MGMT 309 Exam

Span of management

- AKA span of control - Determining how many people will report to each manager - Exists on a spectrum of narrow to wide -Narrow span of management: a supervisor has few direct reports -Wide span of management: supervisor has many reports - Impacts how tall or flat an organization is -Tall: more expensive because more managers are involved and more problems with communication -Flat: led to higher levels of employee morale and productivity - One manager must deal with 3 kinds of interaction with and among subordinates -Direct: the manager's one-to-one relationships with each subordinate -Cross: among the subordinates themselves -Group: between groups of subordinates - Number of possible interactions formula: I = N(2^N / 2 + N -1) -N = number of subordinates -I = number of interactions - Determining the appropriate span -If the manager and subordinates are competent and well-trained, a wide-span may be effective -The more widely the subordinates are scattered, the narrower the span should be. -If all subordinates are in one location, the span can be somewhat wider.

what is the fair labor standards act

- Addresses compensation and benefits - Establishes a minimum wage and mandated overtime pay for work in excess of 40 hours per week

what is management by wandering or walking around

- An approach to communication that involves the manager's literally wandering around and having spontaneous conversations with others - Encourages informal interchange that takes place outside normal work hierarchy

what is the grape vine

- An informal communication network among people in an organization - Does not always follow the same patterns as formal channels of authority and communication - Found to be 75-95% accurate, especially with information that is based on fact - Managers can control, but not eliminate, information traveling through the grapevine - Managers can use the grapevine to gain perspectives on new ideas and policies or glean information valuable for improving decision making

what is nonverbal communication

- Any communication exchange that does not use words or uses words to carry more meaning than the strict definition of the words themselves - Facial expressions, body movements, physical contact, proximity between communicators, and gestures - Image: use of word imagery to convey meaning - Settings: the importance or set-up of a place - Body language: use of eye contact, distance (proxemics), hand or body movements, mode of dress, and pauses in speech to communicate -Proxemics - maintaining space bubble

What is organizational change? How does it work

- Any substantive modification to some part of the organization. - Can be promoted by external or internal forces -External: include changes in the general environment; the economy, laws and regulations, and societal values. As well as the task environment; activity of competitors, suppliers, regulators, and unions -Internal: include changes in strategy and in employee values and preferences - Complex phenomenon, change must be systematic and logical to have a realistic opportunity to succeed. To carry this off, managers need to understand the steps of effective change and how to counter employee resistance to change

what is the lewin model

- Developed by Kurt Lewin who suggested that every change requires 3 steps - Step 1: unfreezing, recognize why the change is needed -People who will be impacted by the upcoming change need to be convinced of its necessity - Step 2: the change itself is implemented - Step 3: refreezing, reinforcing and supporting the change so that it becomes part of the system - Appealing in simplicity, but lacks operations specificity. More comprehensive perspective is often needed

what is noise

- Factor that impedes accurate communication - Disruptions that can occur at any point in the communication process - Organizational barrier - Physical - static on a phone call - Physiological - state of the receiver when the message arrives - Technical - connectivity issues - Organizational - communication structure in the organization - Cultural - how cultural norms and beliefs impact interpretation - Psychological - attitudes, biases, and assumptions - Semantic - the way the message is framed - Ex: difficulty logging into the organization's messaging app, too many people speaking at once in a meeting.

Growth-needs strength

- High growth-need strength employees = those who want to develop their capabilities and accomplish challenging tasks - Find the job characteristics approach more motivating than employees with low growth-need strength

How does human relations work and function in an organization

- Human relations movement argued that workers respond primarily to the social context of the workplace - Human relations - the ability to interact in a healthy manner with others and build strong relationships - Various social changes have influenced employer-employee relations - Process of training employees, addressing their needs, fostering a workplace culture and resolving conflicts between different employees.

