Discovering for business management
Discovering for business management
This assignment is an individual piece of work which needs to consist of three short pieces, submitted togetheras a single piece of work. You can choose to write this in a blog format or as a standard word document.The assignment should be 2000 words long (+/- 10% excluding references), so each element will be between600 and 700 words long.
Your reflective work should answer the following questions:
1) As a result of your term 1 learning in the Discovering Management module, what is the single mostimportant lesson you have learned about effective management? Reflect also on why you see this as the mostimportant lesson, and what the implications of this are for you.
2) As a result of your experience of group work in term 1, what do you think are your emerging strengthsand weaknesses as a team member? Reflect also on the implications of this self-assessment for you and on whatactions you can take to develop your ability to become a better team-worker in the next term.
3) Your third piece will comprise of written feedback from you to one of the other teams in your seminargroup about their formative presentation. This should be concerned as much with content as with thepresentation skills the teamdemonstrated. You can build on the feedback you provided earlier on as a team but
here you are asked to provide your individual thoughts and review. Your feedback should be thoughtful andconstructive.
Question 1:what is the single most important lesson you have learned about effective management?
LESSON 1Global Inequalities (lecture notes below)
LESSON 1 Global Inequalities
Introduction
As global nations share a common struggle to protect citizens and national economies from the exogenous shock of COVID pandemic, many inequalities remain sharply in focus, primarily because the pandemic has exacerbated these and made them even more visible, touching every aspect of life.
NOTE: Links to websites included on this page are provided for background information only. Accessing these websites is OPTIONAL and not required reading.
Inequalities, or rather how to achieve equality, are discussions taking place internationally, as well at an institutional and individual level. Many types of inequality exist including health, food, water, education, race, gender, wealth and environmental inequalities. Inequalities can be viewed as a complex web of interlinked, inter-dependent aspects of our society, communities and World that highlight the disparity between overlapping groups.
Inequalities receive attention on the international stage, at national level, by Non-Government Organisations (NGOs), business, charities, communities and individuals. Although some inequalities are mentioned briefly here, each merits much more attention.
INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS
At international level, the United Nations (UN) specifically mentions equality in its purpose statement, focusing upon gender equality, human rights, migration, ageing, poverty and refugees, coordinating aid from richer nations seeking to redress inequality.
An agency of the UN, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), brings together employers, workers and governments to develop policy and procedures at work that promote equality and inclusion, as well as safe working environments that respect the rights of workers in particular, those that are poor or disadvantaged. The ILO has been active in highlighting and improving workplace topics, including;
- equality and discrimination
- child labour
- disability at work
- gig economy
- slave labour, forced labour and human trafficking
- poverty
- labour migration
The ILO work internationally to gain ‘buy in’ by nation states to legislate against such workplace actions and with employers to establish high workplace standards.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is another international organisation that again lists equality as a key goal, considering economic policies and standards, fighting tax evasion and promoting strong economic performance.
GOVERNMENTS & NATION STATES
Equality issues are also on the agenda of Governments worldwide, reflecting upon their national context.
Example: UK Government Equalities Office focuses on policy relating to women, sexual orientation and transgender equality, resulting in legislation requiring organisations greater than 250 employees to annually report gender pay gap data.
Example: German Federal Government announce first national strategy for gender equality 8 July 2020.
CHARITIES & FOUNDATIONS
Independent charities and foundations also reflect upon and seek to address global inequalities.
EXAMPLE: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation 2020 Goalkeepers Report provides an interesting approach, tracking the global goals agreed by 193 world leaders in 2015 to fight inequality and stop climate change (in the diagram below taken from their report). The top six are considered the primary goals, however, all are seen as important.
This paper considers the goals in the light of COVID and provides a clear picture of the inequalities that exist, many of them health related, and whether they have improved since the previous report. This report can also be accessed at https://www.gatesfoundation.org/goalkeepers/report/2020-report?download=false
EXAMPLE: Oxfam Commitment to Reducing Inequality (CRI) index developed with Development Finance International ranks 158 governments in three policy and commitment pillars:
- Labour rights
- Tax
- Public Services
The third 2020 CRI index highlights COVID is likely to leave many countries more unequal and can be accessed here.
