MGMT 5320 Exam 3 - Short Essay Study Guide
Why should leaders of diverse teams require better conflict management skills than leaders of homogenous teams?
An increasingly diverse workforce requires more effort to manage potential conflict resulting from the greater differentiation and communication problems that exist among employees in this type of workforce. Employees with different backgrounds have difficulty understanding or accepting each other's beliefs and values toward organizational decisions and events. With respect to communication problems, people tend to feel uncomfortable or awkward interacting with colleagues with different beliefs, values, and expectations. Consequently, they are less motivated to engage in dialogue with them. This is one reason minorities are often excluded from key organizational information and are less willing to disclose their own ideas and opinions to others. With limited communication, people rely more on stereotypes to fill in missing information. They also tend to misunderstand each other's verbal and non-verbal signals, further escalating the conflict.
What are artifacts? Explain the four broad categories of artifacts.
Artifacts are the observable symbols and signs of an organization's culture, such as the way visitors are greeted, the organization's physical layout, and how employees are rewarded. The four broad categories of artifacts are: 1. Organizational stories: Organizational stories and legends serve as powerful social prescriptions of the way things should (or should not) be done. They add human realism to corporate expectations, individual performance standards, and the criteria for getting fired. Stories also produce emotions in listeners, and these emotions tend to improve listeners' memory of the lesson within the story. Stories have the greatest effect on communicating corporate culture when they describe real people, are assumed to be true, and are known by employees throughout the organization. 2. Rituals and ceremonies: Rituals are the programmed routines of daily organizational life that dramatize an organization's culture. They include how visitors are greeted, how often senior executives visit frontline staff, how people communicate with one another, how much time employees take for lunch, and so on. These rituals are repetitive, predictable events that have symbolic meanings reflecting underlying cultural values and assumptions. Ceremonies are more formal artifacts than rituals. Ceremonies are planned activities conducted specifically for the benefit of an audience. This would include publicly rewarding (or punishing) employees or celebrating the launch of a new product or newly won contract. 3. Organizational language: Language transmits and sustains shared values through metaphors and other special vocabularies that represent the employees' perspectives of reality. The language of the workplace speaks volumes about the company's culture. How employees talk to one another, describe customers, express anger, and greet stakeholders are all verbal symbols of cultural values. 4. Physical structures and space: The size, shape, location, and age of buildings may symbolize the organization's culture. For example, a tall building with closed offices and senior executive offices on the top floor often reflects a hierarchical, bureaucratic organization. Along with the physical structure, executives should look at artifacts inside the building, such as paintings, office space, cafeteria food, and so on.
Communication problems could cause conflicts. Explain.
Conflict often occurs due to the lack of opportunity, ability, or motivation to communicate effectively. Let's look at each of these causes. First, when two parties lack the opportunity to communicate, they tend to rely more on stereotypes to understand the other party in the conflict. Second, some people lack the necessary skills to communicate in a diplomatic, non-confrontational manner. A third problem is that the perception of conflict reduces motivation to communicate. Relationship conflict is uncomfortable, so people are less motivated to communicate with others in a disagreement. These problems could cause and escalate organizational conflicts.
What are the major challenges associated with organizational conflicts?
Conflicts can undermine job performance in many ways. They are stressful and distracting, which undermines productivity and job satisfaction. In some cases, valuable employees quit because they can no longer endure the conflict episodes. When people experience conflict, they are less motivated to share resources with the other party. Conflict fuels organizational politics, such as motivating employees to find ways to undermine the credibility of their opponents. Decision making suffers because people are less motivated to communicate valuable information. Ironically, with less communication, the feuding parties are more likely to escalate their disagreement because each side relies increasingly on distorted perceptions and stereotypes of the other party. Finally, conflict among team members may undermine team cohesion.
Distinguish between constructive conflicts and relationship conflicts.
Constructive conflict occurs when people focus their discussion around the issue while showing respect for people with other points of view. This helps participants to reexamine their assumptions and beliefs without triggering the drive to defend and its associated negative emotions and ego defense-mechanism behaviors. Teams and organizations with very low levels of constructive conflict are less effective, but there is also likely an upper limit to the level of intensity of constructive conflict. In contrast to constructive conflict, relationship conflict focuses on the other party as the source of conflict. This type of conflict is apparent when the conflict is explained in terms of interpersonal incompatibilities or "personality clashes" rather than legitimate differences of opinion regarding tasks or decisions. When relationship conflict dominates, the parties attack each other's credibility, intelligence, and competence.
