Essay: Modern Business And Practice For Organizational Performance - A Case Study On BNZ.

Company Introduction and their Social Ethical Initiative

Discuss about the Modern Business and Practice for Organizational Performance.

Bank of New Zealand (BNZ), recognized as one of the leading financial organizations in New Zealand has been successfully executing its banking operations since over 156 years. The organization founded in the year 1861 in Auckland, New Zealand has been employing over 5000 employees and is currently headed by Angela Mentis (CEO). BNZ is known as the subsidiary of the Australian bank following to the purchase by National Australia Bank (NAB) (Bnz.co.nz, 2018).

The company’s rationale for undertaking social ethical behaviour lies on the anticipation that successful attainment of gender equity in NZ will facilitate the delivery of significant achievements to the nation.

Social ethics in organizations are regarded as policies, procedures as well as culture of executing justifiable actions during challenging times and situations in business and further acknowledge ethical actions in order to build constructive corporate culture. Social ethical policies enhance the level of protection of the employees against any form of retaliation for individualistic ideologies (Kolk, 2016). With effective implementation of social ethics organizations can successfully retain their consumer and employee loyalty which aim to initiate with fair and sincere treatments and authorities.

Organizational culture is referred to the system of collective ideologies and attitudes that develop within an organization and further aids the employee behavioural patterns. Organizational culture focuses on the collectiveness of ethical norms and principles which assist the way employees are to behave along with the anticipated code of conduct outside the organization (Bolman & Deal, 2017).

Key characteristics of Organizational Culture

Individual Autonomy-  The degree of accountability, autonomy and opportunities of executing initiatives that employees have in the organization (Kolk, 2016).

Structure- The way organization creates distinctive targets and performance expectations. It further incorporates the level of direct administration that is exercised in order to regulate employee behaviour (Gasson et al., 2015).

Conflict Tolerance- The rate of conflicting associations among employees and stakeholders and the degree to which employees are acknowledged to resolve such conflicting situations.

It is important to note that, organisational culture tends to vary from one organization to another. Situations pertaining to dramatic crisis like major financial impediment in an organization may compel the management to evaluate the relevance of its existing cultural policies (Kolk, 2016). Furthermore, organizational culture can vary with the size and significance of businesses whereby new business enterprises can effortlessly alter their cultural patterns in comparison to the well-established organizations.

Ethics, Culture and organizational performance

Several studies reveal that culture and social ethics alter organizational procedures which further aids to create and amend cultural patterns of the organization. Modern theorists are of the opinion that organizational culture effectively contributes to the performance level whereby,

• Social ethics and culture are intensively predetermined with the degree of social regulation which may influence decision making processes and behaviour of employees.
• Organizational culture and social ethical policies functions as social bond in order to create employee associations and thus enhance the rate of efficiency and employees efficacy (Gasson et al., 2015).
• Well-established social ethics effectively aids the sense making processes assists employees to develop knowledge about organizational aims and objectives and retain the most efficient employees of the workforce. 

BNZ has been persistently going beyond New Zealand's legislative demands and requirements for workplace health and safety and has been functioning munificently in other areas s well such as leave entitlement and providing welfare programs for employees and catering for health necessities. However the company has been recently facing some social ethical issues related to the aging workforce, a global issue which has been creating coercion to the company’s operational activities (Gasson et al., 2015). However recent data reveals that the persistent development in the rate of senior citizens with an increase of over 20% since 2016 along with the group which currently is comprising around 25% of the total population (Diversity Case Study 2014, 2018). The persistence of this trend is anticipated which would led the New Zealanders to continue to employ this age group further providing significance to the segment in order to achieve greater organisational performance of the total talent pool (Governance – BNZ, 2018). However the evaluation of these repercussions can be witnessed by BNZ and its potential labour force, which is the reason the company, has effectively implemented its operations on age and the work force. Furthermore BNZ has analysed the rate of risk and complexities of losing intellectual revenues essential client associations and the areas where they lack the constructive talent in the pipeline.

New Zealand is recognised by its distinctive youth work sector existing for over 30 years. However in recent times it has revealed a lack of distinct and consistent recognition related to the youth employment sector of the nation. However the recent ‘Attitude Gap Challenge’ report has witnessed a significant gap which is considered to be more crucial than attitude of the young age group. However it is it is regarded as a complex dispute of norms and expectations along with the ethnic as well as generational disparities that occur throughout the employment course within the organisation (Gasson et al., 2015). The Ministry Of Social Development has sponsored a co-design challenge in order to comprehend the differences and dispute situation between young aged employees and the level of expectations of the employers related to work inclination and the significant impact of these differences on youth under employment in South Auckland. Young age group in New Zealand has been experiencing long term unemployment.

