History

Virginia Meats, Inc. (VMI) started in 1864 in the small town of Shipley, England, with the purchase of a crate of oranges. Founder George Morris grew up in poverty, a chimney sweep by trade. In 1864, at the age of 39, he and his wife received a small inheritance about sixty English Pounds. After paying their debts, they were left with just a tiny sum, with which George purchased a small parcel of oranges from a canal boat. He quickly took his fruit to the local open-air street markets, and from this small beginning George Morris became a thriving fruit merchant. The business thrived and soon became the Morris Wholesale Food Company having moved to Liverpool for the expansion. Having two sons Morris encouraged them both to take over the business. In 1884 the oldest son Joseph Morris began to work with his father and five years later, after leaving Oxford, his youngest son John entered the business as well. The competition between the boys for control of the operations began to take a toll on George. Hoping to retire soon and have the business grow George leapt at the opportunity to open an American branch when his younger son John came to him with the idea. John had heard that one of their imported ham vendors was opting to sell his company. Located in a small Virginia town of Littlefield the company was a successful meat exporter and growing meat supplier to American customers. Specializing in pork products, Littlefield hams began exporting their cured hams to England as a specialty food. Morris and Sons had picked the brand up to sell to places like Harrods and Fortnum and Mason, high end food purveyors because of its unique smoke flavor and salty taste. It proved to be a good seller. John had visited and worked in the factory during his summer breaks at Oxford because he loved America and the Hams. John’s proposal to his father was simple. He would move to America buy the business in Littlefield and begin to develop products for sale in America and increase the export business as well. John would oversee the division and his brother would have charge of Liverpool.

In 1890 at the age of 27 John Morris and his new wife moved to their new home Littlefield, Virginia USA. In subsequent years the Morris family grew in America with the addition of three children to John’s family and Joseph having two children.

George passed away in 1894 leaving Joseph to continue running the Liverpool concern. However, the competition in the wholesale food business was harder to beat. While the Liverpool branch was solvent, it was showing stagnant sales except for the luxury imports. In 1902 Joseph downsized the Liverpool branch and specialized in importing luxury foods. The America branch was doing very well and could absorb the change in company profile. Morris and Sons continued to prosper. At the outbreak of WWI the Company was doing well but Joseph had declining health. His one son who had just entered the business was conscripted into service and was deployed to France. Joseph took his daughter’s son-in-law into the business temporarily. One year later his son was killed at Marne. The son-in-law, Harrison Smythe, took over the branch with the consent and help of John.

During John Morris’s tenure as president of Morris and sons, the most notable development in the company’s history was the growth of its export business during World War I. Because Morris was founded in England its American branch, had long been involved in shipping pork products, especially bacon, to England. Morris had been the largest American exporter of meat products to England before the war, and the war and immediate postwar years saw continued growth. In addition, Morris also exported meat products and lard to France, Denmark, Holland, Switzerland, and Italy during the war.

In the subsequent years the Company in America took over all operations and expanded through the acquisition of several local Littlefield competitors. In 1968 the brothers moved the headquarters, to Richmond because of the need for a greater labor pool. The original business stayed in Littlefield, but additional slaughter and packing operations were erected outside Richmond. In 1970 the company was slaughtering 3,000 hogs a day and employed 1,400 people.

Eager to expand the business from a regional Virginia concern the company went public in 1994 but kept the controlling stock. Determined to keep the company within the family, John’s great grandson Vance Morris took over the business in 2003 upon the death of his father. He controlled 65% of the stock with other family members owning a total of 20%.

In 2017, at the time of Vance Morris’ unexpected death, the company was slaughtering 15 million hogs annually with revenues of 2.245 billion dollars.

Current Company Vision: Bringing quality meats to family tables everywhere.

Current Mission: We believe that family and tradition matter. Virginia Meats, Inc. is a family too and because we believe that family matters, it our commitment to put only quality pork products on your kitchen table just as we would our own.

