Motivation

A parallel example of the story that I observed, shows employees perceive their jobs differently in an organization. When I was a teenager, my very first job was  working as a cashier/barista/baker at a small bakery/cafe  in West village. There were about 10 people working at the cafe without a manager. Everyone had different motivations and reasons working at the place. Most of them were taking the job as an extra income source since the wage was low. People called it " an easy job" as my trainer told me
that " All you have to do is making coffee and keeping the cash register." The job consisted lots of manual labor such as cleaning, making drinks, baking and lifting. In fact, I felt physically tired of standing and working long hours. However, I always felt happy going to work  every morning. During the happiest time of my life, I met all kinds of people from all over the world. Probably, as a new immigrant to NYC, I was amazed to encounter so many interesting people with endless stories. The best part of the work was that I could play any music I like in the cafe. Early morning, I would bake pastries listening to my favorite music alone, then customers would come in and enjoy and have pleasant conversations. I felt that all my lower-order needs were satisfied. However, others were getting dissatisfied with the job, since there was no manager, we had to take care of the whole management. The big boss who used to visit the store occasionally,  did not even try to recognize that some employees were doing manager's job. However, the employees including myself still liked the work as we had autonomy and great interpersonal relations. For instance, we had a very flexible schedule, and individual freedom.
The task itself at the work was a simple repetitive work, however it gave us an opportunity for personal growth in another way . I remember that many employees were ESL students who barely spoke English in the beginning. Later on, all of them improved their English dramatically because of plenty of opportunities to have conversation in English at work. Especially, I felt as if I was working and learning things at the same time which may not be invisible outcomes, but great experiences and personal growth. Unfortunately, when recession came, the store had to be closed due to the financial crisis. Everyone was so sad to lose the work because it was the place where we found a lot of good friends and joy. It might not be difficult to find another bakery job for the employees, but the one with open space for sociable interactions were.
I would like to influence employees by making them realize how everyone in the store is important for the harmonious operation. Making them happy will make customers happy too. Maintaing and improving hygiene factors will be the keys to sitisfy them at work. Recognizing and praising good outcomes of employees will also give employess good reasons to keep hard working. I believe that most people are motivated depending on their backgrounds or needs. They tend to find their own motivations in any kinds of jobs. I think being motivated at work is one's choice of thinking more than employers making them to be motivated.

Individual Behavior

I think that conscientiousness may be the most important personality trait that all managers should have at work. I used to think that having a manager who is agreeable and extrovert, is good for harmonious work environment . After working at several places over the 6 years. I have realized that drawing a line between public and private matters are necessary in order to maintain efficient and drama-free relationship between managers and employees. If managers are emotionally stable, and treating everyone kindly it will help everyone to stay calm and steady at work in any kind of situations. Although,employees  getting too close to managers may cause problems at work. The primary purpose work is getting things done and achieving goals altogether. It is essential for mangers to control and lead employees. First of all, they are meant to be dependable and organized leading  everyone to the right direction.
From my past experiences, a manager who was achievement oriented and serious, helped me to focus on work seriously. It was clear that a person with a strong sense of conscientiousness can provide efficient working guide to employees without confusions. Even if managers and employees are getting along comfortably, it is no use when things are not getting done properly at work. It is absolutely crucial to have a manager with talent, who can bring out high performance from a team. Surely, it would be ideal if the manager communicates with employees with a strong sense of emotional stability, people at work will be less anxious and tense while dealing with all kinds of stress from work.

Leadership

Leadership is the process of inspiring others to work hard to accomplish important tasks. A great leader plans, leads, controls and organize the management process efficiently. Having expertise can be helpful to work as a CEO, but it does not seem to be required to be a successful CEO when we see many real-life examples. According to Bloomberg Business Week, there are many CEOs who dropped out of college or never even attended college ,but made it to corporate top spots. They are the people who have had a "vision" to make it happen looking to achieve influence.
A famous example is Bill Gates, Time magazine called him " Havard's most successful dropout." His expertise may come from technical understanding or access to information relevant to the issue at hand. It can be acquired on the job, through experience. However, the most important factor as a successful CEO may be outstanding leadership skills that lead and grow gigantic corporations. It includes visionary leadership that brings to the situation a clear sense of the future and an understanding of how to get there. Imagining and looking at the bigger picture are the main roles of the CEOs. According to Exploring Management, traits that often shared by effective leaders, are drive, self-confidence, creativity, cognitive ability, business knowledge, motivation, flexibility, honesty and integrity. No matter what kinds of industries are out there, every organization needs an effective leadership by inspiring leaders.
In Zicklin business school in Baruch College, students are required to take various business courses including finance, management, accounting, and marketing regardless of their majors. The reason is that gaining knowledge in different subjects will help the students to understand business as a whole. At the same time, students can have a broad perspective when they have to solve problems in the future.  When one's expert power and referent power meet, the possibility of becoming an efficient leader will be unlimited.




