Organisational Models and Country Managers Role - Case Study Example

Organisational models and country managers’ role, Organisational challenge in multinational management, Case analysis- Organisational challenge in multinational management Contents World Vision International 3 Organizational Change of World Vision International 3 Partnership Office vs. the Old International Office 5 Effectiveness of the Federal Framework 7 WVI Board and AIDS Hope Initiative 11 Recommendations 12 References 13 World Vision International The case analysis of organisational challenge in multinational management is conducted over a non-governmental organisation of international pursuit. This international organisation, World Vision International works for the development of children and people living in very poor conditions and are subjected to huge levels of deprivation and supreme injustice. World Vision International’s operation is based on a religious mission inspired by values brought about by the world Christian order. Though the organisation operates based on the Christian philosophy yet it showers equal benevolence to people belonging to diversified classes, sects, religious and ethnic groups around the world who have been struck by the domain of poverty (World Vision International, 2011). This international organisation came into being during 1950 with the work of Reverend Bob Pierce who dedicated his entire effort for the upbringing and care of destitute children dwelling in several corners around the globe. The work of World Vision International earned further impetus with the support from governmental and political bodies around the world in both rendering financial and infrastructural resources to help the concern achieve its end objective (World Vision International-a, 2011). The paper in this regard endeavours to study the effect of changes brought about in the organisation owing to the level of dynamism reflected in the global environment. It aims to reflect the positive and negative aspects of the changes brought about in the existing organisational policies by hinting on both its productivity and operational parameters. Organizational Change of World Vision International The organizational structure of the multinational enterprises can be studied along mainly four aspects. The four aspects show the different types of international companies operating across the globe. Firstly international companies like multinational corporations act based on a number of subsidiaries across several corners of the globe which are centrally managed by a centralised head quarter of the company. In the second case for international corporations the subsidiaries operating in several areas are controlled by the centralised units through sharing of knowledge and information. Thirdly in case of global corporations the subsidiaries are rendered a tight control through the monitoring activities of the global headquarters. Finally in the fourth case the transactional corporations exist wherein the subsidiaries do not act as independent bodies but rather as interdependent units. These firms share potential information with each other to help in the effective development of business in such areas (Kirchmer, 2008, p.130). The World Vision International organization working through several subsidiaries spread along different corners of the globe like those belonging to developing nations pertaining to Asia, Africa, Latin America and also of Middle East nations were centrally managed by its headquarter located in United States. The government of developed countries like that of Canada, Australia and New Zealand rendered both financial support and also helped the subsidiary units to take effective decisions for development of the business activities. This situation however changed after the 1970 period when during 1976 the central operating body of World Vision decentralised its operational process by rendering authority to the several operating units acting in different regions. However still up to the 1978 period the members of the different units operating in the several regions though had gained entry into the centralized body still did not share equal amount of work status. Thus after the 1978 period the process of internationalization was strongly adopted by the organization helping the several subsidiary units to grow up together. Further developments happened with the formation of a separate council body which also operated from United States and helped the different international units to develop their own marketing and productivity functions. This process also helped the several units spread along the different countries to develop separate organisational cultures. The major fund raising program visualised through the interaction of the several units operating in the different countries focused on raising amounts through sponsorship events carried out for poor children. Continuous dependence on such a fund raising scheme though at the initial stage caused frustration yet through the enhanced interaction of the several global subsidiaries the ideology of the directors. The directors henceforth started visualising the activity as one of the potential means for drawing funds from the external area and strongly supported such. The formation of World Vision International as a separate partnership entity with the World Vision U.S. helped in developing the interactive sphere of the subsidiary units operating in the several developing nations to gain the focus on interdependence and independence (Bartlett, Ghosal & Beamish, 2008,p.402-403). Partnership Office vs. the Old International Office The development of the partnership office envisioned the formation of a separate unit known as the World Vision International in regards to the existing body of World Vision U.S. This body helps in the growth of interaction between the different subsidiary units operating in the different developing countries. In the previous days these units could not operate in an independent manner and were centrally controlled by the head quarter located in United States named as World Vision U.S. Further prior to the formation of the partnership body World Vision International the financing activities of the subsidiary