Question

3- Use Mintzberg's Managerial Roles to analyze the managerial roles played by an entrepreneur who has just established a start-up.

4-What is the Systems Approach of Management? Do you think this approach is applicable in today's management practice? Why and How? Use examples to illustrate your point.

9-Describe an effective culture for (a) a relatively stable environment and (b) a dynamic environment. Explain your choices and give one example (a company you know) for each situation.

Answer 1

3)

Mintzberg’s Managerial Role for an entrepreneur:

We take a situation where there is an entrepreneur who has started a company of providing different types of banking services.

1. Interpersonal roles

a) Figure Head role: Here the entrepreneur must act as a Head and interact effectively with the employees so that the power gap is least between him/her and the employees. And the employees feel approachable to meet their head and feel free to communicate any of their problems.

b) Leader’s Role: Here the entrepreneur is supposed to set the performance goals for the employees and give them certain targets to achieve and motivate them by giving certain amount of bonus if the target is achieved. For e.g. 10 savings accounts have to be opened in one day or 5 credit cards has to be sold in one day for bonus money etc. And try to achieve high level of productivity from the employees,

c) Liaison officer’s role: Here the entrepreneur is very necessary as the entrepreneur in this should have qualities to interact with the internal and external members of the organizations such as employees and the customers to collect feedback and work on the negative feedbacks to improve the service and reach organizational goals effectively.

2. Information Roles

a) Monitor’s role: Here the entrepreneur is supposed to generate and share knowledge to achieve organizational goals and monitor the performance of the company along with each and every employee and remove the lag if present anywhere for effective performance of startup.

b) Disseminator’s role: We know that in any company or startup effective communication is very necessary for flourishing and thriving hence this quality is very mandatory in an entrepreneur, as here he has to ensure that correct information and exact level of information is being delivered to exact person.

c) Spokesperson role: The art of using proper and correct words and speaking eloquently. As here the entrepreneur is required to act as a spokesperson of his startup and represent it on a public platform in front of media. And playing this role is very necessary because the whole image of startup relies on the way the spokesperson represents the startup.

3. Decisional Roles

a) Entrepreneur role: Here the entrepreneur has to make a SWOT analysis of his competitors and accordingly try to figure out the problems faced by customers and try to find better solutions for these problems as compared to competitors. For e.g. Giving loans at low interest and interest free credit cards etc.

b) Disturbance handler role: Here the entrepreneur is supposed to have HR qualities and should have proper leadership skills in order to handle issues prevailing in his/her startup and try to suppress and solve conflicts in order to maintain a nurturing environment in his startup company. And if any customer has any problem and is getting irritated due to long queues, certain necessary steps must be taken by him in order to solve such problems such as providing entertainment, free snacks etc. And this is how the disturbance handler role can be played.

c) Resource allocator role: Here he/she is required to know the talent of employees and accordingly allocate jobs to employee which matches the skills of employee. Indeed, the budget and amount of materials (e.g. paper, printer, desktop etc.) is also needed to be decided for proper maintenance of services.

d) Negotiator role: Here the entrepreneur is supposed to negotiate effectively with the internal and external members of startup. Such as in case of employees he should negotiate effectively for salaries for saving costs and in case of customers he must negotiate for selling as much of banking services possible to increase his startup profits.

4)

Systems approach of management:

This approach states that an organization is made up of several interrelated subsystems which works for achieving a common purpose. All the subsystems are supposed to communicate with each other before taking any actions and decisions are taken collaboratively.

For e.g. An organization has certain departments such as finance, Human resource, Marketing etc. and all these departments are supposed to interact with each other continuously and take decisions collaboratively.

The Systems approach of management in today’s management world is applicable at places where the environment is relatively stable and decision-making process demands substantial time. For e.g. For service providing companies, where the client is demanding certain features which demands quality, and the customer demand is stable and certainly forecasted, there Systems approach of management can be used. But for companies, related with trade and sensex, where the environment is rapidly changing, relatively dynamic and the external conditions affecting companies are volatile and continuously changing, in this situation the Systems approach of management is impractical and hard to use. Because communicating of subsystems with each other at high time when important decisions are to be made immediately is difficult in the case of Systems approach of management, but in manufacturing and service industries Systems approach of management can be effective, as working in silos in such industries will not be productive, whereas working in proper collaboration with all the department will generate substantial profit and will save a lot of time.

9)

An effective culture for relatively stable environment can be described as an arena where the main focus is on the amount of productivity and along with it, the quality of productivity should be emphasized upon.

Substantial detailing is necessary in the product or service the company is providing, a stable environment rarely requires high risk-taking ability or innovation.

For e.g. There is a service providing company TATA Technologies, which works in a relatively stable environment and it basically focuses on designing of cars. The demand of cars more or less remains same throughout the year. Hence, the environment is stable but the company focuses on making perfect design, meeting deadlines and help the production and manufacture to meet the pace of customer demand.

Whereas an effective culture for dynamic environment can be described as an arena where aggression is necessary in employees, risk- taking ability is an essential factor for employee intake and a knack to stay innovative is very imperative in such companies. Because the customer demand and the market scenario are so volatile that the company can be compelled to change its strategy in any situation. Hence in such dynamic environment the company has to stay cautious and act judiciously and at times might also have to take harsh steps such as employee layoff, if the employee is unproductive and not meeting the needed skills for job.

For e.g. Trading companies and sales companies are the best examples for dynamic environment. Such as Future First, where the employees are supposed to have a lot of risk-taking abilities and must take judicious judgements in order to stay competitive in highly volatile trading environment.