he course research project will be submitted in four separate sections: Week 1, Introduction and Purpose. Week 2, Review of literature and Resources Part I. Week 3, Findings and Analysis. Week 4, Conclusions and Recommendations. Each paper is due Sunday of the week it is assigned.
Some possible topics to consider for this project are indicated below.
Business opportunities for developing applications for mobile devices. The market for mobile device apps is growing exponentially and offers some outstanding opportunities.
Legal and government issues. What forms of business are available and what government regulations will affect small business?
Marketing strategies. If you have a specific small business in mind,
Industry analysis. What are the threats and opportunities in an industry you might want to enter?
Geographic analysis. What is the competition and target market in a specific geographic area for a business venture you would like to start?
Manufacturing strategies. If you have an idea for a specific product, what are some ways to have it made?
Human relations and leadership issues in small business. How do management and leadership of people in small businesses differ from large organizations?
Financing small businesses. What are the various financial strategies for financing a small business?
Franchising. What franchising opportunities are available for small business?
Technology applications in small businesses. What technology is available to small business? Those who will be taking MGT 483, E-Commerce, will be researching this subject and should not select this topic, but I am willing to make exceptions on a case basis.
Emerging issues in small business management. What issues not mentioned above are important for small business managers to know?
Each weekly paper should show evidence of outside research from journals and other sources that are included in a separate reference section. The final paper should be minimum of 8 to 10 pages and have a minimum of 10 journal and other reference sources. Wikipedia does not count as reference source. Again, meeting the minimum criteria will earn a satisfactory (C) grade. Higher grades will be given for work that exceeds the minimum standard.
Reference Additional Methodology for Grading Section in Syllabus.
Please use the following format in your paper.
Title Page. The title should describe the content of your paper, such as “Gender Issues in Small Business Management,” not “Week 1 Paper.” It should also state the author, course and date.
Table of Contents. The Table of Contents should have the following major headings with page numbers.
Introduction and purpose
Review of Literature
Findings and Analysis
Recommendations and Conclusions
References
The table of contents will be filled in weekly as you submit each section.
The sub headings for the paper are up to you. The Reference section should be included in all weekly papers, and each reference should be cited in the body of the paper.
Table of Contents
Recommendations and Conclusion
Management and Leadership in Business
Introduction
Management and leadership are vitally needed for an organization’s success and revolve around changing a business’s internal and external operating systems. Management and leadership are inevitable in all stages of a business. However, it differs in various stages of the company, such as small and large organizations. An organization’s management and leadership are established based on nature, size, resources, responsibilities, and recruiting methods of a company (Gray, & Mabey, 2005). On the one hand, leadership steers the business forward by providing a rigid framework for achieving the organizational goals and objectives. At the same time, management is more focused on doing the right things to ensure all business functions are running effectively.
Problem Statement
Currently, leadership and management are at the heart of many polarized parties. Management and leadership styles have become a salient topic for scholars, critics. This research endeavors to investigate the differences in management and leadership of people related to small and large organizations from this perspective. Given the tremendous impact epitomized by turbulence, uncertainty, and unprecedented market shifts surrounding small and large organizations. There is a huge difference between the management and leadership of small and large organizations characterized by paradigm shifts in the markets to ensure survival (Kotter, 2008). Additionally, the existing leadership hierarchy often takes different roles in smaller organizations than larger organizations.
Also, the workforce’s diversity, age, and population vary greatly for small and large organizations. In smaller workspaces, the workforce is made up of diverse, young and old with differing aspirations. On the other hand, in a large organization, the employee base is more experienced, augmented, and boasts a professional culture. Additionally, the organizational culture does not give dissenters room, but only accommodates standardized and regulated employees. While small businesses foresee growth, change, and venture into new markets, large organizations provide security and stability (Bertocci, 2009).
Value of the Research
The research’s overall purpose is to investigate the critical difference between managing and leading small and large businesses. Managing and leading are crucial elements for the survival and growth of a business. This investigation will be imperative in understanding the critical distinction between small and large organizations’ culture, structure, employee base, political aspect. The insights gathered from this research will play a significant role in redefining managers’ core role, leaders and redesigning the management and leadership styles employed in organizations. The study will also contribute to the ever-changing landscape of management and leadership and policy formulation to bridge the existing gap between managing and leading (Zaleznik, 1977). The implications of this research will initiate the conversation on how policymakers, leaders, and managers should engage in developing organizational and leadership structures. These styles are compatible with the business rather than using traditional techniques.
