MGMT6012 - Management Perspectives: Woolworths Case Study Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of management perspectives at Woolworths, an Australian supermarket chain. It delves into the roles and functions of managers, highlighting the challenges and risks associated with organizational change. The report examines the impact of values, ethics, and diversity on Woolworths' culture, emphasizing the importance of ethical decision-making and socially responsible practices. Key issues such as lack of coordination, funding shortages, and inadequate leadership are discussed, alongside the significance of maintaining ethical standards and fostering a positive work environment. The analysis draws upon Mintzberg’s roles and explores various managerial functions, including human resource management, financial operations, and staffing. Ultimately, the report underscores the critical role of managers in guiding employees, promoting ethical behavior, and driving business performance at Woolworths. Desklib offers a wealth of similar case studies and solved assignments to aid students in their academic pursuits.

Running head: MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVES
Management Perspectives
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Executive summary
The report was prepared to discuss about the various aspects of managerial functions and
the challenges and risks associated with the changes within the organization. With the changes
in structure and culture of the organization, Woolworths could face various issues and the
employees might even fail to adapt to the changes, which should deteriorate the business
performance. From the report, it could be understood that there had been several issues such as
lack of coordination, shortage of funds and inappropriate guidance and leading by the managerial
staffs and leaders. It would be important for the managers to carry out their roles and
responsibilities properly as well as ensure that the employees were being guided in the right
direction for the accomplishment of organizational goals and objectives. The maintenance of
values and ethics within the workplace had created a good working atmosphere where people
could work as an unit and accomplish the task with much ease and efficiency. Lastly, the report
discussed the functions of managers and how their managerial, interpersonal and communication
skills ket the staffs motivated at Woolworths and made them work with dedication and
commitment. The managers also worked as effective leaders to maintain proper recruitment
policies and procedures and even facilitated the roles of playing as responsible motivators to
drive the employee and business performance too.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Rationale of research methodology.................................................................................................3
Roles and functions performed by the managers.............................................................................4
Impact of values, ethics and diversity on the culture.......................................................................6
Role of management functions........................................................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
The report is prepared to discuss about the various management perspectives considering
the business organization Woolworths in Australia. The topic will discuss about the various roles
and functions performed by the managers along with the challenges and risks faced by the
changing organizations nowadays. The impact of values, ethics and diversity on the
organizational culture will also be demonstrated here considering the roles, behaviors and
performances of the managers from the organizational context. Woolworths is an Australian
supermarket store chain that offers good quality products and services for meeting the needs and
preferences of the customers. It has a revenue of more than 4500 crores AUD and has more than
1,11,000 employees with nearly 1000 stores present worldwide (woolworths.com.au, 2018).
Rationale of research methodology
Based on the case study, it could be understood that the organizational theories include
both organizational ethics and ethical practices managed at Woolworths. These are principles
and standards that should be maintained for acting with fairness, compassion, honesty, integrity
and fulfilling the roles and responsibilities properly too. The manager of the organization must
make sure that the employees of the organization should abide by those and understand the ethics
by training the employees on the company standards. It could be seen that various management
and ethical issues could arise within the organization such as lack of clear focus for the
organization and inability to make decisions, shortage of funds, lack of communication and
coordination along with conflicts and misunderstandings between the employees and other team
members (Drori, Höllerer & Walgenbach, 2013). Lack of direction and incomplete or inaccurate

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information and data could also be other issues or constraints that the managers find difficulty to
manage.
The research rationale also shows the problems that are faced by the managers such as
lack of proper selection practices and inability to set clear performance expectations. Once the
problem is identified, it would be easy to engage in constructive feedbacks and facilitate the
changes in behavior to deal with the issues resulting from changes within the organization. The
progressive discipline process is managed as well for handling the issues properly and at the
same time, confronts the performance related issues within the workplace with ease and
effectiveness. The managers of Woolworths often faced issues to make the right hiring decision
and make sure that no such unethical practices are managed, which could hamper the
organization’s reputation and image (Hull, Su & Vaculin, 2013). This would create a safe and
productive environment as well as resolve the team related conflicts, furthermore manage
conflicts within team.
The research strategies were implemented to select a proper design, approach and even
ensured proper collection of data, both primary and secondary. The primary data was collected
by conducting surveys from where quantitative data was gathered and the qualitative data was
gathered by conducting interviews with the managers. The secondary data was mainly collected
from authenticated sources like journals, articles and internet websites (Salikin, Ab Wahab &
Muhammad, 2014).

