The Age of Immense Competition and Turbulence - Essay Example

? Electron Case Study Table of Contents 0 Summary 3 2.0 Introduction 3 3.0 Discussion 4 3 Issues Faced by Electron 4 3 1 Improper Leadership Practise 5 3.1.2 Ineffective Team Management 6 3.2 Impact on Employees 6 4.0 Conclusions 7 5.0 Recommendations 7 References 9 1.0 Summary The current business age can be dubbed as the age of immense competition and turbulence. Organizations around the world are striving hard to sustain and operate effectively in the market place. Such scenarios in the business environment have also led to a number of challenges for the organizations. It has been observed that companies have to deal with large number of issues and challenges. Thus it has become an obligation for the organizations to develop competencies in order to cope with the prevailing challenges. This study seeks to examine the problems faced by Electron, a small manufacturing company of UK. The report will be divided into four sections and each section will focus on certain areas related to the subject. The first section will present a brief overview of the company. Once, the company becomes familiar, the next task of the report is to identify the prevailing issue that the company is currently dealing. The report will try to identify most of the problems, but will put emphasis and thrust on the major issues which are currently the major concern for the company. The possible impact of the problem on the company as well as the company will be determined with the help of reviewing the literature and theories proposed by scholars about the area of concern. At the initial glance, it has been observed that the case tries to put emphasis on the issues of team management. Therefore literature related to team performance and management will be considered. It is believed that literature as well example regarding the subject can be found in large numbers and hence the theories can even be contextualised. The literature to be considered for this study is Managing Teams for Dummies by Marty Brounstein, Team Players and Teamwork: New Strategies for Developing Successful Collaboration by Glenn M. Parker and Young Guns: A New Generation of Conservative Leaders by Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy. The principal reason behind choosing the aforementioned literature is that it has the ability to contextualise the theories. 2.0 Introduction Electron is a small company involved in the manufacturing and marketing of telecommunication components. The company was established in the year 1997 and is currently headquartered at UK. The company employs around 150 people in the headquarters and among them 90 people belongs to the manufacturing department. Previously, Electron was one of the divisions of one of the large telecommunication company of UK. However, in the year 2007, the Electron parted its ways and started to conduct business activities separately. In the meantime, the company had also purchased the manufacturing segment as a plan to embrace development. The parent company is still the largest customer for the company and has been responsible for ensuring growth of the company. The company operates with the traditional organizational structure, which comprises of manufacturing department, engineering department, human resource department, sales and marketing department and the finance department. The manufacturing department of the company is divided into 8 teams and have been named as per the colours which are red, blue, white, green, silver, aqua, purple and yellow. Each of the team consists of ten members and among them some are temporary and some are permanent. Most of the employees are of the age 25-50. The company practices concertive leadership in order to monitor and manage the employees. Although at the initial days of its operation, the company was doing well, but in the mid of 90s, the company was lost its way and was finding difficulties in operating effectively in the market place. The situation further worsened for the company due to severe competition from the electronic manufacturers. However, the company again started to prosper in the 2000s. With the recruitment of new employees, the productivity of the company further increased but there were issues related with the management and supervision of the newly recruited employees. 3.0 Discussion 3.1 Issues Faced by Electron The company has to deal with several problems pertaining to their operation as well as employee management. One of the prevalent issues within the company is the reducing productivity of the employees. As a result of that the company introduced new incentive schemes for the workers and the company also set objectives for each of the teams. The employees are only entitled to receive bonus if the team collectively reaches the set target. This is however not the major issue for the company as according to them the management of employee was a cause of more concern. A number of newly recruited employees were not performing as per the wishes of the superiors. The newly recruited workers were finding difficulties in crystallizing themselves with the team members. Moreover, they were also unaware and unfamiliar with the values and principles of the team. This lead to severe confusion among the team members and was affecting the overall productivity of the company. In the similar way, the senior members of each team were also facing difficulties in managing and controlling the newly recruited staff members. The issues were getting bigger day by day and were getting out of control for the senior members. The company believes in certain values, belief and ethics and also expects that the team members will follow the same. The newly recruited employees have their own thinking and values, and the company also has certain value-based social order. Whenever, the two variables did not matched, it created confusions and even resulted into conflicts in the views among the senior and newly recruited team members. Since the company practices or believes in concretive management, the leaders or the senior members have the authority to make values and ethics of the company into rules. The seniors exercised this power and converted the value-based social order into normative rules and that made the newly recruited employees to mandatorily obey the regulations. Studies reveal that such practices by the management often leads to conflicts and even reduces the productivity of the company. 