Describe the conditions that support organizational politics.
Employees engage in organizational politics (that is, use influence tactics for personal gain) in certain conditions. One of those conditions is scarce resources. When budgets are slashed, people rely on political tactics to safeguard their resources and maintain the status quo. Office politics also flourish when resource allocation decisions are ambiguous, complex, or lack formal rules. This occurs because decision makers are given more discretion over resource allocation, so potential recipients of those resources use political tactics to influence the factors that should be considered in the decision. Organizational change encourages political behaviors. Change creates uncertainty and ambiguity as the company moves from an old set of rules and practices to a new set. During these times, employees apply political strategies to protect their valued resources, position, and self-concept.
What are the different ways in which authentic leaders regulate their decisions and behavior?
First, they develop their own style and, where appropriate, seek positions where that style is most effective. Although effective leaders adapt their behavior to situations to some extent, they invariably understand and rely on decision methods and interpersonal styles that feel most comfortable to them. Second, effective leaders continually think about and consistently apply their stable hierarchy of personal values to those decisions and behaviors. Third, leaders maintain consistency around their self-concepts by having strong, positive core self-evaluations. They have high self-esteem and self-efficacy as well as an internal locus of control.
Explain the concept of shared leadership.
Leadership isn't restricted to the executive suite. Anyone in the organization may be a leader in various ways and at various times. This view is known as shared leadership. Shared leadership is based on the idea that leadership is plural, not singular. It doesn't operate out of one formally assigned position, role, or individual. Instead, employees lead each other as the work arises. One team member might champion the introduction of new technology, while a coworker keeps the work unit focused on key performance indicators. Shared leadership typically supplements formal leadership. Shared leadership flourishes in organizations where the formal leaders are willing to delegate power and encourage employees to take initiative and risks without fear of failure. Shared leadership also calls for a collaborative rather than internally competitive culture because employees take on shared leadership roles when coworkers support them for their initiative.
Explain the optimal conflict perspective.
Optimal conflict perspective states that organizations are most effective when there is neither too little nor too much conflict among employees. The optimal conflict view was based on growing evidence that a moderate level of conflict sparks debate, which energizes people to evaluate alternatives more thoroughly by testing the logic of arguments and reexamining basic assumptions about the decision maker's preferences. By generating active thinking, conflict potentially also improves creativity.
What does organizational culture consist of? Briefly describe its components.
Organizational culture consists of the values and assumptions shared within an organization. In the context of organizational culture, values are discussed as shared values, which are values that people within the organization or work unit have in common and place near the top of their hierarchy of values. Organizational culture also consists of shared assumptions—a deeper element that some experts believe is the essence of corporate culture. Shared assumptions are nonconscious, taken-for-granted perceptions or ideal prototypes of behavior that are considered the correct way to think and act toward problems and opportunities. Shared assumptions are so deeply ingrained that you probably wouldn't discover them by surveying employees.
Briefly describe the bicultural audit process.
Organizational leaders can minimize cultural collisions and fulfill their duty of due diligence by conducting a bicultural audit. A bicultural audit diagnoses cultural relations between the companies and determines the extent to which cultural clashes will likely occur. The process begins with interviews, questionnaires, focus groups, and observation of cultural artifacts to identify cultural differences between the merging companies. Next, the audit data are analyzed to determine which differences between the two firms will result in conflict and which cultural values provide common ground on which to build a cultural foundation in the merged organization. The final stage of the bicultural audit involves identifying strategies and preparing action plans to bridge the two organizations' cultures.
What is organizational socialization? How does it support the organization's culture?
Organizational socialization is the process by which individuals learn the values, expected behaviors, and social knowledge necessary to assume their roles in the organization. The process can potentially change employee values to be more aligned with the company's culture and gives newcomers clearer understanding about the company's values and how they are translated into specific on-the-job behaviors.
Explain the functions of organizational subcultures.
