Comparison between Traditional and Modern Management Model in Global Context

Introduction

Globalization, which leads to a wide mixture of national and international markets and
organisations, becomes a growing world economy, due to different ethics, values and
cultures. Both parties speak the same language. Therefore the managers of the world are still
confronted with challenges like understanding the changing market trends and how to
maintain a positive interplay. And the unpredictable global climate pushes managers over
time to do business, it is important to understand how people in different cultures can interact
successfully to achieve the tasks of the organisation and create values for the stakeholders
(Matthews & Thakkar 2012).

In the 20th century the old top-level management model was successful, but management
hierarchies and the traditional methodologies could impose a significant administrative
burden upon the company in future. Business and environmental shifts were also made at a
slow pace in the past, an easy task for managers, although today's market changes are rapidly
changing, technology development is also aggravating market competition and traditional
hierarchical administration takes a long time for market changes to be dealt with which
managers cannot plan and organise themselves. It is therefore essential to strengthen
structures and global management techniques, develop strategies that allow businesses to
copy with changes in external and internal settings, in order to adapt to ever changing
business conditions (Strielkowski et al. 2016).

This essay is intended to examine why traditional management model cannot satisfy the
needs of global company management by examining the contrasts between traditional
organisations and modern organisations, to highlight issues in traditional management
models. Find out how to improve global business management and apply the learning about
personal future career development, and learn about personal job experience and work
practises in Chinese regional organisational culture.

Comparing old management paradigm with modern management of organisation

Traditional management of the organisation

The structure of traditional, hierarchical, organised and disciplined organisations such as the
military system. The power moves up and down, the staff are departmentalized and follow a
chain of control. There are rules and regulations in each department, the superior of the
department accountable for reporting to management. All employees follow the strategies
strictly and have their own job description and responsibility for the superior, therefore, in
general the conventional structure of their company is likely to be fixed and rigid (Jahan
2016).

The critical study of the standard model of management

For the traditional management model it might be the benefit, for employees it is easy to
grasp their authority and responsibility, because the structure of the company is simple to
create and operate. Moreover, the chain of command from top to subordinate levels could
limit the chance of conflict and preserve discipline in one line organisation, allowing the staff
to have a defined obligation to their direct superior (Chimoriya 2015). However, the system
of decision-makers, managerial staff, managing directors and staff worked effectively in
relation to the rest of the world in the context of a hierarchical management model built in an
industrial age. Today, however, corporations are increasingly becoming globalised, not just
producing physical items, but also selling concepts that would be disadvantaged by the
previous management style.

Johnston (2016) submitted that because the typical organisation has many management
layers, it would take a long time to weigh up the problems and coordinate them, therefore
many managers could feel their ideas are being neglected. Moreover, the message readily
distorts when the instructions pass via a traditional hierarchical organisation in terms of
interpersonal contact. As each boss or kennel could understand the terms differently, it can
alter from the original goal till the message reaches employees. In other respects, the
authority is assigned to position instead of to person in the traditional management model in
terms of management competency, which requires continual monitoring of the effectiveness
of persons in different positions to see if they are able to do the job properly. The traditional
management also tends to focus more attention on the purpose of the firm, increasing sales or
profit, which may lead to social responsibilities and sustainable business development being
neglected by the organisation.

Modern administration of organisation

Haque and Rehman (2014) stated that modern organisational management focuses more on
networking and cooperation to address the fast innovation and increasing technological
industries, emphasising the dynamic nature of communication and the importance of
integrating individual and organisational interests, which depend largely on the development
of soft skills such as consensus building, tacit knowledge, Innovation and technology, etc
( Griffith & Hoppner 2013).

The primary differences between traditional and modern organisations, in numerous

dimensions, have been underlined by comparing two management models Jahan (2016).

Stability: In business operations and progress, traditional organisations are generally stable
whereas modern organisations are more dynamic with varied business strategy that requires a
number of processes for ongoing adjustments.

Flexibility: its structure is usually fixed in traditional organisations, the strategy is planned
and management is rigid. In the modern business, the workflow must always be increased,
the competitive edges updated, and employees need to promote the skills and knowledge to
connect to the market and change.

Teamwork: the flow of the traditional business is 'a whole hierarchy' which focuses on
individual responsibility and complies with its superior. Whilst modern business consists of
'flat hierarchy' that focuses more on teamwork and cooperation, its collaborative work mode
is more conducive to brainstorming.

Stir moral standards: modern management of organisations, which help employees to

mobilise passion, offers greater freedom and flexibility to accomplish their work.

Directive: In conventional businesses, management policies are conservative, often following

established norms and regulations, and form a static workflow model in order to sustain
corporate strategy and the management system of employees. Modern management models
will modify, for example, rescheduling, flexible management of entities, dynamic company
strategy.

