Professional Documents
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Principle of Management (Trường Đại học Kinh tế Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh)
STUDENT DETAILS
Student ID
Student name: DUYEN LE TRAN MY number: 31211022066
DAT TRAM NGUYEN Student ID
Student name: THANH number: 31211023958
Student ID
Student name: THUONG HO LE HA number: 31211022880
Student ID
Student name: NGOC LE DO NHU number: 31211024588
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I am aware that this work may be reproduced and submitted to plagiarism detection software
programs for the purpose of detecting possible plagiarism (which may retain a copy on its
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Note: An examiner or lecture / tutor has the right to not mark this assignment if the above
Duyen Le Tran My
ID number: 31211022066
ID number: 31211023958
Thuong Ho Le Ha
ID number: 31211022880
Ngoc Le Do Nhu
ID number: 31211024588
29/12/2021
Contents
In the Principle of Management course, the Manager interview project gives us a golden
opportunity to broaden our knowledge and get familiar with the information of management in a
business organization. Moreover, this project gave us, group’s members, a chance to
Our interview with a manager was conducted on November, 28th 2021. Our interviewee
is Mr. Le Van Lien, director of Hop Nong Corporation, a company that mainly works in the
agricultural field. Through the interview, we gained significant insights relating to his career,
duties, agriculture, and many other leadership and management ideas. And the outline of our
report is: first, identifying four main functions as a manager's responsibility: planning,
organizing, leading, and controlling; second, analyzing the most significant problems that the
company has faced recently; and third, providing appropriate solutions to the problems
mentioned above.
Hop Nong Corporation, a sole trader established in 2010, specializes in agriculture; its
head office is located in Lam Dong province. This company is among the largest in the province
in the exporting and importing agriculture products field. It has a number of private farms, where
many kinds of flowers are produced to export to other regions. Besides, Hop Nong Corporation
is also the importer and distributor of soybean seeds, corn, DDGS, animal feed ingredients…
from major suppliers such as: the U.S.A, Canada, Africa and South America. The products are
2. Manager’s overview
Manager’s background. As introduced in the first part, Mr. Le Van Lien is currently the
director of Hop Nong Corporation. His experience in the agricultural field is more than 30 years
1991. In 1994, he earned a scholarship to study in India, which is the global agricultural
powerhouse. In this duration, Mr. Lien had a great opportunity to broaden his knowledge in
agricultural production. Returning to Vietnam in 1996, Mr. Lien has dedicated himself to work
in this industry until now. Specifically, from 1997 to 2010, Mr. Lien was the manager and then
the production director of Dalat Hasfarm Corporation; from 2010 to 2013, he was the Project
Director of Himlam Macca Corporation and now he is the executive director of Hop Nong
Corporation. The reason why just a new graduate but he was able to be a manager is that Mr.
Lien had great English skills and background compared to other candidates at that time.
Manager’s leadership style. Although Mr. Lien came from an agricultural engineering
major, he has certain knowledge to define his own leadership style. With the stories that Mr. Lien
shared with us, it can be seen that he always pays compliments for his employees if the jobs are
done well but he is also straightforward in reprimanding the staff who make mistakes. Ruggieri
(2019) defined that contingent incentive and management by exception are the two pillars of
transactional leadership, when goals are met, a transactional leader will use positive reinforcement
such as prizes, praise, compliments, and awards for his staffs; while using negative reinforcement
such as punishment and censure when huge errors or failures occur. In brief, Mr. Lien appears to
be a transactional leader.
Management functions are divided into four categories, each of which is responsible for
organizations; planning, organizing, leading, and controlling are critical. Companies, no matter
how large or small, must run smoothly and meet the aims and goals that they have set forth. The
company would suffer and fail to meet its objectives if these four functions did not continue to
evolve. Although these functions work together to create a consistent flow for a corporation,
1. Planning
This part discusses the process of developing the plan and defining targets and how to
deliver the plan to employees. Mr. Lien first confirms the significance of planning. "Even in
literature, the author's head may be brimming with ideas, but it is critical to have a layout to
complete an essay or a poem." The first stage in obtaining high-quality items is developing a
concept and creating a strategy. It is a reality that there is nothing without ideas (Troild, 1999).
