This essay reviews theoretical concepts to assess the proposition that the ways in which people are managed affects the performance of the organisations within which they function. The implications of this proposition are that (a) effective management is associated with higher levels of organisational performance, while ineffective management practices are associated with inferior organisational performance.
The theoretical framework within which this assessment is performed is "Managing People in Organisations" (MPIO). MPIO is an umbrella concept that encompasses both organizational behaviour (OR) and human resource management (HRM). The concepts of leadership and its effects on organisational performance also are included in MPIO (Beech, Cairns, Livingstone, Lockyer, and Tsoukas, 2002).
MPIO includes a wide array of concepts and theories. To assess the proposition that the ways in which people are managed affects the performance of the organisations within which they function, however, this essay focused on two crucial aspects of MPIO in the contemporary period. These crucial aspects of MPIO are the responses by management to the globalised business environment and the effects of cultural diversity on management's communications with employees, each of which is crucial to the development of high levels of organisational performance in the environment of globalised economic and business operations. These two assessments are preceded by a very brief review of the globalised environment of business in the early 21st century.
The Globalised Business Environment in the Early 21st Century
Globalisation · the spread of economic innovations around the world and the political and cultural adjustments that accompany this diffusion · appears to be irreversible. The reason is that globalisation per se is not the result of a planned activity by government or military power
a toward ever larger geopolitical entities. Nor ...