Management Process and Organization Behavior-MB0022

MBA -1 SEM Assignment – Set 2

________________________________________________________

Q1. Discus Henri Fayol’s administrative theory.( 14 principles of management)

Answer
According to Henri Fayol’s administrative theory the 14 principles of management are:
1. Division of work: Tasks should be divided up with employees specializing in a
limited set of tasks so that expertise is developed and productivity increased.
2. Authority and Responsibility: Authority is the right to give orders and entails
enforcing them with rewards and penalties; authority should be matched with
corresponding responsibility.
3. Discipline: This is essential for the smooth running of business and is dependant on
good leadership, clear and fair arguments, and the judicious application of penalties.
4. Unity of command: For any action whatsoever, an employee should receive orders
from one superior only; otherwise authority, discipline, order, and stability are
threatened.
5. Unity of direction: A group of activities concerned with a single objective should be
co-coordinated by a single plan under one head.
6. Subordination of individual interest to general interest: Individual or group goals
must not be allowed to override those of the business.
7. Remuneration of personnel: This may be achieved by various methods but it should
be fair, encourage effort, and not lead to overpayment.
8. Centralization: The extent to which orders issued only from the top of organization
is a problem which should take in to account its characteristics, such us size and the
capabilities of the personnel.
9. Scalar chain (line of authority): Communication should normally follow up and
down the line of authority running from the top to the bottom of the organization, but

1
 sideways communication between those of equivalent rank in different departments
can be desirable so long as superiors are kept informed.
10. Order: Both materials and personnel must always be in their proper place; people
must be suited to their posts of there must be careful organization of work and
selection of personnel.
11. Equity: Personnel must be treated with kindness and justice.
12. Stability of tenure of personnel: Rapid turnover of personnel should be avoided
because of the time required for the development of expertise.
13. Initiative: All employees should be encouraged to exercise initiative within limits
imposed by the requirements of authority and discipline.
14. Esprit de corps: Efforts must be made to promote harmony within the organization
and prevent dissension and divisiveness.

2
Q2. Explain shaping behavior and different methods of shaping behavior.

Answer
Shaping Behavior;
When a systematic attempt is made to change individuals’ behavior by directing their
learning in graduated steps, it is called shaping behavior. There are four methods are shaping
behavior. They are as follows:
1. Positive reinforcement: This is the process of getting something pleasant as a
consequence of a desired behavior, to strengthen the same behavior. Example, one
gets a commission, if he/she achieve sales target.
2. Negative reinforcement: This is the process of having reward taken away as a
consequence of a undesired behavior. Example, scholarship is withdrawn from the
student who has not done well on the examination.
3. Punishment: This is causing an unpleasant condition in an attempt to eliminate an
undesired behavior. This is process of getting a punishment as a consequence of a
behavior. Example, having your pay docked for lateness.
4. Extinction: Eliminating any reinforcement that is maintaining a behavior. So, if a
person puts in extra effort, but gets no recognition of it, he will stop doing it.
Both positive and negative reinforcement result in learning. They strength a response and
increase the probability of repetition. Both punishment and extinction weaken behavior and
tend to decrease its subsequent frequently.

3
Q3. Write a detailed note on MBTI and big five model.

Answer
1. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
The MBTI classifies human binges into four opposite pairs (dichotomies) based on their
psychological opposites. These four opposite pairs result into 16 possible combinations.
In MBTI individuals are classified as (McCrae and Costa 1989)
a. Extroverted or introverted (E or I)
b. Sensing or intuitive (S or N)
c. Thinking or feeling (T or F)
d. Perceiving or judging (P or J)
These classifications are then combined into sixteen personality types.
a) INTJs are visionaries; they usually have original minds and great drive for
their own ideas and purpose. They are characterized as skeptical, critical,
independent, determined, and often stubborn.
b) ESTJs are organizers; they are realistic, logical, analytical, decisive, and have
a natural bead for business or mechanics. They like to organize and run
activities.
c) The ENTP type is a conceptualizer; He or she is innovative, individualistic,
versatile, and attracted to entrepreneurial ideas. This person tends to be
resourceful in solving challenging problems but may neglect routine
assignments.
2. The big five model
Many researchers argue that five basic dimensions underlie all other personality
dimensions. The five basic dimensions are:

2.1 Extraversion: comfort level with relationship. Extraverts tends to be

gregarious assertive, and sociable. Introverts tend to be reserved, timid, and
quite.