We have more than 16% to succeed when having a plan (Greene & Hopp, 2017). Every
organization must have a plan detailing what they must do, such as the type of product, size,
budget, style, standard, kind of technology, and so on. The budget is critical in this process since
it determines whether or not the product can be continued. Along with these elements, the
timeframe for decentralizing work for each employee is included. It takes at least two years to set
up the plan, but it can take up to 5 to 10 years, even 20 to 30 years. Mr. Lien also highlighted a
contingency plan, stating that if a corporation wants to restrict crisis management, it must
develop a backup plan. Mr. Lien's firm categorizes the strategy into short-term, medium-term,
and long-term categories. Nobody can pick which type of plan they want; each position in the
firm determines it. The department in his organization creates a short-term plan, synthesizes
information, and provides it to the manager or leader. Leaders have a role in adjusting the plan to
"safe mode" – avoiding risk and eventually turning it into a long-term plan. The types of plans
also depend on the investors: if the investors want to work with the firm in the long run, the
company will widen the plan. Mr. Lien stated that his organization typically follows a long-term
plan. Leaders must communicate their idea with their personnel after deliberating on a final
characteristics associated with inspired leadership are also praised (Deanne, 2001). Leaders must
2. Organizing
Nowadays, Vietnamese businesses typically use foreign structural models to suit each
kind of company (small companies just need a simple structure). President or Director-General is
the top post. The next level is departments include: sales-marketing, production, purchasing,
piece. "One scabby sheep is enough to spoil the whole flock." Just a few minor mistakes from
the departments and the entire organization must bear the repercussions. In actuality, the
founders or leaders must adopt the appropriate organization because if they just try to emulate
large corporations, they will fail. Today's requirements are higher; therefore, individuals who can
multitask - and handle numerous tasks from several sectors - will benefit both these employees
and the organization as a whole. In today's world, multitasking is strongly embedded in many
human activities (Benbunan, 2012). About the recruitment process, Mr. Lien's company has a
principle: recruit when necessary. The workforce is needed when the company meets problems
like maternity leave, occupational accidents, job-hopping or low competency employees, etc.
However, leaders should have a backup; the corporation invests a portion of its cash in training
interns to recruit exceptional personnel. There are two options: bright individuals who are well-
paid or less-skilled people who are well-paid. Although organizations may simply teach these
personnel to get familiar with the organization's work culture in the second option, the first
option is preferred in the 4.0 generation. When asked about the organization's work style, Mr.
Lien stated that his workforce never works separately. Everyone's benefit and duty are
intertwined. Teamwork makes the feeling of meaningfulness and community (Robbins, 1994). A
leader is someone who understands how to combine the strengths of each individual to create the
most powerful force. Finally, making a decision is a critical step. A leader's responsibilities may
be divided into two categories: decision-making and problem-solving. It is difficult and based on
cornerstones (information and data synthesized from the departments or market news). Leaders
make decisions based on whether or not their insight is correct. If it is not rational thinking, the
3. Leading
Leaders have to make sure that the relationship between the employees is good or not,
like a conflict between the millennial generation and GenZ or racist problems. The solution is to
make them see the value of each other and change their perspective. People should optimize and
take advantage of others then conflict is the barrier. Instead of friction, employees may use their
communication skills to make more relationships. We need others in our personal lives to share
and exchange ideas, solve issues, for companionship, comfort and at work to attain our goals and
objectives (Goutam, 2013). The digital transformation problem has affected the role of leaders.
Our world is developing so fast that some people can not catch up with the pace of work and
handle the tasks, so the role of leaders is much more important. The workplace of Industry 4.0
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needs more benign, broadly focused, and typically self-transcended leaders (Črešnar & Nedelko,
2020). But now leaders will change their way of leading the whole company. They must be more
adaptable and concerned with their development. For Mr. Lien, he has determined his goals since
he was a student. His motivation is independent and desirable to help other people. A significant
thing is always knowing the goals. Goals help leaders operate the company and make employees
know what they are doing and what they are doing for what. Modern society always has traded
between foreign firms and domestic companies, so language is a strength for leaders to find
4. Controlling
The leader is not an easy position requiring a person to face many tough problems.
Following Mr. Lien's share, he always keeps himself calm and has emotional control. When a
company is in trouble, the first thing is to find the mistake and start from which department.
