Course/Unit Information

Course Pearson BTEC Level 5 Higher National Diploma

Unit No. Unit 4

Unit Name Management and Operations

Unit code D/508/0488

Batch MOONLSA2106A

Instructor Information

Name Dr. Fernando Erana Reyes Jr.

Phone

Email fernando.r@westford.org.uk

Assignment Information

Full/ Part Assignment Full

Date Assignment Issued 19th June 2021

Date Assignment Due 23rd July 2021

Student Information

Name

Email

Date of Submission
 Organizational Behavior

Student Declaration

I, _______________________, hereby confirm that this assignment is my own work and not
copied or plagiarized. It has not previously been submitted as part of any assessment for this
qualification. All the sources, from which information has been obtained for this assignment,
have been referenced as per Harvard Referencing format. I further confirm that I have read
and understood the Westford University College rules and regulations about plagiarism and
copying and agree to be bound by them. Attached is the Turnitin report for reference.

Students Signature :

Students Name : Liaqat Ali

Date :
 Organizational Behavior

Table of Contents
1. Introduction.........................................................................................................................2
2. Literature review.................................................................................................................2
4. Discussion & Analysis......................................................................................................12
5. Recommendation & Conclusion.......................................................................................12
References................................................................................................................................13

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 Management and Operations

1. Introduction
Operational managers is concerned with the managerial area linked with designing as well as
controlling the overall generation and redesigning of operations of a company which are
concerned with manufacturing of goods sold to the customers. Operational management helps
in managing overall company activities while playing various role in order to properly
manage all the activities while reducing the overall expenses of company to as much as
possible in order to bring increment within the profits of company as having high expenses in
contextual settings of activities of company eventually leads to decrease in overall
performance of company due to decrease in profitability (Jacobs & Chase, 2013). Moreover
when the companies go for managing its overall operations it produce great quality of
products due to which eventually the customers satisfaction also improves which thus brings
increase in sales and then profit of company. Similar is the situation with Hewlett-Packard
Company (HP). HP is a multinational company based in America, having headquarter within
California while operation within both US and UK. HP is basically an information
technology based company which deals with hardwares, softwares, and other services to
customers including the local consumer as well small and medium enterprises. The target
market of HP involves the companies as well as health and education sectors where
information technology is in great use. HP is one of the best global green brand having its
customers all around the world at great extent. The current study is based on evaluating the
operational management process of HP while focusing primarily on role and functions of
leaders as well as managers within HP. There is always a question within mind of people
regarding the role of leaders within a company and functions of managers. The current study
is based on distinguishing between leaders and managers in order to get better idea of what
leaders are supposed to do and what the managers are supposed.

2. Literature review
LO1
Differentiate between the role of a leader and the function of a manager.
Manager
Manager is a member of a company who is focused on planning, organizing, leading, and
controlling the overall activities of company so that they can achieve all their goals and
objectives. Managers within companies are the people who are held responsible and
accountable for guiding, motivating, and supporting their subordinates in order to make the
operational activities working smoothly in order to achieve company goals and objectives (F.
John Reh, 2017). There are three levels of managers including the top level, middle level, and
lower level managers.

 The top level of management is concerned with overall managing of performance and
working of the overall department of a company while having responsibility of all the
departments while being highest within the company. Top management is responsible
for making decisions and setting goals for middle managers (MSG, 2017). The top
level managers includes CEO, CFO, CIO, and many others.
 Middle level management is the linking member in between the top and lower level
management who are there to ensure implementation of all the top managers decision
by lower level management. Middle managers are there having great knowledge and
experience regarding implementation of overall strategies of the company and focus

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on getting all the work done on the exact timings meeting all the needs. The middle
level managers may include general manager or the regional manager.
 Lower level management involves the people responsible for daily working
supervision of the lower level working staff as well as the daily labor. Lower level
mangers take directions from top management and eventually get work done by the
staff and perform their work in accordance with directions of middle managers.
Lower level managers includes supervisors, office managers, line managers, section
managers, and account managers etc.

