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BUSM2301 - Organizational Analysis Assignment - Group Report Astral Consulting Mining Company Case Study Tran Gia Bao - s3757331 Luu Trong Dung - s3863990 Nguyen Thu Ha - s3678713 Pham Quang Minh - s3864204 Vo Van Bon - s3857506 Jung Woo Han SGS Campus Word count: 3323 I Introduction Currently, our company is working with an international mining industry partner named Astral Consulting, the company’s headquarters is in Australia and also have many branches across the world such as Latin America, Asia, Alaska and The Congo The company exploited different types of natural minerals such as Zinc, Copper, Gold and trace materials, which generated its economic growth in the recent years, with a substantial number of function and acquisition development However, these firms are yet to be programmed into the organization, which results in many issues globally, especially its environmental protection issue and social pressure issue Thus, Astral Consulting group must address their problems to take better control of their general management The problems and solutions will be presented based on the Functionalism and Social Relativism theories since these two business concepts are most suitable with the mining industry (Burrell, G., & Morgan, G 1979) Furthermore, we also analyse some of the externalities of the company that may happen with other concepts such as Neo Humanism or Radical Structuralism, this part will be discussed further in the discussion paragraph II Problem Statement According to the case study from Astral Consulting mining company, we have found out that the client mining industry has struggled with various issues locally and internationally while working with us As a partner of Astral Consulting company, we will state some of their serious problems that need to be addressed in order to improve the relationship between two companies as well as Astral Consulting’s functions and operations, based on the Functionalism and Social Relativism concepts The first and foremost problem of the mining company is that there are no common approaches among various branches across the globe, this issue is considered as the standardization problem while company sites may have no same achievable goals over key performance indicators, company culture, employees engagement, et cetera The second problem of the company is that there is lack of knowledge in management skills since Astral Consulting mining company have no ability in utilize the lessons learned into real functioning, this maybe the problems of no proper training sessions for workers or the leaders are lack of academic knowledge, this is also considered as the human resource management problem The third problem of the mining industry is the economic issue, the companies are unable to accelerate the economic growth based on each scale, each company site may not meet the required profits as given or the ESGs standards (ESG is standing for environment, social and governance indicators to see how productive, economically potential of a company) (Chen, J., 2021) The majority of institutional investors lack the motivation, money investment and time to control or discipline management According to Harvard Business Review analysis, since shareholders are less embedded in the underlying value of the companies whose securities are traded, the more impact short-term traders have on stock prices, the more volatile such prices would be (Fox, J and Lorsch, J., 2012) The company sites need capital investment for developing economic growth, so there will be lack of money investment for each Astral’s shareholder while the stock market of the company is insecure due to the increasing in shareholders There are so many branches in lots of countries while Astral Consulting company is unable to manage their performance and have less academic requirements as well as economic sustainability, therefore, this will result in increasing the shareholder’s pressure from activism (Fox, J and Lorsch, J., 2012) Last but not least, the company may increase the community pressure due to its mining production, this will affect the environmental aspect based on each scale of the mining process such as drilling, grinding, burning and minerals exploitation in general This will affect the underground water and air quality for the nearby residents As an environmental organization, the company should focus on ecosystem sustainability, however, we have not seen any environmental protection activities from Astral Consulting and this is one of their biggest issues over the world In our analysis, this issue is considered as the social relativism issue or social issue III Literature review To solve a problem in a company, we must identify the root of the problem and then propose solutions To solve the problems of the mining company, the two paradigms of the functionalist approach and the social relativism approach need to be considered and discussed First, functionalism is also called objective regulation It is to apply models and methods derived from natural sciences to study human problems (Hirschheim, and Klein, 1989) In the case of this operator, the management of these firms requires alignment and a functionalist approach will evaluate the functions corresponding to the major public entity Then propose a structural model to help reshape the company's apparatuses after integration However, it is worth noting that functionalism focuses on individual roles to form an integrated unit (Hirschheim and Klein, 