Digital Equipment, Scotland: The VLSI Story

Introduction

Memo : The intention of this report is to update the Managing Director of VLSI about the managerial attitudes to a structural change of recent organisational development and addresses how the management team would to coup with the proposed change to improve communications and maximise operating efficiencies throughout the organisation. The report continues its efforts in response to applying the theoretical and empirical evidence of the organisational. The report has gathered the most recent information on e-business including up-to-date data and a large amount of developing trends of e-business which would be useful for both academic researches as well as for any business drive lead to online automation.

Literature overview of different managerial attitudes

Management function

DeCenzo, D. A. & Robbins, S. P, (2008) stated that an organisation is a consciously coordinated social unit, composed of two or more people that functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or a set of goals. Managers get things done through other people. They make decisions, allocate resources, and direct the activities of others to attain goals. Managers do their work in an Organisation, which is a consciously coordinated social unit, composed of two or more people that functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals.

Anthony, W. P. Prrewe, P. L., & Kacmar, K. M. (2002) addressed that, on the basis of this definition, manufacturing and service firms are Organisations and so are schools, hospitals, churches, military units, retail stores, police departments, and local, state, and federal government agencies. The people who oversee the activities of others and who are responsible for attaining goals in these Organisations are managers although they are sometimes called administrators, especially in not-for-profit Organisations.

DeCenzo, D. A. & Robbins, S. P, (2008) also argued that in the early part of the twentieth century, a French industrialist by the name of Henri Fayol wrote that all managers perform five management functions. They plan, Organise, command, coordinate, and control. Today, those have condensed these to four- planning, Organising, leading, and controlling.

• Planning: Regarding Organisations that exists to achieve goals, someone has to define those goals and the means for achieving them, management is that of someone, a process that includes defining goals, establishing strategy, and developing a comprehensive set of plans to integrate and coordinate activities.
• Organising: Managers are also responsible for designing an Organisation’s structure. This function is called Organising. It includes determining what tasks are to be done, who is to do them, how the tasks are to be grouped, who reports to whom, and where decisions are to be made.
• Leading: Every Organisation contains people, and it is management’s job to direct and coordinate those people. This is the leading function. When managers motivate employees, direct the activities of others, select the most effective communication channels, or resolve conflicts among members, they are engaging in leading.
• Controlling: The final function managers perform is controlling. To ensure that things are going as they should, management must monitor the Organisation’s performance.

Foot, M., and Hook, C. (2005) explained that the actual performance is then compared with the previously set goals. If there are any significant deviations, it is management’s job to get the Organisation back on track. This monitoring, comparing, and potential correcting is what is meant by the controlling function. So, using the functional approach, the answer to the question- “What do managers do?”- is that they plan, Organise, lead, and control.

Management role

Luis R. Gomez-Mejia, David B. Balkin, R. Cardy, L. (2006) mentioned that in the late 1960s, Henry Mintzberg, a graduate student at MIT, undertook a careful study of five executives to determine what these managers did on their jobs. On the basis of his observations, Mintzberg concluded that managers perform 10 different, highly interrelated roles-or sets of behaviours-attributable to their jobs. !0 roles can be grouped as below:

Interpersonal roles

Foot, M., and Hook, C. (2005) mentioned that all managers are required to perform duties that are ceremonial and symbolic in nature and also have a leadership role. This role includes hiring, training, motivating, and disciplining employees. The third role within the interpersonal grouping is the liaison role. Mintzberg described this activity as conducting outsiders who provide the manager with information. These may be individuals or groups from the quality-control manager in his or her own company that has an internal liaison relationship. When that sales manager has contacts with other sales executives through a marketing trade association, he or she has an outside liaison relationship.

Informational roles

All managers, to some degree, collect information from outside Organisations and institutions. Typically, they obtain it by reading magazines and talking with other people to learn of changes in the public’s tastes, what competitors may be planning, and the like. Mintzberg called this the monitor role. Managers also act as a conduit to transmit information to Organisational members. This is the disseminator role. In addition, managers perform a spokesperson role when they represent the Organisation to outsiders.

