Recent orders
Food Additives and Human Health
Name:
Institution:
Course:
Tutor:
Date:
Food Additives and Human Health
As the human populations increased and lifestyles begun to change, it was deemed necessary to preserve food in order to ensure steady supply. Fundamentally, the techniques employed in food preparation and preservation were developed to address various problems related to food storage, wastage and food-borne illnesses. The advances in technology have increased the reliance of humans to food processing. In addition, changes in lifestyles have greatly limited the amount of time that was initially employed in food preparation. This implies that additives are increasingly being employed in necessitating the process of food production and preservation. Although they aid in preservation of food and in some instances enhance their nutritional value, food additives have adverse impacts on human health.
Basically, food additives constitute different substances that are either intentionally or unintentionally added to animal feed or human food during processing or storage (Sarjeant & Evans, 1998). They are wide and varied and include preservatives, antioxidants, flavoring agents, anti-infective agents and coloring agents. Usually, they contain very little or no nutrients. Currently, they are available in natural as well as artificial forms and are used at different stages of food preparation, processing or preservation. Food additives are used for various functions during food production.
Adikinson (2003) indicates that additives are useful for preserving or improving the nutrient value of the respective food. In this respect, statistical evidence ascertains that a significant number of drinks and foods are fortified and enriched in a bid to improve their nutritional value. At the same time, additives preserve the foods and give them a longer shelf life. This regulates consumption and helps in preventing food wastage and conserving the natural resources employed in food production. Usually, the law requires that all foods that contain the additives are labeled accordingly. Besides preserving food, additives enhance food flavor and provide color to the food; thus improving its appearance. Most importantly, additives maintain food wholesomeness by preventing entry of bacteria, fungi, air or yeast that can cause diseases (Adkinson, 2003).
Conversely, food additives have adverse health effects that compromise the quality of life of the consumers. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (2009), food additives contain toxins that are harmful to human health. Seemingly, a significant percentage of these are manufactured from chemicals that are harmful to human health. The negative health impacts usually occur immediately or after a long period of time. Immediate effects according to Sarjeant and Evans (1998) range from behavioral changes and changes in energy levels to changes in mental concentration and reduction of immunity. In most cases, these occur when an individual is exposed to the additives for a lengthy period of time. Long-term effects on the other hand include degenerative conditions, risks of cardiovascular diseases and risk of cancer (FAO, 2009).
Although food additives are helpful for preserving food and improving its nutrient value, they have far reaching implications on human healthy after a lengthy exposure. Food additives comprise of food color, flavorings, antioxidants and anti-infective agents. As aforementioned, they are added to food during production and storage. They are useful for enhancing the flavor, nutrient value and appearance of the food. However, they have negative impacts on human health as they lead to behavioral changes, affect mental concentration and reduce immunity on the short term. If exposed for a lengthy period of time, individual also risk getting cancer, heart diseases and other degenerative conditions.
References
Adkinson, N. (2003). Middleton’s allergy: Principles and practice. Philadelphia, Pa: Mosby Elsevier.
Food and Agriculture Organization. (2009). General standard for food additives. USA: FAO.
Sarjeant, D. & Evans, K. (1998). Hard to swallow: The truth about food additives. USA: Alive Books.
Follow-Up Feedback Control Checks and Implications of Poor
Follow-Up Feedback Control Checks and Implications of Poor Control Processes
Name
Course
Course Instructor
Institution
Date
Follow-up Feedback Control Checks
To ensure adherence to the strategies I have established for compliance within IndiasafeInvest, I would use three follow-up feedback control checks. The first is the individual performance, where I would use data generated from performance metrics to inform each individual in the workplace of their individual performance in meeting benchmarks, standards, and goals that govern performance expectations in executing fraud-free tasks. Such data can assist in isolating individual performance and better instructing and motivating each employee on areas of individual performance requiring improvement continuously. Slowiak and Lakowske (2017) suggest that good individual performance feedback reinforcing positive behaviors. These behaviors ensure ethical and value-based employee functioning, which is vital to avoiding malpractices such as fraud.