1989) Therefore, the operator must evaluate and review the subsidiaries before integrating At the same time, the merger helps synchronize the company's operations that will help drive growth in scale and generate profits Figure 1: Information Systems Development Paradigms by Burrel and Morgan 1979 To further unify the new corporate components, management should form a sustainable structure, to better cope with the challenge of managing companies in different cultures In addition, in addition to adopting the functionalist's approach to take advantage of information access, it makes it easier for the organization to manage Such employees feel comfortable and of greater importance, if they are informed or involved in the decisionmaking process Fostering an innovative information environment can not only benefit company productivity but also promote employee loyalty to the company (Plumer, 2011) Thus, promoting diversity can transform cultural interconnections into a more energy activity and thus stimulate demand for large-scale production In the 1989 study of Hirschheim and Klein, it is shown that the social relativist paradigm seeks explanation in the realm of individual consciousness and subjectivity, in the frame of reference of the social actor as opposed to the observer of the action According to this viewpoint, “social roles and institutions exist as an expression of the Greek that men attach to their world.” To put it more easily, in this case, things like people, hardware, software, rules such as physical or formal, objective entities are brought into the service of the economic class According to research by Burrell and Morgan in 1979 proposed "all the theories of organization are based on scientific philosophy and theory of society" However, new arrivals of companies will appear different in terms of national culture, people, beliefs, etc., which may cause variables when placed in the case of the operator This poses a number of obstacles for us One challenge posed is that, as the document review mentioned, should we include the analyst in organizational analysis or should we take a client standpoint important to evaluate this issue? When analytical and information development systems are applied, how we measure these variances in a reasonable and cost-effective budget for the company? Figure 2: Subjective approach and objective approach to social science Social relativism will help organize activities in accordance with the country's culture and help reduce pressure from the community The first problem is that shareholders become more and more active, either because the company is on the rise, the management is planning a strategy or they are just trying to merge the institutions It is impossible to know that, but the actions of the shareholders further disturb the equilibrium of the company The dynamics of management and companies that have not been integrated into the organization sooner or later have a direct impact on the operation Relativism will propose directions for companies in different countries and combine functionalism in integration to come up with unified management linkages for companies On the other hand, the mining industry affects the surrounding environment So, it is necessary to develop a model to respond to situations and annual reports showing the world on the environment and people If it is integrated, but the company cannot operate, it makes no difference The publication of the report should include environmental and human impacts People will feel more secure and the company will also be less likely to get involved in troubles IV Solution development and proposal Solution proposal: According to the issues that we have conducted earlier, the organization is facing pressure from its shareholders for their activism in the organization Besides, the connection between the function and sub-function is not well-integrated resulted in the company having difficulty delivering a common approach that helps the organisation apply learned lessons into practices and grow on the economic scale Amburgey et al (1990) emphasise that restructuring the organization could be hazardous, and overcome it will promote the organisation’s health Therefore, we create this structure model and the progress model to deliver a solution increasing consistency among organization functions Figure 3: New hierarchical structure in Functionalism The new structure was designed to help reconstruct the organization structure to become more hierarchical to maximize the command and control of the authority, which creates a precisely defined business structure between the departments that linked them through a clear chain of command (RMIT 2021, Functionalism, slide 13) After the reconfiguration, we have the vice manager who is accounted for delivering work to their department and reporting the progress to the general manager for determining the final decision and report them directly to the organization’s shareholders In addition, the proposed structure aims to create a common approach for the company to have a better connection between the departments and increase the shareholder’s activism in the organization In contrast, eliminate the excess function to improve employee work effectiveness and reduce the operation cost to grow on the economic scale Moreover, this structure also helps the client to be easier for applying experiences gained into practices Figure 4: Solution implementation The above diagram is our process model, which indicates the steps for implementing the