Services Offered

Packaged and Fresh Pork Products

Current Fact Sheet

Headquarters

Richmond, Virginia USA

Worldwide web address

www.VirginiaMeats.com

Chief Executive Operator

Daniel Chinn

2017 Revenue

$2.245 billion

Employees

12,500 (9,000 U.S.; 3,500 International)

Customers

4,750 (3,008; 1,742 international)

Operating Facilities

Processing Facilities, Richmond, VA USA; Littlefield, USA; Winston-Salem, NC USA; Liverpool, England; Sulwaki, Poland

Packaging Facilities

Richmond, VA USA; Littlefield, VA USA; Frankfort, KT USA

Current Sustainability Commitments

VMI has made three major commitments to the planet ecology. First, to offer the best animal care, reduce greenhouse emissions by 23% and maintain better than USDA food safety and quality standards. Current steps to reach these goals include:

Animal Care:

• Each applicable facility to maintain a systematic program for animal care based on the North American Meat Institute’s (NAMI) Recommended Animal Handling Guidelines and Audit Guide
• All live animal suppliers to be certified to National Pork Board’s (NPB) Pork Quality Assurance® Plus (PQA® Plus)
• Complete conversion to group housing systems for pregnant sows on U.S. company-owned farms by the end of 2017
• Complete conversion to group housing systems for pregnant sows on U.S. contract farms and in joint ventures worldwide by 2022

Environment:

Reduction of greenhouse emissions by 23%. Processing and reduction of plant waste through conversion to group housing for sows and use of steam sterilization processes for food production.

Food Safety and Quality:

• No incident requiring U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recalls
• Maintain Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) certification at all applicable facilities.

Currently there have been no FDA recalls for the last three years and inspections have been problem free.

Current Business Philosophy

As one of the largest worldwide producers of pork products it is the goal of VMI to help improve its international sales. It will now look forward two years as change in business strategy is imperative to keep growing. The need for innovation and competitive edge ideas are the focus for the next two years.  Sustainability both for profit and planet is foremost in the minds of the leadership. The development of “green” friendly international delivery strategies will be a main emphasis. 

Current Corporate Culture

VMI has always considered their employees to be like family. They value their input in the business and seek to empower them whenever they can. The current company culture is a hierarchical with a functional underpinning. The growth of the company and the need for structure and communication to keep the global deadlines has caused the Directors to move towards a collaborative culture. They hope that the family feel of the clan culture will not be lost hence the hybrid.

Organizational Structure:

This company has a functional division structure. However, within each division is a functional structure whose make up is dependent on its purpose. For instance, if the branch is a meat packing plant where slaughter takes place than its decision-making flow will follow the jobs that are part of the slaughter and packing processes. Communication and decision making still flows from top down.

 Over the next eight weeks, you will be responding to the tasks your new boss Daniel Chinn has set out for you in his onboarding program so that he may get a good idea of how you can benefit the company with your management skills. Each week you will follow the directions for the assignment and discuss them with your fellow hires so that you can develop your own best answers.  This week Daniel Chinn wants to see your “big vision” of the company’s workplace and how it will profit the company going forward. 

The New Virginia Meats, Inc. Workplace

At the end of the week, you as a new management hire will be asked to turn in a memo to the CEO of Virginia Meats (see corporate profile in week one content area) on the vision you have for the company’s workplace.

Brainstorming is a technique that seeks to collect a myriad of ideas about a problem in an effort to find a unique and often innovative way of handling the solution. It can also be a way of collecting information about a situation or produce feedback about a particular topic. Brainstorming works very simply with only three rules: No idea is too far fetched, all ideas are to be accepted by the group for consideration, and the ideas must focus on the topic presented for discussion not whether the idea will work or not. Obviously, many ideas will be discounted later on when constraints like budget or implementation impossibilities may block its consideration for successful implementation. However, for the purpose of this discussion focus only on suggesting ideas from the class material and research which will answer the topic under discussion. Use the following template for your memo format: Memo Format

Directions: 

1. By FRIDAY, complete the following:

• By FRIDAY, complete the following:
  • Using the memo template prepare a memo to CEO CHINN that describes how you envision the future Virginia Meats workplace.
  • How the use of automation will affect the employees and their work experience.
  • The organizational structure of the company (the types of jobs and the flow of power).
  • The actual work environment (physical vs. virtual) and the type of culture. Hint: how would ” the learning company theory” influence your workplace?
  • The challenges anticipated to make these changes.
  • The memo must contain at least three ideas related to each of the topics up for discussion (i.e. three ideas about the way automation will affect employees, three about job types and company structures, and three about the work environment). You must use course material to support your responses and APA in-text citations with a reference list.

 Utilize the case study  below  and Answer the assigned questions completely in narrative, third person format to write paper. The paper consist of 1600 WORDS. Also, include at least  four (4) scholarly sources in your responses that. Sources used MUST be from 2016-2021. Paper must be completed in APA format. NO PLAGIARISM! The assignment must be completed by FRIDAY JUNE 4, 2021 at 5:00PM central time. MUST BE SUBMITTED ON TIME MEETING ALL EXPECTATIONS!   

