Organizational Behaviour

 

 

1. JOSEPH’S COLLEGE OF COMMERCE (AUTONOMOUS)

End Semester Examinations – OCTOBER 2014

m.com – i semester

ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

Duration: 3 Hrs                                                                                           Max. Marks: 100

 

Section – A

1. Answer any SEVEN Each carries 5 marks.                    (7 x 5  = 35)

 

1. What composes the SMART Goals? Explain in detail.
2. Identify and comment on the factors which contribute to low creativity in work groups.
3. “A happy employee is generally that employee, who is satisfied in his job.” Explain.
4. Explain the meaning and types of Values.
5. Highlight the differences between Job Enlargement and Job Enrichment.
6. Explain Carl Rogers Self Theory.
7. Give the meaning of “Strong Culture” and “Weak Culture”.
8. “Classical Theory was found on four pillars”. Explain the classical pillars.
9. Explain Kurt Lewin’s model of change.
10. With the help of a diagram, explain the formation of a team.

 

Section – B

1. Answer any THREE   Each carries 15 marks               (3 x 15   = 45)

11) “Organizations that learn and cope with change will thrive and flourish and others who fail to do so will be wiped out”. Highlight the stages in the change process, causes of resistance and how to overcome it.

 

12) Discuss Theory X Y and Theory Z.  Which theory – if any – do you believe in? Explain the reasons for the same.

 

13)  Give the meaning and features of OB. Explain the four models of OB.

 

14)  Explain (a) Herzberg’s two-factor theory, (b) Equity theory of motivation.

 

15) Define “Power”, and “Politics”. Explain the techniques and functions of Organizational Politics.

 

 

 

 

Section – C

 

• Compulsory Case study.                                                                  (1 x 20 = 20)

 

16)                         Surviving Plant World’s Hard Times

In ten years, Plant World had grown from a one-person venture into the largest nursery and landscaping business in its area. Its founder, Myta Ong, combined a lifelong interest in plants with a botany degree to provide a unique customer service. Ong had managed the company’s growth so that even with twenty full-time employees working in six to eight crews, the organization culture was still as open, friendly, and personal as it had been when her only “employees” were friends who would volunteer to help her move a heavy tree.

To maintain that atmosphere, Ong involved herself increasingly with people and less with plants as the company grew. With hundreds of customers and scores of jobs at any one time, she could no longer say without hesitation whether she had a dozen arborvitae bushes in stock or when Mrs. Carnack’s estate would need a new load of bark mulch. But she knew when Rose had been up all night with her baby, when Gary was likely to be late because he had driven to see his sick father over the weekend, and how to deal with Ellen when she was depressed because of her boyfriend’s behavior. She kept track of the birthdays of every employee and even those of their children. She was up every morning by five-thirty arranging schedules so that John could get his son out of daycare at four o’clock and Martina could be back in town for her afternoon high school equivalency classes.

Paying all this attention to employees may have led Ong to make a single bad business decision that almost destroyed the company. She provided extensive landscaping to a new mall on credit, and when the mall never opened and its owners went bankrupt, Plant World found itself in deep trouble. The company had virtually no cash and had to pay off the bills for the mall plants, most of which were not even salvageable.

One Friday, Ong called a meeting with her employees and leveled with them: either they would not get paid for a month or Plant World would fold. The news hit the employees hard. Many counted on the Friday paycheck to buy groceries for the week. The local unemployment rate was low, however, and they knew they could find other jobs.

But as they looked around, they wondered whether they could ever find this kind of job. Sure, the pay was not the greatest, but the tears in the eyes of some workers were not over pay or personal hardship; they were for Ong, her dream, and her difficulties. They never thought of her as the boss or called her anything but “Myta.” And leaving the group would not be just a matter of saying good-bye to fellow employees. If Bernice left, the company softball team would lose its best pitcher, and the Sunday game was the height of everyone’s week. Where else would they find people who spent much of the weekend working on the best puns with which to assail one another on Monday morning? At how many offices would everyone show up twenty minutes before starting time just to catch up with friends on other crews? What other boss would really understand when you simply said, “I don’t have a doctor’s appointment, I just need the afternoon off”?

Ong gave her employees the weekend to think over their decision: whether to take their pay and look for another job or to dig into their savings and go on working. Knowing it would be hard for them to quit, she told them they did not have to face her on Monday; if they did not show up, she would send them their checks. But when she arrived at seven-forty Monday morning, she found the entire group already there, ready to work even harder to pull the company through. They were even trying to top one another with puns about being “mall-contents.” 

Case Questions:

1. How would you describe the organization culture at Plant World? Would you like to be a part of such an organization? Give reasons. (10 marks)
2. How large can such a company get before it needs to change its culture and structure? What are the structural changes that are required in an organization as it grows from a small to a big company?                                            (10 marks)

 

 

 

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m.com- i semester

organization behaviour

 

ANSWER KEY

 

1.SMART – specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely.