Organizational subcultures serve two important functions. First, they maintain the organization's standards of performance and ethical behavior. Employees who hold countercultural values are an important source of surveillance and critical review of the dominant order. They encourage constructive conflict and more creative thinking about how the organization should interact with its environment. Subcultures potentially support ethical conduct by preventing employees from blindly following one set of values. The second function of subcultures is that they are the spawning grounds for emerging values that keep the firm aligned with the evolving needs and expectations of customers, suppliers, communities, and other stakeholders. Companies eventually need to replace their dominant values with ones that are more appropriate for the changing environment.
Describe how people react to influence attempts.
People react by resistance, compliance, or commitment. Resistance occurs when people or work units oppose the behavior desired by the influencer. At the extreme, they refuse to engage in the behavior. Compliance occurs when people are motivated to implement the influencer's request for purely instrumental reasons. Without external sources to prompt the desired behavior, compliance would not occur. Commitment is the strongest outcome of influence, whereby people identify with the influencer's request and are highly motivated to implement it even when extrinsic sources of motivation are not present.
Discuss the nature of task-oriented and people-oriented leadership styles. How do these styles relate to a leader's effectiveness?
People-oriented leadership includes showing mutual trust and respect for subordinates, a genuine concern for their needs, and a desire to look out for their welfare. Task-oriented leadership includes assigning employees to specific tasks, clarifying their work duties and procedures, ensuring that they follow company rules, and pushing them to reach their performance capacity. Studies indicate that people-oriented and task-oriented styles are independent of each other and that the most effective leaders exhibit high levels of both types of behavior.
What is power? Explain the important features of power.
Power is the capacity of a person, team, or organization to influence others. Some of the important features of power include the following: It is not the act of changing someone's attitudes or behavior; it is only the potential to do so. People frequently have power they do not use; they might not even know they have power. Power is based on the target's perception that the power holder controls (i.e., possesses, has access to, or regulates) a valuable resource that can help him or her achieve goals. People might generate power by convincing others that they control something of value, whether or not they actually control that resource. Power involves the asymmetric (unequal) dependence of one party on another party. Although dependence is a key element of power relationships, we use the phrase "asymmetric dependence" because the less powerful party still has some degree of power—called countervailing power—over the power holder. The power relationship depends on some minimum level of trust. Trust indicates a level of expectation that the more powerful party will deliver the resource.
Write a short note on choosing the best conflict handling style.
Problem solving has long been identified as the preferred conflict handling style where possible because dialogue and clever thinking help people to break out of the limited boundaries of their opposing alternatives to find an integrated solution where both gain value. However, problem solving is the best choice of conflict handling only when there is some potential for mutual gains. Avoiding is the best approach if a conflict has become emotionally charged or if negotiating has a higher cost than the benefits of conflict resolution. At the same time, conflict avoidance is often ineffective because it doesn't resolve the conflict and may increase the other party's frustration. The forcing style of conflict resolution is usually inappropriate because research indicates that it generates relationship conflict more quickly or intensely than other conflict handling styles. However, forcing may be necessary when you know you are correct, the dispute requires a quick solution, or the other party would take advantage of a more cooperative conflict handling style. The yielding style may be appropriate when the other party has substantially more power, the issue is not as important to you as to the other party, and you aren't confident that your position has the best value or logical consistency. On the other hand, yielding behaviors may give the other side unrealistically high expectations, thereby motivating them to seek more from you in the future. The compromising style may be best when there is little hope for mutual gain through problem solving, both parties have equal power, and both are under time pressure to settle their differences. However, we rarely know for certain that mutual gains are not available, so entering a conflict with the compromising style may cause the parties to overlook better solutions.
Briefly explain the types of influence tactics found in organizational settings.
