Management and Organizational Behavior

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Computers and electronic communications are allowing many people to use their homes as offices. But offices will never disappear entirely. Instead, the office of the future may become like home.
AMERICAN managers who want to get more out of their white–collar workforce will be in for a shock if they seek advice from Frank Becker, a professor at Cornell University who studies the patterns of office work.
Mr. Becker is one of a group of academics and consultants trying to make companies more productive by linking new office technology to a better understanding of how employees work. The forecast of a decade ago that computers would increase office productivity, reduce white–collar payrolls and help the remaining staff to work better – have proved much too hopeful. Mr. Becker, who unfortunately calls himself an "organizational ecologist", is trying to find out why the huge sums of money spent on office automation have produced such disappointing results. He is leading a two–year study on offices called “Workscape 21”. Sponsored by Cornell, the study is financed by firms in America, Japan, Britain and Holland.
Even before completing the study, Mr. Becker has firm ideas about how the office of the future should look. Technology, better communications, rising inner–city land costs (once today's property bust is over) and the trials of commuting will, he predicts, prompt more workers to split time between a central office, a computer–equipped home office and perhaps a satellite office in a suburban business park.
Even those few workers based at the central office will be more mobile, moving between different work stations as their tasks change, taking their mobile telephones with them. This will cut the amount of wasted office space, says Mr. Becker. It will also improve communications between employees, by pushing them out of the tight and unchanging circle of people who sit nearby.
Mr. Becker predicts that the central office will become mainly a place where workers from satellite and home–based offices meet to discuss ideas and to reaffirm their loyalty to fellow employees and the company. This will require new thoughts about the layout of office buildings. Now, spaces for copying machines, coffee rooms, meetings and reception areas usually come second to the offices in which people spend most of the day working. Mr. Becker sees these common areas gradually becoming the heart of an office. He even believes that many central offices will come to resemble a hotel lobby or somebody's home – a disturbing thought, that, for people who find in the calm of the office a refuge from the rigors of family life.
Managers, says Mr. Becker, will also have to abandon their long–cherished notion that a productive employee is an employee that can be seen. Appearing on time and looking busy will soon become irrelevant. Technology and new patterns of office use will make companies judge people by what they do, not by where they spend their time.
That does not mean the end of the office, just its transformation into a social centre. Thomas Alien, a professor of management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has studied communication patterns between people, in the admittedly artificial environment of research laboratories. His less–than–startling conclusion is that people talk to each other more when they work in close proximity. Workers on different floors might as well be in different buildings, so rarely do they see one another.
Because buildings are seldom designed with employee–to–employee contact in mind, co–workers may barely know someone a few yards away, even though they have related jobs.
To show how this can be changed, Mr. Alien has helped one pharmaceutical firm to establish an experimental office designed to get chemists and biologists to talk more to each other. A similar bunch of employees, serving as a control group, is occupying a more conventional building. The two groups will be compared for such things as the time they take to complete reports and the rate at which they find new chemical compounds.
New ideas about offices are catching on elsewhere. IBM's British division will soon have all 1,000 of its headquarters’ employees working in "non–territorial" offices – places where they have no desk to call their own. And in California TRW and GTE arc trying to help employees cope with traffic problems and work more efficiently by setting up satellite offices. Digital Equipment Corp's subsidiary in Finland has equipped offices with reclining chairs and scuffed sofas to make them more comfortable and conducive to informal conversations and the swapping of ideas. Companies such as Apple and General Electric are experimenting along similar lines.
Steelcase, a manufacturer of office furniture, is one of the firms keenest to experiment with new office layouts and designs. The company's research center in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is a $111 m building completed in 1989. It is designed around a series of office "neighborhoods" that put marketing, manufacturing and design people close to each other so that they can find it easier to discuss ideas and solve problems. Employees on different floors can see one another through glass, and easily go from floor to floor via escalators.
Top managers work in a cluster of offices that are wrapped around an atrium in the middle of the building, rather than occupying the usual suite of top–floor offices. They can see, and be seen by, the people they manage. Mr. Allen, who worked as a consultant to Steelcase and argued vigorously for placing the bosses' offices in the middle of the building, believes it will improve managers' chances of bumping into the people they lead. "Who knows," he says, "they might even talk to them."
Enriching as it is to be constantly under the gaze of your superiors, Steelcase employees are also rather keen on 14 "think–tanks" located on the sixth floor of the pyramid. Intended for intense, individual work, these small offices are equipped with a computer, but no telephone. Available on a first–come, first–served basis, these havens are rarely unoccupied. Sometimes even the most communicative employee just wants to be left alone.

