OB Flashcards
Managers gets things done THROUGH other people. They OVERSEE the activities of others and are RESPONSIBLE for organisational goals. How do they do this?
Planning - goals, strategy
Organising - what tasks and who does them, hierarchy
Leading - motivating, directing, resolving conflicts
Controlling - monitoring and correcting
What are Mintzberg’s managerial roles?
INTERPERSONAL - figurehead, leader, liaison
INFORMATIONAL - monitor, disseminator, spokesperson
DECISIONAL - entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, negotiator
What are Luthan’s study of managerial activities
Traditional management - decision making, planning, controlling
Communication - exchange of information
Human Resources - motivating, disciplining, managing conflicts, staffing and training
Networking - socialising, interacting with outsiders
What do average, successful and effective managers spend their time on?
AVERAGE - spread of traditional, communication, HR and networking
SUCCESSFUL - mainly focus on networking and some communication
EFFECTIVE - mainly focus on communication and some HR
What is OB?
Studies the interrelation between individual and organisation on following levels:
INDIVIDUAL (personal goals)
INTERPERSONAL (social competences)
GROUP (group dynamics)
ORGANISATION (organisational structure)
What is the benefits of being in an organisation
Significant source of: REWARDS PURPOSE STABILITY STATUS/ SELF CONFIDENCE POWER
What are the factors that affect worker satisfaction
INDIVIDUAL FACTORS - reward, training, personality
STRUCTURAL FACTORS - Task, responsibility, rules
GROUP FACTORS - co workers, conflicts
MANAGERIAL FACTORS
What do business ethics deal with
Deals with the principles that should be used to:
govern business conduct,
how people should act,
LAY OUT MORAL CODE FOR CONDUCT
What does CSR look at
Looks at the WIDER RESPONSIBILITIES that the business has and how they meet them.
STAKEHOLDERS need to be looked at to ensure survival of firm
What are the key areas of business ethics
NORMATIVE ETHICS - what you should do
DESCRIPTIVE ETHICS - describes what people do and explain why
MANAGING ETHICS - how organisations manage behaviour of staff
What are the potential impacts when firms come under scrutiny
BRAND IMAGE
CORPORATE REPUTATION
PREVENTION OF INCREASED LEGISLATION
TIES WITH STAKE HOLDERS
Can cost millions in
FINES and
GOODWILL
Explain the main points of teleological ethics
Actions are judged on their consequences
It is good if it increases the overall well-being of people
Actions must produce more good than bad
Cost benefit analysis can be useful
Good equates to profit maximisation for business
Explain the main points of deontological ethics
Not concerned with consequence but reason
Acts are ethical if based on duty and no reward
Creates universal rules
Justice and rights - people can act how they like as long as they don’t break the law
View is rigid difficult to come up with laws for all circumstances
Explain the main points of virtue ethics
Focus on individual characteristics and ability to make right choice
These can be shaped and developed
Focus on means not ends
Focus on personal characteristics not rules
Moral education of managers is critical
Overemphasise the importance of the individual
Explain the main points of individual learning and growth
Importance of learning and development as part of ethical development
Community more important than individuals
Community and business values guide decision making
What are the different forms of capitalism
Shareholder capitalism
Stakeholder capitalism
Ethical capitalism- ethics needs to be at heart of business
Ethical within capitalism - organisations main focus should be to do social good
Ethical against capitalism - the economic system is destructive and needs overturning
What are main points of shareholder capitalism
Friedman: Social responsibility is to increase PROFIT
Smith: Market has an invisible hand that promotes good for all
ECONOMIC GROWTH is good for all: rising tide raises all ships
PHILANTHROPY: giving something back to society
Companies are shareholders PROPERTY
Managers and businesses should not have responsibility for society’s problems.
What are the problems with shareholder capitalism
It assumes:
Self interest is good for all e.g. Nestle destroying the rainforest
Individual should be free to pursue their interests
Economic growth is good for all
Shareholder interests are only important ones
SPILLOVER COSTS - e.g. pollution costs, unemployment
What are the main points of stake holder capitalism?
