M.Com. II Semester Note: These model answers are a depiction of important points which, an examinee must have to mention, to secure high marks in particular question. The length of the answer may vary as per the examinee s understanding, interpretation, and his/her ability to comprehend the content. Section A (Short Answer Type Questions) 1. (i) Goals of Organisational Behaviour: Examinee has to briefly explain following goals of organisational behaviour to answer this question: (a) Describe (b) Understand (c) Predict (d) Control (ii) Environmental Factors that affect the Individual Behaviour: Following Environmental factors affect the Individual Behaviour: (1) Economic Factors (a) Employment Level (b) Wages Rates (c) General Economic Environment (d) Technological Development (2) Socio-cultural factors (3) Political Factors (4) Legal Environment (iii) ID, Ego, and Super Ego: Under Freudian stages of Personality Development, Defense Mechanisms state about three conflicting psychoanalytic concepts which are: (a) The ID: Id is the foundation of the unconscious behaviour. In other words, Id is the sources of psychic energy and seeks immediate satisfaction of biological or instinctual needs. (b) The Ego: The Ego is associated with the realities of life. Just as the Id is the unconscious part of human personality, Ego is the conscious and Page 1 of 8
logical part because it is concerned about the realities of external environment. (c) The Super Ego: The Super Ego is the higherlevel of force to restrain the Id. It can also be described as the conscious of the person. All these three concepts are inter-related. A proper balance is required among these to create a normal personality. (iv)principles of Perceptual Organisation: The perception process starts with perceptual inputs which an individual receives as number of stimuli. There after starts the perceptual mechanism where, after perceptual selectivity of particular event, person tries to organise these stimuli. This particular arrangement of stimuli is referred as Perceptual Organisation. Perceptual Organisation is primarily based on following principles: (a) Figure and Ground (b) Perceptual Grouping (i) Similarity (ii) Proximity (iii) Closure (iv) Continuity (c) Perceptual Constancy (i) Shape Constancy (ii) Size Constancy (iii) Colour Constancy (d) Perceptual Context (e) Perceptual Defence (v) Nature of Learning: The nature of learning includes: (a) Change in behaviour (b) Change in behaviour must be relatively permanent (c) Change must be based on some experience, practice, or training (d) Reinforcement (e) Learning is reflected in behaviour (vi) Douglas McGregor introduced these two theories i.e., Theory X and Theory Y, based on two distinct views of human beings. These theories are not based on any research, but on intuitive deductions. Page 2 of 8
Theory Y: This theory assumes that people do not inherently dislike work. The exercise self-direction and self-control in the attainment of objectives to which they are committed. With proper work condition, they can even seek the work responsibility. This way they remain innovative and creative in decision-making. (vii) Leadership is an important element of the directing function of management. To manage a frictionless movement in group members, to motivate them to work, and to lead them for innovation and action, a leader is definitely required. According to Koontz and O Donnel, Leadership is the ability of a manager to induce subordinates to work with confidence and zeal. A modern approach of leadership can be viewed from the statement of Peter F. Drucker that, Leadership is not making friends and influencing people i.e., salesmanship. It is the lifting of man s visions to higher sights, the raising of man s personality beyond its normal limitations. (viii) Types of Formal Informal Command Task Forces Committees Interest and Friendship Cliques Sub Cliques Sayles Classification of Apathetic Erratic Strategic Conservative Page 3 of 8
(ix) (x) Benefits of Sensitivity Training: Sensitivity Training (or, T-groups) is one of the techniques of organisational development. The basic objective of sensitivity training is to change the behaviour of the people through unstructured group interactions. Benefits of sensitivity training are: (a) People more open to feedback, learn more about themselves. (b) It develops insight into how the participants react to others and how others react to them. (c) Good for understanding group processes and inter-personal group relations. (d) Beneficial in turning an aggressive individual into a friendly and assertive one. Causes of Political Behaviour: The basic reason for political behaviour is to overcome resistance or opposition. If there is no opposition, there is no need for politics. There are following causes of political behaviour: (i) Scarcity of Resources (ii) Ambiguous goals (iii) Organisational Change (iv) Organisational Culture (v) Technology and External Environment, etc. Section B (Long Answer Type Questions) 2. Organisational Behaviour (OB) as interaction among individuals, groups and the organisation: The examinee has to detail about the concept of organisational behaviour and then as Level of Analysis explain the individual level study, group level study, and organisation level study in the OB, their complementariness and interaction in OB. The answer can flow in this manner: Organisational behaviour is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, group and organisational structure have on behaviour within organisation, for the purpose of applying that knowledge towards an organisational effectiveness. The above mentioned definition has three elements: Page 4 of 8