As highlighted in the ‘Gates Foundation report above, numerous inequalities exist, some closely related to each other and many millions of people impacted on a spectrum between extremes.
Refugees & Migration
MIGRATION
Other complex factors including war, political and religious ideology, geographical and environmental challenges, poverty and hunger impact quality of life resulting in inequalities. Sometimes this results in people seeking improved lives in other countries, taking dangerous, long and often expensive migration journeys, sometimes exploited or losing their life or family members along the way, travelling in the hope of a new life on arrival as a refugee.
According to UN estimates, in 2018, there were 244 million people living long-term in a country other than the one they were born in, the number of these who are refugees is unclear however the UN figures showing total number of international migrants, shows the trend towards increasing levels of international migration at a time when world population increased from 3.7 billion to 7.5 billion with the overall percentage of migrants increasing from 2.2% to 3.3%.
TOTAL NUMBER OF INTERNATIONAL MIGRANTS
1970: 81 million
1980: 100 million
1990: 154 million
2000: 175 million
2010: 214 million
2018: 244 Million
Healthcare Inequality
HEALTHCARE INEQUALITY
This page focuses primarily on one form of inequality in further detail – Health care inequality is where one group of people in an economy have poorer health than another. COVID has highlighted the difference in healthcare provision, general health and wellbeing across socio-economic groups.
The example below also reflects in places upon Racial inequality within the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK and as mentioned in the introduction, inequalities are related and inter-dependent in a complex web, so although we focus on healthcare inequality, a number of other inequality factors are involved.
EXAMPLE: In the UK, discussions reflect
- a ‘north-south divide’
- greater concentration of illness and death in deprived areas
- greater numbers of BAME illness and death including a higher number of key workers on low wages or in front-line medical roles
- greater concentration of habitants in deprived area houses
- poorer general health of people living in deprived communities
LESSON READING:Please read the following BBC article analysing the data that underpins this divide in England (Butcher & Aitken, 2020)
The graph below from a pre-COVID period shows male life expectancy in the UK by deprivation decile, taken from the UK Government Public Health research on healthcare inequality (not required reading but can be accessed here if of interest) showing the most deprived citizens live almost 20 years less than the least deprived.
EXAMPLE: In the UK, The King’s Fund is an independent charity that seeks to raise awareness of health inequalities in England, influencing policy and practice through debate.
LISTEN: Please listen to the Podcast by Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu, 30 September 2020, who describes not only her nursing career within the NHS, seeking to redress healthcare inequalities including her experience of racism personally and within the NHS.
Note: Sickle cell anaemia is an illness that is inherited (genetic) primarily by people of African and Caribbean heritage.
Dame Elizabeth has been a Nurse and Health Visitor who went on to become the first Sickle Cell and Thalassaemia Nurse Specialist in the UK and who then went on to become a professor or Nursing, a Dean of Nursing and a Patron of the Sickle Cell Society as well as Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing and as if that wasn’t enough, she is now Emeritus Professor of Nursing at the University of West London and in 2016, published her memoir called ‘Mixed Blessings from a Cambridge Union’ . Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu also received a CBE for her services to Nursing and in 2018 was named one of the 70 most influential nurses and midwives in the history of the NHS and
September 2020 was named one of 100 Greatest Black Britons
Dame Elizabeth considers the impact of COVID, highlighting the inequality of impact upon BAME Doctors and Nurses, reflects upon the Jamaican nurse Mary Seacole who setup a “British Hotel” behind enemy lines in the Crimean War
and celebrates the students who setup Melanin Medics – promoting diversity in medicine, widening aspirations and aiding career progression.
1) The following quote is taken from the UK Government Office for National Statistics (ONS) report, Healthcare expenditure, UK Health Accounts: 2018 , 28 April 2020.
“Healthcare expenditure in 2018
In 2018, spending on health care in the UK totalled £214.4 billion, equating to £3,227 spent per person. This includes both government and non-government spending on health care.
Healthcare expenditure can also be measured as a share of gross domestic product (GDP), to show healthcare spending relative to the whole economy. Healthcare expenditure represented 10.0% of GDP in 2018, up from 9.8% in 2017. This increase was a result of healthcare expenditure growing at a faster rate than GDP.”
