Exploring Scientific Discourse On Cultural -Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The Exploring Scientific Discourse On Cultural? Answer: Introduction: Sustainability of a firm represents the efficacy of an enterprise to maintain its productivity and satisfactorily level. The enterprise also holds the responsibility to keep their stakeholders satisfied. Hence, it is mandatory for an enterprise to keep a monitoring system for the same. This paper discusses the development of the sustainability indicators monitoring system. The paper has taken references to the works done in developing the monitoring systems along with their characteristics and efficient indicators described in the same. Cafe Sydney has been taken as the subject of the paper, and the system has been developed for the same. The paper focusses on three key dimensions namely environmental, economic and socio-cultural factors collectively called as TBL (Triple Bottom Line). The paper has been concluded with an evaluation of the environmental dimension along with its limitations. A monitoring system for sustainability evaluates the health of all the operating system and defines the need for development or maintenance of the system (Zhang et al., 2016). The considered subject of the paper is an energy plant, and hence the monitoring system for sustainability of the enterprise should be developed depending on the same. The climate change, the risk associated with the energy firms and other essential factors are to be considered before developing a system for the subject. The monitoring system is developed by taking consideration of environmental, socio-cultural and economic factors as critical dimensions. Some previous works related to the same have been discussed in the following sections along with the strength and limitation of the discussed works. Parmenter, (2015) has defined seven key characteristics of the indicators that a monitoring system should possess. The most considerable of them is the method of collecting and processing data, the purpose of collection, types of data collected, the frequency of collected data. The book offers an insight explaining of the characteristics and have also explained the influence that these indicators propose on the monitoring system. The author has also offered a preferred method for the assessment of the monitoring system in the book. The assessment method suggests that the utility, feasibility, propriety and accuracy should be evaluated to develop a review of the monitoring system. The topics discussed in the book offers a clearer understanding of the same because of the descriptive research on the discussed topics. Rsch et al. (2017) in their paper have discussed the whereabouts of the sustainability of a German energy system. The paper has also discussed over the indicator system for the same and the transition of the energy system. The authors of the paper have adopted the 17 SDGs (Sustainability Development Goals) that had been defined by the United Nations (Rsch et al., 2017). The authors in their article have claimed that the indicator system presented by them is first integrated and comprehensive system that has its basis in the normative values. The paper has also left an opening for further research to determine the impact of indicators on decision making and the political processes. The paper has provided an excellent indicator model for their proposed objective. However, the practicality of the model is still in doubt as a real-world implementation of the model is not being achieved yet. Jurigov Lencssov (2015) discussed the need for a monitoring system for sustainable development in the socio-cultural and mountain tourism in their paper. The authors have established the base of the paper by quoting Tourism destinations are vulnerable to negative impacts of tourism development and thus require a sustainable approach. The paper has taken some references for the work done in the past for the theoretical solution to achieve the objectives of the paper. The authors have done excellent work to suggests the reasons that develop the need for a sustainability model for the tourism industry but lacks in providing any practical work done to achieve the same. The results developed in the paper are based on the previous work done on the same topic and lacks any new data that helps in achieving the defined objective of the paper. The characteristics of a good monitoring system and the features of a useful indicator are shown below (Hk, Moldan Dahl, 2012) (Jurigov Lencssov, 2015). Characteristics Description Reports The system should be able to produce a descriptive report on its findings to further enhance the strategic policies. Indicators The system should be able to produce definitive indicators for the assumed purpose. Identification capabilities It should be capable of identifying the issues and root the identified problems. Cost-Effective The system should be cost-effective for the enterprise in which the system is equipped. Result-driven The developed system should be result oriented. Self-sufficient The system should have the capability to measure selfs performance and intimate the user at times of fault. The need for upgradation of the system should also be considered while developing the system. Supportive of Policy reforms The developed system should not violate the policy reform processes and