Posts

Showing posts from March, 2017

Describe how a manager or coach could use the process of self-fulfilling prophecy to enhance an individual’s performance

Self-fulfilling prophecy occurs when our expectations about another person causes that person to act in a way that is consistent with those expectations. When the boss /coach believes in others, individuals can achieve increased levels of performance. In other words, the boss/coach can influence reality. Ste ps include: a) Form a positive expectation about the individual’s future behavior and performance and increase individual self-efficacy by displaying confidence in his/her skills and ability. b) Develop a learning orientation i.e. appreciate the value of the individual’s learning, not just completing tasks. c) Apply leadership behaviors including skill development, emotional support, feedback, challenging goals, etc. as appropriate to the situation.

During a diversity management session, a manager suggests that stereotypes are a necessary part of working with others. “I have to make assumptions about what’s in the other person’s head, and stereotypes help me do that,” she explains. “It’s better to rely on stereotypes than to enter a working relationship with someone from another culture without any idea of what they believe in!” Discuss the merits of and problems with the manager’s statement.

This question raises the fundamental dilemma that stereotyping is both a necessary and a troublesome activity in the perceptual process. On the one hand, the manager is correct that stereotyping helps us to fill in missing information, such as the non-observable characteristics of a person that only become apparent after a long time. Also, stereotyping helps us to organize information more efficiently by placing people into predetermined categories. Although most stereotypes have some truth to them, there is also plenty of error and distortion which could lead to employment discrimination. It is unlikely that someone perfectly fits the stereotype category, so we tend to assign traits that are untrue. Stereotyping makes it difficult for people to alter their beliefs about a person regarding traits that conflict with the stereotype.

A 16-year-old hired as an office administrator at a small import services company started posting her thoughts about the job on her Facebook site. After her first day, she wrote: “first day at work. omg!! So dull!!” Two days later, she complained “all i do is shred holepunch n scan paper!!! omg!” Two weeks later she added “im so totally bord!!!” These comments were intermixed with the other usual banter about her life. Her Facebook site did not mention the name of the company where she worked. Three weeks after being hired, the employee was called into the owner’s office, where he fired her for the comments on Facebook and then had her escorted from the building. The owner argues that these comments put the company in a bad light, and her “display of disrespect and dissatisfaction undermined the relationship and made it untenable.” Discuss this scenario from the perspective of the owner and the worker.

This case occurred at a small industrial services business in the United Kingdom (see: A. Levy, “Teenage office worker sacked for moaning on Facebook about her 'totally boring' job,” Daily Mail, 26 February 2009). However, there are several similar cases involving Facebook, blogs, and other social media, where employees write negative comments about their employer. For example, this incident parallels two earlier cases in which (a) a Starbucks employee was fired for complaining about his boss’s decision on a work issue and (b) an employee who worked in marketing for government in northern Canada was fired for posting artistic photos of garbage in the snow. To some people, the case of the teenage Facebook complainer is a clear case of an employee who should be dismissed because she lacks sufficient commitment to and appreciation of the job. The company owner later explained to medi a : “We were looking for a long-term relationship with Miss Swann as we do with all our staf f .

The chief of police in a large city government describes the problem of getting his officers to do paperwork. The officers enjoy working with the public and apprehending criminals, not sitting at a desk. The paperwork is boring, but can make the difference in convictions. The Chief has no financial rewards (budget crunch) and promotions are determined by seniority, not the quality of paperwork. Officers were trained to perform street work, not fill out forms. Arrests, not paperwork, get noticed. Conviction success is due to too many factors to be a performance criterion. Use the MARS model of individual behavior and performance to diagnose the possible causes of the unacceptable behavior. Has the captain considered all possible solutions to the problems? If not, what else might he do?

Motivation . There are several facts that suggest that the poor paperwork is due to lack of motivation. First, officers come into this profession because they want to work with the public and catch criminals, not sit in an office filling out reports. Thus, the paperwork task does not fulfill their needs for personal growth. Second, social rewards (praise, recognition) result from the outside activities, not paperwork. Third, financial rewards do not encourage people to do paperwork. Promotions are based on seniority, so they motivate officers to stay with the force, not to complete paperwork. Competitions did not work, either. Ability . It isn’t certain that officers are able to complete the paperwork task well enough. They don’t seem to receive any training in this area. Role Perceptions . The captain seems to have emphasized the importance of paperwork to the officers, and they probably have learned that some cases have been lost due to poor reports. Thus, it is reasonable to con

Chapter 2 discussed values congruence mostly in the context of an employee’s personal values versus the organization’s values. But values congruence also relates to the juxtaposition of other pairs of value systems. Explain how values congruence is relevant with respect to organizational versus professional values (i.e., values of a professional occupation, such as physician, accountant, pharmacist).

