Coles Open System Theory - Case Study Example

Coles open system theory Name Course Instructor Date I need another concept of management in this case study in Coles. For example; Like communication, staff satisfaction, bureaucracy motivation etc. Introduction The open system theory reflects the belief that organization is unique in its own way because of the unique environment it operates in (Baltzan et al., 2010). This theory that illustrates how organizations should be structured to accommodate unique challenges and opportunities has been adopted by Cole supermarkets. The environmental influences affecting open systems are either specific or general. Specific environmental influences refer to network suppliers, government agencies, distributors and competitors with which the enterprise interacts. The general environment includes four distinct influences that emanate from the geographic area in which Cole supermarkets operate. They include: The cultural values; these shapes the views about ethics, cultural values also determine the relative importance of various issues. Economic conditions; the economic conditions include recessions, economic upswings, regional unemployment among other regional factors affecting the companies ability to prosper and grow. These influences partially dictate the business’s role in the economy. Political and le gal environment that effectively assist in allocation of power within the society to impose laws. Legal and political environments in which businesses run are crucial in determining the lasting security stability of the business’s future. The systems are responsible for forming a fertile environment for the trading community and are also responsible in ensuring that the necessities of a larger community are addressed. Quality of education; this is a vital factor in high technology and various industries requiring skilled personnel. The basic organizational characteristic of Coles According to Deenitchin and Pikul (2006), businesses differ greatly in their sizes, makeup and functions. However, the operations of almost all the businesses are based on a decision making structures, division of labor, and rules and policies. The degrees of regulation with which such aspects of business are approached vary tremendously within the business environment. These characteristics are inherent in any business enterprise using the talent of several personnel. Coles apply division of labor both horizontally and vertically. The vertical division of labor entails the basic ranks top, middle, and bottom where the role of the top (executive manager) is to implement long-term strategies and supervising middle managers. The responsibility of the middle managers at the Coles is to oversee daily implementation of activities and to and minister top level strategy. The low-level managers and other employees implement on strategies and perform specific responsibilities necessary for daily implementation to keep the business running. Cole’s supermarkets also divide labor horizontally through defining departments, task groups and assigning employees with applicable skills to particular groups. The line units are bestowed with basic functions of the business at the same time, line units are supported by staff units with expertise. Generally, line unit concentrates on production, supply and distribution and the staff unit’s concentrates mostly on internal maneuvers and control of public relations efforts. Structures of decision making which are the second basic businesses characteristic are useful in organization of authority. The organizational structures vary from one operation to another in their scale of centralization and transference. The centralization organizational structures are defined as “tall” because critical decision emanate from high level and then passed down to other channels to the lowest rank in the hierarchy (Choi et al., 2001). Such is the structure that runs Coles retailers. Coles formalized system of policies and regulations can be termed as a third standard organizational characteristic. The regulations and policies serve as templates to managerial guidance in all sectors of the Coles organizational production. The business has documented one of the most efficient means of accomplishing its tasks. Such formalized rules provide the management with a lot of time to spend arising problems and opportunities; they help in ensuring that an organization’s various sub-systems work in effectively. Poorly implemented or ill- conceived rules can lead to negative impact on business efforts to bring up products in cost-effective and satisfying manner. In reference to Bertocci (2009), organizations can be referred to as formal or informal according to the degree formalization of policies and regulations within the organizational structure. Bertocci (2009) notes that in formal organizational structures, moderately impersonal connection between the individuals and the business for with the implementation is regarded as the best environment for attaining the business goals. Arguably, the subordinates have little influence over the process that they participate and their duties are precise and well defined. On the other hand, informal businesses are less likely to assume or adhere to a specific code of written down policies. Alternatively, individuals adopt patterns of behaviors that are influenced by several personal and social factors. In such managerial arrangements changes in the organizations less often result from authoritative dictation but from collective agreement by the members. Informal organizations and such tend to be very flexible and reactive to external influences. According to Choi et al. (2001), some critics contend that informal arrangements may lessen the capability of top managers that effect rapid change. Subordinate management at Coles In keeping with French (2011), for a manager to be effective he must have the ability to hire and fire subordinates using a well defined criterion. When managers are empowered to make this decision they will always ensure that they fire non-performers and replace them with people are performing as expected in the company. On the other hand, the managers can opt to fire employees without the necessary skills as per the company