be in support of it. User-friendly The system should be developed to be user-friendly. Rationality The system should provide analytical reports on the target performance decided for the coming future. System supportive The designed system should be computerised instead of being operated manually. Decision making The power vested with the system should be utilized at management level. Suitable The designed system developed for the considered organisation and not in general. Effective submission The system should be designed to assure that the finding reaches the right hand so that they can be used in maintaining the sustainability. Flaw determination The system should be designed to determine the flaws or the person responsible for the flaw. Method of reporting The method of reporting by the system should be positive and the criticism should be constructive. Table 1: Characteristics of an effective Monitoring system. (Source: Created by Author) The features of an effective indicator have been discussed in the following table (Rosen Kishawy, 2012): Features Description Relevance The indicators should stay relevant to their purpose to reveal the required information about the considered process or the system. Understanding The indicators should adopt a straightforward approach for the output so that it is understandable to both expert and non-expert of the relevant topic. Reliable The output offered by the indicators should offer reliability for further processing. Assessable The data or information required should be accessible and readily available. Table 2: Features of Effective Indicators (Source: Created by Author) Cafe Sydney: The subject of the paper is a Sydney based caf going by the name Cafe Sydney. Established within a converted landmark establishment (Customs House) the history of considered caf goes back to 1845 ("Customs House (former) | NSW Environment Heritage", 2018). However, the caf evolved in 1998 and got a formal opening in 1999. Jan Mckenzie joined the firm in 2000 and led the transformational phase ("Cafe Sydney", 2018). The start was not very positive as the organisation has called the years 2003-2005 as its dark years ("Cafe Sydney", 2018). Those years were the caused due to the redesigning of the Custom for the inclusion of city library and other tenants. In 2005 the organisation took some major steps to towards reformation by introducing new programs namely Caf Sydney Sunday and The Caf Sydney Lounge ("Cafe Sydney", 2018). The good days for the organisation started with the introduction of Todd Cummins (Restaurant manager), James Kidman (Executive Chef) and others ("Our story | Cafe S ydney", 2018). The considered restaurant has a vibrant history with ups and down and in the recent years have proved to be a favourite spot for the food lovers. The problems may also arise when the organisation will try to move from Dunphy Phase 3 to 6. The disaster management plan of the organisation is also in question. The dark years of the firm may occur again due to some uncertain disasters (like natural causes or some accident). Hence, the question for them is are they ready to prevent their dark years from happening again. The firm also lacks behind in sustainability strategy as it does not publish a yearly sustainability report. The hospitality giants like Marriott and Crown Plaza have accepted their social responsibility and developed a sustainability strategy for the same. The hospitality giants are taking different measures to maintain their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and sustainability development (SD). CSR refers to the self-propelled model of a firm to maintain their ethica l responsibility towards the society and the economics (Prudhomme Raymond, 2013). However, CSR does not give such importance to the environmental issues. General CSR for a hospitality industry will be used to evaluate the socio-cultural and the economic factors for the management indicators of the sustainability strategy of the considered organisation. The considered organisation, however, uses Dunphy Phase model to maintain their sustainability, and it has been discussed in the following section. Dunphy Phase: The Dunphy phase analysis of an organisation is done to reveal the strategy that a firm equips to maintain their SD (Ganescu, 2012). It offers six distinct phases to offer a glimpse of the organisations approach. The phases are rejection, non-responsiveness, compliance, efficiency, strategic proactive and sustaining corporation. The first Phase refers to the phase where an organisation is non-responsive and offers rejection towards the environmental goods and resources. The second phase comprises of compliance and efficiency which focuses on reducing the risks associated with sanctions, in the case the legal and community criteria are not met (Warwick, Wyness Conway, 2017). Finally, the third phase focuses on the strategic, proactive nature and changes in the business model to sustaining corporation for development of sustainable values in the firm. Caf Sydney has enhanced human sustainability and focus on the supply-chain relationship as a part of this strategy. Specific goals for the environment are also part of the organisations strategy ("Environmental practice | Cafe Sydney", 2018). The environmental practice by the caf is to sustain their goodwill. This step has helped the organisation in maintain