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The UK department for International Development has defined globalisation as the interdependence and interconnectedness of the modern world through increased flows of goods, services, capital, people and information. The process is driven by technological advances and reductions In the costs of International transactions, which spread technology and ideas, raise the share of trade in world production and ncrease the mobility of capital (Zajda, 2005). Globalisation has created an urgent need for Individuals to Improve In terms of PSD due to the changes it has brought in the way in which the business world operates.
This includes several key factors which shall be discussed in this paper. Firstly, developments in technology are rapid and ever moving therefore employees must stay informed and equipped with the knowledge and skills required to utilise both software and hardware that can ald them In their endeavours. Throughout the past decades computer technology has grown to such an extent that it has at some stages laced a threat to many aspects of the human work force. Computers have replaced many workers who previously carried out manual tasks.
However, computers have limitations that can only be overcome by the knowledge and skills of free thinking beings and this is why PSD is of great importance. As Levy & Murnane (2005) stated in their paper How computerised work and Globalisation shape human skill demands , Thinking, Complex Communication, Routine Cognitive Tasks, Routine Manual Tasks and Non- Routine Manual Tasks. ” Each of these aspects must be addressed by orkers in orders to continue to advance themselves in their careers to avoid substitution and not be left behind by the swift changes in the technological market.
Secondly, Globalisation has built a platform in which the business world works without geographical barriers. Thanks to the internet companies can now communicate with each other inter-continentally in real time adding speed to negotiations and transactions. With its many advantages this new mode of working also widens the capabilities employees must hold in order to converse successfully with diverse cultures and languages. Rising global transfers of individual workers or businesses to new locations has also resulted in a day to day need to have an international approach within the workplace.
Streeten (2001) theorised in his work Globalisation: threat or opportunity that Globalisation produces “integration and interdependence between nations”. This therefore leads to the demand for continual development of PSD. This could be achieved by courses in cultural diversification and foreign languages, cultural exchanges, business trips overseas or partnerships with international entities. Another key factor that encourages the demand for PSD is vident from the vastness of the competitive market formed by globalisation.
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (1997) discussed in their work Globalisation, Competition, Competitiveness and Development; … another central problem of globalization is competition, because as you know the principal driving force in the globalization process today is precisely the search of enterprises for profits worldwide, and in that search firms now have to pursue strategies which allow them to exploit all available sources of competitiveness on whatever markets they choose to compete.
Subsequently, the competition to occupy market space and to be successful in your field has grown fiercer in recent times and can be fought with the improvement of PSD. In a global market full of similar companies with similar products the elements which renders your business different, and therefore more appealing to consumers and shareholders, are innovations in strategy and marketing. These innovations are produced through the specific know how and creativity of individuals within a company.
This proves that investment in PSD is crucial in order to nurture creative nd intelligent minds to enable them to perform to the best of their ability. Courses in new theories and developments or further education programs could be the key to driving individuals to perform and therefore combat the business market on a global level. To conclude, as I have previously illustrated throughout my work, continuous personal skills development is a vital and integral part of working in business.
Business is continuously evolving and progressing, and in order to succeed individuals must be able to develop their personal skills and abilities, this is done ersonal study, work experience or mentoring in the fields of technology, cultural diversification, foreign languages, competitive market knowledge and specific technical skills within your field of work. Incorporating these skills and techniques will enable the individual and the company to meet the needs of the costumer and maintain a competitive edge against other business.
Part B: Theories on Professional Skills and Ethics to Personal and Professional Development Teamwork Teamwork is defined “as a cooperative process that allows ordinary people to achieve extraordinary results” (Scarnati, 2001). Successful teamwork relies upon ynergism existing between all team members creating an environment where they are all willing to contribute and participate in order to promote and encourage a positive, effective team environment.
Team members must be flexible enough to adapt to cooperative working environments where goals are achieved through collaboration and social interdependence rather than individualised, competitive goals (Luca & Tarricone, 2001). As I could experience by the football teams I played for, the results we achieved where not dependent on the single quality of each player. They depended on the environment, the atmosphere, the collaboration and ocial inter-relationships between the members of the team.
I played for two years in a team, in which the individual qualities of the players were outstanding, but we never achieved good results on the football pitch. Following issues caused the failure of this team: There was a dissonance in an individual goals of team members, many of players prioritized personal goals to those that would be beneficial for the team. Some of them were more interested in achieving personal goals like: “To play in a famous professional football team”, in contrast to pursuing team goals like: “To improve team erformance in the season and win a trophy’.
The size of a team is a fundamental factor as the greater is the amount of players in the team the lower is the chance of each independent player to be selected for the match and this may lead to team members being demotivated. Communication may be also the issue in this case not only because of total amount of players being increased but also it becomes vital for individuals in the team to coordinate and plan their performance. In common practice usual amount of players in a football team is around twenty but in our case there were twenty-six players.
This resulted to onsiderable increase of dissatisfied players and made communication and coordination more difficult. There was lack of leadership: as in other teamwork, even in football teams is important to have a leader who is responsible for defining team goals and for developing and structuring the team to accomplish these missions (Marks, M. , A. , et al. , 2001). Personally I believe that the coach could have taken the role of a leading figure in the team.
The coach should have projected more authority and have taken more responsibility of motivating the whole group and to guide it towards common recognize the importance of this factor. Communicational skills were not the strong side of the coach as normally coach should take effort to establish good communication and social dynamics in the team and get constant feedback from the players. Too high competitiveness inside the team did not enable enough cooperation and the development of a synergistic team environment. Personal interests prevailed, and rarely team members could feel supported by their teammates and the coach.
