The Hopkins Group: Property Development And Real Estate Company In Australia, Essay.

The Hopkins Group: Overview

Question:

Discuss about the Conceptual and Empirical Perspectives on Governance.

The property development industry is one of the leading industries in the global market. The industry provides wide range of opportunities for the businesspersons to start and expand their business with effective and profitable outcome for their organizations (Drane 2013). The chosen company for the report is The Hopkins Group, which is proved to be one of the recognized and major companies in the property development industry of Australia amongst others. The success of one organization depends on its leaders and leadership style of the leaders and the organizational structure. The leadership style motivates the employees of the organization to achieve the business objectives, whereas the organizational structure of determines the culture within the organization that is responsible for the employee engagement in the business and with other. In addition, the core values and passion of the company is also an important factor in ensuring the success of the organization as it shows the social involvement of the company for any noble cause. However, the following report presents the foundation and the business success of the same.

The Hopkins Group is one of the major property development and real estate companies in Australia (Realestate.com.au 2017). The company also provides financial service to the people aims to offer holistic financial service to the clients (Thehopkinsgroup.com.au 2017). In terms of providing financial service to the clients, the company focuses on the financial planning, tax and accounting, mortgages and finance, property investment advice, and property management. In this way, the company belongs to the property development industry and not into the financial industry (Facebook.com 2017). The company was established by John Hopkins in late 1970 and the gradual growth of the company through several difficulties has earned its place in the market of the property development and real estate business (Thehopkinsgroup.com.au 2017). The company was initially focused to the property business and later it has expanded its business in the finance service along with the property development and other business related to property. The Hopkins Group is one of the oldest and popular companies in the Australian property development industry (in.linkedin.com 2017). The next section discusses the industry in brief.

The property development industry is one of the divisions in the property industry. The whole property or real estate industry cannot be represented by this. The property development industry represents a small section of the property industry. The property development industry focuses on the redevelopment and refurbishment of the existing old buildings (MacLaran 2014). There are many companies, as The Hopkins Group exists in the property development market in Australia. The property development industry works on all kinds of buildings including residential, commercial and others.  The property development industry provides number of the jobs to the people from the fieldwork to the corporate jobs.

The Property Development Industry in Australia

The performance of the property development industry in the Australian market has been remarkable from the year 2016 (Update 2017). The developers are seen progressive in completing the redevelopment projects in Australia. Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and other cities are the fine example of the property development in terms of the industry performance (Sainsbury 2015). The performance of the property development industry is attracting the offshore investors in investing to the refurbishment of the old buildings for industrial and commercial use (Rogers, Lee and Yan 2015). Renewal of the residential buildings are no exception in this respect as the industry is focusing on the residential buildings majorly that include apartment projects, urban development projects, community development, town centre projects and others (Taylor et al.  2012).

The structure of the company is based on the functions and divisions of the company. The functions of the company are numerous and different, from providing financial service to property management. In other hand, the division of the company is based on the different departments and branches in different geographical locations. In addition, the people of the company are also responsible in determining the company structure. The organizational structure of the company can be considered as the matrix structure where the both the divisional and functional structure is apparent (Guadalupe, Li and Wulf 2013). No doubt, the company is one of the major companies in the property development industry of Australia, and therefore, the matrix structure of the company s obvious as well as expected. The company operates its business in all over Australia and covers a wide range of context for operating the business. Thus, the structure of the company must allow for the benefits and existence of the organization.

For operating its business across the country the organizational structure are inclusive of different internal departments that helps the company to perform its business function properly. The departments of the company include management department that plans and manages all the operations of the company, executive departments that executes all the plan and strategies taken by the management department, finance department that handle the financial service of the company and others (Thehopkinsgroup.com.au 2017). There also exists the practical team that does the fieldwork of the company.

While considering the leaders of the company the first name that comes is John Hopkins, the founder o the company (in.linkedin.com 2017). He is not only the pioneer of the company but also the pillar of the company. From the other leaders the name of Michael Williams, Rachel Williams and Durham Kenigsvalds need to be noted (Thehopkinsgroup.com.au 2017). The former two are the managing director of the organizational and the later one is the chief executive officer of the company. However, despite the presence of several authoritative persons in the company, the founder John Hopkins is considered to be the leader of the same. This is because he not only founded the company, but also the ensured the growth of the company over the years.