units were monitored by the different offices located in developing countries like United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Thus these subsidiary units better operated through the formation of the World Vision International to form separate campaigning schemes for drawing finances from the society. Further different sets of organisational culture also developed in these separate units which started acting in an independent manner rather than strongly depending on the headquarters. Further the development of the international partnership body also envisioned the growth in the complexity of business activities of the organisation. It was observed that the realm of marketing activities had undergone spatial change in its operation structures with the creation of the partnership company. The focus of the marketing activities rendered more importance to brand enhancement functions and also underlined the increase in the accountability framework of the organization. Further the scope of enhancing the consumer satisfaction was also rendered greater importance through the creation of effective marketing and distribution channels for helping the people to get easier access to the products rendered. Similarly effectiveness was also enhanced by the formation of the partnership body in regards to the management of the cost structures. In such activities the cost of donor ship was evaluated by the partnership body along several parameters like cost of accruing and sustaining donors. This evaluation helped World Vision International in effectively reducing the cost of such and thereby inhibiting a culture of growth in the concern. In addition to the aforesaid activities the development of the World Vision International also revolutionized the working of the old office located in United States. Firstly to better operate the organisation started gaining a new breed of workforce which helped in rendering high amount of efficiency in the operational parameter of the concern. Further in the second case the recruitment of specialists from different circles also happened to change the human resources functioning of the principal concern. The process involved lying off certain people who were observed not productive and thus paved the area for growth of the organisational people who were highly innovative. The growth in the innovative structure in the concern helped the organisation to gain high amount of productivity and generating change in the organization culture (Bartlett, Ghosal & Beamish, 2008, p.402-403; 409-410). Effectiveness of the Federal Framework The organizations operating on an international scale is observed to perform on mainly three parameters. Firstly the organizations operating on the global front through large amounts of production and monitoring operations seeks to achieve high amount of efficiency. Again in the second case the organization operating in a multinational framework endeavours to bring about product and service differentiation to help satisfy the local needs and thereby gains productivity. Finally in the third case translational units work by helping the different units located in different zones to interact with each other to gain all round productivity (Jarillo & Martinez, 1990, p.502). The companies operating in United States in order to gain regional productivity started working on several strategic parameters to gain the advantage of local markets. Further the distribution systems were also enhanced top help in the expansion of the brand image of the company in such local areas. (Morrison & Roth, n.d.p.8). Again the country manager of the multinational enterprises needs to counter multiple challenges pertaining to both managing and satisfying the needs of local markets, opting for special recruitment schemes to recruit skilled and effective local workforce and in countering the challenges in the global hemisphere. The country managers of the multinational enterprises also have to render high amount of flexibility in changing the policy dimensions pertaining to productivity and operation by keeping an open eye to the changes in the legislative paradigms in the external business environment (Houck & Williams, 1996, p.122). The country manager in the multinational corporations needs to reflect some effective roles where one acts as a pioneer in organizing innovative activities. Again the country manager needs to be highly intelligent in firstly analyzing the marketing conditions of the foreign territories so as to develop effective marketing and promotional campaigns. Further the country manager while encouraging the growth of effective team work works to huge amount of organizational productivity. Country managers while working on the teamwork model must endeavour to set proper targets and benchmarks and thereby communicating such effectively to the employees to generate productivity (Cushman & King, 1995, p.72).The internationalization operation of the multinational corporations can also be studied based on the Stages Model. This model shows the different ways in which a multinational firm can internationally operate to gain immense productivity. Multinational enterprises can either move to render high amount of diversity in the product features or can also go for market development. Further these firms can either support the process of central monitoring or can work on the process of decentralisation. Again the firms can encourage the transfer of the knowledge base from the central authority or can focus more on the development of the regional units. Through the above approach the firms can either honour the growth of regional involvement or simply can move to resist such. However the model suffered from significant limitations in regards to helping the managers to take the right decisions for which its use declined (Porter, 1986, p.367-368). This model can be graphically illustrated as follows. Figure 1 (Source: Porter, 1986, p.367-368) The multinational enterprises operated through separate organisational models to penetrate into the international markets. The United States companies through separate configuration models operate in regional areas and render different levels of monitoring to help in the effective performance. The