Research Topics

IKEA’s Operations Management

IKEA’s Operations Management               Operations Management is the set of activities that create goods and services through the transformation of inputs into outputs. Operations management is the activity of managing the resources which are devoted to the production and delivery of products and services.   IKEA             IKEA was created by Ingvar Kamprad 60 years ago. The Swedish company was based on the idea that as long as the price was right, customers would be prepared to travel out of town locations, queue, collect their purchases and assemble the furniture themselves (Doole and Lowe 2005).             IKEA’s mission was formulated by its founder, Ingvar Kanprad. The company’s mission is to offer wide variety of functional furniture for the house, of a quality and at a price affordable by a majority of people. The core principles of IKEA that seeks to achieve the mission are quality and economy. The principle of quality is applied at three points in the life of the IKEA products – creation, range and use. 1. Creation – IKEA designs its own products. Each product has a name rather tan a code because IKEA wants its products to be part of the family. 2. Range – Each item for sale in the stores, whether furniture or other products, is part of a coherent whole, designed in accordance with the expectations of a specific segment which can be young or old, high or low income, modern or classic, etc. 3. Use – IKEA furniture is submitted to three types of trial which test strength and workability as well as surface and resistance (Duquis and Dawson 1999).    Operations Management at IKEA <ul style="margin-top: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in" type="circle"> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Design products which can be flat-packed efficiently</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Site stores of an appropriate size in the most effective 	locations</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Design a store layout which gives smooth and effective 	flow</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Maintain cleanliness and safety of storage area</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Arrange for fast replenishment of products </li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Monitor and enhance quality of service to customers</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Continually examine and improve operations practice</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Ensure that the jobs of all staff encourage their 	contribution to business success</li> </ul>     IKEA’s Transformation Process             Transformation processes are used in all types of businesses. A transformation process uses resources to convert inputs into some desired output. Inputs may be raw material, a customer, or a finished product from another system. The different types of transformation processes are: <ul style="margin-top: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in" type="circle"> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Physical (as in manufacturing)</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Location (as in transportation)</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Exchange (as in retailing)</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Storage (as in warehousing)</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Physiological (as in healthcare)</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Informational (as in telecommunications)</li> </ul>   IKEA’s Operations Strategy             Operations strategy is the total patterns of decisions and actions which set the role, objectives and activities of the operation so that they contribute to, and support, the organization’s business strategy.                     The operations strategy of the company is founded on its mission of creating high quality products in affordable prices. IKEA’s business model is based on a simple idea: Furniture, if well designed, can be cheap without being ugly. The elements of the model include: attractive, low-cost, reasonable quality furnishings, limited variety, self-assembly; young-family-oriented suburban mega-stores with nursery and plenty of parking space; catalogue-driven self-service; and no costly advertising. These elements all keep expenses and prices down and they reinforce each other. Catalogue sales and limited variety make it easy to get along with fewer sales personnel. Standardization and focus on the product line make it possible to rely on suppliers that can be closely monitored and controlled by IKEA. Flat packages save space in transportation and warehousing. Suburban locations and large store reduce expenses, self-select for young families with cars, and reduce delivery costs (Miller and Miller 2005).   Typology of IKEA’s Operations (4 Vs) 1. Volume (High) <ul style="margin-top: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in" type="circle"> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	High repeatability</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	High specialization</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Capital intensive</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Low unit cost </li> </ul> 2. Variety (Low) <ul style="margin-top: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in" type="circle"> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Well-defined</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Routine</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Standardized</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Regular </li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Low unit costs</li> </ul> 3. Variation in Demand <ul style="margin-top: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in" type="circle"> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Stable</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Routine</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Predictable</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	High utilization </li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Low unit costs</li> </ul> 4. Visibility <ul style="margin-top: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in" type="circle"> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Short waiting tolerance</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Satisfaction governed by customer perception</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Customer service skills needed</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Received variety is high</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	High unit costs</li> </ul>   Transformation Process                Because the furniture industry is highly competitive and fragmented, most (if not all) furniture retailers seek to create a sustainable competitive advantage. Differentiation is the strategy that furniture retailers employ. In the case of IKEA, sustainable competitive advantage was achieved because of the company’s added quality services. Potential purchasers try to find suppliers that offer them the greatest added value. As an added value and as a way to attract customers, IKEA offers superior customer service. IKEA meets customers with catalogs, tape measures, pens, and notepaper. The shortage of salespeople affords customers the opportunity to shop in freedom and to take notes. IKEA also offers services to parents while they shop such as the supervision of toddlers, infant-changing rooms, and attendants who warm baby bottles. Snack bars sell Swedish specialties at low prices. The strength of IKEA is its ability to shift a variety of cost burdens to the customer that might be found desirable or perceived as an added value. IKEA partners with its customers in ensuring that the customers save money by offering stylish, functional, low-cost home furnishings that customers must assemble themselves. Making the customers assemble their own furniture enables IKEA to save money on manufacturing and distribution, which they then pass on to customers in the form of lower prices at retail. To compensate for the customer having to do-it-themselves, IKEA offers other services that make this proposition attractive. These extra services include in-store child-care and play areas, restaurants, and longer hours of operations.             IKEA does not have its own manufacturing facilities. Instead, it is using subcontracted manufacturers all over the world for supplies. All research and development activities are, however, centralized in Sweden. In order to maintain low cost, IKEA lets its shoppers to assemble their own purchases. To facilitate shopping, IKEA provides catalogs, tape measure, shopping lists and pencils for writing note and measurements. IKEA’s designs and styles are very popular to its customers because it is able to blend quality, stylish designs and affordability. These characteristics make IKEA products very attractive to the customers. The IKEA design approach according to McDermott (2007) retains a strong Scandinavian identity seen in the use of natural wood, minimalist shapes, high technology, new materials and strong colors (as shown in the photos below). The company has extended the image of 20th-century Scandinavian Modernism and ensured that is has become an immensely widespread domestic living style. IKEA’s design is made synonymous with middle-class taste and thereby becomes the vehicle by which visible signs of affluence are made accessible to people of modest means. Of special relevance is the fact that the IKEA emphasis on design gives expression to the centrality of style in the contemporary marketplace. IKEA products could be roughly described as interior European modernism done in Scandinavian style. But the company’s genius consists in joining the attractions of design to practicality and affordability along with versatility. By this means, it captures a broad demographic of consumers who can buy into a trendy middle-class lifestyle while gaining the satisfaction of purchasing highly functional and practical products at minimal cost (Dunn 2008).     Process Chart of IKEA’s Distribution Process             The supply chain of IKEA starts with product development at its headquarters in Sweden, and then the designs are passed to its suppliers in different parts of the world. Purchasing comes next, followed by distribution and then products are sent to the stores. Last in the supply chain are the customers. IKEA operates 27 distribution centers in a total of 16 countries. From here IKEA products are delivered in 186 stores around the world. IKEA works in various ways to rationalize and simplify distribution. The secret is to calculate as exactly as possible how many products will be needed to satisfy demand. This eliminates any unnecessary costs for production and warehousing. The hallmarks of IKEA distribution are: <ul style="margin-top: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in" type="circle"> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Global distribution network</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Large volumes</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Flat packages</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> 	Low costs</li> </ul>               The fact that IKEA products are sold packed flat means that they can be transported with greater efficiency. By minimizing “wasted space” it is possible to transport and store more packages at a time. And by increasing what is known as “the filling rate” in containers etc. (in other words, reducing the amount of wasted space), the cost of transporting each item goes down.   Distribution Process             IKEA designs its merchandise and outsourcers manufacturing to its dedicated manufacturers. IKEA then, transports finished goods from manufacturers to IKEA’s distribution centers in flat packaging. IKEA products are then subjected to inventory and then sent from the distribution center of different outlets.                             Potential for E-Commerce             There is a potential for e-commerce at IKEA. IKEA can make use of e-commerce in order to integrate its suppliers and distribution networks. IKEA can create a global website. Ideally, a company builds its global web site in two stages: internationalization and localization, Internationalization is the process of preparing a web site so that it can be easily adapted to multiple locales, a locale may be a country, a language of both.   Critique of the Distribution Process             IKEA’s distribution process is very effective. The company’s network of suppliers and its strategically located distribution centers make distribution of IKEA products efficient. However, I think that the main concern for IKEA is its inventory management. In order to lessen inventory, IKEA can make use of Just-in-Time (JIT) strategy. JIT can be considered as a philosophy for waste reduction and continuous improvement, a method which to control and reduce inventory, a way of increasing throughput, and a production scheduling system (Lowson 2002). In manufacturing, JIT is essentially a management philosophy where the primary objective is to achieve zero or minimum levels of inventory. The advantages of JIT include elimination of waste, enhanced product quality, improved employee morale and increased customer satisfaction (Reddy, 1994).   References Doole, I and Lowe, R 2005, Marketing Decisions in Global Markets, Cengage       Learning EMEA.   Dupuis, M and Dawson, J A 1999, European Case in Retailing, Blackwell            Publishing.   Mcdermott, C 2007, Design: The Key Concepts, Routledge, New York.   Lowson, R 2002, Strategic Operations Management: The New Competitive           Advantage, Routledge, New York.   Miller, D and Miller, I L 2005, Managing for the Long Run: Lessons in         Competitive Advantage from Great Family Businesses, Harvard Business     Press.   Reddy, A 1994, Total Quality Marketing: The Key to Regaining Market Shares,     Quorum Books, Westport CT.       Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

