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Both organizations presented forthwith, currently operate within the United Kingdom, and any Information within this assignment has no reflection on the negative or positive aspects of either company. Introduction As Human Resources Manager for The Networking Company 1 , who has recently acquired TTS Fire and Security Limited 2 , this report will present the Executives with proposals for high performance strategic planning during such organizational change and development.
Moreover with a shift in the direction of the amalgamated organization to include new environmentally friendly wireless products, this report will offer corporate programmer In order to support creativity, innovation and employee motivation through training, and tactical leadership. This assignment shall refer to several organizational behavioral theories and use critical thinking skills as it determines the best position for this learning organization entering a relatively new, high risk and ambiguous market 3 .
Notably there are significant studies that show that almost half of the mergers and acquisitions that occur fall to produce the desired outcome (I. E. Shareholder equity), with an even greater number failing in the cutting edge technology sector 4 . However from the same research it is clear that here are also vast quantities of equity that could be gained should the acquisition become a success. Managerial Planning and Goal Setting management, which specifically details a superior fit between the company, its culture and the environment 5 .
The board must consider that the most important aspects in the planning phase are to adequately set goals at strategic, tactical and operational levels, while ensuring synergy as the organization moulds together. Upon review of the two businesses it is clear that the mission statement must be revised with a distinct reference showing the companies intention to become more environmentally friendly. This will position the company favorably in the marketplace, considering the current climate change concerns in respect of air conditioning 6 .
Further both sets of employees should connect with such positive commitment to energy conservation, as many have families who consider going green a fundamental ethical response. This vision which should also encompass the commitment to strategic deployment of a highly committed and capable workforce will set the scene to achieve competitive advantage. 123 4 5 6 http://www. thenetworkingcompany. Co. UK. Http://www. Testifier. Co. UK. Darnel Research
Group, “Ultra-Low Power Wireless Components and CICS: Market Forecasts, Competitive Environment and Market Demand” First Edition, June 2007, http://www. Electronics. Ca/ reports/wireless_components/lopper_CICS. HTML. Banks, John C. And Ralph, Limited, “High Tech M&A – Strategic Valuation”, Management Decision Volvo. 45 No. 9, 2007, pappy. Boating Eugenia and Lidos George, “The Role of Culture in the Merger and Acquisition Process” Management Decision Volvo. 44 No. 10, 2006, pappy.
Sevenths, Groan, “Anti-climate change management (CACM) “Business-as-usual” or “Out-of- Thebes”? ” Management Decision Volvo. 6 No. L, 2008, IPPP As CEO we recommend the promotion of a high-synergy driven organization 7 , influencing commitment to a non-competitive, cooperative unified team with an overriding goal of team self-direction and development. However, the integration of two organizations’ cultures is recognized from studies as a key factor in the failure of acquisitions 8 .
In order to avoid cultural conflicts, managers must develop a distinct cultural integration program that sets out plans for pre and post acquisition. Essentially this will include representatives from both organizations who will form integration teams to deal with the new structure of their work environment. These tier management more leverage to include the new organization to respond to setting comprehensive goals. Moreover formation of a Planning Task Force (FTP), responsible for developing a new strategic plan with respect to the key product divisions, marketing, and finance is essential.
These groups should include all stakeholders where practical, including staff and potential customers. Key factors in this plan should include promoting alliances or Joint ventures with associated and interlinked product suppliers, such as those who produce HAVE equipment. This will increase our market dominance, synergy and with negligible competitiveness, this should strengthen the growth of the equipment and data transferring companies. Another key area would be to pursue relevant companies to participate in a continuous benchmarking regime.
This will assist in the correct positioning of the new and existing products in the market, and allow for high level targets to be set, which are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time orientated (SMART). At the levels of middle and lower management, objective setting and plan development gain must be adopted by all staff levels, and managers of divisions and functions must use this decentralized responsibility approach as a key motivator. Locker’s Theory 9 and the use of management by objectives provide employee empowerment and have proven success if followed correctly 10 .