What are the various types of innovation

- Radical innovation: completely replace existing products, services, or technologies -NEW products - Incremental innovations: modify existing products, services, or technologies -MODIFY OLD - Technical innovations: change the physical appearance or performance or products or services or the physical processes by which products/services are made - Managerial innovations: change the management process by which products or services are conceived, built, and delivered to customers. EX: business process change or reengineering - Product innovations: change in the physical characteristics or performance of existing products or services or create brand-new products/services - Process innovations: changes in the way in which products or services are manufactured, created, or distributed. Unlike managerial innovations, process innovations do not involve changes in the management process.

what is the comprehensive change model

- Takes a system view and delineates a series of specific steps that often lead to successful change Step 1: recognize the need for change Step 2: establishment of goals for the change Step 3: diagnosis of relevant variables Step 4: selection of appropriate chang technique Step 5: planning for implementation of the change Step 6: actual implementation Step 7: evaluation and follow-up

what is interpersonal comm/interpersonal relations

- Interpersonal communication includes oral and nonverbal communication -Oral: face-to-face conversation, group discussions, telephone calls, and other circumstances in which the spoken word is used to transit meaning -Nonverbal: any communication exchange that does not use words or uses words to carry more meaning that the strict definition of the words themselves -Written communication: done through written word and sent via memos, reports, letters, memorandum, handwritten note, or email or text message - Personal and positive interpersonal relations often occur when the parties involved already know themselves., share mutual respect and affection, and enjoy interacting with one another - Personal and negative interpersonal relations often occur when the parties involved dislike themselves, do not have mutual respect, and do not enjoy interacting with one another - Relatively formal, structured, and task directed interpersonal relations often occur when the parties involved "respect each other's work and recognize the professional competence that each brings to the job. However, they may also have a few common interests and little to talk about besides the job they are doing." - Interpersonal relations in an organization can be a primary source of need satisfaction for many people. For a person with a strong need for affiliation, high-quality interpersonal relations can be an important positive element in the workplace. However, when those same people are confronted with poor-quality working relationships, the effect can be just as strong but in the other direction. - Solid basis for social support - Good source of synergy - Allow managers to know how employees may react to certain situations - Conflict may arise

what is communication

- Is the process of transmitting information from one person to another - Effective communication - the process of sending a message in such a way that the message received is as close in meaning as possible to the message intended - Communication should be accurate, timely, complete and relevant

Line Authority

- Line authority = formal or legitimate authority created by the organizational hierarchy - Line position is directly responsible for the achievement of the organization's goals - Authority = power legitimized by the organization

What is a contingent worker

- Not employed on a permanent or full-time basis. -Ex: independent contractor, on-call workers, temporary employees, contract and leased employees, and all part-time workers - Managing contingent workers requires a strategic approach allowing them to maintain flexibility in staffing levels and control labor costs -Careful advance HR planning -Understanding how to effectively utilize contingent workers -Assessing the real cost of using contingent workers -Deciding how these workers will be treated compared to permanent workers

what is an organizational structure

- Organizing is deciding how to arrange and assemble certain elements so an organization will be as successful as possible - Options in how to build an organizational structure with two stages. 1: selecting elements 2: deciding how to put them together - When determining organizational structure, managers make decisions over 6 elements -Designing jobs -Grouping jobs -Establishing reporting relationships between jobs -Distributing authority among jobs -Coordinating activities among jobs -Differentiating among positions

What is resistance to change

- People feeling uncomfortable with the idea of change - Reasons why people are reluctant to change -uncertainty: Change is inherently uncertain, so people feel anxious about whether change will negatively affect them ~arguably one of the main factors contributing to employee reluctance to change -Threatened self-interest arises when people know the change will reduce their influence or cause the organization to value their jobs less ~resist because they fear it will reduce their authority or influence inside the organization -Different perceptions: They disagree with the change. Different perceptions of the situation or different opinions about the best response, they try to block the manager from acting. -feeling a loss: May feel a sense of loss during an organization change, as their jobs, procedures, systems, status, and workplace relationships change - Overcoming resistance to change - participation: Encourage employees to participate in planning and implementing the change. Better understand the reason and see their perspectives considered -education and communication: Educate employees and communicate openly with them throughout the change to reduce uncertainty -facilitation: Facilitate change by not altering more than necessary, telling employees what will happen well in advance, and giving them time to adjust -force field analysis: Conduct a force-field analysis by listing all the forces promoting and impending change. Then boosting the forces for change and reducing the forces against change

