Problems with Management Control Systems

Despite of the benefits, there are some issues with the implementation of management control system in an organization.They are: Magnitude of Change. Management control system is designed to cope with changes of a limited magnitude. While designing the control system certain as assumptions are made concerning the variables expected to change and the degree of change. Corrective actions are decided on the basis of-these-assumptions. For example, overtime may be decided on the assumption that five per cent of the employees will on an average be absent. When the magnitude of change is too high, the corrective action cannot work. For example, if 90 per cent of the employees remain absent, on a particular day due to a strike, management can do little to correct the change. Thus, the control system fails when the variables go outside the range, which the system was designed to handle. Time Rate of Change. Control Continue reading

Management Control in Services Organizations

The type of control which would be suitable for a particular firm depends upon the nature and complexities of its operations. A suitable control system has to be designed to suit the specific requirements of a particular firm. Service organizations are those organizations that provide intangible services. Service organizations include hotels, restaurants, and other lodging and eating establishments; barbershops, beauty parlors and other personal service; repair services; motion picture, television and other amusement and recreation services; legal services; and accounting, engineering, research/development, architecture and other professional service organizations. Characteristics of Service Organizations 1. Absence of Inventory: Services cannot be stored. If the services available today are not sold today, the revenue from these services is lost forever. In addition the resources available for sale in many service organizations are essentially fixed in the short run. A key variable in most service organizations therefore is the extent to which current capacity Continue reading

Features of Management By Objectives (MBO)

Management by Objectives (MBO) was first popularized by Peter Drucker in 1954 book ‘The Practice of Management’. Drucker drafted MBOs as an approach to get the management and employees to jointly set goals to achieve known as objectives. The main purpose for setting objectives was to give both the managers and employees a clear understanding of what they were expected to do in the organization in order to achieve the objectives set. The objectives were set during certain time periods which at the end of the period to evaluative performances are carried out to determine the extent to which the set objectives had been achieved. An example of an objective includes attaining a sales or profit target by the end of a financial year. In the modern world of business where gaining competitive over competitors has became one of the main goals by organization, Management by Objective has become one Continue reading

Team Development Life Cycle

When a number of individuals begin to work at interdependent jobs, they often pass through several stages as they learn to work together as a team.  The stages of team development life cycle  are forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning.  This model of team development was first proposed by Bruce Tuckman in 1965, who maintained that these phases are all necessary and inevitable and allow team growth. Though these are not followed rigidly, they do represent a broad pattern that may be observed and predicted in many settings across team’s time together. These stages are the result of a variety of questions and issues that team members face such as “who will be members of the team?” “Who will perform what functions?” “Who will contribute what?” “What rules will be followed?” “How can conflicts among members be resolved?” and so on. These typical stages of team development life cycle  are Continue reading

Major Types of Organizational Structure

An organizational structure consists of activities such as task allocation, coordination and supervision, which are directed towards the achievement of organizational aims. It can also be considered as the viewing glass or perspective through which individuals see their organization and its environment. An organization can be structured in many different ways, depending on their objectives. Organizational structure allows the expressed allocation of responsibilities for different functions and processes to different entities such as the branch, department, workgroup and individual. Organizational structure affects organizational action in two big ways. First, it provides the foundation on which standard operating procedures and routines rest. Second, it determines which individuals get to participate in which decision-making processes, and thus to what extent their views shape the organization’s actions. On the basis of analysis of various design variables, organizational structure can be broadly categorized into four major forms: Functional Structure: In a functional structure, the Continue reading

Team Based Approaches Used in Business

An organization is a social arrangement for achieving controlled performance in the pursuit of collective goals. This definition stresses on the fact that people in an organization interact with each other in order to achieve some objectives. In the field of organization design, a contemporary organization can be defined as a business that uses up-to-date knowledge, processes, and strategies to implement its plans within a cohesive strategy with keeping in mind the organizations future. Contemporary organizations are primarily leaders in exploring business and management trends, such as strategic alliances, and the virtual office. These trends are often explored without the knowledge of anyone; however the organization is able to integrate them and the discrete elements in the overall cohesive business strategy. Although teams have always formed the backbone of the organization; they are gaining attention as important assents to the organization. Professionals in today’s world rarely work alone; they either Continue reading