Management Exam 1

What are the characteristics of successful organizational cultures?

1. Adaptability 2. Involvement 3. Clear mission 4. Consistency

List the mistakes that managers commonly make.

1. Being insensitive to others with an intimidating, abrasive or bullying style. 2. Being cold, aloof or arrogant. 3. Betraying trust. 4. Being overly ambitious or trying to play politics. 5. Specific performance problems. 6. Over managing, or being unable to delegate or build a team. 7. Unable to staff effectively. 8. Unable to think strategically. 9. Unable to adapt to boss with different style. 10. Overdependent on advocate or mentor.

Outline a basic model for ethical decision making.

1. Create an ethical environment from day one. 2. Hire people with the same ethical standards as the organization. 3. Develop a code of ethics for all employees to abide by and ensure that everyone has a copy 4. Have a conference time to train others in the companies' code.

Describe the three basic characteristics of changing external environments

1. Environmental change is the rate at which a company's generaland specific environments change. In stable environments, the rate of environmental change is low while dynamic environments are high. 2. Environmental complexity is the number and the intensity of external factors in the environment that affect organizations. 3.Resource scarcity is the abundance or shortage of critical organizational resources in an organization's external environment.

Identify the major milestones in the history of managing information.

1. paper and printing press 2. file cabinets telegraph cash registers telephone time clocks personal computers internet Historically, some of the most important technologies that have revolutionized information management were the use of horses by post messengers in Italy in the 1400s, the creation of paper and the printing press in the 14th and 15th centuries, the manual typewriter in 1850, the telegraph in the 1860s, cash registers in 1879, the telephone in the 1880s, the personal computer in the 1980s, and the Internet in the 1990s.

What are a company's total social responsibilities?

A company has four social responsibilities; these are economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary responsibilities.

How does the way a company is managed affect its competitive advantage?

An organization's most important resource is its people, and how this resource is utilized will determine the success or failure of the organization. By understanding and using good management practices, organizations can create significant competitive advantages in their own industries. Some of these practices include employment security, selective hiring, self-managed teams and decentralization, high pay contingent on company performance, extensive training, reduced status distinctions (between managers and employees), and extensive sharing of financial information.

How are organizational cultures created and maintained?

An organizational culture is the set of key values, beliefs, and attitudes shared by organizational members. Founders of organizations are the primary sources of organizational culture. However, when they are gone, organizational culture can be sustained by recognizing and celebrating organizational heroes. Organizational heroes are organizational people admired throughout the organization for their qualities and achievements within the organization. Their activities provide the basis for organizational stories, which help employees make sense of organizational events and changes. Organizational cultures are created by a variety of factors, including founders' values and preferences, industry demands, and early values, goals, and assumptions. Culture is maintained through attraction-selection-attrition, new employee onboarding, leadership, and organizational reward systems.

Describe how managers typically change in their first year on the job.

At first, most new managers believed that their job was to exercise formal authority and to manage tasks—basically being the boss and seeing their jobs as managing tasks instead of people. After 6 months, most conclude that their initial expectations about management were wrong and discover the fast pace and heavy workload involved. Also, they see their role as problem solver and troubleshooterfor their subordinates. After a year on the job, once they have become more seasoned, they see the importance of communication, listening, positive reinforcement, and begin delegating. They also see their jobs as developing people, not managing tasks. As with any change, new managers must grow into their jobs. The best way to become a good manager is to start managing.

What is the difference between general and specific business environments?

Changes in the general environment eventually affect most organizations while changes in specific business environments only affect certain relevant industries. The general environment consists of the economic, technological, sociocultural, and political/legal trends that indirectly affect all organizations. The specific environment includes the customers, competitors, suppliers, industry regulations, and advocacy groups that are unique to an industry and directly affect how a company does business. All companies participate in the same general environment, but each company's specific environment is distinct, based on its business and industry.

How do companies use systems management to make sense of organizational and environmental complexity?

Companies use systems management to discover the relationships between separate parts of the organization and how they are subjected to certain environmental factors. view an organization a system of subsystems: set of interrelated parts that function as a whole 1. closed systems= function without interacting with their environments but all organizations should be viewed as open systems 2. successful interaction with organizational environments is critical because open systems tend toward entropy ( which is the inevitable and steady deterioration of a system)

Explain contingency management

Contingency approach- holds that there are no universal management theories and that the most effective management theory or idea depends on the kinds of problems or situations that managers are facing at a particular time and place. This type of management is much harder than it looks and because managers must look for key contingencies that differentiate today's situation or problems from yesterday's situation or problems by spending more time to analyze problems, situations, and employees before taking action to fix them.

