SECOND MIDTERM GUIDELINE
PREPARED BY HRISTO GEORGIEV
EXAM DATE:
25TH MARCH 2015
TIME:
19:30-20:45
PLACE:
AUDITORIUM IN THE MAIN BUILDING
CHAPTERS INCLUDED
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
GROUPS
TEAMS
COMMUNICATION
LEADERSHIP
POWER & POLITICS
QUESTIONS
1) How do we form groups?
The first stage is the forming stage – it is veiled with a great deal of uncertainty because nobody
knows about the other individuals in the group. The second stage is the storming stage – an
intragroup conflict occurs as everybody tries to find their role/place/ in the group. The third stage is
the norming stage – people start establishing relationships and unifying their goals and objectives.
The performing stage is concerned with performing the task at hand. The adjourning stage is the last
stage – it is characterized by the wrapping up of all activities and a preparation for disbanding.
2) What are the group properties?
Property 1 – Roles
Property 2 - Norms - Acceptable standards of behavior within a group that are shared by the
group’s members.
Property 3 – Group status - A socially defined position or rank given to groups or group
members by others.
Property 4 – Composition
Property 5 – Cohesiveness - Degree to which group members are attracted to each other and
are motivated to stay in the group.
Property 6 – Size
3) Why people join groups?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
Security: reducing the insecurity of “standing alone”
Status: members viewed as important by others
Self-esteem: provide people with feeling of self worth
Affiliation: fulfill social needs
Power: power in number, only possible with group
Goal Achievement: need a pool of talents,
knowledge… to complete the task
4) Why are groupthink & groupshift dangerous for organization (group & team)? How to
avoid or stop them?
a. Groupthink is a biased decision caused by group members trying to reach an accord.
For example, group members become overly committed around their leader’s idea and
they fail to consider alternatives. Similar to anchoring bias.
b. Group shift is the tendency of members to become more extreme in their position –
conservative people become more cautious and aggressive types take on more risk.
c. They are dangerous because they can lead to bad decision making: Not looking for
alternatives, not advising with experts, no contingency plans, being highly selective
about information gathering, not being critical to other’s ideas.
d. Solutions include being a devil’s advocate – being the person who always criticizes
Leaders have to be impartial and a policy must be set. Active discussion must be
encouraged.
e. For group shift, devil’s advocacy also works as well as dialectical inquiry. Dialectical
inquiry is done by making two different groups that are assigned to the problem and
each group evaluates the other group’s alternatives. Promoting diversity within the
team also helps.
5) How to improve group decision making?
a. One thing is to monitor group size.
b. Managers should also encourage group leaders to play an impartial role.
c. Another thing is to appoint one group member to play the role of devil’s advocate.
d. Another suggestion is to use exercises that stimulate active discussion
6) What criteria are we looking at when we evaluate group effectiveness?
7) When do we choose groups versus the individual?
There are two criteria which define whether groups are suitable:
a. Is the work complex and is there a need for different perspectives?
b. Does the work create a common purpose or set of goals for the group that is
larger than the aggregate of the goals for individuals?
c. Are members of the group involved in interdependent tasks?
8) What are the main problems in the groups & teams?
a. Some Workers Struggle with Teams
b. Decision-making can become biased
c. Decrease in Creativity
d. Conflict May Develop
e. Present Evaluation and Reward Challenges
9) Based on a situation for example……, which group decision making techniques can we
use?
a. Devil’s advocate – being the person who always criticizes Leaders have to be impartial
and a policy must be set. Active discussion must be encouraged.
b. Dialectical inquiry - making two different groups that are assigned to the problem and
each group evaluates the other group’s alternatives.
c. Brainstorming – generating a wide array of abstract ideas and choosing the best ones:
generation of ideas
(2) analysis
(3) action planning
d. Consensus process - Consensus demands a high level of trust among the members of
the group. People need to believe that each member is a fair and reasonable person of
integrity who has the organization's best interests at heart. There are no perfect groups
or perfect individuals, but for consensus to work the members must believe that
everyone is honestly doing their best.
e. De Bono hats - You and your team members can learn how to separate thinking into six
clear functions and roles. Each thinking role is identified with a colored symbolic
"thinking hat." By mentally wearing and switching "hats," you can easily focus or
redirect thoughts, the conversation, or the meeting.
f. Nominal group technique - A group decision-making method in which individual
members meet face-to-face to pool their judgments in a systematic but independent fashion.
g. Stepladder technique - Enhances decisions by structuring
the addition of group members and
their ideas into the process.
