MANAGEMENT PROCESS AND ORGANIZATION BEHAVIOUR

1. What do you understand by the term "Levels of Management"? Briefly describe the different levels of management?
Ans:
The term level of management or managerial hierarchy stands for the arranged managerial positions in an organization. Management being direction of group activities towards certain common objectives has to be based on hierarchy of authority and gradation of responsibility as between managerial personnel and other workers employed in a business enterprise.
Since management essentially implies exacting work from others as per plan there will have to be superior-subordinate relation, whereby the former exercises his authority to get the work done from the latter as per specific directives.
Thus Management is a process of exercising authority and undertaking responsibility in planning, directing, controlling, executing the business operations and realizing alone. They have to entrusted to different executive officers all along the humanly impossible for one individual to do justice to the multitudinous and complex of both managing and operating the business.
 Levels of Management
The organizational pyramid gives us a vertical hierarchy. Narrow span of control creates more levels in the organizational hierarchy and the numerous levels in the hierarchy are centralized or closely controlled. We also have a tall organization pyramid when there are multiple levels of management.
 Board of Directors
The board of directors is a group of around 12 or 15 men elected by shareholders or nominated by certain special interests e.g.: financial institution, labor or government..
 Executive Committee
Next to the board of directors in the hierarchy, we have executive committee of a few directors to transact business more quickly.
 Top Management
The board appoints the chief executive i.e., managing director or general manager who delegated the task of running the entire business. He delegates most of his duties to senior executives or divisional managers.
Top management’s work is a creative process and it involves commitment of high order of responsibility

P Function of Top Management
• Determination of goals or objectives.
• Policy Making
• Formation of plans to carry out objectives and policies.
• Mobilizations of resources to implement the plans
• Motivating personnel for effective performance through appropriate leadership.
• Co-ordination and communication.
• Controlling operations to ensure realization of set goals or objectives

 Middle Management
This level of management is concerned with the task of implementing the policies and plans chalked out by top management. Middle management comprise departmental heads and other executive officers. These departmental managers and officers and expected to take concrete steps for actual realization of the objectives and operational results visualized in the plans finalized by the top management. The divisional managers in turn re-delegate to their subordinates e.g. - departmental managers. They are the assistants to senior executives and act as their deputies. Middle managers are also called junior executives or administrators. Co-ordination is the central problem of middle level managers.

Functions of Middle Management
According to Mary C Niles middle management has the following functions-

"Middle management acts with and under top management to accomplish these board objectives of administration."
• To run the details of the organization, leaving the top officers as free as possible of their responsibility
• To co-operate in making a smoothly functioning organization.
• To understand the interlocking of departments in major policies.
• To achieve the co-ordination between the different parts of the organization.
• To build up a contented and efficient staff where reward is given according to capacity and merit and not according to change or length of service.
• To develop leaders for the future by board training and experience.
• To build up a company spirit where all are working to provide a product or service wanted by others.

 Lower Level Management or Supervisory Management

At the bottom of the managerial hierarchy, we have the lower management group called supervisors or foreman and office superintendents. It is the lower management group who puts the plans of management into effective action, allocating individual work and seeing that it is accomplished as per schedule.
The lowest level of management consists of for men and supervisors or office superintendents who have direct supervision over the workforce in factories offices, sales field and other areas of activity of the organization.
Though classified as the low level, the importance of functions of the personnel employed at the operational level cannot be overlooked. The plans and policies of the top management will fail if the foremen and operatives do not fully realize the spirit of sustained work.

 Function of Lower Level Management
The various functions of lower level of management is enumerated below :
• Planning the day-to-day work of their sections and assigning the jobs to the workers.
• To issue instructions to worker and supervise their functioning.
• Making available the required materials, tools etc. at the work place.
• To provide on-the-job training.
• Looking after the proper maintenance of tools, machinery etc.
• To solve problems of worker
• Acting as liaison officer between the middle management and the workers.
• To maintain good human relations and maintain close personal contact with workers
• To maintain discipline among the workers and develop in them the right approach to work
• To advice middle management about working environment.
• Sending reports and statements to middle management.

The Lower Level Management is placed at the bottom of the hierarchy of management as such; they are directly in touch with the rank and file. Being in close direct contact with the workers, those constituting lower management have a direct responsibility for marinating high morale among workers.



