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Aspects of Successful Business Communication Web search Assignment

Safe Shaikh — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 01:28:43 +0000

Website 1:
http://www.syntaxtraining.com/business_writing_tips.html
Syntax Training website has a lot of useful information focused mainly toward business writing. Syntax Training was founded by Lynn Gaertner-Johnston. There mission is to help employees and managers write better. As I surf through the website, I found a lot of useful information. They basically break down business writing in to following five tips: 1) Get Organize 2) Be Positive 3) Know where Passive Verbs Belongs 4) Do More with Less and 5) Break through Writer’s Block. For each one of these tips, website provides a detail which is understood easily.

Website 2:
http://www.write-for-business.com/WritingTips.html
Focus of this website is also to assist people write better in business environment. This website is easy to read and strait forward to point. The page on website writing tips covers many different tips that writer should improve to become better writer. Tips cover choosing writing style, knowing the audience, planning, spelling and positive.

Website 3:
http://www.businessballs.com/writing.htm
This website is primarily leaned toward providing useful techniques to help write effective communication. It provides various different techniques and tips which can improves the writing tremendously if the writer pays attention to this techniques. Some of the important key techniques covered here are planning, audience, clarity, and formats.

Summary:
These three website described above offers whole a lot of suggestion for business writing. I have narrowed what I feel the most important point to consider in business writing are organize, audience, purpose, short and simple and proof read. In paragraphs to follow I will describe each key point I think are important when comes to writing.

Organize:
Writer should plan ahead and get organize prior to writing. Organizations not only help individual write well but it also helps individual read and understand easily. Proper organization requires good thinking. Essentially, all the writing that is a result of ones deep thinking. Therefore, individual should think clearly, organize the thoughts in mind and put them down on paper. Outline can would be good idea when comes to organizing.

Audience:
Knowing who the audience is can make a huge difference when writing. Writer should take some time to consider who the audience is? What do the audiences know and what do they not know? What is the audience expectation? Considering the audience will help individual stick to the point and will help individual select proper writing style.

Do more with less:
Do more with less concept simply means write less words to get the point across. Lynn Gaertner believes that by keeping the writing short and simple is far more effective. She believes that by cutting down on unnecessary wordiness will make the writing more efficient more enjoyable. This also mean less words and off course shorter reading time.

Purpose:
Purpose is another key point in writing that individual should think about. Having a purpose can make the writing easy, organized and simple to read. Writer should consider what the purpose is? Who will benefit? Is the purpose of writing to seek information or share information? Knowing the purpose will provide clear focus and will help writer present ideas clearly.

Proofread:
Proofread is the final process of writing. In this stage, writer is reading out loud in search for errors, clarity and improvement. This process in my opinion considered the most important because proofread will not only make correction but with rewording of sentence will bring out new creative ideas. The ultimate goal here is to make improvement.

