Management Assignment: Managing Organization In Global Environment

Question

Task: This management assignmentconsists of six (6) questions and is designed to assess your level of knowledge of the key topics covered in this unit.

Question 1
The workplace is becoming more and more diverse than ever, owing to the impact of worldwide economic integration, also known as globalization, which has now made the world a global village. In the light of this statement mentioned herein management assignment, explain the benefits of diverse workforce and barriers to inclusion. Answer this question in not more than 400 words.

Question 2
While the use of teams appears to offer many benefits, teams may not be the most suitable approach for all organisations. In the light of this statement, explain the difficulties and challenges of changing to a team-based organisation. Answer this question in not more than 400 words.

Question 3
Scenario: With 270,000 employees in 22 countries, Aramark wanted to better motivate its employees who clean airplanes for Delta and Southwest Airlines. Turnover of the low-paid, largely immigrant staff was high while morale was low. Wallets and other valuables left on planes disappeared. After 5 years of efforts to increase motivation, revenue rose from $5 million to $14 million.

Describe ‘need hierarchy theory’ and what it recommends about improving motivation in organisations. Based on the above scenario, if you were the manager of Aramark, what would you do to motivate them Explain some possible barriers to the effectiveness of your motivation ideas. What could you do to overcome them Answer this question in not more than 700 words.

Question 4
Scenario:When Melvin Wearing obtained the Chief of Police position, morale was terrible, and communication between the chief’s office and the officers was often through union grievances. Wearing wanted to show his pride in police work. He upgraded the department’s technology, raised standards in the training academy, and increased the department’s diversity. The department has earned four national and international awards for community policing.

Based on the above scenario, explain the approaches of leadership, and explain how Chief Wearing has demonstrated a transformational leadership style in his role as a police chief. If you were Melvin Wearing, how can you exhibit a transformational leadership style in your role as a police chief Answer this question in not more than 700 words.

Question 5
Political behaviour in organisations presents positive and negative, ‘nice and nasty’ faces to the observer and to recipients or victims. As most management behaviours, organisation politics can have dual impacts including benefits and costs. With reference to the above fact, explain the causes and consequences of political behaviours. Answer this question in not more than 400 words.

Question 6
In today’s variable working environment, organizational structure and learning organization occupy a central place in the management of organizations. Organizational structures are considered as important components of organizations due to their significance on the effectiveness of operations and performing of goals. With reference to the above situation, explain the differences between mechanistic and organic structures of organisation with examples. Answer this question in not more than 400 words.

Answer

Answer1:
Workforce diversity has emerged as a significant concept with employees working in companies from different economic, cultural and social backgrounds. Employees of different gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, age, life experiences and socioeconomic background are present. There exists various benefits of such a diverse workforce in the company. Ogranizations can gain competitive advantage from diversity as they can perform better through improved creativity, innovation and expansion of their reach (Okoroand Washington, 2012). Diverse employees provide viewpoints or opinions from different perspectives that help in looking at problems in various ways and providing suitable solutions for the same. Furthermore, diversity also enables the companies in better responding to the changes in the business environment by having better ability of competing in the global marketplace. For example, often managers are not available for personally coaching the employees, where the senior employees having age differences with these new recruits are essential as they possess both knowledge and experience for mentoring them (Lundrigan, et al., 2012). Besides, the fresh perspectives and ideas are also helpful in leading to better problem-solving and decision-making in the organizations. It also helps in attracting and retaining talented employees from the job market, improve sales and revenues of the companies and enhance the overall productivity and performance. For example, diversified workplace consisting of different people provide range of ideas, creativity and innovation in the company (Lundrigan, et al., 2012).

