Social Scoring and Influence Marketing - Case Study Example

Case Study Analysis By Professor Class University City Date of submission Introduction Globally, businesses are becoming more competitive that those in managerial positions need to make decisions that touch the exact needs of the customers. Depending on the nature of the made decisions, an organization might experience success or failure while trying to create a better competitive advantage. In most cases, those in managerial positions use power to influence the behavior of others and organizational activities. Change is one of the aspect of that is inevitable; therefore, the management must ensure that it aligns its decisions with organizational structure. There are several aspects of aspect power of managerial power including referent, reward, informational, legitimate, expert, and coercive which all play a crucial part in management of business activities. For effective and efficient management, most managers tend to integrate all the aspect of powers while delegating their duties. There are three different dimensions of power tactics such as behavior, structural, and rational. From business point, power is the ability of getting things done. With power, the management has the ability of influencing the behavior of other while adjusting management practices to achieve the desired objectives. To some extent, people tend to resist change; however, it is the responsibility of an effective leader to overcome such resistance (Sen, 2008, 127). Unfortunately, most people view power in management as corrupt and evil. People could use their management power to benefit others or constrain them, serving organizational goals or undermining them. Literature review for power of personal influence With the businesses becoming more competitive, managing flat organizational structures is also becoming increasingly difficult especially influencing those that the management is having no authority over. Therefore, it is very crucial to influence people at all levels of management – up, down, and across the organization. In such areas, employment of personal power could have a dramatic impact. People in managerial position exhibiting personal power tend to have more success. In order to match the current needs of the customers, the management requires practical tools and techniques for increasing their self-confidence, expand their behavioral competence, and enhancing their level of personal effectiveness. Developing power and influence often assist management by ensuring the employed influencing style is right for the organization and provide practical tips that would help an organization become more assertive. Moreover, the influence would also help in increasing the ability of the management to influence others in an effective manner. Influence involves application of power to accomplish specific purposes (Pronin, Wegner, McCarthy, & Rodriguez, 2006, 117). Most of the research indicate that most people in managerial positions tend to try leading and influencing others using influence techniques such as logical persuasion, consultation, Legitimization, alliance building, modelling, appealing to values, socialization, and appealing to relationship. However, it is important to note that there are negative forms of influence as well including avoiding, intimidation, manipulation, and threatening the employees to work in accordance with organizational objectives. In management, power and influence examine the base of the subunit and powers of the individuals within the organization. Most theories of management tend to assume that it is important that those in managerial position must acquire the power in order to be effective. However, some studies indicate sometimes the leaders do not use their powers in the interest of the organizations. Power and its use could assist in enhancing organizational effectiveness and in the process considering the ethics associated with power and influence. Within the management context, power and influence recognized that leaders are organizational participants with powers and exercise their influences within the organization. Managers use influence since only a fraction of the managerial duty involves accomplishment by controlling and exercising authority. It is the responsibility of both leaders and managers to ensure the achievement of organizational goals. To accomplish such tasks, the management need to plan, organize, process, assign task, and measure organizational performance. Moreover, the management could also direct employees and monitor their performance through command-and-control methods. Management need to understand that employees are humans and be accorded with loyalty and engagement practices (Toch, 2014, 159). As a result, most managers lead through social and emotional approaches to influence the employees. The ability to influence others and ensure effective communication is critical for leaders to achieve positive results. Strategy implementation, change initiation, and execution of decisions require the ability of those in managerial position to influence, inspire, and shape the behaviors of others. Power involves making things happen in a manner that one wants either by self or through subordinates. The essence of having power is to have and exercise control over the behaviors of others. Managers tend to derive their power from both the organization and individual sources, which relates to position power and personal powers respectively. Personal powers tend to reside within an individual and have no connection with the position and responsibilities of an individual. The basis of personal supremacy are expertise, rational persuasion, and references. Exercising expert power includes the ability of those in managerial to have control over the other people’s behavior by virtue of expressing their knowledge, judgment, and experience to the others who lack such skills but need them. However, it is imperative to note that expert powers are relative but not absolute. Challenges often arise especially when the subordinate have more experiences and knowledge than the presumed expert does. It is crucial that those in managerial positions lead through mobilizing the employees and ensure that their activities are in line with objectives by inspiring them to follow the footsteps of the leaders. Moreover, the management should be able to show people possible achievements and motivate them on how to make such possibilities real. Besides, influencing employees positively means energizing and focusing on how the organization could achieve its objectives, offering employees a sense of purpose, and leaving them with profound sense of accomplishing when the work is done. Leaders need to model the way in which people think, act and encouraging the employees to look for alternative ways of handling the prevailing challenges (Pooley, 2006, 105). Best managers teach, mentor, and act as role models for their employees. Moreover, they accomplish their responsibilities through influencing those surrounding them but not authority. Some managers use persuasion influence, which involves looking into the logic and facts to influence the behaviors of others. Depending on how management