Many individuals have a stake in any action the business takes
Worker has more reliance financially on the business than shareholder
Customer has more reliance than shareholder e.g. care home Southern Cross
Places community above individual interests
What is organisational culture
Describes the PRACTICES ATTITUDES BEHAVIOURS VALUES AND BELIEFS that are shared between organisation members
Why does culture matter?
Shapes our experience of the world
VALUES and BELIEFS
EXPECTATIONS and NORMS
(how we think, talk and behave)
Offers norms to solve problems
Right culture produces higher levels of: PRODUCTIVITY EFFICIENCY QUALITY MORAL
Strong culture have what qualities?
CLEAR SHARED VALUES (UNAMBIGUOUS)
HARMONY
FUNCITONAL AND PRODUCTIVE
Describe rational management
Based on FACTS and FIGURES
Manage through BUDGET, STRATEGY and TARGETS
Control imposed via RULES, PROCEDURES and ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEMS
Formal communication through newsletters
CONTROL, MONITORING and EVALUATION
Describe cultural management
Based on EMOTIONAL APPEAL through SHARED VALUES
Managed through SHARED VALUES and PURPOSE
Workers control themselves through SHARED BELIEFS and VALUES
Informal communication through symbols and stories
Reliance on informal opinion leaders, TRADITIONS, ACCEPTED PRACTICES and sense of MISSION.
What are the benefits of cultural management
Increased sense of belonging
Increased commitment
Shared values
Shared belief in the purpose of the organisation
What relationships to Deal and Kennedy consider in their cultural typology framework
Relationship between risk and feedback.
High Risk: Tough guy, bet the company
Low Risk: Work hard play hard, process culture
Rapid feedback: work hard play hard, tough guy
Slow feedback: Process culture, bet the company
Describe Handy’s cultural typologies
Power culture - power concentrated in centre
Role culture - bureaucratic hierarchy
Task culture - temporary project teams to complete task
Personal culture - power is shared, exist for members, no collective goal
Describe Scheins cultural iceberg
Culture is:
LEARNED BASIC ASSUMPTIONS
shared by organisational members. Leader can create and change culture.
Like an iceberg top things are easiest to change and have the smallest impact. The deeper you go the harder it is to change the ingrained culture.
ARTEFACTS - what one sees and hears
ESPOUSED BELIEFS - beliefs spoken by leader
BASIC UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS - very difficult to change as are unconscious.
Can managers control culture?
YES Managers are POWERFUL social actors SHAPE symbolic behaviour and practices of organisation Management set the AGENDA Managers have organisational POWER
NO Culture is too COMPLEX to be managed Cannot change peoples WORLD VIEW People are COMPLEX social actors Many competing factors and subgroups Deeply routed in the UNCONSCIOUS
Name the different approaches to personality
Nomothetic approach
Ideographic approach
Social-radical approach
Describe the nomothetic approach to personality
Personality is measurable
Traits arranged into framework
TYPE theories
TRAIT theories
Personality testing in organisations
Describe the various personality type theories
Hippocrates
Carl Jung - INTROVERT/EXTRAVERT
Myers Briggs Type Indicator - (sensing/intuition, thinking/feeling, judging/perceiving)
Keirsey’s temperament sorter (which occupation)
Describe the various personality trait theories
Eysenck (Emotional stability vs. Intro-/extra-vert)
Cattell - (16 core factors)
OCEAN scale
Openness to experience Conscientiousness Extra-/Intra- version Agreeableness Neuroticism (emotional stability)
Describe the ideographic approach to personality
Personalities are complex and dynamic
Personalities are constantly developing through interactions
Influences on self
Interviews - halo/horn, similarity, stereotypes
Informal measures
What are problems with the ideographic approach to personality
Freud developed from clinical settings
Time needed
Interpretations open to bias
What is the social radical approach
Personality is influenced and shaped by the organisation
Foucault’s critique - People identify with their labels
Radical critique - rationalised work stifles personality
Work focussed on promoting individual potential and creativity is better
Difference between formal and informal communication
FORMAL
From management downwards e.g. memos/newsletters
Represented by ORGANISATION CHART with hierarchy
Flexible MATRIX STURCTURE (horizontal and vertical communication)
INFORMAL
Bypasses official bureaucratic structures
Gossip
Social groups
Post bureaucratic institutions minimise structure and formal rules and emphasise DIALOGUE between people.
