Workforce Engagement and Commitment

Introduction

Reward system

Reward system refers to a method through which an organisation strategically attracts, motivates and retains employees. It is about giving back to the employees according to the contribution they offer in employment relationship. A system of reward management may involve both monetary and no-monetary rewards.  Since the primary reason for people to work is earning money, monetary basis of rewarding employees is an important feature in any reward system. Employers have a choice of raising the pay base of employees after performance measurement, usually on annually through a merit pay. The characteristics of a good system include; simplicity in terms being understandable throughout an organisation, equitability and fairness such that it can be justified and applied consistently and perceived or understood as such, participatory in that it involves negotiation and agreement between the management and the staff (Claudia & KleinerI 2015).

Motivation

Motivation relates to the factors, other than reward that drives people to find fulfilment or achieve certain needs. This is best elaborated using the Maslow hierarchy of needs that are represented in a hierarchical order in a using a pyramid and when we happen to satisfy one level of need, we move to the next level. These needs push individuals towards self-actualization and finally to personal superiority and this finally result to a change in ones behaviour. The first level includes the psychological needs which mainly refers to the need for survival such as the need for food, clothing, warmth and shelter. The second level involves the security needs that are shown in the need for safety in worker’s health and family. The third level involves the social needs which is expressed when employees shift their focus to job relations in order to build friendship, intimacy and love. Up next is the self-esteem needs shown by need for acceptance and being valued by others. Self-actualization needs are the highest level, which is the desire to become the best that one can be. Motivation can also be defined by Herzberg’s theory that which explain that employees are affected by motivators and hygiene factors. Motivators bring about job satisfaction and they include autonomy, recognition, and achievement and such inherent aspects after they are fulfilled. The hygiene factors involve conducive work conditions, salary, status, administration and organisational policies. Motivation can also be explained using the fifty-fifty theory by John Adair that influence performance of an organisation. The theory stipulates that fifty percent of motivation originates from within an individual while the other half comes the surroundings, mostly from others. Vrooms expectancy theory defines motivation as a products of anticipated value of someone in action. It is developed on the basis of value, force and expectancy. Motivation is highly influenced by a management process that is efficient (Claudia & Kleiner, 2015).

Engagement and commitment

The engagement and commitment of an employee gives organisation competitive advantages that include employees’ lower turnover and a high productivity. It does not come as surprise that small and large organisation of various types invests heavily on practices and policies that enhance their employees’ engagement and commitment. Engagement and commitment include satisfaction of employees in their work and taking pride in the employer such that they like and believe in their work and have a perception that their employer highly values their contribution. The more an employee is engaged in their work the higher the possibility that they will provide high performance in an organisation (Claudia & Kleiner, 2015).

Importance of rewards system evaluation and motivation to an organisation

The British Airways offers rewards to employees in addition to their normal salaries which depend on performance, skill acquisition and competence. The company also operate two benefit pension schemes in UK. Their reward plan allows non-management staff to have a share in success of business on the basis of corporate targets and measures. It also use local incentive strategies for performance improvement, bonuses and use a new system of broad band to link rewards to performance (British Airways, 2008).

 For British Airways, maintaining a good reward system would be the best approach to deal with the case of the striking employees’. The removal of travel benefits for those employees who participated in the strike meant doing away with a very important component of a comprehensive reward system. A comprehensive reward system includes compensation and benefits which may include bonuses, wages, vacations and health insurance. However, it is necessary for an organization to carry out an evaluation for the reward system management that it applies.  Management usually subject the capital and operating costs to an analysis to determine whether the targeted rates of return are being achieved. The managers will study and investigate the variances and come up with the appropriate course of action to ensure that desired goals are achieved. It is thus logical to expect that reward system that include benefits and compensation would be put under the same scrutiny for the purpose cost-benefit analysis. The travel benefits offered by the airline did not come cheap since it includes a considerable outflow of cash. How organisations treat any benefits or compensation depends on the mangers views on how such costs affect employees work motivation. If the managers perceive that benefits do not have any effect on motivating performance, it is logical for the rewards to be done away with involved respective of the big amount involved. However, if they believe that such rewards will have an effect on work motivation, they should ensure existence of an active management system of the rewards to enhance and influence the work behaviour (Al-Emadi, Schwabenland & Qi, 2015).

The management may be of the view that benefits especially monetary ones may not be a prime factor in performance motivation. They can be necessary in preventing dissatisfaction with an employee’s job but they may not have positive influence at all in performance motivation. What may be necessary is the employee commitment and engagement which will make the employee feel that they are part of the decision making (Akah, 2010). Through provision of negotiation platform with Unite the Union, the managers of British Airways resulted to the intrinsic motivation since such an avenue would make the disgruntled employee to feel involved in process that would finally derive satisfaction.  Thus by differentiating between extrinsic and intrinsic rewards, the managers are able to come up with a foundation for a different method of reward systems management. An organisation will evaluate a reward system to in order to offer intrinsic rewards by way of redesigning the job to add more responsibility, autonomy and control.  Such a system will not only be specific but its implementation may be possible with a bit low expense and effort. It may also be a method that will prevent alienation of an employee when may arise if they are denied participation in and control of those matters that relate to their job. Thus management may result to changes in programmes such job enrichment and rotation, flexibility in scheduling, work groups that are semi-autonomous or quality circles. This kind of scenario is seen when the management of British airways decide to change the work practices relating to the cabin crew. The importance of engagement in deciding on the motivational approach is seen in the desire by the airlines management to avoid the cases of industrial action. By avoiding such strikes the airline and the employees would reach a neutral ground where an agreement would be reached which would serve to prevent negative repercussion for both the firm and the employees (Lalita, 2013).

Thus a reward system a big important factor in any organisation since it is a process that determines human behaviour in an organisation. The prospects of removing travel benefits resulted to industrial action which is central to human behaviour of the company’s workers and whose effects on the performance of the firm is quite outright. It assists in verification of performance in relation the set goals and influences the possibility of employees joining or being retained in the organisation. It assists the extent to which ones effort directed towards developing the future capabilities of the organisation. If it is designed and administered rightly, it can result to positive organisational behaviour. However, if it is wrongly designed and administered the reward system can lead to a constant deterioration of a firm’s performance and its quick demise. Motivation of employees will ensure that their efforts are directed towards maximum performance. The possibility of jobless as in case with British Airways employees is big motivation killer. It is a source of insecurity, and security which is a key component in Maslow’s hierarchy of need, which spurns across ones desire for needs satisfaction and self-actualisation. It is no surprise that the employees would engage in an industrial action since the impending job loss act as demotivating aspect. What is important to any organisation is to have a highly motivated workforce that will translate to best performance.

Employee satisfaction and justification

The decision by British Airways to result to cost-cutting measures and the issues that related to terms and conditions of Unite labour union members resulted to a big dispute between the company and the labour Union. The employees who were members of the union, out of concern for job loss, a freeze in payment and changes to the cabin crew’s change in work practices held a strike ballot supported by their Union. The company responded to the strikes by removing the travel benefits for the workers who took part in the action. After further negotiations failed and a following legal dispute on whether there was any right to call for the strike, Unite announced another five day strikes starting on June 2010. The negotiation facilitated by UK Advisory ACAS failed after a disruption of the negotiations by Socialist Workers Party and the Unite secretary general was found to be using an electronic device to give the union members an update of the negotiations. After the strike Unite alleged that the industrial action caused a big disruption on the number of Flight that the airline could operate, and it had cost the company 186.5 million by June 2010. The claim was rejected by British Airways which said that its services were efficiently operated during the time and that more eligible crew had emerged to take over. The company maintained that the Union had failed to ground the company and the decisions it had made related to its future viability.  However, the dispute had a significant strain on resources of both parties and it saw the company announce an annual loss of 642 million GBP.

The impending job loss and freeze on their payments made the employees to hold ballot on industrial action. The freeze on their payments was more so motivation killer considering that primary reason why people work is to receive a monetary payment. The monetary normally have a significant influence on workers motivation to continue working. According to expectancy theory, where the rewards are viewed by employees in terms of valence, contingency and salience, they will have a considerable influence on the employees’ motivation. The employees thus had the right to turn to industrial action to prevent their payments from being frozen. Furthermore, job cuts caused a lot of insecurities to the employees. These two factors are clearly represented in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs model that explains the link between motivation and the needs of an individual. The removal the travel benefits also present another situation where the employees were justified for participating in subsequent industrial action. A reward system goes a long way in providing motivation for employees. The travel benefits represented an intrinsic reward that is very internal to each individual. They derived their motivation from the prospects of an advancement in career and thus the impending job cuts worked as a catalyst to awaken the insecurities of the employees. This goes a long way in proving that the employees were disgruntled due to possible job loss that would take away their self –actualisation that is the greatest source of individual satisfaction. The employees of any organisation will perform their duties if have a believe that they are seen by management to be capable, they will be given a reward of value that is subject to performance and the reward will equate their performance relatively (Lalita,2013).

            Recommendation

The British Airline should develop comprehensive management of reward system. When designing such a reward system especially where monetary reward is included, the reward should be such that it is public and the recipients of the rewards should be involved in designing it. In order to have criteria through which rewards are given, the management should develop an evaluation strategy that will recognise whether the merits have been met. There should also be concrete reasons why the reward to an employee should be withheld and such reasons should be communicated to everyone in the organisation in order to avoid any future dispute. This is best done through a process of commitment and engagement. This will ensure that the employees will develop positive attitude towards the systems in the organisation and thus they will be able to express their feelings and commitments towards the company. The company should result to other means of cost cutting and to avoid the cases of employees resulting industrial action. Although laying off workers through restructuring assist the company in competing with rivals, the changes usually break the employment contract of other employees psychologically. This is because the employees realize that they do not have the surety of working in an organisation until their retirement age. The reduced employees’ expectations of reciprocity in an organisation make them to feel less committed to the employer (Robert, 2006).

Thus, British Airlines management should make an effort of involving the employees in decisions that will affect them. This is true for the case of laying off workers or withholding their due payments. The company should follow the example of Southwest Airline that has a good reputation in the airline industry for it excellent performance year after year. The Southwest Airline has a finely recorded history of its association with labour unions. It has all along been able to use its reward systems to build a solid relationship with unions and this has seen its retention of contented staff a fact that is evidenced by its low turnover rates. It has managed to negotiate contracts that are long term with the labour unions which include generous benefits clauses for employees and this is an overall strategy of ensuring long term commitment of its employees.  

References

Al-Emadi, A., Schwabenland, A. Wei, C. (2015). The Vital Role of Employee Retention in Human Resource Management: A Literature Review. IUP Journal Of Organizational Behaviour. 14(3), 7-32.

British Airways, (2008).The way we run our business. British Airways2008/09 Annual Report and Accounts / 35. Available at: https://www.britishairways.com/cms/global/microsites/ba_reports0809/pdfs/Workplace.pdf

Holston, C. & Kleiner, B. (2015). Excellence In Reward Systems. Franklin Business & Law Journal V.2015 (3), 29-40.

