MGT2221:

MANAGING ORGANIZATION

GROUP ASSIGNMENT
MAY 2018 SESSION

No. Students’ Name ID No. Section

1 DU PENGCHENG I18014891 5IB1
2 Geng Yibin I17014048 5IB1
3 Kano Yasui I17012881 5IB1
4 Hiba Farooq I18014888 5IB1
5 Moamen Fathi I16010324 BA

LECTURER : DR. YIP FOON YEE

Declaration:
I declare that this assignment is my own work entirely and suitable acknowledgement has been made for any
sources of information used in preparing it.

Signature: Signature: Signature: Signature: Signature:

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 Report on the management issues in a cell phone company, Nokia, 2018.

1.0 Introduction
This report is written by the instruction of the lecturer of Management Organisation,
Yip Foon Yee. This report is to investigate the management issues of Nokia. The method
used for data collection, interviews and referencing booksto integrate the issues of the
company. The report is to be submitted on 12th July,2018.

2.0 Findings. (management issues)

The following findings are based on the data collections from websites and referencing
books.
2.1 Human resource management issues.
2.11 industrial relations and employment relations concern
“Industrial relations have traditionally required employers and trade unions to deal
collectively with each other through the media of collective bargaining, procedural
norms, consultation and consideration” (Rosemary, 1993). For employment relations,
management issues should be concerned with staff and conditions of employment.
“Employment relations related practices recognize the need to work constructively with
the workforce to achieve their understanding of corporate objectives and working
practices. Employment relations also reflect the fact that organizations are pluralist
systems and that manifestations of conflict of interest are natural” (Rosemary, 1993).
In short, the predominant emphasis of industrial emphasis is concerned with
management – union relations and how these impact upon staff, the chief emphasis of
the employment relations is given to management- employee relations. According to
the two concepts above, there are some related issues in Nokia has occurred:
Rewards and working systems concern and communication concern
In Chennai, there are 3strikes in Nokia has occurred in history. The first strike has taken
place 3at Nokia in August 2009. Nokia has approximately 8000 employees and this
workforce includes women who are estimated to be around 5000. The employees of

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Nokia had been asking for a hike in their salary from 11th August. After a talk with the
employees, the administrations provided a gradual hike of 800INR (17USD) for
employees having 1year experience with them. An increase of 950INR for employees
having 2years experience and hike of 1200INR for employees with 3years work
experience. However, employees were urging for a hike of 1500 INR for each person.
This demand has been refused by the management. Thus, problems on the process of
Compensation and Benefits were the main reason for workers going on strike since
August 13th 2011. The second strike has occurred in January 2010.Nokia lately has
confronting many problems and most important of all is the labour strike which has
occurred thrice. The second strike happened because workers were asked to change
production line and they protested saying that they hadn’t been trained to work in that
line and also they hadn’t been informed previously and they approached the 12 member
worker council set up by the management (training process issues). When the council
inquired about the incident to the managers, all the members of the work council were
fired and it has caused unrest among workers which lead to labour strike. With the
intervention of labour union, the strike was ceased. Therefore, working system and
communication problems are the reasons for this strike. The third strike was workers
asking management to reinstate the 63 members who were suspended and demanded a
revision in wage settlement signed upon their first strike. Furthermore, what we found
that approximately 70 percent of employees in Nokia has left or disengaged the
organisation because of its company culture, they felt loss of trust, optimism,
importance, and capability of the company.

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 2.2 Ethics management and social responsibility issues.

Laura Nash defined business ethics as ‘the study of how personal moral norms apply
to the activities and goals of commercial enterprise. It is not a separate moral standard,
but the study of how the business context poses its own unique problems for the moral
person who acts as an agent of this system.’” （Joseph , 2009, p8）Required manager
dealing with the individual and corporate responsibility issues and the social
responsibility. Today, ethics in business is relative but ethics and business was not
mixed together, good business means good ethics. The firms want to maintain their
good corporate image, they must carefully fair and equitable dealings with customer
and employee, but not only that ethical reasoning is necessary for complex moral
problems required (Joseph , 2009, p16-18).

