Category: MBA Dissertations

MBA Dissertation Topic list provided here consists of project reports for ms mba students. Students can use these projects as reference for dissertation projects.

Posted on

MBA Literature Review on Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model Implementing Change Powerfully and Successfully

In this article, the author has made an emphasis on the fact that that although change is the single constant phenomenon in the universe, it is always accompanied by anxiety. This anxiety is present irrespective of the nature and magnitude of the change. There exist many theories on how to properly implement a certain change. In this article, the author has written about the 8-step change implementation model which was introduced by the world renowned change expert – Kotter. 

The first several steps of Kotter’s model are focused on making the necessity of the alteration to be felt by the entire company. The author explains the different methods in which this may be executed.

Once this has been accomplished, the change should be linked to a philosophy and this philosophy must be made known to all concerned. The goal is to make the change becomes popular within the targeted audience. The nest several steps involve practical implementation of the change – these include breaking barriers that stand in the way of implementation of the change, making short term gains, waiting before declaration of success and inculcation of the change in the culture of the organization. The author describes Kotter’s motive behind each step and highlights important aspects which are related to each and every step.

The researcher concludes that the author has explained Kotter’s change model in a comprehensive and precise manner. Important points of each step have been and explained very well whenever and wherever required. The only flaw that that can be drawn from the article is that there is no presence of a relevant example. If the author would have explained each step with the help of the example, then this would have made the process of implementation much easier. 

Posted on

Typical Cultural and Language Barriers

Some of the cultural differences and misinterpretations which lead to communication barriers are identified by the human resource professionals while engaging with the immigrant employees are listed below.

       Status and Roles: Social hierarchy exists in some countries and this may lead to “bumps” in the communication process especially in the workplaces. In some countries, women are considered less superior than males. Woman with high position in the managerial hierarchy than man in such cultures may result in some communication gap because of the difficulty in adapting to the situation.

       Personal Space: It relates to the level of comfort zone while speaking to others face to face. Generally, in some countries like England, people are more comfortable in conversing while standing at a distance of five feet from each other while in some other countries like Germany and Japan, they rather prefer more distance. While Arabs and Latinos are usually prefer to get closer.

      Body Language: The physical gestures, which are the part of body language, can be interpreted in different countries. The people in some countries express “no” by shaking their heads while in some countries, they express that by raising their chin.

      Religion:  People are largely influenced by the religion with respect to their life style.  For instance, usage of some words may be considered a sin in some religions while it is used freely in some other countries where there is no sin attached in usage of such word.

      Personal Appearance: The personal appearance of the people varies with different countries. The attire of people in the organisation should be made uniform to mitigate these differences.

Posted on

Leading the Transformation in Global Outsourcing Building the Right Executive Team Literature Review

In the article, the authors have written about the fast changes in the industry of global outsourcing and the capabilities that companies will require to thrive in this highly competitive market.  The authors have explained how the global outsourcing process has matured into a prolific industry. Companies are forging relationships with international clients and delivering complicated multi year projects by utilizing the delivery processes system across the globe.

The authors have also explained the important aspects based on which an increase in dexterous resources is expected on a global scale. The authors have also observed that clients expect high levels of integration with the company which is outsourcing. According to the authors, instead of single projects or tasks, outsourcing companies are now expecting to maintain long term relationships with their clients. In order to accomplish this, special capabilities will be needed at the senior managerial level.

The authors have then written about the different factors which mostly involve changes in the company structure and culture, which will be needed by the companies for thriving in highly competitive international markets.

After reviewing the article, the researcher concludes that the authors have made an analysis of the existing outsourcing market. They have made a note of the capabilities that companies will require to succeed in the global market. These capabilities have been noted in accordance with the latest market trends. However, the researcher has observed that the authors have failed to provide any statistical data to substantiate the theories that have been presented in the article. Also, certain significant factors like need of sufficient skilled labor have been ignored by the authors. 

