Category: MBA Dissertations

The management of the organization concentrates on designing of a strategy and its implementation in the organization to improve job satisfaction for the employees working in the organization. Job satisfaction plays a significant role in the performance of the employee. An employee becomes productive when he is having job satisfaction; even it is evident from many researchers that job satisfaction shows a lot of impact on the production and performance of the employees. So job satisfaction is focused in this section as it has much relation with the organization commitment and organization outcomes. If an employee is satisfied his/her performance is superior when compared to the performance of a less satisfied employee . The factors that influence employees’ job satisfaction are discussed as follows.

Dispositional Impacts

Employee’s disposition shows a significant impact on the job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is also related statistically to the childhood dispositions. Job satisfaction is different for different employees based on their variations in behaviors and dispositions. Research shows that disposition exactly influences the job satisfaction of the employees. This shows that  the job satisfaction of an employee can be disturbed because of his/her disposition. It is also discussed that the disposition first influences the psychological factors of the individual and then influences the job satisfaction. As an instance, the experience of the events that are emotionally important are influenced by disposition and that will disturb the job satisfaction. There are many studies that explain the relationships of job satisfaction to disposition.

Cultural Impacts

The culture of the employee also influences the job satisfaction of the employee. The attitude of the employee is based on their cultural background and childhood experiences as well as the milieu in which he/she grew up. The situations of globalization in the organization particularly the cross cultures that exist in an organization and the related employee issues will influence the employee job satisfaction and so this is considered as a challenging tasks for the human resource management. Few researchers have considered the four dimensions in the employees’ attitudes, namely “risk taking versus uncertainty avoidance”, “achievement orientation”, “individualism-collectivism” and “power distance”.

When these dimensions are considered according to country of provenance,  it is proved that United States is low on uncertainty avoidance and high in risk taking, low in power distance and high on individualism. In case of Mexico, it is high on power distance, high in collectivism and also high in uncertainty avoidance. These four dimensions can elaborate the variations in the employee attitudes that are based on the cross cultured situations that they face in the working and also shows how their job satisfaction is affected.  It is evident from the researches that employee attitude and the job satisfaction are influenced a lot by the country of origin and cross cultural aspects.

The level of employee is also considered when the effect of cross cultural aspects is considered. Employees are viewed in the humanistic and instrumental approaches that means in these approaches employees of various countries and cultures are viewed and their attitudes are observed in order to test their job satisfaction in certain situations. These all discussions will prove that the cultural variation in the organization and even the employees from different countries and their attitudes are observed by the human resource practitioners to analyses its influence on the performance of the employees and job satisfaction of the employees because of the reason that the progress of the organization is based on the employee performance.

Work Situation Influences

  Employee job satisfaction is also affected by the working conditions of the employee. General working situations play a major role in the employee performance, so organizations should ensure a good working environment to ensure employee job satisfaction. Various sides of the employees work are evaluated by the researchers in order to determine their influence on employee performance; they are pay, co-workers, opportunities, supervision, and promotion. In addition to these, it is observed that the  work situation is the major side that plays an important role.

In general an employee will work in the organization in the situations provided by the organization if the conditions are good he can work peacefully and if the working conditions are not so good then they feel some discomfort in working. So management of the organization needs to provide good working conditions for the employees. Employees must be assigned work based on their capability and interests because when they are provided with work that they like then they will show much commitment towards the work and this will increase both their job satisfaction and company performance.

The job satisfaction of the employee can be achieved by other means like good salaries, attractive bonuses and increment plans etc. The other factor that increases job satisfaction in employee is work flexibility. This means the employee likes to work, the working environment is comfortable,  flexible working hours  are available to satisfy personal commitments. Change in the working conditions make the employee fresh and  variety and so there will be a lot of scope for the increase in job satisfaction.

