The Roles of Management in Business: ABE Books - Case Study Example

? ABE BOOKS Table of contents Introduction summary of the case study 2 Important values of AbeBooks 3 Important motivations of Antonio and Christine 4 Teaming and teamwork aspects 5 Components of creativity 6 Conclusion Introduction of case study on ABE books The case deals majorly with a challenging situation relating to employee turnover within the marketing team in AbeBooks.com, a given online marketplace for new, rare, used plus out-of-print books. The case study more so focuses on Antonio Frias, an Email and online marketing manager that joined AbeBooks recently. In a period of three months after starting to work in that company, two employees working under him quit while a third remained threatening to resign. The dilemma became how he could prevent the third employee from quitting his job. In addition, of the two vacant positions, one became filled while the other remained vacant. Therefore, Antonio has to work with his Marketing director and human resource director to develop a retention strategy and recruitment. Therefore, the case considers cultural and generational differences, dysfunctional versus healthy employee turnover, retention and effective recruitment strategies, employee development plus motivation, employee engagement, job satisfaction and leadership development. Furthermore, organizational culture became examined in the case study too. The case study can be found at AbeBooks.com official website. Questions and Answers Values AbeBooks possessed quit a lot of instrumental and terminal values. Instrumental values remain as core values and totally compromise character traits and personal traits. Furthermore, instrumental values remain difficult to be changed. On the other hand, terminal values remain to more so signify objectives a given person or company wishes to achieve. Furthermore, terminal values often become flexible to change (Mould 2006, p.5). In relation to the case study on AbeBooks.com, the company had a good advertising means. Over the past years, a lot had been done in converting their advertisement from offline to on line (Mould 2006, p.10). The change came with a number of repercussions too. In looking at the website of AbeBooks, one can see it has lots of services. For instance, the company can be able to store books and sell books. In terms of enhancing its advertisement, AbeBook Company recently teamed up with Amazon Company that took over its management. The instrumental value that AbeBooks possess here remains to be their basic structure and content in advertisement. AbeBooks possess millions of books in store to be sold. The Amazon Company by being a renowned company when it comes to advertisement proved to be of value to AbeBooks Company. AbeBooks have a good team at work behind the scene. In as much as the case study majorly focuses on management trying to find means of recruiting and maintaining some of their staff from quitting jobs, majority of the employees display exceptional skills (Mould 2006, p.11). For instance, before Antonio arrived to work in AbeBooks, the Marketing director used to be Sebastian Eberley. Sebastian oversaw the change from the traditional means of marketing to online marketing means in AbeBooks. In addition, he ensured the company got international recognition over time. Even after Sebastian left, Antonio became a good manager though had a couple of hitches. AbeBooks online company always provides its customers with books at reduced prices. The company often aims at providing quality to its clients at affordable rates. The company ensures that clients remain accessible to the books they want through offering inexpensive prices for selling them. This in general attracts many customers to their website thereby making huge sales. Furthermore, clients become treated with respect upon transacting with them so as to build on their public relations. AbeBooks Company remains to be an honest company ever since it started. The company even after operating for many years has not been a scam site. The company has workers on payroll and employed the right managerial team to ensure they work hard to meet their goals and objectives. The company basically acts like a business (Windwalker 2002. p.34). Motivation In the case study, Antonio faced a lot of challenges, but in the short and long run, had issues that used to motivate him. To start off, AbeBooks Company had earlier on been taken over by Amazon Company. That meant that the organization would be going to better heights by teaming up with an online advertisement and marketing company. In as much as the company had experienced some downfalls in the past years, in terms of marketing, the teaming up often had to be beneficial on their side as their books would have chances of being marketed to website with a larger population of people streaming. Furthermore, Antonio realized that some employees under him were skilled. Skill among employees became a value to the company (Leo 2009, p.23). Companies in the technological part often require skilled and clever people to ensure they become successful. For example, while interviewing of employees for a certain post; he realized that the guy had taught himself how to program in SQL plus remained gifted in drawing stuffs. Antonio as an online marketing manager somehow managed to be motivated by finding an organizational culture in place. For instance, the company constantly did performance appraisal each year to determine their best employee of the year. The performance appraisal came with rewards and even promotion of members that became hard working. It is that organizational culture of wanting to achieve since the company