Decisional role

Finally, Mintzberg identified four roles that that revolve around making choices. In the entrepreneur role, managers initiate and oversee new projects that will improve their Organisation’s performance. As disturbance handlers managers take corrective action in response to unforeseen problems. As resource allocators, managers are responsible for allocating human, physical, and monetary resources. Last, managers perform a negotiator role, in which they discuss issues and bargain with other units to gain advantages for their own unit.

Management skills

Gowler, D. Legge, K, and Clegg, C. (1993) argued that still another way of considering what managers do is to look at the skills or competencies they need to achieve their goals and for this following three management skills are needed:

1. Technical skills: Technical skills encompass the ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise. All jobs require some specialized expertise, and many people develop their technical skills on the job.
2. Human skills: The ability to work with, understand, and motivate other people, both individually and in groups, defines human skills. Many people are technically proficient but interpersonally incompetent. They might be poor listeners, unable to understand the needs of others or have difficulty managing conflicts. Because managers get things done through other people, they must have good human skills to communicate, motivate, and delegate.
3. Conceptual skills: Managers must have the mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations. These tasks require conceptual skills. Decision making, for instance, requires managers to identify problems, develop alternative solutions, and select the best one. Managers can be technically and interpersonally competent yet still fail because of an inability to rationally process and interpret information.

Managerial attitudes to structural change in the Organisation

Newstrom, J. W., Davis, K. (2002) described that an Organisational structure defines how job takes are formally divided, grouped, and coordinated. There are six key elements that managers need to address when they design their Organisation’s structure. A short description of these elements of managerial attitudes to structural change in the Organisation is bellow:

Work specialisation

Bloisi W, Cook C. W. & Hunsaker, P. L. (2007) explained how job tasks are formally divided, grouped, and coordinated. By breaking jobs up into small standardized tasks, which could be performed over and over again, while using employees who had relatively limited skills. Work can be performed more efficiently if employees are allowed to specialize, today work specialisation is used or division of labour, to describe the degree to which activities in the Organisation are subdivided into separate jobs.

Bratton, J. & Gold, J. (2007) demonstrated that most manufacturing jobs in industrialized countries were being done with high work specialisation. Management saw this as a means to make the most efficient use of its employees’ skills.

In most Organisations, some tasks require highly developed skills and others can be performed both the most demanding and the least demanding jobs. The result would be that, except when performing the most skilled or highly complex tasks, employees would be working below their skill levels. And because skilled workers are paid more than unskilled workers and their wages tend to reflect their highest level of skill, it represents an inefficient use of Organisational resources to pay highly skilled workers to do easy tasks. Managers also saw other efficiencies that could be achieved through work specialisation.

Departmentalization

Buchanan, D. & McCalman, J.,(2003) argued that anyone has divided jobs up through work specialisation, he needs to group these jobs together so that common tasks can be coordinated. The basis by which jobs are grouped together is called departmentalization. One of the most popular ways to group activities is by functions performed. A manufacturing manager might organise a plant by separating engineering, accounting, manufacturing, personnel, and supply specialists into common departments.

• Chain of command: The chain of command is an unbroken line of authority that extends from the top of the Organisation to the lowest echelon and clarifies who reports to whom. It answers questions for employees such as “To whom do I go if I have a problem? and “To whom am I responsible?” The chain of command without discussing two complementary concepts- authority and unity of command can not be discussed.
• The span of controls: The span of control is important because, to a large degree, it determines the number of levels and managers an Organisation has. All things being equal the wider or larger the span, the more efficient the Organisation.
• Centralization and decentralization: Dawson, S (1996) mentioned that the term centralization refers to the degree to which decision making is concentrated at a single point in the Organisation. The concept includes only formal authority- that is, the rights inherent in one’s position. The more that lower-level personnel provide input or are actually given the discretion to make decisions, the more decentralization there is.
• Formalization: Formalization refers to the degree to which jobs within the Organisation are standardized. If a job is highly formalized, then the job incumbent has a minimum amount of discretion over what is to be done, when it is to be done, and how is to be done. Where formalization is low, job behaviours are relatively non-programmed and employees have a great deal of freedom to exercise discretion in their work.

