About surveys on International Business - Are you World-Minded?

One interesting thing that I have noticed about is that most of the business case surverys that deal with world-mindedness, stresses more on religious, cultural and racial factors (surface level diversities) which are always hard to deal with. Also, stress on immigrant jobs, national loyalty and patriotic feelings was relevant. I think most of these surveys brings into light one’s positive global outlook, his acceptance of diversities and willingness to adapt to the global scenario. It indeed tells us whether we are actually “world-minded”. It gives us insight to areas to work on for increasing our “global management potential”.

Some surverys suggests abolishing all national governments and replacing them with a single global government. The scoring system gives that a regular score. I don’t agree to that since it’s hard to change the beliefs, values and perceptions that form each nation’s culture. Rather we should support efforts of global organizations such as UN, WTO, WHO etc.

I have been in my native country, India, before I settled in US. I can say that there exists a huge cultural (work, values framework) difference between the two countries. It is interesting to note that companies like Infosys strives hard to cope up with the differing modes of operations in India and US. One big thing that has helped Infosys to remain competitive is its ability to adapt to the new culture and work environment.

(c) Deepesh Joseph, 2006-2008
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Interesting business case review - Taking a Business Decision based on Ethical intensity and Social Responsibility

This review of a chapter from a famous management book reflects on a sample business case when a company which was moving towards bankruptcy was offered a fundreaising deal which might help her to to be saved. Read along the review as how we could apply ethical intensity and social responsibility to attach points to such a decision making situation. This chapter is useful in business decision making process.

The problem here, is, whether accepting the fundraising offer from the FastCheck company will affect the goodwill and credibility of CAP. CAP on the other side, also need to avoid bankruptcy by accepting the offer. Deriving the ethical intensity will help CAP to choose the appropriate decision. Ratings on the six ethical intensity factors goes as follows -

Magnitude of consequences – 5 (The decision to accept the offer will be harmful to CAP's goodwill and harmful to poor families by getting them trapped to high interest rates and making their life miserable. Its will be against CAP humanitarian mission)

Social consensus – 4 (majority believe that accepting the offer is harmful)Probability of Effect – 4 (its almost sure that harm is going to happen)

Temporal Immediacy – 2 (people actually getting trapped or loss of goodwill will happen gradually)

Proximity of effect – 4 (CAP works closely with the low income group)Concentration of effect – 4 (on an average basis)

Total points = 22

The above analysis brings into light how ethically intense will be the decision to accept the offer.

The high point of 22 over 30 shows that the decision to accept the offer will not be wise, ethically. Particularly, high points on the first three factors (13 over 15) shows that the ethical intensity of the decision is high and that CAP should not accept the offer.

References:

1. Williams C. (2007). Management: Ethics and Social Responsibility (4th ed., ch. 4). Thomson South Western.

(c) Deepesh Joseph, 2006-2008
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Applying Wanous Study to a Real Life Example in an organization

Employee resistance due to cynicism will be a major factor in any organizational change process. The negative affectivity (NA) (Wanous et. al, Jun 2000 ) and fear factors (psychological and desire based) are the reasons for this kind of resistance. My organization recently went through a major change process where the development team migrated from an easy to use version control system to a more wide-focused, process oriented Change management tool (Dimensions, from Serena). This process was a major change with lot of risk factors as it was done in the middle of the busy project cycles and tight deadlines. Let me try to reflect on the results of Wanuos study, how it makes sense to this particular change that my company went through.

Result #1: To reduce pessimism, all changes should be effectively communicated -

There was lot of fear factor in each team member as whether the new system will lead more work, waste of time in unnecessary documentation and increased project delays. But the management took efforts to conduct presentations and talks on how the new tool will refine the current process of version control and take it to a higher level of change management that actually simplifies the check-in/check-out process and moving the changes in more visual and controllable manner to the various testing,UAT (user acceptance testing) and production levels. The management was able to make the employees believe that the change was really beneficial for them to gain control of the development and deployment process, in the light of high growth rate that the company is experiencing.

Result #2: Involve more employee participation in the change process -

This was evident in the way that the whole team was involved in the migration and deployment process, providing feedback for improvement and having enough knowledge of the new system through training and hands-on live examples via a pilot system. This made employees to actually see the benefits and believe that the change process is necessary for their own good.