Kanungo, R & Mendonca ,M. (2011). Evaluating Employee Compensation. Human Resource. 1-8. Available at:

Robert J. (2006).Employee Engagement and Commitment. A guide to understanding, measuring and increasing engagement in your organization.1-19 Available at: https://shrm.org/about/foundation/research/Documents/1006EmployeeEngagementOnlineReport.pdf

Shukla, L (2013). An Examination of the Impact of Leadership Style On Employee Satisfaction In British Airways. International journal of innovative research and development. Vol. 2(5) pp.4-22.Available at: http://ijird.com/index.php/ijird/article/viewFile/36714/29622

William, A. (2010).Employee motivation and performance. Ultimate Companion Limited. 8-56.Available from: http://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/22787/akah_william.pdf?sequence=l

MANAGING WORKFORCE ENGAGEMENT AND COMMITMENT

The case of the British airlines and the UK trade Union Unite

Introduction

Correctness and suitability of a rewarding or remuneration structure is usually determined through its capacity of enhancing job performance. Adequate remuneration motivates employees to increase their output because their percentage of their salaries and wages has the capacity of meeting their living standards unlike inadequate remuneration. The rationale and controls method used in any business environment to promote morale, increase motivation, as well as foster team cohesion (Shuck et al, 2011).

Analysis of the case

With respect to the case of the British Airways and the UK trade union Unite, the cause of their numerous strikes is pretty obvious.  As any business organization desiring to efficiently manage its human resource, there is the need of having a sense of direction which in turn will assist in the developing of reward strategies which are much meaningful, relevant, and beneficial to the organization. By having a sense of direction it means that it will help in filtering all the opportunities which have the possibility of supporting or hindering its progress.

This is to say that as any business organizations, its management authority might have failed to some extent. This is because such multiple strikes could not have been happening in case the terms and conditions of their employment were to be in line with the requirements of the workers’ union. Additionally, coming up with strict rules aimed at making the working conditions of its workers together with poor payment is ultimately undesirable. In order to realize their set objectives, improve the output of its workers, enjoy the economies of scale which comes through that, the welfare of this workers also needs to be taken into consideration. Issues dealing with pay freezing, burdening workers with extra duties or continuous loss of jobs cannot be regarded as the right method to use. Thus there is a lot that the management authority needs to learn as discussed below;

Association between employee motivation and reward system

Nonetheless, employee motivation is a key tool to any organization. This then means that monetary rewards might not have the capacity of motivating in the long term. It will just symbolize the value which comes from organization-employees attachment to certain behaviors. An example of this entails rewarding workers long term services, interpreted  as being part of loyalty or any other forms of performance rewarding above other human resource management attributes.

In connection to that, as a way of eliminating such persistent strikes from the workers’ unions, the British airlines needed to ensure that the nature of their rewarding system is that which has the ability of running on an annual cycle i.e. annual bonuses, annual pay review, or financial year. This implies that in case the company might have missed making changes at the right time, the system had to be reviewed after a whole year (Bogaert et al, 2013). Often, there was a need of taking a long term view, which of course will be relied on the sense of direction, which was to result into the making of rewarding changes for the proceeding years. Although this one could have not been a practical issue to implement, the stakeholders could have been of much influence in this.

Reward system contributing factors

Nevertheless, despite the fact that such rewarding strategies could have moved the enterprise neatly in a certain direction with an ideal pace, all that will remain to be influenced by internal factors for instance (human resource management readiness, budget, changing priorities etc) and external factors like (markets, economic, legal etc) (Shuck et al, 2011). Any of these factors has the capacity of throwing the objectives of the organization hence the evolution of multiple strikes.  Being that that is the real world we are still living in, it must not put the company off whilst developing rewarding strategy. This is because it is the rewarding strategies which will enable it develop or determine the appropriate approach in light of the unavoidable changes along the way (Bogaert et al, 2013).

In accordance to such contributing factors, there are a number of key questions that had to be answered prior to developing the rewarding strategy. Because of that, as a means of developing a rewarding strategy, it is essential for the union to challenge the entire organization simple questions for instance; what were the different elements of its rewarding system?, what message is carried out by its rewarding system?, Does it means all the messages carried by such a system are in conflict?, how cost effective is that rewarding system, how does it fit with the employees’ lives and so on. In case the management of the two firms could manage to answer such questions, it means that each party could have developed a solid foundation through which the rewarding strategy was to be built on (Manroop et al, 2014).  

Components of efficient reward strategy

In respect to the above rewarding evaluation, what will result to employee motivation is first considering the main components of the rewarding strategy. This is because, in our current competitive business world, which is usually driven by brutal competition as well as demanding consumers, business organizations are always looking for other means of engaging their employees. In so doing, they end up vacillating two approaches. The first one is changing the culture of its rewarding system and the other on is changing the rewarding system with the hope that everything else will run smoothly.

Multiple strikes as the ones witness b y the company is because of the longstanding belief arising from such debates that the business organization can either change its reward or culture but not both of them. Such a business organization cannot have the ability of handling too many changes at once. Unfortunately, its reward management authority will be missing the point. Basically, there is the need of enquiring from workers whether they will be motivated working or increasing quality or productivity once their returns have been reduced (Manroop et al, 2014). The massage which ought to come out loud and clear is the manner in which the companies will be inducing such changes.

The British Airlines is of course to be blamed for such strikes because of its failure to take different approach in changing it culture as well as reward at the same time. Culture, in this context, signifies the nature or manner in which individuals do execute their duties as well as how they are organized within their enterprise, how constructive the levels of respect and trust are developed, by whom the decisions are made and so on (Kryscynski & Ulrich, 2015). Typically, what this suggests is that rewarding system goes beyond any form of financial returns which includes other issues related to work and working conditions that is employees’ were to find much rewarding for instance, career development, recognition, feedback as well as meaningful work.

This equally implies that by the company not ensuring that the altering its culture is in line with the rewarding system, it had the possibility of running the risk of sending its workers with terribly mixed signals hence will continue to be not able to maintain its long term gains. This is to say that altering its rewarding system with the objective of resolving cultural problems could not have been a precise solution.  At the end such a motive was going to throw money to the problem itself.

On the other hand, since the company could have increased its focus on the business teams and units, the costs ended up reducing through improving the quality of the flight services and accidents. However, since the British Airlines did not fully align its rewarding system with its current working system, there was a sense from the employees that they were to be forced to hit the wall through such strikes. They needed to receive their pay which is aligned with the working hours and with the annual profit sharing award. This similarly should have based on the profitability which was to arise from the corporation’s performance (Kryscynski & Ulrich, 2015). The UK trade union Unite might have then decided to carry out a series of industrial actions against British Airways because managers and operators were already frustrated by the absence of the link between the ways individuals were being required to work in meeting the goals of this enterprise.

Importance of including all the stakeholders in developing reward strategy

Considering that, what can be highlighted from this case is that the management of this firm needed to consider the fact that employees how has broader views can equally be included in decision making. This is because they have knowledge and skills of pleasing their customers as well as working more efficiently. Nowadays, employees in any business environment often do welcome opportunities that assist their colleagues, their respective teams, and overall operation of their business enterprise. That is why it will make sense in case workers were to be given the opportunity of learning multiple parts of their operations.

Moreover, the motive of the British Airways members of holding of the strike ballot through the Unite the Union (Unite) was somehow a realistic. Typically, it wasn’t realistic for them to continue losing their jobs, freezing of their rewards or because of the uncertain changes made on the work practices of the cabin crew. Therefore, although the airline sought an injunction against the workers’ union because of the views that Unite did not follow the right balloting procedures, still they were to remain to be the cause of all that (Broedling, 1999). This is because; always employees do work together in achieving the complex goals of a business organization. Thus British Airlines, as any business enterprise, need to consider using some other approaches in motivating its workers other than using financial approaches.

Usually, by focusing on the clients of the British Airways, there was the need of coming up with newer rewarding system which was also to assist in measuring the performance of the workers. With it, financial performance will still remain to be important just the same way operational measures are. In avoiding such conflicts which kept on fostering strikes, it is the one which was going to be linked with the efforts of the workers as wells as the needs of their clients. So as to ensure that new measures remained to be more efficient to the overall performance, the best step was to ensure that they were efficiently translated to the terms and conditions of the workers union (Broedling, 1999).

From the perspective of employees and reward accountability, an increased level of empowerment of workers is the biggest change which can occur in their organization, British Airways. Workers can confidently make decisions which were originally established and implemented in a fairly manner or through the plant manager’s office. A clear example of this are such strikes which of course are aimed at correcting problems associating with the loss of their jobs, freezing of their salaries and so on (Ijigu, 2015). In such an environment, the essence of having job hierarchy in place will end up fading in case the move of the organization was flattering rewarding structures.

Such changes which were induced on the rewarding accountability and the kind of duty to be executed by each employee will of course put the two into extensive bands to further promote mutual understanding and accountability. The firm needed to develop or smoothen the present rewarding approaches to employee and career motivation. This focus will in return promote the general shifting of the firm’s focus from the position occupied by an individual to the result produced.

Effectiveness of having efficient reward system

 Thus, reward management will ultimately determine the direction through which reward management innovations as well as development will follow in supporting the strategy of the business, the manner in which it will be integrated, the kind of priorities to be given to the initiatives as well as the pace at which it will be implemented (Mesmer-Magnus et al, 2013). This is to say that an approach to be used for rewarding employees should be based on some set of coherent principles which supports the objectives of the organization. Conversely, the reward strategy should then be taken as the way of thinking developed by the organizations to any issue dealing with reward. Creating value from them should also be in line with the set objectives of the business.

Although at some point, both the companies might have perceived reward as being the most critical aspect of human resource management, the reason for its failure could have be caused by their failure of embedding part of its holistic approach to human resource (McClean & Collins, 2011). This is then to imply that, the particular strategy that was to be employed should have been influenced by various external and internal factors. Despite that, the role played by reward is the only strongest internal factor which was to be taken into consideration. The figure below illustrates the general nature of the continuum of such beliefs. It is then to be believed that the role of reward on performance and behavior is………..

Considering this diagram, whenever an employee was to be affected by the rewarding strategy developed by the British Airlines, it should be noted that the rewarding policies that was employed as well as how the workers were to see their relationship with other influencing factors was to the one to engage them in executing their duties efficiently. This is to imply that whether the employees’ union was to see the rewarding strategy to be neutral or very proactive, the reward policies which was or was initially employed should have been based on the objectives the firm desired to achieve (McClean & Collins, 2011). This is because they are the ones which have the ability of carrying stronger messages unlike other portions of the workers’ deal.

Conclusion

One of the various advantages that come from employee empowerment is basically their inclusion in the designing and implementation of the rewarding system. The mistake that the company might have done is the failure to use the broad approach which comprises of some huge segments of the whole work force at certain critical points (Kryscynski & Ulrich, 2015). In any case, workers frequently continue resenting that thrust upon their organization. They were only to be in the position of embracing the rewarding change if only they were to be part of the process. This at least could reduce or eliminate chances of the workers union establishing or holding the strike ballot in favor of defending the rights of the workers.