- Organisational behaviour is an investigative study of individuals and groups. - The impact of organisational structure on human behaviour. - The application of knowledge to achieve organisational effectiveness. OB has three levels of analysis. At one level, the organisation can be viewed as consisting of individuals working on task in the pursuit of the organisational goals. A second level of analysis focuses upon the interaction among organisational members as they work in teams, groups and departments. Finally, organisational behaviour can be analysed from the perspective of the organisation as a whole. (a) Organisation at the Individual level: This level should be explained in the sense that it testifies individuals in the organisation on Psychological group and their readiness to accept the policies and procedures of the system. Few lines can be written like, This approach to organisational behaviour draws heavily on the discipline of Psychology and explains why individuals behave and react the way they do to different organisational policies, practices and procedures. (b) Organisation at the Group level: Organisational work requires dependences among individuals. The examinee should explore the points of OB which emphasises group study like, team development, quality of working life, organisational conflict and conflict management in this point. (c) Organisation at the Organisational level: The examinee has to deal with organisational development, organisational culture, and organisational effectiveness to explore this point. Lastly, the examinee has to show the dependency of these parameters over one another so that their interaction among themselves can be established. 3. Personality and Determinants of Personality: After defining the personality, the examinee has to elaborate various determinants of personality. An ideal answer would feature following points and sequencing: - Meaning and definition of personality Page 5 of 8
- The broad determinants of personality i.e., Biological factors, and Environmental factors - Detailed explanation of biological factors like, heredity, brain, biofeedback, and physical features - Detailed explanation of environmental factors like, Culture, family, social, and situational factors. 4. Herzberg s Hygiene-Motivation Theory: Fredrick Herzberg has given his Hygiene-Motivation theory on his research over 200 engineers and accountants in the late 1950s and early 1960s in the Pittsburgh Area of the USA. He concluded that there are certain factors that tend to be consistently related to job satisfaction and on the other hand, there are some factors, which are consistently related to job dissatisfaction. He mentioned conditions related to job satisfaction as Motivational factors and conditions related to job dissatisfaction as Maintenance or Hygiene factors. He further presented 10 maintenance factors viz., company policy & administration, Technical supervision, Inter-personal relations with supervisor, inter-personal relations with peers, inter-personal relations with subordinates, salary, job security, personal life, working conditions, and status. He also explained six factors which motivate the employees. These are: Achievement, advancement, possibility of growth, recognition, work itself, and responsibility. The examinee has to detail his answers on above parameters. It should be noted that there is NO NEED to CRITICALLY ANALYSE this theory as only description is asked in the question. Critical analysis mentioned by the examinee will give negative credit to his/her answer. 5. Communication, its characteristics and elements: An examinee must produce following points in answering this question to attain high credit: - Generation of word Communication from the Latin word communis - Meaning of communication in examinee s own understanding - At least one popular definition of communication - Characteristics of communication, which are: Page 6 of 8
(i) It involves at least two persons (ii) Message is a must (iii) Communication may be written, oral or gestural (iv) It is a two-way process (v) Primary purpose is to motivate a response (vi) Formal or informal (vii) Its flow (viii) Integral part of the process of exchange - In the point of elements of communication, an examinee must have to mention following elements of communication: (i) Communicator (ii) Communicatee (iii) Message (iv) Communication Channel (v) Response or Feedback 6. Approaches to Conflict Management: There are two approaches for managing the organisational conflict: (1) Preventive Measures: (i) Establishing common goals (ii) Reduction in Interdependence (iii) Reduction in shared resources (iv) Trust and Communication (v) Coordination (vi) Exchange of Personnel (vii) Use of Superior Authority (viii) Reorganisation of (2) Curative Measures or Resolving Behavioural Conflict (i) Avoidance (ii) Competing (iii) Collaboration (iv) Accommodating, and (v) Compromise The examinee has to mention in detail the abovementioned points. There would be extra credit for showing the diagram of conflict resolution model. Page 7 of 8
7. Organisational Development and its characteristics: After explaining about organisational development (OD), the examinee has to detail about following characteristics of OD: (i) Planned change (ii) Encompasses the whole organisation (iii) Long range change (iv) Systems orientation (v) Change agent (vi) Problem solving (vii) Experiential Learning (viii) Collaborative Management (ix) Group process (x) Organisational Culture (xi) Feedback (xii) Situational and Contingency Oriented (xiii) Team building 8. Politics in Organisational perspectives and its functions: A very popular view of organisational politics is how one can pragmatically get ahead in an organisation. According to Tushman, Politics refers to the structure and process of the use of authority and power to affect definition of goals, direction and the other major parameters of the organisation. Decisions are not made in a rational way but rather through compromise, accommodation and bargaining. On the view of above statements, the examinee has to draw one s own idea about Politics in organisational reference. Following functions of organisational politics can be thereafter explained: (i) To overcome employees inadequacies (ii) To cope with change (iii) To channel personnel contracts (iv) To substitute for formal authority (v) To act in Darwinian way (vi) Execution of decisions (vii) To ensure full debate ------X------ (Prepared by Amit Manglani, Assistant Professor, Department of Commerce, GGV) Page 8 of 8