Management for All: Management

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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."

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.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Resistance to Change

Why do individuals and organizations resist change ? explain instances of resistance to change in any organization and the effectiveness of management strategies to overcome the resistance.

Ans : The main reason behind the employee’s resistance is the underlying fear and anxiety caused by uncertainties of change. In most situations resistance arises out of individual problems rather than technical problems. Resistance is often because of attitudinal factors and blind spots, which the functional specialists have as a result of their concern for and preoccupation with technical aspects of new ideas.

One of the common reasons for resisting change is the feeling of discomfort with the nature of change itself, which may violate their moral belief systems. Another reason for resistance may be the method in which change is introduced. This is observed when authoritarian approach is used and people are not informed. Other reasons for resistance may be inequity where the employees feel that someone is likely to get greater benefit than they are likely to get.

SOURCES OF INDIVIDUAL RESISTANCE :

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Behavioral Theories of Motivation

Explain behavioral theories of work force motivation and relevant issues. Discuss their implications for policies and practices in any organization your are familiar with.

Ans : Every reward or element or compensation / remuneration has a behavioral objective and seek to fulfill a need (physiological or psychological) and achieve a goal. Luthans argues that ‘motivation is a process that starts with a psychological or psychological deficiency or need that activates a behavior or a drive that is aimed at a goal.

Reward systems are aimed at compensating people for their skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions and motivating them for higher performance. Behavioral science theories are classified into three categories, content, process, and contemporary theories.

A. CONTENT THEORIES

The content theories look at what motivates people at work. Maslow, Hergberg and Alderfer contributed significantly to content theories. These are very briefly outlined here:

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Merger and Acquisition

Explain the concept of merger and acquisition. Describe the role of agencies in the formation of mergers and acquisitions. Illustrate the process of merger and acquisition with reference to an organization.

Ans : Management theory and practice has given change theories, models and tools but intense competition forces organizations to grapple the change which is changing faster than change itself. One of the successful ways of meeting such contingencies is restructuring. The current restructuring modes all over the world appear to be the phenomenon of mergers and acquisitions.

Every mergers or acquisition goes through a learning process of its own. Peter Drucker, for instance provides a set of ‘rules’ of successful acquisition. If managed properly merger and acquisition (M & A) can help the organization take a path of growth and prosperity.

Concept of merger and acquisition :

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Organisation Culture

What is organization culture? Describe how organizational culture change can take place ? illustrate from an organization where culture change had taken place.

Ans : Organization culture covers a wide range of behaviour : the methods of production, job skills and technical knowledge, attitude towards discipline and punishment, the customs and habits of managerial behaviour; the objectives of the concern, its way of doing business, the methods of payment, the values placed on different types of works, belief in democratic living and joint consultation, and the less conscious conventions and taboos.

Definitions of Culture :

According to Schein (1885) the term “culture” should be reserved for the deeper level of basic assumptions and beliefs that are shared by members of an organization, that operate unconsciously, and that define in a basic “ taken-for-granted” fashion an organisation’s view of itself an its environment. The assumptions and beliefs are learned responses to a group’s problems of survival in its external environment and its problems of internal integration.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Reward System

Explain what is reward system ? Describe the reward system of your organization you are acquainted with. How financial reward systems have been helping in improving organizational performance?

REWARD SYSTEM

One of important attributes of work organization is the ability to give reward to their members. Pay, promotions, fringe benefits, and status symbols are perhaps the most important rewards. Because these rewards are important, the ways they are distributed have a profound effect on the quality of work life as well as on the effectiveness of organization.

Organization typically rely on reward system to do four things :

1. Motivate employees to perform effectively.

2. Motivate employee to join the organization.

3. Motivate employee to come to work, and

4. Motivate individuals by indicating their position in the organization structure.

There are several principles for setting up an effective reward system in an organization :

Friday, October 31, 2008

Building Roles and Teams

Describe the methods of building roles and teams being followed in your organization or any organization you are acquainted with. Also discuss their utilities. Describe the organization you are referring to.

ROLE BUILDING:
In any social system, such as the family, club, religious community, work organization, etc. individuals have certain obligation towards the system, which in turn gives each one of them a defined place in the society. This system of mutual obligations can be called a role and the individual’s place a position or an office.

