• Home
• Module overview
• 1. The challenge of management
  • Introduction
  • 1.1 Defining management
    • 1.1.1 The art of getting things done through people
    • 1.1.2 Defining management by its functions
    • 1.1.3 Is management a profession?
  • 1.2 Management knowledge , skills and performance
    • 1.2.1 Types of managers
    • 1.2.2 Effectiveness and efficiency
    • 1.2.3 Managing the customer within
  • 1.3 The evolution of management thought
  • Conclusion

• 2. Understanding external environments

  • Introduction
  • 2.1 Putting the e xternal environment into focus
    • 2.1.1 Classifying external elements
    • 2.1.2 The changing environment
    • 2.1.3 The international dimension
  • 2.2 Relating the o rganisation to its environment
    • 2.2.1 So many issues: Which should you focus on?
    • 2.2.2 How do you acquire the relevant information?
    • 2.2.3 Clarifying the relationship between the internal and external environments
  • Conclusion

• 3. Social responsibility and ethics in management

  • Introduction
  • 3.1 Business is not value neutral: Social responsibility, obligation and responsiveness
  • 3.2 Focussing on ethics
    • 3.2.1 Why business ethics now?
    • 3.2.2 Ethical quandaries
    • 3.2.3 Approaches to ethical dilemmas
    • 3.2.4 Defining your ethics
  • Conclusion

• 4. Managerial decision making

  • Introduction
  • 4.1 Decision making and problem solving
  • 4.2 The nature of decision making as part of management
    • 4.2.1 Programmed and non-programmed decisions
    • 4.2.2 Certainty, risk and uncertainty
    • 4.2.3 Urgent vs important decisions
  • 4.3 Problem solving: making the most of opportunities
    • 4.3.1 Looking further at problem solving
    • 4.3.2 The effective decision making process
    • 4.3.3 Improving managerial problem solving: overcoming barriers
    • 4.3.4 Thinking 'outside the box' and creativity
  • 4.4 Interrelated problems
  • Conclusion

• 5. Managing strategically

  • Introduction
  • 5.1 Planning ahead
  • 5.2 Strategic management
    • 5.2.1 Some definitions
    • 5.2.2 The process of strategic management
  • Conclusion

• 6. Organisational design and structure

  • Introduction
  • 6.1 The terminology of organisational design
  • 6.2 Strategic organisational design and structure
    • 6.2.1 Types of organisational structure
    • 6.2.2 Strategic organisational design
  • 6.3 Teamwork
    • 6.3.1 The success of teamwork
  • Conclusion

• 7. Organisational culture and workforce diversity

  • Introduction
  • 7.1 Defining organisational or corporate culture
    • 7.1.1 Culture defined through its response to change
    • 7.1.2 Culture defined through the influence of the external environment
  • 7.2 Strong and weak cultures
  • 7.3 The functions of culture
  • 7.4 Creating and sustaining culture
  • 7.5 Types of culture
    • 7.5.1 Dominant culture
    • 7.5.2 Subculture
    • 7.5.3 Core values
  • 7.6 Changing culture
  • 7.7 Cultural diversity in the maritime industry
  • Conclusion

• 8. Change management

  • Introduction
  • 8.1 Dealing with change and the changing nature of change
    • 8.1.1 In what areas of the organisation can managers expect change?
    • 8.1.2 Reacting to change
  • 8.2 Key issues accelerating change
    • 8.2.1 External forces
    • 8.2.2 Internal forces
  • 8.3 Managing change
    • 8.3.1 Reactions to change
    • 8.3.2 Why employees resist change
    • 8.3.3 Emotions accompanying change
    • 8.3.4 Overcoming resistance
    • 8.3.5 Leadership and successful change
  • Conclusion

• 9. Motivating for performance

  • Introduction
  • 9.1 The nature of motivation
  • 9.2 Theories of motivation
    • 9.2.1 Do rewards really work? needs theories
    • 9.2.2 Are substantive rewards the only motivator? process theories
    • 9.2.3 Learning behaviour reinforcement theory
    • 9.2.4 Social learning theory
    • 9.2.5 Putting it all together systems theory
  • 9.3 The power of positive thinking
  • 9.4 Motivation: The implications for managers
  • Conclusion

• 10. Leadership

  • Introduction
  • 10.1 The nature of leadership
    • 10.1.1 Thinking about 'leaders' and 'leadership'
    • 10.1.2 Theories of leadership
    • 10.1.3 Refining our definition of leadership
  • 10.2 Perspectives on leadership
    • 10.2.1 Manager, leader, or both?
  • Conclusion

• 11. Teamwork

  • Introduction
  • 11.1 Work groups and group dynamics
    • 11.1.1 Work groups, work teams, taskforces, self-managing teams and team building
    • 11.1.2 High-performance teams
  • 11.2 Managing meetings and committees
  • 11.3 Group decision making
    • 11.3.1 Some advantages and disadvantages
    • 11.3.2 So, do groups make better decisions than individuals?
  • Conclusion

• 12. Managerial evaluation and control

  • Introduction
  • 12.1 Evaluation and control as a management process
    • 12.1.1 Why evaluate and control performance?
    • 12.1.2 Getting and using necessary information
  • 12.2 Levels of control
  • 12.3 Steps in the control process
  • 12.4 Assessing control systems
  • 12.5 Back to ethics
  • 12.6 Quality control systems
  • Conclusion

2.1 Putting the external environment into focus

The external business environment in which an organisation operates has a continuous and profound effect on the management of the organisation. Stop for a moment and think about the importance and implications of the growing international trade, for example. The volume of international trading in goods has expanded greatly since the beginning of this century.