Organizational Behavior Trends

Safe Shaikh — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:56:05 +0000

Organizations today often encourage change to better work environment. However, these changes often cause unwanted results which were unexpected. This leads us to observe organizational behavior in hope of minimizing unwanted negative result. What is organizational behavior and why is it important for companies to understand it? Organizational behavior is the study of behavior and attitudes of individual and groups in organizations. These behaviors impact how employees action and reactions. By understanding how organizational behavior impact companies and what values it brings to companies, will allow managers to be much more effective. There are many factors involve organizational behavior such as ethics and stress. Both the ethics and stress impact how individual or group behave within organization.
Business ethics defines how a company integrates a core values such as honesty, trust and fairness into policies, practices, process and procedure. Businesses also have many on going trainings for their employees to ensure all employees are following policies and procedures. Some time even good managers commit unethical act because they do not carefully think through. All companies have policies that are supposed to help managers make right decision. Even than sometime managers gives in to what they perceive to be the pressure, for example, when boss tells them “Achieve specific sale, period,” In my opinion, those managers will do every thing they can to achieve specific sale, even if they have to break their own beliefs. This action is not acceptable. These actions are unethical. It is manager’s obligation to do what is right, just and fair.
Since Enron corporate scandal, the ethic in business world has taken more attention. All businesses are reviewing their process, procedure, and ethical policies to ensure all employees are making right decisions. Companies are paying more attention to their actions. They are also performing internal audits to ensure managers are not taking any unethical action. Many big companies are hiring auditor from outside addition to its internal audits. This allows them monitor activities effectively and to ensure business is operating to its policies.
Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was signed into law July 30, 2002. The law followed a series of very high profile scandals, such as Enron and WorldCom. The act introduced highly significant legislative changes to financial practices and corporate government regulation for companies with traded securities in the United States. This act requires businesses to review all there process and procedure to ensure that they are in compliance with Sarbanes Oxley act. Due to this Sarbanes Oxley Act, all organizations had SOX plan implemented where all departments, such was operation, purchasing, sales, human resource, receiving and legal, were required to go though their own departmental process and procedure. Once the process and procedure were reviewed, a process flow map was to be created and ensure proper controls were in place and to make sure that the organization is in compliance with SOX.
ABB Inc, where I work has ethic code policies which set some legal standards and provide guidance for internal rules and regulation. ABB is constantly utilizing its global present and effectively using its resources around the world for support in developing and strengthening its ethics programs. Many successful companies such as ABB have built ethical values and goals into their mission and vision statements. This helps managers and employees understand that values and ethical standards are important to company’s day-to-day operation and management planning.
Legal standard covers almost all aspect of company’s operation. Companies have strict guidelines for how all employees should comply with all legal standards. In United States, all companies must compile with U.S. laws. If for some reason, employee does not follow the laws than Federal Sentencing Guidelines is used to influence how U.S. laws should respond to misconduct of such employees.
Another trend in organization is stress. Stress plays big role in everyone’s life, business or personal. Stress is part of our life. Stress is basically tension or pressure that creates discomfort. “Stress is tension from extraordinary demands, constraints, or opportunities.” (page 371). Stressors are many varieties of things that cause stress. There are two types of stressors. Work stressor and Life stressor. Work stressor is basically things that involve creating stress due to work. Life stressor is things that create stress at home. Both of these types of stressors impact have positive and negative behavior. Positive are known as constructive stress and negative are known is distructive stress. Stress has great deal of impact on our health. Some of the known illnesses are stroke, heart attack, ulcers and depression. Recent advancement in technology also creates stress. Example, use of email has increase tremendously. Almost in every business, use of email play big role. Email has created good source of communication which is fast and reliable. In way, this could be positive or overwhelming or rather stressful for those who are receiving email more that ones capability to handle workload.
In Conclusion, Organizational behavior represents the behavior approach to management. Organizational behavior is how individual or group act and react to constant changing situation. Some factors within Organizational behavior are ethics and stress. These factors together make up portion of the organizational behavior. By understanding organization behavior, company can be more effective toward its mission, value and goal to be successful.

References
Organizational Behavior (9th ed.) J.R. Schermerhorn, Jr., J.G. Hunt, & R.N. Osborn Wiley, 2005 Hoboken, NJ
T.S. Bateman, S.A. Snell (2007). Management: The New Competitive Landscape (7th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Motivation Theories

