MS-010: Organisational Design, Development And Change last 3 yrs paper
June, 2021
SECTION A
- Describe the meaning and purpose of Job Design. Discuss any two approaches of job design and their merits and demerits.
- Discuss different perspectives of organisational analysis and their relevance. Give example
- Discuss and describe T-Group training and its benefits. Cite suitable example
- Distinguish Organisation vs. Institution. Explain the process of institution building and the factors which help in institution building
- Write short notes on any three of the following
(a) Competencies of change agents
(b) Interview as a diagnostic tool
(c) Assessment centres
(d) Survey feedback
(e) Consulting competency
- Read the following case carefully and answer the questions given at the end:
If lean and mean could be personified, Percy Barnevik would walk through the door. A thin, bearded Swede, Barnevik is Europe’s leading hatchet man. He is also creator of what is fast becoming the most successful cross-border merger since Royal Dutch Petroleum linked up with Britain’s Shell in 1907.
In four years, Barnevik, 51, has welded ASEA, a Swedish engineering group, to Brown Boveri, a Swiss competitor, bolted on seven more companies in Europe and the U.S.A. and created ABB, a global electrical equipment giant that is bigger than Westinghouse and head to head with GE. It is a world leader in high-speed trains, robotics and environmental control.
To make this monster dance, Barnevik cut more than one in five jobs, closed dozens of factories and decimated headquarters staff around Europe and the U.S.A. Whole businesses were shifted from one country to another. He created a corps of just 25 global managers to lead 21,000 employees. IBM has talked with Barnevik and his team about how to pare down its own overstaffed bureaucracy. Du Pont recently put Barnevik on its board. Says a senior executive at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, ‘‘They’re as aggressive as we are. I mean this as a compliment. They are sort of super Japanese.’
ABBB is not Japanese, nor is it Swiss or Swedish. It is a multinational without a national identity, though its mailing address is in Zurich. The company’s top 13 managers hold frequent meetings in different countries. Since they share no common first language, they speak only English, a foreign tongue to all but one. Like their boss, senior ABB managers are short on sentiment and long on commitment. An oil portrait of a 19th century founder of Brown Boveri hangs in ABB’s headquarters, but few are sure what his name is. (It’s Charles Brown). Ask for a fax number, though and you’re likely to get two, office and home.
To Barnevik, today’s competitive market economy is a ‘cruel world’. Not making it any kinder, he has launched a personal war on what he sees as excess capacity — 2 percent to 3 percent in the electrical equipment industry in Europe alone. Educated in Sweden and the U.S.A. (he studied Business Administration and Computer Science at Stanford in the mid-1960s), Barnevik thinks European industry must be restructured massively to become competitive in world markets. He foresees billions of dollars and mergers and acquisitions in the next three to five years. Europe’s best strategy against the Americans and Japanese, he believes, is to break free of protected national markets.
Before the merger, Brown Boveri had four people in Baden, Switzerland, and ASEA had as many as 2 in Vasteras, Sweden. The combined company now employs just 15 in a modest six-storey building across a train station in west Zurich. Where did everybody go? Many were fired. The rest were sent to subsidiaries or offered jobs in new companies set up or assume many headquarters functions. (ABB Marketing Services, for example, creates and runs campaigns for ABB, but also takes on a few other clients). And Barnevik expects to make money. It’s not just cost cutting Barnevik is after, though that is obviously important. Says he, ‘‘Ideally you should have a minimum of staff to disturb the operating people and prevent them from doing their more important jobs.’’
Barnevik’s master matrix gives all employees a country manager and a business sector manager. The country managers run traditional, national companies with local boards of directors, including eminent outsiders. ABB has about two such managers, most of them citizens of the country in which they work. Of more exalted rank, are 65 global managers who are organised into eight segments: transportation, process automation and engineering, environmental devices, financial services, electrical equipment (mainly motors and robots) and three electric power businesses: generation, transmission and distribution.
Barnevik is well aware that the once popular management by matrix is in disfavour in the U.S. business schools and has been abandoned by most multinational companies. But he says he uses a loose, decentralised version of it. The two bosses are not always equal — that is particularly suited to an organisation composed of many nationalities
The matrix system makes it easier for managers like Gerhard Schulmeyer, a German who heads ABB’s U.S. businesses as well as the automation segment, to make use of technology from other countries. Because of the matrix structure, Schulmeyer has a better idea of what is available where.
