Management for All: 2011

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Cultural Change

What are the factors and steps of cultural change ?

CULTURAL CHANGE

There are a number of internal and external factors which are responsible for cultural change in an organisation.

Composition of the workforce: Overtime, the people entering an organisation may differ in important ways from those already in it, and these differences may impinge on the existing culture of the organisation.

Mergers and acquisitions: Another sosurce of cultural change is mergers and acquisitions, events in which one organisation purchases or otherwise absorbs another. In such cases, rare consideration is given to the acquired organisation's culture. This is unfortunate because there have been several cases in which the merger of two organisations with incompatible cultures leads to serious problems, commonly known as culture clashes. In such cases, the larger and more powerful company attempts to dominate the smaller acquired company.

Planned organisational change: Even if an organisation does not change by acquiring another, cultural change still may result from planned changes. One important force in planned organisational change is technology. Technology affects the behaviour of people on the job. as well as the effective functioning of organisations. project management software

Organisational Culture

Concept of Organisational culture ? Types of organisational culture ? how the organisational culture developed ?

CONCEPT OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE

The simplest definition of culture is ‘the way we do things round here' (Deal and Kennedy, 1982). It is a combination of values and beliefs, norms of behaviour that are acceptable or otherwise, written policies, pressures, and expectations coming down from the top, formal and informal systems, processes and procedures, and networks.

The culture of an organisation is a product of history, a variety of external and internal influences, and priorities and values of key people in it. Culture is reflected in the artifacts - rituals, design of space, furniture and ways of dealing with various phenomenon.

Smircich (1983) defines organisational culture as a fairly stable set of taken-for--granted assumptions, shared beliefs, meanings, and values that bring forth a new way of understanding of organisational life. According to Denison (1984), organisational culture refers to the set of values, beliefs, and behaviour patterns that form the core identity of an organisation.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Learning Organisation

Define the concept of Learning organisation ? What are the philosophy and characteristic of learning organisation ? how it differ from traditional organisation ? how to develop a learning organisation ?

A learning organisation is one that is successful at acquiring, cultivating, and applying knowledge that can be used to help it adapt to change. Learning organisations are skilled at experimenting with new approaches, learning from the experiences, and best practices of others. A learning organisation specifically tries to develop new skills; new knowledge, new cultural norms, and new insights. Moreover, one of its key characteristics is how an organisation can unlearn previous behaviours and develop new cognitive frameworks. Training, organisational behaviour management, and discipline are the three systematic approaches of learning organisation. It has Culture based on the notion that learning is central to success and effectiveness.

Peter M. Senge in his book, “The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization”, described a learning organization “as a place where people continually expand their capacity to create results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free and where people are continually learning how to learn”.

David Garwin defines a learning organisation as ^"an organisation skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its behaviour to reflect new knowledge and insights."

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Power and Sources of Power

Concept of Power ? distinguish between power, authority and influence. What are the various sources of power ?

CONCEPT OF POWER

Power is said to be like love, impossible to define but easy enough to recognise (Martin, 1977). Power is understood as the ability to influence other people and events.

In the words of White and Bednar, "Power is the ability, to influence people of things, usually obtained through the control of important resources."

A comprehensive definition of power is given by Dahl (1957), when he wrote that "A has power over l3 to the extent that he can get B to do something B would not otherwise do." Russell (1938) conceptualizes power as "the production of intended effects."

Dehl's definition suggests that power must overcome resistance in order to succeed whereas according to Russell, power need not imply resistance. All the above definitions suggest that power involves compulsion.

These has been a recent trend towards empowerment, the shifting of power away from managers and into bands of subordinates. Empowerment occurs in varying degrees in different organisations.

DIFFERENTIATING POWER FROM AUTHORITY AND INFLUENCE

Usually, the term power is intertwined with another concept, authority. But there is a difference between the two concepts. Power refers to the capacity to influence others. The person who possesses power has the ability to manipulate or change the behaviour of others. Authority, on the other hand, is the source of power. Authority is legitimate and it confers legitimacy to power. Power itself need not be legitimate.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Persuasion and Persuasion Process

Write brief on Persuasion – meaning, Theory, Importance and process ?