How are historical management ideas and practices related to the topics you will study in this textbook?

Cyrus teaches us about human relations with one another, Sin Tzu shows strategies and finding weakness in others, Egyptians teaches the four management functions within groups. We can objectively see where/when management ideas and practices were first implemented and how they helped contribute to more effective management. We have learned principles over time such as: record keeping (5,000 B.C.E), wage incentives and production control (600 B.C.E), delegation of authority (284), etc.

Why do modern companies need managers?

Different from cottage industries and craftsmen, modern companies employ thousands of workers (unskilled, skilled, and professional) who produce both standardized and customized products and services. As a result, managers are needed to impose order and structure, to motivate and direct these large groups of workers and to plan and make decisions that optimize overall company performance by effectively coordinating the different parts of complex organizational systems. To organize large groups, work with employees, make goals decisions, navigate internal and external networks, manages individual people as groups. Modern companies need managers because jobs today are multi-faceted, require a greater division of labor, and often include multiple departments. Put simply, the work environment has evolved dramatically. For this reason, managers are needed to optimize work performance and productivity.

Are socially responsible companies economically successful? In other words, does it pay to be socially responsible?

Early research indicated that there was not an inherent relationship between social responsibility and economic performance. Recently research, however, leads to different conclusions. There is no trade-off between being socially responsible and economic performance. And, there is a small, positive relationship between being socially responsible and economic performance that strengthens with corporate reputation. Nonetheless, being socially responsible may be the right thing to do, and it is usually associated with increased profits, but it doesn't guarantee business success. Another answer: In most situations it does not pay to be socially responsible. It has been shown that there is no correlation to social responsibility and economic success, however, you will have more loyal customers and employees to keep from loss of revenue and expenses for new hires keeping your bottom line consistent. There is a small positive relationship in being socially responsibly; however, these companies have the same ups and downs in economic performance as other companies. One benefit of being socially responsible is that it builds goodwill between society and the company.

Explain the difference between efficiency and effectiveness

Efficiency - getting work done with minimum effort, expense, or waste. Effectiveness - accomplishing tasks that help fulfill organizational objectives

What influences ethical decision making?

Ethical decision making is influenced by the degree of concern people have about an ethical issue (ethical intensity), your level of moral maturity (moral development), and your particular ethical principles you adhere to, whether they are based on government regulations, religious values, etc. -Ethical intensity is the degree of concern people have about an ethical issue. When addressing an issue of high ethical intensity, managers are more aware of the impact their decision will have on others. -The level of moral development of the person or people making the decisions. Decisions should be based on whether the manager is at the preconventional level, conventional level, or postconventional level of moral development. -Principles of ethical decision making held by the decision makers. They may include long-term self-interest, personal virtue, religious injunctions, government requirements, utilitarian benefits, individual rights, or distributive justice.

What distinguishes a first-line manager from a team leader?

First-line - manages entry-level employees, teaching, monitoring, and short-term planning, encourage and reward performance. Team leader - team activities towards a goal, plan work, problem solving, work efficiently with each other, internal and external relations.

Explain the principles of Mary Parker Follet's human resource management

Focuses on people and see them as valued parts of the company, integrative conflict resolution. Unlike most people who view conflict as bad, Mary Parker Follett, the mother of modern management, believed that conflict could be beneficial, that it should be embraced and not avoided, and that, of the three ways of dealing with conflict (domination, compromise, and integrative conflict resolution), the latter was the best because it focuses on developing creative methods for meeting both or all the conflicting parties' desires. Follett also used four principles to emphasize the importance of coordination where leaders and workers at different levels and in different parts of the organization directly coordinate their efforts to solve problems and produce the best overall outcomes in an integrative way. Her work added significantly to modern understandings of the human, social, and psychological sides of management.

What lessons did we learn from the Hawthrone studies? Summarize Barnard's contributions on cooperations and acceptance of authority.

Hawthorne- It's the human condition (group effort and happier environments) were more effective on increasing productivity than physical Bernard- 1.Importance of clearly establishing an organization's purpose and objectives so that personal ones don't get in the way. 2. need system of communications. 3. it's more effective to induce their willing cooperation through incentives, clearly formulated organizational objectives, and effective communication throughout the organization.

How does the nature of management jobs create the possibility for ethical abuses?

