Decision-making Tools, Data Sources, And Systems For Sustainable Outcomes

Main Context

The companies are slowly applying new and innovative methods in order to bring different groups of people in the fast-changing business world. To face the fast-changing business world, the companies have adopted some methods to adapt to the changes. One of the methods the companies have chosen to minimize globalization is that they are on the way of creating virtual teams. A virtual team is that team which generally signifies to a group of people those who work together from various geographic sites and depends mainly on communication technology like email, video conferencing, voice services and Fax in order to collaborate with different members of the team.

Discussion of Scenario A

A medium-sized Australian company, with the total number of staffs estimated to be 800 has been taken in Scenario A.  Out of 800 employees, 80 staffs are associated in the works of research, development, and design (R, D & D). The company is actively determined about recognizing the innovative or creative skills of their RD&D staffs and utilize their talents to bring changes in their business, which would differ from their rival companies. The company has planned for a project to carry on the research on the innovative or creative skills of R, D & D team, which are held implicitly by the employees while helping for unstructured communication (Balleer, Gehrke, Lechthaler & Merkl, 2016).  It had been seen that implicit data could be best retrieved and developed into knowledge by accessing the email-based communication among the RD&D employees. The emails of RD&D employees, their direction and rates of connectivity has been drawn consequently for a period of one week. The findings of this research audit have been accessed on the map of R, D & D, which had been made on the basis of unstructured data and had been included in the emails of the RD&D employees of the company.

Each staff and the workstation which has been logged in by them are recognized by the map of R, D & D. The rates of connectivity are indicated through lines joining various nodes and the intensity and direction of traffic are shown through the lines linking into or out of nodes. The project has to understand the map and the decisions made which has been brought together for discussing the content and join together in creating implicit unstructured data based on the explicit emails. Hence, it would be right for the company for utilizing it. Many meeting rooms would be provided to the staffs of the RD&D team, besides a facilitator, visual aids and a group decision support system, so that they could join and analyze the outputs of the meeting room.  A group-based communication technology system can be implemented by the project in order to support the meetings between the teams and help them to create implicit data or explicit information (Bhattacharyya, 2015). The resources accessible in each meeting room will assist the group tasks and make sure that each member of the group has better alliances with each other, and also with those teams which are in different meeting rooms for making explicit information.   

Discussion of Scenario B

The following table illustrates the clusters and nodes of six employees of R, D & D team recognized in each cluster:

The following table demonstrates the key members of clusters those who have been chosen for the meetings:

In data analytics, there is generally extensive information which is the same as one another. Thus the clusters are arranged with the same characteristics in each cluster. In order to recognize the nodes in the information, some statistical methods are utilized which are known as clustering methods (Bolin, 2014). The technique utilized for choosing clusters, in this case, is hierarchical clustering, where the end-point has a collection of clusters, and each cluster is far away from each other, and the nodes in each cluster are highly connected to one another.   In order to select the essential members for attending the meeting and carry on the research analysis, a minimum connection has been used. The hierarchical clustering is the most useful process of grouping. Hierarchical clustering has the benefit that any sufficient degree of distance could be utilized. In reality, the interpretations themselves are not compulsory, and only a medium of gaps are utilized.

By recognizing the innovative or creative skills of the staffs of the RD&D team and utilizing their skills to differentiate their business, the nodes have been chosen, which would separate them from their rival companies. The capabilities of the staffs include those implicit data, which could be best retrieved and developed into knowledge by accessing the email-based communication among the RD&D employees (Bryce, Flintsch & Hall, 2014).  A group-based communication technology system can be implemented by the project in order to support the meetings between the teams and help them to create implicit data or explicit information. This was the basis of choosing the key members of the meetings in the organization.

As the dangling nodes are those lines which indicate that each node is not joined with each other nodes, so the dangling nodes have not been included in the research analysis. Some gaps take place in the cluster where two nodes have to be joined.  It is implemented to remove nodes from the cluster (Cabantous & Gond, 2015). As no nodes have been removed in this case, and each node is joined with each other, so the dangling nodes have not been involved in the analysis.

As the unconnected nodes help to recognize the staffs of R, D & D team, the unconnected nodes have been included in the clusters as they create a more direct process for them. The unconnected nodes represent the key members those who are not involved in the R, D & D team. As the task is to choose the key members for the meeting, so in this case, it is essential to include them, as they will make their work easier, though unconnected nodes are not required in most cases (Cairns, Goodwin & Wright, 2016).

