Business Management Assignment Literature Review

Question

Task 1 : Identify five (5) journal articles that match the first five topics of this unit
That is, you must find one journal article per topic

1. Organisational structures or governance,
2. Environmental forces,
3. Risks confronting the firm,
4. Organisation and business practices, and
5. The functions of diverse firms.

2. Write a short 150 word introduction discussing why the contextual factors are important to organisational decision making. The introduction is 150 words in total not 150 words per article.

3. Write approximately 250 words per journal article that:

1. Defines the main contextual factor being discussed in the journal article,
2. Discusses the new findings in relation to the contextual factor, and
3. Highlights what these findings mean for managers in organisations.

4. Write a short 200 word conclusion recommending one specific contextual factor as most important to CQUniversity’s organisational performance. Explain your reasoning.

5. Write a reference list correctly

• It must use the APA referencing style
• Each reference appears before each annotated bibliography
• It has a hanging indentation
• There are specific fonts and formatting that must be used:

Derouiche, I., Hassan, M., & Amdouni, S. (2018). Ownership structure and investment-cash flow sensitivity. Journal of Management & Governance, 22(1), 31-54. DOI: 10.1007/s10997-017-9380-x

Answer

Task 1- Journal articles

1. AOM 2016 Theme: Making Organizations Meaningful
2. Analysis of the Determinants of Software?as?a?Service Adoption in Small Businesses: Risks, benefits, and Organizational and Environmental Factors.
3. Toward a legitimacy?based view of political risk: The case of Google and Yahoo in China.
4. Recovering the Divide: A Review of Strategy and Tactics in Business and Management.
5. Beyond institutional voids: Business groups, incomplete markets, and organizational form.

Task 2- Introduction
This Management assignment investigates various contextual factors that can affect the performance and profitability and decision-making policies in business as discussed below. The decision-making process becomes very complex in a large organization as there are more contributors, making it difficult to consider each contributors inputs. This makes it important to have a defined contribution and decision-making mechanism in place that evaluates each contribution and decides on the most important to address first. Other factors linked to a business performance are environmental factors. Swift evaluations and decision-making processes need to be adopted by organisations in a competitive market to ensure they maximize market exposure and sales. Slow decisions will have a negative impact on the business resulting in competitors infiltrating the market before decisions are made. The Management assignment focuses on strategies with which businesses can adopt favourable and fast decision-making process which will help maintain market competitiveness. Lastly, the business must have predefined goals and strategies to ensure appropriate theories and principles are applied while formulating these business goals.

Task 3 Summary of Journal articles
Organisational structure and governance
Glynn, M. A. (2015). AOM 2016 Theme: Making Organizations Meaningful. Retrieved from: http://aom.org/Meetings/annualmeeting/2016/AOM-2016-Theme--Making-Organizations-Meaningful.aspx

The contextual factor identified in this journal article is the structure of the organization and its governance. This Management assignment focuses on ways the Organisational structure can be defined as a set hierarchy that explains how activities and business processes will be conducted in a particular organization. The main objective of this organizational structuring is task location, coordination, and supervision of conducted by the organization.

The selected journal article explains the importance of structuring an organization properly to form a network of accountability and responsibility in the business. organizational structure help in assigning roles and responsibilities each and every employee of the organization whether such employees relates to operational, battery level or top-level Organisational structure ement. This formalized structure in giving a sense of direction to business activities undertaken by organisation (Glynn, 2015). It also bring effectiveness and efficiency in business operations as each and every member of the organisation understand its responsibilities and role in overall operations.

That is discussed in which article is corporate governance that is the manner in which all activities are conducted in the organization. Corporate governance can be defined as a set of policies and procedures that are implemented by the top management to give direction and also control activities are undertaken by employees of the company. Structuring of an organization of no use if there are no sets policies and procedures to govern the company. Hence it can be said that these two contextual factors are complementary to each other and beneficial for the organization only if they are implemented together.

Environmental forces
Kim, S.H., Jang, S.Y. and Yang, K.H. (2017). Analysis of the Determinants of Software?as?a?Service Adoption in Small Businesses: Risks, Benefits, and Organizational and Environmental Factors. Journal of Small Business Management, 55(2), pp.303-325. doi:10.1111/jsbm.12304 doi:10.1111/jsbm.12304.

Environmental forces are explored on this Management assignment listrature and discusses ways in which the article relates to the forces presented by the business environment in which a business organization is working. This journal article has been presented a view but there are two major categories in which these forces can be divided into that are external forces and internal forces. Online overall evaluation it can be said that this categorization is correct.

External forces are the forces that are beyond the control of the management of the organization such as a change in tax policies, a sudden decrease in demand of the product etc. These external factors generally effect of the oil industry in which organization under consideration is working and this is not affecting any particular organization. Internal factors are the factors that are generated within the organization and can be controlled with proper management such as operational inefficiency, unproductive fixed assets, strikes etc. both of these types of factors are very dangerous for the operational efficiency and profitability of the organization (Kim, Jang and Yang, 2017).

It is clear from the above explanation that it is very difficult to control external forces, therefore it is essential for managers to understand internal factors and try to reduce their impact on the organization. For this purpose, a manager should conduct an overall analysis of the organization to identify the probable internal factors that can affect their business. It is essential that the manager consider whether these factors would have a positive or negative impact on the business. The Management assignment should only try to mitigate factors that can have a negative impact on business.

Risks confronting a firm
Stevens, C. E., Xie, E., & Peng, M. W. (2016). Toward a legitimacy?based view of political risk: The case of Google and Yahoo in China. Strategic Management Journal, 37(5), 945-963. doi:10.1002/smj.2369.