Despite these benefits, there also occurs some barriers to inclusion from diverse workforce. Some of the most common barriers that are observed include bullying or harassment, insensitivity, selective monitoring, perceived underperformance and stereotyping(Okoro and Washington, 2012). These factors often make it difficult for the companies to embrace diversity and inclusion, which often cause discontent and negative atmosphere in the workplace. Lack of role models, people facing microaggressions, informal mentoring and lack of inclusion are further barriers in the organizations that should be addressed. Furthermore, intercultural communication becomes a significant challenge in these workplaces with diverse workforce (Okoro and Washington, 2012). The managers also face difficulties in motivating and creating harmony amongst these workers because of their different expectations.

Answer 2:
Team-based organizations are the ones that depend on teams for undertaking decisions together by working as a single unit for achieving the common team and company objectives. While there are various advantages associated with transforming to a team-based organization, companies can also face different challenges and difficulties (Arpiainenand Kurczewska, 2017). Different team members have various opinions and viewpoints on a particular subject or decision, which often enhances the possibility of conflicts. This can further decrease the efficiency and harmony of the entire group. Furthermore, all employees cannot work as team players and often perform better while working individually. These team members face difficulties in using their skill set in the team that further deteriorates the entire team productivity. Besides, in various situations, some underperforming employees might hide behind the team by relying too much on others and contributing nothing towards the team work (Salas, et al., 2013). Their lack of effort makes it problematic for other team members as they are required to take on more responsibilities. Team-based organizations also require effective leadership, good communication, effective resource allocation and project management for achieving the desired objectives. Inability of ensure these factors also makes it challenging for these organizations in operating effectively. These organizations also face interaction challenges with increasing number of both internal and external stakeholders (Zander, et al., 2015). Team-based organizations also have less contact with teams performing other functions and work in isolation that might not be beneficial. The constant change taking place for quick decisions often lead to confusion and chaos in the teams without the presence of efficient leaders. These teams function independently based on their different functions, which decreases the overall organizational consistency. It has further been observed that self-managed team-based organizations make independent decisions and formulate strategies for problem-solving (Annosi, Monti and Martini, 2020). However, too much autonomy in these organizations can backfire if all the team members are not enthusisastic of using their talent or remain confused about the team goals. Some of the team members can be more interested in pursuing their self-interest and accordingly, hamper the success of the overall organization.

Answer 3:
The need hierarchy theory of Maslow provides how motivation is the result from five basic needs fulfilment in individuals. These are physiological, safety, social, self-esteem and self-actualization needs (Kaur, 2013). Physiological needs satisfy basic human requirements of food, water, shelter, clothes and others. Organizations are required to fulfil these needs by providing adequate living conditions and decent salary to the employees. Safety needs indicate the sense of security and well-being through good health, financial and personal security, protection from mishaps and others. These include providing safe and healthy working environment. Social needs refer to love and belongingness that provides sense of acceptance in relationships with peers, friends, family, acquaintances and others. These include participation of employees in various social events such as team lunches, picnics, outings and others where relationships can be built amongst them(Kaur, 2013).Self-esteem needs refer to gaining respect and admiration from others while self-actualization indicates the needs for reaching higher potential. Various awards must be provided to the workforce for recognizing their distinguished achievements. Individuals can be motivated by fulfilling each of these needs starting from the physiological needs in the hierarchy. These employees are valuable assets for the organizations. These needs should be fulfilled based on the hierarchical level.

Aramark can focus on motivating the employees by starting from increasing their salary, bonuses and other financial and non-financial benefits. This is because wallets, valuables or other items left on the planes have been disappearing that indirectly indicates that those staff were low-paid. With increase in salary and bonuses, the safety and security needs of the staff can be fulfilled for increasing their motivation (Velmuruganand Sankar, 2017). Besides, they should also be praised and acknowledged for their hard work and effort alongside strengthening relationships with the seniors and managers. This would help in meeting their social and self-esteem needs, thus, enhancing their motivation levels. Some of the possible barriers that can arise from the motivation ideas are that these safety, social and self-esteem needs cannot be satisfied at once. They must be fulfilled based on their hierarchical level, which makes it both time-consuming and costly for the company. It is difficult to identify how much increment in salary would be effective in satisfying the employees as it would vary based on their personal lifestyles (Jerome, 2013). Besides, all employees might not be praised or appreciated as their efforts and hard work would vary. This would create discrimination and instead, reduce motivation of employees who are not acknowledged. Moreover, it is not possible for the company to focus on maintaining individual relationship with each of the staff for meeting their social needs(Velmurugan and Sankar, 2017). Thus, these barriers would be faced while motivating the employees through the need hierarchy theory.

