Business Management

• Corporate culture is the shared values and beliefs of a business and its employees
• Corporate culture is determined by the behavior of individuals within a business and the business's intentions when making decisions
• Corporate culture can impact a business's reputation, workplace relations, and overall success in achieving its objectives
• A positive corporate culture can lead to more motivated employees and the widespread expectation of high standards, resulting in improved performance overall
• Conversely, a negative corporate culture and acceptance of low standards can negatively impact the achievement of objectives
• A business's overall corporate culture consists of both official and real elements that reflect different aspects of the business, its operations, and the actions of its employees
• Strategies to develop corporate culture will be covered in further detail in the section on developing corporate culture
• In the context of corporate culture, the shared values and beliefs of a business and its employees play a crucial role in determining the business's success and relationships with stakeholders
• Factors such as uniforms, rules, and interactions with authority figures can influence corporate culture in organizations like schools and workplaces
• Changes in uniforms, rules, or other aspects can impact the culture of a school or workplace
• Official corporate culture involves shared views and values that a business aims to achieve, often outlined in written formats like mission statements, vision statements, and policies
• Training procedures, business symbols such as logos and slogans, codes of conduct, and compulsory uniforms can be used to unite employees' approaches to work processes
• Official corporate culture significantly impacts how a business is externally perceived and its ability to meet its objectives
• Examples of official corporate culture documentation include vision statements, mission statements, policies, training programs, symbols like logos, and uniforms
• Real corporate culture involves shared values and beliefs that develop organically within a business and are practised daily by its employees
• Factors that impact real corporate culture could include office layout, staff diversity, management styles, hiring criteria, rituals, and celebrations
• A business should align its real corporate culture with its official corporate culture to improve business performance and achieve business objectives
• Human resource management involves the shared values and beliefs that develop organically within a business, and are practised on a daily basis by its employees
• Real corporate culture reflects what actually occurs in the business’s operations, aligning it with official corporate culture can improve business performance and lead to the achievement of business objectives
• Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs:

  • Physiological needs
  • Safety and security needs
  • Social needs
  • Esteem needs
  • Self-actualization needs
• Lawrence and Nohria’s Four Drive Theory:

  • Drive to acquire
  • Drive to bond
  • Drive to learn
  • Drive to defend
• Locke and Latham’s Goal Setting Theory:

  • Employees are motivated by goals fulfilling 5 key principles: clarity, commitment, challenge, task complexity, and feedback
• Performance management strategies:

  • Management by objectives
  • Performance appraisals
  • Self-evaluation
  • Employee observation
• Motivation strategies:

  • Performance-related pay
  • Career advancement
  • Investment in training
  • Support strategies
  • Sanction strategies
• Employee training:

  • On-the-job training
  • Off-the-job training
• Termination management:

  • Retirement
  • Redundancy
  • Resignation
  • Dismissal
  • Entitlement considerations
  • Transition considerations
• Awards and agreements involve:

  • Human resource managers
  • Employees
  • Employer associations
  • Unions
  • The Fair Work Commission
• Dispute resolution methods:

  • Mediation
  • Arbitration
• Tortadelici is a cake manufacturer that has operated in Tullamarine for the past 10 years
• Lorenzo, the owner, manages the business's operations system aiming to maximize operational efficiency and effectiveness
• Each week, Tortadelici receives deliveries of fresh ingredients stored until required for production
• Cakes are produced using various machinery, hand-decorated, and packaged by employees
• Orders for different cakes are submitted daily by customers who can select from a range of designs and pick up their order the same afternoon
• Tortadelici's current operations system can produce 45 cakes per day, with plans to increase this number in the future
• Increased competition has led Lorenzo to aim for a competitive advantage by increasing production rate and lowering costs
• Lorenzo plans to expand to a larger factory to increase daily cake production and improve sales and financial performance
• Efficiency is the ability to accomplish a task with minimal waste of time and effort
• Operations management at Tortadelici is crucial for maximizing customer satisfaction, sales, and profits
• Two characteristics of operations management in a manufacturing business like Tortadelici could be efficient production processes and quality control measures
• One key element of operations at Tortadelici could be inventory management, which may differ in a service business due to the intangibility of services