For an entrepreneur is very important organize his key operational activities to make fundamental business decisions with respect to ‘focus’ — the strategic relevance and prioritization of these activities to achieve a developmental milestone; ‘locus’ — where you should geographically conduct these activities; and ‘modus’ — the way in which these different activities are executed. At the business model level, the focus, locus, and modus of the entrepreneur’s activities represent the company’s output, so represents the unique way in which a business executes its strategy to the market. Focus: Focus decisions are related to the strategic importance and allocation of a company’s resources to business activities, like where to invest additional resources or disinvest resources. The entrepreneur has to focus his attention on what business activities demand priority, resources, and attention. The key decision process here is to prioritize which activities to focus on during a specific stage of growth Continue reading
Modern Management Concepts
Corporate Environmental Reporting
Corporate Environmental Reporting can be defined as a catch-all term that describes the various means by which companies disclose information on their environmental activities. It is important to distinguish between the terms environmental reporting and corporate environmental reports (CERs). Corporate Environmental Reports (CERs) are only one form of environmental reporting defined as publicly available, stand-alone reports issued voluntarily by companies on their environmental activities. Environmental reports can be considered a sort of small world where many crucial points in the relationship between a company and its stakeholders meet together. There can be said to be three categories of environmental disclosures: Involuntary disclosure – the disclosure of information about a company’s environmental activities without its permission and against its will. Examples of involuntary disclosures are environmental campaigns, press and media exposes and court investigations. Mandatory disclosure – the disclosure of information about a company’s environmental activities that is required by law. Continue reading
Changing Nature of Modern Work Organizations
New forms of work organisation have come up in last 25 years which is known as modern work organisation. Many organisations have adopted these new forms and become more successful work organisation. Work has been restructured by new technologies; new looms that attempt to involve staff in improving product quality using less inventories. Employee’s involvement can provide employees with control over their operational lives or it can provide employees with the opportunity to mention on work organisation but leave the real authority relationships untouched. The work organisation was changed a lot over the time from 19th century (traditional work organisation) to 21st century (modern work organisation). Traditional work organisational structure was layered with functional departments while Modern work organisational structure is more flat containing process teams. Traditional work organisations’ employees were controlled and did specified task only while modern work organisations’ employees are empowered and doing multi tasks. Managers and Continue reading
Organization Change Management Models
Change whether planned or unplanned occurs in all organizations and at all levels. Change is inevitable and thus today many organizations prepare themselves for change. However the successful organization recognizes and understands the fact that change is not only inevitable it is also required in order to grow and stay ahead of competition. Therefore such organizations plan and implement change. Planning and implementing change requires the expertise of Organization Development experts who rely on certain models of change. Some of the popular organization change management models, which have received attention globally, are: 1. Kurt Lewins Model of Change Management One of the earliest models of planned change was put forward by Kurt Lewin in 1975. Lewin explained that organizations like human beings prefer to stay in a state of equilibrium or a steady state called as homeostasis. He observed that the stability of human behavior was based on “quasi- stationary Continue reading
Syndicated Data and Standardized Services in Marketing Research
Today, over $20 billion a year is spent on marketing/advertising/public opinion research services around the world. Spending on marketing research is $6.9 billion in the United States alone. During the past two decades, the research market has become highly concentrated, with about 54 percent of the market being held by the 50 largest worldwide organizations. The other half of the market is shared by a thousand or more small research firms. The concentration is even more pronounced in the United States, where the 10 largest firms account for 64 percent of total U.S. spending for marketing research. In the highly competitive retail market, understanding the customer is paramount. In order to fill in the gaps of consumer’s buying motive and actual buying, companies have to understand the customers, and of course, marketing research is the tool for gaining knowledge about the customers. Marketing research is a systematic gathering of information Continue reading
Concept of Workplace Spirituality
Workplace spirituality has recently emerged as a significant aspect of organizations and hence, a significant topic of inquiry in the organizational science. Since the late 1990s, publications such as Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Fortune and others have reported a growing desire among employees for meaning and purpose at work, for a spiritual dimension to organizational life. Spirituality is the state of intimate relationship with the inner self of higher values and morality as well as recognizing the truth of inner nature of people. The concept of spirituality at workplace can be explained as an experience of interconnectedness, shared by all those involved in the work process, initially triggered by the awareness that each is individually driven by an inner power, which raises and maintains his/her sense of honesty, kindness, and courage, consequently leading to the collective creation of an aesthetically motivational environment characterized by a sense of purpose, high Continue reading