Overview of Alibaba

Question:

Discuss About The Importance Of Leadership For Generating Success?

The report focuses on generating an overview of the online commerce company, Alibaba. It reflects on the industry to which Alibaba belongs to while conducting the analysis of leadership style both of the founder of the firm and the industry as a whole. Further, the report also focuses on conducting a gap analysis of the leadership style of Alibaba’s founder based on leadership theories. The report also focuses on the development of a leadership development plan through the use of Kurt Lewin’s Change Model while also reflecting on the barriers to the change process. Different types of theoretical models would be incorporated in the report for effectively analysing the leadership style of the online commerce industry and also that of the founder of the organisation. The report would focus on conducting an effective empirical analysis through the study of online articles, books and journals for gaining needed inferences to the topic.

Alibaba Group based in China focuses on transforming the marketing, selling and operational procedures of business institutions. It works in providing the right quality of technological infrastructure and marketing network for helping companies effectively engage with the final users or customers. Alibaba’s business constituted by elements like core commercial activities, digital media and cloud computing functions and also entertainment and innovation helps the business organisations for effectively teaming with logistics and other service provider firms for rendering services to other brands and merchant firms (Alibaba Group , 2017).

                                                                               (Alibaba Group , 2017)

The e-commerce industry of China is observed to be the largest in the world. The first quarter of 2017 reflects that sales of products and services through use of the e-commerce interface have grown to around 1.40 trillion Yuan which was around 32.1 percent higher than 2016 where sales of physical stores gained an increase by around 7.2 percent. Further, in terms of annual growth rate on a compounded basis, growth rate of online retailing grew from around 17 percent during 2017 to around 25 percent of total sales in retail during 2020. Chinese consumers are observed to be avid users of mobile and social commerce and other digital platforms for purchasing and making payments (PwC, 2017).

Situational theory of leadership identifies leadership behaviour associated to the emergence of different types of situations. The situational theory of leadership further determines what the leaders are required to perform based along different situations or circumstances (Fairholm & Fairholm, 2009).

Leadership Theories and Styles

The Contingency Theory of leadership is identified as the leader-match theory wherein it endeavours to match leaders to different contingencies or situations. The Contingency Theory further endeavours to understand the manner in which the expertise of the leader contributes in handling the contingencies (Northouse, 2012).

The behavioural theory of leadership reflects that the activities of a leader are highly influenced by the behavioural qualities or approaches of a leader. The success of the leadership approach of an individual is highly dependent on the behaviour of the leader rather than on the traits (Chandra, 2014).   

In Participative form of leadership, the leader encourages the growth of participation of organisational members in decision making activities. Members are empowered to generate their own ideas and rationale and thereby enhance the growth of teamwork in the organisation and accountability and organisational citizenship among the members (Nevarez, Wood, & Penrose, 2013).

McGregor Theory of Leadership is also identified as Theory X and Y Leadership. The Theory X and Y of leadership was first coined by Douglas McGregor, a social psychologist. The Theory X Style of Leadership is observed to reflect authoritative and also traditional style of leadership where it is customary on the part of the leader to coerce and threaten the organisational members for effectively fulfilling business and institutional objectives  (Rozkwitalska, 2012). Herein, the human resources are identified as a cost to the firm and thereby needs to be optimally utilised for generating needed productivity. The authoritarian style of leadership identified in Theory X also reflects subordinates to be prone in avoiding work and responsibility. It is therefore required of the leader to strictly monitor and direct the team members for generating needful performance (Ferdman & Sagiv, 2012).

On the contrary, the leaders identified as Theory Y leaders are observed to be dignified and also enlightened in nature. Herein, the business leaders and organisational managers assume that organisational members require be respecting, loving and honouring and also recognising for their performances such that the same contributes in generation of greater productivity. The internal people in a firm are viewed as assets rather than cost  (Podsiadlowski, Gröschke, & Kogler, 2013). The institutional manager or business leader thus focuses on training and honing the skills of the staffs and also in motivating and encouraging them through introduction of financial and non-financial rewards (Olsen & Martins, 2012). Further, the Theory Y Leaders are such that focus on empowering individuals to take part in decision making activities. Theory Y leaders also focus on encouraging workforce participation in the firms (Landy & Conte, 2010).

Jack Ma’s Leadership

The leadership model concerning Innovative Leadership or leadership styles associated to innovation leadership are observed to effectively suit the e-commerce industry both in China and also along the global scale. The Innovation Leadership Styles (ILS) are further observed to be divided along four segments like charismatic, instrumental, strategic and also interactive styles that contribute in identifying of innovative projects, ecological inputs and also developing on knowledge potential and needed competencies (Bhatia & Kaur, 2014). Similarly, the parameter of innovation involved in the leadership styles of e-commerce firms also contribute in the development of potential strategies for countering of potential challenges (Benlamri & Sparer, 2016).

