Contemporary Issues in Management - Reflexive Managers - Essay Example

Reflexive managers are required for contemporary organisations BY YOU YOUR SCHOOL INFO HERE HERE Reflexive managers are required for contemporary organisations Introduction Reflexive practices include performing critical evaluations and analyses of the working practices of the organisation in an effort to improve efficiency, competence and personal professional enhancement. Reflexive practice is a form of narrative which allows an individual to explore their historical position, where one wants to proceed, the steps which took the individual there, and the direction one wants to take in the future. Competent reflexive practice describes what activities were successful and what methodologies were inefficient or ineffective. Reflexive practice provides a manager in the organisation with the ability to reflect on any given action in a way that promotes continuous learning (Wofensberger, Piniel, Canella & Kyburz-Graber 2010). A manager that utilises reflexive methods ensures that they pay critical concentration to the various theories, ethics and values that guide or inform workplace activities. The end result is the achievement of insight that provides better competency for the manager and improves holistic insight. Reflexive practice allows a manager to merge theory with tangible organisational practice. It is through reflection that managers can examine human emotions that contribute to organisational success, management’s own emotions as a facilitator and contributor to the organisation, and also experiences both social and professional that either add to knowledge production or improve comprehension (Paterson & Chapman 2013). Hence, reflexive management forces an individual to explore an initial experience, describe the circumstances of that action, make reasoned judgments about the feelings of employees and management, evaluate the pros and cons of that experience, analyse and synthesise the scenario, and make general conclusions that lead to a new and more developed course of action. In dynamic and ever-changing organisations, the need for reflexive managers cannot be understated. Managers must fully understand the complexity of organisational factors, both socio-psychological and professional, in order to build strategy that is viable and relevant for attaining competitive advantages, revenue growth, the construction of organisational culture, or building human capital advantages. Having defined reflexive practice, this essay explores how reflexive management ideologies provide the most significant benefits over that of non-reflexive managers in the contemporary organisation. Why engage in reflexive management? Reflexivity is relevant within a framework that produces a variety of organisational interpretations and allows a manager to subsequently challenge them (Alvesson 2003). Phenomenon occurring within the organisation is often complex and consists of many different variables that make up the dynamics of an experience, many of which cannot be effectively measured quantitatively. Such examples include the social environment, cultural development in a team dynamic, and relationships between individuals and management. As a result, traditional performance measurement instruments, ranging from balanced score cards to financial evaluation are insufficient in clearly understanding the relationship between organisational performance and the human equation. Reflexive managers must be qualitatively-oriented, asking questions about the hows and whys of how a situation unfolded either successfully or unsuccessfully and then make rational judgments about how to improve organisational efficiency. Many organisations believe that they can measure, predict and alter performance through performance measurement activities; a scientific approach. However, the realities of organisational inter-dependencies make such an approach inappropriate and not viable. For example, one can consider an organisation that must develop innovative products in order to be relevant and competitive in a saturated competitive market. As a result, collaborations between tacit knowledge holders in the organisation must occur in a communities of practice model. In theory, so long as there is a unified and cohesive organisational culture that is dedicated to achieving strategic goals, team working should be effective and productive. However, theory is much different than practice and disparities in cultural backgrounds, ethnicity and general human psychology can conflict the process of productive team-working. This is why a reflexive manager is necessary to regain a collaborative environment in an effort to produce innovations. The manager must fully examine the holistic elements that drove ineffective team-working in order to come up with a plan of action for improving cohesiveness in the group dynamic. The reflexive manager is more beneficial for the contemporary organisation as he or she would recognise that attitudes, culture, animosities, values and behaviours drove inefficient team working and then make judgments about how to correct these inconsistencies. Rather than simply stating that there is conflict and then attempting to use control tactics to end the conflict, as in some organisations with autocratic leadership, a reflexive manager considers how attitudes might be changed, consider how best to appeal to these disparate attitudes and values, and then apply new methodologies to build better psycho-social environmental conditions that make legitimate and valuable impact on the team. Traditional control tactics, such as using punishment systems for non-compliance to collaborative expectations, are ineffective in making long-term changes that legitimately matter for team-oriented productivity. The reflexive manager has considered emotions, ethnic differences, the nature of the environment in which team-working has been inefficient, the manager’s own role as a facilitator of group working, and then build an interpretive model of what actually caused these anti-collaboration problems. One such example of anti-collaboration problems for a company that relies on creativity and innovation to be successful is Google. Upon start-up, Google was a rather centralised organisation where decision-making occurred at the top of the organisational hierarchy. Over time, however, the company was unable to come up with innovative solutions and the appropriate creativity necessary to achieve competitive advantage. Reflexive managers began to examine the environment, social needs of workers, their psychological adjustment patterns, the nature of control and command management, and then evaluate the extent to which these factors impacted organisational productivity and innovation. It was determined that more liberalisation in