Nokia had weathered difficult time after 2000, but when Nokia launched the Lumia 920
and 820 on 5th of September 2012, a new product of cellphone. Nokia fabricated an
advertisement to exhibit their Lumia’s photo and video capabilities. In their commercial
advertisement that was supposed to advertise and highlight the Lumia’s PureView, the
name of camera. While finally, there purpose was not to shot on the Nokia Lumia
PureView. It’s an unethical behavior to the society. “Falsehood, inaccuracy, lying,
deception, disinformation, misleading information are all vices and enemies of the
information Age, for they undermine it. Fraud, misrepresentation and falsehood are
inimical to all of them.” (Joseph, 2009)

Additionally, when Nokia’s operation was merged by Microsoft, employees seek for
protection, the labor union’ member was actually all the managers. Nonetheless, the
managers hadn’t responded. What we found is that employees were scared of telling
the truth when they confronting the leaders. Managers in Nokia supervised and urged
their employees to achieve their goals in the way of discharge and demotion as menaces.
And, managers in Nokia concealed the information what employees need. (Quy Huy,
2015)

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 2.3 Global management issues in Nokia
“Nokia was a pioneer in the smartphone market, literally introducing consumers to the
smartphone with its initial Symbian Series 60 devices in 2002. For the next five years,
Symbian phones had little trouble maintaining a leadership position in the smartphone
pack. ”（Alexandra, 2012）however, until 2011, Nokia didn’t make any substantive
results in Windows Phone, it’s hasn’t been doing much innovating. Meanwhile, Nokia
focus in the developing world who are increasingly turning to the net and new
technology to improve their lifestyles and national wellbeing. Nokia product their
product with multiple combinations of Tec components and style jumbled together, but
lack one single crowed-pleasing innovation to make them stand out. Globally, in china
and India, Nokia still had the massive market. In Europe, it held its own. During the
year from 2006 to 2010, in many key markets and in the US, Nokia’s market share was
declined. And in 2010, Nokia was followed three years of massive restructuring. After
that, Nokia’s global market share was halved to 16 percent.

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3.0 Analyse the underlying causes of the issues.
3.1 the underlying causes of human resources management issues.
According to strikes and some findings, it is clear that Nokia hasn’t provided the
appropriate major types of training for employees. It involves general training and
specific training. Also, there may be some problems in the HRM process. Here are some
of the principle causes of this issue:
First of all, the job or workplace was not expected. Managers misrepresented the pay
offers and the working hours are not promised. Training or promotions don’t come
through. The problem is with managers hiring in a hurry that they don’t take the time
to give a realistic preview of the job to their employees (rewards, working flexibility
concern). What’s more, they probably oversell the job or the company for fear that the
candidate won’t consider the job or company as they are (orientation concern). Most of
employees in Nokia will quit when they consider the undiscussed realities, resulting in
costly turnover. Secondly, there is not enough feedback or coaching in Nokia. It is the
managers’ issues in Nokia regarding of inattentiveness, irregular or non-existent
feedback and criticism instead of praise. Thirdly, Employees feel “devalued and
unrecognised”, it is because if a good employee are overdue for pay increases or are
paid the same as poor performers, or if new recruiters make more than experienced
workers in similar jobs, they may feel they have been lost trust by the company and
they are no longer competent of this job. Finally, there are too few growth and
advancement opportunities for employees. They are barriers between departments,
training only focused only on current positions and lack of helping to define career
goals. (career development concern).

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 3.2the underlying causes of management issues in ethics and social responsibility
There are some unethical problems of Nokia managers to make determinations when
they encountered dilemmas in the workplace. According some research and findings,
the Nokia’s Top managers wasn’t treating their employees ethical. And there have some
problems for them to dealing with the customers. Here, are some chief causes of these
unethical issues:
First of all, the Nokia’s top managers had notoriety for disrespecting subordinates, peers
and superiors. How well the middle managers and lower-level department has been
achieved, will impacted how they treated them. In the internal Nokia, there are some
immoral behaviours in the management. Top managers because fearing the reactions of
top managers, it is an universal phenomenon that an employee to lying,
misrepresentation or concealed and unreported in their duty. It is unethical behaviour,
but the middle managers or the employees keep silent or provided optimistic, filtered,
misrepresentation information. Meanwhile, top managers also have unethical in the
workplace, “top managers were afraid of the external environment and not meeting
their quarterly targets, given Nokia’s high task and performance focus, which also
impacted how they treated middle managers.” (Quy ,2015) Treats of firings and
demotions were commonplace to use. The employees were not being treat fair. “Their
fear was externally focused on competitors and shareholders. As one TM said,
‘Management is under huge pressure from investors … If you don’t hit your quarterly
targets, you’re going to be a former [top manager] very fast.’ This led the TMs to
exert pressure on middle management to develop innovative products rapidly…….
generated an internally focused fear among MMs, who were mainly afraid of their
superiors, as well as in other internal groups who were all jostling for resources and
rank.” (Thea , 2017) That lead the middle-level managers must over promise and under
deliver, to prevent allocated elsewhere or being demoted and cast aside.