2. Explain with examples Fraud's four stages for personality.

Ans:

Sigmund Fraud is considered one of the pioneers among the stage theorists. Fraud's personality stages are based on the belief that events occurred in one's childhood has their bearings on adulthood in turn, behavior in adulthood. According to Fraud, there are four stages of Psychological development that shaped one's personality and its development.
 The Oral Stage
The oral stage lasts for the first year of one's life. This can also called the infacy stage of personality development. The infants are totally dependent upon others for their survival and growth. For an infant, mouth becomes the first body zone through which biological drives are sought to be met or reduced. Thumb sucking by an infant gratifies his/her sex drives. Later on when teeth erupt, biting satisfies the drive for seeking pleasure. The mouth remains an important zone of body throughout one's life, as believed by Fraud also indicated by one's adulthood oral behavior in the forms of gum chewing, nail biting, smoking, kissing, overeating etc.
Fraud postulates that the simulation given to the infants both in excessive and inadequate amounts makes the infant optimistic about the world. He also has a tendency to exploit or dominate others to satisfy the needs.
 The Anal Stage
The anal stage expands throughout the second and third year of a child. In this age, the anus becomes the body zone for sexual gratification. How the parents give toilet training to the child gets its reflection in adulthood behavior.
 The Phalic Age
The Phalic stage develops at the age of four years. Now, the focus of the body zone for sexual gratification shifts from anus to sexual organs. This stage is also characterized as the stage of psychosexual development. The child in this stage can be observed examining and founding their genital, masturbating and enjoying in discussing matters of birth and sex.
 The Latency Stage
The latency period takes place between age of six and seven years. This period is characterized by children's disinterest in matters related to sex. They are interested in sex gratification of the libido from the external sources, knowledge and alike. The latency period also refers to the elementary school age. Hence, this period has long lasting effects in one's personality and it,s shaping in a definite pattern or type.
 The Genital Age
During a adolescence and adulthood occurs the genital stage. The sexual drive and interest are revived in this stage. One takes interest in opposite sex. In other words, one tends to seek sexual gratification through heterosexual love and attraction.

3. Describe in detail the various types of learning curves. Give examples of "diminishing- return curves" and "increasing-return curves".
Ans:
Learning curve is a diagrammatic presentation of the amount learned in relation to time. There are 4 types of learning curves.
 Diminishing - Returns Learning Curve
In this type of learning, the "rate of increase" in the degree of skill is higher in the beginning but decreases with time until reaches zero and the person has obtained the maximum skill it indicates that initially there is a spurt in learning, usually the graph levels off at some stage indicating that maximum performance has been achieved. This is because at the beginning of the learning process, the learner is highly motivated to exhibit a significant surge of effort.



Fig: Diminishing Returns Learning Curve

 Increasing Returns Learning Curve
Another type of learning curve is the "increasing-return curve" which is just opposite of "diminishing-return curve" in the sense that there are certain learning skills where the rate of increased learning is slow in the beginning and then it increases until the maximum potential for learning is reached. This usually occurs when a pe4rson is learning a complex unfamiliar and new task.



Fig: Increasing Return Learning Curve


 Increasing-Decreasing-Return Learning Curve
It is a combination both the "diminishing - returns curve" and the "increasing - returns curve". It is an "S-shaped curve". If a person is totally new to the skill that he is learning, then all learning will probably follow an S-shaped curve. The lower portion of the curve represents the intial staages of acquiring a skill with very slow learning intially followed by successively greater returns,eventually reaching the absolute limit.




Fig Increasing-Decreasing Return Learning Curve

A rather complex pattern of skill acquisition is shown in the following diagram:



Fig Increasing-Decreasing - Return Learning Curve(complex pattern)

 Slow Learning
The initial stage in the above curve is that of slow learning because of the newness and difficulty of skill. Once the learner has acquired some basic of his operations, he gains some confidence and this result in second stage of increasing returns.
 Increasing Returns
The learner gains confidence in this stage. He has acquired the required skill. This result in the third stage.
 Plateau
When the learner feels that has acquired skills, he reaches a comparative plateau where no further gains in skills are required. However, this may be false Plateau and the learner may be developing new ideas in improving efficiency.
 Peak Proficiency
The development and application of new ideas may further improve upon his skill until he reaches the peak inefficiency, beyond which the skill becomes a kind of habit and an integral part of operations
 Over learning
When the skill becomes a kind of habit, the period is termed as over learning because the learning becomes automatic and unforgettable.