Employee Portal for Human Resource
Introduction Information systems have revolutionized the way businesses get conducted. It facilitates automation across departments. Information systems are getting actively used by human-resource team. Most of Human-Resource activities are done through online or web-based portals. This web based portal help employee or HR team member access data from anywhere in the world or from remote […]
Why Project Managers Should Not Overpromise and Underestimate at the Same Time
The Perils of Overpromising It is often said that project management is both an art and a science. It is a science because project managers have to estimate time and cost that it takes to actualize the deliverables. It is an art, as they have to manage resources, people, and other stakeholders. In this context, […]
The 5 Whys Analysis and How to Effectively Use it
What is Five Why’s Analysis? The Five Why’s analysis, also known as the root cause analysis is one of the seven basic tools that are used in Six Sigma. The principle idea behind the tool is the fact that for every effect there is a cause. Therefore the quality problem can be viewed as an […]
What is Pugh Matrix and How to Use it ?
The Pugh Matrix is one of the most widely used methods of finding out the best solution once a number of alternate solutions have been generated. The success of the Pugh Matrix is in its simplicity. The tool is not very mathematically intensive and fairly simple to use. However, it has a record of coming […]
What Six Sigma is Not ? – Fallacies about Six Sigma
Six Sigma has really become a management buzzword. A lot of people use it in very different contexts. As a result a variety of meanings have been conjured up for the very simple six sigma process. To simplify matters and to ensure that the readers have an accurate understanding of what the Six Sigma process […]
When organizations have “flat” structures and consist of coalitions of people coming together with multiple loyalties, intersection of the organization with its environment being characterized by shifting boundaries; the informal nature of the work processes makes use of “open” systems approach towards organizations.
The point to note here is that external environments both shape and support the structure and the organizations are viewed as systems with interdependent networks of people and projects some of which are tightly coupled but, most are loosely coupled (Scott & Davies, 2007, 63). This has led to a characterization of organizations which behave like “living systems” and hence the real world of human behaviour manifests in the way the organizations are run.
The psychological and emotional aspects of the people working in such organizations are better served by open systems approach and hence, it would be advisable for managers in these organizations to take this approach.
Given the recent trend towards viewing people as assets instead of just another factor of production, managers in service sector companies tend to use the open systems approach.
The open systems approach lends itself to malleability and a “shape shifting” nature which allows the organizations to “sense” the market and “intuit” the future trends (Malone, 2009).
The “organizations of the future” adopt this approach which relies on dealing with complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity and does not rely on formalized structures alone for decision making and support (Malone, 2009, 93). This approach would be beneficial to managers in all organizations as this lends itself to the complexities of the modern world and the 21st century business landscape which is anything but simple and linear.
Companies like Google and Microsoft can be considered as taking an open systems approach to HRM and have permeable layers in the organizational structure which come together for specific projects whose permanence can be measured in months and at the maximum years. Because of this symbiotic nature of the interactions among their units, these organizations and the managers in these companies often practice the open system or natural approach towards HRM.
These organizations view themselves as throbbing and dynamic entities akin to a living organism that is in symbiotic relationship with its environment and hence the managers in these organizations favour the open systems approach towards HRM (Salancik, 2007, 19).
The rational approach to organizations is being outdated and though there are many sectors where the approach serves the purpose, the declining importance of traditional industries like manufacturing in the economies of the West has meant that many managers are adopting the systems view. However, the fact that the bureaucracies of the governments are increasing in size and that many developing countries are still in the phase where the manufacturing sector is dominant means that the rational approach is unlikely to fade away anytime soon.
Whether managers should prefer one over the other would depend on the industry, the organizational structure and the real world imperatives that they face. Considering that management is situational and context dependent there is no one right way to get the job done and hence managers must “intuit” the approach that they need to take.
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Costs in Project Management – Costs associated with the Projects
February 12, 2025
