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1.“Today managers need to perform various functions.

” Elaborate the statement

Functionally, management can be defined as the action of measuring a quantity on a


regular basis and of adjusting some initial plan.

Management functions are listed as follows:


1.Planning
2.Organizing
3.Commanding
4.Coordinating
5.Controlling

Lately, management functions have been regrouped into 4 categories. Since the
managerial tasks have become highly challenging a fluid nature of making distinctions
redundant to a certain context.
1.Planning
2.Organizing
3.Leading
4.Controlling

1.Planning:
It is the process of defining goals, establishing strategies to achieve these goals, and
developing plans to integrate and coordinate activities. Effective planning enables an
organization to adapt the change by identifying opportunities and avoiding problems. It
provides direction to other management functions and for effective team work. All levels
of management engage in planning in their own way to achieve their goals.
Planning in order to be useful must be linked with strategic intent of an organization.

Strategic Planning:

Top level managers often engage in strategic planning or long term planning. It is a
process of developing and analyzing the organization’s mission, overall goals, general
strategies and allocation of resources.
The tasks in strategic planning include the following steps:
a.Define mission:
Planning begins with clearly defining the mission of the organization. A mission
statement should be short and should be easily understood by every employee. It
guides employees to work independently yet collectively toward the realization of
organization’s potential

b.Conduct SWOT analysis:


A situation or SWOT [Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats] analysis is
vital for the creation of any strategic plan. It begins with the scan of external
environment. Organizations need to need to examine their business situation in order
to map out the opportunities and the threats present in their environments. It provides
assumptions and the facts on which a plan will be based.
In general terms the best strategy is one that fits the organizations strengths to
opportunities. The SWOT analysis is used as a base line for future improvement, as
well as gap analysis.

Set goals and objectives:


Strategic goals and objectives are developed to fulfill the gap between current capability
and the mission. They are aligned with the mission and form basis for the action plans.
Objectives are also called performance goals.

Develop related strategies (Tactical and operational):


Tactical plans are based on organization’s strategic plan. In turn, operational plans are
based on the organization’s tactical plans. These are specific plans that are needed for
each task or supporting activity comprising the whole. All plans must be accompanied by
controls to ensure proper implementation.

Monitor the plan:


A systematic method of monitoring the environment must be adopted to continuously
improve the strategic planning process. Feedback is encouraged and incorporated to
determine if goals and objectives are feasible.

2.Organizing:
It involves designing, structuring and coordinating the work components to achieve
organizational goals. It is the process of determining what tasks are to be done, who will
do them, how the tasks are to be grouped, who reports to whom, and where decisions are
to be made. The purpose of this function is to make the best use of the organization’s
resources to achieve organizational goals.
The steps in organization process include:
a.Review plans
b.List all tasks to accomplished
c.Divide the tasks into groups one person can accomplish
d.Group related jobs together in a logical and efficient manner.
e.Assign work to individuals.
f.Delegate authority to establish relationships between jobs and groups of jobs.

3.Leading:
An organization has the greatest chance of being successful when all of the employees
work toward achieving its goals. Since leadership involves the exercise of influence by
one person over others, the quality of leadership exhibited bys supervisors is critical
demand of organizational success.
Leading involves the following functions:
a.Team Building:
Rigid department boundaries and fixed teams are giving way to ad hoc squads whose
membership changes with every project. Competitive arenas require quick decisions
by knowledgeable employees who work close to the source of problems. Teams
enable knowledge-based and innovative decision making. This collaboration is a
revolution in work place.
b.Consensus Building:
Top performance demands the joint effort of many people working together toward a
common goal. Together, employees can do more than the collective efforts of each
individual working alone.
c.Selecting:
Selecting competent, high-performing employees capable of sustaining their
performance over the long run is a competitive advantage. The section process
consists of forecasting employment needs, recruiting candidates, interviewing
applicants and hiring employees.
d.Training:
After selecting employees, they enter an organizational program to be formally
introduced to their jobs. Orientation sets the tone for new employees’ work by
describing job-related expectations and reporting relationships.
Employees are informed about the benefits, policies and procedures. Specific duties
and responsibilities and performance evaluation are clarified. During orientation, the
supervisor has the opportunity to resolve any unrealistic expectations held by
employee. All new employees [current employee in new jobs] must be trained. Cross
training prepares employees for a job normally handled by someone else. Training
starts with Organizational analysis. Task analysis identifies the current and future
tasks to be done. Personal needs analysis involves asking managers and employees
to analyze their training needs.