Values congruence is defined as how similar a person’s values hierarchy is to the values hierarchy of the other in comparison. The textbook explains that values congruence comes in different forms, such as individual with organization and organization with society. This question asks about values congruence between the organization and a professional group (accountants, lawyers, engineers, teachers etc.). For example, an engineer working for an auto manufacturer may be asked to design a gas tank that minimizes cost beyond established minimum engineering standards. In this case values incongruence may occur because the engineer’s profession dictates that public safety be paramount in all design considerations. Hence, values congruence is relevant when it comes to situations involving decision-making affecting both parties’ interest. Students may also discuss the ways to go about this kind of conflicting situations.

“All decisions are ethical decisions.” Comment on this statement, particularly by referring to the concepts of moral intensity and moral sensitivity.

This sweeping statement is false. In other words, not all decisions are having equal right/wrong or good/bad dimensions. We are saying there is a threshold which defines ethical concern, and it is a function of moral intensity and moral sensitivity. For a decision to have an ethical dimension, i t has to have some moral intensity associated with it. Moral intensity is a characteristic of the situation. It refers to the degree to which an issue demands the application of ethical principles. “Who should be laid off?” would have high moral intensity. On the other hand, a decision to take an umbrella to work because it might rain has no moral intensity. This is because morally intense issues involve others in the society who may think the decision is good or evil, or the issue quickly affects people. Moral sensitivity refers to a characteristic of the decision maker, not the situation. Faced with the same issue, two decision makers may be more or less moral sensitive, depending on emp

Studies report that heredity has a strong influence on an individual’s personality. What are the implications of this influence in organizational settings?

There are a number of issues that student might -- and should -- raise in response to this question. Effectively, the question is asking for the actions that can be logically deduced by knowing that an employees’ personality is greatly determined by their born tendencies. First, the strong effect of heredity suggests that applicant selection is an important way to improve job performance and employee well-being (by ensuring their work matches their personality). Although we might try to change an employees style of behavior, their inherent style is strongly determined already. This is why many companies refer to “hire for attitude, train for skill” A second implication is that training for some types of behavior (fun-oriented, detailed, talkative, etc.) might be less successful than employer assume. It would be better to transfer people into jobs that more closely match their personality. This understanding also lea d to more objective understandin g of poor performing employe

A federal government department has high levels of absenteeism among the office staff. The head of office administration argues that employees are misusing the company’s sick leave benefits. However, some of the mostly female staff members have explained that family responsibilities interfere with work. Using the MARS model, as well as your knowledge of absenteeism behavior, discuss some of the possible reasons for absenteeism here and how it might be reduced.

The MARS model of individual behavior states that behavior is a function of motivation, ability, role perceptions, and situational factors. With respect to absenteeism, employees may be away from assigned work because they don’t want to attend work due to lacking a meaningful work life or being pushed away by workplace conditions (motivation), they are not clear about their expected duties and responsibilities (role perceptions), lacking the necessary abilities to cope with work (ability), and/or environmental conditions that prevent them from attending work (situational factors). In this incident, situational factors may explain mostly why female employees are absent. Specifically, family responsibilities interfere with their work attendance. However, some absenteeism among men and women may be due to sick leave policies. It is known that generous sick leave benefits reduce attendance motivation. Whatever the reasons given, the way to reduce the unwanted conditions can be traced

Corporate social responsibility is one of the hottest issues in corporate boardrooms these days, partly because it is becoming increasingly important to employees and other stakeholders. In your opinion, why have stakeholders given CSR more attention recently? Does abiding by CSR standards potentially cause companies to have conflicting objectives with some stakeholders in some situations?

These questions are open to speculation and debate. The arguments should be founded on the understanding of the stakeholder perspective which define stakeholders as any entity who affects or is affected by the organization’s objectives and actions e.g.  employees , shareholders, suppliers, unions, government, etc. Hence, the answer can be constructed by providing valid needs as perceived by different stakeholders. Many will suggest that CSR has become more important because of global warming, loss of habitat, and other highly visible indicators of problems. In addition, a few might argue that increasing wealth allows society to raise the bar on companies by demanding that they contribute more to society. Still others might suggest that globalization has brought developed world companies closer to people in poverty and countries in need of better health standards. Students may state that corporate scandals have raised CSR as a priority. Other reasons include the preference of sta

After hearing a seminar on organizational learning, a mining company executive argues that this perspective ignores the fact that mining companies could not rely on knowledge alone to stay in business. They also need physical capital (such as digging and ore processing equipment) and land (where the minerals are located). In fact, these two may be more important than what employees carry around in their heads. Evaluate the mining executive’s comments.

This question relates to the importance of organizational learning perspective in achieving organizational effectiveness. Meanwhile, the question emphasizes the critical understanding that organizational effectiveness is a function of an overall holistic system view of the effective and efficient interplay of all three elements of software (the knowledge and processes), hardware (the structures and the people) and the harmonious relationship between the organization and its environment. Focusing on any one component at the expense of the rest would definitely result in incomplete picture of an effective organization. Some executives still view land and capital as a company’s most valuable assets . They give lip service to the idea that “People are our most value assets” but still don’t understand that land and capital have little value without people . For instance, this mining company would not have found land with ore deposits unless it had the knowledge to find those minera