NAFTA: Gainers and Losers

Economic cooperation has been a trend in neighboring countries to promote a free-trade zone for the benefit of its constituent countries. The largest of such, the North American Free Trade Agreement, was found in 1994 by the three North American countries. The members of NAFTA are the US, Canada and Mexico which includes a total of 416 million people and a GDP totaling to $12 trillion (Pohlmann, 2006). NAFTA aimed to totally remove trade barriers between the members for 15 years, which is scheduled to be in 2009. It also reduces the non-tariff trade barriers like sanitary regulations significantly. Although NAFTA major advantages, many are against it. Most of them are in the non-economic areas, and following are examples: US labor unions, environmentalists and Mexican farmers. They believe that NAFTA has unfavorable effects on them. Not all Mexicans are against it, in fact some of them had high hopes that the implementation of this contract would help boost their economy (Pohlmann, 2006). The NAFTA issue is debated in the Congress, with three major subjects: employment, environment and immigration from Mexico to the US. Tariffs had been an important factor in NAFTA for tariffs are taxes on imports and it usually makes imported products more expensive in order top benefit local products. NAFTA participants agreed to cut down the tariffs by 50% and they also agreed to reduce tariffs to 0 in the succeeding fifteen years. Economists clearly saw the benefits NAFTA could have with all its participants. They based their reasoning with the principle of comparative advantage wherein their country would be more organized in creating their goods. Thus each country would produce the goods wherein they are more efficient in producing and they would trade those goods with the goods of other country (which they are very good in producing in their own). However, there are those who contested the free trade contract believing that it would have certain effect on employment as well as on income. There are those who argue that there would be a great deal of unemployment because of rivalry in Mexico. They argued that since wages are much lower in Mexico as compared to United States, then businessmen would start moving their businesses in Mexico. However, there are those who argue that the reason behind higher wages in US lies on the fact that worker efficiency is greater in US as compared to Mexico. NAFTA proved to have great consequence in terms of employment in US. According to a study conducted by the US International Trade Commission (ITI), the US government could gain moderately from a free trade agreement with Mexico. A historical study also showed that NAFTA could produce about 134, 000 jobs in the US. However, a simple method of study conducted by Baldwin and Kahane showed the effects NAFTA could have in terms of employment. The particular study had been conducted in order to see which division would have employment gains and which would undergo job losses. A tabular data had been used in order to create two variables, that of â€Å"gainers† and that of â€Å"losers†. Among the gainers are electrical and non-electrical machinery alike as well as rubber chemicals. However, on the side of the losers we have textiles, glass, leather products and the like. It is important to distinguish gainers from losers and thus an explanation is provided in the quotation be low. The term GAINERS is associated to the number of employees in areas that were projected to have job gains, while the term LOSERS is related to job losses (Kahane, 1996). Thus, the effect of NAFTA allowed a rise in trade in both Canada and Mexico. There is also no clear evidence that US indeed lose jobs because of Mexico. And all in all it showed that there are industries which gained because of the NAFTA agreement while there are also those industries that had had their share of losses as had been mentioned in this paper. Reference: Kahane, L. (1996). Congressional voting patterns on NAFTA: an empirical analysis – North American Free Trade Agreement [Electronic Version]. The American Journal of Economics and Sociology. Retrieved June 4, 2007 from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0254/is_n4_v55/ai_18910967. Pohlmann, D. (2006). The Economic Impact of NAFTA on Mexico [Electronic Version]. Scholarly Publishing House. Retrieved June 4, 2007 from http://www.grin.com/en/preview/67522.html. Rosson, P., Runge, F., & Moulton, K. S. Preferential Trading Arrangements: Gainers and Losers from Regional Trading Blocs [Electronic Version]. Retrieved June 4, 2007 from http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/agecon/trade/eight.html.      

