Contingency factors
Technology, size, environment
Technology: the knowledge, tools, equipment, and work techniques used by an organization in delivering its product or service
Two critical aspects: technological complexity and interdependence
Size: research on relationship between size and various structural characteristics.
Tendencies: 1. as org-n grow, likely to add more departments and levels – structures become incr. Complex. – movement to divisional structure. 2. grows tend to take incr. Number of staff positions in order to help top mngt cope with expanding size. 3. additional rules and regulations are needed. 4. Growth – tend to be more decentralized, due to add. rules and regulations, decision making at lower levels.
Environment.
Stable and unstable environments – different structures.
Stable – mechanistic characteristics, such as high centralization of decision making, many rules and regulations, mainly hierarchical communication channels
Unstable – organic characteristics – decentralization of decision making, few rules and regulations, both hierarchical and lateral communication channels.
HR planning – staffing – development and evaluation – compensation – maintaining effective work force relationships
HRM: the management of various activities designed to enhance the effectiveness of organization’s work force in achieving organizational goals.
HRM planning: determine future human resource needs relative to strategic plan and devising steps necessary to meet those needs
Job analysis – job description
Demand for human resources (Staffing)
Major forces – organizational environment, change of org. requirements, work force changes.
Forecasting demand – methods econometric, extrapolyation, models, programming.
Supply of HR: internal labour supply – replacement chart – external labour supply.
Recruitment: the process finding and attempting to attract job candidates who are capable of effectively filling job vacancies.
Job posting: practice when information about job vacancies is placed in adv places
Internal recruitment: most vacant positions; external recruitment
Selection process: determining which job candidates best suit organizational needs: selection interview, employment test, assessment center
Contracts and legislation requirements
Development and evaluation: training and development; types of training programs; performance appraisal.
Compensation: job evaluation: systematic process of establishing the relative worth of jobs.
Maintaining effective work-force relationships (psychology, conflict theory; adaptability)
Leadership: The process of influencing others toward the achievement of organizational goals.
Sources of leader power
Power: the capacity to affect the behavior of others.
Legitimate power: power that is based from a position’s placement in the managerial hierarchy and the authority vested in the position.
Reward power: power that is based on the capacity to control and provide valued rewards to others.
Expert power: power that is based on the possession of expertise that is valued by others.
Information power: that results from assess to and control over the distribution of important information about organizational operations and future plans.
Coercive power: power that depends on the ability to punish others when they do not engage in desired behaviors.
Referent power: results from being admired, personally identified with, or liked by others.
Leader behaviors:
Autocratic – tend to make unilateral decisions, dictate work methods, limit worker knowledge about goals to just the next step to be performed.
Democratic – tend to involve the group in decision making, let the group determine work methods, make overall goals known and use feedback as an opportunity for helpful; coaching.
Laissez-faire [leisseifae] Liberal style of leaders that give the group complete freedom, provide necessary materials, participate only to answer questions, and avoid giving feedback.
Approaches:
Employee centered: a leadership approach in which managers channel their main attention to the human aspects of subordinate’s problems and to the development of an effective work group dedicated to high performance goals
Job-centered: leaders divide work into routine tasks, determine work methods, and closely supervise workers to ensure that the methods are followed, productivity standards are met.
The Managerial Grid
1.9 Country Club management: thoughtful attention to needs of people for satisfying relationships leads to a comfortable friendly organization atmosphere and work.
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Impoverished management. Exertion of minimum effort to get required work done is
appropriate to sustain organization membership.
5.5 Organization Man Management. Adequate organization performance is possible through balancing the ncessecity to get out work with maintaining morale of people at a satisfactory level.
9.1 Authority-Obedience. Efficiency in operations results from arranging conditions of work in such a way that human elements interfere to a minimum degree.
9.9. Team Management. Work accomplishment is from committed people$ interdependence through a “common stake” in organization purpose leads to relationships of trust and respect.
Female – highly oriented towards interpersonal issues and, therefore, possibly ill-suited for leadership positions. Man – more oriented toward task issues and better candidates for leadership slots. Studies- M. and F. leaders are similar in the amounts of interpersonal and task issues.
The leadership theories
Situational Theory
Theories of leadership that taken into consideration important situational factors (contingency theories). – leader traits or behaviors are dependant (contingent) on relevant situational characteristics. – potentially many situational factors that may influence the effectiveness of leaders.
The contingency model cites three situational factors that affect the degree of favorability for a leader:
Leader-member relationships: the extent to which a leader has a support of group members.
Task structure: extent to which a task is clearly specified with regard to goals, methods, and standards of performance.
Position power: amount of power that organization gives the leader to accomplish necessary tasks.
Situational Leadership Theory: theory (developed by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard) based on the premise that leaders need to alter their behaviors depending on the readiness of followers.
Task behavior – refers to extent to which the leader engages in spelling out the duties and responsibilities of an individual or group. Including telling people what to do, how to do it, when to do it, where and by whom.
Relationship behavior - … leader engages in two way or multiway communication. Incl. listening, facilitating, and supportive behaviors.
Normative leadership model (by V. Vroom and Philip Yetton, in 1973) – helpful leadership decision tool for managers, designed for narrow, but important purpose:
Assess important situational factors that affect the extent to which they should involve subordinates in particular decisions.
Path-Goal Theory
Attempts to explain how leader behavior impacts the motivation and job satisfaction of subordinates.
In order to affect subordinate perceptions of path and goals, identify four major leader behaviors that can be used:
Directive leader: involves letting subordinates know what is expected of them, providing guidance about work methods, developing work schedules, work evaluation standards, indicating the basis for outcomes or rewards.
Supportive: entail showing concern for the status, well-being, and needs of subordinates; doing small things to make the work more pleasant; being friendly and approachable.
