MB 0022 – Set 1 Page 1

Management Process and Organization Behavior-MB0022

MBA -1 SEM Assignment – Set 1

L. Megha Syam 510925494

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1. Explain the managerial roles and managerial skills. Managerial Roles:

According to Mintzberg (1973), managerial roles can be classified into: 1. Informational roles.

2. Decisional roles. 3. Interpersonal roles.

1. Informational roles: This involves the role of assimilating and disseminating information as and when required. a. Monitor—collecting information from organizations, both from inside and outside.

b. Disseminator—communicating information to organizational members. c. Spokesperson—representing the organization to outsiders eg (PR).

2. Decisional roles: It involves decision making at various levels like.

a. Entrepreneur—initiating new ideas to improve organizational performance. b. Disturbance handlers—taking corrective action to cope with adverse situation. c. Resource allocators—allocating human, physical, and monetary resources.

d. Negotiator – negotiating with trade unions, or any other stakeholders.

3. Interpersonal roles: This role involves activities with people working in the

organization. This is supportive role for informational and decisional roles a. Figurehead—Ceremonial and symbolic role.

b. Leadership—leading organization in terms of recruiting, motivating etc. c. Liaison—liasoning with external bodies and public relations activities.

Management Skills Katz (1974) has identified three essential management skills which enable them in

their effective role playing: (a) Technical.

(b) Human. (c) Conceptual.

a) Technical skills: The ability is to apply specialized knowledge or expertise. A Manager at various levels like Production, and Operation and Maintenance

require some specialized expertise in his day to day work. Some is obtained from his basic Education, but mostly people develop their technical skills on the job and specialization training imparted by the organization.

Ex. BSNL provides special training for their Manager in various fields like Landline and GSM at the time of recruitment.

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b) Human Skill: Human Skill deals with working and enabling the people to work in an atmosphere where they can understand and motivate other people

individually and in group. This requires sensitivity towards others issues and concerns. People proficient in technical skill, but not with interpersonal skills, may face

difficulty in managing their subordinates. To acquire the Human Skill, it is required to work in a team where the Manager and staff gets the opportunity to

understand the pros and cons of others, recognize the feelings and sentiments of others and motivate others even in adverse situation, and communicate own feelings to others in a positive and inspiring way.

c) Conceptual Skill: This is an ability to critically analyze, diagnose a situation and

forward a feasible solution. It requires creative thinking, generating options and choosing the best available option.

Q2. Describe the contemporary work cohort.

Contemporary Work Cohort Contemporary Work Cohort, proposed by Robbins (2003) divides the work force into different groups depending on the era or period in which they have entered into work.

It stresses upon individuals’ values which reflect the societal values of the period in which they grew up.

The cohorts and the respective values have been listed below:

1. Veterans—Workers who entered the workforce from the early 1940s through the early 1960s and exhibited the following value orientations:

1. They were influenced by the Great Depression and World War II

2. Believed in hard work 3. Tended to be loyal to their employer 4. Terminal values: Comfortable life and family security

2. Boomers—Employees who entered the workforce during the 1960s through the

mid1980s belonged to this category and their value orientations were:

a. Influenced heavily by John F. Kennedy, the civil rights and feminist movements,

the Beatles, the Vietnam War, and baby boom competition. b. Distrusted authority, but gave a high emphasis on achievement and material

success. c. Organizations who employed them were vehicles for their careers. d. Terminal values: sense of accomplishment and social recognition.

3. Xers—began to enter the workforce from the mid1980s.

They cherished the following values: a. Shaped by globalization, two career parents, MTV, AIDS, and computers. b. Value flexibility, life options, and achievement of job satisfaction.

c. Family and relationships were important and enjoyed team oriented work. d. Less willing to make personal sacrifices for employers than previous generations.

e. Terminal values: true friendship, happiness, and pleasure

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4. Nexters—most recent entrants into the workforce. a. Grew up in prosperous times, have high expectation, believe in themselves, and

confident in their ability to succeed.

b. Never ending search for ideal job; see nothing wrong with job hopping. c. Seek financial success.

d. Enjoy team work, but are highly self reliant. e. Terminal values: freedom and comfortable life.

Q3. Elaborate the issues related to culture and emotion.

Culture and emotion Emotions are universal phenomena; however, they are affected by culture. While some

emotions are universal and are experienced in similar ways as a reaction to similar events across all cultures, other emotions show considerable cultural differences in

their antecedent events, the way they are experienced, the reactions they provoke and the way they are perceived by the surrounding society.

The first accounts of emotion from a cultural perspective were ethnographic, and described emotions as idiosyncratic. Researchers such as Margaret Mead, Gregory

Bateson and Jean Briggs described unique emotional phenomena and stressed emotions as culturally determined.

Universal Emotions: The psychologist showed that despite some idiosyncratic differences, the basic

emotions are predominantly biological and thus are universal, expressed and perceived in similar way across all cultures. Those emotions are anger, fear, sadness, happiness and disgust.

Now there are 7 universal emotions to be found, anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, happiness, and contempt. There is evidence supporting both of these views

on emotions. Theories that regard emotions as universal, on the other hand, tend to focus on individual emotion elements such as facial expression.

Cultural specificity on Emotions.

Theories that view emotions as culturally based tend to emphasize aspects related to the social environment: antecedent situations, overt behaviour, and culturally specific ways of thinking and talking about emotions.

Human beings are like a tabula rasa (clean tablet) on which society writes its script. In

other words, culture and traditions, normative patterns and value orientations are responsible for not only our personality development, but also appropriate social and

emotional development. This makes us functional entities in society. Each culture has a unique set of emotions and emotional responses;

The emotions shown in a particular culture reflects the norms values, practices, and language of that culture.

