ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOR

Table of contents

1. You are a manager of a team. Recently, you have noted that the performance of the team is dropping. There have been no significant changes in the market environment or the customer expectations and hence you are concerned about this drop. With regards to this subject, highlight the possible reasons for this negative change in the team’s performance. Also, suggest possible measures you can take to address the top three reasons 5
2. Define organizational behavior. What are the critical issues and challenges faced by managers today which are compelling them to use OB Concepts? Explain the levels of analysis of OB in brief and how can OB help a manager become more effective with any examples. 5
3. Write a brief note on 6
4. Describe the equity theory of motivation. What are the implications of perception of inequity on a person’s behaviour in the organization? 7
5. Imagine one of your team members you work with has a negative perception about his role in the organization. He believes that his role is not significant and that no one values to his contributions. This is significantly affecting his attitude towards his work. What would you suggest his manager does to turnaround this perception and thereby affect his performance in a positive way? 7
6. What is meant by job satisfaction? Which job facets are usually taken up for assessing job satisfaction levels in an organization? 8
7. There are times when job satisfaction levels in an organization are high, but job performance levels are below expectations. How can such a situation arise? Explain with reference to an organization? 8
8. What are the components of organizational commitment? To what extent is it dependent on quality of leadership in the organization? 8
9. What is the difference between a job and a role? Is it possible that a person performs the job very well but fares badly in the role? Explain with an example. 9
10. If personality refers to a complex set consisting traits, energy, knowledge, skills and attitudes, which of these can change over a time? Which aspects of personality need to be assessed at the stage of selection? 9
11. What the causes are for inter group competition in organizations? What are the ways to deal with it? 10
12. What is meant by extrinsic and intrinsic rewards? What should be the proportion in deciding rewards at higher levels? 10
13. “Groups can lose vitality on account of groupthink”. Explain with examples. 10
14. “There is no ideal solution to organizational problems”. Do you agree? Why? How would study of organizational behavior help? 10
15. What is the pyramidal view of organizations? What assumptions about people and work are implicitly held in it? Are they valid? 11
16. What is meant by organizational culture? Explain with reference to any organizations? 11
17. What is motivation and write down different theories of motivation? “Professional knowledge workers need autonomy to function and deliver their best”. Do you agree? Which theory of motivations supports this view? 11
18. Certain departments in the organization set goals well below their potential and achieve at lower levels than the goals. Yet heads of those departments feel they have achieved a lot under the circumstances. How and why does this situation occur? 12
19. How do perceptions guide actions in organizations? Explain the ABC model with examples. 12
20. “Before they get confirmed in employment, they all work very hard. Wonder what happens to them afterwards”. Analyse this statement with the help of organizational behavior. 13
21. What is the meaning of integration of individual needs and organizational goals? Explain with an example. 13
22. “People organize their needs in form of hierarchy. The lowest unmet need motivates. What is this theory? Explain this theory in detail. 13
23. What is meant by team? What are the characteristics of effective team? 13
24. What is “BIG FIVE” model of understanding personality? Explain in detail. 14
25. Task Vs relationship is an open faced dilemma of leaders. Why is it so? Describe how managerial grid explains this concept. 14
26. Explain the types of values. How do values impact behavior of people in any organization with example? 14
27. The concept of organizational behavior is attributed to “The Hawthorne effects” – a series of experiments conducted and analyzed by Professor Elton Mayo. 15
28. What is johari window? How is it related to “Self disclosure? Explain each of the quadrants of this window. Is it feasible for a person to move directly from the 4^th quadrant to 1^st one? Why? 16
29. We are now living in a “new environment”. What comprises this “new environment”? Explain each of the four pillars of the new environment. 17
30. Two famous content theories included Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Herzberg’s two factor theory. Explain each to bring out all the important facts. 17
31. What does change have an impact on? Explain how you will make change positive. How will you overcome resistance to change? 17
32. Productivity concerns both, “effectiveness and efficiency”. Effectiveness is the foundation of success, while efficiency is a minimum condition for survival after success has been achieved. How would you explain the actual difference between these 2 terms to a lay man, so that the meaning is clearly brought out? How would you also compare management effectiveness with leadership effectiveness? 18
33. What is personality? What are the factors affecting personality formation?which aspects of environment affect behavior in organizations? 18
34. You are a manager entrusted with the task of building a new team for an upcoming project. How will you use the knowledge of Tuchman’s team formation stages to build a strong team? Elaborate. 19
35. Explain high locus control personality? You recognize that you are working with a high locus control personality in one of your team members. You understand the positive impact of high LOC as well as the possible negatives that could come along with it. Explain your understanding of this personality attribute and ways to deal with it while working together with this person as his manager. 20
36. The accomplishment of organization goals requires certain tasks to be performed and employees are assigned to perform these tasks. It is for this reason that groups are formed. Why do people form groups? How many types of groups are there? Show a detailed breakdown of the types of groups and bring out the salient aspects of each. 20
37. Ethics and diversity are a much talked terms in today’s corporate world. What do you understand by these terms? If an organization is said to be truly “Multi-cultured” what stages did it go through, to get to this stage. 21
38. Explain with examples sensation, perception and cognition. Why is the perception process so important in the study of OB and what role does perception plays in shaping up personalities and what is social perception? 21
39. Three popular TQM techniques relevant to OB are re-engineering, benchmarking and empowerment. Why are they relevant to the subject? Explain each to bring out the actual meaning of each of these terms. 22
40. What is emotional intelligence? Explain the five components of Emotional intelligence? 22
41. Explain leadership in organization? What is leadership from below explain? 23
42. What is the influence of work groups on individual behavior at work? Explain with examples. 23
43. Under which conditions is it possible that people remain dissatisfied though the organization is achieving its business results? What will be the consequences of such a situation? 23
44. Explain the conceptual model of organization behavior showing various influences at work. 24
45. What are cultural beliefs about conflict? Which one do you support? Why? 24
46. What are the different levels of performance seen in organizations? What does satisfying level or under performance level signify? 24
47. It is said that no group can be expected to perform at the highest level immediately after its formation. What is the theoretical explanation for this belief? 24
48. A new team has been formed for a new market region. However, customer complaints have gone up, attrition is high and the margins have gone down. What could be the possible reasons? Explain how we could use the motivation theories to understand the situation better. 25
49. What is groupthink? what are the remedies to group think to minimize the same. 25
50. Consider the following situations that a team leader in an organization is facing and responding to: 25
51. Why do conflicts arise in an organization? What are the different conflict resolution techniques adopted by individuals to resolve conflicts. 26
52. Explain how heredity, environment and situation impact personality in the context of organizational behavior. 26

