Literature Review
This competitive business environment in present scenario raises the managerial role in an organization as due to various dynamic aspects affecting the business from different perspectives. Manager implications are now changed from the traditional way of operations to be work as a leader, communicator, recruiter, entrepreneur and many other transformational changes (Maria, 2010).
In this report, the company Samsung is taken for the research so as to find out all the significant roles and responsibilities of managers including the challenges they are facing. Samsung is a multinational company serving worldwide. It is diversified into many fields such as Apparel, chemicals, automotive, electronic components and many more (Khanna & Yafeh, 2007). The research is done here to find out many differentiated roles of the managers and thus for the support of the findings, many journals and articles were also critically reviewed. This information can be very helpful for the public as well as the stakeholders for taking various necessary actions and decision.
This dynamic business environment makes the manager’s role diversified and also make them aware that they need to integrate all the managerial operation in an effective way in aligning with the organization goals so that to get most out of the organizations. This will also help them in developing their skills and abilities for future perspectives.
In this section, various journal and articles are critically reviewed so that to gain necessary and related insights about the management practices in an organization. As a big multinational, company operations are divided in to certain chain and lines, which need to be addressed by the managers with a constant focus so as to get a competitive edge in the industry.
According to Rahimli (2012), to achieve sustainable competitive advantage, a manager in an organization need to realize how to create, distribute and utilize in an effective manner and how all it is attached to the organizational process. In addition, the manager should also need to be aware of what kind of knowledge they are seeking to enhance the organization activity and getting a competitive advantage. The author also criticized various aspects in the literature such as knowledge management, knowledge strategies, organization competencies, managerial roles and various other issues. Samsung can also analyse their management competencies and roles and relate it with the knowledge management so as to gain more information about the managerial issues.
A manager is a key person in an organization and there are some particular typologies of managerial roles, which need to be considered as different criteria (Kozina, 2014). Such concept aims at providing the analysis and conducting of business negotiations with effective support. The managers in an organization are just like a compass, which helps in finding out right direction. Most of the organization runs wells from a long period of time as the managers know the importance what it means top run an organization. They have to maintain a discipline in their attitude towards the organization and cop up with challenges by taking out proactive role.
About the Company
According to Rao (2013), in today’s competitive scenario, organization will have to reorient themselves to meet out new challenges. In the operations of managers, O.B plays as a vital discipline in the functioning of the business firm. In addition, the role of the manager has been diversified as per the changing world environment, environment challenges and emerging challenge of organizational behaviour. Apart from the selling and marketing concept, the manager role is also moving towards managing interpersonal relations in an organization. This makes them work towards the achievement of organizational objectives including their specific goals.
As per Iona (2015), the management practices are linked with the productivity and performance of the company. It is also an integration force of activities carried out in an organization. In these activities, manager plays a decisive role in all the management process by setting up of goals, plans, and organizing the various other activities so that to motivate the individuals as well as monitors the important activities. In his paper, there is a multi-disciplinary review of the various evidence and relationships related to the managers’ implications. The focus of the author is also on the operation management and Human resource management as it is directly related to the roles of a manager in the organization. In particular, for a multi-level approach from the lowest possible level of aggregation up to the firm-level of analysis in order to measure the influence of management practices upon the productivity of the firms.
Therefore, it can be said that various management practices are crucial for the organization related to its mission and objective. As managers, one individual needs to take actions proactively so that the business firm can gain competitive edge in the market. In addition, the managers’ role and responsibilities are further increasing and diversifying with the rise in competition and this bring several challenges also.
Samsung has been making efforts from a long period of time in serving the world with export trade, technology development and social contribution for the 64 years. The company was founded in 1938 and from that time, Samsung is continuously re-organizing its business by focusing on various industries such as banking, information technology, electronics and service industries.
The company vision is to lead the digital convergence movement. This can be done by developing innovative technologies so that to enrich the people lives. They also want to become a global leader in the 21st century. Samsung grew into a global corporation by facing challenges directly. However, the company has invested huge capital in their R&D department due to which there are constantly make innovation in the field of technology.
Operations
In the second quarter of 2018, Samsung Electronics recorded a revenue of around 68.48 trillion South Korean won, which is approximately equal to 52 billion U.S. dollars. In addition, their offices are in sex of the seven continents across many countries and it also has many subsidiaries around the world (Khanna & Yafeh, 2007).
In any type of organization whether business, government or other organization, manager plays a pivot role by taking of wide range of business responsibilities depending upon the nature and size of the company. Samsung is a multinational company diversified into various areas and for each area, the role of the manager is also segregated.
Samsung Company is typically enshrined in a formal delegation of authority (Mo, Seok, Jin , Soo & Chae, 2007). However, with the changing environment and the increasing competition, in some areas, the responsibilities are decentralised as a director, decision maker, leader, and executor. The manager at the company presides over the day-to-day operations in the company.
The primary responsibility of the manager in the company includes improving the operational systems, processes and policies in support of the organization mission that is inspiring the world with their innovative technologies, product, and design that will enrich the lives of the people and contribute to the social prosperity by forming a new future. In Samsung, every department is interlinked with the other department, every policy is based on their vision and it the task of the manager to choose an effective process that helps the company in achieving its vision. This means the managers create series of steps, which is also called as mission, and it also further divided into objectives allocated to each employee, staff and worker (Lunenburg, 2011). The manager also needs to coordinate this process in an effective manner. The manager at Samsung also has to support for the better management reporting, information flow and management, business process and organizational planning. The manager duty is not to end at directing oneself or groups but he needs to create an efficient platform on which everyone connected to another with some nodes leading to information flow in the right direction. This also includes getting suggestion from employees related to any project planning and forwarding it to the senior executives for the purpose of any action.