uses the delegated powers, an organization might improve its performance or make it worse. Therefore, it is crucial to comprehend the significant roles played by the employees since they are the major determinants of organizational performance. Besides, depending on the prevailing situation and they type of influence used, there three possible results that might occur. The management might successfully change the behavior of the employees especially when a hard influential technique is used like assertive and coalition formation methods. With the growing business, resisting changes might contribute to deterioration of the working relationship. Another possible outcome of the influence might be compliance where the employees agree to change their behaviors in order to reap the benefits associated compliance with organizational objectives. Organizational change management entails thoughtfully planning and ensuring sensitive implementation processes are in place in order to achieve relevant results. More importantly, there is need for consultation and involvement of the people influenced by the changes. If the management forces people to change, then there is likely to be problems related to performance of the employees. In order to understand the basic concepts underlying while influencing the workers, Nudge theory clearly indicates the methodological factors that manages the way people think, act the way they do, make decisions, and criteria for shifting the behaviors and decisions of the people (Fritz, 2008, 162). With the economy teetering closer into the flat growth, there have been increasing pressures on various management organs to not maintain, but also ensure improvement of the margins and profits sustainably. Besides the management of the change process, the ability to influence change is critical especially during implementation of the processes considered as new to the employees. Since power involves getting things getting things done, it is important to note that there are informal power resources that could assist in advancing change management agenda. Fortunately, the main informal power source that a management could use is the influencing skills, especially while trying to negotiate the outcomes. Initially, senior management in larger companies had simple goals of ensuring their stability as well as that of the organization. Employees do not have much responsibility in managing organizational change; however, they have to perform to their level best to ensure that the organization meets its objectives. Moreover, the level of performance depends on their social wellbeing and related factors such as maturity level, personality, experience, health, stability, and motivation. The approach used by the management to influence the employees determines their level of performance. There is need to ensure that the influence powers used by the management are favorable to the employees. Organizational changes are inevitable. Nevertheless, the management needs to facilitate and enable the change to ensure that these changes do not affect organizational performance. The change needs to involve the people and not being imposed on the people. Although effecting the change among the employees might be difficult, it is the responsibility of the management to employee the relevant influence factor. The chosen influence method should not impose change on the employees but make them understand the underlying benefits associated with the change. Managerial skills and qualities With increasing level of competition and changing consumer needs, there is need for management to change their approaches in managing the performance of the employees. With her work experience and networking skills, Janet was able to win several projects for the institute. He was able lead other board members through transparency, honesty, and commitment in ensuring that the institution receives a broader networking base which increased the institutional performance and scope of operations. In any management structure, there are more several people involved. Moreover, every person hates being in the dark. From any point upon realization the areas that required adjustment, Janet ensured that she informed the board members an integrated their views while establishing organizational decisions. Even if an issue at hand does not directly concern other members of the management, transparency often help assuring that that they are an integral part of the management and their views and support are valid (White, Vanc, & Stafford, 2010, 125). In order to be an effective manager, it is important for one to exercise self-motivation, integrity, optimism, and confidences. Janet ensured that she exploited all the opportunities that might assist in improving organizational performance. With hers skills and qualities, she was optimistic and confidence that she would deliver the requirements of the clients, a factor that helped in enhancing organizational performance and operational base. Trust is an important part of an effective management practice. Moreover, trust among the employees and the management plays a crucial role in encouraging accountability within an institution. Although Janet had managerial skills and qualities, she entrusted most of the draft work to be conducted by the fellow workers within the institutions. Such delegations of duties mostly are based on mutual trust of the employees that they would deliver the required results. Furthermore, in order to receive the projects from the clients, Janet demonstrated her expertise and institutional capacity to handles the projects of most clients. As a result, most of projects she successfully won were based on the trust that the clients had on her performance. In order to gain such trusts from the fellow board members and the clients, the management must clearly demonstrated their ability to perform under minimal involvement of the client, a factor that Janet clearly demonstrated. Janet also demonstrated her flexibility and diversified knowledge in the field of management since she was able to effect some changes within the institution in line with the changing demands of the clients. An institution might be performing effective; however, if such performances are not integrated and aligned into organizational structure, then most of institutional activities are likely to experience decimal performances. A manager must stand firm and communicate effective with other segments of the management for the sake of ensuring the institution yields proper results. Influencing change without positional power Although change is inevitable in almost all business entities, the complexity might arise when the person to effect the change have no positional power. The major skill required in the management is the ability to influence positively others in a manner that they would follow and act willingly contrary to forcing to comply due to authority factor. In most cases, people tend to associate leadership with senior positions. However, leadership could flow in both ways, with or without positional power. Most research view influencing others without relying on the authority could be an invaluable skill. To some extent, one might rise to management