Organization Design

Designing organizations is a complex exercise. Organization Design involves making choices about how to group individuals and structure their tasks. According to Harvard Business School professor Robert Simons, in his article  “How Risky is your Company?”, organization design must take into account the company’s strategy, competitive environment, stage of the life-cycle and various other factors. In short, it is a fine balancing act. In the early days of an organization, organization design receives little attention. But over time, problems emerge as the charisma of the founders becomes insufficient to manage a larger enterprise. Systems and processes become important. This is when a functional structure is typically chosen. After some time, the functional structure becomes inadequate to respond to the needs of the market place because of centralized decision making. At that point, a divisional structure becomes necessary. But with time, a divisional structure leads to fiefdoms. Coordination becomes difficult, resources Continue reading

Stock – Meaning and Definition

Stock is the share in the ownership of the company. Stock represents the claim on the company’s assets and earnings. In other words, it means, the more the stock, the ownership stake in the company becomes greater. The stock is represented by a stock certificate which is a document that proves the ownership in the company. Few years ago when the person wanted to buy or sell shares, he/she physically took the certificates to the brokerage firm. But now information technology has increased, because of which this stock document is stored electronically. Now trading with a click of mouse or a phone call has made transacting easier. The stock certificate is considered worthless if there is no claim on the ownership of the company’s assets and earnings. Another important feature of stock is its limited liability. It means as the owner of the stock, he/she is not responsible for the Continue reading

Case Study: How IBM Championing Social Media Adoption in Business?

International Business Machines Corporation, or the IBM, is basically a multinational computer technology and has got hold over IT consulting services. The company has established itself as one of the selected information technology companies since 19th century. With its growth in the manufacturing as well as marketing domains of computer hardware and software, it has gained the nickname of “Big Blue”. IBM had encouraged its employees to use internet since 1997 when most of the companies were not allowing their employees use of internet. In 2003, the company made a strategic decision to encourage IBMers to participate in blogs and embrace the blogosphere. Social Business @ IBM is an internal site that has interactive, educational and social programs which explain   IBM’s social business transformation and   educates and enables IBMers in external social media participation. Employees take personal responsibility for their social media activities and the company has set Continue reading

Process Costing and Job Costing

Management accounting uses several costing techniques. Costing techniques are very important to the business management because they help them make sound decisions for the company. They also help companies keep track of the costs that they incur in the production process. Process costing and job order costing are two types of costing techniques that are have a similarity that they both analyze the costs that are incurred by the organization. Though these methods can be used to analyze costs, they differ in their approach. Process Costing This is a costing technique that is used in finding costs in homogeneous or products that are uniform. This technique makes averages of costs for all units to make per unit costs. Work in process account is used to track the process costs. Through this system, a continuous manufacturing process is used to produce identical goods. Computation Procedures for Process Costing Manufacturing costs are Continue reading

Workforce Diversity Management in the Age of Globalization

Within each and every organization, the composition of workforce diversity is being integrated into its human resource management (HRM). In this new era, the world is increasingly globalizing and since the advent of information technology, the borders of the world are drawn so closely than ever before. Theories of diversity management have been developed by business professionals and scholars, citing that a heterogeneous organization could create better HRM practices to maximize the benefits from a diverse workforce as well as improving their competitive advantages. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs will help to understand how employees’ basic need affects the HRM; and how workforce diversity could contribute to achieving HRM’s strategic objectives. Diversity awareness allows for a better understanding of inclusive consumers’ needs, and provides access to better labor pools. Hence, an organization must be able to utilize the available skills from the workforce if it is to maintain competitive advantage and Continue reading

Cultural Sensitivity is Crucial Factor in Company’s International Business Success

Due to progress in communication, transformation and technologies which have performed in development of world’s economy, people from different nations, cultures, languages and backgrounds are now communicating, meeting and doing business with each other more than ever. As there is increase in business activities between people from different nations, cultures, languages and backgrounds, companies who are operating internationally or which are going to be a global they have to concentrate on many factors to be a successful in international market. One of the significant factors among them is a culture. For the success of any business in variety of countries or regions it requires to have understanding of how cultural differences across and within nations can affect the way business is practiced. The main determinants of culture are religion, political philosophy, economical philosophy, education, language, social structure etc. Businesses have to understand and match with all this cultural determinants, as Continue reading