Key characteristics of Organizational Culture

Several reports have revealed risk management issues whereby the company cultural patterns and codes of ethics in New Zealand have been showing significant ineptitude in comparison to the other parts of the world. BNZ being the leading company financial company along with other organisations in New Zealand have shown lack of competence in providing separate governance committee in order to reflect the shifting perceptions of risk in the areas of cultural organisation culture and codes of ethics (Drennan, McConnell & Stark, 2014). However focusing on these internal drivers of the company and further in engaging with the executive is still underdeveloped in the organisational sector of New Zealand (Gasson et al., 2015).

Another significant social issue faced by BNZ has been the lack of distinctive workplace communication. Several immigrants have revealed the rising complexities and challenges they have been experiencing in understanding the local kiwi accent. As in New Zealand the employees tend to develop unless direct mannerism while speaking results in creating obstructions to the productivity level of the new migrant employees along with posing risks to the employees’ safety and welfare (Lee et al., 2014). The lack of effective business communication today's ethical dilemmas and lacks confidence and the willingness to act in the positive enthusiasm within the organisation.

In order to function in an effective manner to enhance the organisational cultural aspects and social ethics effective clarification of some of the key behavioural expectations would need to preserve the achievement and success of BNZ Company.

• To mitigate the linguistic factors the company must evidently invest considerable time in developing their codes and policies and further allowing the code to form an integral part of the company's cultural patterns which has been loosened due to linguistic issues.
• Constructive employee behaviour effective codes and cultures can further enhance the organisational performance of the company. Constructive investment in codes and embedding it within the cultural programme of BNZ will further ensure the enhanced reputation and well established behaviour within the organisation.
• Strong commitment along with sound practice among youth workers sector by developing a national policy Framework would guide the direction of youth work and the development of the workforce for the aging to the organisational performance and attract the young work labour pool.

Conclusion

Therefore from the above discussion it can be stated that by adhering to well established and effective codes ethics and policies BNZ along with the organisational sector in New Zealand can achieve significant performance goals and further enhance the integrity level of the employees association by effectively working on the social ethical initiatives which the Company has proposed in recent times. 

International forces in the new world economy have been effectively reforming the business world by forming improved opportunities and an increase level of growth for business enterprises. In today's global economy companies can effectively outsource any aspect of the operational activities ranging from manufacturing to customer services through the effective management purposes (Locke, 2013). However it has been anticipated that global productivity from outsourcing can increase up to $510 million in 2010  (Governance – BNZ, 2018).  It has been noted that outsourcing and off shoring are considered as new traits of the today's world economy. Several economists believe that the concept of globalisation does not encompass the wide-ranging aspect of the modern business sector (Drucker, 2017). BNZ was evaluated the impact of Brexit on global financial market. Though the US economic sector has been percent persistently demonstrating a significant advancement, it does not seem to have been in direct influence by Brexit (Locke, 2013). Similarly the effect of the exit of British Union on the New Zealand economy has been negligible in comparison to the other parts of the world.

BNZ facing challenges related to aging workforce

The significant technological megatrends of advanced technologies such as mobile, Cloud Computing, big data and social networking have altered the facet of traditional business operations in recent years and have further encouraged a new wave of digitisation for modern business enterprises (Drucker, 2017).

Some of the key characteristics of the digitalized business practices are:

• Flexibility collaboration of various skill sets across the organisation
• Empowered employee force encouraged decision making process
• Customer centric business services

With the advent of advanced technologies, the collaboration across the business has been rapid and time saving. Advanced technologies have enabled employees to work in seamless manner in real time on significant business projects. Technology such as file sharing sites like Dropbox further facilitates voluntary and effortless sharing of vital, confidential data and information (Boons & Lüdeke-Freund, 2013). Traditional business practices have demonstrated significant ineffectiveness in relevant decision making procedures. However enterprises in recent times have been storing as well as safeguarding the data effectively with advanced technology thus driving competitive advantage for the organisation.

Organizational goals are considered to be significant in order to regulate and control the functioning of individuals as well as groups associated with the organisation. However it is important to note that business enterprises that have distinctive organisational goals experience an augmented level of competitive advantage and organisational success in comparison to the ones who have ineffective or lack significant organisational aims and objectives (Upadhaya, Munir & Blount, 2014).

