Government of New Zealand - Case Study Example

Writing an article critique Name Institution Course Instructor Date Writing an article critique Introduction The purpose of this paper is to present a critique of the qualitative and quantitative research entitled, “The critical challenges facing the New Zealand chief executives: implication for management skills” (Hutchison & Boxall, 2014, p. 23). The authors, Ann Hutchinson and Peter Boxall argue that New Zealand is tagging behind in economic development based on the poor management that the majority of the firms portray in Australia. The authors undertake the research to fill the knowledge gap or rather the missing pieces of information on the underperformance of many firms in New Zealand with respect to the management. That is why they annex the goal of the study to produce a survey report which details the opinions of the New Zealand chief executives on the current issues that affect development in all sectors of the country (Hutchison & Boxall, 2014, p. 24). The research intends to present possible remedies to the management challenges that many chief executives in public and private of profit based and non-profit-based firms face in New Zealand. Contextual critique The authors portray a contextual understanding of the study topic. They portray the understanding in the introductory part of the article, whereby, they state clearly the topic of the goals of the study. Furthermore, they support the necessity of conducting the research not only to fulfil the prescribed goals, but also to provide a remedy to the dwindling economy in New Zealand (Herndon, Ash & Pollin, 2014, p. 265). This means that the results of the study serve as major applicable solutions to the economic problems facing the country. Additionally, they format the article in the standard and acceptable format of management research papers. It is evident by the systematic arrangement of the topics such as abstract, introduction, literature review, methodology, results, discussions, conclusions and references. Furthermore, they contextualize the description that follows each topic making the article to flow in a prose form. On the contrary, the introduction fails to provide the hypothesis of the study and the possible limitations which hinders its success. In the literature review, the authors provide background information to reveal the economic challenges facing New Zealand and the possible sources of such challenges (Hutchison & Boxall, 2014, p. 27). Based on the background information in the literature review, it is easier to note that the authors not only understand the scope of the study, but also recognize the need to develop an argument for the necessity of conducting the research. In this context, they use older sources to contextualize the aspect of management in New Zealand organizations and use latest sources of information to reveal the current state of the country’s economy based on management (Hutchison & Boxall, 2014, p. 29). It shows that the authors perform a contextual research before they identify the management-based economic problem. Because they finally narrow down to focus solely on the challenges of management in different firms as the source of the major hindrances of economic development. It forms the basis of the study topic. Contrarily, the literature review provides only qualitative information and fails to provide the quantitative background. They require quantitative background to provide the possible quantitative technique to employ in the analysis of the collected data. The methodology in the article forms the central point of the whole study. In this section the authors rely on closed questionnaires to collect the qualitative information from the chief executives of different firms (Hutchison & Boxall, 2014, p. 35). They send the questionnaires via email and collect the replies via the same route. They divide the data collected into two sections including profit-oriented firms and non-profit firms. To analyze the data quantitatively they use the Likert scale. In this regard, the article’s methodology does not only reflect the goals of the study, but also provide enough information to use in the analysis and discussion section. Contrarily, the methodology uses a small sample number of managers (27 percent of all firms in New Zealand). It projects the results of the study as biased and inconclusive. However, they only provide a single approach to the analysis of the data when they use Likert scale. This makes it difficult to validate the accuracy and the reliability of the data. The results section reflects the information collected by the researches in the study. They simplify the information into graphical data, whereby, every bar in the graph represents the percentage risk posed by a given issue according to the opinions of the interviewed executives (Hutchison & Boxall, 2014, p. 40). The major challenges that the authors identify in the study include market risks, in access to finances, lack of effective dialogue with stakeholders and economic climate changes among other issues and economic climate changes, corporate social responsibility, cost escalations and fundraising issues among other challenges in profit-oriented organizations and non-profit organizations respectively. They identify that issues that least affect the profit-oriented organizations are the ones that highly affect the non-profit organizations except the issue of economic climate change. This shows that they lack consistency in the data collected. In this regard, it is difficult to draw overall conclusions. Finally, the authors fail to identify the depended and independent variables in relation to the collected data. In the discussion the authors describe the degree of the danger posed by the major challenges in the profit-oriented and non-profit organizations. They back their argument with research data conducted by Yukl’s (2012, p.70) among other notable researchers. Based on their findings, they propose notable remedies that the all stakeholders in New Zealand have to undertake to revolutionize the dwindling framework of