Critical Challenges Implications For Management Skills In New Zealand

Strengths of the article

Discuss about the Critical Challenges Implications for Management Skills.

The business environment in New Zealand is highly dynamic and poses certain critical challenges for the organisations. For facing these challenges it is the need of the hour to firstly assess the challenges which are most crucial particularly in the perspective of the chief executives of some of the leading organisations belonging to the private, public and the non-profit sectors and then find out the implications that they have on the managerial capabilities so that the appropriate capabilities can be developed by the HR practitioners for facing these challenges. This is exactly what the given journal article tries to discuss. In this essay a critique of the given journal article will be carried out in order to determine the strengths as well as the weaknesses of the article.

A statement which gives the summary of the main ideas or ideas with respect to the article and also express with clarity what will be discussed related to the topic forms the thesis statement. The topic which will be discussed and the purpose that the article will be serving will be identified by the thesis statement (Purdue University, 2016).

The thesis statement for the above article is examining the challenges of the most critical nature which exist in the environment of New Zealand from the perspective of the chief executives and then focus on the implications which these challenges might have on the management skills of the country’s people. The purpose with which the author has written this article is to report about a survey that was conducted to find out about the opinion of the chief-executives of New Zealand’s large organisations and then examine what the different chief executives belonging to the public, private as well as not-for-profit sectors of the country consider to be the most vital issues in the dynamic environment that exists currently. Thus, the author’s major goal is apparently to examine the implications of these significant issues for the managerial skills and to figure out the ways in which the practitioners of human resource can provide support for developing those managerial skills by participating in the development processes which help in bridging the internal as well as the external boundaries.

After reading the article it can be said that the thesis statement of the authors is relevant as the intention of the authors to find out the critical challenges and the managerial implications have been attained after they conducted the survey and collated the results.

Weaknesses of the article

The first strength is the title of the article which is very clear about what the reader should be expecting from the article. It is absolutely apparent from the title that the viewpoint of the chief executives of the country’s organisations will be considered for assessment of the critical challenges and then the implications of these challenges for the management skills will be determined.

Most of the previous researches have discussed the current business environment in New Zealand, relations between productivity problems and management capabilities and analysis of management skills in the country’s manufacturing sector (Green et al., 2011). However, there is lack of research which takes into consideration the views of the chief executives from different sectors of the nation and develops managerial implications on that basis (Floyd & Fowler, 2009). The gaps have been identified (Randolf, 2009). The two authors have tried to address this issue through this research.  Both the authors are lecturers in HRM in the University of Auckland’s “Management and International Business” department and have made significant contributions in their field of work. However, a major weakness is that their present article has also been cited in only a few studies.

The article is based on a study which has been conducted by the authors. The sub-headings of the article also reflect its strength as the content has been organised in an appropriate and logical manner. Firstly, the scenario about the organisations of New Zealand and their managerial capabilities have been discussed which is actually a review of the existing literature. This is followed by a detailed description of the methodology that the authors have used for the purpose of conducting the survey. Results for each sector are considered in a detailed manner with proper graphs indicating the findings. Then the authors have discussed the findings for indicating the implications on the capabilities of the management. All this is followed by a logical conclusion (Metcalfe, 2002).

The list of references indicating that the authors have taken into consideration the important works that are a part of this field is another major strength of the article. Majority of the references are from authentic academic sources such as books and journals and they are recent which is an indication of its strength (Jones, 2001). Only some of the references are a little old.

The intended audience for the article is the practitioners of HR in the leading organisations of New Zealand which belong to the different sectors and the purpose of the author is to survey as well summarise the research that has been carried out on the topic.

Bibliography

The article does not provide definitions of the important terms such as what are the managerial capabilities. This indicates one of the major weaknesses of the article (Cahan, 2003).

