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Roll No. : _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham

B.Tech. Degree Examinations – Nov/Dec. 2014

Seventh Semester

MNG400 Principles of Management (Common to all branches)

Time: Three hours Maximum: 100 Marks

Answer all questions

PART A (10 x 2 = 20 Marks)

1. What are the skills needed by the managers?

2. Why planning is important for the managers?

3. How objectives form a hierarchy?

4. What is the role of limiting factor in decision making process?

5. List the situational factors that affect staffing.

6. Briefly state any two assumptions of Theory X and Theory Y.

7. Do Women lead managerial role differently from Men. How?

8. Sketch the communication process model.

9. What is feed forward control? How is it different from feedback control?

10. List the opportunities and challenges created by information technology

Opportunities:

PART B (10 x 6 = 60 Marks)

11. Briefly explain the functions of management.

12. Diagrammatically represent a geographical departmentation. State its advantages and

limitations.

13. Explain the term organizing and the steps involved in organizing.

14. List the various approaches for developing organizational strategies. Explain the Business

Portfolio matrix as a tool for allocation of resources.

15. List out the various steps involved in selection process. What are the aspects to be considered

when interviewing is used in selection process?

16. Discuss the Equity Theory of motivation.

17. Discuss the Path –Goal approach to leadership effectiveness.

18. Discuss briefly the various critical point standards and bench marking techniques used in the

control process.

19. Why is experience referred often not only as an expensive basis for decision-making but also

as a dangerous one? How can a manager make the best use of experience?

20. What are the barriers to effective communication?

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PART C (2 Case Studies x 10 = 20 Marks)

Bajaj Auto – A CASE STUDY

By what they say and do, senior managers help shape their organisational culture and influence

the mindset and behaviour of employees. But sometimes, employee behaviour can become

institutionalised and serves as a hindrance to performance when it is not in step with the context

the organisation operates in.

Bajaj Auto was one of India’s leading companies till the 1970’s. In 1980, Bajaj Auto was the top

scooter manufacturer in India, and there was a 10 year waiting list for the Bajaj Chetak. Bajaj

Auto maintained its leadership position through operational efficiency and stringent control on

costs, at a time when the Indian market did not have much to choose from in terms of quality,

features or models. Used to market leadership, Rahul Bajaj, once famously remarked that he did

not need a marketing department. Innovation, design-orientation and service-orientation were

low, consistent with the almost monopolistic market position of Bajaj Auto.

However, the 1980’s brought liberalisation of the two-wheelers industry, with relaxation in

capacity-licensing and foreign collaboration. All major global two wheeler manufacturers

including Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha and Piaggio started entering the Indian market through

collaborations or joint ventured. In the 1990’s came economic liberalisation, and with it,

sweeping changes in demographic patterns and consumer preferences. The Indian consumer

started to tilt towards motor cycles. Scooter sales continued to drop, and industry analysts started

writing off Bajaj Auto as a leading player in the two- wheeler industry.

Around this time, Rajiv Bajaj entered the fray. Rahul’s son, came back to India freshly armed

with a Master’s degree in engineering from Warwick, UK. He quickly realised that the market

had changed, and that Bajaj Auto needed to rethink its strategy carefully in order to reposition

itself in the two-wheeler industry where consumer preferences were rapidly changing from

scooter to motor cycles. Motor cycles had been a peripheral business at Baja Auto till now, and

the resistance to re-orient from scooters to motor cycles was slowing down the change process.

Moreover quality and design orientations had to change. The customer was becoming more

quality conscious and much more demanding in terms of design, convenience and performance

parameters like power and fuel efficiency. Rahul Bajaj was used to operating his factories

efficiently by the old norms of cost-cutting and production efficiency innovation and R&D were

never the focus areas. Employees at Bajaj Auto, long used to unchallenged market leadership,

were set in their old ways.

To Rajiv, looking at the operations without the package of the past, it was time for drastic

changes. He decided to set up a new, leaner, and more efficient factory at Chakan ; 45 kilometres

from the headquarters. The objective was to create a break from the past systems and equipment

that were rigid, and incapable of the quality orientation. It was part of Rajiv’s dream to be able to

produce Japanese quality in India. Quite apart from the rigidities of the systems and the

equipment, Rajiv Bajaj realised that what they were trying to do would be difficult at the existing

plans because mindsets have to change. Rajiv wanted to start a new plant with a totally new work

force and work culture that could compete with the world’s best.

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Chakan was started as an experiment. There were no workers. Everyone was “staff”. Rajiv was

quick to take advantage of the easy and relativity inexpensive availability of diploma engineers

and R & D scientists in India. The old factory at Akurdi had 20% daily wage workers, 80 percent

skilled workers and no engineers at all on the shop floor. At Chakan, the workforce consisted of

80 percent diploma holders and 20 percent skilled workers.Wages averaged just Rs 12,000 per

month for engineers at Chakan against 11.500 for workers at Akurdi.