3.1.1 Improper Leadership Practise Therefore, from the above discussion, it is evident that the problem is related with the management of team or lack of proper team work. In addition, another set of problem identified for this case is related with the concertive leadership. In this context, there are concerns over the established insider group becoming a self- managing team and being responsible for choosing and integrating new group members. This activity can lead to either positive impact or can negatively impact the organization as well as the employees. The literature also supports this statement. According to Nazaroff (2013), the major elements of self management are identification, control and discipline. According to his point of view the control over the operation as well as management of employees shifts from the management to the employees of the company. The workers are the one who creates norms and rules for the organization. One of the best points portrayed by the author is that in concertive control, the management formulates a value-based corporate vision which the employees use as a guide in performing daily activities. In other words, the employees put the thoughts of management into practise either by following guidelines or by considering the guidelines as rules (Brounstein, 2011; Parker, 2011). One of the characteristics of concertive control is that it believes in punishing employees who deviates from the guidelines and provides rewards to those who complete their duties successfully. The author therefore believes that such practices can discourage and dishearten the employees and can negatively impact their regular activities. On the other hand, scholars such as Baker (1999) argue that practising of concertive leadership has a positive impact on the organizations. It not only helps in promoting team work but also ensures harmony throughout the organization. The author further stated that self managing teams are the most popular self managing teams are the most popular form of organization control and management is self management or concertive control. The popularity of this control mechanism has further increased as a number of companies around the world have been able to experience success and better team work. For example, Motorola, General Motors, and General Mills have initiated such approaches of management in the last few years. Furthermore, it has been also observed that these days, companies belonging to the educational sector, governmental sector, non profit sector, health care sector and manufacturing sector have all implemented self management techniques into their system of operation. However, according to experts, these companies mainly perform experimental activities. Baker (1999) also put emphasis on the fact that workers under self managing control or concertive control works as per the guidelines set by the superiors. Hence, instead of being advised to work on a certain subject by the managers, employees on their own collect and synthesize information, and should take the required action. Thus, the author clearly justified the benefits of concertive leadership. 3.1.2 Ineffective Team Management One of the problems identified in the study was related with team management. A number of authors, in this regards have mentioned that management of teams within the organization one of the most vital activities. According to the views of Resch (2011), in the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, products and profits. Unless you’ve got a good team, you can’t do much about the other two (p.63). The author also pointed out that the importance of team work within the organizations are increasing at a rapid rate and some of the possible causes for it are collective responsibility and accomplishing the task more efficiently. The organizations also get highly benefitted by the employment of team work. It increases the commitment of workers to a great extent, helps in controlling the flow of work, better customer interaction and completion of the complex tasks with ease (Bacon and Blyton, 2000; Meyer, 1994). Making collective decision is another positive characteristic of team work (Bens, 1999; Margerison and McCann, 1992). Although it is evident that teamwork plays a crucial role in the efficient operation of a company, but few authors deem that team work can act negatively in some cases. Some of the disadvantages or weaknesses of teamwork discussed by the author are that teamwork is not the solution of every problem of management. Moreover, the author also pointed out that team approach sometime hinders the efficiency and progress of a task (University of Cambridge, 2007). The above discussion clearly points out that the issue faced by Electron is related with concretive leadership. Although, the senior managers have made it a rule to follow the guidelines, but it did not ensured that the staff members were also satisfied by the approaches of the management. According to the views of the scholars regarding the area of concern, the company has been affected both negatively as well as positively. 3.2 Impact on Employees The inclusion of new members in a team and practising concertive management can have different type of effects on the employees facing it. A number of authors have pointed out that there are several factors which impact the performance of a team. According to Castka et al. (2001), nowadays organizations have to operate in turmoil business environments and as a result of that they are forced to make flexible and efficient activities. Moreover, this is also important to effectively response to the changing external business environment. The author believes that along with quality and knowledge development, teamwork is also an essential criteria for improving organizational effectiveness. According to Chan, Pearson and Entrekin (2003), puts emphasis on the fact that teamwork is an effort by organizations to enhance performance. In the similar way several authors have stated that having an effective and efficient team allow companies to improve quality, increase productivity, reduce cost of operation (Edmondson, 1999; Wellins et al., 1991; Henry, 1997; Sethi, 2000; Batt, 2000). Senge (1992) emphasized that improved productivity and performance comes due to the collective team intelligence. Thus, it exemplifies an interpretation of synergy. Despite, most of the encouraging factors, team performance often gets negatively impacted by certain factors. Therefore, the organization should make sure that each team members remains productive as well as satisfied. There are certain factors which can negatively impact the team members. According to the view of Hoogendoorn, Oosterbeek and Praag (n.d.) diversity within the team can also be a cause of concern. It often increases the chances of conflicts within the team. In addition, another set of authors considers the leadership styles, emotional intelligence and social loafing can negatively impact the performance of a team. Sharp et al. (2000), puts emphasis on the fact that harmony of teams often collapses due to the differences in the competencies of team members, interpersonal skills, personality preferences, values system as well as the vision and goals of the individual members. 