Name : Benoy Johnson Kurien.

Subject : Management Process and

Organizational Behaviour.

Date of Submission : 14th August 2007.

Assignment no. : MB0022.

Management Process and Organizational Behavior- MB0022

1. Explain the managerial roles and managerial skills.

Managerial Roles :

According to mintzberg (1973), managerial roles are as follows :

1. Informational roles2. Decisional roles3. Interpersonal roles

1. INFORMATIONAL ROLES : This involves the role of assimilating and disseminating information as and when required. Following are the main sub-roles, which managers often perform:a. Monitor- Collecting information from organizations, both from

inside and outside of the organization.b. Disseminator- Communicating information to organizational

members.c. Spokesperson- Representing the organization to outsiders.

2. DECISIONAL ROLES : It involves decision making. Again, this role can be sub-divided in to the following:a. Entrepreneur- Initiating new ideas to improve organizational

performance.b. Disturbance handlers- Taking corrective actions to cope with

adverse situations.

c. Resource allocators- Allocating human, physical, and monetary resources.

d. Negotiator- Negotiating with trade unions, or any other stakeholders.

3. INTERPRESONAL ROLES : This role involves activities with people working in the organization. This is supportive role for informational and decisional roles. Interpersonal roles can be categorized under three sub-headings:

a. Figurehead- Ceremonial and symbolic role.b. Leadership- Leading organizations in terms of recruiting,

motivating etc.c. Liaison- Liasoning with external bodies and public relations

activities.

Management Skills

Katz (1974) has identifies three essential management skills: technical, human, and conceptual.

TECHNICAL SKILLS: The ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise. All jobs require some specialized expertise, and many people develop their technical skills on the job. Vocational and on-the-job training programs can be used to develop this type of skill

HUMAN SKILLS : This is the ability to work with, understand and motivate other people (both individually and group). This requires sensitivity towards other issues and concerns. People, who are proficient in technical skills, but not with interpersonal skills, may face difficulties to manage their subordinates. To acquire the

Human Skills, it is pertinent to recognize the feelings and sentiments of others, ability to motivate others even in adverse situation, and communicate own feelings to others in a positive inspiring way.

CONCEPTUAL SKILLS: 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 options.

2. Describe the contemporary work cohort.

Robbins (2003) has proposed contemporary work cohort, in which the unique value of different cohort is that the U.S. workforce has been segmented by the era they entered the workforce. Individuals’ values differ, but tend to reflect the societal values of the period in which they grew up. The cohorts and the respected values have been listed below:

1. Veterans- Workers who entered the workforce in the early 1940s through the early 1960s. They exhibited the following value orientations:

They were influences by the Great Depression and the World War ll

1. Believed in hard work2. Tended to be loyal to their employer3. Terminal values: Comfortable life and family security

2. Boomers- Employees who entered the workforce in the 1960s through the mid 1980s belonged to this category. Their value orientations were:

1. Influenced heavily by John F. Kennedy, the civil rights and feminist movements, the Beatles, the Vietnam War, and baby-boom competition.

2. Distrusted authority, but gave a high emphasis on the achievements and material success.

3. Organizations who employed them were vehicles for their careers.4. Terminal values: sense of accomplishment and the social

recognition.

3. Xers- began to enter the workforce from the mid- 1980s. they cherished the following values:

1. Shaped by globalization, two-career parent, MTV, AIDS, and computers.

2. Value flexibility, life options, and achievement of job satisfaction.3. Family and relationships were important and enjoyed team-

oriented work.’4. Money was important, but would trade off for increased leisure

time.5. Less willing to make personal sacrifices for employers than

previous generations Terminal values: true friendship happiness, and pleasures.

4. Nexters- most recent entrants into the workforce.

1. Grew up in prosperous times, have high expectations, believe in themselves, and confident in their ability to succeed.

2. Never-ending search for ideal job; see nothing wrong in job-hopping.

3. Seek financial success.

4. Enjoy team work, but are highly self-reliant..5. Terminal values: freedom and comfortable life.

3. Elaborate the issues related to culture and emotion.

There are two views of culture and emotion:

Universality – Emotions are part of human nature and in all cultures universality the same set of basic emotions. Based on his cross-cultural research, Ekman(1999) has found six emotions which are universally recognized and applicable. They are:

1. Anger.2. Fear.3. Sadness.4. Happiness.5. Disgust.6. Surprise.

Cultural specificity- Human beings are like a tabula rasa (clean tablet) on which society writes its script. In other words, culture and traditional, normative patterns and value-orientations are possible 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.

Alexithymia – emotional disorder

Some people have difficulty in expressing their emotions and understanding the emotions of others. Psychologists call this alexithymia. People who suffer from alexithymia rarely cry and are often seen by others as bland or cold. Their own feelings make them uncomfortable, and they are not able not discriminate among their different emotions. People, suffering from alexithymia, may be effective performers in jobs where little or no emotional labor. Alexithymic symptoms may be seen in people who experience:

1. Post-traumatic stress disorder.2. Certain brain injuries.3. Eating disorders (i.e., bulimia, anorexia, or binge eating

disorder)4. Substance use dependence.5. Depression.6. Other mental health conditions.

