B200 TUTORIAL WEEK THREE

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B200TUTORIAL WEEK THREE
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By the end of the Environments module you should
be able to

• recognise key phenomena in business environments
• use appropriate models and concepts to analyse
  them
• recognise and interpret the values underlying
  different analyses of business environments
• understand the complex relationship between the
  behaviour of businesses and their environments
• identify some of the methods businesses adopt for
  dealing with their environment.

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Society

• This area of environments is covered by your
  study of Chapters 10, 12, 14 and 15.

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Chapter 10 The Structure of Society by Hall.
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Relations, processes and divisions

• Society is given its distinctive structure by
  specific social relations. What is important is
  the way the relations themselves constrain
  individuals and groups to behave in certain ways.
• Society needs activities which reproduce it over
  time and keep it going called social processes.
• Although individuals must relate and associate
  together in order to keep a social process going,
  the positions they occupy within that process are
  different. These differences are social divisions
  which form an essential part of the basic
  structure of society.

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Linkeages

• Hall states that according to research in power
  relations, structure and division, power and
  inequality are linked. (See the examples on pages
  95-96).

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The concept of structure

• The concept of structure can sound very static.
  The metaphor of a structure makes sense when
  thought of as a building but it leaves out the
  construction the people doing things,
  activity practice. Relations, processes and
  structures dont seem to have an active subject
  they just exist. This is one aspect of what is
  called agency versus structure. This refers to
  the argument between those who stress how
  individuals and groups produce society and those
  who put greater stress upon how they are shaped
  and produced by society.

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Giddens Structuration

• Social structures are made up on human actions
  and relationships what gives these their
  patterning is their repetition across periods of
  time and distances of space. Thus the idea of
  social reproduction and social structure are very
  closely related to one another. The actions of
  all of us are influenced by the structural
  characteristics of the societies in which we are
  brought up and live at the same time, we
  recreate (and to some extent alter) those
  structural characteristics in our actions.

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Chapter 12 Changing Social Divisions Class,
Gender and Race by Bradley.
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Table 12.1 on page 114

• The table is most important for your
  understanding of this chapter. Your tutor will go
  through this table with you and explain the
  difference between the Neo-Marxist and
  Neo-Weberian positions.

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Other points from this chapter

• There are 3 elements of the wealthy class
• Ownership, control of business, and shareholder
  groups.
• Unemployment due to improved technology makes
  workers redundant.
• The underclass are ghettoized and trapped in
  poverty includes the sick, disabled, elderly
  and single mothers the politically ignored class

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• The future of the working class?
• Increased affluence and upward mobility into
  the middle classes as a result of post industrial
  change
• Further decline of the traditional core of the
  industrial working class and development of a
  casualized proletariat as a result of automation
• Recomposition of the working class into new
  forms dependant on the growth of the world
  economy
• Development of a marginalised underclass
  underneath a relatively privileged working class
  which enjoys increased affluence

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Gender and Change

• Note this is theory framed upon Western
  societies.
• Note the definition of patriarchy set of social
  relationships between men which have a material
  base, and which, through hierarchical, establish
  or create interdependence and solidarity among
  men that enable them to dominate women The
  material base upon which patriarchy rests lies
  most fundamentally in mens control over womens
  labour power.
• Note the discussion over the feminisation of
  clerical work.
• See table 12.5 on page 124.

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Women in the labour force

• Ethnic minority women are at the bottom of the
  employment ladder.
• Women are more likely to work part time, less
  likely to have fringe benefits, less likely to
  receive training.
• Economists explain this as women have less human
  capital due to child bearing. However even with
  no children the above points apply. Traditional
  female jobs are less valued in society.

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See Table 12.6 on page 127

• This table explains the different theories of the
  labour market. Your tutor will talk through this
  table with you to ensure your understanding of it.

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Race and inequality

• Consider pages 127-132 of the reader.
• Discuss in your section
• How do business decision makers fuel social
  inequalities?

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Chapter 14 A new International Divisionof
Labour by Braham.
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Key points

• International migration of labour and
  international movements of capital are connected.
  There is a focus upon the mobility of capital and
  operations of MNCs.
• Production is located to take advantage of low
  labour costs. NIDL involves relocation of
  manufacturing to developing countries.

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• Immigrants are no longer recruited for low wage,
  unskilled menial work. Immigrants have used
  systems in industrialised Western Nations to
  secure their rights.
• Fordism v Taylorism
• The result for undeveloped countries is more
  underdevelopment where there is little chance of
  technology transfer as the sectors of research
  and development and innovations take place at
  corporate headquarters in the Western countries.

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Chapter 15 Culture and Managementby Armson et
al.

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What is the difference between National and
Corporate culture?

• Your tutor will encourage a discussion in your
  section on this topic.

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Hofstede

• You must familiarise yourselves with Hofstedes 4
  dimensions of culture (table 15.1 on page 152 of
  the reader).
• Now consider some organisations with which you
  are familiar which of these dimensions apply?

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Conclusion

• Hofstede concludes that we should not expect
  convergence of leadership styles or management
  practices across different cultural forms, since
  they are dependent on the implicit model of
  organisational functioning prevailing in the
  particular culture. The implicit metaphor in the
  result of socialisation and mental conditioning
  to which we are exposed from birth. Changes in
  culture are therefore invariably slow.

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Activities

• Activity 8 (page 35 of the Study Guide)

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READING TO BE COMPLETED BY NEXT WEEK

• Please read pages 28-29, 31 (last paragraph)
  33, 34 (from chapter 14) - 36 of the Study Guide
  to refresh your study of Chapters 10,12,14 and
  15.
• Please read Chapters 17, 18, 19 and 21 of the
  Text book before the next tutorial (NB you do not
  need to read Chapters 16 or 20 these are
  optional readings).