Analysis of Operations Management Research Papers

The provided document is an analysis of operations management research papers. It includes a list of references to studies on various aspects of operations management, such as lean product development, variable displacement engine operation, labour and management cooperation, and energy management in electric vehicles. The document appears to be a collection of abstracts or summaries from academic papers and patents related to operations management. It does not provide any specific instructions for an assignment but rather presents a compilation of research findings and concepts in the field of operations management.

MANAGEMENT AND
OPERATION

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK...............................................................................................................................................1
P1 Different roles and characteristics of a leader and a manager...............................................1
P2 Role of leader and function of manager.................................................................................3
P3 Theories and models of leadership........................................................................................5
P4 Key approaches to operations management and role that leader and manager play..............7
P5 Importance and value of operations management in achieving business objectives.............8
P6 Factoring affecting operational management and decision making....................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Marks and Spencer plc also known as M&S is a British multinational retailer, its main
headquarter is in City of Westminster, London. It is also listed under London Stock Exchange ,
FTSE 100 Index. M&S is selling clothing, home appliances and luxury food products. It was
established in 1884 by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer in Leeds. It has also started selling
branded products which is Kellogg's Corn Flakes. At present, company has a 979 stores in UK,
out of this 615 stores sales only food items.
M&S has adopted flat management structure, as it has limited levels of control between
administrative level and front-line employees. This type of structure helps company to encourage
workers to make decisions on their own (Zhang and Chen, 2014). M&S follow this structure to
avoid bureaucracy and allow workers to gain skills through taking decisions in critical situations.
Mainly it follows 6 layers of management, in which CEO is at upper level, director and lead
manager are at middle level and finally supervisors are works at lower level. At present M&S is
planning to start New Operating Committee, as the main purpose of this new department is to be
accountable for day-to-day business and development and execution of strategies.
TASK
P1 Different roles and characteristics of a leader and a manager
This section is based on discussion about various roles and characteristics of a manager
and how they differs from each other. Functions of management, three groups of Leadership
Roles like Interpersonal, informational and Decisional roles will be explained in this topic. At
the end of this topic, a conclusion will be provided to summarise main key points and reasons
found after analysing all facts related to managers and leaders.
Management: Management is the process of achieving organizational goals by
coordinating with people and various business resources. So, the term management is a process
of accomplishing organizational objectives through continuously doing related activities (Vogel
and Güttel, 2013). It is the administration of an enterprise including business and not for profit
firms or government bodies.
Leadership: It is defined as an act of leading a group of people of an organization. It is
an art of motivating a team to work towards achieving common objectives. A leader is having
combination of personality and leadership skills that keep other’s objectives to move towards his
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directions. It involves sound and difficult decision-making, creating and articulating supervision
with establishing attainable targets and motivating employees towards work.
There are four management functions of every organization. These functions are
discussed as below:
 Planning: In this function, management makes plans for future activities. It is a long
process that consumes a lot of management time. It requires skills such as ability to see
future, estimating future activities and analysing research reports capability. For example;
M&S has plan to open New Operating Committee for development and execution of
strategies.
 Organising: This function consists of systematic process such as structuring, integrating,
coordinating task objectives and resource activities in order to achieve set targets. It
defines and group the activities of whole process and established authorities and
relationships among them. It refers to relationship between people, work and various
sources to achieve business targets (Travis and Rekhtman, 2011). For example: M&S
organises its activities by following decentralized organisational structure to allow
workers to take decisions on their own.
 Leading: This function is has similarity of directing, here managers gives directions to
workers by telling them how to complete the task and how to react towards different
situations. It is somehow matches with commanding approach. If the leading is done
properly by managers, than it become easy at the time of execution of plans. For
example: managers of M&S lead the team by motivating employees to achieve set targets
of company.
 Controlling: Controlling is a function of management where comparing achievement
with set objectives of an organisation is done. Managers are required to identify various
sources of deviation and to provide course of action to correct these deviations. In this
function, managers in the beginning set objectives and then they measure whether the
team is moving towards to desired targets or not. They also take corrective actions to
make workers towards objectives (Shuxin, 2011). For example: managers of M&S Plc
control the activities of different departments. They watch if team is achieving its daily
targets or not. Managers also provide guidelines for how to achieve the desired goals of
organisation.
