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2. The Manager: Omnipotent or Symbolic?
Omnipotent View of Management
Managers are directly responsible for an organization’s success or failure due to their actions and decisions.
The quality of the organization
is determined by the quality of its managers.
Good managers anticipate changes, exploit opportunities, correct poor performance, and lead their organization.
How much impact do managers actually have on organizational success or failure?
How much difference does he make to organizational performance?
SWOT

3. Omnipotent View of Management
When profits are up, managers take the credit and get rewarded.
While, when profits are down, top managers are often fired.
Managers are held most accountable for an organization’s performance yet it is difficult to attribute good or poor performance directly to their influence on the organization.
How much impact do managers actually have on organizational success or failure?
How much difference does he make to organizational performance?
SWOT

4. Omnipotent View of Management
The omnipotent view is consistent with the conventional picture of the take-charge managers who has to overcome any obstacle in ensuring the attainment of organizational goals.
In the omnipotent view, when organizations perform poorly, someone has to be held accountable regardless of the reasons why, and in our society, that "someone" is the manager.
Of course, when things go well, we need someone to praise. So managers also get the credit—even if they had little to do with achieving positive outcomes.
How much impact do managers actually have on organizational success or failure?
How much difference does he make to organizational performance?
SWOT

5. The Symbolic View
Lets say in Dhanmondi area there were two competing stores of Agora and Meena Bazar. Due to some internal reasons, Meena Bazar decided to shut down their store in the area. This will directly benefit Agora and their sales will increase significantly.
Was the increase in sales for Agora the result of their managers' decisions and actions, or was it beyond the control of the organizations' managers?
The symbolic view would suggest that the positive performance wasn't due to anything that the managers did but instead was due to forces beyond their control.

6. WHICH VIEW, OMNIPOTENT OR SYMOBOLIC, DO YOU THINK IS CORRECT THEN?
Symbolic View of Management
Much of an organization’s success or failure is due to external forces outside of managers’ control.
The ability of managers to affect outcomes is influenced and constrained by external factors.
The economy, customers, governmental policies, competitors, industry conditions, technology, and the actions of previous managers
It is unreasonable to expect managers to significantly affect an organization’s performance.
This view is called “symbolic” because managers are a symbol of control and influence through their action.
WHICH VIEW, OMNIPOTENT OR SYMOBOLIC, DO YOU THINK IS CORRECT THEN?

7. Reality suggests a synthesis
In reality, managers are neither all-powerful nor helpless. But their decisions and action options are constrained.
Internal constraints come from the organization’s culture, and external constraints come from the organization’s external environment.
Copyright © 2005 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.
Exhibit 3.1

8. The Organization’s Culture
Organizational Culture
A system of shared meanings and common beliefs held by organizational members that determines, in a large degree, how they act towards each other.
The way things are done inside an organization.
Values, symbols, rituals, myths, and practices
Organizational culture evolves over
time.
Similar to human characteristics which influence the way we act and interact, an organization too has a personality – its culture. This decides the way that its employees behave and act.

9. The Organization’s Culture
Implications:
Culture is a perception – it cannot be physically touched or seen, but employees perceive it on the basis of what they experience within the organization.
Culture is shared – even though individuals may have different backgrounds or work at different levels, they tend to describe culture in similar terms.
Culture is descriptive – it is concerned with how members perceive the culture and describe it, not with whether they like it.
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10. 7 Dimensions of Organizational Culture
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Exhibit 3.2

11. How Culture Affects Managers
Since, culture constrains what a manager can and cannot do, it is especially relevant to them.
Such constraints are rarely explicit. They are not written down or spoken frequently about.
However, they are there, and all managers must quickly learn what to do and what not to do in the organization.
Example : “ready-aim-fire” and “ready-fire-aim”
Hence, how you work in an organization is actually determined by its culture.

12. How Culture Affects Managers
The culture establishes for managers appropriate and expected behavior.
Manager’s decisions are influenced by the culture in which he or she works.
Simple rule for getting ahead in an organization:
Find out what the organization rewards and do those things.
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13. Defining the External Environment
The forces and institutions outside the organization that potentially can affect the organization’s performance.
Components of the External Environment
Specific environment: external forces that have a direct and immediate impact on the organization.
General environment: broad economic, socio-cultural, political/legal, demographic, technological, and global conditions that may affect the organization.
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14. The External Environment
Pressure by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) on McDonald’s over its handling of animals during the slaughter process led the company to stop buying beef from one supplier until it met higher standards for processing cattle.
Copyright © 2005 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.
Exhibit 3.8

15. Customers: Organizations exist to meet the needs of customers. It's the
customer or client who absorbs the organization's output.
Suppliers: Managers seek to ensure a steady flow of needed inputs at
the lowest price available. Because these inputs represent uncertainties—
that is, their unavailability or delay can significantly reduce the
organization's effectiveness—managers typically go to great efforts
to ensure a steady, reliable flow.
Competitors: All organizations have one or more competitors. Managers
cannot afford to ignore the competition. When they do, they pay dearly.
Pressure Groups: Managers must recognize the special-interest groups that attempt to influence the actions of organizations.

16. Economic Conditions: Interest rates, inflation, changes in disposable income, stock market fluctuations, and the stage of the general business cycle are some of the economic factors in the general environment that can affect management practices in an organization.
Political/Legal Conditions: Legal and regulatory influences on what organizations can and cannot do. E.g. employment laws, tax laws, occupational safety laws, civil rights, etc.
Other aspects of the political/legal sector are political conditions and the general stability of a country in which an organization operates and the attitudes that elected governmental officials hold toward business.
Sociocultural Conditions: Managers must adapt their practices to the changing expectations of the society in which they operate. As societal values, customs, and tastes change, managers must also change.

17. Demographic Conditions: The demographic conditions encompass trends in the physical characteristics of a population such as gender, age, level of education, geographic location, income, family composition, and so forth.
Technological: In terms of the general environment, the most rapid changes during the past quarter-century have occurred in technology. We live in a time of continuous technological change.
Global: globalization is one of the major factors affecting managers and organizations. Managers of both large and small organizations are challenged by an increasing number of global competitors and consumer markets as part of the external environment.

18. How the Environment Affects Managers
Environmental Uncertainty
The extent to which managers have knowledge of and are able to predict change in their organization’s external environment is affected by:
Complexity of the environment: the number of components in an organization’s external environment e.g. competitors, customers, suppliers, government agencies and so on.
Degree of change in environmental components: how dynamic or stable the external environment is e.g. no new competitors, few technological innovations, little pressure from pressure groups and so on.
Knowing what the various components of the environment are as important as understanding how the environment affects managers.
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19. Stakeholder Relationships
Stakeholders
Any constituencies in the organization’s (internal+external) environment that are affected by the organization’s decisions and actions
Why Manage Stakeholder Relationships?
It can lead to improved organizational performance such as improved predictability of environmental changes, more successful innovations, greater trust, etc.
It’s the “right” thing to do given dependence of the organization on its external stakeholders for sources of inputs (resources) and as outlets for outputs.

20. Organizational Stakeholders
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Exhibit 3.11