(TIỂU LUẬN) functionalism and social relativism theories since these two business concepts are most suitable with the mining industry (burrell, g , morgan, g 1979) furthermore,

The problems and solutions will be presented based on the Functionalism and Social Relativism theories since these two business concepts are most suitable with the mining industry Burrel

BUSM2301 - Organizational Analysis Assignment 2 - Group Report

Astral Consulting Mining Company Case Study

Tran Gia Bao - s3757331

Luu Trong Dung - s3863990

Nguyen Thu Ha - s3678713

Pham Quang Minh - s3864204

Vo Van Bon - s3857506

Jung Woo Han SGS Campus

Word count: 3323

I Introduction

Currently, our company is working with an international mining industry partner named Astral Consulting, the company’s headquarters is in Australia and also have many branches across the world such as Latin America, Asia, Alaska and The Congo The company exploited different types of natural minerals such as Zinc, Copper, Gold and trace materials, which generated its economic growth in the recent years, with a substantial number of function and acquisition development However, these firms are yet to be programmed into the organization, which results in many issues globally, especially its environmental protection issue and social pressure issue Thus, Astral Consulting group must address their problems to take better control of their general management The problems and solutions will be presented based on the Functionalism and Social Relativism theories since these two business concepts are

most suitable with the mining industry (Burrell, G., & Morgan, G 1979).

Furthermore, we also analyse some of the externalities of the company that may happen with other concepts such as Neo Humanism or Radical Structuralism, this part will be discussed further in the discussion paragraph

II Problem Statement

According to the case study from Astral Consulting mining company, we have found out that the client mining industry has struggled with various issues locally and internationally while working with us As a partner of Astral Consulting company, we will state some of their serious problems that need to be addressed in order to improve the relationship between two companies as well as Astral Consulting’s functions and operations, based on the Functionalism and Social Relativism concepts The first and foremost problem of the mining company is that there are no common approaches among various branches across the globe, this issue is considered as the

standardization problem while company sites may have no same achievable goals over key performance indicators, company culture, employees engagement, et cetera The second problem of the company is that there is lack of knowledge in management skills since Astral Consulting mining company have no ability in utilize the lessons learned into real functioning, this maybe the problems of no proper training sessions

for workers or the leaders are lack of academic knowledge, this is also considered as the human resource management problem The third problem of the mining industry

is the economic issue, the companies are unable to accelerate the economic growth based on each scale, each company site may not meet the required profits as given or the ESGs standards (ESG is standing for environment, social and governance

indicators to see how productive, economically potential of a company) (Chen, J.,

2021) The majority of institutional investors lack the motivation, money investment

and time to control or discipline management According to Harvard Business Review analysis, since shareholders are less embedded in the underlying value of the

companies whose securities are traded, the more impact short-term traders have on stock prices, the more volatile such prices would be (Fox, J and Lorsch, J., 2012) The company sites need capital investment for developing economic growth, so there will be lack of money investment for each Astral’s shareholder while the stock market

of the company is insecure due to the increasing in shareholders There are so many branches in lots of countries while Astral Consulting company is unable to manage their performance and have less academic requirements as well as economic

sustainability, therefore, this will result in increasing the shareholder’s pressure from activism (Fox, J and Lorsch, J., 2012) Last but not least, the company may increase the community pressure due to its mining production, this will affect the

environmental aspect based on each scale of the mining process such as drilling, grinding, burning and minerals exploitation in general This will affect the

underground water and air quality for the nearby residents As an environmental organization, the company should focus on ecosystem sustainability, however, we have not seen any environmental protection activities from Astral Consulting and this

is one of their biggest issues over the world In our analysis, this issue is considered as the social relativism issue or social issue