1. You are a manager of a team. Recently, you have noted that the performance of the team is dropping. There have been no significant changes in the market environment or the customer expectations and hence you are concerned about this drop. With regards to this subject, highlight the possible reasons for this negative change in the team’s performance. Also, suggest possible measures you can take to address the top three reasons

Team performance of a team often drops due to various reasons even when the business environment remains the same:

• Internal disputes- These occur due to the lack of communication and understanding
• Monotony of Job- Monotony affects employees adversely and makes them more dis interested in the job.
• Lack of team spirit- The lack of team spirit does not allow the workforce to be united and thus as a result the overall productivity goes down.

Some viable ways to solve these problems are:

• Promoting team based work to provide proper team spirit and motivation
• Offering the employee’s work which is challenging in nature so as to keep their minds fresh and free off monotony.
• The above two automatically lead to the reduction of internal team disputes and enhance understanding and communication.

2. Define organizational behavior. What are the critical issues and challenges faced by managers today which are compelling them to use OB Concepts? Explain the levels of analysis of OB in brief and how can OB help a manager become more effective with any examples.

Organisational behaviour is defined as the controlling, understanding and predicting the human behaviour present in an organisation (Manika et al. 2015). The main difficulties being faced by new managers are communication problems, setting goals, encouraging productivity, time management and so on. Organisational behaviour helps to solve communication problems and helps to create a motivating environment.

Individual Analysis- This analyses creativity, motivation, personality, turnover, ethics, so on.

Group level analysis- This level analyses leadership, power norms, interpersonal communication, cohesion and such other behavioural trends.

Organisational Analysis- Conflict, technology, organisational structure, cultural diversity and so on.

A manager by using OB can understand their employee well and as a result can manage and handle the employee grievances and complaints more effectively.

3. Write a brief note on
4. Machiavellianism as a personality attributes
5. Groupthink as a group phenomenon.
6. Organizational culture
7. Lose-Lose style of managing conflicts.
8. Competing style of conflict management.
9. Values

1. Machiavellianism as a personality attributes

Machiavellianism is the personality trait which says that manipulation, deception, exploitation are all things that can be done by a person who is extremely focussed on their personal goals to achieve them (Greenbaum et al. 2017). Certain pointers of this personality trait are, use of excessive flattery, lack of a moral compass, low empathy and so on. Machiavellians are the individuals, who tend to cheat; lie and can deceive other person for achieving their own goals.  Due to less emotional attachment with others and their shallow nature, they do not harm others for achieving their goals. The attitudes and views of Machiavellians are problematic and coercive and tend to deceive and manipulate others due to less emotional collateral.

1. Group think as a group phenomenon

A group's consensus decision often overshadows the common sense of individuals working in the group and instead of providing proper alternatives they all agree to a decision which is not effective enough due to the cohesiveness of the group. This phenomenon is defined as Groupthink and it results in the detriment of decision making qualities of a group. Groupthink is the phenomenon in which the people within the group due to their desire for conformity and harmony. It occurs when the individuals within the group make non-optimal or irrational decisions which can cause discouragement amongst them. In the process of making decisions according to the group cause, the individuals often ignore moral or ethical consequences. It may generally result in dysfunctional or irrational decision-making outcome (McGonagle et al. 2016). Group thinking can be avoided by planning for that in a proper way, encouragement of debates, looking out for various personalities within an organisation, reaching out to the group members and acknowledging biases within the data.

1. Organizational culture

Organizational structure refers to the beliefs, value systems, and methods, norms that build up the social and psychological environment of an organisation. Organisational culture is expressed in inner workings, self image and interactions of the members with the outside world and the expectations are based upon shared customs, belief, attitudes which are developed within the organisation. The leaders of the organisation are responsible for maintaining an organisational culture within the organisation and creating an established and deeply embedded culture (Gunkel et al. 2016). This type of framework within the organisation helps to ensure that there is job satisfaction for the employees and they feel that the leader is helping them to reach the goals of the organisation. The culture within the organisation, leadership and the job satisfaction of the employees are linked with one another.