4.0 Conclusions The case of Electron, a small company involved in the manufacturing and marketing of telecommunication components clearly reflects the importance of team management within an organization. Due to improper management, the company has to deal with a number of problems that rose due to ineffective control management. However, in order to deal with this issue the company implemented concertive leadership. With this approach the company has been able to control the problems, but still there were questions over how the employees have perceived it. In addition to their perception, there were also concerns over how the employees have taken it and whether there is chance of them being de-motivaed by this practise. The review of literature clearly enlightened that concertive leadership or control can have different type of impacts on the employees. One set of authors and industry experts sheds light on the fact that, it increases the chance of employees getting discouraged and getting under pressure. As a result of that the overall productivity of the company may get reduced. On the other hand another group of 5.0 Recommendations The above sections have clearly identified the issued faced by Electron. It has been observed that the company is currently dealing with concerns related with styles of leadership and team management. For this purpose, the productivity of the company is reducing and is also failing to carry out proper team work. In addition, there were also conflicts among the newly joined employees and existing seniors. All such incidents are occurring for the principal reason of improper and inefficient control mechanisms. Hence, in order cope up with these issues, following are the recommendations to the company: - Change in leadership style: - One of the possible and most viable way by which the problem can be properly addressed is the alteration in style of leadership. The company presently pursues concertive leadership, where the senior employees make the rule, however, for a newly recruited employee following those guidelines and integrating themselves with the scenario sometimes becomes problematic. There may be attitudinal differences or differences in beliefs. These factors can be responsible for clashes between two groups of employees. Hence, the company is recommended to implement and practise a leadership style which gives equal importance to each employee. Therefore pursuing authoritative leadership can be one of the most viable and significant forms of leadership for resolving this issue. Fostering Coordination among the team members: - It is necessary to a have a good combination and coordination among the team members in order to ascertain quality outcome. One of the possible ways to achieve this is by improving the communication system. The company is therefore recommended to implement communication system which enhances the quality of interaction. Motivation of the Employees: - Motivation is considered as the key driver of performance. Electron is therefore recommended to provide incentives to the employees on the basis of their performance. Involvement of Team Members: - It has been observed that the senior members are the one who creates rules within the company. However, even if the company practices concertive control, but involves each team member in the process, there will hardly be any confusion and conflict within the team. Development of a Healthy Working Environment: - The working environment of an organization greatly impacts the morale of the team members. Hence, the company is recommended to encourage healthy working environment. In addition, the company is also recommended to initiate training programs for the employees. References Bacon, N. and Blyton, P., 2000. High Road and Low Road Team Working: Perception of Management Rationales and Organizational and Human Resource Outcomes. Human Relations, 53 (11), pp. 1425-1458. Baker, J. R., 1999. The Discipline of Teamwork: Participation and Concertive Control. California: SAGE. Batt, R., 2000. The Economies of Teams among Technicians. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 39 (1), pp. 1-24. Bens, I., 1999. Keeping Your Team Out of Trouble. Journal of Quality and Participation, 22(4), pp. 45-47. Brounstein, M., 2011. Managing Teams for Dummies. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Castka, P., Bamber, C. T., Sharp, T. M. and Belehoubek, P., 2001. Factors Affecting Successful Implementation of High Performance Teams. Team Performance Management: An International Journal, 7 (7/8), pp. 123-134. Chan, C. C. A., Pearson, C, and Entrekin, L., 2003. Examining The Effects Of Internal and External Team Learning and Team Performance. Team Performance Management: An International Journal, 9 (7/8), pp.174-181. Edmondson, A., 1999. Psychological Safety and Learning Behaviour in Work Teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44, pp. 350-383. Henry, A. R., 1997. Team Learning and Productivity. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. Philadelphia: Temple University. Hoogendoorn, S., Oosterbeek, H. and Praag, M. V., No date. The impact of gender diversity on the performance of business teams: Evidence from a field experiment. [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 09 May 2013]. Margerison, C. and McCann, D., 1992. Measures Which Help You Work Together as a Team. Executive Development, 5 (3), pp. 6-9. Meyer, M. A., 1994. The Dynamics of Learning with Team Production Implications for Task Assignment. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 109 (4), pp. 1157-1184. Nazaroff, A., 2013 Concertive Control. [ppt] Available at: [Accessed 08 May 2013]. Parker, G. M., 2011. Team Players and Teamwork: New Strategies for Developing Successful Collaboration. 2nd ed. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Resch, M., 2011. Strategic Project Management Transformation: Delivering Maximum ROI & Sustainable Business Value Florida: J. Ross Publishing. Senge, P. M., 1992. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practise of the Learning Organization. New South Wales: Random House Australia. Sethi, R., 2000. New Product Quality and Product Development Teams. Journal of Marketing, 64 (2), pp. 1-14. Sharp, J., Hides, M., Bamber, C. and Castka, P., 2000. Continious Organziational Learning Through the Development of High Performance Teams. Proceedings of International Conference on Systems Thinking in Management, Geelong. University of Cambridge, 2007. Managing Teams. London: Select Knowledge Limited. Wellins, R. S., Byham, W. C. and Wilson, J, M., 1991. Empowered Teams: Creating Self Directed Work Groups that Improve Quality, Productivity and Participation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publisher. Read More