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Mintzberg has defined ten management roles of leadership but these are categorized into
three groups. These three different groups are discussed as below:
 Interpersonal roles: This leadership roles consists of providing information and ideas.
The leaders of this category are source of inspiration, workers look towards leader as a
person who have authority and big responsibility. For example; Vice presidents of M&S,
attends employee's wedding or invites important customers in a new launch ceremony.
 Informational roles: The main role of leader of this group is to process available
information. They search for information which is specifically required by organisation
and industry. They also looks for relevant changes in business environment. For example;
M&S Information heads, conveys potentially useful information to their employees and
teams regarding inflation, consumer’s preference changes and new trends.
 Decisional roles: These groups are having leadership roles of making decisions on the
base of information provided by informational groups (Palizban, Kauhaniemi and
Guerrero, 2014). They create changes within organisations and their roles include solving
problems, generating new ideas and executing plans. For example: M&S leaders take
decisions from available information to predominate a strike of their workers.
Below is the difference between management and leadership:
Management Leadership
A manager always do four management
functions which are planning, organizing,
leading and controlling.
A leader plays three leadership roles which are
Interpersonal, Informational and Decisional.
All managers are not leaders. All leaders could be managers.
Managers always follow formal part of their
duties which is to follow job descriptions,
professional title and designations.
Leaders apart from their duties personally
invest efforts in tasks and projects as well as
show their high level of passion for work.
P2 Role of leader and function of manager
Some people may think that leaders are more important then managers this is not true as
function of managers cannot be done by anyone. In this point, different organisational situation
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will be discussed. Their impact on management function will also be analysed. Four leadership
style will also get cover under this section.
Explanation of 3 organisational situations:
Stable situation – In this scenario, an organisation get expected return and troubles &
they do not have to make any major changes in their current policies and working style
(Meymand, Niknam and Mojarrad, 2011). Market of M&S in UK is an example of this case,
from last two to three years they knew that they business is going to grow at slow rate and they
most of this happened according to their plans as their competitors are also not trying to do
something new.
Slow to moderate changing situation – M&S has entered in Indian market which has high
economic growth. They know that they cannot capture huge amount of shares in short period of
time because demand of premium class segment good is low. This is an example. of slow to
moderate change in the situation. Their business will grow at a decent rate in this nation.
Fast-changing situation – After Brexit, market of UK may go through fast changes.
Companies does not know what will be the impact of this political incident so they may to have
make some major changes in their organisation for coping up with changes.
Affect of organisational situation on Management functions
Stable – Planning on most of the activities were done by repeating past experiences
because no change in strategy from competitors side. Market of UK is stable in current scenario
and overall growth of company is according to their expectations (Mendis,Muttaqi and Perera,
2014). All the tasks of company is organised in normal way and employee were fully aware
about their roles and responsibilities. No major modification is done by this organisation because
they are focusing on consist good performance. Leaders of M&S motivate employee so they can
stick to the plans and their monitoring is done without organising any special activity for
controlling.
Leadership style by Robert House
Directive leadership – Employees are dependent on direction given by leader in this form
of leadership. Leader guide them so subordinates can do their work in better way and improve
their improve their performance gradually.
Supportive leadership – Leader consider their subordinates as their friends and they care
about their career growth and personal life too.
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Participative leadership – These leaders are know for involving subordinates at the time
of making significant call. They Ask for their suggestion and use for if advice is appropriate.
Achievement-oriented Leadership – They have different style of working, they set
aggressive target for subordinate and ask them to expand their limits and deliver high level
performance.
At M&S, participative style of leadership is followed from the starting days of company.
They always support the idea of giving more power to employees so they will responsible (Luna
and Bott, 2012). When M&S were in tuff time when their revenue was going down, at that this
they followed this approach and asked leader asked their subordinates include ground level staff
that should company sell other products like electronic or they should stick to focusing on cloth
and food segment. M&S is known for their premium class apparels and other item. This decision
is also taken by taking advice from subordinate. Their stores have attractive interior and the
overall facilities which they provide to customer is also more then their competitors. Spending
money on creating good working environment is a collective call.
Above details shows that there are different leadership styles. M&S is in stable situation
among the available three and they are not making variation in significant activities like
planning, organising, leading and controlling.