level without necessarily having the power to be the boss; nevertheless, the person must focus on his/her influencing powers to succeed. Leaders who lead without power, title, and rank tend to focus much of their strengths on inviting loyalty, commitment, and passion. These characteristics are attractive to most employees especially those who are inspired by the role models who believe in their skills and qualities. Without power, it is important to avoid coercing, pressuring, and demanding the work done from the employees; however, it is crucial to lead while others follow the footsteps. Personally, in my position in an organization without any power, I ensured that I believed in the values I was bringing to the organization, trusted the colleagues, and motivating them. Moreover, character and expertise play an important role in influencing others without any power. Character is the major source of influence since one has to lead by example, follow commitments, respectful, trustworthy, and authentic in all the doings for others to see and follow. In such cases, others tend to believe that one is motivated by the common good and not for personal gains. Additionally, the focus is more on my personal expertise, which relates to the content of knowledge and experience. One needs to be a thought leader, understand the processes of ensuring that the organization meets its goals and objectives. More importantly, it is significant to influence others through provision of clear logics, explanation of the benefits, and at point believing in oneself by reassuring the management on the decision made is the right course of action. Networking is another quality of leading without powers as such activities would assist in establishing a stronger organizational base through endorsing credible people to work with the organization. Factors to address within the institution One major factor influencing the performance of the institution is inadequate teamwork with most of those in managerial positions especially the board members. It is important get support from other management segments as well as the employees. The institutional should ensure there is adequate support, a factor that is vital in assisting to manage organizational transition. Moreover, the more the management engages the employees in addressing the easier it becomes in addressing organizational challenges. Reasoning and establishing a foundation for ensuring that the employees understand the motive behind the change is a prerequisite in developing an effective management strategy since such would trigger others to support a particular decision. Within the institution, it is important to start with those in senior managerial positions before sharing the concept through the organization. The institution also needs to ensure that there is effective and efficient communication. Good communication is important across the organization but when there is organizational change, the important tend to increase. An effective communication should be able reflect the commitment of the management. Within the institution, Janet had a better vision for the organization. However, some of the board members failed to establish how much the institution required such vision to enable it increase its scope of operation. Through effective communication, the board members would clearly understand the vision and multiply their efforts. Most of the transformation efforts often fail due to poor organizational understanding, appreciation, commitment, and ensuring that the guiding principles are simple. Although Janet had a vision for the institution, she failed to create a shared vision the change. A better vision should include transformational steps, which are coordinated and compelled towards realizing organizational objectives. Strategies of continuing with “managing up.” In order to continue with the power of influence, Janet needs to continue influencing the behaviors of the other employees to ensure that their actions would effectively yield the desired results. Moreover, she must continue to influence the decision making process. A successful organization needs to lead through effectively using the top-down approach, but at the same time integrating the needs and the rising concerns from other segments of the management and employee. Strategic leadership does not come easily in most organizations since most leaders fail to exhibit their strategic skills. Strategic skills are important especially when the business experience growth. Janet should increase her natural method of communicating ideas with the board members, plan, and prepare adequately for professional presentations and meeting (Bordas, 2013, 180). Moreover, she needs to understand the methods through which the employees draft the presentation and project materials. Furthermore, Janet needs to gain respect and trust of more client in order to realize the organizational objectives. Respect and trust depend on character, confidentiality, and credibility. Therefore, her character should be based on integrity, courage, and reliability. Considering her level of experience and expertise, Janet needs to build her credibility through such foundation, accessibility to information, role, and upholding integrity in the management field. Consequently, there is need to develop self-confidence and working hard to ensure that she achieves the desired results constantly. These achievements would help in developing a stronger business that might in turn would assist in attracting more clients. Institutional influencing skills Every organization needs partnership with other institutions in order to perform effectively. Businesses are becoming and winning of the projects tenders is becoming difficult that most organization must change the management techniques. Janet was able to improve organizational performance through her skills like networking. However, to improve one’s personal networking skills, it is important to be trustworthy and committed to reaching the set agreements. Through her networking skills, Janet has been able to attract more clients for the institution. Management requires commitment and understanding of organizational goals and objectives (Church, 2013, 99). In most cases, organizations fail due to poor structuring, inadequate commitment, and discouragements from other segments of the management. Before her appointment, the institution experienced several challenges emanating from laxity of both management and the clients. The organization lack commitment of achieving the desires of the clients, however, through her courage, she raised up issues considered difficult. Although she experienced several challenges in addressing these challenges, with the perseverance and commitment she insisted that it was crucial to handle such issues. For example, when the board members failed to heed the time for the meeting, she rescheduled it until she addressed her issues of concern. Furthermore, through her trust, she was able to build a better working relationship with both the employees, board members, and the clients. These factors helped cushioning organizational performance, scope of operation, and better working standard within the institution. Relational