FACULTY OF BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT

BBGO4103 ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

ASSIGNMENT

Name : Alexander Yang Yee Chuan @ Richard Matrix Number : 731102125021001 NRIC : 731101-12-5021 Telephone number : 013-8569072 E-mail address : [email protected]

Tutors name: BOY BIN BILLY @ KERIMPUT Learning Centre: Keningau

MAY 2011 Semester

Company Profile Java Berhad (formerly known as Java Incorporated Bhd) is a public company listed on the main market of Bursa Malaysia. JAVA has an exclusive right to harvest logs from 55,000ha of timber concession areas in Sabah, Malaysia. JAVA also possesses a comprehensive range of manufacturing facilities for the processing of logs into various finished and semi finished timber products of high quality. The key processes available are debarking, sawing, crosscutting, kiln drying, preservative impregnation treatment, finger joining, lamination, planning, moulding, routing, slicing, rotary peeling, pressing, machining, sanding, coating, finishing etc. These processes enhance the durability, workability and other inherent properties of timber. The facilities help to develop and express the warmth and natural aesthetic beauty of tropical timber. Business Activities Timber Complex Java Timber Complex (JTC) is located at Mile 5, Nabawan Road in Keningau, Sabah. JTC, sprawling on an area over 3.5 million square feet, houses all the timber processing facilities for manufacture of quality timber products with high value adding. Advance technology in timber processing is procured from more than 10 industrialized countries around the world, such as the US, Italy, Germany, Japan and Sweden. JAVAs production facilities are operated under three principal subsidiaries, Java Timber Sdn Bhd (JT), and Java Industries Sdn Bhd (JI) and Java Woods Sdn Bhd (JW). The engineered moulding operation under JT is recognized as one of the leaders in wood veneer wrapping industry. JI, the plywood and veneer plant comprises 8 rotary lathes with the latest centering technology, yields high productivity, optimum recovery and most of all, premium quality. It is the single largest plant in Malaysia under one roof featuring an all-new, state-of-the-art machinery. JW is equipped with the modern vertical and horizontal slicers and high performance driers to produce flitch veneers which are further processed into rolls and lay-on.

JT presents a full integration of three major timber manufacturing processes of sawing, slicing and peeling. This integration enables Java-Inc to make the best use of the natural characteristics of the timber resources through the environmentally friendly processes.

Manufacturing and Plant Location

Board of Director Dato' Dr. Abu Talib Bin Bachik Chairman/Independent Non-Executive Director Sy Choon Yen Executive Director Mohd Zulkhairis Bin Mohd Zain Independent Non-Executive Director YM Tunku Mahmood Bin Tunku Mohammed Independent Non-Executive Director

Products Sawn Timber With multiple combined uses of band saws, circular saws, multiple saws, kiln drying and preservative impregnation plant, we are well-equipped to manufacture and supply high grade sawn timber of various specifications and grades under the Malaysia Grading Rules. The sawn timber could be graded according to the General or Special Market specification.

SpeciesAvailable: Dark Red Meranti. Yellow Meranti, Selangan Batu, Belian, Kapur, Obak Suluk, Kempas, Merbau and other hard and medium wood species.

Moulding

Our high speed moulders and profile wrapping machines are capable of producing a wide range of mouldings with substrates of solid, finger-jointed, architrave, casing, skirting, rail, and jamb, wall panel, wrapped with tropical natural veneer, engineered veneer, paper or other synthetic.

DECKING: Selangan Batu, Belian and other tropical hard woods. SCANTLING: Mixed Meranti and other medium soft woods. VENDER WRAPPED DECORATIVE PROFILE: Agathis

Plywood & Veneer Our plant is equipped with high capacity rotary lathes, roller and continuous dryers, veneer composers, cold and hot presses, sizing and sanding line to facilitate the production of face, back and core veneer. These veneers can be of natural or jointed, whole piece, plain plywood, overlay plywood, underlayment and blackboard with various sizes and grading available.

THICKNESS SIZES AVAILABLE

: 2.4mm to 18mm : 3' 3' X X 6' 7' (915mm (915mm X X 1830mm), 2135mm), 4' X 8' (1220mm X 2440mm)

TYPE GLUE SPECIES

OF : I, II, LFE (E1 or E2), WBP, F4 Star : Meranti, Kapur, Keruing and any other peelable tropical wood species

Sliced, Spliced decorative veneers and veneer rolls Decorative spliced flitch veneer of various species and thicknesses, lay-ons, veneer rolls for edge banding. For more exclusive usage, veneers of extra lengths are available up to 4.5 meters as compared to the industrial norm of 3 meters.