Silent authority, assertiveness, information control, coalition information, and upward appeal are known as "hard" influence tactics because they force behavior change through position power (legitimate, reward, and coercion). Persuasion, ingratiation and impression management, and exchange are called "soft" tactics because they rely more on personal sources of power (referent, expert) and appeal to the target person's attitudes and needs. The silent application of authority occurs when someone complies with a request because of the requester's legitimate power as well as the target person's role expectations. Assertiveness is called "vocal authority" because it involves actively applying legitimate and coercive power to influence others. It includes persistently reminding the target of his or her obligations, frequently checking the target's work, confronting the target, and using threats of sanctions to force compliance. People with centrality in social networks have the power to control information. This power translates into influence when the power holder selectively distributes information, such that it reframes the situation and causes others to change their attitudes and/or behavior. When people lack sufficient power alone to influence others in the organization, they might form a coalition of people who support the proposed change. Upward appeal involves calling on higher authority or expertise, or symbolically relying on these sources, to support the influencer's position. It also occurs when relying on the authority of the firm's policies or values. Persuasion is the ability to present facts, logical arguments, and emotional appeals to change another person's attitudes and behavior. It is not just an acceptable way to influence others; in many societies, it is a noble art and a quality of effective leaders. A very "soft" influence tactic is ingratiation, which is any attempt to increase liking by, or perceived similarity to, some targeted person. Ingratiation is part of a larger influence tactic known as impression management. Impression management is the practice of actively shaping our public images. Exchange activities involve the promise of benefits or resources in exchange for the target person's compliance with your request. Negotiation is an integral part of exchange influence activities.
Explain the "dark side" of social networks.
Social networks are natural elements of all organizations, yet they can create a formidable barrier to those who are not actively connected. Women are often excluded from informal management networks and other male-dominated social events, for example, being invited to play golf.
Describe how social networks enhance the power of their members.
Social networks offer a variety of resources, each of which potentially enhances the power of its members. Probably the best-known resource is information from other network members, which improves the individual's expert power. The goodwill of social capital opens communication pipelines among those within the network. Network members receive valuable knowledge more easily and more quickly from fellow network members than do people outside that network. With better information access and timeliness, members have more power because their expertise is a scarce resource; it is not widely available to people outside the network. Increased visibility is a second contributor to a person's power through social networks. When asked to recommend someone for valued positions, other network members more readily think of you than people outside the network. Similarly, they are more likely to mention your name when asked to identify people with expertise in your areas of knowledge. A third resource from social networks is increased referent power. People tend to gain referent power through networking because members of the network identify with or at least have greater trust in each other. Referent power is also apparent by the fact that reciprocity increases among network members as they become more embedded in the network.
Can transformational leadership be equated with charismatic leadership? Explain your answer.
Some people equate charisma with transformational leadership. However, the textbook cites recent literature indicating that the two concepts are different. Charisma is a personal trait or relational quality that provides referent power over followers, whereas transformational leadership is a set of behaviors that engage followers toward a better future. Charisma is an inherent characteristic of one's character, not something that can be easily learned or mimicked. Transformational leadership motivates followers through behaviors that persuade and earn trust, whereas charismatic leadership motivates followers directly through existing referent power.
Explain the important contingencies of organizational culture and effectiveness.
Studies have found only a modestly positive relationship between culture strength and organizational effectiveness. This is because strong cultures improve organizational effectiveness only under specific conditions. Three important contingencies are: 1. Culture content alignment with environment: One contingency between cultural strength and organizational effectiveness is whether the organization's culture content—its dominant values and assumptions—is aligned with the external environment. 2. Avoiding a corporate cult: A second contingency is the degree of cultural strength. Various experts suggest that companies with very strong cultures (i.e., corporate "cults") may be less effective than companies with moderately strong cultures. One reason corporate cults may undermine organizational effectiveness is that they lock people into mental models, which can blind them to new opportunities and unique problems. The challenge for organizational leaders is to maintain not only a strong culture but one that allows subcultural diversity. 3. Culture is an adaptive culture: A third contingency determining the influence of cultural strength on organizational effectiveness is whether the culture content includes an adaptive culture. Employees who embrace an adaptive culture see things from an open systems perspective. They view the organization's survival and success in terms of ongoing adaptation to the external environment, which itself is continuously changing. They assume that their future depends on monitoring the external environment and serving stakeholders with the resources available. Thus, employees in adaptive cultures have a strong sense of ownership. They take responsibility for the organization's performance and alignment with the external environment.
Briefly explain the conflict process model.
The conflict process model begins with the sources of conflict. They include incompatible goals, differentiation, interdependence, scarce resources, and communication problems. At some point, the sources of conflict lead one or both parties to perceive that conflict exists. These perceptions usually interact with emotions experienced about the conflict. Conflict perceptions and emotions manifest themselves in the decisions and behaviors of one party toward the other. These conflict episodes may range from subtle nonverbal behaviors to warlike aggression. Manifest conflicts would in turn lead to perceptions and the conflict escalates. This would lead to various conflict outcomes. The outcomes can be positive or negative.
