BE PROACTIVE

The word pro-activity is currently common in management literature, it is a word not found in several of the dictionaries. Being proactive suggests something more than taking initiative. It means that as human beings, we have got chargeable for our own lives. Our behavior is an outcome of our decisions, not our conditions. We have got the initiative and also the responsibility to make things happen.

THINK POSITIVE

How many of us look at the positive side things that occur to us. Usually people say, ’think positive’ to someone who feels down and worried. Most people do not take these words in earnest, as they do not grasp the real meaning of the words, or do not consider them as helpful and valuable. 

COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

 Collective bargaining usually denotes the negotiation, administration and interpretation of an official document between two parties that covers a specific period of time.This agreement or contract lay out in specific terms the conditions of employment, puts some limits on employees and sets limits on management’s authority.

LEADERSHIP STYLE

Leadership style describes how top managers behave in leading and motivating their organizations to achieve their desired goals. Leadership style is a crucial aspect of leadership implementation. 

SWOT ANALYSIS

SWOT stands for Strengths and Weaknesses of a business and environmental Opportunities and Threats a business faces. SWOT analysis identifies systematically these factors and the strategy that reflects the best match between them.

EXPERIENCE CURVE ANALYSIS

In the 1960’s management consultants at the Boston Consulting Group observed a consistent relationship between the cost of production and the cumulative production quality. Data showed that the real value-added production cost declined by 20 to 30 percent for each doubling of cumulative production quantity:

STAFFING FOR GLOBAL OPERATIONS

Implementing a strategy of International expansion takes a lot of planning and can be very expensive.  At the first level of planning, staffing policy suitable for a particular kind of business, require decision-making at its global strategy, and its geographic locations. Key issues involve the difficulty of control in geographically spread operations, the need for local  decision making independent of the home office, and the suitability of managers from other sources.

STRATEGIC EVALUATION

 The process of strategic evaluation and control operates on the basis of the different organizational systems used for implementation of a strategy. The organizational systems play a significant role in strategy implementation and evaluation. The role of organizational systems in strategic evaluation and control is as follows:

OPERATIONAL CONTROL SYSTEMS

Operational control systems aim at allocation and use of firm’s various resources by evaluating performance of organizational units to assess their contribution in the achievement of organizational objectives. Operational controls systems direct, monitor, and assess progress in achieving annual objectives.

STRATEGIC CONTROL SYSTEMS

Strategic control systems are the conventional target-fixing, measurement, and feed- back systems that enable strategic managers to evaluate whether a company is achieving superior efficiency, quality, innovation, and customer responsiveness and implementing its strategy successfully.

SIGNIFICANCE OF STRATEGIC EVALUATION

The process of strategic management requires that strategists establish organizational objectives and then formulate strategies to achieve them. The process of strategy implementation begins with the identification of the key managerial tasks that form the basis for the creation of organizational structure and design.

VARIANTS OF BUSINESS STRATEGY

  Business strategy has different variants. Some of which are discussed here.

 1. Low Price/Added Value: This strategy may seem attractive, but there are successful organizations that have followed it. It is the 'cheap and nasty' option. It involves reducing price accompanied by low perceived value added and focusing on a price-sensitive segment. 

BAFFLED IN THE MIDDLE

Each strategy makes its own demands on the organization to make consistent choices in terms of product, market & distinctive competency to establish a competitive advantage. A firm pursuing one strategy should gain from elements of the other strategies too, as long as this did not detract it from its chosen strategy.

FOCUS STRATEGY

The focus strategy is directed serving the needs of a limited customer group or segment. ‘A focused company concentrates on serving a specific market niche defined either geographically or by type of customer or by segment of the product line. 

PRODUCT DIFFERENTIATION

The strategic choices of a product differentiator in terms of product differentiation, market segmentation and distinctive competency are:

DIFFERENTIATION

If cost leadership is not a feasible option, but the firm is able to differentiate its products along some attributes that customers’ value, and the cost of doing so is lower than the extra revenue envisaged, then differentiation may be the appropriate strategy to pursue.