IKEA’s Operations Management

IKEA’s Operations Management Operations Management is the set of activities that create goods and services through the transformation of inputs into outputs. Operations management is …

Criticism Essay on American’s Health

Write a criticism of the following proposition: although it is impossible to measure the gains exactly, a moderately warmer climate would be likely to benefit Americans in many ways, especially in …

Success Story of British Telecom PLC in Strategic Employee Management

Success Story of British Telecom PLC in Strategic Employee Management Globalization in the midst of developing trends in internet technology users inducing a paradigm shift in employment practices in the corporate workforce. Most companies, in particular corporations, focus to meet their allotted budget limits motivate the added concerns in downsizing company costs. Recent years witnessed the debilitating effects causing drastic increase in unemployment in the course of the global crisis. To effectively respond towards minimizing unemployment as the strategic approach to mitigate these debilitating effects and for companies to survive for their existence operating within their respective financial bounds implemented payroll cost cutting as a primary mechanisms to meet budgets for medium to large companies. To an effect payroll cuts allotted to employees even in the biggest firms effectuated a degenerating trend for the employee workforce. The impact these trends generate surface financial issues in addressing family needs while entrapped to meet social responsibilities with limited income and a constrained lifestyle that affect their children’s social welfare to an extent. Studies show a solution customized to save company costs surfaces the idea of telecommuting among the workforce yielding a chunk to cost savings and save the costs of stress to the environment by eliminating commutes to the workplace and meeting work efficiency. This also enables companies on their part to help their employees mitigate the increasing complexity of meeting family needs if otherwise commuting daily to work. Resolving family issues of employees contingent on corporate decisions whether to adopt the trend of telecommuting as a reliable solution attributes to the growing difficulty in filling family needs that challenge them in a unique way should they have minor dependents below a threshold age. In addition due to the economic effects of a globalized economy, acquisition of human resources entails high cost for the purpose to aid employees in caring their children while away, for example, should employees work in the conventional workplace remains a challenge. The wide angle swing of globalization constitutes has impaired to an extent the work-life balance and the less burdened lifestyle employees use to be accustomed to.  New life trends that result from these given circumstances still demand social responsibility of parents while working to meet financial needs of families at a reasonable margin, is evolving to be in a substantial risk. Thus it is imperative to address the work-life balance needed to maintain corporate social responsibility by meeting effectively with mechanism family needs while maintaining corporate governance integrity through a changed environment employing new work practices of the employee workforce in the corporate hierarchy. This is the goal precisely British Telecom PLC employs to strike a fine balance for employee sustainability while giving the incentives to employees to reap benefits of a comparative, paradigm work environment improved to efficiency. The company finds success upon implementing this evolving strategy into policy to achieve work-life balance while capitalizing human resources for corporate success. This ability attributes to the migration towards new work practices into a breakthrough enabling internet and mobile technology implementation (Quillinan, 2004,p 2). Liberalization of internet, voice and data communication technologies at increasing affordable cost margins and usage enable the feasibility of change to new forms of work environments. Derivative technological solutions from the Internet proliferate to the extent security mechanisms and enhance to more complex features resulting to a high capability enough to encrypt communication channels and transmit real time electronic data delivery with less sophisticated methods to set up. With this feature as a critical corporate asset, the added value draws the flexibility to shift the trends to install communication and security networks in virtual places without the necessity to perform work in conventional office spaces and to advance towards a more pervasive diversification but adopting with more cost effective solutions and reducing cost margins. Solutions like Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Personal Data Assistants, WiFihave deployed real time stream data to scales like those installed in office spaces showing evidence of technological advancement enabling to comply the demands corporate structures require. Developed facilitation for Local Area Networks and Virtual Private Networks enable businesses to interact flawlessly as network medium enclaves in the course of information flow and exchange at global scales employing these communication solutions. Being able to acquire and access the same pool of information at high speeds sought from the exogenous character of the Internet enable the possibilities to generate diverse exchange and download software platforms by Internet to access streamline media to promote unlimited information sharing and dissemination in workplace environments which usually require a complex connective network is employable now with efficiency-sized gadgets simply integrated in any virtual location. This encourages the flexibility to accommodate telecommuting by set ups which do not require a complex wiring network. Wireless solutions facilitated to address these problems eliminate office space needs then subsequently minimize overhead costs like rent is needed and set up data and voice communication solutions through broadband access. It only takes a virtual space to have it all for an office set up (British telecom, 2008,p.7). In addition internet technologies facilitated their capabilities further by derivative breakthrough features they naturally possess in terms of their magnanimous impact to generate real time data access among other business segments altogether that function through voice and data communication solutions on a global scale at a fingertip touch for corporate decision-making purposes. An example best illustrates this apply to technological solutions by Bloomberg software downloadable by Internet that employ all critical and time sensitive financial and company information at few steps to install that financial analysts rely on to extract and analyze data critical to the decision-making process in investment banking on  minute update intervals in the markets.   Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Success Story of British Telecom PLC in Strategic Employee Management

Success Story of British Telecom PLC in Strategic Employee Management Globalization in the midst of developing tren…

