planning and decision making in pakistan 2010

8/9/2019 Planning and Decision Making in Pakistan 2010

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TO STUDY THE CHANGING PLANNING AND DECISION

MAKING MECHANISM OF PAKISTANI MANAGERS UNDER

INFLUENCE OF MODERN BUSINESS VALUES: A STUDY

CONDUCTING IN PUNJAB, PAKISTAN

By

Mr Nadeem Ullah

Peshawar University PeshawarPakistan

1.0 ABSTRACT


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Inspite of long standing traditional, local business cultures and industrial society, this global culture with

many innovations has decomposed all the Industrial Sociology with an imminent dominance. The present

study report the role of planning and decision making and behavioral change of people who are native

Pakistanis but working in business organization. These business organizations having dependency on

international business. This dependency acts as value exchange and transformation. The study aimed to

gauge the impact of foreign culture and value system on local culture and value system through planning

and decision making mechanism. A sample of 500 respondents was selected randomly from 100 export

based textile organizations working in Punjab, Pakistan. Data were collected through a comprehensive and

well-designed questionnaire. Descriptive and inferential statistics were applied for data analysis. It was

concluded that modern business values have significantly affected on the planning and decision making

patterns of local managers.

2.0 INTRODUCTION

Planning and decision making dominates organizational sociology of our era (Korczynski, 2006).

Dependency on Planning and decision making in changing environment (more precisely in this era) have

mutual effect on each other. Organizations getting inspiration from developed economies and to comply

with the demand. The organizations apply some standards in their periphery. Societies in order to get

employment learn these standards initially at educational and eventually at working institutes. In view of

Carroll (1985), this all happens in an evolutionary manner. Hannan and Freeman (1989) also supports the

idea and concluded in their research that organizations change slowly and this is same with societies.

Planning and Decision making process of any organization can be better understood by social relation

exist between society and organization (Burt, 1983). These relations can be treated like source of

opportunities or thoughts for further growth and development of a business organization. This social

network may include many dimensions like resource dependency, inter-organizational structures,

government and organizational relationship, competitors, customers, and suppliers; that directly affects

many basic plans and decisions of an organization (Burt, 1983). Moreover, this social relation also focuses

on the Social capital of individuals along with individuals tie to many social influences (Coleman,

1992). Korczynski (2006) writes about social capital as, Social capital improves access to information

and material resources, which enhances social status, reduces uncertainty, and improves many individual

outcomes. But social capital also creates mutual obligations, which channel action in some predictable

directions and foreclose others.

Modern sociology is specifically looking at practices inside the organizations and then its impact on

outside. Outlining workplace phenomena discloses many differences due to local values where the

organization is working and hiring people for work. But these differences are mitigating generally as

organizations are becoming more aligned up with global business networks. This all process changes the


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social values and shifts behavior of people working within the organizations or having any tie with the

business organizations (Steven, 1985).

The study is mainly to focus the following objectives:

1. To study the facets of changes in planning and decision making of business culture.

2. To examine the way making decisions and plan by the Pakistani personnel working in export

based organization.

3. To check the impart of new planning methods on behaviours of employees.

4. To assess the time consumed in adoption of new planning and decision making methods.

3.0 METHODOLOGY

Methodology describes the methodological approaches employed to test research hypotheses like study

design, selection criteria for study sites, sample selection, construction of measuring instrument and

measures adopted during development of questionnaire, to ensure its validity and during field survey to

collect reliable responses.

From 100 organizations five respondents each from top and middle level management were selected. In this

context preferably large organizations were chosen due to their significant role in international business.

These 100 organizations were chosen out of 300 big export based textile organizations of Punjab, Pakistan.

Hence the sample represents 33% of the total organizations. The data were collected with the help of a well

designed questionnaire. The study employed descriptive statistics to summarize and describe the data

whereas inferential statistics such as Chi-squre, Gamma test are used to explore the relationship between

predictor and response variables.


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affects employees behaviour. That represents the birth to new behavior and industrial sociology in Pakistan

under the influence of global business values. This behavior changed due to the good organizational

governance and ultimately this behavioral shift which is taking place in the industrial environment in

Pakistan will diffuse and even diffusing in general society.

Table 2 Percentage distribution along with mean and standard deviation regarding the behaviour

and social shift.

N = 500Behaviour and social shift Absolut-

ely Not

Rarely Neither

agreed

nor dis-

agreed

Mostly

true

Absolutely

true

Mean Std.

Dev.

Freq.

%age

Freq.

%ag

e

Freq.

%age

Freq.

%age

Freq.

%age

Do you feel that your

communication style has changed

due to the modern business values?

3.0 11.8 24.0 41.4 19.8 3.63 1.02

Do you feel that the modern

business values made you more

responsible?

2.6 16.2 13.6 35.8 31.8 3.78 1.14

Do you feel that these modern

values have changed your thinkingstyle?

1.6 18.6 18.2 35.4 26.2 3.66 1.10

Do you find your self more productive due to these modern

business values?

2.4 20.8 15.6 45.0 16.2 3.51 1.00

Adoption of the modern business

values consumes lot of time

10.6 33.8 29.4 21.6 5.2 3.25 1.08

Are you playing a role of preacher

of these modern values to others?

4.2 25.2 23.8 35.4 11.4 3.34 1.57

Are you a big critic of modern

values?

