Tarmac: Building the City of the Future

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Table of Contents

Needs and Key Factors (External)
Needs and Key Factors (Internal)
Analysis of Findings
Recommendations
Strategy
Impact
Vision
Critical Reflection
References

Needs and Key Factors (External)

The role of cities in the global economy has been increasing since the emphasis on the globalisation has become heavier (Salama & Shafik, 2016). As a result, the importance of urbanism in not only national, but also global economy has become very high. Consequently, it would be reasonable to assume that the design of the future city will determine the scope and pace of the progress in the specified area to a considerable degree. Thus, the identification of the areas in which the infrastructure of the future cities is going to is going to develop, as well as the analysis of the factors that will shape its evolution, can be viewed as one of the primary needs of Tarmac at present.

The rapid and unceasing development of technology can be viewed as the primary external factor affecting the choices to be made by Tarmac while designing the city of the future. When considering the problem from the engineering perspective, Tarmac will have to view the process of constructing the future city from the perspective of digitality (Dameri, 2013). By definition, the phenomenon of digitality, also referred to as digitalism, implies living in an environment of the digital culture and viewing the corresponding IT developments as part and parcel of the environment (Snieska & Zykiene, 2014). The identified characteristics of the contemporary environment mean that Tarmac will have to focus on some of the innovative aspects of infrastructure development.

Specifically, it will be crucial to make sure that the company should embrace the issues related to energy use in the city of the future. There is no need to stress that the sustainable use of energy, particularly substituting traditional energy sources with solar energy, must be viewed as a necessity (Rashid, 2016). At this point, the social dimension of the needs that Tarmac, as the developer of the city of the future, currently has needs to be addressed. Because of the increasing concern for the sustainable use of resources and the importance of the green economy, the issue of environmentalism appears to have become one of the primary concerns in the modern society. Therefore, it will be crucial to shape the company’s strategy so that the focus on the active promotion of environmentalism and the sustainable use of resources could become a possibility. Particularly, it is necessary to promote the change toward an environmentally-friendly approach not only in the context of the organisation but also in the attitudes of the citizens. The identified task is admittedly challenging due to the rapid increase in the urbanisation rates and, therefore, the inability to find a compromise between the rational use of resources and the need to meet the highest quality standards set.

Furthermore, when considering the social dimension of the city of the future, Tarmac will have to consider the use of the principles of e-governance and e-democracy. By definition, the former implies that the essential elements of communication and innovation technology should be incorporated into the stages of delivering the necessary governmental services (Gustafsson & Wihlborg, 2016). As a result, a rapid increase in the speed and quality of the corresponding services can be enhanced to a considerable degree. E-democracy, in its turn, is referred to as the use of modern technology to facilitate democracy in the society (Anthopoulos & Fitsilis, 2013). Therefore, it will be crucial for Tarmac to make sure that the infrastructure of the future city should include the options for enhancing communication and providing the remote areas with an opportunity to use the Internet and the associated communication technologies. For these purposes, Tarmac needs to focus on creating broadband options for every part of the city, including those that can be deemed as remote and close to rural areas (e.g., the outskirts of the town). As a result, the prerequisites for efficient communication among the citizens can be created. Consequently, the process of receiving feedback from the members of the local population will be simplified significantly. Thus, the e-governance of the city will be executed in the manner that will allow taking the needs of all citizens into account. Furthermore, the use of tools can be considered the primary means of enhancing transparency in the city governance. The challenge described above may be addressed and managed successfully provided that the company focuses on the concepts such as connectivity, innovation, participation, social cohesion, and sustainability.

Needs and Key Factors (Internal)

Apart from addressing the issues identified above, the organisation will also have to handle some of the internal issues associated with the promotion of e-governance and the cohesion of the community with the help of rebuilding the infrastructure. In order to make sure that the company is capable of carrying out the tasks associated with the enhancement of the communication processes and the overall improvement of the city infrastructure, one will have to make sure that the information management framework has been improved accordingly. To be more accurate, it will be necessary to make sure that the employees at Tarmac are capable of carrying out the essential processes associated with data retrieval, its further analysis, its transfer to the remainder of the staff members, and its storage. Particularly, the personnel at Tarmac should be aware of the essential information management principles. In other words, data security and the employees’ proficiency in managing information can be viewed as one of the essential factors that will define the firm’s ability to meet the needs of the target audience by building an appropriate infrastructure for the city of the future.