1. Lose-Lose style of managing conflicts

A lose-lose strategy is based on leaving a conflict along with the relationship where the

Conflict arose. This strategy of conflict management ensures that the groups who are engaged in the conflict are brought together by giving them a part of the common desire they wish for. In this situation, both the groups tend to lose something. From the study of (Chen et al. 2015), the main objective of this technique is find and figure out a common ground and a mutually acceptable solution that can partially satisfy the needs of both the groups. This method of conflict management is very time consuming and requires opportunity for both the groups for meeting and coming up to an agreement. When the strategies for competition and accommodation fail to generate accurate results, this method can be used as a backup.

1. Competing style of conflict management.

This style of conflict management puts people in a win-lose situation where one person becomes highly assertive and absolutely non-cooperative in order to achieve their personal goals. This method can give rise to conflicts among the groups as they use all of their resources and connections in order to enhance their individual positions. However, if the competitions are taken in a positive manner, it can draw the potential strengths of both the groups. According to (Ramanadham, 2019), this method of conflict management can protect and individual from others who tend to take advantage of their non-competitive behaviour. This strategy can also be called win-lose strategy as the result of competition is that one team wins and the other loses and is used when it is important to take a decisive and quick action.

1. Values

Ideals and important values shared by the people of a culture that defines the norms, good and bad qualities and ways of functioning of a specific organisation and its individuals. They form an ethical foundation for an organisation. The values within an organisation play an important role in determining the ways the organisation is dealing with the problems and issues. These ideals and ethics guides the behavioural aspects within the organisation and the employees can use these values as a guide for functioning within an organisation. There are mainly four types of values that should be present in every organisation. These are Integrity and Ethics, Innovation, Respect and Drive (Lu and While, 2019).

The organisation needs to build up its entire business on the basis of integrity and ethics for developing a strong relationship with its employees, customers and stakeholders. The organisation is responsible towards their employees and should be respectful towards them. Respecting an employee refers to respecting their privacy and human rights. The employees of the organisation who are dynamic and come with innovative ideas help in generating successful products from the company.

4. Describe the equity theory of motivation. What are the implications of perception of inequity on a person’s behaviour in the organization?

The equity theory of motivation states that equity is the main source of motivation for an individual. It also states that when inequities are identified by individuals between themselves and their reference group, they seek to adjust their input in order to reach their perceived quality (Kiruja and Mukuru, 2018). A certain perception of an employee also affects their sense of equity by a great magnitude and this, results in different behavioural patterns. For example, a person who is mostly envious of others may never perceive themselves to be equal and are prone to ignoring all the facilities that get and prioritise the ones they do not get over the same. This results in their lack of motivation.

5. Imagine one of your team members you work with has a negative perception about his role in the organization. He believes that his role is not significant and that no one values to his contributions. This is significantly affecting his attitude towards his work. What would you suggest his manager does to turnaround this perception and thereby affect his performance in a positive way?

To deal with such an employee it is required to find out as to why he is feeling dissatisfied with the position that he is in. These can amount to a host of reasons such as, monotonous work, excessive pressure, bad work environment and many others. The manager should first have an open talk with him regarding the problems. The manager can also by hearing the employee out create a sense of trust; belongingness and goodwill which make it easier for the manager to motivate the employees.

6. What is meant by job satisfaction? Which job facets are usually taken up for assessing job satisfaction levels in an organization?

Job satisfaction refers to the level of contentedness a worker feels while at a particular job irrespective of the nature of the job. Job satisfaction is one of the major deciding factors of employee turnover and employee loyalty of an organisation. Various factors contributing to job satisfaction are:

• Good work environment
• Effective communication
• Proper team spirit
• High levels of motivation
• Timely payment of salary
• Additional facilities provided
• Clean workplace
• Beautifully decorated

7. There are times when job satisfaction levels in an organization are high, but job performance levels are below expectations. How can such a situation arise? Explain with reference to an organization?

There are cases when job satisfaction is extremely high but at the same time productivity is very low. This can often be seen in the structure of old government institutions or the public sector mostly. Because the public sector is not often goal driven the people tend to become lethargic and lazy. Since job satisfaction is high because of security, a various host of facilities the employees are not ambitious as they have no reason or goals they actively want to achieve (Lu and While, 2019). Thus, this results in them availing facilities before doing any form of work and as a result they become very low on productivity.

8. What are the components of organizational commitment? To what extent is it dependent on quality of leadership in the organization?

There are three major components of organizational commitment:

• Affection for the job (Affective) - In this form of commitment the person wants to stay committed to a certain company because they have a high affinity towards their job.
• Fear of loss (Continuance) - this commitment arises due the fear that if the person leaves the company then the loss will be greater than the benefit and thus as a result the person refuses to leave.
• A sense of obligation (normative) - Even when a person is dissatisfied with their company they stick on because they think it is the right thing to do.

The sense of commitment is quite dependant on the leadership style as it may also affect the reasons and an employee's mindset towards the company The  ambience of a company for an individual is highly created by the leader of an individual.