4
2.2 Agreeableness: Individual’s propensity to defer to others. High agreeable
people -cooperative, warm, and trusting. Low agreeableness people-cold,
disagreeable, and antagonistic.
2.3 Conscientiousness; A measure of reliability. A high conscientious person is
responsible, organized, dependable, and persistent. Those who score low on
this dimension are easily distracted, disorganized, and unreliable.
2.4 Emotional stability: A person’s ability to withstand stress. People with
positive emotional stability tend to be calm, self-confident, and secure. Those
with high negative scores tend to be nervous, anxious, depressed, and
insecure.
2.5 Openness to experience: The range of interests and fascination with novelty.
Extremely open people are creative, curious, and artistically sensitive. Those
at the other end of the openness category are conventional and find comfort in
the familiar.

5
Q4. Explain the step wise procedure of rational decision making model.

Answer

The rational decision making model

This model proposes six steps, which are as follows:
Step1. Defining the problem
• A problem is a discrepancy between an existing and a desired state of
affairs.
• Many poor decisions can be traced to the decision maker over looking
and problem or defining the wrong problem.
Step2. Identify the decision criteria important to solving the problem
• The decision maker determines what is relevant in making the
decision. Any factors not identified in this step are considered irrelevant to the
decision maker.
• This brings in the decision maker’s interests, values, and similar
personal preferences.
Step3. Weight the previously identified criteria in order to give them the correct priority
in the decision.
Step4. Generate possible alternatives that could succeed in resolving the problem.
Step5. Rating each alternative on each criterion.
• Critically analyze and evaluate each alternative.
• The strength and weaknesses of each alternative become evident as
they are compared with the criteria and weights established in the second and
third steps.
Step6. The final step is to compute the optimal decision
• Evaluating alternative against the weighted criteria and selecting the
alternative with the highest total score.
The above mentioned model works with the following assumptions.
• Problem clarity: The decision maker is assumed to have
complete information regarding the decision situation.

6
• Known options: It is assumed the decision maker is aware of
all the possible consequences of each alternative.
• Clear performances: Criteria and alternatives can be ranked
and weighted to reflect their importance.
• Constant preference: Specific decision criteria are constant
and the weights assigned to them are stable over time.
• No time or cost constraints: The rational decision maker can
obtain full information about criteria and alternatives because it is assumed that
there are no time or cost constraint.
• Maximum payoff: The rational decision maker will chose the
alternative that yields the highest perceived value.

7
Q5. Elaborate group structure.
Answer
Work groups in order to function as a coordinated unit need to have a proper structure
where there must be certain elements like formal leadership role clarity among group
members. In the absence of these factors groups not only becomes conflict ridden but
also suffers from confusion and function on a sub optimal level. Each element is
explained briefly below:
1. Formal leadership;
Almost every work group must have a formal leader, which is typically identified by
a title. The leader can play an important part in the group’s success.
2. Roles:
All group members are actors where each is playing a role. While some of these roles
may be compatible others create conflicts. Different groups impose different role
requirements on individuals.
3. Role perception;
For playing one’s role, effectively in a group, one’s view of how one is supposed to
act in a given situation must be clear leading to clear role perception. By watching
and imitating senior members of a group the new comers learn how to take on their
roles effectively and also learn how to play them well.
4. Role expectations:
Tuning oneself and behaving in a socially desirable manner is a part of fulfilling role
expectation in a given situation in the context of achieving group goals and
organizational goals.
5. Role conflict:
When a group member is faced with the challenge of playing multiple roles, role
conflict may occur due to inability of the individual to balance all the roles
effectively, thereby reducing role effectiveness, hampering the group and
organizational goal attainment process.

