Solved mba assignment

Below are the suggestions for creating an environment with increased job satisfaction from an HR perspective:

•Provide workers with responsibility-and then let them use it

•Show respect

•Provide a positive working environment

•Reward and recognition

•Involve and increase employee engagement

•Develop the skills and potential of your workforce

•Evaluate and measure job satisfaction

Ms. Chanchal Das Gupta is a recruitment specialist. For the post of QCManager, she interviews three candidates. Given below are the physicalcharacteristics of the candidates.

From the above descriptions, what personality traits can Ms. Chanchal derive outof the candidates as per Sheldon’s theory of personality?

The Managerial Grid is based on two behavioral dimensions:

•Concern for People – This is the degree to which a leader considers the needs of team members, their interests, and areas of personal development when deciding how best to accomplish a task.

•Concern for Production – This is the degree to which a leader emphasizes concrete objectives, organizational efficiency and high productivity when deciding how best to accomplish a task.

i. Country Club Leadership – High People/Low Production This style of leader is most concerned about the needs and feelings of members of his/her team. These people operate under the assumption that as long as team members are happy and secure then they will work hard. What tends to result is a work environment that is very relaxed and fun but where production suffers due to lack of direction and control.

ii. Produce or Perish Leadership – High Production/Low People Also known as Authoritarian or Compliance Leaders, people in this category believe that employees are simply a means to an end. Employee needs are always secondary to the need for efficient and productive workplaces. This type of leader is very autocratic, has strict work rules, policies, and procedures, and views punishment as the most effective means to motivate employees.

Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to the ability to perceive, control and evaluate emotions. Some researchers suggest that emotional intelligence can be learned and strengthened, while others claim it is an inborn characteristic. Since1990, Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer have been the leading researchers on emotional intelligence. In their influential article "Emotional Intelligence," they defined emotional intelligence as, "the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions" (1990).

Internal Forces: Poor financial performance Employee dissatisfaction Inefficiency of existing business processes and systems need to increase profitability Existence of cultural misfits to organization goals and objectives

External Forces: Changes in technology Political factors General macro-economic environment Changes in consumer tastes, preferences, purchasing patterns & frequencies declining market shares due to competition

A principle refers to a fundamental truth. It establishes cause and effect relationship between two or more variables under given situation. They serve as a guide to thought & actions. Therefore, management principles are the statements of fundamental truth based on logic which provides guidelines for managerial decision making and actions. These principles are derived: -

a. On the basis of observation and analysis i.e. practical experience of managers.

b. By conducting experimental studies.

There are 14 Principles of Management described by Henri Fayol.

Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to identify, assess, and control the emotions of oneself, of others, and of groups. Various models and definitions have been proposed of which the ability and trait EI models are the most widely accepted in the scientific literature. Criticisms have centered on whether the construct is a real intelligence and whether it has incremental validity over IQ and the Big Five personality dimensions.

Management is a continuous, lively and fast developing science. Management is needed to convert the disorganized resources of men, machines, materials and methods into a useful and effective enterprise. management is a pipeline, the inputs are fed at the end and they are proceeded through management functions and ultimately we get the end results or inputs in the form of goods, services, productivity, information and satisfaction. Management is a comprehensive word which is used in different sciences in the modern business and industrial world. In the narrow sense, it signifies the technique of taking work from others. In this way a person who can take work from others is called manager. In the wide sense, the management is an art, as well as science, which is concerned with the different human efforts so as achieve the desired objective.

This approach evolved from the group dynamics concept of Kurt Lewin and the first sensitivity training session was held in 1946 in State Teachers’ College, New Britain, USA. Since then, it spread to numerous training centers in USA and other countries. Sensitivity training is a small-group interaction process in the unstructured form which requires people to become sensitive to others’ feelings in order to develop reasonable group activity. The objectives of sensitivity training are as follows:

Organizational conflict is a state of discord caused by the actual or perceived opposition of needs, values and interests between people working together. Conflict takes many forms in organizations. There is the inevitable clash between formal authority and power and those individuals and groups affected. There are disputes over how revenues should be divided, how the work should be done, and how long and hard people should work. There are jurisdictional disagreements among individuals, departments, and between unions and management. There are subtler forms of conflict involving rivalries, jealousies, personality clashes, role definitions, and struggles for power and favor. There is also conflict within individuals — between competing needs and demands — to which individuals respond in different ways.

Power can be categorized into two types:

Formal and informal

A. Formal Power:

It is based on the position of an individual in an organization. Formal power is derived from either one’s ability to coerce or reward others or is derived from the formal authority vested in the individual due to his/ her strategic position in the organizational hierarchy. For example, a manager may threaten to withhold a pay raise, or to transfer, demote, or even recommend the firing of a subordinate who does not act as desired. Such coercive power is the extent to which a manager can deny desired rewards or administer punishments to control other people. The availability of coercive power also varies across organizations. The presence of unions and organizational policies on employee treatment can weaken this power base significantly. Formal power may be categorized into four types which are as follows:

Typically, the concept of organizational change is in regard to organization-wide change, as opposed to smaller changes such as adding a new person, modifying a program, etc. Examples of organization-wide change might include a change in mission, restructuring operations (e.g., restructuring to self-managed teams, layoffs, etc.), new technologies, mergers, major collaborations, "rightsizing", new programs such as Total Quality Management, re-engineering, etc. Some experts refer to organizational transformation. Often this term designates a fundamental and radical reorientation in the way the organization operates.

