Inter-group team building intervention intends to increase communications and interactions between work related groups to reduce the amount of dysfunctional competition and to replace a parochial independent point of view with an awareness of the necessity for interdependence of action calling on the best efforts of both the groups. Inter-group interventions are integrated into Organizational Development programs to facilitate cooperation and efficiency between different groups within an organization. For instance, departmental interaction often deteriorates in larger organizations as different divisions battle for limited resources or become detached from the needs of other departments. Conflict resolution meetings are one common inter-group intervention. First, different group leaders are brought together to get their commitment to the intervention. Next, the teams meet separately to make a list of their feelings about the other group(s). Then the groups meet and share their lists. Finally, the teams meet to discuss the problems and to try Continue reading
Modern Management Practices
Ecological Business Strategies
Ecological business strategies consist on the firm’s position vis- Ã -vis the natural environment; they define the firm’s relationship with nature. They describe strategies for use of environmental resources and acceptable environmental impacts of the company’s activities. Ecological strategies try to minimize long-term environmental damages by managing the company’s inputs, throughput’s, and outputs. Just as “Total Quality Management” in corporation demands attention to each stage of the design and production process, a “Total Environmental Management” perspective can optimize the performance of the total system. Every organization requires materials and energy as inputs to its production process. Primary industries such as mining, forest products, pulp and paper, and oil and gas are particularly oriented toward extraction and utilization of raw materials. Secondary (manufacturing) industries such as steel, construction, automobiles, and petrochemicals are important users of materials and energy. Service industries (e.g. health care, education, legal, consulting, etc.) maker fewer demands for materials Continue reading
Salovey and Mayer’s (1990) 10 Original Facets of Emotional Intelligence
Emotion is a relatively difficult concept to clearly delineate but it is generally accepted that it is an organised mental response that includes physiological, experiential and cognitive aspects. Emotions are largely, but not exclusively, related to interpersonal relationships and specific emotions are relatively resistant to cultural and individual differences, although these can affect the way in which emotions are expressed or perceived. Personal intelligence is defined as the feelings and emotions of oneself and the ability to understand and interpret these feelings in order to guide behaviour. This can be expanded into emotional intelligence by including the application of this knowledge to other people and also to regulate actions based on it. The term emotional intelligence (EI) per se was coined in 1990 by Salovey and Mayer. The term EI applies to an ability to process emotional information in an appropriate way, with a balance being achieved between emotion and reason. Continue reading
Organizational Effectiveness Through Adaptive-Coping Cycle
The organization must develop a system through which it can adapt or cope with the environmental requirements; Edgar H Schein has suggested that an organization can do this through the adaptive coping cycle, which consists of various activities that enable an organization to cope with the dynamics of environment. Adaptive-Coping Cycle is a continuous process. There are six stages in the adaptive-coping cycle as follows: Sensing of Change: The first stage is the sensing of change in internal or external environment. Most of the organizations have adaptive sub-system such as marketing research, research and development and other similar devices for effective coping with the environment. Importing the Relevant Information: Organizations must be able to take the relevant information from the environment, which constitutes the input. Changing Conversion Process: The organization takes the inputs from environment for further processing, normally known as conversion process. Stabilizing Internal Changes: The fourth stage of Continue reading
Open Innovation vs. Closed Innovation
Innovation is one of the important catalysts to the sustainable organizational growth and performance. The term of innovation is already used over the century ago and innovation meaning is focus more on the changes or improvement made by the organization either to their product/services, processes and paradigm. Innovation is the use of new technological and market knowledge to offer a new product or service that customer want and the new product must new, lower cost and the attributes of the product are improved with the attributes that never existed in the market before. The concept of innovation also defined as the process of making changes of something established by introducing something new that adds value to customers and contributes to the knowledge store of the organization. In simple words, innovation is described as a change that is made to the product and services and also to the process. Innovation has Continue reading
Keiretsu – The Japanese Business Network System
The cooperation may be witnessed in highly competitive business environment. Tata and Fiat have arrangements in relations to cars. Such cooperation is not necessarily restricted to the organizations producing or dealing in same product or services. They may identify some common interest for cooperation between them. A cold drink manufacture may enter into arrangement with a chain of restaurants to offer its beverages to the clients of restaurants. Lately, various credit card companies are entering into arrangements with other businesses to launch co-branded credit cards. Such arrangements help in reaching greater number of customers. The benefits of cooperation are also seen in Japan, where large cooperative networks of businesses are known as Kieretsus. Keiretsu, also known as Kigyo Shudan, is an umbrella term that describes various highly complex and interdependent relations. These are formed in order to enhance the abilities of individual number businesses to compete in their respective industries. Continue reading