Relative Significance of Managerial Skills

For Top-level managers (overall activities of an organization - establishment of plans and goals that influence that entire organization; few in number and occupy the posts of ‘Chief Executive officer’, ‘President’, ‘Vice President’, ‘Director’ etc.): - Conceptual skills (The conceptual skill means the ability to see the big picture - the complexity of the overall organization and how the various parts fit together. The importance of knowing how each part of the organization interrelates and contributes to the overall objectives of the organization. Include: Formulating strategy, Sense of vision, Understanding & relating external environments to the organization or business. Examples of situations that require conceptual skills include the passage of laws that affect hiring patterns in an organization, a competitor's change in marketing strategy, or the reorganization of one department which ultimately affects the activities of other departments in the organization.)

For Middle-level managers (directly responsible for managing the performance of first-level managers, for the operational efficiency of various departments in an organization. They hold designations such as ‘Department Heads’, ‘Project Leader’, ‘Plant Manager’ and ‘Divisional Head’) and First-level managers (responsibility to manage the performance of the non-managerial personnel in an organization and ensure implementation of operational plans. They are also called supervisors. They are given different titles in different companies’ life ‘Foremen’, ‘Clerical Supervisor’, ‘Technical Supervisor’, etc.):

- Technical skills (it involves the manager’s understanding of the nature of job that people under him have to perform. It refers to a person’s knowledge and proficiency in any type of process or technique. Examples of technical skills are writing computer programs, completing accounting statements, analyzing marketing statistics, writing legal documents, or drafting a design for a new airfoil on an airplane. Technical skills are usually obtained through training programs that an organization may offer its managers or employees or may be obtained by way of a college degree) the highest importance is for lower level managers, since these managers are dealing with employees doing the organization’s work..

- Human skills (ability to work with other people as individuals and its groups. They help employees to communicate, motivate, lead and inspire others in an organization. Some human skills examples that are often necessary for managers to display are effective communication (writing and speaking), creation of a positive attitude toward others and the work setting, development of cooperation among group members, and motivation of subordinates).These skills are equally important for all managerial levels.

2. In what fundamental way are the basic goals of all managers at all levels and in all kinds of enterprises the same?

To earn surplus

The best goals are smart goals — well, actually SMART goals is more like it. SMART is a handy acronym for the five characteristics of well-designed goals.

· Specific: Goals must be clear and unambiguous; vagaries and platitudes have no place in goal setting. When goals are specific, they tell employees exactly what is expected, when, and how much. Because the goals are specific, you can easily measure your employees' progress toward their completion.

· Measurable: What good is a goal that you can't measure? If your goals are not measurable, you never know whether your employees are making progress toward their successful completion. Not only that, but it's tough for your employees to stay motivated to complete their goals when they have no milestones to indicate their progress.

· Attainable: Goals must be realistic and attainable by average employees. The best goals require employees to stretch a bit to achieve them, but they aren't extreme. That is, the goals are neither out of reach nor below standard performance. Goals that are set too high or too low become meaningless, and employees naturally come to ignore them.

· Relevant: Goals must be an important tool in the grand scheme of reaching your company's vision and mission. You may have heard that 80 percent of worker productivity comes from only 20 percent of their activities. You can guess where the other 80 percent of work activity ends up! This relationship comes from Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto's 80/20 rule. This rule, which states that 80 percent of the wealth of most countries is held by only 20 of the population, has been applied to many other fields since its discovery. Relevant goals address the 20 percent of worker activities that has such a great impact on performance and brings your organization closer to its vision. (Source: Blanchard, Schewe, Nelson, & Hiam, Exploring the World of Business.)

· Time-bound: Goals must have starting points, ending points, and fixed durations. Commitment to deadlines helps employees to focus their efforts on completion of the goal on or before the due date. Goals without deadlines or schedules for completion tend to be overtaken by the day-to-day crises that invariably arise in an organization.

SMART goals make for smart organizations. In our experience, many supervisors and managers neglect to work with their employees to set goals together. And in the ones that do, goals are often unclear, ambiguous, unrealistic, unrelated to the organization's vision, unmeasurable, and demotivating. By developing SMART goals with your employees, you can avoid these traps while ensuring the progress of your organization and its employees.

3. What is the nature of today’s global business environment? How does this environment facilitate international business activities? Provide examples.

Today is the era of globalization. Countries are more connected to each other- quick flow of information, money, goods and services. Level of competition increase, but each country has its own peculiarities. In order to conduct activities in each of them international firm should adapt to their differences.

o Most countries vary internally from one region to another. For example in the USA taxes and legal requirements differ in regions. So it causes companies to shift their bussiness from New York in Delaware

o Certain products have higher demand in some countries, than in others. For example demand furs are likely in demand in European countries than in Asia

o Tastes differ regionally in some countries. For example: in some regions of Israel, for instance in Haifa people prefer non-kosher meal, but in Jerusalem-kosher

o Linguistic, religious and ethic differences within the country impel firm to work out particular way of conducting business there. For example conducting of business in Arabic Amirates differ from USA

o Laws and government programs. Like in Belorussia

4. How do the legal–political, economic, and cultural environmental differences within a country affect a firm’s international business transactions? Provide examples.

o legal–political environment