...Homogenous vs. Heterogeneous team Homogenous team is one in which the group members have a similar shared value and attributes. On the other hand heterogeneous team is one in which the group members have a diverse orientation. There are advantages and disadvantages of both teams that I will outline in the next section. Advantages Heterogeneous - Diverse thinking - perform better on complex tasks - more creativity Homogenous - Less conflict -better coordination - advantage of cohesion - high satisfaction - better performance on cooperative tasks Heterogeneous - Agreements are difficult - more conflict - coordination is problematic Disadvantages Homogenous - Groupthink - decisions that do not respond to changes and contingencies - no innovative ideas The cohesion among homogenous group may translate into high productivity and goal accomplishment. They would all be thinking the same way so conflict would not be an issue for such a team. Heterogeneous team would be the best bet for strategic planning and research where creativity and diverse thinking is a necessity. Which type of team do you prefer working with if you had a choice? Homogeneous Vs. Heterogeneous Teams By Louise Jones, eHow Contributor The makeup of a team, including the mix of cultures and personalities, can make or break its effective output and viability. A homogeneous team would include people who are as similar as possible, with similar points of view, learning abilities...
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...MG4208 Cross-Cultural Negotiation Week 10 Negotiating decisions in multicultural teams Agenda 1. Multicultural team performance 2. Obstacles multicultural teams have to face 3. Resolutions 4. Team decision exercise Earley & Mosakowski (2000) • Team diversity: – Homogenous, split, heterogeneous • Team outcomes – Team identity, communication, performance • Curvilinear relationship between diversity and team outcomes – Homogenous and heterogeneous teams better than subgroup Quadratic Relationship Homogenous Split Heterogeneous Types of conflict in multi-cultural teams 1. Task • Interests in the task 2. Procedures • Approach to accomplish the team goal 3. Interpersonal • Social identity of team members Resolving task conflict 1. Generating information across parties and issues 2. Making integrative decisions Case on Shanghai Tang Shanghai Tang: Interests Create artistic and elegant Chinese based fashion Expand business to global market Generating information 1. Language barriers • Cliché and misunderstanding 2. Cultural barriers • Value dimensions 3. Structural barriers • Time and space 4. Psychological barriers • Groupthink, lack of team transactive memory Making integrative decision Treat decision like negotiation • Explore issues (preferences and priorities) • Making multi-issue proposals (no agenda) • Decision rules (voting vs. consensus) ...
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...TEAM COMPOSITION: IMPACT OF HETEROGENEITY AND HOMOGENEITY INTRODUCTION A team is a group which has a common goal or common objective. Unlike groups, a team focuses on their collective outcome. Usually, teams have members with higher skills which help them in maximizing their strengths and minimizing their weaknesses accordingly. Every member in the team need to understand how to help other team members to build unity amongst them. Unity and understanding create a sense of responsibility among team members to participate and generate greater performance to attain their main objective. There are certain differences which arise due to instability in the team or its members. These instabilities can be referred to as ego, jealousy between the team members and differences due to incapability in work capacity etc. Team work effectiveness does not come automatically. Teams have to be set up correctly in order to determine the goals. Proper team member selection is very important so as to ensure every member is focused and dedicated towards their target. Hence, mutual commitment is required in order to achieve the objective by all members of a team. To get the work done by team members, team composition must be present. Team composition relates to the overall mixture of characteristics among the members in a team. They interact interdependently to achieve their main objective. To achieve a common goal, performance of every team member must be optimum. Team composition is combined with...
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...our communities, there is certainly good reason to consider workforce diversity as an exercise in good corporate responsibility. By diversifying our workforces, we can give individuals the “break” they need to earn a living and achieve their dreams. As an Economic Payback Many groups of people who have been excluded from workplaces are consequently reliant on tax-supported social service programs. Diversifying the workforce, particularly through initiatives like welfare-to-work, can effectively turn tax users into tax payers. As a Resource Imperative The changing demographics in the workforce, that were heralded a decade ago, are now upon us. Today’s labor pool is dramatically different than in the past. No longer dominated by a homogenous group of white males, available talent is now overwhelmingly represented by people from a vast array of backgrounds and life experiences. Competitive companies cannot...
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...Team and Team Working – Practical Prescription or Problematic Panacea Complication: * Lack of ownership at all levels within the team * Lack of visibility on tracking delivery * Lack of team cohesion Result: * Generic goals therefore lack of focus * Too many layers of team hierarchy leading to overlapping roles and responsibility * Degrading quality of deliveries * Loss of productivity and margins The above has been used as a working example in the essay which aims to discuss what makes an effective delivery team and enables productive teamwork in an IT service company (described in the previous section). Team and Teamwork Team (Together Everyone Achieves More). A team can be said to be comprising of a group of people linked in a common purpose. Team for some is a four lettered word which at times is used too much or too less. The business definition of teamwork relates to the collective decision making processes that lead to goal oriented relationships formed between all participants. Generally, what is required from teams are the integration of work from the people involved, the generation of motives and solutions to the problem concentrated on, high involvement, team leadership and continuous encouragement. In an interview with J. Richard Hackman by Daine Coutu published in Harvard Business Review, May 2009, the discussion reveals that teams and teamwork may not always work. Problems with co-ordination, keeping motivation...
