Chemistry as a natural science has helped in discovering and understanding the properties of different elements found on earth. The…
You must be logged in to view this content.
In its simplest form, business transformation involves a set of actions taken to change a business from an undesired situation to a desired state in its industry segment. The proposed 10-year transformation strategy of SAAB in this paper begins with a general overview of the transformation concept, followed by an historical snapshot of SAAB. SAAB Automobile AB was an original Swedish company founded in the 1930s and entered the U.S market in the late 1950s. The automobile company was very innovative, introducing new technologies, which made it a popular brand in Sweden. In 1969, SAAB merged with another Swedish firm, Scania, with Scania specializing in trucks production while SAAB concentrated on producing passenger cars. General Motors bought 50 percent interest of SAAB-Scania in 1990 to create a joint venture.
risk
Uncertainty management has been practiced in one form or the other for centuries. According to etymological records, the French and Italian words “risque” and “riscio” were first used in 1661. The German and English equivalents were later applied to describe uncertainty in business environments. The interpretation attached both positive and negative sides to the meaning of uncertainty. The negative side points to hazards, vulnerability, and volatility that could result in financial loss, while the positive side reveals that there are also opportunities in uncertainty that could be captured and exploited to create value. This paper investigates the positive side of uncertainty through a literature research and explains the creation of value in organizations with the help of strategic uncertainty management.
Download the e-book
Though, uncertainty management had been developed and practiced in many organizations, it was not until 1963 that it was established and accepted as a recognized management discipline. The acceptance was accelerated by a text book published by Robert I. Mehr and Bob Hedges in 1963. In the book, components of uncertainty management were suggested for organizations. These components included uncertainty identification, measurement, evaluation, assumption, transfer, reduction, selection and monitoring.
The author moves on to describe developments in uncertainty management that eventually led to the concept of strategic uncertainty management or enterprise uncertainty management. The new concept recognized that the traditional uncertainty management is inadequate to respond effectively to uncertainties emerging from the new global market. There is a necessity to aggregate uncertainty information from all business units into a central system, which is made available enterprise-wide. The strategic uncertainty management, including uncertainty identification, response and control tools, is aligned with the corporate strategy to achieve the organization’s goals.
Value as defined by “the triple bottom line” is adopted by the author to introduce organizations’ performance measurement in relation to value creation. The criteria for creating value for stakeholders with the help of strategic uncertainty management are explained. The paper continues with the description of different value creating models and implementation steps for the models. An organization needs to take chances, capture and exploit opportunities found in uncertainty. A practical example of how an organization can create value over time by applying principles of strategic uncertainty management is illustrated by the creation of value at Apple Inc.
Download the e-book
Afritopic 2011
flexitime-employee-motivation
Employee motivation is one of the major common issues facing managers across organizations. In order to understand what is meant by “employee motivation” within the scope of this study, it is necessary to define motivation. In addition to the definition, a motivation theory, namely Marslow’s Hierarchy of Needs would be applied to the employee as an individual. There are several definitions of motivation in the literature; from the psychological point of view, motivation is basically defined as the driving force or the reason behind the action of an organism or human behavior. For this study, the following definition of motivation found in online business dictionary would be adopted: “Internal and external factors that stimulate desire and energy in people to be continually interested in and committed to a job, role, or subject, and to exert persistent effort in attaining a goal. Motivation is the energizer of behavior and mother of all action. It results from the interactions among conscious and unconscious factors such as the (1) intensity of desire or need, (2) incentive or reward value of the goal, and (3) expectations of the individual and of his or her significant others”.
Download the e-book
The American human psychologist Abraham Maslow conducted an investigation between 1939 and 1943 on human behavior from which he developed a theory on human motivation. The theory, popularly known as Marslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, identifies five basic human needs as follow:
Physiological Needs are the fundamental needs to survive such as shelter, food and water that motivate a person to take action. After the fundamental needs have been satisfied, the person’s needs are replaced by safety needs to protect the physiological needs. Safety acts as motivator for the actions of the individual. If safety is in place, the person moves on to attain social status in order to satisfy the social needs. For the person, loving someone or being loved, acceptance in a social club or having friends may be part of satisfying the social needs. The achievement of a social status leads the person to the next higher level of needs, esteem needs. The esteem needs motivate a person to accomplish a goal as well as gain recognition, reputation and self-respect. Having satisfied esteem needs, the individual is now at the top of Marslow’s pyramid, self-actualization. Self-actualization motivates a person to exploit all potentials and attain highest achievements while psychological growth continues
Download the e-book
Power diminishes perception and perspective: Why are some managers seemingly incapable of understanding their subordinates’ points of view? Adam Galinsky finds that high-power individuals anchor too heavily on their own perspectives and demonstrate a diminished ability to correctly perceive the perspective of others.
