A Look at the Final Chapter of Timothy Glander’s Book,...

The final chapter of Timothy Glander’s book, Origins of Mass Communications Research During the American Cold War: Educational Effects and Contemporary Implications (2000) stands as a disappointing example of academic research becoming hijacked by the author’s personal opinion. Focusing on the hidden nature of propaganda in American life, his concluding chapter presents a very drastic view of the individuals who crafted the academic subject now known as mass communications. I see the need for investigating the status quo, for digging into the motivations behind the images and data churned out in the mass media, and for questioning the trivia facts that become common knowledge. For that reason, I am wary of completely discrediting the†¦show more content†¦Circling any solid thesis, he claims that generations of Americans have been brainwashed by mass communications, ruining any â€Å"genuine community life† (2000, p. 214), a vague picture of the pre-Cold War era that never becomes defined. The Cold War era may have featured significant changes in the way American communities functioned, but summoning up a sitcom image instead of genuine examples to support one of his key arguments simply weakens his case. His one clearly stated goal is to revive the association of the phrase â€Å"mass communications† with the word â€Å"propaganda† – a word that appears thirty times in these fourteen pages. Making the unfortunate choice of attempting to eliminate detractors of his claim without addressing their concerns, Glander frames them as being lost in the propaganda of their time. His claim, â€Å"people still remain largely unable to†¦understand the powerful ways in which [television] is used to shape and control their thinking† (2000, p. 207) means every generation since the Cold War is so permeated by mass communications that they are now incapable of external analysis. Using this logic, critics of his argument are brainwashed by this new establishment, a victim of social control that they cannot see or change, leaving us in a vicious circle at the mercy of the media. Two accompanying book reviews echo my concerns with this logic. Found in History of Education Quarterly (2001) and

