Fundamentals of Organizational Behaviour || Spring, 2015 || Pokhara University || BBA/BBA-BI/BBA-TT/BCIS/BHCM

Fundamentals of Organizational Behaviour

This is the question set along with answers Fundamental of Organizational Behaviour Spring 2015, which was taken by the Pokhara University.

Pokhara University – Fundamental of Organizational Behaviour Spring 2015

Level:  Bachelor	Semester –Spring	Year: 2015
Program: BBA/BBA-BI/BBA-TT/BCIS/BHCM		Full Marks: 100
Course: Fundamentals of Organizational Behaviour		Pass Marks: 45
		Time:  3hrs.

Section “A”

Very Short Answer Questions

Attempt all the questions.

1. List any five areas of contribution from sociology to the field of OB.

Ans:  The contributions from sociology to the field of OB are as follows:

• Sociology analyzes from the macro-level of human behavior, which is essential for the OB managers to handle the employees.
• Sociology helps to know the status of the society, so OB managers can adjust the according to nature of society to create a good business.
• Sociology believes in teamwork and mutual understanding of a business which is the complete basics needed in any organization for an effective output.
• Sociology firmly believes in the proper role and functions of a society which is very vital for society. In a similar manner, OB has mentioned hierarchical work divisions and duties in a company.
• Group dynamics, teamwork, and corporate technology are other areas contributed from sociology.

2. Differentiate between a terminal and instrumental value.

Ans: These two values are researched by Milton Rokeach psychologist.

Terminal values are beliefs that lead to a determined goal in the desired status. These lead to the ends to be achieved. For example; comfort living, freedom, social recognition. Whereas, Instrumental values are those beliefs that are actually tools to achieve desired ends. They are the means to terminal value. For example; ambitious, compassionate, hardworking, etc.

3. What do you mean by cognitive learning?

Ans: Cognitive learning refers to the mental process of higher thinking. It means that learning is a process of relating new information to the previously learned information. Learning processes may vary from one person to person.

4. What do you mean by Social Loafing?

Ans: Social Loafing refers to the concept of the individual’s tendency to exert less effort in group work in comparison to working individually. That is why in a company we can find people working much less in a group. For example; social loafing is found while pulling a rope by social psychologists in research.

5. What is transactional analysis?

Ans: Transactional analysis is the analysis that analyses the interpersonal conflict through a behavioral model of personality, the dynamics of self, and its relationship to others. TA helps in order to  have a self study an individual, should know:

• He knows and others also know about that
• Nobody knows
• He knows but others don’t know
• He doesn’t know but others know

Actually, TA helps to know an individual that portion of his self of which he is not aware.

6. List out any four hygiene factors according to Hertzberg.

Ans: The four hygiene factors(extrinsic factors) according to Hertzberg are as follows:

• Company policy, and administration
•  Relationship with supervisor
• Salary
• Working conditions

7. List out leadership style according to a managerial grid with a diagram.

Ans: Leadership style according to a managerial grid are as follows:

• Impoverished (1,1) style: It has little concern for both people and production. Also called Lasseiz-Faire management.
• Country club(1,9) style: It has minimum concern for production but high concern for people.
• Middle Road(5,5) style: It has moderate concern for both people and production. Most managers prefer this to follow.
• Team (9,9) style: This style has the highest concern for both people and production. It is most useful in the crisis management period.

8. Draw a diagram showing a relation between performance and conflict.

Ans: Conflict is the disagreement of two parties that has an inverse relation with performance.

9. Write any four ways to manage stress in an organization.

Ans: Four ways to manage stress in an organization are:

• Redesigning jobs
• Goal setting can be very helpful to manage stress
• Wellness programs
• Increase employee training and orientation programs.

10. Mention any four characteristics of a Learning organization.

Ans: Characteristics of a Learning organization by Fred Luthans are:

• The presence of tension(gap between vision and reality, questioning, inquiry, challenging status quo, and openness)
• Systems thinking(shared vision, holistic thinking, and openness)
• Culture fascinating, learning( suggestions, teamwork, empowerment, and empathy)

Also, Four characteristics of a Learning organization are:

• Shared vision and a new way of thinking
• systems thinking
• open communication
• Mutual and integrated interest

Section “B”

Descriptive Answer Questions

Attempt all questions

11. Why the study of organizational behavior is essential for today’s managers? Explain critical behavioral issues confronting the managers in using the OB concept.