2. 2. Factors which contribute to low group creativity are:
3. The group has no common goal or core focus.
4. No standard method of making decisions is followed.
5. The process of generating ideas is not separated from the evaluation of ideas.
6. Ideas are not evaluated on their own merits. They are evaluated in terms of which group members suggested them.
7. Ideas do not become the property of the group once they are suggested.
8. Conclusions are an individual product instead of a group product.
9. The group does not perceive members’ time as a valuable and scarce resource.
10. Some members do not feel sufficiently at ease to participate and submit their ideas (they fear derision or reprisal).
11. Some members dominate or deflect the group from its stated purposes.
12. 3. Job Satisfaction – it is the extent of positive feelings or attitudes that individuals have towards their jobs.

According to Keith Davis and Newstorm– “job satisfaction is the set of favourable and unfavourable feelings with which employees view their work”.

Factors influencing job Satisfaction –

Organizational factors

Work environmental factors

Work itself

Personal factors

 

4. Values

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.

Types –

Terminal Values

Desirable end-states of existence; the goals that a person would like to achieve during his or her lifetime.

Instrumental Values

Preferable modes of behavior or means of achieving one’s terminal values.

5. Job Enlargement –

Involves a horizontal expansion of a job.

Its purpose is to reduce the monotony in performing the repetitive jobs.

May not call for the acquisition of higher level or new skills on the part of job holders.

Job holder may need more external direction and control.

Job Enrichment –

Involves vertical loading of functions and responsibilities.

Its purpose is to make the job more lively, challenging and satisfying.

Requires development and utilization of higher skills on the part of job holders.

The employee uses his own capabilities of self direction and control.

 

6. Carl Rogers Self Theory –

• The self-concept includes three components: Self worth, self image and ideal self
• Self worth(or self-esteem) – what we think about ourselves. Rogers believed feelings of self-worth developed in early childhood and were formed from the interaction of the child with the mother and father.

Self-image – How we see ourselves, which is important to good psychological health. Self-image includes the influence of our body image on inner personality. At a simple level, we might perceive ourselves as a good or bad person, beautiful or ugly. Self-image has an affect on how a person thinks feels and behaves in the world.

• Ideal self– This is the person who we would like to be. It consists of our goals and ambitions in life, and is dynamic – i.e. forever changing. The ideal self in childhood is not the ideal self in our teens or late twenties etc.

 

7. Strong cultures
   • Organizations that have clear values that are shared to the extent of similar behavior.

Weak cultures

• Organizations that have no stated values and do not enforce behavior.

 

8. Classical theory was founded on four pillars
   • Division of labour – based on an assumption that more a particular job can be fragmented into smaller, simpler components, more specialized and skilled a worker becomes.
   • Scalar and functional process – The scalar and functional process – rests on the assumption that there is a chain of command through out an organization.
   • Structure –
   • Span of control.

 

9. Kurt Lewins model – Unfreezing–àmoving-àrefreezing. (explanation)

 

10. Team formation –

 

 

 

• Forming – The team meets and learns about the opportunity and challenges, and then agrees on goals and begins to tackle the tasks.
• The forming stage of any team is important because in this stage

1. the members of the team get to know one another,
2. exchange some personal information, and make new friends.
3. This is also a good opportunity to see how each member of the team works as an individual and how they respond to pressure.

• Storming – The storming stage is necessary to the growth of the team. It can be contentious, unpleasant and even painful to members of the team who are averse to conflict. Tolerance of each team member and their differences needs to be emphasized. Without tolerance and patience the team will fail. This phase can become destructive to the team and will lower motivation if allowed to get out of control.

Norming – At some point, the team may enter the norming stage. Team members adjust their behaviour to each other as they develop work habits that make teamwork seem more natural and fluid.

• Performing: Some teams will reach the performing
• These high-performing teams are able to function as a unit as they find ways to get the job done smoothly and effectively without inappropriate conflict or the need for external supervision.
• Adjourning/Mourning – Mourning: Project teams usually exist only for a fixed period. The break up of the team can be particularly hard for members who like routine or have developed close working relationships with other team members, particularly if their future roles or even jobs look uncertain.

 

 

 

 

SECTION B

 

11. Stages in the change process.

 

 

CAUSES OF RESISTANCE

Individual resistance –

Economic factors

Habits

Insecurity

Lack of communication

Extent of change

Psychological factors

Social factors

Group Resistance

Organizational Resistance –

            Threat to power

Group Inertia

Organizational structure

Threat to specialization

Resource constraints

Sunk costs

 

OVERCOMING RESISTANCE TO CHANGE –

Participation and involvement

Effective communication

Facilitation and support

Leadership

Negotiation and Agreement

Manipulation and co-optation

Coercion

Timing of change.

 

12. McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y

Theory X says that most people don’t like to work and will avoid it if they can.  Theory X managers believe that they need to force and threaten people to work.

Theory Y says that people can direct and control themselves, working towards the goals set by a company.