So management should focus on different factors that show impact on the job satisfaction of the employee and then provide them the required support from the organization. Management should also focus on designing strategies in such a way that they meet all the requirements of the employees and the organization. All the factors that influence employee job satisfaction should be considered while designing strategies.   These strategies must be implemented in a proper way with clear communication for employees. Communicating the strategies clearly will also increase job satisfaction.   As strategies are understood clearly employees can work better.

Due to the social embbededness, in impersonal economic estimation the economic activity is not possible to place in the different sphere. The financial characteristics are rooted into a network that contains families, careers, relations and the state. The ends and means of the activity are influenced by these networks, and the reasonable and appropriate nature is defined for their people.

Therefore, the economic activity is shaped using the personal histories where the factors like gender, religion, family back ground, educational back ground and ethnicity are included.  So the suggestions given to guide a strategy are cultural but not cognitive as viewed by the social constructivist. Social systems that are in a series, the effects by the organizations, economies and the industries will define the culture. The four forms of culture are “contingency, classical, socio-cognitive and socio-political”.

Bird Approach:

                             In this approach the organization behaves like a bird.  Generally a bird cannot live in the air forever and it needs to land somewhere in order to take a rest and so it will search for a tree and then select a comfortable branch and then land there. In the same way the organization also search for suitable situation where it can have better outputs. This type of taking decisions is random because it’s the never ending process for searching the best from what is available. As it is random and changing always there are more chances for risks .

Squirrel Approach:

Using this approach the organization will ignore the factors that are said to be important for their survival as they have certain potentials and talents. These strategic approaches ares  not used frequently and if they are practiced rarely in an organization, then also these approaches are giving unsuccessful results.

                              The study and relative research is done by observations and scenarios and from those it is indicated that most of the literature studies have focused on the strategy development but not on the strategy implementation. All the above discussed approaches are definitely useful but there are some drawbacks. One such drawback  is that strategy effectiveness is not measured by these approaches. This problem is solved by David Norton and Robert Kaplan in 1996. They have generated a method called “Balanced Scorecard Performance Measurement Method”.   This method is designed for both the qualitative measures and monetary measures for the sake of employee satisfaction.

They have also designed a balanced score card with a motive of better explanation and implementation of these strategy for the sake of employees using easy, understandable terminology. Various functions are integrated and related to the strategy and these functions include sales, finance, human resources, manufacturing and marketing. The employees are associated with the strategy in their daily work and so they need a better understanding of the strategy. The balance scorecard method explains the strategy for the employees clearly. Even good leadership qualities are developed in the employees with better explanation and implementation of the strategy.

The classical approach is influenced by the military tradition, because there the decisions are finalized by the solitary general and so here the world is viewed as a rigid hierarchy. The “intellectual inheritance” of the economics has complemented the military tradition. Later, in 1994 Von Neumann and Morgernstern sited this tradition at the heart at the strategy beginning and viewed this as a game that is elaborated between the interdependent businesses that are competing with one another with “move, bluff, counter move and counter bluff. The managers become confident in adopting the strategies that increase the profit of the company with balanced plans that can be used for  the long term with this classical approach of strategy. Particularly, the confidence in terms of capacity and enthusiasm of the manager is developed.

Strategic Management 

According to Shrivasthava, strategy is sustained as an ideology because the five criteria that can identify an ideology are satisfied by his strategy. By referring to published work on strategic management it is clear that in an organization “what the management feels good will be good for all the others”. It is also evident from previous studies that the contestability is not only rejected for the industry but is also rejected for the market and the company. Actually the ideals of productivity and efficiency stay challenging and unsupported and so the “normative idealization of goals” is questioned in the stakeholder research that has started recently. The industry and environment status quo is left because of the cultural and social factors of the individual activities.                                     

On the  other side, of Srivathsava’s view is that different ideologies deal with the   thriving of stakeholders as well as the notion of praxis. His policy look over the praxis is differentiated  from that of Porter’s five force frame work  which identify different parameters  to increase the profits of a company. Since the line which Porter is very thin which are successful and applicable for only senior manager. Knights argue that imperialism is a one kind of strategy which wraps the managerial authority which is widely suitable for the  cultural science of independence.  Knights clarifies that it is difficult to follow Porter  but still  the generic strategies  ratified  address the financial sector  for  many senior level managers.