1. Discuss the consequences of the time clock removal on Ancol’s effectiveness as an organization.

2. Examine any two of the perspectives of organizational effectiveness.

3. Describe the changes that should occur to minimize the likelihood of these problems in the future.

4.What recommendations do you have for Paul to improve the relationship between employees and management?

 CASE STUDY: ANCOL CORP

 Paul Sims was delighted when Ancol Corp. offered him the job of manager at its Lexington, Kentucky plant. Sims was happy enough managing a small metal stamping plant with another company, but the invitation to apply to the plant manager job at one of the leading metal fabrication companies was irresistible. Although the Lexington plant was the smallest of Ancol’s 15 operations, the plant manager position was a valuable first step in a promising career.

 One of Sims’s first observations at Ancol’s Lexington plant was that relations between employees and management were strained. Taking a page from a recent executive seminar that he attended on building trust in the workplace, Sims ordered the removal of all time clocks from the plant. Instead, the plant would assume that employees had put in their full shift. This symbolic gesture, he believed, would establish a new level of credibility and strengthen relations between management and employees at the site.

 Initially, the 250 production employees at the Lexington plant appreciated their new freedom. They felt respected and saw this gesture as a sign of positive change from the new plant manager. Two months later, however, problems started to appear. A few people began showing up late, leaving early, or take extended lunch breaks. Although this represented only about five percent of the employees, others found the situation unfair. Moreover, the increased absenteeism levels were beginning to have a noticeable effect on plant productivity. The problem had to be managed.

 Sims asked supervisors to observe and record when the employees came or went and to discuss attendance problems with those abusing their privileges. But the supervisors had no previous experience with keeping attendance and many lacked the necessary interpersonal skills to discuss the matter with subordinates. Employees resented the reprimands, so relations with supervisors deteriorated. The additional responsibility of keeping track of attendance also made it difficult for supervisors to complete their other responsibilities. After just a few months, Ancol found it necessary to add another supervisor position and reduce the number of employees assigned to each supervisor.

 But the problems did not end there. Without time clocks, the payroll department could not deduct pay for the amount of time that employees were late. Instead, a letter of reprimand was placed in the employee’s personnel file. However, this required yet more time and additional skills from the supervisors. Employees did not want these letters to become a permanent record, so they filed grievances with their labor union. The number of grievances doubled over six months, which required even more time for both union officials and supervisors to handle these disputes.

 Nine months after removing the time clocks, Paul Sims met with union officials, who agreed that it would be better to put the time clocks back in. Employee-management relations had deteriorated below the level when Sims had started. Supervisors were overworked. Productivity had dropped due to poorer attendance records and increased administrative workloads.

 A couple of months after the time clocks were put back in place, Sims attended an operations meeting at Ancol’s headquarters in Cincinnati. During lunch, Sims described the time clock incident to Liam Jackson, Ancol’s plant manager in Portland, Oregon. Jackson looked surprised, then chuckled. He explained that the previous manager at his plant had done something like that with similar consequences six or seven years ago. The manager had left some time ago, but Jackson heard about the earlier time clock incident from a supervisor during his retirement party two months ago.

Prior to beginning your written assignment, read the Fifth Amendment (Links to an external site.) article, the Competency to Waive Fifth Amendment Rights during Custodial Interview (Links to an external site.) article, You Might Have the Right to Remain Silent: An Erosion of the Fifth Amendment With the Use of Pre-arrest Silence article, and the Miranda v. Arizona, 386 U.S. 436 (1966) court decision.

Read the following case scenario:

The former Sameer Shariff, a Saudi Arabian national who changed his name to “The Left Hand of God” and is known to his followers as “Hand,” is a suspected terrorist. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents believe that he is planning an imminent attack somewhere in Capital City. Under duress to prevent the attack, three DHS agents and three FBI agents storm into Hand’s house, burst into his bedroom, where he is in bed with a woman, and point shotguns at him. They demand to know what he is planning. No Miranda warnings are read. Hand tells them that he has hired Alex “Boom Boom” Jaxon, a known explosives expert, to plant a bomb in the Capital City Arena, with a timer to go off in three hours when the arena will be filled with over 20,000 people for a music concert.

Jaxon is known to the police and is in Central City, which is two hours away. He is arrested by Central City police and calls his lawyer in Capital City, who tells him he will meet him there and to remain silent. The lawyer then tells Central City police that they are not to question Jaxon until they arrive in Capital City and the lawyer is present.

