Managers vs. Leaders
Abstract
Management and leadership are two important concepts in a multinational business. Companies like Toyota, Nike and Disneyworld are successful because they have the best managers and leaders. Having the best managers and leaders helps a firm in its endeavor to offer a unique service and have a better standing in the competitive market. This paper analyzed the presence and effectiveness of management and leadership attributes to Unilever. The discussions on this paper focused in the behavior of managers of Unilever and their display of both management and leadership attributes. This study had different parts. One chapter focused on introducing the study. Another chapter used literatures to understand the problem and what should be the focus of the study. A chapter was dedicated to explaining the methodology used and the ethical implication of the study. The final parts focused on presenting the results of the study and the conclusion and recommendation for the study. The paper wanted to understand further the behavior of managers and leaders in Unilever. To achieve the goal of the study, the researcher used qualitative methods and gathered information from books. The researcher used books to understand the managers and leaders of Unilever. The researcher was able to find out that the managers and leaders of Unilever had been effective and have made themselves present. They concentrate on every aspect of the firm and give due importance to parts of the business that they believe is vital for its success. The managers and leaders of Unilever made sure that the welfare and success of the company would be their primary concern.
Chapter 1
Introduction
Through internal growth and through merger and acquisition, corporations grew too big, with too many divisions in too many different types of businesses. The central offices of these corporations were too far from the actual processes that developed and utilized productive resources to make informed investment decisions about how corporate resources and returns should be allocated to enable strategies based on retain and reinvest to succeed. Agency theorists posited that in the governance of corporations, shareholders were the principals and managers were their agents (Dunning & Mucchiell 2001). They argued that, because corporate managers were not disciplined by the market mechanism, they would opportunistically use their control over the allocation of corporate resources and returns to line their own pockets, or at least to pursue objectives that were contrary to the interests of shareholders. Given the entrenchment of incumbent corporate managers and the relatively poor performance of their companies in the 1970s, agency theorists argued that there was a need for a takeover market that, functioning as a market for corporate control, could discipline managers whose companies performed poorly. Takeovers, it was argued, were needed to disgorge the free cash flow from companies (Dunning & Mucchiell 2001).
The exchange of corporate shares for high-yield debt forced liquidity on the acquired or merged companies. These takeovers also placed managers in control of these corporations who were predisposed toward shedding labor and selling off physical assets if that was what was needed to meet the corporation's new financial obligations and, indeed, to push up the market value of the company's stock. For those engaged in the market for corporate control, the sole measure of corporate performance became the enhanced market capitalization of the company after the takeover. Businessmen commonly refer to the managerial group as a team, and the use of this word implies that management in some sense works as a unit. An administrative group is something more than a collection of individuals; it is a collection of individuals who have had experience working together, for only in this way can teamwork be developed (Mudambi & Ricketts1998) A theory of organization must recognize the dynamic, entrepreneurial character of organized activities. The choice processes demand more skills than are possessed by a single individual and successful choice depend on the collaboration of a group of individuals. Collaboration, either in the exchange of information or in coordinating decisions needs collaborators to have some goals in common. A way to think about the effectiveness of organization is in terms of the losses from imperfect interaction as well as the costs of interacting. All these aspects of organization are particularly acute in the corporation to which imperfections and costs of interaction are likely to be substantial (Mudambi & Ricketts1998). Multinational companies are powerful entities in the business world. They affect industries and cause changes to an industry. Multinational companies need good managing and leading skills to organize itself and to achieve its goals. This paper focused on the behavior of managers of Unilever.
Objectives of the research
The aims and objectives of the study were:
Research questions
1. How do the managers solve problems for the organization?
2. Does the organization make use of strategies to achieve its goals?
3. Does the organization use management tools to succeed in the competitive industry?
4. How do the managers address the culture of the organization?
5. How do the managers tackle the competitiveness of the organization?
6. How do the managers deal with change in the organization?
7. How do these leadership and management attributes of the managers contribute to the overall performance of the organization?
Significance of the Study
People use language, specifically writing, to interact with one another and the world around them. Part of this interaction is related to learning, for writing can be used in a general way to enhance knowledge. Language provides a kind of rehearsal that helps people remember things better (Fitzgerald, Graham & MacArthur 2006). As a vehicle for analysis, it can reveal a subject's complexities, and it also can help organize thoughts .Many of the conventional research strategies familiar to social scientists reflect what was possible given the resources of data, technology, and techniques available until around the early 1980s. As technological advances have relaxed these constraints, the challenge now is to recognize that, with the girdle off, researchers can move about more freely, in both designing data gathering and analyzing the data gathered. This requires a re-examination of research strategies and a reworking of the decision rules conventionally used to identify successful analyses. In the first place, increased computer-processing power enables researchers to realize the ideals of statistical analysis (Fitzgerald, Graham & MacArthur 2006).
In the early days of applying computer-aided methodologies to social science data, researchers often had to make do with only some rough approximation to those ideals. Moreover, under the weight of convention, these approximations became reified as standard rules of engagement. In the light of current technological capabilities, we suggest that these canons of judgment should, and can, be reassessed. Secondly, data scarcity complemented underpowered computers. There were simply not enough data available to address many of the interesting, and usually complex, social science questions which deserved close-cutting, sophisticated tools (Grinnell Jr & Unrau 2005). Moreover, what data there were, other than one's own home-grown variety, were usually difficult to access and wearisome to transfer between research sites. In this sense, it did not really matter very much that researchers lacked high-powered processing capabilities. These limitations had effects, thirdly, on the skills of researchers. Social scientists themselves often lacked the expertise required to perform complex analyses. Similarly, they often lacked the technical knowledge to master complicated resources. For the most part, research training reflected the common practice of applying prefigured, or canned, solutions to familiar datasets. So long as the limited scope of both the data and the technology was accepted within the professional community, standard procedures could be learned with the assurance that they would serve throughout an extended career. Statistical significance and practical significance are very different concepts. A difference is statistically significant if it is unlikely to have occurred by chance (Grinnell Jr & Unrau 2005). This research will be significant for the managers of Unilever since it will help in making sure that the company will be properly managed. This research will be helpful for Unilever so that it can assess how it run its operations and create actions that will make sure that they perform above standards. The research would be helpful for other members of Unilever’s industry so that they can emulate the management strategy of the firm and create significant changes. A thriving competition would make the industry healthy and help prove the firm’s dominance. The research will be significant for other researchers so that they can create methods to successfully manage a company. The research will be significant for people who would want to start their own business. This will give them tips on how to start a business, how to manage it and how to make it successful amidst the competition.
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Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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