Leadership vs Management: A Comparative Analysis

This assignment delves into the differences between leadership and management. It emphasizes that leadership is based on trust and inspiration, aiming to influence people and drive change, while management focuses on controlling activities and maintaining stability. The analysis compares their underlying principles, strategies, and roles within organizations.

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ASSIGNMENT TITLE: ESSAYS ON FUNCTIONINGS OF
PUBLIC LIMITED COMPANY
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Table of Contents
Essay on advantages and disadvantages of a Public Limited Company (PLC)..............................3
Essay on Product life cycle..............................................................................................................5
Essay on incentives that companies need to provide to their employees in order in to increase
commitment to work........................................................................................................................7
Essay on the differences between leadership and management......................................................8
Reference List..................................................................................................................................9
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Essay on advantages and disadvantages of a Public Limited Company (PLC)
A public limited company is a company whose securities are traded on a stock exchange and can
be bought and sold by anyone. Public limited companies are strictly regulated and are required to
publish their financial position in order to enable investors in determining the true worth of its
stock. Public limited company under United Kingdom Law, some commonwealth jurisdictions
and the Republic of Ireland is a limited liability company where a PLC can be either an enlisted
or non listed company in the stock exchanges of the countries (Ball and Shivakumar, 2005,
p.96). The ownership of a public limited company falls among Shareholders and the managing
Committee. In a joint stock company the members are known as shareholders and their share in
the ownership, control, and profits of the company is determined by their portions of shares.
Other than being a public limited company, the ownerships of a company be on the basis of: Sole
Proprietorships, partnerships, Government owned companies with either partial or full share in
the companies and franchising.
The advantages that a public limited company is that it can raise capital through public issue of
shares, in this respect the capital that could be raised is much larger than that of private limited
company as the company is able to reach to larger set of people, having a company enlisted in
the stock exchange can attract invest investment from hedge funds, mutual funds and other
institutional traders.
it also enables the company in its path of growth and expanding opportunities for itself as its is
able to attract or raise more funds for its projects rather than other companies it puts public
limited companies in an advantageous position to pursue new projects, new products or new
markets. market capital expenditure to support and enhance the business, make acquisitions, fund
development and research which at many times is very important for firms, pay off existing debts
(Marston,1996, p.482).
A public limited company also has the advantage of widening its shareholder base, this enables
the public limited companies in spreading the opportunities and risk that the company may face
among its shareholders. Obtaining capital from a wide range of investors has some advantages
over relying on one or two “Angel Investors" as plenty of private firms find it difficult to
facilitate growth. Another advantage of a public limited company is that the shares of a public
limited companies are more easily transferable than those of other equivalents, meaning
shareholders benefiting from liquidity. Venturing into the public domain provide the founders to
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exit the business at some point in the future as they wish to do so. Both higher transferability of
shares and the increased visibility of the business and its performance may increase the chances
of bidding interest from potential suitors
The disadvantages of the public limited system for a company lie in the front as there are more
regulatory requirements for the frame work, which makes the operation of the firm cumbersome
and time taking as their are various permission to be sought from the regulatory authorities and
which include the inefficiencies of bureaucracy and red tapism and makes the firm incur
additional cost which could have been evaded otherwise. In this procedure higher level of
transparency is required which can prove to disadvantageous for the firm operating in this
spectrum many a times. the system there are problems and issues involving ownership and
control of the organisation with a public limited company, it is much harder to control as it is
difficult to identify who the shareholder of the companies are and who the directors of the
company are liable to. in this process the owners and the directors of the company may lose
control of it. In this system firms are more vulnerable to take over as shares being freely
transferable, a potential bidder can build up shareholding in advance of a launching bid. Another
problem with these firm is that it requires higher initial financial commitment which is in order
to trade, the plc must start with 50,000 pounds of nominal share capital and at least 25% of the
sum must be committed to the business which could be problems for firms operating in this field
in the initial stages. Associated cost for company formation in this regard is also higher and the
requirements are complex (Said et al. 2009, p.219).
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Essay on Product life cycle
Product life cycle is the process through which a new product progresses through a sequence of
stages from introduction till its decline. This sequence is associated with changes in marketing
situation, impacting the marketing strategy and policy mix (Bartlett and Twineham, 2013,
p.1917).
The four stages of product life cycle are
Introduction- in this stage product branding is done and associated quality level is set and
intellectual protections are obtained in this stage
Pricing policies are made in accordance to the market; aggressive pricing policies might be taken
in this period either to recover cost or to percolate in the market. In this period the product
distribution is selective until the period the consumers show acceptance. The promotion of
products in the introductory stage is important as it is to educate the consumer regarding the new
launch.
Growth- This is the stage where the firm build brand preference for customers and increase
market share
in order to that Product quality is maintained and additional features and support services are
added, the prices are generally kept fixed as the firm enjoys increasing demand with little
competition and here in this stage the distribution network is developed to cater the increasing
demand of the customers. Here in this stage the product promotion should be making broader
audience (Bilir, 2014, p.1993).
Maturity- In this stage the strong growth in sales is diminished, Competition appears and here in
this stage the primary objective is to defend the existing market while undertaking possible
endeavours to maximise profit.