solution However, it is quite common for firms to use organization restructuring as means of experimenting with the structure to find more promising configurations( Capron, Dussauge, & Mitchell, 1998; & Brown, 1999, Karim, 2006) In the beginning stage, we recommended that our client arrange a meeting for announcing the reconfiguration of the business structure After the announcement, the firm will need to categorize the employees to put them in their appropriate department Taking inspiration from Idiographic -Nomothetic methodology, this is a subjective approach methodology that required the client to collect firsthand data to evaluate the efficiency of the solution because there is no information filter; therefore, collecting the information directly would be the most effective way to measure V Discussion and conclusion One of the problems with Astral Consulting can be seen, which is its inability to drive economies of scale The company appears to have seen significant growth after acquiring several other smaller firms This seems to be a good direction for the long-term development of Astral Consulting, but this rapid growth has in fact severely imbalanced and fragmented its organizational structure In the role of a manager, it is also difficult to control the overall growth of the organization when there is an imbalance in the growth of small companies in the same system The solution to increase the interests of shareholders by making the most accurate reports, forecasts and rewarding stock prices for companies with good growth is also a safe solution to solve the problem of profitability benefit shareholders and the stable general development of the whole system The above solution will first give shareholders more excitement in the issue of equity investment in the organization In addition, shareholders will gain a better understanding and detail of activities and what is actually happening within the organization through reports with concretized metrics (Burrell & Morgan, 1979) Thereby helping the system develop the best from within However, the above solution will also inadvertently create a conflict of interest between the head and the lower department The transparency of data reports will reduce the influence of managers because shareholders then have the opportunity to provide criticism, suggestions and personal opinions for the purpose of finding out personal benefit and influence of the head ( Burrell & Morgan, 1979) The increased pressure on shareholders is also a problem for the organization Astral Consulting increasingly has more powerful shareholders, and of course they will also demand high economic interests This inadvertently creates barriers to the sustainable development of the organization when the interests of shareholders and the requirements for social responsibility will be strongly conflicted Therefore, it is necessary to build a model to respond to situations and annual reports showing the impacts on the environment and people Most solutions offered such as Investing in products and services people need, Innovation impacting socio-economic goals, Lower-impact mining techniques, Friendly equipment To the environment and to restore the mining sites, both are intended to protect the environment and satisfy the society The common benefits of the above solutions will help businesses go further in sustainable development Maybe at this time shareholders will not receive high economic benefits, however, if building a development foundation from the benefits of society and the environment is the core, in the future investors investment will have more investment opportunities because it has created values for society and people, from which economic benefits will develop more stably in the long run (Social Relativism) However, the biggest limitation for the above solutions will surely be that the economic efficiency will not be maximized in a short period of time In addition, focusing too much on balancing shareholder interests and environmental and social responsibility creates more problems and arising tasks to meet it, so it will be a challenge When the organization has to meet too many goals at the same time, the productivity will not be high Furthermore, while performing the above tasks, in the bad case, if good results are not achieved, it is possible that the organizational structure will be disordered and greatly affected when it takes time and effort and is not collected good results again On the other hand, the only application of Functionalism and Social Relativism to the application of solutions for Astral Consulting is quite an important shortcoming From our personal point of view, Neo-Humanism will help to come up with better solutions in terms of helping Employees to be truly engaged, not emotionally and socially burdened, able to express ideas and fulfill their full potential so that the organization can more easily develop more sustainably Furthermore, Neo-Humanism will provide effective criticism of unethical behaviors that affect people and the environment and make it easier for organizations to properly define their goals (Aktouf, 1992 ) Meanwhile, Radical Structuralism will also assist the organization in revealing the behaviors that cause inequality in the organization so that it can provide the most accurate solutions for organizational restructuring (Hirschheim & Klein, 1989: 1207) In addition, Radical Structuralism considers resistance to be positive because workers are then aware of their collective benefits, so if