UNDERSTANDING SUPERVISORY CHALLENGES IN THE NEW MELLENNIUM

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Chapter 2

• UNDERSTANDING SUPERVISORY CHALLENGES IN THE NEW
  MELLENNIUM

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Globalization

• Parochialism
• Cultural environments
• Cultural variables
• Individualism
• Power distance
• Uncertainty avoidance
• Quantity of life
• Quality of life

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Is There Such a Thing as Buy American?

• Organizations no longer constrained by national
  borders
• Fordpurchased by Volvo
• Chryslerpurchased Daimler-Benz
• Green Giantowned by Grand Metropolitan PLC
• Exxon and Colgate-Palmoliveboth receive 70 of
  revenues from sales outside the United States.
• Buy American
• Public slow to accept the fact that organizations
  have become increasingly global in their
  perspectives.
• National borders no longer define corporations.
• Many foreign products made in the United States.

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How Does Globalization Affect Supervisors?

• Parochialism Seeing things only through ones
  own eyes and within ones own perspective
  believing that our way is the best way.
• Americans see things solely through their own
  eyes and from their uniquely American
  perspective.
• We view our practices as being better than the
  practices of other countries.
• Major challenge is a cultural onerecognizing
  that all countries have different values, morals,
  customs, and laws.
• Geert Hofstedes Study (Exhibit 2-1 Countries
  With Similar Cultural Characteristics. )
• Individualism v. Collectivism.
• High- v. Low-Power Distance.
• High- v. Low-Uncertainty Avoidance.
• Quantity v. Quality of Life.

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Countries with Similar Cultural Characteristics

• Latin America
• Argentina
• Chile
• Colombia
• Mexico
• Venezuela
• Anglo-American
• Australia
• Canada
• Ireland
• New Zeeland
• South Africa
• United Kingdom
• USA

• Central European
• Austria
• Germany
• Switzerland
• Latin European
• Belgium
• France
• Italy
• Spain
• Nordic
• Denmark
• Finland
• Norway
• Sweden

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The Cultural VariablesGeert Hofstede

• Individualism refers to loosely knit social
  framework in which people are supposed to look
  after their own interests and those of their own
  immediate family.
• Power Distance is a measure of the extent at
  which a society accepts the fact that power in
  institutions and organization is distributed
  unequally.
• Uncertainty Avoidance is characterized by an
  increased level of anxiety among its people,
  which manifests itself in grate nervousness,
  stress, and aggressiveness.
• Quantity/Quality of Life Quantity of life
  reflects in materialistic cultures. Quality of
  life reflects on less materialistic tendencies
  and placing importance on relationships and
  showing concern for the welfare of others.

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Technology

• Equipment
• Tools
• Operating methods
• Communication
• Effects on supervisors job

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TECHNOLOGY ENHANCEMENT

• Change and Newness
• Fax machines, cellular phones, and personal
  pagers.
• E-mail, modems, and the Internet.
• Electronic communications, optical character and
  voice recognition, and storage and retrieval
  databases.
• Need for New Skills
• A continually evolving requirement.
• High-tech world requires high-tech skills and
  knowledge.
• Those who embrace knowledge and continuously
  learn new skills will be the ones who survive in
  the high-tech world.

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EXHIBIT 22An example of an intranet. Courtesy
of Towson University
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What Is Technology?

• Technology
• Any high-tech equipment, tools, or operating
  methods that are designed to make work more
  efficient.
• Technological Advances
• Involve integrating technology with any process
  for changing inputs into outputs.
• Robotics.
• ATM and electronic bill-paying systems.
• Making one-of-a-king products with
  state-of-the-art technology.
• Computers to provide better, more useful
  information.

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How Does Technology Change the Supervisors Job?

• Direct effects
• More complete information more quickly than ever
  before.
• Better planning, faster decision-making, clearer
  definition of what has to be done.
• Ability to monitor work activities on an
  as-they-happen basis.
• Enhanced effectiveness, efficiency.
• Ability to supervise employees in remote
  locations.
• Telecommuting
• Linkage of a remote workers computer and modem
  with coworkers and management at an office.
• Has made it possible for employees to be located
  anywhere in the global village.