Role is the position one occupies in a social system, as defined by the functions one performs in response to the expectations of the ‘significant’ members of the a social system, and one’s own expectations from that position of office.
Role and office (or Position), though two sides of the same coin, are however, two separate concepts. According to Katz and Kahn, “office is essentially a relational concept, defining each position in terms of relationships to others and to the system as a whole.”

Friday, October 3, 2008

Competency Mapping

Define competency mapping. Briefly discuss the steps involved in competency mapping and its limitations. Explain the methods of competency mapping being followed in any organization familiar with and its effects.

COMPETENCY MAPPING

Competency mapping is a process to identify key competencies for an organization and / or job and incorporating those competencies throughout the various processes (i.e. job evaluation, training, recruitment) of the organization . A competency is defined as behavior rather than skill or ability. Competency approach to a job involves competency mapping.

The steps involved in competency mapping is presented below:
a) Conduct a job analysis by taking incumbents to complete a Position Information Questionnaire (PIQ). This can be provided for incumbents to complete or used as a basis for conducting one-on-one interviews using the PIQ as a guide. The primary goals is to gather from incumbents what they feel are the key behavior necessary to perform their respective jobs.

b) Using the results of job analysis, a competency based job description is developed.

c) With a competency based job description, mapping the competencies can be done. The competencies of the respective job description become factor for assessment on the performance evaluation. Using competencies will help to perform more objective evaluations based on displayed or not displayed behavior.

d) Taking the competency mapping one step further, one can use the results of one’s evaluation to identify in what competencies individuals need additional development or training. This will help in focusing on training needs required to achieve the goals of the position and company and help the employees develop toward the ultimate success of the organization.

Competency Mapping

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The benifits of Competency Approach :

Increased Productivity
Improved work performance.
Training that is focused on organizational objectives.
Employee know up front what is expected of them.
Employees are empowered to become partners in their own performance development

Competency approach to job analysis : Competency is a skill requires knowledge, experience, attitude, and feed back. Performance assessment criteria clearly define the acceptance level of competency in each skill is required to perform the job. The individual’s level of competency in each skill is measured against a performance standard established by the organization.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Job Analysis & Design, Recruitment, Selection, Outsourcing

Explain the process of job analysis and job design. Discuss different functions related to recruitment, selection and outsourcing in your organization or any organization you are familiar with.

JOB ANALYSIS :

Job analysis is the fundamental process that forms the basis of all human resource activities. In its simplest terms, job analysis is a systematic process for gathering, documenting and analyzing data about the work required for a job. The data collected in a job analysis, and reflected through a job description, includes a description of the context and principal duties of the job, and information about the skills, responsibilities, mental models and techniques for job analysis. These include the Position Analysis, Questionnaires, which focuses on generalized human behavior and interviews, task inventories, fundamental job analysis and the job element method.

The United States Govt’s Union Guidelines on Employees Selection Procedure (1978) and the American Psychological Association’s principles for the validation and use of personnel selection procedure stipulates that job analysis is essential to valediction of any and all major human resource activities.

A job analysis provides an objective picture of the job, not the person performing the job, and as such, provides fundamental information to support all subsequent and related HR activities, such as recruitment, training, development, performance management and succession planning.

Uses of Job Analysis:

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

HRM

Explain the meaning and concept of HRM. Discuss the function of HR in your organization or any organization you are familiar with.

Ans :

Meaning of HRM :

Human Resource Management(HRM) is a process of bringing people and organization together so that the goals of each are met. It is that part of the management process which is concerned with the management of human resources in an organization. It tries to secure the best from people by winning the whole hearted cooperation.

HRM may be defined as the art of procuring, developing and maintaining competent workforce to achieve the goals of an organization in a effective and efficient manner.

According to Invacevich and Glueck, “ HRM is concerned with the most effective use of people to achieve organizational and individual goals. It is a way of managing people at work, so that they give their best to the organization.

Concept of HRM :
HRM is a strategic approach to the acquisition, motivation, development and management of the organisation’s human resources.It is a specialized field that attempts to deriving an appropriate corporate culture, and introducing programmes which reflect and support the core values of the enterprises and ensure its success.

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