Then employees and managers involved will take all responsibility. If the problem is serious,
other departments and managers must join hands to help. Of course, a leader is a person who
observes everything and controls it smoothly. Besides that, leaders also make them into a good
version of themself. With good health and an energetic mind, the work can be done faster and
more efficiently. However, in the situation that the whole company meets the dead end, leaders
have to accept the truth and gain experience for the next project. Like two years ago, COVID-19
brought heavy damage for many firms. The current COVID-19 pandemic has had significant
economic implications throughout the world, and it does not appear that any country will be safe
(Donthu & Gustafsson, 2020). If the target is 10, we just need 4 or 5 to survive. Companies must
accept that some events can not be unforeseen. In Mr. Lien's company, 10% of the whole
company can develop strongly. Before the pandemic, the company could get 50 million VND but
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now just get 10 million VND. The company is now ready to find a solution to the pandemic.
Another issue in this part is reprimanding the employees when they make the company lose
profit. Leaders must find what is the reason and have a reasonable punishment depending on
severity. Finally, when the project is finished, leaders must throw back what they have done and
not have done. For some reason, the plan can not follow perfectly, making the company face
difficulty. Leaders and staff will find a way to overcome and take its experience for next time.
With the context of Covid-19 pandemic outbreaks, many corporations experienced severe
consequences. However, Mr. Lien is one of the lucky people to say that the impact of the
pandemic was not an actual challenge to him since Dalat - where he is working was not affected
badly by the virus and the operation of the company was still on the track he expected. The real
challenge that he and his company had been through was the influence of the financial crisis and
the economic crisis lasted for almost 4 years from 2009 to 2012 that caused him to lose almost
everything and he had to struggle a lot to overcome. In 2009, he imported a large number of
flower bulbs from New Zealand and Dutch to plant and sell them in Vietnam as well as export to
other countries since his reputation in the flower industry was highly appreciated. However, it
was out of his expectation that the financial crisis had influenced the market detrimentally as the
demand for flowers was incredibly low. In the first month of 2009, Vietnam started to confront
severe impacts of the financial crisis which began initially from the United State in December,
2008. When the demand for global commodities fell significantly, the crisis had a severe impact
on Vietnam's economy (Nguyen & Nguyen, 2017). He borrowed lots of money from the bank
and even took his own house as mortgage for the suppliers to invest in that project despite the
cost of flower bulbs and making them into finished products were costly. Because of high cost of
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capital, expensive borrowing cost and low demand, the company could not sell much and
eventually unable to pay wages for employees or pay back for the suppliers and the bank, the
company even fell into tax debt and lost all the trust from suppliers and investors.
Facing the problem, Mr. Lien mentioned the 4 ways managers make decisions and he
decided to apply bounded rational decision making into this problem. He confirmed that this
crisis was not only his company’s obstacle, but it also happened to the vast majority of firms
nationwide. In June 2012, Vietnam’s General Statistics Office conducted a survey on a national
scale with 9,331 business firms over the crisis in operation. The results show that 8.4% of the
surveyed enterprises went bankrupt or shut down (Nguyen, 2012). As the loss accounted for
over 30% of the revenue Mr. Lien continued to keep the operation on track and saw this loss as
sunk cost. In contrast, this chronic economic problem happened his company for almost 4 years,
causing him to neither gain profit nor take back his capital, not to mention the debt from bank
loans. After a long period putting all his efforts into keeping the company survive in such a
dilemma, he decided to put aside his reputation, try to get over the misery to shut down the
organization to prevent the loss from exceeding larger. This might not be the best choice, but this
escalation of commitment suits the current situation the most. He said that stopping the company
was not the end of his career as he realized it was high time that he found other methods of
earning financial sources in order to pay back all the debts and start all over again. He
emphasized the importance of having a strong theoretical background in his industry since it is
the basis to help him get over the difficulties as he can work for other firms with his academic
degree. He also highly appreciated the role of having a strong belief in life and nurturing his
physical and mental health when being a leader in such a hard time. Eventually, with his belief
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and profession, he can earn enough to pay the liabilities first by working as an adviser or project
director for other companies. His efforts helped him to recover just after 5 years and start over
again with the successful reopening of Hop Nong flower corporation and still working so far.