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Bases of cultural Emotions

Self construal: The way a person perceives her/himself in relation to the surrounding human environment affects one’s emotional world.

Subjective vs. objective emotions: The view of the self as independent in

individualistic cultures leads to the perception of emotions as a unique personal experience.

Self and emotions: The construal of the self affect the personal emotional experienced. The need to enhance the self and its independence in individualistic

cultures leads to prevalence of emotions that stress the uniqueness and separation of the individual.

Social norms exist for various aspects of emotions.

• General emotional norms: what emotions are considered to be good or bad?

Which should be more prevalent? • Feeling rules: how should one feel when encountering certain event (does being

criticized lead to anger or embarrassment?)

• Display rules: how should one act when experiencing certain emotion (does

anger manifest as aggression or withdrawal?)

4. Discuss the assumption of Douglas Mc Gregor (Theory X and Theory Y)

Theory X and Theory Y Douglas McGregor argued that a manager’s view of the nature of human beings is based on a certain grouping of assumptions and he or she tends to mould his or her

behaviour toward employees according to these assumptions.

Theory X – In this theory management assumes employees are inherently lazy and will avoid work, if they can. Workers need to be closely supervised and a comprehensive system

of controls and a hierarchical structure is needed to supervise the workers closely. It is also assumed that workers generally place security above all other factors and will

display little ambition. Theory Y-

In this theory management assumes employees may be ambitious, self-motivated, anxious to accept greater responsibility, and exercise self-control, self-direction,

autonomy and empowerment. It is believed that employees enjoy their mental and physical work duties. It is also believed that, if given the chance employees have the desire to be creative and forward thinking in the workplace. There is a chance for

greater productivity by giving employees the freedom to perform to the best of their abilities without being bogged down by rules.

From the above, it is clear that Theory X assumes that lower order needs dominate individuals. Theory Y assumes that higher order needs dominate individuals.

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5. What is personal power – Explain different bases of personal power?

Power can be categorized into two types: Formal and informal.

Personal Power resides in the individual and is independent of that individual’s position. .

Three bases of personal power are expertise, rational persuasion, and reference.

Expert power is the ability to control another person’s behaviour by virtue of possessing knowledge, experience, or judgment that the other person lacks, but needs.

Expert power is relative, not absolute. However the table may turn in case the subordinate has superior knowledge or skills than his/ her boss. In this age of technology driven environments, the second proposition holds true in many occasions

where the boss is dependent heavily on the juniors for technologically oriented support.

Rational persuasion is the ability to control another’s behaviour, since, through the individual’s efforts; the person accepts the desirability of an offered goal and a viable way of achieving it. Rational persuasion involves both explaining the desirability of

expected outcomes and showing how specifications will achieve these outcomes.

Referent power is the ability to control another’s behaviour because the person wants to identify with the power source. In this case, a subordinate obeys the boss because he or she wants to behave, perceive, or believe as the boss does. This may occur,

because the subordinate likes the boss personally. In a sense, the subordinate attempts to avoid doing anything that would interfere with the pleasing boss–

subordinate relationship.

Charismatic Power is an extension of referent power stemming from an individual’s personality and interpersonal style. Others follow because they can articulate attractive visions, take personal risks, demonstrate follower sensitivity, etc.

Q6. Write a short note on potential sources of stress. Potential sources of stress

While environmental factors are forces outside the organization, which may act as potential sources of stress due to uncertainties and threats that they create for any organization and its members, factors within organization can also act as potential

source of stress. Together or singly they may cause a tense and volatile working environment which can cause stress for organizational members because the inability of individuals to handle the pressures arising out of these sources.

The following may be seen to be the potential sources of stress:

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1. Environmental factors

Environmental uncertainly influences stress levels among employees in an organization.

--Changes in the business cycle crate economic uncertainties. --Political uncertainties can be stress inducing. --Technological uncertainty can cause stress because new innovations can make an

employee's skills and experience obsolete in a very short period of time.

2. Organizational factors --Pressures to avoid errors or complete tasks in a limited time period, work overload, a demanding and insensitive boss, and unpleasant co workers are a few examples.

--Task demands are factors related to a person's job. They include the design of the individual's job (autonomy, task variety, degree of automation) working conditions, and

the physical work layout. --Role demands relate to pressures that are a function of the role an individual plays in an organization.

1. Role conflicts create expectations that may be hard to reconcile or satisfy. 2. Role overload is experienced when the employee is expected to do more than

time permits.

3. Role ambiguity is created when role expectations are not clearly understood. 4. Interpersonal demands are pressures created by other employees.

5. Organizational structure defines the level of differentiation in the organization, the degree of rules and regulations, and where decisions are made. Excessive rules and lack of participation in decisions might be potential sources of stress.

6. Individual factors: 7. These are factors in the employee's personal life. Primarily these factors are

family issues, personal economic problems, and inherent personality characteristics.

8. Broken families, wrecked marriages and other family issues may create stress at

workplace as well. 9. Economic problems created by individuals overextending their financial

resources. Spending more than earnings stretches financial positions, create debt situation leading to stress among individuals.

10.A significant individual factor influencing stress is a person's basic dispositional

nature. Over-suspicious anger and hostility increases a person's stress and risk

for heart disease. There individuals with high level of mistrust for others also

cause stress for themselves. 11.Stressors are additive- stress builds up. 12.Individual differences: Five individual difference variables moderate the

relationship between potential stressors and experienced stress: a. Perception

b. Job experience c. Locus of control

d. Self-efficacy e. Hostility