Introduction
The issues of organisational management and its effectiveness are among the most important in the sphere of business. Every company, whether large or small, has certain ambitions and goals, and to reach them, good organisation of its work is necessary. To achieve this, every company needs to pay particular attention on the issue of proper organisation and development of an organisational management department. It is widely acknowledged and accepted that the success of every company is greatly dependent upon the way in which the company’s work is organized. That is why this issue is very significant and was chosen as the topic of the literature review. In this paper we consider three important sources of help for the study of organisational management and effectiveness (Aldrich, 2007).
Sources
These sources are books written by prominent scientists in the field of Organisational management: Organisations and Environments, by Aldrich, X-Teams: How to Build Teams that Lead, Innovate, and Succeed, by Ancona and Bresman, and Core Values and Organisational Change: Theory and Practice, by Whiteley and Whiteley. Through these sources, they can help widen my view of the topic as well as determine their importance for organisational managers in my home country, Singapore. I will also state what further research should be done in this field of study in order to improve the quality of organisational management and provide more companies with the chance of success. Overall, I am going to examine the role of scientific literature in the development of organisational management.
Question 1: Significance of the Sources
General
The sources chosen for the literature review are modern; it assures me that the information provided by them is the most updated. Thus, these books are a great help to me studying organisational theory in that they supply data that can contribute considerably to the already acquired knowledge on the topic.
All three books are concerned with the basic elements of organisational theory, while at the same time providing a great deal of information about specific aspects of this issue and demonstrating its possible practical implementation (Ancona & Bresman, 2007). Besides, all the sources are rich in useful information about the management styles and approaches. Drawing from this, the relevance of the resources chosen can not be doubted, especially if Singapore style of management is under the scope. Management in Singapore
It is widely known that the management style in Singapore differs from that of the majority of European and Western countries. The Chinese make up the vast majority of the population of Singapore. Consequently, the management style is very close to the Chinese instead of the other races such as the Malays and Indians. This style presupposes authoritarian leadership and vertical hierarchy of the organisation.
Employees are completely subordinate to the chief executive, and messages to him or her can be transmitted only through people who are higher in the company’s hierarchy. Communication with the chief executive is limited or absolutely impossible, and this fact does not promote efficiency in the company’s work or its competitiveness. Centralized decision-making and lack of sharing information with other companies are part of Singapore management, and these features are the ones that need to be changed. That is why the sources chosen for this paper can be of great help to managers in Singapore. These books provide important information about the significance of organisational effectiveness and the four approaches that associated to it (Whiteley & Whiteley, 2007).
Organisations and Environments
Aldrich is considered one of the luminaries of organisational theory. His book added substantially to my knowledge of the basic principles of organisational theory. The author explains the evolutionary model of organisational change, evaluates, with a great deal of criticism, the works and research of other scholars, and elaborates on the social and political significance of the topic. This book helps me to understand how the issues of organisational theory can be applied not only to a company but also to larger units, like cities, states, and all of the human society. It made me better aware of the political context of the issues of organisational management (Aldrich, 2007).
X-Teams: How to Build Teams that Lead, Innovate, and Succeed
The work by Ancona and Bresman is a perfect source of knowledge about the needs and demands of building a successful business team that will be a pattern of organisational management for others. The authors explain the changes that have recently happened in organisational theory, thereby updating and developing my knowledge of the newest trends in the world of organisational management. Ancona and Bresman went into greater detail with the issue of the modern business team that has to adjust to the demands of the modern world.
The authors state that the classical definition of a successful team as one that builds confidence and camaraderie is not applicable nowadays. The authors explain this fact by saying that modern organisations should follow the fast changes of the market, and inward-oriented companies cannot afford to do that. This is why there is a need to combine the best points of the classical team definition and its ability to develop simultaneously with market forces (Ancona & Bresman, 2007).
Core Values and Organisational Change: Theory and Practice
The source by Whiteley and Whiteley added to my knowledge of the historical context of organisational theory as well as the possible practical implementation of organisational theory by business managers. The authors explore the development of theoretical knowledge of people’s organisation from the times of ancient philosophers to the modern epoch and show how these ideas can be put into practice in order to increase the efficiency of modern organisational management. As a student of organisational theory, I found a lot of information in this book that added to my knowledge of the subject (Whiteley & Whiteley, 2007).
Question 2: Significance to Managers in Singapore
The Goal Attainment Approach
Every organisation is developing and acting in the field of its work in order to achieve goals. It is widely accepted that every ambitious organisation is established to achieve the goals. That is why one of the most important factors in the evaluation of organisational effectiveness is the way in which an organisation formulates and achieves its goals. Being an independent company, getting constantly increasing returns from its investments and being competitive in the market are the basic goals of every company.
