or intuitive. Nevertheless, as the future is unknown, all forecasting systems rest ultimately on learning from the past. There exist naive processes extrapolating the past in a simple way. But those will be prone to error when the world changes. More sophisticated methods seek to foresee change by understanding the source of past changes, and therefore incorporate change in the forecast. The standard output from macro models is a central forecast, that is, a prediction of the most likely path for the variables of interest. But these central forecasts are subject to appreciable uncertainty, and this needs to be taken into account in using them. One way to do so is to associate with the central forecasts an estimate of their possible error.

Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 7, Maastricht University (Economics), language: English, abstract: "e;Human resource professionals are often treated as if they were the lowest form of managerial life"e; (E.P. Lazear, 1998). Usually, personnel skills are perceived as too soft and are thus not valued as an essential tool for managing a company efficiently. Moreover, personnel people had to get used to receive little respect from their colleagues in the last century. Human resource managers were viewed as the "e;company police"e;, who created unnecessary stepping-stones for others. This impression has reasoning. Until recently, there existed no systematic guide, on which human resource decisions could be based. In fact, personnel matters were regarded as too soft and too human to be treated rigorously. One of the main reasons is the fact that in the past as well as today most managers are technical experts. Sequentially, this led to the conclusion that human resource management indeed does not matter. However, today's managers perceive human resource management as an important tool in order to run a company smoothly, effectively and cost-efficient. Indeed, human resource management determines how the company's resources are managed. Human resource planning is essential in order to ensure that an organization's human resources are capable of meeting the firm's operational objectives. Thus, the following problem statement arises: Does the way of managing human resources diverge in different cultures and institutions?In the following paper, the relative importance of human resource management between different cultures will be evaluated. Special attention will be given to the Czech Republic, Asia und the public service sector in the USA. First, a general definition of human resource management will be provided heavily influenced by U.S.-originating thoughts. Afterwards, the different cultures with respect to personnel matters will be explained and compared. Of special importance are the areas assessing, hiring and training of new employees. Finally, a conclusion will be provided, including an answer to the above stated question.

Seminar paper from the year 2001 in the subject Business economics - Investment and Finance, grade: 9, Maastricht University (Economics and Sociology Faculty), language: English, abstract: In all aspects of our daily live, we seek to anticipate or forecast events. Especially organizations and companies are engaged in producing and using a full range of different economic forecasts. The widespread usefulness and application of forecasting systems and statistical and econometric modeling techniques has become solidly entrenched. Being aware of this fact, has led to a fundamental need for better quantitative analysis and business planning. Private and public sectors alike have found it both practical and essential to employ more rigorous analytical framework. Accordingly, more sophisticated forecasting techniques to enhance the level of predictability and confidence are required to foresee future events. The need for such forecasts arises because people are taking positions and enter into commitments about the future. Therefore, a need to form a view about the possible future consequences of these positions or commitments exists. Thus, in economic and business life, forecasts are essential, and errors can be very costly. According to those facts, now the question arises: What factors influence the accuracy if forecasts? In the following paper, three different forecasting methods will be explained and evaluated according to their accuracy. There exist diverse techniques of forecasting; those methods may be either formal or intuitive. Nevertheless, as the future is unknown, all forecasting systems rest ultimately on learning from the past. There exist naive processes extrapolating the past in a simple way. But those will be prone to error when the world changes. More sophisticated methods seek to foresee change by understanding the source of past changes, and therefore incorporate change in the forecast. The standard output from macro models is a central forecast, that is, a prediction of the most likely path for the variables of interest. But these central forecasts are subject to appreciable uncertainty, and this needs to be taken into account in using them. One way to do so is to associate with the central forecasts an estimate of their possible error.