MGT 291 Exam 1 Miami University

What are the Basic Management Functions

What are the Basic Management Functions

Planning
Organization
Leading
Controlling

Planning

Determining an organization's desired future position and the best means of getting there

Organization

Designing jobs, grouping jobs into units, and establishing patterns of authority between jobs and units

Leading

Getting the organization's members to work together toward the organization's goals

Controlling

Monitoring and correcting the actions of the organization and its members to keep them directed toward their goals

How many Basic Managerial Functions are there?

4

Resources used by managers

human
financial
physical
information

Human Resource Management (HRM)

The set of organizational activities directed at attracting, developing, and maintaining an effective workforce

Competitive advantage

An organization's edge over rivals in attracting customers and defending itself against competition

Sources of Competitive Advantage

innovation
distribution
speed
convenience
first to market
cost
service
quality
branding

Types of Business Strategies

cost leadership
differentiation
specialization
growth

Hawthorne effect

people improve some aspect of their behavior or performance simply because they know they are being assessed

Contextual Perspectives on Organizational Behavior

systems perspective
situational perspective
contingency
interactional

Systems Perspective

-Underscores the importance of an organization's environment
-Conceptualizes the flow and interaction of various elements of the organization

Situational Perspective

Recognizes that most organizational situations and outcomes are influenced by other variables

Interactionalist Perspective

-Focuses on how individuals and situations interact continuously to determine individuals' behavior
-Attempts to explain how people select, interpret, and change various situations

Organizational citizenship

-The behavior of individuals that makes a positive overall contribution to the organization
-Encompasses all factors outside the strict requirements of the job

Dysfunctional behaviors

Behaviors that detract from, rather than contribute to, organizational performance

Examples of Dysfunctional Behaviors

• Absenteeism
• Turnover
• Theft, sabotage
• Harassment, bullying, violence
• Politicized behavior (spreading rumors, etc)
• Incivility, rudeness

Strategic execution

-The degree to which managers and their employees understand and carry out the actions needed to achieve strategic goals
-Often requires balancing seemingly contradictory outcomes

How do we know what we know in terms of managing effectiveness?

-"Common" sense and intuition and are often wrong
-OB relies on the scientific method

Scientific Method

-The independent variable is the variable the researchers set
-The dependent variable is the variable the researchers measure

Correlation

-Ranges between -1 and 1
- +1 equals a perfect positive relationship
- -1 equals a perfect negative relationship
- 0 equals no relationship

How many Environmental Forces?

5

What are the Environmental Forces?

Globalization
Diversity
Technology
Ethics and Corporate Governance
Employment Relationship

Diversity

The variety of observable and unobservable similarities and differences among people•

Types of Diversity

-Surface-level: can be seen directly (e.g. race, gender)
-Deep-level: can't be seen directly (e.g. goals, skills)
-Separation: differences in position or opinion
-Variety: meaningful differences in a certain type or category (e.g. knowledge, functional background)
-Disparity: differences in concentration of valuable assets (e.g. authority, pay, status)

Age diversity

Reverse mentoring: pairing a junior employee with a senior employee to transfer technical/computer skills from the junior employee to the senior one

Generations (by birth year)

-Seniors: 1922 - 1943
-Baby boomers: 1943 - 1963
-Generation X: 1964 - 1980
-Generation Y / Millennials: 1980 - 2000

Barriers to inclusion

-"Like me" bias: people prefer to associate with others they perceive to be similar to themselves

-Stereotypes: beliefs about groups and individuals based on the idea that all group members are the same

-Prejudice: outright bigotry or intolerance for other groups

-Perceived threat of loss: impeding diversity efforts to thwart a perceived threat to one's own career opportunities

-Ethnocentrism: the belief that one's own language, country, and culture are superior to all others

-Unequal access to organizational networks: women and minorities are often excluded from organizational networks, which can be important to job performance and career opportunities

Globalization

-The internationalization of business activities
-The shift toward an integrated global economy

Culture

-A set of shared values that help people in a group, organization, or society understand which actions are considered acceptable and which are deemed unacceptable

Geert Hofstede's Research

-Attitudes and behaviors differ significantly because of values and beliefs that characterize different countries

Hofstede's Categories

-Individualism: The extent that people in a culture define themselves primarily as individuals rather than as part of one or more groups or organizations

-Collectivism: The tight social frameworks in which people tend to base their identities on the group or organization to which they belong

-Power distance: The extent to which people accept as normal an unequal distribution of power

-Uncertainty avoidance: The extent to which people feel threatened by unknown situations and prefer to be in clear and unambiguous situations

-Masculinity: The extent to which the dominant values in a society emphasize aggressiveness and the acquisition of money and other possessions as opposed to concern for people and overall quality of life

-Long-term orientation: A focus on the future, working on projects that have a distant payoff, persistence, and thrift versus an orientation toward the past and the present including respect for traditions and social obligations

Ethics

-A person's beliefs about what constitutes right and wrong behavior

Deontology:

Evaluating ethicality on the basis of the behavior itself. For example, stealing, lying, and cheating are viewed as being unethical because the actions are inherently immoral. Deon is a Greek word that means duty or obligation.