The increase in international trade has enormous implications for world peace, politics and development in the area of international trade laws. Economic conditions among the major trading nations have vital effects upon economics, the balance of payments and currency values of their trading partners.

Often a manager of an organisation does not have the power to control such powerful external influences. However, if you ignore them you may expose your organisation to threats and may even miss valuable opportunities. The manner in which different organisations respond to these common constraints and opportunities determines the successes and failures of the organisation.

Some examples may assist to reinforce the importance of paying heed to the implications that arise from external issues.

Example 1: Key trends impacting ports

A number of factors impact on ports. These include the trend towards ever larger ships, increased ship specialisation and urban revitalisation pressures.

As world maritime trade continues to grow thanks to economic globalisation and the steady removal of trade and tariff barriers through the effort of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), there is increasing pressure to handle larger commodity movements more efficiently. Efficiency implies lower unit costs for goods movement. In the marine transportation industry this drive for efficiency has been reflected in reduced freight rates and a drive to cut shipping costs. Ship owners have strived to meet these cost-cutting challenges in several ways.

Through the use of flag-of-convenience ships rather than national flag carriers, ship owners have been able to significantly reduce their crew costs by using non-nationals to operate their vessels. This means that lower cost, developing country crew and officers have steadily replaced more expensive staff from developed nations. Another step to reduce ship costs involves cutting the crew size aboard ships by installing various mechanised and computer driven systems to displace labour intensive activities.

The key step to reducing unit cargo costs to generate profits from falling freight rates has been the steady growth in the size of ships serving various trades. Larger ships typically can carry more cargo at less cost on a per unit basis than smaller vessels. Given the increasingly competitive cargo freight marketplace, it is not surprising that the trend towards larger ships continues almost unabated. Larger vessels create demands on ports to expand their cargo storage capacity or to move cargo through the port quicker (efficiently) to reduce demands for more cargo storage.

In parallel with larger ships comes the continued trend towards ship specialisation. Given trade growth in almost all commodity movements (with the notable exception of crude oil tankers due to other geo-political factors), the amount of cargo available means specialisation is cost effective. Although specialisation has occurred in all trades, it is most notable in container ships where specialised cellular container vessels without ship's cargo-handling gear have become predominant. Specialised ships can be seen in various other trades in the form of automobile carriers, LNG tankers, chemical tankers, bulk wine carriers and so forth.

Larger and more specialised ships have continued to challenge modern ports. .these trends in the container trade have led to an increasing demand for deeper draught harbours, larger turning basins and manoeuvring areas, wider channels, larger out-reach container gantry cranes (now post-Panamax sized), and more efficient cargo-handling to reduce ship time in port.

Extract from: Ircha, Michael (2000). Changes in Marine Technology: Impact on Canadian Ports . Proceedings of the Canadian Transportation Research Forum. Charlottetown , Prince Edward Island , Canada .

Example 2: The container port development in North-East Asia

Japan is still the major container port market in North East Asia , but its position is being increasingly challenged by South Korean and north Chinese ports, as well as its own problematic economic performance, inefficiencies and high costs. Such is the pace of development in China , that the throughput of its northern ports is expected to exceed South Korea 's by the second half of the 2000s.

The future pattern of regional demand will depend on the rate of port investment in China and the competitiveness and capacity of South Korean and Japanese ports keen to attract transhipment traffic arising from the fast-developing Chinese market.

From: Ocean Shipping Consultants Ltd (1998). The Asian Crisis: Implications for Regional Containerisation . UK .

The next brief reading looks at the relationship between opportunity and strategy. We will cover strategy in Chapter 5:

Reading 2.1

Robbins, Stephen P; Bergman, Rolf; Stagg, Ian and Coulter, Mary (2000). Extract from chapter 8. In Management . 2nd edition. Sydney : Prentice Hall, page 272.

From these examples you can see that changes initiated from the external environment impact upon internal operations. It is important to anticipate and manage the effects of these influences.

Consider

1 Stop for a moment and think about the 'current issues' that you are faced with in your work environment. These are issues that have nothing directly to do with most organisations (apart from taxes). Their indirect impact can be profound, however.

At the time of writing I would suggest issues such as:

• political leadership nationally (at the time of writing the current Prime Minister of Australia is under constant media pressure from the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax and its ongoing maintenance by the small business community. Another issue is the high price of fuel);
• political leadership internationally (relationships between the USA and China are receiving constant attention);
• quality assurance and international shipping management (ISM); and
• increasing competition both internationally and domestically.

2 Identify one external issue and consider the implications for management that arise.

Scanning the external environment is about acquiring information. Clearly, the ability to interpret this information adds greatly to a manager's effectiveness. Lack of knowledge of the tools needed to handle the information may place you in a dependent position and place constraints on your ability to do your job effectively.

 

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