LSC UoS BA Business Studies: Case Study on Contemporary Management

This case study delves into contemporary management issues in the 21st century, focusing on the Shackleton leadership style and its relevance to modern organizations. It uses Unilever as a case study to illustrate issues such as poor teamwork, communication breakdowns, and the impact of leadership styles on employee performance and organizational productivity. The analysis highlights the importance of effective communication, strong leadership, and employee support for achieving organizational goals. Recommendations are made for Unilever to improve its organizational culture and leadership approach, emphasizing the need for employee involvement, open communication, and continuous improvement to enhance profitability and overall success. Desklib provides access to similar solved assignments and past papers for students.

Contemporary
Management Issues in
the 21st Century

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Recommendation ............................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION...............................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
In the 21st century, there are number of management issues in all over the world due to
globalization, changes in technologies, diversity, artificial intelligence and uncertainty about the
future which impacts on the operations and profitability of an organization. Contemporary
management is a process of resources and innovation in organization to achieve the intended
goals with the conditions and limitation within the economic status of the organization which
helps in growth of the organization as well ass employee. It is important to resolve the issues in
management by identifying the issue either with organization and employee which provides the
success and also organization uses the Shackleton leadership style which can helps in manager to
lead their employee in the right directions that will helps employee to achieve their goals and
enhance the growth of the organization. Additionally, this project covers the article in the
relevance of contemporary business crisis in an organisation. Further, it also highlights the
determination and evaluation of an organisation situation related to leadership as well as
recommendation for improving performance and enhancing value of an organization which
results the positive outcomes (Minasny and et. al., 2020).
MAIN BODY
According to the given article Shackleton leadership style helps management to grow up
the organization. It has been seen in the article, how Shackleton develop a most effective
leadership style and lead their members by increasing their morale and making team with similar
skills and interest for working. Shackleton is a caution leader and popular person which helps all
mangers to mange their team members with the effective motivation and coordination to meet
their targeted goals. It also helps in making team with similar skills and interest for working. For
the successful organization the manager should have to lead the team with more efficient skills,
resources tools and efforts to meet the targeted goals. Shackleton was the first who walk across
the Antarctica continent by leading and encouraging them in effective manner (An, 2021).
Shackleton was a effective leader who believes in their team efforts and never force their team
member to do difficult task which increase their tension and workload which effects the
organisation and employee. Shackleton aware about the Antarctic expedition he thought that this
would likely to be his last opportunity and he is skilled in both leadership and management. Most
of the organization follows the leadership of Shackleton because his strength was not only lay in
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his skills but also had a deep focus on the targeted task and achieved the success. Shackleton was
quite prepared to take tough decision, when he saw he was threat to the mission. As they believe
in adopting new and effective methods, rules, policy and other which boost the morale of their
people and engage them to improve their performance for the future growth of a organization.
Shackleton believes in their team member and always support and build relationship and
confidence in order to make strong connection with their team member. So, that employee feel
valuable and perform a task with perfection and achieve the success in their target. Although,
Shackleton took great care of their team members with well-being and motivated them to
accomplish his goals. Every organization and their team workers have to make more than two
plan which helps employee to adapt the difficulties with flexibility and more options which
increases the productivity and efficiency of the employee. It is more important that every
employee should have to know about their task and have different and effective ideas to do the
task in perfection manner (Gregory, 2019).Shackleton leadership style helps employee and
manger to generate interest and skills as well as clarity among the employee to meet their
desired targeted goals. Shackleton was effective leader through his talent and skills others
management team leaders learnt that unity is more important among the team members which
can help organization to grow faster and gives the profitable outcomes. Each team member have
to understand each other strength and weakness to improve their skills. Team leader have to
build strong relationship between the employee so that they will easily share their issues and
difficulties with their team member which reduces the issues of employee and work with the
perfection (Yoziev, 2021).
There are many contemporary management issues in 21st century which includes poor
team work, conflict between team members, performance pressure, poor communication,
changes in technologies, inadequate support, time management and lack of skills these issue
become more dangerous due to profound transition and world economy and also deceases the
productivity of any organization. Some issues are connected with technical insurance, internal
environment, legacy and management of enterprises. To introduce the contemporary issues in