21.2 10.8 18.8 11.2 38.0

Scale: 1=Absolutely Not, 2=Rarely, 3 = Neither agreed nor dis-agreed, 4 = Mostly true, 5 = Absolutely true

The section of the questionnaire dealt with the impact of the planning and decision making on

behaviors and social shift of personnel working in export based textile organizations of Punjab,

Pakistan. The respondents were asked if they feel that the modern business values have changed your

thinking style. The question was asked by keeping in view the model of Consumer Behavior given by

Kotler (2006) that proves that thinking and psychology is deeply concerned with the cultural and social

factors. 35.4% people said mostly true and followed by 26.2% who said absolutely true, this proves that

majority is in process of changing their behaviors, the mean score of responses is 3.66 indicating the

respondents agreement with the statement. While third majority comprising of 18.6% said rarely, and

18.2 % are neither agreed nor disagreed, and only 1.6% said absolutely not. This change in thinking

indicates behavioral change similar to the findings of Alvar and Elbing (1970) who presented their findings

as in the arena of todays social value problems, the businessman is accused and victimized by his own

professional rationale-a rationale derived from traditional economic theory. The next statement is about


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effect of these modern values on productivity; majority comprising 45.0% said mostly true, second by

20.8% who said rarely, while 16.2% respondents absolutely true, 15.6% respondents said neither

agreed nor disagree , and only 2.4% said absolutely not. The word productivity can be replaced by the

word professionalism; that is defined as a form of work organization (Gordon, 1998). Resultantly the

modern values have reasonably increased the Professionalism and Productivity. One reason for the growth

in the number of professionals is the greater sophistication in knowledge, techniques, and machinery,

resulting in a growing demand for technically trained people (Adler, 1992). When the respondents were

asked if this adoption of modern values take lot of time. About one-third i.e. 33.8% said rarely, this

momentum of adoption of diffusion to a certain percentage of a society who are going to act as change

agents is very important to gauge. While 35.4% respondents agreed that they are acting like change agents

and are preaching there modern way of planning and decision making to others. Sarah (1998) viewed that

diffusion studies work with awareness and its consequences by examining how practices spread. So this

was aimed to see by asking the respondents whether they are the critics of modern values; 38% said,

absolutely true, 21.2% said absolutely not, 18.8% neither agreed nor disagreed, 11.2% said that this ismostly true, and 10.8% said rarely. These results reflect that personnel of export based textile

organizations have adopted the modern ways of planning and decision making and now playing a role as

change agent too, in order to diffuse modern value system in the society.

Table 3: Association between Planning and Decision Making and Behavioral Shifts.

Planning and

decision making

Behavioral Shift Total

Low Moderate High

Low 89 25 40 154

57.8% 16.2% 26.0% 30.8%

Moderate 20 161 71 252

7.9% 63.9% 28.2% 50.4%High 13 36 45 94

13.8% 38.3% 47.9% 18.8%

Total 122 222 156 500

24.4% 44.4% 31.2% 100.0%

TestsValue df Significance

Pearson Chi-Square 162.997 4 .000**

Likelihood Ratio 159.405 4 .000**

Linear-by-Linear Association 54.410 1 .000**

Gamma .435 .000**

** = Highly-significant

The effects were seen on the behavioral shift of the respondents 30.8% respondents were belonged to low,

50.4% medium, and 18.8% were on high level of satisfaction towards the planning and decision making

of their respective organizations. On the scale of low behavioral shift majority comprising 57.8% who were

from the low level of satisfaction from the organizational planning and decision making system while on

the high level of behavioral shift majority (47.9%) are from the category where the respondents were

extremely satisfied with planning and decision making organism. Conclusively there is a relationship


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between planning and decision making and behavioral shift of the personnel working in export based

textile organizations of Punjab. The values of the statistics Pearson chi-square is 162.997, likelihood ratio is

159.405, and linear by linear association is 54.41; all are insignificant at 1% level of significance. The

gamma test is also applied to verify the association which indicates the value of gamma which is .435, also

significant and indicating a strong and positive association between planning and decision making and

behavioral shift. The findings are supported by Haveman (1993), in his words managers make different

decisions across cultures.

5.0 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The study focused on the planning and decision making and found that in business organizations due to

modern values is changing and employees have accepted and adopted new ways of thinking and planning.

This adoption replaces the older value of local society into new planning and decision making. This

component composes the society and behavior as well. The findings supported that planning and decision

making have been inculcated into the minds of personnel further get diffused in the society and ultimately

this can change the social fabric of the society. On the contrary to the local social norm, the research found

that employees have become more planned, systematic, and scientific in their thoughts. The involvement of

local people into nearby organizations would make this social change process smooth and rapid.

Government along with business based associations can jointly establish policies in this regard.

Sociologists can be hired as Human Resource Managers for eliminating the negativities of modern business

values and make the modern business more aligned to local values.


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6.0 REFERENCES

Adler, G. 1992. Bringing work back in. Organization Science, 12(1): 76-95.

Alvar, S. and Elbing, 1970. The visible hand: The managerial revolution in American Business.

Cambridge. MA: Belknap Press.

Burt, R.S. 1983. Corporate profits and co-operation. New York. Academic Press.

Coleman, J.S. 1992. Foundation of social theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Gordon Marshall, 1998.Dictionary of sociology. Oxford University Press Inc., New York.

Hannan and Freeman, J. 1989. Organizational ecology. Cambridge, M.A: Harvard University Press.

Haveman, H.A. 1993. Organizational size and change: Diversification in the savings and loan industry

after deregulation. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38: 20-50.

Hofstede, Geert, 2001. Cultures Consequences, 2nd Edition, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Korczynski, M. 2002.Human resource management in service work. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Kotler, Philip, 2006. Marketing management. Prentice Hall, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Sarah, S. 1998. Quality of Management. Fortune, Jan, 29, 1990. P: 46.

Steven, C., Wheelwright and Spyros Makridakis, 1985. Forecasting methods for management. 4 th Ed. New

York: Willey, PP: 20-25.

planning and decision making in pakistan 2010

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