9. What is the difference between a job and a role? Is it possible that a person performs the job very well but fares badly in the role? Explain with an example.

Jobs and roles are two absolutely different entities. A job is the task a person is supposed to perform and the role is the organisational position of a person. It is possible for someone to be good at a certain job but not at their respective role. Taking an example of a company which works in content writing and a person is assigned the role of a team lead. While they may be good at the job of content writing but then again they may not be effective as a team lead because of their lack of people management skills and their inefficiency in handling interpersonal relationships.

10. If personality refers to a complex set consisting traits, energy, knowledge, skills and attitudes, which of these can change over a time? Which aspects of personality need to be assessed at the stage of selection?

Out of the various sets of qualities which make up personality qualities like knowledge, energy, skills sets and similar factors are prone to change. Therefore it is important to judge the more permanent factors which are not that prone to change such as traits and attitudes. These qualities define things like team spirit of the individual, the willingness to cooperate, the capacity to learn and other important factors and as a result are required to be judged while selection.

11. What the causes are for inter group competition in organizations? What are the ways to deal with it?

Intergroup competition arises out of a host of reasons that may arise out of negative communication between two groups. Intergroup competition may also result in positive outcomes such as more productivity and increased performance standards (Stephan and Stephan, 2017). If it is positive in nature there it should be kept in mind to not let it take a negative turn. Whereas in case of negative competition a problem should be abolished by talking, open discussion of problems and making peace.

12. What is meant by extrinsic and intrinsic rewards? What should be the proportion in deciding rewards at higher levels?

Intrinsic rewards are rewards which are intangible in nature. These rewards are rewards of recognition and rewards of moral values where the person may feel that they have done something right and feel rewarded (Kuvaas et al. 2017). These arise from inside of a person. Extrinsic rewards are the ones which are tangible, like a trophy or a medal which can be physically touched and received. At higher levels the intrinsic rewards should be awarded more in comparison to extrinsic rewards as for people of the higher level it is more engaging.

13. “Groups can lose vitality on account of groupthink”. Explain with examples.

Groups are very prone to losing their vitality or in other words their strength and specialisation due the effects of Groupthink. Groupthink leads to the lack of questions and critique of the group’s decision making capabilities and thus as a result the group becomes dull and makes mistakes in decision making more often than before. This results also in the members becoming less productive.

14. “There is no ideal solution to organizational problems”. Do you agree? Why? How would study of organizational behavior help?

Organisational problems are forever changing in nature because the nature of human problems keeps on changing. An organisation is mainly made up of human resources and as a result the problems evolve with the evolution of new systems and procedures being constantly developed and implemented (McGonagle et al. 2016). Thus organisational behaviour is very important to the being of any organisation as it constantly studies the development and changes in the system allowing better analysis of systems and procedures to be put into place so as to fine tune the system and this helps in the growth of the company.

15. What is the pyramidal view of organizations? What assumptions about people and work are implicitly held in it? Are they valid?

The pyramidal chart of an organisation is a pyramid which depicts the flow of authority. The Authority flows down from the higher executive levels to the middle management levels and then to the lower management levels. The assumptions that are held in it are that there is no contact between the lower and the higher level unless it is via the middle management. There is no bilinear flow of authority and information flow upwards and authority and orders flow downwards. These pyramids do not exist anymore as the incorporation of OB has made communication free and the lower levels can directly contact the higher levels of management with ease.

16. What is meant by organizational culture? Explain with reference to any organizations?

Organizational structure refers to the beliefs, value systems, methods, norms that build up the social and psychological environment of an organisation (Ramanadham, 2019). For example the organisational culture that prevails in Google offices are very free with flexible work timings and freedom of dress code and well decorated offices. This is Google’s personal organisational work culture where they implement a free work environment and this adds to the social and psychological pressures of the office.

17. What is motivation and write down different theories of motivation? “Professional knowledge workers need autonomy to function and deliver their best”. Do you agree? Which theory of motivations supports this view?

Motivation is the process of encouraging employees of an organisation to wor towards achieving their goals. Motivation also instils employees with a positive spirit and encourages them to perform better. The different theories of motivation include various theories such as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the ERG theory, McClelland’s theory of needs, Herzberg’s two factor theory, Skinner’s reinforcement theory, Vroom’s expectancy theory, Adam’s equity, Locke’s goal setting theory and Self determination theory (Svoboda et al. 2016). The self determination theory of motivation agrees with the fact that individuals possessing high knowledge should be allowed autonomy of functioning as this is how they function better and thus can achieve their goals more easily.

18. Certain departments in the organization set goals well below their potential and achieve at lower levels than the goals. Yet heads of those departments feel they have achieved a lot under the circumstances. How and why does this situation occur?

The phenomenon of certain departments achieving less than their capable of mainly arises due to the lack of skill of the functional department manager. If the department is capable of achieving more and the manger who runs is not capable of recognising the potential then the department will always stay underutilized and their full potential will never be able to be exploited under the circumstances. This occurs because the manager’s personal perception is skewed or limited to a certain extent and in the form of a more leader based team this tends to pull the team down as the functionality is jarred by the leader’s judgement which is chained down.

19. How do perceptions guide actions in organizations? Explain the ABC model with examples.

Perceptions play a major role in guiding the organisations towards a lot of actions. The perception of certain guides the organization to take up a measure to solve it and this directly guides the organization flow in a certain direction.

