Organization Theory and Behavior
Today’s Effective Manager
The article lays emphasis on the significance of manager’s agility in the development and sustenance of organizational competitive edge. It asserts that today’s effective managers should be able to harness the benefits of human capital as well as information technology so as to help their organization attain success. According to the article, increasing globalization and technological changes are some of the leading competitive forces managers have to deal. For managers to be able to fight these competitive forces, they should be able to understand the driving forces of the competitive forces in an organization (Ivancevich and Robert 6). The components of these driving forces include the use of information, greater knowledge and novel economic alliances. For a manager to be considered effective manager in the current world, he or she should be able to comprehend these driving forces and generate effective ways to overcome each of them.
Today’s effective managers should be able to acquire relevant perspective on the rate at which environmental and competitive force change. An understanding of this perspective will provide the directors with the pertinent insight of how to effectively and efficiently address these changes to benefit their organization. Effective managers should show an understanding on how today’s market can shift drastically. They should be able to comprehend how factors like mergers and acquisitions change both domestic and global markets. According to the article, today’s effective manager will use the information and knowledge to form strategic alliances that can benefit the organization to attain success (Ivancevich and Robert 6).
Apart from understanding the driving forces behind the competitive force, today’s effective manager should be able to attract, retain and develop human capital so as to address the issues of global competition. It emphasizes that this process requires continuous learning: which entails identification and transfer of knowledge to the employee in a continuous approach. Effective managers should be able to share knowledge as a key to remaining competitive.
Article 2
U.S Workforce: High-paid Knowledge workers or Low-paid Service Workers
According to the article, the evolution of the U.S economy to a barbell economy has forced only two types of the workforce to remain available. Regardless of the field or profession; be it business, political science, sociology or psychology, the U.S workforce can be broadly categorized into two groups based on the skills: high-paid, high professional or low-wage, low skill service jobs. The article asserts that between the years of 2006 and 2016, the most rapid growing occupational cluster of jobs will either be service clusters or professional and related clusters (Ivancevich and Robert 17). The professional and related clusters are composed of technicians, healthcare practitioners, and education, training and library professionals. The professional and related categories require bachelor degree and certification. On the other hand, the service cluster is made up of healthcare and food preparation support roles. As opposed to the professional and related cluster, the service cluster only requires high school diploma (Ivancevich and Robert 17).
The article identifies two significant trends that will affect future of labor supply and demand in the country. The first trend is affiliated with the pending retirement of old timers over the next one or two decades that will lead to shortages of skills. It asserts that most of the population growth of the workforce will be from immigrants and their offspring born in the country. The immigrant labor workforce also exhibits a barbell shape in education attainment. While half of the labor force is highly educated, the other half of the labor force does not have formal education (Ivancevich and Robert 17).
The article suggests that the U.S workforce will only be made of two groups regarding skills; high-paid knowledge like professors, researchers, and lawyers or low-paid service workers like restaurant servers, janitors, and nursing aids. A combination of this type of economy with increasing number of baby boomers retirements and increase in immigrant will result to numerous challenges and opportunities.
Works Cited
Ivancevich, John M. Konopaske, and Robert Matteson. Organizational behavior and management. No. 658.4 I9. 2011.