This resulted in a lack of team cohesion defined as: “a process that reflects a group’s tendency to stick together and remain united to reach a common goal”, (Carron, 1982, Kozlowsky) and cooperation: “working with others to achieve some shared goals. Cooperation comes from the fact that we are dependent on others, and we need to manage those dependencies somehow’ (Malone & Crowston, 1991). In order to avoid team underperforming it is very important to focus on the cohesion among the members of the team (Hall, 2007). Based on my experience, it would be important to focus on cohesion in order to improve the overall performance of the team.
To resolve this issue it would be good idea for members of the team to socialize and spend more time together outside the football pitch as this would greatly aid to ohesion in the group, this would help to overcome competitiveness between individuals in the team but at the same time boost the moral and competitiveness as team in a whole. Also sharing common interests and spending more time together would be helpful to avoid or dissolve conflicts in the team and make players more likely to compromise their individual goals in favour of the team ones as this practice would create a sense of unity and friendship within the team.
All team members working together in order to achieve same goals can improve team performances and therefore consequently increase the probability of winning matches. Thus, spending more time outside the pitch could result in creating an effective team climate (Anshel, 2003) and a team satisfaction which would make the players desire to be part of the team and motivate them to go beyond their limits. Additionally it would have been important to achieve the optimum effective amount of players in the team.
I believe at that point it would be beneficial to reduce the number of the players up to optimum twenty to avoid many cases of dissatisfaction given by the fact that there was greater amount of players that would not be used in regular matches. It would ncrease the danger of team being demotivated by the individuals who would not play in matches and could harm team climate. Therefore, doing so would eliminate communication and coordination issues.
Finally leaderships factors consist of leader’s behaviour and decision style. A team with greater guidance, social dynamics and effective style of coaching will produce a higher levels of cohesive behaviours from team member. Conclusion Upon reflection I have come to the conclusion that while my team did eventually come to the desired result, I fell that its success was repressed by certain issues in tage and dealt with, we would have worked better been able to work in partnership.
I now understand that not enough was done to resolve these teamwork problems and know that in future I now have a better understanding of the dynamics of teams work. Teamwork is a multi-layered approach and in order for it to work sufficiently there has to be time dedicated to allowing every individual to input their information. Though I had issues with the team I was assigned too, I feel that this experience has broadened my knowledge and allowed me to gain essential experience.
Essentially I eel like I would be better equipped to deal with any arising issues in the future. Decision making Decision-making has been defined as a special kind of problem-solving process and as a special type of decision making under uncertainty (Hofer & Schendel, 1978). It could be also defined as a rational model that throughout a series of steps guides decision makers to achieve the best choice out of numerous alternatives. Bazerman (1994) identified the phases of such model as follows: Define the problem. Identify the criteria or objectives of the decision.
Weigh or prioritize the criteria or objectives of the decision. Generate alternative courses of action to solve the problem. Evaluate the alternatives against each criterion or objective. Compute the optimal decision. Group decision making is a process in which a number of individuals act collectively in order to make a decision that will have an impact on them: hence, decision making will require learning about how to make a choice, identifying the potentially best decision, and gaining support and commitment to implement the decision.
The prior advantages of group decision making derive from the wider experiences and backgrounds of group members, that consequently will be able to accumulate and hare a greater number of information than the individual. Through the unique qualities of each group member, by sharing knowledge, discussing ideas and analyzing the problem from different points of view, the group could generate a greater number of alternatives; hence, if a greater and higher level of quality alternatives are generated, the group will have a broader number of possibilities to find the best problem solution.
Group decision making may also lead to a greater understanding of the possible course of action chosen by the decision making group, since the individuals affected by the decision implementation may contribute to the ecision and therefore they will more easily accept the course of action selected and will be more committed in making the course of action successful (Lunenburg, 2010). Human decision making may be affected by various cognitive biases which may not operate under all circumstances. It is important to identify the most significant biases that could influence the decision making process.
Erroneous beliefs and hypotheses about the relationships between variables are often taken as a basis for decision making notwithstanding evidence that they are wrong. Information consistent with hese hypotheses is privileged, no alternatives are sought and no rational analysis is carried out. On the other hand, should individuals use a piece of information to make subsequent Judgments, they will tend to adjust all further Judgments on their initial control, and believe they can manage and correct the consequences of their decisions along the way.
Finally, individuals tend to see problems as unique, and consequently not relevant to the outcome of past experiences (Charles, 1982). During the final project on my last year of my Bachelor Degree Course, I participated n a “Business Game”, a business management simulation game, which involved the participation of six members; we periodically received some data, and according to these data we decided what to do for our company in order to achieve an increase in revenue, profit and share price.
One of the most important decisions we made concerned the production amount of a specific item. It was a key decision because producing more would have resulted in an excess of inventory and consequently in major costs for our company. Production less than required would have resulted in a loss of sales and consequently in a loss of revenue for the company. Some of the group members were really under pressure for this decision because the outcome of the decision was going to be fundamental for the company success.
The results we achieved were not good when we made the first decision because the possible solution to our problem was identified by four out of six members of the group; rather than identifying other possible alternatives to the problem, two group members simply accepted the opinion of the other four group members. As a result, an incomplete set of alternatives was considered and different courses of action were not fully explored. Our group was ” Victim of Groupthink”.
In order to reduce the risk of making such a mistake, according to Mount Holyoke College (201 1), we should require that all of group members offer and consider a large number of decision alternatives and, in any case they should never work under pressure. Conclusion These assignments have allowed me to reflect on my previous experiences and enabled me to gain certain skills and knowledge that i would have otherwise not. I now understand that certain key facts are integral to the decision making process such as biases, personality and teamwork dynamics. In order for any business to be successful these factors need to be considered.
My previous experiences have allowed me to gain an insight into the business world and enabled me to understand that i have abundant amounts of learning to do if i ever want to succeed in the business world.