Summary
Among the various explanations that have been given why the recovery and economic and financial reactivation at the global level of the post-crisis of 2008 is very slow and weak, it has been pointed out as a critical and essential factor in national and multinational companies in the countries developed and emerging lack of managers. This work proposes an immediate viable solution in the hands of companies, particularly Latin American ones.
The managerial resources in a given country or at the global level are a primary factor in achieving healthy, accelerated and diversified growth that leads to the general well-being of the population as a whole. Despite the virtue of these resources, their importance and value was only recognized at the beginning of the 20th century; which brought with it to coin the term of the managerial revolution, as an event of transcendence in the capitalist companies of the industrial economies; thus becoming a highly strategic resource for the market success of companies that adopted this formula of direction and management.
The managerial resources are referred to the set of qualified personnel in management, incorporated to the companies and institutions of the economic and social structure of a country; They are committed to making the arrangements of factors (capital, labor and others) via the market at the internal and external level of public and private businesses, to be combined and executed appropriately in the production of goods and services, to the satisfaction of the members. of the society. The order of magnitude of managerial resources advances with the pace of material and immaterial growth of humanity.
1. The scarcity of Management Resources
Managerial resources as well as capital are not abundant in a country, region or in the world. Understanding this reality implies making a necessary distinction between the managerial business resource. Sometimes common sense leads one to be confused with the other; but in fact and in accordance with the progress made in companies and institutions, managers and entrepreneurs have different characteristics and functions from each other. The size of the business, whether it is medium or large, and as it grows, entails a greater demand for managers to carry out specialized and necessary activities; with which its best performance is achieved.
In the development of capitalism and by having factors favorable to the capitalist system itself, society has provided managerial resources in accordance with the requirements of the advances and progress of the organization and division of labor2 in the public and private sectors. Although this satisfaction has not been full in the encounters between demand and supply of managerial resources, at least and according to the antecedents that we have; the excesses or defects of one with the other have not been an element of distortion in the markets and rather, the latter have provided solutions when discrepancies have arisen.
From the foregoing it is understood that the expansion of international capitalism after the Second World War, with the growth of local, national and international companies was accompanied by a growing demand for managers. The point is that in managerial resources it is not only about talking about quantities but also about the quality of those who exercise the managerial function. For this reason to say that the penetration of capitalism in countries and regions is favored by the availability of managers, this corresponds to both the number and the quality of them.
Neo-liberalism with its accelerated penetration and expansion on a world scale after the fall of the Berlin Wall in the late 1980s, together with the opening and breakdown of the socialist system; They promoted the business models of the capitalist system in the four cardinal points. Global companies revitalized joint-stock companies, the organization and division of labor with their managerial revolution, altered the world panorama of production and trade between countries; as well as the rules of the game for trade, finance and insurance transactions. In this way, managerial resources rose to the top of public and private businesses.
Satisfying the growing demand for managers from companies and public and private institutions is a challenge for society since supplying in the quantity and quality required brings with it coordinated efforts among the various entities that are involved in managerial training and promotion. This coordinated work is often limited and even impeded by the obstacles and obstacles that are generated in the managerial markets, which is manifested in the supply deficiencies. As in recent years and thus, the shortage of managers arises.
From the global perspective, a recent study on human capital in companies in the world3 has indicated as the main and greatest challenge in the face of the post-crisis of 2008 to attend to the availability of managerial resources necessary to face the instability of markets and the needs of the future global growth, including its recovery and reactivation. That is to say, the markets for local managers at the country and international level apparently would not be responding to the demands of the companies, with which the entry of new managers is limited at the source of origin
2. Why there is a shortage of Management Resources
Before the 2008 crisis and following the course of the business cycle, the boom in the growth of production and world trade, as well as an improvement in services for the welfare of the population; They jointly promoted in industrial economies and emerging economies that the demand for managerial resources in the world began to increase, without this having responses in their supply. Today there is a clear presence of the supply lag resulting from the imbalances themselves that accompany the performance and development of companies and other entities of the public and private sectors in capitalism.
