University of Technology Sydney

21894 How to Measure and Manage Your Organisation's Capabilities During Turbulent Times

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Subject handbook information prior to 2025 is available in the Archives.

UTS: Business: Management
Credit points: 3 cp

Subject level:

Postgraduate

Result type: Grade and marks

There are course requisites for this subject. See access conditions.
Anti-requisite(s): 210894 Management in Turbulent Times

Description

As greater disruption affects the Australian economy, from technology change, COVID-19, and other sources, the ability of Australian businesses to respond and make decisions during volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) environments cannot be more emphasised. It has become imperative that businesses start looking at dynamic management capabilities required for sensing, seizing and transforming their resources according to strategic priorities. Doing so will enable an organisation’s substantive capabilities to change over time, making it easier to pivot their business and remain resilient to challenges in the future

This subject equips firms and managers with the ability to differentiate and understand the significance, importance, and impact of ordinary and dynamic management capabilities (the ability to sustain and adapt to change) on the quality of managerial decisions, strategic change and organisational performance. At the end of this subject, students are able to apply techniques to design and assess dynamic management capability metrics tailored to their business, adapt to future challenges proactively, and make policy changes at speed. These skills are instrumental in building capabilities for firms of all sizes and will facilitate the creation of more productive and innovative business, and a strengthened business community with improved human capital.

Subject learning objectives (SLOs)

Upon successful completion of this subject students should be able to:
1. Assess the impact of the role of a manager and management capabilities (ordinary and dynamic) on firm performance and national productivity during challenging times
2. Design tools that assess a company’s management and organisational practices, and managers’ dynamic capabilities
3. Analyse management capabilities and associated policy implications on firm performance and economic growth during challenging times

Teaching and learning strategies

This subject is delivered online using a range of resources, self-directed study and live interactive sessions with the academic. Subject content will be presented to students in a variety of formats (lecture slides, notes, webinars, videos, articles, real case studies) online via Canvas. You will be expected to read all the assigned readings and media articles, research real cases of successful and failed firms during COVID-19. By conducting self-paced research on the world management data analysis, you will make contributions to the discussions on the influence of management practices on firm performance. This will enhance you as a learners’ ability to progress successfully throughout the subject and complete assessment items effectively. The online collaborative sessions will provide opportunities for group activities and discussion, self-assessment, peer review and formative feedback from the subject tutor. Online collaborative sessions will be conducted at a set time. During the course, via a 15-minute presentation, learners will be asked to present examples of ‘ordinary’ and ‘dynamic’ management capabilities in firms they have worked for, illustrating the transformations that have occurred within the organisation as a consequence of deploying such capabilities during VUCA times. These presentations can leverage the management scoring grid as per the WMS survey, or the ABS survey or equivalent. Feedback will be provided frequently and will take several forms, including quizzes during the independent learning activities and online collaborative sessions to increase student performance in assessments.

Some key resources to be used are:

  • The 2004 McKinsey basic management practice evaluation tool has been used to evaluate about 10,000 organisations in manufacturing, retail, healthcare and education across North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australasia, the results of which will be presented via the world management survey (WMS) website. This will be supplemented with the results from more recent research random control trials change management interventions in a developing country context.
  • The WMS survey was also launched in Australia in 2008, which resulted in the 2009 landmark report titled Management Matters in Australia – Just how productive are we?. Subsequently, the recent 2019 findings from the Australian ABS MOPS survey 8172.0 in connection with the supply chain, digital, environmental management will also be discussed.
  • The next major element of this course will be analyzing real businesses that experienced challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic and were able to successfully transform their businesses through the organisational and managers dynamic capabilities, despite the challenges faced.

These resources will arm you with capabilities that are ideal for an initial evaluation of the dynamic management capabilities in a target business or form a preliminary evaluation (“diagnostic”) of a potential client by a consulting firm. Interested students can look at some of the academic, business, and media focused around the more ordinary/general management capabilities output from the research, including over 20 articles in the New York Times, Economist, Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Newsweek, Washington Post and the Financial Times.

Content (topics)

  • Appraise the Australian business landscape and strategic perspective of ‘Management Capabilities’ in the VUCA environment
  • Understand the relationship between management practices and firm performance using the world management survey and the Australian Management and Organisational Practices Survey
  • Distinguish between ‘Ordinary’ and ‘Dynamic’ management capabilities and understand the role of a manager in this context
  • Learn to design an assessment tool for a firms’ dynamic management capabilities based on its strategic intent
  • Challenges and Policy Implications for firms, industry and governments.

Assessment

Assessment task 1: Online Tasks Participation and Quizzes (Individual)*

Intent:

Online Tasks Participation 20%

Quizzes 20%

Objective(s):

This addresses subject learning objective(s):

1, 2 and 3

Weight: 40%
Criteria:

The online applied short task will be worth 20% graded on the following two criteria:

  • Synthesise the real case and demonstrate application of theoretical concepts on management capabilities in practise
  • Critique on the case and suggest optional scenarios of what could have been alternatively done and why?

The quiz will be worth 20% and is graded on the following two criteria’s:

  • Accuracy of multiple-choice answers
  • Quality of analysis for answers to short-answer questions

*Note: Late submission of the assessment task will not be marked and awarded a mark of zero.

Assessment task 2: Assignment (Individual)

Intent:

Assignment 50%

Online presentation 10%
Objective(s):

This addresses subject learning objective(s):

1, 2 and 3

Weight: 60%
Length:

Length of the assignment: The expected length of the report is 3000 words excluding the cover sheet, references, appendices and the survey instrument.

Online presentation: Roughly 6 PowerPoint slides and 15 minutes in duration.
Criteria:

Students will produce a written report detailing their findings, which will be graded according to the following criteria:

  • Scope and depth of the analysis of the ‘ordinary management capabilities and ‘dynamic management capabilities’ of the firm in light of the strategic intent (in report firm and e-presentation).
  • Design of the evaluation tool for a company’s overall management and organisational capabilities based on the strategic intent, and self-assessment of managers own dynamic capabilities.
  • Identification of the challenges and policy implications imposed by ‘dynamic management capabilities’ and ‘dynamic managerial capabilities’ on human capital, firm performance and economic growth.

Minimum requirements

Students must achieve at least 50% of the subject’s total marks.

References

Resources from various sources will be used throughout the course, for example