Directions: The short passage below is followed by a question based on its content. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage. Do you have difficulty keeping resolutions? Do you ever feel overwhelmed by a goal? Many people have unrealistic expectations of what they can accomplish within a period of time. The problem is that they usually have taken on too many responsibilities at once. Does this ever happen to you? You find yourself rushing around each day in order to get projects done. In order to achieve success with your goals you need to narrow your scope of how many projects you can take on at a time. This requires prioritizing. In order to prioritize you must first get clear on what it is you truly want to achieve. When you pursue a goal you make a decision to put a certain amount of time, energy and effort into an endeavor. If that goal is not in line with what you truly want, you may find your inner self unconsciously sabotaging your efforts in some way.

What is the theme of the passage?

What, according to the writer, is the difference between an aggressive action and effective action?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

An aggressive leader initiates a series of moves that begin by bringing him much power. Slowly, however, his power reaches a peak, and soon everything turns against him. His numerous enemies band together; trying to maintain his power, he exhausts himself going in this direction and that inevitably he collapses. The reason for this pattern is that the aggressive person is rarely in full control. He cannot see more than a couple of moves ahead, cannot see the consequences of this bold move or of that move. Because he is constantly being forced to react to the moves of his ever growing host of enemies and to the unforeseen consequences of his own rash actions, his aggressive energy is turned against him. 
In the realm of power, it is important to ask—what is the point of chasing here and there, trying to solve problems and defeat enemies when not in control of things? The answer is simple: the idea of power is wrong. Aggressive action is mistaken for effective action. And most often the most effective action is to stay back, keep calm, and let others be frustrated by the traps laid for them, playing for long-term power rather than quick victory.
It needs to be remembered that the essence of power is the ability to keep the initiative, to get others to react to our moves, to keep the opponent and those lurking around on the defensive. When we make other people to come to us, we suddenly become the ones controlling the situation. And the one who has the control has the power. Two things must happen to place a person in this position: We must ourselves learn to master our emotions, and never allow ourselves to be influenced by anger; meanwhile, however, we must keep playing on people’s natural tendency to react angrily when pushed and baited. In the long run, the ability to make other come to us is a weapon far more powerful than any tool of aggression.
This is a delicate trick and can be performed only by those who have mastered the art. All of us have only so much energy, and there are moments when our energies are at their peak. When we make other person come to us, he wears himself out, wasting his energy on the trip. Another advantage that lies with the person to whom the other person comes is that he operates in an unknown territory. Being on hostile ground makes him nervous and often he rushes his actions and makes mistakes. For negotiations or meetings, it is always wise to lure others into our territory, or in the territory of our choice. We have our bearings, while they see nothing familiar and are subtly placed on the defensive.
Manipulation is a dangerous game. Once someone suspects he is being manipulated, it becomes harder and harder to control him. But when we make our opponents to come to us, we create an illusion that he is controlling the situation. He does not feel the strings that pull him. Everything depends on the sweetness of the bait. If the trap is attractive enough, the turbulence of the opponents’ emotions and desires will blind them to reality. The greedier they become, the more they can be led around. If we can make other people dig their own graves, why should we sweat ourselves?
When other people are made to come to us, it is sometimes better to let them know that we have forced their hand. It is better to give up deception for overt manipulation. The psychological ramifications are profound. The person who makes others come to him appears powerful, demands respect, and often gets it. If on one occasion a person has made it a point of dignity that others must come to him and he has succeeded, they will continue to do so even after that person has stopped trying.

