Managing under Uncertainties - Literature review Example

Managing Under Uncertainties Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Code: Date of Submission: Managing Under Uncertainties 1.0 Introduction Business environment is marked with various uncertainties at internal, industrial and macro-level. This makes decision making without personal bias a priority. However, this should not be done in a vacuum, but in a sober manner that would guarantee leadership. Various theories have been developed to explain how people make decision and how they should make decision under certain circumstances. This exposition is about personal reflection on personal decision making at the work place. The paper examines the decision made as production manager of a small advertising firm, the outcome & issues that arose as a result of the decision made and what I would have done differently had I been exposed on different decision making theories. 2.0 The Decision and Outcomes Ad Presence Ltd was a small company in Australia with 13 employees by then. As head of creative department I was tasked with the duty of not only ensuring quality and production of captivating advertisement, but also making decision on how to produce advertisements that are captivating and competitive based on the overall business strategy of cost leadership. Based on this overall mission, the strategy that I devised was to be an advertising agency specialising in the creation and production of television commercials of usually 15 to 30 seconds duration. It would take two weeks for the advertisement to be availed to the client. Thus, the firm was known for offering its clients simple commercials, at a low cost and with short production times instead of more sophisticated, innovative commercials specifically tailored to client’s requirements. The aspect of low cost meant that we rarely produced more than two revisions even if the customer is satisfied or not , partly because our commercials were usually very simple, and relatively short, but also because we charged clients for any revisions after the second version. Since our clients were traditionally budget conscious, they hardly requested more than two revisions. This is contrary to other advertising agencies which often accommodated several revisions, but charged higher amount as compared to Ad Presence Ltd. 3.0 Decision Making Issues in the Context of Decision Making Theories 3.1 Social Learning Theory and Decision Making How people come to learn and adhere to expectations, engage in their roles according to the position ascribed to them in the organisation is tied to numerous factors. People are socialised to learn certain patterns of behaviour. These behavioural tendencies in some later stages influence how individual make decision, operate and behave. At the centre of these, is the role of culture of any organisation in defining norms, virtues, vices, expectations and roles without even a written down guidelines (Back et al., 2012, p.19). Decision and organisation theorists in their attempt to understand how people are constrained to make decisions in certain way as per expectation or how people learn to operate within the cultural prescriptions they subscribe to has develop various theories propositions or borrowed from other disciplines to explain these phenomenon. The behaviour and conduct of human beings is not only as a result genetics (Scheinkman, n.d, p.1). Social interactions, to a large extent, play an instrumental role in moulding an individual. Clear documentation as far as the significance of social interaction in the learning process is concerned has been done (Shank, 2004). Human beings are born with the ability to organise, categorise and inflict order on their environment which results to the development of their own individual and unique view of the world (Greene & Burleson, 2003, p.140). However, these learning are controlled by organisational culture which is able to instil order and predictability (Jones, Bradbury & LeBoutillier, 2011, p.6). This order and predictability is understood from the framework of reward and punishment in shaping personality and social development (Grusec, 1992, p.776). Much of an individual’s life is shaped or constrained by a combination of biological, cultural and life encounters that significantly affect the content of one’s view of the world and the manner in which they organize their experiences (Plotnik & Kouyoumdjian, 2011, p.316). As people come across new experiences, prevailing memory structures in their brain get reshaped and hence influencing their linguistic, cognitive, social and emotional developments in the long run (Kamii & Joseph, 2004, p.33). Social theory accepts the fact that people are able to learn from the observations they make from their environment. However, the critical bit is how this learned behaviour is encourage or discouraged. Various works have been conducted on the topic of social learning theory. Rotter’s in his work analysed the relationship between learning and personality. In his work, he deduced that individuals organise their behaviour with the anticipated consequences in mind. Apart from the above, Rotter provided other assumptions so as to strengthen his argument. The other contributor was Bandura. Bandura observed that most of learning occurs in social environment. In this approach, he observed that people learn rules, skills, strategies attitudes and beliefs among others by observing others (Grusec, 1992, p.777 & 778). Social learning theory acknowledges that behavioural patterns are acquired by links or contingencies established between the behaviour and its consequences. Further, it acknowledges that, when behaviour is followed by desired results (reward), that behaviour is ‘reinforced’ (made more likely). On the other hand, when behaviour is followed by undesirable or aversive consequences the behaviour is made less likely. This is what social learning theory aims at suggesting (Borum, 2004, p.13). The same concept of social development can be analysed from Bandura’s social cognitive learning theory in terms of behaviour modelling, imitation and observational learning (Smith & Berge, 2009, p.440). Social cognitive learning theory derives its core argumentative elements from the field called social cognition. The underlying assumption is that people interact with their environment based on how they perceive and interpret it. In a precise term, people build an internal (cognitive) map of their external (social) environment, and these perceptions – rather than an objective external reality – determine their behaviour (Borum, 2004, p.13 and 14). 3.2 Trait Theory and Decision Making Irrespective of one’s technological skills, human behaviour will influence his or her job involvement and consequently performance (Liao and Lee, 2009, p.22). The best way to understand the concept of personality and work place performance is through trait theory. Matthews, Deary & Whiteman (2003, p.3) observes that traits are tied to individual quality in terms of how they behave. The nexus between trait which defines personality and work places performance is embedded in the fact that individual trait which is stable over time influences ones behaviour and performance at work place (Thoresen et al., 2004, p.835). These traits include favourable behaviours like being truthful, neutral traits like being impulsive and unfavourable behaviour like dishonesty (Matthews, Deary & Whiteman, 2003, p.4). Liao and Lee (2009) outlines the big five traits as neurotic personality/ emotionally stable, extroverted personality, openness personality, agreeable personality and conscientious personality. Thoresen et al., (2004) examine the relationship between the big five traits and individual job performance. Pertaining to mean performance differences in maintenance and transitional job stages, they note that two traits are critical in determining maintenance and transitional job stages. They postulate that such trait include consciencentiousness. They adopt this trait because it has been empirically proven to have generalizable validity across board (Barrick and Mount cited in Thoresen et al., 2004, p.837). In their review they note an employee who scores high on consciencentiousness can be depended on and is achievement driven. On the other hand, those employees who are low in the same are likely to be careless and undependable. The second they identify under their topic is the link between sales and traits of extraversion. They posit that those who have higher scores as extroverts do well in sales because of their ability to be assertive, sociable and have positive emotionality among others. On the other hand, those who are week in the same are timid, aloof and socially withdrawn among others (Thoresen et al., 2004, p.837). Liao and Lee (2009, p.24) brings in the concept of job involvement and its nexus with performance whereby they note that individual identification with work determines their productivity. Liao and Lee (2009, p.25) in their work they examine the negative relationship of emotional stability or neurotic personality as a personality trait and its connection with job involvement. In their work, they postulate that neuroticism can be linked to lower job efficiency. They observe that one who is in this category is likely to experience anxiety, depression worry, anger and insecurity. This then implies that neurotic person is likely to have inadequate ambition and less focus as a result of having low confidence and optimism. Apart from this negative relationship, it is important to explore the importance of emotional intelligence ion enabling an employee navigate the social world at work place and manage different personalities. Schermerhorn et al (2011, p. 156) identifies importance of emotional intelligence in helping one manage different personality by striking to their emotional side. 4.0 Reflection on the Approaches Over the time, this decision result into two perspectives. The first is that it served the company well by enabling it to attract small companies which were in interested in small quick advertisements delivered at a low cost. However, this decision was not able to anticipate two key changes which nearly led to the fall of the company. The first is the inability of the decision to anticipate that the small sized businesses who were the main clients of Ad Space would grow and their needs would change. This shows the rigidity of this decision. Within years, the preference of most advertisers who were our customers change from short production times to more sophisticated, innovative commercials specifically tailored to client’s requirements. The second is that the concept of internet advertising emerged. This approach would avail advertisement at a lower cost and time/speed as compared to Ad Space. This means that Ad Space lost most of her customers who were small businesses and in need of short adverts