Persuasion :

Persuasion is the process of changing or reinforcing attitudes, beliefs or behaviour of a person. People respond to persuasive messages in two ways: thoughtfully and mindlessly. When we are in thoughtful mode, the persuasiveness of the message is determined by merits of the message. When we, respond to messages mindlessly, our brains are locked on automatic. We do not have the time, motivation or ability to listen intently. Typically, persuasion is largely dependent upon the attractiveness of the speakers and reaction of the listeners. Persuasion is solely related with communication, learning, awareness and thought.

Meaning of Persuasion :

The notions of communication, learning, awareness and thought pervade definitions of persuasion. Bettinghaus defines persuasion as "a conscious attempt by one individual to change the attitudes, beliefs or the behaviour of another individual or group of individuals through the transmission of some message". This definition indicates that persuasion is assumed to involve conscious intent on the part of the persuader to affect the receiver of a persuasive message. It involves a selection of a strategy perceived to be most effective and the control of message and environmental variable so as to maximise the likelihood that the strategy will be effective. Much persuasive discourse is indirectly coercive, that is, the persuasive effectiveness of messages often heavily depends on the credibility of threats and the promises preferred by the communicator. For example, if the child perceives that the threatening parent is, for some reason or another, unlikely to suspend the child's allowance, the parent's persuasive messages will have minimum impact on the child's study habits. Persuasion is also valued as an instrument of democracy. The concept of persuasion has a clear and important focus in the field of marketing; McGuire states it simply as "changing people's attitudes and behaviour through the spoken and written words".

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Positive Reinforcement Programme

What are the Procedures and rules to follow while implementing Positive Reinforcement Programme ?

Implementing a Positive Reinforcement Programme

If your data reveal that the worker makes the correct response at least once in a while, you need to design a programme that will increase the percentage of correct response. As in anything else there are some basic, general rules that you must master before you implement such a programme.

Rule 1: Reward Selection

The only way to increase behaviour without alienating the employee is to make it more rewarding to perform effectively. Before you can change the contingencies in favour of the desired behaviour, you must identify what the employee finds reinforcing. You can only discover this by observing what the employee prefers to do and how he reacts to various rewards. The greatest danger at this point is in managing and the language of the employee. If you think that you can assume that money, praise attention recognition, time-off, or any other common reward is necessarily a reinforcer for an individual employee, you are probably overgeneralising your way into failure as a behaviour manager. Remember that by definition a reinforcer increases the probability of the preceding behaviour. If the frequency of the behaviour doesn't increase, your reward wasn't a reinforcer. The kind of manager who is likely to be reading this chapter is also the kind of manager who would have trouble accepting next week as an extra paid vacation because he would believe that the lost time would interface with his performance. For such a manager both money and time-off fail to function as reinforcers.

The language of the employee leads a behaviour management project astrally when the supervisor decides that he can ask the employee what would be reinforcing rather than directly observing the effects of various rewards. Verbal behaviour is never a substitute of actual observation. At best the questionnaire approach can waste time and create paper work. At worst, it can lead the manager to punish the very behaviours that he wishes to reinforce by using the wrong opportunities as rewards for the right behaviour. Asked in the abstract, our hard-working manager might say that he would love an extra paid week off but this consequence might not reinforce when it came down to taking the time. In the research for rewards, attitude surveys may point a manager in the appropriate direction, but only direct observation of behaviour will identify specific effective reinforcers.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Counseling Processes and Outcomes

Counselling Process goals and stages of counselling processes ? What are the outcomes of counselling ?

Refer :

What is Counselling ? Salientfeatures of counselling ? What are the Qualities of an effective counseler /helper ?

PROCESS GOALS IN COUNSELING

The definition said that counseling is an interactive process characterized by a unique relationship between counselor and client. To understand counseling as a process, one must distinguish between outcome goals and process goals. Outcome goals (described in this article below) are the intended results of counseling. Generally, they are described in terms of what the client desires to achieve as a result of his or her interaction with the counselor. In contrast, process goals are those events the counselors take as helpful and instrumental in bringing about outcome goals. Outcome goals are described in terms of change in the client that will manifest after the counseling and outside the counselor's office. Process goals are plans for events that take place during the counseling sections and in the counselor's office. They are events that the counselor considers helpful and instrumental in achieving outcome goals.

