Business Dynamics and Environmental Impact: A Report

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Context of Business

Table of Contents
Assignment 1...................................................................................................................................2
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Discussion........................................................................................................................................2
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................4
Assignment 2...................................................................................................................................5
Introduction......................................................................................................................................6
Organizational overview..................................................................................................................6
Vision, leadership style and organizational culture.........................................................................6
Influence of management style on their business functions and strategies.....................................8
Recommendations for improvement................................................................................................9
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................11
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Assignment 1
Introduction
Impact Measurement and Performance Analysis of CSR that is IMPACT was launched in March
of 2010. It was something path breaking and a breath of fresh air for the addressing of Corporate
Social Responsibility across many levels and system dimensions (Bell et al., 2018). It combines
four empirical concepts like econometric, Delphi and network analysis and in-depth cases of
study.
Discussion
Dynamic nature of business and future considerations
Business is understood as the organised effort of an organisation to supply buyers with products
and associated services in lieu of profit margin. Businesses vary in magnitude and can be
estimated by the sales figures or the number of workers. There are all kinds of businesses and not
all are related to profit making only. Some of the business purposes are to be an institution of
importance in society, creation of jobs in the market, balancing the chain of supply and demand,
offering a better quality of life, contribute towards increasing GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of
the country. The dynamic and changeable nature of the business environment has made it
necessary for the continued development and refinement of organisation strategies covering
products and assistance regards the same, marketing communications and operations (Maylor et
al., 2016). Hence business plays an important role. A society cannot work or stand on its own
without business. The business also needs society just as much. Therefore, modern business is all
about dynamism. Change is everywhere and it is the key in all job roles. The changes make the
company spend significantly on its Research and Development (R & D) team efforts in order to
sustain itself in the market. Mass production and marketing are followed by business empires
globally. Annual turnovers are rising by the year.
Business in the twenty-first century with large workforces is not seen as a good idea. The ideal
business is knowledge-based and today’s managers do not want to waste any time pushing files
and shuffling papers. Information technology is mostly relied on for carrying out most of the
work. Organisations are flatter now and in the future. The linear relationships among manager
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and authority flow downwards and disappearance of obedience upwards will be seen more of in
the future. Job roles will not be so restrictive and most of them will last for up to five years on
which remuneration will be calculated.
Economic amalgamation with economies of the world over is the global business environment
(Crane and Matten, 2016). The global business environment is divided into globalisation and
globalism. Globalisation is global competition characterised by the network of international links
that connect institutes, countries and individuals of an interdependent economy globally. It
focuses on speed, forces and dynamism and the rate of decrease or increase of globalisation.
“Globalism is seeking to describe and explains nothing more than a world being characterised by
the networks of connections spanning multi-continental distances” (Meyer et al., 2016).
Globalism makes an attempt in understanding the interconnections of today’s world and to
highlight patterns underlying them. Global and business, these words are broadly viewed in
context with shared and environment increasingly put together. It includes technology
advancements, intercultural effectiveness and competitive dynamics as main players.
Need for the individuals and organisations behave ethically in relation to social, cultural,
economic and environmental issues.
Acceptance of social responsibility is required for the maintenance of equilibrium (Iivari et al.,
2016.). The system must make sure that the decisions are ethically validated before they proceed.
Being socially irresponsible is not the means to the end as it may harm the environment. Moral
values and certain laws like Right to Life can never be ignored by company practices as these are
inherent socially and differentiate between what is right and otherwise. Social fairness is part of
ethical practices and should be maintained. Individuals, be it owner, CEO or casual worker
cannot work solely in their own interest and have to contribute to society beneficially. Cultural
considerations can avoid disasters and bring business to a point of synergy. Culture often holds a
deeper meaning than just materialistic ideals of profit and money. Cross-cultural marketing
enhances market position due to clearer communication. Being non-judgemental, flexible and
open-minded helps in balancing the cultural environment in business. Variables such as unit
labour cost, GNP and the expenditure of personal consumption influences a business firm’s
capacities for conducting business. Variations in inflation, taxation and interest rates are also key
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indicators of economic factors in business (Shi et al., 2016). The closeness of relationship
between business and its environment propels businessmen to be careful as it gets all necessary
inputs from the economic environment and absorbs outputs of the business units. Business as an
economic pursuit is dictated by nature providing inputs that are often non replenish-able and
hence demands great care so as not to exhaust them completely. Business is the net product of all
technological, economic, socio-cultural, political-legal, natural and global factors. The
relationship between business and environment is pretty symbolic. Business is in a way directly
influenced by the environment. Business and the environment can both keep changing as the
years pass by. A business firm alone may not influence the environment much but is in a position
to mould it to its advantages. One has to do so in order to keep the business dynamic and
sustained. Knowing what nature’s hidden resources are as well as being kind while extracting the
same is relevant and a sustainable business ultimatum. Many businesses end in polluting land
and sea dumping radioactive and hazardous wastes thereby choking the creatures living in the
sea and on the shoreline like the beach. Such acts should be curtailed or banned by law
altogether.