Organisational Behaviour Challenging Markets and Management

Question: Describe about the Organisational Behaviour for Challenging Markets and Management. Answer: Introduction The article The critical challenges facing New Zealands chief executives: implications for management skills by Ann Hutchison Peter Boxall is very informative as it gives a comprehensive report on the most serious challenges that face the human resource departments in New Zealand regarding managerial skills, challenging markets and ever-changing environment. Executive managers in organizations are the epitome of leadership where they oversee the operations to ensure that the companys activities are geared towards the achievement of the shareholders objectives. In conducting their responsibilities, these managers are often faced with varied risks and threats that arise from their environment both internal and external and they always strive to bring harmony for a common goal. Like in other organizations globally, the chief executive in New Zealand are faced with similar challenges. The article was therefore aimed at examining the Supreme substantial issues that executive managers hav e to deal with in their daily operations and their impacts on the management skills both in the private, public and in non-profit organizations (Hutchinson Boxall 2014, p.24). It is noted from the article that New Zealand just like most nations across the globe, experienced great economic setbacks as a result of the 2008-09 financial crisis and this derailed their economic growth. As a result, the government has been subjected to extensive borrowing in order to finance its economy so as to help bridge the budget deficit (Hutchinson Boxall 2014, p. 24). From this view, I note that the article further highlights the effects of the global financial crises in the New Zealands economy. It is due to the financial crises that the country has experienced reduced economic growth, exports of its labor force and restricted opportunities for its labor force. The New Zealands executive managers are therefore faced further with the threats of the financial crisis which have also contributed to the fall in the management and technical skills. Summary of the article This article by Ann Hutchison Peter Boxall is majorly about the various forms of challenges and threats facing the executive managers of New Zealand following the various types of the environments in which they are exposed. In expressing their point of view, the authors argue that New Zealand managers face varied challenges ranging from recruitment of specialized roles to the retaining of the educated workforce since the countrys industry is majorly operating under small scale thereby resulting into loss of managerial skills. The setting of the article is the New Zealand economy and its workforce which is faced with serious economic threats. In order to collect the executive views on the challenges, the research was conducted in form of survey to the 1000 New Zealands largest organizations ranging from public, private to the non-profit organizations (Hutchinson Boxall 2014, p. 27). Data was collected from 265 executive managers which gave a response rate of 27% which was below the standard. The study used 19 challenges and 14 risks factors which were ranked using Likert scale of 1to 4 and 1to 3 respectively to help categorize the intensity of each of the item in the organizations and open-ended questions to give the respondents the opportunity to express their open views (Hutchinson Boxall 2014, p. 28). The results indicated that the private sector is majorly affected by the market risks followed by access to finance. The public and non-profit reported almost similar results with changes in the economic climate becoming the most significant risk followed by fundraising. Access to fianc was also considered as a major challenge affecting the executive managers (Hutchinson Boxall 2014, p. 29). From the results of the study, the authors concluded that the top executives in various organizations in New Zealand are faced with three major management challenges outlined as managing stakeholders and business associates, managing people and the scarce resources and managing risks and renewal (Boxall Frenkel 2012, p. 646). The authors further concluded that for the managers to minimize their challenges, it is prudent to first manage the uncertainty and renewal by adapting to the constant technological and market changes. Moreover, for the other challenges, the companies need to be more versa tile having an ability to think laterally and be able to find solutions to the novel problems that aims to change the rule of the game (Boxall Frenkel 2012, p. 648). Critical Analysis of the Article From the structure of the article, the report was well presented in a clear and concise manner that makes it easy for readers to find the stem of the report. Through proper organization, the report is understandable, and it has addressed the themes of the study with sufficient supporting literature. This gives the readers a deeper understanding of the situations facing the executive managers in New Zealand and what contributed to the current challenges and economic threats (Hutchinson Boxall 2014, p. 30). The method used to conduct the research was very appropriate depending on the purpose of the research and helped produce accurate data besides having a clear and distinct purpose so as to make informed decisions based on the data gathered. The choice of using both qualitative and quantitative forms of data gave the respondents a wide view of responding to the research questions as they were able to express the challenges they were facing fully. Through the use of both qualitative a nd quantitative, the authors were able to draw comprehensive conclusions based on the results since not all the organizations have similar perceptions on the intensity on the challenges and risks they face (Eriksson and Kovalainen 2015). Based on the thesis of the article, the authors have delved much on the main objective of the study. They have provided conclusive literature on the various forms of challenges and risks that face the New Zealand managers. In this light, therefore, the article was appropriately directed to the target audience who were the managers as it also provided remedies to the salient challenges and risks they face. The structuring of the survey questions was also very appropriate in responding to the thesis of the study as they were well dispersed across the different sectors of the economy and further, they addressed various forms of threats in the organizations. This gives a comprehensive dataset from which to draw conclusions. As noted by Yukl (2012), the article has vividly discussed the three themes of the study based on the results of the research. Through this discussion, the authors have provided the audience with an in-depth insight on how to manage the various forms of challenges and risks. The article has further provided the audience with Yukl (2012) taxonomy of leadership behaviours model that further gives an understanding of how to manage the economic threats and other forms of managerial challenges (Yukl 2012). Despite the fact that the article extensively addressed the themes of the study; the article lacked a well-structured and conclusive executive summary. The summary provided does not address all the facets of the study, and this, therefore, does not give the reader full picture of what the article contains. Additionally, from the 1000 survey issued, only 265 were returned, and this gives below average return rate hence it does have a full representation of the views of majority of the chief executives in New Zealand (Eriksson Kovalainen 2015). The conclusions drawn from such results cannot be considered to fully address the key challenges facing the organizations in the country (Eriksson Kovalainen 2015). Further, the article had limited picture of the organizations since the data analyzed was obtained from only one respondent in the organization (the chief executives). Using these kinds of data further, limits the extent to which the authors drew their conclusions. From my point of view, I believe that to a large extent, the article has addressed the themes of the study in a distinct, elaborate and concise manner. The article gives a summarized and well-researched analysis of the challenges facing the chief executives of the New Zealands organizations. Despite the low rate of response, the use of Likert scale gave the respondents a wide scale of expressing the extent to which the challenges affect the sectors of the economy. Moreover, I believe that by using a wide variety of qualitative data of both challenges and risks, the authors provided a general view of the serious challenges and risks faced by most firms in New Zealand. The results and recommendations can, therefore, be applied to most of the executives to improve their management skills. To this extent, I agree with the thesis statement since it provides the insight of what the article illustrates. From the analysis in the article, the authors have supported the thesis with sufficient literature which provided the basis for study. Conclusion As a result of the 2008-09 global financial crisis, the New Zealands economy has been struggling to stabilize and due to this, it has exposed the chief executives to various forms of risks and challenges. The main challenges discussed in the article which the environment exposes the managers are management of stakeholders and corporate associates, management of workers and the scarce resources and managing risks and renewal. It is, therefore, the duty of the chief executives to find solutions to the various challenges by adopting various strategies. As a result of these challenges, the organizations human resource specialists should focus much more on the development of good managers to help curb the challenges and improve the countrys productivity. With good human resources experts, the organizations will be able to remedy the three categories of the challenges and risks. References Boxall, P. Frenkel, S., 2012. Models of human resource management in Australia and New Zealand. In C Brewster and W Mayrhofer (eds) Handbook of research on comparative human resource management, pp.644662. Eriksson, P. and Kovalainen, A., 2015. Qualitative Methods in Business Research: A Practical Guide to Social Research. Sage Hutchinson, A. Boxall, P., 2014. The critical challenges facing New Zealands chief executives: implications for management skills, Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, vol.52, pp.23-41. Yukl G., 2012. Effective leadership behaviour: What we know and what questions need more attention. Academy of Management Perspectives, Vol. 26, pp.66-85. doi: 10.5465/amp.2012.0088.