Jack Ma as the founder of the e-commerce giant, Alibaba based in China is evaluated to be richest individual in the country. Ma is evaluated to value around $25 million during 2014 and tends to hold around 7.8 percent share in Alibaba. Jack Ma’s story reflects on his rising from rags to riches such that rising from a very poor upbringing based in Communist China his youth times reflected large numbers of failures from academic to jobs where he finally ventured and gained success in terms of creating the online commerce company, Alibaba (Stone & D’Onfro, 2014).

• Jack Ma works based on instincts.
• Focuses on working based on vision and mission objectives.
• Focusing on inventing and sighting new opportunities.
• Empowering organisational members to participate in generation of new ideas.
• Focuses on expanding business boundaries.
• An avid Teamworker and also rooted to tradition.
• Focuses and works towards achieving greater results.
• Analytical skills associated with larger amount of data(Ward, 2017).

• Ma stresses on existence of right type of attitude.
• Focuses on uniting people and working in an integrated fashion.
• Depends on foresightedness
• Interested in development of skills
• Tenacious and hard working
• Learning from failures
• Loves to enjoy Life as it is(Kux, 2017).

• Entrepreneurial mindset
• Always hunting for new opportunities
• Innovating attitude
• Friendly and collaborative behaviour
• Charming and fun loving in nature(Zakkour, 2014).

Jack Ma reflects a strong personality that helps him in identifying opportunities in the face of continual failures. Further, his charismatic personality and strong will force helped him in making a global e-commerce organisation (Infoginx, 2017).  

Jack Ma focuses on conducting the online commerce business in a highly ethical fashion. Jack mentioned that he would never tolerate any ethical misconduct conducted by his organisational members and other partners while conducting business (George, 2015).

• Inspiration from failures and life as a whole
• Optimistic in nature
• Focusing on new opportunities that promote growth(George, 2015).

• Charismatic and visionary approach in e-commerce
• Innovation Leadership focusing on new opportunities to innovate
• Focusing on empowering employees and developing teams
• Participative Leadership in working with others in group
• Visionary leadership owing to working based on new vision and mission objectives(Kux, 2017).

Jack Ma reflects that development of small business enterprises would help in creating greater employment and business opportunities on a global scale. Thus, promotion of small business segments is identified by Jack Ma as the potential source of power (Balakrishnan & Summerville, 2017).

Jack Ma focuses on fostering an environment of open communication such that he encourages the development of a transparent work atmosphere in Alibaba. Ma likes to communicate with his staffs both formally in meetings and discussions while also favours communicating with them in informal settings (Ward, 2017).

Jack Ma as the Chairman and Daniel Zhang as the CEO of Alibaba group viewed that the era of technological disruption with also emergence of new technologies is requiring them to incorporate newer changes in the organisation. In a recent move, Jack Ma focuses on collaborating with brick-and-mortar retailers and helping them gain advantage of online retailing platforms, cloud computing services and online advertising segments (Cendrowski, 2016).

Innovative Leadership Styles

Jack Ma viewed that the emergence of Artificial Intelligence and its future development would create a challenge for the business organisations. Increased level of automation would result in increased job losses thereby increasing unemployment (Solon, 2017).

The business institutions are thus required to continually focus on training its internal members on cloud computing technology and also artificial intelligence for developing their expertise in countering the situation (Solon, 2017).

Training of work groups on such soft skills associated to cloud computing and also Artificial Intelligence (AI) would enhance their expertise to operate in the digital platform and thereby help them to adapt to the new technological setting (Solon, 2017).

• Fear of losing jobs for increased automation contributed by incorporating AI
• Failure in effectively understanding technological systems like Cloud Computing and Artificial Intelligence
• Employees needing to shift their focus to complex jobs owing to increased automation tend to create cultural barrier to the change process(Adam-Gedge, 2017).

Conclusions

The case of Jack Ma, founder of the Chinese online commerce company, Alibaba potentially reflects the manner in which his leadership skills ideally contributed in the formation of a billion dollar enterprise. It reflected the power of acting with a visionary and charismatic approach in motivating team members to achieve farfetched objective.

The essential differences between manager and leader are enumerated as follows. The managers focus on executing and implementing vision and mission objectives. The leaders on the contrary focus on the formulation of vision and mission objectives and thereby focus on motivating the team members for effective fulfilment of the stated objectives. Further, the manager is identified in setting targets and allocating tasks to organisational members for effective accomplishment of the same within a stipulated period. The leader on the contrary act as a role figure to the team members and thereby inspires them to accomplish stated tasks. Finally, the manager also focuses on generating new rules and regulations and focuses on monitoring and governing the performances of the staffs. The leader on the contrary focuses on the identification of newer opportunities and also takes on new challenges and risks for moving over to new markets and territories  (Jehanzeb & Bashir, 2013)

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Importance of Technology in Alibaba’s Future Success

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