Mgmt Planning And Ethics

Mgmt Planning and Ethics

Renee A Nasco

MGT330

Timothy J Shobbrook

April 8, 2006

Management Planning and Ethics

In Chapter 4 of Management: The New Competitive Landscape, it is explained that "planning is the conscious, systematic process of making decisions about goals and activities that an individual, group, work unit, or organization will pursue in the future." (Bateman & Snell, 2004) Planning provides employees with a clear chart of what the company expects to be happening in the near future, while also setting up contingency plans for changing conditions. Planning is an activity that is driven and monitored by all levels of management at different stages.

A strategy is a pattern of actions and resource allocations designed to achieve the goals of the organization. Strategic goals are major targets or end results that relate to the long term survival, value, and growth of the organization. Therefore, strategic planning is about making decisions about actions and resource allocations for long-term goals relating to the success and survival of the corporation.

Levels of Management

In the past, senior executives and a committee of specialized planning units made all these decisions. They developed the goals and plans for the entire organization based on industry standards and what they perceived to be the situation on their lower levels. More recently, however, it has been found to be more profitable and supportive of the corporation and its employees to involve all of the levels of management in these decisions.

By visualizing your company as having three levels of systems - individual, group and organization - you can create a framework for the strategic plan that includes the entire corporation. This allows the plan to cascade the planning and change down through each level and continue to move forward and continue to improve and succeed.

Lower level management, or the production managers, gather and assess data on what is and what is not working on the production floor and / or in the field. This is done by monitoring output numbers and resource allocations for each attempt at improvement and keeping records and backup on how well the different processes they try are succeeding. The floor managers then compile this information and pass it on to be processed by the mid-level managers.

Mid-level managers are responsible for compiling and processing the reports they receive from production managers. This compiled and compressed version of the data is then fed to the strategic managers so that they have the data to base their plans on.

Strategic managers, also known as top-level managers, usually establish goals that reflect both effectiveness and efficiency. At this level, plans are established for creating a higher ration of output to input values relative to resource allocations. These plans are supported by the data originally gathered from the production floor by the lower level managers. Although the senior management does not normally formulate or implement the plans on their own, they are responsible for the development and the execution of the strategic plan.

Social Responsibility

Over the last two years, Brian's Cabinets has become more and more aware of the environmental dangers of the products we use to build the homes in Bend. As Bend is currently going through a major 'boom', this is a great concern when it comes to social and ethical community responsibility.

At this time, approximately 54 percent of the energy consumption in the United States is linked to buildings and their construction. Buildings account for 35 percent or more of CO2 emissions in the United States, one quarter of the world's wood harvest, and one sixth of the world's freshwater withdrawals. Up to 30 percent of North American landfill space is taken up by construction and demolition debris. Research has uncovered all of these facts, plus the fact that all of these unsustainable rates of consumption / pollution can be greatly reduced just by building differently, with far better air quality and lower operating costs in the bargain

Since the reports of these figures and data came out, Brian's Cabinets has been making and implementing strategic plans to help with this situation as much as possible. For example, several of the homes that we are involved in the construction of now use 'strawboard' as opposed to hardwood. Strawboard is created from wheat and grass field that farmers