Organisation behavior Essay

1. What performance problems is the captain trying to correct? Ans. 1. In the given scenario the problem projected by the police captain is that the young officers who come to the police force are not at all good at doing paper work, they find it boring and hate it. They are much interested to stay out on the streets, either in cars or on a beat instead of doing paper work while sitting in the office. They frequently put off the job or do it inadequately which results in unclear and ambiguous reports which cause the police department to lose court cases. Another problem is that the captain is finding it difficult to figure out the possible ways to motivate them to do the paper work effectively and efficiently. There are various problems related to the employee motivation, ability of officers to perform task, lack of role perception and different situational factors. 2. Use the MARS model of individual behavior and performance to diagnose the possible causes of the unacceptable behavior. Ans. According to the MARS model of individual behaviour there are four factors that directly influence voluntary individual behaviour and performance. Those factors are Motivation, Ability, Role perceptions and Situational factors. We can use the mars model to diagnose the causes responsible for different problems in the given scenario. The causes are as follows – 1. Lack of motivation – Motivation is the force within the person that affects his or her direction, intensity and persistence of voluntary behaviour. As the captain has stated in the scenario that he is facing problem to find ways to motivate the employees. He doesn’t have any financial rewards at his disposal and since the nature of job is very boring and none of the employees find it interesting. It clearly shows that there is a lack of motivation amongst the employees 2. Ability There is reasons that led to the poor perception of not taking paper work seriously by the young and inexperienced police officer. The main reason would be their perception of the role as law enforcers who should be involved in crime prevention, apprehension criminals and serving the community. As well as a lack of proper training on paper work when entering the work force. 3. Role Perceptions Role perceptions are also weak, because the police officers were not properly trained for all of the tasks required in their role. During the training, they were trained to do the job they do out on the street instead of doing paperwork. 4. Situational Factors Due to the budget crunch, the police officers might not have enough time or appropriate tool to facilitate in report writing i. e. only one computer for the entire department which may cause delay in delivering the paper work. 3. Has the captain considered all possible solutions to the problem? If not, what else might be done? Ans. Yes,captain considered all possible solutions to solve the problems. To help to motivate the officers, team competitions were established. These were based on the excellence of the reports. The competition provided no reward. An idea suggested to the Captain is to include financial rewards as incentives, based on the number of conviction records. Accounting Team For the past five years I have been working at McKay, Sanderson, and Smith Associates, a mid-sized accounting firm in Boston that specializes in commercial accounting and audits. My particular specialty in accounting practices for shipping companies, ranging from small fishing fleets to a couple of the big firms with ships along the East Coast. About 18 months ago McKay, Sanderson, and Smith Associates became part of a large merger involving two other accounting firms. These firms have offices in Miami, Seattle, Baton Rouge, and Los Angeles. Although the other two accounting firms were much larger than McKay, all three firms agreed to avoid centralizing the business around one office in Los Angeles. Instead the new firm—called Goldberg, Choo, and McKay Associates—would rely on teams across the country to â€Å"leverage the synergies of our collective knowledge† (an often-cited statement from the managing partner soon after the merger). The merger affected me a year ago when my boss (a senior partner and vice president of the merger) announced that I would be working more closely with three people from the other two firms to become the firm’s new shipping industry accounting team. The other team members were Elias in Miami, Susan in Seattle, and Brad in Los Angeles. I had met Elias briefly at a meeting in New York City during the merger but had never met Susan or Brad, although I knew that they were shipping accounting professionals at the other firms. Initially the shipping team activities involved e-mailing each other about new contracts and prospective clients. Later we were asked to submit joint monthly reports on accounting statements and issues. Normally I submitted my own monthly reports to summarize activities involving my own clients. Coordinating the monthly report with three other people took much more time, particularly because different accounting documentation procedures across the three firms were still being resolved. It took numerous e-mail messages an a few telephone calls to work out a reasonable monthly report style. During this aggravating process it became apparent—to me at least—that this team business was costing me more time than it was worth. Moreover, Brad in Los Angeles didn’t have a clue about how to communicate with the rest of us. He rarely replied to e-mail. Instead he often used the telephone tag. Brad arrived at work at 9:30 a. m. in Los Angeles (and was often late), which is early afternoon in Boston. I typically have a flexible work schedule from 7:30 a. m. to 3:30 p. m. so I can chauffeur my kids after school to sports and music lessons. So Brad and I have a window of less than three hours to share information. The biggest nuisance with the shipping specialist accounting team started two weeks ago when the firm asked the four of us to develop a new strategy for attracting more shipping firm business. This new strategic plan is a messy business. Somehow we have to share our thoughts on various approaches, agree on a new plan, and write a unified submission to the managing partner. Already the project is taking most of my time just writing and responding to e-mail and talking in conference calls (which none of us did much before the team formed). Susan and Brad have already had two or three misunderstandings via e-mail about their different perspectives on delicate matters in the strategic plan. The worst of these disagreements required a conference call with all of us to resolve. Except for the most basic matters, it seems that we can’t understand each other, let alone agree on key issues. I have come to the conclusion that I would never want Brad to work in my Boston office (thanks goodness he’s on the other side of the country). Although Elias and I seem to agree on most points, the overall team can’t form a common vision or strategy. I don’t know how Elias, Susan, or Brad feel, but I would be quite happy to work somewhere that did not require any of these long-distance team headaches. Question: 1. What type of team was formed here? Was it necessary, in your opinion? Ans. * Virtual team * Virtual teams are teams whose members operate across space, time, and organizational boundaries and are linked together through information technologies to achieve organizational tasks. This mean that the members of the virtual teams usually do not work in the same physical area, but only primarily depend on information technologies to communicate and coordinate their works. * I think it was necessary because all the firms were trying to avoid centralizing the business around one office in Toronto. Also employees are from the different cities of the country; they need the communication technologies to combine them into one team. 2. Use the team effectiveness model in Chapter 9 and related information in this chapter to identify the strengths and weaknesses of this team’s environment, design, and processes. Ans. a. Strengths * Environment: no strengths * Design: small groups, Virtual team * Processes: no strengths b. WEAKNESSES * Environment: there is no reward for team. * Design: The members of this team are in similar positions in the company which may hard to elect a leader. Processes: Virtual team may have little team cohesion. In addition, Virtual team may also cause difficulty on informal communication because they never meet face to face, so there is little interaction between the team members 3. Assuming that these four people must continue to work as a team, recommend ways to improve the team’s effectiveness. Ans. They should have certain virtual face-to face meeting times during each week. * They need to have a team leader who will coordinate the team. They should get the chance to meet in person so that they can have a chance to establish their norms, and work out their disagreements properly.s