Decision Making Tools And Techniques For Sustainable Outcomes In Business Contexts

Discussion of Scenario A

The working environments are continuously adopting creative or innovative techniques to bring groups of people to work together within an organization. The formation of virtual teams has significantly resulted in overcoming globalization. The virtual teams adopt the concept of communication with each other based on organizational activities. The paper provides with two scenarios that are scenario A which will use the methods of clustering to select the key members within the RD&D department to attend the meeting. Whereas, scenario B will discuss an efficient use of Leximancer Concept map to evaluate the connection between different concepts within the organization.

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A mid-sized Australian organization comprised of 800 people, out of that 80 people were engaged in research, development, and design (R, D & D) work. The organization is highly interested in identifying creative or innovative capabilities of their team who executes RD&D work. The organizations intend to utilize these capabilities to distinguish its business from its rivals (Aguwa, Olya & Monplaisir, 2017). The organization had organized a project to research the creative or innovative capabilities of R, D& D that is tacitly executed by the staffs in formulating their unstructured communication. It is observed that by accessing email-based communication among RD&D staff tacit information could be better accessed and transformed into knowledge. The directions and rates of connectivity, as well as the emails of the RD&D staff members, have been mapped accordingly throughout one week. The results of the research audit could be assessed from the R, D & D map based on unstructured information accessed from emails of the staff members.

The R, D & D map recognizes every staff member and their specific workstation in which they are logged in along with nodes. The lines connecting the different directions and nodes show the rates of connectivity and the number of lines into or out of nodes presents the intensity of traffic. The project needs an interpretation of the decision made and map which is brought together to collaborate in preparing tacit unstructured information and discuss the content available from an explicit email (Pandey, 2016). Thus, it makes becomes easier for the organization to make use of it. Different meeting rooms will be provided to the chosen RD&D staff members along with a group decision support system, visual aids, and a facilitator. To support the meetings between staff members and help those staff to make tacit information or data explicit the project will use a group-based communication technology system. To execute this process resources provided in every meeting room will instruct the group process and make sure that every participant of the meeting rooms collaborates. Also, it will help to groups in other meeting rooms in creating explicit data (Fan, Lau & Zhao, 2015).

The table below shows the clusters and nodes of six R, D & D staff members those who are selected to attend the meetings.

SR/No.

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Clusters

Nodes identified per cluster

1

61

5

2

45

4

3

75

4

4

19

4

5

38

3

6

31

3

The below table shows the key members of clusters those who are selected for the meetings. It presents the R, D & D staff members as per their cluster and meeting room.

SR/No.

Rooms

Clusters

Key Members Selected to Attend Meetings

1

A

1

Assistant staff member

2

B

2

Research staff member

3

C

3

Technical staff member

4

D

4

Project team member

5

E

5

Production team leader

6

F

6

Technician

Discussion of Scenario B

Generally, clusters help in linking more and more numbers or objects together to aggregate larger and larger clusters of almost dissimilar components. Each of the clusters was selected by grouping a set of numbers in the similar group those who are similar to one another. It is based on segmenting customer portfolio related to behavioral attributes, transaction behavior, and demographics. The standard technique used for this particular clustering of nodes is hierarchical clustering, where the data-point nearer to the base-point will be the same than the data-point which is far ahead from the base-point (Larson & Chang, 2016). In this particular clustering technique, the end point of the set of clusters differs from each other whereas the numbers within each cluster are similar to one another. To execute the business analysis average linkage has been utilized to choose the key members from each cluster to those who will attend the meeting. This technique is chosen as it is determined to be the stable technique.

The nodes in the clusters were selected by identifying the capabilities of the R, D & D staff members to distinguish business from their rivals. It is used to recognize the capabilities of R, D & D staff members based on their creative or innovative skills that could be applied in the business (Cao, Duan & Li, 2015). The capabilities of the staff members comprise of unstructured information that is available in their emails. For this meeting is organized for the staff members in the meeting rooms. The nodes are chosen by information provided in the emails of the staff members that present their rates of connectivity and intensity of traffic. To organize the meeting with R, D & D staff members the project will make use of communication technology system (Holsapple, Lee-Post & Pakath, 2014). Thus, with the help of the clusters the key members those who will attend the meetings are selected.