what are the various types of change

- Planned change: change that is designed and implemented in an orderly and timely fashion in anticipation of future events -Orderly, timely, and designed in advance of future events -Preferable over reactive change - Reactive change: piecemeal response to circumstances as they develop -May be hurried and the potential for poorly conceived and executed change is increased - Changing organization structure and design - company may change how it designs its job or its bases of departmentalization. The distribution of authority or the reporting structures may also change in organization change - Changing technology and operations -Equipment change - significant type of technical advancement - Changing people, attitude, and behaviors - third area of organizational change. Change the level of skill of its employees for example. Expectations and perceptions are frequently the focus of organizational change - Changing business processes - change including all facets of organizational design, technology, and people (business process change or reengineering) -Entropy causes systems to decline and happens when things go unchanged -Steps in business process change ~Develop goals and a strategy for reengineering effort ~Emphasize top management's commitment to the reengineering effort ~Create a sense of urgency among members of the organization ~Start with a clean slate; in effect, re-create the organization ~Optimize top-down and bottom-up perspectives

what is specialization

- The degree to which the overall task of the organization is broken down and divided into smaller component parts - Concerns the degree to which the work of the organization is divided into smaller tasks - Evolved from the concept of the division of labor - Pros Employees who do small, simple tasks become good at them Employees lose less time to task switching since they are doing fewer tasks Specialized equipment can be developed to help with a very specific job It is easy and inexpensive to train replacement workers. - Cons Employees with very narrow jobs tend to become bored and unhappy When each worker does only a small part of the work, work must be handed off many times, each time resulting in some loss of efficiency

what is labor relations

- The management of employees who are represented by a union - National labor relations act/wagner act: passed in 1935 to set up procedures that allowed employees to vote on whether to unionize and for management to bargain collectively with the unions - National labor relations board: established by the wagner act to enforce its provisions - Labor management relations act: this act limits union power. Passed in 1947 and is also known as the taft-hartley act

How do unions work and what do they do?

- Union - employees come together to use their strength to have a voice in their workplace - If a majority of a company's non management employees desire, they have the right to be represented by a union - Management must engage in collective bargaining with the union in an effort to agree on a contract - While a union contract is in effect, the grievance system is used to settle disputes with management. - Generally, organizations fo not want that their employees be unionized due to how unions limit the organizations' management freedome - Unions have declined steadily since the 1950s -Increased standards of living made union memberships less important -Traditionally unionized industries in the manufacturing sector began to decline -The globalization of business operations caused many unionized jobs to be lost to foreign workers

Job rotation

- employees are intentionally moved from one position to another. High-skilled jobs are not appropriate for job rotation because they cannot be performed well if the employee in the job is always new to it. Therefore, the primary reason organizations use job rotation is to train worker on lower-level skills -Increase flexibility and lower costs -is not enough to improve overall satisfaction

Job enlargement

- increases the number of tasks an employee performs. Having a variety of tasks is intended to increase satisfaction. However, job enlargement increases training costs; employees often believe they should be paid more; and the job may still be boring. -Lowers costs because less employees are needed to accomplish tasks BUT -Training costs increase -Workers may demand higher pay -Unions have argued that pay should increase because the workers are doing more tasks -Work remain boring and routine even after enlargement

what is title VII (7) in the civils right code

Amended by the equal employment opportunity act of 1972, forbids discrimination in all areas of the employment relationship

Human resource management

HRM is the set of organizational activities directed at attracting, developing, and maintaining an effective workforce.

What is the age discrimination act

Outlaws discrimination against people older than 40 (part of equal employment opportunity)

What is the process of forming a union?

Step 1: generate interest in union among employees Step 2: collect signed authorization cards - If less than 30% of bargaining unit members sign cards, then the process ends Step 3: petition NLRB to hold election Step 4: secret ballot election is held - Is union is rejected by majority vote, the process ends Step 5: union signs up members and elects officers Step 6: collective bargaining over first labor contract Step 7: labor contract signed Step 8: grievance procedure used to resolve disputes during the life of the contract

what is discrimination

Unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of ethnicity, age, sex, and/or disability

Job enrichment

increases the number of tasks a worker performs but also gives the worker more control. In addition, employees are regularly given new, challenging tasks. For job enrichment to work, employees should be consulted about their preferences before being handed more work and asked to make more decisions. -More autonomy -Can increase satisfaction but tasks are often given without asking for employee preferences

What is task environment

specific organizations or groups that influence an organization

What is sociocultural environment

the customs, morals, values, and demographic characteristics of the society in which the organization functions

What is general environment

the set of broad dimensions and forces in an organization's surroundings that create its overall context