On the other hand, what the case of the British Airlines and the UK trade Union Unite signifies is that their system is becoming inefficient in a long-term motivation. Therefore, in order to ensure that the reward that the workers may opt to demand through their trade union is in line with the objectives of their enterprise, job evaluation is one of the controls that can be used by the firm (Shuck et al, 2011). In association to that, factor comparison, point rating, ranking, and grading are also other examples of systems which can be used for evaluating the work of employees. Each one of them can be for establishing an internally consistent system that not only differs but has the ability of ranking different tasks on its own scale that is high to low. This will in the long-run aid in ensuring that there is no frequent or uncontrolled freezing of their salaries, loss of the jobs and so on.

Recommendation

Nevertheless, harmonizing the terms and conditions of the workers’ trade union and the reward structure as well as creating a new framework for job categorization can also be used as a tool for controlling the such undesirable strikes (Ijigu, 2015). This is to mean that all the workers, regardless of one’s position, need to feel that they are always rewarded adequately and efficiently for the job that they do. In return the reward will be shared fairly and equitably. In case their organization fails to observe that, it will be risking ending up with severe morale as well as job performance related problems.  In normal circumstance, an employee who will be properly motivated has the likelihood of achieving a lot for their organization.

Regardless of such controls, it should be noted that some controls like the ones already induced by the British can end up becoming more relevant than others. From the illustration of this situation, we can say that although the workers can manage to be given various types of monetary and non-monetary forms of remuneration, for instance promotional opportunities, medical allowance, recognition and salary increment, they will still remain to be dissatisfied with their rewarding system (Mesmer-Magnus et al, 2013).  Various aspects of their work for example absence of commitment, little time spent at work station, poor quality of their work, and bad conduct whilst at work will still remain to be affected by the inadequate rewarding system with time wasting and poor quality being the most affected. This is to say that the airline should ensure that the type of rewarding system and job evaluation should be in line so as to increase the workers’ morale, motivation, and consequently giving them the capacity of executing their duties efficiently.

References

Shuck, B., Reio, T. G., & Rocco, T. S. (2011). Employee engagement: an examination of antecedent and outcome variables. Human Resource Development International, 14(4), 427-445. doi:10.1080/13678868.2011.601587

Mesmer-Magnus, J. R., Viswesvaran, C., & Wiernik, B. M. (2013). Book Highlight-The Role of Commitment in Bridging the Gap Between Organizational and Environmental Sustainability. Global Business & Organizational Excellence, 32(5), 86-104. doi:10.1002/joe.21506

McClean, E., & Collins, C. J. (2011). High-commitment HR practices, employee effort, and firm performance: Investigating the effects of HR practices across employee groups within professional services firms. Human Resource Management, 50(3), 341-363. doi:10.1002/hrm.20429

Bogaert, P., Clarke, S., Willems, R., & Mondelaers, M. (2013). Staff engagement as a target for managing work environments in psychiatric hospitals: implications for workforce stability and quality of care. Journal Of Clinical Nursing, 22(11/12), 1717. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2702.2012.04341.x

Manroop, L., Singh, P., & Ezzedeen, S. (2014). Human Resource Systems and Ethical Climates: A Resource-Based Perspective. Human Resource Management, 53(5), 795-816. doi:10.1002/hrm.21593

KRYSCYNSKI, D., & ULRICH, D. (2015). MAKING STRATEGIC HUMAN CAPITAL RELEVANT: A TIME-SENSITIVE OPPORTUNITY. Academy Of Management Perspectives, 29(3), 357-369. doi:10.5465/amp.2014.0127

Jackson, S. E., Schuler, R. S., & Jiang, K. (2014). An Aspirational Framework for Strategic Human Resource Management. Academy Of Management Annals, 8(1), 1-56. doi:10.1080/19416520.2014.872335

Broedling, L. A. (1999). Applying a systems approach to human resource management. Human Resource Management, 38(3), 269.

Ijigu, A. W. (2015). The Effect of Selected Human Resource Management Practices on Employees' Job Satisfaction in Ethiopian Public Banks. EMAJ: Emerging Markets Journal, 5(1), 1-16. doi:10.5195/emaj.2015.64

Types of Measures in Business

Outcome measures

Outcome measures are the tall level of financial or clinical up shots that reflect the organization itself.it works with the incorporation of the cost and quality goals you are targeting for enhancement and in most cases they are reported back to the commercial financiers as well as the government (Vincent, 2010). Such measures include impermanence rates, readmissions rates, and birth rate.

Process measures

Process measures are the events which incorporate consideration of particular phases in a process lead. They can either be positive or negative results to a specific outcome metric, for instance, the length of stay of a patient before he is discharged. It actually starts from that moment the order commences and when the client is actually discharged after complete attendance has been administered. Basically, this process counterchecks the ability of the organization to steps in the system performance as planned.

Performance Measure

Performance Measure tracks to make surety that, particular area which has been greatly improved cannot affect other areas in a negative way. One department in the organization can receive so much focus and as a result, it might shield other departments from the limelight of success (Vincent, 2010). For example, the amount of time spent by clients in their process of attendance might take a short time and time save will amount to more attendance of client which is equal as a rise in revenue. However, the quality of service might be compromised in the long run.

The scorecard has to have an inclusion of management reflection of the future plan of the organization since it maps the strategic aims into recital metrics. The strategy incorporates internal process, financial performance, learning growth and customer satisfaction (Vincent, 2010). The significance of the balanced scorecard is the benefits of turning policy into measurable factors apart from a response of execution results to the strategic course.

Reference

Top of Form

Vincent, C. (2010). Patient Safety. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.

Bottom of Form

Alamosa Funfetti enterprise Marketing Plan

Executive summary

Alamosa Funfetti enterprise is a small business that deals with baking cakes of different kinds. It has only lasted for only two years so far and so it is still along the pick-up line. Some of the cakes that lie in our line include birthday cakes, wedding cakes and gift cakes among others. Alamosa Funfetti enterprise has seven workers only who serve at different areas of our operation. The going has not been so friendly since we started because challenges have tried to uproot our efforts. However we are focused towards reaching greater heights in the near future. The little achievement we have realized within the short period is significant to us since it has formed the foundation of greater achievement in future. In our efforts to ensure that all these dreams come true, we have developed a plan that shall be our guiding star throughout the business operation. It focuses mostly on the improvement of the quality of our cakes, services and the satisfaction of our customers.

Environmental analysis

This enterprise was initiated by two entrepreneurs with only whose only customers were passersby. Its market has grown further from a regional level to a district level and now more customers have been reached. The enterprise has also cooperated with other bakeries, hotels and restaurants in the nearby vicinity. The number of workers has been increasing as the business expands its services to more and more customers. Indeed the enterprise is undergoing a positive and rapid transformation from one level to another each day.

Marketing environment

The marketing environment is dependent on several factors which include competitive, economic, political, legal and requirement, technological as well as social forces among others.

Competitive forces in this field of specialty have been so stiff especially at the local and regional level. This is contributed by the presence of similar adjacent businesses which dedicate all their efforts to ensure that their cakes stand out. Nationally the competition is fair but according to the future predictions, it shall be great in the near future.

Economic forces have affected the marketing environment especially at the national level. Various baking companies have suffered loss after the dollar depreciated drastically in the past year forcing them to cut off their budgets to a sustainable level. The economy has recently risen and we hope that everything will go on well.

Technological forces are also wanting. New and advanced utensils have formed the basis of success for most bakeries and catering units. PDAs are also very useful in keeping the progress reports of the enterprise. Alamosa Funfetti enterprise has a very big challenge when it comes to this aspect of marketing since other have embraced better online marketing methods that broaden the market. Most of our competitors have other improved methods of marketing hence making the marketing environment very hash on us. However this is a challenge to our improvement.

Legal and regulatory forces are also determinants on the nature of the marketing environment. Marketing has become hard in the recent years due to the government’s demand for a license from all who have advertising their commodities using posters and other awareness signs along the streets. Those who carry out the online advertising are also charge heavily for a single advert that is made. This is very costly especially to the small enterprises like ours. To us legislation is a big hindrance to our success unlike others who have dominated in the bakery department. This is a challenge to us to seek improvement for better results to be realized.

The climax of it all is marked by the social and cultural forces. Most people in our society have not embraced the consumption of cakes on regular basis. This has lowered the demand for our cakes making it costly to attract customers. Some communities around us are also discouraged from having too much of cakes. This calls for our dedication to invest large amount of funds in creating awareness and marketing our products to the locality. The local market is not so good considering most of these attitudes that dominate our local communities.

Target market

In the past two years, the target market has been the local residents of Alaska. This market plan is looking forward to expanding the market beyond the regional level whereby national restaurants, weddings of celebrities and other merchants will be the market target in the near future. We shall also consider ceremonies such as those of national holidays, graduation parties and other big events the target market. Through the online marketing, we shall be able to reach customers from far place both within and outside the country.

Current marketing objectives and performance

The enterprise has set various objectives that are to be accomplished within the span of five years. They include the expansion of the market to meet the national standard, minimizing the cost of production and marketing, improving the quality of services and cakes that we offer to our customers and laying out strategies that will help us to compete with our competitors. This shall be achieved by making various improvement of the current state that may not be the best to reach these goals. First we shall find workers who have expertise and professional knowledge of the bakery and catering unit to help us deliver the quality that is required in the larger market.  Having the skilled personnel, we shall introduce and invest our efforts in embracing the online marketing system. This will to a great extend minimize the need of paper work that was incurred in printing posters and placing them at various strategic points.

The other marketing plan that we are focused towards implementing it is buying the necessary tools and utensils. These machines will reduce the energy required to make a complete product. The new utensils will also assist in increase the total number of cakes we shall be making per day and this will help us double our profit.

SWOT ANALYSIS

Alamosa Funfetti enterprise have got strengths and weaknesses that faces it.

Strengths

The available markets are reliable and sustainable. This promises a great future to our objectives whereby having grounded on a good local market, we shall be able to realize all our goals. The enterprise has very committed workers. This is very important in our course since baking cakes requires the commitment of the workers to be of high degree. This has enabled us to work with combined efforts and with one accord to achieve the objectives that have been laid down in this market plan.

Weaknesses

Lack of capital has been the most challenging thing within us. On this knot, we had some debts that are yet to be paid from a financial institution. This has made the enterprise to feel threatened to a point of collapsing. Despite all of this, the enterprise has found several means to handle this problem.

The other problem is poor hygiene. Comparing the international standards that are required, ours is still low. The enterprise will also consider the package and safety of the cakes meets the international level so that as much as we advertise the cakes, the needs of our customers are met.

Opportunities

The labor that a bickering unit requires is little and hence the cost of production is considerably low.

The locals are already aware of our services and so they shall be our stronghold.

We can get funds from some sponsors who have promised to promote us during this business transformation.

Threats

Some of these utensils are very expensive

Hiring skilled professionals requires a lot of money

Safety of our distributors is not guaranteed because there has been several cases of theft as the transporters move the cakes to the interior.

There are so many dealers of cakes hence the market is divided.

Matching the strengths and weaknesses

The enterprise will uphold and improve its strengths and try as much as possible to convert the threats and weaknesses into strengths and opportunities. We shall create a competitive environment to the rest of our adjacent enterprises; seek to find funds from reliable sources after which a sustainable state will be reached.