The information that have been provided in the articles are mainly the opinions of the chief executives with respect to the challenges that they think are crucial to the organisation and based on their opinion the authors have interpreted the results. They have made a clear distinction between the private sector and the public as well as the non.-profit sector and have also presented the results of the two sectors separately. This was done by the authors as there were differences in the data of organisations which were mainly looking for profits and the ones which were not profit-oriented. The quantitative data was presented first for all the sectors and then the analysis was done as a percentage of the respondents who gave a rating of one for every item like ‘1’ which meant that it was among the first 3 to 5 challenges that their organisation was facing or was one of the most risky issues that their organisation was facing. This was followed by the qualitative data which further illuminated the quantitative responses.

The authors have stated the central arguments and conclusions in a clear manner and practical solutions have been provided (Lislie, 2011). Evidence as well as analysis is supports these arguments and conclusions. They have concluded that a complex environment that comprises changing markets as well as technologies. In such a situation, the support provided by the stakeholders which also consist of the main funders is very guarded and conditional. War for talent is going on and reframing of business models is needed for responding to ambiguous and rapidly happening changes. Management of uncertainty along with renewal, management of business partners and stakeholders and management of people and limited resources are found to be significant.

According to my viewpoint the article has all the relevant information which I was expecting to find.The article has been organised by the authors in a very logical way and it is way for the reader to follow the article. The style of the writer is a good one and it is suitable for the intended audience to follow it (Helfat & Martin, 2014). Apart from this, use of objective language has been made by the authors which can be easily followed. The illustrations used in the article although effective in presenting the information, consist of far too many critical issues. It would have been better if the author had limited the critical issues to top seven to ten issues instead of giving a very long list which adds unnecessary complications to the article. Critical issues basically mean the very significant issues for the company and such a long list of issues will make the reader lose focus on the critical ones. This would have made it easier for the intended audience to comprehend also.

The critical analysis of the given article indicates that the article has its strengths and weaknesses. The major strengths of the article are evident in its relevant thesis statement and the logical flow of ideas throughout the article. The title and the subheadings of the article are also an indication of its appropriateness. The authors have given due consideration to the researches carried out previously, identified the gaps in them and then conducted this research. The authors are competent in their fields. It has certain limitations like a long list of critical issues which the authors could have curtailed. Another weakness is the fact that the article has been cited in only a few studies.

Cahan, J., 2003. Mini-lecture on writing a critique- effective acade. [Online] Available at: https://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/b/j/bjj6/ENGL015-2001Critique.html [Accessed 22 September 2016].

Floyd, J. & Fowler, J., 2009. Survey Research Methods. 4th ed. Nashville: SAGE.

Green, R.R. et al., 2011. Management matters in New Zealand: How does manufacturing measure up? Wellington.: Ministry of Economic Development Ministry of Economic Development.

Helfat, C.E. & Martin, J.A., 2014. Dynamic Managerial Capabilities: Review and Assessment of Managerial Impact on Strategic Change. Journal of Management, 41(5), pp.1281-312.

Hutchison, A. & Boxall, P., 2014. The critical challenges facing New Zealand’s chief executives: implications for management skills. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 52, pp.23-41.

Jones, B.J., 2001. Rhetoric and composition. [Online] Available at: 22 [Accessed September 2016 2016].

Lislie, J.D., 2011. The Benefits And Challenges Of Mixing Methods And Methodologies:Lessons Learnt From Implementing Qualitatively Led Mixed Methods Research Designs in Trinidad and Tobago. Caribbean Curriculum, 18, pp.87-120.

Metcalfe, M., 2002. Preparing a critique of an article: Using argument as an inquiry. [Online] Available at: https://godot.unisa.edu.au/register/articles/5.doc [Accessed 22 September 2016].

Purdue University, 2016. WRITING A Thesisi Statement. [Online] Available at: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/print/general/gl_thesis.html [Accessed 16 September 2016].

Randolf, J.J., 2009. A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review. Practical Assessment, Research and Evaluation, 13, p.14.