Relationship between Emotional Intelligence Abilities and Team Processes Essay

Clarke’s article seeks to use the emotional intelligence ability model to establish emotional intelligence’s significance as part of individual difference among team members and if it can affect team effectiveness. It is a report on a research conducted using the ability model of emotional intelligence to identify the relationship between EI and the transitional, action-based and inter-personal team processes aspects of team-work behaviours. The article also considers the base set by other researchers’ findings and theories concerning EI and its relationship to team-work behaviours. In this research paper, Clarke discusses several previous researches done, on this topic, using different models and then conducts his own research using the emotional intelligence ability model. The reason for this research conducted by Clarke was to have better knowledge of the nature of teamwork and also the factors contributing or underpinning team effectiveness, in order to help organisations the expected gains brought by understanding emotional intelligence abilities. This study also sought to establish the significance of perceiving emotion, understanding emotions and using them to facilitate thinking, and managing one’s own emotions as well as those of others. The Main Theoretical Predictions of This Study Clarke looks at previously conducted studies by other researchers. One of the things is that when the ability based measure is used there is positive relationship between the ability of a team leader to have an understanding of emotion and the team’s customer-service team-rating based performance. Another thing is that there is a negative correlation between a team leader’s EI and a managers’ ranking of a team’s overall performance. Another thing is that aggregated measures of team-members ability emotional intelligence show positive correlations with a team’s ability emotional intelligence and a team’s performance. Also, there is no significant relationships between the level measures of individuals, but rather noteworthy positive relationships between a team’s civic virtue ratings by the participants’ and about all the individual emotional ability scores. The other part of the previous studies is where researchers used the Workgroup Emotional Intelligence Profile, the WEIP. This measure assesses emotional intelligence using self/peer-report responses instead of tests based on performance. Some of these tests show a significant correlation between the average emotional intelligence of a team and goal focus. In other words, team members who showed they had higher skills and more familiarity caused a team’s effectiveness to improve. The studies also showed positive relationships between a team’s emotional intelligence and the use of differing collaborative and competing approaches to conflict resolution. One prediction is that EI will be found to be positively related to transition team processes. Clarke predicts that if relationships are examined a more direct way between EI abilities and the differing transition, action as well as inter-personal team processes already pointed out as important to team effectiveness then the potential role of EI ability in team effectiveness would be become clearer. In this case, EI abilities are predicted as directly affecting some of these specific team-work processes and interaction. Another prediction is that there is a stronger correlation between EI and actions, transitions and inter-personal team processes than between EI and individuals who are more oriented towards higher collectivism. Recognising the potential influence of emotion on decision making, problem solving, and creativity is a clear indication that EI plays an important part in team processes associated with formulation of strategies like the planning of tasks and allocation of roles and those related to goal specification. The relationship between EI and team-work behaviours which are associated with team processes can be moderated by a person’s motivational nature towards team-work. Collectivist orientation is related to team behaviours like individual input to a team, and a group’s cooperative team behaviour and negotiation behaviours. Higher efficacy for team-work as well as positive past experiences in a team are related to individuals’ self-report collectivism. Therefore, individuals’ collectivist orientations may show their degree of motivation for team-work. Consequently, there are interaction effects between EI abilities and individuals’ collectivist orientations. The Findings of Clarke’s Study Clarke’s study established that EI explained direct, unique variance in transition and inter-personal team processes as the two team process sets regarded as important role-players in team-effectiveness. But only three EI individual branches were of any importance, and they still were different in each case. Concerning transition processes, there was found a positive connection for the emotional ability only: perceiving emotions in oneself and in others. This was a confirmation of previous research that showed a positive significant connection between goal focus and team-level EI ability measures. Also Clarke did not discover any significant connections between transition processes and the rest of the emotional intelligence abilities, suggesting that the transition processes is the most significant emotional ability when it comes to contributing to team behaviour associated with this particular team activity phase. The ability of an individual to perceive and appraise emotions accurately is the most important when it comes to using and acting on the emotional knowledge. This suggests that team members who have greater sensory awareness levels can engage to a great deal of effectiveness in team behaviours like setting tasks and time-scales associated with means of achieving the team tasks. It was found that general mental ability is important at this team activity phase, but the