4.Controlling:
It involves monitoring employee’s behavior and organizational processes and takes
necessary actions to improve them.
There are 4 steps in control process:
i.Establish performance standards. Standards are created and objectives are set during
planning process.
ii.Measure actual performance. Supervisors collect data to measure actual
performance. Oral reports will allow for fast and extensive feedback.
Computers give supervisors direct access to real time, unaltered data, and
information.
iii.Compare measured performance against established standards. Establish the
acceptable variation. Deviations that exceed this range would alert the
supervisor to a problem.
iv.Take corrective action. If the performance is from deflect in activity, then the
supervisor can take immediate corrective action and get performance back on
track.
Controls are effective when they are applied at key places. Supervisors can
implement control measures before the process begins [Feed forward], during the
process [Concurrent], or after it ceases [Feedback].
2. “Skills are the tools for performance”. Explain Different management skills.

Management Skills

According to Katz (1974), management skills are as follows:

1.Technical Skills

2.Human Skills

3.Conceptual Skills

1.Technical Skills:

The ability is 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.

2.Human Skills:

This is the ability to work with, understand and motivate other people (both individually
and a group). This requires sensitivity towards other issues and concerns. People who
are proficient in technical skills, but not interpersonal skills may find it difficult to
manage their subordinates. To acquire the human skill, 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 and inspiring way.

3.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
option.

________________________________________________________________
3. What is negotiation? Explain the process of negotiation.

Negotiation:

Negotiation is the process in which two or more parties exchange goods or services and
attempt to agree upon the exchange rate for them. There are two general approaches to
negotiation
- Distributive bargaining:
One’s tactics focus on trying to get one’s opponent to agree to one’s specific target
point or to get as close to it as possible.

a. Hard distributive bargaining / negotiation:


This takes place when each party holds out to get its own way. This leads to win-
lose outcome.

b. Soft distributive bargaining / negotiation:


This takes place when one party is willing to make concessions to the other to
get things over with.

- Integrative bargaining:
This strategy is adopted to create win-win solution. Following conditions are
necessary for this type of negotiation:
a.Parties who are open with information and are candid about their concerns.
b.Sensitivity by both parties to the other’s needs.
c.The ability to trust one another.
d.Willingness by both parties to maintain flexibility.

The Negotiation Process:

Preparation and Planning:

1At this stage, homework needs to be done in regard to the nature, history, concerned
parties of the conflict. Based upon the information, a strategy is developed. Both
the parties Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA) needs to be
determine. BATNA determines the lowest value acceptable to you for a
negotiated agreement for both the parties.

Definitions of Ground rules:

2At this stage, the venue, the negotiators, time will be decided.

Clarification & Justification:

3When initial positions have been exchanged, the original demands of both the
parties need to be explained and justified. Proper documentation is required at this
stage to support each of the parties’ position.

Bargaining & Problem Solving:

4The essence of the negotiation process is the actual give and take in trying to hash
out an agreement; concessions will undoubtedly need to be made by both parties.

Closure and Implementation:

5This is the final step, where the agreement is formalized and procedures to
implement the agreement will be developed.

Issues in Negotiation:

a.Overall assessments of the personality – negotiation relationship finds that


personality trait have no significant direct effect on either the bargaining process
or negotiation outcomes.
b.Men and women do not negotiate differently. The belief that women are “nicer” is
probably due to confusing gender and the lack of power typically held by women.
c.Negotiating styles clearly vary across national cultures.

4. Explain Classical Conditioning Theory.

Classical Conditioning is the type of learning made famous by Pavlov's experiments with
dogs.