COST LEADERSHIP

In order to achieve cost leadership reduction should be continuous to maintain the cost differential with competitors and should involve an understanding of all stages of the value chain for a product or service of a firm.  It can be gained by means of such methods as proprietary access to cheaper inputs or technologies, or by positioning to exploit any experience effects.

STRATEGIC CHOICES OF COST LEADERSHIP

The strategic choices of a cost leader in terms of differentiation of the product market segmentation of the market and distinctive competency are:

COST LEADERSHIP STRATEGY

Cost leadership is a competitive strategy  aimed at achieving the low cost that targets the broad mass market and requires aggressive construction of efficient-scale facilities, vigorous pursuit of cost reduction from experience, tight cost and overhead control, avoidance of marginal customer accounts, and cost minimization in areas like R&D, service, sales force, advertising, and so on.

LIQUIDATION STRATEGIES

The liquidation strategy is considered as the last resort because it leads to serious consequences such as loss of employment for workers and other employees, termination of opportunities where as firm could pursue any future businesses, and the disgrace of failure.

DIVEST STRATEGY

 There is a five-step process to follow to get a proactive divestiture program off the ground,
Build support for it throughout the ranks and ultimately make it a core element of their corporate strategies.

DIVESTMENT STRATEGIES

Divesting businesses regularly, even some good, healthy ones assures that remaining businesses reach their full potential and the overall company grows stronger. Some executives well understand the significance of a well-planned divestment program.

TURNAROUND STRATEGIES

Turnaround strategies can be applied when a business is in decline that is worth saving. It is important to recognize the conditions under which an otherwise successful business may go into decline. Such recognition can suggest the appropriate solutions that might aid recovery.

RETRENCHMENT STRATEGIES

The retrenchment generic strategy is adopted when an organization intends substantially to reduce the scope of its activity. For this purpose, the problem areas are identified and the causes of the problems are diagnosed. Then, steps are taken to solve the problems that result in different types of retrenchment strategies.

INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIES

International strategies are a kind of expansion strategies that need firms to market their products or services beyond the domestic market. For this purpose, a firm would have to assess the international business environment, assess its own capabilities, and develop strategies to enter foreign markets.

STRATEGIC ALLIANCES

Strategic alliances take the form of coalitions and cooperation agreements, formed between a corporation and others in order to achieve certain strategic goals. They may be expressed as a union of two or more firms to pursue a set of agreed upon goals but remain independent subsequent to the formation of the alliance.

JOINT VENTURES

  Joint Ventures: Joint ventures facilitates a fast and economic route for gaining increased competitive capabilities and abilities of partners to create new products, reduce costs, introduce new technologies, penetrate new markets and preempt competition.

TAKEOVERS OR ACQUISITIONS

 Acquisition provides a rapid means of gaining an estab1ished product/ market position. Acquisitions may be a particularly attractive means of corporate development under certain strategic and financial conditions.

DIVERSIFICATION STRATEGIES

Diversification is a much-used and talked about strategy. Diversification means identifying directions of development that take the organization away from both its current products and markets at the same time. In reality, it is not a single strategy but a set of strategies that involve all the dimensions of strategic alternatives. 

INTEGRATION STRATEGIES

Integration refers to combining activities related to the present activities of a firm, on the basis of the value chain. Recall that a value chain is a set of interrelated activities an organization performs right from the procurement of basic raw materials to the marketing of finished products to the ultimate consumers.

CORPORATE STRATEGIES

Environmental analysis and organizational analysis bring us to the generation of strategic alternatives that an organization can consider for adoption The choice of strategies is wide and much would depend on how an organization perceives its strengths and weaknesses vis-à-vis the opportunities and threats the external environment poses.

CONCENTRATION STRATEGIES

Concentration involves converging resources in one or more of a firm’s businesses in terms of products, markets or functions in such a manner that it results in expansion. Concentration strategies are variously known as intensification, focus or specialization. Concentration strategies are the ‘stick to the knitting’ strategies. Excellent firms tend to rely on doing what they know they are best at doing.