8
Q6. Write down different steps of conflict management.
Answer
The process of conflict management has the following steps:
A. Stage I. Potential opposition or incompatibility
This stage concludes the conditions that create opportunities for conflict to arise.
The conditions are as follows:
1. Communication: communication becomes a source of conflict due to semantic
difficulties, misunderstandings, and ‘noise’ (distortion) in the communication
channels. Differing word connotation, jargon, insufficient exchange of
information, and noise in the communication channel are all barriers to
communication and potential antecedents to conflict.
2. Structure: The term structure includes variables such as size, degree of
specialization, jurisdiction clarity, number goal compatibility, leadership styles,
reward systems, and the degree of dependence. Size and specialization act as
forces to stimulate conflict. The larger the group and more specialized its
activities, the greater the likelihood of conflict. The potential for conflict is
greatest where group members are younger and turnover is high. The greater the
ambiguity in responsibility for actions lies, the greater the potential for conflict.
3. Personal variables: personal variables include individual value systems and
personality characteristics. Certain personality types lead to potential conflict.
Value differences are the best explanation for differences of opinion on various
matters.
B. Stage II. Cognition and personalization:
Antecedent conditions lead to conflict only when the parties are affected by and
aware of it. Conflict is personalized when it is felt and when individuals become
emotionally involved. Emotions play a major role in shaping perceptions.

9
 Negative emotions produce over simplification of the other party’s behavior.
Positive feelings increase the tendency to see potential relationships among the
elements of a problem, to take a broader view of the situation, and to develop
more innovative solutions.
C. Stage III.. Intentions:
The primary conflict-handling intentions are represented as follows:
• Cooperativeness; “the degree to which one party attempts to satisfy the
other party’s concerns.”
• Assertiveness- “the degree to which one party attempts to satisfy his or her
own concerns.
• Competing: when one person seeks to satisfy his or her own interests,
regardless of the impact on the other parties to the conflict.
• Collaborating; when the parties to conflict each desire to fully satisfy the
concerns of all parties. The intention is to solve the problem by clarifying
differences rather than by accommodating.
• Avoiding: a person may recognize that a conflict exists and want to
withdraw from it or suppress it.
• Accommodating: When one party seeks to appease an opponent, that party
is willing to be self-sacrificing.
• Compromising: when each party to the conflict seeks to give up something
sharing occurs, resulting in a compromised outcome. There is no clear
winner or loser, and the solution provides incomplete satisfaction pf both
parties concerns.
D. Stage IV. Behavior
The behavior stage includes the statements, actions, and reactions made by the
conflicting parties. These conflict behaviors are usually overt attempts to
implement each party’s intentions. It is a dynamic process of interaction with a
continuum. At the lower part of the continuum, conflicts are characterized by
subtle, indirect, and highly controlled forms of tension. Conflict intensities
escalate as they move upward along the continuum until they become highly

10
 destructive. Functional conflicts are typically confined to the lower range of the
continuum.

E. Stage V. Outcomes:
Outcomes may be functional-improving group performance, or dysfunctional in
hindering it. Conflict is constructive when it
a. Improve the quality of decisions.
b. Stimulates creativity and innovation
c. Encourages interest and curiosity
d. Provides the medium through which problems can be aired and
tensions released.
e. Fosters on environment of self evaluation and change.
Outcomes may be dysfunctional as well.
Uncontrolled opposition breeds discontent, which acts to dissolve common ties and
eventually leads to the destruction of the group. Undesirable consequence includes
retarding of communication, reductions in group cohesiveness, Subordination of group
goals to the primary of infighting between members. Conflict can bring group
functioning to halt and potentially threaten the group’s survival. The demise of an
organization as a result of too much conflict is not as unusual as it might first appear.

