LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT

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In order to know the differences between management and leadership, I’m going to clarify some concepts:

“Management is responsible for maintaining order; leadership is responsible for producing change or movement.”(Kotter, 1990).

Management process reduces uncertainty and provides stability; on the other hand, leadership process creates uncertainty and creates change.

The difference may be summarized as activities of vision and judgment –effectiveness versus activities of mastering routines –efficiency. (Bennis & Nanus, 1997).

Although these differences, both processes complement each other and the result of that complementation is a healthy organization.

Leadership is an important aspect that has to be analyzed more in detail:

·         Fundamental Act of Leadership: The leader’s fundamental act is to induce people to be aware or conscious of what they feel –to feel their true needs so strongly, to define their values so meaningfully, that they can be moved to purposeful action (James MacGregorBurns, Leadership, p. 44).

Now I will present some theories of leadership:

·         Behavioral Theories: Composed by:

1.    Authoritarian:  The classical approach, manager retains as much power and decision making authority as possible.

2.    Consultative: The consultative leader will talk to everyone involved in or affected by a task to get their views and ideas.

3.    Democratic: Keeps employees informed about things that affect their work and shares decision making and problem solving responsibilities.

4.    Laissez-Faire: manager provides little or no direction and gives employees as much freedom as possible.

5.    Ohio State Studies: It is composed by Initiating Structure (getting things done) and Consideration (relationships).

6.    Michigan Studies: It is composed by Production-Oriented Leader (getting work done) and Employee-Oriented Leader (relationship).

·         Contingency Theories: Involve the belief that leadership style must be appropriate for the particular situation.

1.    Path-goal theory (Robert House).

2.    Normative decision model , Vroom-Yetton-Jago.

3.    Situational leadership theory, The Hersey-Blanchard Model.

Nowadays there are new researches about leadership, which are:

·         Transformational Leaders: Inspire followers to transcend their self-interests and achieve exceptional performance.

·         Charismatic Leaders: Use of personal abilities and talents in order to have profound and extraordinary effects on followers.

·         Authentic Leaders: A leader who is guided by explicit values that emphasize collective interest, enabling them to operate at high levels of moral integrity.

There are also Emerging Issues in Leadership such as:

·         Emotional intelligence

·         EI and Buddhism

·         Gender and Leadership

·         Servant leadership

Discuss transformational, charismatic, and authentic leadership. Would you expect these styles of leadership to exist in all cultures? Differ across cultures? Explain.

Transformational leaders are those who inspire their followers to achieve exceptional performance, they motive people by creating an intellectual stimulus. On the other hand, charismatic leaders use their personal abilities to have effects on followers. Finally, authentic leaders operate high levels of moral integrity by emphasizing in collectivity. These styles of leadership are not expected to exist in all cultures, because the differences in the life styles of people, in the customs of every culture, in the necessities and wants of societies. Each type of these leadership styles vary across cultures depending on the government regime, the social and the demographic environment. Also it is important to have in mind that in a culture there can be different types of leadership that represents certain segments of the population.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

·         Bennis, W. G. (1989). On becoming a leader. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

·         Brilhart, J. K., and Galanes, G. J. (1989). Effective Group Decisions.

·         Dubuque, IA: William C Brown Publishers. p. 201-203.

·         Kotter, J. P. (1990). What leaders really do. Harvard Business Review, May-June, p. 103-11.

·         Nelson, D.L. & Quick, J.C. (2010) OrganizationalBehavior: Science, TheReal Worldand You. South-Western CollegePublication, 7th. Ed.

·         Northouse, P. G. (2001). Leadership: theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

ETHICAL DECISION MAKING IN ORGANIZATIONS

There are two types of decisions, programmed and non-programmed, so for that reason there is a decision-making process that help us to follow the right steps to take a decision:

·         Recognize the problem and the need for a decision

·         Identify the objective of the decision

·         Gather and evaluate data and diagnose the situation

·         List and evaluate alternatives

·         Select the best course of action

·         Implement the decision

·         Gather feedback

·         Follow up

There are three Models of decision making:

·         Rational Model: Describes how individuals should behave in order to optimize some outcome.

·         Bounded rationality Model: A theory that suggests that there are limits upon how rational a decision maker can actually be.

·         Garbage can Model:  A theory that contends that decisions in organizations are random and unsystematic.

Managers have to assume risks in their jobs and they can be risk aversion or risk takers. The escalation of commitment is a tendency to continue to commit resources to a failing course of action.

