RMIT University MGMT20144: Oxfam Business Context Analysis Report

This report provides a detailed analysis of Oxfam Australia's business and management context. It begins with an introduction to the organization, its background, and its association with Oxfam International. The report then delves into Oxfam's governance and business structure, highlighting its commitment to ethical standards and partnerships. It examines the social and legal environmental factors impacting Oxfam, including social services, legal compliance, and ethical considerations. The report identifies various risks faced by Oxfam, such as regulatory compliance, volunteer control, and reputational risks. It further explores Oxfam's business practices, including board development and succession planning, and outlines its functional departments, such as development, emergencies, campaigning, advocacy, and policy examination. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and emphasizing the importance of effective business management in achieving Oxfam's goals. References are included for further research.

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oxfam
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8/9/2019

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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Background of the organization.......................................................................................................2
The governance structure and business structure of Oxfam............................................................2
Environment factors that affect Oxfam...........................................................................................3
Risks faced by Oxfam......................................................................................................................4
Business practices of Oxfam...........................................................................................................5
Functional departments....................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
This report studies about the management and business of Oxfam, Australia. The
management of business is the coordination and organization of activities of business in order to
attain the specified goals. In this report, the government and business structure of Oxfam,
Australia is to be discussed which is adopted by Oxfam. The several environmental factors are
present that widely affect the performance of the business and the decision making processes.
Moreover there are risks which are involved in the business that is to be identified for the
purpose of favorable business performance and decision-making. Furthermore the functional
departments of Oxfam are to be identified which play significant role in the success of the
business and its employee’s performance.
Background of the organization
Oxfam is a self-regulating Australian not-for-profit, society based aid, secular and
established organization and an associate of Oxfam international. They work in 79 countries
serving over 22 million individuals empowering the communities to encouragement themselves
out of the poverty. These are some of the nations where they are employed. They believe that all
lives are the same and no-one should live in poverty. They together are on ground, allowing
communities to tackle poverty. They also believe that in a wealthy world, poverty is preventable
and unjustifiable. Their strengths come from their people that are their staffs, directors,
volunteers and supporters (Oxfam, 2018).

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The governance structure and business structure of Oxfam
 This organization wants to be devoted to uploading the main ethical standards and given
that the different and safe environment they work with.
 They work in partnership with concurring organizations around the world to challenge
the poverty.
 They are undertaking poverty empowering societies to build improved lives for
themselves for more than sixty years.
 This organization also wants to stay connected with people and it has sustain long time
growth by the continuous improvement for the organization for the governance structure
of the organization, organizations processes and the appraisal systems.
 The meeting with not-for-profit organizations is one of the authoritative body of the
organization which makes the decisions relies on the big issues such as increase in the
capital of the organization for the purpose of improving the life of others who are living
in poverty, board of directors and the supervisory board who tackled the poverty
empowering the communities.
 The members of the non-for-profit organization are one the biggest body who are held
responsible for the strategy of the organization, management and the satisfaction of the
people who lives in poverty. The mission of non-for-profit members is to lead the
organization all over the world. They exercises their power independently for the making
of decision of the organization and management of the activities and to ensure that those
people are protected and safe (Gatti, Et al, 2017).

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Environment factors that affect Oxfam
 Social factor: social services that are offered in the Australia are very limited due to the
budget constraints of government and because of this reason the situation of poverty is
further compounded by the lack of transportation that is required to bring potential aid
recipient from the remote rural locations. This present social structure is not sustainable
and will need a concerted effort to find suitable solutions for reform. Future activities can
immigration reform, increase in minimum wage, aid from the not-for-profit
organizations, and other funding sources in order to adequately improve this present
social situation. Specifically, the care of child, health and development of child, wages,
access to food which healthy and reasonable housing (Oxfam, 2019a).
 Legal factor: Commitment to ethics of Not-for-profit corporate morals, respect for the
agreements and obedience of native rules and guidelines are most essentials for Oxfam’s
worldwide processes. They are also some of the significant set of principles followed by
Oxfam’s organization team. The legal settings in some areas where Oxfam functions are
hard. This company have to give emphasizes on all general instructions and rules; but
negative effects can also occur due to this. Oxfam have to suffer as always to proactively
assess dangers and take preventive events to report them. (Nawaz, Et al, 2010).
Risks faced by Oxfam
1. Risk of Regulatory compliance: to uphold its untaxed status, Oxfam is subject to
particular rules set by the IRS. Initially, they have to demonstrate that they are utilizing
funds for the purpose of charity and not for any type of political and financial advantage.
The IRS prohibits political activity beyond communicating with the legislators as the
constituent or responding to the inquiries of government. Lobbying is considered

