• 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

4.3.2 The effective decision making process

Decision making is more than just the simple act of choosing from alternatives. The effective decision making process involves several steps. You have to:

• identify the problem;
• generate alternative solutions;
• evaluate and choose an alternative; and
• implement and monitor the chosen solution.

The next reading from your textbook discusses these steps.

In your text

Bartol, K M; Martin, D C; Tein, M H and Matthews, G W (2001), pages 131-135.

Consider this

Which step in the decision making process do you consider to be the most important? Support your position.

An example and Activity 4.2

Read the following example. Your task is to identify the real problem. Write down your answer.

Amy Jones sat in her office and pondered her dilemma. She had been at Uni Shipyard & Engineering Ltd for five years. The company has been operating profitably for the last 4 years. Sales in the last year were up by 5%. Costs, however, also went up by 20% over the same period. As manager of the company, Amy, is very worried about this so she tries to find out the cause of the problem.

From her investigation, Amy finds that the increase in costs are due to increases in labour and material costs. She finds out that:

• Delivery schedules are not followed because of delays in production.
• Staff are often taken off one job and assigned to another that is behind schedule; often staff have to rush to finish the job.
• Because things are done in a hurry, many defects are occurring. This leads to much material being wasted and extra staff time required to rework and meet current commitments.
• No regular inventory is done; often, work has to be rushed to meet an order.
• Production is frequently stopped because suppliers are late in delivering goods.

When Amy talks to the foreman in charge of production, she finds another reason. According to the foreman, costs are up because the sales people keep changing their minds as to which orders should be met first. Production for one job will start only to be told that another job is more urgent; to meet the order, a number of staff have to be pulled out of whatever job they are doing and assigned to this new job. When Amy talks to the sales people, however, they blame the foreman for the problem; they say costs are up because of delays in delivery and the poor quality.

Earlier, you were asked what step of the decision making process was the most important. The above asked you to do the first step in the effective decision making process. What would happen if you were to incorrectly diagnose the problem? It wouldn't matter how well you were handled the rest of the decision making process because you were treating the wrong cause. Remember in the first chapter we discussed effectiveness and efficiency? You could be efficiently handling the wrong cause. Think about what happens when you go to a doctor: you describe the symptoms of your problem to the doctor and he or she must diagnose the correct cause before the problem can be treated. As a manager you must observe the symptoms and treat the cause ; otherwise you are throwing 'pearls to swine'. Are you able to see the symptoms easily in the above example?

Key management concept

There is no right or efficient way to do the wrong thing!

If we were to write Amy's problem in one paragraph we would get something like:

Production costs are going up - increases in labour and material costs. Production jobs often fall behind schedule so staff rush to get the job done. However, this leads to a lot of mistakes and defective products. Staff then have to put in additional hours and use more material.

Now try rewriting the problem into a single sentence.

If something isn't done to cut production costs, the company will start losing money (and may eventually find itself out of business).

Case based on South Pacific Management Program, General Management Course, AMC Search Ltd

Following is a scenario. Your task is to define the problem.

Marine engineering problem

You are the production manager of a marine engineering company that produces a kit that converts land-based engines for marine use. You have been aware for some time that the number of conversion kits produced has been declining at a time when customers are crying out for more. Since producing these conversion kits is the sole purpose of the company, it is very important for you to find out what is happening. Upon closer analysis, you have come up with the following key points:

• The machines used to produce these conversion kits are not used to maximum capacity because many staff are not aware of how to use certain controls and switches on the machines. This is not the fault of the staff because the machines are very complicated and the operating instructions are just as complicated. Therefore, many staff resort to trial and error when running the machines. This has resulted in minor accidents as well as machinery breakdowns.
• Whenever a machine breaks down, it takes time to get it fixed because the only maintenance engineer who can fix it is a very busy person. If often takes up to a week before the machine is fixed. When the maintenance engineer does come to fix a machine, the staff running the machine at the time of breakdown are required to write down the cause of the breakdown. In going through all correspondence over the last year, you notice that the main complaint appears to be that the operator did not use the machine properly. Even routine maintenance work was wasted because certain things were done when they didn't need doing.
• Quite often there is a shortage of staff and part-time people need to be hired. Going through the personnel files, you find that the main reason for a shortage of staff is that there are too many people who are consistently off sick; all too often, many are off sick at the same time. This makes you wonder what is going on until you discover a pattern that they only get sick when they are assigned to one of the specialised machines. Apparently nobody likes to work on the machines because they don't want to be blamed for not producing the specified number of parts per day. If the wrong combination of switches is touched, it takes many hours to reset the machine.
• A government safety inspector has written you a letter saying that they will be coming to see you regarding the high rate of accidents in your company. According to their records, you are having too many accidents, even if they are minor ones. Your own records confirm this. Your records also show that in many cases, staff were not wearing any of the recommended safety items which could have prevented the injury.

You will probably find the task more manageable if you reduce the information to one concise paragraph. Then, write the 'problem statement' in one line.

Case based on South Pacific Management Program, General Management Course, AMC Search Ltd.

Consider this

Refer to your list of decisions and problems. Did you engage in any diagnosis when dealing with these? Was the process formal or informal?

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