Analyzing Oxfam Australia: Management, Business Context, and Strategy

This case study examines Oxfam Australia, a major non-profit organization, focusing on its business structure, governance, and the impact of environmental factors (political, economic, and social) on its performance and decision-making processes. The study identifies major risks, including financial, employee, and expansion risks, and analyzes how Oxfam Australia mitigates these through practices like digital media utilization and expanded service offerings. The functional departments within Oxfam Australia are also discussed, highlighting how they contribute to the organization's mission. The analysis emphasizes the importance of strategic decision-making, environmental awareness, and risk management for organizational success. The paper concludes that the corporation's performance is significantly determined by its decision-making process, environmental considerations, risk management strategies, and effective business practices.

Running head: MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS CONTEXT
MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS CONTEXT: A CASE STUDY OF OXFAM
AUSTRALIA
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

1MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS CONTEXT
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Overview of Oxfam Australia.........................................................................................................2
Business Structure and Governance Structure of Oxfam Australia.................................................3
Impact of environmental factors on Oxfam Australia’s performance and decision making...........4
Major risks and their impact on Oxfam Australia’s performance and decision making.................5
Practices adopted by Oxfam Australia and their impact on performance and decision making.....6
Functional departments of Oxfam Australia....................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................8

2MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS CONTEXT
Introduction
As opined by Lankoski (2016), the overall organizational performance of any business
corporation is determined by a conglomeration of different factors which not along with
influencing its performance also influence the decision making process undertaken by the
corporation for the purpose of making important decisions. Vom Brocke, Zelt and Schmiedel
(2016) are of the viewpoint that the internal and the external contextual factors are perhaps the
most important ones which influence the performance of the business corporations by
influencing the decision making process undertaken by the enterprises. Furthermore, the business
corporations are also required to effectively identify the risks that they are likely to face on the
score of their business operations and thereby take adequate measures for the mitigation of the
same. The purpose of this paper is to critically analyze the impact of the external and internal
factors on the performance and the decision making process undertaken by the business
corporations in the particular context of Oxfam Australia.
Overview of Oxfam Australia
Oxfam Australia is one of the largest independent, non-for-profit corporations of the
nation of Australia which specializes in offering different community-based relief or aid services
to the people of the concerned nation (Oxfam.org.au, 2019). The concerned corporation is
affiliated to the Oxfam International which is presently operational in the different nations of the
world and aspires to offer relief or aid services to the people on an international basis (Hajnal,
2018). In this relation, it needs to be said that the corporation under discussion here apart from
the different community-based aid or relief and social services that it offers to the people also
offers emergency services to the people as well (Besley, 2016). More importantly, the

3MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS CONTEXT
corporation is presently working on different kinds of development projects in the nation of
Australia which are intended to improve the quality of the lives that the people and thereby help
in the improvement of the societal condition of the nation under discussion here (Sanders &
Price, 2018). Furthermore, it had been seen that the major source of funding of the concerned
corporation is from the community denotations that it receives. For example, it is seen that 73%
of the funding that it receives is used for various developmental projects, 11% for maintenance
and administration and the remaining 16% is being used for fundraising and other similar
activities (Oxfam.org.au, 2019). The success attained by the corporation under discussion here
becomes apparent from the fact that it had been able to serve more than 7.64 million people in
around 32 different nations of the world while receiving funding or donations from around
510,000 people from all over the world (Oxfam.org.au, 2019).
Business Structure and Governance Structure of Oxfam Australia
Wirtz et al. (2016) are of the viewpoint that the business structure which is being
followed by a particular business enterprise while revealing insightful information regarding the
enterprise in a succinct manner also highlights the manner in which business is conducted by the
concerned enterprise. In the particular context of Oxfam Australia, it is seen that the concerned
enterprise is a corporation wherein different not-for-profit organizations and also individual
social workers have come together for the improvement of the social condition and also the
quality of lives that the people lead (Hajnal, 2018). More importantly, the corporation despite
being affiliated to Oxfam International is a registered corporation within the nation of Australia
and also the government of the concerned nation plays a pivotal role within the different
developmental projects, social work activities and others that are being undertaken by it (Sanders
& Price, 2018). However, at the same time it had been seen that the corporation follows a

4MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS CONTEXT
functional structure wherein the important decisions are being made by its Chief Executive,
Helen Szoke and the heads of the different departments collaborate with her for the completion
of the different projects or social activities (Oxfam.org.au, 2019). In addition to her, the Board of
the concerned corporation consists of different members like National Chairperson, Executive
Directors and others along with the representative members of the other non-for-organizations
which collaborate on the projects undertaken by the concerned corporation (Besley, 2016).
Impact of environmental factors on Oxfam Australia’s performance and decision making
As discussed by Alston, Whittenbury and Western (2016), the environmental factors
plays an integral role not only on the business activities of a business corporation but also on the
decision-making process used by the corporation and thereby its performance. In the case of
Oxfam Australia, it is seen that the most important environmental factors which influence the
performance as well as the decision making process used by the corporation are the political
factors, economic factors and the social factors. For example, the national government of
Australia had mandated the different not-for-profit organizations to show a higher level of
commitment towards the societal growth of the nation and also for the improvement of the lives
of the people as well (Snijder et al., 2015). On the other hand, the stable economic condition of
the nation of Australia ensures the fact that the people of the concerned nation have the required
amount of capital or money to make donations to corporations like Oxfam Australia and others
(Sanders & Price, 2018). Furthermore, an important social trend perceptible within the nation of
Australia is the fact that the people are showing an ever-increasing tendency to take part in
different community-based relief or aids or for that matter for the improvement of the quality of
the lives led by the common people (Briskman, 2016).

5MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS CONTEXT
Oxfam Australia had been able to substantially improve the quality of the developmental
projects completed by it or for that matter the community-based relief or aids offered by it
through an effective consideration of the above mentioned environmental factors. For example, it
is seen that the corporations while making any important decisions takes into account these
factors and through the perspective of these factors itself the important decisions of the
corporation are being made. In the light of the Oxfam Australia’s performance in the present
times it can be said that the effective usage of the different environmental factors have positively
enhanced the performance of the corporation while influencing its decision making process.
Major risks and their impact on Oxfam Australia’s performance and decision making
The three major risks that Oxfam Australia presently faces in the nation of Australia and
their potential impact on the performance and the decision making process of the corporation are
listed below-
 Financial Risk: Oxfam Australia faces a high amount of financial risk since the
donations or the funding which it gets are from the community members and thus they
are not always stable. This in turn is likely to adversely affect the completion of the
different developmental projects and also the community-based relief services that it
offers to the people.
 Employee Risk: The majority of the employees that Oxfam Australia has are voluntary
workers and it is not always possible to find volunteers who are willing to work for free.
Thus, this is another important risk that the corporation and which is once again likely to
affect the services offered by it.

6MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS CONTEXT
 Expansion Risk: Oxfam Australia in the present times had expanded the nature of the
relief services offered by it in an exponential manner and this in the absence of adequate
funding or volunteers is likely to adversely affect the quality of the services offered by it
or for that matter the developmental projects completed by it.
Practices adopted by Oxfam Australia and their impact on performance and decision
making
An important practice which is presently being used by Oxfam Australia is its usage of
the digital media for offering the relief services. For example, it is seen that the corporation had
started its own website wherein the individuals can get information regarding the services
offered by the corporation, make donations, get themselves registered as volunteers and others
(Hajnal, 2018). The usage of this measure had helped the corporation to not only enhance the
amount of finding received by it but also the number of volunteers as well. Another important
practice which is being used by Oxfam Australia is the enhancement of the nature of services
offered by it like poverty, mining, climate change, labor issues and others (Oxfam.org.au, 2019).
This in had helped it to make a positive contribution towards society and also to improve the
quality of the lives led by the people as well.
Functional departments of Oxfam Australia
The different departments within the framework of Oxfam Australia are being divided on
the basis of the nature of the relief services that they handle or take care of. Thus, there are
different departments within Oxfam Australia wherein the volunteers specifically deal with
poverty, labor issues, mining issues, climate change, gender inequality, inequality and other
important problems. These individual functional departments are being managed by a leader who

7MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS CONTEXT
in turn reports to the Chairman of the corporation (Hajnal, 2018). Furthermore, the Leaders are
required to effectively collaborate with the fundraisers, treasurers and others for the offering the
relief services that their team offers to the people.
Conclusion
To conclude, the performance of a business corporation is greatly determined by the
decision-making process used by it, the environmental factors, the risks faced by it and the risks
mitigation strategies used by it and others. Furthermore, the business corporations are required to
formulate adequate business and corporate structures as well along with the usage of adequate
business practices for the attainment of the desired level of success. These aspects become
apparent from the above analysis of the same in the particular context of Oxfam Australia.

8MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS CONTEXT
References
Alston, M., Whittenbury, K., & Western, D. (2016). Rural community sustainability and social
work practice. Ecological social work: Towards sustainability, 94.
Besley, M. (2016). Value for Money Assessment Oxfam in South Africa: Australia Africa
Community Engagement Scheme (AACES) Capacity building component. Oxfam
Australia.
Briskman, L. (2016). Decolonizing social work in Australia: Prospect or illusion. In Indigenous
Social Work around the World (pp. 111-122). Routledge.
Hajnal, P. I. (2018). Oxfam International. In Civil society in the information age (pp. 57-66).
Routledge.
Lankoski, L. (2016). Alternative conceptions of sustainability in a business context. Journal of
cleaner production, 139, 847-857.
Oxfam.org.au (2019). You and Oxfam, tackling poverty together. Retrieved 11 August 2019,
from https://www.oxfam.org.au/
Sanders, M., & Price, S. (2018). Oxfam report: Aust wealth gap widens. Green Left Weekly,
(1166), 12.
Snijder, M., Shakeshaft, A., Wagemakers, A., Stephens, A., & Calabria, B. (2015). A systematic
review of studies evaluating Australian indigenous community development projects: the
extent of community participation, their methodological quality and their outcomes. BMC
public health, 15(1), 1154.

9MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS CONTEXT
Vom Brocke, J., Zelt, S., & Schmiedel, T. (2016). On the role of context in business process
management. International Journal of Information Management, 36(3), 486-495.
Wirtz, B. W., Pistoia, A., Ullrich, S., & Göttel, V. (2016). Business models: Origin, development
and future research perspectives. Long range planning, 49(1), 36-54.