T Executive coaching, changing the management,

O leadership role, decision making, and empowerment.

P
Solving of all problems, building of teams or
groups, gathering and developing talent,
MIDDLE evaluating and managing performance

LOWER
Coaching for better performance,
emotional intelligence and other work

Leader
Leader is an individual working within the company who is responsible for influencing other
people while encouraging them and providing them with a certain direction in order to
achieve the target goals and objectives. Leaders are goal or target oriented people who are
always having clear vision regarding what they are doing and what they want to achieve
while keeping a balance among the interest of managers as well as shareholders. Leaders
have certain behavior and roles to play in comparison to managers of company as they are
supposed to motivate and inspire people working with them while organizing the working in
such a way in order to improve the overall company working and its performance. Leaders
play a vital role in setting a certain direction within a company while developing a certain
direction for the employees.
Managers are quite different from leaders as they are there to coordinate with teams in order
to ensure that they perform well while working on the same direction. Leadership theory or
Trait theory illustrates that leaders are high effective people who have certain developed
qualities which are best suitable for a leader in order to be a role model within a company.
The trait theory helps in understanding the certain specific characteristics or qualities which
are supposed to be part of a best manager. Laudon and Laudon (2016) illustrated that trait
theory helps in understanding the managers and their roles it eventually helps them in
understanding what they are supposed to do just as self-confidence, extroversion, and courage
etc. which reveal the characteristic is a good manager who is a great leader.

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 Management and Operations
The trait theory illustrates that leaders need to have a certain target within their mind, have
long terms goals, and determination regarding achievement of those goals as a person lacking
these qualities cannot be a good leader. The managers are people who prefer stability within
their work at workplace whereas leaders are the one who are always looking for achieving
more and more while changing the goals and targets, going for new once before ones are
achieved (Fernie and Sparks, 2014).

Manager Leader

Focus on setting role in company. Focusing on guiding other people in

company.

Communication based on policies directed Communication is based on policies of

by leaders. company.

Focuses on things and activities. Focuses on overall company employees.

Allocate task to subordinates. Motivates others to perform their tasks.

LO2
Apply the role of a leader and the function of a manager in given contexts.
The leader role and managerial functions within HP comprises of improvement within
company activities concerned with number of traits of leadership within managerial
functioning. The focus here is on changes within certain factors which help in initiating the
overall management operations. There are following situations which focuses on overall
effectiveness of a company while involving overall detail information regarding activities.
1. Stable condition: is a condition where company doesn’t goes for any sort of changes
within can effect basic purpose of company and focus on maintaining their present
stable condition. Just as in market if there comes no changes within the inflation or
economic condition there will be stability within situation due to which company will
work smoothly.

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 Management and Operations
2. Slow to moderately changing condition: involves changes within the scenario while
influencing the overall elements which brings moderate changes within organizational
purposes. When inflation increases within market it leads to moderate changes within
company and its overall performance.
3. Fast changing situation: involves rapid change within purpose of company which
emerges from fast changing market conditions just as within stock market when there
comes fluctuations within indices there comes rapid changes which eventually
influences the investors quickly.
HP marketing officer revealed that is adopts slow to moderate condition when it comes to
purposes of company while handling various methods and precautions which helps in
securing purpose which brings benefits to company rather than focusing of purposes which
doesn’t brings benefits. HP is a well-known American brand which focuses on such strategies
in order to achieve as much as possible benefits. Focus on HP while selecting employees is
on hiring such people as leaders who have capability of influencing other people while
playing a single managerial role i.e. directing the subordinates. While selecting leaders within
HP the focus is on employees with great sole performance where a person with great
performance and expertise is given a chance to resolve the issue among two team members,
even though the person solves the issues but loses temper and patience which reveals that
there is capability of being manager but not the ability of being a leaders whereas if the
individual does loses temper and happily motivate others he is best suitable for being leader.
HP is choosier when it comes to selecting a person on a specific post as there is need to
certain specific qualities which are compulsory for a specific post in order to bring increase in
productivity of company.
The theories concerned with leaders and managers focuses on differentiating between both
leaders and managers qualities within company. The theories illustrate the managerial
development plan always starts with leaders and managers notion. The HP evaluation
revealed that managers and leaders are having great roles and HP highly focuses on selection
of people exactly meeting their roles. HP adopts a participative leadership style for decision
making as it bring productive results while having great participation of other members.
Situational Leadership, System Leadership, & Contingency theory
There are number of theories adopted by HP for their benefits which includes maximization
of profits and sales. To reach increasing number of customers HP focuses on innovative
technology which helps the clients within their purchasing process which is key to retain
maximum customers. The better way to understand role of manager is understanding theories
and concepts within includes trait theory, contingency theory, situational theory, and system
leadership. These theories helps in differentiating leaders from non-leaders while considering
the personal qualities of individuals.
Situational leadership involves behavior of company and working of employees also named
as life cycle theory which involves understanding the situations and then making decisions.
Situational curve involves 4 leadership styles that incorporate:
1. Telling: one way communication of who will do what?
2. Selling: revealing methods to convince people to perform actions.
3. Participating: task maker and leader participating together to get work done.
4. Delegating: leaders just monitoring while giving total responsibility to a single
person.