In the past associated with the instability and volatility of the markets from the 1970's onwards, the organization and division of labor in capitalism has cracked to such an extent that it can be said without equivocation that it has fractured. This situation was consolidated because the evolution of business cycles extended periods of crisis and shortened periods of expansion and bonanza. Thus arose waves of reorganization, restructuring, reengineering and downsizing of businesses or other business models based on mergers and takeovers with lower cost growth.
As a consequence of the foregoing, companies and entities of the public and private sectors have abused the multiple forms and varieties of adjusting production arrangements and employment sites at lower costs, both for staff and managers; The search for increased productivity and production without taking into account the long-term costs of it, have evidently thrown overboard, the participation and contribution of managerial resources. Even within the company, the demands for job promotion decreased in exchange for a salary increase.
The market failures of international capitalism, exacerbated by the increase in the financial profitability of the asset holders, subsequently somehow manifest themselves in the apparatus of the production of goods and services, in the lag in the supply of managerial resources, not only in the short term but also in the long term. Which explains why there is a shortage of managerial resources when market conditions demand it. In fact, the markets do not give clear signals of what would be happening in the case of those who want to be part of the management with stability and permanence, hence the incentives for this do not work either.
After 2008, the world economy is moving at two speeds and without the possibility of achieving a synchronization between them; On the one hand, there is the lack of a clear reactivation of the industrial economies and on the other hand, there is an open dynamism in the emerging economies. In the former, the organization and division of labor needs to be corrected under drastic and radical formulas; in the latter, the organization and division of labor deserves to be perfected and improved, so that the markets that guide managerial resources send the signals to break the inertia of the supply of managerial resources.
3. Lag in the supply of Managerial Resources in Latin America
In the case of Latin America, a digression would have to be made to better understand the management of solutions to the lag in the supply of managerial resources. In the crisis of 1929, according to the studies of AG Frank and R Thorp4, the region saw its degree of interdependence with the industrial economy break down; causing this fact an opportunity to the local industry of these national economies. In the recent crisis of 2008 and despite its global dimension, a better situation has happened; Studies by the IMF, WB, OECD, and Others5 reveal that Latin America was less impacted by this crisis, hence its intra-region recovery has been almost immediate.
In other words, the nature of the Latin American problem in the lag in the supply of managerial resources is now accentuated because recent and post-crisis economic growth demand more and more managers that society is not in a position to provide either in quantity or quality to the desired. Worse still, the biggest problem is not the number of managers, but the quality of management that severely affects managerial performance and performance. Faced with such a reality, market opportunities are irretrievably lost and not used as expected.
Both public and private sectors with their companies and institutions for the production of goods and services, following the capitalist impulse of the organization and division of labor; They are severely compromised because managerial resources are not available, to which it is added that what we have is not adequately channeled, according to the requirements of society. According to this observation, the conditions behind the supply of managers in Latin America is very complex; hence its solution involves rearming paradigms and practices to solve them.
This is how the demand-supply gap for managerial resources is created in the economic and social structure of the region. The same one that has been expanding day by day and on which both the public and private sectors have so far not been able to find a way or practical actions towards closing the gap. The seriousness of this situation is perceived in that the positive externalities of growth are irremediably diluted, with which the increase in productivity demanded by international capitalism is strongly hindered. Hence the great differences between Asian growth compared to the highs in Latin America.
4. In Latin America the problem is structural
Without exaggerating, it should be noted that this gap is not temporary or that it is happening after the great crisis of 2008; but rather it is structural in nature. The origin, growth and strengthening of managerial resources has been left to the forces and stimulus that the market generates. The entities in general of the national capitalist system of Latin America that demand managerial resources have reaped what the atomized market offers in individual offers; that people themselves have made efforts to become experienced managers. In such a situation, the market supply is severely dislocated.