Virtues ethics

Evaluating ethicality on the basis of inherently good characteristics or traits. For example, honesty, loyalty, and integrity are inherently moral attributes.

Utilitarianism:

valuating ethicality on the basis of the idea of "greatest good for the greatest number of people." The logic is analogous to "the end justifies the means." For example, stealing from the rich to help the poor (think Robin Hood) or killing one terrorist to save the lives of many innocent civilians.

Moral disengagement

a term from social psychology for the process of convincing the self that ethical standards do not apply to oneself in a particular context by separating moral reactions from inhumane conduct by disabling the mechanism of self-condemnation. Albert Bandura coined this concept.

8 mechanisms of moral disengagement

1) Moral Justification
2) Euphemistic Labeling
3) Advantageous Comparison
4) Distortion of Consequences
5) Dehumanization
6) Displacement of Responsibility
7) Diffusion of Responsibility
8) Attribution of Blame

What is Outsourcing? What is the Advantage/Disadvantage of Outsourcing?

Outsourcing: The practice of hiring other firms to do work previously performed by the organization itself

Advantages:
-Helps firms to focus on core activities-
Lowers labor costs through exportation of work

Disadvantages:
-Disaffected employees: out-of-job workers are used train the newly-hired foreign replacements
-Reduction of domestic job opportunities

Offshoring

-The practice of outsourcing workers to other countries to lower labor costs
-Results in loss of jobs in home country
-Controversial issue

Person-Job Fit

-The extent to which the contributions made by the individual match the inducements offered by the organization

Various types of Fit

-Person-group: the extent to which an individual fits with the workgroup's and supervisor's work styles, skills, and goals

-Person-organization: the fit between an individual's values, beliefs, and personality and the values, norms, and culture of the organization

-Person-vocation: the fit between a person's interests, abilities, values, and personality and a profession

Realistic job previews (RJPs)

-Present both positive and potentially negative information to job candidates
-Goal is not to deter candidates but to:
• Provide accurate information about the job and organization
• Build trust
• Reduce turnover (especially from employees who quit
because the job wasn't what they expected)

Personality

-The relatively stable set of psychological attributes that distinguish one person from another

What are the "Big Five" personality traits?

Agreeableness: The ability to get along with others

Conscientiousness: The ability to be counted on to get things done (most performance based)

Neuroticism: Experiencing anger, anxiety, moodiness/insecurity (most performance based)

Extraversion: Comfort level with relationships

Openness: The capacity to entertain new ideas and to change as a result of new information

The Myers-Briggs Framework

• Extroversion (E) / Introversion (I)
• Sensing (S) / Intuition (N)
• Thinking (T) / Feeling (F)
• Judging (J) / Perceiving (P)

Other Personality Traits at Work

1. Locus of Control: The extent to which a person believes her circumstances are a function of either her own actions or of external factors beyond her control

2. Authoritarianism: The belief that power and status differences are appropriate within hierarchical social systems such as organizations

3. Machiavellianism: Behavior directed at gaining power and control of others

4. Tolerance for Risk (Risk Propensity): The degree to which a person is willing to take chances and make risky decisions

5. Tolerance for Ambiguity: The tendency to view ambiguous situations as either threatening or desirable

6. General Self-Efficacy: Confidence in one's ability to be successful

7. Self-Esteem: Feelings of self-worth and liking or disliking oneself

8. Type A Personality: Impatient, competitive, ambiguous, and uptight

9. Type B Personality: More relaxed and easygoing, less competitive than Type A; handles stress less frantically

10. Bullying Personality: Mistreats other employees through verbal abuse, threats, humiliation, intimidation, or sabotage; stems from abuse of power and desire to control others; related to Machiavellianism

Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences

Linguistic: Words and language

Logical-Mathematical: Logic and numbers

Musical: Music, rhythm, and sound

Bodily-Kinesthetic: Body movement and control

Spatial-Visual: Images and space

Interpersonal: Other people's feelings

Intrapersonal: Self-awareness

Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

-The ability to perceive and express emotions, to understand and use them, and to manage emotions in oneself and other people

Dimensions of EQ

-Self-awareness: being aware of what you're feeling

-Self-motivation: persisting through obstacles, setbacks

-Self-management: managing your own emotions and impulses

-Empathy: sensing how others are feeling

-Social skills: effectively handling emotions of others

Kolb Learning Style Inventory

-Convergers: Learn by active experimentation and abstract conceptualization; superior in technical tasks, inferior in interpersonal settings