III Literature review

To solve a problem in a company, we must identify the root of the problem and then propose solutions To solve the problems of the mining company, the two paradigms of the functionalist approach and the social relativism approach need to be considered and discussed First, functionalism is also called objective regulation It is

to apply models and methods derived from natural sciences to study human problems (Hirschheim, and Klein, 1989) In the case of this operator, the management of these firms requires alignment and a functionalist approach will evaluate the functions corresponding to the major public entity Then propose a structural model to help reshape the company's apparatuses after integration However, it is worth noting that functionalism focuses on individual roles to form an integrated unit (Hirschheim and Klein, 1989) Therefore, the operator must evaluate and review the subsidiaries before integrating At the same time, the merger helps synchronize the company's operations that will help drive growth in scale and generate profits

Figure 1: Information Systems Development Paradigms by Burrel and Morgan 1979

To further unify the new corporate components, management should form a

sustainable structure, to better cope with the challenge of managing companies in different cultures In addition, in addition to adopting the functionalist's approach to take advantage of information access, it makes it easier for the organization to manage Such employees feel comfortable and of greater importance, if they are informed or involved in the decision-making process Fostering an innovative information environment can not only benefit company productivity but also promote employee loyalty to the company (Plumer, 2011) Thus, promoting diversity can transform cultural interconnections into a more energy activity and thus stimulate demand for large-scale production

In the 1989 study of Hirschheim and Klein, it is shown that the social relativist paradigm seeks explanation in the realm of individual consciousness and subjectivity, in the frame of reference of the social actor as opposed to the observer of the action According to this viewpoint, “social roles and institutions exist as an expression of the Greek that men attach to their world.” To put it more easily, in this case, things like people, hardware,

software, rules such as physical or formal, objective entities are brought into the service of the economic class According to research by Burrell and Morgan in 1979 proposed "all the theories of organization are based on scientific philosophy and theory of society" However, new arrivals of companies will appear different in terms of national culture, people, beliefs, etc., which may cause variables when placed in the case of the operator This poses a number

of obstacles for us One challenge posed is that, as the document review mentioned, should

we include the analyst in organizational analysis or should we take a client standpoint

important to evaluate this issue? When analytical and information development systems are applied, how do we measure these variances in a reasonable and cost-effective budget for the company?

Figure 2: Subjective approach and objective approach to social science

Social relativism will help organize activities in accordance with the country's culture and help reduce pressure from the community The first problem is that shareholders become more and more active, either because the company is on the rise, the management is planning

a strategy or they are just trying to merge the institutions It is impossible to know that, but the actions of the shareholders further disturb the equilibrium of the company The dynamics

of management and companies that have not been integrated into the organization sooner or later have a direct impact on the operation Relativism will propose directions for companies

in different countries and combine functionalism in integration to come up with unified management linkages for companies On the other hand, the mining industry affects the surrounding environment So, it is necessary to develop a model to respond to situations and annual reports showing the world on the environment and people If it is integrated, but the company cannot operate, it makes no difference The publication of the report should include environmental and human impacts People will feel more secure and the company will also

be less likely to get involved in troubles

IV Solution development and proposal

Solution proposal:

According to the issues that we have conducted earlier, the organization is facing pressure from its shareholders for their activism in the organization Besides, the connection between the function and sub-function is not well-integrated resulted in the company having difficulty delivering a common approach that helps the organisation apply learned lessons into practices and grow on the economic scale Amburgey et al (1990) emphasise that restructuring the organization could be hazardous, and overcome it will promote the

organisation’s health Therefore, we create this structure model and the progress model to deliver a solution increasing consistency among organization functions

Figure 3: New hierarchical structure in Functionalism

The new structure was designed to help reconstruct the organization structure to become more hierarchical to maximize the command and control of the authority, which creates a precisely defined business structure between the departments that linked them through a clear chain of command (RMIT 2021, Functionalism, slide 13) After the

reconfiguration, we have the vice manager who is accounted for delivering work to their department and reporting the progress to the general manager for determining the final decision and report them directly to the organization’s shareholders In addition, the proposed

structure aims to create a common approach for the company to have a better connection between the departments and increase the shareholder’s activism in the organization In contrast, eliminate the excess function to improve employee work effectiveness and reduce the operation cost to grow on the economic scale Moreover, this structure also helps the client to be easier for applying experiences gained into practices

Figure 4: Solution implementation.