Dangling nodes has not been included in the analysis as it denotes the nodes without outgoing links. It is used to delete a node from the cluster, and no clusters have been deleted. All the nodes selected from the clusters are linked to each other those who are similar to one another. Deleting a cluster would be difficult to choose the key members for the meeting. Thus, in the following business analysis dangling nodes are not being chosen.

In executing the business analysis, unconnected nodes has been used in the clusters. In the analysis, two unconnected nodes have been used to present the key members those are not included in the R, D & D staff members (Schoenherr & Speier?Pero, 2015). The two nodes represent the fact that as the members are not included in the R, D & D work, hence they will attend the meetings. Thus, there is no need to recognize their creative or innovative capabilities. The purpose of the unconnected nodes in the clusters to identify the R, D & D staff members that make the process easier. In most of the cases there is no use of including unconnected nodes in the clusters but in this scenario, as the task is to select the key members for the meeting, thus including unconnected nodes makes the task easy.

Conclusion

The purpose of choosing cluster s entirely based on interlinking the objects which are close to each other. The clusters which are close to each other and are connected to have a smooth process. In the following business analysis the two R, D & D staff members such as assistant staff member and research staff member are selected as they are close to each other and there work linked to one another. The job of both the staff members is interrelated to each other to some extent. Thus they have been selected to attend the meeting (Kowalczyk & Buxmann, 2015). For organizing meetings for this staff member’s number of meeting rooms have been arranged where each participant will be allotted with a group decision support system, visual aids, and a facilitator. Thus, all these systems are highly required by the chosen staff members to get a consistent output based on the meeting. These two particular staff members are chosen as they are closely connected as compared to the other staff members in the R, D & D group.

The Leximancer Concept map presents the significance of the concepts and the vital relationship between the concepts that is placement and lines. The map shows six themes they are management, communication, open, focused, customer and results. Each balloon focused are connected with other balloons stating the fact that all have some connections with one another in executing a business. It is observed that the communication balloon consists of two elements work and team. It demonstrates that work and team both are significantly connected with communication to proceed with the work systematically (Duan & Xiong, 2015). The map shows that the balloons such as management, open, customer and results are all connected with communication. Hence, it is clear that to execute a business systematically communication plays a vital role as it is an important tool in making the business successful. In every organization, there must be communication among the team members to perform better to proceed with the organizational activities.

The Leximancer content analysis is based on the wide service-based organization located in Australia which comprises of 200 service staff across ten service centers that report to 40 managers. The organization identifies the levels of service support facilitated by their staff member. To execute this process, they have organized a project that recognizes the role and responsibilities of the service person and perceived support facilitated by the management. A series of face-to-face and telephone interviews of the management and field staff have been conducted, and results have been recorded by the interviews. The map shows a strong connection between the concepts such as managers, communication and customer (Sun, Strang & Firmin, 2017). The following concepts also have a strong relationship with the elements of communication such as team and work. From the map, it is analyzed that the relationship between managers and team members must be strong to deliver excellent work. The result is entirely based on the systematic execution of these concepts.

From the Leximancer concept analysis, it is observed that management, communication, open, customer and results have a significant relationship with each other. Whereas, it presents the fact that the concept of focus is not connected to any of the concepts that state the fact that the management team of the organization is not focused on accomplishing their work. It is important for the Australian organization to be focused on delivering an efficient quality of work. But as per the Leximancer Concept map, the balloon focused is not at all connected with any of the other balloons such as management, communication, open, customer and results (Cook, Wu & Mengersen, 2015, September). This will put a great impact on the organization to get better results. As the focused concept is not linked with any of the other concepts, hence it will be difficult for the organization to execute the organizational activities systematically. Thus, it is observed from the map that focused concept is less important among the other concepts and communication seems to be more important among others. Communication plays a vital role as all the concepts are linked with communication concept as well as with the elements of communication they are work and team. Therefore, it is noticed that in the following concept analysis of business communication plays a significant role in formulating the organizational activities.