MARKETING ECONOMIES

Selling economies are associated with the distribution of the product of a firm. The main types of such economies are (a) advertising economies, (b) other large-scale economies, (c) economies from special arrangements with exclusive dealers (representatives or distributors, wholesalers or retailers) and (d) model-change economies.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT

Joseph Schumpeter did a pioneering work on entrepreneurship. For him entrepreneurship is essentially a creative activity consisting in doing such things as are generally not done in the common conduct of business. An entrepreneur is one who carries out new combinations or enterprise. Entrepreneurs are highly motivated and talented class of people and key figures in development.

DIS-ECONOMIES OF SCALE

Diseconomies of scale could stem from inefficient managerial or labor policies, over-hiring or declining transportation networks. Furthermore, as a company's scope increases, it may have to market its goods and services in progressively more disperse areas. This can actually increase average costs resulting in diseconomies of scale.

PRODUCTION ECONOMIES

Production economies may arise from the factor labor, fixed capital or from the inventory requirements of the firm.

PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING

Learning and Motivation: Learning is increased when the learning is motivated. An individual must desire to learn. When that desire exists, the learning will exert a high level of effort. There is a popular saying ,” You can take a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink’.

PURPOSES OF TRAINING

TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

“Training is a short term process utilizing a systematic and organized procedure which non-managerial personnel learn technical knowledge and skills for a predetermined objective. Development is a long-haul educational process utilizing a systematic and organized procedure by which managerial personnel learn conceptual and theoretical knowledge for general purpose.”

DOMESTIC VERSUS INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS

International business has been the outgrowth of domestic business.  Almost every big corporation such as Honda, Mitsubishi and Toyota began their operations in the domestic market before expanding into the international market.

INTERNATIONAL COMPANIES

 Companies that do business across borders face a specific set of challenges and opportunities that domestic companies do not. While each business is unique, all of them must confront many of the same challenges. As such, these companies have developed a few standard ways of managing risks and doing business internationally.

MOTIVES FOR INTERNATIONALIZATION

 Dunning introduced a model of internationalization motives including four different categories of motives. These categories are market seeking, resource seeking, efficiency seeking and strategic resource seeking motives and network seeking motives.

INTERNATIONAL MARKETING DECISIONS

The firms engaged in international business have to make different types of decisions. Some of the important decisions are described as follows:

GROWTH OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS

There are a number of reasons for expansion of international business
 

WHY COMPANIES ENGAGE IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS?

Answer: Daniels and Radebaugh have given four reasons why companies engage in international business. They emphasized that a company operating internationally should consider its mission, its objectives and strategy. The four reasons are:

ORIENTATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

Perlmutter identified distinctive "orientations" of management of international organizations. His "EPRG" scheme identified four types of attitudes or orientations associated with successive stages in the evolution of international operations.

INTERNATIONALIZATION OF BUSINESS

 The internationalization of business involves the following stages:   Domestic Company: Most international companies have their origin as domestic companies. The orientation of a domestic company essentially is ethnocentric. A purely domestic company “operates domestically because it never considers the alternative of going international.

PROMOTION

A Promotion is an increase in rank that may also be accompanied by a raise in pay, benefits, and responsibility. Most people view promotions positively, as they indicate that the individual being promoted is successful, valuable, and useful. In many workplaces, people actively work towards promotion and its accompanied benefits.

DEMOTION

A demotion is a reduction in rank, often accompanied with a lower pay status. There are many situations in which a demotion might occur; any kind of ranked system like a police department or military, for example, uses demotions as a disciplinary tool, while some employees are at risk of demotion due to reorganization or substandard work.

TRANSFER

 A Transfer implies a lateral or horizontal movement of an employee in the hierarchy of positions with the same pay and status. Transfers may be either company initiated or employee- initiated.

A company may initiate a transfer to place employees in positions where:

•  they are likely to be more effective or 
• where they are likely to get greater satisfaction or 
• where they are better able to meet the work schedules of the organizations. 

PROMOTION

A promotion is an increase in rank that may also be accompanied by an increase in pay, benefits, and responsibility. Majority of people consider promotions in a positive manner, as they denote that the person being promoted is a successful, valuable, and useful individual. In several organizations, individuals actively work for achieving promotion and its related benefits. 

RESEARCH CONCEPTS Continued.

