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Organizational Behavior

Case Study 7.2 THE REAL REASONS YOU'RE WORKING SO HARD...


Discussion Questions: 1. What are the main reasons identified in this article as to why Americans are working long hours? As succeeding in today's economy requires lightning-fast reflexes and the ability to communicate and collaborate across the globe. Coming up with innovative ideas, products, and services means getting people across different divisions and different companies to work together were more and more value is created through networks. The great idea for a new product takes months to get approvals from managers, and their boss. Or the corporate bigwigs order an employee to join a taskforce that is supposed to promote collaboration and innovation ends up taking a big chunk of employees time. Managers have a much bigger share of the workforce than they were 15 years ago. Corporations are adding a new set of standards without fully dropping the old Time pressures getting worse. Globalization and the Internet create great new opportunities, but they also ratchet up the intensity of competition and generate more work -- especially with the existing corporate structure still hanging on tightly. "Nobody wants to give up their territory or their control," Fully 25% of executives communications -- voice mail, e-mail, and meetings -- are nearly or completely unmanageable Global competition is forcing Europeans to start moving away from their tradition of shorter work hours Long hours are part of the price to be paid for faster growth Another time-eater: all the meetings and e-mails required to manage details of a collaboration or partnership. 2. Describe ways that companies are trying to reduce these work hours. Making it easier and less time-consuming for employees to collaborate. By Learning how to live with fewer time-sapping meetings and unnecessary feedback loops -- or find themselves outrun by more nimble competitors. The eventual result: less frustration for knowledge workers.

AbdulMounem AlZidi BA08101034

Organizational Behavior Companies analyze their internal social networks and identify bottlenecks. Creating technology that lowers the time cost of teamwork. Providing more corporate support for both internal and external networks Rising new forms of Web-based organizations where people can contribute without having their time eaten up by existing hierarchy. Blogs, collaborative online databases (called wikis) and open-source software development all use the Net to handle much of the coordination among people rather than relying on top-down command and control. Top managers have to realize that encouraging networks and collaboration demands as much attention and resources as supervising and measuring performance in traditional ways. Companies have to build up a department of collaboration. So they can manage social networks effectively. The drive to reduce the time spent sharing knowledge and collaborating is an outgrowth of efforts to better coordinate far-flung operations. Dynamic profiling -- technologies that automatically summarize areas, on which a researcher or a manager is focusing, based on the subjects of their emails and Web searches. Such a regularly updated profile could make it less time-consuming to locate potential collaborators and resources Demand for new technologies that more efficiently foster collaboration, such as software that allows virtual meetings, where everyone doesn't need to be present simultaneously To hire people for a new type of position devoted to facilitating or managing networks and relationships. For example: created a new internal group to manage communications among scientists and myriad outside partners. "This allows the scientists to dedicate less of their time to the collaboration" To identify and eliminate unnecessary interactions To reduce time pressures -- and hike productivity -- the number of low-value interactions must be cut. To map out how its product development, packaging, and processdevelopment staff spent their time then redesigning the workflow to eliminate a lot of the extraneous steps that took up time Letting others handle managers communications and focus on much important things as they can do more if they don't spend all their time interacting. Making output matters more than process: as most popular Web server software, rests on the competence of the programmers involved, not on how many hours they log.

AbdulMounem AlZidi BA08101034

Organizational Behavior

Case Study 11.2 INTO THE WILD BLOG YONDER


Discussion Questions: 1. Describe the main advantages that Boeing executives say that blogging offer the organization and its employees. Eecutives are starting to use internal blogs to get conversations going and allow employees to raise issues anonymously. "I've always been a big believer in open and honest dialogue that gets the issues on the table," says James F. Albaugh, the chief executive of Boeing Integrated Defense Systems (IDS). He championed using blogs at the defense unit's meeting of 1,000 executives in February. Blog gives the best proxy for organizations to make casual conversation and communicate with big number of stuff in dozens of countries about the organizations strategy, challenges, obstacles and what they need to do to get around them. Unlike memos or newsletters, blogging improves employee communication and gives the information more of personal touch with immediacy of interaction and exchange for a potentially more constructive dialogue with the public, customers, and employees that hard to get any other way, except by face-to-face communication. The blog helped questions about the unit's strategy and made sure everyone understood the human resources and diversity policies. It also let organizations understand whats top people knew or didn't know were can try to create converts. External Blog enable organizations to communicate big number of clients, suppliers, and curious web surfers give them product assurance and communicate knowledge and opinions of the organizations product/service.

