Essay: Resource Management For Organizational Success.

Describe the role of resources for the growth of a company. How can you protect them and remain competitive? Discuss the management of human and intellectual resources in growing firms. How can formal and informal practices can be balanced? What are the difficulties in becoming more formalized over time? What is the role of finance for growth? Make sure to critically discuss the role of intellectual property and human management practices. 

The Basics of Resource Management

Barringer and Ireland (2015) stated that the resources are considered as an economic and productive factor which helps in accomplishing an activity, or to undertake an endeavor for achieving the desired results. The three basic resources are capital, labor and land, which are immensely important for the growth of any organization. Other resources include; entrepreneurship, expertise, time, management, energy, information and others. In various organizational settings, resource management is considered to be an effective as well as efficient deployment for the organizational success. Some of the resources include; inventory, production resources, information technology, human skills, financial resources and others.

The researcher also stated that the most crucial element to start a business is proper funding, be it small or large. Even the basic businesses require start up costs, registration, obtaining business telephone lines, business cards and others. Moreover, along with financial resources, the organization requires appropriate human resources, as the success of the organization is reliant on the strength and talent of its employees or staff members. Organizations need to hire the right employees as experienced professionals ensure the efficiency of the workplace. In addition to this, educational resources, physical resources and emotional resources are immensely necessary for the growth of the organizations.

In order to protect the resources, the researchers Gillis and Castrogiovanni (2012) stated that then companies should take some necessary steps. Be it financial or technological, the companies should make sure that their internal security and resources are intact and up to the mark. The companies should make sure that they install as well as update the security software, in order to protect their resources from external interference. Barringer and Ireland (2015) further added that the software should be well equipped with anti-phishing, anti-virus, anti-spyware as well as intrusion prevention software for keeping out malicious programs and people. The whole security software should be enabled with backup and restore abilities, so that the companies can recover any items if they lose. 

Moreover, Gillis and Castrogiovanni (2012) stated that creating smart passwords is highly recommended, which must be changed on a monthly basis. This can be shared with only trustworthy employees. In addition to this, opening unknown emails and visiting suspicious websites can prove to be harmful for the companies’ internal security and resources. In this way, the company can remain competitive and stop unequal access to their systems. At times, competitors try to get internal access to a company’s system for analyzing their strategies and ideas. By creating and updating security software, organizations can protect their resources from their competitors and educate their employees in accordance with that.

Protecting Resources from External Interference

McCord (2014) stated that managing human and intellectual resources allow organizations to gain an understanding of the current levels of performance. It helps the companies to know if the intellectual capital has deteriorated or improved. In addition to this, the companies get to know whether any initiatives and activities have affected the performances of human and intellectual resources or not. The organizations which have meaningful performance information regarding the human and intellectual resources may use those to inform about decision making, review and test strategies and manage risks related to the intellectual capital.

Maresch, Fink and Harms (2016) stated that performance information regarding human and intellectual resources helps in providing successful performance feedback as well. This in turn, supports decision making and learning. Moreover, the authors also stated that the summative assessments assist in gathering information regarding the employees’ competencies and in-competencies. This can also provide comparative as well as reliable data, which will somehow improve the employees’ skills and abilities. In contrast, the formative assessment provides an insight to the ongoing programs, along with an objective of improving their performance levels. 

Kitching and Marlow (2013) stated that there is no doubt that formalizing the practices in an organization proves to be advantageous for the company. This enables some business specific rules, processes and services among others within the organization. In addition to this, the business models are also structured, reused, capitalized and standardized. A formal business environment involves a well structured organization, crystal clear goals and responsibilities and a rational management. However, one of the major challenges of the organizations can be measuring the degree of formalizing their culture and practices.

Barringer and Ireland (2015) further added that it is immensely crucial for the organizations to maintain a balance between the formal and the informal practices, in order to get desirable results. Organizations may have certain rules and regulations for maintaining their workplace culture, but at the same time, informal practices should be there to maintain a friendly environment. Enterprises should organize social gatherings and events to motivate their employees to work better. This enhances productivity and performance level. Moreover, balancing the two includes performance appraisals, rewarding the employees, friendly conversations and others, which perfectly maintains the equilibrium of both the practices.

Mollick (2012) was of the view that the business owners tend to get more benefitted from a structure which is informal than a formal one. It is important to maintain a balance between flexibility and efficiency. It is true that formal business structures increases productivity, whereas, a rigid structure can also decline profits. Small businesses may not get benefitted from formal or rigid organizational structures. A structure of organizations, which limits the employees innovative or creative thought process, may discourage or de-motivate them from learning and exploring new things. Moreover, it gives rise to ineffective communication between the employees and the employers.