sources:

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1988080_1988093_1988082,00.html


http://finance.yahoo.com/news/pf_article_107139.html


http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2004-11-11-intel-succession_x.htm

HRM

Last year, I worked as a sales associate at a well-known cosmetic retailer for 3months . A friend of mine who was a manager at one of the branches referred me to the position. In the beginning, the human resource manager called me and had a brief phone interview. He was very friendly and polite asking about my past experiences and salary expectations. They usually hired people through referrals, as a result I did not have to go through rounds of interviews. On the training, there were about 20 people who were hired seasonally. The group was very diverse in terms of age, sex, race, nationality, sexual orientation etc. During the 3 days, I was learning about the products, history, sales skills of the company. I had become very knowledgeable about the particular products. The trainer informed the new hires that employees get 40% discounts ,they were also offering some products to the new employees. They were attracting employees by giving discounts and little gifts. The new employees including me was happy until then.
In the beginning, I clearly told my manager that I can only work up to 20 hours per week since I have to go to school full-time. But later on the manger called me to back up for the other people all the time. It was almost abusive. He would keep calling and texts late night demanding me to come to work. And he was mentioning that if the store hits certain sales goals we were going to get some bonus. During the holiday season, everyone in the store worked very hard and accomplished the sales goal. However, the manager turned out and said " I am sorry guys... the management decided not to give the bonus." I knew that the manager got a big fat bonus but the sales associates. I was upset not only because getting the bonus, but being used by the lie.
They also failed to give me the realistic job previews. While working, the manager kept asking sales associates to go outside giving aways samples and attracting people to come in to the store. No one in the management every mentioned standing outside
in 20-30 degrees. But they demanded it everyday to do so.  If I knew I had to do it, I would not have taken the job in the beginning. I was getting sick. As a result, it negatively affected my school  work too. 
I could not believe when I hurt my neck accidentally and called the manager that I was in an emergency room , his first words were " Oh my god, how many people are calling out? How can I run a business like this? Can you come after you get discharged? " Luckily I never went back.  I was wearing a neck brace for one month.
Interestingly, the manager kept calling me to come back to work. So many people were leaving the job. They failed to keep  the talented employees who achieved the sales goals.

I think the selection process of the HRM was proper since they were strongly  recommending the corporate employees to refer people to the positions. But they had numerous problems at developing and keeping the employees at the stores.
They should clearly inform the new employees what kind tasks are going to be given to them in the beginning ,not only the  fun sides of the job.
First of all, they need to respect people over their sales goals. They were driving people to work hard using the word "bonus" as a bait. But it resulted the massive turn-overs. I guess that  profit sharing for the gigantic corporation does not include the non-managerial workers who work directly affecting customer satisfaction. Probably, a labor union could have prevented this tragedy by stating a formal agreement between a union and the employer. If a clear labor contract existed by a union, an individual who is relatively powerless compared to the management, could have been protected from the abuse of the management .

Career Planning

My top three career objectives for the next five years

1. To obtain my BBA degree in Marketing by the end of summer 2013
2. To obtain a job which I would love to do
3. To obtain my MBA degree while working

My strengths and weaknesses

1. My strengths that will help me to obtain my BBA degree

• As a student, I always put my school work as No.1 priority
• I have never skipped a class unless I was terribly sick since I entered the college.