Process steps:
Assignment of tasks to decisionmaking participants who will join core group
Presentation of preliminary solutions to the core group
Problem reconsidered at each presentation to the core group
Final decision based on the blending of core group
member contributions
k. Delphi Technique - A group process that brings information
and the judgments of people together
without physically assembling
the contributors.
Stages in the Delphi technique:
•
Development of the Delphi question and
the first inquiry
•
The first response from the contributors
•
Analysis of the first response, feedback,
and the second inquiry
•
The second response from the contributors
•
Continuation of the process until a clear solution emerges
10) What is the difference between group and team?
Group – group members interact primarily to share information and to make decisions to
help each group member perform within his or her area of responsibility.Basically: with common
interests, objectives, and continuing interaction
Team - individual efforts result in a performance that is greater than the sum of the
individual inputs.In other words: complementary skills who are committed to a common mission,
performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.
11) Why teams are so popular in today’s work environment?
Because:
• Teams typically outperform individuals.
• Teams use employee talents better.
• Teams are more flexible and responsive to changes in the environment.
• Teams facilitate employee involvement.
• Teams are an effective way to democratize and organization and increase
motivation.
12) What are the disadvantages of teamwork in the workplace?
/you don’t need detailed descriptions here, do you?/
a. Some Workers Struggle with Teams
b. Teams Allow for Free-Riding
c. Decrease in Creativity
d. Conflict May Develop
e. Present Evaluation and Reward Challenges
13) What type of teams do we use in today’s business world?
a. Cross-Functional Teams
Employees from about the same hierarchical level, but from different work
areas, who come together to accomplish a task.
b. Problem-Solving Teams
Groups of 5 to 12 employees from the same department who meet for a few
hours each week to discuss ways of improving quality, efficiency, and the work
environment
c. Self-Managed Work Teams
Groups of 10 to 15 people who take on the responsibilities of their former
supervisors.
d. Virtual Teams /think of IT/
Teams that use computer technology to tie together physically dispersed
members in order to achieve a common goal.
14) What are the benefits of team building activities?
15) What are the main topics of team building activities?
The idea is to perform various activities that are both fun and challenging, and that also
have the “side effect” of building teamwork skills that can help improve employee
performance and productivity at the office.
a. Communication activities,
b. Problem solving and/or decision making activities,
c. Adaptability and/or planning activities,
d. Activities focusing on building trust
16) How do we create effective teams?
Context , composition, work design,process
17) If you create your own ‘C’ what would they be?
???????????????
???????????????
???????????????
18) How do we turn individuals into team players?
19) How do managers use communication (function of communication)?
Control
Motivation
Information
Emotional expression
20) What are the main problems during communication?
Filtering: manipulation of information so that it will be seen more favorably by the
receiver.
Selective Perception: People selectively interpret what they see on the basis of their
interests, background, experience, and attitudes.
Information Overload: A condition in which information inflow exceeds an individual’s
processing capacity.
Emotions: How a receiver feels at the time a message is received will influence how the
message is interpreted.
Language: Words have different meanings to different people.
Communication Apprehension: Undue tension and anxiety about oral communication,
written communication, or both.
21) How do we choose the right communication channel in the organizations?
Based on information richness. Information richness is the amount of information that
can be distributed during an episode of communication
Characteristics of Rich Channels
1. Handle multiple cues simultaneously.
2. Facilitate rapid feedback.
3. Are very personal in context.
22) What is knowledge management? Why is it important? It is a process of organizing and
distributing an organization’s collective wisdom so the right information gets to the right
people at the right time. It is important because when people leave, they take the
knowledge with them. A KM system reduces redundancy and makes the organization more
efficient. /Making documentation , etc/
23) Why is information richness of communication channels important?
Because it defines how much information can be passed
24) What is the impact of culture in communication process?
It changes the choice of semantics, word connotations, tone differences and
perceptions. It has dependence on low and high context cultures (high context rely
more on nonverbal sings, low-context – more on verbal)
25) What is the impact of social media on business?
a. It seems like social media is everywhere, and every marketer is clamoring to get
in the game. And it’s no surprise why: the time most global consumers spend on
social media has grown over 250% in just the past two years.
i. Therefore it is becoming more and more evident that companies must
engage with individuals on these multiple channels.
ii. The difficulty now is that one company may have to maintain and engage
its audience on three, four, five, or even more social networks at once.
Benefits
b. Improved social signals (which are a factor in the search ranking algorithm).
c. Company branding
d. Improved brand awareness
e. Word-of-mouth advertising
f. Increased customer loyalty and trust
g. Improved audience reach and influence
26) What is the dependency theory?
