British Midland International - Research Proposal Example

Research proposal for British midland international (Institution) (Name) (Course) (Module) (Instructor) Date of submission Table of contents Table of contents 2 Introduction 3 Company background 3 Problem statement 4 Research questions 4 Primary research question 4 Secondary research questions 4 Significance of the study 4 Scope 5 Limitations 5 Ethical issues and authorisation 6 Literature review 6 Analytical skills 6 Conceptual skills 7 Motivating employees 9 Methodology 11 Research site and population 11 Sample size and sampling procedure 11 Research design 12 Data analysis and presentation 12 References Introduction Managers have a prerogative to guide their firms through the day to day running and oversee all the business processes that work towards achieving the desired organisational goals and targets. The leadership, which more often than not comprises directors, sets a direction and long term goal/vision while the management is involved in overseeing and supervising the tasks involved in attaining that vision. Company background BMI is a fully owned subsidiary of Lufthansa and is based in the UK. It operates mainly from the Heathrow airports making over 2000 flights per week to destinations in Africa, Middle East, central Asia, North America and Europe. In 2010, the company was fully integrated into the Lufthansa group. This was followed by intensive restructuring in the company to steer the company into profitable ways in the medium term. The restructuring saw 750 job cuts, reduction of fleet size by ten and cutting of capacity significantly as some of the cost cutting measures enacted. However these measures were not enough to turn the company into a positive trend as it reported an operating loss of EUR 145 million and operating revenue of EUR 896 million in 2010 (Annual Reports 2010). Problem statement The company faces stiff competition from other airline companies in the UK and Europe more so in the domestic market which is its core market. The company is in dire need to ensure that its relatively large market share is turned into profits. The company has undergone restructuring and effected cost cutting measure in the last one year. The management is thus faced with the task of ensuring that the firm is profitable by enhancing its business processes to serve the market well, increase its revenues and profits. What role can the management play in promoting the company? Research questions Primary research question Does the management at BMI have the necessary skills and capacity to turn the firm into profitable ways? Secondary research questions What is the role of the management? What can impede the function of the management? How has the management followed management theories? What is the relationship between the management and act of promoting a brand? What are the essentials in promoting a corporate brand? Significance of the study The management has put in place some measures that are aimed at improving the profitability of the company. These measures however are not enough if the marketability of the brand are not worked on. The profitability of the firm does not solely depend on its ability to keep operating costs low but also on the ability of the brand to attract more customers and retain existing ones. This can be done by increasing the consumers’ worth for money in flying BMI. The research will thus further highlight available options for the management in promoting the company and assist in achieving the medium term goals of turning in profits. Scope This study is limited to the internal environment of the company. Again, as a subsidiary of the Lufthansa group, the study will investigate the activities of the subsidiary alone and not of the Lufthansa group. Nonetheless, decisions of the business group that directly impact on BMI will be analysed. Again, the research will concentrate on activities at the senior management level and will avoid business leadership decisions often carried out by directors. Secondary resources fro the research paper will be limited to company annual reports and from the organisation’s website. Limitations The research has drawbacks that include the resources, time and availability of data used. The data pertaining to management decisions is limited to the only decisions that the management chooses to make public. Ethical issues and authorisation The research will seek authorisation from the university and the target organisation over the impeding research. The reasons for conducting the research and the use of data, whereby the reasons are academic purposes in this case, shall be clarified. As the research will involved human subjects, issues of participant privacy shall be duly observed. Literature review In 1955 Katz identified three core managerial skills (technical, human and conceptual skills) that every manager should possess (Peterson & Van Fleet 2004). Over the subsequent years, many authors have added to this list of fundamental skills. For example, Peterson and Van Fleet (2004:1303) have recently identified ten fundamental skills to “enact the functions of management”. Other scholars in this field have listed differing necessary management skills among them good time management, organizational skills, communication skills etc. Analytical skills Analytical