Classical conditioning was accidentally discovered around the beginning of the 20 th


century by Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov [1927]. Pavlov was studying digestive
process in dogs when he discovered that the dogs salivated before they received their
food. In fact, after repeated pairing of the lab attendant and the food, the dogs started to
salivate at the sight of the lab assistants. Pavlov coined this phenomenon “psychic
secretions". He noted that dogs were not only responding to a biological need (hunger),
but also a need developed by learning. Pavlov spent the rest of life researching why this
associate learning occurred, which is now called classical conditioning.
To experiment on classical conditioning, Pavlov utilized a tuning fork and meat powder.
He hit the tuning fork and followed the sound with the meat powder. Pavlov presented
the sound (tuning fork) with the meat powder at the exact same time increments. In the
beginning, the dog salivated only to the meat powder, but after this was repeated,
salivated at the sound of the tuning fork. Even when Pavlov took away the meat powder,
the dog continued to salivate at the sound of the tuning fork.
PRINCIPLES OF CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
In classical conditioning, an organism learns to associate one stimulus with another. The
organism learns that the first stimulus is a cue for the second stimulus. In Pavlov’s
experiment above, the tuning fork (Bell) cued the dogs that food might be coming.
Following is an example of classical conditioning.

KEY CONCEPTS OF CLASSICAL CONDITIONING


1. Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS)
A stimulus that elicits a response without conditioning

2. Unconditioned Response (UCR)


Automatic response elicited by the unconditioned stimulus

3. Conditioned Stimulus (CS)


A neutral stimulus that when paired with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) elicits
a similar response
4. Conditioned Response (CR)
A response that is learned by pairing the originally neutral conditioned stimulus (CS)
with the unconditioned stimulus (UCS)

5. Acquisition:
The acquisition phase is the consistent parings of the CS (bell) and the UCS (food)
that produces a CR (salivation). In the example above, this phase occurs when the dog
begins to salivate at the sound of the bell. Conditioning occurs more rapidly when the
food follows the bell by a half a second.

6. Extinction
The extinction phase is when the conditioned response no longer occurs after repeated
pairings without the unconditioned stimulus. The dog’s response to the bell can be
extinguished by repeatedly presenting the bell (CS) without the food (UCS). The dog
has not completely forgotten the association between the bell and the food. If the
experimenter waits a day, the dog may have a spontaneous recovery of the
conditioned response and salivate again to the bell.

7. Generalization
Occurs when there is a small difference in the presented stimulus and the original
conditioned stimulus. If Pavlov’s dog heard a bell of a similar tone, the dog would
still salivate.

8. Discrimination
The opposite of generalization, discrimination happens when a conditioned response does
not occur when there is a difference between the presented stimulus and the original
conditioned stimulus. If Pavlov’s dog heard a bell with a different tone and was not
awarded the unconditioned stimulus (food), the dog would learn not to salivate to the
second tone.
Classical conditioning is used by trainers for two purposes: To condition (train)
autonomic responses, such as the drooling, producing adrenaline, or reducing adrenaline
(calming) without using the stimuli that would naturally create such a response; and, to
create an association between a stimulus that normally would not have any effect on the
animal and a stimulus that would.
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5. How are culture and society responsible to build a value system?


Values represent basic convictions that ‘a specific mode of conduct or end state of
existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct
or end-state of existence. When the values are ranked in terms of their intensity, it is
called value system. Types of values include social values and aesthetic values. Values
have both content and intensity attributes.

- The content attribute specifies that a mode of conduct or end-state of existence is


important.
- The intensity attribute specifies how important it is.
- Ranking an individual’s values in terms of their intensity equals that person’s
value system.
Values shape relationships, behaviors and choices. The more positive our values more
positive are our actions.

Culture, Society and Values:

According to Hofstede’s Research, the following points can be noted:

Power distance-
This dimension measures the social equality in families, institutions and organizations.
Inequality of power in organizations is generally manifested in hierarchical superior-
subordinate relationships.

Uncertainty avoidance-
This is representation of a society tolerance for uncertain situations. It measures to what
extent a society manages those situations by providing specific and conventional rules,
regulations and norms; by rejecting aberrant ideas or behavior; by accepting the
possibility of absolute truths and the accomplishments of expertise.

