University Management Essay: Impact of Change in Business Environment

This essay analyzes the profound impact of global changes on management practices, emphasizing the need for adaptability and flexibility in leadership styles. It explores various management theories, including transformational, transactional, and situational approaches, highlighting that no single style fits all situations. The essay uses the Nokia case as an example of how failure to adapt to industry changes can lead to decline. It also discusses the importance of agile management and the use of cross-functional teams to address complex problems. Furthermore, the essay examines different leadership styles, such as the anti-change, rational, and integrated leader, and their relevance in managing corporate disruptions. Real-world examples like Walmart's omnichannel strategy are used to illustrate these concepts. The essay concludes by reiterating the need for proactive and organized change management to ensure organizational success in a rapidly evolving world.

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INTRODUCTION TO MANAGEMENT

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The rapidly changing world means there is no perfect
form of management
This essay outlines about the impact of change in business environment globally to
the management practices and considering this case statement, one must embrace and do
admit that it is right to say that management is continuously shifting in business enterprises
and companies across the world. Hence, to support this case statement, it is necessary to
understand that most of the world changes in the organizations are as an outcome of the
government policies and priorities, the corporate strategies, product life-cycle, economy of
the world and other factors. This statement can also be supported in view of business
enterprises and corporations globally considering the driving forces of transformation, the
equilibrium of change and the restraining forces of change. The overall concept here is that
organisations and its management must change to respond to the existing situation or the
current changes.
It is a recognised fact that the management has to change accordingly to
accommodate the rapid changes going out in the world. An inability to do so could drive the
business to failure. In addition, there is no one set style of management that will applicable to
all situations in these rapid changes and therefore, management must change to respond to the
existing situation or the present changes. There are many different types of management
styles that often practice management including transformational management, transactional
management, situational management, management by objective and many more
(Amanchukwu et al, 2015). As of various theories available in these areas, it can be
specifically said that there is no one perfect style of management. Teece et al (2016) also
stated that under a static situation a management theory may work but when there is a
constant change the style of management needs to be flexible in order to adapt the new
changes.
One of the best examples can be taken as of Nokia where Nokia decline was started
back with negative emotional dynamics at the very top level management caused harmed to
communication and strategic decision making. An authoritarian management style by the
chief executive Stephen Elop leads to the culture of fear pervaded multiple levels of
management causing manages a fear of job as and this makes them stay quiet. The company
started losing strategic options such as sticking to the Symbian operating system and this

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makes the exit of both CEO and the management style. When the new CEO i.e. Risto
Siilasmaa joined the company, he took a role model approach of management which is more
about showing the way and this makes the Nokia come born again in the fast changing
market. In 2012, the former CEO of Nokia Stephen Elop also admitted that the company and
management have failed to foresee the rapid changes in the smartphone industry and this was
one of the strongest reasons that Nokia had failed (Presse, 2012).
According to Forbes (2018), new management styles and practices may be required
and needed when a company plans to introduce new products, expand or diversity into new
market and the best way to handle an evolving world is to come up with the best system that
relies upon an agile approach. This is more important for the existing and long running
organisations to adopt right management style as virtually every industry has been
experiencing rapid and devastating changes like what Airbnb has done to the hospitality
industry or what Lyft and Uber have done to the transportation industry. This shows that
environmental forces that are present in the rapid changing world also directly or indirectly
impact the business functioning of organisations and persuade them to change their
management style in order to ensure their sustainability over a longer period of time.
With rapid changing of the world, a paradigm shift is also taking place in the literature
on management theory in response to the distressing effect that rapid change has had on
businesses (Williams, 2017). Prior to this, management theories were being attractive and
straightforward and not weighted with ambiguity and paradox, however, it got failed to
produce successful results in the new environment and Martz et al (2017) also contended that
in terms of this evolution, the different management styles have adopted increasingly
complex problem-solving approaches. As a result, there is an increasing use is made of cross-
functional teams in which individuals with different areas of specialisation and job
description work collaboratively to attain the strategic goals of the business enterprise.
Meanwhile, the employees of the business enterprise are now recognised as the key source of
value added in a rapidly changing environment, and also the prime way of attaining and
sustaining a long term competitive advantage in the industry or marketplace.
According to Conner leadership styles framework, it is important for management to
adopt different styles as per the different changes in the environment. The different leadership
styles include the anti-change leader, rational leader, panacea leader, the bolt-on leader, the
integrated leader and the continuous leader (Zhang et al, 2018). The management will found

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each style representing a unique set of perceptions, behaviours and attitudes, in relation with
how corporate disruption should be addressed. For instance, when an organisation is
engaging in discontinuous and transformational change, the management can opt for
integrated and continuous leadership style that used to develop an agile and quick-responding
organisation that can swiftly predict threats and seize opportunities as change initiatives
(Birkinshaw et al, 2016). The best example can be given her of Walmart, where the
management is opting both integrated and continuous style by taking charge of the Omni
channel strategy with the convergence of physical and digital commerce. Since 2019, the
company is pushing the online grocery pickup services and building their e-commerce
capabilities at a greater scale considering the discontinuous and transformational change in
the marketplace (Keyes, 2019).
In the limelight of above discussion, it can be said that each management style is
unique in its nature and application and can be applied to various need or situations and as a
result, can benefit the organisations from various perspectives. The real-life case was
presented of Nokia stating how the company has failed due to not changing the management
style from authoritarian to role based and therefore, leads to a big loss for the company. The
big shift in the various management theories also has far-reaching implications on
management style to manage the different factors in the business environment at various level
of change required. Hence, an organisation needs to embrace right management style in a
proactive manner to assist with simplifying processes, take more of a strategic view and
enable decisions based on new forces of the world. In addition, if management acts
proactively in initiating change in a planned and organised manner, there are more chances to
get success and sustain in the rapidly changing world.

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References
Amanchukwu, R. N., Stanley, G. J., & Ololube, N. P. (2015). A review of leadership theories,
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Birkinshaw, J., Zimmermann, A., & Raisch, S. (2016). How do firms adapt to discontinuous
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forbes.com. (2018). How Can Businesses Adapt To A Rapidly Changing World?. Retrieved
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rapidly-changing-world/#460589ec5930
Keyes, D. (2019). Walmart's online grocery business is a key contributor to both its e-
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