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inappropriate for the Oxfam and could cost a non-for-profit its tax exemption. Even if
they maintain its status they could be hit by painful fines (Oxfam., 2019d).
2. Risk of Volunteer control: Oxfam tends to take more stress-free ways for selecting and
training of volunteers in comparison with paid staffs thinking. As it overkill to interrogate
the intent of the people who are capable to contribute their time and money. But if the
volunteer results in damage and injury or even giveaway to Oxfam, the not-for-profit can
face claims towards the carelessness and the costs to protect or resolve those claims, it is
often more costly than the damage or injury their own self.
3. Risk of loss of Reputation: Oxfam is made on the kindness of other people it depend
highly upon the optimistic perceptions of public and the self-confidence of its base of
donor. Lose of those will make this incredible for the Oxfam to take the grants and
charitable donations they requires to provide the services they promises and can drive
away people who do not want to take help of an organization which has gathered
negative press for the things such as fiduciary misconduct, theft or other claims of the
judgment or discrimination.
Business practices of Oxfam
 Board development: A board director brings several opportunities to learn and grow
professionally and personally. Before committing to the board service, nominee for the
not-for-profit board directorship must be informed that their services need continued
development of board. Non-for-profit boards must identify and presents the opportunities
for the board of directors to attend the workshops, networking opportunities, conferences
which will increase their knowledge of the board service (Oxfam, 2019c).

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 Succession planning: not-for-profit boards have term limits. Regular board turnover can
be the better for the non-for-profit boards as it continually brings in fresh skills and
refresh perspectives. Their recruitment includes building the board with the required
skills and capabilities having an active and engaged member of board and having
semblance of independence on board.
 As an international not-for-profit organization, it takes on social responsibilities by
authorizing wide-ranging social growth to that extent than focusing on its own growth
and development.
 They will also emphasis on an opportunity of sustainability and largely enhance its
sustainability management by working together with their many charitable groups and
people who make large donation on poverty in order to create a complete not-for-profit
ecosystem (Oxfam, 2019b).
Functional departments
 Development: they effort with and by the partners and groups on the long period
programmes to overcome the poverty and fight the justice (Earl, 2016).
 Emergencies: provide instant assistance for life-saving to individuals impacted with the
natural tragedies or the war.
 Campaigning: raise responsiveness of public of causes of the poverty and also inspire
general public to take the actions.
 Advocacy: decision takers of press to modify the guidelines and the practices that
strengthen the injustice and the poverty.
 Policy examination: speak with the power as the consequence of the study and the study
and actual experiences of associates in the developing nations Oxfam GB have the

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extensive range of the policies, research staffs and programme which shared
professional’s ranges from the health of public engineering to the politicization
international institution for the change (Raja, 2015).
 Oxfam’s advocacy consultants do work for changing the policies of public and practices
in such a manner which will have the positive effect on the lives of poor society. Support
can take the place at multiple levels from its native communities by the global institutions
and include several approaches consisting media work, politicization and changing the
attitudes of public.
 Humanitarian workers of Oxfam are responsible towards the wide range of activities
comprising advising the global regions of Oxfam on the response of the humanitarian,
developing local capacity to responds to the crises which leads the growth and
development of programmes that work on the main parts like public health, security of
food, protection, AIDS and HIV. They also provide the advocacy on the matters related
to the humanitarian in the developed countries and also provide the advice of
management of security (Pelling, 2011).
Conclusion
From the above analysis it is concluded that there is requirement for the management of
business at each phase of the business in an effective and efficient way as Oxfam in Australia
undertakes the not-for-profits business which adopted good governance an business structure to
lead the poor group and eradicate the level of poverty in Australia. In this study, it is seen that
Oxfam is widely impacted by the various factors of environment that is social and legal that
creates the barriers in their operations of business. Furthermore, Oxfam faces the potential risks
in their organization and operations of such activities that has bad impact on the business of

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Oxfam and become more severe in the progress of their not-for-profit organization and
achievement for the main purpose of the organization.
References
Earl, M. (2016). Evolving the e‐business. Business Strategy Review, 11(2), 33-38.
Gatti, C., Aquilani, B., Ruggieri, A., & Silvestri, C. (2017). A systematic literature review on
total quality management critical success factors and the identification of new
avenues of research. The TQM Journal, 29(1), 184-213.
Nawaz, J., Lal, S., Raza, S., & House, S. (2010). Oxfam experience of providing screened toilet,
bathing and menstruation units in its earthquake response in Pakistan. Gender &
Development, 18(1), 81-86.
Oxfam. (2019a). assessing-our-performance. Retrieved from oxfam.org.au:
https://www.oxfam.org.au/what-we-do/about-us/assessing-our-performance/
Oxfam. (2019b). buried-treasure-tax-avoidance. Retrieved from oxfam.org.au:
https://www.oxfam.org.au/media/2019/07/buried-treasure-tax-avoidance/
Oxfam. (2019c). facing-risk-options-and-challenges-ensuring-climate disaster-risk-finance-and-
insurance. Retrieved from oxfam.org: https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/facing-
risk-options-and-challenges-ensuring-climatedisaster-risk-finance-and-insurance
Oxfam. (2019d). our-board. Retrieved from oxfam.org.au: https://www.oxfam.org.au/what-we-
do/about-us/our-people/our-board/#Compositionandstructure
Oxfam. (2018). home. Retrieved from oxfam.org.au: https://www.oxfam.org.au/

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Pelling, M. (2011). Urban governance and disaster risk reduction in the Caribbean: the
experiences of Oxfam GB. Environment and Urbanization, 23(2), 383-400.
Raja, A., & Palanichamy, P. (2015). Leadership styles and their impact on organizational
commitment. Asia Pacific business review, 7(3), 167-175.