Purpose of Research
This study investigates the management and leadership as it is portrayed in small-medium enterprises and large organizations. Large businesses present rapid paradigm shifts compared to small-medium enterprises, which implies substantial changes in how managers and leaders lead. This research attempts to unveil the key differences and offer a new approach to bridging the existing gaps. The study will also identify the critical leadership and management approaches to work and how these changes will merge to influence business continuity, growth, and success. The unprecedented rise of SMEs without solid management and leadership framework shows the extent and nature to which leadership and management styles are different for every organization (Kotter, 2007). This research will delve into these critical parameters to determine the extent, magnitude, and nature of the business operation that can make leadership and management styles different for small-medium enterprises and large organizations.
Research Method
This research will employ the secondary data collection method to examine existing literature and empirical data collection to ascertain the differences between managing and leading small and large organizations. Using this method, the researcher will retrieve existing data from online articles, media interviews, journals, and websites. This data will be obtained from diverse databases such as Google Scholar, JSTOR, Research Gate, Emerald, and other credible online journals.
Literature Review
Current research shows that small or emerging businesses are different in the contemporary business environment. Leadership and management in small companies may not mirror management within more established organizations. Managing and leading people requires a critical review of the diverse ways management and leadership fields to establish the distinct differences and unresolved issues. These differences are rooted in how businesses hire, reward and motivate, perform and promote change in an organization (Cardon, & Stevens, 2004). The distinct differences between small and large organizations are rooted in the relationship between age, size, nature, and business potential.
From this perspective, the management and leadership structures thrive on measuring tests, performance, promoting and handing change, responding to potential labour relations, and reacting to different union organizations to streamline all the internal and external human resource operations with ease small and large organizations. By nature, small organizations operate in a close-knit management and leadership system anchored on a deep-rooted culture of rewarding, hiring and motivating the employees to increase work output per production. Every employee’s roles are well defined and collaborative practices that support a flexible and integrated work culture. This shows the distinct differences between small, emerging business and large, complex enterprises for all HR functions and operations in an organization. Prior research has been conducted on the distinct ways small organizations differ from large organizations, but little research exists on different businesses’ different variations depending on age and size.
Current research and scholarship are limited to the relationships between leadership styles, performance management systems, recruiting, motivation, and business strategies to small and large organizations (Chaganti, Cook, & Smeltz. 2002).Understanding these core concepts illuminates the path for the complex and varying differences in measuring tests, performance, ability to embrace change, respond to potential labour relations and other organizational issues. However, with the ever-changing landscape of management, small, emerging ventures portray different performance management structures that do not suit the larger organizations. As a result, the management and leadership styles need to align with the organizational measurable, policies, strategies and the environment it operates to ensure the managers and the leader run the organization effectively. Large, complex organization harbors a lot of activities, entities working towards the common goal. Anchored on the transformation theory, leaders are drive innovation, change and react to organization issues positively and optimistically. While managers within the same organization work ensure all the business operations are well regulated and all the business activities are operating smoothly. When a firm boosts complex and integrated operation models, management, and leadership styles change to align the employees to the new leadership and management structures. These rapid changes may attract many opportunities, such as the ability to grow and boost performance. In this regard, a business’s capability and potential to produce depend on its management and leadership. High affinity to develop and grow reflects large organizations and creates an imbalance and rivalry between them and small businesses. Large organizations operate on the transformational leadership theory, which stimulates change, positivity, and optimism to deliver on assigned tasks (Kotter, 2007). This marks the beginning of refining the crucial and vital factors contributing to business growth pertinent to management and leadership. For instance, the CEO of a large organization handles a large team of talents to set given and high expectations compared to small business managers.
Culture
Research shows that a large organization has more in-depth and integrated work cultures compared to small organizations. The level of teamwork, inclusivity and diversity in large teams is more augmented and boasts a professional intellectually segmented relationship between employees. Management and leadership are built on layers of changes, undergoing turbulent times, and uncertainty and low-profit margins. Large organizations have become more accustomed to change and operate in a fulfilling and nurturing environment. The employees have become acclimatized to diversity due to rigid frameworks implemented in the system. For the most part, small-medium enterprises shy away from venturing into new environments. They are slow to adapt to unique ecosystems as they are cautious in making decisions that may affect the business’s growth.
On the other hand, large organizations are geared towards making more profits than creating avenues to diversify the business. Small businesses cultivate a small, integrated, well-connected decision-making process before embarking on a venture. Initially, the manager led by his team conducts extensive research and feasibility studies to develop policies with an element of long term planning with immense benefits both in the medium and long term basis.
