Governance
In the modern society, the issue of governance has become very critical to organizations. According to Certo (2010), both for-profit and nonprofit making organizations are keen on embracing governance structures that can manipulate internal and external environmental forces. Firms such as Apple Inc, Microsoft, and Coca Cola among others have achieved success because of their governance structures. The issue of governance has become very critical in learning institutions across the world.
In the United States, schools are now trying to embrace different governance strategies to ensure that they operate effectively. They not only have to meet the expectation of the teaching staffs but also manage large number of students who may sometime become rowdy. Scholars have conducted researches in this field as they try to help various institutions to come up with ways that can help them manage their organizations in a better way. In this paper, the researcher seeks to compare Fish’s views of governance to that of Manning.
Fish’s Governance Views
The purpose of mission and goals
According to Fish (2007), each organization is uniquely constituted based on its size, number of employees, and how it relates to the local, state, national and international forces. There can never be a single governance system that can be effectively used to run different firms. That is why missions and goals are important and very unique to individual firms. These statements define what they should achieve and means through which stakeholders will use to reach the intended destination (DuBrin, 2011).
Communication
Fish (2007) emphasizes on the need to maintain proper communication. According to this scholar, a firm’s success is largely based on its ability to collect, process, and share information amongst all the relevant stakeholders within the expected timeframe. Information is power in the modern world, and every entity is under pressure to find ways of collecting the needed information at the right time and making good use of it.
Decision-making
In the past, top managers were always in charge of making all the decisions while the junior employees were expected to implement plans presented to them. Fish (2007) says that this should not be the case. Decision-making process should involve all the stakeholders irrespective of their positions in the management. This way, it becomes easy to implement these decisions because everyone will feel that they are part of the system.
Role of management
Management’s role is to offer leadership and direction in addressing various activities in our society. As Northouse (2010) says, it is practically impossible to manage people and achieve with them the desired success. What a manager can do is to offer leadership to the junior officers and direct them on how to handle various tasks in their workplaces.
Managers must learn to be good listeners and they should always seek to find ways of addressing issues that affect the employees. They should create an enabling environment where employees can work without feeling pressured, intimidated, or enslaved.
Shared governance
Governance is the responsibility of every member of an organization. It cannot be a preserve for the top leaders or mid-managers. Involving stakeholders in governance is the only way that a firm can achieve success in the current society.
Manning’s Governance Views
The purpose of mission and goals
According to Manning (2013), mission and vision statements help to define what an organization seeks to achieve and how it would be achieved. Goals explain the individual aims that are to be achieved within a specified period. Missions and goals are developed based on the current status of a firm and external environmental forces. It must be realistic and conscious of both the positive and negative influences of the environment.
Communication
From her point of view, communication should be structured in a way that allows people to share information, but in a structured format. Although she is opposed to a rigid communication structure where message has to be passed to the immediate boss, she holds that there should be sanity when junior employees are communicating with the top managers. Only specific information should be taken to top managers.
Decision-making
Unlike Fish, Manning feels that decision-making process should be left for the top and mid-level managers. She says that junior employees can be allowed to participate in the process by reporting on their experiences and views on what should be addressed.
Role of management
The role of management in any organization is to lead the junior employees towards a given desired destination through practical means. She feels that instead of directing people, a leader should be part of the team that seeks to find solutions to environmental issues (Reiß, 2012).
Shared governance
Manning (2013) argues that governance cannot be universally defined because different organizations may find different models appropriate for them. However, it is universally acceptable to involve all the stakeholders in this process.
Conclusion
From the analysis above, it is clear that the two scholars share a number of views on the issue of governance. They both contend that there can never be a universal model of governance. However, they differ when it comes to decision-making. Fisher feels that all the stakeholders should be involved while Manning argues that this should be the role of the top managers.
References
Certo, S. C. (2010). Supervision: Concepts and skill-building. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
DuBrin, A. (2011). Leadership: Research findings, practice, and skills. South-Western: Cengage Learning.
Fish, S. (2007). Shared Governance: Democracy is Not an Educational Idea by Stanley Fish. Change 4(3), 8-13.
Manning, K. (2013). Organizational theory in higher education. New York: Routledge.
Northouse, P. G. (2010). Leadership: Theory and practice. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Reiß, M. (2012). Change management: A balanced and blended approach. Norderstedt: Books on Demand.