Ans:

a. The study of organizational behavior is essential for today’s managers because of the following importance of OB listed below:

• Understand organization and employee in a better way
• Motivate employee
• Improve Industrial or Labour relations
• Prediction and control of human behavior
• Effective utilization of human resource

Understand organization and employee in a better way:

OB study emphasizes the study of human behavior, human actions, feelings, and wants of both the company and employee. So, the OB is so important cause it can fill the need of knowing the objective of organizations and employees so, both of them can prosper. A friendly and cordial relation between employee and organization (managers) creates a proper working environment in the organization.

Motivate employee:

OB study proves that the motivation got in a company has a huge difference in the outputs of any individuals. Motivation brings good organizational performance. For example, an individual works in a company which does motivate him a lot and he also is getting the desired results. But if he is not given adequate motivation then, he will surely fail to get the desired output.

Improve Industrial or Labour relations:

OB managers are taught the proper culture to improve industrial relations. When you respect your employees, then only you will be respected. OB is a human tool for human benefit. It takes human problems humanly. It understands the root cause, predicts its future course of action, and controls its negative consequences. Thus, in turn there will be a perfect peaceful workplace to work on.

Prediction and control of human behavior:

OB puts the light on predicting and controlling human behavior. So, managers can use the right approach to control human behaviors and predict them. If done properly, then only the employees will work properly. It helps to bring organizational effectiveness.

Effective utilization of human resource:

OB helps managers how to manage people effectively. It enables managers to inspire and motivate employees towards higher productivity and better results. It guarantees the success of organizations to achieve goals.

b. Critical behavioral issues confronting the managers in using the OB concept are as follows:

• Globalization
• Workforce diversity
• Quality and productivity
• Improving people skills
• Empowerment of employees
• Managing organization change
• Improving Ethical Behavior

Globalization:

Globalization has been increasing with time as well. So, OB managers should be able to cope with the culture change, different norms, and beliefs. decision-making styles, political differences, etc.

Challenges:

• How to manage growing dissatisfaction?
• How to learn managerial abilities?
• How to deal with cross-cultural differences?

Opportunities:

Globalization has opened new areas of business expansion, and a chance to learn new things. It has created a lot of demands and if products are supplied properly globally, then there is a real success in business for managers.

Workforce diversity:

Workforce diversity is the management of workforce differences among people.

Diversity trends:

• The average ages of workers are gradually increasing because of the declining birth rate and people are living and working longer.
• An increasing number of women workers, foreigners, migrants in refugees, black employees, disabled retirees, and so on.

Opportunities and challenges:

The challenge is to address their diversified lifestyles and cultural factors, family needs, and workstyles. If diversity is managed properly, then it can increase creativity and innovation. On the contrary, diversity, if not managed properly, will result in high turnover, interpersonal conflict, and ineffective communication.

Quality and productivity:

Managers must be able to give the final products which have fine quality, and a fine supply as well. Total Quality Management has given the rise to the concept of consumerism. Globalization has increased the degree of concern towards quality and productivity because it has given birth to tough competition. The implications for organizational behaviors are:

• the more closely people work together, the more important it is to understand behavioral processes and concepts.
• motivating employees to get involved in quality improvement efforts, increasing the level of participation throughout the organization, and
• rewarding people on the basis of a contribution to the quality

Improving people skills:

OB managers have this big problem of improving the skills of their employees because the global market has created a high level of standard skills and knowledge. The employee must train and learn new skills which are very demanding in the future. The responsibility to the employees, participation,  trend of teamwork increased automation, etc has been increased. Managers must become more responsive to the needs of their skilled employees to keep them going to work for a competitor.