Individualism Vs Collectivism-
Individualism gauges to what extent individuals in a country consider themselves as
distinct entities rather than members of cohesive groups. Collectivism, on the other hand,
emphasizes on social ties or bonds between individuals. Individualistic society considers
self interest as more important that the group goal.

Masculinity Vs Femininity-
This dimension refers to what extent dominant values in a society emphasizes masculine
social values like a work ethic expressed in terms of money, achievement and recognition
as opposed to feminine social role will show more concern for people and quality of life.

Long term orientation-


It measures employee’s devotion to work ethic and their respect for tradition. The Asian
countries are strong in work ethic and respect for tradition.

He also states that each person carries several layers of cultural programming. It starts
when a child learns basic values, what is right and wrong, good and bad, logical and
illogical, beautiful and ugly. Culture is about your fundamental assumptions of what is to
be a person and how you should interact with other persons. The first level of culture is
deepest and difficult to change. Other layers in the culture are learned or programmed in
the course of education through professional or craft training and in organization life.

According to GLOBE, there are 9 cultural dimensions.


1 Uncertainty avoidance: the extent to which a society or an organization tries to
avoid uncertainty by depending heavily on prevalent norms, rituals and
bureaucratic practices.
2 Power Distance: it is the degree to which power unequally shared in a society and
organization.
3 Collectivism –I [Social collectivism]: it is the degree to which society and an
organization encourage and recognizes collective performance.
4 Collectivism-II [In-group Collectivism]: it is the degree to which individuals take
pride, loyalty and cohesiveness in their organizations and families.
5 Gender egalitarianism: this is an extent to which a society or an organization
minimizes gender differences.
11Assertiveness: it is the degree to which individuals, both in organizational and
social context are, assertive and confrontational.
12Future orientation: it is the degree to which individuals are encouraged in long
term future oriented behavior.
13Performance orientation: this encourages and rewards persons on performance
improvement.
14Human orientation: it is the degree to which organizations or society encourages
or reward for being fair, altruistic, friendly and caring.

Work behaviors across cultures:

In every culture, there are different sets if attitudes and values which affect behavior.
Mangers portray trust and respect in their employees in different ways in different
cultures. This is a function of their cultural background. For example managers from
specific cultures tend to focus only on the behavior that takes place at work, in contrast to
managers from diffused cultures who focus on wider range of behavior including
employee’s private and professional lives. Most managers from diffused cultures
believed that company should provide such facility where are managers from specific
cultures agreed on the same.

Task and relationship:


In response to the statement which states that, the main reason of hierarchal structure was
to communicate the authority relationship, most of US managers disagreed where most
Asian and Latin American managers are agreed. It was clear that US managers have
extremely task oriented culture, believe more in flatter organizational structure to become
more effective. The second set of managers was from relationship oriented cultures
where the concept of authority is more important.
Managers as experts or problem solvers:
Manager from various cultures were asked whether it was important for them to have at
hand, precise answers to most questions their subordinates might raise about their work.
French managers believed that they should give raise to precise answers to the questions
in order to maintain their credibility and retain their subordinate’s sense of security. On
contrary, US mangers believed that a managers’ role should be to act as a mentor who
would facilitate employees to solve the problem. They also believe that providing direct
answers to a problem actually discourages subordinates initiatives and creativity and
ultimately hampers performance.

________________________________________________________________

6. Write short notes on


a. Locus of Control
b. Machiavellianism

Locus of Control:

A person’s perception of the source of his/ her fate is termed as Locus of Control. Locus
of control was formulated within the frame work of Rotter’s {1954} Social Learning
Theory of Personality. Rotter {1975} pointed out that the internality and externality are
the two ends of a continuum, not an either/or topology.

External Locus of Control Internal Locus of Control


Individual believes that his/her behaviour is Individual believes that his/her
guided by fate, luck, or other external behaviour is guided by his/her personal
circumstances decisions and efforts.

Internals tend to attribute outcomes of events to their own control.


Externals attribute outcome of events to external circumstances.