SPECIFICATION

: Veneer Rolls : - Length : 200LM - Width : 15mm ~ 300mm Flitch Stock Veneer : - Length : 2.5 ~3m (PANEL) - Width : 100mm & Wider - Thickness : min 0.2mm ~ max 3.0mm

SIZES AVAILABLE SPECIES

: - Fancy Veneer (size available 4' X 8') - Door skin (size available 3' X 6', 3' X 7') : Agathis, Red Meranti, White Meranti, Nyatoh, Merbau, Pulai, Kembang Semongkok

Size of employees

Java Berhad currently has more than 1500 workers from all over Malaysia, Indonesia, Philipines and Bangladesh.

Roles of Managers Management specialist Professor Henry Mintzberg mentioned that a managers job can be boiled down to ten general roles. According to Mintzberg, these roles for a managers behaviour fall into three categories namely informational (managing by information), interpersonal (managing through people), and decisional (managing through action). However, in the real world these roles go beyond that. A manager must learn to balance it out in order to mange effectively.

The roles of managers in the organization based on the Mintzbergs model are:
1. Monitor: One of the managers basic functions is to monitor and control his/her

employees. Managers have to monitor the performance of their team and the external forces. Without that monitoring a manager won't be able to know whether his plan is running or if it needs to be attuned. Thus, a manager must then manage those elements that he can control to remain everyone moving toward the goal. A manager as a monitor will seek and acquires work related information for his/her subordinates. In my selected organization, managers tasks usually involved seeking and receiving information from other departments or outsiders, scanning or read trade press, reviews, reports, attending seminars and training as well as maintaining interpersonal contacts.
2. Spokesperson: As a spokesperson, managers play important roles in representing and

speak for their organization.

In this role they are accountable for conveying

information about their organization and its goals to the people outside it. Managers have to transmit the managements plans, policies and the actions to the outsiders or shareholders so that they know the progress of the organization. As managers in Java Berhad, they represented their respective units to the outsiders in speech and reports so that they have the rough ideas on what going on in the organizations. They served in the PR capacity by notifying and lobbying others to keep key stakeholders updated about the operations and progress of the organization. Normally what they did as a spokesperson is passing on memos, reports and informational materials besides participating in conferences or meetings and reporting the progress.
3. Figurehead: It is the representative head of organization. As managers, they have

social, official and legal duties. They are expected to be a source of inspiration. People look up to them as a person with authority and they are definitely a symbol of status. The activities perform by managers as a figurehead are performing social and legal responsibilities as mention just now and their duties includes greeting visitors, signing legal documents, host receptions or attending the ribbon cutting ceremonies and many more.
4. Liaison: Liaison maintains the interaction between all contacts and informers that make

up the organizational network.

Which means managers must communicate with

internal and external contacts. It is their obligations to be able to network effectively on behalf of their organization and links in and beyond the organization. Managers tasks

comprise business correspondence and joining meetings with representatives of other divisions or organizations.
5. Entrepreneur: Managers roles as an entrepreneur are to identify new ideas or spot

opportunities and instigate improvement projects. Basically, they search for chance, react to it and make use of it. They also work to delegate, authorize and oversee teams in the development process. In general they implements innovations and plan for the future. The skilled manager makes decisions after gathering detailed information and reaching effective conclusions, while relying on experts both from within and outside the organization.

Challenges Faced By Managers Nowadays, organizations are facing with various challenges in business. Therefore,

management must be someone who is competitive and endurance in dealing with those upcoming challenges. Below are some of the major challenges faced by Java Berhad:1. Downsizing. Downsizing is a term we used to refer to reducing the overall size and

operating costs of a company which is through a reduction in the total number of employees. When the market is tight, downsizing is very common among organization since companies fight to survive in a unreceptive climate while competing with other companies in the same sector. From the employees side, downsizing can be very

frightening and disappointing. For the past two years, the business had slowed down and this requires the company to be more selective in term of their recruiting requirements. According to the managers, one of the key factors to be maintained is the method of handling the people who work for the organization especially when the company is considering laying off staff. For Java Berhad to continue surviving in this crisis, they have to lay off some of its workers especially those who worked at the production side. Due to the drop in sales figure and low demand from the customers, it has to cut off most of the operating cost. At this time, managers decided to share both what they know and what they dont know about how the economy and low demand is affecting the companys business. Managers in any way try to communicate with the employees and they avoid relying on email for communicating difficult news. It is short of tonality and can seem very cold and insensible. According to Palmers (2009), downsizing creates an issue of employee retention. Through downsizing, it may lead to the loss important skilled employees. When they see their colleague leaving, they begin to felt unsecured. This is the situation that can be seen in Java Berhad two years ago when a number of employees were retrenched.
2.