Which of the following is/are the ever present motivating factor(s) in our culture?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Motivation is one of the most important variables in learning. A high degree of motivation engenders an active and aggressive attitude with regard to educational goals. Every child comes to school with interests and motives. The teacher’s problem is to discover, direct and capitalize upon these motives and interests for educational purposes. Knowledge is not self-motivating. Facts become interesting and desirable when they represent a means of obtaining goals which the learner wishes to attain.
Most of the educationally significant sources of drive are social in origin. The socially derived tendencies are listed as the affiliative- and prestige-oriented motives. This is an artificial but useful classification of motives.
The affiliation-oriented motives include gregariousness, social response, affection, and love as subgroups. These motives range all the way from a desire to be with other people as contrasted with being alone, at one extreme, to parent-child and husband-wife love, at the other. Although the affiliative motives are seldom manipulated purposely for motivational reason, they are involved in most classroom learning situations. Where classroom learning is such that working towards desirable education goals carries with it increased social response and closer affectional relationships within the group, the affiliative tendencies will facilitate learning. Conversely, when the students have attitudes of distrust, hostility, and antagonism towards the teacher, defiance of the teacher and opposition to him may be a means of gaining acceptance within a peer group.
Physical rewards and punishments may symbolize the bestowal or withdrawal of affection. Similarly, commendation and praise, on the one hand, and scolding and reproof, on the other, not only involve the prestige-oriented motives but may also signify the bestowal or withdrawal of affection.
The prestige-oriented motives are often used purposely to motivate learning and are practically always involved in educational procedures. Whenever such positive factors as social recognition, commendation, and praise, or negative ones such as reproof and ridicule are used, the prestige motives are involved. Prestige may attach to any extension of the self, such as one’s relatives and friends, one’s physical possessions and social status, and even to one’s convictions and beliefs. Competitive self-enhancement is an ever-present motive in our culture.
Security-related motivation always has a future reference. It is essentially a desire for an assurance with regard to the future satisfaction of the other motives. Most of the things done to satisfy immediate motives have security implications.
Socially-related motives have their roots in the child’s culture. These various ethnic, cultural, sub-cultural, and community influences initially impinge on the child via his family. The family is the primary and most important social source of motivation in the child. The second most important social influence is the peer group. The adolescent peer group often competes with the family and school as a source of social motivation. (from Education Psychology published by Prentice Hall India)

The author’s attitude is

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Motivation is one of the most important variables in learning. A high degree of motivation engenders an active and aggressive attitude with regard to educational goals. Every child comes to school with interests and motives. The teacher’s problem is to discover, direct and capitalize upon these motives and interests for educational purposes. Knowledge is not self-motivating. Facts become interesting and desirable when they represent a means of obtaining goals which the learner wishes to attain.
Most of the educationally significant sources of drive are social in origin. The socially derived tendencies are listed as the affiliative- and prestige-oriented motives. This is an artificial but useful classification of motives.
The affiliation-oriented motives include gregariousness, social response, affection, and love as subgroups. These motives range all the way from a desire to be with other people as contrasted with being alone, at one extreme, to parent-child and husband-wife love, at the other. Although the affiliative motives are seldom manipulated purposely for motivational reason, they are involved in most classroom learning situations. Where classroom learning is such that working towards desirable education goals carries with it increased social response and closer affectional relationships within the group, the affiliative tendencies will facilitate learning. Conversely, when the students have attitudes of distrust, hostility, and antagonism towards the teacher, defiance of the teacher and opposition to him may be a means of gaining acceptance within a peer group.
Physical rewards and punishments may symbolize the bestowal or withdrawal of affection. Similarly, commendation and praise, on the one hand, and scolding and reproof, on the other, not only involve the prestige-oriented motives but may also signify the bestowal or withdrawal of affection.
The prestige-oriented motives are often used purposely to motivate learning and are practically always involved in educational procedures. Whenever such positive factors as social recognition, commendation, and praise, or negative ones such as reproof and ridicule are used, the prestige motives are involved. Prestige may attach to any extension of the self, such as one’s relatives and friends, one’s physical possessions and social status, and even to one’s convictions and beliefs. Competitive self-enhancement is an ever-present motive in our culture.
Security-related motivation always has a future reference. It is essentially a desire for an assurance with regard to the future satisfaction of the other motives. Most of the things done to satisfy immediate motives have security implications.
Socially-related motives have their roots in the child’s culture. These various ethnic, cultural, sub-cultural, and community influences initially impinge on the child via his family. The family is the primary and most important social source of motivation in the child. The second most important social influence is the peer group. The adolescent peer group often competes with the family and school as a source of social motivation. (from Education Psychology published by Prentice Hall India)