NMIMS Global Access

School for Continuing Education (NGA-SCE)

Course: Management Theory and Practice
Internal Assignment Applicable for December 2022 Examination
Q1. You are hired as a trainer by Sachin Ethanol, a newly setup organization dealing in
manufacturing Ethanol from Sugarcane residue. The CEO wants you to train the newly recruited
management trainees about the Principles of Management. Explain the principles of Management to
these newly recruited employees by taking the help of Henri Fayol’s 14 Principles of Management?

Ans.
Introduction
Management can be think of planning and organise multiple resources simultaneously to drive desired
goal in most effective and efficient manner. Effective refer to achieve desired goal and efficient refers
to achieve that goal in minimal cost without impacting final output.
Below are some forces which effect the management decision.
1. Political force: Government regulation, political institution and trade policies impact the
management placed to achieve the desired goal of the company.
2. Social force: People ethics, moral and behaviour effect the management decision.
3. Economical force: Countries’ economic health, market economic health will also effect the
management decision.
Below are some theories given by different management practitioners:
1. Scientific management: This theory was introduced by Mr. Taylor, the focus of this theory is
on individual efficiency and productivity in organisation.
2. Administrative management: This theory was introduced by Mr. Henri Fayol, the focus of
this theory is, administration is required to manage the resources and build efficient and
effective work space.
3. Bureaucratic management: This theory is given by Max webber, focus of this theory is to
structure the organisation in hierarchy and define clear set of roles.
Concept and explanation of 14 rules of Henri Fayol:
Henri Fayol has presented below 14 rules to effective management which Mr. Sachin can explain to
recruitment management trainee.
1. Division of work: Work should be divide among employees based on their knowledge and
experience so that they can’t feel confused and frustrated and can give efficient, accurate and
speedy work.

2. Authority and responsibility: Authority represent the power of giving command. Authority
of giving command and instruction should be pick carefully like Manager should have
appropriate knowledge, experience, expertise. Responsibility represent the accountability of
the decision taken by Manager.

3. Discipline: This principal represents the attitude and behaviour of an individual against the
company’s rules and regulations. Employees should obey the rule and regulation design
across organisation so that they can understand their dos and don’ts. Supervision of discipline
is also required at various level in hierarchy of organisation, to make sure the employees are
following rules properly and take action accordingly if not.
4. Order of command: It represent that employee working on particular task should report to
only one boss or superior. Multiple reporting may arise confusion and conflict of giving
command.

5. Order of direction: Whoever is engaged in same task or activity should have common and
unified goal. According to this, employee should have one goal and motivation to achieve set
goal otherwise they may get distracted to complete multiple task at a time.

6. Subordination of individual interest: This indicates that employees should work in

organisation to achieve interest of company rather than their personal interest. It is the
manager duty to check whether work culture followed by team is align with organisation
interest or against it. He has to take action if interest is not align with company’s goal.

7. Remuneration: Remigration play a vital role in motivating the employee at work place.
Distribution of wages or non-monetary award should be based on various factors like
individual performance, Organisational criteria of paying, cost of living etc.

8. Scaler chain: This principal represent the hierarchy structure followed in an organisation. It
depicts communication flow from higher level to lower level.
Employee should know their immediate subordinate so that they can communicate them if
required. This principal provides one shortcut also where employees on same level can have
direct discussion know as Gang Plank.

9. Centralization: According to this principal, authority of taking decision should be at top

level or it should segregate among the hierarchy. There should be proper balance of
centralization and decentralization component in an organisation.
For Ex. Authority to take important decision should remain in hand of top management
whereas operational related decision should be taken by medium level management.

10. Order: According to this Principal, there should be proper place for everything and for
everyone in an organisation. There are two types of order define in this principal.
a. Material order: Management should have plan or order to place material at fix place.
b. Social order: Also, they should have plan for employees work place. Like proper fix
place, cabin, work space.

11. Equity: According to this principle, there should not be any discrimination amongst the
employees based on religion, caste, language, or nationality. Equity helps to coordinated
between superior and subordinate in effective manner.

12. Stability of tenure employee: According to this principal, Management should work to retain
their employees by providing them job security, motivation, good work culture. Regular
change in employees will lead to inefficient work.

13. Initiative: According to this principal, initiation at work place play a vital role to keep
employees motivated and work efficiently. Management should give them freedom to their
employees to take initiatives at their respective fields. They should be the part of discussion
of planning and execution, so that they can provide their views and plan to execute the same.
 In that manner, employees feel their existence within the organisation which makes them to
work promptly.

14. Esprit de corps: This principal represents the team spirit or team efforts. Management should
bring the sense of team work in their employees in order to collaborate the individual and
team work. This will have developed the atmosphere of mutual trust.

