Delegation in Contemporary Democracies

Question: Describe about the Delegation in Contemporary Democracies. Answer: Aim, objectives and feasibility of the dissertation Delegation is an important skill that should be possessed by a manager. Most of the time in Small and Medium Organizations (SMEs), managers fail to utilize this skill to acquire relevant organizational benefits. Usually, responsibilities and complexities related to management increases with the expansion of an organization. A manager should delegate effectively to get maximum benefits for an organization. As mentioned previously, responsibilities and duties of a manager increase with time. So, a manager should learn how to delegate effectively to focus on important tasks and thereafter should transfer the less important tasks to the subordinates. However, the less important tasks also requires good amount of time and effort from the workforce. There is an old saying, ''if you want something done right, do it yourself''. This concept does not match with the current cultures of SMES. It should be kept in mind that, an effective delegation increases the organizational productivity; therefore success of a manager depends on efficient delegation. At the second half of the 20th century, the advancement in transportation and technologies grew rapidly. That is why the SMEs should give more concern on the concept of delegation to save time to foster development. The exercise of delegation does not only offer advantages for the organization in form of premium productivity but also helps the management to produce proper report. It is because proper exercise of delegation supports a manager to focus on the most important project. On the other hand, the annual volume of productivity is the indicator of whether a manager is suitable for the given position or not. However, the role of delegation regarding the direct report is, it assists the management to motivate the employees through helping them to develop their existing skills and to learn new skills. Also, it is the way through which management helps employees to understand their strength and weakness. On the contrary, negligence upon the practice of delegation could bring negative effects. Without an apt sense on delegation, a management becomes disorganized and ends up in giving priority to the less important tasks. A managers inability to maintain delegation injures the quality of organizational productivity and reduces the chances to meet the deadline. The right way to gain a delegated management is through monitoring managements activity and by giving potential responsibilities to identify whether he is doing as per the expectation or not. There are many types of research and articles, which have discussed the relationship between an effective delegation and success of the SMEs in general. The focus of this particular research will be to determine whether there is a strong relationship between effective delegations and the development process of employee skills for saving time and increase organizational productivity or not. The aim of the research is to identify and analyze one of the main factors of the failures of SMES, which is managements inability to delegate. The research will consider the following questions: What is the relationship between effective delegation and the success of SMEs? How delegation contributes to the success of SMEs? How delegation helps to save time and develop new skills for the employee? Why do managers in SMEs often fail to follow and apply delegation in the daily tasks? By the end of the study, the researcher hopes to draw a conclusion to show the importance of the relationship among effective delegation and developed employee skills. Moreover, the study intends to identify the best possible ways to apply delegation in the daily tasks of SMES. Furthermore, I hope that the Furthermore, I hope that the research study can focus on identifying the reason for which most of the managers in SMES fails to maintain this aspect appropriately. Literature review Delegation is one of the essential skills for the manager to reduce workload. Delegation indicates the accountability to allocate certain tasks to the responsible one (Heller, 1998; Mentor, 2008). Many of the previous studies and academic articles have agreed that the main purpose of delegation is to increase manager's time and decrease workload. The resources include, Heller, 1998, How to delegate; Mentor, 2008, Delegating work; and Fleming, The role of effective delegation in professional and organizational success. However, there are other studies those have examined the purpose of delegation in details. Most of the articles have agreed that the delegation is one of the essential skills for the manager to save the operation time and to help initiating the development process for the employees. Implementing effective delegation has positive results for the manager along with for the employees. (Fleming; and Mentor, 2008); they discuss the benefits of effective delegation in details . However, (Heller, 1998; and Stanley); they have not mentioned the advantages of effective delegation in their articles. Both Fleming and Mentor agreed that the fundamental benefits of effective delegation belong to the manager to ''Improve the level of trust and communication between manager and employee, and achieve goals that required cooperative group effort''. Further, Fleming adds some additional benefits related to the manager such as ''allowing the manager to focus on the tasks that needed his specific expertise; increasing the manager's discretionary time'' (Fleming, The role of effective delegation in professional and organisational success). Mentor said that an employee would gain same benefits as the manager. In contrast, Fleming stated that the employee could have extra benefits from effective delegation beside the previous ones such as '' improving employee interest; building confidence and trusts; providing control over activates and decisions; and providing growth opportunities'' (Fleming, The role of effective delegation in professional and organizational success). However, the organization will acquire benefits from effective delegation by saving money through ensuring that tasks are assigned to the right people at the right level. It will increase overall productivity and efficiency of the employees by making the best use of organizational resources. The authors (for instances Mentor, 2008; Fleming; Stanley; and other) have not discussed the results of avoiding effective delegation. Heller in 1998 mentions that the cost of avoiding delegation such as spending many hours to complete low priority tasks can give birth to a disorganized environment. Further, the authors of the reviewed literature do not cover and discuss two main points, which are how the delegation contributes to save time and develop new skills for employees. The second points that is not covered and addressed were the reason behind most of the managements failure to follow and apply delegation in the daily tasks. Therefore, the previous two points are identified as the gap literature. The authors of delegation articles (Mentor, 2008; Heller, 1998; and other) have focused on the concepts of delegation; the purpose of delegation; delegation guidelines; monitoring