Apart from the issues associated with the information management and the related issues, one should consider the employees’ ability to understand the significance of the adequate use of the available resources as the foundational quality that will help build the city of the future. As stressed above, sustainability and environmentalism will become the foundational principles on which the functioning of the city will rely. Therefore, it is imperative that the company should be able to allocate the available resources and create the system that will function in a resilient manner. Consequently, Tarmac will have to redesign its current leadership approach by focusing on the transformative leadership style, also shaping its values so that the principles of sustainability and environmentalism could become the foundation for the firm’s resource management policy.

Analysis of Findings

An overview of the possible means of building the city and designing its infrastructure will reveal that it is likely to look very compact and urban. Furthermore, the zoning of the city will imply that it will be divided into the following areas: the business centre, the residential neighbourhood, the commercial area, and the industrial part thereof. Research results point to the fact that the identified arrangement of the elements of the urban environment is likely to lead to the most efficient use of resources (Li, Wang, & Huisingh, 2014).

Moreover, it is crucial that the residential areas should be located in close proximity to the necessary services, such as the shopping area (e.g., groceries), cleaning services, child day-care, etc. Furthermore, it is desirable that the identified elements of the community should be located in the manner that will allow the citizens to pick up their children, make the necessary purchases, etc., on their way from work. Thus, a significant amount of time can be saved. Furthermore, the recreational areas must be constructed in the way that would encourage the community members to engage in the related activities on their day off. Particularly, parks and similar facilities will have to be placed in the vicinity of the residential area (Hoffmann et al., 2015).

Finally, healthcare organisations will also have to be within a relatively short distance from the residential area so that the members of the identified services could reach the citizens and provide the required services, in case of an emergency, within the shortest amount of time possible. Likewise, the organisations such as 911 will have to be located within reach. Thus, the safety levels in the city will remain high, and every member of the population will be provided with enough security (Maligna, Gordon, Lindborg, & Jewitt, 2013).

In order to carry out the identified processes, the company will have to consider shaping its vision and values so that they could be compatible with the requirements listed above. As stressed above, the infrastructure of the city is going to be rather compact. The identified characteristics of the target environment may contradict the size of the target area. Indeed, seeing that the city of the future is most likely to take a significant amount of space, there is going to be an impressive distance between the specified areas, e.g., residential and business. Therefore, it will be crucial to pay an especially great amount of attention to the communication issue. The communication aspect also needs to be addressed as far as the internal elements of the company’s operations are concerned, especially in the domains of logistics and communication.

Despite the fact that the research and analysis techniques used in the course of getting the priorities of the organisation in line have their problems, they can be deemed as rather credible. The first and most obvious, the general review of the available sources, needs to be mentioned as the tool for managing the data. Databases such as ResearchGate, EBSCOhost, ProQuest, etc., were selected to browse for the articles on the identified topic. Afterward, relevant articles were selected with the help of keywords such as “future city infrastructure,” “future city engineering,” “e-government urban development,” etc. As a result, several scholarly articles on the subject matter published in 2012-2016 were selected.

Recommendations

It is crucial that the company should draw a very distinct line between strategic management and leadership. There is no need to stress that management and leadership are very different; indeed, while the former compels the people in charge to assign the participants specific tasks and set measurable and achievable goals, the latter implies that the participants’ perception of the work-related processes should be changed. This approach assume leadership means changing people’s value system and promoting a specific ethical framework according to which they will make company-related decisions and carry out their tasks (Hunt & Fitzgerald, 2013).

The short-term goals that the company will have to meet will, therefore, concern primarily the management-related issues. Particularly, it will be necessary to identify the essential characteristics of the future city, as well as locate the available resources and draft the plan of the further actions to be taken. The specified objectives can be viewed as short-term because they do not require significant changes to the way in which the organisation works and, thus, can be carried out within a relatively short amount of time.

The long-term goals that the firm will have to meet, however, will concern the leadership and the associated issues. Particularly, it will be necessary to alter the firm’s current set of values and the philosophical framework so that the firm may be geared toward a sustainable use of resources. The identified changes will require that the staff members should adopt a more responsible approach toward the decision-making process. Therefore, it is crucial that the promotion of the principles of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) should be considered the first step to be made in shaping the current leadership framework (Tian, Liu, & Fan, 2014).