The field staff members communicate with each other through an open meeting, sending emails, one to one interaction, developing a receptive atmosphere, communicating through training, using simple words and body language. It is acknowledged that communication is executed in the form of listening to the team members. All these factors help in making relevant decisions related to the organization to execute its business to get outstanding results. The field staff members are specifically communicating with the other team members and the management team of the organization. The communication is entirely based on the procedure and execution of the business to achieve the target. Better communication between the staff members leads to better execution of work. It is observed that the communication between customers and managers is not a high level of communication as the customers usually communicate with the staff members regarding their requirements. The customers are not directly connected with the managers to present their demands and provide feedback. Thus the map shows a low level of connection between managers and customers (Gupta & Raja, 2015). To execute business within the organization support, availability plays a significant role. Support availability is very much important to the customers to provide them the technologies as per their requirement. Availability of the resources to the customers proves to be beneficial for the organization as it effectively satisfies the needs of the customers. Thus, the map shows a high level of support available to the customers.

Moreover, the map presents that the communication between management and field staff which is quite open. Field staff and management openly discusses the key issues of the organization and makes a relevant decision based on the organizational factors. Such effective communication is essential to make an appropriate decision related to the projects. If proper communication does not take place between the field staff and management than it puts an impact on the decision-making process. The results are entirely based on the effective communication that takes place between the field staffs — effective communication among the field staff helping in accomplishing the work in a better way and brings positive results to the organization. Better communication leads to better execution of work. The map shows that communication strategy is very well connected with the customers that will prove be advantageous for the organization to execute its business in a better way. Managers have a crucial role in the communicating results as it involves controlling, leading, organizing and planning. All these functions are performed by the managers within the organization. The primary goal of all these functions is to interact with the customers in a better way. Thus, communication is considered to be a channel of knowledge transfer and information exchange among different staff members (Murtagh & Legendre, 2014). As per the analysis of the results the managers are sufficiently focusing on fulfilling the needs of the customers based on an incentive payment system. It is because the managers are not ready to provide with an incentive payment system to its customers due to its lack of funding capacity. The results show the fact that both management, as well as field service team, must work together to better reach to its customers to satisfy their needs. Participation of both the teams is highly important within the organization to execute an effective business. Therefore, if an organization wants to execute its business smoothly, it must utilize the ideas or concepts of management as well as field service teams.

According to the results, support availability has somewhat proved to be effective. To operate the business appropriately, it is important for an organization to have a better support system. The results show the fact that the staff members, as well as the customers, are provided with better support to increase its profitability. It is also observed from the results that to have greater openness customer-service communication must be changed. This change helps in the process of decision-making that brings better results. Thus, customer-service communication is highly important to make decisions based on the requirements of the customers.

Based on the above concept it is highly recommended to the management of the organization to execute its work properly to achieve the target. The clusters must be selected by evaluating the fact that which nodes close to each other and have connections. By using the method of soft clustering the organization could execute its process of selecting the key members those who will attend the meetings. The soft clustering method puts all the data into a single node for each customer. It helps in identifying the relevant staff members to be selected for the meeting. Moreover, it is determined to be a useful method to proceed with the process of clustering the nodes.

It is strongly recommended that the management must have a good connection with all the concepts mentioned in the Leximancer Concept map. Each concept must have a direct link with one another to execute better work and connect with its customers in a better way. It is important that there must be a strong connection between the concepts such as management, communication, field staff, customers and results. All these concepts put a negative impact on the results if not followed adequately. It is also recommended that the managers and the field staff members must be focused on executing a high quality work to achieve the organizational goals. If the management team is not focused on their work, they will be unable to fulfill the demand of the customers, and that will lead to negative results for the organization. The Leximancer Concept analysis provides with the concepts and relationship between each concept that is executed within the organization (Rajeshwari, Shanthini & Prince, 2015). There must be a high level of communication among the managers and customers as communication with customers helps in understanding the demand of the customers to fulfill their demand. In today’s context, customers are highly demanding. Hence, communication strategy becomes significant for the organization to follow systematically.

Also, it is important that managers must provide its staff members and customers with proper support availability that will be beneficial for both of them. This will lead to better management of the projects within the organization. It is also recommended that customer-service communication must be adapted to go through the needs of the customers. It is observed that management plays a significant role within the organization. Hence, the job of the management is to stay connected with all the concepts mentioned in the Leximancer Concept map.

Conclusions

In today’s business context virtual teams work together to provide better results for the organization. This working together of the virtual teams puts a direct impact on the process of decision-making by the managers within the organization. It is observed that managers must make efficient use of the tools to execute relevant decision and change management skills. Thus, the paper provided with the discussion of two scenarios that are based on the working environment of the organizations. It can be seen that scenario A uses the clustering method, whereas scenario B uses Leximancer Concept map for the analysis of the results.

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