Participative: characterized by consulting with subordinates, encouraging their suggestions, considering ideas when making decisions;
Achievement-oriented: involves setting challenging goals, expecting subordinates to perform at their highest level, and conveying a degree of confidence in subordinates.
Communication: exchange of messages between people for the purpose of achieving common meanings.
Types of communication:
Major types: verbal and nonverbal
Verbal: the written or oral use of words to communicate
Written type: business mails, reports, resumes, memorandums, newsletters, policy manuals. Characteristics: time and effort consuming. Costs: of producing letters, reports, etc.
Advantages of written over verbal communications: provides a record of the message; can be disseminated widely with a minimum effort, allows the sender to think about the message carefully (before sending).
Disadvantages: Expense of preparation, the relatively impersonal nature, possible misunderstanding by the receiver, delay of feedback regarding the effectiveness of the message.
Oral communication:
OC - The spoken word: face-to-face conversations, meetings, telephone conversations.
Adv.: fast, more personal than written comm-n, provides immediate feedback from others involved in a conversation.
Disadv.: can be time-consuming, can be more difficult to terminate, additional effort needed if the record of communication is needed (prepare protocols, etc.)
Nonverbal communication: communication by means of elements and behaviors that are not coded into words.
Types:
Kinesic behavior: body movements, such as gestures, facial expressions, eye movements, and posture.
Proxemics: The influence of proximity and space on communication
Paralanguage: Vocal aspects of communication that relate to how something is said rather to what is said
Object language: the communicative use of material things, including clothing, cosmetics, furniture, and architecture.
The components of communication process
Thecomponents:
Sender ----- encoding information ------- decoding info ----- the Receiver (s)
Sendr: initiator of the message
Encoding: the process of translating the intended meaning into symbols
Decoding: translated the symbols into the interpreted message
Receiver: the person with whom the message is exchanged
Message: the encoding-process outcome, which consists of verbal and nonverbal symbols that have been developed to convey meaning to the receiver.
Noise: any factor in the communication process that interferes with exchanging messages and achieving common meaning
Feedback: the basic response of the receiver to the interpreted message
One-way communication: the communication that results when the communication process does not allow for feedback
Two-way communication: the communication that results when the communication process explicitly includes feedback
The communication network: pattern of information flow among task group members: centralized network or decentralized (types)
Communication channels: various patterns of organizational communication flow that represent potential established channels through which managers and other organization members can send and receive information
Vertical communication: involves a message exchange between two or more levels of the organizational hierarchy
Downward communication: vertical communication that flows from a higher level to one or more lower levels in the organization
Upward communication: the vertical flow of communication from a lower level to one or more higher levels in the org-n
Horizontal communication: Lateral or diagonal message exchange either within work-unit boundaries, or across, involving individuals who report to different supervisors.
Formal communication: vertical and horizontal communication that follows paths specified by the official hierarchical organization structure and related task requirements
Informal comm..: takes place without regard to hierarchical or task requirements.
Controlling: the process of regulating organizational activities so that actual performance conforms to expected organizational standards and goals.
Levels of controls
Strategic: control type that involves monitoring critical environmental factors that could affect the viability of strategic plans, assessing the effects of organizational strategic actions, and ensuring that strategic plans are implemented as intended.
Tactical: type that focuses on assessing the implementation of tactical plans at department levels, monitoring associated periodic results, and taking corrective action as necessary.
Operational: involves overseeing the implementation of operating plans, monitoring day-to-day results, and taking corrective actions.
The control process: steps
1. Determine areas to control
Managers make choices – usually on the organizational goals and objectives developed during the planning process.
2. Establish standards
Three major purposes, related to employee behavior. First, help employees understand what is expected and how their work will be evaluated. Second, provide a basis for detecting job difficulties that are related to personal limitations of organization members. Third, help reduce the potential negative effects of goals inconsistencies (incompatibilities between the goals of an organization member and those of org-n).
3. Measure performance
For a given standard, a manager must decide both how to measure actual performance and how often to do so. One – MBO. Means of measuring – depend on standards; ex. Units produced, profits, return on investment, quality of output, steps or processes followed, etc.
Financial control:
Use of financial statements: a summary of a major aspect of an organization’s financial status.
Balance sheet: a financial statement that depicts an organization’s assets and claims against those assets at a given point in time.
Assets: the resources that organizations controls, fall into two main categories: current and fixed.
Current: cash and other assets that usually are converted into cash or are used within 1 year (marketable securities, accounts receivable, which are sales on credit, inventory)
Fixed: assets that have a useful life that exceeds 1 year (property, buildings, equipment)
Claims: liabilities and shareholders’ equity.
Liabilities: claims by non-owners against company’s assets (debts owed to non-owners, such as banks). Two categories: current and long-term.
Current: accounts typically are paid within 1 year (accounts payable current bills tha company must pay, short-term loans)
Long-term: debts usually paid over 1 year (bonds)
Shareholders equity: claims by owners against the assets; equal company’s assets minus liabilities.
In essence – the organization’s net worth; represented by stock and retained earnings (funds accumulated from the profits of the organization).
Income statement: a financial statement that summarizes the financial results of company operations over a specified time period, such as a quarter or a year.
Budgetary control
Budgeting: the process of stating in quantitative terms, usually currency, planned organizational activities for a given period of time.
Budgeting process: incl. projected incomes, expenditures, and profits.
Quality control
Quality: the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs.
Total Quality Control: a quality control approach that emphasizes the organisationwide commitment, integration of quality improvement efforts with org. goals and inclusion of quality as a factor of performance.
Eight dimensions: Performance, Features, Reliability, Conformance, Durability, Serviceability, Aesthetics, Perceived quality (subjective assessments). Total quality control (TQC), HACCP, ISO