From the above analysis, the context of modern management emphasises how each person
contributes to the organisation's organisational and corporate performance, how managers
devote more importance to maintaining organisational control, and how their performance is
determined by the financial revenues and the organization's share price. In addition, the
modern organisation represents the principles associated with overall quality management,
like learning organisations, high performance organisation and balancing cards (Weymes
2004).

In terms of modern governance, due to the different social, law, policy, technical and
economic factors, effective coordination and cooperation depends on different organisational
relations, the comparison clearly shows that the traditional model of administration has its
limitations and cannot fulfilled the needs of global economic development (Haque & Rehman
2014). In a globalisation context, in the modern organisation more and more managers are
engaged in working with colleagues from all over the world to build global management
capacity, which requires not only management competence like planning, organising,
coordination and control, but also cultural environmental management and situational
contingencies.

Reflection: The Chinese organisational culture's management challenges

Lockett (1988) submitted that national and organisational cultures were generally used to
determine the shape and performance of the organisations and their challenges.
Organizational culture is often presented as a question of value in practical management. In
the time of China's planned economic activity, Tsui et al. (2006) generally developed a
national plan and then fragmented the central government into a series of aims and
instructions for various organisations. State-owned companies have taken orders from
planning authorities under this kind of institutional framework, making it difficult for them to
be an autonomous decision-making body other than the Western organisation. The central
plan seeks to restrain opportunism, and by bureaucratic supervision allot resources. The goal
of state-owned companies in the planned economy was therefore to comply with production
targets and comply with 'plan.' Due to the government's allocation of resources, management
technology, and market sales, companies are less interested in innovation, customers and
results. Though China underwent a transition from a planned economy to a market-oriented
economy following economic reform and opening, many state-owned enterprises were
'privatised' and made more efficient at confronting fierce market competition and
globalisation, some organisations remain a culture of hierarchy and the traditional
management model.

I had an internship in Shanghai TV Station, worked as editor's assistant, after graduating from
the Shanghai Theater Academy. Shanghai TV station made lots of reforms to the management
system, but remained influenced by the classic management model and the Chinese
organisational culture, in order to conform to international standards and cooperate with other
institutions such as State TV programme production and distribution organisations.
According to my observation, Lockett said that Chinese culture is taken as a group of key
principles which form the basis of social interaction among Chinese people. To begin with,
show respect for age and hierarchy. Chinese traditional cultural values such as harmony,
civility, loyalty, and affiliation were strongly ingrained in people's behaviour due to their
effect on traditional Chinese mainstream culture and confucianism. And this behaviour is
further strengthened by hierarchy organisational structure. In Chinese work places,
employees like to have a single, clear and unified vision, transmitted by a single voice,
established by their managers, compared with Western leaders to focus more attention on
their professional skills, which emphasise the capacity to do the task. Another element is
group orientation that signifies the group's relative priority in comparison with individual
guidelines (Lockett). When compared with Western culture, the Chinese culture tends to
emphasis more on the individual. In practise the family management and collective value
model plays a major role, which compels the employee to scarify personal interests in the
Chinese workplace for group interests.

Furthermore, 'Face' is a key element of social interaction, Ho (quoted in Lockett) claims that
'Face' is the essence of others' recognising their social position. Losing face is more important
to the Chinese management than to the west, that is, they pay more attention to achieve
certain positions and are recognised by others. In addition, interactions in Chinese
organisations are another significant element. This combination of relations with reciprocity
leads to "guanxi," meaning that connections in Chinese play a vital role in practise, in
building mutual relations. Comparing the emphasis of western management on policies,
standards and regulations, Chinese management seek to tackle complicated challenges and
difficulties through personal connections.

Some managerial challenges in China

It can lead to challenges in modern management thanks to China's particular organisational

culture and conventional management. In many Chinese organisations, insufficient
integration of varied operations leads to decisions being taken between better standards and
an overflow of organisational structure, leading to duplication of efforts and conflict between
personnel and managers owing to unclear accountability (Lockett). For example, in my work
planning a programme in the field of television, first I have to consult and report to my
superiors for approval, then talk to the managers of various departments such as the shooting
team, the production and coordination department and, secondly, I have to work with
different departments, the complex workflow makes my job ineffective and informative.

I have noticed that managers also face challenges in varied organisational objectives. When
communicating with other international bodies, the public preference and market orientation,
which obviously may benefit more, are more careful than certain foreign TV stations.
Chinese state-owned companies, by contrast, probably concentrate less on external adaptation
values such as customer orientation and innovation. One of Shanghai TV's key tasks, for
instance, is still political propaganda. Moreover, some Chinese culture such as observance of
age and hierarchy is inhibition of technical and organisational innovation, which can quickly
lose market economy competitive edges. And the lack of vitality and competitiveness can
also lead to lack of motivation and involvement for employees. Chinese leaders also pay
attention to an interpersonal relation like guanxi, which is not capable of developing
corporative social responsibility and is contrary to the institutionalisation and legalisation of
modern management.