a right image among the customers and hence increasing the profitability. The caf is looking forward to introducing innovative tools to gain competitive advantage along with sustainability. To attain the desired result, the organisation should give proper focus on its resources (human and supply chain in this case). HRM (Human Resource management) can help to keep the employees motivated by appraisals and felicitations along with keeping track of them (Crane Matten, 2016). Equipping of sustainable supply chain management (SSSM) will help the considered organisation to maintain an organised supply chain as the latter also holds the responsibility for the sustainable development of an organisation (Crane Matten, 2016). The following adoptions can make the organisation to move up from Dunphy Phase 3 to 6. Methodology: The following sections will be used to create a sustainability monitoring system for the Cafe Sydney. Socio-cultural, economic and environmental indicators will be used to develop the monitoring system. The methodology for the same will also be discussed in the sections following. The method adopted to define the components of the indicators for the monitoring system will be Kolbs learning theory. The applied theory has four stages of operation namely experience, reflection, conceptualisation and test/implementation (Kolb Kolb, 2012). The first step (experience) represents the collection of the data by experiencing a new scenario or reinterpreting an existing one. In the considered scenario, the data have been collected by visiting the subjects website and other websites where the customers of the subject have shared their experience about the firm. Reflection is the second step in the learning process. Here, the data collected is observed while collection and only the useful data for the process are chosen. In this particular scenario, the data related to the environmental indicators are collected as per the papers demand. In the conceptualisation step, the collected data are evaluated to develop the monitoring system (Kolb Kolb, 2012). The data are evaluated by the author based on the sustainability reports of different hospitality industries and their efforts to preserve the environment. The final step will be limited to the theoretical measures as a practical implementation of the system is not possible in the defined scenario. Ethical issues have also been kept into consideration while collecting the data and evaluating them. The data or the result have not been manipulated to develop the desired output. The sustainability reports of other industries are taken for reference purpose, and the data have been copied from the same. TBL Dimension: The socio-cultural, environmental and economic together called as Triple bottom line (TBL) factors for the considered enterprises sustainability will be considered in the following section (Smith, 2012). TBL is termed as 3Ps where the Ps stand for the people, planet and profit. The relevance of the TBL in sustainability is that it offers more efficient corporate governance while increasing the regulatory compliance, hence increasing the efficiency. It also helps in reducing legal risk level and the risk associated with the goodwill of an organisation (Kucukvar et al. 2014). The dimensions individually have been discussed as follows with their relevance for the considered organisation. The economic variable refers the economic value (real or virtual) of an organisation after deduction of all the expenses on the inputs including the tied up capital (Delrue et al., 2012). The economic factors that measure the sustainability of the Caf Sydney are requested customer ratio, the average rate of daily customers in a year, the average time a customer spends at the restaurant, high season (holidays, festive seasons) occupancy rate, average food price, earnings per meal served and others. The relevance of measuring the economic variable is relevance for the restaurant as the restaurant is in the service industry and in service industry one should be aware of the effort involved and the return. This will also help the restaurant to develop a strategy to build a new customer base and maintain the old customer base. Socio-culture performance refers the social responsibility of the organisation towards the society and the culture (Soini Birkeland, 2014). This is relevant for any organisation to maintain their corporate responsibility towards the community that the organisation is associated and hence omitting any chance for the development of chaos. The factors responsible for the measurement of the socio-cultural dimensions are female employment ratio, general managers gender, the organisations contribution towards the development of their culture and its promotion within the organisation, percentage of buying the required necessities for the service from the local vendors, turnover ratio of the supply chain, average expenditure done for the training and educational purpose of the employee, general employee turnover ratio and any other contribution to the society. In the long term, the socio-cultural dimension will help the restaurant to strengthen their position in the locality, and the bond w ith the customer of the same culture will also enhance (Boley Uysal, 2013). The effort put towards the employee, and their families and friends will develop a sense of honesty towards the