MG101

ASSIGNMENT 1

Chapter 1: The Contemporary

Workplace

Organisations seen as systems are regarded as ones of which communicate with the
outside environment instead of just within the company. The organisation to be
discussed in this essay is a tertiary institution in Fiji known as The University of the
South Pacific as system. It will further discuss benefits for this, outlining the activities
involved in running the organization, categorizing the three main components of input,
process and output as well as depicting the challenges that may be faced by the
organisation in this contemporary age.
The institution is commonly known for delivering exceptional tertiary level education
and producing high standards of graduates. (The University of the South Pacific 2019).
Certain benefits fall from regarding the university as a system. Firstly, it allows the
management or in this case, a Vice Chancellor to view the institution from a larger
perspective and different aspects instead of one. (Carter McNamara 2006). If only a
certain part of the institution will be focused on, the strategies to improve the service
providing level will be based on very less information leading to very constraint
measures taken to uplift the university standard. Assessing the activities of the various
sections will allow for a better understanding of how resources are used.
Secondly, another benefit of viewing the institution as a system is that it allows for
more interactive sessions between workers within and outside the institution. If the
university was not to be seen as a system and instead on its own, it would result in zero
interaction with outside openings. Useful information would not be communicated and
therefore the university has less to analyse when it comes to improving the management
of employees including lecturers and so on. As for The University of the South Pacific,
it is not seen as an institution on its own. In relation to workers within the institution,
proper communication is essential to continually allow for growth. Communicating
between departments means that the employees will know the connection between one’s
own work processes with another to enable them to know how the different work
processes lead to the output of providing better level of tertiary studies to students.
Interacting regularly with outside bases can create some real unexpected opportunities
such as receiving donations.
The university is a tertiary studies service provider that caters for students all over the
Pacific. Students from all places within Fiji and outside, such as Kiribati, Tuvalu and
the Solomon Island attend the university due to its high recognition. The operational
activities of the organizations are straight forward. Many departments or the sub
systems operate with their designated tasks to achieve the output. Various faculties
exist, namely consisting of fields of Arts, Business and Economics and so on. Lecturers
and tutors are designated to the specific faculties according to their subject of teaching
to provide education to students. Times are allocated effectively for classes to take place
to cater for the large number of students and to avoid clashes with classes.
Moving on, components of the university are the inputs, process and outputs. Inputs are
in the form of the lecturers, tutors, student mentors and most importantly, the students.
Other inputs include materials such as such as the things used to carry out the process of
operational activities in the university. Money was an essential part when this institution
was first put into place. Without this, infrastructure would not have been made, people
would not be employed and simply, the institution would not exist. Information is also
an input as outside information as well previous year’s information about the university
are used to improve the work activity. Technology is an important part in providing
service. Learning and teaching are carried out through projector screens and computers
to enhance learning capability for students (Schermerhorn et al. 2017). As for the
process component, all the inputs are effectively used to provide a better learning
platform to students as the main purpose of the institution. This process is one which the
actual learning and teaching takes place between lecturers or tutors and students. As for
output, it is the fresh graduates that are released after completing allocated years studies
at the university. These graduates are released in a better state to enter the workforce as
knowledgeable workers.
Moreover, the tertiary institution Pacific is present in the contemporary age therefore
many challenges are faced to keep up in this era. One of which is trying to stay up to
date with the change in technology (Schermerhorn et al. 2017). New types of equipment
and technology is being produced and adapted in most countries. Although the use of
new and effective technology will have a great positive impact on learning and delivery,
considering the level of funds to purchase and use new technology, it is not easy to be
readily up to date to provide students with new learning technology and equipment.
Another challenge that the university may face is trying to stay in competition with
other universities. As stated in the first benefit, funds are not available in large
proportions as it is in other developed countries. For countries such as the United States
of America, if degrees provided at universities are well recognized according to their
highly advanced teaching criteria, the University of the South Pacific will lose students
to universities offering such advanced course outlines and therefore lose out in
competency.
In conclusion, the discussed institution stands as one of the best universities for most
Pacific Island countries through graduate degrees that are well recognized. As a system,
the university is able to effectively carry out processes in a much more flexible way
compared to looking at it step by step. With this, plans can be made for further
betterment of the university so that it can survive in this world full of daily dynamic
challenges.

Number of words: 974

Reference
Carter McNamara, 2006, Thinking About Organisations as Systems,
https://managementhelp.org/organizations/systems.htm [Accessed 28 February, 2019]
Schermerhorn, Davidson, Factor, Woods, Simon, McBarron(2017).
Management.6th ed. Australia: John Wiley & Sons Ltd
The University of the South Pacific, 2019, https://www.usp.ac.fj/index.php?
id=about_usp [Accessed 28 February, 2019]