Taking these figures into account and what you have read and heard about healthcare inequality,
Does the UK NHS healthcare model increase inequality, decrease inequality or have no effect? Make a list of bullet points
2) In the podcast with Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu, think about how inequality reduced and increased by the actions of:
– Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu?
– NHS colleagues?
– teachers?
– family?
Reflect upon what you can learn from this. When you begin your business career, what actions can you take to reduce inequality?
Inequality: the role of business & managers
We have established that many forms of inequality exist. The questions for us as managers, leaders and business owners is, what role can business organisations play in reducing inequalities?
The first step in the process of reducing inequalities is to recognise that they exist and are complex.
What have we mentioned so far?
- In the podcast with Dame Elizabeth Anionwu earlier in this lesson, organisational practice and culturewithin the NHS were shown to both increase and reduce inequality of health and race.
- The #BlackLivesMatter movement has shone a light on racial inequalitythat continues to exist within our society, highlighting institutional racism where racism is pervasive within the organisational culture and is not adequately tackled.
Week 3 Presentation Theory of Strategy Part 1 (3.3.1) considered the historical lack of business strategy research relating to non-white viewpoints, citing Mohanty (1988).
- A desire for gender equalityhas been highlighted by global organisations (e.g. United Nations, OECD, ILO), charities and foundations (e.g. Oxfam) plus Governments – mentioned in Week 5 Introduction.
- Research within business organisations regarding equality is often focused around pay equalityand equality of employment terms (see this week’s reading #2) where the role of HR and managers in the recruitment and employment process is highlighted.
Pay is as also discussed in terms of the role of Government in the Week 3 Introduction earlier (Gender Pay Gap) and in Week 2 in relation to the ‘Hawthorne Effect’ findings of Elton Mayo in relation to employee motivation and productivity.
- Week 2discussed contrasting management approaches and these also reflect power inequality between employees and employers. Stephen Taylor (2019) considered early organisations where organisations were viewed as machines with assembly-line jobs and poor working conditions with strong hierarchical structures reflecting the power dynamic between owner/managers and employees.
The garden metaphor was used to describe a ‘cultivating’ approach, whilst maintaining a manager-employee management dynamic, although recognising the contribution of employees.
Research by Hofstede (1980 & 1991) surveying IBM employees in 50 different countries over decades, analyses the mental perspectives and approaches that differentiate one national’s approach to business from another (see this weeks reading #1) reflecting international cultural inequality.
What other areas of inequality are on the business agenda?
The following are some further inequalities on the business agenda:
- disability inequality
The infographic below from a Disability and Inequality charity,org(link for information only) highlights many aspects of disability inequality, not least that disabled customers are often neglected by business resulting in a loss for UK business of £1.8billion per month. - wealth inequality
Recent news articles highlight the contrast between organisations failing due to the COVID pandemic, whilst others flourish by seizing opportunity, rocketing their business leaders higher towards astronomical personal wealth, for example Jeff Bezos CEO of Amazon’s wealth increase to $10.2 trillion during COVID(link for information only). (See OPTIONAL Week 5 Reading).According to Forbes (2020) (link for information only) the top ten richest billionaires have a combined wealth greater than the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of a number of countries.
- inequality of education
Education has long been viewed as a means of lifting people out of poverty, providing access to better paid employment and providing increased opportunity. An example paper by Oxfam (2019)not only makes this link but also identifies an improvement in gender equality as a result. (link for information only) - environmental inequality
This is being disadvantaged as a result of your environment compared with other communities. For example, this might mean living or working within a heavily polluted or noisy environment, subject to environmental risks or hazards. This is often closely linked to healthcare inequality and often subject to regulation and enforcement by Government bodies. - digital inequality
COVID has resulted in a forced social experiment – home working. And in doing so has highlighted digital equality whereby a lack of internet access or poor access, lack of access to technology or ability to use digital tools is resulting in marginalised and isolated people within society.
THE COST OF INEQUALITY TO BUSINESS
It is hard to quantify the cost of inequality to business because inequalities layer themselves upon each other.