The ABC model describes different attitudes and it has 3 parts:

• Cognitive- This part allows a person to form base knowledge.
• Affective- This part is that part due to which a person has a negative or positive judgement regarding the base knowledge.
• Behavioural- This part of the model determines the way the person acts towards the base knowledge.

20. “Before they get confirmed in employment, they all work very hard. Wonder what happens to them afterwards”. Analyse this statement with the help of organizational behavior.

This statement refers to the productivity of employees during the probation period and during the post probation period. This statement technically refers to the fact that employees when on probation are mostly extremely productive but after they get confirmed they become less productive and this mainly relates to the employee’s motivation. As per the Maslow hierarchy during probation the employees satisfy their need for job security constantly and this keeps them working. Up on confirmation however this need vanishes and thus they slack as the need for security is a basic need while esteem needs depend more upon individual prowess and ambition.

21. What is the meaning of integration of individual needs and organizational goals? Explain with an example.

Integration of one’s own personal needs and organisational goals is a concept that has been most frequently being used in organisations. For example if an employee wants to acquire marketing skills then the organisation places him in the marketing department provides proper training and development and then keeps a reward based system of income via which when the employee performs better he earns better and there is no cap on how much he can earn. This way the more the employee works the more the employee earns the more the company earns and both the parties are satisfied.

22. “People organize their needs in form of hierarchy. The lowest unmet need motivates. What is this theory? Explain this theory in detail.

This theory is known as Maslow’s hierarchy where the people arrange their needs from low to high in the form of physiological, safety, love, self esteem and self actualisation needs (Lee and Hanna, 2015). This theory states that the needs need to be satisfied from low level to high level and that’s how people satisfy their needs.

23. What is meant by team? What are the characteristics of effective team?

A team is a group of people who work together in unity to achieve common goals and complement each other in the process. Few qualities of effective teams are:

• Great communication
• Effective leadership
• Goal oriented
• Support each other well
• Fair distribution of work
• United

24. What is “BIG FIVE” model of understanding personality? Explain in detail.

The Big 5 personality traits model defines 5 separate personalities which are:

• Openness- This trait defines a person’s imaginative prowess and their insight. People high on this trait have a broad range of interests.
• Conscientiousness- People who have this trait are generally very goal oriented, can control impulses well and are thoughtful in nature.
• Agreeableness- This trait defines the pro social behaviours such as trust, altruism and so on. People with this trait are high on these traits.
• Extraversion- This trait brings about high level of sociability and communication.
• Neuroticism- this is a trait which defines the sadness and the prowess of a person to deal with anxiety and other negative factors.

25. Task Vs relationship is an open faced dilemma of leaders. Why is it so? Describe how managerial grid explains this concept.

In the managerial grid the task vs. relationship trade off is often hard for managers to obtain as the manager is after all a human being and they are not capable of achieving everything and thus they need to find a balance between managing relationships and managing tasks (Gallo et al. 2016). This results in effective personnel management as well as high productivity. That is why the most preferred grid coordinate is the (9, 9) which maximises on both tasks and the relationships.

26. Explain the types of values. How do values impact behavior of people in any organization with example?

Integrity and ethics

The organisation needs to build its entire business on the basis of integrity and ethics for developing a strong relationship with its employees, customers and stakeholders.  Having a truthful conduct for every employee creates a credible, strong and reputation of the organisation in the market that is beneficial for every individual in the organisation.

Respect

The organisation has some responsibilities towards their employees and should be respectful towards them. Respecting an employee means respecting their privacy and their human rights, and not discriminating them on the basis of their caste, race, religion, nationality, sex or physical disability. Respecting employees of the organisation creates a healthy and safe environment for the employees in the workplace (Chumg et al. 2016).

Innovation

Innovations are a crucial part of a business for it to become a trendsetter by introducing new products and services for the consumers to appreciate. Organisations, those employees are encouraged to be dynamic and to come up with new innovative ideas, results in the production of successful products from the company.

Drive

Organisations have this principle as one of their core values, where the employees can explore their skills and creativity results in business to perform well.

27. The concept of organizational behavior is attributed to “The Hawthorne effects” – a series of experiments conducted and analyzed by Professor Elton Mayo.

• Explain the experiments.
• What the effects were?
• What they revealed?
• What were their strengths and limitations?
• Assumption of the Hawthorne experiments.

Experiments

Professor Elton Mayo conducted his experiments in four parts:

• Illumination Experiments (1924-27)
• Relay Assembly Test room Study (1927-29)
• Mass interviewing programme (1928-30)
• Bank Wiring Observation Room Experiment (1932)

Effects and Results

After the conclusion of experiments, Professor Mayo was able to conclude that job satisfaction in the workers increased when they were provided with more freedom for determining their working environment conditions. More intensified cooperation and interaction led to the creation of a high level of cohesion in groups (Ruck et al. 2017).

Strengths and Limitations

The Hawthorne experiments conducted by Professor Elton Mayo helped in determining the behaviours of employees in an organisation under different working environment.

The experiments conducted by Professor had many limitations:

• Lacked validity
• More emphasis on Human Aspects
• More importance on Decision Making
• Freedom of workers was given over importance

Assumptions

The initial assumptions of the experiment were that changing the working environment stemmed the output of the organisation.

