Contemporary theories of management
Discuss how Perceptual Errors, Attributions and Biases are Important in Managerial Decisions.
The chosen topic for essay covers the importance of perceptual errors, attributions and biases in the managerial decisions. It is of primary importance to understand the different terms as used in the essay topic. Perceptual errors in context to managerial decisions mean making up the perceptions built upon the information which may or may not be true. However, managers proceed with such assumptions just to handle the situation appropriately. Attributions are a set of behaviours which are used to explain an action. Managers use different attributes and prevent them from making direct comments. Biases express the inclination of managers for or against a person or group. The way managers follow to be biased may be considered unfair (Reamer 2015). The study answers the essay topic which considers perceptual errors, attributions and biases as important for contemporary managers for making the decisions. The study compares the contemporary theories of management with the management practices to identify the needs to go away from the theoretical beliefs if at all there is any such deviation. Moreover, the study also recommends a few considerations for future for the managers and the learner being in the managerial position.
Contemporary theories of management: Contingency theory is one of the contemporary theories of management that gives or speaks of the insight of managers. The theory governs a fact that managers must have the qualities to adapt to the different circumstances and make the decisions accordingly. It means that managers need to exhibit the suitable leadership styles according to the workforce they are working with (Dickmann, Brewster and Sparrow 2016). Hence, in the light of the theory, it can be governed that it is advisable to use the autocratic style while leading employees in China and the Persian Gulf. Participative leadership style for managers leading a hospital or a hotel should be the highly preferred choice. The theory also means that managers must have the capability to adjust to the different situations. Hence, there is a need for multi-leadership traits in managers.
Systems theory can be defined as the schools of thought that support a multidimensional approach for managers. The traditional managers had their tendency to be confined to just one part of the operation while not caring for the others. However, systems theory advocates having concerns for more than just one part. This means the managerial decisions must not be confined just to one department but, it should also have an understanding of the interrelated departments (Liu and Stening 2016). For example, managers must be able to coordinate with the different HODs and must also understand the area of expertise which each department deals with. In this way, managers will be able to have an effective understanding of the different departments and their requirement for resources.
Systems theory
Chaos theory states that system goes towards a much complex stage. The systems naturally go to the complexity and consequently, produce the more structural changes within the organization. The structural changes are required also to cope with the increasing complexity at the organizational level. For example, business needs to consider a structural change while going for a new venture. This is required because the existing organizational structure may not be feasible for the new markets. Additionally, the startup of a new venture also means that ‘systems’ is becoming more complex due to the added requirements of resources to support the new ventures (Pinnington et al. 2015).
Contingency theory when applied to the workplace produces a few very important managerial behaviours that also include their inability to cope with the cultural differences. Managers are found as struggling to adapt to the business cultures in the foreign countries. There are evident differences among the countries in terms of business cultures as stated by Hofstede, Lewis and others (Taylor, Doherty and McGraw 2015). Such differences are often the issues for the expatriate managers when they are sent to a distinguished culture for a significant period of time. Challenges can be bigger while dealing with a highly contrasting culture such as an Australian manager being sent to Japan. In Australia, there are no needs for formalities while interacting with employees as according to Hofstede, the power distance is comparatively low in Australia. However, managers in Japan must organize a meeting for interacting with employees. The customs and the work beliefs do also vary in different countries. Australians are very casual when they are at work whereas Japanese cannot as stated by Hofstede (Cappelli and Keller 2014). These are the few differences which speak of the challenges the expatriate managers can have. Therefore, many organizational and employee behavior can be outlined based on the application of contingency theory. Some of the organisational and employee behaviour include but is not limited to such as work styles, the management-employee relations and others.
Systems theory when applied to the managerial roles, it produces a few important points like managers must have the capabilities to deal with the interrelated departments. The contemporary organization is like the systems having interrelated departments. Managers have an understanding of the different interrelated departments in order to be much more effective. Managers must have the understanding of the ‘interrelated systems’. However, contemporary managers do not actually possess the required skills. In some cases, they do not even belong to the industry which they are currently a part of. They are selected just on the basis of their sheer experience in some other industries (Vaiman, Haslberger and Vance 2015). For example, executives being experienced in customer care centers are also sometimes preferred in jobs where managers are needed to involve a lot in the coordinating activities. They may be suitable to hospitality industry or the supermarket industry. However, such managers may not necessarily have the competency which is required to serve as the manager in the hospitality industry. Such circumstances will not allow managers making the effective decisions as they will depend on the information provided by the respective departments.
Chaos theory
The application of Chaos theory suggests a few findings such as there will be structural changes in response to the system complexity. System complexity is a natural process which will always be there in contemporary organizations. Hence, the contemporary managers must have the capability to deal with organizational restructuring (Jones et al. 2015). However, on a broader aspect, the contemporary managers sometimes struggle to identify the best feasible structure to respond to the increased organizational complexity. There are a number of organizational structures and it is indeed difficult to identify the best feasible and situational specific structure (Jones et al. 2015).
The contemporary managers face the loads of challenges which can be understood from the various organizational issues. Some of the critical issues are workplace diversity, employee motivation and others. The contemporary managers often find these it challenging to effectively manage these issues. In such cases, the various theoretical perspectives can really help managers in managing these challenges. Some of these theories are the Institutional theory of Diversity Management, Resource-Based Theory of Diversity Management and others (Ferlie and Ongaro 2015). Such theories must be effectively implemented to enable the future managers for managing the various workplace challenges. This will also help the learner in pursuing the role of a future manager while effectively managing the teams. However, before moving on to find the best strategies for managers, it is imperative to understand the area which the mentioned theories cover. This will help to find the best-recommended strategies for the future managers and also for the learner.