By setting up their own task forces they will develop what objectives should be set to ensure that measurable improvements take place based on the stakeholders’ expectations. The binding element in this approach is creating ownership, where the team will decide what action will be taken, when, by whom, and why. In order for the behavioral theory to work, managers must guide each objective to be challenging, while realistic and feedback will be critical in its operation. Senior management or FTP must ratify the plans, after evaluating their alignment and inter-correlation with strategic goals and mission.
There is risk involved in this style of management, particularly during acquisitions, as it requires those hygiene factors such as interpersonal relations and job security that are commonly stated by Herbert 11 to be in place. Further, in order for these planning strategies to be effective, senior management must show support ND commitment by effective communication and ensuring adequate funding, resource allocation and skills training is provided for the whole business. 7 89 10 11 Harris, Philip R. “European Leadership in Cultural Synergy’, European Business Review, Volvo. 16 No. 4, 2004, IPPP. Boating Eugenia and Lidos George, pop cit. 1414. Tighten, Mark A. And Myers, Robert M. “Motivation and Job satisfaction”, Management Decision, Volvo. 36 No. 4, 1998, IPPP. Ingram, Terry “How to implement management by pop cit. IPPP Innovation Management The new world brings uncertainty in the market, and for businesses to be successful, hey must adapt to constant change by investing in the development of their human assets and by means of creativity, and innovation 12 . The term innovation management is defined as the management of the whole process of invention from the creation of an idea through product or process development to launch in the market 13 .
That said a learning organization must consider that statistics show more than fifty percent are unsatisfied with their financial return of investment on new technologies 14 . The main reasons again revert to poor customer focus, internal coordination and communication, and misaligned corporate culture 15 . Therefore it is essential that any changes that are made must not affect the successful operation of our existing networking equipment and security systems businesses as new ventures are not always profitable ones.
To achieve this we should align the organization to limit control and promote a team based structure with employee empowerment, a proven success for innovation management 16 . This would encourage a “strong” matrix organization 17 , which will include both horizontal and vertical teams. The existing vertical teams will share their responsibilities with those facial teams that are cross-functional and set up to develop the HAVE technology and business. Commitment from the vertical (functional) and horizontal (project) managers to ensure employees are given adequate time and resources to complete their objectives is essential.
Negative aspects to this structure are evident, as it requires the organization to become less risk averse with a degree of power and business control transferred to lower levels. The selection of project and functional managers who have the skills and attitude to drive self managed teams and to make decisions that are effective is critical. These positions should be conducted by interview with a specific group of individuals from both organizations. Key attributes should follow the works of Cohen et al (1996) 18 that depict six fundamental behavioral traits of team leaders.
These behaviors encourage the teams to self manage by recognizing good performance, accepting self-criticism, setting realistic challenges and foreseeing problems. Inevitably this will lead to better self control, enhancing team effectiveness due to the development of performance enhancing behaviors. Following their appointment, these key managers should work closely to appreciate the practices of each organization with the view to assessing the capabilities or level of readiness of each employee to adapt to this new regime.
Where a shortfall in skills or behaviors is highlighted, training and a separate style of leadership should be provided, a matter discussed later. 12 14 1516 1718 Zaire, Mohamed, “The learning organization: results of a benchmarking study’ The Learning Organization, Volvo. 6 No. 2, 1999, app. Sallow, Kuaka, “Management of innovation networks: a case study of different approaches” European Journal of Innovation Management, Volvo. 1 1 No. L, 2008, app. Anonymous, Boston Consulting Group, “Organizing for Innovations” Strategic Direction, Volvo. 22 No. 11, 2006, app. Ibid, app.
Gogh, William, Mitchell Neil, Reid Renee, and Macadam, Rodney, “Implementing innovation management in manufacturing Seems” Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, Volvo. 14 No. 3, 2007, IPPP. Mullahs, Rata, “PM Exam Prep for the MAMBO Guide 3rd Edition”, 5th Edition, 2005, app-28. Boyar, Scott L. Carson, Charles M. And Moslem Don C. “Goal orientation and supervisory behaviors: impacting SMUT effectiveness”, Team Performance Management, Volvo. 10 No. 7, 2004, 54. In order to further balance the dissemination of business control against risk, a suitable measurement methodology should be in place.