Safe Shaikh — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:55:28 +0000

Ever since the beginning of time, all the people have been motivated succeed, motivated to conquer, and motivated to be the best. However, what is this we call motivation? “Motivation refers to forces within an individual that account for level, direction, and persistence of effort expended at work (Page 120).” In other word, Motivation is the energizing and directing of behavior.
The success of any organization depends on the ability of managers to provide a motivating environment for its employees. Motivated employees are more productive, happier, and stay with the organization longer. One of the main tasks a manager faces is to find out what motivates their staff. By understanding employee needs, managers can understand what rewards to use to motivate them. To understand what motivation is and difference between various motivations theories, we will look at different theories concerning our motivated behavior.
Abraham Maslow’s theory called hierarchy of needs theory. Maslow believed that within every individual, there exists a hierarchy of five needs and that each level of need must be satisfied before an individual pursues the next higher level of need. As the individual progresses through the levels of needs, the preceding needs lose their motivational value. There are five levels of needs, according to Maslow: 1. Physiological Needs. These needs include food, water, and sex, which are essential for us to survive. If these needs are not met, then all other needs will not be a source of motivation. 2. Safety Needs. This refers to the need to feel safe from physical and emotional harm. 3. Social Needs. These needs are concerned with social interactions with others. The individual needs to feel a sense of belonging, affection, acceptance, and friendship. 4. Esteem Needs. Esteem is concerned with the feelings of self-confidence derived from achieving something, and the recognition and prestige that comes with that achievement. 5. Self-Actualization Needs. This level of needs is concerned with achieving ones full potential and dreams. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory is too simple. Humans are very complex with needs that overlap each other at different times. In other words, even if a level of need has been met in the past, this does not mean that this same level of need will not again become a source of motivation in a different situation.
The Equity Theory by J. Stacy Adams is based on the social comparisons that exist when people gauge the fairness of their work outcomes relative to the efforts of their coworkers. Adams states in his theory that the perceived inequity from the comparison becomes a motivating state of mind. When a worker feels that the compensation he is receiving for his work contributions is not equal to the compensation received by fellow workers for the same work, the perception of inequity exist. This type of inequity is classified as felt negative inequity. Felt positive inequity exist when the worker feels he or she is receiving more compensation than his fellow workers for the same work contribution. When the worker feels a positive inequity, he would tend to increase the quality or quantity of his work. When the worker feels a negative inequity, the quality or quantity of work would decrease. Adams claims in his theory that when such an inequity is perceived, the worker in question will be motivated to act in ways that will help him restore his sense of felt equity. The ways in which the worker can attempt to restore his sense of equity are by giving less effort, asking for a raise, quitting, or convincing his or her self that the perceived inequity is only temporary.
Victor Vroom’s expectancy theory states that in order for a person to be motivated he or she must believe that an action must have acceptable results, those results are going to be rewarded, and the rewards are highly positive. Much of expectancy theory is based on probabilities. If a person believes that a task or level of performance is absolutely impossible then expectancy would equal zero, however if a person believes that a task or level of performance is 100 percent attainable then expectancy equals one. Instrumentality, or “the probability that performance will lead to various work outcomes,” (Schermerhorn, Hunt, and Osborn, 2005) can be measured from zero to one, as well. Valence, which is the value that is attributed to various work outcomes, can be measured from negative one, very undesirable, to positive one, very desirable.
All of these values are directly related to motivation and as they change and vary the level of motivation an individual experiences. As the level of valence, instrumentality, or expectancy approaches zero the desire to perform decreases. The theory allows for rewards and performances to show being linked in different ways and may cause different reactions in different cultures. A pay increase could motivate a person to work harder and longer, or could have the adverse effect in allowing an individual to work fewer hours for the same pay rate. Careful monitoring of these levels is required to ensure that maximum performance can be achieved and the desired outcome is attained.
The valence of expectancy theory can be broken into two reward sections. The first, extrinsic rewards deal with positively valued rewards from an external source or person. Examples of these include pay raises, gift cards, being allowed to leave work early or come in late, and promotions. The second, intrinsic rewards, are positively valued work outcomes that are results of performance. Feelings of achievement and pride would be good examples of intrinsic rewards. There is no way to accurately define which of these may work best for any particular task, and managers need to take into account a worker’s needs or wants when planning a reward program. In some cases a bonus plan may work best with one employee, but it may best to let another make a presentation on a completed project.
Fredrick Herzburg developed theory of motivation called the two-factor theory. Herzburg’s findings suggest there are two factors that contribute to employee satisfaction and dissatisfaction. The first is referred to as motivators, which includes responsibility, advancement, and recognition. The other is known as hygiene factors. These factors include the work environment, management, salaries, and company policies. Unsatisfactory hygiene factors can act as de-motivators, but if satisfactory, their motivational affect is limited without motivators
The two-factor theory is what Frederick Herzberg argues, the primary causes of job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction. “He wants workers to report the times they felt exceptionally good about their jobs and the times they felt exceptionally bad about them.” (UOP, Chapter 6)
From the study that was done they developed the two-factor theory, also known as the motivator-hygiene theory. He wants to know the satisfaction and dissatisfaction the workers have. For example, some hygiene factors that affect job dissatisfaction is organization policies, working conditions and relationships with peers. Some hygiene factors that affect job satisfaction is, achievement, recognition and advancement.
Clayton Paul Alderfer is an American Psychologist who further expanded Maslow’s hierarchy of needs by categorizing the hierarchy into his ERG theory of existence, relatedness and growth needs. (Wikipedia, 2006). Existence needs are the desire for physiological and material well being, such as hunger, thirst and sex. Relatedness needs are social and external esteem such as involvement with family, friends, coworkers and employers. Growth needs are internal actualization and self-esteem such as the desire to be creative, productive and to complete meaningful tasks.
Alderfer’s ERG theory does not require completion of one stage of motivation prior to moving to the next stage as in Maslow’s theory. Alderfer emphasizes satisfaction and progression along with frustration and regression components. When an individual is satisfied at one level such as the relatedness needs, he or she can then work towards the next level of growth needs. When needs in a higher category are not met or the individual becomes frustrated with his or her attempts to reach the next level, then individuals redouble the efforts invested in a lower category need. Finally, unlike Maslow’s hierarchy theory, Alderfer contends that more than one need may be activated at same time.
Aldefer’s ERG theory would be best suited for an organization employing sales, production, and administrative groups. Under this theory, manager has to recognize that employees have multiple needs that must be satisfied simultaneously. The hierarchical aspect of the ERG theory is not as rigid as the above described theories. Furthermore, ERG theory has three levels of needs which are independent of the each others, whereas Maslow’s theory consists of five levels of needs which must be followed in ascending order.
What motivates people all depends upon their perception of attraction to a goal. The theories mentioned above are but a few of the many theories that exist. Regardless of which theory is followed, it is important to remember that the key to motivating employees is to know and understand what motivators are available and how to apply them to obtain the best results.

