Management Assignment: Case Scenarios Based on Logistics Management

Question

Task: Prepare a well-structured management assignment addressing the following questions:
Question 1: Explain the business dimensions that should be considered in the management of sustainability, and how these dimensions interrelate. Discuss the common mistakes made by organisations while advertising themselves as sustainable entities and the possible measures to ensure the correct approach.

Question 2: Discuss how organisations are changing from tall, pyramid organisational designs to more flexible, team and service-oriented designs. Use examples to clarify your answer. The examples may be real or hypothetical, from your work experience, examples from this unit and/or examples you have sourced.

Question 3: Discuss how leaders and managers have a significant role to play in promoting the appropriate organisational culture, managing change, employee motivation and encouraging innovation. Use examples to clarify your answer. The examples may be real or hypothetical, from your work experience, examples from this unit and/or examples you have sourced.

Question 4: Discuss the following statement in the context of the management process and the characteristics for effective goals:
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it”. (Peter Drucker) Use examples to clarify your answer. The examples may be real or hypothetical, from your work experience, examples from this unit and/or examples you have sourced.

Answer

Management Assignment Question 1
1.1. Business dimensions that can help in sustainability management
Sustainability should be the topmost priority of any organization is it big or small in size. Sustainability management in business organizations helps the business to succeed in the long run. Some of the business dimensions that must be taken for the management of sustainability are:

Performing an analysis of the stakeholder
An analysis of the stakeholder is necessary as it helps in identifying the people who are directly or indirectly linked with the operations of the business enterprise. The stakeholder analysis helps in gathering information of the stakeholders in respect to the sustainability management of the organization. The existence of any business firm is linked with the global environment and with the community in which the business firm is based. For carrying on with its activities without any kind of hindrance the business organizations must always try to maintain the dignity of human beings.

Identification of the parties that hold interest in the business firm is one of the main components for sustainable development in an organization and it can lead to corporate accountability (Apenko and Fomina, 2021). The analysis of the stakeholders can be done by the identification of the various groups like the creditors, investors, customers, employees, regulators, community, and the shareholders. After the identification of the stakeholders, the needs and expectations should be analysed. For example, the community may demand for such products and services from the organization that are environment friendly.

Setting sustainabledevelopment policies and the objectives
The next dimension is articulating the basic values that the organization expects its employees to follow in regard to sustainable development; targets must also be set for assessing their performance. The senior management in an organization is responsible for framing the policies of sustainable development which should also target at mitigating the problems relating to distribution of equity and poverty (Al-Ali et al., 2017).

Therefore, undertaking a policy based on environment responsibility is the primary step towards sustainability management. The management should try to incorporate the anticipations of the stakeholders in a statement policy that sets the missions or objectives of the organization in respect to management of sustainability.

Execution and design of an implementation plan
It is crucial to draw a plan for the transformations in the management systems that are needed to achieve the objectives of sustainable development. Translation of the policies of sustainable development is something that wholly affects the organization. It requires changing the attitudes of the employees and corporate culture. It also refers to changes the accountability and the responsibilities.

The organizational structure of the business firm must be reviewed for determining who is who is capable of taking the responsibility of sustainable development. The change in the organizational culture would be brought up for complementing the new goals of an organization (Baumgartner and Rauter, 2017). Practices like the reward strategy as well as incentives reflect the values of the organization. The activities related to marketing should assess the needs and requirements of the customers in regard to sustainability development.

How the dimensions are interrelated
The business dimensions are interrelated to each other in the sense that these business dimensions involve the various important units of the business which determines the proper functioning to which determines the success of the business and helps the business organization to achieve its goals and objectives. The stakeholder analysis is related to the sustainable development policies as the existence of the business firm is linked to the needs and requirements of the community (Oreg and Berson, 2019). So, the sustainability management policies can be framed according to the stakeholders needs so these dimensions are interrelated to each other. After gaining knowing about the stakeholders’ preferences the policies area developed according and then an execution an implementation plan is designed which shows the relation of these dimensions with each other.

Mistakes made by organizations while advertising them as sustainable entities
Some of the common mistakes made by the organization while advertising themselves as sustainable entities are:

• Setting goals before proper assessment of the impact on the organization.
• The organizations fail to identify the correct deciders and the do-ers.
• No effective measurement of the goals towards the progress of the organization.
• Portraying them as sustainable only for PR.
• Failure to examining the strategies before applying them.
• Failure at measurement of proper KPIs like the emission of GHG gases.

Measures to ensure correct approach
Taking stock of the environmental impacts on the operations of the company: This is the primary step of sustainability management as it can help in understanding the present environmental performance of the organization. This can be done with the life cycle assessment (LCA) tool that allows the organization in quantifying the effect of the services and the products (Fund, 2021).

