10 Corporate Management and Team Building

CORPORATE MANAGEMENT AND TEAM BUILDING
Corporate management
The concept of corporate management takes root from theory Z of William G.
Ouchi (1945). Ouchi's study is very significant and it sets corporate management
against traditional means of management namely bureaucracy. Theory Z is a
result of a study of the characteristics of Japanese and American companies.
This theory seeks to find out if selected practices from Japanese industry
could be adopted in the United States. Among the findings from his research,
Ouchi (1981) observes several differences between the behavior of Japanese
and American organizations summarized in the table below
Japanese organizations corporate American organization.
management
hierarchical bureaucratic
Offer life time employment, promote Offer
style short term employment,
from within, unspecialized career recruitment from outside, career paths
Shared decisionarespecialized
pathsppppaths making, trust, loyalty Individual decision making varying
are specialized.
among managers and employees fosters degrees of trust / loyalty among
collective responsibility. managers and staff, importance of the
Long term performance appraisal Short term performance appraisal
manager's responsibility.
more important.
Success gauged in terms of cooperative Success gauged in terms of
efforts
individual achievements.
Ouchi's theory can be summarized as the need to give more freedom

to subordinates in decision making. This democratic human resource
management style, as practiced by successful Japanese firms, is dependent upon
the manager's leadership skills. Cross national study of human resource
management between USA and Japan which was carried out by Ichniowski and
Shaw (1999) came up with similar results. It was found out that whereas in
Japan, worker involvement and worker participation were geared towards
improving productivity, in USA the reverse human resource management was
practiced and subsequently, productivity was low.
1
The assumption of theory Z is that subordinates commit themselves to
work with the manager towards realizing organizational goals. Such joint
consultation between managers and employees in very important because the
employees then are more motivated in achieving objectives that they were
involved in setting. Therefore, it is strongly believed that corporate management
leads to workers being more involved and since workers are key to productivity,
there is increased efficiency and effectiveness (Mwesigye, 2012).
Ghee and Daft (2004) affirm that when objectives are dictated by managers,
subordinates participate only by being present. But when subordinates are
completely free to get involved in setting of organizational goals, they work hard
to make sure that the goals are achieved. Therefore, the greater the participation of
managers and subordinates as a team, the more likely the organizational goals
will.be achieved.
Corporate management is thus taken from the individual involvement

paradigm.
According to Carosseli (2000), corporate management refers to a situation where
subordinates are given control over decisions that affect them. If this is done,
according to the aforementioned author, workers are likely to feel appreciated
valued and satisfied. It is important to note heretofore, that in this case the
workers are more likely to demonstrate loyalty and to operate on the basis of stake
and such workers are less likely to quit, to be late, to perform poorly, or to
subvert the plans of administrators.
The term corporate management was used by Chandler (1962) who defines it as a
human resource management, style aimed at decentralization devolving of power, under
which subordinates are expected to use their discretion within the confines of their
competences. Similarly, experts on management point out that corporate
management is a recent style of management where managers and workers meet to
plan together for their organization
(Langenecker, 2006). Minimum hierarchy, maximum democratization and
collectivism are the key factors of empowerment for all individuals and work
teams.
Team building
Corporate management entails team building. Leaders alone cannot do the
job. They may lead, but they need others to follow. Working groups have their
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own personality, power, attributes, standards and needs. Leaders who take these
things into account can achieve success because they respond to those group
variables in team building. Group goals and objectives must be clear. All team
members must clearly understand these group goals.
Teamwork also requires ownership of team goals, therefore, members need to
participate in setting team goals and commit to them. The amount of
participation in creating ownership and the energy expended towards reaching
those goals greatly determine how they will be accomplished. The effective
coordination of a team's resources depends largely on leaders' abilities to
specify the objectives they want to achieve. Roles and responsibilities revolve
around who does what on the team. The leader usually assigns roles and
responsibilities. As group members work together they also build expectations
of one another. Conflict over roles and responsibilities may occur because of
differing expectations. The human resource manager is not to rely on formal
written job descriptions to cover day to day situations; group dynamics here are at
the fore front.
Many problems arise simply because people are not clear about what they
expect of each other. Role conflict may also occur as result of overlapping roles
and responsibilities. This creates tension when two or more members see
themselves as responsible for the same task. Expectation and overlaps should be
duly discussed and interpersonal relationships should work closely together to
achieve a common task. People naturally develop feelings towards each other.
In this way, there should be mutual trust, mutual support, easy and effective
communication and take differences as inevitable to ease conflict resolution.
Teamwork requires that members share leadership needs. The leadership style is
very important. Team leaders must frequently examine the impact of their styles
and be open to feedback from members regarding how such styles meet
leadership needs. Team work requires the maximum use of the different resources
of individuals such as abilities, knowledge and experience.
Team members accept and give advice, counsel and support to each other. While
recognizing individual accountability and specialization, team building becomes
successful when the environment is conducive. When groups have flexibility,
sensitivity to each other's needs, encourage recognition of differences, and
members do not feel shy to accept rigid rules, they have achieved team work.
They work hard at keeping their team climate free, open, and supportive. In
team building, the leader should recognize individual problems.
3
There are some workers who are extremely difficult and hated by other
members. The leader should tactfully bring such workers on board as well.
This is in line with Fred Fiedler's contingency theory of leadership. Fiedler
(1967) holds that most successful managers are flexible in order to fit
unpredictable or fluctuating situations for the benefit of their organizations.
Effective group performance can be achieved by matching the manager to the
situation or by changing the situation to fit the manager, so the managers should fit
the difficult workers if such workers cannot fit the managers. Thus Fiedler (1967)
measures leadership style on a scale that indicates the degree to which a manager
describes favorably or unfavorably the least preferred co-worker (LPC).
Accordingly, a manager who describes his LPC in a relatively favorable
manner has high LPC rating and the one who describes his LPC in a relatively
unfavorable manner has low LPC rating. High LPC managers aim to establish
good personal relationships with their workers, regarding them as co-workers,
and increase realization of organizational goals. Low LPC managers, on the
other hand, want to get the task done regardless of the workers needs and
personalities. This usually discourages workers and they perform only when the
manager is around.
References
Carosseli, M. (2000). Leadership skills in managers. London: CWL Publishing
Enterprises.
Chadler, A. D. (1962). Strategy and structure; chapters in the history of industrial

enterprise. Cambridge, Mass: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Press.
Fiedler, F. E. (1967). A theory of leadership effectiveness. New York: McGraw Hill.
Ghee, S. L. & Daft, R. L. (2004). The leadership experience in Asia.
Singapore: Thomson Learning.
Ichnowski, C. & Shaw, K. (1999). Stable URL. retrieved March, 1, 2013
from http: // www.jstar.org/stable/2634726
Ichnowski, C. & Shaw, K. (1999). The effects of human resource management
systems on economic performance; an international comparison of US and
Japanese plants. Management science, 45, 704-732.
Langenecker, J. G. (2006). Small business management entrepreneurial emphasis.
Mexico: Thompson South western corporation.
4
Mwesigye, A. R. (2012). Corporate management and governance of human
resources in selected universities in Uganda. An unpublished PhD thesis,
Mbarara University of Science and Technology.
Onchi, W. (1981). Theory Z. How American business can meet the Japanese
challenge. New York: Addison Wesley.
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CORPORATE MANAGEMENT AND TEAM BUILDING

Ouchi's theory can be summarized as the need to give more freedom

Corporate management is thus taken from the individual involvement

Chadler, A. D. (1962). Strategy and structure; chapters in the history of industrial

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