McDonald’s Restaurant: A case study

Question 1-A: Introduction of McDonald’s Operations             The McDonald’s Corporation is the largest food service operation in the world in terms of system-wide sales. At the beginning of 2000, it was operating more than 25,000 restaurants in 116 countries. A modest estimate of its current worldwide workforce would be around 1.5 million people, and 10 million people are estimated to have worked for the corporation since it was formed. In 1955, Ray Kroc founded McDonald’s Corporation intending to build an innovative supply chain system for his growing restaurant business. Ray Kroc aligned McDonald’s interests with its franchisees’ by profiting from excellent restaurant operations. McDonald’s established strict standards for the ingredients and appearance of each product. Kroc terminated those suppliers that could not consistently provide high quality and dedicated service but he rewarded those that did with loyalty and volume. The operations of McDonald’s is characterized as a three-legged stool, made up of employees, owner/operators, and suppliers.   Question 1-B Transformation Process                               Question 1-C: Capacity Management             Capacity management is an important aspect of operations management. Capacity management is concerned with the matching of the capacity of the operating system and the demand placed on that system. Capacity management involves the study of anticipated demand patterns for the medium- to long-term, and the organizing of resources to meet this demand. The organizing of resources includes acquiring resources, training people and the development of strategies for meeting changes in demand.             McDonald’s is a quick service restaurants that is known for its quality products and prompt service. It manages its capacity for producing products. The policy of the company is never to keep customer waiting. In order to do this, McDonald’s keep a surplus of capacity for most of the time. The aim will be to avoid adjusting capacity by having available surplus capacity. It is more likely, however, that it will not always be possible to have sufficient capacity to meet every demand. McDonald’s hold stocks of resources and customers are buffered from waiting by being supplied from stock. McDonald’s stores anticipate when customers are due and have a stock of made-up products such as hamburgers. To maintain quality of food, the store policy is that products will only held for a designated time before being discarded. Thus the aim is to prevent customers waiting by having a buffer of stock and the store accepts that some stock may be wasted.   Question 2-A: Quality             The core values at McDonald’s are quality, service, cleanliness, and reasonable prices. Quality is assured by strictly defined selection criteria, storing rules and food preparation regulations, strict quality checking and use of standardized equipment.  Service is provided by kind and prompt employees who are trained to perform their duties and to maintain the quality of McDonald’s products. Cleanliness requires planning and checking. Reasonable price maintenance together with top quality products requires qualified and well-trained staff. Question 2-B: Ways of Improving Profitability through Quality Quality Planning             In the quality planning stage, the management needs to identify the customers and determine the needs of the customers through an analysis of their behavior, by direct communication, and by becoming a customer. The management must also make sure that the groups within the company correctly interpret customer needs. When the needs of the customers are identified, the firm needs to develop a product or service that will respond to customers’ real, stated, and perceived needs and create and sustain a process that can produce a product or service of desired features. Quality Control             Quality control is the means of directing activities to meet standards. Managers are responsible for observing and comparing worker performance to company standards and must act if workers do not meet standards (Nersesian 2000). Quality control is used to ensure that the organization’s operations maintain the planned quality level. The purpose of quality control is to maintain the quality of the company’s projects. In order to maintain quality an organization must choose a control mechanism by which signs of a problem can be detected. It must also select a unit of measure for a product or service feature or a process. The goal must be measurable, equitable and has official recognition. The actual performance must be compared with the set standards and corrective measures must be taken should discrepancies are identified. Quality Improvement             Quality management is the last step in the Quality Trilogy. This level of quality management deals with the problems that arisen during the first two steps of the quality management. In order to effectively improve the quality of the firm’s product or service, it should establish a corporate infrastructure for annual quality improvement and identify the areas that need improvement. The firm also needs to specify improvement projects and organize a project team for each improvement project with clear responsibility for concluding the project. The management is responsible for providing the resources, motivation, and training needed by the teams to diagnose causes, determine a remedy, improve quality, and establish controls to hold on to improvement gains (Nersesian 2000).   Questions 2-C: Improving Quality through Pareto Chart             A Pareto chart is a bar chart that shows the ranking or importance of a particular category of something. The categories might be types of defects, expenditure categories, and reasons for a situation, categories of complaints, and others. Pareto analysis allows users to see the relative importance against or occurrence of the different categories in a group. The Pareto principle says that 80 percent of problems or defects are driven by 20 percent of the causes. The idea is that if the user knows what category of defects or causes the company is experiencing the most, he will know what to work on. Working on the category with the highest occurrence has the potential to give the company the most benefit (Carreira and Trudell 2006). Pareto Analysis is a technique for identifying and concentrating on the minority of things, both positive and negative, that are thought to contribute most to the operations of an organization. It is sometimes referred to as the ’80:20 rule’, or ‘the law of the trivial many and critical few’ (Statt 2004). The Pareto analysis is so named because of the observations of Vilfredo Pareto in the late 1800s. The Pareto analysis has proven to be a very useful and durable tool. Applying the Pareto principle, or ’80-20 rule’, as it is sometimes called, to problem diagnosis suggests that among any group of items or factors influencing the outcome, relatively few will account for most of the effect (Gottlieb 2003). 			Causes 			Percentage of Total 			Cumulative Percent 			Staff 			61% 			61% 			Service 			13% 			74% 			Value for Money 			11% 			85% 			Food 			10% 			95% 			Ambiance 			5% 			100%   Question 2-C: Organization Requirements for a Total Quality Environment             William Edwards Deming was one of the pioneers of the Total Quality movement. He is considered as one of the prominent figures of Total Quality Management and his works on this field continues to influence management thinking up until now. To Deming, quality was more than just a set of techniques for quality control and standardization. Quality had to become a mindset, embraced by the entire company (Witzel 2003). In order to achieve a total quality environment, Deming asserts that the management must embrace the 14 Principles for Transformation. These are: 1. Create constancy of purpose to improve product and service. 2. Adopt a new philosophy for the new economic age, with management learning what their responsibilities are and assuming leadership for change 3. Cease dependence on mass inspection to achieve quality, by building quality into the product 4. End the awarding of business on price; award business on total cost and move towards single suppliers 5. Aim for continuous improvement of the system of production and service to improve productivity and quality and to decrease costs 6. Institute training on the job 7. Institute leadership with the aim of supervising people to help them to do a better job 8. Drive out fear so that everyone can work effectively together for the organization 9. Break down barriers between departments. Encourage research, design, sales and production to work together to foresee difficulties in production and use. 10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations and numerical targets for the workforce since they are divisory 11. Eliminate quotas or work standards and management by objectives or numerical goals; leadership should be substituted instead 12. Remove barriers that rob people of their right to pride in work. 13. Institute a vigorous education and self-improvement programme. 14. Put everyone in the company to work to accomplish the transformation (Beckford 2002).     References Beckford, J. (2002). Quality. London: Routledge.   Carreira, B. and Trudell, B. (2006). Lean Six Sigma That Works: A Powerful Action Plan for Dramatically Improving Quality, Increasing Speed, and Reducing Waste. New York: American Management Association.   Gottlieb, M. R. (2003). Managing Group Process. Westport CT: Praeger.   Nersesian, R. L. (2000). Trends and Tools for Operations Management: An Updated Guide for Executives and Managers. Westport CT: Quorum Books.   Statt. D. A. (2004). The Routledge Dictionary of Business Management. New York: Routledge.   Witzel, M. (2003). Fifty Key Figures in Management. New York: Routledge.         Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

McDonald’s Restaurant: A case study

Question 1-A: Introduction of McDonald’s Operations The McDonald’s Corporation is the largest food service operation in the world in terms of system-wide sales. At the beginning of 2000…

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Fritz Heider’s Attribution Theory To Yourself