requirements and replace them with new employees with the required skills especially in the technological organizations (French, 2011). French also illustrates that sometimes the managers can opt to organize training for their workforce so that they can attain the required skills. This is a good option but at times it is expensive and time consuming hence managers opts to fire the incompetent workers and employ new employees with the required skills. When employees perform better it is always good to reward them as this motivates them (Bertocci, 2009). In an open system the management with wan t to maintain a good relationship with the business environments and hence he will consider creating a good relationship between the customers and the worker through workforce motivation. A manager who assigns his employees specific jobs according to skills achieves improved efficiency and the employees also feel satisfied since they are assigned to work in departments where their skill are applicable. This also simplifies the manager's work in identifying performers and non-performers and the employee rewarding process is also simplified. Primarily employee rewarding is based on performance (French, 2011) In keeping with (Bertocci, 2009), the hire and fire policy makes the employees to perform better and ensure that they are continuously seeking more training to increase their skills as per the organizational needs. In this regard the fire and hire policy can be regarded as a good way to increase efficiency to the company and to motivate the employees to seek more training so as to acquire the necessary skills as per the industry needs. Communication at Coles As Coles supermarket increase in size and revenue, the establishment has experienced inevitable challenge of breakdowns in communications due to the increased level of size and management. Communication problem is often between the managers and the workforce (Deenitchin &Pikul, 2006). In keeping with Deenitchin and Pikul (2006), lack of consistent communication creates formidable stratification amid team members and their managers. Typically, Cole’s supermarkets have in the past fallen prey to the cultural bureaucratic top-down communication which works successfully in a small establishment where communication is usually face to face. Today, the establishment has discovered ways to converting one way communication to a bidirectional mode of communication. This help the management to have instant feedback and this way Cole’s management afford broken communication which lead to inefficiency. For the company to execute well-informed decisions, the managers require more than a ledger of figures in understand the exact decision to implement “on the front line.” The workforce that is ever present in daily running of the supermarket provides invaluable feedback that is derive from first-hand experience. Through encouraging bidirectional communications, Coles has created an organizational culture that fosters teamwork amid the management and the workforce and breaks downs silos. In reference to Bertocci (2009), this form of employee-centric has an effect that goes beyond the internal sphere of the supermarkets and has affected Coles directly with noticeable impact on revenues. Use of Skills The open system theory tend to assume that all large organizations are comprised of many sub-systems and each sub-system receives output from other sub-systems and charges them to outputs which are later supplied to other sub-systems. In reference to Bertocci (2009), subsystems are not always represented by branches within an organization. However, they might resemble patterns of activities. A major distinction between open system theory and closed system theory is that the open system theory assumes a subsystem hierarchy. This means that not all subsystems are uniformly essential. Besides, failures in one subsystem do not necessarily thwart the whole system. According to Bertocci (2009), functional departments’ managers exercise their power within an organization's unit like one department. In essence, functional managers work in specific organizational units. Examples of functional managers include Sales manager, contact center manager, marketing manager, development team manager and customer service manager. A functional manager ought to have expertise in a certain function. For example a data architect will understand and strive to ensure that best processes, management and technology related to data architecture are utilized by the company. On the other hand, a product manager ought to have passion in order to develop innovative products; the passion also enables him to inspire others while developing the products. In keeping with Bertocci (2009), a product manager must also have empathy in order to satisfy his customers through the products he develops. It also obligatory that product managers are equipped with self awareness skills. These skills enable them to acknowledge their incompetence whenever they fail to meet expectations. Cole’s supermarket as an entity depends on external influences. The existence of the business has been determined by several influences from the environment in which the business exists. In keeping with Deenitchin and Pikul (2006) there are several inputs from external environment that the business heavily relies on i.e. laws, labor, availability of resources necessary for the business’s products and services among others. Internally, these inputs from the environment are processed through several internal processes to produce diverse products and services for the business (outputs). Any adjustments in inputs like availability of capital, availability of labor, and changes in interest on capital, impacts directly on the business as an open system. Alterations to the sub-systems must accommodate the changes inputs i.e. sudden shortage of skill may require recruitment interventions from the Human Resource Department. Drastic increase in capital interest may lead to changes in the manner by which funds are obtained. As an open system Coles is dependant on the environment to procure and employ its products and services. Any adjustment in the requirements and needs of the environment has a direct impact on the business to trade its products