Managing Human and Intellectual Resources

Kitching and Marlow (2013) stated that formal organizational structures can also lead to workplace conflicts, where the supervisors try to impose new laws and regulations on the employees. Furthermore, employees commonly leave such workplaces where the management is strict. It leaves a negative impact on the employees’ minds, which is highly disadvantageous for the organizational culture. Organizations need to understand the level of rigidness, in order to maintain their profitability as well as productivity. 

Graham and Sichelman (2016) were of the view that financial support helps in enhancing the efficient exchange of services and goods by providing them with payment services and reducing the transaction costs. Moreover, the financial services foster the specialization of transactions and productivity growth. In addition to this, by accumulating the savings from individual savers, markets and financial institutions can help the organizations by overcoming the investment indivisibilities. Furthermore, by monitoring the costs and economizing on screening, the organizations will be able to increase their success probability. Companies like Google try to decrease its costs by operating in an efficient manner so that it can help them in maintaining a standard level of cost and increase its financial levels. 

In addition to this, the researchers Naldi and Davidsson (2014) were of the view that the financial markets and institutions will have a positive impact on the resource allocation and investment. Likewise, by identifying the financial requirement, a company can boost the rate of their technological advancement and growth. Moreover, both the financial markets and institutions help in monitoring the enterprises and reduce the agency problems as well. It manages the firms between majority as well as minority shareholders and improves resources allocation. Banks can also help in reducing the risks of liquidity and in turn, enable a long term investment.

Autio and Acs (2010) stated that intellectual Property helps in contributing to the national as well as state economies. Many industries across the economy completely rely on adequate enforcement of their copyrights, trademarks and patents such as the innovative manner in which Apple designs its mobiles and computers, which helps them in maintaining a competitive advantage for the organization. On the other hand, Graham and Schielman (2016) stated that the consumers also use intellectual property in order to ensure that they are purchasing guaranteed and safe products. The intellectual property rights create as well as support both high paying jobs. It drives the economic growth of the country and enhances competitiveness. In addition to this, strong intellectual property rights protect the consumers in terms of safety, effectiveness and reliability of their purchased products. 

Ram (2000) further stated that the human management practices are regarded as partly conceptual and partly implementation of the human resources strategies. Human resources practices include record keeping, benefits administration, new employee as well as pay roll processing. The role of human management practices also includes the recruitment and selection procedures.

Conclusion

To conclude, entrepreneurial growth helps in contributing to the economy of the country through job creation as well as innovation and bringing in wealth. The growth of entrepreneurship is geographically diverse in nature and generally relies on the three composite indicators in order to look at the business revenue as well as job growth. The three indicators include; the rate of start-up growth, scale-ups share and the high growth of company density. However, the entrepreneurial activities continue to be a quite rare phenomenon as most of the firms are not growth enterprises. It is evident that the activities of entrepreneurship is spreading and states like Virginia, Maryland, Georgia, Texas and others has the highest level of growth entrepreneurship. 

References

Autio, E., & Acs, Z. (2010). Intellectual property protection and the formation of entrepreneurial growth aspirations. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 4(3), 234-251.

Barringer, B.R. & Ireland, R.D. (2015). Entrepreneurship: successfully launching new ventures, Global Edition, 5th edition, pp.424-461. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Gillis, W., & Castrogiovanni, G. J. (2012). The franchising business model: an entrepreneurial growth alternative. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 8(1), 75-98.

Graham, S. J., & Sichelman, T. S. (2016). Intellectual Property and Technology Startups: What Entrepreneurs Tell Us. In Technological Innovation: Generating Economic Results (pp. 163-199). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Kitching, J., & Marlow, S. (2013). HR practice and small firm growth: Balancing informality and Formality. How can HR drive growth, 26-40.

Maresch, D., Fink, M., & Harms, R. (2016). When patents matter: The impact of competition and patent age on the performance contribution of intellectual property rights protection. Technovation, 57, 14-20.

McCord, P. (2014). How Netflix Reinvented HR. (cover story). Harvard Business Review, 92(1/2), 70-76. 

Mollick, E. (2012). People and process, suits and innovators: The role of individuals in firm performance. Strategic Management Journal, 33(9), 1001-1015.

Naldi, L., & Davidsson, P. (2014). Entrepreneurial growth: The role of international knowledge acquisition as moderated by firm age. Journal of Business Venturing, 29(5), 687-703.

Ram, M. (2000). “Professionals at work”–transition in a small service firm. Journal of small business and enterprise development, 7(1), 69-77.