Management Assignment
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Management Assignment
- Why should organizations today be concerned with becoming more adaptable flexible, and innovative, so they can produce products and services, better, faster, cheaper?
The current global market has become increasingly full of risk and instability. Heightened need for transparency, high speed of technological advances and globalization have made the external business environment dynamic and make business executive leaders uneasy. The business operating margins have become more than double the size in 1980 concurrent with the gap between winners and losers (Reeves & Deimler, 2011). The size of market shares a company has no longer reflects its profitability. It has become challenging for some organizations to determine in which industry they are operating and who are their major competitors.
Indeed, the present external environments of businesses are fast changing, turbulent and unpredictable due to the constant changes in technology, e-commerce, and competition. In this regard, Palanisamy and Sushit (2003) argued that long-term strategies have become increasingly obsolete, necessitating business organizations to adapt flexible competitive strategies, processes and capital, including human capital. Flexibility enables business adapt quickly to the rapid changes in the global markets in order to gain a competitive edge against their rivals and survive. Flexibility encompasses adaptability, resilience, learning and intelligence, which are the key characteristics that companies must acquire to succeed in the volatile global market.
More importantly, the flexibility of the Information System (IS) is crucial for the survival of any business. Rigid and passive IS often cause business to fail. Therefore, companies should consider making there IS flexible and adaptable to changes in the external environment, particularly consumers’ purchasing behaviors and demands (Palanisamy & Sushit, 2003). IS flexibility facilitating an enterprise and customers to have alternative approaches and options respectively. Furthermore, IS structure should allow business learning and rejuvenation.
A company, through its IS system and other drivers, must adapt to new changes and obstacles quick enough with little effort and cost in order to profit on the opportunities that present in the market. This ability to adapt to the changes in the external business confers a competitive advantage to the company, which indicates that it has gained a return on investments above its rivals. Porter (1985) proposed two main paths to achieve competitive edge over competitors. One is by taking the cost-leadership approach whereas the other is differentiating the company’s products or services from the competitors.
Companies with agile and flexible structures, processes and resources are essential for survival in the current unpredictable business environment. Flexibility and agility promote innovation, and novelty which are necessary to design and develop products that are adaptable to the constantly changing consumers demands and behaviors. In today’s global markets, innovation has become an essential driver of business success. Innovation plays a significant role in achieving competitive advantage. However, this quality depends on other aspects of the business including knowledge management, human talent, organizational competencies, and culture (Chatzoglou & Chatzoudes, 2018). Chatzoglou and Chatzoule (2018) counsel business executives to promote cultures that incentivise creativity, flexibility, adaptability, experimentation, risk taking, entrepreneurial mentality, freedom and ingenuity at the individual level. Besides, they should encourage dialogue and teamwork, establish processes for disseminating knowledge between colleagues and superiors, as well as a reward system to appreciate individual contributions (Chatzoglou & Chatzoule, 2018). Thus, companies must ensure that these factors align with their innovation standards and aspirations.
- How is Organizational Culture and Organizational Environments changing due to external forces like Covid-19 and the economic downturn. What can be done to keep both of these strong?
Both the internal and the external factors of an organization influence its culture. More specifically, the external factors of the business, including market trends, natural catastrophe, social and political changes, and technological trends determine the operation of a business. Understanding the mechanism of these factors and the way organizations must adapt to these factors to explain the internal operations of an organization. Organizational culture is subject to external environ of their business mentioned above.
Political factors affect a firm’s culture in different ways. States and their agencies create laws and regulations that may impact on a company’s operation, as organizations must abide by the limits of the law to avoid fines and damage to its reputation. Moreover, relationship politics may impact on a firm’s culture whereby it must compete for customers and the share of the market. Thus, companies must adjust its mission and vision to align with the prevailing political factors.