the organisational design and decentralisation would improve loyalty, motivation and dedication which would have long-term competitive advantage benefits for the firm. Today, through reflexive practice that considered multi-faceted aspects of business, the company now offers flexible working hours, gymnasiums to improve health and recreation, and even free food centres (Weber 2007). The reflexive management team at Google that was absolutely reliant on creating an environment that builds more dedication and commitment in order to produce innovative and creative solutions managed to improve long-term team productivity through a holistic analysis of the entire organisation and its human resources-based policies. By thoroughly examining the history of non-commitment that occurred as a perceived result of command and control management and making supplementary evaluations of the environmental conditions of Google, it was discovered that liberalism, autonomy and the provision of enhanced workplace benefits (i.e. free food centres) would be the most viable for improving the long-run competitive position of the firm. The reflexive manager provided the evaluations, assessments and reflection on historical events and policies that were critical to be adjusted in order to improve human behaviour and desire to work collaboratively. This is why the reflexive manager is most viable for the contemporary organisation as they understand multiple dynamics of an event or phenomenon and can gain better understanding through this critical process. Yet another example of where reflexive management is necessary for the contemporary organisation can be witnessed in the case of Abercrombie & Fitch, a U.S.-based clothing retail company. Throughout the firm’s long history of operations in the U.S. and U.K., the business positioned itself according to exclusivity, offering vanity-inspired clothing designs to youth markets that were engaged in the brand according to concepts of narcissism and self-importance. For years, this ideology gave the business much consumer patronage and these concepts were even infused into management and service orientations when dealing with egoist consumers. The CEO even made public comments stating that only certain types of consumers should be seen in public wearing Abercrombie & Fitch clothing and regularly justified this position in public commentary (Levinson 2013). However, in recent years, the company began to receive considerable backlash for what was considered to be unethical business behaviours. The CEO, however, defiant in his stance that vanity-orientation in branding strategy was relevant for the firm’s competitive advantage, constantly supported these comments and continued about the same marketing strategy. As a result of this defiance, the organisation was forced to close hundreds of stores and lost considerable revenues as a result of angering constituency once loyal to the firm. This is why reflexive management is critical for the long-term profitability and efficiency of an organisation in the contemporary business environment. If the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch had considered historical situations in which the company was protested by special interest groups, considered that youth vanity was a generational trend, thought of factors related to the external market, and considered the long-term viability of using internal sales strategies that focused on egotism, he would have been more equipped to provide a positive public image. The CEO, if using reflexive practice, would have realised he was setting the stage for boycotting of the brand, found opportunities to restructure human resources training to provide a more humble experience, and realised that he was impacting public perceptions of corporate social responsibility negatively through these publicised comments. He, as a reflexive manager, would have realised his own place in the organisation, his emotional stance toward this narcissistic brand, and the ineffectuality of making comments in an environment where consumer attitudes were changing toward more ethical consumption. The Abercrombie & Fitch example illustrates why reflexive practice is so paramount for a successful contemporary organisation. The CEO, not using this practice, maintained a form of tunnel vision that only looked at quantitative factors (e.g. revenue analysis) to determine whether the firm was successful and whether the internal mechanisms that drove strategy were sound over the long-term. It was not until such analyses revealed a significant drop in sales volumes and the company was the target of negative media backlash that any type of reflexivity was utilised to improve the public image of the firm. By the time the CEO was ready to make public apologies for his statements, the sudden loss of massive revenues made it impossible to continue the firm’s growth and expansion strategies and regain loyalty from customers once dedicated to the exclusivity of the brand. A contemporary reflexive manager would have considered human behaviour, ethical consumption, changing external market conditions, internal psycho-social phenomenon and consumption behaviour of important youth markets and made more rational judgments about making important changes to improve the corporate brand identity in the public perception. A further example of why reflexive management practice is critical for organisational success can be witnessed with the Sony Corporation. Sony, once an innovator in its established electronics market, is having problems competing. Major competitors, such as Sharp and Samsung, are now the pioneers in innovations in this market and continue to create unique consumer products that outperform Sony year on year. In 2012, the company reported a significant loss of 67.3 billion yen (Hirai 2014). Sony Corporation is a Japanese-based company, one with managerial philosophy that demands considerable power distance between managers and subordinates and where consultation with employees is not deemed appropriate or viable for organisational success. Companies that innovate must have collaborative teams and ensure that communications between employees are open and productive. This, of course, goes against traditionalist Japanese management philosophy. As a result of holding onto these principles of power distance and centralisation, Sony is unable to produce innovative products at a speed proportionate to competition, thereby depleting financial growth and competitive advantages. This is why a reflexive manager is vital for the contemporary organisation. A reflexive leader would have looked at the viability of using old-world Japanese control methodologies in a global environment where companies were having much advantages occur as a result of promoting internal cooperation and brainstorming