Marketing mix

The cakes shall be sold at a considerable affordable cash to win customers to our side.

Managing Workforce

Reward system refers to a method through which an organisation strategically attracts, motivates and retain employees. Reward management involves formulating and implementing strategies and policies that are aimed at rewarding people in a fair, equitable and consistent manner according to the value they give to the organisation. It is about giving back to the employees according to the contribution they offer in employment relationship. A system of reward management may involve both monetary and no-monetary rewards.  Since the primary reason for people to work is earning money, monetary basis of rewarding employees is an important feature in any reward system. Employers have a choice of raising the pay base of employees after performance measurement, usually on annually through a merit pay. The characteristics of a good system include; simplicity in terms being understandable throughout an organisation, equitability and fairness such that it can be justified and applied consistently and perceived or understood as such, participatory in that it involves negotiation and agreement between the management and the staff (Claudia & KleinerI 2015).

Motivation relates to the factors, other than reward that drives people to find fulfilment or achieve certain needs. This is best elaborated using the Maslow hierarchy of needs that are represented in a hierarchical order in a using a pyramid and when we happen to satisfy one level of need, we move to the next level. These needs push individuals towards self-actualization and finally to personal superiority and this finally result to a change in ones behaviour. The first level includes the psychological needs which mainly refers to the need for survival such as the need for food, clothing, warmth and shelter. The second level involves the security needs that is shown in the need for safety in worker’s health and family. The third level involves the social needs which is expressed when employees shift their focus to job relations in order to build friendship, intimacy and love. Up next is the self-esteem needs shown by need for acceptance and being valued by others. Self-actualization needs is the highest level, which is the desire to become the best that one can be. Motivation can also be defined by Herzberg’s theory that which explain that employees are affected by motivators and hygiene factors. Motivators bring about job satisfaction and they include autonomy, recognition, and achievement and such inherent aspects after they are fulfilled. The hygiene factors involve conducive work conditions, salary, status, administration and organisational policies. Motivation can also be explained using the fifty-fifty theory by John Adair that influence performance of an organisation. The theory stipulates that fifty percent of motivation originates from within an individual while the other half comes the surroundings, mostly from others. Vrooms expectancy theory defines motivation as a products of anticipated value of someone in action. It is developed on the basis of value, force and expectancy. Motivation is highly influenced by a management process that is efficient (Claudia &Kleiner, 2015).

The engagement and commitment of an employee gives organisation competitive advantages that include employees’ lower turnover and a high productivity. It does not come as surprise that small and large organisation of various types invest heavily on practices and policies that enhance their employees’ engagement and commitment. Engagement and commitment include satisfaction of employees in their work and taking pride in the employer such that they like and believe in their work and have a perception that their employer highly value their contribution. The more an employee is engaged in their work the higher the possibility that they will provide high performance in an organisation (Claudia &Kleiner, 2015)..

The British Airways offers rewards to employees in addition to their normal salaries which depends on performance, skill acquisition and competence. The company also operate two benefit pension schemes in UK. Their reward plan allow non-management staff to have a share in success of business on the basis of corporate targets and measures. It also use local incentive strategies for performance improvement, bonuses and use a new system of broad band to link rewards to performance (British Airways, 2008).

 For British Airways, maintaining a good reward system would be the best approach to deal with the case of the striking employees’.  The removal of travel benefits for those employees who participated in the strike meant doing away with a very important component of a comprehensive reward system. A comprehensive reward system include compensation and benefits which may include bonuses, wages, vacations and health insurance. However, it is necessary for an organization to carry out an evaluation for the reward system management that it applies.  Management usually subject the capital and operating costs to an analysis to determine whether the targeted rates of return are being achieved. The managers will study and investigate the variances and come up with the appropriate course of action to ensure that desired goals are achieved. It is thus logical to expect that reward system that include benefits and compensation would be put under the same scrutiny for the purpose cost-benefit analysis. The travel benefits offered by the airline did not come cheap since it includes a considerable outflow of cash. How organisations treat any benefits or compensation depends on the mangers views on how such costs affect employees work motivation. If the managers perceive that benefits do not have any effect on motivating performance, it is logical for the rewards to be done away with involved respective of the big amount involved. However, if they believe that such rewards will have an effect on work motivation, they should ensure existence of an active management system of the rewards to enhance and influence the work behaviour (Rabindra &Mendonca, 2011).

The management may be of the view that benefits especially monetary ones may not be a prime factor in performance motivation. Intrinsic rewards such as responsibility, feelings of accomplishment are the only real motivators of work performance. Extrinsic rewards like benefits thus plays second fiddle to the intrinsic rewards. They can be necessary in preventing dissatisfaction with an employee’s job but they may not have positive influence at all in performance motivation. What may be necessary is the employee commitment and engagement which will make the employee feel that they are part of the decision making (Akah, 2010). Through provision of negotiation platform with Unite the Union, the managers of British Airways resulted to the intrinsic motivation since such an avenue would make the disgruntled employee to feel involved in process that would finally derive satisfaction.  Thus by differentiating between extrinsic and intrinsic rewards, the managers are able to come up with a foundation for a different method of reward systems management. An organisation will evaluate a reward system to in order to offer intrinsic rewards by way of redesigning the job to add more responsibility, autonomy and control.  Such a system will not only be specific but its implementation may be possible with a bit low expense and effort. It may also be a method that will prevent alienation of an employee when may arise if they are denied participation in and control of those matters that relate to their job. Thus management may result to changes in programmes such job enrichment and rotation, flexibility in scheduling, work groups that are semi-autonomous or quality circles. This kind of scenario is seen when the management of British airways decide to change the work practices relating to the cabin crew. The importance of engagement in deciding on the motivational approach is seen in the desire by the airlines management to avoid the cases of industrial action. By avoiding such strikes the airline and the employees would reach a neutral ground where an agreement would be reached which would serve to prevent negative repercussion for both the firm and the employees (Lalita, 2013).

Thus a reward system a big important factor in any organisation since it is a process that determines human behaviour in an organisation. The prospects of removing travel benefits resulted to industrial action which is central to human behaviour of the company’s workers and whose effects on the performance of the firm is quite outright. It assist in verification of performance in relation the set goals and influences the possibility of employees joining or being retained in the organisation. It assist the extent to which ones effort directed towards developing the future capabilities of the organisation. If it is designed and administered rightly, it can result to positive organisational behaviour. However, if it is wrongly designed and administered the reward system can lead to a constant deterioration of a firm’s performance and its quick demise. Motivation of employees will ensure that their effort are directed towards maximum performance. The possibility of jobless as in case with British Airways employees is big motivation killer. It is a source of insecurity, and security which is a key component in Maslow’s hierarchy of need, which spurns across ones desire for needs satisfaction and self-actualisation. It is no surprise that the employees would engage in an industrial action since the impending job loss act as demotivating aspect. What is important to any organisation is to have a highly motivated workforce that will translate to best performance.

The decision by British Airways to result to cost-cutting measures and the issues that related to terms and conditions of Unite labour union members resulted to a big dispute between the company and the labour Union. The employees who were members of the union, out of concern for job loss, a freeze in payment and changes to the cabin crew’s change in work practices held a strike ballot supported by their Union. However, a UK court blocked the industrial action but another ballot was held on February 2010, followed by other industrial actions by the labour union. The company responded to the strikes by removing the travel benefits for the workers who took part in the action. After further negotiations failed and a following legal dispute on whether there was any right to call for the strike, Unite announced another five day strikes starting on June 2010. The negotiation facilitated by UK Advisory ACAS failed after a disruption of the negotiations by Socialist Workers Party and the Unite secretary general was found to be using an electronic device to give the union members an update of the negotiations. After the strike Unite alleged that the industrial action caused a big disruption on the number of Flight that the airline could operate, and it had cost the company 186.5 million by June 2010. The claim was rejected by British Airways which said that its services were efficiently operated during the time and that more eligible crew had emerged to take over. The company maintained that the Union had failed to ground the company and the decisions it had made related to its future viability.  However, the dispute had a significant strain on resources of both parties and it saw the company announce an annual loss of 642 million GBP.

The impending job loss and freeze on their payments made the employees to hold ballot on industrial action. The freeze on their payments was more so motivation killer considering that primary reason why people work is to receive a monetary payment. The monetary normally have a significant influence on workers motivation to continue working. According to expectancy theory, where the rewards are viewed by employees in terms of valence, contingency and salience, they will have a considerable influence on the employees’ motivation. The employees thus had the right to turn to industrial action to prevent their payments from being frozen. Furthermore, job cuts caused a lot of insecurities to the employees. These two factors are clearly represented in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs model that explains the link between motivation and the needs of an individual. The removal the travel benefits also present another situation where the employees were justified for participating in subsequent industrial action. A reward system goes a long way in providing motivation for employees. The travel benefits represented an intrinsic reward that is very internal to each individual. They derived their motivation from the prospects of an advancement in career and thus the impending job cuts worked as a catalyst to awaken the insecurities of the employees. This goes a long way in proving that the employees were disgruntled due to possible job loss that would take away their self –actualisation that is the greatest source of individual satisfaction. The employees of any organisation will perform their duties if have a believe that they are seen by management to be capable, they will be given a reward of value that is subject to performance and the reward will equate their performance relatively (Lalita,2013).

The British Airline should develop comprehensive management of reward system. When designing such a reward system especially where monetary reward is included, the reward should be such that it is public and the recipients of the rewards should be involved in designing it. In order to have criteria through which rewards are given, the management should develop an evaluation strategy that will recognise whether the merits have been met. There should also be concrete reasons why the reward to an employee should be withheld and such reasons should be communicated to everyone in the organisation in order to avoid any future dispute. This is best done through a process of commitment and engagement. This will ensure that the employees will develop positive attitude towards the systems in the organisation and thus they will be able to express their feelings and commitments towards the company. The company should result to other means of cost cutting and to avoid the cases of employees resulting industrial action. Although laying off workers through restructuring assist the company in competing with rivals, the changes usually break the employment contract of other employees psychologically. This is because the employees realize that they do not have the surety of working in an organisation until their retirement age. The reduced employees’ expectations of reciprocity in an organisation make them to feel less committed to the employer (Robert, 2006).

Thus, British Airlines management should make an effort of involving the employees in decisions that will affect them. This is true for the case of laying off workers or withholding their due payments. The company should follow the example of Southwest Airline that has a good reputation in the airline industry for it excellent performance year after year. The Southwest Airline has a finely recorded history of its association with labour unions. It has all along been able to use its reward systems to build a solid relationship with unions and this has seen its retention of contented staff a fact that is evidenced by its low turnover rates. It has managed to negotiate contracts that are long term with the labour unions which include generous benefits clauses for employees and this is an overall strategy of ensuring long term commitment of its employees.  

References.

British Airways, (2008).The way we run our business. British Airways2008/09 Annual Report and Accounts / 35.

Claudia Holston, Brian KleinerI (2015). Excellence in Reward Systems. California State University, Fullerton. Vol 1. (3)

Rabindra, Kanungo &Manuel, Mendonca (2011). Evaluating Employee Compensation. Human Resource.