Goals and objectives should include innovation as an item within every employee’s 360 degree performance appraisal, which should remain dynamic with regular review and feedback. Where necessary Job rotation can be offered to allow employees to become multi-skilled and achieve their objectives in addition to career development. Lastly, the matter of knowledge management and communication must be addressed, particularly as globalization is the key to our success as a learning organization 19 .
Networking is paramount to meeting our stakeholders and customer requirements and the company while predominantly I-J based needs to have interaction throughout the world. The development of virtual private networks (VPN), are critical to customer satisfaction and productivity of the business. They will allow us to inter-connect with our suppliers, business partners and customers through e-commerce 20 . Further with the new matrix organization, teams will be required to communicate and gain access to information, systems and knowledge across horizontal and vertical medians.
Through personal networking and VPN the organization can document and trace its history as it develops, allowing staff to gain access instantly to core competencies that are within the business. This key aspect will increase the overall learning capability of the company through process and knowledge improvement. Increasingly complex knowledge-base in firms, however, there is no substitute for the continuous improvement of the core competencies and behaviors of the human asset. Training Requirements It is evident that both organizations possess the core competencies and skills within the security and data networking sectors.
However with the re-structuring of both businesses and the venture into an emerging market, employee behaviors may have changed, with those who possessed the necessary skills now requiring additional training or coaching. We have previously elected for the key managers to assess the readiness level of the subordinates as this will allow the company to approach its leadership styles. While we cannot pre-empty this assessment in this report the following methodology should be adopted depending on the outcomes.
There are four leadership styles that are generally accepted depending on the readiness of the braininess 21 , and are shown in Figure 1. Managers will require more than one style particularly during the early phases of post-merger. While every measure has been made with the integration teams and selection of team leaders to reduce negative impacts of change, insecurity, lack of ability and skills or little experience in a learning organization is expected 22 . 19 20 21 Dimidiates Zoe S. “Creating strategic capabilities: organizational learning and knowledge management in the new economy’, European Business Review, Volvo. 17 No. , 2005, IPPP. Chou Amy, Chou David, and Yen David, “Adopting virtual private outwork for electronic commerce”, Industrial management and Data Systems, Volvo. 105 No. 2, 2005, IPPP. Cairns Thomas, Halfback John, Oppression Robert, and William A. Snow, “Technical note: a study of Hershey and Blanchard situational leadership theory’, Leadership and organizational Development Journal, Volvo. 19 No. 2, 1998 Pl 13. Appellate Steven, Lifesavers Frederic, Donna Roberto and Shapiro Barbara, “Mergers 101 (part one): training managers for communications and leadership challenges”, Industrial and Commercial Training, Volvo. 39 No. 3, 2007, Pl 29.
Source: www. Aestheticism’s. Com. ACH department should have formal training on the application of these four leadership styles as failure to recognize when, and how to apply them can result in conflict and low motivation. If your team is assigned a task and members of the team are ready and willing yet inexperienced (emerging technology), by applying the selling style, this encourages input while maintaining direction and clarification. Furthermore the leader will act differently if all team members have had experience with the particular task (existing products) but are struggling to get started partly due to motivation (merger effect).
The longtime strategic goal for the company is to be able to create a delegating leadership style which accurately defines the meaning of a self managed team. Ideally a corporate wide training scheme and budget should be administered with continual professional development as another main factor within each individual’s performance review. Research shows significant employee and revenue growth occurs in organizations that support formal management skills and behavioral training programs for all employees 23 .
The works of Sense 24 defines a typical training scheme for a learning organization, which encourages individuals ND groups to learn five disciplines. The first concerns “personal mastery’, the ability to see particular problems as part of a whole, and to devise appropriate solutions to them. The second concerns “mental models” of personal learning and growth, whereby individuals should be encouraged to acquire skills and knowledge in their sector. The third a building of a shared vision for the organization and its members of the future that they wish to create. The fourth discipline is a commitment to team learning.
