Business Management Assignment: Problem-Solving Process For Hong Kong International Airport

Question

Task: Individual business management assignmentof approximately 2500 words requires students to apply Creative Problem Solving, CPS technique by selecting TWO (2) appropriate and genuine problems in the selected airport and then, generating TWO (2) new ideas to solve the selected problems and finally students should select the best and practical idea from thegenerated ideas by using evaluation techniques.
In the next section, students are required to propose the relevant strategies to implement the idea into the airport. Students should explain the proposed changes on the organisation structure, organisation culture and managerial practices for successful implementation of the idea.

Answer

1. Introduction
Organisations across the world are increasingly focusing on enhancing their competitiveness with an increase in competition in all the industries. However, in some cases, they lack proper analysis and identification of the issues pertaining to their management, structure and culture causing significant disruptions in achievement of their goals both in the short and the long-run. Hong-Kong International-Airport (HKIA) has been facing significant problems in increasing passengers’ footfall despite building the capacity of its flights. It is due to poor management of the practices. Aim of the present report is to use proper problem-solving techniques for effective mitigation of issues in HKIA for streamlining its profitability.

2. Two problems in Hong-Kong International-Airport
Passengers’-footfall in HKIA is high; however, in 2019, there was a steep fall in number of passengers and it lost approximately 16% of its passengers in that year (Qz, 2019). Due to this, there was a significant decline in profitability of this organisation due to losses in different segments (Statista, 2022). The most significant problem that is causing a noticeable decline in popularity and profitability of this airport is security and safety issues due to poor management of the flights and airport operations by the concerned personnel (Luiet al. 2020).

Figure 1: Revenue of Hong-Kong International-Airport by different segments
(Source: Statista, 2022)

The significant security risk that this airport is failing to handle is related to passenger protection as there has been a rise in total number of its passenger injury as this city’s unrest has significantly spread to the terminals of airports since the year of “Occupy Movement” (Globaltimes, 2019). The workforce in Hong-Kong International-Airport has not been efficient enough to ensure security of its passengers during this turbulent situation due to poor management of risks and poor contingency management approach. Besides that, another issue that is impeding achievement of its goals regarding enhanced competitiveness is associated with lack of focus on maintaining sustainability in its construction projects such as its third-runway project that is expected to have detrimental impact on water-lives. According to head of the oceans conservation, if proper sustainability measures are not taken in the very initial stage for avoiding risks of extinctions (Scmp, 2020). Fundamental reason behind increasing sustainability issues in this airport is a result of poor management culture within organisation that does not aim at embracing sustainability in operations. The decreased capacity issue has always been evident; however, to increase this capacity HKIA has focused on building its third runway by reclaiming the flat lands for enhancing its passenger footfall. The protestors wanted to stop this construction as they believed that it would have a detrimental influence on environment. This caused a reputational damage of this organisation causing a decline in its popularity.

3. Addressing the challenges
Utilisation of the mind map as an idea generation tool can help in getting new ideas for mitigating the challenges mentioned above. Steps in idea-generation include:

• Definition of the goals
• Identification of the problems hindering achievement of the goals
• Brainstorming the probable solutions for addressing the issues
• Development of proper action points through the review of all alternative solutions

Defining the goals
Short-term objective of Hong-Kong International-Airport includes improving satisfaction and experience of its passengers through enhancement of customer services. Apart from this, one of the long-term goals of this organisation is to ensure sustainable growth and development of this airport through development of flight capacity (Hongkongairport, 2021). However, achievement of these has become due to negligence in managing most significant issues due to poor management and organisational culture.

Figure 2: Mind-map

Identifying the problems that are hindering achievement of the objectives
Hong-Kong International-Airport has always been facing a challenge in enhancing its capacity due to which, it has become difficult to ensure convenience for all the passengers. This organisation has focused on enhancing its capacity by reclaiming the flat lands for addressing capacity issues. However, due to poor attention towards ensuring sustainability in its previous construction projects, protestors have started believing that the construction of third-runway in flat land would be detrimental both from environmental and economic perspectives. Hence, managers of organisation should have focused on fostering harmony between environmental conservation and economic development for gaining acceptance (Cgcc, 2021). Security threat in the airport due to a rise in turbulence has made it challenging to enhance customer satisfaction and achieve the customer-service goals.