He says that the techniques developed by ABB in Switzerland that he uses to service U.S. steam turbines are more reliable and efficient than those of General Electric and Westinghouse, his main American competitors. Schulmeyer also relied on European technology to convert a Midland, Michigan, nuclear reactor into a natural gas-fired plant.
ABB executives say the value of the company’s matrix system extends beyond the swapping of technology and products. For example, the power transformer business segment consists of 31 factories in 16 countries. Barnevik wants each of these business to be run locally with intense global coordination. So every month the business segment headquarters in Mannheim, Germany, tells all the factories how all the others are doing according to dozens of measurements. If one factory is lagging, solutions to common problems can be discussed and worked out across borders.
Questions:
- Which of the four basic departmentalisation formats do you detect in ABB’s structure of eight segments? Explain
- Has Barnevik created an effective balance between centralisation and decentralisation? How can you tell
- Relative to the advantages and disadvantages, is ABB’s matrix structure appropriate to its situation
- How does ABB apparently avoid unity-of-command problems with its matrix structure?
SECTION B
December, 2020
SECTION A
- Explain the meaning and purpose of Job Design. Briefly discuss the Contemporary Approaches to Job Design and their advantages and disadvantages
- Describe different stages of Organisational Development and discuss the factors contributing to the success of Organisational Development. Give examples.
- “Organisation that do not change or keep pace with the changing environment suffer from entropy and soon become defunct.” Substantiate and briefly describe the competencies of change agents
- Describe the techniques of Improving Quality of Work Life and the factors which help in judging the quality of work life. Give examples.
- Write short notes on any three of the following
(a) Restructuring Strategies
(b) Time and Motion Study
(c) Questionnaire as a diagnostic tool
(d) Process Consultancy
(e) Kurt Lewin’s model
- Read the following case carefully and answer the questions given at the end:
The Roopchand Departmental Stores, New Delhi, has a separate section to sell winter garments. This section consists of two groups: permanent clerks and temporary clerks appointed during winter season. Unfortunately, this section has always witnessed a tug-of-war situation between permanent and temporary clerks. The story begins thus
The permanent clerks, by virtue of their long and fruitful association in the Departmental Stores, had developed intimate social relations among themselves. Usually, they take their lunch and tea together. They worked, like a well-knit group, in close proximity and not surprisingly, developed close relations even after the work is over. The slack period starting from April to September every year had given them wonderful opportunity to sit together, discuss about matters of common interest, peep into each other’s minds and, if possible, solve their problems to mutual advantage. Presently all of them are unmarried with the exception of two
The temporary clerks were school girls who are normally appointed before the commencement of winter. Often, they have complained about their work in the Winter Garments Section and two of the clerks even desired transfer to some other section after a short stay. The reasons are quite obvious: The permanent clerks bothered little about helping the newcomers. If the newcomer is not able to strike a deal with a customer, often, the permanent clerks joined hands in making uncharitable criticism before the Section-in-charge. Being small in number, the temporary clerks could not resist the frequent onslaughts, which are at times irritating and insinuating. The temporary clerks had very little scope to blow off their “steam”
In this heated atmosphere, the determination of commission on sales remained a contentious issue. The permanent clerks had, through an informal understanding, agreed not to boost up sales. They feared, inherently, that fluctuations in sales would lead to fluctuation in employment. At the same time, they could not tolerate the sight of a temporary salesperson pocketing a fair-share of commission. They always felt that the temporary ones do not deserve any commission, because they have not contributed anything on a continual basis for the development of the Department. Suffering from an inflated ego, they also believed that they had the right temperament and skill to boost up sales. Thus, in every way, the temporary sales clerks are inferior to them. Recently an unhappy situation has developed when one of the temporary clerks is able to make a substantial sale to one of her acquaintances. Now, the permanent clerks began to make a hue and cry regarding the commission payment. The poor sales clerk came to the Assistant Sales Manager with tears after having been scolded bitterly by the permanent clerks for having sold a few sweaters in their absence.
The temporary clerks were always anxious to show good performance so as to earn a position in the department. To prevent this, the permanent clerks used to furnish false information about garments’ quality, negotiable price etc. Whenever the temporary clerk sought the help of a senior in selling the garments to the customer, the latter would take over and claim the commission on sale herself. The temporary clerks were often assigned to insignificant tasks like arranging displays, rearranging garments, bringing garments from stores, etc., and were prevented from striking it rich with customers. At every stage the temporary ones are taken for a ride by the permanent clerks
Questions:
- Explain the behaviour of permanent clerks in the Winter Garments Section from group point of view
- What action strategies would you evolve to improve the situation?
