Strengths and weaknesses on the research on managerial work - Coursework Example

Strengths and weaknesses on the research on managerial work Managerial work involves in controlling, leading, planning and organize business process. Managerial work encompasses vast range of duties. Managers are responsible for the growth and development of a company and its employees. In the earlier time managerial jobs were classified into eight divisions. They are great man, classical, decision theory, entrepreneurship, leader power, leader effectiveness, work activity and leader behaviour. According to this division it was easy to find out what managers do. Fragmentation and brevity were considered as major characteristics of managerial work. The strengths of this classification lie in focusing on different aspects of manager’s works. It enabled the managers in understanding their work in detailed way. It highlights different duties that the managers have to perform in its work process. The weakness of this classification is some managers choose their own job role which were not included in that classification. Strength of managerial work involves in performing functions at different level of the business process. In an organization there are different levels of managers according to organizational structure. Senior managers help the junior managers to analyze their jobs and duties. This makes the senior managers capable of training and guiding its employees. Strengths Different types of managerial work help the organization in various ways to achieve its goal and objectives. It also plays a vital role in enhancing the work process of a company. Managers make future objectives of a company. Different plans and decisions are implemented by taking consent from managers. Major strengths of managerial work lies in implementing different managerial principles. They are as follows: Division of work: It helps to determine different works to different employees of the company. With these divisions works are performed effectively and efficiently under supervision of managers. Clear work division helps to make effective strategies for growth of the company. Responsibility division: Managerial work involves in dividing responsibility among its employees analyzing their skills and potentialities. It strengthens different work process of an organization by giving appropriate responsibilities to capable employees. It helps to make good managerial work process (Mintzberg, 1975). Discipline: Strengths of a company is also dependent on maintaining its discipline. Strong management system helps to make and implement different disciplinary rules within an organization. It influences the work process and function for achieving and fulfilling its goals and objectives. Unity of direction: Managers are responsible for implementing and developing unity in organizational work process. The strength of this managerial work is it shows proper direction to the employees for working together to fulfil same business objectives. It helps to develop sense of unity among the employees. Centralization: Managerial work involves in conducting different functions in making centralization in business process. It helps the organization to implement various plans and policies to develop a smooth work process in its centralized business. Order: Managers gives orders their subordinates for performing different work activities. This strengthens the flow of command. With the help of this managerial work process subordinates gets orders from their seniors. It makes them capable to implement different orders effectively according to the needs and requirement of the company. Equity: In an organization equity plays an important role. Managers are responsible to treat its employee equally. It is vital part of their managerial work. It helps to build unity among the employees and develop good internal organizational environment. This strength factor of managerial work influences employee retention process. Organizing: Managerial work involves in organizing different work process in the company. Managers help their subordinates by organizing the work process and showing different ways which are effective for gaining success. Planning: Strength of managerial work lies in developing and implementing various necessary plans for the company according to the need and developing its employees and the company. Managers determine resource allocation of the company as per different plans. They look after employee involvement in those plans and policies and making them successful. Co ordination: Managerial works builds strong co ordination among the employees and different work process. Good co ordination helps the company in achieving its goal in an easy way. Manager co ordinates with different departments of the company and plays a vital function in implementing good and advanced co ordination process. Many vital things of an organization depend on its co ordination process. Conducting meeting: Managers have the permission of conducting meetings with employees. It is an important part of their managerial work. By conducting different meets managers become aware of the present condition of business and employee performance. They can evaluate different business process by interacting with employees. The strength of this work involves in making business more effective for fulfilling its aims and objectives. Developing Leaders: Managers influences and motivates its employees in their work process. Their managerial works includes in doing overall development of the employees and helping them to achieve growth in their career. Managers show different ways to enhance different skills and abilities of employees. By this process managers provide guidance to their subordinates which make them capable of becoming leaders. Leaders play an important role in accomplishing goals of the company. Organizational change: Managerial works involves in implementing various changes within the organization. With the help of employees managers analyze organizational needs and requirement. According to the changing environment a company needs to change its structure and policies to survive in competitive environment. It is the duty of managers to decide and implement those policies