federation activities can either work in a decentralized fashion or in a coordinated sphere depending on the level of monitoring implemented. Decentralized modes generate total independence in regards to resource utilization and reflect loose monitoring. On the contrary federation activities through the coordinated sphere helps in rendering both effective controls and sharing of potential knowledge. Finally another organizational mode exists wherein the central department firstly renders effective control on such units and solely takes key organizational decisions. Again the allocation of the resources is also planed according to the whims of the centralized department (Wit & Meyer, p.586-587). The above discussion can be graphically represented as follows. Figure 2 (Source: Wit & Meyer, p.586) The country manager in the multinational corporations needs to reflect some effective roles where one acts as a pioneer in organizing innovative activities. Again the country manager needs to be highly intelligent in firstly analyzing the marketing conditions of the foreign territories so as to develop effective marketing and promotional campaigns. Further the country manager while encouraging the growth of effective team work works to huge amount of organizational productivity. Country managers while working on the teamwork model must endeavour to set proper targets and benchmarks and thereby communicating such effectively to the employees to generate productivity. The federal structure through which World Vision International performed focused on rendering high amount of creativity and innovation to the organizational paradigm. Further the taking in of the new country manager also focused on the development of organizational values along with testing the existing objectives of organizational mission and vision through dependence on the external environment. It was further visualized by the country manager of the organisation in this respect that by operating on the system of coordinated federation the organisation would perform effectively in the foreign markets. This process was envisioned for it would help the management have potential control over the units opened in newer areas. Change in the organizational mission and vision was made keeping an eye to the external changes such that coordinated federation mechanism can be effectively implemented (Bartlett, Ghosal & Beamish, 2008, p.404-408). WVI Board and AIDS Hope Initiative The AIDS grew up to become a huge epidemic that gripped the population of the developing countries on a large basis. Owing to this huge outbreak the organization like World Vision International had to strategise their internal operations to help in rendering better care to the victims. Though the organisation effectively transformed the organisational structure through the creation of effective distribution and communication networks to help gain larger finances and also through working on the cooperative federation system yet the need of the hour required the company to render focus on the internal aspects. The organization tom this end launched a huge campaign to gain potential finances for fighting the AIDS epidemic. This campaign known as AIDS Hope Initiative was effectively designed by the organization to help create effective responses along several developed economies. Further the organization heads also started travelling across different corners of the world where their units were set and rendered potential discussions with the business heads of such units to help evolve out an effective plan for combating the disease. Thus functioning through both on an autonomous and interrelated system the organisation started developing the mindset of the internal people to meet the objectives of the campaign. The organizational managers also found that the funding operations carried out to meet the campaigning needs were falling short. Thus effective marketing research were carried out to study the potential of the local markets in generating required funds so that a strong network can be efficiently designed to meet the stated objectives (Bartlett, Ghosal & Beamish, 2008, p.410-414). Recommendations The organisational managers of World Vision International in addition to the activities stated above could have also worked using some strategic tools like PESTEL to understand the relevant parameters of the external market in order to gain productive in the international markets. The PESTEL Analysis would have helped the managers to identify the political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal parameters to help in the effective designing of such campaigns. Again to judge the organization’s own potential in gaining advantage of the external environment the managers could have also used the SWOT Analysis to help in effective understanding of the potential strengths and weaknesses of the company in the light of external opportunities and threats. References Bartlett, C., Ghoshal, S. & Beamish, P.W. (2008), Transnational Management: Text, Cases, and Readings in Cross-Border Management (5th ed). McGraw Hill. Cushman, D. & S. King. (1995). Communication and high-speed management. SUNY Press. Houck, J. & O. Williams. (1996). Is the good corporation dead?: social responsibility in a global economy. Rowman & Littlefield. Jarillo, J.C., Martinez, J.I. (1990) Different roles for subsidiaries: The case of multinational corporations in Spain. Strategic Management Journal. 11(7): 501- 512 Kirchmer, M. (2008). High Performance Through Process Excellence: From Strategy to Operations. Springer. Morrison, A. & K. Roth. (No date). The Regional Solution: An Alternative to Globalization. Porter, M. (1986). Competition in global industries. Harvard Business Press. World Vision International. (2011). Who We Are. [Online]. Available At: http://www.wvi.org/wvi/wviweb.nsf/maindocs/3F50B250D66B76298825736400663F21?opendocument. [Accessed on May 18, 2011]. World Vision International-a. (2011). History. [Online]. Available At: http://www.wvi.org/wvi/wviweb.nsf/maindocs/E7809E562722923A88257375007659B0?opendocument. [Accessed on May 18, 2011]. Wit, B. & R. Meyer. (2010). Strategy: Process, Content, Context, An International Perspective. Cengage Learning EMEA. Read More