Essay On Marketing Theories

i. Theory X refers to a management style which is more task oriented, where the rules and frameworks are needed in order to keep the employees focused and on track.

We found in all three countries a management style which atributes have a strong connections with the theory X:

They all rely on a structured hierarchy for decision making.

Tasks are divided and well described so that everyone knows what to do.

Strategic and business plans are discussed, analyzed and approved at the top without the direct involvement of middle managers.

All the decision making is centralized.

Meetings are used as a tool for management control.

We found in the same three countries that they do differ in certain points as:

South Korea see the employees as a valuable strategic asset, while Brazil doesn’t.

Brazil makes decisions leaning on a short term profit do to restrictions of his markets.

Spain makes use of informal personal contacts.

Difference between the Netherlands and Germany lays mainly in the role of the manager and subordinates in the decision-making process and also the way of achieving the outcome. In Netherlands each worker participates on decision-making process and the manager is facilitating and co-ordinating therefore his role is to help and participate on achieving the outcome. And opinion of each worker is important and matters. On the contrary in Germany the emphasis is put on hierarchy thus the authority is delegated in a clearly defined way.

According to Ouchi, Theory Z is based on promoting stable employment, high productivity and high employee moral and sattisfaction. The reason why Japan is considered to have a management “beyond Theory Z” is because, although they put high price on maintaing a relationship-oriented athomoshpere, they take collective decisions and have a holistic concern on how the company is doing, they still respect the hierarchy and are also task and performance oriented.

Basically, from our point of view, we consider that “beyond Theory Z” entails all the other theories, like X and Y and also bring something new to the table.

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