These barriers can be handled with some effective strategies. The safety needs of the underpaid staff can be met by increasing their salary and providing bonuses. In this regard, the company can carry out a survey of their expectations about salary increment and accordingly enhance their remuneration based on the survey results. Such increment would fall within a range and vary based on the performance of each of the employees. Furthermore, managers and seniors should conduct one-to-one sessions with each of the staff every month for listening to their problems and grievances and providing them with feedback about their work. This conversation should be undertaking as a mentor or coach for strengthening relationships with the staff and making them feel comfortable in sharing their problems. Lastly, awards should be provided both individually and team basis for acknowledging the hard work and effort of the employees.

Answer 4:
Melvin had undertaken effective leadership approaches while working as the chief of the police station. At first, he analysed and identified the persistent problems at the station for addressing them. He had a clear vision of what he wanted to achieve and accordingly, devised effective strategies for guiding the behaviours of employees and operations in that particular direction (Taylor, Corneliusand Colvin, 2014). This displays the presence of visionary leadership in his approach where he focused on taking pride in the police work and making the police station successful in its operations. Furthermore, Melvin also displayed the transformational leadership approach while handling the problems in the police station. He realized that focus should be present on both the tasks and officers present (Nguyen, et al., 2017). The needs and demands of the officers should be met for motivating them and enhancing their commitment towards the police work. In this regard, Melvin focused on bringing change into the individual and social systems present in the police station. He emphasized on the need for creating valuable and positive change in the officers by guiding them in the right direction. By taking pride in police work, Melvin set an example at the executive level for establishing a strong culture, independence and ownership at the police station(Nguyen, et al., 2017). Furthermore, he initiated various changes such as upgrading department’s technology, increasing diversity and raising training standards. These changes were undertaken for encouraging, inspiring and motivating employees for embracing positive change in the police station that would also enable them to grow their career. This enabled the department in gaining several awards under the leadership of Melvin. He emphasized greatly on cooperation, honesty, authenticity, coaching, mentoring and open communication by enabling the officers to undertake their own decisions instead of micromanaging them. In addition, the focus on diversity also displayed the transformational leadership style where diverse opinions and personalities were embraced. Melvin was successful in enhancing the work engagement of the officers at the police station by changing their perceptions about the work and himself taking pride in doing police work (Alqatawenh, 2018). This helped in motivating the officers in performing their duties in an effective manner. He also helped in initiating change management in the police station by communicating with them properly about the requirements of improvement. Transformational leadership can be displayed further through its four fundamental elements of individualized consideration, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and idealized influence (Long, et al., 2014). Individualized consideration is essential where leaders would attend to the needs of every follower by playing the role of a mentor or coach and listening to the concerns of the individuals. This also involves providing support, guidance and empathy to the followers by communicating with them openly and letting them face challenges. Furthermore, intellectual stimulation can be ensured by using the ideas of the followers by taking risks of failing in any particular task(Long, et al., 2014). Such actions help in motivating the followers to cultivate creative ideas and enable them for thinking independently. Inspirational motivation is undertaken for developing a vision and guiding subordinates towards that definite direction through communicating future goals, providing meaningful tasks and setting high standards at work(Long, et al., 2014). This enables the followers in developing a sense of purpose for working towards achieving the vision. Thus, the leaders here make the vision comprehensible, engaging and powerful to the followers. Lastly, idealized influence can be generated by the leaders by acting as role models to the followers(Long, et al., 2014). This is ensured by displaying ethical behaviours, gaining respect and trust and instilling pride amongst the followers.

