MGT502 Final Term MCQs 2011 by Faheem

MGT502- Organizational Behaviour · Composed By Faheem Saqib · 2010 -2011 Final term Subjective Solved · 2010 -2011 Final term Subjective Papers Solved

Q65. How can charismatic leadership hurt an organization? (3 marks)

Answer: A charismatic leader is one who might not have legitimate authority over the followers but followers respect him for his charisma, knowledge, expertise and his vision.

Charismatic leaders can hurt an organization because their followers might go against the legitimate chain of command of the organization to follow the leader. As it is not necessary for the charismatic leader to have legitimate authority therefore he might not follow the proper chain of command. This creates the problem of unity of command. People will follow two managers. One will be their manager according to the company hierarchy or structure and one will be the leader. This might create people-role conflict for employees. This affects the organization in a negative way and hurt the organization.

Q66. “As important as attracting good employees is, it is just as important to retain them”. How you can justify this statement. (5 marks)

Answer: Employees are the biggest assets for an organization. They are the real distinctive competency of an organization. The organizations who pay heed to this fact are the most successful ones. Technology and other resources that a successful organization holds can be acquired by other organizations as well but motivated, expert and skilled employees that one firm has cannot be duplicated easily by other firms. That is the main reason competing firms try to buy out employees from their rivals in an attempt to gain the distinctive competencies that the rival holds because of these employees.

Therefore for an organization to be successful, it should not only attract or hire good employees but it should also retain them. There are a number of reasons why retaining is also as important or even more important than hiring good employees. Some of the reasons are:

1. The company might spend a lot of money on the training and development of employees and once the employee leaves the company, the company not only suffers in terms of employee loss but also financial loss which was caused because of the wastage of training resources on the leaving employee.
2. When an employee leaves and his position is vacant, the company will need to hire someone new in his/her place. The new person will need to be trained or will take time to get to work on the same position. This wastes valuable company resources and lowers productivity of the company.
3. The employee who has been working for a company for a longer time knows the company culture and has accepted it to a great extent. But when this employee leaves and a new employee is hired in his place, it will take time for the new employee to get acquainted with the culture and norms of the organization.
4. When an employee leaves this does not only affect him but demoralizes other employees as well and gives an impression that people don’t like to work for this company and the employees who are sticking around might be making a mistake. This often urges other employees also to either look for better opportunities and they loose loyalty and commitment to the company.
5. The employee working for a company might have acquired good experience after a considerable amount of time working for the company and if he leaves then this experience can’t be replaced. The company might hire some one with the same qualification but the experience that the leaving employee has will not be there.

Because of all the important reasons mentioned above, it is very important that a company not only attracts good employees but should also strive to retain them by making policies that foster long term commitment and loyalty.

Q67. What is flextime? What are the advantages of flextime from an employee’s perspective and from management’s perspective? (10 marks)

Answer: Flextime is a work arrangement where an employee works for the same core hours during the day but the arrangement of these hours or how he makes up these hours from the day is flexible. For example a company might have a policy for employees to work for eight hours every day and the company starts at 8.00 AM. So in flextime arrangement the employee might be given the discretion of working for eight hours but not necessarily from 8 AM. An employee might start for example at 10 AM and work up to 6 AM thereby completing eight hours of work and starting at his convenient time. This is only one example of flextime. Other methods include flexible or compressed work weeks where the employee can work for more hours during some days and thereby reducing the total working days during the week. Others include job sharing , part time work arrangements and telecommuting.

Advantages from employee’s perspective:

1. Flexible working hours will suit many people and they will be more satisfied with their work and will not have to look for other employment options.
2. Working husbands and wives can easily arrange work to take care of their children. For example the wife might arrange her working hours so that either she or the husband is always with the children.
3. If a company allows telecommuting for example then it can get more work force options because then those women can also work who need to be at home. Working from home can help these women earn money as well as attending to their family commitments.
4. Compressed working weeks might help those people who can work for a less number of days for a week for example four out of seven days and extend their working hours per day and then go to their families during the three days off in case their families live in some other area or away from their place of work.