Economic factors, such as recession, unemployment and inflation can shape the culture within an organization. Increased unemployment due to such restrictions as witnessed now in the current COVID-19 pandemic have forced companies to layoff some of their workers in order to reduce losses. Similarly, organizations have become risk averse to limit the impact of the pandemic on the business profitability. These effects relate to social effects of the disease. Restrictions to avoid spread of outbreaks such as COVID-19 has changed the structure of many organization’s workforce. Employees are required to maintain social distance and avoid physical contacts, including hugging and shaking hands, with each other to avoid possible transmission of the disease. In this regard, organizational culture must be changed to minimize the spread of the disease amongst employees.
Other social factors, besides disease outbreaks like COVID-19, include societal expectations and public opinions. These social factors too force firms to re-evaluate their operations in order to avoid the detriments of negative public perceptions on the company’s profits. The society, generally, expects business to be ethically responsible. Regarding this, firms must adjust their cultures to demonstrate sensitivity to the environmental and social wellbeing of the host communities. Social responsibility encompasses community outreach, promotion of workforce diversity, high ethical standards and sustainability. To achieve these ideal statuses, businesses must impart them into their workforce, including the management.
Competitors are significant component of a firm’s external environment. Actions of these industry players shape the internal and external decisions firms make. The ability to adapt to company’s culture is essential to guarantee the longevity of a business. Changing industry standards and requirement often necessitate organizational culture change to facilitate business realignment. Similarly, rapid changes in technological demands organizations to adjust its culture to accommodate new emerging technology. This factor has mobilized firms to adapt a workforce that are both receptive and conversant with new technologies. Some companies take responsibility to train its workforce on the use of new technology. For example, video and teleconferencing have replaced traditional board room meetings. Of note, companies have switched to using such technologies as zoom to implement the COVID-19 restrictions of avoiding large group gatherings.
To keep both their organizational culture and organizational environment strong, companies must ensure that they keep up-to-date with the trends in the external environments. A robust, flexible, adaptable and innovative IS is necessary to achieve this goal. Similarly, firms must set and maintain a competent research and development team to handle different aspects of the external environment and recommend the necessary adjustments.
- What would you recommend organizations do to improve diversity, and why is it important to managing in a global environment?
In the previous century, ecologists and agriculturalist advanced the knowledge on the importance of biological diversity. In the current century, the biological diversity model has caught the interest of business experts in the human resource domain of business. The current demographic changes in the composition of labor market and customer populations attributed to globalization, has increased the amount of diversity companies must manage. In the twenty-first century, a diverse workforce accords a company a competitive edge over a homogenous one (Kreitz, 2007). However, superior management and leadership competence is crucial to leverage the potential of workforce diversity in the current times.
Workforce diversity has various advantages over homogeneity. Many modern management experts believe that diversity facilitate significant performance advantages to the company. A diverse workforce allows companies to understand and cater for the need of minority consumers in order to maximize profits. Different perspectives informed by individual; employee’s experiences and cultural backgrounds can inform unique approaches to emerging market needs. According to Allen, Dawson, Wheatley and White (2007), diversity, increases the ability of companies to lure and keep the best talents available in the labor market, to reduce costs related to employee turnover and lawsuits, to improve market understanding and penetration. Other benefits include improved innovative ability, creativity, flexibility, decision-making, and performance (Allen et al., 2007). Because of these potential benefits, many companies are striving to create a diverse labor force.
Leveraging the potential benefits of organizational diversity involves specific requirements. Cunningham (2009) found that firms must adapt effective diversity-management strategies to realize the potential of a diverse organization. Diversity brings together people with varied ideas, views and approach to understanding. It offers an opportunity for people to learn from each other the skills and ideas to improve their work performance, which requires a cooperative and supportive organizational culture besides team leadership and process skills (Kochan et al., 2003). Nevertheless, such ideological differences and varied viewpoints are unlikely to come to fruition if the organizations undermine free expressions of thoughts and ideas. A proactive approach of managing diversity promotes the culture of voicing ideas and viewpoints, and tend to harness the benefits of a diverse personnel.