Empowerment of employees:

“Give a person a fish, and you feed that person for a day; teach a person to fish, and you feed that person for life”

In organizations, an employee has become an associate, and there is a fusion between the role of managers and workers. Decision-making is being pushed down to the operating level, where workers are given the freedom to make choices about schedules, processes, and solving work-related problems.

The trend is toward the use of self-managed teamwork, quality choices, and job enrichment. They are putting employees in charge of it. And doing so, managers have to learn how to give up control and employees have to learn how to take responsibility for their work and make appropriate decisions.

12. What are various theories of learning? Explain any two theories of learning with suitable examples.

Ans:

Learning and Theories of Learning

Theories of Learning are an organized set of principles explaining how individuals acquire, retain, and recall knowledge. They are categorized into two parts:

• Stimulus-Response Theory(Behaviorism)
• The Cognitive Theory

Stimulus-Response Theory:

Stimulus-Response (S-R) relationship also called a behavioral theory, interprets learning as an associative process where learning is a new association or connection that is formed between a stimulus and response.

This group of learning supported by:

• Pavlov’s classical conditioning

A. Pavlov’s classical conditioning:

Russian psychologist is known for his discovery of classical conditioning in psychology. During his studies on the digestive system, he won the Nobel Prize in 1904. Pavlov proved that animals salivated naturally upon the presentation of food. He was remembered for his theories of learning by conditioning.

Classical Conditioning:

Conditioning is the process of learning associations, by linking two events that occur together, usually between a stimulus and a response or between two stimuli. A basic form of learning in which one stimulus comes to serve as a signal for the occurrence of a second stimulus is known as classical conditioning.

Basic Elements and Pavlov used certain terms in his theory:

• Unconditioned Stimulus(UCS): The meat powder was the unconditioned stimulus.
• Unconditioned Response(UCR): The salivation in response to food in the dog’s mouth.
• Neutral Stimuli (NS): the sound of bell, light, etc
• Conditioned Stimulus: Neutral stimulus acquires the ability to elicit salivation response after being paired with an unconditioned stimulus. NS with the UCS (food ) changed into conditioned stimulus (CS)
• Conditioned Response (CR): Salivation in response to the CS (light, bell) is known as the conditioned response (CR).

Classical Conditioning:

Ivan Pavlov (1927) in his studies fed meat power (UCS) to the dog while a bell (CS) was ringing. The meat power caused the dog to begin salivating (UCR).
The several presentations of CS followed by Us and strengthening of the behavior were termed as reinforcement by Pavlov. After several reinforcements when the sound of the bell alone was presented, the dog salivated (CR). The classical conditioning phenomena had been established.

Conditioning Processes: Basic principles

• Acquisition
• Extinction
• Spontaneous recovery
• Generalization
• Discrimination

 Acquisition:

• It is the training stage during which the animal is learning the stimulus-response relationship.

 Extinction:

• If the conditioned stimulus (CS) is presented alone a number of times without the food, the magnitude of the conditioned response (CR) of salivation begins to decrease.
• This process with the gradual disappearance of the conditioned response (CR) on disconnecting the S-R association is called extinction.

 Spontaneous recovery:

• Spontaneous recovery refers to the sudden resurfacing of a conditioned response, which was previously extinguished due to a lack of association between a conditioned and unconditioned stimulus.

Stimulus generalization:

• The tendency of stimuli similar to a conditioned stimulus (CS) to evoke a conditioned response (CR) is called stimulus generalization.

Stimulus discrimination:

• The process by which organisms learn to respond to certain stimuli but not to others.

Applications of Classical conditioning:

• Treatment of a behavior problem
• Treatment of phobias
• Learning taste (Aversion and Preparedness)
• Study of sensory capacity

B. Cognitive Learning:

Cognitive learning focuses on the role of perception and understanding play in a more complex form of learning. The psychological result of perception and learning and reasoning. S-R associations can only explain simple forms of learning and not complex forms of learning.

