HI6005 Tutorial Questions On Management In Global Environment Homework Answer

Answer :

Question 1

Diverse workforce

Pearl-Martinez and Stephens (2016, pp. 9) mentioned that a Diverse workforce is the type of workforce in which people from different cultures and backgrounds are included in the workplace. In the global business environment, most organisations are possessed of different sexual orientations, ethnicities, religions and other types of employees. A diverse workforce helps the organisations increase the creativity in work by gathering the opinion of different people, and in this way, it develops the organisation's productivity. However, there is some downside of developing a diverse workforce that is discussed below in details:

The downside of building a workforce

• Handling the issue of the employees

A diverse workforce generates different opinions of the workplace people (Griffin, Phillips & Gully 2016). Therefore, organisations have to provide extra effort to handle the issues of the employees. It is necessary to have a good relationship among the employees to maintain the consistency of productivity. It is another major downside of generating a diverse workforce in the organisation.  

• Communication issue

Communication is a significant issue in a diverse workplace as employees are from different cultures for which they communicate in different languages. According to Stanciu, Condrea and Zamfir (2016, pp. 394), communication among the employees is a significant thing as it helps to maintain coordination in the organisation's various activities. Therefore, people of different languages in the workplace may face issues interacting with each other. 

• Fear of outsourcing

In the diverse workplace, employees are possessed of fear of outsourcing and offshoring, which may affect productivity and profitability in the organisation. MNC organisations use a diverse workforce by collecting local employees to reduce labour cost. That is why the fear of outsourcing and offshoring the employees is another downside of building a diverse workforce. 

The downside of building a diverse workforce can impact productivity as well as the profitability of the organisation. Therefore, it is required to adopt proper strategies of diversity management to resolve the issues. 

Question 2

In the modern business world, stress among employees has become very common due to the utmost competition. Therefore, individual employees have to work on their own to reduce stress from them. In this case, different strategies can be adopted by an individual employee. They are as follows: 

• Self-efficiency approach

The self-efficiency approach refers to an individual employee's beliefs in their capabilities and competencies to accomplish a specific task. Therefore, this approach can be applied to develop confidence and, in this way, reduce stress from them. Three dimensions of the self-efficiency approach are magnitude, strength and generality. The magnitude dimension enables the employees to develop confidence in an individual. Along with this, strengths help to motivate the employees in the workplace by improving their performance level. In this way, a self-efficient approach is massively effective to reduce stress among employees. 

• The equity theory of motivation

According to Ryan (2016, pp. 1590), the equity theory of motivation deals with a similar workplace situation based on input and output. In this way, the equity theory of motivation assumes the employees' motivation by treating all of them equally and fairly. Through this, it has been understood that organisations need to take the initiative to motivate the employees by treating them equally. In this way, it can be used to motivate the employees and improve their mental wellbeing. 

• Goal-setting theory

In the research of Latham, Brcic and Steinhauer (2017, pp. 27), goal setting theory refers to the specific goals that contribute to the higher and better task performance of the organisation. Specific goals help to direct the employees in the organisation, and in this way, it impacts the subsequent performance of an individual in an organisation. Therefore, employees need to set their own goals, and by achieving them, it is possible to reduce stress in the workplace (Griffin, Phillips & Gully 2016). 

An individual employee can use these strategies effectively to reduce stress in the workplace by motivating them towards improving their performance. 

Question 3

Essentials for the team based organisational success

The organisations that emphasise team-based business and handle the organisational activity within groups and teams are called team-based organisations (Griffin, Phillips & Gully 2016). For developing a team-based organisation, some essential things are required to develop a team-based organisational culture. They are as follows:

• Effective communication

In the view of Bergman, Delve, and Skagert (2016, pp. 535), effective communication is necessary to maintain the activities in teams in the organisation. That is why effective communication can be considered essential for developing a team-based organisation. 

• Proper organisational leadership

Along with this, specific organisational leadership is required to manage and direct all the employees properly towards success. 

• Empathy skill

Empathy skills among the employees help the employees in groups to understand each other's feelings. That is why it is essential to develop a team-based organisation. 

Challenges of a team-based organisation

There are several challenges in the team-based organisation that can impact the development of the team-based organisation. They are as follows:

• The need for effective leadership 

For maintaining the activities in the virtual world, effective leadership is required massively. That is why inefficient leaders may face issues to handle the employees' issues in the remote working environment. 

