It was indicated by Jaideep Prabhu (Lee & Greenley, 2010) that theory and practice are important elements that collectively provide solutions for businesses. In this regard, Praibhu highlighted the significance of “rigor” and “relevance”, and stated that they are essential components of business practice, research or study. In the same way, Tim (2009) also stated that business practice theories from academics should be integrated. Since universities prepare students for their practical exposure in the business world, therefore, it is important that they equip students with relevant academic theories that are applicable in the real business management practice so that students can meet the requirements of the corporate world.
In order to understand the implications of rigour and relevance of academic theories for business practices, a position of the owner-manager was considered by the researcher to highlight how this individual could play an effective role in managing five challenging elements in organizations namely future, self, finances, staff, and customers.
Individuals, who are entitled to receive owner-manager positions, have the highest level of authority, power, and responsibility. Such persons are responsible for running businesses, and they need to be active, stable, and vigilant in order to be successful in building and sustaining effective business practices. In this regard, it is essential to state that these individuals determine the future of the enterprise as they are concerned with the growth and development of the organization.
Moreover, these individuals are supposed to promote good working relationships and arrange personal and professional training for employees. However, it is also important to state that the position of owner-manager is subject to most of the criticisms as the leadership is always questioned, and in the case of any issue, the blame is always placed on management and owners for their negligence.
In order to understand the impact of this position on different organizational areas, it is important to evaluate the situation critically by using “Critical Action Learning” as a tool to identify the areas of interest. The owner-managers can play a vital role in “Managing Future” as they have the authority to undertake new and innovative projects for new researches, products or services. They can empower their subordinates through motivational schemes and can also use training as a means to improve their interpersonal and professional skills that can be used for any new project.
The owner-manager can define a set of rules that require immediate compliance for the new project in order to achieve greater profit margin, market share or sales. Moreover, the future can be managed on the basis of a manager’s collective emotional learning sets that would link his or her unconscious goals to achieving business success by using unspoken emotions. However, collaborative efforts make these emotions well recognizable.
Similarly, in order to remain well-coordinated, an active and determined owner-manager needs to manage himself by enhancing his leadership and management skills. In this regard, it is important to state that many leaders feel that they have good leadership’s traits when they consciously use means to empower others that affects their working capacity. Thus, it is essential for the owner-manager to be self-conscious and be able to use self-management tactics that help others and do not affect employees’ respect or position.
As far as managing finances is concerned, an owner-manager should use professional accounting practices that allow regular scrutiny of financial sources and their use. A professional Chartered Accountant assists the owner-manager in the audit and managing finances of any organization. The owner-manager can adopt the principles of critical learning by communicating financial issues to collective associations.
In order to manage staff, and owner-manager should introduce change to employees by setting up rules and norms for compliance and keeping a check on employees. Though it is important to keep certain expectations from the staff, it is also important for a manager to ensure that organizational politics does not affect staff and their work (Hughes, O’Regan, & Wornham, 2009). CAL can be used for understanding that learning and productive change in staff are essential for ongoing success. It could help in managing work and staff simultaneously. Furthermore, an owner-manager may also use emotional dynamics like setting up conflict and political free environment and undertaking certain strategic actions to discipline and engage staff for increasing productivity.
Managing customers is one of the biggest tasks of owner-managers as they are the biggest stakeholders of any company. In this regard, it is important that an owner-manager identifies CAL principles such as having a range of recognizable products and services offered by the company. It could only be possible if the owner-manager feels that the organization is achieving its targets. Moreover, CAL provides a basis for analysis of differing conflict nature of customers that could have an impact on an individual.
It could be stated that an owner-manager should know the strengths and weaknesses of the company’s products and services so that customer complaint could be managed efficiently, and issues could be resolved without any arguments. A better approach would be to be apologetic and improve products and services. Such behaviour of owner-managers could allow them to handle customer affairs through critical action learning.
In order to conclude, it could be stated that owner-managers hold an important position within organizations. They should develop ways for managing the future, self, finances, staff, and customers of organizations by applying the concept of “rigor” and “relevance” derived from academic theories.
References
Hughes, T., O’Regan, N., & Wornham, D. (2009). Let’s talk: getting business and academia to collaborate. Journal of Business Strategy, 30 (5), 49-56.
Lee, N., & Greenley, G. (2010). The theory-practice divide: thoughts from the Editors and Senior Advisory Board of EJM. European Journal of Marketing, 44 (1/2), 5 – 20.