Question

1. Identify and explain the four basic management functions in organizations.

2. Identify and describe contemporary management issues and challenges.

3. Discuss the importance and determinants of an organization's culture, and how the culture can be managed.

4. Identify and summarize key emerging ethical issues in organizations today.

5. Describe the nature of international business. (Including the definition, recent trends, management of globalization, competition in a global market).

Answer 1

Que-1

Four basic management functions:

• Planning- creating an action plan in detail to achieve an organizational goal, deciding and selecting steps to get there
• Organizing- bringing/ way of consolidating all physical, human and financial resources to reach planned objectives

• Leading – by motivating other employees to achieve those planned business goals by effective personalities and persuasive communication
• Controlling- measuring achievement, to identify sources of deviation from planned objectives and goals and provide a corrective course of action

Que-2

Contemporary management issues and challenges:

• Organization design- traditional and typical hierarchical organization charts are a problem to deal with today’s ever changing competitive market and consumer taste, plus variations in demand to provide responsive and efficient supply. Adaptive systems and evolutionary emergence are needed to cope up with rapid changes
• Customer Service- to bring more revenue, more number of customers, companies adopt various push tactics to sell their product/ service, but they forget about delivering the quality service or at least a customer gets the said benefits for what he/ she has paid for
• Employee satisfaction- which is a measure of how well your workers are doing with their job and how good they feel working environment is, is actually diminishing now. Many companies pressurize employees mentally/ physically to work beyond limits and as a result face high attrition and earn a bad name in market
• Organizational Ethics- many organizations, big or small seem to be failing to ethically respond to internal or external stimulus nowadays, may be due to lack of right leadership or enthusiasm among all employees, especially senior management and owners

Que-3

Determinants of an organization's culture:

• Optimization of individuals’/ Employee morale
• Overall team productivity and performance, including behaviour
• Co-relation between senior and junior management
• Employee engagement and participation level in all sorts of business or internal activities
• Leadership team and type
• Level of information exchange

Importance:

It is like a nuclear reaction. One initiates, the other follows and rest see and start doing the same. It is a spark which needs to be created by the right person in the right direction, at the right time, with absolute rationale and morale. As this will lead where an organization will go in short or long term.

Culture can managed by: a Transformational leader, who can understand his/ her fellow people, convert weak ones into strong ones and develop already strong ones into more strong and futuristic leaders, can align right kind of people to right task, who can continue the same chain.

Que-4

Emerging ethical issues:

• unethical accounting practices- inaccurate reporting of financial statements by the company or/ and its auditors- damages the company’s brand name and brand equity in the market
• Harassment- physical work/ mental stress/ unethical behaviour with employees to get business by senior leaders
• Discrimination- Racial/ Religious/ Gender based for promotions/ work allotment/ employee benefits etc.
• Non- compliance issues- many companies avoid to fulfil any governmental/ environmental/ financial/ legal necessary compliance to run a company or do any financial transactions etc.