The second follow-up feedback control check involves interactive team performance. I would use agile approaches such as Scrum or Kanban to create an interactive team feedback loop, which would offer metrics for establishing whether or not in-progress work by teams of employees meets the set performance expectations. I would accumulate sufficient team performance data to compare team performance against set standards and guide decisions on how to improve team efficiency and performance towards meeting those expectations, hence adjusting team processes adequately.
The third follow-up feedback control check to use includes validation assessments. Both comparative and descriptive validation assessments are essential follow-up feedback control checks because they target specific employee attributes underpinning their behaviors in the workplace. Validation assessment will be important in ensuring compliance at IndiasafeInvest in that they will direct and refocus training initiatives aimed at improving employees’ abilities to meet the unique demands of their specific tasks (Tracey and Tews 2005). Validation assessments would allow for the use of data to carry out performance comparisons to establish progress, hence tailoring employee training to align with competencies of performing specific tasks ethically and without engaging in malpractices.
Implications of Poor Control Processes
Poor and ineffective controls and control processes have serious potential ramifications for IndiasafeInvest, its employees and customers, and other organizations. One of the implications for the staff is the augmentation of temptations for fraud. Weak controls characterized by the inability to monitor individual employees can cultivate new opportunities for staff members to commit fraud as it happened at IndiasafeInvest. This means that in the presence of weak, passive, and ineffective control processes, employees can leverage weaknesses in the firm’s financial systems, hence getting tempted to take chances to commit financial fraud as Nawawi and Salin (2018) suggest. Also, poor control processes have the potential implication of impairing employee’s system of ethics and values. The rationale for this implication is that poor control processes mean that employees can compromise passwords, accounts, and critical financial data to engage in unethical practices that taint their value systems.
For customers, poor control processes can cause a loss of customers’ trust for the company. The reason for this is that customers may develop perceptions that the company betrays their trust by failing to maintain proper and sound control processes aimed at detecting fraud incidents promptly, hence safeguarding customers’ financial assets entrusted to the company. Also, poor control processes can increase the possibility of compromising client data privacy (Cheng, Liu, and Yao 2017; FSA 2008). Although the fraudulent incident at IndiasafeInvest had no impact on customers’ data, poor control processes can increase the chances of breaching client data protection mechanisms culminating in their data privacy being compromised, especially if fraudulent activities remain undetected for overly extended periods.
One implication of poor control processes for IndiasafeInvest is the financial losses that occur when thefts and unauthorized transfers occur without being detected. Another implication is damage to its corporate image. Due to the presence of poor internal controls for monitoring individual employees, the fraudulent incident in this company remained unnoticed for a long period. Consequently, the slow detection of fraud affected the image of the company’s integrity, ethics, and values, indicating that poor control processes can damage a firm’s overall corporate image as Hermanson, Ivancevich, and Ivancevich (2008) submit. Lastly, poor control processes can have serious implications for the reputation of IndiasafeInvest. This is because customers’ perceptions of trust betrayal coupled with the loss of positive corporate image due to the absence of proper control processes can translate to a bad reputation for the enterprise.
The potential implications for other organizations are similar to those for IndiasafeInvest, which include financial losses and damage to organizational image and reputation. Examples of other organizations that have experienced similar fraud issues as a consequence of ineffective control systems are HSBC Bank, Citibank, and Commonwealth Bank. At the key investment center of HSBC Bank in Bangalore, ineffective control systems promoted thefts of data by an IT employee. Also, ineffective control systems facilitated the theft of client account information at Citibank. At the Commonwealth Bank, a manager exploited ineffective control systems to steal nearly $500,000 while failing to report a fraudulent transfer of $64,000 by an employee to a personal account to conceal his fraudulent incident.
Reference List
Cheng, L, Liu, F, and Yao, D. D, 2017. Enterprise data breach: causes, challenges, prevention, and future directions. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, 7(5).
FSA, 2008. Data security in financial services. Financial Services Authority Report. London: FSA.