Ouchi’s Theory Z says that workers, managers and can share control, work as a team to accomplish the company’s goal.

 

Theory X                       Theory Y                                  Theory Z

Employees dislike work and will try to avoid it. Employees prefer to be controlled and directed. Employees seek security, not responsibility.   Employees must be intimidated by managers to perform. Employees are motivated by financial rewards.

Employees view work as a natural part of life. Employees prefer limited control and direction. Employees will seek responsibility under proper work conditions. Employees perform better in work environments that are not intimidating. Employees are motivated by many  different needs.

Employees like work     Employees help make decisions   Employees take individual responsibility Employers and managers share control   Employees expect long term employment, slower rates of promotion

 

 

• OB – Acc. to John. W. Newstrom and Keith Davis – “the study and application of knowledge about how people as individuals and as groups – act within the organization. It strives to identify ways in which people can act more effectively”.
• Thus it can be defined as studying, predicting and managing human behaviour caused by individuals, groups and structures towards the requirements of organizational strategies.

 

FEATURES

• Deliberate and conscious creation.
• Attainment of common objectives.
• Aggregation of interrelated individuals.
• Division of work
• Coordination
• Well defined Authority Responsibility relationship.
• Group behaviour

MODELS

Autocratic model

1. Custodial model
2. Supportive model
3. Collegial model

• Autocratic model  – In an autocratic model’, the manager has the power to command his subordinates to do a specific job. Management believes that it knows what is best for an organization and therefore, employees are required to follow their orders. The psychological result of this model on employees is their increasing dependence on their boss. Its main weakness is its high human cost

            Custodial Model

• This model focuses better employee satisfaction and security. Under this model, organizations satisfy the security and welfare needs of employees. Hence, it is known as custodian model.
• This model leads to employee dependence on an organization rather than on boss. As a result of economic rewards and benefits, employees are happy and contented but they are not strongly motivated.

SUPPORTIVE MODEL

• The supportive model depends on ‘leadership’ instead of power or money. Through leadership, management provides a climate to help employees grow and accomplish in the interest of an organization. This model assumes that employees will take responsibility, develop a drive to contribute and improve them if management will give them a chance. Therefore, management’s direction is to ‘Support’ the employee’s job performance rather than to ‘support’ employee benefit payments, as in the custodial approach. Since management supports employees in their work, the psychological result is a feeling of participation and task involvement in an, organization.

COLLEGIAL MODEL

• The term ‘collegial’ relates to a body of persons having a common purpose. It is a team concept. Management is the coach that builds a better team. The management is seen as joint contributor rather than as a boss. The employee response to this situation is responsibility. The psychological result of the collegial approach for the employee is ‘self-discipline’. In this kind of environment employees normally feel some degree of fulfillment and worthwhile contribution towards their work. This results in enthusiasm in employees’ performance.

14. Herzbergs theory – Motivators; (e.g. challenging work, recognition, responsibility) which give positive satisfaction, and

Hygiene factors; (e.g. status, job security, salary and fringe benefits) that do not motivate if present, but, if absent, result in demotivation.

The name hygiene factors is used because, like hygiene, the presence will not improve health, but absence can cause health deterioration.

Hygiene/maintenance factors –

• Job context
• Extrinsic factors
• Company policy and administration
• Quality of supervision
• Relation with superiors
• Working conditions
• Salary
• Peer relation
• Status
• Job security

 

Motivating factors –

• Job content
• Intrinsic factors
• Achievement
• Recognition
• Work itself
• Responsibility
• Advancement
• Possibility of Growth

(B). EQUITY THEORY OF MOTIVATION –

• Equity theory in business, however, introduces the concept of social comparison, whereby employees evaluate their own input/output ratios based on their comparison with the input/outcome ratios of other employees (Carrell and Dittrich, 1978).
• Equity theory proposes that individuals who perceive themselves as either under-rewarded or over-rewarded will experience distress, and that this distress leads to efforts to restore equity within the relationship.
• It focuses on determining whether the distribution of resources is fair to both relational partners. Equity is measured by comparing the ratios of contributions and benefits of each person within the relationship. 
• Inputs in this context include
• the employee’s time,
• expertise,
• qualifications,
• experience,
• intangible personal qualities such as drive and ambition, and
• interpersonal skills.
• Outcomes include
  • monetary compensation,
  • perquisites (“perks”),
  • benefits, and
  • flexible work arrangements.

 

 

15. Power – “is the ability to influence people or things, usually obtained through the control of important resources”.

Politics –  refers to the way people gain and use power in organizations.

TECHNIQUES –

form the right alliance

expect reciprocal favours

try to be popular

be persuasive without being arrogant

control the decision criteria

use outside experts

 

FUNCTIONS

To overcome employees inadequacies

To cope with the change

To channel personnel contracts

Execution of decisions

To ensure full debate.

 

16. case study – individual perceptions to be valued according to the justifications given/stated by a student.