The Operational and Human Resource Strategising - Essay Example

?Topic: Managerial work has been researched through a number of studies using a wide range of methods over the last four to five decades. What are the most important findings in your view and why? Explain your answer with some evaluation of the research studies Name of the Student Course Professor Date of Submission Management has been the subject of numerous researches because society is composed of diverse organisations that are constantly working and making significant decision-makings affecting human relations, social cohesion, specific target outcomes, and structural relations. This paper will attempt to explain the most important view about management. Managers, as leaders, are recognised authorities that are acting as heads of all organisations or companies (Hales, 1986, pp. 90-112). They conduct monitoring, allocate resources, manage changes, negotiate, opt for innovation, lead all planning, do control management, or provide direction to subordinates or their liaisons (Hales, 1986, pp. 90-112). They are key personalities whose effectiveness and proficiency provide congruence to expected practices and performance (Hales, 1986, pp. 90-112). They lead and define the behaviour and activities of an organisation to make it truly functional and fully attuned to the standard of quality performance (Hales, 1986, pp. 90-112). Managers will also ensure that all departments are working systematically and that human resources correlate as a disciplined team in accordance with organisational policies (Hales, 1986, pp. 90-112). Managers are constantly engaged in critical analysis to read trends, opportunities, methodologies, and determine the proper mechanism in responding to political, economic, social, technological, logistical, and environmental aspects in nurturing an organisation (Hales, 1986, pp. 90-112). They are constantly concerned if their performance is consistent with the vision, mission and goals of the organisation; otherwise, they will undertake necessary changes to ascertain the sustainability of a company (Hales, 1986, pp. 90-112). They are on top of circumstances, reliant on inter-departmental communication, and prefer interrelationship with the rest of the stakeholders and business partners (Hales, 1986, pp. 90-112). They may differ in their system of communications and try to be pliant with circumstances to be able to clearly interpret the implementation of corporate policies and internal systems (Hales, 1986, pp. 90-112). Managers that are deeply concerned with operations are performance-oriented in their supervision and are surrounded by a number of diverse managerial responsibilities (Hales, 2005, pp. 472-502). Some may practise a hierarchical system of direct supervision, individual managerial responsibility, and vertical accountability (Hales, 2005, pp. 472-502). But their operations are, however, con?ned to operational and human resource strategising (Hales, 2005, pp. 472-502). They maintain personal accountability in day-to-day operational flow and act using standard performance measures (Hales, 2005, pp. 472-502). They exercise responsibilities and authority to strengthen their core supervision and broaden their role in business management (Hales, 2005, pp. 472-502). They exemplify decisive changes as a result of necessary radical organisational change but they possess continued credible and wilful persistence of hierarchy and external supervision to manifest transformational system (Hales, 2005, pp. 472-502). They also work to strengthen their supervision by adopting stringent controls to attain growth in business operation with a greater range of accountability (Hales, 2005, pp. 472-502). Managers are also responsible for designating work; monitoring output and conduct; overseeing the functionality of equipment, safety and cleanliness of a company; dealing with unforeseen problems pertaining to staf?ng; managing disputes; providing counselling; monitoring documentations as well as providing supervision in operational aspects (Hales, 2005, pp. 472-502). They perform administrative functions to resolve considerable ambiguity and bridge the disparity between accountability and performance to meet the divergent expectations and open-ended demands (Hales, 2005, pp. 472-502). Managers are also interested in aligning operations with business objectives, in managing financial resources and ensuring that the human resources are able to undergo training or staff development to focus on business objectives and quality standards (Hales, 2005, pp. 472-502). In some companies, management decides to use technology in monitoring the coordination, responses and performance of functions (Heath, Luff & Svensson, 2002, pp. 472-502). CCTV cameras are mounted within the confines of the workplaces to monitor the progress of their works in a digitised system to automatically detect the unfolding events (Heath et al., 2002, pp. 472-502). To cite an example, the managers of station centres in the London Underground can record and coordinate response for both staff and passengers (Heath et al., 2002, pp. 472-502). Through information technology in the control room, data are concentrated from various sub-systems, events are immediately detected, and decision-making is immediately done using the data stored in the conventional control or operation room systems (Heath et al., 2002, pp. 472-502). Therefore, with the aid of technology, supervisors are no longer selective in decision-making because the geography