Management Principles & Practice Assignment Help
What do you think are the major changes shaping the contemporary world and what do you think their impact is on Management?
What happens to ones sense of individuality in organisations?
How is your world flat?
Schwartz (1992) argues individuals generally have the same set of values but prioritise them differently. Think carefully about the following: How do individuals prioritise in the organisation? To what extent is this influenced by personality? How important is it for a manager to understand the values of their team? Does this affect performance?
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Management Principles & Practice
Unit 1: Introduction to management
Management does not just mean the administration of a business body or any other organisation - it also includes the formulation of strategies, coordination of efforts, value creation and the accomplishment of the enterprise objectives. The extent to which management is affected by various factors cannot be ignored; the workforce on the whole is affected by the manner in which the management of an organisation functions.
The workplace in most of today's organisations is more diverse than before, and it is not limited to just a building or a corporate space. The physical space of an office is a rigid outfit and can be perceived as being a hindrance to promoting creativity. Managers also have to make considerations for the people - this is because keeping employees engaged is more than handing a pay-cheque at the end of every month, since they also have expectations regarding rewards and bonuses.
Technology and culture are two forces that have acted as catalysts to changing the manner of management, and will most likely continue to do so (Orlikowski, 2009). In order to avoid the restrictions of obsolete technology, many organisations are moving towards a "bring your own device" policy, which has been very well-received. Also, flexibility in the workplace has gained importance, and the management of many enterprises have relaxed the rules on presenteeism and paved the way for a more motivated workforce.
Unit 2: Managing the individual
Businesses are essentially collective enterprises, where individuals work together to make up the organisation to meet the collective goals and targets of the company. Each worker has an independent entity, and thus managing individualism in the workplace is an important aspect that must be followed by any organisation. Individualism in this case refers to the idea that the beliefs, rights and responsibilities of a person should be given more emphasis as compared to the same attributes of the group. The basis for a capitalist entrepreneurship is possible because of this initiative. An organisation that prioritises individualism benefits more than one that stresses more on collectivism.
Individuals who are talented, tend to stay engaged when the organisation gives them the chance to contribute and grow (Ogiharaand Uchida, 2014). In such a case, it is important to focus on the creation of talent management programmes, and on the development of those who mentor and lead the individuals.
Personality, in many cases, does affect the individualism of a person in the workplace. For instance, it is personality that defines the perception towards factors such as stress. Moreover, as stated by Hofstede, culture is related to human collectivity the same way personality is related to individualism (Sun, 2008).
Unit 3: Managing teams and groups
It is extremely important for managers to have an understanding of the team values and the impact they have, as it would provide them with the much-needed tool for extracting the best out of themselves as well as the members of the group. These values work as a guide for providing ideas, information and techniques that would help them to understand how to motivate the team members and contribute to the fulfilment of their goals, thereby affecting the performance to a significant extent.
As identified by West, there are five dimensions that can be considered when managing a team, which are - degree of permanence, differences in expectations of skills over different time periods, power (autonomy) and influence, nature of the involved tasks, and the spatio-temporal context (Barrick, etal., 2007).
Meredith Belbin (2012) had observed, that individuals in a team usually assume different "team roles" and he defined those roles as the tendency to behave, contribute and interrelate with others in a definite way, and set out nine roles for such members, which can be indicated as - plant, resource investigator, co-ordinator, shaper, monitor evaluator, team-worker, implementer, completer finisher, and specialist.
On the other hand, the Tuckman Model outlined five stages of development for a team, which comprise of forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning (Ogot and Okudan, 2006).
Unit 4: Managing leading, coaching and motivating
Management entails the use of a range of skills, policies, processes and leadership techniques, and is technically no easy task. Supervisors at the managerial positions are continually responsible for communicating, coordinating, planning and organising in an efficient manner.
A leader should have a clear picture of what motivates an individual to strive towards doing more and working harder. For instance, encouraging autonomy, along with the scope of honest and constructive criticism has been found to be amazingly effective in motivating workers (Manzoor, 2012). Employees reserve the right to know if they have done a good job, and a little word of acknowledge of praise from the managers goes a long way. Also, employees who feel that they are in control of their destiny are better motivated and have the courage to handle the issues on their own. Allowing the workers more freedom works wonders, as having a free reign ensures that the job is done in a way the worker enjoys and thus, the productivity is bound to increase. Giving workers the option to freely criticise and give feedback to their colleagues and supervisors also ensures that they do not get too caught up with the hierarchy at the workplace, which might sometimes be implemented with an unnecessary level of rigidity.
