Understanding & Organization

Compose a 2000 words assignment on understanding & organization.

Needs to be plagiarism free! The existing structure gave a considerable amount of autonomy to the personnel at the operational level to make decisions, whilst each member of staff, depending on their area of expertise, had the power to veto any decisions made by the rest of the personnel. The changes were proposed by the then deputy chair and managing director of the supermarket chain Sainsbury’s, who famously claimed that the NHS was devoid of management that can make firm decisions and not always resort to consultation with doctors or senior clinical staff, as was prevalent due to the consensus management style. The following is an analysis of the NHS case with regards to the changes brought about in the general structure of the organization with the introduction of the concept of general management to exercise control and coordination of activities, as opposed to the consensus management style that existed prior to the changes. The existing structure gave a considerable amount of autonomy to the personnel at the operational level to make decisions, whilst each member of staff, depending on their area of expertise, had the power to veto any decisions made by the rest of the personnel. This was referred to as a ‘lowest common denominator’ style of decision making. Griffith, however, proposed a more management-oriented structure, where line managers would be introduced for each unit or hospital, and these managers will carry the sole responsibility of making decisions, applying control measures especially where finances are concerned, and overall coordination of activities within the guidelines provided to achieve strategic objectives. Understanding the environmental circumstances which prompted the need for such changes in a nationalised organisation would provide more insight as to why such measures were necessary, and what these changes have implied for the organisation over the years.

One method to study the environment is the PEST analysis, which stands for an understanding of the Political, Economical, Sociological and Technological aspects of the market environment (Johnson et al, 2008. Kotler et al, 2006). The political, economical, and sociological aspects in relation to the NHS case are quite intertwined, as this was a period when Britain was undergoing many changes as a result of the economic recession that started in the preceding years, and the young conservative government under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher was in the process of making many difficult decisions to turn the economy around and to reduce unemployment that hit the three million mark during this time. In addition to this, the Falkland war, albeit won the British public’s admiration of the Thatcher government, resulted in additional expenditure, along with added burden of sustaining existing nationalised businesses, which meant increase in taxes and the resultant inflation. This has caused the government to take stringent measures where financing was concerned specifically for nationalized organizations like the NHS. The government also fully or partly privatised many other initially nationalised organisations to extend some of the burdens to more profitable private entities. It could be that pure observation of how, many private firms have operated profitably during the economic recession, by employing measures of cutting costs, dissolving unwanted business operations, removing redundant personnel etc may have motivated the government to employ similar measures in the nationalized businesses. This seems fitting to the fact that the opinions of an executive from a supermarket chain were taken aboard, and then implemented as in the case of the NHS. The aim, however, was to include a certain degree of competitiveness within nationalised organisations in relation to other organisations in the market, which may result in profitability and expansion, and ultimately creation of new jobs (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,920566-3,00.html). Another political factor playing an important role during this period was the influx of immigrants despite the government’s best efforts to curb it.