Lalita, Shukla (2013).An Examination of the Impact of Leadership Style .On Employee Satisfaction In British Airways. International journal of innovative research and development. Vol. 2(5)

Robert J.(2006).Employee Engagement and Commitment. A guide to understanding, measuring and increasing engagement in your organization.

Akah, William (2010).Employee motivation and performance. Ultimate Companion Limited. 8-56

Ali, Albdoura & Ikhlas, Altarawneh (2014). Employee Engagement and Organizational Commitment: Evidence from Jordan. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BUSINESS, 19(2), 2014

MANAGING WORKFORCE ENGAGEMENT AND COMMITMENT

The case of the British airlines and the UK trade Union Unite

Introduction

Correctness and suitability of a rewarding or remuneration structure is usually determined through its capacity of enhancing job performance. Adequate remuneration motivates employees to increase their output because their percentage of their salaries and wages has the capacity of meeting their living standards unlike inadequate remuneration. The rationale and controls method used in any business environment to promote morale, increase motivation, as well as foster team cohesion (Shuck et al, 2011).

With respect to the case of the British Airways and the UK trade union Unite, the cause of their numerous strikes is pretty obvious.  As any business organization desiring to efficiently manage its human resource, there is the need of having a sense of direction which in turn will assist in the developing of reward strategies which are much meaningful, relevant, and beneficial to the organization (Shuck et al, 2011). By having a sense of direction it means that it will help in filtering all the opportunities which have the possibility of supporting or hindering its progress.

 Thus, reward management will ultimately determine the direction through which reward management innovations as well as development will follow in supporting the strategy of the business, the manner in which it will be integrated, the kind of priorities to be given to the initiatives as well as the pace at which it will be implemented (Mesmer-Magnus et al, 2013). This is to say that an approach to be used for rewarding employees should be based on some set of coherent principles which supports the objectives of the organization. Conversely, the reward strategy should then be taken as the way of thinking developed by the organizations to any issue dealing with reward. Creating value from them should also be in line with the set objectives of the business.

Although at some point, both the companies might have perceived reward as being the most critical aspect of human resource management, the reason for its failure could have be caused by their failure of embedding part of its holistic approach to human resource (McClean & Collins, 2011). This is then to imply that, the particular strategy that was to be employed should have been influenced by various external and internal factors. Despite that, the role played by reward is the only strongest internal factor which was to be taken into consideration. The figure below illustrates the general nature of the continuum of such beliefs. It is then to be believed that the role of reward on performance and behavior is………..

Considering this diagram, whenever an employee was to be affected by the rewarding strategy developed by the British Airlines, it should be noted that the rewarding policies that was employed as well as how the workers were to see their relationship with other influencing factors was to the one to engage them in executing their duties efficiently. This is to imply that whether the employees’ union was to see the rewarding strategy to be neutral or very proactive, the reward policies which was or was initially employed should have been based on the objectives the firm desired to achieve (McClean & Collins, 2011). This is because they are the ones which have the ability of carrying stronger messages unlike other portions of the workers’ deal.

Nonetheless, employee motivation is a key tool to any organization. This then means that monetary rewards might not have the capacity of motivating in the long term. It will just symbolize the value which comes from organization-employees attachment to certain behaviors. An example of this entails rewarding workers long term services, interpreted  as being part of loyalty or any other forms of performance rewarding above other human resource management attributes.

In connection to that, as a way of eliminating such persistent strikes from the workers’ unions, the British airlines needed to ensure that the nature of their rewarding system is that which has the ability of running on an annual cycle i.e. annual bonuses, annual pay review, or financial year. This implies that in case the company might have missed making changes at the right time, the system had to be reviewed after a whole year (Bogaert et al, 2013). Often, there was a need of taking a long term view, which of course will be relied on the sense of direction, which was to result into the making of rewarding changes for the proceeding years. Although this one could have not been a practical issue to implement, the stakeholders could have been of much influence in this.

Nevertheless, despite the fact that such rewarding strategies could have moved the enterprise neatly in a certain direction with an ideal pace, all that will remain to be influenced by internal factors for instance (human resource management readiness, budget, changing priorities etc) and external factors like (markets, economic, legal etc). Any of these factors has the capacity of throwing the objectives of the organization hence the evolution of multiple strikes.  Being that that is the real world we are still living in, it must not put the company off whilst developing rewarding strategy. This is because it is the rewarding strategies which will enable it develop or determine the appropriate approach in light of the unavoidable changes along the way (Bogaert et al, 2013).

In accordance to that, there are a number of key questions that had to be answered prior to developing the rewarding strategy. Because of that, as a means of developing a rewarding strategy, it is essential for the union to challenge the entire organization simple questions for instance; what were the different elements of its rewarding system?, what message is carried out by its rewarding system?, Does it means all the messages carried by such a system are in conflict?, how cost effective is that rewarding system, how does it fit with the employees’ lives and so on. In case the management of the two firms could manage to answer such questions, it means that each party could have developed a solid foundation through which the rewarding strategy was to be built on (Manroop et al, 2014).

In respect to the above rewarding evaluation, what will result to employee motivation is first considering the main components of the rewarding strategy. This is because, in our current competitive business world, which is usually driven by brutal competition as well as demanding consumers, business organizations are always looking for other means of engaging their employees. In so doing, they end up vacillating two approaches. The first one is changing the culture of its rewarding system and the other on is changing the rewarding system with the hope that everything else will run smoothly.

Multiple strikes as the ones witness b y the company is because of the longstanding belief arising from such debates that the business organization can either change its reward or culture but not both of them. Such a business organization cannot have the ability of handling too many changes at once. Unfortunately, its reward management authority will be missing the point. Basically, there is the need of enquiring from workers whether they will be motivated working or increasing quality or productivity once their returns have been reduced (Manroop et al, 2014). The massage which ought to come out loud and clear is the manner in which the companies will be inducing such changes.

The British Airlines is of course to be blamed for such strikes because of its failure to take different approach in changing it culture as well as reward at the same time. Culture, in this context, signifies the nature or manner in which individuals do execute their duties as well as how they are organized within their enterprise, how constructive the levels of respect and trust are developed, by whom the decisions are made and so on (Kryscynski & Ulrich, 2015). Typically, what this suggests is that rewarding system goes beyond any form of financial returns which includes other issues related to work and working conditions that is employees’ were to find much rewarding for instance, career development, recognition, feedback as well as meaningful work.

This equally implies that by the company not ensuring that the altering its culture is in line with the rewarding system, it had the possibility of running the risk of sending its workers with terribly mixed signals hence remain to be less likely to sustain any long term gains. In connection to the same consideration, by simply changing the company’s rewarding system with the hope that such a system was to change or solve its cultural problems, was not to be precise solution. At the end such a motive was going to throw money to the problem itself.

On the other hand, since the company could have increased its focus on the business teams and units, the costs ended up reducing through improving the quality of the flight services and accidents. However, since the British Airlines did not fully align its rewarding system with its current working system, there was a sense from the employees that they were to be forced to hit the wall through such strikes. They needed to receive their pay which is aligned with the working hours and with the annual profit sharing award which equally had to be based on the profitability of the entire corporation performance that is far beyond the walls of this enterprise (Kryscynski & Ulrich, 2015). The UK trade union Unite might have then decided to carry out a series of industrial actions against British Airways because managers and operators were already frustrated by the absence of the link between the ways individuals were being required to work in meeting the goals of this enterprise.

Considering that, what can be highlighted from this case is that the management of this firm needed to consider the fact that employees how has broader views can equally be included in decision making. This is because they have knowledge and skills of pleasing their customers as well as working more efficiently. Nowadays, employees in any business environment often do welcome opportunities that assist their colleagues, their respective teams, and overall operation of their business enterprise. That is why it will make sense in case workers were to be given the opportunity of learning multiple parts of their operations.

Moreover, it was realistic to hold a strike ballot by the Unite the Union (Unite) among the British Airways (BA) members. Typically, it wasn’t realistic for them to continue losing their jobs, freezing of their rewards or because of the uncertain changes made on the work practices of the cabin crew. Therefore, although the airline sought an injunction against the workers’ union because of the views that Unite did not follow the right balloting procedures, still the they were to remain to be the cause of all that (Broedling, 1999). This is because; always employees do work together in achieving the complex goals of a business organization. Thus British Airlines, as any business enterprise, need to consider using some other approaches in motivating its workers other than using financial approaches.

Usually, by focusing on the clients of the British Airways, there was the need of coming up with newer rewarding system which was also to assist in measuring the performance of the workers. With it, financial performance will still remain to be important just the same way operational measures are. In avoiding such conflicts which kept on fostering strikes, it is the one which was going to be linked with the efforts of the workers as wells as the needs of their clients. So as to ensure that new measures remained to be more efficient to the overall performance, the best step was to ensure that they were efficiently translated to the terms and conditions of the workers union (Broedling, 1999).

From the perspective of employees and reward accountability, an increased level of empowerment of workers is the biggest change which can occur in their organization, British Airways. Workers can confidently make decisions which were originally developed in a far-off executive suite or from the office of the plant manager. A clear example of this are such strikes which of course are aimed at correcting problems associating with the loss of their jobs, freezing of their salaries and so on (Ijigu, 2015). In such an environment, the essence of hierarchy or even the hierarchy itself will end up fading in case the move of the organization was flattering rewarding structures.

Such changes which were induced on the rewarding accountability and the kind of duty to be executed by each employee will of course put the two into broad bands to further boost mutual accountability. The firm needed to develop or smoothen the present rewarding approaches to employee and career motivation. This focus will assist in shifting the focus from the position a person holds to the result produced.

Conclusion

One of the various advantages that come from employee empowerment is basically their inclusion in the designing and implementation of the rewarding system. The mistake that the company might have done is the failure to use the broad approach of including large segments of the entire work force at some critical points. Such an involvement is the one which will result into a higher quality plans as well as greater worker buy-in- and wider acceptance of such plans than ever before (Kryscynski & Ulrich, 2015). In any case, workers frequently continue resenting that thrust upon their organization. They were only to be in the position of embracing the rewarding change if only they were to be part of the process. This at least could reduce or eliminate chances of the workers union establishing or holding the strike ballot in favor of defending the rights of the workers.

On the other hand, what the case of the British Airlines and the UK trade Union Unite signifies is that their system is becoming inefficient in a long-term motivation. Therefore, in order to ensure that the reward that the workers may opt to demand through their trade union is in line with the objectives of their enterprise, job evaluation is one of the controls that can be used by the firm (Shuck et al, 2011). In association to that, factor comparison, point rating, ranking, and grading are also other examples of systems which can be used for evaluating the work of employees. Each one of them can be for establishing an internally consistent system that not only differs but has the ability of ranking different tasks on its own scale that is high to low. This will in the long-run aid in ensuring that there is no frequent or uncontrolled freezing of their salaries, loss of the jobs and so on.

Recommendation

Nevertheless, harmonizing the terms and conditions of the workers’ trade union and the reward structure as well as creating a new framework for job categorization can also be used as a tool for controlling the such undesirable strikes (Ijigu, 2015). This is to mean that all the workers, regardless of one’s position, need to feel that they are always rewarded adequately and efficiently for the job that they do. In return the reward will be shared fairly and equitably. In case their organization fails to observe that, it will be risking ending up with severe morale as well as job performance related problems.  In normal circumstance, an employee who will be properly motivated has the likelihood of achieving a lot for their organization.

