Managers are a responsibility in all the industries to ensure that company resources such as raw material, finances, information and human resources of their companies to deliver services. Human resource is one of the resources that should be well taken care of by the management. Some of the most important issues about human resource that need to be addressed include; Employee safety Stress, health and employee productivity. Organizational behaviour is a wide area in management that must be implemented by top management in the process of production. According to San Francisco Daily News the article clearly points out one of the fundamental principle of organizational behaviour, the human resource. The founder of the company Jeremiah Baker and his son, Jamieson had a strong believe in the quality of the products they produce as well as the local community. This article will address the situation at the AmeriTrade Toys and Wen Wai factory based on management practices.
The first concept that the senior management should clearly understand is the values of the original owner of the company on having the locals involved in the production of the product and improves their livelihood. Outsourcing of the production process of the Toys according to me as a consultant was breaking the promise they had made to the founder. According to Scott (1992), Organizational behaviour entails human relations and employee needs. The needs of the local community and their welfare were not taken into consideration during the outsourcing process. The article further indicates on the effect of this process on the taxes of the entire town. The revenue collected from the company are no longer there since production has shifted to another country. The senior management team should know that they have an obligation to improve the welfare of the locals in Middletown rather than their on profits. The company runs a great risk losing experienced employees of the company since they have decided to outsource the production of toys. This becomes important once they cancel the contract with the outsourced company. The main reason of outsourcing in this perspective is the economic recess. The question is what the management will do after the country recovers from the recess. Employees who are experienced will have joined their competitors and it risks losing the market.
Publications such as that of poor working conditions at Wen Wai factory employ greatly damages the reputation of the company. Competitors many take advantage of such cases to push the company out of market or gain its market share. Employee safety in this case is not well taken care of which can be reflected in the end products. Employees are encourage to work and motivate to produce high quality products if they are well treated. Lack of medical cover and overworking of the employees greatly effects AmeriTrade Toys organization. Human understanding and the organizational behaviour fundamentally depends on how people perceive and think about a situation (Elsbach, Barr & Hargadon, 2005). The attitudes, attribution and behaviours of an individual towards an organization are based on their perception towards it. Perception is a process that involves noticing, selecting and organizing information with the purpose of responding. AmeriTrade Toys left many employees jobless and locked out of their houses; the outsourced company has the same treatment or even worse treatment towards its employees. This creates a perception that Ameritrade Toys is a company that mistreats its employees and it is driven by profit making.
Cognitive biases is one the issues that the company is going to face. The process of information processing during process of perception is complex and human beings fill in lost information to make the process complete, in the process they make judgment based on what they know. It will not be easy for people to remember the major reasons for outsourcing of production to a company in China. Most people will remember the unfair job cuts at the company and link it with the recent events in the outsourced company. Perceivers only act on the subset of information they receive or arrange cues they are familiar with into meaningful information.
According to expectancy theory, the effects of expectancies are very robust and it can be reflected in the motivations of an individual. If managers recognize the value and inputs of an employee, the employee is motivated to put forth effort on the tasks with high expectations of good performance resulting into quality products (Vroom, 1964). An organization can meet its goals in this case high quality for AmeriTrade Toys if the managers in the outsourced company can recognize the efforts of the employees. Better housing and quality food are some of the motivations that the company should have put in place to ensure high quality product. Employees have high expectations from their managers and this can be returned by doing a good job to produce quality products.
A problem occurs in an organization if the desired state is not achieved. In this case, AmeriTrade Toys expected Wen Wai factory in China to have better working conditions and remuneration to its employees. Human safety, health and health and employee productivity are very important to an organization. Since the company believes in better the lives of the locals, the senior management team should take up the matter and ensure that the locals where Wen Wai factory resides benefits. The work of managers is to work towards solving organizational problems. The value of the company in Middletown is very important. Further damage to the company name by outsourcing companies will be a disaster not only to the organization but the entire town. As a consultant taking the manufacturing process back to Middletown will be an ideal solution for the company. They do not have direct control of the operations in the outsourced company while the actions of that company adversely affect AmeriTrade Toys. The future of the company is at stake which means senior managers should take charge of the production process.
References
Elsbach, K.D., Barr, P. S., & Hardadon, A. B. (2005). Organizational Learning: debates past, present and future. Journal of Management Studies, 37(6), 783-795.
Scott, W. R. (1992). Organizations: rational, natural and open systems (3rd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Printice Hall.
Vroom, V. (1964). Work and Motivation. New York: Wiley.
