Why Managers Still Matter Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

The industrial revolution brought radical changes and the recession of small-scale, cottage production and the rise of large, associated businesses; Adam Smith’s hidden skills were replaced with what business historian Alfred D. Chandler Jr., Called the “hidden hand” of management. But gradually the time is now reshaping its flow towards another way to a system of loose networks, virtual businesses and its interaction with its peering set. A decline of managerial authority is supposed to be a hallmark of a new economy. The management experts, consultants and advisors argue that the hierarchy is no more, while the new organization like online retailer Zappos have initiated to favor flat hierarchies with highly spread authority. Nevertheless, keeping in view the requirements of the modern environment, authors Nicholai J. Foss and Peter G. Klein proclaim that managerial authority is yet now necessary in different situation where 1. Decisions to be taken under time limit; 2. The management team must have essential knowledge; and 3. When internal collaboration is required. A situation like these, they suggest, has also been the hallmark of our network, knowledge-intensive and hypercompetitive economy. Whereas many workers do not need much information by a boss or to be consecutive monitored and watched their day to day work, the authors found that it’s time to change the description of “authority” and the specific role of managers. Managers should now get distance from specific methods and processes in favor of goals they want to achieve or principles they want employees to adopt. In other words, describing and applying the company’s rules of the game is actually their task to commit. Procedures for defining criteria and rules could be themselves be nested and entrusted. Indeed, if a company’s main assets knowledge workers whose body language and internal skills are hard enough to assess objectively, they will have to more depended on subjective assessments of performance, which is surely done by managers.