Conclusion

The 14 management concepts given by Mr. Henri Fayol are very effective and efficient if follow
properly by an organisation. They collaborate the factors like estimate, planning, decision
hierarchy, work place motivation, innovation and engagement of employee so that organisation’s
goal can be achieve effectively and efficiently. Through management, Organisation can achieve
better output from the available resources with low cost which may increase the overall revenue
to the organisation.

Q2. The newly set up management team is divided in their deliberation on a certain topic and require
your help. The core area of this discussion is whether Management is an Art or a
Science. As the chairman of the forum, can you throw some light on whether
Management is an art or a science or both and Why?

Ans.
Introduction

Management is the process of planning and organising the various resources to achieve desired goal
or organisational goal in effective and efficient manner.
Different management expert has given different viewpoints, whether management is science
[studied, experimented, proven result, set of standard to implement and universally accepted] or
management is an art [Individual ability, skills, behaviour and believes].

Concept

Management is a science

We can consider management is a science as it contains concepts, rule or principals which were tested
with various experiments and can be applied universally. Different principals can be applied in
different situation to get the effective result so that resources can be use optimally and with low cost.
Below are some pointers which prove that management is a science.

1. Universally accepted Principals: Principals of sciences are universally accepted because

these principals are backed up by fact, analysis, experiment.
For Ex: Division of work can be applied anywhere in the organization where
complex work is not divided into set small simple work and where employees are not
performing well.

2. Experimented various methods: Science require proof for the authentication of any
principal. These proof can be collected through experimenting various facts and apply various
methods to achieve desired goal in more effective and efficient method. Many management
 experts had done experiments on management principal on the basis of various factor and
inputs and make those principal provable.
For Ex: Unity of command and unity of direction are essential principal which helps to bring
harmony in an organisation. Employees at various level knows about their report system
hierarchy and individual goal along with organisational goal.

3. Cause and effect: Science represent cause as different variable, data tested but effect
represent the result of providing that variable to test. In management also cause and effect
relationship works closely.
For Ex: Providing remuneration to employees is a “Cause” which make them motivated at
work place is “Effect”.

4. Evolution of existing principal: Relying on one method leads to loss of opportunity which
could be gained by applying other effective method. In management also, multiple
experiments were executed by multiple management expert to keep finding the most effective
method.
For Ex: Classical approach and modern approach.

Management is an art

Art refers to apply knowledge and skill to get done desired work. Management expertise who were
supporting management as art, believed that skill come with individual’s personality and ability.
[Managers are born, not made]. Manager can’t give desired result if he will do routine work, he
should have applied his ability, skill, knowledge to get to solve the problem.
As per this approach human phycology and human behaviour is more important.
Below are some points which prove that management is an art.

1. Practical knowledge: Manager should have some practical knowledge of theoretical

principal implementation. This is help him to strengthen the knowledge base which he can
applied at work place.
For Ex: Experience of handling team rather than theoretical knowledge.

2. Personal Skill: Despite of common theoretical knowledge base, people are different in their
approach and problem solving skills. That’s why considering the personal skills can’t be
ignored while talking about the management in organisation.
For Ex: One manager handles his client very carefully but not his team, on other hand
manager give equal focus to client as well as team.

3. Practitioner and goal oriented: Employees should practice their skills so that they can
enhance and apply it in more effective manner. Also they should have clear picture of goal
assign to them so that they can apply their skills and ability to achieve the same.

4. Human behaviour: Managing the external stimuli, behaviour of various employee require
strong management to bring harmony to an organisation. Its manager responsibility to align
all resources carefully so that organisational goal can be achieve.

Conclusion, management is a science and also an art

Relation between science and art is very close as their combination will give more effective and
efficient results. Scientific methods give results based on test and experiment with combination of
multiple attributes and variables, whereas Art give the basic understanding of one’s personality, skill,
knowledge, believes and behaviour to particular situation. Science teaches “KNOW” and art teaches
“TO DO”. For an organization, both approaches are equally important and given significant impact on
applying at work place.
For Ex: Tt is not sufficient for manager to first know the principles but he must also apply them in
solving various managerial problems.

Q3. Explain the different types of Conflicts that can arise in an organization?

Ans:
Introduction

Conflict is a natural phenomenon which can occur when group of people works together to achieve
certain goals. Conflicts can arise as people come from different culture, believes, personality, attitude,
skill, knowledge and experience together to finish certain task.
It is possible that different people can have different opinion or approach to towards solving the
common problem which lead to conflicts.
Sometime manager can show bias behaviour in his team based on cast, colour, sex which makes other
employees demotivated leads to poor performance.

Broadly conflicts can segregate in two parts:

1. Positive Conflicts: Some time conflicts can be good for organisation as they create
competitive environment which leads to performance enhancement of individual.