Experimental or treatment group : This is the group that receives the experimental treatment, manipulation, or is different from the control group on the variable under study.

 Control group :This group is used to produce comparisons. The treatment of interest is deliberately withheld or manipulated to provide a baseline performance with which to compare the experimental or treatment group's performance. 

Independent variable:This is the variable that the experimenter manipulates in a study. It can be any aspect of the environment that is empirically investigated for the purpose of examining its influence on the dependent variable.
Dependent variable:The variable that is measured in a study. The experimenter does not control this variable. 

Random assignment: In a study, each subject has an equal probability of being selected for either the treatment or control group.

Double blind:Neither the subject nor the experimenter knows whether the subject is in the treatment of the control condition. 

Hypothesis: A hypothesis is a specific statement of prediction. It describes in concrete (rather than theoretical) terms what you expect will happen in your study.

Null Hypothesis: The null hypothesis (H0) is a hypothesis which the researcher tries to disprove, reject or nullify.
The 'null' often refers to the common view of something, while the alternative hypothesis is what the researcher really thinks is the cause of a phenomenon.
An experiment conclusion always refers to the null, rejecting or accepting H0 rather than H1.

Alternative Hypothesis: An alternative hypothesis (H1) is a statement that directly contradicts a null hypothesis by stating that that the actual value of a population parameter is less than, greater than, or not equal to the value stated in the null hypothesis. The alternative hypothesis states what we think is wrong about the null hypothesis, Level of significance, or significance level, refers to a criterion of judgment upon which a decision is made regarding the value stated in a null hypothesis. The criterion is based on the probability of obtaining a statistic measured in a sample if the value stated in the null hypothesis were true.In behavioral science, the criterion or level of significance is typically set at 5%. When the probability of obtaining a sample mean is less than 5% if the null hypothesis were true, then we reject the value stated in the null hypothesis.

Test Statistic: The test statistic is a mathematical formula that allows researchers to determine the likelihood of obtaining sample outcomes if the null hypothesis were true. The value of the test statistic is used to make a decision regarding the null hypothesis.

STRATEGIES FOR CHANGE

A set of internal and external strategies is used to introduce five strategies aimed at improvement of Quality of Work Life (QWL) in an organization.

REWARD SYSTEMS

The Reward Systems motivate employees in organizations. Workers do what they do to satisfy their needs. Before doing anything, they look for the reward in terms of salary increases, benefits, desirable job assignments etc. which organizations control. These organizational rewards may be direct or indirect, financial or non-financial and distributed on individual or group basis. Whatever the type of rewards, they influence every other aspect of the organization and must be used as an integral part of any program of organization change.

WORK DESIGN

Work design influences employee satisfaction, motivation and productivity. In order to improve  Quality of Work Life (QWL), work design must consider factors that moderate employees’ reactions to their work. 

CAREER AND CAREER PATHS

Career refers to a sequence of positions occupied by an individual during the course of a lifetime. Exploration, establishment, mid-career, and later career are the four stages in an individual’s career.

JOB ENRICHMENT

The efforts to change the scope of jobs in trying to motivate people create an interest in the quality of work life. Job scope has two dimensions- breadth and depth. Job breadth refers the number of different tasks an individual is directly responsible for ranging from one task performed repetitively to several tasks. 

JOB ENRICHMENT-BENEFITS

The job enrichment has a number of advantages:

APTITUDE TESTS

Aptitude tests are designed to predict the potential an individual has to perform a job or specific tasks within a job. They can cover such areas as clerical, numerical and mechanical aptitude, and dexterity. 

INTELLIGENCE TESTS

Intelligence tests are the oldest and most frequently used psychological tests. The tests scores are expressed in the form of intelligence quotients.  

PERSONALITY TESTS

Personality tests attempt to assess the type of personality possessed by the applicant in terms of personality traits (styles of behavior such as aggression or persistence) or personality types (salient features which characterize the individual such as extroversion or introversion)

HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT

There are four major tenets which form the core of the philosophy of Human Resource Development (HRD).

PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT (HRD)

One of the important processes of Human Resource Development is to bind together the organizational values and beliefs that are contributed to the organizational stability over the years.