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 3.2 the underlying casues in global management issues in Nokia
There are some issues in Nokia’s global management. The pattern of international
business was changed. In 2007, Apple introduced its iPhone, its changed the very
definition of what a smartphone should be. The global consumer preferences were
already changed, although Nakia listening to the customer, Nokia had less responsive
and more self-contented. Nokia was failed to respond to the shifting consumer demand
and until 2010 the Nokia was restructuring. Mainly, “the Nokia profoundly
underestimated the importance of software, including the apps that run on smartphones,
to the experience of using a phone. Nokia’s development process was long dominated
by hardware engineers; software experts were marginalized. (Executives at Apple, in
stark contrast, saw hardware and software as equally important parts of a whole; they
encouraged employees to work in multidisciplinary teams to design products.)” (James ,
2013) And before, Nokia get almost the 50% profit from the market based on the non-
smartphone. It’s high-tech age now, consumer was expecting constant innovation And
Nokia didn’t recognize the importance of software and the importance of transition to
smartphones, its overplenty on the hardware and non-smartphone. Nokia believe that
its superior hardware designs would win over users, that make Nokia introduced too
many disappointing phones. The major problem was failed to track the customer’s need
and preferences.
And the restructuring of Nokia caused the crashed of the Nokia strategically. For Nokia
using the window phone, instead of Android or refocused its Symbian standard. The
Windows phone was being ignored by all other smartphone manufacturers in the world
except Nokia. And us wireless carriers have no faith in Windows Phone, Samsung and
HTC have all but abandoned the operating system.

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4.0 propose and evaluate several alternatives actions designed to tackle the issues and
the then make recommendations
4.1 alternatives to human resource management issues in Nokia based on the
concepts of industrial relations and employment relations strategies and
recommendations
Any organisation which embarks on an HRM programme will need to set out the
related sets of activity which it deems relevant to this programme and consider the
objectives which should apply to them. Here are the actions and recommendations
should Nokia should carry out :
1. Nokia should conduct in harmonious working arrangements between the
management, the unions and the workforce, for example, the optimal labour
flexibility
2. Nokia should set up a well-established communication system such as the
establishment of procedures which allow for grievances to be settled and disputes
to be avoided (grievance procedures), collective bargaining machinery.
3. a commitment of all parties to high productivity, quality and profitability
4. Nokia should develop increased effectiveness through numerical flexibility in
matters of employment contracts and working time, functional flexibility in
working practices and skills levels and financial flexibility in reward systems.
(Rosemary, 1993)
Recommendations :with the aforementioned actions in Nokia ,my view is that the 4th
action should be advocated to address the problem as it is a comprehensive solution to
deal with the industrial relations and employment relations in the huaman resource
management.

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 4.2 alternatives to management issues in Ethics and social responsibility
Ethics is a standard or guideline for the conduct and decision marking of employees
and managers, is a personal, individual affair. According to the issues in Nokia , it is
fairly inevitable for managers to make an ethical determination when encountering
ethical dilemmas.(1) One feasible approach that is advocated managers to promote
ethics is to set moral examples themselves to subordinates. It is due to the fact that
managers manifest the corporate higher status and authority which denotes
subordiantes should have agreed to abide by codes of conduct(William and
Vicent,1995). Hence, there is no doubt that there have been sereval methods and
actions for managers to resort to resolve the issue of ethical dilemmas and social
responsibility.(2) utilitarian approach (3)the approach of moral rights should be
called for implementing as it is advantageous to exert a substantial effect on
surroundings. (4) establishing a corporate ethical culture
Recommendations : I am of the opinion that establishing a corporate ethical culture
will be a better proposal to address the management issues in ethics and social
responsibility because it is an effective way to handle ambiguous ethical issue on
account of it has formulated a sense of strong relationship between emplyoees by
attaching the great importance of social responsibity.