To make generic strategies work, managers should apply ‘reality checks’ which can be done by ‘forgetting, neglecting or denying the subjectivity’. Though the Porter’s agenda is difficult to implement for each and every business, still every one  follows it because the idea of  ‘unequal power’ extracted from ‘specialist knowledge’ is  backed by senior level managers throughout the world. Knights clarifies porters philosophy, praises it for its management accuracy that this gives ‘some illusion of control, legitimacy and security in the face of uncertainty’. Though Beeby argues this is a parable, still, this ideology is considered to be ‘strategic management’.

The long term or short term goals of the organization are accomplished by developing an effective strategy. “The success of any strategy begins with skilful recruitment and human resources policies and work through internal debate and effective communication.”.  The strategy is analyzed through the means of planning to gain ability and core competencies in order to attain the organizational goals. Sharing the strategy among the employees of the organisation in a effective manner is the key to success. When the employees know about the strategy, they work in tune with the strategy and this leads to a progressive effect on the front line managers.

As mentioned in the Lewis Carol’s poem, if employees are unclear about the motives behind the company’s strategy, they don’t synchronize their efforts in tune with the company’s goals to make it a success. The strategy should be interpreted by the employees and effectively digested by the employees. When the employees are clear about their path ahead, they tend to be more confident and contend. . Strategy is defined as “plans, programme’s and intentions to develop the human capability of an organization to meet its future needs of its external and internal environment”

One of the key factors of the organizational success is the efficient divulgement of the strategy to the work force in action. The CEOs of large business organizations generally employ divergent strategies to enhance company performance for the very same firm. The studies in the early 70’s suggest that CEO’s tend to be more inclined the issue of how the strategy is framed rather than how the strategy is implemented. Research identifies that enterprises with strategy clearly defined and explained to the employees reflect better performance than those enterprises where the motives of the strategy are made unclear to the employees. All the functional departments like finance, operations, human resources and marketing are integrated in tune with the strategy.

The strategy implementation is performed and made available to employees in various ways and means of achieving it should be clearly disposed to the employees. In the business scenario, strategies enable to view at the future prospects of the organisation in terms of its products, services and potential markets. So, far very little is been researched on implementing and measuring the strategy of the company. The way in which how different operational functions of the organisations interpret it and communicate it reflects the might and well-being of an enterprise.

Strategy implementation 

“Strategic implementation is regarded as a form of organizational learning wherein the threats and opportunities are studied to come up with new strategies in response to such threats and opportunities. This makes the organization to finetune its strategies according to the environmental factors which is a constant learning process.”.  It is inferred from the above discussion that strategy implementation is a tough task for management as it is an art of making people to do the work in line with the strategy. So, only strategy implementation is regarded as a sort of expertise.

The various prototype factors in the course of strategy implementation are generally soft, hard and mixed. These depend on the level of communication with the people around in the organisation. Strategic implementation is largely influenced by the mechanism employed for co-ordination. Strategy execution implies a step by step approach to implementing certain activities that lead to a formulated and structured decision making. It is regarded as a cognitive process.

The key to success lies in the effective mapping of the necessary outcomes with performance measures. The general trait of successful leaders is that they share their vision among the team members in the form of simple stories about their visionary and the hallmark of the success is attributed to the celebration of their achievements or milestones whether big or small.

To see that the strategy is shared, the team should openly voice their opinions about the strategy, confront premises, and challenge the theory and propose alternatives without fear of being scolded. The successful strategic implementation call for leaders who can inspire and mould through coaching rather than command and control. Recognizing success and granting appraisals based on their performance, inspiring and motivating them lead to better results in inducing better commitment rather than by using force and authority which contribute to cold rebellion and inactive resistance.