it prevailing environment. Coles must adapt to some or all its sub-systems to stick to the needs of the business environment and have to involve other stakeholders in orders to excel and compete with Woolworth. As an organization Coles can be seen as a dependent unit existing in a milieu, where there are continuous relations between the business and its environment. Feedback is accessible on incessant basis from the environs and inside Cole’s business itself. The feedback is then used as an input to the business; it is processed within the business to adapt itself to the needs and requirement i.e. feedback from the clients concerning the bad quality of products and internal changes are implemented to upgrade the quality of such products. Coles as a dependent entity is disconnected from the environment it operates by an invisible barrier. Such invisible barriers comprise of extremely complex procedures processes within the business which ensure consistent interaction with the environment. Inputs to the business are scanned before they are come part of the business processing cycle while on the other hand the outputs are scanned before getting released to the purchasers. This keen focus on the inputs include interviewing and testing of the applicants for employment and evaluation of suppliers of any product in order to choose the supplier of the product who provides the highest quality required by the organization for production of superior products. The scanning of products by Coles retailers include financial auditing, evaluation of potential customers for credit sales and quality checking of products before they are availed to the customers. The most important factor is that the business can never exist as in isolation from it environment. The open system is heavily reliant on the environment for its input which is processed via internal subsystems to outputs which are used again by the environment. The open system of operation has a continuous cycle of interaction ant it exists between the organization and its environment. Fulkerson, & Shaw, (2000) workforce management entails a variety of techniques and approaches that a management use to resource their business in a manner that can support the business to meet its goals. Fulkerson, & Shaw, (2000) further states that this encompasses of numerous management actions which aid execution of fundamental improvement objectives like; management, performance and recruitment. The key objective of staffing is ensuring the Coles can call on the services of adequate staffs to realize set objectives. The recruited staff hence should connect in an assortment of roles, and be in a position to deliver their duties as required of them for Coles to function effectively. Arguably, Fulkerson, & Shaw, (2000) indicates that it is after staffing objective that performance objectives are realized. According to Fulkerson, & Shaw, (2000), the purpose of a performance objective is effecting all methods used by the employer in order to motivate the employees and boost their will give outstanding performances in their duties. Similarly to biological organisms Choi et al. (2001), indicates that it is possible to analyze an organization in terms of an open system that survives only through exchanging resources with its environments. Relating this phenomenon to Coles, the business gets products from the locals and then sells them back to the society after carrying out a few processes on them. The business also utilizes some of the products and services from the surrounding communities for its own needs and trades the rest by exchanging it either directly or indirectly with other raw materials and resources. The whole process of buying and selling are the work the Coles perform to survive. Coles differ from other supermarkets like Woolworth with the kind of products they buy and the strategies they implement. In keeping with Choi et al. (2001), open system theory establishes that every organization has at any one given time a primary task that is defined as the task that the business must perform in order to survive. This determines the most dominant buy-conversion-sell process and hence most significant set of activities. Conclusion The Coles management process is keen on managing recruitment relationships which have been established with the employees according to the Cole’s policies and regulation. To realize these targets, the McLeod must initiate improved employees guiding principles, together with an acceptable work procedure among other documents relating to employment of an individual. These credentials include a job description, agreement, and letters of offer, expected hours of work per week, and target. In reference to Choi et al. (2001), these documents apply as guiding principle to the work operations. In reference to Spinelli and Timmons (2007), the change of management aspect in group management ascertains that proper acknowledgment is provided to the significance of such changes in the company and its entire management process. Cole’s management is basically based its business environment that is subject to constant dynamism. McLeod hence, has found a need to align the administrative practices and structure of the business with environmental requirement for the preferred work behaviors to be met. References Bertocci, D. (2009). Leadership in organizations: there is a difference between leaders and managers. Lanham, Md: University Press of America. Choi, T.Y., Kevin, J.D. &Rungtusanatham, M. (2001). Supply networks and Complex adaptive systems: Control versus emergence. Journal of Operations Management, (19)3,351–366 Deenitchin, L. &Pikul, P. (2006). Entrepreneurship: How to design growth and strategy. Atlanta Working Papers, 1(1), 3 French, R. (2011). Organizational behavior. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley. Fulkerson, & Shaw, (2000). Web based global supply management. Berlin, Germany: Springerverlag, Haworth, J& Management Sciences.(1972). The marketing of industrial innovations: a study of the characteristics of potential customers. New York City: UMIST.Hill Companies. Spinelli, S., Timmons, J. (2007).New venture creation entrepreneurship for the 21st century. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies. Read More