Evidenced argumentation

Change is one thing that will always be constant in the society. The business environment that existed a few years ago no longer exists now and that will always be the case. There are always new challenges and opportunities that present themselves and organizations have to constantly adjust accordingly to cope with the dynamics. Organizations have to minimize on production costs and eliminate all the uncertainties that may arise in the process to maximize profits and meet organization goals and targets (Card, 2017). This essays discuses on the real world business issues such as complex human systems, SPICE framework, effective decision and social innovation.

A system that involves the nonlinear interaction of the various components is referred to as a complex system. The dependences, interactions and the environment make it difficult for scholars to model the complex human systems. The components of a complex system are independent and the interaction of the components can lead to emergent behavior (Strauch, 2017). This poses a challenge to business organizations considering the fact that complex systems don’t have a single point of control and the interaction of the components results into self-organization.

A financial market is a complex system that consists of traders, varying capital amounts and the interaction of commercial laws. These components non-linearly interact as they try to obtain the maximum profits in the process of buying and selling financial assets (Reason, 2017). The financial market and global business is a good example of human complexity in action and the emergent behavior of such a system is dictated by a group and individual decisions of those involved in the global business (Anderson, 2018). There are potential risks that can occur to organizations that do not adjust appropriately to the human complexity and this can threaten the existence of an organization.

Several models have been developed to helped managers and executives in organizations minimize the uncertainty that arises from the complex human systems but they are just “models” and they have weaknesses in the real world of business. There is always uncertainty how technology, business regulations, competition and other environmental factors will affect the operations of a business organization (Hollnagel, 2017). The complex human system affects the organizations from within its structure and also externally and the existing knowledge on human complexity cannot be used to completely eliminate risks it can just reduce it. It is, therefore, the responsibility of organizations to review their objectives and goals periodically on the basis of the prevailing business conditions and strive to understand the effect of the complex human system on their business.

Structured insights and reflection

The SPICE framework provides guidelines on how to develop a thriving business organization through the process of converting ambition and visions into a deliverable plan that have impacts that can be measured. The SPICE framework promotes delivery, coherent planning and impact for development (Jap, 2015). Any manager or business organization has to be fast and adaptive in its mechanisms for the SPICE framework to be effective in creating a successful business. The framework offers resources and tools that help in consistently and reliably balancing all the factors that influence our decision making process and therefore improving the efficiency and quality of decision-making. Every decision made whether a business or personal one mostly depend on balancing what we learn through experience or training and the instinctive feeling (Ibrahim, Wallmüller & Daschner, 2016). The SPICE framework increases innovation, drives performance and helps in making reasoned strategic decisions. Following the framework appropriately and with the required dedication will ensure that a business organization prospers and overcomes all the challenges encountered in its operation.

The framework is very helpful in management and business since every business requires regular measurement and management for effective and efficient operation and maximum profits. The framework touches on the challenges a business organization is likely to face in carrying out its operations. These challenges are mainly allied to performance, quality and impact (Mesquida, Mas & Barafort, 2015). The framework gives guidelines on how to handle encounters in organizational performance, managing and measuring innovation, decision management, and managing balanced decisions. The performance of any business organization should be checked regularly to ensure that they are moving towards the set organizational goals and target. There are various factors that can be used to regularly assess the performance of the organization and use the framework to spearhead mechanisms that will ensure the organizational performance thrives. The SPICE framework increases the rate and quality of decision making and in the process boost the development of strategies and skills to be applied to solving real-world business issues. The impact of such acquired skills can be assessed easily. The changing dynamics in the business world requires people with fast and efficient decision making skills for any organization to adapt appropriately. The framework provides the guidelines on how to manage individual and group decisions that directly or indirectly affect the operations of any organization.

Effective decision-making can be seen as a term that refers to the process of selecting alternatives and manages them by a proper implementation to ensure business objectives are met. Effective decision-making is one of the real challenges organizations have to encounter in the real world (Ferrell & Fraedrich, 2015). The decisions made by the organization directly or indirectly affect the operation and success of the business, therefore, it is very crucial to have a good decision making management process. Research shows that almost ninety percent of decisions are made at the unconscious level of the mind and then they experiment at the conscious level (Kourdi, 2015). Although the unconscious level is involved in making most of the decisions, the decision-making process depends on feelings or emotions, trustworthiness and reason. Effective decision making process strongly relies on the interaction between the unconscious and conscious mind.

Complex Human Systems

Organizations have to continuously make decisions at its various laves and these decisions range from routine operational ones all the way to managerial and strategic decisions. Effective decision-making in the business sector involves selecting choices and factors that will ensure the business objectives are met.  Effective decision-making plays a very critical role in determining the success of any business organization.