• Organisational goals provide a source of authority to action by organisation- specific and distinctive organisational goal promotes greater degree of legitimacy and justification to the action and decision making process of individuals or groups (Cummings & Worley, 2014).
• Serves as a standard of performance- Specific organisation goals direct the employers to profitably enhance the performance level in the perspective of the established organisational goals.

     Business enterprises strong organisational goals can effectively retain the quality of product of the company and further explain its stakeholders the whole range of business phenomena in general statements by further enhancing the organisational performance.

As per the opinion of renowned marketing analyst Peter Drucker, organisational goals must be formulated in a justifiable and pragmatic manner in order to comprehend the major portion of the organisation's increasing revenues and further attaining focus to the wide range of additional limitations operating through a network of decision making processes into the search for lucrative course of organisational doings (Drucker, 2017). Furthermore organisation goals are formulated in order to raise the motivational factor of the employee with the enterprise’s growth, revenue earnings and performance. 

While evaluating the stabilizing factor of globalisation on the global economy, the rate of trade insufficiency, petroleum pricing, accommodation crisis along with constricted measured investments and the overall cost of living posing challenges can be witnessed in the modern economics sector. However is must be noted that the impact of globalisation has resulted to the emerging markets in several seasons of Eastern Europe, Latin America, China and the rest of Asia for increase expansion on adjacent attuned basis (Gao & Bansal, 2013). With the significance of global economy businesses in recent times it has been attempting to expand a geographic trace and further advance this organisational value chain to the global level. Moreover, the effect of global economy on business sector has witnessed a huge proliferation in cross border transactions. 

Three modern social ethical issues faced by organizational sector in New Zealand

Several global and domestic investigations have revealed that with effective implementation of diversity and work in organisations initiatives, business enterprises can benefit in several areas such as intensification in employee motivation, enhanced rate of engagement, attracting wide range of the most effective talent pool improving the productivity level and further reducing employee attrition. BNZ with the modern global economy has been providing its employees with flexible working conditions with real preferences in regulating work as well as life balance (Diversity Case Study 2014, 2018). The company has implemented this approach in order to enhance the employee welfare and engagement and to further enable its business to be unique while aiming to deliver significant business goals and accomplish customer expectations and retain diverse full of balance. The rapid transformation of the global economy as well as New Zealand economics sector has been a necessary factor to have effective organisational flexibility to retain and compete in utmost efficiency. From the perspective of modern global economy and New Zealand economic market, companies should possess high degree of flexibility in order to recruit customer-centric employees at every level of the organisation and further institute processes which are undemanding to execute and also have immense flexibility to perform with the shifting economic times. Thus BNZ has successfully implemented this modern business practice in order to manifest itself by the enhanced method of communication with rapid rate of decision making process. However this effective accomplishment to the consumers necessitates BNZ to resort to increased flexible options in the organisational structures.

Modern business practices with proper implementation have been driving higher rate of profitability attracting new consumers and increasingly talented employees further reducing the cost and promoting morale values in the organisation. However three significant modern business practices have been discussed in this paper in order to evaluate the beneficiary aspects of these practices in modern economic sector.

• Strong commitment to sustainability- The development of sustainable business practices in successful operation produce effort and further conserve the resources which further improve the productivity level of employee and condenses the business expenditures. Reports revealed by Deutsche Bank state that organisations with improved ratings in environmental, social and governance factors have been able to surpass in the competitive market in both medium as well as long range terms (Bocken et al., 2014).
• Collaboration and partnership- Collaboration between organisations offer facilities to encounter potential challenges which might cause hindrances from achieving its organizational goals. It has been noted that in addition to partnerships, coalitions and associations have been considered to be more significant and organisations which operate on their own terms (Grohmann & Kauffeld, 2013).

Furthermore collaborating with other organisations can offer beneficial factors of granted opportunities and make positive areas for enhanced exposure. Collaboration between employees and teams lead the organisation towards effective knowledge transfer and further result in distinct possibility of employee retention.

• Strategic training and development in organisations- Through this approach organisations aim to attain the desired growth and development for the organisational effects (Gao & Bansal, 2013). Strategic training and development aid the employee base in obtaining enhanced skills and enable them to develop unique strategies for the effective execution of allocated tasks that results in high level of satisfaction and contentment within the employee force and thus reduces the employee turnover rate. 

Conclusion

From the above discussion it can be seen that modern business practices have been aiding the economic sector with utmost efficiency and condensing the rate of employee attrition which is considered to be a global issue in modern business sector. The advancement of global economy has led to the progress of economic development in BNZ as well as other organisations in New Zealand which have been implementing strategic approaches in order to enhance its performance level and gain competitive advantages in the financial market. 

References

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