Reference
Wikipedia (2006). Retrieved August 28, 2006 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clayton_Alderfer
Schermerhorn, J., Osborn, R. and Hunt, J. Organizational Behavior, 9th edition. Chapter 6: Motivation Theories. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2005.

Diversity

Safe Shaikh — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:54:20 +0000

Diversity is one of the factors of the Organizational Behavior. “Diversity is basically difference in gender, race, and ethnicity, age, and sexual orientation (page 88).” Diversity affects our lives everyday. Everywhere we go, no matter what city, state, or country we travel to, we will always be surrounded by diversity. This can be both a good and a bad thing. However, diversity is a part of our daily lives and it is something that must learn to live with. People with different demographic differences working in the organization makes diverse workforce. And it is becoming more important for the organizations to know about these differences and how to manage it. Diversity is also the common issue in the workforce environment, in some companies employees often get discriminated or misunderstood because of the diverse features. So it is important for the companies to manage the diversity workforce to value best performance. Most important aspect these days is to train the managers to handle the diverse workforce
The large and global company such as ABB, where I work, has established a well-diversified product portfolio as well as having a diversified workforce in the many different countries. As a core value, ABB embraces diversity in all its forms. Diversity of race, gender, ideas, ways of living, cultural and business practices provide creativity and innovation essential to the corporation’s economic growth. ABB has equally diversified its product line in all its industries. These products vary by country and industries. ABB has also implemented a supplier diversity program that has been able to provide equal access to procurement opportunities for both minority and woman-owned enterprises. Planning and organization also has to be diversified due to the many establishments in different countries. Diversity is becoming more important these days and for this reason, ABB has implemented diversity training program for all its employees especially in US.
One of the factors that play key role in diversity is Value. Value can be define as preferences concerning appropriates courses of action or outcomes. (page 83). As such, value reflects sense of right and wrong. Value tends to influences attitude. For example, if you value good and honesty, than when working with people who are bad nature and liar, could result in possibly conflict and possibly looking for different job. Value comes from parents, friends, and surrounding environment that can influence value. Value can also be developed by continues learning experience. There are two types of value, the terminal value and instrumental value. Both values are different. “The terminal values reflect person’s preference concerning the ends to achieve; they are the goal that individual likes to achieve in their lifetime (page 83).” Where as, the Instrumental values reflect the means for achieving desired ends. These values have clear relationship between attitudes. Attitudes are influenced by values and are acquired from the same source as values. Organization behavior has dealt with relationship between attitude and performance. Recent study shows a clear relationship between how attitude affects performance.
Sexual orientation only recently has been recognized as an important aspect of diversity programs. Most diversity programs have a general equality provision that states that an individual cannot be discriminated against based on sexual orientation. Individuals that have a sexual orientation that is considered different from the traditional female and male sexual orientation may face discrimination in the workplace, therefore, it is critical that employers address sexual orientation and incorporate diversity training that specifically addresses sexual orientation.
Religion is also one of most important factor to consider when dealing with diversity. Religion comes from parents and usually reflects a way of life. All religion has it own unique characteristic which distinguish difference for all employees. Company should understand how religion effects the way employees behaves. Code of ethics and moral behavior comes from religion. There are hundreds of different religions in existence today. Some of the major ones are Muslim, Christine, and Catholic. Each on this religion has it own unique different code of ethic and way of living. Religion all effect how business operates. For example, in western world, Sunday is considered non-business day where most of the businesses are closed other than retail stores. However, in Middle East, Sunday is consider business day and instead Friday is consider to be non-business day. As you can see religion does on some ways effect how business operates.
In Conclusion, there are a number of forces, which will have an impact on organizational behavior. Organizations must remain flexible enough to withstand the changing internal and external forces that develop with the changing world, marketplace and environment. Diversity in workforce is growing in all countries special USA, Canada and Europe. With having more diverse work environment organization can produce better performance. It is important for the companies to know diversity and how to handle the issues relating to it. Also the need of the diverse workforce is getting more not only because there are different people but also because they can produce better results with having different types of people working. Managers in the organizations should learn diversity that differences of gender, age, sex and religion in their work environment and to communicate importance of diversity and how to manage it effectively.