In short, the Latin American society represented by the institutions in charge of contributing to the creation and strengthening of the managerial resources of the countries, in short, does not generate as many managers as required. Obviously, what prevails is atomization due to individual effort and if there are collective actions, these are those of the group and of relationships of small circles that control the business centers. Thus, the requirements of the management of the economic and social structure are covered with opaque mechanisms and a severe lack of transparency, thereby consolidating entry barriers to new managerial resources.
Obviously, in capitalist societies, they have formal and informal mechanisms with which they form and distribute managers and set them in motion throughout the economic and social structure for both the public and private sectors. In the crisis and the post-crisis of 2008, in Latin America as in the industrialized world; the informal has regained strong momentum in managerial resource issues. For example, in the case of managerial succession due to the departure of someone, the election is generally on a friendly and group basis; but never inspired by meritocracy, or value leadership.
Formally, for example, reputable business schools do not train managers, they only generate better qualified executives. Students are crammed with knowledge, of limited practical application, but not with business management know-how. These people are prepared to do the tasks that someone indicates to them on a pre - established schedule. The binding values with the strategic commitment of the business are openly abandoned and the ethics in business, in cases, is totally absent. Schools are aware of the problem, but have no solutions; persisting by the need to maintain the self-sustainability of the school as a business.
Currently, the public sector is at a disadvantage with the private sector for managerial activity. Neo-liberalism and international capitalism have fallen into their own trap, limiting the size of the public sector. The exit from the 2008 crisis brings as a consequence a greater extension of public activity by coming to the rescue of the bankrupt private institutions. Worse still for the privatists in emerging economies, it is public companies and institutions that are better off than many private ones; Despite this, the public sector in general does not currently have a better autonomy for its performance and market development.
In the past in terms of managerial resources, the public sector acted as a hotbed for management in emerging economies. Public development banking, for example, for many years supplied managers to commercial banking. This channel was blocked when the aforementioned bank left the market due to the effects of the resizing of the State, coming from neo-liberalism in action. Many directors, deputy directors and section chiefs in public institutions developed managerial skills with which they managed to get involved in private activity with remarkable results and without any recognition of public activity.
5. Organization and Division of Labor: key to the demand for Managerial Resources
Managerial resources become part of the valid business equilibrium in all public and private businesses in industrial economies, through the organization and division of labor defined by international capitalism. This is the core business of managerial work and by which the productivity of the factors of production, achieve their consolidation, deepening and extends without limits in the economic and social structure. This is the key point by which, after the Second World War, the reconstruction and recovery of Europe is done quickly or why the modernization of Japan, its growth and world socio-economic presence has broken many paradigms.
Currently, the post-crisis implies in industrialized and emerging economies - particularly in Latin America - exits as long as society satisfactorily faces the new challenges and challenges to managerial resources in the organization and division of labor demanded by capitalism international. At this point, it is necessary to highlight the performance of China that in the globalized world of high competition is making its way, without this being perceived as a conflict of antagonistic economic systems and rather, it corresponds to the economies of the information age and knowledge that global businesses are pushing fast6.
According to the opinion of the human resource managers of the companies7 worldwide in 2008 and keeping in mind the maintenance of the operational efficiency of the company as a medium-term objective. The latter seen as the proper functioning of the organization and division of labor. Managers in their daily performance and performance should emphasize three aspects: Creative leadership, organizational mobility of talent and development of collective intelligence; Such requirements are clearly associated with the managerial quality to be substantially improved.
The managerial action at the moment and in the foreseeable future demands to cross the functional boundaries assigned to them in the companies, without this being interference in the work and tasks of others. Hence, their participation and contribution have an impact on the best work and value of corporate results. In a study on the performance of top-level financial managers in companies8 worldwide in 2010. They stated that they had to take on the role of value integrators in order to drive growth in highly competitive and risky environments.