Speaking of which, the change toward the transformational leadership strategy is imperative for the company. In light of the fact that the firm should promote a sustainable use of resources among the residents of the future city, the focus must be kept on motivation and a change in the system of the target audience’s values. According to the existing definition and the description of its effects, transformational leadership allows altering the participants’ concept of the decision-making process, as well as the concept of problem-solving and the framework of communication (Nazir, Zamah, & Shah, 2014). As a result, prerequisites for enhancing the corporate processes, reinforcing the security of the company’s information, and focusing on the promotion of sustainability in the future city can be created.

Strategy

As explained above, it is crucial to implement the transformational leadership strategy in order to promote a specific concept of the city of the future. The reasons for choosing the identified leadership framework are quite obvious. Given the fact that the current interpretation of the city of the future revolves around the principles of environmentalism, sustainable use of resources, and the associated ideas, it will be necessary to challenge the future population to change their lifestyles (Long, Thean, Ismail, & Jusoh, 2012). For this purpose, however, the organisation will first have to alter the perspective that the members of the company have on the city infrastructure and the communication processes occurring in it. Furthermore, the managers will have to shed light on the importance of e-governance and e-democracy as the foundational pillars of the future society of the city (Long, Yusof, Kowang, & Heng, 2014). In other words, it will be crucial to convey the message that IT tools will be used as the means of helping the members of the community not only to manage their personal life but also exercise their legal rights, work, and participation in the community activities (Girma, 2016).

When considering the leadership frameworks that allow exerting influence that is powerful enough to compel the personnel to alter their perspective of the city of the future, one must give credit to the transformational leadership style. Designed not only to shape people’s vision and values, but also motivate them to excel in the task that they are assigned, the identified framework suits the requirements of the project impeccably (Ahmad, Abbas, Latif, & Rasheed, 2014).

However, as soon as the process of transferring the staff members to a different set of values and decision-making principles is completed, the need to sustain the change, as opposed to reinforcing it, will appear. Therefore, it will be desirable to switch to a different leadership framework. Thus, the approach based on a situational use of the available leadership tools will have to be considered as an integral part of the leadership framework. The identified concept does not imply using a specific set of tools on a regular basis; quite on the contrary, the adoption of the situational framework means that the choice of the leadership tools will hinge on the unique factors that affect the leader’s choices at a certain moment of the company’s progress.

Impact

As stressed above, the leadership strategy chosen for implementing change in the target environment is not the only leadership framework that will be used in the course of building the city. While the transformational leadership principles will have to be used at first so that the staff members could be empowered to make a difference and create the city in which the residents will contribute to the increase in sustainability rates, it will finally have to be substituted with another framework. Even before the process of change ends, the transformation of the staff members and, most importantly, the people living in the target area, will have to be complete. Therefore, it will need to be replaced with the situational approach that will guide the city and its population in case of a specific conflict or a unique dilemma (Yasin, Nawab, Bhatti, & Nazir, 2014).

Therefore, the people’s attitude toward the concepts of sustainability, e-governance, e-democracy, and the overall change in the infrastructure will define the choice of the leadership strategy and the changes thereof. Unless people accept the identified concepts as part and parcel of their lives and learn to follow them, replacing the transformational leadership framework with a different strategy appears unreasonable. For the city of the future to function properly, it is necessary that it should be inhabited by the people of the future, i.e., democracy-driven, technologically advanced supporters of sustainability and active participation in the economic, political, and cultural development of the community (Rijal, 2016).

Vision

The role of leadership in communicating the vision can hardly be overrated. It will be crucial to make sure that the concept of consistent provision and transportation of the building materials should be viewed as a necessity by the personnel. Furthermore, the employees’ concept of the communication processes and information management should be altered. Stressing the significance of efficient and consistent communication and putting a heavy emphasis on the satisfaction of the needs of all stakeholders, the organisation is likely to contribute to a faster and more successful delivery of the necessary materials to the customer. Additionally, the issue of quality is going to be addressed by altering the company’s vision and outlining the significance of keeping the customer satisfaction levels high. In fact, a change in the corporate vision can become the foil for a rapid and significant increase in quality rates. Spurred by the application of the transformational leadership framework and the Six Sigma tools (Pyzdek & Keller, 2014), the process of building the city of the future is likely to become unbelievably successful.

Critical Reflection

In retrospect, the experience gained in the course of providing consultations to the construction company in question allowed for a detailed analysis of the effects that information management has on all domains of public life, personal life, and the performance of an organisation. For instance, the significance of information security was raised as one of the primary concerns in the contemporary business environment. As a result, the need to provide detailed instructions regarding data management issues to the staff members was recognised. It is essential that the loopholes in the security management processes were identified in the course of the analysis. As a result, a safer and a more efficient framework for the company’s operations were designed.