-Divergers: Learn by concrete experience and reflective observation; superior in generating alternate hypotheses and ideas; tend to be imaginative and people or feeling-oriented

-Assimilators: Learn by abstract conceptualization and reflective observation; more concerned about abstract concepts and logical soundness than about people and practical values; suited to research units

-Accommodators: Learn by active experimentation and concrete experience; focus on risk taking, opportunity seeking, and action; deal with people easily; suited to action-oriented jobs such as marketing and sales

Learning Style Orientations

-Discovery Learning: An inclination for exploration during learning

-Experiential Learning: A desire for hands-on approaches to instruction

-Observational Learning: A preference for external stimuli such as demonstrations and diagrams

Attitudes

-A person's complexes of beliefs and feelings about specific ideas, situations, other people

Structural Components of Attitudes

-Cognition: the knowledge a person presumes to have about something

-Affect: a person's feelings toward something

-Intention: a component of an attitude that guides a person's behavior

Cognitive Dissonance

-The anxiety a person experiences when her behavior contradicts her attitudes or when she simultaneously holds two contradictory attitudes

Types of Organizational Commitment

-Affective commitment: Positive emotional attachment to the organization, its values, and its goals; employee stays because she wants to

-Normative commitment: A feeling of moral or ethical obligation to the organization; employee stays because she believes it would be wrong to leave

Continuance commitment: A belief that leaving the job poses unacceptable costs or risks; employee stays because she feels she has to

Values

-Ways of behaving or end-states that are desirable to a person or to a group

Types of Values

-Terminal: reflect long-term life goals such as prosperity, happiness, and a sense of accomplishment

-Instrumental: reflect preferred means of achieving terminal values and preferred ways of behaving

-Intrinsic: relate to the work itself

-Extrinsic: relate to the outcomes of doing work

Conflicts Among Values

-Intrapersonal: one person holds conflicting values

-Interpersonal: two different people hold conflicting values-Individual

-organization: an employee's values conflict with those of the organization

Affect and Mood in Organizations

-Positive affectivity: Upbeat and optimistic, overall sense of well-being, seeing things in a positive light

-Negative affectivity: Downbeat and pessimistic, seeing things in a negative way, seeming to be in a bad mood

Perception

-The set of processes by which an individual becomes aware of and interprets information about the environment

Basic Perceptual Processes

-Selective perception: screening out information that we are uncomfortable with or that contradicts our beliefs

-Stereotyping: categorizing or labeling people on the basis of a single attribute

Perception Errors

-Categorization: The tendency to put things into groups and then exaggerate the similarities within and the differences among the groups

-Halo effect: Forming a general impression of something or someone based on a single characteristic

-Contrast effect: Evaluating someone by comparing them with recently-encountered people

-Projection: Seeing one's own characteristics in others

-First impression bias: The inability to let go of first impressions, particularly negative ones

Three Rules We Use to Determine Internal vs External Attribution

-Consistency: Has the person regularly behaved this way or experienced this outcome in the past?

-Distinctiveness: Does the person act the same way or receive similar outcomes in different types of situations?

-Consensus :Would others behave similarly in the same situation or receive the same outcome?

Forms of Organizational Fairness

-Distributive fairness: The perceived fairness of the outcome received

-Procedural fairness: The perceived fairness of the procedures used to generate the outcome
Perception of a low level of procedural fairness may lead to withdrawal from work and lower performance
Perception of a high level of procedural fairness reduces risk of negative reactions

-Interpersonal fairness: The perceived degree to which people are treated with respect by those who execute procedures or determine outcomes

-Informational fairness: The perceived extent to which employees receive adequate explanations about decisions affecting their working lives

-Interactional fairness: Encompasses both interpersonal and informational fairness

Stress Defined

-A person's adaptive response to a stimulus that places excessive psychological or physical demands on her

The Stress Process (Selye)

-General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)
• Identifies three stages of response to a stressor: alarm, resistance, exhaustion
• Sources of stress:
-Eustress: pleasurable stress accompanying positive events
-Distress: unpleasant stress accompanying negative events

Most Common Causes of Stress/ Consequences

Most Common Causes of Stress
-Organizational stressors
-Life stressors

Most Common Consequences of Stress:
-Individual consequences
-Organizational consequences

Workplace Stress Factors

-Task Demands• Associated with the specific job a person performs

-Physical Demands• Associated with the job's physical setting and requirements

-Role Demands• Associated with the expected behaviors of a particular position in a group or organization

-Interpersonal Demands• Group pressures, leadership, personality conflicts

Organizational Coping Strategies

-Institutional Programs:
Design of jobs and work schedules
Fostering a healthy work culture
Supervision

-Collateral Programs:
Organizational programs specifically created to help employees deal with stress
Stress management, health promotion, employee fitness programs, career development