Managers can be tempted to participate in four areas of unethical behavior. The authority and power of their positions can lead to abuse of these privileges. Managers can also be unethical in the way they handle information, such as leaking confidential information to competitors. Managers, also have huge influence in the work environment which they can abuse to make people below them participate in unethical behavior for them. Lastly, managers can indirectly cause unethical by setting unrealistic goals for their respective employees.

How can managers change organizational cultures?

Managers can successfully change the surface levels of culture by motivating different behavior. The underlying elements (far below the surface) are difficult to identify and change. Managers can change the organizational culture through behavioral addition or behavioral substitution to establish new patterns of behavior among managers and employees. In behavioral addition, managers and employees are motivated to perform a new behavior in addition to already accepted ones. In behavioral substitution, managers and employees perform a new behavior in place of another behavior.

What steps can managers take to improve ethical decision making?

Managers can take some practical steps to improve ethical decision making. These include: carefully selecting and hiring ethical employees, establishing a specific code of ethics, training employees to make ethical decisions, and creating an ethical climate.

What are the four management functions?

Planning, Organizing, Leading, and Controlling Planning- Determining organizational goals and a means for achieving them. Organizing: Deciding where decisions will be made, who will do what jobs and tasks, and who will work for whom in a company. Leading: Inspiring and motivating workers to work hard to achieve organizational goals. Controlling: Monitoring progress toward goal achievement and taking corrective action when needed.

Identify and describe the most common form of workplace deviance.

Production deviance is one type of workplace deviance that directly hurts the quality and quantity of work produced. Property deviance is the unethical behavior aimed at company property or products. Political deviance is using one's influence to harm others in the company. Personal aggression is hostile or aggressive behavior towards others. These are the most common forms of workplace deviance.

Explain the contributions of Taylor, the Gilbreth's, and Grantt to the theory of scientific management.

Taylor - testing methods to see the best way to do something, "time study" Gilbreths - motion study - breaking each task down into separate motions Gantt - "Gantt Chart" - indicates which task must be completed in what order - "efficient ways to do tasks" In contrast to seat-of-the-pants management, scientific management recommended studying and testing different work methods to identify the best, most efficient ways to complete a job. According to Frederick W. Taylor, the father of scientific management, managers should follow four scientific 49 Info iconThis preview has intentionally blurred sections. Sign up to view the full version.Second, scientifically select, train, teach, and develop workers to reach their full potential. Third, cooperate with employees to ensure implementation of the scientific principles. Fourth, divide the work and the responsibility equally between management and workers. Above all, Taylor felt these principles could be used to align managers and employees to determine "a fair day's work," what an average worker could produce at areasonable pace. Once that was determined, it was management's responsibility to pay workers fairly for that effort. Taylor believed incentives were one of the best ways to align management and employees. The husband and wife team of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth are best known for their use of motion studies to simplify work. While Taylor used time study and how long it took a "first-class man" to complete each part of his job to determine "a fair day's work," the Gilbreths used film cameras and microchronometers to conduct motion study to improve efficiency by categorizing and eliminating unnecessary or repetitive motions. Lillian Gilbreth, one of the first contributors to industrial psychology, established ways to improve office communication, incentive programs, job satisfaction, and management training. Her work also convinced the government to enact laws regarding workplace safety, ergonomics, and child labor. Henry Gantt is best known for the Gantt chart, which graphically displays when a series of tasks must be completed to perform a job or project, but he also developed ideas regarding pay-for-performance plans (where workers were rewarded for achieving higher levels, but not punished if they didn't) and worker training (all workers should be trained and their managers should be rewarded for training them).

How important is competence as one of the core managerial skills for the different types of managers?

Technical skills are most important for team leaders and lower-level managers because they supervise the workers who produce products or serve customers. Team leaders and first-line managers need technical knowledge and skills to train new employees and help employees solve problems. An example would be an engineering manager who manages a department of engineers who design cars. Human skills are equally important to all management levels, from team leaders to CEOs. However, because lower-level managers spend much of their time solving technical problems, upper-level managers may actually spend more time dealing with people. On an average, first-line managers spend 57 percent of their time with people, but that percentage increases to 63 percent for middle managers and 78 percent for top managers. An example is a vice president who must negotiate with other vice presidents on scarce resources. Conceptual skills increase in importance as managers rise through the management hierarchy. These leaders must be able to create a vision of the company's future, a task that requires great intelligence and conceptual ability. However, a lower-level manager with great conceptual skills may be viewed as having potential to rise in the organization. An example is a CEO who must chart the long-term course of the company.

How do companies determine that employees would be good managers?