After reflecting on their previous unprosperous plans, managers should establish new
plans and strategies for those evaluations. During creating plans and strategies, there are some
First and foremost, because organizations have faced financial troubles, the most
important thing to address is modifying the financial planning. The manager works with the
finance department to rearrange the funds for business activities and ensure that the after-crisis
consequence for budget next time will be reduced to a minimum level. One of the useful tools
being used in financial planning is cash flow in risk (C-FaR). Financial planners use C-FaR to
measure and predict the probability of risks of cash flows happening in the non-financial firms
by their producers; C-FaR also illustrates the calculation of capital structure (Oral &
CenkAkkaya, 2015). Oral et al also did research in 2014 about estimating the cash flow risk in
two cases, without credit, and with credit (see Table 1). The table showed that the possibility to
encounter the financial obligation for a small business not using credit was 63.06%, while only
45.57% when using credit $4,000,000. They concluded that some factors such as volatility in
property sales, market liquidity levels, and possible changes in financial liabilities influenced
these probabilities. By using C-FaR, managers somehow anticipate the future potential risk, from
there, give decisions more accurately and change their plan effectively and efficiently.
Secondly, environmental scanning from the initial part of a project is significant for the
company. A company must be aware of its external surroundings in order to be successful over
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time. Before an organization can start developing a strategy, it must first assess its external
environment for potential opportunities and threats, as well as its internal environment for
strengths and weaknesses. It's a strategy that a company utilizes to prevent strategic surprises and
achieve long-term success. According to research, environmental scanning and profits have a
beneficial association (Hunger, 2020). Thus, from the initial start of a project, the company must
have a critical analysis about its industry in the market and also the context of the economy on a
national and international scale. This solution can be effective in terms of predicting the current
trend of the market, therefore adjusting the right strategy applying to the projects of the company
There should be more alternatives for making strategic decisions in order to address some
surprising events and minimize the loss as much as possible. More particularly, the company
should not concentrate solely on one decision but consider the concept of decision portfolios.
Concentrating solely on one decision, the company could risk not just increasing commitment to
a lost project but also underfunding additional viable ventures and analyzing a single project's
opportunities and threats alone under uncertainty is far more challenging (Shimizu & Hitt, 2004)
Our report has illustrated some vital points about the managerial position. We mentioned
the objectives of the meeting and searched for Mr. Lien’s profile. Then we analyzed 4 functions
planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. We also wrote about his organization’s problems
and solutions. Finally, we gave him our suggestions to adjust the decision and plan after the
financial crisis.
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Mr. Lien suggested that young ones becoming future managers should be determined and
ambitious to perform their duties excellently. From the beginning of their freshman year, they
have to set goals for five years, even ten years, to prepare themselves with capabilities and
attitudes for the jobs fully. Chasing a big dream about C-suite in a corporation or an organization
is never comfortable. It requires the raging fire of passion that must be robust to drop the ego to
accept and overcome the failures. Mr. Lien said: “You have to set your ambition point is 100 out
of 100, then it is okay for you to achieve it at 70/100. If your achievement point is equal to 50,
the result drops by 30, and it is not the dream what you want to chase for”. Among many talented
candidates in a casting, superb ones have to be most outstanding at any managerial responsibility
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VII. References
Benbunan-Fich, R. (2012). The ethics and etiquette of multitasking in the workplace. IEEE
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/6313622/
Črešnar, R., & Nedelko, Z. (2020). Understanding future leaders: How are personal values of
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/11/4417
https://deliverypdf.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=1110890020091000740150960641250850870020
860410360450260920061191200201261270891170300530420000910871150661091001
00100109110084020086120118096123067068080113086087104125125&EXT=pdf&IN
DEX=TRUE
Donthu, N., & Gustafsson, A. (2020). Effects of COVID-19 on business and research. Journal of
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296320303830
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Pratyush-
Tripathi/publication/257987416_IRC%27S_IJRSMS_ISSN_2320-
8236_Vol_1_Issue_No2_April_June_2013_wwwircjournalsorg/links/00b495268e296ced
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f0000000/IRCS-IJRSMS-ISSN-2320-8236-Vol-1-Issue-No2-April-June-2013-
wwwircjournalsorg.pdf#page=86
Greene, F., & Hopp, C. (2017). Writing a business plan makes your startup more likely to
your-startup-more-likely-to-succeed
Nguyen, Q. H. (2012, August 21). Vietnam's Economic Challenges. Stratfor Global Intelligence.