Therefore, the goal attainment approach is of vital importance. Managers all over the world know the four approaches to organisational effectiveness measurement, but in the current style of management in Singapore, it is quite different for them to establish the same approaches and ensure that they will be followed. That is why the literature chosen for the analysis is very significant for the managers in Singapore (Aldrich, 2007).
The work by Aldrich and that by Ancona and Bresman provide useful information as to how a manager can clearly formulate the company’s goals and adjust them according to the changes brought by time and market development. These sources are of great help in terms of the confidence that all company employees contribute to its effectiveness and goals attainment by establishing closer contact with higher levels management in the organisational hierarchy.
The book by Whiteley and Whiteley provides information for the setting of short and long term goals that can be achieved with more attention concentrated to the needs of all company employees. All the sources state that goals must be formulated in accordance with the company’s current opportunities and achieved in time by means of efficient work (Ancona & Bresman, 2007).
System Approach
The System Approach to the measurement of effectiveness of an organisation can be called a long term perspective approach by presupposing that development of an organisation is directed to success in the future and not temporary success that will destroy the company by exhausting its funding and assets. The system approach is concerned with constant improvements in the company’s performance that should follow changes in the market. The system approach also touches upon the topic of interdependence of the organisational elements and is important for the general effectiveness of organisation.
This approach, as mentioned in the books by Aldrich, Ancona and Bresman, and Whiteley and Whiteley, is important for managers in Singapore because the organisational culture and management style are far from the demands of modern markets. The sources under consideration can teach how to implement the system approach in the vertically hierarchical and inward oriented management style in Singapore. With an understanding of the significance of the system approach, managers in Singapore can try to make the hierarchy less strict and authoritarian, which will allow incorporating all aspects of a company’s work in order to improve its effectiveness (Whiteley & Whiteley, 2007).
The Strategic Constituencies Approach
This approach is of special importance for managers in Singapore as it is concerned with the issues of the environmental sectors that surround the organisation and can influence it some way or another. These sectors are called constituencies and include such spheres as finance, politics, customers, etc. As the management style in Singapore is rather conservative, this approach prevents harm to the company in case the interests of a certain constituency are ignored. Nevertheless, the sources under consideration in this paper have considerable importance for managers in Singapore because they can add to the knowledge of the managers in this sphere and contribute to the effectiveness of the performance of their organisations (Ancona & Bresman, 2007).
The Balanced Scorecard Approach
This approach is very important for every organisation as it tends to combine the elements of the three approaches described above to provide managers with the perfect tool for evaluation and measurement of organisational effectiveness. The balanced scorecard approach takes into consideration all four main areas of a company’s activity: finance, customers, internal affairs, and processes of improvement and learning.
This approach aims to examine a company’s performance in terms of the interrelationships between all its elements and this approach is perfectly depicted in the sources discussed in this paper. Aldrich provides general notions of the four aspects studied in the balanced scorecard approach, while Ancona,and Bresman, and Whiteley and Whiteley, speculate on particular aspects of this approach (Aldrich, pp. 76–84).
Question 3: Further Research and Conclusions
As far as the topic of this paper is measurement of organisational effectiveness, in order to identify the necessary development of research on this topic, I need to define effectiveness as the degree to which goals are achieved and reflect the interests of the organisation’s members and its stage of development. Drawing from this, the following research might be necessary: study of the factors that predetermine the state when all approaches are followed, research into market factors that can influence the organisation’s effectiveness irrespective of its internal affairs, and the study of the possibilities of improving the performance of the organisational management departments in different companies (Aldrich, 2007).
To achieve this, I think, the study of the already existing information and already conducted research is needed, so that it would be possible to see the gaps existing in the research on the topic of organizational management effectiveness and use the guidelines of the skilful research works in place to continue the studying of the problem. Besides, new methods of research are desirable as far as the already existing ones do not provide the researcher with the most relevant and objective information. Moreover, researchers must have opportunities of influence upon the situation. Thus, for example in Singapore, it should be made possible that the data from this or that research are presented to managers who must be well aware of the problems they experience and of the means to solve their working problems.
To make a logical conclusion of this work, I would state that the organisational theory is an important means of helping organisations to develop and aim to achieve their goals. The extent to which organisational performance is effective is measured by four approaches that are discussed in this paper. One cannot define the most important approach, as far as they are all significant for different factors influencing work of managers.
Importance of the work’s sources chosen for managers, especially those in Singapore, cannot be doubted because their management style needs certain improvement and updating in accordance with the modern standards given in these books. Besides, the further research proposed in this work is another step that can positively contribute to the development of management culture in Singapore and many other countries of the world.
References
Aldrich, H.E. (2007). Organisations and Environments. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, Business Classics Series.
Ancona, D. & Bresman, H. (2007). X-Teams: How to Build Teams that Lead, Innovate, and Succeed. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Whiteley, A. & Whiteley, J. (2007). Core Values and Organisational Change: Theory and Practice. Singapore: World Scientific Press.