In tune with this discussion, strategic planning is interpreted as primarily an analytical process that aims at the selection of long-term goals and objectives that appropriately enables to design a sophisticated organization structure. A notion is that desired outcomes could be achieved by focusing on both internal and external factors and analysing them by the means of professional management to implement strategic actions. Effective planning can minimize the consequences of uncertainty.

The possibility is not encouraged that : leaders or planners do tend to overlook the new potential opportunities attributing to their previous history, their ability or experience; that design of novel proposals might be disrupted due to the political factors prevailing in the corporate culture, transient market conditions; that planning overlooked the lower hierarchical  knowledge and expertise to consider only the top hierarchy decisions; that planning entertained strict adherence to the plan, giving less room for flexibility and learning . Nevertheless, as outcomes deviated from the desired intentions, as strategies could not succeed in delivering the desired results pertaining to the organizational motives and as plans often remained futile without serving any purpose just to remain unused on the top shelf, people started to refine the planning model.

Steadily, the recognition emerged that formal planning contributed least in the successful results and effective strategic decisions and the belief of synchronizing the internal factors of the enterprise to the external environmental conditions is deemed to be too shallow . It is not successful in realizing how internal organization operations and sub cultures were loosely bonded, how divergence, chaos and dissimilarities lead to novelty in innovation and rediscovery, and how persistent response to the swift changes provokes instability, unfair outcomes and failure to remain core competent. Three primary ideas dawned to form thinking on what is required to overcome these loopholes in how the strategy process was framed.

The first postulated Michael Porter’s proposal that business strategy should give rise to greater performance, competitive positioning, sustainable competitive edge, and commitment to a determined path. The second from Henry Mintzberg who stated that the strategic outcome is a lot influenced by the organizational design and structure, political and cultural environment or the gradual strategic formation based on the managers’ reaction to the external pressures pertaining to the external competitive surroundings. The third proposal comes from Hamel and Prahalad who viewed core competencies and potentialities as the prime factor for competitive edge.

Chaffe proposes that strategy is multi-faceted and dependant on the situation. Nevertheless, he says that it suffers from three conflicting aspects of strategy. The first model is the linear strategy model which is largely centered on forecasting and development and the second one is the adaptive strategy where the managers’ prime focus is on the means and the third one is the interpretive strategy where the procedure of research goes on the lines of the qualitative opinions of the people that reflect reality.

Conventionally, a strategy is implemented by the top level management and is passed through the next successive levels of management . For instance, in the case of successful coaches and top directors where the rules are set to be followed by the players or employees at the right time. The functioning of the strategy closely resembles the relay team which comprises of four legs and the baton is passed from the first leg to the fourth leg. Likewise, management is composed of four management hierarchies namely the senior management, middle level management, the low level management and the non-management level .

The strategy is framed by the senior level management and the middle level management and is made to be followed by the low level management and non-management like how the baton is passed in a relay from the first person to the fourth person. If the senior or middle level management is not clear in implementing or communicating the strategy, it leads to confusion and chaos. Moreover, when the involvement of senior management is too low in implementing the strategy, it takes a lot of time to reach the non-management level which leads to the failure in strategy.

Strategic Communication

Figure 2.1: Five tasks of strategic communication and implementation 

It is recommended that the strategic communication and implementation process is based on the identification of the environmental problems of the organization internally and externally and the evaluation of strengths and weaknesses. This important step in the strategic process is “Analysis and Diagnosis”. This step deals with assessing the existing environmental problems in the strategy and providing alternative solutions to the problem. As the problems are analyzed in this step, a new structure is developed to support the strategy and accordingly the policies and measures are framed.

The understanding of the organizational environment by analyzing it is a key step in the strategic communication and implementation process. This provides for the assessment of the prevailing situation faced by the organization. Accordingly the strategy is developed by understanding the current situation of the organization and it facilitates the  identification of the potential opportunities and threats.