This group is supported by:

1. Cognitive Map: Tolman’s Sign Learning

2. Bandura’s Observational Learning

3. Kohler’s Insight Learning

Cognitive Map: Tolman’s Sign Learning

• Tolman believed individuals do more than merely respond to stimuli.
• According to Tolman reinforcement was not necessary for learning to occur.
• He coined the term – Cognitive Map. A cognitive Map is an internal representation of external environmental features.
• Individuals acquire a large number of signals from the environment which they could use to make a mental image or cognitive map to get the goal.
• He worked on latent learning, defined as learning which is not apparent in the learner’s behavior at the time of learning, but which manifests later when a suitable motivation and circumstances appear.
• For example, Tolman conducted a research study using rats and determined that rats use cognitive maps to find where rewards in a maze are located.

Bandura’s Observation Learning:

• Social Learning Theory, also known as social learning, imitational learning, and social cognition theory, was developed by Stand ford University Psychologist Albert Bandura.
• Learning through observation of other’s behavior.
• Learning through indirect experience.
• Observation or vicarious(secondary) learning

Bandura’s experiment:

Bandura’s “ Bobo Doll” experiment is one of the popular experiments by Bandura and his colleagues Ross & Ross at 1963. This research shows that whether children learn aggressive behaviors by observing the actions of others. Social learning stresses reinforcement facilitates the learning process but is not necessary for learning to occur.

Process in observation Learning are as follows:

1. Attention process ( pays attention to the model’s behavior)- Attention to and perceiving the behavior.
2. Retention process (long-term retention)-Remembering the behavior.
3. Motor reproduction process (Performs)- Converting the memory into action.
4. Motivational process ( Pleasure or pain, pressures to retain it)- Reinforcement of the imitated behavior.

Vicarious Rewards or Reinforcement:

• Vicarious Rewards: When an observer increases a type of behavior for which they have seen others being reinforced. E. g. Individuals desire to be a pop star- Pop star earns name and fame in a short time.
• It depends upon the reinforcement whether it serves as a reward or punishment.
  E.g. Nepalese staying abroad – suffered more problems.

Kohler’s Insight Learning:

• It is the process of higher learning or problem solving through intelligence and cognitive abilities.
• Work of German Psychologist Wolf Gang Kohler.
• In the 1920s Kohler was studying the behavior of Apes.
• He designed some simple experiments that led to the development of one of the first cognitive theories of learning, which he called insight learning.
• In insight learning the perceptual stimuli are restructured in different ways and rely on cognitive processes.
• It is the “Aha” or “I’ve got it” experience.

Characteristics of Kohler’s Insight Learning:

• Insight leads to a change in perception.
• Insight is sudden.
• Understanding plays an important role in insight learning.
• Age influences insight learning.
• Experience and perceptual organization are important in insight learning.

 

13. Differentiate between group and work team. Explain the various stage of group formation, with suitable diagrams and examples.

Ans: In a Group, a leader dominates and controls a workgroup, while in a team, the leader is a facilitator. The work team members focus on achieving the team goals. The group produces individual work products. On the other hand, the team that produces collective work products. The process of a group is to discuss the problem, then decide and finally delegate the tasks to individual members.

14. Are leadership and management different from one other? If so, how? Explain Fiedler’s contingency theory of leadership.

Ans: The key difference is that management enforces the things that leadership wants. Being a leader means you have the luxury of not being constrained by certain parameters when leading toward success like managers are. The role of management is to find proper ways to manage the big picture laid out in front of them by leadership. It’s like strategy and tactics: an all-embracing plan or set of goals with specific actions or steps to fulfill it.

As for the question is it possible to be good at one but fail at the other – absolutely. Every manager is a leader by default but on the other hand, not every leader is a manager. Consequently, not every good manager is a good leader. For instance, leaders need to possess emotional intelligence to be able to drive change – something managers can do without.