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 Management and Operations
Situation theory is quite easy in understanding and applying overall working situations.

Contingency theory reveals the effect of company purposes on their decision making where it
depends on optimal position for contingent position while being ideal for right condition in
leadership. The focus of contingency theory is on certain factors linked with surroundings
which helps in determining a specific good leadership style as per situation.

The model illustrates that there is no perfect leadership style rather the effectiveness of a
leader is based on situation within he is making decisions. There is a least preferred coworker
scale which helps in understanding who is best person to work with and who is not with
different situations. Contingency theory helps inn identifying best leader among the others
when applied effectively.
System theory illustrates that there are number of systems which eventually influence the
leader’s decision making process depending upon the different systems and types of

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company. System theory involves results of actions of leaders within companies while
focusing both on active and passive systems.

All the above theories focuses on the business environment and situations and illustrates that
roles of leaders and functions of managers varies based on these situations.
LO3
Demonstrate an appreciation of the role leaders and managers play in the operations
function of an organization.
HP is one of leading international IT Company which involves software developing leaders
of UK while performing their actions based on their objective of developing consumer
loyalty. HP focuses on management of their business and its overall operations in regards to
their strategies. The vision of HP is to create such technology which eventually makes life
easy for everybody outside. Their operational strategy is based on bringing innovation within
products through reinvention. HP gives great attention to management of their employees
while considering it a part of their strategy as they have faced major decline in international
market after which CEO realized that development of HRM is the way to meet the company
objectives as without a skilled and well-managed team it is not possible. The previous CEO
of HP was not more focused on maintaining employee satisfaction which was the reason for
downfall of company. HP now focuses to great extent on managing its employees in order to
achieve its targets.
Within supply chain management HP focuses on increasing satisfaction of customers to
maximum level while reducing operational costs while focusing on maintaining flexibility
within company to as much as possible limit while planning the overall supply chain. HP has
focused on retail and franchise marketing in order to increase connections with customers and
increase the client base. In regarding to product life cycle in HP the company focuses on
innovation through reinvention while facilitating all of its branches in order to have proper
control on innovation and invention process. HP is having great focus on adopting such
managerial techniques which can help in enhancing its operations. HP focuses on having
projected leadership styles in contextual setting of resource management so as to be good in
meeting the customer’s demand and achieve competitive edge.
While hiring of new employees there are two functions within operational strategy of HP
including recruitment and development while being highly focused on diversification within
company in order to get as much as possible best skilled talent in order to continue with aim
of innovation and reinvention. HP uses SMART hiring strategy through social media hiring
which helps in getting access to top talent from all around the world.
The leadership styles implemented within HP involves:
1. Authoritative Leadership: within authoritative leadership styles the leaders are
supposed to having a commanding role within company while having great hands
within leadership style. Authoritative leaders keeps members working all the time
while providing them great information and direction while they are doing their work.
HP adopts this leadership style as it is very useful in crisis times and implementation
of all the organizational decisions in a proper way.
2. Transactional leadership: involves the proper regulation of all the actions and tasks
performed by an employee while considering all of the analytical trends. HP uses