28. What is johari window? How is it related to “Self disclosure? Explain each of the quadrants of this window. Is it feasible for a person to move directly from the 4^th quadrant to 1^st one? Why?

Johari window is a technique which helps the individuals to understand their relationships with themselves and with others.

Johari window helps an individual to understand their strengths and weakness. It helps them to be honest and clear (Chumg et al. 2016).

Four quadrants of Johar window:

• Open: Things Known to the individual and others
• Blind: Things unknown to the individual but unknown to others
• Hidden: Things known to individual but Unknown to others
• Unknown: Things unknown to individual as well as others

An individual can move directly from 4th quadrant to 1st quadrant by obtaining feedback from others.

29. We are now living in a “new environment”. What comprises this “new environment”? Explain each of the four pillars of the new environment.

New organisational environment refers to the changes in the working environment of the employees in a way to create a positive impact on them (Bakotić, 2016).

The four pillars of the new environment are culture, innovation, experience and sustainability.

• Culture: It influences all the decisions made by the management and the business functions from accounting to production.
• Innovation: Organisations, where employees are encouraged to be dynamic and coming up with new innovative ideas, results in the production of successful products from the company.
• Experience: The new environment should consist of experienced employees for motivating and regulating the functions of a business.
• Sustainability: The business is needed to be carried in order to avoid any negative impact on the local environment.

30. Two famous content theories included Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Herzberg’s two factor theory. Explain each to bring out all the important facts.   

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:

It is a theory devised by Abraham Maslow, which created a classification system based on the universal needs of the society and then proceeding to the emotions which are acquired (Bakotić , 2016).

Herzberg’s two factor theory:

 Two-factor theory was by Herzberg states that in the workplace, there are certain factors that cause job satisfaction while there are other factors that can cause dissatisfaction. The two factors operate independently of one another.

31. What does change have an impact on? Explain how you will make change positive. How will you overcome resistance to change?

Changes in an organisation can affect the body language of the employees as they are not able to accept that. There are various stages of reactions experienced by the employees due to organizational changes.

 After the shock stage, the employees tend to go into denial and they tend to make conscious or unconscious decisions whose results can be bad. The people who are not able to cope up with the changes, they shift into a tolerance mode (Ruck et al. 2017).

To avoid any negative impact of the changes, the organisation needs to explain their employees about the changes and why it is necessary. The reactions and feelings of the employees are needed to be listened and any objections should be acknowledged for avoiding any misunderstandings. Suggestions from the employees are to be welcomed and reactions are to be monitored.

32. Productivity concerns both, “effectiveness and efficiency”. Effectiveness is the foundation of success, while efficiency is a minimum condition for survival after success has been achieved. How would you explain the actual difference between these 2 terms to a lay man, so that the meaning is clearly brought out? How would you also compare management effectiveness with leadership effectiveness?

Efficiency in an organization means that everything which is produced by the business it is needed to be done in a perfect way.

Effectiveness means the extent up to which the results are achieved to fulfil the desired goal by doing perfect things (Salas-Vallina et al, 2017).

An effective manager is a person who is responsible for motivating his employees for obtaining desired results by providing them with rewards or penalties.

An effective leader is a person who inspires their company personnel and states their vision clearly to their employees. A successful leader inspires and motivates his workers for obtaining desired result.

33. What is personality? What are the factors affecting personality formation?which aspects of environment affect behavior in organizations?

The personality of a person is defined as the set of characteristic behaviours, emotional and cognition patterns which evolve from both environmental and biological factors.

Ways to develop the personality of a person:

• Knowing that the individual is incomparable
• The individual should be kind to himself
• Giving space to imperfection
• The person should be spontaneous
• He should be light in heart and mind
• Staying enthusiastic
• Is able to communicate with others
• Should be warm and approachable
• Do the things in style

All organisations operate within the external and internal environments are affected by it. The citizens expect that an organization is needed to be socially responsible and the changes in the organisations create more demands on the organisation (Bakotić, 2016).

34. You are a manager entrusted with the task of building a new team for an upcoming project. How will you use the knowledge of Tuchman’s team formation stages to build a strong team? Elaborate.

An educational psychologist, Bruce Tuckman devised a five-stage development process that is required for building a strong team. The stages are forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning (Corfield and Paton, 2016).

Forming

This stage of team building involves getting acquainted with the period of orientation. The manager of the business is required to take control and is needed to assert authority.

Storming

This stage is one of the difficult stages as individuals with different personalities emerge during this time which results in conflicts and competition among them. To get through this stage, the members are needed to work together by overcoming through their differences and through their conflicting ideas.

Norming

As the storming stage passes, conflicts are resolved between them and a certain degree of unity emerges among them. During this stage, team performance increases and the employees learn to cooperate and are able to focus on their goals.

Performing

In this stage, cooperation and consensus have been developed and the team is well organized, mature and are functioning well. The team is focused on solving the problems and meeting their goals.

Adjourning

In the adjourning stage, all the goals have been achieved and the organisation is focussed on documenting the results and efforts. 

35. Explain high locus control personality? You recognize that you are working with a high locus control personality in one of your team members. You understand the positive impact of high LOC as well as the possible negatives that could come along with it. Explain your understanding of this personality attribute and ways to deal with it while working together with this person as his manager.