applied to Astral Consulting, this will help organizations achieve social progress (Hirschheim & Klein, 1989: 1207) VI References Amburgey, T., Kelly, D and Barnett, W., 1990 RESETTING THE CLOCK: THE DYNAMICS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE AND FAILURE Academy of Management Proceedings, 1990 2006 Modularity in organizational structure Estados Unidos: John Wiley & Sons Hirschheim, Rudy and Klein, Heinz K (1989 October) Four paradigms of information systems development Communications of the ACM Vol 32, NO 10 pp: 1201 https://www.academia.edu/13965942/Four_paradigms_of_information_systems_development Plumer, Brad (2011, October 26) The upsides of overpopulation The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/the-upsides-ofoverpopulation/2011/10/26/gIQAdzJ7IM_blog.html Burrell, G., & Morgan, G (1979) Sociological Paradigms and Organizational Analysis ( chapter 1-3 Heinz K Klein, January 1993 The Application of Neohumanist Principles in Information Systems Development Aktouf, 1992 Management and Theories of Organizations in 1990s : TOWARD A CRITICAL RADICAL HUMANISM? Chen, J., 2021 Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Criteria [online] Investopedia Available at: [Accessed May 2021] Fox, J and Lorsch, J., 2012 What Good Are Shareholders? [online] Harvard Business Review Available at: [Accessed May 2021] VII Appendix: Group Reflection In this course, we have a chance to meet a guest speaker from Deloitte South East Asia who is Ms Thoa She is the manager of the Human Capital Consulting department in Deloitte The topic that she talks about is organization transformation and organization design The design of an organization structure determines the best solution that is most effective for accomplishing its strategy through people The process will follow the 3D Method which is Decide, Design, and Deliver Ms Thoa also showed us a case study to give us a brief example of how we should analyze and break down the business base on different situations The method starts with Decide which is understanding the business category and how to deconstruct its system to know its efficiency, cost, or spend control This phase makes sure that we understand everything about the distribution of the business system and figure out if there exist problems With the information that we examine, we can start designing an efficiency in all perspectives of the organization and help it be sustainable The second phase is a redesign, but we need to understand the internal factors and external factors that impact the business strategy We need to analyze the internal trends and external trends and how they could be better by transformation Internal factors can be reduced cost, technology improvement, or culture and leadership development External factors can be customer service, impact on the environment or increase market growth They come together to make the business achieve its goal and there will be a most effective way of organizing the system to make it more reliable, sustainable, and reduce cost Lastly, after figuring out the solution for a better organization setup, the design will be delivered and considered to apply in reality However, there will be many risks that will be impacted by the reconstruction of an organization, and we need a transaction plan for it The comedown will cause many employees to lose their job or there will be 75 percent that the transformation will fail Therefore, we need to carefully plan to make it most effective and helpful for the business then make it change to become better and also make the relationship between supervisor and worker can be more engaging The plan will be successful if every step is on their track and can be able to change the business organization system to make it better to develop This method is related to Functionalism because it puts employees to be effective and costs which will bring it to be more sustainable It also clearly shows that every employee needs to work their job perfectly to match with the whole organization to make it sustainable The lecture from Ms Thoa helps us understand how to analyze an organization deeply and clearly see how an organization is built up Therefore, it helps us apply the knowledge in the lecture to work on this assignment Every member in our group concludes with each other about the perspective that we will follow in this assignment before we start writing Moreover, we have tight communication between each member and adduce details in our assignment paper This helps the paper quality higher and shows more detail that we analyze and solve the problem by what we learn in class and guest speaker lecture From the beginning, we have a meeting together and together brainstorming our idea and solution to this assignment We conclude our idea into a plan and we will follow that to finish our assignment There are not many challenges in our way to write this assignment besides our deadline weeks and we have to multiple assignments in a short period of time We give our thanks to our lecturer for giving us more time to work on the paper and improve its quality We make sure that our group is working together, show our idea, and achieve our goal of submitting on due time Every member has done their job perfectly as divided and we are happy to make sure that the paper is the best version and it is what we acknowledge when studying in class and the lecture from the guest speaker How our group organizes our part for this assignment is the same as the idea of Social Relativism We