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transactional leadership style as it helps the company in better determining the actions
of employees and makes decision making quite easy.
Asp per HP’s IT model focus of HP is on maintaining its business alignment with IT in order
to manage overall interaction with customers in a proper way. The operational management
of HP not just focuses on its operational functions but also the client’s satisfaction for which
they provide different services and maintain a proper infrastructure in order to make
customers happy. The other operational functions of HP includes designing, managing,
development, and deployment of services. HP is having an end to end operational model
which focuses on stretched goals, simplicity, and a better organizational culture. HP’s
leadership focuses on environment friendly actions in order to be socially responsible
company. HP maintains international standard for managing environmental system.
Operational functions of HP includes:
1. Promotion of commitment to leadership styles and standards with operational profiles.
2. Focus on low carbon emission techniques to enhance efficiency while using
international operational standards.
3. Focusing on risk management using elementary projections.
LO4
Demonstrate an appreciation of the role leaders and managers play in the operations
function of an organization.
Success of a company is no longer different from the managerial operations of a company
just as social activities are concerned with values, abilities, and norms of leaders. Within HP
similar is the situation where there is combination of managerial and leadership roles, values,
norms, and attitudes in order to properly contribute within company success and benefits
leading to growth of company. Within current business era there is no single company which
is either just dependent on a manager or a leader as all the companies need both managers
and leaders in order to compete within the market and generate as much as benefit while
achieving competitive edge in market. Management basically involves the process of
implementing all the decisions of top management while efficiently utilizing all available
resources in order to achieve all the goals and targets. Due to this there is need of effective
management which can help in meeting those targets and goals. Likewise leaders within a
company are supposed to set the direction or goals just as within HP the leaders are supposed
to specify the targets and goals along with providing direction of how to achieve those goals.
For this there is need of great knowledge linked with both internal and external factors and
environment in order to make proper decisions. Work process, schedules, hiring, and training
of employees are the factors within HP which highly effects its overall operations and their
management. The macro factor which influence the operations of HP includes technology
which helps in bringing innovation and reinvention. The leaders of HP are supposed to bring
innovational and reinvention based changes within products and services in order to satisfy
the goals and managers are supposed to efficiently implement those reinventions or
innovations. Managers of HP are supposed to ensure that all the company routines are
properly implemented while developing softwares or manufacturing different computers.
Likewise managers are supposed to ensure that all the operations of HP are less costly or cost
effective and have great respect and attention to overall labor and machines working hours.
Managers are likewise supposed to provide training to employees in order to develop their
skills which can be used in bringing efficiency within working of company and improve
innovation process. Managers in HP are supposed to make schedules which can better define

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the working hours of employees in order to facilitate them accordingly. Finally managers of
HP are supposed to develop coordination among resources and production of products in
order to efficiently meet consumer demand.
Thus managers and leaders both are supposed to perform their actions in proper way to make
company grow where leaders are supposed to set goals and provide direction while managers
are supposed to implement them in order to achieve targets and goals efficiently.

1. Discussion & Analysis

The current study was focused on gathering information regarding the role of leaders within a
company and functions of managers while considering HP. The study revealed

2. Recommendation & Conclusion

References
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Di Somma, M., Yan, B., Bianco, N., Graditi, G., Luh, P.B., Mongibello, L. and Naso, V., 2015.
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Ivanov, D., Tsipoulanidis, A. and Schönberger, J., 2017. Basics of supply chain and operations
management. In Global Supply Chain and Operations Management (pp. 1-14). Springer, Cham.
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Heizer, J., 2016. Operations management, 11/e. Pearson Education India.

MSG team (2021) Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid Retrieved from:
https://www.managementstudyguide.com/blake-mouton-managerial-grid.htm
Reh, F.J., 2017. ‘Understanding Pareto’s Principle-The 80-20 Rule’.

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