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 4.3 alternatives to global management issues in Nokia
On nowadays, technologies have lead the changing pattern of international business.
Communications and information processing make a big breakthrough. The social
media has changed the consumer’s preference. Here are the actions and
recommendations should Nokia should carry out:
1. Nokia should level the quality superiority and high technology together. Nokia
should also maintain the best price in the market, when it compares with their
competitors’ price.
2. Nokia should propose new technological innovation and pay more attention to
research and development. For example, it is crucial for Nokia to investment in their
technology innovation in software.
3. Nokia should emphasise on market research also need to track and respond to
market demands
4. Nokia should place concerns over the technology development and closely
monitor the competitors.
According the four actions as has been mentioned above, personally the 3th action
would be my choice which should be implemented to deal with management issues in
Nokia global business environment. For the customer was the mainly basic part of
global business environment. Every company’s global businesss enviromet based on
the market, the market was based on the customers.

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 5.0 How the recommendations can be implemented.
 5.1 based on the 4.1 recommendations: Nokia should develop increased
effectiveness through numerical flexibility in matters of employment contracts and
working time, functional flexibility in working practices and skills levels and financial
flexibility in reward systems(Rosemary, H. 1993). It is because that numerical
flexibility involves in using staff on different types of contracts and for different time-
periods. The implementation of part-time employment now is prevalent ,as is the use
of subcontract labour for a variety of tasks, ranging form secrutiy to catering. This
could give management greater control of the number of staff amd deployment. Also,
it may ease their industrial relations problems at times of staff reductions. When we
turn to functional flexibility, it will assistant management achieving their benefit in
the area of industrial relations and human resource management. For one thing,
functional flexibility can work to increase the notion of goal consensus and soften
some of the sharper edges of pluralism. Then, it could be used in tandem with a
harmonisation programme in the area of pensions, hours of work, lay offs and short-
time working and payment systems and methods of payment and so on. It will
gradually benefit in business include:
 improved productivity
 more efficient administration
 improved recruitment and retention of employees
 better relationships between different grades of staff (NIBUSINESS INFO.CO.UK).
Hence, if it possible, such proposal should be greatly advocated in the huaman
resource management.

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 5.2 Based on the 4.2 recommendations :
“Ethical Culture is a religion centered on ethics, not theology, whose mission is to
encourage respect for humanity and nature and to create a better world. Members are
committed to personal ethical development in their relationships with others and in
activities involving social justice and environmental stewardship.”(nysec.org.com)
Hence, here are some details that Nokia managers should carry out:
1. Managers should establish ethical stance, through clearly defining their
responsibilities towards society and towards employees, you can set specific
policies that, in turn, are easier for employees to follow. Managers need to also
communicate them to employees, Make sure they are easily accessible, whether that
means placing them on the company intranet or hanging them on the office wall.
2. Employess should understand company’s current ethical culture to determine the
areas in need of improvement. A work ethics assessment will reveal employee
attitudes towards behaviours such as bribery, discrimination, and time theft.
However, make sure that it’s suitable for development. Also, find out what
employees consider “ethical” and what they think about the current state of it in the
organisation. Ask them how important they feel ethics is to the management, how
often they face ethical dilemmas, and whether they believe that ethical behaviour
pays off. Let them know that you want their honest opinions and allow them to
answer anonymously.
3. Applying broad ethical policies, such as “do no harm” or “protect clients’ rights”,
to workplace situations is more difficult than it may seem. Managers in Nokia
should train employees to recognise ethical scenarios, and tackle them with
discretion, by presenting them with realistic dilemmas adapted to both their roles
and the needs identified in the assessments and audits. Encourage non-judgemental
discussion of all possible outcomes.

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5.3 Based on the 4.3 recommendations
“Numerous studies and many experts have repeatedly concluded that the most
common cause of new product development failure is market research that is ‘too
little, too late.’” (Dr. Howard Olsen) In high-technology area, the market landscape,
regulatory environments and customer needs are rapidly changing. Good market
research very early in the development process is an insurance policy against
spending a lot of money on a product or product features for which customers won’t
pay. Nokia should be followed program, such as:
1. Knowing the customer: Nokia should identify the target downstream information
consumers (internal and external) and specify what creates value from the
consumers’ perspectives. And then it should try to sell the prospect the notion
that they are right and listen to the prospect to learn why they are wrong and why
the prospect shouldn’t be a customer and the prospect should become a customer.
2. Pay attention to market research: Nokia should aim to figure out what customers
need and want through surveys, build test groups and feedback on social media
and reviews left on website, also create an exclusive club to let reward customers
and make them feel appreciated.

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 Kopparaju Siva Theja, (2016) Marketing mix of Nokia in relation to its changing
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