Organizational Structure of The Hopkins Group

The leadership style that is apparent in the founder of the company John Hopkins is the contingency leadership style. The contingency leadership is such a style of eldership that enables the leaders of the organization to have control over the situation (Antonakis 2017). Same follows for John Hopkins. It is evident from the history of the company that the company as well as the founder had to bear many difficulties and cross many hurdles for achieving the position of today.  It was never possible for the company and the employees of the company to expand the company and accommodate with the diverse situations without the help of the leader. John Hopkins, being the leader of the company understood and controlled the situation to meet the objectives of the business as well as to expand the company in the international context.

However, apart from the founder of the company, the contribution of the other leaders is equally important. Michael Williams apart from being the managing director of the company also handle the financial advisory group as Senior Financial Advisor, and without his contribution, it was not possible for the company to achieve a high position in the financial service market. Similarly Rachel Williams and Durham Kenigvalds respectively handle and contribute to the accounting and operational activities of the organization.

The culture of the company can be mentioned as the organizational culture. In any company the organizational culture is the most important to ensure the proper execution of the strategic operations of the company as well as to maintain a balance in the professional relationship among the employees of the organization (Alvesson 2012). The organizational culture in The Hopkins Group is rich with passion for better work and business growth (Shahzad et al. 2012). The core passion of the company is definitely the interest in property, without which the expansion of the business as well as the company is not possible as the chief operation of the company is the property development.  The founder of the company as well as the employees thrives to provide quality service to the potential, current and future clients.

Apart from providing with the primary service related to the business, the company is also engaged in the community development (Murray 2013). The company through its business has tries to develop the condition of the community in Australia. The company supports the community in many ways. The founder of the company is the brand ambassador of Beyondblue, an organization that ensures the improvement of mental health of the people (Beyondblue.org.au 2017). In addition, the company supports the charity for the special kids with life-threatening conditions. As the passion of the founder of the company is his family, he supports the service that eliminates the family violence issue in the community (Thehopkinsgroup.com.au 2017).

Leadership Style at The Hopkins Group

The Hopkins Group being one of the major and largest property development companies in Australia has branches all over the country and outside the country. The company had developed joint ventures in three locations across the country in 1990 (Thehopkinsgroup.com.au 2017). The company has its branches in all over the country that provide different services to the clients. The founder of the company has opened different offices for different services like mortgage, redevelopment, financial advice and others. The reason behind opening more branches is the growing number of employees and expansion of business. Apart from having branches in all over the country, the company has expanded its business in the international context. The company has recently opened a branch in UK.

It is obvious that the company is recognized by most of the people of the country.  In addition, the company provides good opportunity to the young professionals for starting a career in the property development industry. Therefore, the employees of the company are gradually increasing. The company has more than thousand employees all over Australia along with UK.  The employee is the cause of expansion of the company and vice versa.

All the above given information are relevant to the business success of The Hopkins Group. It is clear and evident from the discussion that the leaders and the leadership style are the prime factor in ensuring the success of the organization as the effective leadership of the leaders had driven the company towards the success. The leaders have undoubtedly influenced the successor the organization in business but it will be wrong if the struggle of the founder of the company not mentioned in this regard. It is stated previously that the leader of the company Jon Hopkins and his leadership is core reason behind the success of the company, but the struggle he had gone through during the initial days of the company is also notable. John Hopkins established the first investment property advisory group in Australia, John Hopkins and Company Pty Ltd. in 1980 and this started the journey of him. Later he expanded the company into the financial service and soon he achieved one of the leading positions in the property development market of the Australia (Thehopkinsgroup.com.au 2017). Later he expanded his company outside Australia as stated before. The struggle of the pillar of the company has another reason behind the recognition of the same. The struggle also mane Hopkins chose his personal and professional values that today his organization follows as the organizational core values.

Conclusion:

Therefore, this can be concluded from the above discourse that the company being one of the major companies in Australia provides good quality service in property development and finance. The industry of property development has shown a remarkable success in Australia. In addition, the leadership of the company founder, John Hopkins is the responsible person behind the success of the company in the specific industry.  The leadership style of John Hopkins and the organizational culture of The Hopkins Group is the key determinates of the expansion of the company across the country as well as outside the country. It is evident from the essay that the structure of the company serves equal responsibility in determining the success of the company, which has led the company to have a vast, number of employees along with different branches in all the metropolitan cities in Australia. 

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