P3 Theories and models of leadership
An organisation cannot attain success without having a good leader. This section of the
project will talk about Situation leadership and its applications. Use of system their at the time of
performing management function will also become part of this section. Discussion on
contingency theory also will be done.
Situational leadership – This concept is related to contingency theory. Their is no best
form of leadership and in every situation leader have to make necessary changes in their working
style so they can manage a situation in effective way (Liker and Morgan, 2011). Sometimes
company have to change their goals, if leader will remain rigid and do not adopt different
leadership style then company may miss their target and fail to deliver expected results. At
M&S, when most participative style is followed but sometime in some nation, leader adopt
directive style because like in India, employees do not know much about working style of this
company and they need appropriate guidance so they can understand target of enterprise and
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organisational culture of M&S. Once they get necessary experience then participative style can
be adopted.
One of the most important thing which should be noted in this case is that adoption is
situation leadership is beneficial for employees. They are crucial part of company and if they will
get right direct and authority then they can give surprising result to management. Development
of employees can be done by first providing them right direction and then including their views
when management is going to take crucial decisions. Leader at M&S also delegate more
authority to their subordinate once they feel that they are can accomplish a task in better way.
System theory – This concept is consider as whole organisation as a unit, it has various
subsystem like departments, employees etc. Instead of focusing on individual performance,
company should focus on synergy i.e. synchronising all the energy (Johnstone, 2016). Two
system like departments are interdependent and if one will perform their work is proper manner
then other will also earn its benefits. Planning is a complicated process because if one
department make plan for attaining their set objectives there is is a high probability that other
division may create hurdle for them in attaining these goals. If manager will use this theory then
they can bring all the wings of company on same page and removing difference between these
department.
Organising different tasks and activities would not be a big work if all manager and their
subordinates will work in a team. Leading is related to communication, this also involve
motivation. If employees remain in a team then leading them is easier because if one of two
employee may fail to understand the order given by manager then other can explain them. This
will save time and efforts of manager. M&S has connected all of their department, this helped
them in adopting major changes in short period of time.
Contingency theory – According to this theory, there is no particular formula, solution or
approach for resolving a problem, making corporate decisions. Manager at M&S understand that
they cannot use same style of leadership (David, 2011). When they entered in foreign countries,
they adopted directive style which is different their genuine leadership style i.e. participative.
Contingency theory help them in setting successfully setting business in foreign nation and they
became a global leader in in retail sector (clothing).
Management by objective – In this concept, both management and employees agree on
same objective which worker is going to attain in upcoming time. This assist managers in putting
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positive pressure on employees so they can achieve more in their career and at the same time
assist company in moving forward towards their long term goals. M&S have target for all of
their employees.
P4 Key approaches to operations management and role that leader and manager play
Operations management is an effective process which helps in designing and controlling
all the production activities in order to make quality goods and services in most effective manner
(Song and et. al., 2015). In this context there are some key approaches which is used by Marks
and Spencer in their operation management are as follows: Total Quality management: It is one of the important and old approach which used by
the company to improve their quality and performance level in order to attain higher
satisfaction by them. With the help of this Marks and Spencer achieve long term goals in
appropriate time period. Just-in-time: It is related with the inventories of the company which helps in enhancing
the efficiency and eliminating the wastage of the products. By using this approach Marks
and Spencer easily meet their customers demand and effectively satisfy them. Continuous improvement: It is one of the effective approach which helps in improving
the product quality by reducing the wastage within the manufacturing process. This
theory focus on the customers and their requirements of the products to deliver quality
services in front of customers (White, 2016). Six Sigma: It is more effective their which focus on the quality of the products. It helps
in improving the overall quality of the products. With the help of this theory company
reduce the defects and variability in order to enhance their profitability level. Lean production: It is one of the effective and important approach which is used by the
Marks and Spencer in which they easily reduce the wastage in their production process in
order to remove all the reason of wastage of expenditure.
 Queuing: It is an effective approach in which company ensure that all the products
queuing is more effective which helps in reducing the labour cost and also increase
profitability level of the company at market place (Parisio, Rikos and Glielmo, 2016).
On the other hence there are main and important role of manager and leader which they
play in operation management are as follows:
Role of leader:
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 One of the important role of leader in operation management is motivate their employees
so that they easily perform their task and attain positive outcomes.