Identification of the key stakeholders: The stakeholders can be divided into two categories the deciders and the do-ers. The organization must try to identify the people in the appropriate job roles.

Successful planning of the sustainability goals: A successful planning of the goals of sustainability may include high drives of ambition for differentiation, optimization, and innovation. It should be guided by the principles that are scientific in nature and those are in alignment with the core goals of business (Nawaz and Koç, 2018).

Development of an ESG strategy: The environmental, social, governmental strategy helps to develop the sustainability plan and provides a chance to change the values of the organization as well as to enhance the brand.

Testing sustainability plan before implementation:For reducing the risks the organization must examine the sustainability of the plan. It can help in improving the supply chain of the organization.

Management Assignment Question 2
Tall, pyramid and hierarchical organisational designs and structures are said to be efficient within large organisations that require one long chain of command thus, establishing and practising clear managerial control. However, with the course of time, work processes, structure and organisational designs are changing. For example, work and organisational operations are becoming more cognitively complex, time-pressured, mobile and less dependent on geography. This has created an urge for a team-based perspective, where the majority of operations within the premises are being carried out through collaborations, where ever required social skill have respective significance in carrying out different operations (Rezazadeh and Kordestani, 2019). Due to this; flat, flexible, team-based and service-oriented organisational designs are being equipped or rather followed within the workplace of today's world.

There have been various changes so far within existing organisational design patterns, as the necessity of complementing work within premises are being transformed by the adoption of more lean principles and thinking ability. This is because adoption of lean principles and thinking capability allows changes thoroughly within internal processes that help in identifying wastes from the first stage itself thus, elimination of the same becomes easier and quicker, which further helps in defining better customer values (Heerwagenet al., 2016). As mentioned above, lean principles cannot be planned and implemented from one long chain of command. This is because communication of the same will take a longer time to travel into different departments within the hierarchical or pyramid structure of a company. Therefore, organisation are changing their design to a more flat-type structure, where flexibility and the existence of teams can successfully meet the need of communication of such lean principles and thinking within internal work processes.

It has been found that organisations following hierarchies are said to be projected to cumbersome experiences with which they cannot respond quickly to changing marketing patterns. Continuous innovation is one such market demand that exists within today's world that seeks continuous changes of work, processes, decisions, culture and others, which cannot be carried out if organisational operations are still executed through tall and pyramid organisational designs (Katic and Agarwal, 2018). Teams are the building blocks that have the ability to make decisions and implementing processes upon the same, if any changes are supposed to be considered, as a priority to deal with the need for continuous innovation within the operating market.

For example, Amazon being one of the largest organisations all across the globe in terms of employee size uses a tall and hierarchical organisational structure within which every employee are responsible for reporting up to the CEO of the company (Harracá, 2017). However, having several levels of management across different departments such as software development, information technology, legal operations, human resource and others, the company is said to work through a number of smaller teams, so that the capture of continuous innovation from the surrounding market is quicker, despite following tall and pyramid organisational design (pingboard.com, 2019). Therefore, large companies consider the team-oriented approach along with the execution of processes under tall and pyramid organisational design, so that the need of meeting continuous innovation in the market can be linked with the benefit of clear management under one long chain of command.

However, small and medium-sized companies consider flexible, flat, team-oriented, and service-based organisational designs from the very beginning of their corresponding establishment phase. This is because of keeping the operational costs at lower levels without inflicting any negative consequences on the quality of work, as teams are already assigned to either execute single work into different units or work on more than one project at a time within the workplace. Considering the investment capability of the large organisation following a tall organisational structure, SMEs have lower ranges regarding the same. Due to which global crisis such as Corona Virus and pandemic situations might have diminished their existence from the market if they were seemed to have followed one long chain command throughout respective organisational premises (Wanget al., 2021). This is why every SME have switched their processes under the norms of remote working through teams operating at remote locations all across the globe so that they are able to meet the needs of the customers and revenue continues to come from conducting business through the same (Waizeneggeret al., 2020).

Management Assignment Question 3
Role of leader and managers in promoting:
Organizational culture:
Leaders cultivate the culture of the organization. Leaders play an essential role in reinforcing the organisational values by helping the employees to develop and grow through setting goals recognition and opportunities. The leaders tried to elevate the employees by giving them feedback on a regular basis or individually on one on one basis. Effective leadership is one of the primary fundamental to constructing a great organisational culture. A leader is the one who has authority for setting the tone for the culture of the organisation (Pawirosumartoet al., 2017).

