Strategic Leadership and Decision-Making at Monster Worldwide - Case Study Example

MONSTER WORLDWIDE Name Institution Professor Course Date Monster Worldwide Introduction Strategic leadership and decision-making tend to occur within various environmental contexts, both internal and external. Additionally, strategic leadership and decision-making undergo substantive influence from leadership, CSR, organizational culture, and approaches to innovation. In the course of understanding these concepts, it is valuable to consider execution of an extensive organizational analysis. Organizational analysis refers to the process of examining the development, work environment, personnel, and operations of the business in question. Regular execution of organizational analysis is valuable for the management in the identification of the issues or inefficiencies, which might limit the achievement of the goals and targets. This is through assessment of the platforms and strategies to address such inefficiencies. The purpose of this report is to facilitate an examination or analysis of Monster Worldwide while comparing its transactional aspects against Seek. Brief Overview of Monster Worldwide Monster Worldwide Limited is a business entity or company offering online recruitment services or resources for the job seekers, as well as employers across the world. The business entity engages in the provision of job listings in diverse areas such as arts, accounting, charity, banking, education, government, hospitality, part time, project management, retail, sales, security, social work, and travel jobs. Previously, the company was known as TMP Worldwide Limited (Monster, 2016). Monster Worldwide Limited operates as a subsidiary of the Monster Worldwide, Inc. From this presentation, it is essential to note that Monster Worldwide is a global online solution for the individuals seeking employment, as well as employers focusing on employing great talents and individuals across the world. The company has been in existence for more than 20 years, thus, the platform for the maximization of its image and reputation while offering quality services to the consumers. In the course of its operations, the organization has been able to expand its transactions as the ‘job board’ towards becoming a global provider of a full array of job seeking, career management, recruitment, and talent management services and products. The main component of success for the company in its years of operation is innovation. Evidently, the company engages in changing or transforming how people think about work, thus, the platform for helping the target audiences to engage in active improvement of their lives, as well as their workforce performance in the midst of new technology, practices, and tools. Categorically, the business entity has focused on designing an integrated approach, which focuses more on the innovative technology, as well as expertise into powerful and efficient solutions (Thompson, Braddy, & Wuensch, 2008). The approach is vital in enabling the organization to fight best quality and quantity of the workforce for the organizations across the world. The approach is also ideal in streamlining various processes to enable organizations to save money and time. Furthermore, recruiting firms have the platform to exploit the approach in the course of making valuable decisions to improve their return against investment. The purpose of the company is to bring humanity and opportunity to the job market with the intention of enhancing lives, businesses, and communities across the world (Monster, 2016). The vision of the company is to become the leading global talent platform connecting jobs and people. Additionally, the mission of the company is to engage in the creation and delivery of the best recruiting media, technology, platforms for connecting jobs and people, thus, daily strives to help customers or organizations to hire while enabling people to find relevant jobs (Monster, 2016). The values of the company include relentless innovation, intelligence, prioritization of customers and candidates, fostering trust, integrity, and openness. Comparisons and Analysis of Seek and Monster Worldwide Having assessed the overview of Monster Worldwide, it is ideal to provide a brief background of SEEK before critical comparison and analysis of the two business entities. SEEK is an online business entity or website, which offers substantive means to job search through job descriptions. It is ideal to demonstrate the fact that SEEK Company has numerous branches and partners all around the world, particularly focusing on the Asia Pacific region (SEEK, 2016). The business entity has two major functions: employment and voluntarism. Evidently, the company is one of the leading job search engines for the target audiences looking for work. Leadership Leadership is not management or act of directing. Leadership refers to the ability of an individual to inspire, as well as influence others in pursuit of the goals and targets. Leadership skills and styles might vary from one organization to another (Wang, Sui, Luthans, Wang, and Wu, 2014). Nevertheless, all good leaders tend to have one thing in common, which is the ability to inspire the followers. In spite of the potential leadership issues, Monster Worldwide aims at integrating transformational leadership approach or style with the intention of motivating workforces to address the need of the consumers (Vaccaro et al., 2012). Transformational leadership plays a critical role in enabling the organization to achieve its goals and targets. In the recent years, the leadership of the institution has not focused on the exploitation of the transformational leadership focusing on the consumers or customers (Colbert, Barrick, and Bradley, 2014). The previous executive team did focus on the maximization of the stock prices at the expense of the consumers, thus, ineffective leadership approach in pursuit of sustainability (Hoch and Kozlowski, 2014). The trend did affect the image and reputation of the firm, thus, the obligation to let go of the company’s CEO. Alternatively, SEEK Company engages in the exploitation of the transformational leadership approach. In this context, the company utilizes its leadership structures and powers to facilitate empowerment of the individuals with profession, career training, and volunteering ventures with the intention of making beneficial, satisfying, and stable experience for the target audiences (García-Morales, Jiménez-Barrionuevo, and Gutiérrez-Gutiérrez, 2012). Transformational leadership at SEEK aims at improving the capabilities of the employees, thus, the platform to experience substantive empowerment for continuous growth in pursuit of competitive advantage. Organizational Culture Organizational culture refers to systems, processes, and mechanisms, which facilitate running of the organization in pursuit of the goals and targets at the end of each fiscal or financial period. In the first instance, Monster Worldwide tends to incorporate relentless innovation in its organizational culture with the intention of offering quality products and services at the disposal of their consumers in the market or niche of operation (Ostroff and Schulte, 2014). From this perspective, Monster Worldwide aims at utilizing innovation as the center for success, thus, the need to offer new products and services, as well as processes and mechanisms with the intention of enhancing efficiency and effectiveness in the service delivery. Secondly, Monster’s