Regardless of such controls, it should be noted that some controls like the ones already induced by the British can end up becoming more relevant than others. From the illustration of this situation, we can say that although the workers can manage to be given various types of monetary and non-monetary forms of remuneration, for instance promotional opportunities, medical allowance, recognition and salary increment, they will still remain to be dissatisfied with their rewarding system (Mesmer-Magnus et al, 2013).  Various aspects of their work for example absence of commitment, little time spent at work station, poor quality of their work, and bad conduct whilst at work will still remain to be affected by the inadequate rewarding system with time wasting and poor quality being the most affected. This is to say that the airline should ensure that the type of rewarding system and job evaluation should be in line so as to increase the workers’ morale, motivation, and consequently giving them the capacity of executing their duties efficiently.

References

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Mesmer-Magnus, J. R., Viswesvaran, C., & Wiernik, B. M. (2013). Book Highlight-The Role of Commitment in Bridging the Gap Between Organizational and Environmental Sustainability. Global Business & Organizational Excellence, 32(5), 86-104. doi:10.1002/joe.21506

McClean, E., & Collins, C. J. (2011). High-commitment HR practices, employee effort, and firm performance: Investigating the effects of HR practices across employee groups within professional services firms. Human Resource Management, 50(3), 341-363. doi:10.1002/hrm.20429

Bogaert, P., Clarke, S., Willems, R., & Mondelaers, M. (2013). Staff engagement as a target for managing work environments in psychiatric hospitals: implications for workforce stability and quality of care. Journal Of Clinical Nursing, 22(11/12), 1717. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2702.2012.04341.x

Manroop, L., Singh, P., & Ezzedeen, S. (2014). Human Resource Systems and Ethical Climates: A Resource-Based Perspective. Human Resource Management, 53(5), 795-816. doi:10.1002/hrm.21593

KRYSCYNSKI, D., & ULRICH, D. (2015). MAKING STRATEGIC HUMAN CAPITAL RELEVANT: A TIME-SENSITIVE OPPORTUNITY. Academy Of Management Perspectives, 29(3), 357-369. doi:10.5465/amp.2014.0127

Jackson, S. E., Schuler, R. S., & Jiang, K. (2014). An Aspirational Framework for Strategic Human Resource Management. Academy Of Management Annals, 8(1), 1-56. doi:10.1080/19416520.2014.872335

Broedling, L. A. (1999). Applying a systems approach to human resource management. Human Resource Management, 38(3), 269.

Ijigu, A. W. (2015). The Effect of Selected Human Resource Management Practices on Employees' Job Satisfaction in Ethiopian Public Banks. EMAJ: Emerging Markets Journal, 5(1), 1-16. doi:10.5195/emaj.2015.64

Response Paper

Every employee is entitled to privacy but the employers are having the right to monitor the activities of the employees to ensure that they do not violate the obligations of the corporation. This is because employees may offend the clients when exercising their rights thus forgetting that the corporation is required to protect the clients as well as the employees. In order for the organization to maintain a good reputation and image it has to ensure that the employees behave in favorable manner. This is therefore achieved by monitoring their behaviors to avoid running the image of the organization. Reputation and a good image are maintained by ensuring that the relationship among those that are involved is friendly (Gosett, 58). Therefore as much as the employees have the right of expression and association the company has the obligation of regulation what they do.

            For instance the employer can regulate the content that the employees should share on their social media apparatus. This information should not therefore affect the corporation negatively or should not expose the corporation’s shareholders. Another example is the fact that the activities of the corporation should remain private and should not be shared with the public. The employer should not therefore share this information such as the approaches that the corporation has adopted to attain a competitive advantage (Gosett, 57).

An example is the sub way worker who was fired after posting a picture on her Instagram page as well as twitter which contained private parts of a male gender in sandwiches and urine that was frozen (Cross, 302). This was offensive for the corporation image and reputation since she was an employee and this demonstrated bad behavior and bad for the image of the organization. In addition Shea Allan an investigative reporter was fired after she posted a confession on her own blog of stealing mails and sleeping on her job (Cross, 302). This was an antisocial behavior which exposed the corporation in a negative way.

            Work cited

Cross, Michael. Social Media Security: Leveraging Social Networking While Mitigating Risk. ,    2014. Internet resource.

Loril M. Gosett. Fired Over Facebook. Issues of Employees and Personal Privacy on        Social Media Websites.

            Employee Discrimination

            Discrimination can be termed as unfavorable treatment of individuals based on their differences.  Where discrimination is based on sex, gender, origin or race it is therefore prohibited because it involves unequal treatment of individuals (Marianne, 2014).  In the given scenario the defendant may win the case because he is excluded and denied an opportunity to work for the organization because he is a different gender. However, the defendant must be able to prove that he is fully able to accomplish the activities that the organization fears that he may not do better than the female gender. The organizational thus fail the case because it has no right to discriminate the person based on his gender.

            Title VII is referred to the civil acts where discrimination towards the employees or any other individual who is suitable for a position is prohibited (Marianne, 2014).  The 1964 civil acts hold that every employee has the right to fair treatment under the act of employment practices 1991 amendment.  The act, therefore, prohibits any form of discrimination based on state’s origin, sex, religion, color and race (Marianne, 2014). In the given scenario the defendant will automatically lose the case due to the fact that the American Airline Corporation worked on the culture of not allowing employees to have the type of hairstyle.  The corporation, therefore, did not violate any of her rights because it operates under its culture and term of employment which had been stated before she applied for the position.  In order for her to win the case, she must be fully able to prove that the corporation discriminated her because of her gender or race which is not the case. The corporation will, therefore, win the case given that it has all the evidence to prove that the defendant cannot be their employee based on their policies.

            Reference

Jennings, Marianne M. (2014). Business: Its Legal, Ethical, and Global Environment. South-       Western College Pub. Kindle Edition.

The deal between Renault/Nissan and Samsung Motors Inc. (SMI) announced in April 2000 and still functioning today.

Part 1

On 21 April, 2000 Renault an automaker based in France came to an agreement to acquire Samsung Motors based in South Korea which was its second major acquisition in Asia for that Year. Renault which had acquired 37percent share of Nissan hoped that by taking over Samsung Motors it could be able to challenge the South Korea market leader, Hyundai, by securing 10 to 15 percent of the automobile market in the nation (Tagliabue, 2002).

The environmental factors affecting any organisation can be analysed through PESTEL model. This model involves the political, economic, social and technological factors. Samsung Motors was adversely affected by the economic factors which consist of the both the micro-economic and macro-economic. The micro-economic factors that affect any organisation include the competition, the suppliers, customers, marketing intermediaries and the creditors (Emanuel, Yaakov, Chris, Shlomo, Tarbab, 2011). The micro environmental factor that affected the Samsung Motors was the creditors. The company had been unable to pay its debts and thus became insolvent and its management was undertaken by the creditors. Thus the creditors had to come to an agreement with Renault Automaker so that it they would pay the debt burden. The insolvency of this company presented an opportunity for Renault Company to find its footing in the Asian market and more so in the South Korean market (Tagliabue, 2002). As opposed to buying a company that is a competitor or one that is regionally close, which normally consume a lot of time and is capital intensive, buying such a company out of insolvency is a faster alternative that gives an optimum price (Roberts, Wallace & Moles 2012). The interest in acquiring insolvent company arises from the fact that restructuring it and a going concern is a central to the statutory framework. The stakeholders more so the customers and the employees are aware of it and become involved in the process and this will largely lead to reduction of any possible damage to the image of the company. The takeover may also be aimed at ensuring maximum satisfaction of the claims by the creditors and also maintaining the same workforce in the company (Roberts et. al 2012). The other micro-economic factor is the competition in the market. The competitive environment dictates that no company enjoy monopoly. Each company will encounter competition in form of other differentiated products in the same industry that is brand competition (MOTIS, 2007). Thus the Renault Company used the acquisition agreement as a strategy to enter the South Korean market which is largely controlled by the Hyundai Motors. The acquisition was aimed at enabling the Renault company win over more customers. Thus its need of expansion would be arrived at quickly because of the maintenance of the same staff the acquired company and also be able to reach to new customers and segments of its products. Renault aimed at acquiring a percentage of 10-15 of the automobile market share in South Korea (Tagliabue, 2002).

The macro-economic environment includes the rates of tax, interest rates and the government expenditures. The economic environment largely affected the motor industry in the Asian market in particular the 1998 economic crisis that hit the region hard. All businesses are influenced by local or global economic factors prevailing, which determine the interest rates, fiscal policies and generally the profitability of an organisation. The prevailing economic climate or conditions determine the behaviour of the customers, organisational stakeholders and the creditors. An economy that is experiencing recession will mean that customers have low purchasing power (Marrewij, 2007). The prevailing economic crisis of 1988 made the Samsung Motor Company to run into bankruptcy and this was a major issue that lead to the acquisition. A company that is a global player has be informed on the economic conditions across the borders and should ensure that it apply a strategy that will protect and enhance its business through the prevailing economic conditions across the world. Renault Company took advantage of favourable economic conditions in South Korea which motivated it to take over the ailing Samsung motors in order to position itself in the Asian market.  The Korean market was recovering rapidly after the crisis which saw about 910,000 new vehicles being bought in the year 1999 and this represented a potential market for the French company to venture (Tagliabue, 2002. Renault Company also wanted to keep up with the market trend where Western carmakers were entering through acquisition and mergers where such companies acquired stakes into the Asian car industry mare so in Japan.  DaimlerChrysler had acquire a stake of 33 percent in the Mitsubishi and generally the past two years had seen seven of the 11 Japanese carmakers linking up with foreign partners in various levels(Tagliabue, 2002).

Part 2

A merger or acquisition refers to the combination of two companies or more into one company or corporation that is different from the previous companies. In a merger, the process involves a lot negotiation between two companies before their combination takes place (Roberts et. al 2012. The combination of Renault and Samsung Motors can be termed as mergers because the combination process involved a lot negotiations between the creditors of Samsung Motors and Renault companies. Both companies considered the merger to bring about benefits as it would result to availability of customer and commercial bases to both companies after combination. The merger will result to various complications but the available potential for synergies overshadows such challenges.  There are various rationales makes companies to merge. On such rationale is strategy. This rationale utilizes the opportunity for merging to achieve its set objectives. For instance, a company may merge with another with an aim of expanding into a lucrative market where it may lack may lack another legal way in interring into the market (Lubatkin, O’Neill, 1997). The Renault Company could not enter into the South Korean on its own since the market remained tightly closed to cars from foreign carmakers. It would have served it will to merge with a local firm that already has presence in the market. A company may be forced to merge with another unmerged company in order to gain a competitive position in that particular market or region. This scenario is likely to happen more in markets that are largely dominated by big players a good example seen the South Korean market where Hyundai control and its partners control more than 70 percent. In most cases the merge is mostly motivated by the need to respond to similar merges by competitors. This case is well explained where the merge between Renault and Samsung Motors came after various western car makers had merged with the other car makers in the Asian market and more so in the Japanese market. The other rationale for this strategy is the financial necessity. This applies where a company like Samsung Motors has found itself in a financial crisis involving bankruptcy or strategic misalignment which leads to loss of value and consequently, the loss of shareholders confidence. Another rationale for applying merging strategy is management failure.  The management strategies may include a lot of errors involving alignment or there may be significant changes in market conditions at the time given for implementation. This means a change in the direction of the company to a different objective due to change in factors such as the demands of the customers and the competitors strategies. Such cases may present a scenario where a company’s current strategy has moved off the strategy track required to address the changes and the only solution is to merge with another company that will offer the assistance required to correct the variance in the strategies (Lubatkin &’Neill 1997).

