Small Business Management - Term Paper Example

Small Business Management Introduction In the world of present times, the role of principle position holders with management is of utmost significance. Business leadership and business management look at the pertinent aspects that come under the organizational domains. Both look to stabilize the manner in which an enterprise carries out its activities, processes and undertakings on a consistent basis. Same is the case with leaders, managers, employees, workers, third party members and so on. The role of a manager is a difficult one. This person has to take with him the whole company and mesh the different processes so that he could get instant results. He is a team leader right from the onset of his job. He needs to get work done from the different people who are working under him. The end result has to be a single goal, one that drives their efforts towards the financial success of the said company. In doing so, the manager encounters a lot of hindrances, difficulties and hurdles. He has to face a lot of pressure from the top most management, the people who are senior to him even. He has to be accountable to the publics of the enterprise, which could include the customers and the stakeholders as well since the latter are the people who have invested within the company’s shares and they want a quick buck out of the whole investment drive. Entrepreneur and Managerial Roles in Small Businesses Within the domains of the small businesses, the terms entrepreneur, manager and owner are pretty much similar in meaning yet exhibit different representations of business people who are present within the top management. To start with we will define each one of these and then establish comparisons amongst all three as we describe them along. In this paper, the discussion will center on the small and medium enterprises or SMEs for short. Entrepreneur is a person who sets up a new SME or enterprise and accounts for accountability on his part of the risks that could come onto his shoulders for one reason or the other. When the discussion is of the for-profit SME, the entrepreneur term replaces itself with founder. This person is responsible for establishing a new entity or unit so that the establishment could provide an existing product or service into the form of a single new market, which could have a profit or non-profit result. The entrepreneurs have strong insights as regards to the opportunities that exist within the market and the threats that come as a result of the very same. The risks that could arise in the wake of these include personal, financial or professional ones so that opportunity could be grabbed with both hands. In different societies, the business entrepreneurs are regarded as the pivotal components of a social order. Entrepreneur manages and runs an SME and manages the different undertakings of the enterprise. This enterprise could be a business which is normally associated with peculiar initiatives and foreseeable risks. An entrepreneur wants to achieve high since his ambitions are always at the top. He is a person who believes in dedication and hard work. Some of the well known entrepreneurs have included names like Ben Cohen of the Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, Elisha Otis related with elevators, Ted Turner with the media field, Sam Walton concerned with the departmental stores and lastly Alan Sugar with the science of computers. On the other hand managers are in a position where they can help their employees with their family responsibilities. The role of a manager is a difficult one. This person has to take with him the whole company and mesh the different processes so that he could get instant results. He is a team leader right from the onset of his job. He needs to get work done from the different people who are working under him. The end result has to be a single goal, one that drives their efforts towards the financial success of the said SME. Team building is one of the most significant aspects that come under the functions of a manager and he needs to make sure that he is the leader for all the activities and tasks that are happening under his vigilant eyes. Team building is all the more important because the manager needs to take decisions in line with the knowledge that his team can deliver under crunch situations and also because he has to take the company forward all this while. A manager can only be termed an effective one when he understands his resources and what his team members can possibly do to their maximum in those available resources. Only then there is a sense of empathy and understanding amongst the team members and consideration towards the leader of the team which in this case is the manager himself. An owner is a person who has exclusive possession and control of some kind of business and property. Ownership is the fundamental ingredient of the capitalist society and it helps develop the economic basis of the capitalist socio-economic system in place. Ownership gives rise to other concepts which are part of the old age as well as modern day societies that include money, the trade linkages, the debt procedures and bankruptcy to state a few. Ownership could be in the form of a personal business or an ownership that is controlled by corporations and legal entities. Being labeled as an owner is a social stigma, more so in the West where the same is attached with social injustice and immoral etiquettes. In addition, being called as an owner of some business or corporation asks for the person to be termed as a tyrannical ruler who is ruling the lives of the employees and workers working under him. Oppression and ownership thus end up being each other’s synonyms. On the other hand, being called as an owner of an enterprise would be looked upon at in a very esteemed and reputable manner within a third world nation. There are differences in the cultural mechanisms so as to speak. Applicability of Small Businesses A conflict within a SME can take place due to differing personalities of the employees or in their attitudes that lead in their linkage with each other. This could also happen due to their norms and behaviors which might not be liked