 Leader also responsible for setting all the policies in which employees perform and
maximize overall productivity in effective manner.
Role of manager:
 It is important role of a manager to make effective utilization of available resources
within the organization in order to maintain productivity of the enterprise (Loucks and
Van Beek, 2017).
 One of the important role manager is to reducing the cost by effectively handle all the
material and layouts of the services.
All these approaches are used by the Marks and Spencer to improve their performance level and
attain positive results. In this manager and leader also play important role in which they enhance
overall productivity of the employees and company at market place.
P5 Importance and value of operations management in achieving business objectives
Operations management is one of the effective and important activity for the company in
which manager easily manage all the process and deliver quality services to their potential
customers. With the help of Marks and Spencer easily achieve their business objectives such as
survival, increasing sale, maximizing profit, satisfying customers and overall growth of the
company. Basically it define better process in which company convert the raw material into
finished goods which is provide to the customers.
Along with this operations management play important role in business organization to
improve the overall performance of the company and also attain more revenue by delivering
quality services in front of market. In this context there are some important of operations
management which helps in improvi9ng the performance level of the company at market place.
All are as follows: Quality maintain: The main of operations management to maintain the quality of all the
goods and services. It is important that they have to meet all the customers needs and
demand in appropriate manner. Better quality of the products helps in reducing the
operational cost and increase the overall profitability of the company.
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 Reduce wastage: If company effectively manage their recourse and effectively operate
than they reduce the chances of wastage of the resources which helps in enhancing the
overall profitability of the company (Lehmann and Joseph, 2015). Work efficiency: Operations management is more effective for the company because it
helps in maintaining better production system in which manager easily allocate all the
work to their human resources in maintain to enhance the overall performance of the
company. Effective utilization of resources: If company define better management of all the
activities which helps in evaluating better utilisation of all the available resources in order
to produce better services to their customers.
 Enhance productivity: With the help of effective operations management company easily
enhance overall productivity by delivering quality services in front of customers so that
they get more satisfied with its products. On the other side, operations management helps in achieving all the business
objectives in systematic manner and enhance their performance level at market place
(Expósito and et. al., 2016). Survival: Better management of all the operation within the company is helps in retain
the success at market place and also survive in long time period. With the help of
operations management, manager of Marks and Spencer easily attain their target and
objectives. Increasing sale: One of the main benefit of effective management of all the operation
helps in increasing the sale because with help of this company produce as well as deliver
quality service to their customers. Maximizing profit: One of the main advantage of the operations management is to
increment their overall profitability of the company by delivering quality products and
services to their potential customers which leads in enhancing the profitability level at
market place (Bhasin, 2011). Satisfying customers: operation management helps in producing quality services as per
customers requirements which helps in getting their higher satisfaction.
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 Growth: Overall growth of the company is totally depend on its operations management
because it helps in introducing better services in the market place which leads in
increasing goodwill of the company (Christopher, 2016).
Hence, better operation management is helps in achieving all the goals and objectives and
also improve overall performance of the company at market which leads in capturing larger
market share form its rival and attain positive success.
P6 Factoring affecting operational management and decision making
This section of the project will include various factors which have capability on making
an impact operational management. CSR, sustainability, stakeholders and intrapreneurship are
some of the significant concepts which will be discussed in the section.
Corporate social responsibility – It is a business approach where company focus on sustainable
development by working in areas like economy, environment and social. All these work are done
for benefits of stakeholders. M&S is committed to reducing the amount of wastage which their
production units is doing. They are working in the field of reducing their carbon footprint. This
goal (plan 2025) has made some influence on operational management of organisation because
they have to make some adjusting in their logistic s and production system for meeting their CSR
goals.
Sustainability – If something thing cannot sustain for much time then company should
not give it much importance. M&S always believed in selling best to customers (Berger and
Solferino, 2012). For maintaining this image, they have to make continuous changes in their
operation system so they can product committed level of standards.
Stakeholders – These are entities who are somehow related to company. They are
affected by organisation and some of them have ability to make a huge impact on company.
Government is considered as an important stakeholder. M&S could have entered in India without
doing partnership with other company but because of rules made by government they have to
select a partner and distribute profit with them. Shareholder of M&S support them and they rely
on decisions taken by top level management. Their belief in company's strategy motivate senior
managers for aggressive expansion.
