Ten Major Roles of Managers Play within the Organization - Scholarship Essay Example

MID-TERM QUESTIONS 2007 MID-TERM QUESTIONS Mintzberg described ten major roles that managers play within the organization. Discuss these roles and give one practical business example of each role that managers play. Also, rank this list in order of importance given your unique experience, from most important to least important. Justify your ranking. Mintzberg (1973) was among the first to design an evaluation framework for assessing how effectively a manager carries out his/her functions. The researcher believed that manager's work consists of several roles at the same time, and depending on the situation the manager might perceive any of these roles as more important than the others. The sum of these roles covers all aspects of managerial performance though Mintzberg was careful enough to state that they might not describe the process of managing comprehensively. Mintzberg (1973) defines the role as "a set of certain behavioral rules associated with a concrete organization or post" (p.36) and groups the manager's roles into the three large blocks: interpersonal, informational and decisional. Each of these blocks consists of several roles: 1. Interpersonal block: Figurehead - involves obligation of manager to act as symbolic head performing many routine duties (social or legal). This role is inspirational and activities associated with it are not central to the manager's job. Leader - involves responsibility for motivating of employees and also staffing, training, development and associated duties. This role is especially important during organization of group: it facilitates adequate integration between organizational goals and individual needs of subordinates. Liaison - involves maintaining self-developed network of outside contacts which provide information, maintaining proper horizontal relationships and establishing external linkage system. 2. Informational block: Monitor - involves seeking, receiving, processing and transferring information required to develop adequate understanding of organization and the environment in which it operates. Disseminator - involves bringing external views to the organization and distributing this information among the subordinates. Spokesperson - involves informing and lobbying others (external to the manager's organization). 3. Decisional block: Initiator/changer - involves designing and initiating changes within the organization. Disturbance handler - involves the ability to deal with unexpected issues. Resource allocator - involves the ability to adequately the resources (money, personnel, reputation, etc) across the organization to ensure effective operation. Negotiator - involves responsibility for negotiating activities with other organizations. Each of these roles is important and may be viewed as the most essential for a manager under a specific set of circumstances. Therefore, ranking them in order of importance is a very difficult task. One possible way to fulfill this task is to use the existing models of managerial work as the basis. Thus, one of the most popular models of management known as POLCA includes planning, organizing, leading, controlling and assessing (Morgan, 1986). This model suggests that Mintzberg's roles may be ranked as follows: Resource allocator (planning), Liaison (organizing), Leader/Figurehead (leading), and Monitor (controlling and assessing). However, when an organization faces inevitable changes other roles such as Disseminator or Disturbance handler may be more important than others. 2. Managers sometimes make poor decisions because of cognitive bias in their decision-making process. Discuss three of the four sources of bias that can adversely affect the ability of managers to make a good decision, and illustrate each of them with a realistic business decision-making situation. Cognitive biases represent a broad group of observer effects that often distort our perception of phenomena related either to external environment or inner world of human being. There are several categories of cognitive biases identified in the psychological literature. Thus, social biases also termed attributional biases, influence everyday social interactions and often facilitate our perception of others (Haselton, Nettle, & Andrews, 2005). However, other biases related to decision making may often produce negative consequences, especially in the process of management. The problem is that these biases negatively affect and undermine the methods/practices which have been designed specifically to reduce subjectivity of decision-making. The following phenomena are commonly cited as the sources of cognitive biases that affect decision-making turning it less objective: Anchoring - involves taking the first piece of evidence and then relying on it too heavily at the expense of later evidence. One example of this phenomenon may be a situation of observing poorer discipline among the subordinates for a certain period of time before failure to achieve the planned objectives and then focusing exclusively on the discipline problem instead of paying attention to collected later evidences that might also be responsible for the failure. Confirmation Bias - involves interpretation of new data in a way that confirms some previously maintained beliefs. For example, if the manager believes that poor discipline of the subordinates is the major issue then he is likely to collect and review available information in a way to confirm his belief while the data which disproves this belief will be discounted. Bias Blind Spot - lack of knowledge about the sources of biases and their effects during the process of decision making. The manager may be making a decision without even thinking about one or several biases, such as anchoring or confirmation bias that affect his decision. These are only three examples of numerous cognitive biases inherent in human psychology that potentially affect decision making. The best thing a manger can do to address this problem is recognize the existence of cognitive biases. Such recognition will provide a basis to produce effective procedures to minimize the risk of succumbing to cognitive biases. 3. Hofstede's model of national culture states five dimensions along which national cultures can be placed. Select the two dimensions Achievement vs. Nurturing Orientation and Long-Term vs. Short -Term Orientation and discuss how each of these dimensions creates a different type of culture within an organization. Also, please discuss these two dimensions in the context of Pohlman and Gardiner's concept of Value Over Time (VOT). Will VOT be viewed differently given the unique characteristics of a national culture Geert Hofstede's model is arguably the best attempt to classify and measure cross-cultural differences up to date. Instead of listing thousands of distinctions that characterize any culture in the world he outlines five major cultural dimensions: Power Distance Index (PDI), Individualism (IDV), Masculinity (MAS), Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI) or Achievement vs Nurturing Orientation, and Long-Term Orientation (LTO). Each of these dimensions is measured with the help of a specific scale developed by Hofstede. A significant difference in measured scores on one or several dimensions reflects the basic dissimilarities between the cultures being compared. Achievement vs. Nurturing Orientation dimension also termed Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI) shows the level of tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity within the culture. In case the UAI is high, the culture is characterized by a low tolerance for unstructured situations: such cultures are always rule-oriented with a number of strict laws, norms, regulations, and controls which help reduce the amount of ambiguity. By contrast, if the index is low, the culture is much less concerned with potential ambiguity and uncertainty and is characterized by higher tolerance for a unstructured situations: such cultures are less rule-oriented, maintain less strict rules and regulations, and readily accept changes (Hofstede, 1991); The Long-Term Orientation (LTO) dimension reveals the degree the culture embraces long-term devotion to values. According to Hofstede a high LTO score shows the culture stresses the importance of long-term commitments and respect for tradition: such cultures are characterized by exceptionally strong work ethics and perception of long-term rewards as an outcome of today's hard work. By contrast, low LTO shows the culture does not emphasize long-term orientation and, therefore, readily accepts changes (Hofstede, 1991). These two characteristics seriously affect the nature of organizational environments found in different cultures. Thus, they influence the way in which many modern theories and concepts of management are perceived in different cultures. For example, Pohlman and Gardiner's (2000) concept of Value Over Time (VOT) which emphasizes the importance of long term strategic objectives is likely to be more perceived as more appealing in organizations within national cultures characterized by high LTO. Also this concept is likely to be more favored in organizations from national cultures with higher scores on the Nurturing Orientation dimension which is less concerned with achievement of clearly formulated and easily measurable objectives 4. Peter Senge has identified five principles that can be used by an organization to create "a learning organization." What are similarities between Senge and the underlying assumptions of Value Driven Management as proposed by Pohlman and Gardiner What are the differences Over the last two decades, organizations have often been described in terms of knowledge and learning with the help of such concepts as "learning organization", "intellectual capital", "people-centered approach" or "knowledge based management". Peter Senge, the leading authority in the area of learning organizations, identifies five basic principles that should be mastered when introducing a learning organization: Systems Thinking - the ability to see the big picture and at the same time distinguish the elements within the framework of this picture (Senge, 1990). Personal Mastery - commitment to lifelong learning, being more realistic, and focusing on becoming the best person possible (Senge, 1990). Mental Models - self-reflection, unearthing deeply held belief structures and generalizations, and understanding how they dramatically influence the way people live and act (Senge, 1990). Building Shared Visions - these visions must be genuine, elicit commitment in good times and bad, and have the power to bind an organization together in order to "foster a commitment to the long term" (Senge, 1990: 12). Team Learning - since modern organizations rely overwhelmingly on teamwork, an organization cannot learn if team members do not come together and learn (Senge, 1990). Senge's theory of learning organizations reflects the essence of the shift which occurred in the organizational studies several decades ago when the focus of research moved from technology and automation to development of human resources. Consequently, Senge's ideas are closely linked to a number of other theories and concepts that have recently emerged within modern organizational science. Value Driven Management (VDM) of Pohlman and Gardiner is one of such theories which rely on the same set of basic principles. Thus, VDM postulates that economic value is only one aspect of value, essential but not the supreme objective, while building an organization where the values of each employee are not in conflict with the organizational values is the key task. Other important tasks within the VDM are facilitating self-development of employees, increasing their motivation and satisfaction and establishing homogeneous values and norms across the whole organization (Pohlman & Gardiner 2000). Evidently, these tasks are very similar to those formulated by Senge though VDM seems to be a broader concept: Senge describes the basic principles critical for continuous learning which he believes to be the key to organizational success; Pohlman and Gardiner touch upon variety of aspects associated with management such as motivation, organizational culture, strategic planning, etc. The impression is that Senge describes only an alternative tool to improve organizational performance in the long run while Pohlman and Gardiner formulate a set of strategic objectives, not all of which can be achieved through organizational learning. WORKS CITED Haselton, M. G., Nettle, D. & Andrews, P.W. 'The evolution of cognitive bias'. In D. M. Buss (Ed.), Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, (pp. 724-746). Hoboken: Wiley, 2005. Hofstede, G. Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, McGraw-Hill Book Co., Maidenhead, Berkshire, 1991. Mintzberg, H. The Nature of Managerial Work, Harper & Row, 1973. Morgan, G. Images of Organization, Sage, London, 1986. Pohlman, R. A., & Gardiner G. S. Value Driven Management, How to Create and Maximize Value Over Time for Organizational Success, New York: AMACOM, 2000. Senge, P. The Fifth Discipline: the Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, New York: Doubleday, 1990. Read More