In the decision making process there are individual and group decisions.

·         The individual differences to affect decision making are intuition and creativity. Creativity is highest when there is a match between individual and organizational influences on creativity. There are mental blocks that diminish creativity such as: Avoiding ambiguity, striving for practicality, being afraid to look foolish.

·         The participative decision making is the one in which individuals who are affected by decisions influence the making of those decisions.

Groupthink (Irving Janis): Is a deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment resulting from pressures within the group. Some of the consequences are: Biased information processing, failure to work out contingency plans and incomplete survey of alternatives.

There are some techniques for group decision making:

·         Brainstorming

·         Nominal Group Technique (NGT)

·         Delphi Technique

·         Devil’s Advocacy

·         Dialectical Inquiry

Ethical Theories:

·         Consequential Theory: An ethical theory that emphasizes the consequences or results of behavior.

·         Rule-based Theory: An ethical theory that emphasizes the character of the act itself rather than its effects.

·         Character Theory: An ethical theory that emphasizes the character, personal virtues, and integrity of the individual.

The Ethical Behavior consists of acting in ways consistent with one’s personal values and the commonly held values of the organization and society. It has individual influences such as: Values systems, Locus of control, Machiavellianism and Cognitive moral development.

One quality required for ethical decision making is the self-confidence to seek out different opinions about the issue and decide what is right in terms of a situation.

How can organizations effectively manage both risk taking and escalation of commitment in the decision-making behavior of employees?

Organizations can manage risk taking and escalation of commitment in the decision-making behavior of employees in a direct relation of both (the highest risk, the highest commitment and to lowest risk, the lowest commitment), with this technique managers allow employees to take decisions by themselves and to fail without fear of punishment when there is high risk- taking behavior, also it is a good characteristic because it is open to creativity and innovation. The level of sunk cost that makes escalations of commitment occurs and the risk perception that employees and managers have, contribute significantly to their willingness to continue a project.

The decision making behavior of employees is influenced by individual and group factors, for that reason it is important to split responsibilities for decisions, motivate them to be committed and allow them to be creative.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

·         Mintzberg, H. & Westley, F. (2001, Spring). Decision making: It’s not what you think. MIT Sloan Management Review, 42(3), 89 –93.

·         Nelson, D.L. & Quick, J.C. (2010) Organizational Behavior: Science, The Real World and You. South-Western College Publication, 7th. Ed.

·         Wong, K. F. E., & Kwong, J. Y. Y. (2007). The role of anticipated regret in escalation of commitment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 545–554.

·         Keil, Mark; Tan, Benard C. Y; Wei, Kwok-Kee; Saarinen, Timo; Tuunainen, Virpi; Wassenaar, Arjen. A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY ON ESCALATION OF COMMITMENT BEHAVIOR IN SOFTWARE PROJECTS. MIS Quarterly; Jun2000, Vol. 24 Issue 2, p299-325, 27p, 7 Diagrams.

·         De Cremer, David; M Mayer, David; Schminke, Marshall. Guest Editors' Introduction. On Understanding Ethical Behavior and Decision Making: A Behavioral Ethics Approach. Business Ethics Quarterly; Jan2010, Vol. 20 Issue 1, p1-6, 6p.


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THE CORPORATION

A Documentary is a work, such as a film or television program, presenting political, social, or historical subject matter in a factual and informative manner. Documentary texts are supposedly those which aim to document reality, attempting veracity in their description of people, places and events.

Difference between corporation and company:

A Corporation is a legal entity that is separate and distinct from its owners. Corporations enjoy most of the rights and responsibilities that an individual possesses that is, a corporation has the right to enter into contracts, loan and borrow money, sue and be sued, hire employees, own assets and pay taxes.
The most important aspect of a corporation is limited liability. That is, shareholders have the right to participate in the profits, through dividends.

A Company on the other hand could be a partnership, proprietorship or other form of enterprise that engages in business with a sole proprietor (just some person that opened a business). A company could also be a corporation. For example Walmart is an incorporated company. Joe's Taco Shack is just a company that isn't incorporated.

In the documentary “The Corporation” there are some terms that we need to have clear:

·         Capitalism: Is an economic system characterized by: private property, indiviuduals and companies are allowed to compete for their own economic gain; and free market forces determine the prices of goods and services. Capitalists believe that markets are efficient and they should function without interference, and the role of the state is to regulate and protect.