AIMS OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT (HRD)

The major aims of Human Resource Development may be stated as:

NEED FOR HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT (HRD)

Human Resource Development (HRD) is needed in an organization for the following reasons:

HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT

  Human Resource Development (HRD) is the process of helping people to acquire competencies. In an organizational context It “is a process by which the employees of an organization are helped in a continuous and planned way to:

SELECTION TESTS

Selection Testing refers to the application of standard procedures to the persons that enable to quantify their responses. The differences in the results represent differences in abilities or behavior. The tests used for selection include personality tests, intelligence tests, aptitude and attainment tests.

TRAINING EVALUATION

  Evaluation of Training is an attempt to get information (feedback) on the effects of a training program and in the light of that information assess the value of the training. Evaluation of the training is not an easy task, and different circumstances require different method for evaluation according to the objectives aimed at.

SIMULATION EXCERCISES

Though simulations were introduced as a training technique yet they are more popular for management development. The case study, decision games, and role plays are more widely used simulation exercises.

TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS

TransactionalAnalysis is a theory Dr. Eric Berne developed  in the 1950's. It is both an approach for defining and analyzing communication interaction between people and a theory of personality. Transactional analysis outlines how we have developed and treat ourselves, how we are connected with and interact with others, and offers suggestions and interventions which enable us to change and grow.

SENSITIVITY TRAINING

Sensitivity training laboratory also known as T-Group learning, D- Group learning (development) or laboratory training, is an experience-based, unstructured variety of learning where learning or development takes place by sharing experiences, particularly those generated within the group.

METHODS FOR DEVELOPING MANAGERS

Several of the methods used to train floor level employees are also used to develop managers and supervisors, there are other methods that tend to be reserved for management development.

ON THE JOB DEVELOPMENT:Methods of equipping managers on the job experiences include:

MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT

Management development is more concerned with education than imparting job skills to employees, more future oriented or enabling a person to become a better performer. Management development activities attempt to instill sound reasoning processes rather than imparting a body of serial facts or teaching a specific set of motor skills. Therefore, development, concentrates more on the employees’ personal growth.

ON THE JOB TRAINING METHODS

By far, the most common method used for training non-managerial employees is on the job training.

OFF THE JOB TRAINING METHODS

The following are important off the job training methods:

PROCESS OF TRAINING

The training programs need to be drafted carefully. Usually in the organization of training programs, the following steps are essential:

LEARNING

Learning is concerned with bringing about relatively permanent change as a result of experience occurring through direct experience or indirectly through observation. It is important to note that the means of learning are not able to measure learning as such. 

SIGNIFICANCE OF TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

Training is the corner-stone of sound management. It makes employees more productive and effective. It is actively and intimately related to all the personnel or managerial activities. It is an integral part of the whole management program with all its many activities functionally inter-related. Training is also important for any organization that wants to take advantage of changes techniques and improvements.

INPUTS IN TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

A Training and Development program must contain inputs that enable the participants to acquire skills, learn basic concepts and sharpen vision to look into the distant future. Additionally, there is a need to impart ethical considerations, stress on attitudinal changes and emphasize upon decision-making and problem-solving abilities.

TRAINING, DEVELOPMENT AND EDUCATION

Every organization whether profit or non-profit, public or private or government, needs to have well trained and experienced employees to perform the activities in order to achieve the organizational goals. If the existing or potential job occupant can fulfill this requirement, training is not important.  In other cases, training is necessary to enhance the skill levels and increase the versatility and adaptability of employees. 

BENCHMARKING

The process of benchmarking consists of distinguishing the aspects of policy, procedure and practice for which information from other organizations is needed and identifying the important performance areas or factors within the organization for which comparative data is needed. It also includes identifying different organizations or sources of information concerning these factors and approaching organizations to achieve agreement on getting information on a reciprocal basis. Aggregating the data from different organizations about the efficacy of any policy, procedure or practice and how well it performs. It is much important to determine the extent the approach is transferable from that organization to the organization exercising benchmarking and evaluates the degree to which a practice is unique to an organization and is not therefore, transferable in its present form and analyzing published data or information from professional/employer’s organizations.