skills are needed to diagnose and evaluate a problem, situation, opportunity or conflict in an organization. DuBrin (2008) perceive managers as being different from business leaders in that managers are served with the role of managing and overseeing tasks. They are also charged with the role of identifying and analyzing resulting situations and solving the problem to ensure uninterrupted running of processes. Decision making skills are determined by a manager’s ability to understand a situation or a problem and develop a plan. Therefore, if the manager errs in understanding a problem, then the solution or the resultant plan of action will be wrong and flawed thereby creating more problems for the organization. Blair (2002) also downplays the emphasis on technical skills for managers saying that they add little in terms of management. This is because managers are meant to manage the technical skills of the workforce. He claims that analytical skills are more critical that technical skills in modern organizations. As analytical skills become more valuable for organizations, the relatively stable layers and skills of middle management are being replaced by more autonomous managers with strong analytical skills. These workers are often more loyal to their skills or expertise than to the organizations for which they work (Blair 2002, p.1021). This is observable in the American corporate world where CEO’s transverse from industry to another without consideration of technical know-how in either industry but rather the managerial ability of such individuals. Conceptual skills This skill implies that managers are able to see the big picture and envision the organization as part of the industry and even his contribution to the organization as crucial component. In short, the manager appreciates the impact his decisions and efforts have on the whole organization. He should be able to place the organization in the context of the industry and the external environment such as competition. In most cases, many industries make their based on the business environment. Organizational decisions as made by managers must align with the prevailing business environment. Peterson and Van Fleet (2004) note technical skills have been emphasized for a long time but currently attention is shifting to other managerial skills such as conceptual skills. Therefore, it is common to have managers skilled on technical issues, given that majority of managers rise from lower ranks and take up managerial positions in recognition of their service to organizations, but do not possess conceptual skills a requisite for good performance. To have conceptual skills managers must visualize the impact of their decisions on the whole organization and understand the relationship and connection of units and enterprises of the organization and the market. Bunderson and Surtcliffe (2002) investigated the impact of conceptualization of functional diversity by different managerial teams on organization performance. They discovered that different conceptions of functional diversity can have very diverse implications for team process and performance. Their findings also made a link with interpersonal relations within members of each team. They discovered that intra-personal determined the success arte of each team. A conceptually skilled manager is thus capable of realizing the negative effects that a negative attitude and response to diversity in a team may have on the whole organization. By extension therefore, a manager with good conceptual skills should be able to look beyond personal differences but see the organization as a whole and the benefits to the organization as a result of diversity. On the contrary, an unskilled manager in conceptualization maybe stuck to the petty personal issues that impact on the organization negatively. Motivating employees A number of modern day scholars in human resources management agree that employees are not only motivated by pay. The Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory is one of the most widely used theory in indicating that employees were first motivated by pay and financial rewards which help them meet basic needs and thereafter other needs. The theory indicates that individuals will satisfy each strata of need first before striving satisfy the needs in the other strata (Sankard 2002). Rewarding employees is a form of recognition of their efforts in the workplace and it encourages productivity. Organizations often develop frameworks for rewarding their employees where most of them are based on roles and responsibilities of respective roles and others such as sales are based on countable improvement in work output. The work of Armstrong (2002) underscores the importance of employee reward systems. In part he says that employees are the major variable in an organization’s success hence their recognition and appreciation through rewards is paramount. He says that rewards encourage employees to give in more at work beyond their jurisdiction or beyond their roles and duties in an acceptable manner. Huselid (2006) employee recognition and motivation through reward systems is an integral part of employee performance management and should precede organizational performance management. Reward systems aim at achieving three major things in an organization: To attract the