Amity MBA Solve Assignment For Management Functions & Behavior Assignment 3

Management Functions & Behaviour (EDL 101) - Semester I

Section A

QUESTION 1

What are the various determinants of organizational culture? How does leadership influence the culture of an organisation?

SECTION B

CASE STUDY

Ms. Subhashini had graduated with a degree in foreign languages. As the child of a military family, she had visited many parts of the world and had traveled extensively in Europe. Despite these broadening experiences, she had never given much thought to a career until her recent divorce from Mr. Srinivas.

Needing to provide her own income, Ms. Subhashini began to look for work. After a fairly intense but unsuccessful search for a job related to her foreign language degree, she began to evaluate her other skills. She had become a proficient typist in college and decided to look into secretarial work. Although she still wanted a career utilizing her foreign language skills, she felt that the immediate financial pressures would be eased in a temporary secretarial position.

Within a short period of time, she was hired as a clerk/typist in a typing pool at Life Insurance Company. Six months later, she became the top typist in the pool and was assigned as secretary to Mrs. Arora, manager of marketing research. She was pleased to get out of the pool and to get a job that had more variety in the tasks to perform. Besides, she also got a nice raise in pay.

Everything seemed to proceed will for the next nine months. Mrs. Arora was pleased with Subhashini’s work, and she seemed happy with her work. Subhashini applied for a few other more professional jobs in other areas during this time. However, each time her application was rejected for lack of related education and/or experience in the area.

Over the next few months, Arora noticed changes in Subhashini. She did not always dress as neatly as she had in the past, she was occasionally late for work, some of her lunches extended to two hours, and most of her productive work was done in the morning hours. Arora did not wish to say anything because Subhashini had been doing an excellent job and her job tasks still were being accomplished on time. However, Subhashini’s job behavior continued to worsen. She began to be absent frequently on Mondays or Fridays. The two-hour lunch periods became standard, and her work performance began to deteriorate. In addition, Arora began to suspect that Subhashini was drinking heavily, due to her appearance some mornings and behavior after her two-hour lunches.

Arora decided that she must confront Subhashini with the problem. However, she wanted to find a way to help her without losing a valuable employee. Before she could set up a meeting, Subhashini burst through her door after lunch one day and said :

“I want to talk to you Mrs. Arora.”

“That’s fine,” Arora replied, “ Shall we set a convenient time?”

“No ! I want to talk now.”

“OK, why don’t you sit down and let’s talk?”

Arora noticed that Subhashini was slurring her words slightly and she was not too steady.

“Mrs. Arora, I need some vacation time.”

“I’m sure we can work that out. You’ve been with the company for over a year and have two weeks’ vacation coming.”

“No, you don’t understand. I want to start it tomorrow.”

“But, Subhashini, we need to plan to get a temporary replacement. We can’t just let your job go for two weeks.”

“Why not? Anyway anyone with an IQ above 50 can do my job. Besides, I need the time off.”

“Subhashini, are you sure you are all right?”

“Yes, I just need some time away from the job.”

Arora decided to let Subhashini have the vacation, which would allow her some time to decide what to do about the situation.

Arora thought about the situation the next couple of days. It was possible that Subhashini was an alcoholic. Hoever, she also seemed to have a negative reaction to her job. Maybe Subhashini was bored with her job. She did not have the experience or job skills to move to a different type of job at present. Arora decided to meet with the Personnel Manager and get some help developing her options to deal with Subhashini’s problem.

QUESTION 1

What is the problem in your opinion? Elaborate.

QUESTION 2

Assume that you are the Personnel Manager. What are the alternatives available with Mrs. Arora?

QUESTION 3

What do you consider the best alternative? Why?

Section C

QUESTION 1

"Whenever Gary Williams handles a situation that results in an erroneous or ineffective decision being made, he usually blames the other organizational members for supplying him with inaccurate information. This form of behavior is best identified as application of a(n) _______."

1. internal attribution
2. attribution theory of behavior
3. behavior management process
4. external attribution

QUESTION 2

Which of the following is considered an attribution error?

1. The halo effect
2. Personal constructs
3. The actor-observer effect
4. All of the above

QUESTION 3

"In a survey of 1,300 middle managers, ________ % ranked knowledge and effort as being the most important contributing factors to their achievement of success."

1. 25
2. 81
3. 37
4. 67.5

QUESTION 4

Which of the following is/are suggested to help combat biases and more effectively manage behavior?

1. Encourage subordinates to consider internal explanations for their own behaviors
2. Be aware that everyone has the tendency to take credit for success and avoid blame for failure
3. Try to do a full search for information
4. All of the above

QUESTION 5

"When perception patterns occur repeatedly, there is a tendency to form a/an _______ about something or someone."

1. bias
2. preconceived notion
3. attitude
4. stereotypical view

QUESTION 6

"Stephanie Stucky works as a human relations specialist and is considered a top performer in the firm. According to Stephanie, her performance motivation is derived from the fact that the pay matches her expectations, she has a significant amount of autonomy in the performance of her duties, and the workload is challenging, without being overwhelming. Stephanie's consistent performance level can be said to demonstrate which of the following?"

1. Job rotation
2. Job enlargement
3. Job satisfaction
4. Self-actualization

QUESTION 7

Ben Barringer has been receiving substantial pressure from the members of his work team to remain with the Omega Computer Inc. despite enticing offers from other companies. Ben has decided to remain with Omega mostly in part due to the encouragement of his fellow workers. It can be stated that Ben has experienced:

1. continuance commitment.
2. normative commitment.
3. affective commitment.
4. coercive commitment.

QUESTION 8

All of the following are methods managers can utilize to promote employee job satisfaction except which one?

1. Conduct an attitude survey
2. Recognize and reward good performance
3. Learn the specific facets of the job that may bring about worker dissatisfaction
4. Assume high performers are well satisfied in their job

QUESTION 9

An employee's emotional attachment to and identification with the firm is ___________.

1. continuance commitment
2. normative commitment
3. organizational citizenship behavior
4. affective commitment

QUESTION 10

"Jack Jackson of Quality Carpets has been seriously considering a career change. However after much contemplation, Jack has concluded the stress and emotional aspects of leaving the firm surpass any gains he would acquire at a new organization. Jack is experiencing:"

1. external influence commitment.
2. continuance commitment.
3. normative commitment.
4. ineffective commitment.

QUESTION 11

Organizational citizenship behaviors can best be defined as:

1. an employee's unwillingness to offer suggestions to the organization.
2. an employee's strict adherence to organizational objectives.
3. an employee's willingness to go above the normal call of duty.
4. all of the above.

QUESTION 12

"Jane is always the first person to lend a hand to her coworkers and never fails to brag about the organization to outsiders. By engaging in such behavior, she is exemplifying:"

1. the actor-observer affect.
2. stereotypical behavior.
3. affective commitment.
4. organizational citizenship behavior.

QUESTION 13

"Alexis Alexander has an MBA degree from Yale. However, it seems that even though she has worked for the same firm for 6 years with an exemplary record, she cannot climb any higher on the corporate ladder. It can be said that Alexis is most probably experiencing:"

1. glass ceiling.
2. stereotyping.
3. continuance commitment.
4. perception fallacies.

QUESTION 14

What is a key piece of information that we gather about an employee's behavior when using behavior to assign cause?

1. The consistency of the behavior over time
2. The significance of the behavior in relation to everyone else
3. The impact the behavior will have on the work place
4. The cost anticipated to modify the employee's behavior over time

QUESTION 15

Which group currently represents the largest minority group?

1. Hispanics
2. Native Americans
3. African-Americans
4. Physically challenged