Theory Questions

Question 1

Name and explain the four principal managerial tasks.

Answer 1

1. Planning: identifying and selecting appropriate goals
2. Organizing: Structuring working relationships in a way that allows organizational members to work together to achieve organizational goals
3. Leading: articulating a clear vision and energizing and enabling organizational members so they understand the part they play in achieving organizational goals
4. Controlling: evaluating how well an organization is achieving its goals and taking action to maintain or improve performance

Question 2

Whats the trait model?

Answer 2

Trait model: early approach of leadership that focused on identifying the personal characteristics that cause effective leadership.

Question 3

What is consideration?

Answer 3

Consideration: behavior indicating that a manager trusts, respects, and cares about employees

Question 4

What is initiating structure?

Answer 4

Initiating structure: behavior that managers engage in to ensure that work gets done, employees perform their jobs acceptably, and the organization is efficient and effective.

Question 5

What is Fiedlers contigency model?

Answer 5

Fiedler’s contingency model: a model which explain why a manager may be an effective leader in one situation and ineffective in another; it also suggests which kinds of managers are likely to be most effective in which situations.

Question 6

Whats the path-goal theory?

Answer 6

Path–goal theory: a contingency model of leadership proposing that leaders can motivate employees by identifying their desired outcomes (1), rewarding them for high performance and the attainment of work goals with these desired outcomes (2), and clarifying for them the paths leading to the attainment of work goals (3).

Question 7

Whats the difference between transformational and transactional leadership?

Answer 7

Transformational leadership: leadership that makes employees aware of the importance of their jobs and performance to the organization and aware of their own needs for personal growth and that motivates employees to work for the good of the organization.

Transactional leadership: leadership that motivates employees by rewarding them for high performance and reprimanding them for low performance

Question 8

Whats the utilitarian rule?

Answer 8

Utilitarian rule: an ethical decision is a decision that produces the greatest good for the greatest number of people

Question 9

Whats the moral rights rule?

Answer 9

Moral rights rule: an ethical decision is one that best maintains and protects the fundamental or inalienable rights and privileges of the people affected by it.

Question 10

Whats the justice rule?

Answer 10

Justice rule: an ethical decision distributes benefits and harms among people and groups in a fair, equitable, or impartial way.

Question 11

Whats the practical rule?

Answer 11

Practical rule: an ethical decision is one that a manager has no reluctance about communicating to people outside the company because the typical person in a society would think it is acceptable.

Question 12

What are occupational ethics?

Answer 12

Occupational ethics: standards that govern how members of a profession, trade, or craft should conduct themselves when performing work-related activities

Question 13

Whats an obstructionist approach?

Answer 13

Obstructionist approach: companies and their managers choose not to behave in a socially responsible way and instead behave unethically and illegally

Question 14

Whats a defensive approach?

Answer 14

Defensive approach: companies and their managers behave ethically to the degree that they stay within the law and strictly abide by legal requirements

Question 15

Whats a accommodative approach?

Answer 15

Accommodative approach: companies and their managers behave legally and ethically and try to balance the interests of different stakeholders as the need arises

Question 16

Whats a proactive approach?

Answer 16

Proactive approach: companies and their managers actively embrace socially responsible behavior, going out of their way to learn about the needs of different stakeholder groups and using organizational resources to promote the interests of all stakeholders.

Question 17

Whats organizational socialization?

Answer 17

Organizational socialization: the process by which newcomers learn an organization’s values and norms and acquire the work behaviors necessary to perform jobs effectively.

Question 18

Whats distributive justice?

Answer 18

Distributive justice: a moral principle calling for fair distribution of pay, promotions, and other organizational resources based on meaningful contributions that individuals have made and not personal characteristics over which they have no control.

Question 19

Whats procedural justice?

Answer 19

Procedural justice: a moral principle calling for the use of fair procedures to determine how to distribute outcomes to organizational members

Question 20

Whats perception?

Answer 20

Perception: the process through which people select, organize, and interpret what they see, hear, touch, smell, and taste to give meaning and order to the world around them.

Question 21

Whats the salience effect?

Answer 21

Salience effect: the tendency to focus attention on individuals who are conspicuously different from others in a group. It results in extra attention being focused on a person who stands out from the group mold

Question 22

Whats deviance?

Answer 22

Deviance: failure to conform. Occurs when a member of a group violates a group norm. It signals that a group is not controlling one of its member’s behaviors.

Question 23

Whats Maslows hierarchy of needs?

Answer 23

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: an arrangement of five basic needs that, according to Maslow, motivate behavior. Maslow proposed that the lowestlevel of unmet needs is the prime motivator and that only one level of needs is motivational at a time

Question 24

Whats instrumentality?

Answer 24

Instrumentality: in expectancy theory, a perception about the extent to which performance results in the attainment of outcomes

Question 25

Whats valence?

Answer 25

Valence: in expectancy theory, how desirable each of the out-comes available from a job or an organization is to a perso