The fifth discipline is “systems thinking” which forms the foundations of organizational learning and unites the others and brings them together. It lies in the ability to see particular problems as part of a whole, and to devise appropriate solutions to them. Following the assessments and appraisals of each employee, HRS will develop the training matrix to cover all aspects of the business in relation to these disciplines. Due to the restrictive size of this report we cannot offer a full detailed scope of training of each department, however there are certain organizational development activities that we will adopt.
An example would be jugular team building exercises which support team cohesiveness and adopt the third, fourth and fifth discipline above. Each activity should involve departments that are linked to the supply chain, for example the production and 23 24 Caraway, Dalai’, McPherson, Allan, and Wilson Alison “Training commitment and performance in manufacturing Seems”, Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, Volvo. 14 No. 2, 2007, IPPP. Sense, P. M. “The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization”, Century Business, 1992, London. By facilitating constructive conflict resolution, and promoting common goals.
Strategic Leadership The basis of this report has surrounded the business orientating itself to constant change and aligning the ability of its employees to adapt frequently to this change. Further we have implied that change must be accomplished without reduction of day-to-day performance. In other words, we have established an organizational structure that is expected to both change and perform well at the same time. This will require all levels of management to adopt strategic leadership in addition to the situational leadership skills above, in order to achieve the change versus stability radio.
According to the “Regulatory Focus Theory’ 25 , two distinct models of strategic leadership are required in a self-regulated changing environment in order to be successful. In the promotion leadership approach, individuals focus on achieving accomplishments and aspirations. The leader and his team pursue goals with less caution, in the desire to maximizing positive results. In the prevention leadership approach, individuals focus on achieving security and safety. Goal- directed behavior governed by a prevention focus is guided by vigilance and the desire to avoid negative outcomes.
Generally the individuals involved in emerging markets require promotion leadership, and the mature markets require prevention leadership, in order to achieve a cultural fit however a team is best motivated when there is a mix of both 26 . Various workshops should be conducted to allow individuals and management to become aware of their more dominant style and when and how to apply this, with training for the less dominant style provided. The implementation of force-field analysis will install a leadership structure to the decision over whether to use promotion or prevention, based on the external and internal environments.
With this style of analysis the individual will detail the driving and restraining forces to the event which will allow decision over its probability of success and how to achieve it. Ultimately the goal to driving individual’s motivation during such change is reflective of a combination of both Mascots Hierarchy of Needs and the Victor Broom Expectancy Theory shown in Figure 2 below. Source: www. Achieve-goal-setting-success. Com. Source: www. URI. Du/… /websites/ figures/Expectancy. GIF.
Figure 2: Moscow Hierarchy of Needs (left) and Victor Broom Expectancy Theory (right) 25 26 Higgins, E. T. (2000), “Making a good decision: value from fit”, American Psychologist, Volvo. 55 NO. 11,p 1222. Ibid, pappy. Most employees possess the bottom three tiers of the Moscow theory, however not all will strive for achievement, status and self actualization accolades. There will be certain members of the organization, possibly in manufacturing who are content with their strict daily work routine and oppose change.
This is directly related to the Broom model, where if a worker sees high productivity as a path leading to the attainment of one or more of his or her personal goals, he or she will tend to be a gig producer. Conversely, if he or she sees low productivity as path to the achievement of his or her goals, he or she will tend to be a low producer. Therefore the motivation is dependent on their personal goals at that specific time, and in certain departments of the business there is limited progression amongst large teams.
The key influences not stated previously in this report are in relation to reward schemes, flexible compensation packages, Job security and trust. Note that when an employee has successfully completed a goal, it may not be a financial reward that is the correct choice. Perhaps it may be a type of medical benefit, or a promotion. HRS will develop a questionnaire pre-merger that will require feedback from employees on values, team relationships, trust, communication and leadership.
Presented to the board and to employees annually, this will allow more transparency and identify sectors that have negative impact in the organization. This will further assist in identifying how the business is performing in relation to the acquisition. Conclusion We have included a corporate wide cultural integration strategy within Appendix 1 that in graphical form represents our intentions beyond this report. Key to our success is to recognize the necessity for pre-merger planning and the development of integration teams to strengthen trust and willingness to change.