and rule for making changing process of organization effective. Good organizational change helps to embraces various technological advancements and different other process which plays an important role in the growth and development of company. Managers are also responsible in selecting those processes and technology which will be best suited for the organization (Kotter, 2000). Quality work: Managerial work involves in evaluating the quality of work produces by the employees. Managers are responsible to check the work process in details so that company can deliver high quality of product or service to its customers. Mangers train employees to deliver quality work and enhance different work process. Maintaining effective managerial work becomes a success factor for the companies. Weakness Research on managerial work focuses on some weakness which hampers the work process of an organization. Operational managers job have constrains like they have to perform same job and responsibility for a long time. For this reason sometimes their job becomes monotonous. They have to perform their duties and responsibilities within the retail store maintaining company policies. The works of the area sales manager also have different limitations. Their power is limited to geographical area and product. They can go beyond that limited area which sometimes creates problems in developing and establishing different business activities. If the subordinates are not good and co operative then works of managers becomes very difficult. It results in failure of managers in performing their duties effectively. In many cases some managers become partial towards some employees (Katz. 2000). For this reason inequality rises in the organization which threatens internal environment of company. Another weakness of managerial work is sometimes the managers become very strict towards their subordinates and pressurizes them for getting good results and performance, not considering other important factors. This makes the employees demotivated in their work and lowers their success rates. For such managers employees develop negative feelings towards the company and want to leave such organization. Continuation of this type of managerial work creates problem for the organization. Success of the managers depends on its subordinates (Hales, 1999). In managerial position a manager has to delegate work to its subordinates. According to the performance of the subordinate’s manager get their promotion and appraisal. Therefore if the sub ordinates do not deliver good results inspire of getting efficient guidance then the performance of the managers are not considered as good. In managerial works process managers take maximum decisions without taking many inputs from different employees. Sometimes managers give employees the power of decision making and control which often creates chaotic condition within the company. A company has many managers. Different managers of a company have the power to take necessary decisions according to their needs and requirements (Carmeli, 2006). It becomes weakness in their managerial work when company’s rules and policies get hampered by different decision of managers. Managers have to understand its sub ordinates properly to develop its business operations. For earning more revenue and fulfilling business objectives managers overlook benefits of employees and society. Managers who are nor efficient in their work become a major weakness for the company. Ineffectiveness of managerial work creates poor financial condition of organization. Managers are responsible to look after all these major issues of a company. If they do not perform their work correctly then company faces major loss in its business operations. Implementation of wrong decisions by them threatens the company existence (Tengblad, 2006). Owners and shareholders of the company largely depend on managers for developing and growing the business. Therefore any negligence and mistake from them creates major problem for the company. The owners and stakeholders of organizations become compel to shut down the business for these weaknesses of managerial jobs. Priorities of the managerial work are set as per organizational needs. Employees’ needs are not concerned while establishing different managerial works. As a result the managers do not consider the factors which are important from employee aspects. Managerial works often involves many confusions while taking important steps or implementing vital decision for the company. Presence of two many managers spoils hamper the decision making process and make it very complicated. Therefore the process becomes very time consuming which creates a bad impact on company and its functions (Mathieu, Maynard, Rapp and Gilson, 2008). Research on team work shaping future managerial work Different research activities on teamwork help a lot in developing and enhancing managerial work. It shapes the working process of managers for accomplishing goals and objectives of company (Kanter, 1989). Research work on new product development focuses on knowledge and expertises of different teams involved in that process. People of different specializations work’s together in a team for creating productive result. Managerial work comprises of allocating work to various teams. It helps to divide work load among the employees according to their potentialities and capabilities. Teamwork is a structured approach taken by managers to develop and implement different projects for continuing business operations. Teams pass through many stages and phases while performing their functions. Implementing or developing a project through effective teamwork consumes less time and perfection level of that work is high (Edmondson and Nembhard, 2009). Co ordination plays an important role in making the teamwork effective. Good co ordination helps to solve many problems easily. It makes a clear understanding of job responsibilities to the team members. It establishes a collaborative working environment. In a team employees work together for achieving same goal and objective. Therefore teamwork builds unity among the employees which creates a great impact on managerial work process of a company. Team members’ needs to learn different activities