Explain the important contingencies of power.
The four important contingencies of power are substitutability, centrality, visibility, and discretion. Substitutability refers to the availability of alternatives. Conversely, power decreases as the number of alternative sources of the critical resource increases. Substitutability refers not only to other sources that offer the resource but also to substitutions for the resource itself. Nonsubstitutability is strengthened by controlling access to the resource. Professions and labor unions gain power by controlling knowledge, tasks, or labor to perform important activities. Centrality refers to the power holder's importance, based on the degree and nature of his or her interdependence with others. It increases with the number of people dependent on you, as well as with how quickly and severely they are affected by that dependence. Power also increases with visibility. One way to increase visibility is to take people-oriented jobs and work on projects that require frequent interaction with senior executives. Employees also gain visibility by being, quite literally, visible. Some people strategically locate themselves in more visible work areas, such as those closest to the boss or where other employees frequently pass by. Discretion refers to the freedom to exercise judgment—to make decisions without referring to a specific rule or receiving permission from someone else.
Briefly explain the four leadership styles prescribed in the path-goal leadership styles.
The four leadership styles are: • Directive: This leadership style consists of clarifying behaviors that provide a psychological structure for subordinates. The leader clarifies performance goals, the means to reach those goals, and the standards against which performance will be judged. It also includes judicious use of rewards and disciplinary actions. • Supportive: In this style, the leader's behaviors provide psychological support for subordinates. The leader is friendly and approachable; makes the work more pleasant; treats employees with equal respect; and shows concern for the status, needs, and well-being of employees. • Participative: Participative leadership behaviors encourage and facilitate subordinate involvement in decisions beyond their normal work activities. The leader consults with employees, asks for their suggestions, and seriously considers these ideas before making a decision. • Achievement-oriented: This leadership style emphasizes behaviors that encourage employees to reach their peak performance. The leader sets challenging goals, expects employees to perform at their highest level, continuously seeks improvement in employee performance, and shows a high degree of confidence that employees will assume responsibility and accomplish challenging goals.
Explain the main strategies for merging different corporate cultures.
The four main strategies for merging different corporate cultures are assimilation, deculturation, integration, and separation. • Assimilation: It occurs when employees at the acquired company willingly embrace the cultural values of the acquiring organization. Typically, this strategy works best when the acquired company has a weak, dysfunctional culture and the acquiring company's culture is strong and aligned with the external environment. • Deculturation: Employees usually resist organizational change, particularly when they are asked to throw away personal and cultural values. In these conditions, some acquiring companies apply a deculturation strategy by imposing their culture and business practices on the acquired organization. The acquiring firm strips away artifacts and reward systems that support the old culture. • Integration: A third strategy is to combine the two or more cultures into a new composite culture that preserves the best features of the previous cultures. Integration is slow and potentially risky because there are many forces preserving the existing cultures. Still, this strategy should be considered when the companies have relatively weak cultures or when their cultures include several overlapping values. • Separation: A separation strategy occurs when the merging companies agree to remain distinct entities with minimal exchange of culture or organizational practices. This strategy is most appropriate when the two merging companies are in unrelated industries or operate in different countries, because the most appropriate cultural values tend to differ by industry and national culture.
Briefly describe the implicit leadership theory.
The implicit leadership theory states that people evaluate a leader's effectiveness in terms of how well that person fits preconceived beliefs about the features and behaviors of effective leaders (leadership prototypes) and that they tend to inflate the influence of leaders on organizational events. These prototypes, which develop through socialization within the family and society, shape our expectations and acceptance of others as leaders, and this in turn affects our willingness to serve as followers. Along with relying on implicit prototypes of effective leaders, followers tend to distort their perceptions of the influence that leaders have on the environment. This "romance of leadership" effect exists because in most cultures people want to believe leaders make a difference.
Explain the important functions of organizational culture.
The important functions of organizational culture are: • Control system: Organizational culture is a deeply embedded form of social control that influences employee decisions and behavior. Culture is pervasive and operates nonconsciously. • Social glue: Organizational culture is the "social glue" that bonds people together and makes them feel like part of the organizational experience. Employees are motivated to internalize the organization's dominant culture because it fulfills their need for social identity. This social glue is increasingly important as a way to attract new staff and retain top performers. It also becomes the common thread that holds together employees in global organizations. • Sense making: Organizational culture helps employees make sense of what goes on and why things happen in the company. Corporate culture also makes it easier for employees to understand what is expected of them.
