Ph.D. Admissons Essay (Organizational Management)

Professional Overview

Although there are various models provided by textbooks to understand and measure organizational effectiveness , the basic meaning of organizational effectiveness remains unchanged : It is for the organization to be doing everything that it knows how to do , and to be doing it well . When business and economic trends alter , however organizational effectiveness calls for organizational innovation

After completing my B .S . degree in the Humanities , I pursued an M .A . degree in Library and Information Science , which helped me to truly understand how advances in information technology have the

power to enhance services and create opportunities to market to new patrons . It was my inherent belief in organizational innovation that initially led me to study Information Science with respect to the Library . After all advances in information technology are nowadays understood to be the Number One impetus for organizational innovation . Numberless experts are of the opinion that organizations may only gain their respective competitive advantages in our times by the adoption of newest technologies

Working as a Library Assistant for a year at a public library , I had the opportunity to witness how the four functions of organizational management come into play with regards to innovation , as the organizational manager must plan , organize , lead and coordinate innovations . Among other duties , I was responsible at the library for conducting children 's programming , providing reference services and assisting patrons in using public access terminals . During this experience I observed that while innovation breathed new life into an age old organization , it would not have been possible without strategic planning . Moreover , I understood the fact that organizational innovation is not just a matter of technology or any particular medium rather , it speaks to the importance of analyzing the organization for strengths , weaknesses , opportunities and threats . Libraries must open doors to increasingly technically savvy patrons who demand access to new services . Accordingly , many public libraries have begun to adopt Web 2 .0 technologies . As a matter of fact , libraries have already experienced a paradigm shift as a result of technological innovation This shift is , no doubt , accompanied by changes in entire organizational cultures

I had the opportunity to experience organizational innovation also as a Retail Store Manager for a year . Working for a large franchise operator in the petrol industry , I prepared daily financial statements and oversaw the everyday operations of the store . My organization was experiencing significant pressure from the economic realities of the time . Petrol prices were beginning to soar during my tenure and the organization constantly had to adopt new approaches to maintain stellar sales performance , while trying to boost waning consumer confidence because of high expenditures on petrol . Needless to say , my company had limited control over the price of petrol . We , therefore , had to come up with new ways to overcome the problems

We started to do `re-grand openings ' where we would focus on specific sites . We brought in staff members and managers from diverse positions and geographical locations within the organization to boost sales . We also...