The hidden savings came from productivity gains. Since the productivity of engineers was

several times higher, costs decreased. The company was also able to increase focus on R&D,

producing many more designs, which allowed Bajaj to establish itself in the two wheeler industry,

and even take on market leader Honda. The advantage of using a fresh workforce was that they

did not carry any baggage form the past, which made them more open to learning and innovation.

Bajaj Pulsar, the hugely successful motor cycle from Bajaj, was indigenously developed at the

Chakan plant, and more than 1 million of them have been rolled out of the Chakan plant already.

Chakan has been producing 2400 two-wheelers a day, at a productivity level of 3 vehicles per

employee, as opposed to 0.8 vehicles at the Akrudi factory.

The lesson is clear. A highly successful organisation in one set of conditions can go into decline

when conditions change. The culture of an organisation is often the most difficult to change, but

can be a lasting source of organisational performance.

Q 1) “Once certain organizational members make decisions regarding corporate strategies, they

must develop structure that will best facilitate the attainment of those goals”. Elaborate on this

statement in the context of policies followed by Rajiv Bajaj at his new factory. (5 Marks)

Q 2) “An organization culture usually reflects the vision or mission of the organization’s

founders”. What did Rajiv Bajaj do to bring about a new organizational culture to the Chakan

plant that he is heading? (2 ½ Marks)

Q 3) What are the strategic steps taken by Rajiv Bajaj to face the environmental changes that took

place in Indian two wheeler market? (2 ½ Marks)

Leadership Development at General Electric – A CASE STUDY

For many corporations finding an adequate supply of the next generation of leaders is one of the

more difficult activities. Getting the right talent and molding those individuals into the type of

leader that the organization needs is often, at best, a major gamble. Will the individual “make the

cut”? Will he or she provide a return on the organization’s investment for all the time and expense

that goes into leadership development? And how will these questions need to be altered in the

global arena, especially in one of the fast-growing economies- China?

China presents a unique and troublesome situation for companies. Simply stated, the system

does not have enough talent to fill leadership positions-the professional, technical and managerial

jobs. An estimated 75,000 leadership positions will exist in the next decade, but

currently only about 5,000 individual are qualified to do the jobs. This shortfall is compounded by

the language barriers that may exist between China and the western world, as well as the cultural

aspects of life in China.

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But General Electric is somewhat undaunted by these challenges. Rather than gamble on hit-or-

miss possibilities, GE is going after talented people such as Sophia Zhu and she’s glad GE is

offering her such an opportunity.

Zhu graduated from the People’s University in Beijing, China, with a degree in economics and

international trade. As an aspiring corporate mogul, she had many job offers. Because of the

industrial growth in China, many corporations are actively recruiting good talent, especially those

individuals who are exceptionally bright and speak multiple languages. She opted to accept the

job offer from General Electric, which, interestingly, did not offer Sophia the highest salary

among her offers. What GE did offer however, was the opportunity for her to be trained in the GE

way and to open the doors of the career growth into a leadership position. Along the way, she has

access to senior GE leaders including GE’s Chairman, Jeffrey Immelt.

Upon her hiring, General Electric executives immediately got Zhu started in their leadership

development program. Assigned a mentor to help her learn the GE way, Zhu is serving in a

number of 18-month assignments on a rotational basis that are designed to give her the requisite

tools to succeed. She began her GE career working in GE’s financial management program in

Japan. After completing her assignment in Japan, she was transferred to Waukesha, Wisconsin,

for additional training while working with the “global planning and analysis team.” When she is

done with her Wisconsin rotation, she will more than likely return to China to lead a specific

department for GE.

What’s interesting in this GE model is that they are not only growing leaders internally, they are

creating a loyalty that is unsurpassed in China. Because of the demand for Chinese executives,

turnover is high at about 14 percent per year. Through its leadership development efforts, GE’s

turnover in the country is less than half of the nation’s average. GE executives believe that their

development of leaders’ talent within a nurturing environment and rewarding those leaders will

give them an advantage. For Zhu, an important advantage is the opportunity to lead a group of

employees in about half the time that it takes for others to ascend to such a position. Needless to

say, both GE and Sophia are extremely happy about the way things are working out.

Q 1) What are the constraints that businesses face in developing leaders while they operate from

China? (4 Marks)

Q 2) What are the steps that GE has taken to address the problem of shortage of leaders for the

success of their business in China? (3 Marks)

Q 3) How could you say that the GE model for leadership development is successful in China?

(3 Marks)

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