of the substation is monitored and problems of the system are easily determined (Heath et al., 2002, pp. 472-502). The use of technology is also evident among healthcare managers, which unburden them of the demand of post-bureaucratic work. In a research that used the video-ethnographic method, multi-disciplinary clinicians availed the technology for surveillance and risk-minimisation, thus shaping them in crafting opportunities to increase public and work practices (Iedema, Long, Forsyth & Lee, 2006, pp. 156–168). Further, medical technologies alter the demands for organisational accountability, assist restructuring, offer opportunities for health reform and care improvement initiatives for healthcare management decision-makings (Iedema et al., 2006, pp. 156–168). It also aided administrative officials in introducing innovation for professional stability, especially now that hospitals are getting more complex (Iedema et al., 2006, pp. 156–168). Management in healthcare remained a significant subject of research because it is of paramount interest of the state and of the public to avail quality service and management. Among the things that can be appreciated in an advance and modernised hospital is the use of the online-based Improved Incident Monitoring System (IIMS) utilized in the Australian Incident Monitoring Study that collects reports around the country and facilitates the analysis as well as improve strategies for minimising iatrogenic error (Iedema et al., 2006, pp. 156–168). In a study about the demands, constraints, and choices in managers’ job, researchers found that most managers describe their work in broad terms but do not identify their priority areas so much, which seemed to represent an internal direction of its functions and reduce the value of external definitions of it (Marshall & Stewart, 1981, pp. 189-177). Apparently, managers thought that their priorities, too, are changing and they are constantly involved in variegated decision-making (Marshall et al., 1981, pp. 189-177). Some of them are focused while others are holistic in approaches. Their working strategies also range from reactive to pro-active (Marshall et al., 1981, pp. 189-177). This ranges from either yielding or controlling the job, or in a hustle and bustle, or instinctive in response or bypassing the system (Marshall et al., 1981, pp. 189-177). Others use planning in strategising or are project-based in their approach, and still others are in the process of shaping their system (Marshall et al., 1981, pp. 189-177). The latter is affiliated to pro-active strategies. Their respective chosen strategies are influenced by company’s culture; their adaptability to their bosses’ beliefs; the models they adhere to; the individual’s need to achieve a manageable and satisfying work life; and by their personal philosophies or behaviour. The study simply affirmed the diversity of working styles and strategies of management (Marshall et al., 1981, pp. 189-177). From the vantage of capitalist enterprise, managers are surprisingly disregarding institutional formation and significance, thus creating a behavioural hiatus between behavioural and institutional accounts in management. This necessitates a mechanism that will bridge the dualism between action and system (Willmott, 1987, pp. 249-265). Using the theories of Dalton, Kotter and Mintsberg, the researcher suggested to advance the study of managerial work by appreciating how, within capitalist production, the work of managers within the structural properties of a social system is founded upon the contradiction of socialised production and private appropriation (Willmott, 1987, pp. 249-265). Through this, the perpetual reconstruction of inter-subjective reality and the recognition of labour processes within managerial work have a contradictory form of unity within the totality of social relations (Willmott, 1987, pp. 249-265). Wilmott (1987, p. 265) argued that the structuration and the concept of duality offered a valuable alternative conceptual framework in advancing critical empirical research on managerial work. Author likewise explicated that conflicts between management and workers are evident in the capitalist society because of the contradiction between the private appropriation of wealth that is often negated by socialised production, and labour’s strong ownership of their contribution in business operation (Willmott, 1987, pp. 249-265). Moreover, research on management remained significant to reassert the core contribution of corporate leaders in nurturing an organisational culture presumed to be effective in building the credibility and integrity of the institution. Thus, they work to demonstrate the cultural ethos, its image, its corporate values, and the system adopted in managing changes or decision-making. Some management experts opined that establishing corporate’s internal and external values for its human resources strengthen its interactive capacity and relation with other stakeholders. Such is superimposed to realise the quintessential role of management in establishing an organisational culture to define its internal strategies on human resource management and business operation. Through this, they are able to adopt best corporate practices and quality standards to maintain effective performance and internal control. Legal rules and ethical standards are also established to professionalise fully their services, thus imposing sanctions, too, in case of violations. This affirms the fact that organisational culture develops