15. Discuss the organizational sources of stress. Explain in brief the organizational stress management strategies.

Ans:

Organizational sources of stress are as follows:

Administrative policies and strategies	Organizational structure and design	Organizational processes	Working conditions
downsizing competitive pressures merit pay plans rotating work shifts bureaucratic rules advanced technology	centralization and formalization line-staff conflicts specialization role ambiguity and conflicts no opportunity for advancements restrictive, untrusting culture	tight controls only downwards communication little performance feedback centralized decision making lack of participation in decisions punitive appraisal systems	crowded work area noise, heat, or cold polluted air strong color unsafe, dangerous conditions poor lighting physical or mental strain toxic, chemicals or radiation

 

The organizational stress management strategies are:

• Goal Setting
• Redesigning job
• Job Enrichment
• Job Enlargement
• Improve Organizational Communication
• Wellness Programs
• Role Clarity
• Creating a better workplace environment
• Training and Development Activities

16. Define communication with its objectives. Explain the various steps involved in the communication process with a suitable diagram.

Ans: Communication in OB refers to the process by which information is transmitted and understood between two or more people. By the term communication, we mean the exchange of information between people in organizations.

Objectives:

• Task Coordination
• Problem Solving
• Information Sharing
• Conflict Resolution

17. Explain Kurt Lewin’s process of organizational change. Why do people resist change? What measures can be taken to overcome resistance to change in organizations?

Ans:

Kurt Lewin’s model:

Developed by Kurt Lewin. In this model, the need for change and the goals of such a change are recognized and accepted, the management must induce the change process in such a way that change is more or less permanent. To make the change more lasting Lewin proposed three phases of the changing process viz:

• Unfreezing,
• Movement(changing), and
• Refreezing.

He also mentioned that managers who are trying to implement change must analyze the balance of driving and restraining forces and then strengthen the driving forces or weaken the restraining forces or use both of them.

Resistance to change:

Almost all organizational change efforts face one or more forms of resistance to change. The resistance may be overt as well as covert (exposed or hidden). It may further be:

• individual sources (e.g. habit, economic, security factors, fear of unknown, selective information processing, etc.), and
• organizational sources (e.g. structural inertia, limited focus of change, group inertia, threat to expertise, threat to established power relationship, and resource allocation, etc.)

Overcoming resistance to change:

To make the change programs effective managers need to overcome resistance to change successfully. Therefore, few ways to overcome them are as follows:

• education and communication,
• participation or involvement
• facilitation and support,
• negotiation and manipulation and cooption, etc.

18. Section “C”

Case Analysis

Read the scenario below and answer the questions that follow.

Mr.AlokBanarjee is the Chief Executive of a medium-sized pharmaceutical firm in Calcutta. He holds a Ph. D. in Pharmacy. However, he has not been involved in research and development of new products for two decades. Though turnover is not a problem for the company, Mr.Banarjee and his senior colleagues noticed that the workers on hourly basis are not working upto their full potential. It is well-known fact that they filled their days with unnecessary and unproductive activities and worked only for the sake of a pay cheque. In the recent past the situation has become quite alarming as the organization began to disintegrate under the weight of uneconomical effort. The situation demanded immediate managerial attention and prompt remedial measures. Mr.Banarjee knew very well that the only way to progress and prosper is to motivate workers to peak performance through various incentive plans.

One fine morning, Mr.Banarjee contacted the Personnel Manager and enquired: “What is the problem with the workers on hourly basis? The wage bill shows that we pay them the highest in the industry. Our working conditions are fine. Our fringe benefits are excellent. Still, these workers are not motivated. What do they require really?” The Personnel Manager gave the following reply: “I have already informed you a number of times, that money, working conditions and benefits are not enough. Other things are equally important. One of workers in that group recently gave me a clue as to why more and more workers are joining the bandwagon of ‘non-performers. He felt bad that hard work and efficiency go un-noticed and un-rewarded in our organization. Our promotion and benefit plans are tied to length of service. Even the lazy workers, accordingly, enjoy all the benefits in the organization, which, in fact according to workers should go only to those who work hard.”

Mr.Banarjee then wanted the Personnel Manager to look into the problem more closely and find out a solution to the problem of workers on an hourly basis.

Questions

a) Explain the motivational problem in this case by relating to Herzberg’s theory.

b) Analyze worker’s lack of motivation using Victor Vroom’s expectancy theory.

c) What would be your response to Banarjee’s statement, if you were the Personnel Manager of the Company?

d) If you were the manager, how would you motivate the employees so that they work better?

 

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