Intrapreneur – They are employees of the enterprise who work on innovative idea of
special project. They use their entrepreneurship skills for resolving various problems but without
taking any risk (Barratt,Choi and Li, 2011). Marketing wing of M&S has many intrapreneurs,
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they use their mind for making marketing and promotion strategy without involving in situation
of any risk. Intrapreneurs has a vision and they assist manager and company in making positive
and effective decisions. Impact of intrapreneurship is positive on M&S.
This section can be concluded by stating that attaining CSR may hamper operations of an
organisation. Sustainability is big issue for everyone and stakeholder can make positive or
negative impact on company's performance. Promoting concept of intraprenuership is good for
organisational growth.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that leaders puts their all effort and invests in
taking decisions at the high level in organisation. Leaders also keeps the interest highly in
success of their followers which takes them close to there Goals. Where Manager is the one who
manages the work in the organisation mainly the parts are Planning the work, Leading members,
Organizing things according to the work and controlling the behaviour of the member in
organisation. They should use more of the management by objectives at different levels.
Management training will improve the pressure handling skills so company should provide this
training to their senior managers. Leadership differs at some points if necessary but leaders of
this firm should not change their leadership style (participative). They should use Just-in-time
theory as it will remove wastages and increase operational efficiency. This approach is
successfully used by many companies and if M&S will use it then they can easily earn some
extra edge over their prime competitors. Effective execution of this technique will result in more
profit to this organisation.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Barratt, M., Choi, T.Y. and Li, M., 2011. Qualitative case studies in operations management:
Trends, research outcomes, and future research implications. Journal of Operations
Management. 29(4). pp.329-342.
Berger, A.H. and Solferino, V.P., Ford Global Technologies, Llc, 2012. Variable displacement
engine operation with NVH management. U.S. Patent 8,145,410.
Bhasin, S., 2011. Measuring the Leanness of an organisation. International Journal of Lean Six
Sigma. 2(1). pp.55-74.
David, F.R., 2011. Strategic management: Concepts and cases. Peaeson/Prentice Hall.
Johnstone, S., 2016. Labour and Management Co-operation: Workplace Partnership in UK
Financial Services. CRC Press.
Liker, J.K. and Morgan, J., 2011. Lean product development as a system: a case study of body
and stamping development at Ford. Engineering Management Journal. 23(1). pp.16-28.
Luna, M. and Bott, R., Seven Networks, Inc., 2012. Operation modes for mobile traffic
optimization and concurrent management of optimized and non-optimized traffic. U.S.
Patent Application 13/715,900.
Mendis, N., Muttaqi, K.M. and Perera, S., 2014. Management of battery-supercapacitor hybrid
energy storage and synchronous condenser for isolated operation of PMSG based
variable-speed wind turbine generating systems. IEEE Transactions on smart grid. 5(2).
pp.944-953.
Niknam, T., Meymand, H.Z. and Mojarrad, H.D., 2011. An efficient algorithm for multi-
objective optimal operation management of distribution network considering fuel cell
power plants. Energy. 36(1). pp.119-132.
Palizban, O., Kauhaniemi, K. and Guerrero, J.M., 2014. Microgrids in active network
management–part II: System operation, power quality and protection. Renewable and
Sustainable Energy Reviews. 36. pp.440-451.
Shuxin, A., 2011. The Management and Operation Mechanism of Overseas Think Tank and Its
Enlightenment to China [J]. Contemporary Economy & Management. 5. p.021.
Travis, W.D. and Rekhtman, N., 2011, February. Pathological diagnosis and classification of
lung cancer in small biopsies and cytology: strategic management of tissue for
molecular testing. In Seminars in respiratory and critical care medicine (Vol. 32, No.
01. pp. 022-031). © Thieme Medical Publishers.
Vogel, R. and Güttel, W.H., 2013. The dynamic capability view in strategic management: A
bibliometric review. International Journal of Management Reviews. 15(4). pp.426-446.
Zhang, M. and Chen, J., 2014. The energy management and optimized operation of electric
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Online
Operations and Project Management (OPM). 2017. [Online] Available through:
<https://www.beds.ac.uk/research-ref/bmri/centres/bisc/okm>.
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