AMITY SCHOOL OF DISTANCE LEARNING

Post Box No. 503, Sector-44

Noida – 201303
Principles and Practices of Management

Assignment A
Marks 10
Answer all questions.

1. What were the Hawthorne experiments? What effects did they have on the Management
practices?

2. What steps can an organisation take to increase the motivational force for high levels of
performance?

3. Explain briefly various Management Functions. What is the basis for saying that planning
is the most crucial management function? Discuss.

4. Explain the MBO Process.

5. Elucidate the relationship between planning and control.

Assignment B
Marks - 10
Answer all questions.

1. To whom do you think is performance appraisal more significant to the organization or to

the individual? Justify.

2. Comment on the statement “Delegation of authority is the key to organization”. Discuss

the advantages of delegation in the light of this statement.

3. What are the challenges faced by the professional managers in the contemporary Indian
industrial set up?
4. Case study: Please read the case study given below and answer questions given at the end.
 CASE STUDY
NO COMMISSIONS ALLOWED

When Mr.Ram Bansal took over the handbag department at RK & Company New
Delhi, he established several important goals for the department. One was to
increase sales without increasing the number of salespeople or the way they
were paid. Unlike some retail supervisors, Mr.Bansal was not in a position to
use commissions to reward improved performance. All his employees were paid
a straight wage without commissions and all members of the staff were union led.
He also wanted to improve customer service and employee satisfaction.

This arrangement offered few motivational options and had a negative effect on
employee attitudes. In other departments of the company, customers were often
shown a dressing room “cop” who asked how many garments were included and
gave them the appropriately coloured tag. The original sales clerk rarely
appeared for additional customer service. Many sales people in the company
were painfully aware of the lack of personal commitment to their job and
customers. One employee commented, “There’s a lot of talk about increasing
customers.” Mr.Bansal knew he had to make some changes in order to improve
the sales production in the department.

His first step was to give full-time employees their own counter area and their
own line of merchandise. He also increased the responsibility of the sales staff
for managing their own inventory and their own line of merchandise. Any sales
person who needed information was encouraged to offer the buying staff
suggestions, was encouraged to talk with buyer of handbags. Previously, the
sales staff had felt they were not supposed to talk to buyers.

Every week, Mr.Bansal brings the staff together for a meeting. At these
meetings, he emphasizes the importance of customer service and reviews any
change in departmental policies and procedures. He also encourages
employees to discuss problems and ask questions. These meetings provide
Mr.Bansal with an opportunity to publicly recognize the accomplishments of
employees.

QUESTIONS

1. What motivational need did Mr.Bansal satisfy for his full-time employees?
2. Discuss these needs with reference to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
3. Mr.Bansal achieved significant productivity gains because of a positive
change in employee’s attitudes. What motivational strategies did he use
to achieve this success?
 Assignment C
(Objective Questions)

Tick Marks (√) the most appropriate answer.

Marks – 10
1. Decreasing the role of subordinates in decision-making is known as

(a) Decentralisation
(b) Stabilization
(c) Centralization
(d) Organization

2. Which of the following refers to the flow of information among people on the same or
similar organizational levels?

(a) Diagonal
(b) Upward
(c) Horizontal
(d) Downward

3. Which of the following is a question that needs to be answered in job analysis?

(a) What physical and mental tasks does the worker accomplish?
(b) What qualifications are needed to perform the job?
(c) When is the job to be completed?
(d) All of the above.

4. ________ refers to the ability of individuals or groups to induce or influence the beliefs or
actions of other individuals or groups.

(a) Power
(b) Responsibility
(c) Delegation
(d) Discipline

5. Which one management function helps maintain managerial effectiveness by establishing

guidelines for future activities?

(a) Organizing
(b) Planning
(c) Staffing
(d) Leading

6. Which is not a leadership theory?

(a) Trait theory

(b) ERG theory
(c) Contingency theory
(d) Transactional theory

7. Which is an esteem need?

 (a) Basic pay
(b) Safety regulations
(c) Prestigious office location
(d) Training

8. What interview is comprehensive, and the interviewer encourages the applicant to do

much of the talking?

(a) Unstructured
(b) Structured
(c) Stress
(d) Directive

9. What are the typical products of job analysis?

(a) Job descriptions and job specifications

(b) Work standards
(c) Work schedules
(d) Desired financial incentives

10. In Basket Technique is used in

(a) Production
(b) Marketing
(c) Training
(d) Accounting

11. Key result areas are usually terms as

(a) Objectives
(b) Missions
(c) Goals
(d) KRAs

12. Which one is not a stage of Group process?

(a) Forming
(b) Norming
(c) Welcoming
(d) Performing

13. MBO was first suggested by

(a) F.W. Taylor

(b) Henri Fayol
(c) Peter F. Drucker
(d) Watson

14. Which managerial function gives attention to influencing and motivating employees to
improve performance and achieve corporate objectives?

