Management Function and Behavior-1

Assignment – A

Question 1. How can the field of OB contribute to the effective functioning of organizations and the well being of the individual?

Question 2. How are leadership theory and styles related to employee motivation? Explain with suitable examples.

Question 3. Discuss in detail the contribution of Taylor to the development of Management thought.

Question 4. Do you think when managers make decisions they follow the decision making steps as has been conceptualized in the rational decision making model? Which steps are likely to be overlooked or given inadequate attention? What can be the possible consequences of overlooking any of the steps?

Question 5. “Participation is an excellent method for identifying differences and resolving conflicts”. Do you agree or disagree. Discuss with suitable examples.

Assignment – B

Question 1. Why does communication break down? How can communication be improved?

Question 2. What is departmentalization? Why is it required? Discuss any one form of departmentalization.

Question 3. What do you understand by authority and power? How are they different from each other?

Case Study

Mr. R.K. Mishra owns a small trading company in Varanasi by the name of RKM Enterprises. The company provided raw material to the manufacturers of silk sarees. The business enterprise is also engaged in supply of silk sarees and other silk garments produced by local weavers to the big stores in major cities. In addition they have substantial export orders.

The company is mainly a family based enterprise. Mr. R.K. Mishra is the Director and his son Ritesh is looking after finance department. The son is also assisting his father in other strategical matters. Key decisions are taken by the Director himself after occasional discussions with Ritesh.

The existing employee strength is more than 200 with 15 offices spread across the country. During the last one decade of its existence, the business has grown considerably. In fact, the turnover surpassed Rupees 100 million in the year 2003-04.

However, since then the business faced stiff competition from other traders. In last one year the orders that have been received have reduced substaintially.

Rohit, younger son of the Director is holding a management degree from Banaras Hindu University. He has recently left a job with an MNC located in Mumbai and joined his father’s business to help in solving the problems.

After joining, Rohit made several changes in the organisation. A major restructuring drive was carried out. The authority to take several major decisions was transmitted to lower levels. Organisation structure ws also made flatter. Instructions were given to all managers to consult their subordinates before taking any decisions. He was determined to see that the company was professionally managed.

Question 1. “The management of RKM Enterprises is not professional and is family based”. Analyse and comment.

Question 2. Analyse the changes brought in by Rohit.

Assignment – C

1. Which of the following was NOT a need proposed by David McClelland’s Theory of Needs?
(a) The need for power
(b) The need for esteem
(c) The need for affiliation
(d) The need for achievement

2. Managers engage in ________ to increase their power and pursue goals that favor their individual and group interests.
(a) Organizational politics
(b) Political decision making
(c) Accommodation
(d) Self satisfaction

3. Which of the following is NOT A motivator according to Herzberg?
(a) Achievement
(b) Relations with others
(c) Recognition
(d) Responsibility

4. Cognitive Dissonance theory has been given by
(a) Taylor
(b) Vroom
(c) Festinger
(d) Skinner

5. The purpose of feedback in communication is
(a) To ensure that message has been understood
(b) To carry the message back from receiver to sender
(c) To complete the process of communication
(d) All of the above

6. Self Esteem means
(a) Love for yourself
(b) Respect for yourself
(c) Trust for yourself
(d) All the above

7. The Hawthorne experiment was started by:
(a) Kurt Lewin
(b) B.F.Skinner
(c) Elton Mayo
(d) W.Dickson

8. ————–is the systematic study of the ways interaction, interdependence and influence among persons affect their behavior and thoughts
(a) Social psychology
(b) Industrial psychology
(c) Anthropology
(d) Sociology

9. Psychoanalytic theory has been propounded by?
(a) Rogers
(b) Alderfer
(c) Janis
(d) Freud

10. MBO was first suggested by?
(a) F.W. Taylor
(b) Henri Fayol
(c) Peter F. Drucker
(d) Watson

11. The three levels of analysis that are studied in organizational behavior are?
(a) Traits, behaviors and results.
(b) Affective, cognitive and behavioral
(c) Individual , organizational and social
(d) Individual , group and organizational

12. Which type of leaders gives complete freedom to their employees
(a) Autocratic leaders
(b) Bureaucratic leaders
(c) Participative leaders
(d) Laissez-faire leaders

13. ————refers to the ability of individuals or groups to induce or influence the beliefs or actions of other individuals or groups?
(a) Power
(b) Responsibility
(c) Delegation
(d) Discipline

14. Robert Own , Charles Babbage , Henry R. Lowne , Andrew Ure and Charles Duplin contributed to the ___________school of management thought?
(a) Classical
(b) Behavioral
(c) Neo-classical
(d) Pre-classical

15. Which of the following is not a leadership theory?
(a) Trait theory
(b) ERG theory
(c) Contingency theory
(d) Transactional theory