Process goals can also be described in terms of the counselor's actions and at other times in terms of effect to be experienced by the client. For example, a counselor may think, "If I am to help this client, I must actively listen to what he is saying and understand the significance of his concerns for his present and future well-being. I must understand how the attitudes he is describing influences the way he behaves towards significant others. I must understand the surrounding circumstances (including cultural background) that relate to his concerns, and I must understand the reinforcing events that support his behaviour". All of these statements are process goals that relate to the counselor's behaviour.

Another kind of process goal refers to the way the consumer can act as a model for new ways of behaving. By modeling appropriate responses to frustration, disappointment, or negative feelings, the counselors indirectly teaches the client alternatives to accustomed ways of responding. For example, a counselor who deals assertively to a chronically late client is demonstrating to the client an alternative way to cope with feelings of frustration.

STAGES OF THE COUNSELING PROCESS :

A process is an identifiable sequence of events taking place over time. Usually there is the implication of progressive stages in the process. The stages if the counseling are discussed below:

Stage I: Initial Disclosure

At the beginning of counseling, the counselors and clients typically do not know one another well. Neither participant can know in advance the direction their discussion will ultimately take, and the client is probably a bit anxious about disclosing concerns because s/he is not sure how the counselor will receive the disclosures. Without disclosure, counseling is an empty process.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Counseling and Counselor Qualities

What is Counseling ? Salient features of counseling ? What are the Qualities of an effective counselor / helper ?

Counseling : People seek the service of professional helpers-counselors, social workers, psychologists and psychiatrist - when their capacities for responding to the demands of life are strained, when desired growth seems unattainable, when important decisions elude resolution, and when natural support systems are unavailable or insufficient. Sometimes the person in need of help is urged or required to seek counseling by a third party, spouse, parent, employer, teacher, or judge who believes the individual is failing to manage some important aspects of life effectively.

The purpose of counseling, broadly conceived, is to enable the client to cope with life situations, to reduce stress, to engage in growth related activity, and to make effective and important decisions. Counselors increase their control over present adversity and present future opportunity as a consequence of counseling process.

Persons of any age, in any walk of life, and with almost any kind of problems can be helped to gain power over the adversities and opportunities of their lives. Counseling to achieve client empowerment is viewed by some as a generic process that includes same elements inherent of the context in which it is used. It does not matter whether it is performed in an organization, school, hospital or in a community counseling clinic, the basic structure of the helping process remains same. Let us examine a few salient processing of counseling in general in the next section.

How counselling differ from psychotherapy ?

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Communication Barriers

What are the barriers to communication and how effective communication can be made ?

COMMUNICATION BARRIERS :

The image and credibility of the sender, stereotyping, past experiences, overexposure to data, attitudes, mindsets, perceptual filters, trust and empathy all impact on what receivers receive and how they interpret its meaning. These communication barriers occur in everyday business communications.

Misinterpretation occurs when the receiver understands the message to his or her own satisfaction but not in the sense that the sender intended. Misinterpretation can be a consequence of sender or channel noise, poor listening habits, erroneous inferences on the part of the receiver, or differing frames of reference. An example of this occurs when unclear instructions lead employees to "hear" the wrong procedures for doing their work.

1. Frames of Reference: A combination of past experience and current expectations often leads two people to perceive the same communication differently. Although each hears the actual words accurately, s/he may catalogue those words according to his or her individual perceptions, or frames of reference (also discussed earlier in this unit).

Within organizations, people with different functions often have different frames of reference. Marketing people may interpret things one-way and production people another. An engineer's interpretation is likely to differ from that of an accountant.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Technology Management

What is technology management ? How technology development progress from invention to innovation ? Explain citing one such example.

WHAT IS TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT :

Many factors make up the technology development framework and there are several ways of condensing these into a manageable number of grouping. These factors are grouped around six broad dimensions (as in figure-1) :

1. Objective

2. Decision Criteria

3. Time

4. Constraints

5. Activities

6. Mechanism

Fig-1 : Dimensions of Technology Management

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Communication and Communication Process

Q. Define Communication. Describe Communication Process and communication channels used in organisation ?

Communication :

Communication begins when one person sends a message to another with the intent of evoking a response. Effective communication occurs when the receiver interprets the message exactly as the sender intended.