In doing this the products needs to be differentiated from that of the competitors, addition of
features may help in this regard. Prices need to be lowered keeping competition from product of
other firms in mind. The distributional factor of the product becomes intensive and special
incentives and added bonus to the distributors is to be provided in resolving the issue and
encourage preference over competing products. In promotion needs to emphasise on product
differentiation
Decline- As sales in this stage decline as the firm has several problems to address to, in
addressing the problem the firm needs to maintain the product and rejuvenate it as possible and
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finding new methods and uses in rejuvenating it. in this stage reduction of cost is essential to
continue with the service and if found that the product market has been destroyed the firm needs
to liquidate the assets and remaining inventories or selling it to another concern which is willing
to continue with the services (Smith et al. 2013, p.880).
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Essay on incentives that companies need to provide to their employees in
order in to increase commitment to work
An incentive is something that motivates an individual to perform an action and this is key to all
economic activities. Incentives aim to provide value for money and contribute to organisational
success. Further incentive can be stated as an act or promise for greater action. It can also be
considered as stimuli for greater action (Tumwet, 2015, p.18)
There are primarily two types of incentives namely monetary and nonmonetary incentives
Monetary incentive - Those incentives which satisfy the subordinates by providing them rewards
in terms of money. Here money has been recognised as chief source of satisfying needs of
people. Money is also helpful to satisfy the social needs by possessing various material items.
Therefore money not only satisfies psychological needs but also the security and social needs.
Non Monetary incentive: there are certain nonmonetary incentives which aim to satisfy
employee demand in order to promote commitment to work which include.( Larkin, 2014, p.221)
Security of service: Job security is an incentive which provide greater motivation to employees
as they do not have to think of other things regarding their jobs
Praise or recognition: Helps in satisfying the egos of the employees which enhances the work
effort put in by the employees. Sometimes praise or recognition become more effective in
regards to the employees than any other incentives.
Job enrichment: job enrichment is another approach in which the hob of a worker is enriched
which can be done by increasing responsibilities, providing an important designation for his job
or by increasing the content and nature of the work. There are other methods which can also
enhance and can increase employee motivation (Shields etal. 2015, p.138).
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Essay on the differences between leadership and management
Leadership- is a process by which a person influences others to accomplish an objective and
direct the organisation in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent. Leadership is process
whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal (Northouse,
2015, p016).
Management- Management: is the administration of an organisation, whether it be a business, a
not for profit organisation or government body. Management includes the activity of setting the
strategy of an organisation and coordinating the efforts of its employees or volunteers to
accomplish its objectives through the application of available resources such as financial natural,
technological and human resources.
In evaluating the main difference between leadership and management this has been identified
that leadership is a quality which influences people, while management is a discipline of
managing things in the best possible manner (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014, p.126).
The difference in leadership and management lie in the following categories
Leadership is based on trust emphasises on inspiring people, and its objective is to influence
people, focus on encouraging change and follows a proactive strategy and the concept is
developed on the formulations of principles and guidelines and leader is required to have good
foresightedness whereas management is based on control emphasis on managing activities rather
than inspiring them and its objective is to rule focusing on bringing stability to the system and its
strategy is to be reactive to situations and formulation of policies and procedures is a essential
part of this process (McClelland and Boyatzis, 1982, p.737).
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Reference List
Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., 2014. Armstrong's handbook of human resource management
practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Ball, R. and Shivakumar, L., 2005. Earnings quality in UK private firms: comparative loss
recognition timeliness. Journal of accounting and economics, 39(1), pp.83-128.
Bartlett, D. and Twineham, J., 2013. Product Life Cycle. In Encyclopedia of Corporate Social
Responsibility (pp. 1914-1920). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Bilir, L.K., 2014. Patent laws, product life-cycle lengths, and multinational activity. The
American Economic Review, 104(7), pp.1979-2013.
Larkin, I., 2014. The cost of high-powered incentives: Employee gaming in enterprise software
sales. Journal of Labor Economics, 32(2), pp.199-227.
Marston, C., 1996. The organization of the investor relations function by large UK quoted
companies. Omega, 24(4), pp.477-488.
McClelland, D.C. and Boyatzis, R.E., 1982. Leadership motive pattern and long-term success in
management. Journal of Applied psychology, 67(6), p.737.
Northouse, P.G., 2015. Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.
Said, R., Hj Zainuddin, Y. and Haron, H., 2009. The relationship between corporate social
responsibility disclosure and corporate governance characteristics in Malaysian public listed
companies. Social Responsibility Journal, 5(2), pp.212-226.
Shields, J., Brown, M., Kaine, S., Dolle-Samuel, C., North-Samardzic, A., McLean, P., Johns,
R., Robinson, J., O'Leary, P. and Plimmer, G., 2015. Managing Employee Performance &
Reward: Concepts, Practices, Strategies. Cambridge University Press.
Smith, S., Smith, G.C., Jiao, R. and Chu, C.H., 2013. Mass customization in the product life
cycle. Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, 24(5), pp.877-885.
Tumwet, E., Chepkilot, R. and Kibet, L.K., 2015. Effects of Employee Incentives on Employee
Performance in Private Universities in Kenya: A Case of Kabarak University. Kabarak Journal
of Research & Innovation, 3(2), pp.9-22.
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