by any one party (person) and thus lead to a conflict of thoughts, ideas, actions and eventual behaviors towards each other. There is a degree of power when we speak of the entrepreneur/owner/manager in terms of the SME over his subordinate or the employee who is working under him in a direct or an indirect capacity. Different conflict handling styles include avoidance of the conflict in the first place which will ensure that the two persons within the SME set up remain at peace and understand each other’s personalities. The second one is that of accommodating where each of these persons would accommodate the personality traits of each other and thus listen to one another. This can lead to understanding which can be reached between the two of them. The third conflict handling style encompasses collaboration which asks them to shed their differences and work in unison with a common goal, preferably of the company, in mind. The fourth conflict handling mannerism is that of compromising where each of these can just forgive and forget and thus move on for the betterment of each other’s relationship amongst the set up of the SME. The last one is forcing which can make matters even worse since it could even be of physical and at times verbal nature. This is the least desired of the five conflict handling measures. The comparisons and contrasts of business leadership and management provide benefits as well as drawbacks to the realms of any SME and it is for the betterment of the SME itself if it comprehends how the two processes mesh along with each other and work hand in hand to produce results, both from the short term perspective as well as in the long term. It would be wise to suggest that the differences between business leaders and business managers is a marked one and it is because of these very differences that the business leaders have more say in the affairs of the task at hand than the business managers. Business managers are more into ‘managing’ people, the resources and the link between these people and those resources which are available at their disposal. Business leaders have more of a visionary role whilst the business managers look at the basics of those very steps which accumulate to become a goal or objective at the very end. Within the domains of the SMEs, leadership and management are connected with each other in more ways than one. The need of the hour on the part of any SME is to understand how the two link with each other. Small Business Philosophies With the changing times, the SME organizational theories and management regimes have presented a whole new face when one compares the same in line with the SME organizational undertakings of the 20th century. It is a fact that the changing times have seen that these theories have seemed to become obsolete and bogus as the business world has evolved and so have the different methodologies and the means through which small business operations are carried day in day out. One needs to realize the fact that small business is a consistently changing world and in this world only the people who are ready to change are successful. Thus to put it in the related context, change is the only constant in the world and in the small business scheme of things. SME organizations that have stagnated over a period of time and which did not change because of one pressure or the other have usually died out pretty quickly. Similarly, the old SME organizational theories and management hierarchies did not focus on the prerogatives which were important in the related settings and hence the gaps have been plugged in the present times, so much so that the current SME organizational theories and management perspectives look like a piece of sheer criticism on the preceding theories. The changing SME organizational theories have thus pinpointed areas of changing strategies and different lines of action that would target the people for whom the product is actually designed as well as the competitors with whom the clutter is being broken in the environs of the marketplace. Thus competition brings in more and more quality at the company’s end. Every small business or multinational that is existent in present times and which comes directly under the working regimes of the present day SME organizational theories credits itself on to the vision of an exemplary personality which started it all when the going was tough and when there was a huge competition in the related market. Conclusion In the concluding remarks, the contemporary SME organizational theories have really touched the weaknesses which were there in the past and the shortcomings are worked upon in a manner that looks critical more than anything else. The criticism is thus pretty apparent for one and all to fathom and it is with the changing times that these contemporary and modern day SME organizational theories would flourish more and more. All said and done, there must be effort on the part of the SME organizations to understand their management perspectives and under what code they are following the different theories into practice since these form the major part of the undertakings that the SME organizations carry out in their day to day tasks and activities. Success is ensured if the SME organizations get hooked on to the bandwagon of the contemporary SME organizational theories nonetheless. Essentially, a clear cut vision is indeed the need of the hour when it comes to launching small business regimes and leadership abilities only help the cause manifolds. BIBLIOGRAPHY Birley, Sue. Owner-Manager Attitudes to Family and Business Issues: A 16 Country Study. Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice Vol. 26, 2001 Covin, Jeffrey G. Corporate Entrepreneurship and the Pursuit of Competitive Advantage. Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice Vol. 23, 1991 Logue, John. The Real World of Employee Ownership. Cornell University Press, 2001 Ram, Monder. South Asian Businesses in Retreat? The Case of the UK. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 29, 2003 Watkins, Jeff. Information Technology, SMEs, and People: Transformations in the UK Retail Financial Services Sector. Routledge, 1998 Word Count: 2,000 Read More