Effective communication is essential for the functioning of any organization. Managers need to transmit orders and policies, build cooperation and team spirit, and identify problems and their solutions. Employees need to clarify directives, provide feedback, and make their problems known. Team members need to share feelings and perceptions to solve problems and resolve conflicts. Communication breakdowns contribute to a host of organizational problems, from failure to carry out simple directives properly to low productivity and quality. Communication in organizations serves three major purposes. It allows members to coordinate actions, share information, and satisfy social needs.

The Communication Process

The main components communication are the sender, the receiver, the message and the channel. The communication process includes the sequential steps of Encoding, Transmission and Decoding.

Monday, June 20, 2011

Interpersonal Relation

Interpersonal relation and factors affecting interpersonal relations ?

INTERPERSONAL RELATION:

Performance of members of any organisation depends on their ability to effectively interact with their superiors, subordinates and co-workers within the organisation and consumers, suppliers and general public outside. Interpersonal relation, therefore is a very important issue involving any organisation. Most organisations have people problems rather than business problems. People problems are due to faulty interpersonal relations, which hinders the attainment of organisational goal. Efforts are therefore made to enhance the interpersonal skills of the people at work.

FACTORS AFFECTING INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS :

Based on past experience people make assumptions about the nature of the other and of the particular kind of situation they are in (e.g. Competition or Cooperation). Each person develops positive or negative feelings that contribute to enhanced or diminished perceptions of self, the other and the current situation. These perceptions contribute to evaluation of the other person in this situation and lead to the formulation of intentions to interact in specific ways to accomplish personal objectives. The consequences of that behaviour and subsequent interactions generate new inputs for another set of reactions.

A. Personality Factors:

When trying to understand your feelings and behaviour, it helps to be aware that how you think and feel about yourself and others may be very unlike how they think and feel about themselves and you. These different evaluation and reactions depend on each individual's self-concepts, value system; frame of reference, defensiveness, interpersonal relationship needs and feelings.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Technology Transfer & Routes of Technology Technology Transfer

What is technology transfer ? Briefly discuss various routes of technology transfer. Give an example of specific route of technology transfer as adopted by an organisation.

Ans : Basically there are two ways of acquiring new technology : first is Develop it or purchase it; the second way of acquiring technology is commonly called “Technology Transfer”

The important reasons for purchasing technology are :

a) It involves little or no R & D investment.

b) Technology can be used quickly; and

c) Technological and financial risks are often quite low.

There are also good reasons for selling technology, such as :

a) Increasing return on investment

b) Technology may not have immediate use.

c) Technology has already been utilised up to its limit.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Technology in Business Strategy

Role of technology in designing the business strategies of a firm ? discuss how technology has become an integral part of business unit ?

Ans : The word ‘technology’ comes from two Greek words – ‘techne’- the skill or craft needed to make something and ‘logos’ (discussion or knowledge of something). So technology means knowledge of how something is made.

Technology seems to be the most widely today in industrial world and several words or nomenclatures connected with technology are in vogue. These includes Research & Development, invention, technology development, technology strategies, technology forecast technology assessment, technology planning, technology information, technology transfer, technology absorption and adaptation, Industrial property systems, code of conduct and technology management. It is difficult to find so exact definition for technology, for it has been defined in many ways.

One definition identifies ‘technology’ as an application of knowledge that leads to production and marketing of goods and services. According to Betz, Technology develops business by providing technological knowledge for the goods and services that a firm produces. Technology innovation implies new technology creating new products and services – hence new business opportunity. Managing technology means using new technology to create a competitive advantages which is quite a difficult Job; partly due to differing cultures in a company.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Technology Information

What is Technology Information ? Explain various sources of Technology Information ?

Ans: Technology information in simple terms means information on technology. This brings up two questions : what is information and what is technology. Information is referred to as a communication of facts results, ideas and thoughts. The ‘technology’ essentially means ‘know how’ that is ways of designing, manufacturing or utilising things. It can also defined as the know how to transform concepts into goods and services for the satisfaction of customers. It is a broad form of resource endowment and embodiment of knowledge for production of goods and services.

Technology is imbibed in various forms; the most common of this could be identified in the machines used for manufacture or the skills that are transformed through human beings. These forms would comprise know-how, know-why, technological processes designs, drawings, specifications, computer programmes and other information besides, industrial training, intellectual property rights etc.

SOURCES OF TECHNOLOGY INFORMATION :

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