NAME: LONDEKA NCAMA

STUDENT NUMBER: ST10123335

MODULE: BUSINESS COMMUNICATION 2A TEST

QUESTION 01

Q.1.1. Top-Level Management: Top management represents the relatively small group of
managers who control the organization as a whole and with whom the final authority and
responsibility for executing the management process lies. This is the highest level in the
organizational hierarchy, which includes Board of Directors, Chief Executive Officers and the
management committee. Top management is responsible for determining the organization’s
mission, goals and strategies, designing the organization’s structure, leading and controlling
it, and influencing corporate culture. Mr Martin Winterkorn is the CEO of Volkswagen which
would automatically place him as top management. He is responsible for overseeing
everything that happens in VW and strives that the company reaches its success levels. Off
late VW was involved in a scandal where millions of its diesel cars worldwide were equipped
with software that was used to cheat on emissions tests. This action made by Mr Winterkorn
together with other top level management impacted VW negatively as the company had
‘broken the trust’ with its customers and the public.
Brevis, T. (2014).

Q.1.2. Managerial skills are the knowledge and ability of individuals in a managerial position
to fulfil specific management activities or tasks. They can be learned and practised, and can
be acquired through practical implementation of required activities and tasks. Managers
need skills to manage people and technology to ensure an effective and efficient realisation
of their working duties.

Technical skills refers to the manager's ability to apply his or her education, training and
experience to effectively and efficiently organise a task, job or project. The first branch of
technical skills is technical expertise, which refers to the skills that have been acquired by a
manager through education and/or actual experience of the task at hand. The third branch
of technical skills is problem solving, which refers to the manager's ability to resolve issues
confronted within his or her day-to-day work as well as the development of team
collaboration. The technical skills Jenna Fourie has is that she is highly creative and
respected for her programming skills, in five short years she has had more new software
programs to her credit that anyone else in the department. However, she is impulsive and
slow to cooperate with other departments. She prefers to work alone and has little interest
in developing her team or setting goals and objective for the team to meet certain targets.
The other managerial skills Jenna can adopt to be the best leader are teambuilding and
drive skills.
 Teambuilding is the ability of a manager to listen, communicate effectively, develop and
coordinate an effective group or team. It includes listening for insights, directing and
coaching, solving problems as teams, and coordinating and cooperating. Coordination Jenna
would have to work effectively together with her team together to achieve strategic, tactical
and operational goals.

Drive- Jenna Fourie should have the ability to set goals, maintain standards and evaluate
performance to achieve effective outcomes. This includes setting standards of performance,
controlling details, energy, and exerting pressure. These skills are essential for managing a
team successfully and will also assist Jenna in engaging with her team more effectively.

https://www.pfh-university.com/blog/three-types-managerial-skills

Q.1.3. The effectiveness of an organization, according to Barnard, depends on the ability of

the organization to satisfy the needs of the individuals in the organization and provide them
with opportunities for cooperation. With regards to goals, Barnard understood the need for
effective goal approach to effectiveness, i.e., accomplishing objectives as a tool to achieve
effectiveness. Regardless, Barnard’s contributions to management theory cannot be denied
and by advocating for defining the purpose of the organization while using cooperation and
communication, and by recognizing the importance of employees and their buy-in while
operating in moral social groups, he proposed a model for successful long-lasting
organizations and true leadership. Chester Barnard's ''acceptance theory'' stated that
business owners and managers needed to create formal organizations to establish good
success rates. This was done by establishing acceptance for their orders. Unilever South
Africa, one of the largest consumer goods companies, houses more than 3000 employees
across its two offices and five manufacturing locations in South Africa, This organization
easily functions according to acceptance theory as its successful management is only
achieved through employees accepting legitimate orders and carrying them out. Barnard
proposed two theories of authority and incentives: one of authority and one of incentives.
He argued that managers should obtain authority by treating employees with respect and
competence. He proposed two ways of convincing employees to cooperate were with
offering them tangible incentives and persuasion. He also described four general and four
specific incentives, such as money and other material inducements, personal non-material
opportunities for distinction, desirable physical conditions of work, and ideal benefactions.
Unilever South Africa has invested in creating optimum working conditions and HR policies
to encourage potential employees to stay in South Africa amid temptation to move overseas
to seek work. Consistently recognised for adapting to trends and being proactive in its
continuous development, the company has made huge investments over the years in
creating optimum working conditions for its employees. Similarly, Barnard recognized that
an organization is not self-sufficient, but needs to rely upon resources from the outside
environment that allow it to function and limits an organization's actions. For example,
Unilever South Africa needs capital, labor, equipment, and resources to function and
accomplish its goals. On the other hand, science and technologies are resources in the
environment that can be tapped by an organization but also limit what it can accomplish.
Unilever SA can't achieve its targeted goals that are outside the laws of physics, for example.
According to Barnard, an organization needs to achieve system equilibrium.

