OB

Managerial roles as identified by Mintzberg

Interpersonal Roles
Figurehead: Obligated to perform a number of routine duties of social nature.
Leader: Responsible for the motivation and activation of subordinates;
responsible for staffing, training and associated duties.
Liaison: Maintains self-developed network of outside contacts that help
provide information.
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Informational Roles
Monitor: Seeks and receives a wide variety of special information (much of it
current) to develop thorough understanding of organization and
environment.
Disseminator: Transmits information received from outsiders or from
subordinates to members of organization.
Spokesperson: Transmits information to outsiders on organization's plans,
policies, actions results, deserves as an expert on organization's industry.
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Decision-making Roles
Entrepreneur: Searches organization and it environment for opportunities
and initiate improvement projects to bring about changes.
Disturbance Handler: Responsible for corrective action when organization
faces unexpected disturbances.
Resource Allocator: Responsible for the allocation of organizational
resources in effect, the making or approval of all significant organizational
decisions.
Negotiator: Responsible for representing the organization in major
negotiations, a technical expert.

Challenges and Opportunities for OB

1. Responding to Globalization
Increased foreign assignments
Working with people from different cultures
Coping with anticapitalism backlash
Overseeing movement of jobs to countries with low-cost
labor
Managing people during the war on terror
2. Managing Diversity
Workforce diversity -organizations are becoming a
more heterogeneous mix of people in terms of gender,
age, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation
Diversity Implications - Managers have to shift their
philosophy from treating everyone alike to recognizing
differences and responding to those differences in ways
that ensure employee retention and greater
productivity.
3. Improving quality and productivity
Almost all quality improvement comes via
simplification of design, manufacturing, layout,
processes, and procedures.----Tom Peters
Todays managers understand that success of any
effort at improving quality and productivity must
include their employees.
4. Improving people skills
Well present relevant concepts and theories that can
help you explain and predict the behavior of people at
work.
Learn a ways to motivate people
How to be a better communicator
How to create more effective teams
5. Empowering people

 Decision making is being pushed down to the

operating level, where workers are being given the
freedom to make choices about schedules and
procedures and to solve work-related problems.
6. Stimulating innovation and change
Todays successful organizations must foster
innovation and master the art of change
The challenge for managers is to stimulate their
employees creativity and tolerance for change.
7. Coping with temporariness
o Managing today would be more accurately
described as long periods of ongoing change,
interrupted occasionally by short periods of
stability.
8. Helping employees balance work/life conflicts
o A number of forces have contributed to
blurring the lines between employee work and
personal lives.
o First, the creation of global organizations
means their world never sleeps.
o Second, communication technology allows
employee to do their work at home, in their
car, or on the beach in Tahiti.
o Third, organizations are asking employees to
put in longer hours.
o Finally, fewer families have only a single
breadwinner.
9. Declining employee loyalty
o An important OB challenge will be for
managers to devise ways to motivate workers
who feel less committed to their employers,
while maintaining their organizations global
competitiveness.

10.

Improving ethical behavior

o Members of organizations are increasingly
finding themselves facing ethical dilemmas,
situations in which they are required to define
right and wrong conduct.