(MNG10247) Managing Organisations: What we can Learn from an Open System - Reflective Essay Writing Assessment Answers

Reflective Essay Writing Assignment Help

Task

Students are to write a reflective essay (max 750 words) which details how they have experienced the Open Systems management approach (i.e. model) in an organisational context. To effectively do so students must accurately and succinctly describe the primary premise of the Open Systems model and its key characteristics. They must also support, using strong logic and reference to published material, how their experience is clearly symptomatic of the management approach.

Students with no workplace experience on which to base their essay will need to identify and interview someone who can provide the required first-hand insight.

An open system model in an organization is the one which interacts with its environment through inputs from it and then converting it into the outputs which are then offered to the environment. When a business constantly interacts with its environment and exchanges and processed the feedback, the organization is said to have an open system. Business depends on the suppliers, customers, employees and even on the competition when it comes to profits, research or development of products and services. Since the business has no control over the environment, it depends on predictions in order to cope up with unexpected inputs.

The open system model approach acts as a system which has component in the form of inputs like raw material, people, equipment, investments and outputs like the product, idea, service. It also has components like the organization behaviour and process, technology used and the environment which is external to the organization (Scott and Davis, 2015).

The place that I worked in was based on an open model system since it was a resort. I was a manager at the resort and there were various occasion when I had to deal with the external factors and resolve them using feed back

One such experience was when the customers would complain with respect to a particular service provided by the repost like the quality of food. As a manager of the hotel, the problem was due to the inability of the chef to provide the food according to the standard of the customers or their requirement. When I asked the chef about it, he said that the work was too much for him to handle and he required additional help in the kitchen since it was the summer season and the amount of food orders had doubled in the period. Taking into consideration this factor additional help was hired in the kitchen due to which the quality of food substantially improved (Morris, Schindehutte & Allen, 2005).

This is a typical example of an open system since it was based on the feedback of the customers due to which the hotel could make changes through inputs from the customer and improving the quality of the dish as an external output. In similar cases weakness could be found by searching for links between the components of the system and the problem that is presented in the organization (Zott and Amit, 2010).

The weakness could be found in many areas due the opens system such as training the employees to serve in a better manner hence improving the customer service experience, other include the precise definition of the job roles and removal of equipment which have been out dated and not used in the resort. Other areas of improvement included the inadequate coordination in of work and improvement in the spa sections of the resort. All this improvements could be made by the constant feedback from the environment of the report like the customers, suppliers and employees.

One of the most important learning experiences was that when an organization has an open model it is easier for them to understand the requirements of its customers and cater to them in an efficient manner. If an organisation constantly seeks feedback and redefines the problem, they are able to come to better solutions. The solution to problems becomes simpler since managers treat these problems as symptoms of a border and more fundamental problems (Chesbrough, 2007).

Working in an open system made me aware that a free flow of information and data between departments and the external environment allows the organization to achieve efficiency and success in the long run. Also another strength of organization that use the open system model is that their focus their attention on the external challenges that are presented to the organizational and come up with ways in which they can achieve competitive advantage in the industry. They also broadly classify the crucial success factors which acts like a guise for the enhancement of their internal conditions that are contributing to their success. As a manager it allowed me to isolate the elements of the resorts systems, structure and culture and analyse them to outline the factors that were stooping the resort from achieving its objectives

It also allowed me to confirm the practical reality of the resort and the cultural change with key performance indicators (KPIs) and quantitative measures of performance that outline that the changes were happening in a positive manner (Franco-Santos et al., 2007).