Multicultural Organizational Behavior — Winter 2023

Explain the terms:

Social Psychology

Employee engagement

Openness to experience

Social-learning theory

Cross-functional teams

Leader-member exchange theory

Coercive power

Define Organizational Behaviour (OB). How does systematic study contribute to our understanding of OB?

What are the three components of attitudes? Also, explain the major job attitudes.

Q .2 (b) Distinguish between different types of groups with the help of suitable examples.

What is personality? How do we typically measure it? What factors determine personality?

Define perception. What are the factors that influence our perception?

Discuss some of the early need theories of motivation while drawing a comparison.

Discuss in brief, Hofstede’s cultural framework with examples.

What are the various types of teams? Also, explain factors determining effective teams. Q-4 (b) What are the conclusions of behavioural theories of leadership? Explain in detail.

What are the different sources of power in organizations? Also, explain the role of dependence in power relationships?

Explain the process of conflict in detail.

Snigdha was a young graduate electrical engineer recruited in a power utility company and was looking forward to a professionally satisfying career. Although she was recruited for the electrical testing and automation department of the company, her placement was in the automation section and not in the testing section where all her college mates got placed. Snigdha was unhappy about that decision, which she felt was unfair, as the automation section was neither in her domain nor of her liking. However, she worked hard and performed well on the new technology. In spite of this, she felt her career prospects would be adversely affected as she did not have any professional qualification in electronics or computing. When Snigdha spoke about her posting to one of her senior colleagues, he told her that the decision of placing her in this section was based on the company's requirements and that she should make the most of the situation. Page 1 of Later when she had an opportunity to talk to her operations AGM Krishna, he further clarified that electrical work was more strenuous and unsafe for women and that she was posted to the electronics/ automation section as a special consideration. Snigdha, silent and depressed, left Krishna’s room. By now, she had understood that Krishna was absolutely unwilling to take her into the maintenance and testing group. Moreover, the reasons that he had stated to her had hurt her self-esteem. She had seen a clear tinge of gender bias in his attitude. This further dampened her morale. Snidha then decided not to speak about this to any senior official again. She quietly kept on working. Her frustration was escalating. She had cried, complained and felt miserably helpless and left out. All her colleagues would empathize with her and relate to her problem. This had happened earlier to a few of her senior colleagues and they had given up after fighting. But Snigdha was a strong girl. She had vowed to herself that she would prove that she was no less than any other male colleague. Fortunately for Snigdha, she got an opportunity to prove herself. While on her commissioning job, she would work until late in the evening (until about 9:30-10:00p.m.). As per her office timings, she was to leave office by 7:00 p.m. But she would stay back until the targeted work for the day was completed. Additionally, she also did a few night shifts. The final stage of the commissioning work required her to test the commissioned system. This could be done only when the live electrical systems, the 110 kV line and 220 kV lines, would be taken out on outage, which is done during off-peak hours, that is, during nights. So she worked continuously during the night for four days and completed the project. She proved that being a young woman would not come in the way of her performing to the expected levels on the job. She had become the second woman in her company who had dared to work in a night shift with officers and blue-collar workers. She was the only female present during the commissioning. She was well appreciated for her relentless efforts. Snigdha was happy. One fine day, all of a sudden, her automation AGM called her to have a chat. He asked her as to whether she was happy with her job. Seeing this as an opportunity to share her problem, she told everything to her AGM. He understood her, but repeated the same line of logic which Krishna had put forward to her earlier. He re-emphasized the point that testing was an extremely physically draining and challenging job. Snigdha by now had understood that no boss was ready to help her out. They were only trying to convince her and not give her a chance to prove herself. By now, Snigdha has had enough. She did not want to continue in a place where she was not getting any satisfaction in her job and decided to quit the job.