Ethical Issue. Ethics and ethical behaviour are the vital parts of a strong management. From a management point of view, acting ethically is a fundamental part of long - term career success. Broad access to information and additional business opportunities than in the previous makes ethics a need in current business world. Behaving ethically can improves the public image of the company adds to the whole development of ethical behaviour in the public. In Java Berhad, there are two ways of approaching the subject which are the "individualistic approach" and the "communal approach." Each approach integrates dissimilar view of moral responsibility and a different view of the kinds of ethical principles that should be used to settle on ethical problems. According to individualistic approach, each person in an organization is decently responsible for his/her own actions and whichever efforts to change those actions should concentrate on the individual. Whereas in communal approach, individuals are viewed not in separation, but as members of communities that are partly in charge for the actions of their members. Therefore, in order for us to comprehend and amend an individual's behaviour we need to understand and try to change the communities to which they belong. There are many areas where ethical problem arise. The most common in Java Berhad is human resource issue. Issues related with human resources happen as a result

of employees working together. These issues are by far the largest category of ethical problems in business especially in hiring and terminating employees as it is the first steps in selecting human resources into the organization. These significantly influence the successful performance of the organization.
3. Diverse Workforce. According to Lawrence Herzog for Hcareers.com, there was a time

not so many years ago that diversity was looked at as a financial liability rather than an investment. But now the companies that embrace employees from different cultural backgrounds, perspectives, experiences and even countries are better positioned to succeed in the economy of the 21st century. Lawrence Herzog also mentioned in his writing that hiring a diverse workforce helps the organization to stay in compliance with employment laws and build workplaces that are more inclusive and help employees reach their full potential. In Java Berhad, there are many workers that came from different background and places. It encompasses race, gender, ethnic group, age, personality, cognitive style, tenure, organizational function, education, background and more. At the production side, some of the workers came from Indonesia, Bangladesh and Philippines. Those who worked at the management are most local people from various races and religion. However there are many benefits of workplace diversity, among others are increased adaptability, broader service range, variety of viewpoints and more effective execution.

Recommendation On How Managers Can Better Handle Identified challenges Every problem faced has its own way on how to tackle it. Below are the recommendations to handle the problems of downsizing, ethical issues and diverse workers.
1. Managing downsizing. When there is rumours spread regarding the retrenchment

among workers, many of them felt unsecured and frustrated because they have been working in the organization for so many years. Java Berhad makes a determined effort to keep morale up because as we known low morale leads to job dissatisfaction and poor productivity. Some initiatives have been taken which involves:-

Increase in communications. One of the most horrible to do during a crisis is to leave

your employees in the dark. Java Berhad managers told that people are likely to know when layoffs are coming as they can smell it on the wind. But leaving the employees to

speculate at what going to happen would only directs to rumours and low confidence. Top management must be open and honest with the employees and tell them how the current economy is affecting the companys business and that the profit of the company dropped tremendously.
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Investing in training. The other thing that had been done by Java Berhad is invested

some money in their employees and management found it the most excellent time to do it. Regularly planning for the future and showing the employees they are significant part of the company able to maintain their morale. The company took advantage of e-learning chances, planned a Lunch & Learn session, organized a mentoring program so that they could share what theyve learned when they return to the office.
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Involved the employees in decision making. What the company had done is to involve

their staffs in decision making so that they felt appreciated especially decision regarding layoffs and salary cuts. As a result, they came out with innovative ways to cut costs and get rid of inefficient processes such as lessen the cost of overtime, switched of the electricity when not in used, reduced the usage of papers and other cost-saving measures. Managers found out that employees were willing to go to avoid job losses. At the end of the day, it increased the amount of employee buy-in because they felt they were part of the decisionmaking process and not just at the pity of hidden faces working behind closed doors.
2. Managing ethical issues. According to the OUM module BBGO4103 Organizational