List and explain the main categories of leadership competencies.
The main categories of leadership competencies are: • Personality: This refers to the leader's personality. The strongest predictors are high levels of extroversion and conscientiousness. With high extroversion, effective leaders are comfortable having an influential role in social settings. With higher conscientiousness, effective leaders set higher goals for themselves (and others), are more motivated to pursue those goals, and have a sense of duty to others. • Drive: This refers to the inner motivation that leaders possess to pursue their goals. In particular, leaders have a high need for achievement. • Leadership motivation: Effective leaders have a strong need for socialized power. They want to use their power bases to influence their team or organization and make it successful. • Integrity: Effective leaders are truthful and translate words into deeds. Leaders will only have followers when trust is maintained through the leader's integrity. • Self-concept: Successful leaders have a complex, internally consistent, and clear self-concept of themselves as leaders. Leaders believe in their leadership skills and ability to achieve objectives. • Cognitive and practical intelligence: Leaders have above-average cognitive ability to process enormous amounts of information. Leaders aren't necessarily geniuses. Rather, they have superior ability to analyze alternate scenarios and to identify potential opportunities. • Knowledge of the business: Leaders need to understand the environment in which they operate to make more intuitive decisions. This relates to the idea that intuition requires experience and intimate knowledge of the industry. • Emotional intelligence: Effective leaders monitor their own and others' emotions, discriminate among them, and use the information to guide their thoughts and actions. They have a strong self-monitoring personality to adapt their behavior appropriately.
List the various structural approaches to conflict management.
The main structural approaches to conflict management are emphasizing superordinate goals, reducing differentiation, improving communication and understanding, reducing task interdependence, increasing resources, and clarifying rules and procedures.
Describe the stages of organizational socialization.
The stages of organizational socialization are: • Preemployment socialization is all the learning and adjustment that occurs before the first day of work. • Encounter is the stage starting with the first day on the job, during which newcomers test how well their preemployment expectations fit reality. • Role management begins during preemployment socialization but is most active as employees make the transition from newcomers to insiders. It involves establishing and strengthening relationships with coworkers and supervisors, practicing new role behaviors, and adopting attitudes and values consistent with their new position and the organization.
Identify and briefly explain the strategies for changing and strengthening organizational culture.
The strategies are: • Through the actions of founders and leaders—transformational leadership and organizational change practices may be used. • Altering artifacts, or creating new artifacts, can potentially adjust shared values and assumptions. • Changing reward systems can strengthen or reshape the behavior of organizational members. • Supporting workforce stability and communication. Strong cultures depend on stable workforces. • Attracting, selecting, and retaining employees with the values and personality characteristics that are desired.
Organizational behavior researchers have discovered that it is difficult to separate constructive conflict from relationship conflict. However, it is possible to minimize relationship conflict during constructive conflict episodes. Describe two strategies that would help a team of employees to reduce the level of relationship conflict while the team is engaging in constructive conflict, and briefly explain why each strategy may be effective.
The textbook describes three strategies that potentially minimize the level of relationship conflict during constructive conflict episodes. Students can describe any two of these. Emotional intelligence: Relationship conflict is less likely to occur, or is less likely to escalate, when team members have high levels of emotional intelligence. Emotionally intelligent employees are better able to regulate their emotions during debate, which reduces the risk of escalating perceptions of interpersonal hostility. People with high emotional intelligence are also more likely to view a coworker's emotional reaction as valuable information about that person's needs and expectations, rather than as a personal attack. Cohesive team: Relationship conflict is suppressed when the conflict occurs within a highly cohesive team. The longer people work together, get to know each other, and develop mutual trust with each other, the more latitude they give to each other to show emotions without being personally offended. Strong cohesion also allows each person to know about and anticipate the behaviors and emotions of their teammates. Another benefit is that cohesion produces a stronger social identity with the group, so team members are motivated to avoid escalating relationship conflict during otherwise emotionally turbulent discussions. Supportive team norms: Various team norms can hold relationship conflict at bay during constructive debate. When team norms encourage openness, for instance, team members learn to appreciate honest dialogue without personally reacting to any emotional display during the disagreements. Other norms might discourage team members from displaying negative emotions toward coworkers. Team norms also encourage tactics that diffuse relationship conflict when it first appears. For instance, research has found that teams with low relationship conflict use humor to maintain positive group emotions, which offsets negative feelings team members might develop toward some coworkers during debate.