organizational culture focuses on the utilization of intelligence when interacting with the employers and potential employees on the online or digital platforms (Hu, Dinev, Hart, and Cooke, 2012). Another aspect of the organizational culture in this context is the tendency to put candidates and customers first. Monster Worldwide believes that customers and candidates form the tools for their success, thus, the need to prioritize their demands in pursuit of the goals and targets at the end of each fiscal period. The company’s organizational culture aims at fostering trust, openness, and integrity in the operations and transactions of the company (Hysong, 2014). These aspects of the organizational culture are essential in enabling the firm to streamline its operations with the intention of achieving the mission and vision in the aforementioned statements. Like Monster Worldwide, SEEK Company focuses on utilization of innovation as one of the core competencies in its organizational culture. This is highly evident in the approach by the organization to update its technology with the objective of satisfying the needs and desires of the employers, as well as potential employees or job seekers. The approach is critical in enabling the organization to reduce dissimilarities among the hiring company and the appropriate candidate in the global market. The institution also integrates substantive research in its organizational culture, thus, ideal investment in the research and development in pursuit of sustainability and competitive advantage. Moreover, the firm plays a critical role in the promotion of the culture of excellence, as well as acceptance in the workplace, thus, the platform for maximizing outputs of diversity rather than limitations of the differences at the workplace. Similarly, the organization plays a critical role in the course of prioritizing the candidates and customers as valuable components in the realization of success of the company. Obstacles Various institutions tend to face or experience challenges in pursuit of the goals and targets. One of the major obstacles in the case of Monster Worldwide is ineffective or poor leadership, which focuses on maximization of the stock prices rather than achievement of the mission and vision of the company. Additionally, the organizational employees tend to raise diverse complaints regarding lack of bonus, as well as huge disconnect between the corporate and its employees. On the other hand, SEEK Company tends to deal with diverse challenges such as inappropriate resources to execute its voluntary programs across the world. Secondly, the company faces obstacles when desiring to maximize the revenues at the expense of empowerment of the employees at the end of each fiscal period. Approach to Innovation From the assessment of the two business entities, it is ideal to demonstrate the fact that the company tend to approach innovation as a valuable and critical component in pursuit of success in the niche of operation. Evidently, SEEK and Monster business entities focus on updating their technological advances with the intention of streamlining their operations for effectiveness and efficiency in pursuit of competitive advantage and sustainability. Innovation comes out as a useful tool towards enabling the two business entities to connect employers with the potential employees in the highly digitalized world (Schnaars & Wymbs 2004). Ethics, Corporate, and Social Responsibility Ethics and CSR tends to be critical components in enabling the organizations to improve their images and reputation (Grover, 2014). The same is evident to the cases of SEEK and Monster Worldwide since they engage in the empowerment of the consumers. In the course of maximizing the revenues and profit levels, the two organizations have focused on the prioritization of the needs and demands of the consumers, thus, ethical execution of the business entities (Tata & Prasad, 2015; Virvilaite and Daubaraite, 2015). On the other hand, the companies tend to engage in the execution of development programs for the potential candidates with the intention of bridging the gap between the desires of the employers and the skills of the potential employees across the world. Reflections from Comparisons & Analysis From the above illustrations, it is ideal to demonstrate that SEEK and Monster Worldwide tend to adopt and implement almost similar business models in pursuit of the goals and targets in the niche of operation. Categorically, the organizations provide the online opportunity for the job seekers to connect with the potential employers across the world. Additionally, the organizations have focused on the utilization of relentless approach to innovation as the major component of success (Samson & Gloet, 2014; Fresneda, Korschun, and Kothandaraman, 2016). Innovation has been critical in enabling the organizations to achieve their goals and targets through streamlining operations while reducing the costs of operations. Innovation is also ideal in enabling the organizations or companies to enhance effectiveness and efficiency in the delivery of quality services and products at the disposal of the candidates and customers. Recommendations Based on the findings of this analysis, it is appropriate for Monster Worldwide to adopt and integrate the following recommendations with the intention of maximizing revenues while satisfying the needs of the consumers: i. Increased commitment to transformational leadership with the objective of motivating employees to pursue the organizational cultures in accordance with the mission, vision, and values ii. Integration of bonus to motivate employees iii. Increased empowerment programs as part of the CSR with the intention of improving or enhancing the image and reputation of the firm Conclusions Conclusively, this report focused on the execution of a critical analysis of Monster Worldwide while comparing its transactional aspects against Seek. According to the findings of the report, these two companies provide online platforms for the job seekers and employers. Additionally, the report did identify similarities among the business models of the companies seeking to maximize their revenues while satisfying the needs and expectations of the consumers. Categorically, SEEK and Monster Worldwide entities focus on the utilization of innovation as the core competence in addressing the mission and vision in the niche of transaction. List of References Colbert, A.E., Barrick, M.R. and Bradley, B.H., 2014. Personality and leadership composition in top management teams: Implications for organizational effectiveness. Personnel Psychology, 67(2), pp.351-387. Fresneda, J., Korschun, D. and Kothandaraman, P., 2016. CSR as an Adaptive Selling Tool: a Novel Framework and a Robust Analysis Proposal. In Celebrating America’s Pastimes: Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and Marketing? (pp. 373-387). Springer International Publishing. García-Morales, V.J., Jiménez-Barrionuevo, M.M. and Gutiérrez-Gutiérrez, L., 2012. Transformational leadership influence on organizational performance through organizational learning and innovation. Journal of Business Research, 65(7), pp.1040-1050. Grover, A., 2014. Importance of CSR in Inclusive Development. 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Impact of authentic leadership on performance: Role of followers' positive psychological capital and relational processes. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 35(1), pp.5-21. Read More