Answer 5:
Political behaviours are quite common in organizations as some people always seek for ways of gaining and exploiting power for fuilfilling their own needs. In this regard, activities are performed for acquiring, enhancing and using power and resources for achieving the desired outcomes (DuBrin, 2013). There exist various factors and causes of political behaviour in organizations. Some of the significant reasons often giving rise to these behaviours in the workplaces are ambiguous goals within departments or teams, scare or limited resources, rapidly changing technology and environment, organizational change and nonprogrammed decisions undertaken in the organizations. Various other causes are also identified as potential sources for creating political behaviours in the organizations. These include external environmental changes, individual’s lust for power, ineffective organizational culture with low trust, improper reward and evaluation systems and participative decision-making, saturation in one’s career and discretionary authority (Fagbohungbe, Akinbode and Ayodeji, 2012).Different factors further contribute towards these political behaviours displayed in the organizations. The individual factors consist of sensitivity to social cues and conformity, locus of control, manipulation and proactiveness, job opportunities, future benefits and others. On the other hand, the organizational factors contributing towards these behaviours are resources, trust, cultural differences, technology and external environment and change.

There are various effects of political behaviours on both organizations and employees. Politics decreases individual output of the employees, thereby lowering the organizational productivity. Employees often fail to achieve the desired outcomes and consequently, deadlines of work remain unmet. Political behaviour also affects concentration of the employees as they become more interested in exploiting or misusing their power for gaining benefits (Landellsand Albrecht, 2017). These behaviours further creates a negative environment in the company, spoils relationships amongst individuals and ultimately affects the organizational culture. Political behaviour also changes the attitudes of the employees by reducing their interest in work or attending office, decreasing their hard work and effort and makes such work go unnoticed. In addition, it results in demotivated employees, thereby increasing their anxiety and stress at the workplace. Thus, the major consequences arising from political behaviours in organizations are decreasing productivity, reducec concentration, spoilt ambience, changing attitude of employees, demotivated workforce, increased stress and wrong information flow.

Answer 6:
Organizational structure indicates the framework present in a company for distinguishing between power and authority, roles and responsibilities and information flow (Ahmady, Mehrpourand Nikooravesh, 2016). Mechanistic and organic are two of the most basic forms of organizational structures.

Mechanistic structure is basically a bureaucratic structure with emphasis on formal and centralized network and suitable for companies operating in a stable environment (Tavitiyaman, Zhangand Qu, 2012). Thus, the three fundamental features present in this organization structure are highly centralized authority, formalized procedures and specialized functions. Other characteristics include stable environment, low integration, low differentiation of tasks and standardization and formalization. On the other hand, organic structures are more suitable for unstable and dynamic environments required to undertake quick changes. Thus, these are flat organizations providing horizontal communications for developing creative businessea and responding rapidly to the changes in the external environment. This helps in providing employees with the opportunity of involving in the business decision-making of the organization(Ahmady, Mehrpour and Nikooravesh, 2016). The characteristics are decentralization, broadly-defined jobs, easy communication, employee initiative, few rules and regulations and flexibility.

In mechanistic structure, employees are specialized in single tasks and work separately with simple integrating mechanisms and well-defined hierarchy authority. While employees in organic structures are present in task forces and teams formed through complex integrating mechanisms because of their joint specialization and working together for achieving common goals (Lunenburg, 2012). Furthermore, centralized decision-making and vertical communication is present in mechanistic structures while decentralization and lateral communication is seen in organic structures as there exists authority of controlling individual tasks. Rules and standard operating procedures are used extensively in mechanistic organizations while face-to-face coordination and unpredictable work processes are more common in organic structures. Written communication is more prevalent in mechanistic structures as compared to the verbal communication of organic ones(Ahmady, Mehrpour and Nikooravesh, 2016). Organic structures provide greater flexibility to the organizations, allow employees to be creative and cultivate ideas and deal with environmental changes. Mechanistic structures help in establishing clear and efficient reporting relationships and enable quick decision-making in stable and rigid working environments. Thus, most organizations often fall in the middle of these two organizational structures.