Technical, human, and conceptual skills and motivation to manage. Technical skills are the specialized procedures, techniques, and knowledge required to get the job done. For a nurse supervisor, technical skills include being able to insert an IV or operate a crash cart if a patient goes into cardiac arrest.•Human skills can be summarized as the ability to work well with others. For a manager, human skills must include understanding what motivates each of his or her subordinates to encourage them to do their best.•Conceptual skills are the ability to see the organization as a whole, understand how the different parts affect each other, and recognize how the company fits into or is affected by its environment, such as the local community, social and economic forces, customers, and competition. For a manager, conceptual skills must include understanding how a government regulation will affect the business in the future or how the company will grow in the long run.•Motivation to manage is an assessment of how motivated employees are to interact with superiors, participate in competitive situations, behave assertively toward others, tell others what to do, reward good behavior and punish poor behavior, perform actions that are highly visible to others, and handle and organize administrative tasks. For example, making the department genius a manager can be disastrous if he or she lacks technical skills, human skills, or a factor known as the motivation to manage.

What are the US sentencing Commissions Guidelines for Organizations? How do they punish unethical behavior?

The U.S. Sentencing Commission Guidelines sets a legal precedent that companies can be prosecuted and punished for engaging in unethical behavior, regardless if the management is aware of this behavior or not. They punish unethical behavior through levels of fines. These levels vary based on the offense level of the unethical behavior taking place. Companies can also get lower fines if they admit their behavior and take proactive approaches to curving this unethical behavior.

How do the elements of specific business environments affect businesses?

The customer component of the specific business environment affects business because it gives organizations the opportunity to respond directly to customer feedback and change their business model accordingly to be successful. The competitor component allows companies to analyze their competition to help determine strength and weaknesses of competitors and react accordingly. The supplier component aims to improve the buyer-supplier relationship for good business standing. The industry regulation component focuses on the affect that regulations have on businesses. Lastly, advocacy groups are a big pool of influence on existing businesses through protests, boycotts, or through media advocacy. Each organization has a specific environment that is unique to that firm's industry and directly affects the way it conducts day-to-day business. The specific environment of any company consists of five components: •Customers influence the products and services a company offers, the prices charged for those offerings, the company's reputation, and the sales generated by business operations. •Competitors also influence the products and services a company offers and the prices charged for those offerings. Competitors also influence how a company conducts its business in a certain market segment, its location, and the overall strategy it pursues (attack or avoid competitors). •Suppliers influence the cost of the products and services a company offers and therefore affects the profitability of the firm. Suppliers (who they are and what they can provide) also affect the types of products that a company is able to put on the market. •Industry regulations have the potential toinfluence nearly every aspect of a company's operations. For example, a caterer would need to comply with all the health codes and liquor laws that govern its industry. •Advocacy groups affect businesses through boycotts (or support). For example, advocacy groups were the sole reason that Home Depot changed its policy of buying lumber harvested from old-growth forests.

List the components of a general environment

The four components of the general environment are: The economy, the technological, sociocultural, and political/legal trends that indirectly affect all organizations.

Contrast the two models of social responsibility

The two models: shareholder model and stakeholder model Shareholder model: a view of social responsibility that holds an organization's overriding goal should be profit maximization for the benefit of shareholders. Stakeholder model: a theory of corporate responsibility that holds that management's most important responsibility, long-term survival, is achieved by satisfying the interests of multiple corporate stakeholders.

What choices does a company have when responding to demand for social responsibility?

There are four choices which a company can choose between when responding to demands for social responsibility. 1. Reactive strategy: when a company responds to a call for social responsibility by doing less than is expected of them. 2. Defensive strategy: when a company admits their responsibility for a given problem, but responds by doing the least possible to meet what is socially expected of them. 3. Accomodative strategy: when a company responds to a social problem and does all that is expected of them by society. 4. Proactive strategy: a social responsiveness strategy in which the company anticipates responsibility for an issue before it occurs, and then meets and exceeds societal expectations.

What are the main differences in the responsibilities of top and middle managers?

Top - executives responsible for overall company success, responsible for context for change, employee buy-in, positive company culture. Middle - setting goals that are consistent with top managers, allocating resources, linking divisions within a company, monitoring and managing performance, implements strategies developed by top managers.

How do the characteristics of changing environments affect uncertainty?

When environmental change, environmental complexity, and resource scarcity is low managers feel that they can more accurately predict, understand, and react to the external forces that affect their businesses. When these factors are high, managers feel greater uncertainty and control regarding these forces on their businesses.