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E-Business

• Differentiate from e-commerce
• E-Businessincludes developing strategies for
  running Internet-based companies, improving
  communication with supervisors and customers,
  finding the right leader to run a virtual
  business, finding skilled people to build and
  operate Intranets and Web sites and to coordinate
  administrative duties.
• E-Commerceencompasses presenting products on the
  Web and filling orders a subset of e-business.
• Activities associated with a successful
  Internet-based enterprise
• Developing strategies for running Internet-based
  companies
• Improving communication with suppliers and
  customers
• Collaborating with partners to coordinate design
  and production

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E-Business venues

• Internet
• Intranet
• Extranet

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What Changes Can Supervisors Expect from
E-Business?

• Difficulty in recruiting employees
• Screening candidates to ensure that they fit
  into the organizations culture.
• Difficulty in motivating employees
• Employees susceptible to distractions.
• E-business employees may have different salary
  expectations than traditional employees more
  marketable skills.
• CyberloafingE-business employees distracted by
  surfing the Net, playing online games, stock
  trading, shopping at work, and job-searching
  online.
• Changed communication
• Traditional communication forms changing going
  through chain of command no longer typical.
• Instant communication between and among employees
  and their customers.

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Diversity

• Baby boomer
• Defined
• Mature worker
• Generation Xers
• Other classifications

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WORKING IN A DIVERSE ORGANIZATION

• What Is Workforce Diversity?
• The composition of the workforce to include men,
  women whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Native
  Americans, the disabled, homosexuals,
  heterosexuals, the elderly, and so on.
• Workforce diversity
• Males, females, Caucasians, African Americans,
  Hispanics, Asian Americans, Native Americans, the
  disabled, homosexuals, heterosexuals, and the
  elderly.
• Adapting organizational policies and practices to
  the diversity may be the single most important
  human resource issue in organizations today.

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How Does Diversity Affect Supervisors?

• Implications
• New policies and practices needed to accommodate
  different lifestyles, family needs, and work
  styles.
• New work schedules to accommodate working
  parents.
• Child/elder care and other individualized
  benefits.
• Adaptable career-planning programs.
• Sensitivity training to understand differences.
• New motivation techniques.
• Mature workers
• Born prior to 1946, shortly after the Great
  Depression.
• Security oriented and committed to work ethic.
• Sometimes viewed as the foundation of the work
  force.
• Regarded as having obsolete skills and of being
  inflexible and set in their ways.

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How Does Diversity Affect Supervisors?(continued)

• Baby boomers
• Largest group in the work force.
• Regarded as career climbers.
• Viewed as ambitious to a fault, workaholics, and
  unrealistic in their views.
• Generation Xers
• Born between 1965 and 1975.
• Less commitment, less rule bound, and more into
  own gratification.
• Intolerant of baby boomers and their attitudes.
• Viewed as selfish and not willing to play by the
  rules.

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EXHIBIT 23 The diversifying of the American
workforce.
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How changing business operates

• Downsizing
• Continuous Improvement
• Reengineering
• Chaos

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Why Are Organizations Doing More With Less?

• DownsizingA reduction in workforce and reshaping
  of operations to create land and man
  organizations, to create greater efficiency and
  reduce costs.
• Deregulation and increased competition, both
  foreign and domestic.
• Mergers.
• Takeoversboth friendly and unfriendly.
• Reductions of staff and reshaping of operations
  in order to respond more quickly to environmental
  changes.
• Often results in lowered employee morale.
• No evidence of any positive effect on company
  earnings or stock market performance.

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Why the Emphasis on Continuous-Improvement
Programs?

• Continuous Improvement-Activities in an
  organization that enhance processes with result
  in the improved quality of goods and services
  produced.
• The Japanese call it kaizen.
• Focus on customer.
• Commitment to never be satisfied very good is
  not enough.
• Improve the quality of everything the
  organization does.
• Measure accuratelycomparing variables within the
  organization to benchmarks.
• Involve employees in solving problems.

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EXHIBIT 24 The foundations of continuous
improvement
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How Does Work Process Engineering Differ from
Continuous Improvement?