ability of perceiving emotions accounted for 3% more variance to team members’ engagement in necessary team behaviour linked to this team effectiveness aspect. These two emotional abilities were the most important in helping team members to take part in inter-personal team processes, when they use emotions to facilitate thinking and managing one’s emotions or those of others. The relationship between EI and team-work behaviours which are associated with team processes can be moderated by a person’s motivational nature towards team-work. Collectivist orientation is related to team behaviours like individual input to a team, and a group’s cooperative team behaviour and negotiation behaviours. Together, the two emotions accounted for 8% variance, while general mental ability was insignificant. Surprisingly, no significant correlations were found between any of the EI abilities and team processes. These findings also suggest that where individuals in a team have a bigger share of outcomes in a team, or where are much longer team durations or work cycles, emotional intelligence abilities can affect team action processes more significantly. 7 specific context variables were found to influence team type. These included the temporal duration, basic work cycle and teams’ task structures. Another finding is that there is a stronger connection between emotional intelligence and actions, transitions and interpersonal team processes than between EI and individuals who are more oriented towards higher collectivism. The potential influence of emotion on decision making, problem solving, and creativity clearly shows that emotional intelligence plays an important part in team processes associated with formulation of strategies like the planning tasks and role allocation and those related to goal design. This research paper shows how simplistic the obscure assertions on emotional intelligence’s importance to team effectiveness are. Differing emotional intelligence abilities are related to specific teamwork behaviour, which become significant during the stages of team activity. The findings also show that there is need for much more complex structures on the relationship between emotional intelligence and particular cognitive, verbal, and behavioural activities in a team. The findings can therefore be concluded thus: EI explains direct, unique variance in transition and inter-personal team processes; only three individual EI branches, however, have any significance, and still, they were different in each case. How Organisations Can Make Use of These Findings These findings show that emotional intelligence is a significant part of individual differences among team members contributing to the effectiveness of a team. A team’s effectiveness depends on its team members’ abilities to perform behaviours that are related with specific processes at different stages of team activity. Individuals who have more developed emotional abilities in these circles will most likely make more significant contributions during such times. This may make team leaders’ role of allocating roles and responsibilities in a team less complicated. The instruments used to make assessments regarding these emotional abilities can help organisations to identify team members demonstrating strengths in particular emotional abilities. Organisations can be able to call upon those individuals who show high levels of sensory awareness that is related to perceiving emotions to play more important roles during transition stages while focussing on setting of goals and planning of tasks. On the other hand, those individuals with better developed emotion management abilities may be called upon to play the more important part of supporting the teams’ inter-personal team processes. Team can also be able to focus on particular emotional abilities, by considering more focussed developmental activities. Learning interventions that are team-based and undertaken in a place of work can help individuals in an organisation to use their emotions more efficiently to enlighten their thinking. If understood better, the differential roles of emotional abilities in the performance of necessary team processes can bring about development of more effective, focussed interventions. By identifying how EI is related to particular team processes linked with differing stages of team activity, organizations can be able to identify operational conditions of emotional intelligence. Emotional abilities were found to be directly related to transition as well as interpersonal team processes, although EI abilities were not related to action team processes. The crucial finding that EI abilities’ variation in inter-personal team processes are greater than for any other team process suggests that EI could be of far greater importance in teams where interpersonal team processes are by far more dominant. Therefore, selecting team members on the basis of their strengths in particular emotional abilities can help organizations develop more focussed ways of attaining more effectiveness in their teams at differing stages of team activity. These findings can also help organisations have a clearer picture when it comes to conducting future research. References Clarke, N. (2009). Emotional Intelligence Abilities and Their Relationships with Team Processes. Team Performance Management, 16:1/2, 1352-7592.

A Story About Courage Essay Example for Free