References
Organizational Behavior (9th ed.) J.R. Schermerhorn, Jr., J.G. Hunt, & R.N. Osborn
Wiley, 2005 Hoboken, NJ
T.S. Bateman, S.A. Snell (2007). Management: The New Competitive Landscape (7th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin
ABB Inc, (2006). Retrieved August 13th, 2006 from http://www.abb.com

Workspace Observation

Safe Shaikh — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:52:59 +0000

Organizations today often encourage change to better work environment. However, these changes often cause unwanted results which were unexpected. This leads us to observe organization’s culture in hope of minimizing unwanted negative result. What is organization’s culture and why is it important for companies to understand it? Culture is not an easily defined concept, but generally it is the values, beliefs, and norms expressed in work practices and behavior. An organization’s culture is not necessarily an articulated list of values found in a carefully worded statement or available as an appendix in an annual report. Rather, culture is created by the organization itself. How employees treat and interact with one another and the values of the employees and the organization. These behaviors impact how employees action and reactions. By understanding how organizational culture impact companies and what values it brings to companies, will allow managers to be much more effective. Additionally, there are many factors involve in respect to organizational culture such as diversity, communication, dress and language of organization.
One of the factors of organizational behavior is communication. Communication is sending and receiving a massage with meaning behind it. With constant improvement in technology, people now have many ways of communicating such as email, fax, phone or even instant massager, Communication has never been better. Organization communication is the process through which information moves and is exchanged throughout the organization. This is also important part of organization as through effective communication, companies find its success. For Example, Large global company such as ABB, where I work, communication is one of the most important aspect of how different levels of management share information given different language barrier. ABB is established in 80 countries. ABB has well over 100,000 employees with diverse culture. For this very reason, ABB has made selected English to be it primary language followed by national language for each country.
Diversity is also another factor of Organizational Behavior. Diversity is basically difference in gender, race, and ethnicity, age, and sexual orientation. As a core value, ABB embraces diversity in all its forms. Diversity of race, gender, ideas, ways of living, cultural and business practices provide creativity and innovation essential to the corporation’s economic growth. ABB has equally diversified its product line to in all its industries. These products vary by country and industries. ABB has also implemented a supplier diversity program that has been able to provide equal access to procurement opportunities for both minority and woman-owned enterprises. Planning and organization also has to be diversified due to the many establishments in different countries. As the company becomes global, it faces many verity of diversity issue with-in the organization. Each corporation has to take responsibility of not only understating impact of diversity but rather balance diversity in way that it has unlimited positive effects.
Dress and language is also important aspect of how employees perform their work. Recent tread in casual have almost diminished the business dress code. More often companies these days are facing this tread. Large Corporation such as ABB has causal Friday, where employees are allowed to dress comfortably. Where as the small company do not have any dress codes. It is important to dress well. It motivates, and has direct impact on performance.
Since Enron corporate scandal, the policies, process, procedure, and even ethic with-in business world has taken more attention. All businesses are reviewing their process, procedure, and ethical policies to ensure all employees are making right decisions. Companies are paying more attention to their actions. They are also performing internal audits to ensure managers are not taking any unethical action. Many big companies such as ABB, IBM, and GM Motor are hiring auditor from outside addition to its internal audits. This allows them to monitor activities effectively and to ensure business is operating to its policies.
Sarbanes Oxley act has also been implemented. This ate is in place in United State where all business are required to review all there process and procedure to ensure that they are in compliance with Sarbanes Oxley act. Due to this Sarbanes Oxley Act, ABB had SOX plan implemented where all departments, such was operation, purchasing, sales, human resource, receiving and legal, were required to go though their own departmental process, procedure and policies. Once the process and procedure were reviewed, a process flow map was created and ensured proper controls were in place and also to make sure that ABB is in compliance with SOX.
In Conclusion, Organizational behavior represents the behavior approach to management. Organizational behavior is how individual or group act and react to constant changing situation. Some factors within Organizational behavior are culture, diversity, communication, effectiveness, efficiency and organizational learning. These factors together make up organizational behavior. By understanding organization behavior, company can be more effective toward its mission, value and goal to be successful.