Central City Police Officer McFadden drives Jaxon to Capital City. McFadden knows that DHS, FBI, and Capital City police are searching the arena, but McFadden is afraid they will not find the bomb in time. By the time that McFadden and Jaxon arrive in Central city, the concert hall is already full of audience members, and the show is set to begin in twenty minutes.

McFadden, who knows Jaxon’s family from previous police contacts, tells Jaxon that his mother and two brothers, who have been surveilled by the police for the last six weeks, are at the concert and will die if the bomb goes off. Jaxon leads McFadden to the bomb, which is defused. A crying Jaxon states that his purpose was to kill infidels, but he would never harm his family.

Research Fifth Amendment cases, including Miranda v. Arizona, 386 U.S. 436 (1966), which involves custodial interrogation and the right against self-incrimination.

In your paper,

• Determine whether Hand was entitled to Miranda warnings.
• Explain whether the fact that Hand was not a citizen of the United States affects his rights in relation to the Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.
• Identify whether Hand’s questioning was custodial.
• Explain whether McFadden’s statement about his family constitutes custodial interrogation.
• Evaluate whether Hand’s statement can be used against him in a court of law.
• Explain whether Jaxon’s statement be used against him in a court of law.
• Determine whether Jaxon can testify against Hand.

The Right to Remain Silent paper

• Must be 750 to 1,000 words in length (not including title and references pages) and formatted according to APA 

Directions: Answer ALL four of the following questions/prompts in complete sentences and paragraphs. Type your answers directly in the text entry box below. You will be graded on the level of detail you include in your essays and the accuracy of the information you present. This exam is open-book so I expect you to include specific details from the textbook. Do not use direct quotes from the textbook, paraphrase the information you learned from your readings while answering the questions. 

Question 1

Describe the Pleistocene epoch and its pre-modern human hominin inhabitants including anatomy, culture, and subsistence? What climatic and geographic features characterized this period of time?

Question 2

What are the origins of anatomically modern humans, Homo sapiens? Which evolutionary model for the origin of modern humans is most convincing? Discuss each of the theoretical models (the Complete Replacement Model, the Regional Continuity Model, and the Partial Replacement Model) as each relates to origin of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens). Please use the genetic and morphological evidence presented in the textbook to support your answer.

Question 3

What is race? How do anthropologists problematize the concept of race and biological determinism? How do anthropologists account for and explain variations between populations of anatomically modern humans, especially regarding differences in skin color? 

Question 4

Describe contemporary variations and adaptations among modern human populations beyond skin color. How do our bodies acclimatize to changes in weather (hot/cold) and altitude? What has been the impact of infectious diseases within human populations and how have they (diseases) influenced evolutionary change? 

The IRB process is one that both doctoral learners and seasoned researchers encounter. The process serves in part to assure the protection of human subjects in research by documenting and evaluating the ethical considerations of the research study. Doctoral learners are required to submit approved dissertation proposals for institutional review. In this assignment, you will create a draft of the IRB documentation for your research study.  

General Requirements:

Use the following information to ensure successful completion of the assignment:

• Locate the IRB Research Center on the DC Network at https://dc.gcu.edu/irb/
• Carefully review all information in “Steps to Prepare and Submit an IRB Application” paying specific attention to Step 2, “Get Started with IRB and Video Tutorials.” This step includes general information regarding IRB and specific information regarding the required documents, roles and responsibilities of researchers, and the critical link, “Learner and Instructor Videos – Get Started with iRIS” that leads to several informative videos.
• Locate the most current draft of your dissertation proposal.
• Refer to directions in the Student Success Center for the submission of multiple documents.
• This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.
• Doctoral learners are required to use APA style for their writing assignments. The APA Style Guide is located in the Student Success Center.
• You are not required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite.  

Directions:

Review “Getting Started with IRB.”

Collaborate with your dissertation chair to create a list of the documents and forms you will need to submit for your IRB application. In addition to your dissertation research proposal, required forms and supporting documents may include but are not limited to the following:

1. IRB Application Form
2. CITI Training Completion Reports  
3. Site Authorization Letter
4. Conflict of Interest Form
5. Confidentiality Statement
6. Informed Consent Documents
7. Recruiting Materials
8. Copies of surveys, instruments, interview questions, or measures
9. Permission letter(s) or email(s) to use the surveys or instruments  

Complete the required IRB forms and prepare the supporting documents determined necessary during collaboration with your dissertation chair. Items such as site approvals or specific permission letters may be excluded if they have not been secured.

Submit the most recent version of your dissertation research proposal, the list of documents and forms needed, the completed IRB forms, and the prepared supporting documents to the assignment drop box for instructor review.