and structural social capital Networking plays an important role in assisting to develop both relational and structural capital. Social capital involves economic benefits associated from preferential treatment and cooperation with other institutions. Relational social capital depends on the characteristics existing between different social relationships based on trust and trustworthiness. In order to gain the trust of the clients, it is important that the institution meet all the demands and necessities of the clients. Building a social relation effectives depends on the ability of the management to deliver quality services to the clients as required by the clients (Schaefer, 2012, 123). In my perspective, I have been able to develop a proper relationship with the clients through ensuring that my deliverances were of higher quality, time conscious, and always consultative with the clients. Since of the clients are always submissive, it is crucial to the institutions reciprocate with equal magnitude and efforts used by the clients to ensure that their projects realizes success. Reciprocation is important especially if an institution needs to maintain a better relationship with the client. It is a motivation of every institution to receive positive comments from the clients regarding the services they offer, however, the challenge lies in the strength and business skills of maintaining such performances. Structural social capital involves keeping a professionalism through networking. Within such context, I have been able to develop structural social capita through attending meeting, presentations, and seminars organized for management purpose. Through these activities, I have been able to acquire the knowledge required to deliver better results to the customers. Structural social capita determines the elements of social structure aim at creating opportunities meant for social realization of productive results. Moreover, it includes the established roles and social networks used in supplementing the rules, precedents, and procedures. However, social structural is build based on historical foundation of culture. Methods of influencing the change The major method used to influence is the logical persuasion method in which the management presents facts and allowing other members of the organization to reason based on the prevailing challenges. The method mostly emphasizes on the positive benefits associated with the recommended action. Juliet could have use inspirational appeal method to influence higher performance among the employees. Inspirational appeal involves liking effectively the desired outcome to a given set of values that are honored by the employees and other segments of the management. For example, appeals to emotions are the commonly used driver for motivation. When Janet came into management, she could have communicated her visions for success that would assist in gaining support and sparking enthusiasm for major organizational changes. Additionally, inspiration often involves modelling the behaviors and setting the example for the employees. Janet could have used consultation method as well. Considering the number of challenges experienced while implementing organizational changes, Juliet failed to consult most of the board members. An effective consultation is important in order to ensure that all integral components of organizational change are implemented. Consultation is important since when someone offers inputs, he/she becomes more committed to the initiative, and feels involved and more importantly motivated to stand with their actions for organizational success. Other methods the she might have used include negotiations, bridging, and inspiring other employees and management. Factors that contributed to the institutional success The institution needs to achieve more than just getting the board to attend the meeting. Some of the success factors likely to be implemented within the institution include defining clearly the goals and objectives, maintaining the focus of developing business value, ensure the existence of a proper governance structure, and providing timely and clear communication to all the members of the institution. The institution needs to enforce trust among the management to prevent problems associated with poor management (Hoang, 2010, 159). Moreover, it is important to focus on achieving collective results as a team contrary to the initial emphasis put across by Juliet. While considering effective and efficient development, the management needs to include all the members of the staff and integrate their views while establishing decision-making mechanism. Moreover, teamwork would assist in holding one another accountable for decisions wrong made; therefore, involving all organizational members would assist in exploring all the avenues that might help in improving organizational performance. Conclusion With the increasing level of competition, there is need that institution ensures that all the members of staff are involved in the management process and designing an effective decision making strategy. The management needs to develop business strategies that would influence the performance of the employees rather that compelling them to follow the set guidelines. The management might have the power, but without knowing how to influence the behaviors of the employees, the institution might not achieve the desired goals. Working together as an organization and relationship between the management and the employees determines the type of influence used by the management. Understating organizational objectives determines would help in ensuring the employees align their activities effectively with the needs of the clients. Recommendations The market is becoming highly competitive that there is need to ensure involvement of all members of the management. The criterion used for identification and implementation of the management strategy determines the nature of the results realized. Therefore, the institutional management should focus on teamwork as means of ensuring better organizational performance. Consequently, the type of power influence used within the organization should not compel the employees to adhere to organizational objectives. However, the management should use those strategies that would help in improving the level of understanding among the employees in order to conduct their duties based on understanding and not compulsion. References Bordas, J. 2013. The power of Latino leadership: Culture, inclusion, and contribution. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Church, M. 2013. Amplifiers: The power of motivational leadership to inspire and influence. Milton, Qld: Wiley. Fritz, R. 2008. The power of a positive attitude: Discovering the key to success. New York: American Management Association. Hoang, P. 2010. Business & management. Melton, Vic.: IBID Press. Pooley, J. 2006. Fifteen Pages that Shook the Field: Personal Influence, Edward Shils, and the Remembered History of Mass Communication Research. Annals of The American Academy of Political and Social Science, 15(10), 99-107. Pronin, E., Wegner, D. M., McCarthy, K., & Rodriguez, S. 2006. 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