Organizational Behavior

Safe Shaikh — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:51:19 +0000

Organizations today often encourage change to better work environment. However, these changes often cause unwanted results which were unexpected. This leads us to observe organizational behavior in hope of minimizing unwanted negative result. What is organizational behavior and why is it important for companies to understand it? Organizational behavior is the study of behavior and attitudes of individual and groups in organizations. These behaviors impact how employees action and reactions. By understanding how organizational behavior impact companies and what values it brings to companies, will allow managers to be much more effective. There are many factors involve organizational behavior such as culture, diversity, communication, effectiveness, efficiency and organizational learning.
Organizational culture is shared belief and values that influences the behavior of organization members. . Organizational culture includes routine behaviors, norms, dominant values, and a feeling or climate conveyed. The purpose and function of this culture is to help foster internal integration, bring staff members from all levels of the organization much closer together, and enhance his or performance. Mission, Vision, and Value statement are the good example of shared belief and values. Many successful companies such as ABB, where I work as project buyer, have built values and goals into their mission and vision statements. This helps managers and employees understand that values and ethical standards which are important to company’s day-to-day operation and management functions.
Diversity is also another factor of Organizational Behavior. Diversity is basically difference in gender, race, and ethnicity, age, and sexual orientation. As a core value, ABB embraces diversity in all its forms. Diversity of race, gender, ideas, ways of living, cultural and business practices provide creativity and innovation essential to the corporation’s economic growth. ABB has equally diversified its product line to in all its industries. These products vary by country and industries. ABB has also implemented a supplier diversity program that has been able to provide equal access to procurement opportunities for both minority and woman-owned enterprises. Planning and organization also has to be diversified due to the many establishments in different countries.
Another factor of organizational behavior is communication. Communication is sending and receiving a massage with meaning behind it. With constant improvement in technology, we now have many ways of communicating such as email, fax, phone or even instant massager, Communication has never been better. Organization communication is the process through which information moves and is exchanged throughout the organization. This is also important part of organization as through effective communication, companies find its success.
Organizational effectiveness is sustainable high-performance in accomplishing mission and objective. This is accomplished by hiring right people to do the right job with right training. Effectiveness of any job performance is effective use of functions of management which is to plan, organize, lead and control. Leadership is also one of the growing tread where many companies are sending all its employees to the leadership training. The whole purpose of these training to increase the knowledge of employees, in return employee will create the dynamic and more effective organization. When evaluating, it is necessary to consider performance standards which were set and comparing them with short-term and long-term performance.
Organizational learning is the process of acquiring knowledge and using information to adapt successfully to changing circumstance. Organization must be able to adapt to changes positively while continue to learn, create, and share new ideas. Organization has to adapt to constant changes such as economic, technology, and government laws by constantly learning new ideas. Many companies are investing time and money to train their employees to keep up with constant changes. As a result of this training, employees learn new idea and apply toward their individual work. As a group these idea comes together creating very positive effects on company, especially in long run.
Organizational behavior represents the behavior approach to management. Organizational behavior is how individual or group act and react to constant changing situation. Some factors within Organizational behavior are culture, diversity, communication, effectiveness, efficiency and organizational learning. These factors together make up organizational behavior. By understanding organization behavior, company can be more effective toward its mission, value and goal to be successful.