Globalization of the world market try to offer the same resources to business firms and effective decision-making can give an organization competitive advantage over their competitors, therefore, ensuring high returns to the shareholders. Many organizations have formalized planning process and the board of governors to ratify and oversee the planning process of the organization. Routine decision making processes may have documented procedures but sometimes the changing business dynamics provides situations where appropriately and timely non-routine decisions have to be made for the sake of the organization. In such situations, the manager or staff member has to consider the risks, alternatives and potential outcomes of each alternative very fast and do the compromise to come up with a decision that will ensure the objectives of the organization are still met.

The decision making process is subject to human inaccuracies that may arise from self-interest bias, personalities and prejudices. However, effective decision making process promotes objectivity in throughout the process (Sharma, Mithas & Kankanhalli, 2014). The success of the organization relies on the decisions made across the various levels, therefore, the human errors should be completely eliminated. Training and experience in business greatly boost the decision making capability of managers and staff members.

Social innovation in business refers to the process of applying innovative, sustainable, practical and business-like approaches to achieve positive social change. Social innovation can be seen as the innovation of products that will serve the society better. As much as business organizations are based on maximizing profits by cutting production and operation costs, they should put the people they work for the center of the organization and produce quality products for the society (Phillips, Ghobadian & James, 2015). There are various social and environmental challenges in the society and it is the responsibility of organizations to put mechanisms that aim at solving or reducing these challenges. Challenges such as global warming cannot be ignored and therefore organizations should follow all the ethical regulations that aim at solving such challenges.

For social innovation to succeed best it needs to be done in collective efforts with other stakeholders. Business organizations operate in a complex system that consists of competitors, customers, non-governmental organizations, policy-makers and investors. Therefore all these components have to be involved in the process of facilitating social innovation. Alan Knight once said that “Social innovation has an important role to play in getting us to a place where breakthroughs can happen at a systems level” (Moulaert, 2016).  Companies have to constantly assess their role as part of the society and the impact of how they do their business to the society (Ospina & Parés, 2015). Organizations should create value for both the shareholders and the customers also.

The SPICE Framework

Conclusion and Recommendations

Business organizations are continuously faced with real-world issues and challenges that have to be solved to guarantee the success of the organizations. Some of the issues faced in the real business world include the complex human system, effective decision making and social innovation. The board of governors should always make decisions considering that the business dynamics are continuously changing and the organization should be flexible enough to appropriately adapt to the various changes. The board should instill the effective decision making culture across all the levels of organizations to ensure the objectives of the organizations are met. The board of governors has the role to oversee the organizational planning and ensure the uncertainties that might arise due to the complex human systems are eliminated or reduced as much as possible. Every member of the organization plays a critical role in ensuring the success of the organization and they should be informed of the continuously changing business environment.

References

Anderson, P. W. (2018). The economy as an evolving complex system. CRC Press.

Card, S. K. (2017). The psychology of human-computer interaction. CRC Press..

Ferrell, O. C., & Fraedrich, J. (2015). Business ethics: Ethical decision making & cases. Nelson Education.

Hollnagel, E. (2017). FRAM: the functional resonance analysis method: modelling complex socio-technical systems. CRC Press.

Ibrahim, L., Wallmüller, E., & Daschner, W. (2016, June). Using Enterprise SPICE in Very Small Entities. In International Conference on Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination (pp. 423-430). Springer, Cham

Jap, S. (2015). Partnering with the Frenemy: A Framework for Managing Business Relationships, Minimizing Conflict, and Achieving Partnership Success. FT Press.

Kourdi, J. (2015). Business strategy: a guide to effective decision-making. The Economist.

Sharma, R., Mithas, S., & Kankanhalli, A. (2014). Transforming decision-making processes: a research agenda for understanding the impact of business analytics on organizations. European Journal of Information Systems, 23(4), 433-441.

Mesquida, A. L., Mas, A., & Barafort, B. (2015, September). The project management SPICE (PMSPICE) process reference model: towards a process assessment model. In European Conference on Software Process Improvement (pp. 193-205). Springer, Cham.

Moulaert, F. (2016). Social innovation: Institutionally embedded, territorially (re) produced. In Social innovation and territorial development (pp. 27-40). Routledge.

Ospina, S. M., Kersh, R., & Parés, M. (2015). Market-Based Social Innovation: Are Business Strategies and Social Change Compatible? Public Administration Review, 75(4), 628-631.

Phillips, W., Lee, H., Ghobadian, A., O’Regan, N., & James, P. (2015). Social innovation and social entrepreneurship: A systematic review. Group & Organization Management, 40(3), 428-461.

Reason, J. (2017). The human contribution: unsafe acts, accidents and heroic recoveries. CRC Press.