Ten Types of Power
1. Position. Some measure of power is conferred on the basis of one’s formal position in an organization. For example, a marketing manager can influence the decisions that affect the marketing department. However, the marketing manager has little power to influence the decisions that affect the finance department.

2. Knowledge or expertise. People who have knowledge or expertise can wield tremendous power. Of course, knowledge in itself is not powerful. It is the use of knowledge and expertise that confers power. Thus, you could be an incredibly bright person and still be powerless.

It must be noted that stress factors are subjective and what one person may find stressful, others may not necessarily experience as negatively. The way in which we experience and react to stress is described as an emotional condition which triggers physical, psychological and emotional responses from the individual.
Formally, a stressor is defined as an event or context that elevates adrenaline and triggers the stress response which results in the body being thrown out of balance as it is forced to respond.

The goal of most research on group development is to learn why and how small groups change over time. To do this, researchers examine patterns of change and continuity in groups over time. Aspects of a group that might be studied include the quality of the output produced by a group, the type and frequency of its activities, its cohesiveness, the existence of conflict, etc.

Tuckman's Stages model
Bruce Tuckman reviewed about fifty studies of group development (including Bales' model) in the mid-sixties and synthesized their commonalities in one of the most frequently cited models of group development (Tuckman, 1965). The model describes four linear stages (forming, storming, norming, and performing) that a group will go through in its unitary sequence of decision making. A fifth stage (adjourning) was added in 1977 when a new set of studies were reviewed (Tuckman& Jensen, 1977).

The following needs are taken care of according to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory:

According to this theory, proposed by Maslow (1943), human beings have wants and desires which influence their behavior, only unsatisfied needs can influence behavior, satisfied needs cannot. The needs are arranged in order of importance, from the basic to the complex. The person advances to the next level of needs only after the lower level need is at least minimally satisfied. The further they progress up the hierarchy, the more individuality, humanness and psychological health a person will show.

The first point of rewarding the staff members with cash shows the physiological needs which is satisfied, the staff members will be satisfied to receive any form of monetary benefits which encourages him to perform better

The second point is the promotion of referral for employees, this shows that the social need can be satisfied as with referrals the employee feels to be a part of the company being responsible for the referral given to the firm, an employee feels belongingness to his firm/company

Measuring Job Satisfaction:  Job satisfaction is the sense of fulfillment and pride felt by people who enjoy their work and do it well. For an organization, satisfied work force ensures commitment to high quality performance and increased productivity Job satisfaction helps organizations to reduce complaints and grievances, absenteeism, turnover, and termination. Job satisfaction is also linked to a healthier work force and has been found to be a good indicator of longevity. And although only little correlation has been found between job satisfaction and productivity, it has also been found that satisfying or delighting employees is a prerequisite to satisfying or delighting customers, thus protecting the "bottom line (Brown, 1996).

Factors Influencing Perception

Perception is our sensory experience of the world around us and involves both the recognition of environmental stimuli and actions in response to these stimuli. Through the perceptual process, we gain information about properties and elements of the environment that are critical to our survival. Perception not only creates our experience of the world around us; it allows us to act within our environment.

A number of factors operate to shape and sometimes distort perception. These factors can reside:

i) In the perceiver.

ii) In the object or target being perceived or

iii) In the context of the situation in which the perception is made.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

The MBTI classifies human beings into four opposite pairs (dichotomies), base 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. For example:

a. INTJs are visionaries. They usually have original minds and great drive for their own ideas and purposes. 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 head 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.

Shaping Behavior

When a systematic attempt is made to change individuals’ behaviour by directing their learning in graduated steps, it is called shaping behavior. There are four methods of 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. For example, one get a commission, if he/she achieves sales target.

For example,

i) Bonuses paid at the end of a successful business year are an example of positive reinforcement.

ii) Employees will work hard for a raise or a promotion.

iii) Salesmen will increase their efforts to get rewards and bonuses.

iv) Students will study to get good grades, and

v) In these examples, the rises, promotions, awards, bonuses, good grades, are positive reinforces.

According to Mintzberg (1973), managerial roles are as follows:

1. Informational roles

2. Decisional roles

3. Interpersonal roles

1. Informational roles: This involves the role of assimilating and disseminating information as and when required. Following are the main sub-roles, which managers often perform:

a. Monitor – collecting information from organizations, both from inside and outside of the organization

b. Disseminator – communicating information to organizational members

c. Spokesperson – representing the organization to outsiders

2. Decisional roles: It involves decision making. Again, this role can be sub-divided in to the following:

a. Entrepreneur – initiating new ideas to improve organizational performance

b. Disturbance handlers – taking corrective action to cope with adverse situation

c. Resource allocators – allocating human, physical, and monetary resources

d. Negotiator – negotiating with trade unions, or any other stakeholders

3. Inter`personal roles: This role involves activities with people working in the organization. This is supportive role for informational and decisional roles. Interpersonal roles can be categorized under three sub-headings:

a. Figurehead – Ceremonial and symbolic role

b. Leadership – leading organization in terms of recruiting, motivating etc.

c. Liaison – liasoning with external bodies and public relations activities.