Brainstorming the probable solutions to address the issues
This organisation can consider adoption of a sustainability planning approach for effective management of the sustainability issues in all its construction projects. In its previous projects, it has been blamed for poor waste management that had a significant negative influence on the environment due to increased pollution. Hence, it will require this organisation to brainstorm all the probable solutions for addressing these issues. It is essential to implementinnovative technologies such as green or sustainable design-techniques in all its construction projects including the third-runway project, for ensuring that all its projects would have zero to minimum impact on the environment. As cited by Gómez Comendadoret al. (2019), organisations need to follow “World-recognised-Green-Building-Rating-standards” for assessing impact of their building and construction projects on the environment through development of proper metrics. It will be important for HKIA to provide “AI-enabledsustainability training” to the workforce and make them aware of importance of embracing sustainability. It will encourage the managers to sign contract with green contractors for reducing risks of environmental impact through proper identification of their opinions for providing personalised experience.

For addressing security risks, it is essential for this company to implement preventive technologies. Besides that, hiring of trained staff for security screening should be considered for addressing the security issues. This can involve use of predictive-analytics for determining suitability of candidates. Continuous performance of security audits or implementation of smart technology for improved security screening should be considered for enhancing safety at the airport and flights. This will require the company to conduct security workshops or training for the workforce to make them understand the reason behind conducting security audits.

Action Items
Steps in the thorough action plan of HKIA for addressing the aforementioned problems include:

• Development of a sustainability plan and agenda before developing construction plan
• Finding economically as well as technically feasible solutions
• Implementation of sustainable practices and conducting sustainability training programs for project managers
• Continuous monitoring of the new practices and assessing effectiveness of solutions in ensuring satisfaction of stakeholders including (community protestors, government, passengers and employees) and recruitment-plan for security-screening

Lotus-Blossom
Lotus-blossom can help in expanding the central ideas and problems based upon different goals. The goals include implementation of sustainable-technologies and procedures for minimizingnegative impact on environment through construction and improving passengers’ security through improved security screening and audit. Innovative techniques for achievement of these two goals include:

• AI-enabled sustainability-training and workshops for enhancing managers’ acceptance for adopting sustainable contract and work-practices by understanding their opinions and using this data for developing effective sustainability contents
• Recruitment through predictive analytics for determining ability of new candidates to ensure effective security-screening and providing training to enhance workforce ability to conduct security-audits properly

Table 1: Lotus Blossom

4. Practicality and Acceptability of ideas
4.1 Feasibility of proposed solutions
4.2 Use of evaluation matrix

Table 2: Idea-Evaluation-Matrix
Force-field Analysis

Figure 3: Force-field-analysis-matrix

Evaluation of feasibility helps in determining possible impact of each solution on organisational processes or stakeholders (Kirjavainen&Hölttä-Otto, 2021). For example, arrangement of AI-enabled sustainability training could enhance acceptance amongst the managers regarding contract with sustainable contractors for development of third-runway. It will be cost-effective procedure as well. To address the security risks frequent security audits have been suggested which could be highly acceptable amongst stakeholders including passengers and investors. Conducting training for motivating the workforce regarding this can also enhance acceptance amongst workers. Recruitment of more trained personnel could be a costly process. However, it will enhance security of passengers at workplace and hence, there will an increase in passenger-footfall, which makes it an acceptable and feasible solution. Recruitment of skilled-screening staff through use of predictive-analytics can be effective for enhancing acceptance; however, it is a costly procedure.

5. Strategies for implementing the ideas for bringing changes
5.1 Strategies for bringing changes in structure, culture and management practices
It has been found that poor focus on management towards ensuring sustainability of construction operations and passenger security have caused Hong-Kong International-Airport to experience a significant decline in its profit and competitive advantage Hence, implementation of innovative green strategies will be stressed for addressing the challenges. However, it will require a shift in organisational existing culture, structure and management practices. It will require adoption of a sustainability-focused innovative culture for influencing each employee of the organisation to adopt sustainable as well as innovative practice. However, it can cause the organisational leaders to face significant challenges at the initial stage due to changes in existing working practices. Changes in working practices can enhance dissatisfaction amongst employees and hence, implementation of innovative practices can be unsuccessful. Therefore, adoption of an appropriate human-resource management practice and organisational culture should be stressed. The new sustainably innovative culture will further require an effective change leadership strategy for influencing the change process in a positive manner (Issah, 2018). The change leader will focus on developing an appropriate organisational culture that would inculcate sustainability and innovative attitudes within the entire workforce. There are two types of culture including weak and strong cultures. Strong culture sets desired behavioural-standarnds and so on that influence innovative behaviours of the employees. Weak culture involves inadequate prioritisation of value, expectations and so on that has minimum impact on the behaviour of the employees. The leaders of HKIA need to aim at establishing a positive-strong culture for setting clear expectations for employees regarding their desired sustainability-focused and innovative behaviour (Odor, 2018). The leader should further encourage alignment of changes in organisational mission and strategies. For example, human-resource management-practices should be transformed to encourage changes in a positive way. For instance, human-resource performance-management practices should be emphasised. HKIA ladders can consider arranging change-focused training or development programs for the employees to help them cope with the new practices such as utilisation of smart technologies for security screening. Apart from this, a contingency-management education should be provided to all employees to influence their behaviour towards reducing passenger security risks This will aid in enhancing their acceptance towards implementation of new practices for addressing the existing issues. Hong-Kong International-Airport has established a “hierarchical management structure” due to which it often becomes challenging for them to foster innovation (Figure 3). To develop an innovative culture it requires organisations to burst this kind of structure and adopt a flat organisational-structure for fostering collaboration within management and employees (Mazorodze& Buckley, 2019).