management, the choosen organization is Unilever which is the multinational consumer goods
company in the British with headquarter in London. It was established in 1929 by Samuel Van
Den Bergh, Georg Schich and Antonius Johannes Jurgens to provide consumer goods to the
people which includes food, beauty products, personal care and cleaning agent. Unilever is the
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largest producer of the soap in the world and their products are available within 190 countries.
According to many researches, several ethical issues with Unilever which includes
environmental reporting, pollutions and toxics, habitat and resources, and irresponsible
marketing. Leaders and management used power culture in their organisation in which majority
of decision are taken by them without involving employees. Organization have make plan and
instruct their employees to follow the guidelines and work according to it which encourages
employees to perform their task in effective manner and organization grows faster. Due to lack
of inadequate support staff members do not involve in other activities and the leader of Unilever
did not give permission to their team works to participate in planning and decision making
regarding the task (Funk, 2018). These issue are raised because of lack of communication and
strong relationship and they not provide the training which creates confusion and employee do
not reach to their targeted goals. Moreover, leaders did not interact with their employees more
and not allow them to interact informally to other members which create conflicts and
misunderstanding among them due to lack of communication and different mindsets. Due to
work pressure and strict instruction employees do not perform their task with perfection because
employee faces many difficulties and the leaders also not provided the training before assigning
the task. Leader 's attitude towards the employee is not informal and because of these attitude and
restrictions employee do not feel flexible to complete their task on time. Overall the outcome of
these issue become more effective on organization productivity and sometimes they also loss
their talented employee due to lack of interaction which delays the task and customer base. For
the successful business, the manager and leader should have to focus in their employee
satisfaction and provide them proper training and skills which helps employee to achieve their
desired goals (Karakoyun and Lindberg, 2020).
Recommendation
It is recommended to the management leaders of Unilever that improvement is most
important in organization because effective communication, strong leadership, continued efforts
is valuable because it can helps organization to achieve the goals and increasing the revenue and
profit. These benefits can support company's overall success and advancement in individual
career. The Unilever management should have to improve their organisational culture and
leadership style in order to reduce these issues which decline their productivity and profitability.
According to the Shackleton leadership style to manage team works helps in achievements of
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success. they can also motivate employees to interact more with them and participate in different
program for their well being so they feel to be valued as well as give their best performance to
increase productivity and market share of company (Suryanto and Grima, 2018). They were
make strong relationship and interaction between the team members and allow them to interact
freely and share issues related to their task. Allow employee to make decision and feel flexible
in doing their task this, helps them to reduce misunderstanding and conflict among team workers
which leads to increase productivity of company. Providing new technology and new methods of
working they generate among employees to learn new thing addition to increase their skills and
employee feel relaxed and complete their task with perfection. Successful organization should
have to provide innovation and provide product and services to the customers which results in
increasing profitability and turnover of the organization. (Baruch, 2022).
CONCLUSION
From the above discussion, it is concluded that, there are various contemporary
management issue such as poor leadership style, inadequate support and environment , lack of
communication and many others which decline the profitability of company successful
mangers . Unilever should have to motivates their team members to perform their best potential.
Also provides the good opportunity for improvement and growth. Most effective strategies to
reduce the issue in management, the leader and manager of the Unilever should helps in set
specific goals and develop measures to achieve their desired goals.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
An, N.B., 2021. Contemporary Legal Theories on Corporate Social Responsibility. Review of
International Geographical Education Online, 11(7).
Baruch, Y., 2022. Managing Careers and Employability. Sage.
Funk, V.A., 2018. Collections‐based science in the 21st century. Journal of Systematics and
Evolution, 56(3), pp.175-193.
Gregory, V.L., 2019. Collection development and management for 21st century library
collections: an introduction. American Library Association.
Karakoyun, F. and Lindberg, O.J., 2020. Preservice teachers’ views about the twenty-first
century skills: A qualitative survey study in Turkey and Sweden. Education and
Information Technologies, 25(4), pp.2353-2369.
Minasny, B., Fiantis, D., Mulyanto, B., Sulaeman, Y. and Widyatmanti, W., 2020. Global soil
science research collaboration in the 21st century: time to end helicopter
research. Geoderma, 373, p.114299.
Suryanto, T. and Grima, S., 2018. The corporate decision in Indonesia: A result of corporate
governance requirements, earning management and audit reports. In Governance and
Regulations’ Contemporary Issues. Emerald Publishing Limited.
Yoziev, G.L., 2021. Conceptual approaches to building a perspective model of national
innovation systems: Lessons for Uzbekistan. South Asian Journal of Marketing &
Management Research, 11(3), pp.46-52.
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