process; and improvement skills. Nevertheless, Iancn (2012), has added a new topic to the delegation, which is the contemporary implication on delegation. Furthermore, Braun and Gilardi (2006), in their book The Delegation in Contemporary Democracies have discussed in part one that the standard chain of delegation is similar with the discussion made by the previous authors. In part two, they have focused on their topic and have discussed the importance of delegation in regulatory agencies in western Europe. In general, the literature review is linked with some topics, such as concepts of delegation; benefits of delegation; guideline of effective delegation; and many other topics. In contrast, the main differences between these articles are found in the different way of discussing aspects on delegating tasks as every author has different experiences and different approaches. Research methodology and methods The case study will make in-depth analysis of the influence of delegation for saving organization time and developing employee skills. Additionally, the research will compare finding of a local case study done by the international studies. It is identified that there are limited researches those have done limited investigation and analysis of local SMES. Most of the studies on the topic has been done for newspaper purpose or academic purposes. According to the data of the General Authority for Small and Medium Enterprises, there are about 18600 establishments at the end of 2015. In Oman, the SMEs shaped 90% of a commercial establishment. It is divided into micro-enterprises, small and medium enterprise. Micro enterprises consist of four employees with the annual revenue of 25,000 OMR. The second type is small enterprises, which are comprised of five to nine employees with annual revenue of 250,000 OMR. The last type is the medium-enterprises. The medium-enterprises consist of ten to ninety-nine employees and its annual revenue is generally between 250,000 OMR to 1 million OMR. The quantitative research method is the suitable research method for collecting and analyzing the data. The study will evaluate the primary data collected, which are collected from the original sources; surveys and interviews. A large number of samples regarding the study will be selected carefully to address the research questions. According to the General Authorities of SMEs, there are about 18600 establishments. Therefore, due to the high number of SMEs in Oman, the systematic sampling is the suitable method for selecting the number of SMEs. Number of SMEs = 18600 Sample size = 375 Required sample = 18600 / 375 = 50. Then, the random number will be selected between 1 and 50. (Chosen 25). Hence, the selected random number will be; 25, 75, 125, 175, 225, 275, 325, and 375. The total number of SMEs to survey will be eight. In contrast, as the number of employees in each establishment will be between 10 to 100 employees, the stratified sampling method is found to be the best for choosing the number of employees to participate in the survey. It will be easy to get answers easily as the number of employees is short. In contrast, the medium enterprises do not exceed 100 employees; therefore the number of staffs who should be involved in the survey is 80 employees. In this case, the supposed number of participants will be: Number of employees = 100 employees Sample size = 80 participant. The distribution will be (1% senior manager, 94% middle and leader management; other 5%). Senior Management = 80 * 1% = 1 Middle and leader management = 80 * 94% = 95 Other = 80 * 5% = four. Further, the null hypothesis (H0) said that there is no relationship among effective delegation, time management and the process of developing employee skills. However, the alternative hypothesis (H1) has stated that there is a relationship among all the stated aspects. The dependent variables (DV) are time management and the development of employee skills while the independent variable (IV) is effective delegation. These variables will be measured through two main methods, which are ratio variable and interval variable. There are two main methods to collect data; questionnaires and interview. The first method of collecting data, through questionnaire will be used here. The question in the questionnaire is generally designed in a way to help people in understanding the topic. The questionnaire will be formed by open-ended, multiple choice and close questions. Additionally, the questionnaire will be distributed through email and web-based tools such as the survey monkey. Moreover, it will be easy to analyze the results through SPSS statistic software. The second type of method that will be used in the research is the face-to-face process of asking questions. This kind is faster than the online procedure and it can be done at home, workplace, and even in the streets. The aim of this questionnaire is to identify the reaction and response of the participants. The second data collection method will be interview. The questions in the interview will be opened and closed questions like the questionnaire. There will be two main techniques to analyze the quantitative data. The first technique will be descriptive statistic and the second will be inferential statistic. As mentioned previously, there are two hypotheses (H0, H1) those will be analyzed through SPSS statistic software. In addition, the researcher will use a t-test to test the differences between (IV) and (DV). The associations between the quantitative variables will be examined with the help of Pearson's correlation. On the other hand, the linear regression will test the productivity of effective delegation. The researcher is well aware of the ethics and regulations followed by the SMES. The researcher has kept in mind those aspects while collecting the data and asking questions through questionnaire and interview. To obtain the confidential data, I have to take permission from an authorized person of an organization. Finally, I will contact the DA to be cautious more about the regulations and ethics of the University of Liverpool. References: Braun D., and Gilardi F.,(2006), ''Delegation in contemporary democracies'', [online]. Available from: https://www.tandfebooks.com.liverpool.idm.oclc.org/isbn/9780203306512#? (accessed: 19 November 2016). Collis, J. Hussey, R. (2013)Business Research: A Practical Guide for Undergraduate and Postgraduate Students. 4th ed. London: Palgrave-MacMillan. Dye, D., (2016)''Leadership Excellence Essentials''., 33 (3), p18-18. 1p. Fleming, Robert S. Business Renaissance Quarterly. Fall2009, Vol. 4 Issue 3, p153-161. 9p., Database: Business Source Complete. Heller R., (1998),'how to delegate', Harvard Business School Press, pp. 4-15. Lancu B., (2012), ''Legislative Delegation: The Erosion of Normative Limits in Modern Constitutionalism'',Springer Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London, pp.207-280 Lueck R. Mclntosh P. (2009), 'The busy manager's guide to delegation', American Management Association, pp. 1-9 Pfeffer J., (2007),'What were they thinking?', Harvard Business School Press, pp.1-40. Mentor P., (2008), 'Delegating work', Harvard Business School Press, pp. 1-14 Stanley, T.L. Supervision. Apr2012, Vol. 73 Issue 4, p7-10. 4p. 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