Organizational Behaviour For Human Workforce Work Environment

Describe about the Organizational Behaviour for Human Workforce Work Environment.

Organizational behavior is the study of how people behave within social groups or organizational settings. The idea behind the organizational behavior is to apply the knowledge to manage workers or the behavior of employees (Mumford and Gold, 2004, p.12). The aim is to increase the efficiency of human workforce in a working environment. The areas of research in this field include improving the satisfaction of workers in a job and encouraging innovation. New Zealand's economy has been studied, and it is evident that its level or rate of productivity has significantly reduced since the 1950s (Clayton and Bass, 2012, p.20). The aim of this essay is to prove that efficient management development strategies are capable of addressing the challenges faced by organizations in New Zealand.

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The article “The critical challenges facing New Zealand’s chief executives: implications for management skills” by Ann Hutchison and Peter Boxall provides insight into the economic situation in New Zealand and the impact that the lack of proper management skills has had on it. The article has its strengths and weaknesses as it has been written by a human being and is, therefore, prone to bias on the topics discussed.

One of the strengths is that the statistical data used is impeccably accurate and provides a strong basis on which the theories and points in the article have been built. The research done was truly impressive, and the numbers provide a proper guide to the data provided. This is truly important when carrying out research based on statistics.

The information about the ‘brain drain' plaguing the economy is highly true. The lack of advancement to the ‘big jobs' and the absence of the kind of highly specialized roles that are available in some of the world's large economies make it hard to retain management talent. The more knowledgeable members feel the need to tread into ‘deeper waters' as the level of growth in New Zealand does not provide an environment where they can engage their management talent and skills. This leaves the country short of a competent workforce, and this is one of the reasons why the economy and rate of growth were on a decline.

The survey carried out on the challenges and risks that the organizations faced were highly informative on the intensity of each of the items evaluated. In the private sector, market risks were the most highly rated. The rapidly changing environment with evolving technology, constantly changing consumer values and smaller consumer budgets prompt the chief executives to be very careful about their market. Market shifts, especially from technology, was one of the biggest threats to their main business. An example of this is the print media business which is on a decline due to the presence of electronic media which invalidates the whole idea behind print media.

The information about how difficult it is to grow business in the present environment considering how badly revenues have been affected is also very accurate. The roll on effects of the economy from one industry to the next causes the chief executives to wait until the economy improves before implementing any radical development plans. This ‘wait,' in the meantime, slows down the economy and only the risk taking organizations are set to grow in such a situation.

Importance of Efficient Management Development Strategies

The unwillingness by the banks to lend out money and the low appetite for risks by shareholders is also another strong aspect featured by the article. This is the reason 27 % of Chief Executives in the private sector listed dialogue as one of their top challenges. Investors and shareholders seek to put their resources in a field where returns are as highly probable as possible, a quality absent in the New Zealand economy.

Changes in the economic climate were considered the most noticeable risk. This is true considering the high rate at which the global market is fluctuating with the demand of products changing every day causing a constant change in the world's market value of goods. This is especially challenging in a country like New Zealand where one of the biggest exports is a single type of commodity i.e. dairy products. This means that even the economy of the country itself becomes unstable as the value of their biggest income generator constantly fluctuates.

Fundraising was also rated as one of the biggest challenges in both the public and non-profit sector. This is especially true for the not-for-profit organizations considering that the environment is one in which the charitable spend is the first to be eliminated from a household’s budget. These organizations were locked into agreements with the government for social provision. These organizations are highly dependent on these contracts that the government could cancel at any moment making things very tough for them.

Also mentioned is the increased insurance and building-code compliance costs which have escalated following the Christchurch earthquakes and the mandatory Kiwisaver scheme which is a recent national retirement fund. The constantly changing regulations by the government are indeed costly especially for huge industries where a simple change in government clauses on the building or safety code could result in renovations worth billions. This therefore forces some of these industries to compromise on the quality of their service delivery (Mumford, Thorpe and Gold, 2012, p.77).

The article is also faced by a couple of challenges. One of them is the constant comparison to Australia. It is unfair to do so considering the fact that the two countries are not on level playing fields. The source of income regarding resources is different and therefore it would be rather unreasonable to compare the current economic trends and situations in both countries. The research should have been solely based on New Zealand, and the authors should have instead used standard economic characteristics to assess the country's situation.

Another weakness is the lack of sufficient literature to show the relationship between management skills and the country’s economy. The challenges discussed are general and fail to show a relationship to the topic concerning management skills. A better approach would have been to show how better management skills would improve the situation in each of the instances discussed.

The classification of the set of managerial skills is also rather general and should have been expounded more. Managing people, for example, can be further split into human resource management, command chain in the workforce and effect of organizational change to the management all of which are important aspects that should be given utmost attention (Peppard and Ward, 2016, p.9).

Key Challenges and Risks Faced by Organizations

From the information in the article, I believe that it is true that management skills can either make or break an organization. The behavior of an organization, its success and growth are all dependent on the managers themselves (Leidner and Gallier, 2014, p.12). It is crucial that managerial roles be given to those most equipped with the qualities to carry them out. The energy and efficiency of workers in a working environment is very much dependent on their managers. An energetic, confident and motivated manager can rub off those same values onto his workers (Gault, 2010, p.55).

I agree with the thesis statement and acknowledge that efficient management development strategies could be the key to solving the problems faced by organizations in New Zealand. Key points include; the strategy must be inspiring and describe a future that is desirable to the organization. This is so that the workforce is inspired and that the organization always aims higher (White and Chaffey, 2014, p.102)

Another key point is that the strategy needs to be ambitious regarding beating the competition (Zheng, Yang, and McLean, 2010, p.19). The current economic situation is that everyone is in a competitive state to provide better products and services. Therefore, the strategy has to help the company out space any competition (Hill, Jones, and Schilling, 2014, p. 108).

One of these strategies is the balanced scorecard system. It is a system that aligns business activities with the visions of the enterprise. It monitors the implementation of activities in comparison to the company’s strategies. It enhances external and internal communication. It provides an active versus passive solution by checking the vision statement against fulfilled objectives (Niven, 2011, p.50).

Another strategy is the stakeholder strategy which identifies those organizational stakeholders that are crucial to the overall success of the organization. They should benefit from the decision-making process and also participate in it. The manager should act as an agent for the stakeholders and ensure that they remain satisfied all while keeping the workforce motivated (Freeman, 2010, p.69).

The final strategy is the effective strategy management. To build a successful organization, strategic management needs to be a philosophy that provides the organizational management the ability to overcome constantly changing market demands, government rules, technology trends and geopolitically-driven economic occurrences (Hitt, Ireland, and Hoskisson, 2012, p.79).

Conclusion

A proper management development strategy is key in changing the success course of an organization or an economy (Herman, 2011, p.70). When proper management unafraid of risk taking is combined with effective strategies, an economy like that of New Zealand can transform and experience a positive change. Key management strategies such as the stakeholder strategy and the balanced scorecard system would not only help New Zealand experience the upward trend in their economy but would also enable them to maintain the trend.

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