This strategy is associated with various risks. The first such risk is associated with the capital markets. Merging of companies implies diversification more so in management. When the income streams of two firms are combined, it also means there will be diversification of stockholders and an increase in unsystematic risk – which is the sensitivity of returns relative to the whole market, and it is determined by the cost of capital (Lubatkin &’Neill 1997). Different managerial styles and the control systems present a threat of layoffs arising from consolidation of similar departments, differences in compensation and the rules imposed on the acquired firm may bring about inefficiencies that contradict the benefits of the merger. The strategy may also face an integration risk where incorporating the operations of the merging firms may prove to be a difficult task due to the resulting new company inability to attain the desired objective of cost-saving from economies of scale and synergies.  Another risk is the possibility of culture clash between the two merging companies. The conflict of cultures and personality clashes may derail the performance of the new company. If the cultures of the two companies are incompatible due to management practices causing conflicting behaviour, there is the risk of losing the best employees, the integration period may become prolonged and messy and the company may finally fail to capture the value of the merger and synergies (Chui, 2011).

Part 3

Integration of culture is considered to be a development of a meaning that is jointly shared which enhance co-operation between the firms that are being joined. The culture can be categorised as per Edgar Schein model as artefacts and symbols, espoused values and assumptions (Edgar, 2006). If cultural clashes still exist between two joining firms, it means the cultural integration has not been well achieved.  This integration should reduce collective resistance by creating mutual consideration, developing a common language as well as a better understanding of on another.  Without acculturation being created between the two firms, there are minimal chances of merger and acquisition to be a success (Zhang, 2010). Compatibility of different cultures between Renault and Samsung motors imply that there was cultural similarity. For the merger to be successful, the decision makers should identify a potential partner that represents a match of both strategy and culture. The corporate culture and the national culture are more likely than not to affect the performance of the newly formed company. The espoused culture can be explained in three ways which include: the way an organisation deals with its customers, the manner in which employees treat each other and the way in which the managers and leaders in an organisation develop, reward or motivate the employees. The most noticeable attributes of corporate culture includes aspects such as manner of dressing, relationship between people, how customer queries and represent the artefacts and symbol category (Edgar, 2006). These are aspects that help to identify the behaviour patterns that usually make up the corporate culture.

Corporate culture is seen as a make or break issue after the merging of companies because culture to a firm is what personality is to a person. Thus if corporate culture is poorly considered it can lead to failure of the merger (Pascal, 1999).  Renault Samsung experienced a sales increase of 70 percent in the first seven months of the after merging of Samsung Motors and Renault as compared to the same period of the previous year. The chief executive of the company Jean Hurtiger attributed this success to the maintenance and the use of corporate culture and the heritage of the Korea. Renault Samsung had become a multinational company that combined the 112 years of France’s Renault history, the technological capabilities of Nissan and Samsung motors of South Korea.  The management of different cultures after merging can thus be used as a system that an organisation uses to select the general patterns, solve the conflict that may arise, in conversion of negative factors to make them positive and obtain the value of synergy arising from the culture after the merger (Deloitte, 2009).  The fundamental principle of this culture management is to respect and understand the other culture, acknowledge the significance of good communication and adapt to any changes. The firm should integrate its culture with strategic significance and this is effectively done through communication. Synergy can be achieved if the subsidiary company is treated like an independent company that makes its decisions according the circumstances prevailing locally. Thus the local culture is respected and the employees of the company are recruited locally. However the best model that seems to have worked well for Renault Samsung is integration of both cultures.  As pointed out by the Chief Executive, the multinational aspect of this company does not refer to the country it originated from but to its unique culture formed by bringing together cultures and management that are different.  It involved a combination of the human resources of high quality that existed in Samsung Motors, the management practices of Renault which was very innovative and, as previously noted, technological competitiveness of Nissan Company (He-Suk, 2010). The company noted that by combining these competitive aspects coming from the three sources, it managed to attain a quality that was leading in the industry, the relations labour management became smooth which resulted to a 10 year rapid growth.  Another culture that arose after the merge is that Renault Samsung does not have any labour union, but an organisation that serves as a representative of employees which became an advantage to it.  Unlike other car making companies that are locally based, some of whom experience strikes almost annually, Renault Samsung has managed to avoid disputes relating to labour such that its employees have not engaged in any form of industrial action since the new company emerged in the year 2000. It went further to receive the Prime minister’s award for coming up with a model that used a new culture in the management of labour (He-Suk, 2010).

Although the integration of tasks and the social –cultural combination are different conceptually, none is independent of the other.    The factors in integration of the socio-cultural aspects like employees’ commitment, shared identity and trust help in transferring the strategic capabilities and the sharing of resources. A successful integration of both nation and corporate cultures facilitate satisfaction of employees, the quality of interpersonal relationship between employees of combining firms which will translate to better performance of an organisation (Deloitte, 2009).

Part 4

The movement of foreign exchange rates can have a significant effect on the how mergers flows internationally. In the cross border markets of the world, a strong relationship exist between currencies and the capital markets, and the relationship is seen in the acquisition deals done and the stock markets. The conditions of the currency market are also closely related to the capital markets. Movements or variations in the rate of exchange can make the firms of a country to become cheaper or more expensive to bigger firms from other countries that are willing to buy those (Bruner & Bruner, 2004). However, conventional  analysis of economies argue that in as global market that is highly integrated , the assets real returns on assets will be normally equal across the said countries. According to Stein and Froot (1997) there is a link between the changes in currencies and the buyers’ wealth, in that countries that whose financial situations are good due to their strong currencies will attempt to initiate direct foreign investments.  The thus found that there is a strong relationship between foreign direct investments and the movement of the exchange rate. Ravenscraft and Harries (1991) also argued that there exist a strong relationship between the variations of exchange rate and effects of announcement of cross-border acquisition. This implies that firms in countries with substantially strong currencies are likely to go for acquisition of firms in countries whose currencies have not appreciated much (Bruner & Bruner, 2004).

This case is clearly seen in the deal between Renault and Samsung motors where Renault originating from France, a country with stronger currency targeted acquisition of Samsung motors which originates from South Korea which was among the countries whose economies were greatly hit by the 1998 Asia economic crises and whose currency was weaker. This made the acquisition relatively affordable to Renault. The stronger currency also meant that Renault had a higher value relatively than Samsung Motors. Another aspect is that debt which is denominated on the basis of the target firm is quite attractive to the acquiring firm since it is cheaper. The bid by Renault valued Samsung Motors at ataW620 billion which was well below what the creditors of Samsung motors had anticipated, a value of W1.1 trillion (Tagliabue, 2002). Thus, the deal turned out to be a good for Renault but not so good for the Samsung motors creditor. The creditors had realised that if they lost this buyer they were unlikely to get another one. This was a good gamble for Renault Company since it only had to initially offer 78% of the funds. The variation in currencies between the countries of the two firms had a huge advantage on the Renault put of the deal.  In terms of the debt, Renault did not have much to lose unlike the Samsung creditors. If Samsung did not make any money it would lose a lot in terms debts owed to creditors while Renault would only lose W85 (Tagliabue, 2002).

References

Bruner, R. F., & Bruner, R. F. (2004). Applied mergers and acquisitions.107

Chui, B (2011).A Risk Management Model for Merger and Acquisition. International Journal of Engineering Business Management, Vol. 3, No. 2

Deloitte, (2009). Cultural issues in mergers and acquisitions; Perspectives on the people side of M&A.1-6

Emanuel G, Yaakov W, Chris B., Shlomo Y, Tarbab M (2011). Acquisitions and Strategic Alliances.pg 63

Edgar H (2006).Organizational Culture and Leadership. Business & Economics .John Wiley & Sons.42-319

 He-Suk, C. (2010).Mixture of cultures at Renault Samsung hones competitiveness. The Korean Herald. Retrieved from: file:///C:/Users/user.HOME/Downloads/Mixture%20of%20cultures%20at%20Renault%20Samsung%20hones%20competitiveness.html

Lubatkin, M. O’Neill, H (1997). Merger strategies and capital market risk. University of Connecticut. Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 30. (4), 665-684

 Marrewij, C. (2007). Macroeconomic Determinants of Cross-Border. Mergers and Acquisition. Tinbergen Institute and Erasmus University Rotterdam.13-49

MOTIS, J. (2007).Mergers and Acquisitions Motives.  University of Crete.10-18.

Pascal Clerc (1999). Managing the Cultural Issue of Merger and Acquisition. The Renault-Nissan case.

Roberts, A., Wallace, W., Moles, P. (2012).Mergers and Acquisitions. Heriot-Watt University.13-46

Tagliabue, J. (2002).Renault Agrees to Buy Troubled Samsung Motors of Korea. International business .New York Times. 1. Retrieved from: file:///C:/Users/user.HOME/Downloads/INTERNATIONAL%20BUSINESS%20-%20Renault%20Agrees%20to%20Buy%20Troubled%20Samsung%20Motors%20of%20Korea%20-%20NYTimes.com.html

Zhang, R.(2010) .Cultural Integration in Cross-Border Mergers & Acquisitions.10-22

LOIUS VUITTON’S

Production matters a lot in companies which desire their products to sale with an exclusive price and add a cost in attaining the very best in terms of getting the precise finest of all in terms of qualities. The problem of operation, inventory management, and product improvement has been a problem for the luxury product industry with Louis Vuitton being of no exemption (Williams, 2014). When dealing with luxury items one has to consider the proliferation of dilution of the product itself, the more the product is concentrated in the market the lesser it is considered luxury. Since with the product diluted in the public the lesser the demand and worth it will be the praiseworthiness will start dropping drastically. Louis Vuitton as much is trying to expand the production in response to market demands; it should also consider only making a few numbers of editions with exquisite quality and by doing so the value will be maintained. The history of  how Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH) came to existence dates to many years back which since then, devotion has been ultimate decider in terms of presentation and standing up competitors (Williams, 2014). Considerate ways of eliminating counterfeits have to start from the management bottom line whereby affirming with one of a kind with an exclusive signature which is familiar which loyal client has to be a dexterous step. LVMH first tried the introduction of designer and a bit stripped bags which it could not last long due to change of the technology and the advancement of the rival companies, on such scenarios it is up to the Louis Vuitton to consider a paradigm of shift swiftly. The question of labor should not be a big concern to worry about the management since it only cost a few overheads and the return is way better only if it is well planned. Competition is bound to happen in the market since the revolution of products changes as time goes, Coach, for instance, should be countered by introducing more sophisticated and unique line of products.