11
 Case study-MB0022
Maverick Learning is involved in imparting under grate level education through distance
learning. It is working for around two decades. It is a immensely popular educational group
whose students range from working professionals to people residing in the remote area of the
country.
Maverick Learning decides to introduce Technology enabled Learning with a union to create
virtual class room experience. Another reason is to needs its pace with completions and sustains
them in the information communication revolution.
It has been over a year that they are working on developing and implementing the plan. It
involves big amount of investments as well as more manpower with different skill sets. It is a
tough challenge but to adopt this technological change is mandatory for Maverick learning.
At different levels there are mixed reactionary towards the change. For old academicians, it is
difficult to catch up with the change and prepare the R-content. Even at higher level there are
financial constraints. Which puts the limitation for hiring more employees or outstanding the
work.
In the academic covnail meeting most of the academicians say that preparing e-content is
duplication of work technology enabled learning is useless because many students frame remote
area cannot access it. They say whatever requirements the learning consultants are putting before
them cannot be implemented.
Mr. Shantaram is leading the academics and he picks few people from the team to coordinate the
tasks related to academics. Within a month the response improves, raising the number of logins
by ten times.
Mr. Shantaram again calls a meeting of all academicians and shares the interesting results. This
time he also makes more teams and allocates responsibility amongst the old academicians. He
promises to hire two more people to provide technical assistance. He also introduces some credit
points to recognize the efforts people make towards the enriching the e-content.

1 What kind of reactions towards change is seen in this case?

12
2 What steps are taken by Mr. Shantaram to drive the change successfully?
3 What steps shall be taken to overcome resistance to change. Do you find any examples in this
case that illustrates taking steps to overcome resistance?

Q1. What kind of reactions towards change is seen in this case?

Answer
The kind of reactions by the employees towards the technological change in Maverick
Learning is not to support the change i.e. the academicians view the change as having a
negative impact on their personal situation. Because of difficulty to catch up with the
technological change, old academicians may feel threatened of less wages and losing their job
which lead to individual resistance.
Academicians at the higher level are expressing financial constraints and the impossibility of
implementation new requirements by the consultants which lead to organizational resistance.
Because they assume the change may bring some potential threat to the organizational power
to them.

Q2. What steps are taken by Mr. Shantaram to drive the change successfully?
Answer
The steps taken by Mr. Shantaram to drive the change successfully are as follows:
1) He picks few people from the team to coordinate the tasks related to
academics.
2) He calls a meeting of all academicians and shares the interesting results.
3) He makes more teams and allocates responsibility amongst the old
academicians.
4) He promises to higher two more people to provide technical assistance
5) He Introduces some credit points to recognize the efforts people making
towards the enriching the e-content.

Q3. What steps shall be taken to overcome resistance to change? Do you find any examples in
this case that illustrates taking steps to overcome resistance?
Answer

13
The steps that shall be taken to overcome resistance to change are as follows:
1. Employee participation and involvement:
People generally get more committed towards the change, if they are directly
involved in the change process. This way, they have the opportunity to clarify their
doubts and understand the perspective and requirement of change for the
organization.
2. Negotiation and agreement;
Organizations which have a fair chance to face potential resistance from union
representatives, teams or any other groups, can resolve the resistance by involving
them directly in the change process. They should be properly briefed about the need
and value of change.
The leader of Maverick Learning can negotiate and agree with teams leaders
regarding the change process.
3. Education and communication
Open communication and proper education help employees to understand the
significance of change and its requirement. Proper initiative should be taken to
provide the information regarding the type, timing, purpose and reason for change.
In the case Mr. Shantaram did not use these steps properly. He simply picked few
people from the team to coordinate the tasks related to academic and latter called a
meeting of all academicians and share the interesting results.
4. Facilitation and support
Change agent can offer a range of supportive measures to reduce resistance.
Empathetic and considerate listening can reduce employees’ fear and anxiety towards
change. Counseling sessions to reduce stress, can be an effective measures.
In the case this step is illustrated by ,allocating responsibility amongst the old
academicians, and promising to higher two more people to provide technical
assistance.
 Introducing some credit points to recognize the efforts people make towards
the enriching the e-content.

14