Executive Summary on ABB

Safe Shaikh — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:48:58 +0000

Executive Summary
ABB was formed with merger of two European companies. Asea was founded in 1890. Brown Boveri which was founded in 1891. In 1987 both of these companies merged resulting in creation of ABB. The creation of ABB was unique as the reconstruction and organizing of the company globally was a great challenge. Today ABB generate revenue of more than 30 billion dollars and employs over 120,000 people around the world. Current organizing structure of ABB is complex yet very effective. Similar to most companies, at the top sit CEO followed by twelve executive boards of directors. Reporting to these twelve executive boards are about 60 business areas (BAs). BAs are grouped in to eight business segments where each segments consist of BAs anywhere from five to ten BAs. Each of these BAs have a leader who leads their organization to success. This might sound complicated perhaps from where CEO sits. However, where the real work gets done, all of the operations work closely with stand alone operations. All managers have clear defined sets of responsibilities, and accountability. There has been a lot of coordination and ongoing improvement for ABB to stand where it is now. Organizing the physical structure and thousands of employees around the world has proven to be great challenge and ABB has done well.

Organizing Functions of Management

Safe Shaikh — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:47:54 +0000

In today’s business world, due to very competitive market and constantly changing environment, Management function of business is extremely crucial to business survival. These days managers are facing great challenge due to constant changes in technology, economy, and government laws. In order to be successful manager, they must be very organized.
Organizing is one of the functions of management. Author defines organize as “assembling and coordinating the human, financial, physical, informational, and other resources needed to achieve goals” (Page 15). In other word, organizing is simply gathering all information and planning necessary action to achieve goal. Organizing is very important. Organizing allows individuals to be more efficient and manage time wisely. Organized manager have clear view of scheduled event and therefore they are able to make proper decision. My department is very organized. We have process and procedure in place for each activity. We have tasked assigned to each of us. We all have specific duties which we are responsible for. This helps everyone communicate easily with one another.
Traditional view of organizing was to create an organizational chart and manage all departments. The new view of the organizing is not only to develop organizational chart but also to view the employee as added value, as the employee will build the flexible, adaptive and responsive organization. For Example, many companies are investing heavily on training for all their employees rather than just managerial position. Since, corporate Enron sandal, ethic has been the hot topic. All complies are investing in their employees by sending them to ethic classes. Leadership is also one of the growing tread where many companies are sending all its employees to the leadership training. The whole purpose of these training to increase the knowledge of employees, in return employee will create the dynamic organization.
Organizing at ABB in done very uniquely compared to many other companies. ABB was formed with merger of two European companies. Asea was founded in 1890. Brown Boveri which was founded in 1891. In 1987 both of these companies merged resulting in creation of ABB. The creation of ABB was unique as the reconstruction and organizing of the company globally was a great challenge. Today ABB generate revenue of more than 30 billion dollars and employs over 260,000 people around the world. Current organizing structure of ABB is complex yet very effective. Similar to most companies, at the top sit CEO followed by twelve executive boards of directors. Reporting to these twelve executive boards are about 60 business areas (BAs). BAs are grouped in to eight business segments where each segments consist of BAs anywhere from five to ten BAs. Each of these BAs have a leader who leads their organization to success. This might sound complicated perhaps from where CEO sits. However, where the real work gets done, all of the operations work closely with stand alone operations. All managers have clear defined sets of responsibilities, and accountability. There has been a lot of coordination and ongoing improvement for ABB to stand where it is now. Organizing the physical structure and thousands of employees around the world has proven to be great challenge and ABB has done well.
When it comes to organizing any strategy such as hiring, marketing, logistics, and operation, ABB has to consider many aspects of the global market. These include political, religious, cultural, and economic factors for the given targeted region.. To achieve the goal of the corporation, the chief executive officer along with thirteen executive board members may set the goals for the corporation, but the head of each BA must ensure that the goals are carried out properly. Individual plans for each BA must also be well organized so that the planning can be properly implemented. Proper implementation of any plan can only be achieved by the delegation of authority and a trusted staff of well educated, highly motivated employees. Any corporation that is represented and sold in more than 180 countries around the world has to think, plan, organize, and implement strategies to achieve global success. In other words, ABB must think and act like a global while remaining local at same time respect the cultural, political, and religious views of the country that they are selling products in. Failing to organize properly, ABB could loose it market share forever, as well as losing jobs for thousands of people.
Organizing in human resource (HR) is also quite unique as the ABB employs about 100,000 people around the world. Human resource manager must not only act global but local as well. HR manager must utilize organize function of the management to keep up with constant changing industry. Similar to demand for product, there is also demand for highly technical people. For that very reason, HR manager at ABB uses well organized plan.
Organizing in terms of finance is concerned, ABB has well organized its process and procedure to insure all the controls are in place to protect it assets financially. As I like to call it “A Big Bank” when referring to ABB. Lets face it, as the company gets bigger, more risk needs to be evaluated and to insure that company does not end up closing its chapters because it was not organized well enough to support its operation financially. As I mentioned before, ABB generate more than 30 billion in revenue annually. For this very reason, having organized planed for handing finance is important.
In past, large corporation had more advantage over the small firm. Today, small size corporation have advantage as they are able to react quickly to customers demand due to simplicity of organization structure. For these very reason, large corporation have to take organizing function of management serious. Large firm should organize not only their physical asset but aloes organize in terms of employees, finance, and technology.
In Conclusion, ABB has become a world leader in various industries by effectively utilizing globalization, diversification, innovation and most important organizing in respect to function of management. ABB will continue to grow. In respect to ABB’s success, its manager must be organized. Organizing can be done easily by reviewing plan than coordinating all information in way to complete task successfully. Organizing is one of the few qualities of leader. To lead manager must organize and lead the staff in way that will shape the future on their organization. Without these great leader, ABB would not be where it is today.