2. Negative conflicts: Most of the time, conflicts are bad for organisational growth as it may
hamper routine work by degrading the effectiveness and efficiency at work place.

Concept and Explanation

Below are some types of conflicts which can occur at work place:
1. Interpersonal Conflicts: Interpersonal conflicts occurs when two or more employees have
disagreement on the goals, approach, discussion, viewpoint etc in an organisation. These
employees may or may not belong to same team.

Interpersonal conflicts are further divided in three part.

a. Vertical Conflicts: These conflicts can arise between different layer hierarchy in an
organisation. For Ex: Conflict in opinion of manager with their subordinates.
b. Lateral Conflicts: These conflicts can arise between the employees on same position.
For Ex: Solution approach conflict between two team member.
c. Diagonal Conflicts: These conflicts can occur between employees who don’t have direct
reporting in hierarchy.

2. Intrapersonal Conflict: Intrapersonal conflict can have experienced by single individual

when his/her goals and achievement are not meet. This type of conflict can make individual
depressed, irritable, anxiety. Having such kind of conflicts make employee diverted from this
assigned goal in an organisation leads to performance degradation of employee.
For Ex: Transferring an employee from one location to another without his consent may
cause conflict against his viewpoint. Possibly he will not perform well at new place due to
frustration of transfer.
 3. Intergroup Conflicts: This type of conflict arise when two or more groups in an organisation
have difference in their viewpoint. These groups are either formal or informal. For Ex:
Marketing team have different opinion of revenue earned in financial year with, what
accounts team are showing in their reports.

4. Intragroup Conflicts: Intragroup conflicts occur between employees of same group in an

organisation. This conflict degrades the overall performance of the group. Manager should
give attention to this type of conflict so that individual can contribute efficiently and
effectively.
For Ex:- There can be a conflict between team lead and developer on the delivery time lines.

Conclusion

Conflict can be dangerous to the an organisation as it can degrade the performance of

individual, team, organisation but on other hand, it creates competitive environment where
employees feel more motivated to their work.
So we can say that balance must be their between negative and positive conflicts in a team or
in an organisation so that employees can give their optimal output.
Manager should now the origin of the conflict so that he can judge and predict type of conflict
is this? And what precaution would require to tackle the same.

Q3 b. Explain what strategies can be used by Lemon Tree to resolve these conflicts?
Ans.

Introduction

Conflict resolution can be formal or informal process to tackle the dispute between two parties so that
productivity will not hamper at work place.
Manager should aware of the different conflicts among the team so that those conflicts can be handle
with appropriate techniques. In this manner, manager can gain the trust of the team and help to keep
motivated them.

Concept
Manager can follow below steps to tackle conflicts at work place:

1. Recognition of the parties involved in the conflicts.

2. Find out the cause of conflict by confront individual or group and listen to their pain areas.
3. Try to identify the change in behaviour, attitude and approach towards their work.
4. Identify the trigger point or saturation point of conflict appearance.
5. After consider above points, he should selection the conflict resolution approach for that
particular conflict and try to implement the same to reduce the conflict.

Below is some technique to handle the conflicts at work place:

1. Avoiding: According to this technique, one of the party involved in the conflict decide to set
back without any further discussion on conflict and will go by the second party’s opinion
willingly or non- willingly. This type of conflict can be used where first party is full of
angriness or emotionally charged and require cool down period so that they can come up with
better solution later.
 By avoiding the situation, parties can get avoid unnecessary stress, discussion with wrong
tone, hurting feelings of other parties. We can say that avoiding is short term solution to
tackle conflict and more inefficient way also.

2. Accommodating: According to this technique, one party come forward to show concern for
other party and compromise their needs or opinion to make comfortable to other party. This
technique will help to create great interpersonal relationship in an organisation and help to
build the trust with in teams.

3. Competing: According to this technique, one party with authority and power can inforce their
opinion without considering the opinion of other party. This kind of conflict resolution
solution works where team has to take immediate decision without wasting much time. This
technique create hole in the trust of different parties.

4. Collaboration: According to this technique, conflict parties set together and discus their
opinions peacefully to conclude the ultimate solution. This kind of conflict resolution solution
are very effective as both parties are respecting each other’s viewpoint and mutually find the
solution of problem with efficient manner.

5. Compromising: According to this technique, Different parties in conflict, will try to find
some middle path to solve the problem. The focus of this technique is to find best possible
path which is good for both the parties. This type of solution applied where there is some
solution required and deadlines are approaching speedily.

Conclusion

Manager can follow above mentioned technique to resolve the conflicts arise with different situation
as different point of time so that performance of individual, team or organisation would not hamper by
that.