Communications & Critical Thinking in Information Mgt Fritz Heider’s Attribution Theory To Yourself               I found out that attribution theory was developed by Fritz Heider, Harold Kelley, Edward Jones and Lee Ross. Such theory suggests that there are several ways that an individual explain his or her behavior as well as of others. Attribution could be situational or dispositional wherein the former are the causality to outside factors while the latter are causality to factors inherent to the individual (Heider, 1958). According to Duval, Mayer and Duval (1983), our consciousness prefers simplicity and this condition is a clear implication that consciousness is a dynamic process, moving to maximize simplicity within its boundaries. The authors referred to simplicity as the inverse function of separate and unconnected elements in consciousness. Causal attribution then is the manifestation of such movement which maximizes simplicity within consciousness (p. 1).               Simply the perceived causes of outcomes, Alexander and Winne (2006) assert that attribution theory explains how people perceive the causes of their and others actions. That people are motivated to seek information to form attributions is the assumption behind the theory, stressing that attributions possess motivational consequences. Essentially, the process of assigning attributions is governed by principles such as locus of control and analysis of action. Other proponents proposed that people attribute based on effective personal force and effective environmental force. Power and abilities make up the personal force, and how these two elements combined with the elements of environmental force influences outcomes (pp. 354-355).                When it comes to applying the attribution theory to oneself, there are common themes to consider as: behaviors, decision-making, judgment and blaming.   Limitations of attribution theory             Before we proceed, it would be necessary to take note of the limitations of the attribution theory. I figured that this limitation is more inclined on how we perceive ourselves, which is the subject of this paper. Roeckelein (1998, p. 58) argued that there is the inclination to view persons as intuitive psychologists wherein assessment of causes and effects of behaviors is performed. This is because of the perceptions that an individual is an origin or events, leading to the conception that the needs, wishes, dispositions, skills, and motives of others as responsible for both natural and social phenomena. Known as self-attribution, an individual tends to emphasize internal personal character causes. Although this is also known as a fundamental attribution error, Roeckelein (1998) puts it that self-attribution is automatic to an individual. This automacity also reflects the fact that people are observers therefore observation and action affects internal and external self-attribution. This is known as actor-observer discrepancy which stipulates that errors would be less likely to occur when an individual makes about their own behavior than when they make attributions about others’ behaviors (p. 58).   Attributional biases or those cognitive biases that affects how we distinguish who or what was responsible for an event or action tend to limit effective causal reasoning. Attributions affect expectancies, emotions and future behaviors. Thus, an individual when it comes to self-perception conforms to outcome-directed attributions. This suggests that attributions could not necessarily apply to behaviors that could be controlled and uncontrolled. Such a notion explains why an individual do not make attributions in specific situations because there are predetermined behaviors, outcomes, causes and themes inherent.   Self-attribution and behaviors             Galanter (1992) asserted that the attribution theory concerns much about how individuals interpret events and how this relates to their thinking and behavior. Cook (1979) explains that people explain their own behaviors in the same way as other have. Important to note is the fact that a person does not have any special insight into his actions or his reasons for them, but tends to rather judge himself in the same way he would judge someone else. Cook noted that if external causes seem sufficient to explain one’s behavior, then one will see it as caused by them. However, when they prove to be insufficient, one could conclude that such behavior is internally caused (p. 76). Bem (1972) states that “self-perception can get us from the stimulus manipulation to the attribution and it cannot get us from the attribution to anything beyond that” (p. 47).               As such, Mower-White (1982) contend that one of the difficulties in attribution theory has concerned how we infer and describe our own feelings, emotions, attitudes and characteristics. Though it may seem strange that we do not immediately know our feelings and attitudes, it is argued that we indeed do not know and that self-descriptions require observation of our own behavior. Self-attributions are then made based on our non-apparent behaviors (p. 60). Bem (1972) also observes that our own behavior and infer about our characteristics from it in the same way as we observe other people’s behavior and make inferences about their dispositions, attitudes and beliefs. Hence, a person attributes his own behavior to situational causes wherein actions will depend on the decision-making of the person.   Self-attribution and decision-making             Galanter (1998) maintains that attribution predicts a sequential effect whereby mediating roles of attributions and emotions is imperative. As such, self-attribution will be based on the influences of attribution itself and the willingness to do something. For me, this is the self-serving tendencies of making attributions where the consequences of decision are important. We should take note that high self-attribution to make decision have positive consequences while low self-attribution has negative consequences. Harris and Harvey (1975) noted that positive and negative consequences of a decision on individuals’ retrospective self-attribution of choice in making the decision (as cited in Harvey, Robert and Ickes, 1976).   Self-attribution and judgment             Galanter (1992) noted that attributions are created based on the information to make inferences about oneself and others. Causal judgments depict that an individual ascribe and respond to events in ways not necessarily in conformance with others although persons observe other people’s judgment. This leads to changes in own self-concept and how a person deals with things. When attributions are unconstructive, an individual perceives this as caused by external factors. Actions are perceived to be beyond the control. Nevertheless, when attributions are affirmative, people do not necessarily attribute such to themselves. This reflects the idea that we do not necessarily judge based on our internal and dispositional causes either effects of attribution are negative or positive.   Self-attribution and blaming             A person’s direct responsibility over events and behaviors is based on internal attribution because of the fact that an internal attributions assigns causality that relates to factors within a person. External attributions, on the other hand, are the ones that assign blame for an effect (Galanter, 1992). People often claim that when unacceptable behaviors exist external forces commonly caused such or motivated for that thing to happen. People likely to attribute external causes especially when the behaviors of others do not conform to what another person thinks as acceptable or those that are uncharacteristic to him or her.   References   Alexander, P A and Winne, P H 2006, Handbook of Educational Psychology, Routledge, London.   Bem, D J 1972, ‘Self-perception theory,’ in L Berkowitz (ed), Advances in experimental social psychology, vol. 6, Academic Press, New York.   Cook, M 1979, Perceiving others: the psychology of interpersonal perception, Taylor & Francis, New York.   Duval, V H, Mayer, S F and Duval, S 1983, Consistency and Cognition: A Theory of Causal Attribution, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ.   Galanter, M 1992, Plans and structure of behavior, Holt, New York.   Harvey, J H, Kidd, R F and Ickes, W J 1976, New Directions in Attribution Research, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.   Heider, F 1958, The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations, John Wiley & Sons, New York.   Mower-White, C J 1982, Consistency in cognitive social behavior: an introduction to social psychology, Taylor & Francis, New York.   Roeckelein, J E 1998, Dictionary of theories, laws, and concepts in psychology, Greenwood Publishing Group.                             Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Fritz Heider’s Attribution Theory To Yourself

Communications & Critical Thinking in Information Mgt Fritz Heider’s Attribution Theory To Yourself I found out that attribution theory was developed by Fritz Heider, Harold Kelley, …