Conclusion
Social responsibility is related to ethics and is an ethical theory. Individuals in business are also
liable to fulfil their civic duties and their actions should benefit the entire society as a business is
a part of it. A balance needs to be struck when it comes to economic welfare and growth.
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Assignment 2
Executive Summary
The assignment focuses on the company of Boots UK, one of UK’s largest retailers of
pharmaceutical products and services and studies the various theories regarding their
organizational culture and management practices. It further includes a set of recommendations
for the company in order to speed up their operational functionalities and increase productivity.
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Introduction
The assignment studies the various aspects of leadership and management culture within the UK
retail industry with a special emphasis on the organization of Boots UK. Boots operates as one of
the biggest retailers within Ireland and England, and has a very sound system of organizational
culture owing to their dynamic leadership and focus on functionality.
Organizational overview
Boots UK is one of UK’s largest and most extensive retailer as well as a distributor for health
and wellness products, and has operations in the country of Thailand as well. The company was
initially founded in the years of 1849 in Nottingham, and has its headquarters as of today in the
same city of Beeston, Nottingham. The company employs over 55,000 healthcare professionals
and medicine experts across the UK, and posted a before-tax profit of around £498 million for
the year 2017. Boots has over 2,450 outlets across the UK and serve over
ten million customers annually. It further developed an individual online
platform to tap the increasing digital markets that cropped up in every
industry, and even started a loyalty system for its returning customers
called the Boots Advantage Card. Walgreens bought into Boots UK at a
45% stake, and since 2012, the company was officially renamed as the
Walgreen Boots Alliance.
Vision, leadership style and organizational culture
The vision of the Boots UK Company essentially translates to becoming the primary choice over
other organizations in the context of pharmaceutical products, beauty and wellness items and
healthcare facilities. The company operates on the core values of trust, care, innovation,
partnership and dedication in order to cater to its consumer groups across the world. The
organizational culture, leadership and management styles within the company can be analysed to
rely heavily on certain theories, which have been discussed below and are as follows.
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Schein’s theory of organizational culture
The theory or organizational culture by Schein fundamentally breaks down the concept of
organizational culture into three distinctly quantifiable factors of artefacts, values and underlying
assumptions. The artefacts refer to the markings that exist at the tangible surface of the
organization, and are the most visible in the context of external agents and third parties. These
include the various brandings and logos of Boots UK, the office spaces and retail outlet designs,
official clothing and accessories, overall structure and so on. The values refer to the principles
and the core functionalities within the organization, based on which the smaller objectives are
decided. The values are largely a cumulative collection of the various individuals present within
the core components of an organization, and these primarily include the management, the leaders
and the secondary managers along with the essential stakeholders (Schöbel et al., 2017). The
belief systems of these varied individuals largely shape the organizational culture, and Schein
was relatively accurate in quantifying them through his widely acknowledged model. Lastly, the
underlying assumptions refer to the inherent values within the organization that take place
primarily due to the diversity of functionalities within the company. This may include human
diversity or operational diversity, but the underlying assumptions typically prove to be a key
component within the organizational culture and have a significant impact on the organization in
general.