SECTION B
June, 2020
SECTION A
- Explain the meaning and purpose of Job Design. Briefly discuss the Contemporary Approaches to Job Design and their advantages and disadvantages
- Describe different stages of Organisational Development and discuss the factors contributing to the success of Organisational Development. Give examples.
- “Organisation that do not change or keep pace with the changing environment suffer from entropy and soon become defunct.” Substantiate and briefly describe the competencies of change agents
- Describe the techniques of Improving Quality of Work Life and the factors which help in judging the quality of work life. Give examples.
- Write short notes on any three of the following
(a) Restructuring Strategies
(b) Time and Motion Study
(c) Questionnaire as a diagnostic tool
(d) Process Consultancy
(e) Kurt Lewin’s model
- Read the following case carefully and answer the questions given at the end:
Margadarsi Savings Association is one of the oldest financial institutions in its region. It is located in a trade area of approximately 25 lakhs population and has total deposits approaching Rs. 50 crores. The association’s management has always attempted to develop and maintain a progressive institution.
An outstanding feature of the association is that it seldom loses an employee to another financial institution. Checks made periodically with other institutions always indicate that its salary scale is one of the highest in the area. The association also has what the management considers to be a good program of fringe benefits, including hospitalization and life insurance, a retirement plan, paid vacations, sick leaYe, and lunchroom concessions: The entire cost of these benefits is borne by the association.
The association runs its operations on a decentralized basis. The top management has always maintained that decetnralization is the best method of developing qualified managers and, in view of the organization’s rapid growth during the last few years, the best way of solving the important problem of executive development.
The book-keeping function has likewise been decentralized; each branch keeps its own books, and the auditor of the association periodically inspects them.
One day the auditor and the controller of the association decided that the current book-keeping system needed to be revised. They had been giving attention to this area because the examiners had trouble finding records. It had been suggested that the method of book-keeping between the home office and the four branches could be improved.
With the above facts in mind, the two men held a conference with the officers of the association in an attempt to point out to them the action that needed to be taken.
After hearing the arguments posed by the auditor and the controller, the officers still felt the action was unnecessary. They said that the project would be too time-consuming and costly.
Two weeks later, however, the executive vice president of the association talked to the controller and admitted to him that the idea of revising the system was sound and that he and the rest of the officers were authorizing him to take control and to initiate the project.
The controller started on the task of centralizing the book-keeping operations. For the first week he didn’t know where to begin. He discovered that operational controls had been allowed to run down so long that now his problem appeared to be almost insurmountable.
When the executive vice president asked the controller about his progress, he was given a negative answer. The vice president was disturbed with this reaction and was determined to settle the problem once and for all. He called an executive meeting that included the controller and the auditor. At the meeting, the possibility of centralizing some of the operations of the branches in order to afford better administrative control, was discussed. Someone suggested the possibility of buying some National Cash Register posting machines to help solve some of the operating difficulties.
After a lengthy discussion it was decided that these machines were the key to the elimination of many of the association’s reporting problems. The controller admitted that they would make it easier to control operations, and the assistant vice president felt that their acquisition would add greatly to the customer service capacities of the association.
Three new machines were installed the following month. After closing hours each teller was instructed in the proper techniques of operating them. The management felt that they had made a sound investment, and their only worry was over the ability of the tellers to learn how to operator the new equipment. Most of the tellers were older women and seemed to be slow and reticent to learn the new process.
One month after the practice machines had been placed in the association, theie shortcomings became so acute that immediate action had to be taken: The management realized that the morale of the teller staff was depressed and that the smoothness of operations at the home office had been completely distupted. The personnel manager suggested that some type of formal training program should be developed and that the management should explain to the members of the workforce their personal roles in the anticipated progres of the association.
The personnel manager has not found a method of eliminating the discontent, nqr has he been able to give an adequate reason for it to the rest of the officers. Finally one officer stated in a committee meeting that he felt the workforce had been “over human-relationed”. He suggested that in many instances negative leadership was far superior to positive leadership. He stated in forceful language that he would inform those tellers who were complaining and failing to learn the process either to learn it quickly or be fired. Another officer felt that since some of them were employees who had been with the association for many years and whose work had always been satisfactory, some alternative must be found.
Questions:
- Identify core issues requiring change
- Why did the introduction of the new machines create problems?
- What triggered the resistance to change?
- How might this change have been better managed?
SECTION B
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