Institutional Theory of Diversity Management states that it is mandatory for an organization to understand the diverse organizational behavior, the social work environment found in the workplace and others. There are certain norms, policies, rules and regulations to control the wrongdoings and guide the employee to the organisational goals. Such norms, policies and everything is a must for operation and managers are critical to such practices. Hence, the theory governs the institutional guidelines for managers and the employees (Van Dooren, Bouckaert and Halligan 2015). Such guidelines are the collective efforts of the human resource management who are responsible for the designing. They do it through effectively adhering to suitable legislative guidelines and principles (Van Dooren, Bouckaert and Halligan 2015).
Resource-Based Theory of Diversity Management governs the presence of four resources which are integral to organizations. Those resources are human resources, capital resources, financial resources and corporate capital resources. Every single mentioned resource is critical to the success. On the other hand, such resources can also be the causes of failures if not being handled appropriately. Of all the resources, human resources are very critical and other resources are interrelated with it in some ways. Managers often find this challenging to manage the human capital (Van Niekerk 2017). This is due to a variety of reasons like the workplace diversity. The workplace diversity is further due to several of factors such as gender and generational based differences. Gender-based differences require a cautious attempt of managers, so that, no biases happen at the workplace. In a similar note, generational differences do also require a managerial or leadership trait to control the generational based conflicts. This is rather a bigger problem than the gender-based differences because at the most basic level there exist the three different kinds of generations such as Millennials, Boomers and Baby Boomers. The three different generations have a different way of working and are dissimilar to each other in work cultures. For example, Baby Boomers in most cases are very prone to change management. They are sufficient enough to adjust to it. However, Boomers are mainly resistive to such change due to a fact that they have very limited time left of their service and seem like spending those few time with no more tensions and hard works. Millennials, on the other hand, are also resistive to change because they are hardly settled with the job and are in regular hunt of a better opportunity. Hence, change process appear as meaningless to them (Becton, Walker and Jones?Farmer 2014).
Organizational and Employee behavior based on Contingency Theory
Few of the human capital management related issues have been discussed in the aforesaid sections; hence, it is of significant importance that the future managers or the learner have the effective measure of strategies to mitigate the challenges. The change process is of immense importance considering a fact that organizational restructuring is a continuous process for countering the rising challenges and attaining the required competency (Gambardella, Panico and Valentini 2015).
Considering the immense challenges for future managers and for the learner, some recommendation can be effectively beneficial. Managers must consider the rotation of jobs as this will allow employees acquainting with the different responsibilities. This will also give an option to managers which they can use in managing the leaves of employees. This means they will not suffer in absence of employees and will have the sufficient workforce to take care of the work. Rotation of job also means employees getting opportunities to work at different positions; hence, in another way, they are getting equipped with the diverse skills. Moreover, such strategy as discussed earlier will create the bench strength for managers which will help them during the times when they are short of sufficient workforce.
Providing the frequent feedback session will also be the key to managerial roles in future. Feedback sessions are not just confined to escalating the weaknesses but also provide opportunities for managers and employees to understand each other. Hence, managers will get sufficient opportunity to understand employees and also be able to diagnose a bests program to repair any issue, if it is there. The frequent training program will also be a key role of future managers as such programs are the good opportunities to train employees in the identified areas.
Therefore, in the light of the different theories that have been discussed in this study, it can be said that future managers will need to find ways to cope with the diverse workforce. They have challenges in the form of various organizational resources such as the human capital management. Human capital management is challenging due to gender and generational based gaps. Such challenges need a strong counter from the future managers. The counter will be the rotation of jobs, frequent feedback sessions and the training program.
References
Becton, J.B., Walker, H.J. and Jones?Farmer, A., 2014. Generational differences in workplace behavior. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 44(3), pp.175-189.
Cappelli, P. and Keller, J.R., 2014. Talent management: Conceptual approaches and practical challenges. Annu. Rev. Organ. Psychol. Organ. Behav., 1(1), pp.305-331.
Dickmann, M., Brewster, C. and Sparrow, P. eds., 2016. International Human Resource Management: Contemporary HR Issues in Europe. Routledge.
Ferlie, E. and Ongaro, E., 2015. Strategic management in public services organizations: Concepts, schools and contemporary issues. Routledge.
Gambardella, A., Panico, C. and Valentini, G., 2015. Strategic incentives to human capital. Strategic Management Journal, 36(1), pp.37-52.
Jones, M., Adams, D., Hwee Joo, M.T., Muniandy, V., Perera, C.J. and Harris, A., 2015. Contemporary challenges and changes: principals’ leadership practices in Malaysia. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 35(3), pp.353-365.
Liu, T.Q. and Stening, B.W., 2016. The contextualization and de-contextualization of Confucian morality: Making Confucianism relevant to China’s contemporary challenges in business ethics. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 33(3), pp.821-841.
Pinnington, A., Alshamsi, A., Karatas-Ozkan, M., Nicolopoulou, K., Ozbilgin, M., Tatli, A. and Vassilopoulou, J., 2015. Early organizational diffusion of contemporary policies: Narratives of sustainability and Talent management. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 213, pp.807-811.
Reamer, F.G., 2015. Clinical social work in a digital environment: Ethical and risk-management challenges. Clinical Social Work Journal, 43(2), pp.120-132.
Taylor, T., Doherty, A. and McGraw, P., 2015. Managing people in sport organizations: A strategic human resource management perspective. Routledge.
Vaiman, V., Haslberger, A. and Vance, C.M., 2015. Recognizing the important role of self-initiated expatriates in effective global talent management. Human Resource Management Review, 25(3), pp.280-286.
Van Dooren, W., Bouckaert, G. and Halligan, J., 2015. Performance management in the public sector. Routledge.
Van Niekerk, M., 2017. Contemporary issues in events, festivals and destination management. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 29(3), pp.842-847
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