Clustering does not utilize any target, and it is useful for finding information.  The aim of grouping is to divide the nodes into some groups so that the nodes in the same groups are more same with other nodes in the same group than in other groups (Cao, Duan & Li, 2015).  The clusters which are joined with one another will make the process easier. The two R, D & D employees like the research members and research advisors are chosen, as both are close with one another and their tasks are also connected with each other. Hence, they have been chosen for attending the meeting. Many meeting rooms would be provided to the staffs of the RD&D team, besides a facilitator, visual aids and a group decision support system, so that they could join and analyze the outputs of the meeting room.   

A full service-based company of Australia has been taken in Scenario B, and the headquarters of this company is situated in Melbourne of Australia. The estimated service employees of the company are nearly 200, along with ten service centers and all of the reports to the managers who are 40 in numbers.  The company is highly interested in determining their service support levels held by the staff members. The company has started a project in order to carry on their business and observe the responsibilities of the servicepersons and also recognize the perceived help given by the management. Lots of telephonic interviews, as well as face-to-face interviews, has been done among the management and the field employees and the results of the meetings was recorded. The recordings of the individuals have been recorded in the interviews by Leximancer concept map, which is a qualitative analysis tool and helps to make sense of the vast amount of information (Eberlein, Abbott, Black, Meidinger & Wood, 2014).

In this scenario, Leximancer concept map shows the result by arranging a vast amount of qualitative information from unstructured interviews held with staffs across the wide service-based company of Australia. The map shows six themes, and they are management, customer, and communication, focused, open and results. Each concept balloon is joined with other concept balloons, signifying that all the concept balloons have some links with each other in running the business (Sroka & L?rinczy, 2015). The communication concept balloon has two components, work, and team. It illustrates that both group and work are joined with communication so that the jobs are systematically carried out. The map also presents that all the concept balloons that are the management, customer, open and results are all joined with the communication concept balloon (Leppäaho, Plakoyiannaki & Dimitratos, 2016). So, it is proved that communication has an essential role as it is a significant tool for creating a successful business. The interaction between the employees is necessary for all the companies to perform better and achieve their targets.

The field service employees have communicated with each other in open communication, with the help of emails, face-to-face contact, interactions during training, and utilizing easy words and body language. All these aspects have helped the company to take correct decisions, run their business effectively and improve their performance and enhance their output (Mastorakis & Siskos, 2016).

 The field services employees communicate with the management team and other members of the group within the company. The communication is fully connected with the business developments in order to achieve the goal of the company.

It has been noticed that there is no high level of communication between the managers and the clients, as the clients generally interact with the employees about their demands. So, there is a low level of communication between the managers and the customers.

The support availability is vital for running the business within the company. It also provides technical support to the clients according to their demands (Michailidou, Vlachokostas & Moussiopoulos, 2016).  The Leximancer concept map has shown a high level of support to the customers.

The field employees and the management has established open communication between them (Schaltegger, Lüdeke-Freund & Hansen, 2016). The management and the field employees openly interact about the main problems of the organization and take correct decisions for the benefit of the company.  

The nature of results of communication by the field employees is on the basis of effective communication (Razavi, Einafshar & Sassani, 2015). Effective communication helps to improve the performance of the employees and also helps to reach the goals of the company.

The managers play an essential role in communicating results so they could conduct their primary functions of management like planning, leading, organizing and managing. Communication helps the managers to carry on their works and duties.

It has been observed by utilizing the results of the analysis, that the managers are not adequately facing the customer to introduce an incentive payment system for the clients. It is because the managers are not well equipped with adequate funding capacity to provide an incentive payment system to its clients (Müller, Schmiedel, Gorbacheva & Vom Brocke, 2016).

The results of the analysis demo state that despite many difficulties, both the managers and the field employees are working together to reach to their customers and fulfill their needs. Both are equally significant for the company to run the business effectively (Morton, Keisler & Salo, 2016).

