For decades, the management theorists have focused their attention on three types of thinking i.e. magical thinking, modern thinking and postmodern thinking. The latest inclusion is the paradoxical thinking. The main reason that paradoxical thinking has gained importance in the business world is that there were some buzz phrases that were being used by the employees of the organisations such as controlled chaos, getting outside the box, breaking the frame of reference, creative destruction, fuzzy logic and etc. All of these terminologies show that a business can develop something impossible by going beyond the imaginative framework and these old models have less importance in the contemporary world. The primary crux of the paradoxical thinking is that the openness can be anything but it is indecisive, lacks principled convictions and is sometimes passionless as well. Paradoxical thinking implies that problems should be looked from different angles rather than one perspective so Continue reading
Modern Management Practices
Diversity Management
The world’s increasing globalization trend demands more interaction between people from a vast diverse of cultures, beliefs, and backgrounds than the past. Today, people no longer live and work in an insulated marketplace. The reality is they are now part of a worldwide (or commonly mentioned as flatten) economy with competition coming from nearly every angle of the globe. For this reason, businesses need to be open to change and accept the concept of diversity to become more creative. In daily conversation, the word of “diversity” has the meaning of differences or variety. However, in the business world and in the business textbook, diversity often refers to the many differences present among people today in workplace as well as marketplace that were not aware of by most people in the past. Diversity management is often referred as acknowledging, understanding, accepting, valuing, and celebrating differences among people with respect to age, Continue reading
Innovation Culture in Organizations
Growth creates a need for structure and discipline, organization changes which can strain the culture of creativity that is so vital to future success. To sustain competitive advantage, companies need to institutionalize the innovation process; they need to create an internal environment where creative thinking is central to their values, assumptions and actions. Innovation is the engine of growth. It is also a mindset – meaning it is influenced by beliefs, values, and behavior. Company culture therefore has a huge influence on innovation, being able to either facilitate it or restrain it. Realizing this, many companies have attempted to put systems and processes into place that encourage an innovation culture. However, while such measures are often viewed as the panacea, they are really just the beginning. To shape a truly innovation culture, the top people in a company need to develop a mindful approach where their every action and word Continue reading
Green and Sustainable Supply Chain Management
Environmental changes across the world have generated a movement to identify the causes of global warming and develop solutions to end it before it is too late. In an effort to achive this, many countries are creating laws and regulations with the specific aim to reduce carbon emissions and greenhouse gas effect. The truth is that environmental change is upon us. Not only do we have climate problems but we are also dealing with a resource depletion issue. With economies like India and China growing at near double digit rates, the population of the world continues to grow creating shortages of many resources that we use to take for granted. Many consumers, stakeholders and businesses are becoming more involved in the growing green movement. Influenced by customer loyalty shifting towards environmentally friendly products, businesses are trying more and more to make their supply chains greener by introducing sustainability strategies throughout Continue reading
Introduction of Market-Based Management
Market-Based Management is found on the principles that cause societies to become wealthy instead of mired in poverty. It sees the business as a small society with exceptional features requiring variation of the education drawn from society at large. Through this variation an organisation could build MBM structure and ever-evolving mental models. Market-Based Management is a holistic approach to organization that incorporates theory and practice and organizes businesses to deal effectively with the challenges of change and growth. It also draws on the training learned from the failures and successes of individuals to attain prosperity, peace and organisational progress. Thus, it involves the study of the history of economies, politics, societies, cultures, governments, businesses, conflicts, science, non-profits and technology. Market-Based Management is the exceptional management tactic developed and executed by Koch Industries, Inc. It is a company philosophy that is embedded in the science of human action and functional through Continue reading
Adoption of Blue Ocean Strategies in Business
Strategy involves standing out from the competition and making choices that give the company a unique and valuable position by offering distinctive products and services. Competitive advantage and profitability can be achieved simultaneously by approaches that create consistent internal synergies and combine a company’s operational activities efficiently. Strategies are formed at various levels of the organization. However, a typical organizational structure incorporates strategies at 3 specific levels: corporate, business and functional.  Corporate strategy defines a company’s holistic growth and management direction pertaining to its various businesses, products and services. Business strategies, on the other hand, are established at the divisional levels and typically focus on enhancing the strategic business unit’s competitive position in its industry. Functional strategies aim to maximize resource productivity and are typically set by functional departments within each SBU to improve competencies and performance. Blue Ocean strategies are a form of business level strategies that enable firms Continue reading