Posted on

MBA Case Study of Communication Barriers in Sainsbury’s Richmond branch

LITERATURE REVIEW 

Communication is defined as the method of conveying information along with common understanding between the persons. The term communication is coined from the Latin word where ‘communis‘ means common. The definition supports the fact that there exists no communication process sans common understanding that is arisen due to the mutual information exchange between the persons in place.

     The common ingredients in every communication process are the receiver and the sender. The sender triggers the communication process. For instance, in a school, the sender is a person who thrives to deliver a concept or an ideology. The individual to whom the message is directed is considered as the receiver. The sender while conveying the message transmits it with the support of chosen words, gestures or symbols. These words, symbols and gestures are the elements involved in the encoding process of the message.

The outcome of the encoding process results in the conveyance of a message which may be of a verbal, nonverbal or a written language form. The message is propagated through a medium or a channel that serves as a carrier to the communication process. The message received by the receiver is decoded to attain meaningful information.  Noise is the one that interrupts the message. The various forms of noise include varied perceptions of message, emotions, attitudes and language barriers. Ultimately, feedback is the response sent back to the sender by the receiver. Feedback enables the sender to understand that the message is understood and properly interpreted. 

COMMUNICATION BARRIERS 

The quality in the communication process is largely determined by the elements involved in the communication process. The more effective these elements are, the more effective is the process of communication. There are elements like the media or channel in the communication process, the sender’s body language, the receivers understanding, perception, attitudes etc. The misplacement or the ineffectiveness of these elements leads to barriers in communication process. There are four kinds of barriers in the communication process namely the process barriers, physical barriers, semantic barriers and psycho-social barriers. 

Process barriers 

Sender barrier:  A new junior manager with a novel idea hesitates to convey his idea in the meeting, chaired by the vice-president, due to fear of criticism 

 Encoding barrier: A Welsh-speaking customer cannot absorb an English-speaking service employee to understand the special offerings of a store. 

Medium barrier:  A very disgusted staff member conveying his hard feelings in a letter to the manager instead of expressing the feelings face-to-face. 

Decoding barrier: A old senior manager is unsure of what a younger junior manager meant when he referred to a employee as “spaced out”.

Receiver barrier: A manager who is conveying the operational strategy of the company to the employee asks him to repeat the statement as she was not hearing carefully to the conversation

Feedback barrier: During a strategic meeting in the organisation , employees failed to respond to the conveyed strategy by the manager making the manager wonder if proper interpretation has occurred.

Physical Barriers

                There may be some physical interruptions in the process of communication which may be anything like a telephone call, distance between people, walls, and drop-in visitors. Usually physical barriers are not taken into account seriously but they can be evaded. For instance, a wall may be a hindrance while communicating in the work space and it can be re-positioned.

Semantic Barriers

               Communication barriers are evident when we use some words in some situations which may mean different to some others. The intention of the application of the word in the situation is based on the meaning we attach to the word. This problem is said to be semantic where the same word may be understood differently by other people. The words efficiency, potentiality, enhanced productivity may mean like one thing to a manager and it may be understood differently by the staff member who may be an employee.

Psychosocial Barriers

                   Three important aspects are concerned with the psychological and social barriers. They are fields of experience, filtering and psychological distance. The general elements involved in the aspect of ‘fields of experience’ include perceptions, needs, background of people, values and expectations. The encoding process of the sender and the decoding process of the receiver occur on the premise of their fields of experience.

When the sender and receiver belong to the same fields of experience, the communication process is smooth without many barriers. Nevertheless, the communication gets difficult in the case of their fields of experiences coincide very little. Filtering refers to our emotional orientation which is tuned to see and hear what is needed and what is interested or desired. The process of filtering determines what we listen. Psychological barriers occur with respect to the psychological distance between the people than that of the usual physical distance.

Posted on

An Analysis of Communication Barriers in Customer Employee Interaction

An Analysis of Communication Barriers in Customer Employee Interaction The case of Sainsbury’s Richmond branch 

Project Background

Communication, in today’s world is the pre-requisite for the success of any organisation. Organisations are spending ample sum of money to impart communication skills for their employees in the form of training programs to make them adopt these skills as it directly reflects in the performance of the organisation. More and more emphasis has given to communication as the organizations are going global.