the needed behaviours of the organisation; the kind of events they pursue; and the cherished values embodied by its members. The manager, therefore, accomplishes that significant role by using a strategic tool for organisational success and for sustainability. Meanwhile, Watson (2001, pp. 221-235) asserted that people working as managers do not become managers immediately. They are nurtured by conceptual trends of organisational theory and psychology to develop a processual understanding of management. The researcher contended that emergent managers can be understood from the lens of their pre-learning process before they are admitted to apply their managerial knowledge, skills, and expertise (Watson, 2001, pp. 221-235). Those who sought their professional abilities will seek to know their understanding about life and their understanding about self, including their biography and their philosophy in life (Watson, 2001, pp. 221-235). It will be better if the emergent manager has clarity of goals, understands the roles and diversity of stakeholders, and is skilful in trading-off decisions for an effective and efficient delivery of services. In attaining this, the management must be imbued with a strategic mechanism for quality performance using rules and human resource management. Indeed, management has come to an epoch that management should be continually studied because its systems vary in many ways (Tengblad, 2006, pp. 1438-1457). Managers have larger workloads; hence communication is primordial to keep the organisation going. Their leadership and managerial discourses are dependent or influenced by corporate culture and the two factors, e.g. organisational structure and geographical location of companies (Tengblad, 2006, pp. 1438-1457). However, there is also interesting emergence of a radically different managerial view that bears such combined new and traditional leadership practices to respond to complex and context-speci?c ways (Tengblad, 2006, pp. 1438-1457). They operate to integrate theoretical and empirical investigations in this ?eld of inquiry (Tengblad, 2006, pp. 1438-1457). This kind of managers maximises the material, cognitive, and moral foundation of management. The author asserted that management is a political phenomenon that defines organisational authority and responsibilities (Tengblad, 2006, pp. 1438-1457). The author likewise highlighted the significance of gender-based management, decision-making, and leadership of managerial work (Tengblad, 2006, pp. 1438-1457). He, however, lamented that traditional managerial work failed to contribute to its attempt to understand management (Tengblad, 2006, pp. 1438-1457). Indeed, there is a variety of systems for management and their approaches. Still others used autobiographies to model managerial skills (Sims, 1993, pp. 57-68) while other researchers use task analysis to understand the methodological approach of management (Embrey, 2000, pp. 1-8) or the job folklore approach to understand classical and traditional management system (Mintsberg, 2001, pp. 163) or structured observation (Mintsberg, n.d.). All of these researches simply affirmed that management is about systems, rules, operations, tasks, functions, communications, and effects. Their roles and decision-making affect in many ways. Hence, research about management remained a sustained or continuing interest amid changes in the environment, market and the emergence of leadership theories on managerial skills. This is about modelling, but the praxis of these theories remained dependent on whether the leader of an organisation is adopting transactional or transformational stewardship in an organisation. References Embrey, D. (2000). Task Analysis Techniques. UK: Human Reliability Association, pp. 1-14. Hales, C. P. (1986). What do managers do? A critical review of the evidence, Journal of Management Studies, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 90-112. Hales, C. (2005). Rooted in supervision, branching into management: ontinuity and change in the first-line manager, Journal of Management Studies, vol. 42, no. 3, pp. 472-502. Heath, C., Luff, P. & Svensson, M.S. (2002). Overseeing organisations: configuring action and its environment, British Journal of Sociology, vol. 53, no. 2, pp. 181–201. Iedema, R. Long, D., Forsyth, R. & Lee, B. B. (2006). Visibilising clinical work: video ethnography in the contemporary hospital, Health Sociology Review, vol. 15, p. 156–168. Marshall, J. & Stewart, R. (1981). Managers’ job perceptions. Part 1: Their overall frameworks and working strategies, Journal of Management Studies, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 189-177. Minsberg, H. (1990). The Manager’s job: folklore and fact, Harvard Business Review, pp. 163-175. Mintsberg, H. (n.d.). Structured observation as method to study managerial work, The Journal of Management Studies, pp. 88-104. Sims, D. (1993). The formation of top managers: a discourse analysis of five managerial autobiographies, British Journal Management, vol. 4, pp. 57-68. Tengblad, S. (2006). Is there a ‘new managerial work’? A comparison with Henry Mintsberg’s classic study 30 years later, Journal of Management Studies, vol. 43, no. 7, pp. Watson, T. J. (2001). The Emergent Manager and Processes of Management Pre-Learning, Management Learning. London: Sage Publication, pp. 221-235. Willmott, H. (1987). Studying managerial work: a critique and a proposal, Journal of Management Studies, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 249-265. Read More