EXAMPLE: A person from a socially deprived neighbourhood, may have a lack of good food when growing resulting in poorer health in general, limited access to good healthcare in an area where doctor’s surgeries and hospitals are overworked and funding is insufficient to supply the services required in the deprived community, whilst living in low quality, cramped housing. This person may have access to lower quality education, resulting in less opportunities for further education and higher paid employment and therefore experience more stress due to tenuous, low income jobs. They may have a disability, suffer from a mental health illness or be the subject of racial, gender or religious hate, or bias at the time of employment. The complex individual experiences of each person cannot be underestimated. COVID is raising visibility of inequalities and increasing the number of people experiencing inequalities. If this person applies for work or is an employee, what can business do to redress any of these inequalities?
Inequality may also exist within a business and might manifest in various ways. One example is through the process of grievances whereby employees raise a problem they have experienced in the workplace (this could be a problem with the organisation, manager or fellow employee). When grievances are unable to be resolved within the organisation, they can end up in the Employment Tribunal (ET) Courts. It is typically a long, emotionally draining and costly experience to reach the point of an ET hearing and many such cases are settled ‘on the steps’ outside the Courts.
However, cases do reach ET and many of these relating to discrimination could be considered as also reflecting some form of inequality.
The following data is taken from the UK Government ET website and though not an exact reflection of the cost of inequality, each case heard represents many, many days, weeks and months of work by employees trying to resolve the grievance and building a case with interviews, paperwork, video, phone records (involving HR, managers, employees and sometimes business leaders), plus additional hours of legal representation by solicitors and barristers and where the case is lost, a payment to the aggrieved employee(s). A massive cost for business. It is the scale of the number of cases that is of interest here and could be used by employers to understand where business is falling down and thus where to target equality strategies.
Since February 2017, Employment Tribunal decisions in England, Wales and Scotland relating to:
Race discrimination 5344
Sex discrimination 6308
Age discrimination 2746
Disability discrimination 11808
Equal Pay Act 4232
Maternity & Pregnancy Rights 2411
Inequalities reduce the number of suitable applicants to organisations, for example, through inability to meet educational criteria, through recruitment bias or racism and through the resultant lack of confidence experienced by those who falsely and through no fault of their own link their inequality experiences to a lack of ability. As a result, organisations often lack diversity and hence do not reflect the communities they serve.
Equality, Inclusion and Diversity initiatives seek to redress this problem, although the recent #BlackLivesMatter movement has highlighted how racial inequality remains deeply embedded in society and the day to day lived experiences of BAME people demonstrate there is much work to do.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR)
Inequality is often a consideration when business organisations include Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) within their business strategy.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the umbrella term used to describe the self-managing actions of organisations seeking to be accountable to itself, employees, stakeholders and wider community, looking at their impact upon the economy, environment and society. CSR activities could seek to improve inequalities and may form part of an organisation’s strategy, for example, releasing employees for volunteering with charities that seek to improve social inequalities.
Organisations may commit to ensuring that their supply chain treats workers ethically by providing fair pay and working conditions (improving equality), does not pollute the environment (improving environmental equality) or employ slave, child or forced labour (improving workplace equality). CSR is often discussed hand-in-hand with sustainability. Positive CSR and sustainability actions can result in improved organisational reputation, and as we saw when considering stakeholders in Week 4, reputation is important for shareholder values and for attracting stakeholders (employees, customers) to the organisation. So improving equality is seen as a positive by stakeholders too.
Implementation of improvements to equality are implemented as part of the overall integrated business strategy. At a practical level, this may include specific policies relating to equality measures and expected behaviours included in the implementation plan for the strategy, alongside communications activities focused on specific stakeholder groups, training of line managers and employees, as well as management of suppliers and partners.
EXAMPLE: Marks and Spencers (M&S) Plan A (link for information only) is an example of Marks & Spencer’s sustainability-focused strategy that includes environmental target actions alongside anti-slavery commitments and equality policy amongst many other integrated aspects.
Businesses can implement strategies that minimise, remove or negate inequalities.
LESSON READING: Please read the following article linked here
- Inequality Hurts Companies, Even as They Contribute to It
from Academy of Management Insights, 20 March 2020
RESEARCH & LESSON READING: Please use the library to search for the following paper:
by Bapuji, Patel, Ertug& Allen (2020)
For each paper please do the following:
SCAN: Scan the paper
SUMMARY: What is the topic of the paper/article and what are the main findings?
READ: Read the paper/article, does your summary understanding match the contents?
STRATEGY: From this research, what strategies can businesses use to improve inequality?
Question 2:
