Question

1) Describe self-managed work teams and comment on what research tells us about their effectiveness. Where would this system work best?

2) Using examples, define and describe roles, role expectations and role conflict.

3) List and describe the five stages of group development and provide examples.

4) Identify the seven components of the communication process model, and briefly describe each by providing an example.

5) Using the concept of channel richness, give examples of messages best conveyed by email, by face-to-face communication, and on the company bulletin board.

6) Describe, using examples, four barriers to effective communication.

7) Power tactics are one way in which managerial employees influence others. Identify and describe seven tactical strategies a manager could use and the conditions under which one tactic is selected over another.

8) Describe the four characteristics of empowered employees, and give an illustration for each that shows how an employee would feel or behave if their work role has this characteristic.

9) Using examples, identify and describe the five conflict management strategies and the accompanying behaviours.

10) Using the five conflict-handling strategies and examples from a typical workplace, describe a situation when each strategy would be a good choice for managing a conflict. You can place yourself in the role of a manager or in the role of an employee in the situations.

Answer 1

1. Self managed work teams are the ones that would be having many employees or their group that would be responsible for every service that they carry out along with being responsible for the products that are being delivered by them. These are also accountable of their actions. In the traditional organisations, tasks would be assigned to the employees on the basis of their abilities and on the basis of the specialist skills possessed by them. In self managed teams, there would be tasks such as supporting task, planning as well as management, scheduling of the work flow as well as management of annual leaves or absence. There is rotation of technical responsibilities and management responsibilities which would be rotated among the different members of the team.

These teams are more preferred by the companies since these help in cost effectiveness and increasing productivity of teams. Benefits of self managed teams are that there is greater ownership of every task that is performed by the team members or the services that they would be delivering. These are less costly since the same team would be performing management as well as technical jobs. Also, the team members would be filling in when one member might be on a leave, by other members efficient in handing the job.

This system would be working best where companies would support an organisational culture supporting the employees to take their decisions.