to internet advertisers. The internet-based companies had entered the industry bringing with them an innovative approach to the production of television commercials. These companies offered clients the ability to create television ad campaigns over the Internet for as little as $8,000 per commercial and production would be completed as quickly as one week. In short, the companies offered clients a selection of generic commercials from a large video database, which they could view on the internet. Once the client had chosen one of these commercials, the companies would personalize it for that client. This removed a significant part of the commercial creative and production process, thus reducing costs substantially. While making decision on the strategy to be adopted by the company by focusing on low cost and small enterprises was based on the past experience. This means that my decision was shaped by the environment. In my most work environment, the strategy that was being applied by corporate managers was that of low cost producer. However, relying on past experiences alone was not enough. This is evident with the change in market trends which my decision based on social learning theory did not anticipate. By that time, the reward of investing in low cost production was higher than the punishment (loss) since the company was performing very well in terms of sales. However as noted relying on the culture (organisational culture which for this case is cost leadership as an agent of shaping how we make decisions) did not prove fruitful. The shift saw company loose grounds as a result of emergence of internet marketing and anticipation of the fact that the small enterprises which formed the bulk of our clients had grown and their expectations had shifted from simple adverts to customised and innovative ads. However, if I had been exposed to theoretical models like social learning, I would have engaged in different thinking approach. First I would appreciate that while holding the concept of regularities or induction by relying on past experience as taught by the culture of environment we operate in might be successful, at a time they cannot. Apart from relying on decision made under social cognition, Tarter & Hoy (1998, p.215) notes that decisions made can be incremental in nature, adaptive or transformational among others. These characteristics can be displayed in stand alone or as mix of approaches. The above decision and outcomes exhibits different aspects of decision making. From the short term perspective, it can be said that I was objective driven since I was able to align my decision with the overall business strategy which is being low cost producer. This concept falls within the rational model or optimising strategy (Tarter and Hoy, 1997, p.212). In this approach, the decision maker is objective oriented. In relation to trait theory, I pragmatically feel that I border in between two traits. These traits that I feel I border are extroverted personality and openness personality. The reason why I support the extrovert trait in me is because I am sociable and like engaging others in what I do. Moreover, am aggressive and ambitious on any thing I want to achieve by being hands on. Lio and Lee (2009, p.25) observes that an extrovert are level headed and are able to respond to customer needs adequately. The hallmark of this kind is being sociable and thus, being able to handle relationships. On the other hand, why I say I can also fall in the category of those who are open is based on the fact that I am imaginative and any time would wish to have answers for my curiosity. 5.0 Conclusion Decision making is core to the success of an organisation. Decision making informs individuals who are discharged with the duty of ensuring that the company gain market leadership to formulate competitive strategies based on the organisations strengths, opportunities, weakness, threats and macro-environmental factors. In a nutshell, decision making is critical to planning and planning means anticipation of the future either in short, medium or long term. The important learned factor is that various theoretical proposition on decision making are important informing me in my future decisions. I have learnt that decision makers should not only rely on the reward and punishment aspect tied to what they learnt from the environment alone. They should be pragmatic and objective driven. Lastly, I learnt that traits are important in influencing decisions and work place performance. Learning traits theory help in overcoming our bias while making decisions. References Back, L., Bennett, A., Edles, L. D., Gibson, M., Inglis, D., Jacobs, R. & Woodward, I. 2012. Cultural Sociology : An Introduction. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Borum, R. (2004). Psychology of terrorism. Tampa: University of South Florida. Greene, J. O. & Burleson, B.R. 2003. Handbook of Communication and Social Interaction Skills. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Grusec, J. E. 1992. Social Learning Theory and Developmental Psychology: The Legacies of Robert Sears and Albert Bandura. Development Psychology, Vol. 28, No. 5, pp. 776-786. Jones, P., Bradbury, L. & Le Boutillier, S. 2011. Introducing Social Theory, Second Edition. Cambridge: Polity Press. Kamii, C. & Joseph, L.L. 2004. Young children continue to reinvent arithmetic. 2nd grade: implications of Piagets theory. 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