16. Which is an advantage of decentralization?
(a) Encourages decision-making
(b) Easy to have uniform policy
(c) Greater Control
(d) Decreases complexity of coordination

17. Which type of departmentation is useful only at the lowest level of organizations?
(a) Departmentation by simple numbers
(b) Departmentation by time
(c) Departmentation by process or equipment
(d) Departmentation by strategic numbers

18. Which managerial function gives attention to influencing and motivating employees to improve performance and achieve corporate objectives?
(a) Leading
(b) Organizing
(c) Staffing
(d) Controlling

19. The _______ refers to the delivery by one individual to another of the right to
act, to make decisions, to requisition resources and to perform other tasks in order to fulfill job responsibilities
(a) Centralization of power
(b) Delegation of authority
(c) Centralization of authority
(d) Delegation of responsibility

20. In the process of communication, the translation of intended meanings into words and gestures is known as?
(a) Encoding
(b) Decoding
(c) Processing
(d) Transforming

21. The establishment of a distinct area, unit of subsystem of an organization over which a
(a) Centralization
(b) Departmentation
(c) Decentralization
(d) Functionallization

22. Which of the following processes shows how an individual seeks information about a certain issue and how he interprets that information?
(a) Dogmatism
(b) Perception
(c) Stereotyping
(d) Congnitive dissonance

23. The organization chart is a way of showing?
(a) How the task of an organization are divided and co-ordinated
(b) The informal patterns of communication
(c) The stakeholders who have an interest in the company
(d) The physical layout of the buildings on a site

24. When a manager secures the agreement of a colleague to work on a project in return for the promise of providing the colleague with some extra remuneration,what type of power is he or she exercising?
(a) Expert power
(b) Coercive power
(c) Referent power
(d) Reward power

25. Which of the following is not one of the steps identified as part of the controlling process?
(a) Setting performance standards or goals
(b) Measuring performance
(c) Writing the reports
(d) Tasking corrective action

26. Which of the following refers to changing a task to make it inherently more rewarding , motivating and satisfying?
(a) Enlargement
(b) Rotation
(c) Enhancement
(d) Enrichment

27. When people are resisting because of adjustment problem,the _________method for dealing with resistance to change is commonly used
(a) Facilitation and support
(b) Explicit and implicit coercion
(c) Manipulation and cooptation
(d) Participation and involvement

28. According to Fieldler’s contingency model, leadership situations can be analyzed in terms of three elements. What are they?
(a) The quantity of the membership, the organizational structure and position of authority
(b) The quantity of leader-member relationships, task structure and position power
(c) The style of leadership, the educational level of the membership and the organizational structure
(d) The power of the leadership, the member relationships and the organizational structure

29. Which of the following characteristic distinguishes authority?
(a) It is vested in people not positions
(b) Subordinates accept it
(c) It flows across the horizontal hierarchy
(d) It emerges from the organizational values

30. Which of these refers to the set of characteristics that underlie a relatively stable pattern of behavior in response to ideas, objects or people in the environment
(a) Dissonance perception
(b) Personality
(c) Halo effect
(d) Attitude

31. The tendency to place the primary responsibility for one’s success or failure either within oneself or on outside forces is referred to as
(a) Authoritarianism
(b) Emotional stability
(c) Locus of control
(d) Extroversion

32. The tendency to see one’s own personal traits in other people is called
(a) Perceptual defense
(b) Projection
(c) Stereotyping
(d) The halo effect

33. Which of the following theories deals with employee’s perception of fairness?
(a) Expectancy
(b) Reinforcement
(c) Need hierarchy
(d) Equity

34. A financial budget that estimates cash flows on a daily basis or weekly basis to ensure that the company can meet its obligations is called a
(a) Capital expenditure budget
(b) Balance sheet budget
(c) Cash budget
(d) Revenue budget

35. ______ is a process whereby companies find how others do something better than they do and then try to imitate or improve on it.
(a) TQM
(b) Continuous improvement
(c) Benchmarking
(d) Empowerment

36. Standing plans are
(a) Plans that are developed to achieve a set of goals that are unlikely to be repeated in the future
(b) Plans that are used to provide guidance for tasks performed repeatedly within the organization
(c) Plans that define company responses to specific situations, such as emergencies or setbacks
(d) Most important in the organization

37. Which of the following is not a perceptual distortion
(a) Stereotype
(b) Halo effect
(c) Projection
(d) Extinction

38. Nonverbal communication behaviors includes
(a) Twitching, Scratching, rolling your eyes
(b) Secret notes passed between fellow works
(c) Intrapersonal dialog
(d) Sending an email response to an irate customer

39. Democratic leadership is also known as—
(a) Autocratic
(b) Participative
(c) Bureaucratic
(d) Laissezfaire

40. A significant part of a manager’s job is an orgnisation is to use the tools and techniques developed through OB research to increase organizational
(a) Structure
(b) Morale
(c) Complexity
(d) Effectiveness