quality management. They insist that employees are the main key players in the revolution process. They fail to relate the connection of government to the challenges that managers face. That is why the discussions are less reliable as remedies to the current challenges of economy in New Zealand (Schiff & Becken, 2011, p. 565). Personal perception After contextual analysis and critique of the article, I believe that it is important to address the economic decline of New Zealand’s economy (Ostrom, 2010, p. 642). In the past, New Zealand ranked among those countries with high gross domestic product, but recent research findings reveal that the economy is deteriorating at an alarming rate which threatens the political and social stability of the country. Therefore, according to the article the authors identify the state of management in various firms as the sole source of the economic downfall in New Zealand (Hutchison & Boxall, 2014, p. 43). They further support their view with existing literature and research findings. This makes their thesis statement valid and credible. Moreover, they narrow down to issues that affect chief executives in different organizations including profit-oriented and non-profit oriented public and private organizations. However, I do not agree with the thesis statement because there are many factors that influence the downfall of the economy and devastatingly affects the country’s development other than management challenges such as brain drain and government influence (McAllister, et al., 2013, p. 97). They key points that support the argument include, first, basing on the aspect of management challenges that the authors identify in the article, they portray all managers as effective in their own context (Hutchison & Boxall, 2014, p. 23). According to the management theories, the skills and leadership of the managers determines the success or failure of a business (Connell & Stanton, P 2014, p. 10). Second, other issues such as finances, marketing, shareholders and external funding, among other issues highlighted in the article depend on the managers’ capability and competency. It is the issue that the authors fail to consider in the study. Third, the authors approach the issue of economic downfall in New Zealand on one side which is not appropriate according to the business research protocols. Therefore, if the authors need to establish the real cause of organizational unproductiveness, they need to involve managerial skills, leadership style and government influence among other key aspects. Finally, the methodology is not framed to capture the highest opinion percentage of the managers. It means that the authors collect inconclusive data and reveal inconclusive results (Hutchinson & Ward, 2012, p. 10). Furthermore, recent researches on New Zealand’s economic state do not pinpoint management challenges as the sole causative factor of economic downfall. For instance, Thomas Herndon, Michael Ash and Robert Pollin show in their research critique that the New Zealand’s high and consistent public debt is major factor behind the retarded or rather stunted economic growth and development in the country (Herndon, Ash & Pollin, 2014, p. 258). Also, Christopher Aitken, Ralph Chapman and John McClure reveal that apart from economic climate change, public common dilemma and powerlessness contribute to the slow growth of the economy (Aitken, Chapman & McClure, 2011, p. 757). The factors highlighted by the researches coincide with the explanation that Santos (2014, p.5) provides on the dwindling sales of the dairy products in New Zealand. Therefore, it is clear that based on concepts of the management theories; the article identifies one of the issues affecting the economy in New Zealand. However, the article fails to relate the given factor to other aspects that determine the economy state of a given country. Conclusion The article fulfills its intended goals and provides important points of consideration to the government of New Zealand. However, the contents of the article serve as a partial source of finding long-lasting remedies to the economic challenges that New Zealand faces. It means that research plays an important part in the process of identifying economic challenges. References Aitken, C, Chapman, R & McClure, J 2011, ‘Climate change, powerlessness and the commons dilemma: Assessing New Zealanders’ preparedness to act,’ Global Environmental Change, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 752-760. Connell, J & Stanton, P 2014, ‘Skills and the role of HRM: towards a research agenda for the Asia Pacific region,’ Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, vol. 52, no. 1, pp. 4-22. Herndon, T, Ash, M & Pollin, R 2014, ‘Does high public debt consistently stifle economic growth? A critique of Reinhart and Rogoff,’ Cambridge journal of economics, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 257-279 Hutchinson, FJ & Ward, C 2012, ‘Corporate governance and social housing–Adopting a market model?,’ Journal of Finance, vol. 10, pp. 1-17. Hutchison, A & Boxall, P 2014, ‘The critical challenges facing New Zealand's chief executives: implications for management skills,’ Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, vol. 52, no. 1, pp. 23-41. McAllister, S, Derrett, S, Audas, R, Herbison, P & Paul, C 2013, ‘Do different types of financial support after illness or injury affect socio-economic outcomes? A natural experiment in New Zealand,’ Social Science & Medicine, vol. 85, pp. 93-102. Ostrom, E 2010, ‘Beyond markets and states: polycentric governance of complex economic systems,’ The American economic review, pp. 641-672. Santos, B 2014, ‘Factors Affecting Rankings of Dairy Bulls across New Zealand Dairy Farm Systems,’ In 10th World Congress on Genetics Applied to Livestock Production, pp. 1-5. Schiff, A & Becken, S 2011, ‘Demand elasticity estimates for New Zealand tourism,’ Tourism Management, vol. 32, no. 3, pp. 564-575. Yukl, G 2012, ‘Effective leadership behaviour: What we know and what questions need more atten-tion,’ Academy of Management Perspectives, vol. 26, no. 4, pp. 66–85. Read More