ilovestudy

  What Is Workplace Diversity? Diversity has been “one of the most popular business topics over the last two decades. It ranks with modern business disciplines such as quality, leadership, and ethics. Despite this popularity, it’s also one of the most controversial and least understood topics.”5 With its basis in civil rights legislation and social justice, the word diversity often invokes a variety of attitudes and emotional responses in people. Diversity has traditionally been considered a term used by human resources departments, associated with fair hiring practices, discrimination, and inequality. But diversity today is considered to be so much more. We’re defining workforce diversity as the ways in which people in an organization are diferent from and similar to one another. Notice that our definition not only focuses on the diferences, but also the similarities of employees. This reinforces our belief that managers and organizations should view employees as having qualities...

Regional Trading Alliances  Global competition once was considered country against country—the United States versus Japan, France versus Germany, Mexico versus Canada, and so on. Now, global competition and the global economy are shaped by regional trading agreements, including the European Union (EU), North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which we review here. A comprehensive list of trading alliances is available on the U.S. federal government’s International Trade Administration website (www.trade.gov). More than 200 countries participate in at least one regional trade agreement.21 The United States alone has agreements with 75 countries. THE EUROPEAN UNION The European Union (EU) is an economic and political partnership of 28 democratic European countries. Five countries (Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, Montenegro, and Serbia) are candidates to join the EU. Two countries are potentia...

This view of managers as omnipotent is consistent with the stereotypical picture of the take-charge business executive who overcomes any obstacle in seeing that the organization achieves its goals. And this view isn’t limited to business organizations. It also explains turnover among college and professional sports coaches, who are considered the “managers” of their teams. Coaches who lose more games than they win are usually red and replaced by new coaches who are expected to correct the poor performance. THE EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT constraints and challenges The term external environment refers to factors and forces outside the organization that a­ect its performance. The economic component encompasses factors such as interest rates, ination, changes in disposable income, stock market uctuations, and business cycle stages. The demographic component is concerned with trends in population characteristics such as age, race, gender, education level, geographic location, income, and fam...

  THE decision-making process Managers at all levels and in all areas of organizations make decisions. That is, they make choices. For instance, top-level managers make decisions about their organization’s goals, where to locate manufacturing facilities, or what new markets to move into. Middle- and lower-level managers make decisions about production schedules, product quality problems, pay raises, and employee discipline. Our focus in this chapter is on how managers make decisions, but making decisions isn’t something that just managers do. All organizational members make decisions that aŽect their jobs and the organization they work for Step 1: Identify a Problem  Your team is dysfunctional, your customers are leaving, or your plans are no longer relevant. Every decision starts with a problem, a discrepancy between an existing and a desired condition. Let’s work through an example. Amanda is a sales manager whose reps need new laptops because their old ones are outdated and...

  THE BROAD PROBLEM AREA A “problem” does not necessarily mean that something is seriously wrong with a current situation that needs to be rectified immediately. A problem could also indicate an interest in an issue where finding the right answers might help to improve an existing situation. Thus, it is fruitful to define a problem as any situation where a gap exists between an actual and a desired ideal state. EXAMPLES OF PROBLEMS Long and frequent delays lead to much frustration among airline passengers. Th ese feelings may eventually lead to switching behavior, negative word‐of‐mouth communication, and customer complaints.  Staff turnover is higher than anticipated.  Th e current instrument for the assessment of potential employees for management positions is imperfect.  Minority group members in organizations are not advancing in their careers.  Th e newly installed information system is not being used by the managers for whom it was primarily designed....

You may be wondering why you need to study management. If you’re majoring in accounting or marketing or any or eld other than management, you may not understand how studying management is going to help your career. We can explain the value of studying management by looking at three things: the universality of management, the reality of work, and the rewards and challenges of being a manager. The Universality of Management . Just how universal is the need for management in organizations? We can say with absolute certainty that management is needed in all types and sizes of organizations, at all organizational levels and in all organizational work areas, and in all organizations, no matter where they’re located. This is known as the universality of management. Management is universally needed in all organizations, so we want to and ways to improve the way organizations are managed. Why? Because we interact with organizations every single day. Organizations that are well managed—and we’ll...

In today’s world, managers are dealing with global economic and political uncertainties, changing workplaces, ethical issues, security threats, and changing technology. For example, Dave Maney, the top manager of Headwaters MB, a Denver-based investment bank, had to fashion a new plan during the recession. When the company’s board of directors gave senior management complete freedom to ensure the company’s survival, they made a bold mov. We want to focus on six of these changes: customers, technology, social media, innovation, sustainability, and the employee. Focus on the Customer Managers are recognizing that delivering consistent, high-quality customer service is essential for survival and success in today’s competitive environment. Good customer care pays ož. A recent study found that nearly all customers (92%) whose issue was resolved during rst contact with customer service would likely continue using the company.43 That number drops to about half (51%) for customers ...