(a) Leading
(b) Organizing
(c) Staffing
(d) Controlling
15. Job Evaluation is a technique which aims at:

(a) Establishing fair and equitable pay structure

(b) Analyzing of requirement of updating technology
(c) Assessing safety requirement of jobs
(d) Improving productivity

16. Which is an advantage of decentralization?

(a) Encourages decision-making

(b) Easy to have uniform policy
(c) Greater Control
(d) Decreases complexity of coordination

17. Performance review is done to

(a) Reward work done

(b) Focus on areas requiring improvement
(c) Giving appropriate feed back to individuals
(d) All of the above

18. The general conclusion of the ‘Relay Assembly Test Room Experiments’ was that
employees would work better if the management were concerned about their welfare and
superiors paid special attention to them. This phenomenon was subsequently labeled as
the _________

(a) Relay effect

(b) Hawthorne effect
(c) Behavioral effect
(d) Human effect

19. Which is not a way to overcome the initial resistance to change in organizations?

(a) Education and Communication

(b) Group inertia
(c) Participation and involvement
(d) Negotiation and agreement

20. Management of change refers to

(a) Help people to adopt to the change

(b) Changing people
(c) Change the organization structure
(d) Change the top management

21. Requisites of effective supervision are

(a) Technical knowledge of the work

(b) Managerial knowledge
(c) Knowledge of rules & regulations
(d) All of the above
22. According to Herzberg and his associates ______ are job content factors which lead to
job satisfaction?

(a) Motivators
(b) Hygiene factor
(c) Context factors
(d) Physiological factors

23. The establishment of a distinct area, unit of subsystem of an organization over which a
manager has authority for the performance of specialized activities and results is
termed_______

(a) Centralization
(b) Departmentation
(c) Decentralization
(d) Functionalization

24. Democratic leadership is also know as _________ leadership.

(a) Autocratic
(b) Participative
(c) Bureaucratic
(d) Laissez-faire

25. A/an ________ is a vital tool for providing information about organizational relationships.

(a) Organizational chart

(b) Functional chart
(c) Organizational model
(d) Functional model

26. Which control principles suggests that managers should be informed about a problem
only when the data shows a significant deviation from established standards?

(a) Management by waling around

(b) Management by objectives
(c) Management by goals
(d) Management by exception

27. Line Managers are:

(a) Supervisors
(b) Staff authorities
(c) Managers with authority to direct operations in their spheres of activity
(d) Production & Marketing Managers

28. When an employee asks a question or reports a problem to his or her supervisor, this is
an example of which direction of communication?

(a) Grapevine
(b) Lateral
(c) Downward
(d) Upward
29. You have decided to send a message to your supervisor requesting vacation time. You
brainstorm some basic concepts and now must decide how to phrase this information for
your supervisor. You are at which of the following steps in the communication process?

(a) Sending
(b) Receiving
(c) Encoding
(d) Decoding

30. Group decision-making has certain advantages over individual decision-making. Which
of the following statements is not true with regard to group decision-making?

(a) It allows pooling of knowledge and information

(b) It’s a source of personnel development
(c) It discourages risk taking
(d) It’s time consuming and costly

31. The idea that workers look for meaning in their work and will actively seek out new
responsibility is most consistent with which of these needs identified by Maslow?

(a) Safety
(b) Social
(c) Self-actualization
(d) Physiological

32. A manager’s posture during a communication with a colleague is an example of which

aspect of the communications process?

(a) Decoding
(b) Non-verbal behavior
(c) Informal channel
(d) The grapevine

33. The organization chart is a way of showing

(a) How the tasks of an organization are divided and co-ordinated

(b) The informal patterns of communication
(c) The stakeholders who have an interest in the company
(d) The physical layout of the buildings on a site

34. When a manager secures the agreement of a colleague to work on a project in return for
the promise of providing the colleague with some extra remuneration, what type of power
is he or she exercising?

(a) Expert power

(b) Coercive power
(c) Referent power
(d) Reward power
35. ______ spans of management create ____________ structures with many levels of
management.

(a) Wide ; tall

(b) Narrow ; tall
(c) Wide ; unpredictable
(d) Narrow ; flat

36. Which of the following is not one of the steps identified as part of the controlling process?

(a) Setting performance standards or goals

(b) Measuring performance
(c) Writing the reports
(d) Taking corrective action

37. According to Herzberg, which of the following can be classified as a motivator?

(a) Working conditions

(b) Pay
(c) Supervision
(d) Recognition

38. Which of the following refers to changing a task to make it inherently more rewarding,
motivating and satisfying?

(a) Enlargement
(b) Rotation
(c) Enhancement
(d) Enrichment

39. The tendency to place the primary responsibility for one’s success or failure either within
oneself or on outside forces is referred to as

(a) Authoritarianism
(b) Emotional stability
(c) Locus of control
(d) Extroversion

40. ______ is a process whereby companies find out how others do something better than
they do and then try to imitate or improve on it.

(a) TQM
(b) Continuous improvement
(c) Benchmarking
(d) Empowerment

_____________________________