Politics
The ongoing political polarization in the workplace has given rises to new work cultures and styles to ensure inclusivity and diversity. Large, complex organizations embrace a century regulated work phenomena that every voice in the organization is pertinent to its growth. This has resulted in a divergent and drastic increase in opposing opinions. Big organizations comprise large teams of employees, influencers, talents and aides who impose diverse and compelling ideas on maintaining order and consistency to the multitude of workplace processes. With this environment, it becomes increasingly difficult for the manager to reduce internal chaos and political meltdowns spike drastically (Gray, & Mabey, 2005). As a result, maintaining the organization’s internal and external political climate is more complicated for large organizations than small, emerging ventures. Small businesses operate on regulated management that needs the input of all members across the organization. However, the SME business manager is not expected to consider the political stand of different employees in the organization. Therefore politics plays a less significant role in the running and operation of a small business (Bloom, & Van Reenen, 2010).
In small organizations, leaders are more emotionally attached, trustworthy, and optimistic and act as agents of change to nurture a good working relationship and a successful workplace. This shows the leader’s ability to handle teams and is intellectually talented at setting given or high expectations. Large organizations, on the other end, are politically diverse in terms of leadership. The leader has to get in touch with many people, listen to their thoughts and integrate them to fit the organizational goals and objectives. While leadership is fundamental in an organization, it is a formidable task as it involves dealing with the human conditions to drive innovation, change and diversity. From this perspective, small and large organizations’ leadership mainly differs based on intellectual stimulation, charisma, and inspiration. This is the core building blocks for effective management and administration of both large and small business. Although there is no clear distinction between management and leadership, analyzing the variations in small and large firms unveils the structural and fundamental ways this phenomenon operates in the contemporary business environment. The different management and leadership variations in small and large organizations show how managers and leaders can align employees to achieve organizational goals. Effective leadership and management are vital for modern managers to regulate work, balance control issues, and display authority. However, people are essential assets of an organization. They act as agents of change and thrive on curating, implementing, and providing ideas, opinions and values to achieve organizational goals and objective. Although management and leadership operate interchangeably depending on the environment, it is practical to manage and lead people on the right path to grow intellectually and professionally in a good working environment.
Findings and Analysis
Mintzberg, et al. (1998) opines that although there is no existing distinction between management and leadership, they differ significantly in large and small organizations. Both managers and leaders are tasked with establishing direction, aligning organizational activities and elements, motivation and inspiring others to work. However, the organizational structure, politics, and culture positively define the management and leadership practice for small and large organizations. One significant defining aspect is the size of an organization. Large companies tend to have well-defined policies, culture and politics that oversee the running and operation compared to small organizations.
In contrast, small companies lack models and channels to regulate and maintain a good work relationship. Simultaneously, although much of the traditional management and leadership practices in large organizations may apply to small business, there are distinct areas that do not necessarily map to larger organizations. There is an existing wide gap between age, size, nature, competing power that emerge as crucial factors in the management and leadership of small and large organizations.
Recommendations and Conclusion
With much emphasis on how the early human resource decisions impact integration and evolution have downstream of an organization, it is paramount to identify how the HR decisions affect small and large organizations. The extant research provides an in-depth overview of the critical factors needed to redefine, understand, motivate, reward, manage performance, react to potential labour relations, promote or handle organizational change, train employees and respond to union organizational change. This narrows down to creating a deep, augmented and confounding relationship between nature, age, and size to establish the critical issue ailing small and large organizations.
In summary, leadership and management are pertinent for measuring tests, performance management, assessments, hiring power, compensation eligibility and validity for a promotion. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to continually review the management and leadership practices embellished in the small and larger organization during the formative stages of firm development and its long-term goals. This will enable managers and leaders to establish the distinct differences between small, emerging and larger organizations and highlight existing differences that have not yet been addressed.
References
Bertocci, D. I. (2009). Leadership in organizations: There is a difference between leaders and managers—University Press of America.
Bloom, N., & Van Reenen, J. (2010). Why do management practices differ across firms and countries? Journal of economic perspectives, 24(1), 203-24.
Cardon, M. S., & Stevens, C. E. (2004). Managing human resources in small organizations: What do we know? Human resource management review, 14(3), 295-323.
Chaganti, R., Cook, R. G., & Smeltz, W. J. (2002). Effects of styles, strategies, and systems on the growth of small businesses. Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship, 7(2), 175.
Gray, C., & Mabey, C. (2005). Management development: key differences between small and large businesses in Europe. International little business journal, 23(5), 467-485.
Kotter, J. P. (2007). What leaders do? Leadership: Understanding the dynamics of power and influence in organizations, 2, 23-32.
Kotter, J. P. (2007). What leaders really do? Leadership: Understanding the dynamics of power and influence in organizations, 2, 23-32.
Kotter, J. P. (2008). Force for change: How leadership differs from management. Simon and Schuster.
Mintzberg, H., Kotter, J. P., Zaleznik, A., Badaracco, J., & Farkas, C. (1998). Harvard business review on leadership. Harvard Business Pre
Zaleznik, A. (1977). Managers and leaders: Are they different.