HRM

Part A: Cultural Diversity   Introduction Culture is an important factor in understanding organisation, because for any organisation to operate effectively it must for some extent have a general set of believe and assumptions. Because understanding the term of the culture metaphor helps organisations to be aware of how employees are thinking about the organisation phenomena, and to recognize how different attitudes, value and beliefs affect the workplace. In an organisation, one of the most essential issue to be given attention is about cultural diversity. The concept of diversity has been described roughly as groups of two or more individuals which characteristically denote demographic dissimilarities among group members (1995). Concurrently, recent studies have been created to describe the abundant dimensions for categorising these demographic dissimilarities. Nonetheless, it is recurrent that hypothesising diverse results for individuals and work clusters, particularly those relating to the level and disposition of those diversity. The level to which one individually distinguishes with one’s cultural distinctiveness and the worth one consigns on them modifies transversely through cultural factions and across members within cultural groups (1993; 1995; 1997). Additionally, a human being may vary in the degree to which he or she associate with, principles, or articulate a specific cultural personality at any prearranged instance, dependent on the salience and denotation of that characteristics in the perspective within which he or she is in commission (1995;1996) For this reason, cultural identity, as understood in this selection, is communally constructed, multifaceted, and self-motivated. Primarily, the main goal of this paper is to answer the query: how cultural diversity could be exploited for the benefit of a multi-cultural organisation. The discussion will focus on how the management of the company can use cultural diversity as part of the system of the organisation.   Cultural Diversity and Managing Culture As mentioned, the goal of this paper is to identify ways on how cultural diversity can be used to benefit a multi-cultural organisation.  (1990) argues that organizations can build their multicultural capacities in three ways. Affirmative action creates a diverse staff by recruiting previously excluded individuals into homogeneous organizations. Valuing cultural diversity builds understanding and helps people learn to appreciate this new diversity. Managing diversity attacks institutional racism, reallocates power, and promotes justice in the work place while enhancing the work environment. Diversity is otherness or those human qualities that are different from our own and outside the groups, to which we belong, yet present in other individuals and groups. Dimensions of diversity include, but are not limited to: age, ethnicity, ancestry, gender, physical abilities/qualities, race, sexual orientation, educational background, geographic location, income, marital status, military experience, religious beliefs, parental status, and work experience. It’s important to understand how these dimensions affect performance, motivation, success, and interactions with others. Institutional structures and practices that have presented barriers to some dimensions of diversity should be examined, challenged, and removed.   Strong Management Commitment In this regard, one way to exploit cultural diversity to become advantageous is to manage it effectively and efficiently.  (1993) defines cultural diversity as the “representation, in one social system, of people with distinctly different group affiliations of cultural significance ( 1993).” Accordingly, people of different ethnic backgrounds possess different attitudes, values, and norms. Increasing cultural diversity in both public and private sectors focuses attention on the distinctions between various ethnic groups in their attitudes and performance at work.             Several authors have research organisations which are successful in managing diversity (1994). In general, these authors find several similarities held by successful, multicultural organisations: First, top management plays a crucial and leading role in making diversity a success and become beneficial for the company. The CEO must exhibit a strong commitment. Leaders must receive diversity training to address myths, stereotypes and real cultural differences as well as organisational barriers that interfere with the full contribution of all employees. Top executives need experience of what it is like to be a minority. Top management cannot delegate its leading role to Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity administrators.  Second, diversity must be part of an organisation’s strategic business objective. A diversity program cannot fully succeed if it is a separate strategy similar to traditional Affirmative Action/EEO programs. Diversity goals must be linked to business goals, not merely meeting Affirmative Action legal requirements ( 1993). Cultural Diversity must be stressed not only internally but should be a significant part of external outreach programs that identify the organisation as a multicultural leader and active in community and societal issues. Diversity should be a super ordinate goal rather than a goal ascribed to individual groups. Third, managers must be held accountable for meeting diversity goals. Performance evaluations and rewards should be tied to a manager’s ability to develop and manage a diverse workforce. Top management must scrutinise compensation to insure fairness. Fourth, a multicultural successful organisation must improve its supply of diverse workers through aggressive recruiting. It must break the “glass ceiling” and increase the number of women and minorities in the higher salary groups through career development, mentoring, and executive appointment. It must empower all of its employees to use their full capacity. Fifth, a diverse workforce requires efficient communication. Leaders must insure that there are open avenues for employees to communicate new ideas, grievances, input and feedback. In many ways, the classic bureaucratic model is antithetical to the needs of culturally diverse workgroups and innovative, non-hierarchical organisational designs may be in order to insure effective communications. Finally, a multiculturally successful organisation must value diversity. A cultural climate must allow differences to be celebrated instead of merely tolerated. All employees must understand the competitive and moral advantages of diversity. They must respect and support cultural diversity through the recognition of distinctive cultural and religious holidays, diet restrictions, and the like. Often, organisations must undergo a “cultural transformation” ( 1994) before they can successfully achieve the full benefits of diversity. Because management philosophies and practices are culturally conditioned, it stands to reason that there is much to be gained by including cultural studies in all management or professional development. This is particularly relevant during the global transformation underway. Culturally skilled leaders are essential for the effective management of global corporations, as well as for the furtherance of mutually beneficial world trade and exchange ( 2000). Integrating Culture at Work Approach The concept of  culture at work, whether international, local or  at the organizational level, extensive emphasis should be warranted for because effective HRM practices plays an effective role on achieving high performance levels of employees. Managing culture is a broad and complex issue. Leaders face formidable challenges in building a multicultural organisation that truly values diversity. To be successful, managers need to “unlearn practices rooted in an old mind set, change the ways organisations operate, shift organisational culture, revamp policies, create new structures, and redesign human resource systems ( 1991).” This is a tall order and indeed may be so difficult and complicated that it requires a new paradigm to guide organisational management. To manage diversity strategically may require a shift from an efficiency mind set to one with a higher emphasis on human relations goals.  For managers leading or working in culturally diverse organisation, the level of flexibility, communication skills and hands-on management required often goes above and beyond what they are accustomed to.  Regardless of where they are located, managers may find themselves challenge to motivate struggling employees.  Managing culturally diverse teams and facilitating teamwork across cultures can present unique challenges and may be unfamiliar territory for many managers.  The manager often experiences his most uncomfortable moments when he has to deal with differences among people. Because of these differences, he must often face disagreements, arguments, and even open conflict. To add to his discomfort, he frequently finds himself torn by two opposing desires. On the one hand, he wants to unleash the individuality of his subordinates in order to tap their full potential and to achieve novel and creative approaches to problems. On the other hand, he is eager to develop a harmonious, smooth-working team to carry out his organisation’s objectives. The manager’s lot is further troubled by the fact that when differences occur, strong feelings are frequently aroused, objectivity flies out of the window, egos are threatened, and personal relationships are placed in jeopardy. Because the presence of differences can complicate the manager’s job in so many ways, it is of utmost importance that he understands them fully and that he learns to handle them effectively. It is important that the communication provided by the organisation is clear and consistent from within all levels of the organisation. It must address both organisational and individual employee concerns.  Management behaviour will influence employee behaviour more than the words included in a communication. Employees assess the communication to see if the change meets their needs. Internal Communication is linked to performance, job satisfaction, job avoidance, market conditions, commitment, culture and turnover. Communication and culture are useful to the success of any organisation. A positive, strong culture allows the organisation to attract and retain the best people, where a negative culture can do the exact opposite. In addition, a clearly articulated mission statement is an essential part of building the image of the organisation in the minds of the employees. Therefore, effective internal communication is needed in a culturally-diverse organisation. If poor internal communications exist, it could lead to lack of job satisfaction, increased job avoidance, reduced performance and commitment and an increase in turnover. Managers and team leaders will need to learn how to interpret signs of troubled or stressed employees. Moving forward, it is clear that both challenges and opportunities exist for those who lead or manage culturally diverse work teams.  For those employees who are relocating to another culture, employers who are proactive and provide support up-front are certainly taking a step towards ensuring the success of the project team assignment.  Pre-departures preparation programs can be put in place to help expatriates and short-term assignees prepare for losing a sense of cultural identity and the confidence that goes with it.               (1991) provides a working definition that goes beyond valuing differences: Managing culture is a comprehensive managerial process for developing an environment that works for all employees.” This definition has two key features. First, “managing culture” is a “comprehensive managerial process.” It is not enough to provide diversity training in an organisation and pat ourselves on the back for raising the level of awareness. Managing diversity implies an ongoing, system-wide process that will tap the potential of all employees.  