Relationship of gender with emotion.

A number of research findings supports the view that women are more emotional than men (e.g., Broverman, Vogel, Clarkson, & Rosenkrantz, 1972; Widiger & Settle, 1987). Women are assumed to experience more frequent and intense emotions, whereas men are assumed to be emotionally inexpressive and to have argued that the stereotype of men as unemotional is more accurate for adult targets than for child targets because males tend to control their emotions as they get older (Fabes and Martin, 1991). Likewise, women and men experience happiness in a similar way, but women have been taught that they can strongly express the emotion of happiness, whereas men have been taught to control it. The impact of

socialization practices accumulate over the time, and, thus, these stereotypes are likely to apply more strongly to adult populations (Geer and Shields, 1996).

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

Douglas McGregor argued that a manager’s view of human beings is based on a certain grouping of assumptions and he or she tends to mould his or her behavior 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 the 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 duties. It is 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 the 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.

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

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 person’s behavior by virtue of possessing knowledge, experience, or judgment that the other person lacks, but needs. A subordinate obeys a supervisor possessing expert power because the boss ordinarily knows more about what is to be done or how it is to be done than does the subordinate. Expert power is relative, not absolute. However the table may turn if the subordinate has superior skills and knowledge than his/her boss. In this age of technology driven environments, the second proposition holds true in many occasions where the boss is heavily dependent on the juniors for technologically oriented support.

Rational persuasion is the ability to control another’s behavior, since, through the individual’s efforts, the person accepts the desirability is an offered goal and a viable way of achieving it. Rational persuasion involves both explaining the desirability of expected outcomes and showing how specific actions will achieve these outcomes.

Referent power is the ability to control another’s behavior because the person wants to identify with the power source. In this case, the subordinate obeys the boss because he or she wants to behave, perceive, or believe as the boss does. This obedience may occur, for example, because the subordinate likes the boss personally and therefore tries to do things the way the boss wants it to be done. In a sense, the subordinate attempts to avoid doing anything that would interfere with the pleasing boss-subordinate relationship. Followership is not based on what the subordinate will get for specific actions or specific levels of performance, but on what the individual represents- a path toward lucrative future prospects.

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

6. Write a short note on 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 the organization can also act as potential source of stress. Together or singly they may create a tense and volatile working environment which can cause stress for organizational members because the inability of individuals to handle the pressure arising out of these sources.

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

1. Environmental factors: Environmental uncertainty influences stress levels among

employees in an organization. Changes in the business cycle create economic uncertainties. Political uncertainties can be stress inducing. Technological uncertainties can cause stress cause new

innovations can make an employee’s skill and experience obsolete in a very short period of time.

2. Organizational factors:

Pressures to avoid errors or complete tasks in a very limited time period, work overload, a demanding and insensitive boss, and unpleasant coworkers are a few examples.

Tasks demand are factors related to a person’s job. They include the design of the individual’s job (autonomy, task variety, degree of automation), work conditions, and the physical work layout.

Role demands relate to pressures that are a function of the role an individual plays in an organization.a. Role conflicts create expectations that may be hard to reconcile or satisfy.b. Role overload is experienced when the employee is expected to do more than time permits.c. Role ambiguity is created when role expectations are not clearly understood.d. Interpersonal demands are pressures created by other employees.

e. 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 source of stress.

Organizational leadership represents the managerial style of the organization’s senior executives. CEOs, by virtue of their managerial styles create an organizational culture which reflects tension, fear, and anxiety. They overemphasize tight control, hire and fire policies which keep organizational members on hot seat and create stress among them.f. Individual factors:g. these are factors in the employees personal life. Primarily, these factors are family issues, personal economic problems, and inherent personality characteristics.h. Broken families, wrecked marriages and other family issues may create stress at workplace as well.i. Economic problems created by individuals overextending their financial resources. Spending more than earnings stretches financial positions, create debt situations among individuals.j. 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. These individuals with high level of mistrust for other also cause stress for themselves.k. stressors are additive—stress builds up.

Individual Differences-

1. Five individual difference variables moderate the relationship between potential stressors and experiences stress: a. Perception. b. Job experience. c. Locus of control. d. Self-efficacy. e. Hostility.

a. Perception: Moderates the relationship between a potential stress condition and an employee’s reaction to it. Stress potential doesn’t lie in objective conditions; it lies in an employee’s interpretation of those conditions.

b. Job experience: The evidence indicates that experience on the job tends to be negatively related to work stress. First is the idea of selective withdrawal. Voluntary turnover is more portable among people who experience more stress.Second, people eventually develop coping mechanisms to deal with stress.Collegial relationships with coworkers or supervisors can buffer the impact of stress.

c. Locus of control: Those with an internal locus of control believe they control their own destiny. Internals perceive their jobs to the less stressful than do externals.Internals are likely to believe that they can have a significant effect on the results.

Those with an external locus believe their lives are controlled by outside forces.Externals are more likely to be passive and feel helpless.

d. Self-efficacy: The confidence is one’s own abilities appear to decrease stress.

e. Hostility: People who are quick to anger, maintain a persistently hostile outlook, and project a cynical mistrust of others are more likely to experience stress in situations.