Case study: Digital Equipment, Scotland: The VLSI Story

About the company

“VLSI” stands for “Very Large Scale Integration”, Its conducts assembly business in Scotland near Ayr of Digital equipment. This company assembles and tests semiconductors of business computers for Digitals. As in Scotland, Digital is one of the computer manufacturing companies in the world. In 1983, it starts its operation through a test facility as a small-scale. Within the three-shift system, assembly operations work 24 hours. Each integrated circuit is worth £300. On each shift, about 230 employees work together around them 74 operators and 4 supervisors work in the 25,000 square feet factory and within those 10,000 square feet are cleanroom. Working conditions and training facilities are available here and for this workers stay here for a long time. It starts its both assembling and testing in 1989.

Managerial attitudes of the company

To work in the company employees of the company have faced some interpersonal problems. These are shown as bellow-

• Functional groups face an invisible barrier when working because there is a lot of stress and conflict among them.
• Not only functional groups but also engineer and quality groups are involved in the conflict.
• Hierarchy and the lines of reporting and management responsibility are not Organised or disciplined.
• There is nobody to consult about strengthen of the functional group.
• Lack of pay attention in better communication.
• There are no direct functional boundaries among small management groups for accountability of business.

Recommendation

An Organisation’s internal structure contributes to explaining and predicting behaviour. That is, in addition to individual and group factors, the structural relationships in which people work has bearing on employee attitudes and behaviour. Strategy, size, technology, and environment determine the type of structure an Organisation will have.

• For sound accountability, this company needs to centralise its Organisational structure.
• Maintain a direct functional boundary among small management groups.
• Remove all types of communication barriers.
• To consult about the strengthening of the company strategy of the functional group has changed.
• Formulate a disciplined hierarchy for management responsibility and reporting.
• Root out the conflict between the quality group and engineering group for better performance.
• To remove stress and conflicts change the working shifts in the factory.

Conclusion

As an organisation VLSI, is a consciously coordinated social unit, composed of with different department more people that functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal to a set of goals. Managers get things done through other people. They make decisions, allocate resources, and direct the activities of others to attain goals. Managers do their work in an Organisation, which is a consciously coordinated social unit, composed of two or more people that functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals.

Appendix

Bibliography

Anthony, W. P. Prrewe, P. L., & Kacmar, K. M. (2002), Strategic Human Resource Management, 4th edition, The Dryden Press, London, ISBN: 0-03-096543-8.

Bloisi W, Cook C. W. & Hunsaker, P. L. (2007) Management and Organisational Behaviour, 2nd ed. maidenhead: McGraw hill.

Bratton, J. & Gold, J. (2007) human resource management, 4^th edition, Basingstoke: Pal grave.

Buchanan, D. & McCalman, J., Digital Equipment, Scotland: The VLSI Story.

Dawson, S (1996), Analysing Organisations, London Macmillan.

DeCenzo, D. A. & Robbins, S. P, (2008), Fundamentals of Human Resource Management, 8th edition, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, ISBN: 9812-53-171-8.

Foot, M., and Hook, C. (2005) Introducing human resource management, 4th edition, Prentice Hall: London, ISBN: 9780273681748.

Gowler, D. Legge, K, and Clegg, C. (1993), Organisational Behaviour & Human Resource Management, 2nd ed., Paul Chapman, London.

Luis R. Gomez-Mejia, David B. Balkin, R. Cardy, L. (2006), Managing Human Resources, 4th edition, Prentice Hall: London, ISBN- 81-203-2804-3.

Newstrom, J. W., Davis, K. (2002), Organisational Behavior, 11th Edition, Tata-McGraw Hill Publishing Company Limited, London, ISBN: 0-07-047264-5.