Result #3: Cynicism is negatively correlated with amount of previous organizational change and with the motivation to keep on trying to make change -

As far as previous change is concerned, there was no data available since this was a new of its kind throughout the company's history, so there is not much to think about in those lines. Yes, providing motivation was an important factor in the change process. Increased team member motivation to gain control over the whole process of version control and management, reduced the cynicism.

Result # 4: Increased level of pre-existing Cynicism leads to increased levels of effort from the change agents to effect the change -

There was no data available for this view point since this change was a new happening in the company.

Result # 5: Cynicism is positively correlated to decreased organizational commitment and increased grievance filing. -

In my company's case, organizational commitment and top management support was on a great level since the need was crucial to keep up with the current situation of effectively handling multiple large scale projects. Grievance filing seemed to have no place in the change process, although there was opportunity to provide feedbacks.

Result # 6: Stronger the Performance to Dollar link, the greater the effect of CAOC on it -

This was evident in the change process when the permanent employee staff passing remarks that "we are not paid extra time for the time we spend for extra research and insights to improve performance". While the contractual staff, who were paid hourly, found this beneficial since they can charge for each extra hour.

References:

1.Wanous, et al. (2000). Group & Organization Management 132-153 25, no. 2, p. 132-153. Copyright Sage Publications, Inc.

(c) Deepesh Joseph, 2006-2008
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Handling Employee Negativity in an Organization- Review of Case study

The Wanous study (as in referred article) brings out the importance of considering negativity of employees during an organizational change and find remedies for it. Its core focus is on cynicism, defining it as “pessimistic outlook for successful change and placing blame on the managers and union leaders who are responsible for the change” (Wanous et. al, Jun 2000). The article argues that other books and studies don't focus on what is cynicism all about, why is it formed and continue to exist in an organization, its effect on organizational change, how does individual employee motivation and efforts is linked to it and general rules of thumb for a manager to reduce cynicism during organizational change.

According to me, the large unionized firm that was selected as the sample group, was a prefect example for the topic that the authors were trying to sell. In a unionized firm, employee power and voice is tremendous. This sets up environment to study the behavior and effects of individual employee resistance and how it can be managed to reduce its negative effects. In addition, the sampling group consisted of varied employee, supervisor and union behavior, strong motivational factors that affected employees efforts, increased urge for “dispositional attribution” (which is the cause for blaming superiors), grievance filing and varied performance to dollar relationships that supported the study of cynicism about organizational change (CAOC).

These factors lead to the effective study and derivation of the following outcomes that are targeted at dealing with COAC -

• All changes should be effectively communicated to all employees to reduce pessimism.
• Allowing greater employee participation in change process decisions and making them understand the outcomes will make them blame less
• Managers should acknowledge past errors and try to see from employee's eyes to understand the root cause of resistance and blame.

The article proclaims that it is based on the “action-research approach” (Likert, 1967), which focusses on individual employee efforts. So, given such a sample that has the above described qualities to be analyzed and studied, its logical that it lead to the intended outcomes that focuses on mitigating COAC.

References:
1. Wanous, et al. (2000). Group & Organization Management 132-153 25, no. 2, p. 132-153. Copyright Sage Publications, Inc.

(c) Deepesh Joseph, 2006-2008
Related websites -- http://www.getallarticles.com

Theory of Business (TOB) - What is it? Explained with case study of Sassy Scrubs

The main problem areas that Doran focuses on are Money management and Planning. It would be interesting to reflect on how the lack of a well defined Theory of Business (TOB) must have affected Sassy Scrub's failure. Looking at the circumstances under which the company originated, it is hard to believe that it had a well formulated TOB. Analyzing various resources, the initial TOB (the current company has changed a lot in its outlook and services), might have been as follows -

• Designing and producing fashionable scrub suits that is most comfortable for varied consumer segments (nurses, doctors, surgeons etc.) during their official working hours and on special occasions, focusing on “cottage industry model”. (Neal J., 2000)

A well defined TOB will focus on changing business environments (markets, customers, technology, financial conditions and society), company mission and core competencies required to meet the mission. Sassy Scrub's initial TOB has the following positive aspects -

• It had identified the major market segment.
  

• The main goal or mission i.e of producing fashionable and comfortable scrub suits is identified.
  

When it comes to adaptability to change and core competencies, the following drawbacks can be noted -

• It had the necessary technology and creativity to produce goods, but lacked the management skills to run the business profitably.
  

• Focus on too many directions without strong foundation in measuring, monitoring and controlling progress. Deviates from the initial goal of remaining as a cottage industry.
  