B’s relationship to A when A possesses something that B requires. For example, I am an
owner of a company (B) and I depend on my employees (A) to prosper(requirement).
27) What is the central feature of political behavior?
The central feature of political behavior is the thirst for power. People want to carve
out a niche from which to exert influence, earn rewards and advance in their careers.
Through power, people can influence others to aid them in their goals.
28) Is power good or bad? Define it.
A capacity that A has to influence B so that be acts in accordance with A’s wishes. Power
is good if it is used with good intentions i.e increase the common good. It is bad if it is in
the hands of immoral people. Immoral people can decrease the common good and
cause suffering to the ones that are dependent on them.
29) How do we choose which power tactics to use?
We choose them based on their influence. Influence can be upward, downward or
lateral. Downward influence is used from managers to employees, upward influence –
the opposite. In most cases, it is good to being with soft tactics that rely on personal
power such as rational persuasion and consultation. If such do not work, the individual
tries to exercise formal power which means exchange coalition and pressure. Such
formal tactics are more riskier and costly.
30) What are the downward influence power tactics?
 Rational persuasion – Presenting logical evidence that request is reasonable
 Inspirational appeals – Developing emotional commitment by appealing to
target’s values, needs etc
 Pressure – Using warnings, demands, etc
 Consultation – Increasing the target’s motivation and support by involving him
or her in deciding how the plan or change will be accomplished
 Ingratiation – Using flattery and praise to gain somebody’s approval
 Exchange – Rewarding targets with benefits or favours in exchange for following
a request
 Legitimacy – Relying on one’s authority position or stressing that a request is in
accordance with org. policy.
31) What is political behavior?
Activities those are not required as a part of a person’s formal role in the organization
but that influence, or attempt to influence, the distribution of advantages and
disadvantages within the organization.
32) Can we stop political behavior?
It cannot be stopped as such behavior is irrelevant to the job (it is informal). Although it
can be minimized if there is less ambiguity in the organization’s structure, policy and
management. The more vague criteria for appraisal and promotion, the more political
the environment is. When people are pushed and good performance is a must, people
are also more inclined to engage in politicking. Political behavior cannot be stopped, but
it can be minimized by clear rules in the organization and less favoritism and more
fairness from the management.
33) What are the most frequent types of organizational politics?
???????????????
Legitimate political behavior – complaining to supervisor, bypassing the cnain of
command, forming coalitions, obstructing organizational policies
Illegitimate political behavior – sabotage, whistle-blowing , symbolic protests
34) What are the factors that influence political behaviors?
Individual factors:
• High self-monitors
• Internal locus of control
• High Mach personality
• Organizational investment
• Perceived job alternatives
• Expectations of success
Organizational factors:
• Reallocation of resouces
• Promotion opportunities
• Low trust
• Role Ambiguity
• Unclear perf. Evaluation system
• Zero-sum reward practices
• Democratic decision making
• High perf. Pressures
• Self-serving senior managers
35) How do we defense/defend/ ourselves from political behavior?
Over conforming – Strictly interpreting your responsibility
Buck passing – transferring responsibility
Playing dumb – no need to define that
Stretching – prolonging a task
Stalling – appearing to be more or less supportive publicly while in reality you are doing
nothing
Buffing – “Covering your rear’. It describes the practice of rigorously documenting
activity to project an image of competence
Playing safe – Evading situations that my reflect unfavorably
Justifying – developing explanations to lessen responsibility
Scapegoating – placing failure on external factors (my dog ate the homework, Jade
distracted me etc)
Misrepresenting – Manipulation of information by fraud
Prevention – trying to prevent change from occurring
Self-protection – trying to protect one’s self-interest
36) What is the impact of culture on political behavior?
Culture influences the effectiveness of influence tactics and preference. For examples
US managers prefer rational appeal, whereas Chinese managers prefer coalition tactics.
For example, ‘gentle persuasion’ is found to be much more effective in the US than in
China.
37) What is impression management?
The process by which individuals attempt to control the impression others form of
them.
38) What are the most common impression management techniques?
Conformity – Agreeing to somebody else’s opinion in order to gain their approval
Excuses – Explanations of predicament-creating event aimed at minimizing the apparent
severity of the predicament
Apologies – Admitting responsibility for an undesirable event and simultaneously
seeking to get a pardon for the action
Self-promotion – Highlighting one’s best qualities, downplaying one’s deficits and calling
attention to one’s achievements
Flattery – Complimenting others about their virtues in an effort to make oneself appear
perceptive and likeable
Favours – Doing something nice to a person gain the person’s approval
Association – Enhancing or protecting one’s images by managing information about
people and things with which one is associated