Level of Management - Term Paper Example

Outline Introduction 2. Main Concepts Defined a. Organisational Disaster b. Decision-Making 3. Analysis of Organisational Disaster a. Events of 9/11 b. NASA 4. Discussion Section 5. Conclusion Organisational Disasters and Decision-Making Introduction Organisational performance is influenced by a number of factors including ethics and technology, economic conditions and workforce composition. At the beginning of the 21st century, effective decision-making becomes one of the main factors which guide managers and planning process. It has an impact on the organisation and includes evaluation of general forces that do not directly touch on the short-run activities of the organisation but that can influence its long-run strategies. Organisational disasters occur because of ineffective decision-making and lack of managerial skills of staff. The need for continuous monitoring at every level of management is especially important because more than one level of management can be involved. Main Concepts Defined Organisational Disaster Organisational disasters can be explained as a breakdown caused by organisational processes or procedures. Organisational disasters can be caused by conscious organisational activities and administrative evil, normal accident and safety and risk. The rapid growth of technology and the dramatically falling cost of computing capability means that more and more aspects of managerial planning and decision making can be assisted by information technology provided, of course, that the information system is developed in accordance with properly defined objectives and principles. Thus, it does not guarantee safety and effective planning so important for modern organisations. Following Edwards and Wajcman (2005) organisational disasters occur when “things go wrong” (p. 145). The researchers add that Apart from its inherent importance, the issue of mistakes and errors is valuable for several reasons. First, it is rarely addressed in studies of organisations. Not only is it absent from many standard textbooks, but it is also not discussed in a volume aiming to lay out the key approaches to strategy, even though overcoming errors might be seen as central to strategy (p. 146). Decision-Making Another important element of the effective performance is decision-making process. Decision-making influences organisational performance and future growth. Among all the operations of a business, it is decision making and planning of a strategic nature which makes the greatest demands for information on the external environment. It requires ongoing monitoring for developments which would change the position of the business in relation to its market or other environments, and ad hoc research for particular purposes. Decision-making has a great impact on performance because it determines the best practices and allows a company to avoid risks. In neither case is it easy to predict what information will be relevant, or to recognize it when found. Such research may be time intensive, involve a wide range of source material, producing much data, which may do no more than confirm what was suspected, or marginally reduce uncertainty. Checking for relevant environmental factors in strategic decision making is no different from a surgeon checking for a heart condition before major surgery. Given the number of complex variables affecting future business outcomes, it is necessary to be aware of factors beyond those immediately responsible for an effect. The main elements of successful decision-making are groupthink, escalation and recreating the logic of the situation. “Decision-making refers to the entire process of choosing a course of action” (Cleland 1998, p. 563). A decision-making is an integral part of any business process that involves a choice whereby a person forms a conclusion about a situation. The bounded rationality has a direct impact on decision-making which leads to optimal results. In this case, bounded rationality implies that managers use limited information for analysis and accept the first decision. In contrast, other models of decision making are aimed to find he best possible solution to the problem under analysis. Analysis of Organisational Disaster Events of 9/11 The events of 9/11 are a vivid example of organisational disasters and ineffective decision-making. The events of September 11 changed the American nation and forced millions of people to understand real threat of terrorism and Jihad for the international community. Political leaders and philosophers, military leaders and sociologists have developed conspiracy theories of 9/11 trying to explain the attacks, involvement of the government and its response to the attacks. The majority of the theories claim that the US government knew about the attacks but had ignored a threat. Critics explain that the US government had received numerous warnings and anonymous letters informing about terrorist attacks and the date of the attacks (Rothschild 2006). In spite of all attempts of the US government to protect its citizens against terrorist attacks, the government lost control over social security. Also, critics underline that the President Bush and the state authorities did not inform the public about possible threats afraid of militarization of society and civil disobedience movements (Jasper 2005). It is possible to assume that the US government needed to gain trust and faith of the American citizens but, on the other hand, deaths of thousands of people only lowered its ‘image’ and showed inadequate security measures and social support it provided. The disaster of 9/11 represents a course of behaviour about what must or what must not be done. A decision-making is the point at which plans, policies and objectives are translated into concrete actions. Team members provide and apply knowledge from different disciplines which help them to solve complex problems and tasks (Lewis 2006). NASA Following Kerzner (2003) many organisations and managers are satisfied with bounded rationality conditions which help them to solve current problems. As the most important, it allows organisations to improve quality and safety organisations and increase customers’ satisfaction. The role of behaviour component is important because it is not immediately acquired, but learned throughout life. For all people, employees and the manager, behaviour component is central whereas other, may change with personal experiences. Personal differences may cause possibly produce opposing perceptions of obligation, devotion and teamwork. In this case, the manager should take into account individual differences of employees and his personal experience. The case of NASA vividly portrays that ineffective groupthink and lack of cohesion led to such tragedies and loss of human lives. In addition to technical causes of the disasters, collapse of the Challenger and Columbia shuttles was caused by poor groupthink and lack of communication. The project failure can be explained by lack of strategic vision and communication which led to collapse of the Challenger and Columbia. “Throughout the history of NASA, safety issues were compromised during the decision-making process” (Dimitroff et al 2005, p. 29) Something that was special about project