worked under meeting certain goals and objectives. Every individual in the company had to meet certain goals and objectives at the end of the year, while they were reviewed after every 6 months. Antonio had goals and objectives that he had to meet; this became what kept him motivated in an attempt to meet them as the online marketing manager at AbeBooks. Christine first became motivated to work with AbeBooks due to her love for reading books. She managed to get a position in the company in the customer service department. Years later, she started showing signs of un-certainty in regard to her career. It took the help of Antonio and the human resource department to allocate her more jobs to make her working interesting. She managed to stay. Later on in the case study, she grew again uncertain of her work and showed signs of wanting to quit. Antonio could not allow such an asset in the company to go and hence had to come with means of getting her to be motivated at her work place. That became the reason why he intended to increase her salary and attract her attention back to the company. Team work A team constitutes a group of individuals working towards certain goals. In a team, there is often a manager and the team members. The manager often remains in control of the team members and ensures they remain in the course towards the already set goals and objectives. In regard to the case study on AbeBooks, Antonio remained to be the manager and even had superiors like Sebastian over him. As a manager in AbeBooks, Antonio had certain roles that he had to fulfill as a team manager. One of them became performance appraisal. As a manager, Antonio became expected to motivate employees to achieve the already set goals and objectives. Often in AbeBooks, each member had set goals and objectives that became reviewed every 6 months to ensure they became adhered. Antonio in the case study motivated Christine to work. When Christine became in doubt of her career at AbeBooks, it remained Antonio and his managers that formulated a plan that ensured Christine became retained. When working with large groups, managers often appoint supervisors for specific groups of people to make work easier. For instance in the case study, when managers wish to assess performance and leadership qualities of a certain individual before being promoted to be a manager, the manager had supervisors reporting to him informing him about the individual’s performance. In any team model, always delegation of duties remains to be essential. Since Antonio could not be present to see how each and every one works, he has to appoint supervisors at various groups to ensure work continues. In any given team, team working and coordination remains to be very important. Antonio in the case study though was a manager in AbeBooks, and ensured he had liaised with all the departments in the company. Furthermore, communication remains to be another important aspect in team working (Leo 2009, p.41). Christine for instance, in the case study, asks to speak to his manager Antonio to discuss her issue. Christine and Antonio have a lengthy chat. It is after this that Antonio discovered that Christine had difficulties in coming to terms with her career and that is why he offered a solution to her problem. A manager in a team always solves problems (Leo 2009, p.46). In any team, the manager always has to make a conducive environment for working of the team members. When Christine complained of having fewer duties, she was given more to do in order to keep her busy. The relationship between employees and managers in the case study also remained good. Creativity Christine on speaking to Antonio and expressing her dissatisfaction in the job she was doing wanted a creative job. In short, Christine posed a challenge to Antonio since he was not willing to lose another long term employee. Therefore, Antonio and the manager had to come up with a plan that would be appealing to Christine’s specifications. The three main components of any type of creativity include; expertise, motivation and the ability to think critically (Leo 2009, p.40). First of all, Christine joined AbeBooks in 2006 due to her love for books after achieving to get a degree in Roman and Greek mythology. In 2009, she presented to Antonio with the same complaints of dissatisfaction. At that time, more role became added to her, that is, designing company newsletters and creating a web page contents. Recently, she approached Antonio and asked for the above conditions to be met or quit. Antonio knew this time she meant what she said after him losing two of his good men. With the integration of Amazon in the company, Christine could be shifted from her previous job and given another. Antonio suggested that she should be moved from her being a relationship manager to work in strategic product development. In this area, she will be able to apply her creativity that she craves for and experience in a good way. All in all, the case study on AbeBooks Company depicts clearly the roles of management in business. Bibliography AbeBooks.com., 1996, May 4, AbeBooks.com, Retrieved March 8, 2012, from http://www.abebooks.com/ Council, B. C., 2009, AbeBooks.com, London: British Columbia Innovation Council. (Council 2009, p.6) Leo, P., 2009, Selling Online: How to Start a Home-Based Business Selling Used Books, DVD's and More Online, New York: Brian Burns. Mould, M. E., 2006, Online Bookselling: A Practical Guide with Detailed Explanations and Insightful Tips, Washington: Michael E. Mould. Windwalker, S., 2002, Selling Used Books Online: The Complete Guide to Bookselling at Amazon's Marketplace and Other Online Sites, Harvard: Harvard Perspectives Press. Read More