Briefly explain the concept of leadership substitutes.
The theory, called leadership substitutes, identifies conditions that either limit the leader's ability to influence subordinates or make a particular leadership style unnecessary. The literature identifies several conditions that possibly substitute for task-oriented or people-oriented leadership. Factors such as performance-based rewards act as leadership substitutes.
Briefly describe the various interpersonal conflict handling styles.
The various interpersonal conflict handling styles are listed below. Problem solving: Problem solving tries to find a solution that is beneficial for both parties. This is known as the win-win orientation because people using this style believe the resources at stake are expandable rather than fixed if the parties work together to find a creative solution. Forcing: It tries to win the conflict at the other's expense. People who use this style typically have a win-lose orientation; they believe the parties are drawing from a fixed pie, so the more one party receives, the less the other party will receive. Avoiding: Avoiding tries to smooth over or avoid conflict situations altogether. It represents a low concern for both self and the other party; in other words, avoiders try to find ways to avoid thinking about the conflict. Some employees rearrange their work area or tasks to minimize interaction with certain coworkers. Yielding: Yielding is giving in completely to the other side's wishes, or at least cooperating with little or no attention to your own interests. It involves making unilateral concessions and unconditional promises, as well as offering help with no expectation of reciprocal help. Compromising: It refers to looking for a position in which your losses are offset by equally valued gains. It involves matching the other party's concessions, making conditional promises or threats, and actively searching for a middle ground between the interests of the two parties.
Explain the statement: "Power does not flow to unknown people in the organization."
This statement refers to the relevance of visibility as an important contingency of organizational power. Even if an individual has something of value, this potential power does not actually exist until the potentially dependent person becomes aware (1) that the resource the individual controls will help fulfill the dependent person's needs and (2) that the individual has control of the resource. Thus, visibility is the idea that power is influenced by perceptions and that people gain power by being seen as possessing valued resources. If an employee has unique knowledge to help others to do their jobs better, the employee's power base will yield power only when others are aware of this unique knowledge. Thus, one gains power not only by having valuable talents, but also by making them known.
Describe the different third-party conflict resolution interventions. Which of these interventions is most appropriate in organizations? Why?
There are generally three types of third party dispute resolutions activities: arbitration, inquisition, and mediation. 1. Arbitration: Arbitrators have high control over the final decision but low control over the process. Executives engage in this strategy by following previously agreed rules of due process, listening to arguments from the disputing employees, and making a binding decision. 2. Inquisition: Inquisitors control all discussions about the conflict. They have both the high decision control as well as the high process control. 3. Mediation: Mediators have high control over the conflict management process. However, the parties make the final decision about how to resolve their differences. Thus, mediators have little or no control over the conflict resolution decision. Most appropriate intervention depends on the situation. But generally speaking, for everyday disputes between two employees, the mediation approach is usually best because this gives employees more responsibility for resolving their own disputes.
List the various elements of transformational leadership.
There are several descriptions of transformational leadership, but most include the following four elements: Create a strategic vision, communicate the vision, model the vision, and build commitment toward the vision.
Briefly describe the strategies of expert power that cope with uncertainty in organizations.
There are three strategies of expert power that cope with uncertainty in organizations. These are: Prevention: The most effective strategy is to prevent environmental changes from occurring. Forecasting: The next best strategy is to predict environmental changes or variations. Absorption: People and work units also gain power by absorbing or neutralizing the impact of environmental shifts as they occur.
Using attraction-selection-attrition (ASA) theory, describe how a company would maintain and perpetuate its culture.