References
T.S. Bateman, S.A. Snell (2007). Management: The New Competitive Landscape (7th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
The ABB Inc (2006). Retrieved July 23rd, 2006 from http://www.abb.com

Operational Approaches

Safe Shaikh — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 23:43:19 +0000

Operation management is the process of taking input such as raw material and component and turning it in to out put by adding values. Out put is a final product that customer is willing to buy. Traditionally, manufacturing were the only type of organization that used operation management. However, in modern time, service type of business has also adapted operation management. Both manufacturing and service are utilizing operation management concept such as facility layout, capacity utilization and process analysis.
Make-to-orders is a concept where good or service is made after the order is received from customer. Usually, the product is customer per specs than the standard or combination of both. This also means that longer lead time than standard product. Make-to-stock is concept where final product is manufactured and stocked before receipt of customer’s order. For this concept, normally customer places the order and supplier take the product off the shelf and delivers it in rather short time frame.
One of the advantages is that manufacturer is able to build up the inventory as store capacity. On the other hand service types of organization are unable to inventory so they rely on backlog or reservations. The disadvantage of manufactures is that if they build too much inventory then, perhaps their excess inventories result in additional cost. There are many material plans that are related to capacity which could be used to control operation management approaches for both manufacturing and service organization.
Quality is one of the key elements that give organization competitive advantage. “Total Quality Management emphasizes a commitment by the organization to strive toward excellence in the production of services and products that customers want.” (Principle of Supply Chain, Page 218) As result of importance of quality, some standardize quality requirement were created. ISO 9000 for example, stands for International Organization for Standards, has series of quality standards. Q9000 standards are US equivalent version of ISO 9000.
There are three type of capacity planning model. Resource Requirement Planning (RRP) is a long run capacity module. Rough-cut capacity plan (RCCP) is medium range planning. Capacity requirement planning (CRP) is a short range capacity planning. All these technique are used to track the feasibility of the material planning. “Excess or insufficient capacity prevents a firm from fully taking advantage of the efficiency and effectiveness of the manufacturing planning and control system. Thus, a set of capacity plans is used in conjunction with the materials plan to ensure capacity is not overstressed or underutilized.” (Principle of Supply Chain, Page 174)
Operational management is important part of supply chain management. There are many approaches that can be used for operation management to take advantage of benefits to stay competitive. There are also quality control approaches such as inspection, customer feedback, total quality management and Six Sigma which can help organization maintain industry quality standard such as ISO 9000.

References
Principles of Supply Chain Management (1st ed.) J.D. Wisner, G. Keong Leong, and Keah-Choon Tan Thomson/Southwestern, 2005 Mason, OH