    My weakness that may stand in the way to obtain my BBA degree

• I often feel exhausted or tired when I have to study after work
• I have difficulties to focus on study when I am next to my computer
• I easily get stressed out about school and work  

2. My strengths that will help me to obtain my job which I would love to do

• I have great acting power on doing things that I am interested in
• I have built a strong network around my community, work and school last 7 years living in new york which helped me to get two job offers currently
• I clearly know what makes me happy while working and living

   My weaknesses that may stand in the way to obtain my job which I would love to do

• My problem has been finding a specific occupation that I would love to do.  I am interested in travelling,interacting with people, and various subjects including arts, business ,etc. It can be problematic since it is not very specific.
• As an ESL student, I need to improve my English skills

3. My strengths that will help me to obtain my MBA degree

• I am informative about the process getting into the program. Also, I have many friends who are in the program, who can give me advice.
• Since I am working on my BBA, my course work will be related to the MBA courses which I am familiar with

    My weaknesses that will may stand in the way to obtain my MBA degree

• I need to get a huge amount of a  student loan ( hopefully, my future employer can reimburse part of them )
• I will be exhausted physically while working and studying at the same time

Detailed Action plan

Completing my BBA degree

• Take full-time classes until my last semester
• Obtain an internship during winter that I can get credit
• Work less in order to focus on my school work

Obtaining a job which I would love to do

• Do research about occupations that are related to travelling, people and business
• Expand my network more through friends and events
• Improve my language skills using programs and classes . If possible, learn additional languages to be outstanding
• Keep GPA above 3.0

Obtaining my MBA degree while working

• Study GMAT as I graduate from undergraduate program
• Get to know professors for advice and recommendations
• Find employers who actively encourage their employees to attend MBA programs

Crisis Management

Nokia Oyj was the biggest vendor for mobile phones from the late 1990's, but the corporation from Finland has suffered declining market share as a result of the growing us of smart phones from other vendors. According to Businessweek, They have announced 20,000 job cuts, selling their headquarter building, patents and research facilities in Helsinki to raise money, and their shareprice has plunged about 90 percent since iPhone's debut in 2007.
According to Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, " Nokia will spend to break through." They have been restructuring to be profitable again. It is clear to see they are losing sales, and need to produce competitive mobile devices to revive in the market. Since the managerial team of Nokia was not problem seekers when they were dominant in the market, they have missed opportunities to maintain or progress their position in the market. They ignored the rule that speed matters. When they realized the crisis, it was a little too late. Backing off or waiting did not seem helping the crisis. Recently, Nokia finally has launched a new model called "Lumia", as Nokia has had a strategic partnership with Microsoft using Windows phone operating system. Nokia's reconstructing for new products seem to be still slow compared to their competitors.
The CEO states that "Our clear strategy, if you go all the way to the highest level of our strategy, you talk about three pillars. The first is the smartphone strategy: winning with Microsoft around Windows Phone. The second is our mobile phone strategy: connecting the next billion people to the Internet.
And then a third pillar of our strategy is something we call future disruptions, the things we're doing in the labs which define the next steps in terms of devices and experiences that will differentiate. Supporting all of this, the location-based services...The final piece of the strategy, which is really important, and this is something we're doing a lot of work on, is changing the way we operate as a company."
The price for not being a problem seeker seems huge. Nokia has become one of the windows phones which seem to be very similar to one another. It seems that the managerial team of Nokia is trying to walk on a safe road aided by Microsoft. None of the new strategies seem to be challenging or dangerous. It is ironic that Nokia is spending millions of dollars for reconstructing, but it is questionable whether they are putting them in the right places. Nokia maybe dealing with the symtoms not with the problems,also choosing the wrong problems.
Nokia should have been proactive in anticipating threats and opprtunities earlier. If they had gathered information and prepared differentiation and improvement, this crisis could have been prevented. Their relativelt new management does not seem revolutionary neither. It seems to be they are losing their uniqueness by selling their petents and switching their own operating systems to windows. The solution may be the last option they wanted to choose since it is inevitable to survive in the face changing the smart phone market.







Sources :


http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-09-26/nokia-dividend-elimination-looms-as-cash-dwindles

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/nokia-mulls-selling-global-hq-building-in-finland-but-no-plans-to-move/2012/10/03/74558040-0d52-11e2-ba6c-07bd866eb71a_story.html

 http://www.cnet.com/8301-17918_1-57524708-85/nokia-ceo-stephen-elop-well-spend-to-break-through-q-a/#ixzz28aGM67Ba

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303822204577465771376539532.html