·         Psychopath: A person with an antisocial personality disorder, manifested in aggressive, perverted, criminal, or amoral behavior without empathy or remorse. This personality disorder is characterized by an abnormal lack of empathy combined with strongly amoral conduct but masked by an ability to appear outwardly normal. Psychopaths have deficits or deviance in several areas:interpersonal relationships, emotion, and self-control.

·         Legal Institution: Set of premises in a permanent structure or structures designed to house usually large groups of individuals who are subject to a common authority or regime. Systems of legal rules which allow to change the regulative and constitutive rules of an organization.

·         Externalities: The quality or state of being outside or directed toward or relating to the outside or exterior that has an effect on an individual or entity due to the actions of another individual or entity.

·         Limited Liability:Legal protection available to the shareholders (stockholders) of privately and publicly owned corporations in which a partner or investor cannot lose more than the amount invested. The investor is not personally responsible for the debts and obligations of the company in the event that these are not fulfilled. The firm itself, as a legal entity, is liable for the rest.

As a legal organizational model, how does the rise of corporations influence the aspects of culture in pursuing profit?

Corporations influence culture in many ways, they can act as a person does because they are legal persons and they have the same rights and duties that human persons have. People tend to look at corporations as persons without conscience and soul because they only want to obtain profit, many often we classify brands and corporations and we give them personality characteristics, in that way we are creating an image of a person that sometimes is seen as a psychopath because it has all the characteristics of that type of person such as exploitation to workers, incapacity to keep lasting relationships, indifference to other`s security, and harm to animals; but in the other hand, corporations are seen as positive organizations because of their social responsibility, although many people disagree in this point. Most of the people look at them as externalization machines because corporations don’t really care about well-being of societies and they compete for power without being aware of the damage they are doing to societies and the environment in their search for the highest profit.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

·         http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/limited-liability.html

·         http://www.cs.unipr.it/CILC04/DownloadArea/BoellavdT-CILC04.pdf

·         http://www.investorwords.com/713/capitalism.html#ixzz1FDTbj94V

·         http://www.thefreedictionary.com/documentary

·         http://www.mediaknowall.com/as_alevel/Documentary/docu_index.php

·         www.nscb.gov.ph/glossary/housing.asp 
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ORGANIZATIONS BEHAVIOR; NATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

To understand the organizations behavior we must have clear what an organization is and it is a structured social system consisting of groups and individuals working together to meet some agreed-upon objectives.

Now we can say that organizational behavior is the study of individual behavior and group dynamics in organizations. There are some interdisciplinary influences on Organizational Behavior such as psychology, sociology, engineering and medicine.

There three different levels of analysis in Organizational Behavior: group, individual and organizational processes.

Another important aspect about Organizational Behavior is its context in which we can have opportunities, change and challenges.

Nowadays there is a competition in business and there are driving forces creating and shaping change at work: globalization, technology, diversity and ethics.

Customers are focused in products of High Quality and for that reason Organizations are taking strategies to obtain an advantage in the international competition and to save money, two examples of that strategies are: Total Quality Management (TQM), and Six Sigma (6σ).

To learn about Organizational Behavior requires a mastery of basic objective knowledge, development of specific skills and abilities, and the application of those skills and knowledge.

NATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

National Culture is an important factor that influences the internal management systems of the organizations, for that reason managers should face some questions like: when in culture important and when not?; How much weight should be given to culture as against other factors?.

The factors that influence decision making are: internal (organizational strategy, resources, policies and systems, etc.); and external factors (technology, trade unions, labor markets, etc.).

Now we have to define the concept of culture for a better understanding of National Culture.

Hofstede (1984) define culture as: …the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one human group from another…

National Culture is an environmental factor. It characterizes the national group and influences the behavior of its individual members.

The organizational culture is a set of values or beliefs that is unique to any one organization, some positive aspects of this concept are that it guides decision making, provides identity for members and amplifies commitment.

There are different types of culture such as: The Clan Culture, The Hierarchy Culture, The Adhocracy Culture, and The Market Culture.

In different circumstances, managers perform a range of different roles and for that reason they have to develop the cross cultural manager skill to manage cultural diversity.

Why is managing organizational behavior in changing times challenging?

Managing organizational behavior in changing times is challenging because of the diversity of driving forces that are creating and shaping the organizational context, such as technology, globalization and ethics.

Nowadays, managers should develop different skills in order to be successful in the business competition and also they need to take into account the political, legal and cultural environment they are handling with.

Organizational change strategies, behavioral control systems and leadership must be developed because many traditional strategies are not adequate or don’t fit with the actual requirements and needs of organizations and they have to be implemented into the business.