Nguyen, T., & Nguyen, D. N. (2017). Developing an early warning system for financial crises in
Oral, C., & CenkAkkaya, G. (2015). Cash Flow at Risk: A Tool for Financial Planning. Procedia
https://doi.org/10.1016/s2212-5671(15)00358-5
Robbins, T. L. (1994). Meaningfulness and community in the classroom: The role of teamwork
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08832323.1994.10117706
Shimizu, K., & Hitt, M. A. (2004). Strategic flexibility: Organizational preparedness to reverse
Troidl, H. (1999). First step: the idea. World journal of surgery, 23(8), 754-767. Retrieved from
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs002689900577
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VIII. Appendix
19
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1. Thank you for coming here today. We really appreciate your appearance. So today we are
going to interview you about your job as a manager. So firstly, do you feel free to briefly
introduce about yourself (your organization’s name, your title of jobs and your scope of work) →
2. You may know that there are many qualities that make up a good leader, such as: competent,
decisive, adaptable, good listener, supportive, strategic, fair, professional, etc. So from your
perspective, what are the two most important qualities that a good leader should have? And why?
→ leadership style
3. In your own experience, how do you think about a good leader in the past compared to today’s
4. What do you think staff members would say if asked to describe your management style?
(wait for his response) And do you agree with their saying? → leadership style
Planning:
5. We know that when managers start a project, lots of things and work need to be sorted in
order. So what do you do first? (Do you create something like a road map to outline each
task the company must accomplish to meet its overall objectives or just arrange tasks in
6. A contingency plan helps project management teams prepare for the unknown. It’s a vital part
of risk management. In your company, do you always have contingency plans? What are the
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7. What kind of plan do you prefer: long-term plan (plans with a time frame beyond three
8. After discussing and giving the final decision on the project, how can you present the
Will you apply the same planning process for all projects? Why or why not?
Organizing:
9. What is your organizational structure? How many levels of employee/ staff ? Does the
11. In your work progress, you and your team may face many problems and tasks to be solved.
Furthermore, delegating empowers your team, builds trust, and assists with professional
development. And there are many factors that can be based on how to do that job. In your own
12. Decisions are important. They can affect most of the outputs afterward. We wonder in
reality, how an organization, especially leaders and managers make decisions? What are
some challenges to face like bias, non evidence-based management? How do they overcome
these difficulties?
Leading:
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13. How to cope with problems related to workplace diversity? For example: Age over 50,
Male and Female, somebody who is racist and opposed to disability work opportunity, etc.
14. Organization is composed of many people working there. Each of them has their own
personality. Especially in a diverse workplace like your organization, workers come from
different countries, have different races, ethnicities and religions. Therefore, respecting their own
differences is highly recommended. However, because of the diversity, I do think that there are
some difficulties, some barriers in such a diverse workplace like that. Vietnamese tend to like
collectivism, Americans tend to like individualism. Conflicts arise. So how can you handle
15. You have been working in management expertise for 20 years, so I think that you have
witnessed world changes like Digital transformation, etc. So how can these changes affect the
managerial role? (Managers change their perspectives, their ways of management, care more
about self-development)
16. When we talk about culture, we may think of values, traditions. For example, in VietNam on
Tet Holiday, people dress ao dai on the first day of the year. Another example is about art. Art
organisation culture. According to my research, there are some traditions like uniforms, slogans,
rituals and invisible values like attitude, style, habit, thoughts. So do you think having an
organisation culture is important or not. What if people tend to ignore culture in their
Controlling:
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17. I understand that when becoming a leader, you have to take responsibility for your actions
and your organization’s strategies. Therefore, there could be sometimes challenging situations
when dealing with demanding tasks. So how can you overcome these difficulties?
18. The 2020-2021 stage was a tough time for firms, with COVID-19 effect on almost all areas.
What did you do to maintain the sustainable development of your company? Are there any
activities that have to stop? What is the biggest challenge that the company encountered?
19. If tasks are not completely done or everything is out of control, will you reprehensible
20. When you handled the problem successfully, did you realize or gain something?
21. For companies/ business organizations nowadays, the Covid-19 pandemic has caused several
negative impacts on their operation process. So how has the Covid-19 pandemic affected your
organization as well as your future plans and what are the consequences?
22. Regarding the consequences of the pandemic affecting your company, what is the most
23. How did you resolve that problem? Do you think your solutions were efficient and effective?
24. What’s your tentative plans to help the company fully recover after the pandemic?
Advice:
25. What would you like to say to young generation (gen Z) as future managers?