• The issue regarding organisational transparency

It is observed that less organisational transparency is a major challenge in team-based organisations as employees work in groups. In the remorse working environment, the organisational transparency issue is more prominent.

• Less technical knowledge

Less technical knowledge of the employees may impact the entire team activity in the team-based organisation. 

Required competencies for the virtual leadership

Liao (2017, pp. 650) stated that virtual leadership is a specific type of leadership used to manage teams in a remote working environment. Some specific competencies which are required for virtual leadership are as follows:

• Advanced technical knowledge is highly required in virtual leadership.
• Effective communication skills enable employees to interact with the employees properly.
• Empathy skills help to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the workers. 

Question 4

Communicators refer to an individual with the capability of exchanging information with others (Griffin, Phillips & Gully 2016). In the area of professionalism, effective communication helps to maintain coordination and develops productivity. Through using effective strategies, the communication skill of an individual can be developed: 

Things to do to improve the effectiveness as a communicator

• Online speaking course

The research of Kee et al. (2018, pp. 100), states that communication skill helps to maintain continuous interaction with other workers and in this way, to maintain productivity in the organisation. Therefore, for developing communication, an individual can take the help of the online speaking course. Through these online speaking courses, employees can develop their skill at their convenience. 

• Developing active listening skill

For improving communication skill, it is necessary to improve active listening skill as well. In this way, it is possible to understand the vision of others and interact with them more effectively. In the workplace, active listening skill helps the employees to avoid miscommunication and maintain good relationships with other workers. 

• Interacting more with the co-workers

It is highly required to interact with other workers frequently in the organisation to improve the communication level. Continuous communication with other workers develops speaking ability and helps to generate good relationships in the workplace. 

Thus, through implementing the strategies properly, employees can improve their effectiveness as communicators. It would be highly effective to develop the performance and to sustain the job position in the workplace. Along with this, improving the effectiveness of the employee's impact on the organisations positively as it is possible to maintain ghee productivity and profitability in the organisation. 

Question 5

Employees power in the workplace refers to the ability to generate control on the employees and the organisational activities in the workplace (Griffin, Phillips & Gully 2016). Employees power in the workplace are different types in which some of the major individual power has been discussed below:

• Expert power

Expert power refers to the power of control of organisational activity with knowledge, skills and expertise. This individual power in the organisation enables an individual to achieve robust control by managing the employees confidently. Therefore, expert power can be defined as the perception of a certain person to elevate the level of knowledge that other people in the organisation don't have. 

• Reward power

Reward power refers to the specific power that is achieved by the reward in the organisation. This power is gained through the reward and recognition of the authority. This power gives control of the extra time off, promotion and in other facilities of the workplace. 

• Persuasive power

According to Pulford et al. (2018, pp. 1431), persuasive power refers to convincing other people in the organisation to generate wise decisions in the workplace. Individual employees have to utilise logic and facts in the persuasive power to convince other people in the workplace. 

• Legitimate power

Hofmann et al. (2017, pp. 5) mentioned that legitimate power is derived from the highest position of an individual in the workplace, which is based on perception and reality. Some major examples of legitimate power are like allocating the organisational activity, directing the employees and others. 

• Referent power

Referent power defines the power of influencing other people in the workplace with respect, identity, and admiration. An individual acquires this power through the wellbeing and respect of others. 

Question 6

In the view of Qi et al. (2020, pp. 1910), Mechanistic organisations have centralised control systems. On the other hand, organic organisations are the contrary organisation as it uses an informal system to maintain organisational activity. Some major differences between these two organisations are defined below in the table manner:

Table 1: Distinguish between the mechanistic organisation and organic organisation

(Source: Created by author)

The above table has shown the differences between a mechanistic organisational structure with organic organisational structure. It is observed that the mechanistic organisational structure helps to generate control on the employees and in the organisational activities. On the other hand, in the organic organisational structure, it is not possible as employees can maintain the organisational with utmost flexibility. In the context of the contingency approach, it can be stated that organic organisational structure adds a positive outcome in the organisation, which is effective to improve productivity along with profitability. Apart from this, organisational design in the contingency approach states the effectiveness of 'good fit' between the organisation's internal and external system to achieve a maximum outcome in the business.