restaurant. All these factors prove to be of high relevance to the restaurants sustainability. Environmental dimension refers the contribution of the organisation towards the ecological needs (Moldan, Janoukov Hk, 2012). Sustaining the ecology is the responsibility of everyone and in this case especially for the subject, as the restaurant is ecological dependent for their services. The subject is a hospitality industry that depends on the environment for the raw materials (fish, meat, spices and others) (Dief Font, 2012). Energy consumption ratio (electricity, LNG and others), average water consumption, investment and savings in water and energy conservation processes, saving from waste food management (recycling the waste), landscape and protection of the designated area, investment of in the green projects and other such measures are the factors involved in measuring the environmental sustainability of the restaurant. Environmental dimension is the most relevant to the subject as it has been mentioned above that the restaurant is environment dependent. GRI Dimension: Global Reporting Index (GRI) is an organisation that acts independently to assess different firms in understanding the impact they propose and the impact proposed on them on human rights, climate change and the corruption ("Global Reporting Initiative", 2018). Hence, it can be stated that the organisation helps in maintaining the sustainability of an organisation. Caf Sydney should adopt the GRI framework to measure and assess their sustainability. The GRI indicator protocol will assess the caf with its performance indicator (PI) that measures the track of the factors like biodiversity, energy, emission and other. An assessment to this will help the caf to maintain the environmental dimension. ESG metrics of the dimension also enables the organisation to measure CO2 emission, operation and payment situations, financial transparency and others. Assessment: Environmental dimension Indicators Description Measures Limitation Emission The emission of harmful gases like CO2, CO, NO2 and others are considered in it. They are harmful to the ozone layer. Photometer and exhaust gas analyser can be equipped to measure the emission rate. The price and maintenance is a limitation for the equipping of the monitor. Fisheries This describes the plants, animal or water life harmed during the process. It can be measured by equipping biological indicators. Lack of Awareness about the same is its most significant limitation. Water It defines the quantity of water used in the operations of the firm and the quality of water after use. Water conservation plants can be developed as a part of a sustainability strategy. It can be measured by general cubic metres or litres measuring device, and the quality can be measured using ph-meter. High cost and space required along with the reconstruction issues are the limitations for a water conservation plant Waste Waste refers to the waste management strategy. For hospitality industry, it is plastics and the residual foods. Recycling of the waste can be strategies for the sustainability. Zero waste Index can be implemented for the measurement of the waste. The complexity involved with zero method index is its limitation. Land The use of land for the defined purpose, the quality of the soil and keeping a green area within the organisation is involved in the indicator. Architectural design and soil quality measuring tools can be used for the measurement of the tool. The periodical checking of this indicator can prove to be challenging for the organisation. Energy The use of energy (electricity and other sources of powering) is the indicator for the environmental sustainability. Energy meters and the records of before implementing the energy saving models and after can be used for measuring the indicator. There is no specified limitation in measuring or planning for the energy indicator. Table 3: Environmental sustainability indicators (Source: Created by author) Conclusion: The report discussed the sustainability strategy, its importance and the indicators monitoring system using Dunphys phase model. Cafe Sydney was taken into consideration for pursuing the designated objective. The TBL and GRI dimensions were evaluated and derived at the conclusion stating their importance in the sustainability of an enterprise. The report offered an in-depth insight into the environmental dimension of sustainability and discussed the indicators for the same. From all the discussion made above it can be concluded that it is the responsibility of an organisation to fulfil their duties towards the environment and the society. Fulfilling of this duties also helps them in maintaining the sustainability of the organisation. The report also suggests that to upgrade Caf Sydney from Dunphy phase 3 to 6 they can equip HRM and SSSM systems that will help them maintaining their resources and hence a sustainable future Hence, it can be concluded that each organisation should devel op a sustainability strategy for themselves by taking in consideration of the TBL dimensions for a good future ahead. References: Boley, B. B., Uysal, M. (2013). Competitive synergy through practicing triple bottom line sustainability: Evidence from three hospitality case studies.Tourism and Hospitality Research,13(4), 226-238. Cafe Sydney. 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