The leaders play a role in reinforcement of values as well simultaneously holding the employees accountable. This kind of influence on the employees can result in positivity or negativity and this is based on the style of leadership and strategy execution. An organisational culture is not very easy to define and it holds different meaning to various employees. Organisational culture is a process through which the businesses approachthat task that they have in hand. The leader plays an integral role in the prevailing culture of the business and also in bodies the organisational culture with their way of working and their behaviour (Waruwuet al., 2020).

Managing change:
Leaders play a crucial role in managing change in the organization. The role of a leader in managing change can be either positive or negative. Leaders hold influence on the ones who lead as a reason the change manager wants the leaders to be on the side of the change support. The role of leader is necessary in managing change because the employees adopt new methods of doing things, strategic leadership and change management helps to guide the employees through the changes and by addressing the concerns of the individual which helps the leaders to support, accept, and manage the change.

Leadership communication is essential for the success of the project. If the managers and the leaders are not well versed on how the leader of the organization can manage change in the organization then remains a big gap. The optimal change in the leadership model is for making the team of change management communicate with each other so that the employees are able to lead with the change. This results in development of best communication when it comes to change and leadership as the employees can be receptive to the manager under whom they are working (Tai and Kareem, 2018). Leadership and change in the organization need similar set of skills. Change management demands soft skills but not all leaders have that trait. The managers may have an understanding of how change management functions. The role leadership in organizational change is taught by the change manager.

Employee motivation
Every manager or rather leaders within an organisation are required to motivate employees within the teams so that they can productively work in meeting their responsibilities within the team, which as a whole benefit the organisation. When business managers and leaders motivate employees, they are found to work closely with employees that not only eases their respective complexity during work but also inspires them to find a solution on an individual level so that they too can represent, as effective leaders and manager in the future (Graves and Sarkis, 2018). Motivating employees to help the leaders and managers within the workplace aims for common goals and objectives that help in promoting unity among the workforce, which further strengthens the overall working environment. While motivating employees, a manager should combine work goals with the goals of employees at individual levels so that alignment between them helps the workforce to feel safe, being heard and recognised throughout the premise. Rewards, compensation, and promotion are other initiatives of motivation that can be undertaken by team leaders or manager for the exchange of effective productivity shown at both individual and team’s end.

Encouraging innovation
One of the major roles that can be undertaken by managers and leaders in encouraging innovation is giving every employee the space of thinking creatively and without any bounds (Kremeret al., 2019). This way a leader can contribute in developing paths for employees that like to come up with creative ideas that can be implemented after a thorough assessment of problems associated with the same along with giving opportunities for decision-making to employees as well. The manager irrespective of any roles or titles must consider ideas. For example, the idea coined by an intern should be executed, if the same is found to have a worth of million-dollar outcome, as it might be the first one to see the opportunity and apply its point-of-view in assessing the solutions.

Management Assignment Question 4
Justification of s statement in relation to the management process and the characteristics of the effective goals “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it”, this statement has been rightly made by Peter Drucker as it indicates that feasibility of goals is necessary to be measured during the planning and coining of the objectives. The primary goal of business manager is to make money and be successful, but that is not always enough to make the business successful. The business leader needs goals that are well-defined and measures success for the long-term, mid-term and the short-term (Pamungkas, 2019).Until the effective goal is measured it becomes impossible to implement nay process of management.

Most of the business organization make use SMART model for setting the goal. The characteristics of effective goals are:

It should be well defined and specific: The main foundation of any goal is that it should be properly defined and specific. A goal that is well-defined helps a business owner to focus on the task takes the company ahead in the long run (IsseverGrochová and Litzman, 2021).

Goals should be measurable in nature: This characteristic refers to the fact that a goal must have a scoreboard attached with it as well as a ruler. The manager must keep in mind that not all goals are result-oriented Goals should be realistic and achievable: The business manager must set such goals that are easily achievable and not something unrealistic.

The goal must hold relevance to the job: Goals that are arbitrary are not helpful to anyone. While setting goals for the company or for the organization the leader must make sure that goals match the mission and vision of the company. For instance, if the sales representative has a sales goal that is higher than the representative of the customer representative who occasionally gets ancillary sale likewise the representative of the customer service must has a goal to help out the customers with a problem in 60 seconds. These kind of goals can be considered relevant (Alaimo and Maggino, 2020).

The goal should be timed for success: It is important for the manager to examine whether the goal can be achieved.

For example, if the target of a business firm like Sainsbury’s is to earn revenue up to $1 million it is possible to achieve that goal in the next five years but it is not possible to achieve that goal in a year. The goal of the Sainsbury’s organization can be assessed on by analysing the profits it made on the previous quarters. If the company has a growth in revenue in the past years then the goal is achievable within the set time. Therefore, it is very necessary to set the correct time limit.

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