Managers in the actual world need to be global managers because of the many challenges they have to face in the organizational context.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

·         Nelson, Debra L. and Quick, James Campbell. 2010. Organizational Behavior –Science, the Real World, and You. South-Western Cengage Learning, Mason, USA. Chapter 1 and 2.

·         Cameron, K., & Quinn, R., (1999). Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture. New York: Addison-Wesley.

·         Mead, Richard. 2004. International Management: Cross-Cultural Dimensions.London: Blackwell Publishing. Chapter 1.

·      Schermerhorn, John R; Hunts, James and Osborn, Richard N. "Managing Organizational Behavior," 2nd edition.

·         Tosi, Henry L., Rizzo, John R. and Carroll, Stephen J. Managing Organizational Behavior. Marshfield, MA: Pitman Publishing, 1986.

Image: http://natyrpo.blogspot.com/2010_03_01_archive.html, September 2010

PERSONALITY, PERCEPTION AND ATTRIBUTION; ATTITUDES AND VALUES

To understand each person behavior we need to have clear some concepts such as:

·         Individual Differences: The way in which factors such as skills, abilities differ from one individual to another.

·         Personality: A relatively stable set of characteristics that influence an individual’s behavior.

The Trait Theory gives us the “Big Five” personality traits: Extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness to experience.

The Integrative Approach describes personality as a composite of an individual’s psychological processes; personality dispositions include: Emotions, cognitions, attitudes, expectancies and fantasies.

When talking about organizations there are also some characteristics of personality

·         Core self-evaluation (CSE): Personality traits that refers to self-concept. It is comprised of:

Ø  Locus of control: Internal control Vs. External control

Ø  Self-esteem: Feeling of self-worth

Ø  Generalized self-efficacy: Believe in owns capabilities

Ø  Emotional stability

·         Self-monitoring: The extent to which people base their behavior on cues from other people and situations

·         Affect (positive, negative): Tendency to accentuate the positive or negative aspects.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) Instrument: An instrument developed to measure Carl Jung’s theory of individual differences.

Social Perception:

The process of interpreting information about another person. There are three categories of factors that influence our perception about another person: Perceivers, target person and the situation.

There are five barriers to social perception: Selective perception; stereotyping; first-impression error; projection: “the false-consensus effect”; and self-fulfilling prophecies: Pygmalion effect.

Impression Management Techniques:

·         Self-enhancing: Name dropping, managing ones appearance, self-descriptions

·         Other-enhancing: Flattery, favors, agreement

·         Social identity-based impression management

Attribution Theory:

A theory that explains how individuals pinpoint the causes of their own behavior and that of others, it can be internal or external.

Attribution Biases: Fundamental Attribution Error, self-serving bias.

ATTITUDES

A psychological tendency expressed by evaluating an entity with some degree of favor or disfavor.

·         ABC Model of an attitude: Affect, behavioral intentions, cognition

·         Cognitive Dissonance: A state of tension that is produced when an individual experiences conflict between attitudes and behavior.

·         Work attitudes:

Ø  Job satisfaction: A pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experiences. Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB), Workplace Deviance Behavior (WDB).

Ø  Organizational commitment: The strength of an individual’s identification with an organization. It consists of: Affective commitment, continuance commitment, normative commitment.

VALUES

Enduring beliefs that a specific mode of conduct or end state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end state of existence.

·         Work Values: Achievement, concern for others, honesty, fairness.

To what do you attribute the success of JICA?

After having heard about JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) and the testimony of Yasuko, I can attribute the success of this company to the help and contributions that it has given to other countries and to the help of voluntary workers. JICA is an Agency that is owned by the Japanese government and its mission is divided into four categories: Addressing the global agenda, reducing poverty through equitable growth, improving governance and achieving human security. For the achievement of those missions, JICA has developed four main strategies: Integrated assistance, seamless assistance, promoting development partnerships and enhancing research and knowledge-sharing. These characteristics have given success to JICA because with this metodology the Japanese government can create a reciprocity relationship with other countries and can implement its Foreign Policy.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

·         Harrison, D.A., Newman, D.A., Roth, P.L. 2006. How important are job attitudes?

·         Nelson, D.L. & Quick, J.C. 2010. Organizational Behavior: Science, The Real World and You. South-Western College Publication, 7th. Ed.

·         http://www.jica.go.jp/english/

·         Yasuko. Aid worker of JICA in Colombia.

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