The lecture over chapter 8 went over different ways to control organizational input and output in a variety of ways. Managers can assess how well a control system works by setting target goals, watching the results of a particular control system, evaluate those results, and use several different feedback methods to gather information about how successful their control strategies are.
Feed forward control allows managers to have information on potential problems before they occur, so that they can take preemptive measures to avoid any issues. Concurrent control gives managers quick feedback on how efficiently input is becoming output, and feedback control provides managers with an opportunity to assess reactions to services and products by the customers themselves.
There are four steps in developing a control process. They include setting standards of performance and making goals to be assessed, taking a measure of the actual performance, comparing the actual output with the standards established, and making corrections so that the actual and the standard are closer to the same amount of measure (Jones and George, 2013).
Output can be measured in several ways. First, they can be measured in financial ways, through profit ratios, return on investment and operation margins. Liquidity ratios can be measured through a current quick ratio. Leverage ratios measure debt to assets through a variety of means. Activity looks at inventory turnover and days-sales outstanding data.
Keys to Organizational control are the values, attitudes and actions that govern the way employees work together to achieve goals. Clan control is a group of expectations imposed on new employees or employees out of step by the whole group in order to share in the organizational culture.
Organizational change includes top down change, which is the more radical of the two types of change available. This method has the top executives make swift changes organization wide. This can lead to low morale of the workforce, but is called for when an organization needs to change dramatically in order to stay competitive, Finally, bottom up change is more conventional and agreeable, where managers work together to establish higher goals and setting benchmarks (Organizatonal Management in Tourism, youtube).
Finally, entrepreneurship is covered briefly, and is defined as people who see opportunities to innovate and seize them, taking full accountability in their execution.
References
Jones, G.R., George, J.M. (2013). Chapter 8: Control, Change and Entrepreneurship.
Essentials of Contemporary Management, 5th Edition. New York: McGraw-Hills.
Organizational Management in Tourism, Learning Module 4. TILT at CSU. retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP4FxBaASig