Ethics In Action

Mr. Jayaswal definitely took a huge advantage of the corrupted system of the Indian government. From individualism view, he saw that using his connection to the politicians to promote his own business would fulfill his self-interests in a short period of time. At the same time, his behavior is completely unethical since it is influencing negatively for the fair distribution of the natural resources which are meant to be used for the millions of people in India, resulting slowing growth of the economy.
In particular, the government control over unethical behaviors of the organization is completely missing in this case. Neither the businessman nor Mr. Dadra are interested in social responsibility or sustainability , but gaining a lot of wealth for themselves only.
Unfortunately, it seems to be it is inevitable for Indian government going through this dysfunctional process as they are rapidly developing their country.
They are newly adopting the open system to their traditional society. Ideally, it is meant to be improving the country as a whole, but a few people with power see it as an opportunity for individual chance to win fortune, while they are neglecting to see from the view of moral rights, justice and utilitarian. As a result, social and economic inequality get worse.
It is not only happening in India, when China and South America that are developing rapidly ,are undergoing trial and error. What they need the most right now is the right government which can control unlawful activities of the dominant business organizations. Since, the current government is corrupted top to the bottom, immediate changes should follow in order to fix the problems. The good news is that there are protests who are aware of the corruption and trying to abolish the failing government by demonstrating.
Historically, revolutions have been necessary in order to change corrupt regimes and practices. It is definitely not an easy task to raise against gigantic organizations and government,but people need to raise their voice to inform everyone how a few unenthical individuals are damaging the lives of millions of people and the country for their own greed.
India is going through a huge transition economically and socially. the beginning step of being profitable in the zone of compliance. The next step should be followed by legal responsibility. In order to enter the zone of conviction, a political revolution is ungently needeed. And the new generation should be taught social responsibility and ethics from the early age. It is possible for India to improve to become a successfully developed country even though they are going through a painful transition because they are still people who are aware of social responsibility and hoping to change for all the people in India. When the ethical people start to cooperate to utilize the rich resources to contribute to the community, their socioeconomic level will grow with a great potential.

ZARA INTERNATIONAL

Zara International's successful business in fashion industry is driven by efficient operations management, and supply chain management. There are several elements of the classical management approaches are shown in Zara's operations. The company internalizes design, production, distribution, and retail sales for trendy items as much as possible. As a result the turnaround time is speedy enough to satisfy the customers who want the latest items instantly . Its in-house production enables scalar chain principle during the entire process. The clear communication and division within the company is the key for efficient and speedy operations.

Zara also adopts contingency thinking. For example, they make small production batches help the company avoid the risk of over supply. It is considering situational demands of every item. If some items are not selling well, they just put new items twice a week. There is no replenishment,but creating scarcity value,and new items. According to WSJ “The success of Inditex's model is often attributed to a complex logistics system and heavy use of information technology to track data on consumer tastes. The company, whose brands also include Bershka and Pull & Bear, also makes half of what it sells close to its headquarters, and delivers new garments in small batches to all of its stores by plane or truck twice a week.”

The store managers track sales data constantly checking what is selling and what is not. Their analytics promptly affect making the next products which will sell better. Their heavy use of hand held computers, is a good example of how management science and operations research are used in sales strategy. According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Inditex group has adopted online marketing a long time ago compared to its competitor H&M. It states that “Inditex has long used purely promotional websites to draw attention to its Zara product lineup as well as other company-owned chains such as Bershka and Massimo Dutti. Its Facebook page has nearly 10 million fans, and Inditex introduced a smartphone app more than 18 months ago that allows consumers to browse new clothing arrivals. However, selling goods online, something the Gap (GPS) has been doing for more than a decade, is only now becoming a key part of its strategy to expand sales in the U.S. Inditex has about 50 Zara stores vs. the 200-odd outlets Swedish rival Hennes & Mauritz (better known as H&M) has opened in the states so far. “Zara’s move online in the U.S. is overdue—it’s the largest online apparel market in the world,” says Sucharita Mulpuru, an e-commerce shopping analyst at Forrester Research. The “Web is a great strategy for them. It’s much cheaper with their nationally recognized [Zara] brand to launch a Web store than to invest in real estate in 50 more malls in the U.S.”

It seems that Zara international's success is not a coincidence, but a strong business strategy based on advantages of classical management and modern management. They are not only savvy on tracking fashion trend around the world , but Information technology that can optimize maximum productivity overall.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303822204577463812791905588.html

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/zara-plays-catchup-with-online-shoppers-08252011.html