Management scholars have proposed different best practice in managing workforce diversity. The U.S. G.A.O. report of 2005 outlined eight best practices for achieving and sustaining diversity (Cunningham, 2009). Firstly, the executive managers must be genuinely committed to diversity. In this regard, they must communicate and demonstrate a vision of diversity. Secondly, firm’s strategists must integrate diversity as part of its strategic plan. Thirdly, a firm’s executive must connect diversity to the firm’s performance. Fourthly, the organization leaders must develop various quantitative and qualitative measures to assess the impact of various consequences of a diversity plan. Fifth, the company must set a tool to require leaders to take responsibility for diversity by connecting performance assessment and compensation to the advances of diversity efforts. Sixthly, the company must adopt succession plan to identify and develop diverse talent pool for its prospect leaders, which must be continuing. Seventhly, the firm must develop a recruitment process that appeals to a qualified, diverse group of applicants. Lastly, the company must undertake periodic diversity training to inform and enlighten managers and subordinates about the advantages of diversity.
- Why is it relevant for organizations to manage entrepreneurially and how can they still maintain ethical standards in a competitively hostile environment?
Managing entrepreneurially involves adapting the relevant skills, knowledge and mindset to run large corporations with greater flexibility, adaptability and innovation. The current global business environment requires this approach to management, as the external business environment and the demand of customers keeps changing. The twenty first century business requires individuals who can balance financial management with business strategy to avoid losses. Globalization and the constant changes in the global environment require managers who can effectively manage their firms entrepreneurially in order to detect opportunities and threats in order to maximize the firm’s profits. Entrepreneurship skills and experience is essential to achieve that goal.
The twenty-first century business environment has been characterized with risks and uncertainties, as evidence by recent events, such as disease outbreaks, frequent natural disasters, and political instability. In the current global market abound with risks, entrepreneurial management is essential to ensure success of the company. Entrepreneurial managers understand how to manage the risks specific to the firm’s business. With this respect, such managers understand how to manage the different types of risks present in the current global business environment (Price, 2011). These risks can be classified into economic, people, market, technical, strategic, financial and personal risks. Economic risks involve assessing the current status of the business environment, and the windows of opportunities for a particular venture. It also includes political threats, state laws, interest rates, and economic cycles (Price, 2011). People risks involves concern over the venture team, including how it was constituted and history of working with each other. Additionally, anxiety about whether the team can survive past the growth phase.
Market risks relates to the information on market dynamics of the sector. It also involves anticipating for growth opportunities in the market and the risks of competition. Technical risks relate to the functionality of the product or service (Price, 2011). It also involves the emergence of a future technology likely to override the product. Strategic risks involve the existence of a competitive advantage that can be sustained. Under this risk type, entrepreneurial management involves making strategic alliances to share the risks and determining the appropriate strategy with a practicable model (Price, 2011). Financial risk involves the availability of capital to fund a new venture now or later from profits. Personal risks concern the ability and likelihood of the lead entrepreneurs to dedicate all their time, energies and intellectuals to the venture.
In the recent past, many companies have featured in the news headlines for certain ethical misconducts. Unethical conducts can damage a firm’s reputation, reduce the morale of its employees, and increase legal costs from lawsuits. Some managers have prioritized profits at the expense of ethics leading to significant losses from compensation and reduced revenues due to backlash from the consumers. To avoid such negative consequences that can last for long, companies must put certain measures in place to ensure that its employees and managers adhere to the existing ethical standards despite the temptations to disregard them. Regarding this tendency, Epley and Kumar (2019) recommends four critical features that organizations must incorporate in designing an ethical culture. These features are clear values, thoughts with respect to judging a person or an option, cultural principles, and incentives to act ethically.
Organization should anchor their strategies and practices to clearly outlined principles that subordinates and leaders can share amongst themselves. To this end, a firm’s mission would suffice if used properly. It should be simple, brief, practicable and sensitive. Making ethics the priority of every employee would serve to reduce ethical lapses in the employee’s actions. In addition, a firm should set incentives for ethical actions or decisions employees make. Such firms must promote ethical cultures to create opportunities to practice ethics and recognize, praise and validate such persons. Company should also cultivate an ethical culture by appointing ethical leaders.
- What can organizations do to help managers deal with information overload, so their decision-making process does not end up becoming a situation of paralysis by analysis?