This answer requires students to describe how each of the three parts of the theory contributes to maintaining an organization's culture. • Attraction: All organizations communicate their cultures (values) via artifacts that are visible to others in the community. These provide information to prospective job applicants about the organization's values. The resulting information leads applicants to a form of self-selection when they avoid companies that seem to have values that are incompatible with their own. Conversely, this same process encourages those who share the same values with the company to apply for jobs. The attraction component of the theory ensures the established culture is maintained. • Selection: Even during the employment selection stage, companies factor in the person's "fit" with the established culture. This focus on values congruence has the effect of weeding out those who hold differing values found in the established organizational culture. Rather than providing a mix of values, this practice tends to homogenize and perpetuate an organization's established culture. • Attrition: People are motivated to seek environments that are sufficiently congruent with their personal values and to leave environments that are a poor fit. This occurs because person-organization values congruence supports their social identity and minimizes internal role conflict. Even if employees aren't forced out, many quit when the values incongruence is sufficiently high. This attrition process contributes to perpetuating a workforce that comprises mostly of individuals who share the same values as those found in the company's culture.
Discuss the accuracy of the following statement: Women are less effective than men in leadership positions because they tend to rely too much on the supportive style of leadership.
This statement is false. First, research indicates that women are just about as effective as men in leadership roles, thereby making the first part of the statement incorrect. Second, women do not apply the supportive leadership style significantly more than male leaders, thereby making the second part of the statement incorrect. With respect to the effectiveness of women as leaders, earlier OB research found that people tend to evaluate women slightly less favorably than men in leadership roles, but this is almost entirely due to gender-based stereotypes. Without this sex-stereotype, women and men are almost equally able to perform leadership roles. With respect to preferred leadership styles, the only significant difference between men and women is that women tend to use the participative leadership style more often than do men. Moreover, recent studies suggest that women are rated higher than men with increasing expectations that leaders should be empowering and facilitating.
Describe the sources of power in organizations.
Three sources of power—legitimate, reward, and coercive—originate mostly (but not completely) from the power holder's formal position or informal role. Two other sources of power—namely, expert and referent—originate mainly from the power holder's own characteristics. Legitimate power is an agreement among organizational members that people in certain roles can request a set of behaviors from others. This perceived right or obligation originates from formal job descriptions, as well as informal rules of conduct. Reward power is derived from the person's ability to control the allocation of rewards valued by others and to remove negative sanctions (i.e., negative reinforcement). Managers have formal authority that gives them power over the distribution of organizational rewards such as pay, promotions, time off, vacation schedules, and work assignments. Coercive power is the ability to apply punishment. The first response to this definition is managers threatening employees with dismissal. Yet employees also have coercive power, such as being sarcastic toward coworkers or threatening to ostracize them if they fail to conform to team norms. Many firms rely on this coercive power to control coworker behavior in team settings. Expert power originates mainly from within the power holder. It is an individual's or work unit's capacity to influence others by possessing knowledge or skills valued by others. One important form of expert power is the (perceived) ability to manage uncertainties in the business environment. People have referent power when others identify with them, like them, or otherwise respect them. It originates within the power holder. It is largely a function of the person's interpersonal skills and tends to develop slowly. It is also associated with charisma. Charisma is a personal characteristic or special "gift" that serves as a form of interpersonal attraction and referent power over others.
Briefly explain the important contingencies of path-goal theory.
• Skill and experience: A combination of directive and supportive leadership is best for employees who are inexperienced and unskilled. Directive leadership gives subordinates information about how to accomplish the task, whereas supportive leadership helps them cope with the uncertainties of unfamiliar work situations. Directive leadership is detrimental when employees are skilled and experienced because it introduces too much supervisory control. • Locus of control: Recall from Chapter 2 that people with an internal locus of control believe they have control over their work environment. Consequently, these employees prefer participative and achievement-oriented leadership styles and may become frustrated with a directive style. In contrast, people with an external locus of control believe their performance is due more to luck and fate, so they tend to be more satisfied with directive and supportive leadership. • Task structure: Leaders should adopt a directive style when a task is non-routine because this style minimizes the role ambiguity that tends to occur in complex work situations. The directive style is ineffective when employees have routine and simple tasks because the manager's guidance serves no purpose and may be viewed as unnecessarily close control. • Team dynamics: Cohesive teams with performance-oriented norms act as a substitute for most leader interventions. High team cohesion substitutes for supportive leadership, whereas performance-oriented team norms substitute for directive and possibly achievement-oriented leadership. Thus, when team cohesion is low, leaders should use the supportive style. Leaders should apply a directive style to counteract team norms that oppose the team's formal objectives.