• Most importantly, it lacked the business model which can adapt to constant changes in environments such as late receivables, reduced cash inflow, increased sales, growing customer base and thus multiplied requirements in new designs and appearance.
  

The following ideas might have been considered in the plan to setup a flexible TOB.

• Set up plan for diversification into large scale industry from a cottage industry considering all aspects of management.This would have helped to tackle the unexpected growth rate.
  

• Alternate sources for building company capital by alliances and contacts.
  

• Establishing Just-in-Time manufacturing technology which is most suited for a medium sized manufacturing firm.
  

References:

1.Neal J. (n.d.). Entrepreneur Cleaning Up by Making Medical Scrubs. Retrieved on April 07, 2007 from http://www.thefreelibrary.com/

SWOT -Puting myself back to when Peggy Piontkowski first created Sassy Scrubs. If she would have done a SWOT analysis, what might she have listed.....

Put myself back to when Peggy Piontkowski first created Sassy Scrubs. If she would have done a SWOT analysis, what might she have listed in each category (S, W, O, and T)?

Quoting from an internet resource, about the circumstances in which Piontkowski started Sassy scrubs - Her daughter wanted a better scrub suit for her nursing school and at that moment, Piontkowski had the whole company vision (Neal J., 2000). She was a stay-at-home mom due to disability from a surgery. She was creative and industrious. Considering these circumstances, she would have done a SWOT analysis as follows -

Strengths:

-Cutting edge technology support from NIIST's MEP (National Institute of Standards and Technology's Manufacturing Extension Partnership) program (Neal J., 2000) which will help her to develop unique printed/cotton scrubs and products that is 100% US made.
- Strong will power to bring in change and taking risk.
- Strong marketing skills.

Weaknesses:

- Lack of long range business plan, strategy and goal.
- Lack of sufficient knowledge, skills and resources to manage mass production and distribution.

Opportunities:

- Unique product line (printed and cotton scrubs) will bring in quick brand name.
- Strong support for US products.
- Wide acceptance and support for small business owners, especially women.

Threats:

- Possible copy of the product line by competitors.
- Lack of established supply chain network.
- Lack of industrial contacts, partnerships and alliances.

Considering rapid growth rate of the company and its inability to effectively manage and control money and unexpected business changes, there is relevance for a frequent SWOT analysis done. Lets go back to end of 1999 and see how the SWOT would have looked like -

Strengths:

-Introducing fresh concepts for producing fashionable apparels as and when a particular consumer segment wants it.
- Strong marketing skills.
- Knowledge and determination to sell products online.

Weaknesses:

- No strategic planning, thus going in too many directions.
- Single leader trying to manage everything who lacks skills to run the business
- No knowledge about numbers – Piontkowski doesn't know what's the financial situation of the company is at any point, its cash flow, expenses, inventory and accounts receivables.

Opportunities:

- Build up of brand name and increased customer orders. This will lead to a steady business once the current constraints are taken care of.
- Wide usage of internet for online shopping will help the company to stay alive.
- Wide acceptance of Piontkowski's efforts throughout the industry will lead to possible take over, alliances and support.

Threats:

-Late receivables, insufficient cash flow and thus increased inventory.
- Credit card debts and losing line of credit which closes all doors for financial support. Possible calls for bankruptcy and closing of retails stores.
- Lack of focus, again this is an after effect of lack of planning.

From experience, Piontkowski discovered that creativity and ability to create scrubs alone is not sufficient but effective business management skills, most importantly, money management, is also necessary. She also discovered that strategic business planning has a great relevance in the midst of changing business environments. Based on this enlightenment, she should have considered performing SWOT analysis at least once in a year.

References:
1. Sassy Scrubs. About Us (2007). Latest Retrieved April 07, 2007 from http://www.sassyscrubs.com/about_sassy_scrubs.php
2. Dickinson, C. J. (Nov 24, 2000) Some Retailers Trading Bricks for Clicks. CNY Business Journal. Retrieved on April 07, 2007 from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3718/is_200011/ai_n8908823
3. Neal J. (n.d.). Entrepreneur Cleaning Up by Making Medical Scrubs. Retrieved on April 07, 2007 from http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Entrepreneur+Cleaning+Up+by+Making+Medical+Scrubs-a065464412

(c) Deepesh Joseph, 2006-2008
Related websites -- http://www.getallarticles.com