The above diagram is our process model, which indicates the steps for implementing the solution However, it is quite common for firms to use organization restructuring as means of experimenting with the structure to find more promising configurations( Capron, Dussauge, & Mitchell, 1998; & Brown, 1999, Karim, 2006) In the beginning stage, we

recommended that our client arrange a meeting for announcing the reconfiguration of the business structure After the announcement, the firm will need to categorize the employees to put them in their appropriate department Taking inspiration from Idiographic -Nomothetic methodology, this is a subjective approach methodology that required the client to collect firsthand data to evaluate the efficiency of the solution because there is no information filter; therefore, collecting the information directly would be the most effective way to measure

V Discussion and conclusion

One of the problems with Astral Consulting can be seen, which is its inability to drive economies of scale The company appears to have seen significant growth after acquiring several other smaller firms This seems to be a good direction for the long-term development

of Astral Consulting, but this rapid growth has in fact severely imbalanced and fragmented its organizational structure In the role of a manager, it is also difficult to control the overall growth of the organization when there is an imbalance in the growth of small companies in the same system The solution to increase the interests of shareholders by making the most accurate reports, forecasts and rewarding stock prices for companies with good growth is also

a safe solution to solve the problem of profitability benefit shareholders and the stable general development of the whole system The above solution will first give shareholders more excitement in the issue of equity investment in the organization In addition,

shareholders will gain a better understanding and detail of activities and what is actually happening within the organization through reports with concretized metrics (Burrell & Morgan, 1979) Thereby helping the system develop the best from within However, the above solution will also inadvertently create a conflict of interest between the head and the lower department The transparency of data reports will reduce the influence of managers because shareholders then have the opportunity to provide criticism, suggestions and personal

opinions for the purpose of finding out personal benefit and influence of the head ( Burrell & Morgan, 1979)

The increased pressure on shareholders is also a problem for the organization Astral

Consulting increasingly has more powerful shareholders, and of course they will also demand high economic interests This inadvertently creates barriers to the sustainable development of the organization when the interests of shareholders and the requirements for social

responsibility will be strongly conflicted Therefore, it is necessary to build a model to respond to situations and annual reports showing the impacts on the environment and people Most solutions offered such as Investing in products and services people need, Innovation impacting socio-economic goals, Lower-impact mining techniques, Friendly equipment To the environment and to restore the mining sites, both are intended to protect the environment and satisfy the society The common benefits of the above solutions will help businesses go further in sustainable development Maybe at this time shareholders will not receive high economic benefits, however, if building a development foundation from the benefits of society and the environment is the core, in the future investors investment will have more investment opportunities because it has created values for society and people, from which economic benefits will develop more stably in the long run (Social Relativism) However, the biggest limitation for the above solutions will surely be that the economic efficiency will not be maximized in a short period of time In addition, focusing too much on balancing shareholder interests and environmental and social responsibility creates more problems and arising tasks to meet it, so it will be a challenge When the organization has to meet too many goals at the same time, the productivity will not be high Furthermore, while performing the above tasks, in the bad case, if good results are not achieved, it is possible that the

organizational structure will be disordered and greatly affected when it takes time and effort and is not collected good results again

On the other hand, the only application of Functionalism and Social Relativism to the

application of solutions for Astral Consulting is quite an important shortcoming From our personal point of view, Neo-Humanism will help to come up with better solutions in terms of helping Employees to be truly engaged, not emotionally and socially burdened, able to express ideas and fulfill their full potential so that the organization can more easily develop more sustainably Furthermore, Neo-Humanism will provide effective criticism of unethical behaviors that affect people and the environment and make it easier for organizations to properly define their goals (Aktouf, 1992 ) Meanwhile, Radical Structuralism will also assist the organization in revealing the behaviors that cause inequality in the organization so that it can provide the most accurate solutions for organizational restructuring (Hirschheim & Klein, 1989: 1207) In addition, Radical Structuralism considers resistance to be positive because workers are then aware of their collective benefits, so if applied to Astral Consulting, this will help organizations achieve social progress (Hirschheim & Klein, 1989: 1207)