References
Ahmady, G.A., Mehrpour, M. and Nikooravesh, A., 2016. Organizational structure. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 230, pp.455-462.
Alqatawenh, A.S., 2018. Transformational leadership style and its relationship with change management. Verslas: teorijairpraktika, 19(1), pp.17-24.
Altymurat, A., Muhai, M. and Saparow, T., 2021. Human Behavior in Organizations Related to Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Theory. Interdisciplinary Journal Papier Human Review, 2(1), pp.12-16. Annosi, M.C., Monti, A. and Martini, A., 2020. Individual learning goal orientations in self managed team based organizations: A study on individual and contextual variables. Creativity and Innovation Management, 29(3), pp.528-545. Arpiainen, R.L. and Kurczewska, A., 2017. Learning risk-taking and coping with uncertainty through experiential, team-based entrepreneurship education. Industry and Higher Education, 31(3), pp.143-155.
DuBrin, A.J., 2013. Fundamentals of organizational behavior: An applied perspective. Elsevier.
Fagbohungbe, B.O., Akinbode, G.A. and Ayodeji, F., 2012. Organizational determinants of workplace deviant behaviours: An empirical analysis in Nigeria. International Journal of Business and Management, 7(5), p.207.
Jerome, N., 2013. Application of the Maslow’s hierarchy of need theory; impacts and implications on organizational culture, human resource and employee’s performance. International Journal of Business and Management Invention, 2(3), pp.39-45. Kaur, A., 2013. Maslow’s need hierarchy theory: Applications and criticisms. Global Journal of Management and Business Studies, 3(10), pp.1061-1064.
Landells, E.M. and Albrecht, S.L., 2017. The positives and negatives of organizational politics: A qualitative study. Journal of business and psychology, 32(1), pp.41-58. Long, C.S., Yusof, W.M.M., Kowang, T.O. and Heng, L.H., 2014. The impact of transformational leadership style on job satisfaction.
World Applied Sciences Journal, 29(1), pp.117-124.
Lundrigan, M., Tangsuvanich, V., Yu, L., Wu, S. and Mujtaba, B.G., 2012. Coaching a diverse workforce: The impact of changing demographics for modern leaders. Management assignmentInternational Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 2(3), pp.40-48. Lunenburg, F.C., 2012. Mechanistic-organic organizations-An Axiomatic Theory: Authority based on bureaucracy or professional norms. International Journal of Scholarly Academic Intellectual Diversity, 14(1), pp.1-7. Nguyen, T.T., Mia, L., Winata, L. and Chong, V.K., 2017. Effect of transformational-leadership style and management control system on managerial performance. Journal of Business Research, 70, pp.202-213.
Okoro, E.A. and Washington, M.C., 2012. Workforce diversity and organizational communication: Analysis of human capital performance and productivity. Journal of Diversity Management (JDM), 7(1), pp.57-62.
Salas, E., Tannenbaum, S., Cohen, D. and Latham, G. eds., 2013. Developing and enhancing teamwork in organizations: Evidence-based best practices and guidelines (Vol. 33). John Wiley &Sons.
Tavitiyaman, P., Zhang, H.Q. and Qu, H., 2012. The effect of competitive strategies and organizational structure on hotel performance. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 23, pp.1358-1366. Taylor, C.M., Cornelius, C.J. and Colvin, K., 2014. Visionary leadership and its relationship to organizational effectiveness. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 35(6), pp. 566-583.
Velmurugan, T.A. and Sankar, J.G., 2017. A comparative study on motivation theory with Maslow’s hierarchy theory and two factor theory in organization. Indo-Iranian Journal of Scientific Research, 1(1), pp.204-208.
Zander, L., Butler, C.L., Mockaitis, A.I., Herbert, K., Lauring, J., Mäkelä, K., Paunova, M., Umans, T. and Zettinig, P., 2015. Team-based global organizations: The future of global organizing. In The future of global organizing. Emerald Group Publishing Limited.