Barnard, C. I. (1940)

QUESTION 02

Q.2.1. Technology has revolutionized the way companies conduct business by enabling small
businesses to level the playing field with larger organizations. Small businesses can use
technology to create competitive advantages in the economic marketplace, automate back-
office functions, create secure environments, increase employee productivity, reduce labor
costs, expand operations, reach new markets and customers, and outsource core business
functions. Blockchain and Cryptocurrency are a new economic system bringing revolution to
communication through the internet. Blockchain has advantages such as information
security, data management, better transparency, and decentralized security, while
Cryptocurrency has been popular for seven years. Cryptocurrencies are becoming
increasingly popular for businesses due to their low transaction fees, secure and quick
transactions, decentralization, low chances of fraud, cross-border payment, improved core-
capabilities, and source of capital. Even though cryptocurrencies have been around for seven
years, they are still performing effectively, making them attractive to technology admirers.
Low transaction fees, secure and quick transactions, decentralization, low chances of fraud,
cross-border payment, improved core-capabilities, and source of capital are just some of the
benefits of using Cryptocurrencies.
Vitez, O. (2019)
Q.2.2. In today's world, change is the only constant that surrounds us. In business, it's no
different. For employees, this can be difficult to manage and upsetting. When striving for a
successful transformation we must consider the different perceptions of those initiating
change, implementing it, and being impacted by it. Resistance to change is a psychological
and physiological reaction, and managing it requires understanding why people resist it and
identifying the causes. Equipping leaders with self-awareness and social awareness is
essential for inspiring and influencing through change. Blockchain and Cryptocurrency are a
new economic system bringing revolution to communication through the internet.
Blockchain has advantages such as information security, data management, better
transparency, and decentralized security, while Cryptocurrencies are becoming increasingly
popular for businesses due to their low transaction fees, secure and quick transactions,
decentralization, low chances of fraud, cross-border payment, improved core-capabilities,
and source of capital. John P. Kotter and Leonard A. Schlesinger's resistance to change
theory states that there are four common situations in which people's resistance to change
germinates and grows: self-interest, misunderstanding and lack of trust, different
evaluations, and low tolerance for change. Self-interest is when people focus on their own
self-interests and not the best interests of the organization, while misunderstanding and
lack of trust is when people don't understand the implications of the change. Trust is
essential when making organizational change, as people assess the impacts differently to
their managers or others who initiate the change. Low tolerance for change is also a
concern, as some people fear that they cannot develop the skills and abilities needed.
Personality affects individual ability to cope with change, as discussed in Peter Drucker's
theories. The two ways in which managers can overcome resistance to change with regards
to introducing Blockchain and Cryptocurrency in an organisation would be:

Communication and education- When the cause of resistance is lack of information, or the
wrong information, education and communication regarding the change initiative can be an
effective way to overcome the resistance. Precise communication of the extent and
consequences of a change initiative can eliminate the barriers of misinformation regarding
the logic and need for change. Education can take many forms, including focus groups,
information sessions, one-on-one discussions, documents posted on the intranet, or emails.

Facilitation and support- This method is effective when fear and anxiety is the cause of
resistance to change and involves facilitating individuals and offering them support such as
training, time off work or emotional support. The condition for using this method is that the
managers should be prepared to invest time, money and patience to deal with the resistance
and they should be prepared to accept failure despite their best efforts.

https://primeast.com/us/insights/leadership-development/7-strategies-for-overcoming-
resistance-to-change-in-the-workplace
Q.2.3. Blockchain technology has been surrounded by plenty of hype, which makes many
business leaders keenly interested in adopting it but also concerned about blockchain
challenges and risk. It is a peer-to-peer distributed ledger technology that can record
transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way. It has
potential for a wide range of applications, and broader awareness of the technology is
growing. However, only 12% of organizations are live with blockchain or blockchain as a
service, and 34% are not exploring it. The two barriers to effective planning of the
implementation of Blockchain technology that management of ABC Consulting must be
aware of are:

Skills gap- Blockchain is an emerging technology, and the skills needed to develop and use it
are in short supply. The marketplace for blockchain skills is highly competitive, leading to the
expense and difficulty of talent acquisition. One way to counteract the skills gap is to use
blockchain as a service (BaaS), which enables organizations to reap the benefits of
blockchain without having to invest significantly in the technical talent behind it. ABC
Consulting will only need to know the basics of the Blockchain technology and don't need to
be programmers to take advantage of its benefits. Similarly, they will need to understand
how to execute smart contracts (which use blockchain to automatically execute certain
actions once the terms of the contract are met), but they won't need specialized knowledge
about the intricacies of distributed ledgers. BaaS has the potential to mitigate the blockchain
skills barrier by providing vendors with the expertise to implement robotics process
automation (RPA) and execute smart contracts, without requiring specialized knowledge.

Trust among others- Lack of trust among blockchain users is a major obstacle to widespread
implementation. This challenge cuts in two directions: Organizations may not trust the
security of the technology itself, and they may not trust other parties on a blockchain
network. Every transaction in the blockchain is considered to be secure, private and verified.
This is true even though there is no central authority present to validate and verify the
transactions, since the network is decentralized. A core part of any blockchain network is the
consensus algorithms that drive common agreement about the present state of the
distributed ledger for the entire network. It ensures that every new block added is the one
and only version of the truth agreed upon by all the nodes in the blockchain. To build trust
among users, ABC Consulting can show what can happen when peers and competitors work
together to develop solutions to common challenges. Unlike anonymous public blockchains,
on the ABC Consulting private blockchain, members can be called "Trust Anchors" and
known to the network based on cryptographic identities. ABC Consulting can use
a permissioned blockchain to offer immutability, privacy and traceability of shipping
documents. ABC Consulting has found greater trust in private blockchains where there are
no unknown users.

Brown, M. (2021)
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barnard, C. I. (1938). The function of the executive. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.

Barnard, C. I. (1940). Comments on the job of the executive. Harvard Business Review, 18(3),
295-308.

https://www.pfh-university.com/blog/three-types-managerial-skills

https://smallbusiness.chron.com/impact-technological-change-business-activity-2191.html

https://primeast.com/us/insights/leadership-development/7-strategies-for-overcoming-
resistance-to-change-in-the-workplace

https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/tip/5-challenges-with-blockchain-adoption-and-
how-to-avoid-them