What types of organizational activities do you believe are most likely to be outsourced

Chapter : Why is shared information so important in a learning organization in comparison to an efficient performance organization? Discuss how an organization’s approach to sharing information may be related to other elements of organization design such as: structure, tasks, strategy, and culture.

Shared information is critical within a learning organization due to the changing dynamics of the overall market economy. Currently, globalization is becoming a much more important element with the overall world economy. The ability to distribute goods and services across borders ultimately enhances the quality of life for all market participants. To do so effectively however, requires a large of amount of data and learning. Data, will soon become the new natural resource of the world. Here, data can empower all manner of activities from forecasting the weather to predicting when an individual will purchase a vacation. Those organization that can properly harness data and use if for their organizational benefits will succeed within this global economy. To properly achieve this goal, organization will need to be able to obtain, process and share information within the confines of the overall organization. This is important as this data can power further innovations and efficiency gains within the overall technology sector. We have seen this innovation and shared information work for companies such as Google, Amazon, Alibaba, and Tencent (Akhavan, 2015).

An efficient performance organization is also important to organizational success. Organizations must use data to become more efficient with their processes and procedures. Efficiency gains ultimately result in increase revenue, margins and profitability for any organization irrespective of their industry. Efficiency gains are much more process oriented as compared to information sharing which is much more organic. Efficiency gains are a result of a deliberate and concerted effort to remove costs from an organization system. It can also be the result of increasing productivity through improved operations or a reduction in bureaucracy with the organization. Information sharing however, is much centered on the culture of the organization which is often intangible. Here, there must be a consistent culture of innovation and sharing of thoughts, opinions and information. Data itself is one aspect, but the organization must have a culture that enables the sharing of the manner in which to interpret the data (Alavi. 2001).

As it relates to other elements with the organization, we have already discussed culture in the above paragraph. Other tasks, strategy and structure are also impacted here as well. With data, organization must be much more nimble than traditional organization. This nimbleness allows organizations to quickly shift their tasks to be challenge conventional wisdom and thinking. It also enables individuals to devised strategies that are much more long-term oriented. We see this with many technology firms who often sacrifice short term profits for long term strategic objectives. In early May, Alibaba announced that it will use all of its incremental profits to reinvest back into its business operations. This in the short term will lower profitability, but in the long term will enable the company to maintain its competitive position. The company has indicated that the investments will be based on data and therefore have a sound financial and operational basis (Bonito, 2008).

Chapter 1: What are some differences that one might anticipate among the expectations of stakeholder for a nonprofit organization versus a for-profit business? Do you believe nonprofit managers have to pay more attention to stakeholders than business managers?

Stakeholder in nonprofit organizations are completely different than those in for-profit organizations. The primary difference occurs with the manner in which management is compensated and evaluated. For for-profit organizations many managers are evaluated on many profit and economic measures such as per share capital appreciation, dividend growth, Return on Invested Capital, Earnings Per Share growth and more. Their overall pay is based on large part on the above metrics in which leaders attempt to manage to. Nonprofit organizations however often have nonfinancial measure in which they use to evaluate success. This could mean the amount of cancer patients treated, the number of vaccinations administered, the decrease in deaths, and so forth. Here, many of the outcomes are often intangible and not fully related to economic performance from a financial standpoint. Instead progress is measure from a societal standpoint and how the overall civilization has improved over time.

I do not believe nonprofit managers have to pay more attention to stakeholders than business managers. Both often pay large attention to stakeholders because their job requires it. Both nonprofit and for-profit entities must deal with governmental organizations. They must also deal with communities, employees, investors and so forth. Each must look to acquiesce and appease each of these stakeholders. The primary difference is that the overall stakeholder demands. The time commitment is roughly equal, but the demands placed on both the nonprofit and for-profit sector are different. Once for example may look to maximize shareholder wealth, while the other may look to maximize community benefit. Each has stakeholders, and each has demands, the only difference is what these demands actually are.

Chapter 2: How might a company’s goals for employee development be related to its goals for innovation and change? How might a company's goals for employee development be related to its goals for productivity? Explain the ways that these types of goals may conflict in an organization

Employee development and innovation are now much more interconnected than ever. Employees must continually change, grow, develop, and innovate or else the company will no longer exist. Technology has necessitated a long and protracted endeavor to continually improve. We have seen the result of company’s who have employees that do not want to develop. The retail industry has been extremely slow to innovate its product offerings to keep pace with new consumer trends and technological demands. The employees were not trained on how to better mesh the physical store with an online atmosphere. The omnichannel experience for many of the larger, more established department stores could not compete with the newer, more innovative operators. As a result, the retail industry has seen a slew of bankruptcies from Sears, J.C. Penny, GNC, Hertz, Neiman Marcus and more. The industry failed to develop its employees and as result failed to innovate. The retail industry in not alone in this respect. The newspaper, energy, and transportation industries have also failed to innovate. Taxi’s will soon be extinct due to services such as Uber and Lyft. Traditional energy sources are now being replaced with renewable energy. Innovation continues at a much heavier and rapid pace, displacing many of the most established industries in the world (Fisher, 2006).

The goal of employee development is fully related to goal for productivity. For most industry, productivity is the primary advantage they have over peers. Productivity allows certain firms to produce or sale more services per employee than others. This indicates a sustainable completive advantage in the form of brand recognition, distribution network, or low-cost operating structure. In either case, the goals of the employee should directly correlate to the goal of the organization as it relates to productivity.

These goals can conflict with the organization if they don’t align strategically with the organization initiatives. We saw this in the financial crisis as Wells Fargo employees were opening fraudulent accounts to meet high sales goals and quotas. Here the organizations commitment to clients was not practices by the employees.

Chapter 2: Suppose you have been asked to evaluate the effectiveness of the police department in a medium-sized community. Where would you begin? How would you proceed? What effectiveness approach would you prefer?

To evaluate the police department with a medium sized community, one should first evaluate the crime in the immediate area of influence. Here, the police department is in charge of keeping law and order and therefore should be evaluated as such. Aspects such as murders per capita, homicide per capita, theft per capita and so forth should be evaluated. In addition, racial biases should also be evaluated based on the recent history of police officers being abusive to African American communities. Here, police must make sure they are being sensitive to culture elements when making routine traffic stops or other apprehensions. I would first begin with the most prevalent issues facing the community. If drugs are a major issue, for example, I would begin with that element. If theft is another issued, then I would therefore begin with that issue. I would proceed with empowering officers with technology to better protect them and the people they apprehend. I would use a data-based approach to measure the effectiveness of any program (Fulton, 2009).