This concept is mainly divided into two main categories which are internal and external. For a person having an internal locus of control, he attributes the success to his own abilities or efforts. The person who is willing to succeed remains more motivated and has the ability to learn more. The person having an external locus of control attributes his or her success to fate or luck and is unwilling to learn more (Ruck et al. 2017).

The individuals having the external locus of control are needed to be motivated to learn more and help them realise that success is achieved only by hard work and not by luck or fate.

36. The accomplishment of organization goals requires certain tasks to be performed and employees are assigned to perform these tasks. It is for this reason that groups are formed. Why do people form groups? How many types of groups are there? Show a detailed breakdown of the types of groups and bring out the salient aspects of each.

Groups are often formed in the organisation for fulfilling the needs of a particular individual. Group membership can fulfil the various needs of a group member like:

• Companionship
• Affiliation and status
• Survival and Security
• Achievement
• Power and Control

There are basically four types of groups which are formed in an organisation:

• Formal Group: These groups are formed in an organisation for performing organisational work.
• Task Group: It consists of a group of employees who are assigned to perform specific tasks.
• Informal Groups: These groups are formed by the employees who fulfil social needs.
• Interest Groups: These groups are formed to meet a mutual advantage.
• Friendship Group: It is formed because of the presence of some common groups (Toolshero.com, 2019).

37. Ethics and diversity are a much talked terms in today’s corporate world. What do you understand by these terms? If an organization is said to be truly “Multi-cultured” what stages did it go through, to get to this stage.

The organisation needs to build its entire business on the basis of integrity and ethics for developing a strong relationship with its employees, customers and stakeholders.  Having a truthful conduct for every employee creates a credible, strong and reputation of the organisation in the market that is beneficial for every individual in the organization (Bester et al. 2015).

There are mainly six stages for a multicultural organisation:

1. The Exclusionary Organisation
2. The Club
3. The Compliance Organisation
4. The Affirmative Action Organisation
5. The Redefining Organisation
6. The Multicultural Organisation

38. Explain with examples sensation, perception and cognition. Why is the perception process so important in the study of OB and what role does perception plays in shaping up personalities and what is social perception?

The sensation can be defined as any type of impressions of senses, state of excitement or something which is lively or living. An example of a sensation is the smell of a scented candle.

Perception as an example vision of perception can be defined as the ability of an individual to see the objects all around the person. The other types of perception involve senses to smell, touch, sound and taste.

Cognition is the mental activity in which an individual acquires understanding and knowledge through experience, thought and senses.

Perception with respect to Organisational Behaviour

It is very important for an individual to understand the role of perception in an organisation. The individual needs to understand the tasks which will be performed and the importance of the tasks allotted. The individual is also needed to understand the behaviour which is preferred to complete the allotted tasks and is to be clarified the role perceptions (Lee and Woo, 2017).

39. Three popular TQM techniques relevant to OB are re-engineering, benchmarking and empowerment. Why are they relevant to the subject? Explain each to bring out the actual meaning of each of these terms.

Business process re-engineering consists of the processes in a business that is simplified rather than making a process more complex. The individuals in the organisation feels more empowered rather than being controlled. The emphasis is much more on achieving the company’s goals rather than on individual perspective. The quality is ensured during this process.

Benchmarking is the process the organisations use for measuring the quality of their products, services and practices with respect to their difficult competitors. Benchmarking allows an organisation to determine specific activities and functions that need improvement (toggl.com, 2019).

Empowering, involving and bringing the employees into the decision making processes provides an opportunity for the improvement process to continue.

40. What is emotional intelligence? Explain the five components of Emotional intelligence?

The ability of an individual to identify and manage their emotions as well as other’s emotions is termed as Emotional Intelligence (Chumg et al. 2016). The three skills that are required to be emotionally intelligent are:

• Emotional awareness or ability of an individual to identify their own emotions.
• The ability of an individual to control and make use of those emotions for problem-solving and thinking
• The ability of an individual to manage their own emotions as well others emotions.

Five components of Emotional Intelligence are as follows:

Self-awareness:

Self-awareness is a very important component of emotional intelligence where own emotions are recognized and understood suitably. Individual emotions are required to be controlled on own for understanding several reactions suitably.

Self-regulation:

It is significant to regulate individual’s emotions so that they can express their feelings in accurate place. This helps in influencing people around a person which is much needed for a better execution of any work.

Motivation:

Individuals, who are emotionally intelligent, get motivated by things which are beyond external rewards such as fame, money and recognition. They remain committed towards every task and do not create any issue in place of work.

Empathy:

Understanding the emotions of others comes under empathy. It is the ability to recognize the emotional consent of others thereby, act accordingly. They possess the power to lay impact on the feelings of others.

Social skills:

Building up of strong relationship with people, who are all around is considered as a part of social skills. Verbal communication and listening skills are some of the examples of social skills that can assist individuals to develop a strong bond in between every people.

41. Explain leadership in organization? What is leadership from below explain?

Leadership is leading the employees of the organisation to achieve the desired goals. An effective leader is a person who inspires their company personnel and states their vision clearly to their employees. A successful leader inspires and motivates his workers for obtaining the desired results (Corfield and Paton, 2016).

