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Managing People in an Organisation

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Managing People in an Organisation
Organisations have diversified through different era with new technologies and new strategies input. Managing people in an organisation has always been foremost priority for all the organisations to get competitive advantage. Organisational Culture is perhaps the single most important factor accounting for success or the failure of an organisation. In 1992For instance, in 1992, Kotter and Heskett conducted a long-term study of the largest ten to eleven high-performing companies in each of twenty-two industries over a seventeen-year time period (Kotter & Heskett, 1992). The study included a quantitative analysis of the relationship between culture and performance in more than 200 companies including Hewlett-Packard, Xerox, Nissan, and First Chicago. The study found that those companies that actively managed their cultures to be adaptive and flexible outperformed companies with strong but rigid cultures by an impressive margin: • Revenue increase of 682 percent versus 166 percent • Workforce expansion of 282 percent versus 36 percent • Stock price increase of 901 percent versus 74 percent • Net income increases of 756 percent versus 1 percent
In another study on the same theme, it was found that three-quarters of business process reengineering (BPR), total quality management (TQM), and downsizing efforts failed mainly because of the neglect of cultural issues (Cameron & Quinn, 1999).
All the above indicates that leadership in modern business is essentially synonymous to the creation, and management of the organization’s culture. At times it can even be the destruction and reconstruction of existing culture (Schein, 1992). The issue of culture acquires particular importance in companies competing on the basis of quality, technology and innovation rather than on mere cost reduction.
The ‘culture’ being referred to here is however not the culture of the nation/region where the organization is embedded but that of the organization itself, the assumption of



Bibliography: Armstrong, M. & Murlis, H. (1991) Reward Management: A Handbook of Remuneration Strategy and Practice. London: Kogan Page. Cited in: Hume, D.A. (1995) Reward Management: Employee Performance, Motivation and Pay. Beardwell, I. (2004) An introduction to human resource management: strategy, style or outcome. In: Beardwell, I., Holden, L. & Claydon, T., eds. Human Resource Management: a contemporary approach. 4th ed. London Becker, B. & Gerhart, B. (1996) ‘The impact of human resource management on organizational performance: Process and prospects’ Academy of Management Journal, vol.39 Drucker, P.F. (1977) People and Performance: The Best of Peter Drucker on Management. London Drucker, P. (1989) The New Realities. 1st ed. Oxford: Heinemann. Durcker, P.F. (1993) Post-capitalist society. New York: HarperCollins. Pfeffer, J. (1994) Competitive advantage through people. Boston: Harvard Business School Press

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