Question

1. Some people have suggested that understanding human behavior at work is the single most important requirement for managerial success. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Why?

2. In what ways is organizational behavior comparable to functional areas such as finance, marketing, and production? In what ways is it different from these areas? Is it similar to statistics in any way?

3. Identify some managerial jobs that are highly affected by human behavior and others that are less so. Which would you prefer? Why?

4. The text identifies four basic managerial functions. Based on your own experiences or observations, provide examples of each function.

5. Which managerial skills do you think are among your strengths? Which are among your weaknesses? How might you improve the latter?

Answer 1

1. True, it plays a vital role for managerial success, but considering the absence of other factors in an effective management causes huge possibilities for failures. As a manager, in order to achieve the peak of success, one must acquire not only the knowledge of human behavior but also having the skills and expertise in planning, organizing, leading and ways to control to achieve organizational goals. It also involves thinking and planning out of strategies on how to improve quality and also being cost conscious and effective.

2. Organizational Behavior is a branch of social science. Organizational behavior is a science which undertakes and analyses human behaviour at the work place. This helps top management to know what motivates employees to give their best in the areas of their expertise and thus lead to organizational success. There have been various studies undertaken by various researchers who have made theories to standardise certain behavior patterns of individuals. Be it learning theories by Chester Bernard or change management by Kurt Lewin, all these help people have created base of human behavior at the work place. When we talk of fields like production, finance and marketing , these are fields which have existed since ages and evolved over a period of time. It came into existence since the industrial era and has evolved through the not com age.

3. Human Resource, Administration, Business operations and advertising are all managerial jobsthat require greater exhibition on understanding human behavior. One must understand that these jobsare highly affected by human behavior because of its nature where it connects to people. For example, inadvertising department or a promotional account executives must be able to learn on how to get alongwith people so that they can associate their concept to them and possess an immense understand on human behavior. Jobs just like in audits, statistics, or in information technology are less affected byhuman behavior as they more likely to function independently from other departments. Base on mypersonality since I am not choleric, and I have a strong connection to people, I would prefer managerialjobs that are highly affected by human behavior. It is nice and affectionate to work if you have builtstrong camaraderie to your colleagues as it will make all task smooth and fun.

4. The four basic managerial functions are planning, organizing, leading and controlling. Planning isa process of making or carrying out plans where we establish goals, policies, and procedures for social oreconomic situation of the company. For example, if you are working as a finance manager, it is your jobto anticipate future and possible expenses that your company may incur. So, it is ideal to prepare abudgetary plan so that all resources and policies will be carried throughout the operation. Thisbudgetary system must be organized so that execution are standardized where managers as well assubordinates shall follow. Organizing is designing jobs into manageable elements and institute authorityamong jobs. This process requires managers to design a systematic process so that resources are welldistributed as stipulated in the planning process. He must be able to assign the jobs effectively todifferent individuals and efficiently allocate resources for maximum productivity. The third level isleading where managers must have a compelling ability to motivate his employees to workenthusiastically and commendably towards organizational goals. Lastly, controlling is a process ofmonitoring if all actions are all carried out in conformance to the plan and applying some correctiveaction and decision making if the executions are quite differing from the outlined plan. This levelrequires managers to implement restraint or restriction in order to maintain stable operation.