for improving team performance. The research on team works shows that sometimes team members’ feels uncomfortable in working together in uncertain environment or performing under high risk environment (Waters, 1980). But they have to overcome their discomfort level and give their best while doing their duty and responsibilities. Thus teamwork helps the employees in overcoming their psychological barriers. This factor contributes a lot in improving different managerial work of a company. It has been observed by the researchers that the team members who share same idea of psychological safety are able to speak freely and develop new innovative ideas for learning many critical things (Watson, 2001). So for shaping up future managerial work process if the employees having same psychological mind set are kept in a same team then it is expected that productivity of that team will be more. This is because those team members will be able to communicate with each other more effectively. They will feel comfortable while working together. It will increase the productivity of that team. Researchers also highlights that many teams of organization are composed of cross functional members. Individuals from different functions works together in a team which improves team performances. Teamwork helps to enhance organizational innovation and learning process which has a great impact on improving managerial work. If appropriate training and is provided to the employees for improving team performances then employees will be aware of different activities they should undertake for improving their performances within team. The researchers have observed that work performance of team members differs a lot within a same team (Sims, 1993). Some team members are giving extra ordinary performances and some members are not delivering good works. This inequality creates problem in the organizational work process. So the teams of a company should be provided intensive training for improving the performance of all team members. Teams often face many challenging factors in performing their work activities. These challenges are complexity of work, fluid boundaries of teams, infrastructure of company, team diversity, temporary membership of team members etc. Complexity of the work process happens when team members are unable to understand their job responsibility or they are unable to finish the work within stipulated time (Gronn, 1983). To avoid this managers have to give a clear picture of entire work process to each of the team members. Managers have to mention time limits to all the team members. It is the duty of managers to remind them repeatedly for following specific time limits and delivering work according to allocated time. Team members should be made aware of the boundaries of team by the manager. For shaping up managerial work he should set specific boundaries to its different team members for delivering performance according to their allocated job role. Company’s infrastructure plays a vital role in motivating the employees and enhancing team performances (Fells, 2000). Organizations having well equipped infrastructure facilities provide many facilities to its employees which help to improve their work performance. Managerial work process depends a lot on employee performances. Managers need to provide those facilities to the team members which motivate them in doing their works. For shaping up managerial work managers of the company needs to maintain diversity of the team in tactful way so that company gets benefited from diversity of its employees. He should try to highlight positive sides of different cultures which will motivates all team members and help them to work in a better way by overcoming different barriers. Implementing team diversity effectively helps to enhance managerial work processes (Stewart, 1982). Researchers found that diversified team members have a huge contribution in developing innovating business strategies for organizational growth and success. Managers can take different temporary employees in company’s team for improving team performance. Sometime many efficient employees work in different teams but their presence in needed in other team. In that case the managers can take those employees to the required team on a temporary basis for delivering that team work effectively. In this way future of managerial work can be shaped according to the views of researchers. References Carmeli, A., 2006. The relative importance of the top management team’s managerial skills. International Journal of Manpower, 27(1), pp. 9-36. Edmondson, A and Nembhard, I., 2009. Product Development and Learning in Project Teams: The Challenges Are the Benefits. Product Development & Management Association, 26(1), pp. 123-128. Fells, M., 2000. Fayol stands the test of time. Journal of Management History, 6(8), pp. 345-360. Gronn, P., 1983. Talk as the work: The Accomplishment of School Administration. Administrative Science Quaterly, 28(1), pp. 1-21. Hales, C., 1999. Why do Managers Do What They Do? Reconciling Evidence and Theory in Accounts of Managerial Work. British Journal of Management, 10(1), pp. 335-350. Kanter, M. R., 1989. The new managerial work. HBR, 1(1), pp. 5-25. Katz. R., 2000. Skills Of An Effective Administrator. HBR Classic, 1(1), pp. 3-50. Kotter. J., 2000. What Effective General Managers Really Do, HBR, 1(1), pp.156-170. Mathieu. J, Maynard, T. Rapp. T, and Gilson, L., 2008. Team Effectiveness 1997-2007: A Review of Recent Advancements and a Glimpse Into the Future. Journal of Management, 34(3), pp. 410-476. Mintzberg. H., 1975. The manager’s job: folklore and fact. HBS, 1(1), pp. 50-60. Sims, D., 1993. The formation of top managers: a discourse analysis of five managerial autobiographies. British Journal of Management, 4(1), pp. 57-68 Stewart, R., 1982. A Model for Understanding Managerial Jobs and Behavior. Academy of Management Review, 7(1), pp. 7-13. Tengblad, S., 2006. Is there a ‘New Managerial Work’? A Comparison with Henry Mintzberg’s Classic Study 30 Years Later*. Journal of Management Studies, 43(7), pp. 0022-2380 Waters, J., 1980., Managerial Skill Development. Academy of Management Review, 5(3), pp. 449-453. Watson, T., 2001. Management Learning. London: Saga. Read More