As the organizations are going global, they need to adopt various strategic skills to run in tune with the global environment. This has its impact on the organisational behaviour where the work force comprises of employees with diverse ethnicities with different attitudes, perceptions, attributes and these factors affect their communication skills be it oral communication skills or non-verbal communication skills. This diverse work force with different cultures and traditions may also lead to communication barriers which need to be mitigated for the successful functioning of the organisation.

These communication barriers prove as a hindrance for the employee interaction within the organisation as well as the communication between the employee and customer. Organisations are taking various measures to curb these barriers which hinder the interaction process. One of the important measures is the management of diversity. Diversity results in conflict among employees because the cultural background of the employees reflects in their organisational behaviour. Since the employees come from different backgrounds they possess their natural style of communication.

The organisations must train the employees to form a uniform communication approach so as to maintain the interaction smooth and effective with the customers or between the employees. Moreover, interpersonal skills of these employees with various backgrounds are to be nurtured to promote effective communication as interpersonal skills are part of communication skills. Effective interpersonal skills in the form of proper negotiation, customer responsiveness tend to make customers amicable with the organisation. For instance, establishments like retail stores, pubs and restaurants employee part time employees to serve the customers.

These part time employees mainly constitute student work force which come from different nationalities. This is where the practice of management of diversity is required. Management of diversity includes the identification of the communication approach of employees with various backgrounds, detection of loopholes in their communication process and training them to follow a refined communication approach in order to retain customer satisfaction. The Sainsbury retail store is taken as the case in our project which employs many part time employees which come from different nationalities.

There generally exist a communication gap between the local customers and these non local service employees as the cultural background is different. When there is a communication gap, the customer may be dissatisfied and it impacts the business outcome of the store. Customers wish to visit the store repeatedly when they were made comfortable in the store with good service and effective interaction with good customer responsiveness. Customer responsiveness is attained when there are no communication barriers between the employees and the customers. The focus of the project is to minimize these barriers and the approaches and measures taken to mitigate this problem so as to enjoy the positive implications of it.

Aim

To investigate how managers can use communication to improve the performance of part time international students at Sainsbury’s Richmond brand

Objectives

  • To assess the role communication plays in the employee-customer interaction and potential implication on customer satisfaction
  • To investigate what strategies managers can implement to improve the performance of part time international student workers.
  • To compare the customer satisfaction levels from engaging with  local employees versus engaging with  part time international student
    employees.
Posted on

MBA Literature Review on Benefits and Challenges in Global Outsourcing

In this article, the author – Subhankar Dhar primarily writes about the factors related to outsourcing which are associated with the functions of IT. The author considers high customer satisfaction to be the most significant factor related to outsourcing in the IT industry. There several constraints and risks related to outsourcing.

The claims made by researchers are the ones that decide whether global companies are at an advantage or at a disadvantage. In this article, the author writes about the various types of risks which are typically associated with outsourcing. The author also explains the relevant methods through which these risks may be eliminated. The author writes about the advantages of outsourcing and the benefits that it provides to both the companies as well as to the economies of their respective countries. The author pays special attention to the pros and cons of outsourcing.

The author states that outsourcing helps in cost reduction and suggests various outsourcing ideas which may be implemented by companies for succeeding at the global market and remaining competitive.

After reviewing this article, the researcher concludes that further study is required for understanding the need of outsourcing and the various challenges and benefits related to it.

Posted on

Change Management MBA Project

The author has written about the factors which are associated with the process of implementing a change in a company. The author states that the change may be induced due to an external or internal force. However, irrespective of the cause or need for change, it cannot be implemented unless its executed is planned well.

The author has written about each and every type of changes. Changes may be due to advancement in technology or due to a change in the nature of the business or work environment. The author also writes about the necessity of change with respect to internal factors – whether it is associated with retaining employees or with the management.  The author has categorized the changes based upon their nature – these include adaptive changes, innovative changes or radically innovative changes.

According to the author, we must create an environment to implement any type of change in the company by using methods like motivation or enforcing changes in a positive manner.  The author has created an 8 step change implementation process.  This 8 step implementation process can be used to bring about a positive change in the company. The article contains several important points which deal with change management.

