Management and decisions in a Tongan business context

Abstract

Management and decision-making are functions that enable an organisation to perform effectively and efficiently. In addition, performance measures are the means for determining how effective and efficient the organisation actually is. This research examined the relationship between managers' management capability and decision-making styles with organisation performance in a Tongan business context. The target respondents were general manager (GM) and financial manager (FM). However, this study focuses on the GM, because GM in the organisation is considered to be the main decision-maker. Even though FM sometime involve in the decision-making process for the financial aspects of the organisation, all decision making responsibilities for such functions as purchasing, selling, production, accounting and financing rest with the manager, Hogget and Edwards (1992). Decision making style was measured using the MBTI instrument, which is an instrument that tests personality based on the Jungian theory. In the MBTI instrument, four types of personalities were identified: extroverts-introvert (El), sensing-intuitive (SN), thinking-feeling (TF), judging-perceptions (JP). In addition management capability was measured using the dimension of: experience, training, level of education and age of GM in the organisation. It was considered that managers with the ability (which will derive from the experience and skills of being a manager) to secure and effectively manage the company's key resources (people, customer, technology, and physical assets) are critical to the well being of the organisation, Cooper & Dunkelberg, (1986), and Wernerfelt, (1984). In addition any direct relationship between performance and training has not been proposed. However it is suggested that participation in training can strengthen the managerial capability of the organisation, Zinger et al (2001). Furthermore organisational performance was measured using Dow's (2000) instrument, which was inspired by the balanced scorecard model. This instrument identifies four perspectives: customer, financial, learning and growth and internal business process. The relationships examined in this study were investigated using the survey method. The results drawn from the organisations examined show that the decision-making styles of NTJ (intuition, thinking and judging) place greater importance on competitors than expectations. These results show that organisations in Tonga are very competitor focused. This could be explained by the fact that the Tongan market is relatively small compared to other countries. Therefore maintaining customers, and having a reasonable share of the market is important for their survival.