Читать книгу An Introduction to Management Studies - Thomas Bieger - Страница 10

[17] Management is an action-oriented science. It deals with the organization and design of purpose-oriented socio-technical systems. Its strong practical relevance means that management science interfaces with a wide variety of disciplines (e.g., economics, law, sociology, psychology, ethics, engineering, and computer science). The term “management” derives from Latin manus (hand) and agere (to lead). Ultimately, “management” is about goal-oriented leadership. At the same time, “the management” means a community of managers in an organization.

Organizations are embedded in a diverse environment and face the demands of different stakeholders. They also involve division of labor and functionally differentiated value creation. Managers must (1) optimally configure short- and long-term organizational value creation in the face of a constantly changing environment and (2) critically question their own managerial activities in the process. To do so, they need an integrative approach (see Section 1.4).

The University of St. Gallen (HSG) has long taken an integrative view of management. The St. Gallen Management Model (SGMM) has served as an intellectual map for the academic and practical discussion of management in and of organizations for several generations (see Section 1.3). Despite the SGMM‘s continuous evolution, three elements have remained consistent: environment, organization, management. In the current version of the SGMM (Rüegg-Stürm & Grand, 2020), these elements are structured and detailed according to (among others) the following key categories:

Task perspective:

– Environment: environmental spheres, stakeholders, interaction issues.

– Organization: processes, structuring forces, development modes.

Practice perspective:

– Management: value creation, orientation framework, management practice.

[18] Figure 1-1: Task Perspective of the 2020 St. Gallen Management Model

Source: Rüegg-Stürm and Grand (2020)

The introductory case study (see Section 1.1) illustrates the key categories of the task perspective (Figure 1-1). Below, the components of environment and organization are briefly presented as a repertoire for the further discussion of management. In the subsequent chapters, the task perspective is also supplemented by selected terms and concepts of the practice perspective (Figure 6-1) (for a comprehensive view of the current SGMM, see Rüegg-Stürm & Grand, 2020).

Environmental Spheres:

The current version of the SGMM highlights that organizations are embedded in and define their own environment (see Section 6.3.1). This environment contains different so-called environmental spheres: societal, natural, technological, and economic (Figure 1-1). The company is influenced by these spheres and in turn influences them. For example, an innovation in the environmental sphere technology (e.g., a newly developed production process) compels the company to change its own production in order to remain competitive. If, for example, [19] jobs are reduced as a result, and if different employee training profiles are required, this in turn impacts the company’s societal environment. According to the SGMM, environmental spheres are spaces of opportunity for the company from which opportunities and threats arise. Organizations need the environment and its different spheres to tap the resources they need for their products and services, and that enable an organization to develop strategic competitive advantages. For example, proximity to a research institution facilitates innovation and staff recruitment.

Stakeholders:

Stakeholders are key to the organization‘s relationship with its environmental spheres (see Section 6.3.2). They are specific actors (individuals, organizations, etc.) that operate in the environment and place their own demands on the organization. Stakeholder participation (e.g., employees, customers, investors, suppliers, or even the state) is necessary for the company’s survival. The most important task of management is to ensure cohesion among stakeholder groups (see Bleicher, 1991) and, in doing so, also to moderate conflicting goals between stakeholder groups. If, for example, in a crisis situation such as a pandemic, the company comes under economic pressure, management must decide how far it can accommodate employee demands (e.g., job preservation) without, for instance, jeopardizing supplier demands (e.g., cash flow). Because stakeholders are embedded in their environmental sphere, they also represent it. Environmental associations, for example, represent the natural environment; investors, suppliers, and customers the economic environment; the state and media the societal environment. Corresponding relationships with its environment enable the organization to tap the necessary resources via stakeholder groups. Media relations allow the organization to strengthen its reputation while investor relations contribute to raising capital. Good customer relations are essential for selling products and services, stable supplier relations for reliably providing the necessary components.

Interaction Issues:

[20] Interaction issues (see Section 6.3) are those topics that an organization negotiates with its stakeholders and that represent the organization’s interrelations with its respective environmental spheres. For example, natural resources are at stake when a company needs more land to pursue an expansion project. Norms or values are at stake when a company negotiates leadership principles and its future strategic direction with employees. State concerns and interests vis-à-vis investors are at stake when stock corporation law is under review, and thus the voting rights of individual shareholder categories.

Processes:

Processes can be defined as sequences of activities (see Section 1.5.2). The central processes of companies are business processes (see also Bieger, 2019). These include service creation processes (i.e., what the company actually produces), service innovation processes, and customer processes. The latter comprise customer acquisition, customer loyalty, and reputation processes. Management processes include those processes that serve to steer the company as a system, as well as its relationships with the environment. These require communication and decision-making skills and techniques (see Section 2.2). Support processes are functions that indirectly support business processes (e.g., financial management processes and human resources processes).

Development Modes:

Because the environment is dynamic, organizations need to keep evolving. In terms of development modes (see Section 3.7), two types of organizational change are distinguished. One is the continuous optimizing of current operations. The other is renewing the organization or parts of it by challenging the status quo. Optimization presupposes an existing structure, whereas renewal also involves structural change. A production line in the automotive industry, for example, can be improved step by step in terms of throughput times by fine-tuning the individual production steps (grinding, gluing, coating, etc.). However, it can only be changed fundamentally (e.g., adapted and converted to a new propulsion technology such as electric drive) at considerable expense and time. Companies often switch between these two modes. If a value creation system has been reconfigured (renewal), it subsequently requires a phase of optimization and structural stability. In management, these two modes often occur in parallel. Optimization decisions must be taken while questioning the status quo.

Structuring Forces:

[21] Structuring forces ensure the necessary basic order in the form of governance, a development direction defined by the strategy, an organizational form geared toward strategy implementation, and a system of norms and values defined by the culture.

– Governance (see Section 5.6) ensures the prerequisites for management and strategic capability by defining a suitable company purpose, management resources, division of powers, and processes: Governance defines the roles, rights and duties of management, as well as an organization’s normative orientation, i.e. its vision and mission (Rüegg-Stürm & Grand, 2020).

– A strategy (see Section 3.2) can be designed only if an organization’s long-term pupose is clear. A sports infrastructure facility, for example, needs to determine whether it is a health or a leisure company. This decision defines the fields in which a strategy is searched for (e.g., identifying new products). The purpose of strategy is to ensure competitiveness. To this end, strategic success factors are developed either within (“inside out,” e.g. core competencies) or outside the company (“outside in,” e.g. market positionings).

– An organization’s structure (see Section 4.2) must be aligned with the strategic success factors according to which the organization needs to define its processes and to design its strategy to optimally support those processes (Osterloh & Frost, 1996). If, for example, a company defines its ability to adapt service processes as optimally as possible to customer needs as its central strategic success position, it will focus on customer-oriented service processes. Consequently, the organization will need to align itself according to customer groups as its primary ordering criterion, possibly by defining its main departments according to customer groups.

– [22] Structure and culture correlate (see Section 4.6). For example, a strong hierarchical organization results in a culture of control, which in turn impacts the organization’s functioning. The culture, in turn, must be consistent or at least compatible with the company’s purpose.

These considerations, and the logic of the SGMM, lead to several basic management tasks that every organization must fulfill (Figure 1-2).

Figure 1-2: Basic Tasks of Management

Source: adapted from Rüegg-Stürm and Grand (2020)