Channels of communication
VERBAL
WRITTEN
BODILY
SYMBOLIC
Mehrabian 55 (body) - 38 (tone) - 7 (written)
Focus of communication
One to one - personal letter
One to many - speech
Many to many - message from board to marketing
Many to one - email from project group
Main features of communication
Channels of communication - verbal, written etc.
Focus of communication - one to one, one to many etc.
Communication process - source, encode, message sent etc.
Medium is the message
SOCIAL PRESENCE THEORY (face-to-face high social presence)
MEDIA RICHNESS THEORY (Daft and Lengel, uncertainty, equivocality etc.)
Explain social presence theory
The degree of perceived immediacy is due to the type of communication.
Face to face - high social presence
Email - people use emoticons to convey social presence
Explain media richness theory
Richness of information depends on the media
Communication medium appropriate for different circumstances
Uncertainty
Equivocality - info is open to interpretation: email concerning complaints must be worded carefully
Daft and Lengel
FACE to FACE - RICH AND INEFFICIENT
NUMERICAL DOCUMENTS - LEAN AND EFFICIENT
What is the informated network?
Organisation and bureaucratical information create DATABASES, CODE, INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Banks have highly caricatured versions of individuals
Organisations imploding into computer code
Is the internet a rhizomatic free for all?
Rhizomatic - tangled mess of randomly developing connections
Examples such as illegal downloading
Control and organisation does exists
HARDWARE - Government policies, accessibility to devices
ACCESS - internet service providers, throttling
NAVIGATION - Search engines - can include/exclude, search engine optimisation
USE - sites, communities, forums
ORGANISATIONS CAN EXERT CONTROL OVER THE INTERNET
Recurrent attempts to control data and steer data flows have been made.
How are networks affecting organisations?
Technology is not a tool but becoming the medium through which organisations operate
Telecommuting
Boundaries blur between organisations
Nature of cyberspace creates rhizomatic organisations
What is perception and why it is important to OB?
Process by which people ORGANISE AND INTERPRET they SENSORY IMPRESSIONS to give meaning to their environment
Important because behaviour is on people’s perception of reality, not reality itself
Factors that influence perception
Factors in the perceiver: attitudes, motives, interests etc.
Factors in the situation: time, work/social setting etc.
Factors in the target: novelty, motion, sounds, background etc.
Explain attribution theory
When we observe behaviour we attempt to determine whether it was
INTERNALLY (personal control)
EXTERNALLY (outside causes)
caused.
What are the three determinants of attribution theory
Distinctiveness - Does the person act the same way in similar situations
Consensus - Do other people behave in the same way?
Consistency - How often does the person act in the same way?
What are the errors of attribution theory
Fundamental attribution error (overestimate internal)
Self serving bias (attribute success to internal)
What are the main shortcuts individuals use in making judgements about others
Selective perception (more behaviour stands out more it will be perceived)
Halo effect (general impression on single characteristic)
Contrast effects (reaction influenced by people we have encountered)
Stereotyping (judging on the perception of the group they belong to)
Name the main shortcuts organisations use for making judgements about others
Interviews - early impressions become entrenched
Performance expectations - self fulfilling prophecy, people attempt to validate their perceptions of reality
Performance evaluation - jobs are evaluated on subjective terms. Subjective measures are problematic because of selection perception, halo effects etc.
Why does teamwork matter?
Key REQUIREMENT for most jobs
Central to SUCCESS
Brings benefits:
CREATIVITY
SOCIAL SIDE- need to belong, social interaction, mutual emotional support
PROBLEM SOLVING - alternative perspectives, shared knowledge and skills
