Organizational Leaders Produce Results Through Thesis

According to the authors, this can be done if employees are given a sense of importance in the organizations. Knowledge workers are already short in supplies and most competing rivals also compete to get the best human resource in terms of knowledge workers. It is therefore essential for any organization to retain this highly skilled part of their workforce and in order to do that organizations must eliminate the autocratic elements and give the employees more say in the organization.

The shortage in supply of specialized knowledge workforce has not only made this type of labor more expensive but also more immobile and difficult to acquire. High employee turnovers with this type of labours can therefore be threatening to organization's sustainable management and long-term success. The company should be more flexible with its bureaucracy. It should allow more decentralization as far as functional and regional departments are concerned (Ireland & Hitt, 2007). Employees will have a more comfortable work relationship with executives that share their own cultural or regional background. Secondly, employee management from the country of origin would mean that the decision maker will have a greater understanding of the market and the culture of the local area. Functional and regional decentralization and delegation of responsibility to lower management levels will bring in more innovation and ideas and that will contribute to a more positive growth and progression for the company Secondly, delegating responsibilities ahead to workers will motivate them, increase their job security and thus, will increase productivity.

In essence the company should consider operating on the lines of Resource-Based View and the Best Practice approach (Foss, 1997). The company should understand the fact that the organization's internal environment is interwoven with external landscape. It must also realized that in order to ensure organizational efficiency, the organization will need to ensure that its resources, both fixed and variable are utilized at its full potential. In order to ensure that an organization maintains its competitive advantage it has to ensure that its resources are not duplicated by the competitors. The company must ensure this by providing its employees a workplace environment that is practically not offered by any other competing organization. It must strengthen the communication channels in order to ensure an efficient flow of information between all hierarchal levels (Collins, 1997). The organizational structure should be redesigned into a flatter structure and employees throughout the organizational structure must be given more participation in the organization's management. The organization will have to open doors for greater prospects for new comers. Continuous growth and grooming of employees must be ensured by providing training and apprenticeship programs (Despres & Hiltrop, 1995). The organization should introduce performance-based remuneration and appraisal system that help increasing employee productivity. The organization should increase focus on working as service providers for clients rather than mentally enclosing the scope of organization within provision of retail services. This will help in further grooming and diversification of skills for the employees. The benefits of Information Technology should be utilized by introducing an efficient intranet that strengthened communication and also assisted in ensuring efficient and effective flow of information. The organization's adherence to a Strategic-Based View approach will minimize the risk of skilled and productive labor being lost to rival companies.

The main reason why authors laid stress on retention of knowledge workers through providing decisive powers and apprenticeship programs because the emotional targets and the ego strength of such skilled workforce lies beyond conventional monetary benefits.

Research Design / Methodology

The research design is based on using an amalgamation of both qualitative and quantitative methods with a greater inclination towards qualitative research methods. While quantitative research design involved testing personality profiles and motive profiles of certain employees for their leadership potential, the qualitative research includes analysis of come case studies in organizations from different sectors.

Qualitative Research

Walmart. Wal-Mart ensures maximum workforce training and satisfaction by minimizing the communication gap between the higher management levels and lower staff. Organizational structure is well defined and leaders and managers direct the subordinates by themselves practically following and demonstrating what they expect from their subordinates to do. Wal-Mart is a major contributor in shaping American labor markets and employs more than 1.6 million people and is one of the major tax payers in the United States of America.

Nowadays, more and more companies tend to focus on creating an organizational culture that focuses more on ethical and moral values. Wal-Mart executives tend to create a culture that is based on respect and team work. They tend to create a culture that allows its customers to save money and have a better living (Murray, 1999). The founder of Wal-Mart quotes that the company believes in an open door policy, serving the customers and team work. Besides this he also says that at the core of the company's values is respect for customers, associates and suppliers.

Wal-Mart's management believes in minimizing the gap between the superior and the subordinates by encouraging communication. Moreover, in order to ensure maximum levels of job satisfaction the management it demonstrates what it expects from its subordinates. It is common for Wal-Mart managers to share their hotel room with their colleagues (Wentland, 2007).

Wal-Mart is worth billions of dollars of enterprise but its alignment with its strategy and congruent culture can be evidenced from the fact that each and every customer of Wal-Mart is greeted and assisted by the salesperson regarding any of their problems related to the organization .This creates a feeling of care in its customers which allows Wal-Mart in building good reputation of itself in the eyes of its customers. On the other hand, not much has been done by the organization in supporting its caring culture with respect to its employees as some analysts complain as mentioned before that many of Wal-Mart's employees with children live below the poverty line.

With the current top down bureaucratic management structure, Wal-Mart will never become a leading innovator. Wal-Mart is trying to compete in two very different markets - the European market and the American Market. Each market should have its own executive with his or her own marketing/R&D, Sourcing & Logistics, Finance, and Human Resources departments and representatives (Despres & Hiltrop, 1995).

The company should be more flexible with its bureaucracy. It should allow more decentralization as far as functional and regional departments are concerned (Ireland & Hitt, 2007). Employees will have a more comfortable work relationship with executives that share their own cultural or regional background. Secondly, employee management from the country of origin would mean that the decision maker will have a greater understanding of the market and the culture of the local area. Functional and regional decentralization and delegation of responsibility to lower management levels will bring in more innovation and ideas and that will contribute to a more positive growth and progression for the company Secondly, delegating responsibilities ahead to workers will motivate them, increase their job security and thus, will increase productivity.

The company employees best workforce, who support company strategy and have high satisfaction. However, there is some level of inconsistency. The company has a well defined organizational structure. Having said that, at times the decision making power is too much centralized within the hierarchy and the necessary power which is not delegated may delay decision making. This calls for some degree of regional and functional decentralization.

In the real world, the internal environment of any organization is highly influenced by the external influences (Kramer, 1992). As mentioned earlier the Retail industry is becoming very competitive with time and in order stay in the market with consistence it is important for the Retail organization to maintain their competitive advantage. Since most retail organizations in USA lack adherence to the contemporary management theory and have poor strategies for human resource management, the competitive advantage at this point for any retail organization would be to achieve managing economies by adapting more modern management practices and by ensuring higher workforce satisfaction. It has been observed that due to the lack of flexibility in management styles in the retail organizations, less and less number of people is willing to continue working in the same organization and job switching is very common. It is feared that if none of the retail organization will take an initiative to bring in flexibility in their management systems, then within a period of time the less people would prefer entering the Retail sector and as a result the country will face a shortage of retail chain stores. This in turn will result in increasing prices and decreasing quality of retail goods. Since competition is necessary in order to ensure industrial efficiency, it is essential that Retail organization become more flexible and start aligning their management practices to contemporary management concepts.

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