1.

What is management and its

functions?
2. How is the concept of
sustainability linked to management?
3. What are the four
requirements/conditions for sustainable
competitive advantage?
4. How does the changing internal &
external environments affect
organizations using SWOT analysis?
• SLO 1: Examine key features of the four functions
of management and apply in the context of
organisational structures
• CLO 1 Demonstrate essential knowledge
necessary for a career in business related
professions
• CLO 2 Synthesise underlying principles and
concepts for making business decisions
Source: Samson, D. & Daft, R.L. (2012), Fundamentals of Management, 4th Asia-Pacific Edition, Cengage Learning, p.14.
Management is …

Efficiency:
getting work done
with minimum effort, expense
or waste
Getting work
done through
others
Effectiveness:
accomplishing tasks that help
fulfil organisational objectives
According to Fayol, managers need to
perform five managerial functions in
order to be successful:

• Planning
• Organizing
• Coordinating ,
• Commanding
• Controlling

Most management textbooks today

have updated this list by dropping the
coordinating function and referring to
Fayol’s commanding function as
“leading.”
Fayol’s management functions are
thus known today in this updated
form as planning, organizing, leading,
and controlling.
Sustainability in Business :
Our Role as Customers
Which are the 3 greatest challenges faced by
businesses today as outlined by Barry?
1. Capital, human resources & legal
2. Environmental, cost & societal
3. Technological, capital & legal
Which are the 5 solutions or five-step strategy
to sustainable business practices?
1. Listen, discuss, negotiate, brainstorm & plan
2. Discuss, brainstorm, plan, incubate &
organise
3. Plan, Integrate, Develop, Communicate &
Innovate
• Mike Barry discusses how having the
conveniences of modern life is the economic
focus versus the principles of having a
sustainable economy.
• He stated that we have taken for granted
these daily conveniences without realising
that these have a higher cost than expected.
The resources we have on earth are finite.
• The reality is that modern conveniences use
up these resources and these impact on the
https://www.getsmarter.com/blog/
environment. career-advice/developing-a-plan-
• From work, to home, to the food you eat – of-action-for-business-
the comforts of this daily routine are due to sustainability/
the availability of natural resources like air,
water and land.
 Summary of the Clips

The reality is that at least one of these terms has

become common business discourse:
• Renewable energy
• Climate change
• Carbon footprint
• Resource scarcity
• Urbanisation
• Deforestation https://www.getsmarter.com/blog/
• Reuse, repurpose or recycle career-advice/developing-a-plan-
of-action-for-business-
sustainability/
Companies are increasingly realizing that the cost
and social challenges of doing business are
inextricably linked.
• Companies have a roadmap to an
alternative type of business – a
sustainable one – and ignoring that
is no longer an option.
• The five-step strategy to sustainable
business practices:
- Plan
https://www.getsmarter.com/blog/
- Integrate career-advice/developing-a-plan-
of-action-for-business-
- Develop sustainability/

- Communicate
- Innovate
“ Three pillars of sustainability –economic (profit), social
(people) & environment (planet), commonly known as the
triple bottom line” World Summit 2005
Sustainability as defined by the UN
• When a firm acquires attributes that allow it to perform at a
higher level than others in the same industry
e.g. better technology & automation
• When a firm provides greater value for customers than
competitors can
e.g. better effectiveness in some kinds of medicinal drugs
• When competitors find it hard to offer the same value to
customers and stop trying to duplicate it for the time being
e.g. in-house R&D, technology skills which are not applicable
elsewhere
• The resource-based view (RBV) of the organisation is a
strategy for achieving competitive advantage that
emerged during the 1980s and 1990s.
• The resource-based view (RBV) is a managerial
framework used to determine the strategic resources a
firm can exploit to achieve sustainable competitive
advantage.
• RBV focuses attention on an organisation's internal
resources such as financial, legal, human,
organisational, informational and relational; resources
are heterogeneous and imperfectly mobile and that
management's key task is to understand and organise
resources for sustainable competitive advantage.
• Reference: Barney, J. (1991). Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage. Journal of
Management, 17(1), 99-120. Retrieved from
https://elibrary.jcu.edu.au/login?url=https://www-proquest-
com.elibrary.jcu.edu.au/scholarly-journals/firm-resources-sustained-competitive-
advantage/docview/215258436/se-2?accountid=16285
 Valuable
resources:
Allow companies to improve
efficiency & effectiveness

Sustainable
competitive
advantage

Non-
Imperfectly substitutable
imitable resources:
resources: Hard to replace with other
Extremely costly/difficult to duplicate substitutes
• How does the changing internal & external
environments affect organisations using SWOT
analysis?
• Organisations scan the environment by conducting a
SWOT analysis to make use of resources (assets,
capabilities, information, knowledge etc) to achieve
competitive advantage.
• Hence they have to make sense of the changing
internal and external environments that affect them.
 Evaluating
external
environments

3. Acting on
threats and opportunities
(part of SWOT analysis)
• Corporate culture
 Company
founder

Organisational Organisational
stories heroes

Organisational
culture The values, beliefs and attitudes shared by organisational members
Organisational People celebrated for their qualities and achievements within an organisation
heroes e.g. founders like Bill Gates (Microsoft) & Steve Jobs(Apple)
Organisational Stories told by organisational members to make sense of organisational events
stories and changes and to emphasise culturally consistent assumptions, decisions and
actions (when founders gone, org culture sustained through stories
Observable culture: What can be observed directly in the daily life of an
organisation ie stories, symbols, heroes, rites and rituals.
Through their founder – hero. They org symbol – strong, steely and quality.
Examples of core values…….

Toyota?
How would you describe the core
culture of Toyota? How might this
be reflected in Toyota’s observable
culture?
Toyota’s Culture: “The Toyota Way”
• Base your management decisions on a long-term philosophy
even at the expense of short-term goals
• Create continuous process flow to bring problems to the
surface
• Use ‘pull’ systems to avoid overproduction
• Level out the workload
• Build a culture of stopping to fix problems to get quality right
the first time
• Standardized tasks are the foundation for continuous
improvement and employee empowerment
• Use visual control so no problems are hidden
• Use only reliable, thoroughly tested technology that serves
your people and your processes
• Grow leaders who thoroughly understand the work, live the
philosophy, and teach it to others
• Develop exceptional people and teams who follow your
company’s philosophy
• Respect your extended network of partners and suppliers by
challenging them and helping them improve
• Go and see for yourself to thoroughly understand the
situation
• Make decisions slowly by consensus, thoroughly considering
all options; implement decisions rapidly
• Become a learning organisation through relentless reflection
and continuous improvement
Toyota’s Corporate Culture: lives
on in the values created by founder & the Toyota Way

Founder: Kiichiro Toyoda,

1937
 Sales Profits Employee
growth satisfaction
Return on Quality
assets
Preliminary Research shows that organisational culture is related to organisational success!
Look at case study given in Tutorial 1 materials in your workbook.
Q1. What is an example of opportunities in the external environment that
McDonalds look out for that allows it to have competitive advantage?
1. Its skilled workforce to provide better customer service.
2. Strong financing so they can cope with customer changing preferences.
3. Its innovation to build an even more sustainable, environmentally friendly,
and profitable business.
 Attempt the following 10 mcqs in Quiz 1 to test your
knowledge and application of this week’s lecture