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Roles and functions performed by the managers
There are other issues as well such as lower performance due to lack of skills,
coordination and communication among the workers along with low morale resulting from
conflicts and misunderstandings among the team members. The high turnover of staffs could be
the result of lack of motivation, encouragement, and low skilled workforce, which might even
result in lower performances among the team members and degrade the business performance.
With the changes in structure and culture of the organization, the managers could face
difficulties in managing the various aspects of the organization properly, which could even
degrade the organizational performance (Michielsens, Bingham & Clarke, 2013). Due to this, the
employees would not be able to understand the organizational standards properly as well as make
the organization fail to mange proper planning, leading and administration of resources. The lack
of guidance and direction to the employees could also be the result of lack of management and
even the leadership and motivating skills of the managers might be questioned. This would
automatically raise the management approaches undertaken by Woolworths; furthermore result
in frequent complaints, conflicts and poor performances of the workers (Birkinshaw & Gupta,
2013). The managers must encourage and motivate the team members to participate in training
and developmental sessions, furthermore allow them to learn new things and become more
skilled, knowledge and obtain expertise to perform to their potential. It is important not only to
maintain proper health and safety of the workers, but also to keep them motivated and
encouraged through providing them with rewards and incentives for the betterment of their
performances and skills. According to Mintzberg’s set of ten roles, the various rules and
functions of the managers are demonstrated here.

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Figure: Mintzberg’s theory and the various roles (Birkinshaw & Gupta, 2013)
There are various functions of the managers at different levels like human resource
management functions, financial operations management, staffing, directing and controlling the
business operations. The human resources manager has the role of planning and managing the
staffing process, i.e., to recruit and select the most suitable candidates within the organization. It
is often seen that due to changes within the organization such as due to replacement of manager
or due to structural and culture changes, the organization faces issues and the employees have
been misguided too during certain situations.
Figure: Organizational management structure (Doh & Quigley, 2014)
The managerial functions to deal with these kinds of issues could be to enable proper
planning and then direct or lead the employees in the right direction for the successful

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accomplishment of goals and objectives with convenience (Doh & Quigley, 2014). The planning
phase involves creating a detailed plan towards the achievement of specific organizational goal
or objective. During the planning, the tasks are identified and the tasks that should be performed
would be outlined along with the individuals who would be responsible for performing the tasks.
The focus of planning would require proper knowledge of the vision and objectives of the
organization. At Woolworths, the managers could select the processes that could be the most
appropriate and then organize those in a logical pattern with proper timelines set. Planning would
allow Woolworths to gain a better sense of what should be achieved along with the gaining of
ability to respond to various situations quickly (Osborne & Strokosch, 2013).
Figure: Organizational management hierarchy and persons associated with it (Doh
& Quigley, 2014)

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Figure: Impact of managerial functions of organization management (Osborne &
Strokosch, 2013)
The HR managers of Woolworths are responsible for the staffing functions and ensure
that the resources are directed to the appropriate processes and tasks. This would allow for
focusing on the labor or workforce and relate those to the organizational goals and objectives.
The functions of the HR managers are to select the right people for the right positions and make
sure that the structure of the organization is not hindered due to lack of skilled individuals within
the workplace (Razman, 2015).
Impact of values, ethics and diversity on the culture
The values, ethics and diversity can play a vital role in ensuring ethical decision making
and at the same time, ensure successful management of business operations and processes by

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maintaining the ethical standards. The maintenance of values and ethics is an integral part of the
workplace and the ethics must be put into practices within the business setting. The managers are
responsible to make people know about the ethical standards that should be managed along with
the successful implementation of the ethical policies and procedures to ensure ethical decision-
making. Woolworths has ensured ethical compliance by becoming socially responsible through
successful management of sustainable approaches (Delmas, Etzion & Nairn-Birch, 2013). The
company even adopted environment friendly approaches for contributing to the maintenance of
organizational values and ethics and even mastered the excellence in terms of benefiting the
society as a whole. Discrimination is prevented within the workforce and the employees are
treated equally regardless of being a male or female. Unethical behaviors and attitudes can often
be embedded into the minds of subordinates, which could prevent managing proper values and
ethics and could even deteriorate the brand image and reputation. In case an employee of the
organization is a victim of harassment, the management should handle the situation properly by
making sure that the working conditions are safe and the health and safety of the employees are
maintained. The work schedules should be considerate and fair, which could not only prevent
unethical practices within the workplace but would also allow Woolworths to achieve the ethical
standards (Christensen, Mackey & Whetten, 2014). This would also increase the level of morale
of the employees, furthermore encourage and motivate them to perform to their potential.

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Figure: Cultural psychology (Christensen, Mackey & Whetten, 2014)
Other than the citizens, employees and the community, the companies should respect the
company and the same happened for Woolworths. The company had set good stewards of the
earth to become socially responsible and even laid out commitment for the social responsibilities
within the community. The company developed policies and procedures to maintain
environmental sustainability for ensuring that the resources could be used wisely and new
departments should be created for adopting more reasonable policies. The company also
provided education for the poor children and even maintained policies to recycle wastes and used
energy efficient lightings at the stores to create lesser impact on the environment (Reamer,
2013). The company had maintained ethical practices to set fair prices for the products and
services and even delivered the best quality products, which created positive mindsets among the
customers. Woolworths even marketed the products through proper advertisements and
promotional strategies so that the customers were not neglected, rather they could gain proper