Hermanson, D. R, Ivancevich, D. M, and Ivancevich, S. H, 2008. Building an effective internal audit function: Learning from SOX section 404 reports. Review of Business, 28(2), p. 13.
Nawawi, A, and Salin, A. S. A. P, 2018. Internal control and employees’ occupational fraud on expenditure claims. Journal of Financial Crime, 25(3), pp. 891-906.
Slowiak, J. M, and Lakowske, A. M, 2017. The influence of feedback statement sequence and goals on task performance. Behaviour Analysis: Research and Practice, 17(4), p. 357.
Tracey, J. B, and Tews, M. J, 2005. Construct validity of a general training climate scale. Organizational Research Methods, 8(4), pp. 353-374.
Following the Leaders
Introduction
The performance of an organization reflects the kind of leadership applied. Studies have shown that there is no specific leadership style that is perfect; similarly, none is without fault. However, leaders should realize they are the model that the members of the team look up to, therefore, they should exercise professionalism and skills when giving guidance. The management style exercised by leaders has also been known to greatly affect the performance of tasks. This is attributed to the regulation and division of duties in a manner that will favor the team. Description of the goals and firm’s aims should be clear for a good management system where the workers will work towards the accomplishment of certain objectives. These attributes are only achievable for a leader who leads by example rather than one having expectations which he/she cannot lead people to.
Michael Eisner assumed position of Walt Disney boss for many years before his actual retirement. During his time served as the Chief executive of Disney World Company, Eisner exercised authoritarian leadership. Most of the decisions were made by himself with minimal involvement of the Board of Directors. According to Farrell, (2004) “I saw nothing on the record that the decision was preceded by a meeting of the corporation’s director… the board had to approve Ovitz’s employment agreement a month after his appointment was announced.” Michael clearly did not appreciate the spirit of consultation before making appointments and preferred to take full control. This led to a court case that continued for several years. He was less likely to delegate duties and involve relevant authorities in development of the company.
Conversely, Bill Gates exhibited proper management skills that allowed and incorporated ideas from other people. Being the entrepreneur behind the successful Microsoft Company, he was known to be relatively harsh to his group which drove them to learn the art of strongly defending their ideas. Davidson, (2006) stated that, “Burns said Bill Gates is one of a handful of those who had the capability to take his own company through the long ascension from small startup to big company.” This demonstrates his ability to delegate duties fairly to the qualified staff in order to achieve the set goals. His belief in his staff showed the kind of managerial style he practiced which contributed to the successes.
Clearly, the two leaders deal with different industries since Eisner deals in entertainment while Gates’ deals with computer technology. They have show different management styles and capabilities to delegate duties. This is evident in the ways which they quit service in their respective organizations. Bill Gates left the organization to join the foundation he and his wife had established (Storm, 2008). He entrusted the management of his firm to the people ha had adequately trained. Eisner on the other hand was forced out of his position by a decision to replace his presidency in the organization. His unwillingness to let the responsibilities be handled by other people showed his oneness in management and little trust in the board. He was less open to the idea of delegation. He was also criticized for the over twenty years he had spent in the position (Holson, and Waxman, 2003) where there were other people with similar qualifications.
Conclusion
It is clear that success of any organization is reliant to the management style used. Besides competence of the workers, a leader should be able to adequately lead his/her employees to better performance. Involvement of the workers in matters of decision making also encourages them to be part of the company. The willingness to give people with equal abilities the chance to develop them is also advisable since it expands the productivity by the new ideas. They may be better and enhance the marketing and expansion strategies of the organization.
References:
Davidson, K. (2006, September 15). Both Entrepreneurial, Managerial Styles Bring success. Phoenix Business Journal. Retrieved from http://www.bizjournals.com
Farrell, R. (2004, October 21). Disney Directors on Trial for a Payout. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com
Holson, L., & Waxman, S. (2003, December 8). Criticism of Disney Chief Grows Bolder. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com
Storm, S. (2008, May 13). Retiring Microsoft Official to Run Gates Foundation. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com