• It is strongly recommended to the managers of the company to control the communication between management and employees. Scenario A has highlighted the interaction between the employees for attending the meeting those who have innovation or creative skills. All the clusters have been chosen by analyzing the fact that the nodes are a closer connection with each other. By utilizing the clustering method, the company could execute the procedure of choosing the key members those who have attended the meeting. The soft clustering method could be selected to place all the information in a single node which would recognize the key members for the meeting.  
• It is highly recommended there must be a good connection between the company and the management according to the concepts of the Leximancer concept map. It is essential to create a good relationship among the customer and the company, as communication with the management plays a significant function for successful business strategies. It also shows a strong connection among the customer, communication, management, and field staff.

Conclusion 

Two scenarios, Scenario A and Scenario B, had been evaluated in the paper. Scenario A discusses about the clustering process, and Scenario B presents the Leximancer concept map. The virtual teams are significant in the current business world for better performance of the company. The virtual team management plays the primary role when the remote workforces have to be managed by the efforts and time. The virtual employees have a direct impact on the decisions made by the management of the company. This is necessary for the managers to use the tool effectively and take appropriate arrangements with the skills of change management. The managers have to maintain good relationships with the other employees for executing their business.

References 

Balleer, A., Gehrke, B., Lechthaler, W., & Merkl, C. (2016). Does short-time work save jobs? A business cycle analysis. European Economic Review, 84, 99-122.

Bhattacharyya, S. C. (2015). Mini-grid based electrification in Bangladesh: Technical configuration and business analysis. Renewable Energy, 75, 745-761.

Bolin, J. H. (2014). Introduction to Mediation, Moderation, and Conditional Process Analysis: A Regression?Based Approach. New York, NY: The Guilford Press. Journal of Educational Measurement, 51(3), 335-337.

Bryce, J. M., Flintsch, G., & Hall, R. P. (2014). A multi criteria decision analysis technique for including environmental impacts in sustainable infrastructure management business practices. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 32, 435-445.

Cabantous, L., & Gond, J. P. (2015). The resistible rise of Bayesian thinking in management: Historical lessons from Decision Analysis. Journal of Management, 41(2), 441-470.

Cairns, G., Goodwin, P., & Wright, G. (2016). A decision-analysis-based framework for analyzing stakeholder behavior in scenario planning. European Journal of Operational Research, 249(3), 1050-1062.

Cao, G., Duan, Y., & Li, G. (2015). Linking business analytics to decision making effectiveness: a path model analysis. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 62(3), 384-395.

Eberlein, B., Abbott, K. W., Black, J., Meidinger, E., & Wood, S. (2014). Transnational business governance interactions: Conceptualization and framework for analysis. Regulation & Governance, 8(1), 1-21.

Leppäaho, T., Plakoyiannaki, E., & Dimitratos, P. (2016). The case study in family business: An analysis of current research practices and recommendations. Family Business Review, 29(2), 159-173.

Mastorakis, K., & Siskos, E. (2016). Value focused pharmaceutical strategy determination with multicriteria decision analysis techniques. Omega, 59, 84-96.

Michailidou, A. V., Vlachokostas, C., & Moussiopoulos, Ν. (2016). Interactions between climate change and the tourism sector: Multiple-criteria decision analysis to assess mitigation and adaptation options in tourism areas. Tourism Management, 55, 1-12.

Morton, A., Keisler, J. M., & Salo, A. (2016). Multicriteria portfolio decision analysis for project selection. In Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (pp. 1269-1298). Springer, New York, NY.

Müller, O., Schmiedel, T., Gorbacheva, E., & Vom Brocke, J. (2016). Towards a typology of business process management professionals: identifying patterns of competences through latent semantic analysis. Enterprise Information Systems, 10(1), 50-80.

Razavi, B., Einafshar, A., & Sassani, F. (2015). Decision analysis model for optimal aircraft engine maintenance policies using discrete event simulation. In Integrated Systems: Innovations and Applications (pp. 69-87). Springer, Cham.

Schaltegger, S., Lüdeke-Freund, F., & Hansen, E. G. (2016). Business models for sustainability: A co-evolutionary analysis of sustainable entrepreneurship, innovation, and transformation. Organization & Environment, 29(3), 264-289.

Sroka, W., & L?rinczy, M. (2015). The perception of ethics in business: Analysis of research results. Procedia Economics and Finance, 34, 156-163.

Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:

Turnitin Report

Formatting

Title Page

Citation

Outline

Place an Order