Based on the above, the solution to be applied to the lag in the supply of managerial resources must be based on a suitable design for the organization and division of labor required by current international capitalism in industrial and emerging economies. Such a design should not be guided exclusively by the scholasticism of the university molds, but rather should go from the front. We must now stick to the business models that the post crisis of international capitalism entails in its organization and division of labor. This is a genuine response to the demands for managerial resources and from there, the supply must be energized, with which the demand-supply gap will close in a short time.
The complexity of the design to accelerate the supply of managerial resources in favor of the public and private sectors requires making explicit a set of foundations with which the society in general and Latin America in particular can build the channels of training and expansion of managers to cover all sides of the management of the economic and social structure. The key is to promote that the things that society now requires, both the public and private sectors, do well, at lower costs, in good time and with high productivity to the satisfaction of the client.
In the world's leading economies, in which the contamination and contagion spread by the 2008 crisis have been overcome due to toxic assets, mitigating the existing difficulties in the supply of managerial resources has followed a path based on the science and technology paradigm. experience. Indeed, in several recent investigations carried out on the development of managerial talent in capitalist companies, the key components required among the professional candidates to be part of the managerial cadres are to have specialized knowledge of the functions to be performed and to gather a basic experience with the which to start the tasks to carry out.
6. The Solution is in the companies, but they require Technical Assistance
Such thinking is not new in companies or entities, it is the old formula by which the incoming personnel adapt to the culture and internal performance, after becoming aware of their own work. Now, it is not about repeating and doing more of the same. The formula of the past has to be refined in the light of new management technologies, process improvements and organizational changes that the business has incurred to successfully face market competition. Now there is another format for those who are on their way to the top and that the company acting as a center of knowledge and experience must provide the applicant to heads and managements.
In the Science & Experience paradigm for the development of managerial talent now in the 21st century in international capitalism, its instrumentation rests in the center of knowledge and experience, integrated - of course, to knowledge management in the company or entity belonging to the private or public sector. This is the point by which the management transmits the know-how of the business valid for the present and future, affirms and consolidates with the new managerial cadres on standby, ensuring that the direction and management are not compromised by market turbulence, nor in the conjuncture and less in the long term.
Seen from this position, capitalist society is committed - via its different institutions dedicated to professional and management specialization - to promote, encourage and disseminate the creation or strengthening of the center of knowledge and experience in each company or entity of the public and private sectors. This is the best way by which the supply of managerial resources would be greatly accelerated and with which the maximum productivity of human capital will be found under the requirements that the organization and division of labor of international capitalism, seeks to carry out. return to the world economy to its recovery.
The work of the knowledge and experience center for the development of managerial talent in companies or institutions of the public and private sector, in its initial and even later stages, requires the support of knowledge transfer managers and management technology. The latter entail for the centers: the design, facilities and aids in the organization and production of services that make possible the work of this nature in the dissemination of know-how, among the selected teams of candidates to join in the future in management cadres.
Management technology transfer managers is not a new title to the hackneyed work of consulting or external advice, about which there is much discontent and disenchantment. Nor is it about the support of Coaching for those who face difficulties in the exercise of their work. Here the manager's job is to assure those or those professionals who already qualify - because of their knowledge - to be part of the managerial cadres, begin to gain guided experience; in order to form the managerial profile that the company or institution requires. It is a new formula, by which the next manager gets online and aware of what his work and responsibility would be.
Bibliographic references
- P. Drucker "The Frontiers of the Administration", Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1987 Editorial Sudamericana.M. Mateu "The New Work Organization" Barcelona Spain 1984, Editorial Hispano Europea SAIBM Human Capital Study, Washington, USA 2008.A. G Frank "Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America"; México 1967 FCE.R Thorp "Progress, Poverty and Exclusion" A History of Latin America in the 20th Century. Washington, USA, 1998 IDB. Finance and Development IMF Review –BM March 2010. Finance and Development IMF Review –BM June 2010.IBM Working Beyond Borders -The Global CHRO Study, Washington, USA 2010.IBM CFO, The New Value Integrator, Washington, USA 2010.