The contextual factor discussed in the third journal article that can affect the decision-making process of an organization is risk factors faces in business management. There are various types of risk factors that can affect a business organization and can affect the sales and profitability of the business. These risk factors include operational risk, financial risk, human health risk, etc.

This article has specifically focused on the political risk that can affect the operation of an organization. The political environment on every country is different and it can create some risk factors for global organizations in particular countries. For example, due to censorship laws and regulations on web contents, Google and Facebook are banned in China. The population of China is very high and global companies like Google and Facebook could have easily increased their profits substantially if they were operating in China (Stevens, Xie & Peng, 2016). Therefore it can be said that the political environment can have a substantial impact on decision making and operations of the business.

It is important for every business manager to consider and conduct risk assessment process on business organization. The risk assessment would help managers to identify the main areas that are prone to risks. The manager should identify the possibility of occurrence of such risk and level of impact that these risk factors can have on the organization. Next step for the manager would be to identify the possible solutions to mitigate the risk factors. This process is called as risk management and with an increase in business and technology it has become an essential part of the business management processes.

Organisation and business practices
Mackay, D. and Zundel, M. (2017), Recovering the Divide: A Review of Strategy and Tactics in Business and Management. International Journal of Management Reviews, 19: 175-194. doi:10.1111/ijmr.12091.

In the fourth article, contextual factor discussed was the business practices adopted by an organization. There is various type of business practices that are undertaken by an organization to accomplish the ultimate goal of an organization. These business practices can be defined as the processes or actives that help in the attainment of the ultimate objective of business. These business practices can have a positive as well as negative impact on the business organization.

Human resource management plays a very important role in evaluating the type of business practices used by an organization. Human resources are considered to be one of the most important resources that are available with any organization. Therefore it is important that the selection and recruitment policies of an organization are sound so that only productive and skilled human resources are hired (Mackay and Zundel, 2017). Another important factor that should be considered while performing business activities is business ethics as it can be very profitable in long run for business.

A business manager should be very aware of all the business practices set by top management along with the business practices actually undertaken by the employees. A comparison should be made between these standard and actual practices so that deficiencies can be identified. Leadership and motivation is an important function of a Management assignment that should be performed by the manager to keep employees in tract toward achievement of goals and objectives.

The functions of diverse firms
Manikandan, K.S. and Ramachandran, J. (2015). Beyond institutional voids: Business groups, incomplete markets, and organizational form. Strategic Management Journal, 36(4), pp.598-617. doi:10.1002/smj.2226

In the last journal article, the focus is given to the diversification of products and services as offered by the business organization to their customer as well as workforce diversity. The product diversity in the business organization can create a complex decision-making process and the qualities of each and every product are different from each other. For example, marketing strategies decided for a soap cannot be applied for marketing of packed food produced by the same organization. In such scenario, it is important for a manager that a different team is prepared for each and every major products and a common team for small products manufactures by them. In this manner, a smooth management process can be implemented by a business and it would also bring clarity in roles, responsibility, and accountability of the employees (Manikandan and Ramachandran¸2015).

Workplace diversification has both negative as well as positive impact on a business unit. The diversified workforce can result in getting a different opinion from large group and cultures that can be very useful in various business processes such as marketing, sales, product placement, etc. On the other hand, it can also result in workplace conflicts due to conflict of opinion of different people. Hence the primary responsibility falls on the manager to take advantage of workforce diversity and limit its disadvantages.

A manager should motivate its employee to work together and bring coordination among these employees. This would also show its impact on the efficiency of business operation and increase the profitability of the business.

Task 4- Conclusion
It can be concluded that is there is a various contextual factor that can affect operations of business units irrespective of size and nature of the business. This report is focused on these factors and tries to explain these factors with the help of various article published in a peer review journal. This report has also tried to explain the role of the manager to identify these factors and use these factors in favor the Management assignment through proper approaches. These contextual factors can also affect an organization working in the education industry.

One of the most important contextual factors that can affect CQ University’s organizational performance is human resources or workforce employees by the university. Quality of Management assignment provided to students is totally dependent on the quality of teachers giving such education. Increase or decrease in a number of admission per year will depend on the quality of education provided. Therefore it is important that board of directors personally examine policies and procedures adopted for recruitment of teachers. Teacher employees in the organization should possess requisite skills, experience and knowledge essential for the job. In addition to that financial funding available to the university is also an important factor that can affect the operational aspect of the university as it requires a budget for every activity.

References
Glynn, M. A. (2015). AOM 2016 Theme: Making Organizations Meaningful. Retrieved from: http://aom.org/Meetings/annualmeeting/2016/AOM-2016-Theme--Making-Organizations-Meaningful.aspx

Kim, S.H., Jang, S.Y. and Yang, K.H. (2017). Analysis of the Determinants of Software?as?a?Service Adoption in Small Businesses: Risks, Benefits, and Organizational and Environmental Factors. Journal of Small Business Management, 55(2), pp.303-325. doi:10.1111/jsbm.12304 doi:10.1111/jsbm.12304.

Mackay, D. and Zundel, M. (2017), Recovering the Divide: A Review of Strategy and Tactics in Business and Management. International Journal of Management Reviews, 19: 175-194. doi:10.1111/ijmr.12091.

Manikandan, K.S. and Ramachandran, J. (2015). Beyond institutional voids: Business groups, incomplete markets, and organizational form. Strategic Management Journal, 36(4), pp.598-617. doi:10.1002/smj.2226.

Stevens, C. E., Xie, E., & Peng, M. W. (2016). Toward a legitimacy?based view of political risk: The case of Google and Yahoo in China. Strategic Management Journal, 37(5), 945-963. doi:10.1002/smj.2369.