It implies growth and development on the part of the organisation and its people — movement on both sides.  Second, this definition specifies “developing an environment that works for all people.” In order to develop this environment that works for all people, we are going to have to change corporate cultures.  (1991) provides an action plan for developing cultural changes in corporations. According to , we expect people to assimilate into the corporate culture. Today, employees are reluctant to assimilate and are more likely to want to maintain their uniqueness. As a result, we will have to create a culture that both values and manages diversity. The vast majority of cultural diversity initiatives in the U.S. focus exclusively on valuing differences. Instead, Fine argues, the dominant corporate culture must be transformed into a multicultural organisation.  Fine defines a multicultural  organisation as an organisation that: values, encourages, and affirms  diverse cultural modes of being and interacting, creates an organisational dialogue in which no one cultural perspective is presumed to be more valid than other perspectives and empowers all cultural voices to participate fully in setting goals and making decisions (1995).   Allowing Change Management Approach Another way to exploit cultural diversity to become beneficial for the company is in terms of changing corporate culture and management systems. Changing corporate culture and management systems to accommodate the diversity of employees involves strategic initiatives that are designed to break down barriers that prevent all people from contributing to their fullest potential. n and Associates (1992) describe examples of corporate diversity initiatives that are “intentionally planned, targeted against business objectives, long-term oriented, and involve the entire organisation (1992).  For example, Travel Related Services, a subsidiary of American Express, focused their efforts on becoming “the Best Place to Work” by providing benefits that would attract and retain employees from an increasingly diverse labor pool. Child-care subsidies, improved part-time benefits, sabbaticals, and flexible work arrangements were introduced after a systematic diagnosis and planning effort involving input from employees (1992). Another study of corporate diversity initiatives by  (1992) is based on interviews with over 200 managers in 16 U.S. companies. The research describes the barriers that prevent women and minorities from advancing as well as the processes that facilitate their movement through the ranks. Recruitment, development, and accountability strategies that foster an appreciation for diversity and allow organisations to achieve measurable results are labelled “best practices.” One of the practices  (1992) cites is the use of internal advocacy groups as a means for building commitment to diversity and monitoring the corporation’s diversity practices (1992) Advocacy groups were found in 10 of the 16 companies examined in the  study. While the roles and power of these groups vary within corporations,  (1992) acknowledges that much of their negotiating power comes from the information they receive about personnel administration (personnel profiles, promotions, pay records, and advanced notice of personnel policies). According to some executives communicate this information in order to share responsibility for identifying diversity problems and developing solutions (1992).             Managing the process of resolving conflicts in a culturally diverse organisation, therefore, is the central task, making sure that positive effects are garnered from the situation by understanding that all of those involved or in controls are doing everything in their power to maximise the positive products and quality output, while minimising the disruptive consequences among the members of the project team in a culturally diverse organisation.. Such good management, in turn, requires a full and sophisticated grasp of major elements in the managing process. Individual causes and determinants of conflicts in a culturally diverse organisation, such as faulty attributions, poor styles of communication, and personal traits or characteristics that contribute to interpersonal friction, all play a role in this regard and must be taken into account. Similarly, culturally diverse organisation-based factors, such as competition for scarce resources, ambiguity over responsibility or jurisdiction, growing internal complexity, and faulty or inadequate forms of communication, must also be considered.   The framework for national culture has been developed by researcher  (1980). While the respective merits and drawback of different framework are widely discussed, the Hofstede basic module of culture can be seen as a helpful framework to illustrate the major issues that need to be considered in change process. Culture environment is one of the important principles that influence the organisation.   (1991) identifies that there are dimensions that differentiate cultures at a national level (power distance, individualism-collectivism, masculinity-femininity, uncertainty avoidance and Long-term versus short-term orientation), which help to understand that people arrive to organizations with their own national culture. Accordingly, if a multinational company wants to better manage cultural diversity, it is important to understand the management system of the host country. The management of the multicultural organisation should have both knowledge and empathy with the entire domestic scene. The management should also consider the 5 important dimension mentioned by Hostede to ensure that the change management process would be successful.             A healthy organisation is one in which an obvious effort is made to get people with different backgrounds, skills, and abilities to work together toward the goal or purpose of the organisation. Very few organisations in the have become effective in incorporating culturally diverse backgrounds, skills, and abilities in their organisational culture.             An effective, culturally diverse organisation is one whose culture is inclusive of all of the varying groups and constituencies it intends to serve, that is, in the case of the services, the people of the state. The organisation’s values, vision, mission, policies, procedures, and norms constitute a culture that is manifested in multiple perspectives and adaptability to varying values, beliefs, and communication styles. People from differing cultural groups in business operations have differing perspectives, manifested in their values, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours.  And these differences, if managed properly can be used as a strong factor to strengthen corporate culture which may lead to a more productive and competitive multi-cultural organization.   Other Benefits of Successfully Managed Diversity       The above analysis shows the benefits of a successfully managed diversity in the organisation. Aside from those benefits, there are also other benefits that the company may have when they managed cultural diversity effectively. One of the benefits of a well managed cultural diversity is in terms of having a more productive workforce, strong communication, customer loyalty and ensuring quality products and services. For example, through the effective management of cultural diversity in Honda which is a multinational and multi-cultural industry, the company has been able to make their employees work productively and be able to provide quality products and services among their customers. Since Honda is an international organisation, it is exposed to employees having different cultures. Instead of letting this cultural diversity affects the company negatively; Honda has been able to use this to establish a management approach that will handle cultural diversity within the organisation. With the effective cultural diversity management approach Honda enables their employees to work efficiently which also leads in the reduction of employee turnover.  Having been able to have this kind of setting, Honda has been able to gain competitive advantage in every nation that they operate. Aside from a multinational automotive company, other company who have been benefited by a well managed cultural diversity are the multinational construction company. Accordingly, managers of a multinational construction company who are assigned in culturally diverse company are experiencing cultural shocked, specifically when the responsibilities are not done effectively. In this manner, it is perceived that the multinational companies need a more effective diversity management, specifically in the international level. On analysing the context of international project management, especially for multinational construction companies, it can be noted that different project management, can establish competition among the diverse groups and evoke pride in work that enhances performance when they are able to arrange culturally homogenous groups of different cultures.  In addition, it can also be perceived that successful managers used bicultural individuals to bridge the cultural gap between the project team members. By using a mediator, who understands the needs of both cultures, the managers are able to effectively manage the human resources and the diversity.  With an effective cultural diversity management in a multinational construction company, there is a greater possibility of avoiding wasted time, costs and effort.  In an article written b various authors, they tackle the impact of cultural diversity in the performance of multinational firms. Herein, they both argued that international diversification and business performance are affected by the effective management of cultural diversity. The authors highlighted that diversity must be stressed not only internally but should be a significant part of external outreach programs that identify the organization as a multicultural leader and active in community and societal issues (1996). Diversity should be a super ordinate goal rather than a goal ascribed to individual groups. Third, managers must be held accountable for meeting diversity goals. Performance evaluations and rewards should be tied to a manager’s ability to develop and manage a diverse workforce. Top management must scrutinize compensation to insure fairness. Fourth, a multicultural successful organization must improve its supply of diverse workers through aggressive recruiting. It must break the “glass ceiling” and increase the number of women and minorities in the higher salary groups through career development, mentoring, and executive appointment. It must empower all of its employees to use their full capacity. The authors also discussed the significance of cultural diversity in enhancing the performance of the business and that the role of the managers should be to incorporate all diverse groups into one working team. The article perceived that although cultural diversity can negatively affect the performance of an organisation, such effect is only temporary. If the management would be able to handle and manage diversity effectively this will result to positive value.             Conclusion In managing people, the human resource management should be able to learn to think more systematically and strategically in using the organisation’s most valuable asset and the company’s great resource and that is the people.  The human resource management should be able to develop a thriving organisational culture and a stronger organisation by good management of the people, providing their needs and the things that they deserve in order for them to be motivated and for them to seek more improvement and career development for their sake and for the organisation’s sake as well.  