How are the index number used to display economics or financial data Essay

How are the index number used to display economics or financial data Identify some examples to illustrate your answer - Essay Example assigned a value of unity, or even 100, in some reference period, and the value of other index for other given periods of time are intended to indicate the average proportionate or even the percentage change in price from this price reference period. For example if a given product is costing thrice as much as in 1990 as it did in 1980, its index could be taken to be 300 times relative to 1980. Price indices can be used to measure differences in price levels between different regions, countries and cities at the same point in time. For example, the Bic Mac price have been noted to occur in China at 51% reduction from U.S. prices. Considering such indices, it can be possible to forecast currency values. Based on this illustration China currency is undervalued and provides a currency investment opportunity. The price indices have three important characteristics. They are published frequently, usually every month but at times every quarter. They are available quickly, about two weeks after the end of the month or quarter. They are usually not revised, and they are closely monitored hence attracts a lot of publicity (Moulton et al, 2002). As a result of continuous publication, the price index provides timely information about the rate of inflation, and at times they are used to provide a wide variety of purposes, in addition to indexing wages. For example, consumer price indices are used to index other payments such as interest payment or rents, and at times the price of bonds. They are also used to provide index pensions and social security benefits. There are different kinds of index of numbers that can be used. Most economists and compliers of consumer price index agree that the index formula to be used should belong to a small class of indices called superlative indices (Turvey, 2004). This superlative index is expected to provide an approximation to a cost of living index. The main feature of superlative index is that it treats both periods being compared

Critical Approaches to Human Resource Management Essay

Critical Approaches to Human Resource Management - Essay Example Over the past decade, Boxall and Purcell (2011) posit that the worker engagement levels in the US have significantly fallen. As a result, a people strategy that is effective should be devised to stimulate high levels of engagement of employees in order to gain the much sort after competitive advantage in the most dynamic business environment to ever exist globally (Woods and West, 2010). Numerous studies have been conducted by dozens of firms and researchers with respect to the value of employee engagement (Holbeche and Springett, 2003). All these studies have employed varied research methods, employee engagement measures, in addition to the extensive variety of varied measures of financial and operational performance; yet they all lead to the same conclusion, that â€Å"employee engagement or disengagement has a huge impact on the financial performance of individual organisations, and in the aggregate, a significant impact on the performance of the U.S. economy as a whole† (S chaufeli, Bakker and Salanova, 2006:703) The Role of Engagement The global economy has been experiencing significant shifts in the past decade (Woods and West, 2010). ... Despite the fact that new strategies have been devised to respond to these shifts; Harter, Schmidt and Hayes (2002) believe that it is essential that the organisation’s success alongside the high performance of workers be maintained. According to Boxall, Purcell and Wright (2007), the key strategy to implement to ensure this is to introduce processes that measure and improve the work engagement of the employees. Past research has over and over again made known that employee engagement has powerful links with a number of success factors in business organisations, for instance (Holbeche and Springett, 2003): i. Employee productivity ii. Employee efficiency/performance iii. Employee safety iv. Employee attendance and retention v. Profitability vi. Customer loyalty and retention vii. Customer service and satisfaction Economic instabilities are on and off events and the way different business organisations react to these shifts in the economy determines or rather predict if the com pany will survive or how well it will succeed (Roberts and Davenport, 2002). Many organisations tend to focus less on management of their talent as well as on engaging their employees during periods of crisis and uncertain business forecasts and instead direct their efforts towards devising strategies to reduce costs incurred via slicing of bonuses, salaries, rewards, in addition to costs involving development of employees (Attridge, 2009). Furthermore, Redman and Wilkinson (2009) report that some leaders without an eye for the future may go to an extend of thinking that employee engagement is not important since their employees are left with few or no options and as a result they will stay put in the organisation due to their need for job security. On the other hand, smart leaders with