with many different and diverse employees. This reflexive manager would have looked at Sony’s social model and recognised it was lacking a cohesive organisational culture, communities of practice ideologies, and was depleting knowledge management and knowledge transfer by being stoic in controlling management philosophy. This manager would have realised that human behaviour is improved and dedication enhanced by providing opportunities for consultation and perhaps even reviewed some of the contemporary literature available on corporate decentralisation and its impact on commitment and loyalty by subordinates. A reflexive manager at Sony would have reviewed turnover rates, linked these with poor HR strategy, and saw the correlation that was impacting positive team development. He would have consulted with organisational psychology experts or published authors and made evaluations based on tangible research findings that would have created better human resource policies to build a collective culture necessary for innovation production. The reflexive manager would have considered his own role in the organisation as a manager that was restricting collaboration and sending the message to employees that they were not deemed valuable contributors to organisational decision-making. Hence, a viable and relevant action plan could have been developed for corporate decentralisation, improved social relationships between managers and employees, and ultimately improved the long-run competitive prowess of the business that was absolutely reliant on inter-group collaboration to achieve a better market position and profitability. He would have looked at the holistic inter-dependencies between attitude, management ideology, the external market, and the conditions that promoted the aforementioned problems to achieve a more effective organisational model. It would only have been through very profound reflection of the past, situations occurring in the present, and an evaluation of how changes made might impact future competitive advantage that Sony could have avoided these significant financial losses for failing to be an innovative company. According to theory, innovation does not occur without adequate teamwork and interventions between organisational members (Stover 2004). Reflexive managers, therefore, are more equipped to recognise the inter-linkages between organisational structure, human relationships, evaluation of the manager’s own emotional intelligence, and how these all combine to create positive or negative organisational scenarios. Sony was an example of short-sighted management that was forced to make internal changes founded on quantitative information showing that the firm was losing money substantially as a result of poor leadership ideology. The scientific method of management is ineffective in evaluating all of the complexity of organisational realities that are impacted by attitude, values, emotions and behaviours. Only reflexive management can provide the type of thoroughness that is necessary to evaluate a situation, decide on potential alternatives, and build an appropriate action plan based on these comprehensive analyses that will sustain a more productive organisation equipped with proper strategy and direction. Hence, it is legitimised knowledge and understanding that comes from reflexive practice. Qualitative analyses of existing conditions within and outside of the organisation explore the most influential dynamics that led to a historical situation and provides the comprehension necessary to move the organisation forward positively. This is recognised in contemporary literature which states that learning must be emergent, recognising that the past is critical in justifying rational strategy developments (Mintzberg, Ahlstrand & Lampel 1998). Non-reflexive managers do not learn from the past and do not explore the many multi-faceted aspects of a situation that led to lack of organisational success. Instead, they remain focused on the present, a short-term type of thinking, which only examines a certain set of factors that could be improved upon or radically altered to bring the business important advantages. This type of ineffective manager in the contemporary organisation is therefore ill-equipped to consider the intricacies of the real-world organisational environment and how they are inter-dependent on other variables of the organisation. Hence, a reflexive manager is better suited for exploring deeper components of the organisational environment, reflect on their role in causing non-productivity or general lack of success toward a specific strategy. Conclusion The examples provided which included the Sony Corporation, Abercrombie & Fitch and Google illustrate why reflexive managers are critical to the success of the contemporary organisation. Reflexive practice makes a manager more diversified in thinking, allowing them to contemplate historical situations, the impact of these situations on current and future performance of the organisation, and develop appropriate strategies that will actually be effective in the real-time organisation. They recognise that the impact of feelings and emotions have critical impact on teamwork, motivation, commitment and general job role performance. Concurrently, they consider that their own emotional stance is important in generating responses from employee populations and then change these attitudes that might serve as a detriment to building important social and professional relationships. Without reflexive practice in management ideology, an organisation will be unable to compete effectively, gain human capital advantages, and respond accordingly to changing dynamics in the external marketplace. Managers that do not contemplate historical events and consider the mitigating circumstances that led to yesterday’s failures will not be able to properly guide the organisation. There is little doubt that reflexive practice in management is absolutely essential to building successful organisational policies and strategies and no contemporary organisation can do without reflexive management philosophy if the organisation is to be competent and successful today and into the future. References Alvesson, M. 2003. Beyond neopositivists, romantics and localists: a reflexive approach to interviews in organizational research, Academy of Management Review, 28(1), pp.13-33. Hirai, K. 2012. Letter to stakeholders: operating results in the fiscal year 2011, Sony Corporation. 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Wolfensberger, B., Piniel, J., Canella, C. and Kyburz-Graber, R. 2010. The challenge of involvement in reflective teaching: three case studies from a teacher education project on conducting classroom discussions on socio-scientific issues, Teaching and Teacher Education, 26(3), pp.714-721. Read More