• Continuous Improvement
• Focuses on incremental change.
• May not always be the right thing initially.
• Work Process Engineeringradical or quantum
  change.
• Occurs when most of the work being done in an
  organization is evaluated and altered.
• Requires rethinking what work has to be done, how
  it is to be done, and how to best implement it.
• Can lead to major gains in cost, service, or
  time, leading to the creation of a competitive
  advantage.

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What Are the Supervisory Implications of
Downsizing, Continuous-Improvement Programs, and
Work Process Engineering?

• Downsizing and Supervisors
• Both former and current employees may feel anger,
  frustration, and resentment.
• Sharp decline in employee commitment caused by
  perceived lack of organizational loyalty.
• Motivation problems for those left who feel
  frightened and insecure in their jobs.
• Increased competition among employees as an
  every man for himself attitude surfaces.
• Increased workloads and longer workdays as those
  left are required to pick up the slack caused by
  layoffs.

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What Are the Supervisory Implications of
Downsizing

• Continuous-Improvement Programs and Supervisors
• Low quality translates into dissatisfied
  customers, which further translates into reduced
  demand. Reduced demand ultimately results in
  loss of jobs.
• Continuous improvement embraces teamwork and
  employee involvement, both of which translate
  into increased quality. And increased quality
  ultimately results in higher levels of both job
  security and job satisfaction.
• Work Process Engineering and Supervisors
• Work process engineering changes the way
  businesses operate.
• So, it also changes the way supervisors operate.
• Can cause confusion and anger.
• Can require development of new skills.
• Can create opportunities, more authority, better
  compensation and rewards.

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THRIVING ON CHAOS

• Constant and chaotic change
• New laws, regulations, competitive threats.
• New opportunities, technology.
• Changing customer needs.
• Will require flexibility, adaptability, quicker
  decision-making.
• Supervisors will have to learn to work smarter.

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FROM CHAOS TO CRISIS

• Surmounting crisis may not be obvious initially.
• Warning signs of crisis
• Performance declines.
• Budget deficiencies.
• Cumbersome policies.
• Fear of conflict and risks.
• Poor communications within department.
• Effectiveness in handling disasters includes good
  communications and having a plan in place.

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THE GOOD AND PROFITABLE

• ORGANIZATION
• Organizational ends
• To survive.
• Organizational means
• Is just obeying the law enough, or should
  organizations go beyond that?

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The good organization

• Social responsibility
• Social obligation
• Social responsiveness
• Ethics

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What Is a Socially Responsible Organization?

• Social responsibility-An obligation that
  organizations have to pursue long-term goals that
  are good for society.
• The obligation organizations have to society.
• Goes beyond the law and profit making.
• Considers goals that are good for society.
• Social obligation-The foundation of a businesses
  social involvement.
• Assumes a business has fulfilled its obligation
  to society when it meets its economic and legal
  responsibilities and no more.
• Does only the minimum that the law requires.
• Social responsiveness-A process guided by social
  norms that requires businesses to determine what
  is right or wrong and thus seek fundamental
  truths attempt to make society better.
• Adds moral element.
• Holds that businesses should do those things that
  make society better and avoid doing things that
  make it worse.
• Requires businesses to determine what is right or
  wrong, and thus seek fundamental truths.

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How do We Act Responsibly?

• Questionable issues a supervisor might face
• Should you tell the truth all the time?
• Is it right to bend the rules to your company's
  advantage?
• Is it anything goes as long as you don't get
  caught?
• Ethical dilemma
• Will require supervisors to define right and
  wrong conduct.
• Many dilemmas will be caused by pressure to cut
  costs, increase productivity.
• Employees will take their cue from the
  supervisor if he/she cheats, they will cheat.

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EXHIBIT 25 Social obligation versus social
responsiveness.
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What Is Ethics?

• Ethics
• The rules or principles that define right or
  wrong conduct.
• Can be enhanced by rules, policies, job
  descriptions, or strong cultural norms that frown
  on unethical behavior.
• Can be corrupted by an organization and its
  culture that permits or encourages unethical
  practices.
• Codes of ethics
• A formal document that states an organizations
  primary values and the ethical rules it expects
  employees to follow