2. Some blogs work and some dont. Based on the information on the article, as well as your own opinions, what are the characteristics of successful blogs? One of the key characteristics of a blog is the ability for people to comment on what organization have posted. Having this capability gives the blog its interactive element, opens up the opportunities for communications and can help forge the start of a real business connections 1. Theyre well informed. Many bloggers spout their own opinion without much practical experience to back up what theyre saying. However, business owners are different. They have the practical experience, the expertise, and the unique insights into their

AbdulMounem AlZidi BA08101034

Organizational Behavior industry that the average blogger doesnt have. So, what they say usually carries more value. 2. Theyre passionate. Passion is definitely a characteristic of successful bloggers and most business owners are passionate about their industry. You can see this passion whenever they talk about their business and their industry. They love to talk about these things for hours. Also, you can see their passion in the long hours that they choose to work. 3. Theyre good conversationalists. With the internet being more social than ever before, blogging is more about starting or joining a conversation than just getting information out there. If you can start or join a conversation in real life about your industry, you can blog successfully for your business. 4. They dont have to be experts in writing. One of the most common misconceptions about business blogging is to have serious writing chops or it wont be successful. Basically, you dont have to be Shakespeare to make your blog a success. In fact, most of the popular bloggers would be long shots to win a writing contest. Heres the big principle: If you can talk, you can write. The internet is an informal communication channel. This means an authentic, conversational tone is going to work better than a formal, corporate tone. In fact the top blogs in industry are written in a conversational tone.

AbdulMounem AlZidi BA08101034

Organizational Behavior

Case Study 14.2 MACK ATTACK


Discussion Questions: 1. Based on the information in this case study, describe the competencies that seem strongest in John Mack. Based on the article the strongest leadership competencies in John Mack are as the following: Integrity: The leadership trustfulness and tendency to translate words into deeds being as one of the most important characteristic of effective leadership John Mack gained the trust of the stakeholders in a critical time and on one of the leading U.S. Investment Bank. Engaging in honest dialogue and showing sincere interest in the need of others made him to be a highly trustworthy leader. This attracted outsiders like D. Thomas to join the firm and persuaded three directors and some executives he had taken with him to CSFB five years earlier to return to Morgan Stanley. Drive: John Mack has a high need for achievement from the reflecting the advancing of his career from his first finance job as small brokerage during his junior year to the CEO on the leading Investment Bank in Wall Street. Having the inner motivation for goals achievement and encourage others to move forward with theirs. Determined to succeed and full of energy and enthusiasm. Self-Confidence: John Mack demonstrated confidence and ability to achieve objective when he first joined Morgan Stanley as a CEO when he stated: "We want to be the leader and show the Street what we stand for,. He is typically extroverted outgoing, sociable, talkative, and assertive as he introduces himself to anyone he doesn't know when he rides the elevators and walks the floors. He lavishes attention on employees at events ranging from strategy breakfasts to dinners with their spouses at the Morgan Library & Museum being warm and engaging. Intelligence: Mr. John Mack has the cognitive ability to process enormous amounts of information and analyze a variety of complex alternatives and opportunities enabled him to identify and resolve the main problems Morgan Stanley facing. Knowledge of the Business John Mack possesses tacit and explicit knowledge of the business environment which was gained by his experience working with Morgan Stanley which supported him to recognize the opportunities and understand Morgan Stanley capacity to capture those opportunities.

AbdulMounem AlZidi BA08101034

Organizational Behavior 2. To what extent has John Mack exhibited transformational leadership behaviours to shift Morgan Stanleys culture and decision making? John Mack changed the organization culture as it had become soft and timid, missing out on growth opportunities in everything. When he first joined as CEO he said: "We want to be the leader and show the Street what we stand for," creating, and modelling a vision for the organization. To win the war, Mack is purging the ranks, replacing most board members and the people running the bank's divisions. He has reassigned staff to expand the asset management business and redrawn the organizational chart for the retail brokerage. Attempting to transform its work environment to one that fosters teamwork, he reached out to the people who left, he would rehire them only on his terms. "We don't want individual agendas," he said, but rather "team players" who believe in "one firm." Those who left still resented Zoe Cruz, then acting president, for backing Purcell and refused to work with her. Mack didn't budge. "I'm not going to let anyone put a gun to my head and tell me they'll come back only if I shoot someone they don't want to work with," Mack says. John Mack inspired employees to strive for that vision and promoted innovation were Decisions also became made more speedily. The internal environment at Morgan Stanley became one of teamwork, employee development, dignity and respect. Morgan Stanley had developed a way of building consensus rather that individualism. They have developed a process of conducting business where everyone is included in the decision making. Anyone who fails to follow procedures or questions the process is considered a nonconformist. The external environment demanded immediate results. This arose from the nature of the Capital Markets Services and clients that demanded quick answers and while threatening to take their business elsewhere.

AbdulMounem AlZidi BA08101034

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