Leadership in an organisation means explaining clearly the visions of the company to its employees and their importance in the organisation to achieve the goals. They are required to motivate their employees and communicate with them to learn about their wants and needs.

42. What is the influence of work groups on individual behavior at work? Explain with examples.

The decision making and behaviour of individuals are influenced by the groups. A group can have both positive and negative impacts on the behaviour of an individual. The influence of a group can be sometimes useful with respect to the work setting of an individual. On the other way, a group can also influence an individual’s behaviour in a negative way (Lee and Woo, 2017).  

When a group becomes focused on making a quick and smooth decision they usually tend to overlook others. There appear certain situations when a person lets go of its self consciousness and does what the group is doing, it usually results in negative outcomes and goals.

43. Under which conditions is it possible that people remain dissatisfied though the organization is achieving its business results? What will be the consequences of such a situation?

Even though the business is achieving its goals, the individuals remain unsatisfied with the organisation mainly due to the following reasons:

• The organisation is not rewarding their strengths
• The manager or colleagues are toxic
• The employee is not feeling engaged with the company’s mission (Weng et al, 2015)

When an employee is not satisfied with the working in the organisation, his work rates will drop and he will no longer be able to contribute for achieving the goals in the organisation.

44. Explain the conceptual model of organization behavior showing various influences at work.

Supportive model is one of the conceptual models of organisational behaviour. This model is mainly focussed around aspiring leadership. 

This approach basically states that the employees in the organisation are self-motivated and have the insight to contribute towards the organisation (Bester et al, 2015).

45. What are cultural beliefs about conflict? Which one do you support? Why?

Conceptual conflicts are the types of conflicts which arise when different values and cultural values clash. Conflicts or tensions arise when the power, resources and status are distributed unevenly between the different groups of the society or in a workplace.

Cross-cultural conflicts are bound to occur so values of distinctive cultures are supported. This is so because it helps in laying down importance to every individual properly. Apart from this, respect can be given to culture of every individual.

46. What are the different levels of performance seen in organizations? What does satisfying level or under performance level signify?

The levels of performance can be divided into three categories:

• Needs Improvement: When the individuals are not able to achieve their individual goals
• Successful: When the individuals are meeting their goals, expectations and their responsibilities.
• Exceptional: These refer to the individuals who are constantly exceeding the expectations and role requirements of the organisation (Salas-Vallina et al, 2017).).

Satisfying level signifies that there requires significant transformation in the performance. Skills are required to be developed by undertaking special training. Under performance level has to be analysed properly so that quality strategies can be undertaken.

47. It is said that no group can be expected to perform at the highest level immediately after its formation. What is the theoretical explanation for this belief?

During the formation of an organisation, the members of the team are polite and positive. They have not understood fully the work and goals of the organisation. During this stage, the individuals are excited about starting something new and are getting to know of their team members. Hence after the formation of the organisation, it is not able to perform at its highest level (Cmoe.com, 2019).

48. A new team has been formed for a new market region. However, customer complaints have gone up, attrition is high and the margins have gone down. What could be the possible reasons? Explain how we could use the motivation theories to understand the situation better.

The possible reasons the new marketing team is facing these problems are:

• Unable to identify potential customers
• Product quality is not up to the mark
• Customers are not addressed properly.
• Insufficient Budget

The challenges faced by the new marketing team in the market are to be addressed by the team leaders and motivate them to increase their efficiency and achieve their goals (Laforet, 2016).

49. What is groupthink? what are the remedies to group think to minimize the same.

Group thinking arises when a group becomes focused on making a quick and smooth decision they usually tend to overlook others.

Group thinking can be avoided by:

• Planning for it
• Encouraging debates
• Looking for various personalities
• Reaching out
• Acknowledging biases in the data

50. Consider the following situations that a team leader in an organization is facing and responding to:
51. A member in his team is extremely competent but casual in his habits. This is affecting his efficiency.
52. Another member is highly motivated but needs constant supervision on the job.
53. Another member is capable and motivated but gets frustrated when the leader asks him for constant feedback and reports.

What does the situational leadership model say about handling such situations? Explain the model.

Using situational model, a team leader can handle these situations in the following way:

• Directing: The leader providing a lot of direction and little to their employees.
• Coaching: The leader providing lot of direction and support
• Supporting: The leader providing little direction and lots of support.
• Delegating: The leader providing little direction and support (Weng et al, 2015).

51. Why do conflicts arise in an organization? What are the different conflict resolution techniques adopted by individuals to resolve conflicts.

The conflicts that can arise in an organisation can be of different kinds:

• Intrapersonal conflict
• Interpersonal Conflict
• Intra group conflict
• Intergroup Conflict

Intrapersonal conflicts and Interpersonal conflict can be resolved by empowering an individual to cope up with their depression. Intra group and Intergroup conflict can be resolved by serious guidance from a different party (Bester et al, 2015).

52. Explain how heredity, environment and situation impact personality in the context of organizational behavior.

The genetic background of an individual strongly affects the personality of an individual and personality traits are mainly inherited by an individual.

The environment in which the individual is working can impact the personality of an individual both negatively and positively.

Certain situations may arise in an organisation which can impact the personality of an individual (Salas-Vallina et al, 2017).

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