There is a serious competition in parts of East, Asia, for instance, has Coach which really looks like a fierce competitor even though they have not risen through the ranks Louis has undergone. The bags emanating from the rival manufactories is an eminent threat and should not be ignored lest dwindle down is on the horizon (Williams, 2014). LVMH should first have a laid down strategies and come with some of the best luxurious lines to counter the mare products which are far apart from the comfort and sophistication desired by the clientele base. At first, it will look like a rivalry involved in a tight fist but at the end of the day, it is all about competition and scramble for the market. Making the products accessible to the consumers is the best way to handle this but then again how about the compromise of quality, Europe is known for the finest and one of the top notch fabrics and materials which it has ended being rowdy and a thing of the common yet clients prefers uniqueness. Luxury is defined by the components and the retrogressive features with no exemption of quality. Diversification is the real deal here and it would not need any more factories addition, the game changer should arise from the management side of the firm.

Reference

Top of Form

Williams, C. (2014). Effective management: A multimedia approach.

Bottom of Form

NICKEL, ch 9: Where do Social Rights and Human Rights conflict or disagree?

Human rights especially on the health sector are grounded for protection and maintenance of every individual’s dignity. It is difficult to understand how human dignity results gaining the human respect. In the chapter is illustrates ethical and various philosophical ways of dealing with human dignity and alternative foundation of the right to life and history goods. Social justice involves distribution of wealth, opportunities plus privileges to individuals. The social justice is about enjoying the right one has and ahead admiration on the social self-esteem overt the right one has. Despite the different ways of treating individuals with their dignity, there appear other good ways of treating an individual without any appearance of right.

SHUE: ch4-How do realism and responsibility factor into our discussion of Human Rights?

Realism and idealism comprises of opposing approaches to the definition of detection of national objectives. Realists tend to accept the condition as they are defined at the ends of policy by the measures of all anticipated gains. In relation to human rights, realism and idealism disagrees fundamentally especially on the prime determinants of state behavior in the international politics. On contrary, idealists tend to view various source of external state actions as residing in the internal politics. Idealist and realism factor to human rights in such that they are based largely on political structures however, realism is aggressive where it shutters peace by defining civilized norms of human conduct.

BLAU ch 9-How do Turkish immigrants in Germany set the stage for discussion as pertains to this course?

Turkish immigrant managed to set a stage for discussion in Germany because in 1961 a treaty was signed between Turkey and Germany thus, it was necessary considering that Turkey had engaged into similar agreement with several continents such as Netherland. Germany was left with no choice but allow the Turkish immigrants to be part of their discussion moreover, the immigrants effort was need in the reconstruction following the World War 2 destruction. On contrary the immigrants had become part of Germany’s business and religious development thereby, their opinions mattered in the discussion. 

Case 30

Yahoo Inc; Marissa Mayer's Challenge

Back in July 2015, Yahoo’s board of directors appointed Marissa Mayer as their Chief Executive Officer (CEO) which marked the first step of turning Yahoo’s performance around (Pearce & Robinson, 2015). Mayer’s appointment and ascension as the CEO of the organization was accompanied by numerous challenges. To start with, it was exhibited that Yahoo had been facing problems with their CEOs as they have employed seven CEOs in a period of 18 years of operation. Among the seven CEOs, 5 of them had left the company within the last five years from 2012 (Pearce & Robinson, 2015). The other challenge regarded the corporate governance which included the disgraceful resignation of the former CEO and the demands form an activist investor who influenced the strategic direction of the company by vying for the board seats (Pearce & Robinson, 2015). The other challenge was that Mayer had to make a subjective decision regarding the best proceedings on the partial sale of Yahoo’s investment in Alibaba Group. Generally, prior to presenting the strategic plans, Mayer had to tackle these challenges and present her ideas to the board members before the fall of 2012. Therefore, this paper will focus on some of the challenges that Yahoo endured after Mayer was appointed as the CEO and later make some recommendations to enhance successive performance of Yahoo Inc.

Challenges

            One of the major challenges that had to take care of concerned the issue of investing in Alibaba Group which is a privately owned internet company in China back in 2005. Yahoo invested in this electronic commerce company for an equivalent amount of $1 billion for 40% equity share (Pearce & Robinson, 2015). Additionally, Yahoo handed over their responsibility of operation for China website to Alibaba Group.  Later, Yahoo and Alibaba held negotiations back in 2010 with regard to their future investment and alliance. Unfortunately, Softbank invested 65% of the stake in invested 65% of Yahoo’s stake where 35% was owned by Yahoo (Pearce & Robinson, 2015). Furthermore, it was perceptible that Alibaba wanted to buy back its stake by Yahoo and also purchase a certain additional stake in Yahoo. On the other hand, Softbank wanted to buy out more of Yahoo’s stake. Therefore, Yahoo agreed the request on divestment by Alibaba as a strategic approach of minimizing their tax bill on their capital gains. Back in 2012, the annunciation was made that Yahoo would sell approximately 50% of its investment to Alibaba for an equivalent amount of $7.6 billion (Pearce & Robinson, 2015). Therefore, citing from the fact that Mayer was the new CEO for Yahoo, she was challenged on how to make proceedings for the investment by Alibaba. Thus, she was obliged to make critical acquisitions and cope up with shareholders’ pressure regarding the investment.         

The other challenge concerned establishing Yahoo’s identity as it changed its investment as a technology company to media organization (Pearce & Robinson, 2015). It is perceptible that the company started as a technology organization where its principal source of revenue was advertising. However, after Yahoo ventured in the media business, many of its employees regarded that they worked for the technology organization. Therefore, this was a challenge to Mayer as she had experience at Google, which was a technology organization, and now was tasked to establish the identity of a company that shifted from technology to media business operation (Pearce & Robinson, 2015). Mayer had to make a subjective decision on what strategies to implement particularly in order to venture the growing markets (Asia and Africa). By 2012, internet was expanding and was moving to mobile platform where Yahoo had not ventured yet (Pearce & Robinson, 2015). This was a dilemma for Yahoo especially on whether to venture in the fast developing mobile internet or continue to support its traditional sources of revenue. These were some of the decisions that Mayer had to make and jump into conclusions which she would present before the board members in September that year.

Therefore, in order to guarantee future and continued success, there are several recommendations that can be proposed for Mayer to implement and adopt. The following are the strategies that can remedy the predicaments faced by Yahoo.

1. Acquisition of many organizations that serve similar customer base as Yahoo

As aforementioned, it is factual that internet was growing rapidly to a level of venturing to mobile platform where Yahoo had only marginal presence. Thus, in order to move together with the encroachment of the internet, Yahoo ought to acquire and make alliances with companies that have adjusted to the changes in technology and have crucial presence in all of the required customer bases. As a result this will make sure that Yahoo has reached the growing markets such as Asia and Africa instead of adhering to their traditional sources of revenue. Additionally, the company should make different types of acquisitions that target towards achieving different objectives such as reaching new and targeted demographics, and creating their presence in mobile internet platform. This will increase their competitive advantage as they reach a wider customer base that is not being served by their major competitors.

2. Launching brand extensions

Citing from the increasing competition and rapidly encroaching technology, it is factual that Yahoo needs to extend their product line in order to cope up with the stiffening competition in the media and technology market. For instance, Yahoo should venture in magazine and advertisement market as they change their identity. Furthermore, with the advancing mobile technology, Yahoo should make a significant venture in the market by making mobile applications that will enable their customers to connect direct to them. Through this mobile app, Yahoo will be able to launch their new products of which the customers will be well acquainted of.  This will watch over customer retention and attraction with less promotion policies and strategies.

3. Hiring of new and more personnel

In order to make the implementation n process effective, Mayer should hire qualified personnel from different fields that are related to the target venture of the company. For instance, prior to venturing in the mobile industry, Mayer should hire experts and engineers of mobile technology who will help the company venture in the market effectively and progressively.

4. Creating strong audience growth

It is factual that in order to realize the available opportunities for Yahoo, Mayer ought to implement strategies that operate towards building new audiences. She should try to increase the number of active users in their website in order to make sure that the organization will retain its identity even after venturing in another business platform. Creating strong audience will help the organization reinvigorate its culture and expand its technical staff. Additionally, it is noteworthy that strong audience growth is the basic factor that will help the company transform effectively.

5. General change of the organizational culture

It is palpably factual that the change in the organizational structure resulted to the corresponding change in the culture. Therefore, Mayer’s task was to help the company adjust to the change in the culture of the organization. In adopting this change, Mayer should implement new policies and initiatives that guarantee alignment of the company’s operation and the changes in culture. These policies and initiatives should encompass effective communication between Yahoo programmers and goal sharing among other staff members in the company. Additionally, Mayer should arrange meetings in certain specific days that will help the management meet with other staff members and collect suggestions and questions concerning operation of the company. Furthermore, these meetings will help in announcing new hires and changes made in the organizational structure. Precisely, this strategy of changing the organizational culture will make sure that employees are ready to take change and minimize risks that are associated with employees’ reluctance to change.

6. Setting new goals and objectives

Citing from the fact that Mayer was appointed as the CEO when the company was undergoing a new transition, it is worthwhile that she should go to the basics and start focusing aggressively on new goals and objectives regarding the transition of the company. This can be achieved through different changes in the organizational culture which will affect every level of the organizational hierarchy. After changing the interior of the company, Mayer should go ahead and implement different strategies that will help in regaining the competitive advantage of the company in the new market. However, Mayer should be vigilant to changing the general culture as there are values of the earlier culture that determined the success of the company up to date.

7. Benchmarking systems of the potential competitors

It is perceptible that the easiest way of regaining competitive advantage by Yahoo is to benchmark the structures and systems adopted by major competitors such as Google and others. This was the same strategy that Google used against Yahoo after it decided benchmarking Yahoo’s revenue structure some years ago (Henry, Sutorius & Thacher, 2007). Therefore, through using the current system adopted by Google as the starting point, Yahoo can be able to leverage their competitive advantage. Additionally, benchmarking competitors’ system and structure will be economical to costs compared to inventing an innovative mechanism from the scratch (Henry, Sutorius & Thacher, 2007). This will give Yahoo first recovery by regaining the first-mover competitive advantage as Google and other major competitors are doing.  

Conclusion

It is perceptible that Marissa Mayer was appointed as the CEO when Yahoo was in high need of successful transition and retention of its reputation. Therefore, Mayer was tackled by different challenges regarding acquisitions and organizational performance in a new market. Therefore, in order to promote effective operation of Yahoo and retain its competitive advantage during the new transition, Mayer should make several implementations. These implementations include acquisition of numerous organizations, launching brand extension, making new and more hires, creating strong audience growth, changing the general organizational culture, benchmarking systems of the major competitors, and setting new goals and objectives for the company.

References      

Pearce, J. A., & Robinson, R. B. (2015). Strategic management (14th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

Henry, A., Sutorius, B., & Thacher, T. (2007). Strategic report for yahoo inc. Gotham Global. Retrieved from http://economics-files.pomona.edu/jlikens/SeniorSeminars/gotham2007/reports/yahoo.pdf