Furthermore, the assessment of the options and the services that the company could offer to the construction organisation mentioned above showed quite graphically that an elaborate choice of a leadership strategy is required to maintain consistent development of the firm. For instance, at the stage of promoting the required behaviour actively, the principles of transformational leadership should be used. However, later on, it will be reasonable to switch to a different strategy that will meet new needs of the target audience. Therefore, the experience with Tarmac has shed a lot of light on the issue of management and leadership in the era of information technology, particularly, the necessity to make sure that every element of the communication system operates impeccably has become evident. Furthermore, it is now clear that the needs of all stakeholders must be satisfied to attain the expected results.

References

Ahmad, F., Abbas, T., Latif, S., & Rasheed, A. (2014). Impact of transformational leadership on employee motivation in telecommunication sector. Journal of Management Policies and Practices, 2(2), 11-25.

Anthopoulos, L., & Fitsilis, P. (2013). Using Classification and Roadmapping techniques for Smart City viability’s realization. Electronic Journal of e-Government, 11(1), pp. 326-336.

Dameri, R. (2013). Searching for smart city definition: A comprehensive proposal. International Journal of Computers & Technology, 11(5), 2545-2551.

Girma, S. (2016). The relationship between leadership style, job satisfaction and culture of the organization. International Journal of Applied Research, 2(4), 35-45.

Gustafsson, S., & Wihlborg, E. (2016). Reflecting on collaborative networking and the roles of municipalities in local sustainable development. The International Journal of Sustainability Policy and Practice, 12(2), 13-23.

Hoffmann, M., Shmarin, S., Denafas, G., Mykhaylenko, V., Ogorodnik, S., & Ludwig, C. (2015). Trends and seasonal patterns in the composition and energy content of waste from three Ukrainian city districts: The influence of commercial and residential areas. International Journal of Energy Engineering, 5(6), 171-184.

Hunt, J. B., & Fitzgerald, M. (2013). The relationship between emotional intelligence and transformational leadership: An Investigation and review of competing claims in the literature. American International Journal of Social Science, 2(8), 30-38.

Li, F., Wang, R., & Huisingh, D. (2014). Call for papers for a special volume of the Journal of Cleaner Production on urban ecological infrastructure for healthier cities: governance, management and engineering. Journal of Cleaner Production, 83(1), 1-4.

Long, C. S., Thean, L. Y., Ismail, W. K. W., Jusoh, A. (2012). Leadership styles and employees’ turnover intention: exploratory study of academic staff in a Malaysian college. World Applied Sciences Journal, 19(4), 575-581.

Long, C. S., Yusof, W. M. M., Kowang, T. O.,& Heng, L. H. (2014). The impact of transformational leadership style on job satisfaction. World Applied Sciences Journal, 29(1), 117-124.

Maligna, R., Gordon, L. J., Lindborg, R., & Jewitt, G. (2013). Using participatory scenario planning to identify ecosystem services in changing landscapes. Ecology and Society, 18(4), 10-31.

Nazir, T., Zamah, S. F., & Shah, H. (2014). Mediating effect of knowledge sharing between participative decision making, transformational leadership and organization performance. Journal of Management Info, 1(1), 1-12.

Pyzdek, T., & Keller, P. (2014). The Six Sigma handbook: A complete guide for Green Belts, Black Belts, and managers at all levels. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Rashid, R. (2016). Towards sustainable energy development in Bangladesh: The perspective of renewable energy technology. Journal of Modern Science and Technology, 3(1), 31-39.

Rijal, S. (2016). The influence of transformational leadership and organizational culture on learning organization: A comparative analysis of the IT sector. Journal of Administrative and Business Studies, 2(3): 121-129.

Salama, H. H., & Shafik, R. S. (2016). Spectacles, themed architecture and urban replicas places shaped for globalization. International Journal of Applied Engineering Research, 11(9), 6264-6270.

Snieska, V., & Zykiene, I. (2014). The role of infrastructure in the future city: theoretical perspective. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 156, 247-251.

Tian, Q., Liu, Y., & Fan, J. (2014). The effects of external stakeholder pressure and ethical leadership on corporate social responsibility in China. Journal of Management & Organization, 21(4), 388-410.

Yasin, G., Nawab, S., Bhatti, K. K., & Nazir, T. (2014). Relationship of intellectual stimulation, innovations and SMEs performance: transformational leadership as a source of competitive advantage in SMEs. Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research, 19(1), 74-81.

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