right people at the right time for the right jobs To retain the best people by recognizing and rewarding their contribution To motivate employees to contribute to the maximum in their work A reward should also aim at achieving the following: Need-fulfilling- should satisfy certain human needs for the employees Fair- strict criteria for rewards to those who deserve only Legally acceptable- should take into consideration employment laws and rights of employers Affordable- financial incentives and other rewards used should not strain the organizational budget Cost effective- there should be visible returns on such investments Strategically aligned- should promote and enhance the organization strategy Closely tied to rewards systems are performance appraisals. Berger (2008) also says that if managers could only impart performance appraisals on their employees in the right way then, the procedure would be sufficient enough to deliver feedback, manage organizational talent and play a significant role in making good compensation and rewards decisions. Falcone and Sachs (2007) say that performance appraisals have a common misconception in that their sole purpose in the workplace is to “inform employees how their performance has been rated.” Berger (2008) concurs with this misconception and says that a contemporary performance appraisal operates on the basis of absolute comparison by assessing how employees perform as compared to set goals and objectives. Methodology In order to achieve the research objective, the researcher has to adopt appropriate strategies which include good choice of a convenient research subject, appropriate research method and appropriate data parameters/variables. Research site and population The British Midland International is just one of the many examples of business management outfits in the world. As a company motivated y increasing shareholder value and meeting consumer needs, the firm is utilises a number of management theories in attaining these goals. Some of the theories used pertain to quality improvement, human resources management marketing among others. It is from this background that the organisation was chosen as a subject of this research with the expectation that it represents the management skills and practices in use by business managers in the entire field. Sample size and sampling procedure The research will use a stratified sampling from employees of BMI. The researcher will use 3-4 strata from the organisation workforce. Each stratum will comprise a department or level in the firm’s organizational structure. A loose stratification may entail, research and development, human resource, finance, purchasing and supplies, sales and marketing and administration. The selection of the sample will be restricted to the management level hence ordinary employees will be excluded. The sample will also make sure that at least half the sample comprises senior level managers. In total, the whole sample will comprise eight managers from BMI. Research design Face to face interviews with all the eight respondents will be conducted where applicable. Where impossible, telephone interviews will be considered. The choice of the interview mode will greatly depend on the availability and time schedules of the respondents. The purpose and scope of the research may make respondents to be more committed to their job roles than the interview in case of a clash in timing. The researcher shall pose structured questions pertaining to the management issues in the firm. The respondent will record responses both on tape and on paper for later references. The researcher will however first seek the approval of the respondent on recording the responses on tape. Data analysis and presentation The responses to the structured questions and observations will be the main sources of data. Where applicable, results will be tabulated for easier interpretation. The data shall be analyzed through tabling the findings in frequency tables, averages, percentages, pie-charts and bar graphs to present the information. References Annual report 2010. Accessed on 04/06/2011. http://reports.lufthansa.com/2010/ar/groupmanagementreport/businesssegmentperformance/passengerairlinegroup/britishmidland.html Berger, D. (2008) The Compensation Handbook. 5th ed. (New York: McGraw Hill) Blair, D.C. “Knowledge Management: Hype, Hope, or Help?” Journal of the American society for information science and technology, 53 (12) 1019–1028. Accessed on 04/06/2011. Bunderson J. & Surtcliffe, S. (2002). “Comparing alternative conceptualizations of functional diversity in management teams: process and performance effects.” Academy of Management Journal. 45(5), 875-893 DuBrin, J. (2008). Essentials of Management ed 8. New York: Cenage Learning 2008 Falcone, P and Sachs, R. (2007) Productive performance appraisals edition 2, (New York: AMACOM) Gray, D. (2009). Doing research in the real world. 2nd ed. New York: Sage Guffey, E. (2008). Business communication: process & product. ed 6. New York: Cenage Learning   Peterson, T. and Van Fleet, D. (2004). “The Ongoing Legacy of R.L. Katz: an updated typology of management skills.” Management Decision 42(10), 1297-1308. Stankard, M.(2002). Management systems and organizational performance: the quest for excellence beyond ISO9000. London: Greenwood Publishing Group Read More