Upon reviewing this article, the researcher recommends this article for those who want to implement positive changes in their organization. However, all the steps mentioned by the author should be planned and executed well as this has a significant influence on the cumulative effect of all the steps. The researcher feels that this article was very well written.

Posted on

MBA Literature Review on Internationally Outsourced IT Services

In this article, the author has used the example of an Indian software company named Infosys to illustrate the fast and lucrative progress that has been made in the field of internationally outsourced IT services. The author states that the founder of Infosys did not display much interest in making profits in the infant stages of the organisation.

The founder just wanted to focus on providing a viable IT solution. The article includes a statistical representation of the progress made by Infosys with respect to human resources as well as finances. The author states that the primary reason for Infosys’ success and popularity is the Global Delivery Model combined with a very high percentage of satisfied customers.

The author believes that it is these two factors that have been instrumental in making Infosys one of the leading IT solutions company in the world. The author also writes about what other companies can learn from Infosys’s business model and strategy.

After reviewing the article, the researcher concludes that the author only writes about the achievements of Infosys. The researcher feels that the author should have also written about the challenges faced by Infosys and how the company overcame these challenges. The article serves well to prove an overview of Infosys but it is not very detailed in nature.

The Researcher has reviewed the article and has concluded that the author has only presented the achievements of company and does not discussed the fights fought by the company to gain its reputation. Article is limited to get an overview on the company portfolio but does not presents the details about it. 

Posted on

People Skills Change Management Tools and Lewin’s Change Model Literature Review

In this article, the author writes about the importance of changes. The author is of the opinion that the 3 steps Lewin’s change model is ideal for conducting the alterations in the work methods or in the environment of work. According to the author, the most significant part is to untying the existing situation if companies seek to implement changes in the business.

The author has also written about the significance of skilled labor which is absolutely essential for implementation of changes in the organisation. The author strongly feels that a specific skill set is needed to implement the desired changes in the company. The author also suggests that creating a positive work environment will make the changes easier and smoother. 

In the discussion of the various steps mentioned by the author, the first step is the process of busting the barriers that are antagonising the implementation of the desired changes. The other two steps are as follows – the second step of Lewin’s model is altering the working agents and the final step involves active participation in the work and with the employees of the company by installing, testing, debugging, measuring and enhancing the new system implemented by the company.

After reviewing the article, the researcher concludes that the author suggest a 3 step change implementation process. However, further analysis will be required to test the practical feasibility of the 3 step process suggested by the author.

The Researcher has reviewed the article and concluded that the author has explained his article on three defined steps and had explained the ways of implementing them in practical situation. Further detailed study is required for finding the practical results of these methods.

Posted on

HR Seminar Topic on Organizational Change

In this article, the author discusses the change that companies require. It is important to ensure to that each and every person associated with the company studies and assimilates the refinement which is essential for the process of change. The author also offers a thorough description of all the aspects and factors that trigger business trends.

The author also writes about the various strategies implemented and about the management tools which are utilized for staying competitive in the market. The author provides a clear explanation of the various factors that are associated in organizational changes. He attempts to help us to recognize the various stages of the process.

The author provides an explanation on the requirement and the benefits of the alterations by exemplifying 3 separate models which are- the Lewin change model, Kotter Change Model and finally, the Lussier Change Model. The author also helps the reader to understand the culture of the company and the progress which is associated with it. The author writes about the attributes which are part of in the company culture, atmosphere and progress.

The author also proves an explanation regarding the various aspects of company culture and climate. The author explains the external and internal forces which bring about changes in the organization. Hence, the author suggests that it is better to be aware of these forces – this enables the organization to function and develop without problems.

The researcher concludes that the author has described the advantages and disadvantages of organizational change in a very efficient manner. However, the researcher feels that more illustrations will make the article more comprehensive. The Researchers feel that the author has a done a good work by describing the pros and the cons of the organizational change. After reviewing the document, they feel that adding more illustrations would give a clear picture of the article