together set up the same goal and we can separate working our part and what we feel is the best detail for this assignment Every member in our group has understood their responsibility and done our part as best as we can Moreover, we also share our idea that we will fit the most while writing, that how we make our paper more connected with each other and to be very easy to understand our idea of how we solve this assignment requirement THE AGREEMENT OF TASK ALLOCATION: Date of agreement: 9/5/2021 Signed by (all workgroup members to sign) Student's name ID Task Contribution Tran Gia Bao s3757331 100% Nguyen Thu Ha s3678713 100% Luu Trong Dung s3863990 100% Signature Dung Luu Trong Dung Pham Quang Minh s3864204 100% Vo Van Bon s3857506 100% Equity of Contribution POLICY OBJECTIVE The objective of this policy is to be explicit about expectations and obligations of student contribution to group assessment tasks All members of the workgroup should adhere to the policies outlined in the signed policy document In the case where a few members undertake work on behalf of the workgroup above and beyond the contribution required of the rest of the workgroup members, this policy should allow for their contribution to be recognised and this may be in the form of receiving additional marks In the case where members of the group rely on others in their group to complete work on their behalf, marks should be deducted from that individual student in the group To this end it is set out that each member of the workgroup must contribute to the class in the following areas: • Attendance • Oral participation (if required) • Written work • Contribution to the workgroup commitments as outlined in the ‘Team Charter’ Each student group is to prepare their own Code Of Conduct that indicates the rules of engagement that they will adhere to to ensure an equitable contribution to group work by all members Oral Participation 2.1 Oral participation of all members is expected in the following: 2.1.1 Managing and leading 2.1.2 Staff development 2.1.3 Group reflection 2.1.4 Workgroup discussion during meeting times and in workgroup meetings 2.2 As well as speaking it is expected that all workgroup members will practice active listening 2.3 The workgroup should make every effort to encourage non-participating members to make a greater oral contribution to the workgroup Written Work 3.1 Each workgroup member must complete the ‘Homework’ prior to the week’s class 3.2 Failure to complete the ‘Homework’ prior to the week’s class may result in each member of the responsible workgroup being penalised 5% of the possible mark for the portfolio (that is 1.5 marks) Individual Appeal Against a Lower Grade 4.1 Before a lower grade can be applied to an individual student , the group must discuss the situation with; (i) the individual student (ii) the class seminar leader 4.2 If the student agrees that they have not contributed equitably, he /she will agree to a lower mark than other group members 4.3 If, after all discussions, it is agreed that the individual student is to be penalised, all members of the group must prepare a written statement (this includes the student/s to be penalised) All group members, including the student/s to be penalised, sign the statement 4.4 The original copy of the statement, with signatures, must be given to the seminar leader 4.5 A copy of the statement must then be provided to each student in the group Seminar Leader’s Role 5.1 The seminar leader has no power to impose any penalty for contribution or performance unless it has been applied by the workgroup under this policy and notified in writing 5.2 If requested to so the seminar leader may agree to attend meetings and act in a mediator role However, if the seminar leader believes the issue to be sufficiently serious they may refer the issue to the BUSM1094 course coordinator for further action 5.3 If it is deemed that the group has discriminated against the student in any way, those students who have partaken in the discrimination will be referred to the BUSM1094 Course Coordinator 6 Amendment to this Policy 6.1 This policy may only be amended with the agreement of all members of the workgroup 6.2 Any amendment must be created into a new policy and circulated for the signature of all workgroup members 6.3 The seminar leader has the right to veto any amendment that appears to him/her to be unfair or targeted at a specific individual or individuals Contribution to the workgroup as an organisation 7.1 It is expected that all group members are to attend the weekly group meetings which have been scheduled for every Wednesday from 12:30pm to 1:30pm 7.2 On an ad-hoc basis, the group will decide a date and time for the group to meet and compile the portfolio contents 7.3 It is expected that on a rotational basis the group will nominate a chair person to coordinate the weekly activities ... based on the Functionalism and Social Relativism theories since these two business concepts are most suitable with the mining industry (Burrell, G. , & Morgan, G 1979) Furthermore, we also analyse... operations, based on the Functionalism and Social Relativism concepts The first and foremost problem of the mining company is that there are no common approaches among various branches across the globe,... reconfiguration, we have the vice manager who is accounted for delivering work to their department and reporting the progress to the general manager for determining the final decision and report them
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