Further, it can also be concluded that in order to have a high-performing and competitive organisation, it is critical that the human resource management and the organisation as well should effectively align their people, work, structure and organisational behaviours to the purpose of the organisation and effectively reward the right performance that supports the objective of the organisation.  Elements such as work processes, organisation design, career path, performance management and a compensation program are part of human resource management strategy and a plan to ensure continuing success.  All in all it is very important that an organisation should make a way in adjusting their management and styles to complement the differences and similarities of the employees and the organisation as a whole that may catalyst the motivation among the employees. Hence, the role of human resource management is crucial in making the organisation achieved its goal of having a working force that contributes to the competitive advantage of the organisation. Working in a culturally diverse situation is challenging; managing a culturally diverse service presents even greater challenges. The rewards, however, are great in opening our minds and sharing experiences. Seeing our own society, with its habits, customs, and beliefs that we may take for granted, through the eyes of an incomer heightens self-awareness and self-understanding. The two aspects of management: working with staffs that are culturally diverse and providing a service to a culturally diverse community must be given enough focus.   Word Count: 3782     Human Resource Management In FedEx   Introduction The performance of every company can be said to be affected by different business elements. These elements are the ones attributed for the success or even the failure of a business. In this regard, organization is trying to find ways to improve their performance by using strategic management system. One of these systems is the human resource management system. Human resource management (HRM) is known and accepted in the broadest sense of the term, as a form of management that includes “all management decisions and actions that affect the nature of the relationship between the organisation and the employees – its human resources” (1984). As can be observed based on the definition, the tasks of those belonging in HRM can be complex as it involves all issues that encompasses employee and firm relationship. Believing that the most important asset of a business is the people in order to achieve sustained business success is the core philosophy of human resource management (HRM), and realising this leads to a strategic management of people within the organisation. Primarily, the main goal of this paper is to provide insightful details regarding the concept of the human resource management in relation to a multinational company like FedEx. This report will attempt to identify the challenges encountered by FedEx in terms of managing their human resources.   Overview of the Company FedEx Corporation was established by  in 1973 as an entirely new concept in package delivery an overnight air delivery service. While many competitors have sprung up since that time to steal small portions of the market share, FedEx is still undeniably the global leader in its industry. The company also provides e-commerce and supply chain management services to its clients in more than 210 countries. The corporation has some 215,000 employees and contractors and offers a wide range of delivery options including worldwide express delivery, ground small parcel delivery, freight delivery, and customs brokerage. Integrated business solutions are provided through a group of operating companies, of which Federal Express Corporation is the largest.             FedEx was the pioneer of the express transportation and logistics industry.  In addition, FedEx is also regarded as one of the world’s leading transportation companies that focus on the transportation of parcels and packages worldwide. In accordance to the activity around us especially when it comes to the speed and efficiency needed to serve the clients better, FedEx also has improved its performance when it comes to service through continuous changes in its IS and addition of certain programs like tracking lost parcels within thirty minutes which is of good help to clients and the such. This is very important so as to keep the company consistent of being number one on its spot. In this way, it will never fail to attract more clients.   HRM Issue in FedEx:             While every organization seems to invest in technology, there are other aspects that should be considered in attaining a holistic performance of their respective organization. One aspect that needs as much, if not more attention and investment than technology is human capital management. An organization’s human capital management philosophy must value the workforce as a key asset that will define an organization’s character and performance capacity (2001).  “In fact, human capital is a critical factor that would either lead the organization to success or to failure,” as stated by  (2001). In the international arena, the quality of management seems to be even more critical than in domestic operations (Tung, 1998). This is primarily because the nature of international business operations involves the complexities of operating in different countries and employing different national categories of workers (1986). Yet, while it is recognized that HRM problems become more complex in the international arena or more importantly in multicultural organisation, there is evidence to suggest that many companies underestimate the complexities involved in international operations. Being an international organisation or multi-national company, FedEx encountered many issues in line with human resource management.  One of the most serious problems in a multinational organisation which FedEx also faced is conflict. According to  (1998), conflict or issues may be defined as the perception of personal or organisational differences among individuals. Other meanings of conflict defined the term as the process of social interaction between struggling parties over beliefs, status, power, resources and other desires or preferences. The goal of the contradicting parties may vary from a simple aim of gaining acceptance to securing a resource advantage; in worst cases, conflicting parties will go even to the point of harming or eliminating their opponents (2001). In a multinational organisation like FedEx different conflicts or issues are being encountered in line with working behaviour of their human resources.  This issue arises when staffs have incompatible emotions or feelings which results in a negative working attitude with their co-employees. According to  (1997), this kind of issue happens when interpersonal clashes are observed between the contradicting parties. Oftentimes, this is characterized by frustration and anger. When two or more organizational parties argue over content or task issues, substantive conflicts result. Also known as cognitive, task or issue conflict, this type of conflict occurs when group members disagree on each other’s opinions or ideas in relation to the task at hand (2001). An example of this conflict is when one employee or board member disagrees on which marketing strategy or alternative is to be applied; arguing over company data to develop a business plan is also a common problem in the company. It is said that when conflict occurs, the working attitude of the employees are being affected.             FedEx also often encounter conflicts due to differing interests or cultures. Herein, two parties realize and understand the problem; however, the solution they intend to use to solve it is different from one another.  Ideological conflict or the conflict of values is yet another source of this organizational problem. Basically, this conflict type occurs when two or more social entities have contradicting ideologies over certain matters. This conflict is often observed in human resource issues especially when one party prioritizes what is best for the company while the other is after the interest of the employees. Conflict also occurs in FedEx due to contradicting goals. Since the employees of FedEx have different preferred results or decision outcomes, problems occur which affects the performance of the organisation ( 2001).             Other authors also raised similar sources of conflict in the workplace. In a the company also encounters intra-organizational which occurs due to differences in beliefs, basic values or knowledge; personal dislike; differing attitudes or perceptions generated through organizational structure; and competition for power, position or recognition. Diversity in the workplace is said to be an important aspect for efficient and optimized organizational performance. Diversity does not only pertain to people’s gender, age and race; differences in role expectation. Goals, thoughts and values are also part of this concept (1993). The concept of diversity is a notion of individual differences. While others may consider this as a way of expanding one’s perspectives, experience or ideas, diversity may be taken negatively and be seen as a factor that hinders organizational effectiveness, specifically for a multinational organisation like FedEx.             Managing people may vary in different context and one of which is managing their performance. Management is the process of directing and facilitating the work of people organized in formal groups to achieve a desired goal. Management may not be indispensable to group activity, but it is essential in utilizing limited resources to accomplish maximum output, that is, in order to prevent wasted effort by individuals. Without some source of central direction and guidance, individuals in any sizable number can- not work together successfully or efficiently over a sustained period of time. In other words, formal organization of work and a high degree of specialization of labor make management imperative as the means for ensuring performance of any undertaking. In terms of performance, FedEx sometimes faced the problem of low performance among employees. This is mainly due to the diverse situation of the working environment in FedEx. Having diverse people affects the behaviour and even the productivity of the human resources, which may lead to unmet quality service offered for the target market.             Another issue that has been encountered by FedEx is in line with communication process. As a heritage of HRM, many firms still provide “top-down” communication. Poor “bottom-up” communication, suppressed by managers, can lead to employee discord and conflict. This issue affects the performance of the employees to be provided quality service among their target market. The management of FedEx at a certain period have implemented a highly centralised decision making process. This highly centralised decision making and a manager’s preferential treatment stifle workers’ creativity and productivity and also results in an unhealthy work environment. Herein, very little or no creativity and innovation occurs in the workplace.             The issues mentioned above are the ones considered as conflicts that affects the firm as whole.   Strategy used by FedEx to Solve the Issues FedEx is committed with their People-Service-Profit philosophy. Herein, the company aims to produce outstanding financial returns by means of providing, competitively superior, totally reliable global air-ground transportation of high priority goods and documents that require rapid, time-certain delivery.  The company also aims to provide positive control of each package that will be delivered by using real time electronic tracking and tracing systems.  In this manner, a complete record of each shipment and delivery is being presented with the company’s request for payment.  