management, something that separated project management from plain old management, should have been the need and the emphasis on planning. Simply because the project management team was following no known path, they did not think ahead all the time. They were continually faced with decisions about the route ahead and planed for events that were long distant in the future (Dimitroff et al 2005) Discussion Section The cases of organisational disasters mentioned above show that human beings are motivated primarily by self-interest; in business, managerial or corporate self-interest, sometimes even greed, accounts for questionable and even egregious behaviour. Moreover, none of us is perfect, so in large companies there are bound to be errors of judgment. From the psychology of moral development literature, one might conclude that some of these people have a low level of moral development; hence, they act without much regard either for the social or legal networks of relationships or for the consequences of their actions to themselves, to other people, or to their company (Cleland 1998). Finally, both on the individual and corporate level, it is sometimes argued that many companies and their managers either are unaware of the moral dimensions of their activities or lack skills in moral reasoning. According to this argument, proper moral education could raise the level of individual and institutional moral awareness, enhance moral development, and give managers theoretical tools from moral theory with which to deal with ethical issues (Edwards & Wajcman 2005). These managers, then, fully trained in moral reasoning and moral theory, would apply such training to their decision processes with more positive results. Individuals are identified in a nexus of social roles and social relationships. By analogy, organisations such as corporations define themselves in terms of their roles as spelled out in their objectives. It involves, at a minimum, asking difficult questions and attempting to place oneself in a different perspective so as to regard events from another point of view, individual, organisational, and social. There is no guarantee that one will always achieve a sufficient distance from a particular dilemma or derive the best decision because distancing oneself may also lead to moral distancing so that the moral implications of the dilemma are bracketed as well (Cleland 1998). Because of the easier and speedier communications and the increasing sophistication of automatic decision making by computers, middle management is tending to disappear in many organisations. Organisations are becoming flatter and leaner because top management are able to monitor operations more directly and computers are now taking many decisions previ­ously taken by middle management (Edwards & Wajcman 2005). Usually, the data are standardized and consoli­dated so that they can be used across the enterprise for management analysis and decision making. The data are available for anyone to access as needed but cannot be altered (Kerzner, 2003). The proponents support the organisations effort to improve competitiveness. Those whose vested interests are at risk can be expected to oppose restructuring and maintain solidarity with the managerial ranks of the divisions affected by the restructuring. This competition can result in biased input from affected elements or attempts by them to delay the decision. The widespread personal involvement at all managerial levels within the divisions reduces the effectiveness of the control that is expected from supervisory managers. These managers cannot be relied on as effective controllers because of their personal stake in the outcome. Furthermore, proposed restructurings are not easily approved as conceived because they tend to be politicized in response to the special preferences and biases of the senior officials involved in the decisional process (Kerzner, 2003). However subjective they may be, the decisions are not easily challenged from within the organisation. Internal controls tend to be ineffective against the politics of senior managers and the executive suite. Take, for example, the express managerial role as negotiator and its unstated expansion in connection with the decentralization and flattening of organisations, international business operations, and the workplace consensus bargaining related to participative management, collective decision making, and other forms of authority acceptance. The literature on management is silent with respect to the source of the managers bargaining skills. Despite the formal managerial role as negotiator, negotiation is not treated as a managerial skill even though it is generally viewed as an art or science usually acquired through training and experience. The apparent assumption is that managers will be able to fulfill their roles as negotiators. This is another romantic notion concerning the capabilities of the manager that defies experience and logic. An additional complication here is that there is no single approach to disaster management and techniques. Approaches and systems vary depending on the preference of the negotiation specialist queried. The former tends to be more highly conceptualized with its focus on creating and claiming value; the latter, more mechanical in presenting fifteen basic negotiating principles (Slade 1994). Conclusion In sum, the greatest threat to restructuring is the desire of organisational elements to emerge with as little sacrifice of turf and resources as possible. This is parochialism at its worst because of the depth of the personal interest and the levels of management involved in the effort to challenge the restructuring proposal. Some businesses have to be more scientific in their monitoring for external threats and opportunities, because they are either financially vulnerable, and/or highly accountable. Less permanent characteristics of businesses known to affect business information need and demand include the degree of competitiveness of the market, resulting from factors including degree of concentration, convergence and market maturity; and related changes such as new players, new products and new trade areas or agreements. Business Information systems are key tools for environmental scanning, helping managers identify external changes that might require an organisational response. Bibliography 1. Cleland, D.I. 1998, Project Management: Strategic Design and Implementations. McGraw-Hill Companies; 3rd edition. 2. Dimitroff, R.D., Schmidt, L.A., Bond, T.D. Jun 2005, Organisational Behaviour and Disaster: A study of Conflict at NASA. Project Management Journal vol. 36, iss. 2; pp. 28-38. 3. Edwards, P., Wajcman, J. 2005, The Politics of Working Life Oxford: Oxford University Press. 4. Jasper, W.F. May, 2005, 9-11 Conspiracy Fact & Fiction. The New American, vol. 21, iss. 2, pp. 45-46. 5. Kerzner, H. 2003, Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling. Wiley; 8 edition. 6. Lewis, G. 2006, Organisational Crisis Management: The Human Factor. AUERBACH; 1 edition. 7. Rothschild, M. October 2006, Enough Conspiracy Theories, Already. The Progressive, 70, pp. 67-68. 8. Slade, S. 1994, Goal-Based Decision Making: An Interpersonal Model. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Read More