For example, college students with a strong internal locus of control may believe that
their grades were achieved through their own abilities and efforts. Whereas, those with
strong external locus of control may believe that their grades are the result of good / bad
luck, or to a professor who designs bad tests or grades capriciously; hence they are less
likely to expect that their own efforts will result in success and are therefore less likely to
work hard for higher grades.

Individuals who rate high in externality are less satisfied with their jobs, have higher
absenteeism rates, are more alienated from work wetting and are less involved on their
jobs than are internals. Internals believe that health is substantially under their own
control, and hence, of absenteeism, are lower.

Internals generally perform better on their jobs, but one needs to consider differences in
jobs. Internals search more actively for information before making a decision, are more
motivated to achieve, and make a greater attempt to control their environment, and hence,
internals do well on sophisticated tasks, internals are more suited to jobs that require
initiative and independence of action and want autonomy and independence in their jobs.
Externals are more compliant and are willing to follow directions and be led, and do well
on the jobs that are well structured and routine and in which success depends heavily on
complying with the direction of others.

Machiavellianism:

Machiavellianism is the term that some social and personality psychologists use to
describe a person’s tendency to deceive and manipulate others for personal gain. The
concept is named after Renaissance diplomat and writer Niccolo Machiavelli, who wrote
II Principe [The prince]. Christie and Geis [1970] developed a test for measuring a
person’s level of Machiavellianism. This eventually became the MACH IV test, a 20
statement personality survey that is now standard self assessment tool for
Machiavellianism.

Mach IV, the Machiavelli (Mach) scale measures an individual's willingness to put
self-interest and his or her preferences above the interests of the group, and an
individual's ability to influence and manipulate others for personal gain (Jaffe et al,
1989). Individuals with a high score on the scale are comfortable using various
means to achieve their personal goals. A high Mach has a cynical view of human
nature, few scruples, and is willing to step outside the bounds of formal authority
(Rayburn and Rayburn, 1996). Grams and Rogers (1990) found that people who
were high in Machiavellianism used indirect, non-rational tactics like deceit, but also
appealed to emotions to try to plant their ideas to influence their colleagues.
High Mach scorers manipulate more, win more, are persuaded and persuade others
more. High mach outcomes are moderated by situational factors and flourish when
they interact face to face with others rather than indirectly, and when the situation
has minimum number of rules and regulations, thus allowing room for
improvisation. High machs makes good employees in jobs that require bargaining
skills or that offer substantial rewards for winning.
Literature review
Several hundred studies have examined Machiavellianism, including several that
have researched the degree of Machiavellianism among current and future business
executives (Hegarty and Sims, 1978; Chonko, 1982; Singhapakdi and Vitell, 1990).
However, no previous studies have attempted to examine the extent of
Machiavellianism among Egyptian students.
Robinson and Shaver (1973) reviewed various studies on Machiavellianism. The
authors found different degrees of Machiavellianism between generations, which
indicate that people are becoming more manipulative and impersonal. Also
reviewed, field studies at medical schools reveal that psychiatrists are most
Machiavellian and surgeons are least Machiavellian. The explanation offered is that
psychiatrists' role involves manipulation per se vs. the surgeon who has as little
personal contact with patient as possible.
Miesing and Preble (1985) compared the different business ideologies, including
Machiavellianism, and tested them with 487 MBA students. This survey revealed
that postgraduates and those with work experience were less Machiavellian in
approach, compared to undergraduates and those without work experience. In
addition, women compared to men, and those with some religious convictions were
found to be less Machiavellian in their dealings.
Gemmill and Heisler (1972) investigated the relationship between Machiavellian
orientation and several job-related correlates among 150 managers in a large
manufacturing firm in the US. The findings indicate that Machiavellian orientation is
positively associated with job strain and perceived opportunity for formal control,
and negatively associated with job satisfaction. Machiavellian orientation was not
significantly associated with upward mobility.
Siegel (1973) examined the extent to which managers, MBA students, and faculty
members exhibit the Machiavellian, manipulative interpersonal behavior and
leadership using the Mach scale and theory X/Theory Y leadership scale. The study
found the following ranking of Machiavellian orientation: managers (lowest),
students, faculty (highest). They found Machiavellianism relates negatively to
participative leadership attitudes for both students and managers.

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