A Story About Courage Essay ? Waking up in the morning to birds chirping and the warm summer breeze is almost impossible when you live in the heart of New York City, well it is for me at least. My name is Sandy Collins, I’m your typical teenage girl. I like going out with my friends, having slumber parties, and going shopping. I moved from Texas to New York City a month and a half ago. The moment I stepped out of the car I instantly loved the change. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy living in Texas, but now living in New York felt like it made much more sense. As a child I did everything with my dad. Biking, fishing, rollerblading, you name it. I, Sandy Collins has done it. My dad always said he wanted a better life for me then what he had, he sure meant it. Back when I was almost eleven years old my parents got a divorce, great birthday present, huh? At first when I’d walk into the room where my parents would be arguing, they’d pretend they were only talking loud of some sort. But as the months went by, they didn’t even noticed when I’d enter the room. Soon after that my mom filed for a divorce, leaving me in the middle. It was hard to cope with it to begin with, but soon after that I realized I had no part in what happened. Now four years later here I am making the decision to move in with my dad. When I first mentioned moving to New York to my mom, her reaction was absolutely no. After mentioning it a few more times, giving her a month or two, she finally realized that I should be able to make my own decisions because in the end it’d make me happier. Now five months after, BAM! New York City here I come. The twelve hour drive was definitely the worst road trip, bonding time, or whatever my mom would wish to call it. She came up with a clever idea to shove me, my seven year old brother Ricky, my stepfather Joe, and herself in our beat up Toyota Tercel and take on the task to drive us all the way to New York for the last bonding time she’ll have with me in a long time. Not to mention we’re in the month of July. â€Å"Sweetie would you like something to eat? † mom said shaking my shoulder. I’d fallen asleep three hours into the drive. We ordered from the nearest fast food place, Mcdondalds, filling all our hungry appetites. After about ten hours I became so bored I started to play with the lose thread on my shirt. I could tell Ricky wasn’t having any more fun then I was considering he was opening and closing the screen of his Nintendo DS over and over and over again. The traffic became agony, there’s no doubt that you could put your car in park for five minutes and no would notice. Finally after hours of traffic we arrived at the house. Dad had just walked out the front door waving and smiling. â€Å"Dad! † I exclaimed while giving him a giant bear hug. â€Å"Hi hunny, I’m so glad you’re here. Dad said smiling. â€Å"Nice place you got here† Joe said examining it with his eyes. We’ve never been to dad’s place before, he’d always come to Texas to visit on special occasions and my birthday’s. â€Å"Now you be good, call whenever you have the time and no late night walks, New York is very different then back home. † Mom said. She kept going on until she had run out of things to say. â€Å"Okay, Okay mom. See you at thanksgiving, love you. † I said giving her a hug. I realized after saying that, that made her take-in how long it’d be until we’d see each other again. After saying goodbye to everyone I knew I’d miss each and everyone back home in Texas terribly but I had a feeling this was a change for the better. What we had left of the day, dad decided it’d be a good idea to show me around the neighbourhood. â€Å"Your hair is so straight and black now† dad said. â€Å"Yeah, I coloured it a few months ago. I thought it was time for some change, like moving here. † I said smiling. For the next month dad and I went fishing, rollerblading, shopping, and all the other things we used to do when mom and he were together. I even met a new friend, Paige. She’s the neighbour’s daughter; she told me we’d be attending the same school together up the street when school re-opens in two weeks. The next day we arranged to go shopping. â€Å"Hey dad, would it be okay if I go shopping with Paige today? † I said. â€Å"Sure hunny, I have to run a few errands and do some grocery shopping anyway, so I’ll drop you two off at the mall. † Dad said, smiling as always. Paige is so nice and out-going to be around. My friends in Texas were more down-to-earth. We would still go places and what not, but Paige’s personality screams fun. â€Å"We need to spice up your wardrobe, all of your out-fits are too toned down for NYC. † Paige said, trying on a vintage pair of black boots. After a couple of hours of shopping, we grabbed something to eat and went home. Home I kept thinking. I like it here, being with my dad made me so much happier. Walking down the busy streets of New York with the sound of cars honking, people shouting for taxis, bargainers trying to sell you their no more than $5 junk, was now what I got to call home. Oddly I loved it. When I got home I took my shopping bags to my room and headed downstairs to watch T. V while waiting on my dad to come home and make dinner. As I reached for the television remote the phone rang. â€Å"Hello, may I speak to Mr. Collins? † â€Å"He’s not home at the moment; would you like me to take a message? † â€Å"Sure, is this Ms. Collins? † â€Å"Yes it is. † I said, realizing soon after this person was probably referring to Ms. Collins as if I was my dad’s wife. A moment before I was about to correct myself, the person started speaking again. Oh, hi Ms. Collins, this is Tom’s doctor, Dr. Lee. Unfortunately I have to break the bad news to you; Tom’s cancer results have come in positive. He has cancer in his right lung and it’s too late to attempt to cure it. I’m extremely sorry to tell you this way; Tom’s appointment was re-scheduled in two weeks from now when school re-opens, he cancelled the appointment scheduled for today knowing he’d want to spend as much time with your daughter arriving from Texas before school started. When I got the results, knowing Tom for so long, I wanted him to know as soon as possible. † I didn’t know what to do, I held the phone to my ear ready to reply but my mind went blank. Eventually I replied and hung up the phone. Did I really just hear that? No, it couldn’t be. My dad couldn’t have cancer, he just couldn’t. Who am I kidding!? His doctor called for god sakes, I just didn’t want to believe it. Moments later my dad walked in the front door. â€Å"Hi hunny. † He said smiling. A Story About Courage. (2017, Feb 23).