Figure 1: Schein’s theory of organizational culture
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(Source: Daher, 2016)
Contingency theory
The contingency theory was primarily developed by Fiedler, and has been widely acknowledged
and implemented across organizations ever since. The theory fundamentally stresses on the
importance of flexibility among leaders and managers, as they should adapt to situations
efficiently and change their methods of operation based on the situation in order maintain
optimal levels of efficiency (Gerdin and Linton, 2016). The theory rests on the foundations of
three core principles, which are interpersonal relationships, core leadership competencies and a
general sense of structure in the various tasks that are allocated and delegated throughout the
organization. Boots UK have largely relied on this system and maintain a functional mix in their
management strategies in order to ensure that the employees remain engaged and focused
towards achieving their objectives.
Figure 2: Contingency theory
(Source: Otley, 2016)
Influence of management style on their business functions and strategies
Specific examples of the influence of management styles can be seen within the Boots UK
organization as the entire pharmaceutical industry had slumped and store reductions and job cuts
were frequent, but Boots managed to hold on to their facilities and employees despite these harsh
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conditions. Although, the profits and revenue figures slumped, the sales still maintained and the
number of loyalty club consumers was also retained to a large degree as the company lost only
around 0.02 million memberships.
Another key example of their sound organizational culture can be witnessed in the employee
satisfaction levels within Boots UK, as the company was declared one of the most suitable
workplaces within the health and wellness retail sectors (Boots.com., 2019). The company
actively emphasizes on the various yearlong vaccinations for their employees without any
additional charges and further engages in performance-based benefits for the key performing
employees and teams. This proactive approach to ensuring employee satisfaction is a key
functionality of the management system within Boots UK and is a significant contributing factor
to the high levels of workplace satisfaction.
Recommendations for improvement
Certain recommendations could be implemented within the Boots UK organization in order to
increase their operational efficiencies, and they are as follows.
 The company must adopt a more functional approach in their management policies in order
to better accommodate
 A stronger digital presence must also be emphasized upon to take the online markets across
the UK that have grown largely owing to the high internet penetration numbers among the
consensus (Ramanathan et al., 2017)
 Diversification into other categories within the retail sector could also be integrated within
the management policies in Boots UK owing to the poor performance of the health and
wellness sector over the past few years
 Focusing on decentralized teams across the UK would also increase the efficiency levels
within the company and allow for a more functional approach to the various complexities
presented by the British retail sector
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Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that the company Boots UK relies heavily on the theories of
Schein’s organizational culture and the contingency theory in order to efficiently manage the
various operations within their sector. The poor performance of the overall industry has largely
hindered the company, but it has managed to maintain its sales figures irrespective of the same
and continues to aggressively target the problems in order to further enhance their operational
smoothness.
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References
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Shi, X., Li, F. and Bigdeli, A.Z., 2016. An examination of NPD models in the context of
business models. Journal of Business Research, 69(7), pp.2541-2550.
Iivari, M.M., Ahokangas, P., Komi, M., Tihinen, M. and Valtanen, K., 2016. Toward
ecosystemic business models in the context of industrial internet. Journal of Business Models,
4(2).
Meyer, K.E. and Peng, M.W., 2016. Theoretical foundations of emerging economy business
research. Journal of International Business Studies, 47(1), pp.3-22.
Crane, A. and Matten, D., 2016. Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and
sustainability in the age of globalization. Oxford University Press.
Maylor, H., Blackmon, K. and Huemann, M., 2016. Researching business and management.
Macmillan International Higher Education.
Boots.com. 2019. Available at:
https://www.boots.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/TopCategoriesDisplay?
catalogId=28501&langId=-1&storeId=11352&webrewrite=Y&geoOpts=Y [Accessed 4 Jun.
2019].
Daher, N., 2016. THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AND
ORGANIZATIONAL INNOVATION. International Journal of Business & Public
Administration, 13(2).
Schöbel, M., Klostermann, A., Lassalle, R., Beck, J. and Manzey, D., 2017. Digging deeper!
Insights from a multi-method assessment of safety culture in nuclear power plants based on
Schein’s culture model. Safety science, 95, pp.38-49.
Otley, D., 2016. The contingency theory of management accounting and control: 1980–
2014. Management accounting research, 31, pp.45-62.
Gerdin, J. and Linton, G., 2016. Contingency fit (s) in entrepreneurship research: uses and
usability.
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