The company’s goal is to become helpful, courteous and professional to each other and the public.  The vision of the company is to strive efficiently to have a completely satisfied customer every time they avail the services of FedEx ( 2000). In order to solve the issues faced by the company has been able to use different strategies.  These strategies include performance management approach, cultural diversity management approach, conflict management and the development of strategic human resource management. Performance management is the principal set of practices by which control is manifested in organizations. Control here is defined as any process that is used to align the actions of individuals to the interests of the organization ( 1992). Under such a characterization, performance management is expected to regulate both motivation and ability (1990).  Performance management is usually conceptualized as consisting of three elements: (1) objective setting, (2) formal performance evaluation, and (3) linkage between evaluation outcomes and development and rewards, in order to reinforce desired behavior (1992). This system is cybernetic, with feedback from both employer and employee driving modifications at each point in the system. Empirical research has tended to be absorbed in the constituent elements of performance management, and studies into performance management viewed as a set of interlocking policies and practices are rare. There are three prominent views as to how performance management may be used to regulate performance, through focusing either on behavior, or on skills, or on outputs. Monitoring behavior is largely concerned with articulating operating procedures which are initiated top-down through a centralized bureaucratic framework (1992). The intent is to monitor employee performance closely, with appraisal used chiefly as an auditing device to correct deviations from set norms (1992). A less rigid view of controlling behavior lies in the use of competency frameworks. Competencies can specify behaviors, skills, and knowledge which are deemed desirable for employees to exhibit, and criteria for their attainment are set by the organization, forming an important part of the evaluation process. Through performance management, the FedEx has been able to monitor every activity of the employees, including those conflicts faced by the culturally diverse employees. FedEx are able to determine the cause of disagreements among their employees and find solutions to solve such conflict. In addition, through performance management, FedEx has been able to monitor the output of the diverse employees. Monitoring output is characterized by the use of performance targets which provide some discretion in how employees achieve them. This type of control allows employers to decentralize control and gives relatively objective criteria for evaluation. Herein, the employees of are given discretion in how they achieve them. Since the effects of these three approaches overlap, it is usually the case that firms will employ elements of behavioral, skills, and output controls simultaneously (1992).             Aside from managing the performance, FedEx has also able to developed their Human resource functions.      The development of Human resources in FedEx has served the needs of organisations to provide human resources with up-to-date expertise.  Accordingly, Human Resource Development is concerned with learning and with how it might be managed.  In addition, FedEx human resource development approach is concerned with change, of behaviour, as can be seen in the manifestation of innovative or improved skills, implementation of new knowledge and understanding, and employing new attitude. Through this, the employees are given the chance to improve themselves in order to cope with the diverse situation of the organisation. Human Resource Development covers the organisation as a whole, and adheres to the needs of individual functions.  According to  (1996), FedEx HRD includes different activities and processes implemented by the organisation with the intention of developing or enhancing the performance of both organisation and individual.      It is a process of unleashing and enhancing the skill of human resources by employing organisational development and training and development for the goal of improving the competency of a certain organisation (Swanson, 1995) which FedEx has done to solve different human resource issues.  One of the strategies used by FedEx in terms of managing their human resources is their integration of HRM practices with the employee empowerment concept. Herein, the corporation announces proudly how important employee empowerment is. Founder and CEO Frederick Smith determined to make employees an integral part of the decision-making process, due to his belief that “when people are placed first they will provide the highest possible service, and profits will follow” (2002). Some of its employee empowerment programs include: an annual employee satisfaction survey, which rates management’s performance and forms a basis for improvement; an employee recognition and reward program; and pay for performance based on management-by-objective and project-by-objective goal-setting processes (2002). In addition, FedEx also incorporates the use of employee empowerment in terms of the information system that it used. Since information is considered as the one which represents power in this generation, information systems used also have the potential to impose employee empowerment. Empowerment being known as the process of enabling and encouraging employees to accept more responsibility for their job is a concept that has been discussed for many years but has been difficult to achieve. Specifically, empowerment involves pushing decision-making downward in the organizational hierarchy to the lowest level where the necessary information and expertise is available. Successful implementation of empowerment has been chiefly dependent upon radical changes in management attitudes and behavior. Now, because of the access to shared information available through intranets, the long sought goal of improving employee empowerment may be within reach. Welch (1996) suggests that access to company information and opportunity for expanded cross-functional communication can enable managers to more effectively share power with employees, thus achieving improvements in employee empowerment. However, managers must be willing to share power, which could be an even greater challenge than simply making the data available. Hence, through the information passed from the managers to the staff as part of the operation of employee empowerment is being achieved.    Implications the issues to FedE It is said that multi-national organisations faced more complexities than any other organisation in terms of handling or managing human resource. Hence, these companies should be able to implement human resource management strategy suitable for the needs of their human resource needs. Human Resource Management is regarded as an umbrella term that comprises (a) specific human resource practices such as recruitment, selection, and appraisal; (b) formal human resource policies, which direct and partially constrain the development of specific practices; and (c) overarching human resource philosophies, which specify the values that inform an organisation’s regulations and practices. Basically, these encompass a system that attracts, develops, motivates, and retains employees who ensure the effective functioning and survival of the organisation and its members. It is true that managing people in organisation is a very difficult task to handle because the employees that you will handle are provided with different culture, attitudes, values and norms.  In order to effectively solve the issues or conflicts encountered by a multinational organisation such as the human resource management should be able to learn to think more systematically and strategically in using the organisation’s most valuable asset and the company’s great resource.  The human resource management should be able to develop a thriving organisational culture and a stronger organisation by good management of the people, providing their needs and the things that they deserve in order for them to be motivated and for them to seek more improvement and career development for their sake and for the organisation’s sake as well. Herein, FedEx or any multinational organisation can use empowerment as a technique for improving solving the issue while improving employee satisfaction.  Satisfying the employees can significantly create a good working relationship among the employees; it involves responsibility and authority for decisions affecting the workplace, downwards through the organisation. Thus, in an organisation, employees need to be equally empowered. This empowerment results to an increased competence, self-esteem and self-respect, which are very important to one’s well-being.  Moreover, creating an environment in the workplace that results in employees feeling better about themselves when they are in it results in love of their work. A working environment that constantly raises an employee’s self-esteem, above that she/he experiences anywhere else in their life, will be where she/he most desires to spend their time and yields very high employee satisfaction with their job and costs next to nothing. People do more of what they enjoy and less of what they don’t enjoy. The results also show that people who enjoy working are more productive than employees who are not satisfied with what the company is giving. In the case of they value their employees as they value their customers.  Hence, the company promotes different programs in line with their integration of employee empowerment with their employee relationship approach.  Through this program and the information system used by the company, the employees are given the chance to be involved in decision-making process needed within the organisation which means that their opinions and ideas regarding the operations and management of the company counts.  In addition, through the empowerment programs implemented within the company, the employees feel that the company does not ignore the capabilities and skills to handle every management performance. All in all, employee empowerment is just one of the many ways that a certain organisation may use in order to show the appreciation and recognition of the abilities of their employees. Aside from this, FedEx also sees to it that they value whatever cultures, beliefs and norms the employee has. The awareness of the differing culture in the FedEx enables the company to understand why some employees behaved differently. With this, they create a strong organisational structure that bonds employees even if they came from various cultures. All in all it is very crucial that an international organisation should make a way in adjusting their management styles and approaches to adhere with the differences and similarities of the employees, specifically those in the international environment so that IHRM may catalyst the motivation among diverse individual.  It is also important to note that international human resource management should have the ability to employ the principles and concepts of emotional intelligence and give emphasis to the importance of self-awareness in dealing with different kinds of people, winning their trust and to ensure that the people’s values and the organisations objective will intersect to a common goal and that is to incorporate good employment relationship to ensure competitive advantage in the international market.   Word count=3473 Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

HRM

Part A: Cultural Diversity Introduction

Culture is an important factor in underst…

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