Behavior Page 11, organizations that have a clear policies and work practices are usually very successful in managing challenges and dilemmas caused by ethics. When it comes to the human resource issues, it is always evolved around the hiring and termination issues. As all organization aware of, recruitment or hiring procedure is the initial step in selecting human resource into an organization and will extensively influence the successful performance of the organization. Thus, according to Java Berhad manager whos in charge of Human Resource Department said it is of crucial importance that applicants are to be selected based on merits. Applicants must be hired depending on the merits such as knowledge, skills, and ability in accordance to the needs of the organization. When they recruit new employees, they would tell the applicants about the factual condition of the organization. Managers avoided mislead the applicants. The applicants were also been told all relevant information, including those information which are not publicly known but that will significantly affect the

new employee's future employment prospect with the organization.

Misleading

advertisement must also be avoided as the company do not want applicant to be accused of any job scam. Apart from that, Java Berhad wouldl not recruits employees from organizations that have material dealing with Java Berhad include their suppliers, customers and competitors. If the organization did not set up those rules, they afraid that those ethical issues which are very damaging to them might arise. Whenever an employee is asked to leave, it is also very importance that it is handled with fairness and care. If it is a case of poor performance or bad disciplines, the particular employee has to be given prior and fair hearing. Whatever case it is, Java Berhad Human Resource Manager advised not to hurt the dignity of the employee and offer to give the essential help where suitable.
3. Managing diverse workforce.

These days most of the organizations also facing Diversity training alone is not

challenges in adapting to the diverse workforce.

sufficient for any organization's diversity management plan. A strategy must be created and implemented to create a culture of diversity that permeates every department and function of the organization. (Josh Greenberg, 2004) Among the recommendation to tackle the problems of diverse workforce are:-

Evaluation of diversity in the workplace. Top companies make measuring and evaluating their diversity process a fundamental part of their management system. A customizable worker contentment analysis can achieve this evaluation for your company efficiently and conveniently. It can assist the management team decide which challenges and obstacles to diversity are at hand in the workplace and which policies need to be added or terminated. Re-evaluation can then resolve the diversity issues in the workplace plan.

Progress of diversity in the workplace plan Choosing a survey provider that able to give a complete reporting is a key decision. Java Berhad had chosen a body that their report would be the The plan was beginning structure of its diversity in the workplace plan.

designed comprehensively, attainable and measurable. An organization must

come to a decision on what changes need to be made and a time frame for that modification to be accomplished.
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Execution of diversity in the workplace plan The personal devotion and commitment of executive and managerial teams is a necessity. Leaders and managers within organizations must integrate diversity policies into all features of the organization's function and principle. Management collaboration and partaking is required to produce a culture favourable to the success of the organization's plan.

Summary In a process of change, managers often come across circumstances where they need support of people or groups around them. They need to influence people in order to get what they desire, and in order to do this successfully they need to be prepared in the way that they believe. For most knowledgeable managers, this is usually only a part of their job specification. Their main duty will be to perk up the operational effectiveness of the organisation in a specific area - knowledge management. However, the knowledge manager must show an obsessive obligation to knowledge sharing. Managers play many roles in an organization. Managers acted as a liaison, a spokesperson for the company, an entrepreneur, a leader, a monitor and many more. arise within their organizations. They faced many challenges in their daily tasks. Most of them work efficiently to overcome the problems that

Among the many challenges are globalization, diverse workforce, ethics issues, technological changes and downsizing. These are the common issues faced by the managers. Managers need to be smart to tackle the problems as they are being the head of their employees. For example in managing ethics, managers have to decide and choose the right behaviour of their workers so that it does not contradict with organizational general values and principles.

Reference 1. Mondy, R. Wayne, & Premeaux, Shane R. (1992). Management Concepts, Practices, and Skills Seventh Edition. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. 2. Storey, J. & Quintas, P. 2001. Knowledge management and HRM. In J. Storey (Ed.) Human resource management: A critical text, London: Thomson Learning. 3. http://www.hcareers.com/us/resourcecenter/tabid/306/articleid/821/default.aspx 4. www.som.cranfield.ac.uk/som/p16640/.../Managing-Downsizing 5. www.ajoconnor.com/outplacement/goals/downsizing 6.http://www.slideshare.net/siddharth4mba/managing-ethics-and-social-responsibility presentation 7. www.businessballs.com leadership/management

8. http://www.javaberhad.com.my