Figure 4: Current management-structure of Hong-Kong International-Airport
(Source: Has.com.hk, 2021)

A flat structure will help this company to influence its employees’ attitude towards sustainability and innovation in a positive way as it will encourage employees and other stakeholders including community protestors, authorities of ocean conservation and government to provide their views and opinions regarding implementation of a new practice. Hence, there will be enhanced acceptance towards the changes. In this context, leaders of Hong-Kong International-Airport can consider application of “Kotter’s change-management process” for influencing the innovation and sustainability approaches positively,

5.2 Steps in the change-management

Urgency creation
In this step HKIA leaders should communicate the need for bringing changes with the employees by enhancing their understanding regarding the existing issues such as sustainability issues in construction and passenger-security issues.

Building guiding-coalition
This is the second step, in which establishment of guiding team consisting of the effective change-personnel is considered (Thornton et al. 2019). They will communicate the change needs across all the departments of HKIA.

Developing shared-vision
Active participation by the entire workforce and stakeholders including community-protestors, authority of ocean-conservation and so on in development of shared vision for reducing impact on water and environment during construction for enhancing acceptance amongst them

Communicating vision
The vision should be communicated and reinforced through training programs for developing change culture

Removing obstacles
Hierarchical-structure should be replaced with flat structure for fostering collaborations.

Short-term-wins-creation
Short-term targets such as improved screening performance and reduction of security issue within a short-time period can be set for assessing effectiveness and upon achievement of objective employees should be rewarded.

Consolidating-gains
Success in achievement of goals should be analysed based upon the performance metrics.

Anchoring-change in culture
Success stories should be communicated amongst all employees for integrating changes successfully within culture.

6. Conclusion
Finally, it could be concluded that in spite of its continuous focus on ensuring convenience of passengers, HKIA is facing challenges in enhancing its profitability, growth and customer satisfaction due to ineffective management of security risks and sustainability issues especially in construction projects. Hence, it should adopt a strategic approach for ensuring sustainability of all its construction projects. Implementation innovative technologies and practices for mitigating security or sustainability risks would require this company to develop an effective change-management strategy to ensure successful implementation of the changes by reducing risks of change resistance.

PESTLE Analysis: Hong-Kong-International-Airport
Political
Hong-Kong Government supports the infrastructural development of HKIA. Hong-Kong airport-authority has developed “Hong-Kong-International Master-Plan, 2030” for ensuring investment in development of airport that opens-up opportunities for sustainable-innovation in this airport through proper training and recruitment (Hongkongairport, 2021).

Economic
Rise in protests and trade-ware resulted in significant recession in HK economy and there has been steep fall in number of passengers travelling by flight due to decline in national income. It has reduced HKIA-profit causing problems in infrastructural-development.

Social
Increase in safety concerns amongst the people in HK has caused HKIA to face problems in satisfying their needs. It requires them to focus on enhancing security at airport.

Technological
Technological-advancement could be utilised as opportunity and HKIA should embrace sustainable-technologies in its construction projects for satisfying stakeholders. It can further enhance quality of training programs at this airport.

Legal
Increase in environmental regulations has already caused HKIA to face criticism for having negative impact on environment. It requires HKIA to implement sustainable practices and technologies through development of sustainability agenda for guiding the workforce.

Environmental
Changes in climate has made it mandatory for HKIA to reduce emission and minimise negative impact on environment for which there is a need to implement green technologies and practices at workplace.

Bibliography
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