For ensuring continuous growth of the company, the manager also significant role in long-term planning which includes initiatives geared towards operational excellence. For completing this long term planning, the manager continuously scans the business environment and tries to differentiate various threats and opportunities to gain sustainable competitive advantage. For example, the managers found that implementing AI systems in their systems will save much labour cost and time and it can be used at other places (Wu & Pagell, 2011). These suggestions were also given to the senior executives and thus few years back Samsung started venture for the AI investment in the start-ups. This also makes the company to be updated with the latest technology in the industry and also called converting the threats into opportunities (Dane & Pratt, 2007).
Other roles of the manager in Samsung include developments of individual program budgets. For this purpose, managers allocate different size of budgets to different department such as one budget is allocated to the HR team for the purpose of training and development, one budget is allocated to the marketing team for doing sales promotion, and moreover this need to be sanction from the upper management of the company. Before allocating the budget, the manager also verifies and confirms it from the finance department so that later on no issue can be pertained relating to this. This individual programme budgets also made while focusing on the previously made budgets as this can help the management in relation to research.
The manager increases the effectiveness and efficiency of the support services in an organization such as HR, IT and Finance. This can made by him with the help of effective communication, coordination and support between various business functions. Moreover, this formulation of bridge needs continuous monitoring from various other departments as it deals with many aspects of their business function (Tjosvold, 2008). Therefore, there is a matrix hierarchy followed between departments. In this structure, a manager confirms that there will be multiple reporting lines so that to make balanced decision-making with lot of flexibility (Danilovic & Browning, 2007). For example, employees can communication to his project team leader or directly to the manager for resolving any query. This makes the employee to fulfilling it conflicting responsibility.
In last, the manager drives various initiatives in the management team so that to bring long-term operational excellence. These initiatives include increasing target from the previous one, changing role of every employee so that he/she achieve organizational goal before their personal specific goals. Bridging and rotating different culture employees together to create new set of ideas on the table (Ernst & Yip, 2008).
This explains that the managerial role is now diversifying continuously and in big multinationals and internationals organization, there is a huge transformation in the managerial implications.
In addition, there are some challenges also faced by these managers in the global environment (Hershatter & Epstein, 2010). These challenges come in the form of globalization, sustainability, ethical conduct, ineffective communication and system design. The first challenges faced by them come in the form of globalization states as interaction and integration of the people, companies, government of different countries (Langley, Smallman, Tsoukas & Van, 2013). The managers in Samsung face competition from the other countries as well as across the street. This has a direct impact over the manager planning, organizing, leading and controlling so as to make the company more competitive in the market. For example, during the course of festivals, the manager at Samsung needs to divide the work for effective advertising, which includes message, slogan and jingles. However, this needs to be done by the advertising team but the whole responsible is on the manager as he continuously needs to focus on providing necessary resource to the team on a timely basis (Malmi & Brown, 2008).
The next problem is related to the sustainability which states that a business needs to maintain its existing practice without putting the future resource at risks. This concept also based on the three pillars. The managers face various challenges while implementing these best practices in their business. Sometimes they got confused while allocating resources between two teams and need to prioritize for an outcome (Schuler, Jackson & Tarique, 2011). The next big challenge they face while maintaining the ethical conduct at a workplace. Business ethics is related with ensuring that the production function and activities are not damaging to either the consumer or society. Unethical behaviour has significantly contributed to the demise of Successful Corporation like Tyco, Enron and many other firms. The culture at Samsung is not backed by sound ethical conduct, which creates a problem for the manager to maintain sustainable ethical conduct at a workplace. This also affects all other business functions such as marketing and sales, resource management, accounting, and production that are under the eye of the manager (Payne, Moore, Griffis & Autry, 2011).
One of the major problems faces by the managers in Samsung is effective communication. The managers are not effectively permissible to contact with all internal and external stakeholders. This decreased their morale and also impact their business functioning. This also put a stop to the flexibility given to them in the course of management. The managers face this issue from a long period of time and as per their views, for taking effective decisions, the contact of them with various stakeholders is important as this will gives them various insights in different perspectives. The last challenge that the managers are facing is the system design, which is related to the key issues in Operations. In an organization, the system must be capable of producing quality goods and services in an acceptable period. Managers face various challenges at the time of designing, planning and managing the whole system. In Samsung, managers work in multi-disciplinary environment, which creates the needs of more effort to other areas outside the boundaries.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Managerial role is more complex in a multinational company as it is backed by several business process and functions. These managers are bound in the organization framework and the government policies. Samsung is a multinational company and serving in many countries. These countries have different cultures and religions and mangers need to deal with it in any situations.
With these operations and managerial implications, there are some challenges also which need to be considered by the manager in a timely manner. These challenges have a direct impact on short and long term planning framed by the managers. The above mentioned challenges can be effectively eliminated if the manager focuses on extensive research of each aspect. For dealing with globalization issues, the manager can tap into creative and innovative techniques to remain competitive in the market. This is also called as key factor to success. Considering all the three pillars of sustainability, the manager at Samsung can find the outcome of each of three pillars. To maintain adequate ethical conduct, the managers can analyse and implement the best human resource management practices in Samsung. This will automatically solve the problem of system design as it is connected with all these issues.
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