Unit 5: Managing culture
Efficient management of culture at any organisation begins with a leadership that is committed to the values and beliefs of the enterprise. The leader should be passionate about establishing a strong sense of culture, and articulate its proactive embodiment (Hickman and Silva, 2018). Utilising an approach that is practical helps, and it is also important to invest a significant amount of time in meetings related to these cultural issues. Having an autocratic system of decision-making is often disadvantageous, as it provides lesser opportunities for communication and alignment, and all the different levels of the organisation are also unable to share their inputs in this case.
Unit 6: Managing decision making
Decision-making is an extremely important part of management in the modern day. In fact, the primary function of the management is to indulge in sound decision-making. It involves the selection of a specific course of action from the list of available alternatives, with the intention to arrive at a solution or a conclusion for a task or problem. There are seven key steps (Negulescu, 2014) that can be followed before making any decision, which include the following -.
1. Identification of the decision, where the problem is recognised and the decision to address it is made
2. Gathering of information, where hard data and facts are collected to aid in the judgement making process
3. Identification of alternatives, where the many possible solutions are identified to come up with a range of options
4. Weighing the evidence, where the feasibility, acceptability and desirability of the alternatives are evaluated
5. Choosing the right option, where the best alternative is decided upon after careful consideration of the potential benefits as well as risks
6. Implementing, where the required resources are identified and support from the employees and stakeholders is gathered for successful execution of the plan
7. Evaluating the decision, where the effectiveness of the implemented decision is reviewed and the possible improvements are outlined.
Unit 7: Managing knowledge and learning
The management of knowledge and learning is yet another important facet for any organisation, since it ensures that the capabilities and skills that they possess are utilised to the fullest. Knowledge management enables organisations to create knowledge that is potentially useful, and makes that information available to those who need it the most at any point of time.
Managing knowledge and learning encompasses the planning, organising controlling and motivating of the people as well as the different processes for ensuring that the assets related to knowledge are in a state of continual improvement (King, 2009). Learning also includes the various social processes, such as expert networks, which are sometimes established as self-organising groups among individuals who share a common interest among themselves.
Unit 8: Managing innovation and change
The increasing complexity of the business processes make it more difficult to manage change and innovation at any given workplace. The speed of transforming information into knowledge that can be acted upon sometimes does not keep pace with the changes that occur within and without the business environments, which might give rise to manageable risks (Dawsonand Andriopoulos, 2014).
Innovation itself paves the way for change, which requires a certain amount of learning. Triggers that provoke this change often act as the motivators for investing in innovation. These triggers can be either internal or external. Internal triggers include - issues with operations, leadership changes, modifications in inter-organisational alliances, decline or growth of the enterprise, and other decisions. The list, however, is not exhaustive.
On the other hand, the external factors can be summed up quite efficiently under the bracket of the PESTLE theory, which includes the political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental aspects that influence both the innovation and functioning in organisations.Managing innovation is nothing but providing the appropriate response to these trigger, be it internal or external, and since the entire process entails high levels of possibilities as well as uncertainties, leaders who represent change must invest in learning that would help them with sustainability and growth.
Unit 9: Managing "One Way"
Many social and cultural critics have assessed that as globalisation progresses, the cultures all around the world are getting absorbed into one another, resulting in a reality that is increasingly homogeneous. The forces that allow for heterogenisation are as strong as the ones that allow for homogenisation (Forbes, 2017). The world as we see it is globally connected and thus it indeed is a homogeneous one. For instance, the advent of the internet and its wild popularity have made English the world's most commonly spoken and understood language.Moreover, social media has made the world a smaller place, as it has become amazingly easy and fast to connect to virtually anyone living at any part of the world.
Globalisation not only allows for cultures to mingle but also enables other people to explore those places in other parts of the world that may have been isolated for all these years. As indicated by the Global Competitiveness Report, human development is driven to a large extent by the need for economic growth (Schwab, 2018).This further reinstates Thomas Friedman's assertion of a "flat world," which meant that the market of competitiveness between the emerging and the existing industrial countries is achieving a sense of levelness, as large corporations as well as small entrepreneurs are becoming a part of a global supply chain that is not only increasingly complex but also present all across the world.
Unit 10: Managing beyond bureaucracy
If an organisation wishes to flourish in the long run, the management must lay emphasis on three very important aspects that will help confront the modern challenges that enterprises face today -
1. Motivation, for providing a stream of products or services that are highly differentiated from the ones already available in the market. This calls for dedication, imagination and a high degree of passion for innovation
2. Coordination and control, since the vastness of the global supply chains have made it imperative for managers to stay connected with the team members and employees at all times
3. Managing without managers, which entails the shift of management to the periphery of the organisation. This mostly involves a combination of flexibility and freedom, together with the ideas of self-management, which often helps employees in the long run.
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