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...Fashion’s Faux Pas of Hiring for Cultural Fit 1 Fashion’s Faux Pas of Hiring for Cultural Fit Markisha B. Velazquez MGT 500 Organizational Behavior Dr. Matthew D. Kenney 4/11/2015 Kenney College Fashion’s Faux Pas of Hiring for Cultural Fit 2 Introduction With a majority of practicing fashion designers being women, and openly gay male designers at the spotlight receiving more design awards than their heterosexual peers (Stokes, 2013), you would expect the fashion industry to have exemplary diversity hiring practices. However, the fashion industry’s obsession with “fitting in” leads to managers offering jobs to candidates whose physical appearance and lifestyle embody the brand. Of course if your brand sells a certain look and lifestyle, you want your employees representing that lifestyle to eat, sleep, and dress like the brand. However, the practice of hiring for cultural fit can lead to lack of diversity and creativity and overconfidence amongst staff from groupthink. Reverse Discrimination Stokes (2013) reports that out of the 81 men included in Voguepedia’s canon, 51 are openly gay and women outnumber the fashion design labor market with 70% women to 30% men in Canada and 51.6% women in the US. Though the fashion industry disproportionately represents and even idealizes these minorities, diversity still remains an issue in many companies. The tendency to hire and ad...
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...2.1 Introduction Marketing's role is to match the capabilities and resources within the organisation with market opportunities external to the organisation. Understanding customer needs is central to achieving this aim, but marketers must also be aware of factors that can cause customer need to evolve. A change in customer needs will impact upon the organisation's ability to serve its customers. This means that marketers have to be knowledgeable about what is happening in the external environment, or macro environment. Beyond the organisations that immediately influence a company's operations lies the macro environment. This consists of the larger social and international forces that affect the society within which a company operates. There is little a company can do to manage these powerful macro environmental forces, so it is important that marketers understand the macro environmental factors that affect products and services in order to devise the optimal marketing strategy to cope with these conditions. This topic explores the features of the external environment that impact upon marketing decisions. Macro environment is the external and uncontrollable factors that influence a company's or product's development. Billabong must know the value of each of the macro environment factors; such as, economic, demographics, and lifestyle, technology and natural forces. Before companies, or in our case Billabong, produce new products, they should study each macro environment force...
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...1.Perception is the process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment. The perception is important bcs – people’s behaviour is based on their perception of what reality is, not on reality itself. The world as it is perceived is the world that is behaviourally important. Why We Study Perceptions • We study this topic to better understand how people make attributions about events. • We don’t see reality. We interpret what we see and call it reality. • The attribution process guides our behaviour, regardless of the truth of the attribution Factors Influencing Perception • The Perceiver • The Target • The Situation When an individual looks at a target and attempts to interpret what he or she sees, that interpretation is heavily influenced by personal characteristics of the individual perceiver. The more relevant personal characteristics affecting perception of the perceiver are attitudes, motives, interests, past experiences, and expectations.Characteristics of the target can also affect what is being perceived. This would include attractiveness, gregariousness, and our tendency to group similar things together. For example, members of a group with clearly distinguishable features or color are often perceived as alike in other, unrelated characteristics as well. The context in which we see objects or events also influences our attention.This could include...
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...I worked very hard on this essay, and did well. I ask you don't plagiarize, as they'll catch you, and it'll disgrace me. Learn from it, and know this was a 100% scored essay. Synthesize something, but don't rip off. Written Assignment 3 has three parts. Each part provides an introduction followed by a series of questions. You are required to answer all of the questions in parts 1, 2 and 3. The answers can be found using the study materials provided in this module. Your answers should be well developed and convey your understanding of the question topics. Do not copy the answers wordforword; they must be in your own words. However, when it will strengthen your answer, you may quote or paraphrase relevant facts, ideas, and theories from your course reading materials; be sure to cite these references in an appropriate manner by using footnotes or endnotes. Part 1: The time to write a business plan is midway through the the stage of the entrepreneurial process titled "Developing Successful Business Ideas". It is a mistake to write a business plan too early. The business plan must be substantive enough and have sufficient details about the merits of the new venture to convince the reader that the new business is exciting and should receive support. Much of the detail is accumulated in the feasibility analysis stage of investigating the merits of a potential new venture. With this mind, please answer the following questions: 1. What are t...
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...An old ancient Chinese proverb says, “Women hold up half the Earth.” The corporate world is on the forefront of believing these words. Women of the world today are being acknowledged as the key to economic success. Organizations all over the globe are learning the opportunities of opening up to diversity and adding women to their boardrooms. Ignoring talent in half the population is not the best method for an organization to create a successful and effective board. Urban Outfitters Inc. has not always been a top contender in the diverse corporate world. In this report, we will investigate how Urban Outfitters Inc. reluctantly took a step in the direction of updating the faces of their executive boardroom. We will discuss the challenges and changes gender diversity in the corporate work world meets. We will look at meaningful observations of board effectiveness in the boardroom and the workforce. Introduction Boardroom diversity is highly advocated by companies and investors. Boardrooms hold the main responsibility to ensure human talent planning coincides with developing policies and procedure concerning diversity and diversity issues within an organization. Boardrooms need talent management and ultramodern thinking to build company revenue. Organizations use warm and fuzzy words about diversity, yet only give lukewarm responses in practices. Diversity was sighted as a legal issue in the past; now organizations are opening up to accepting that diversity is not a...
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...Organizational behaviour can be defined as the study of managing the behaviour of people within an organizational context. This includes how the human resource of an organization is organized and used to help an organization achieve its competitive advantage over others in the market. It is also how the organization responds to the employees. It includes understanding the behaviour and motivating them to bring out the best of the organization (Luthans 2011). Furthermore it is the field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and organizational structures have on the behavior of these actors within the organizations. Through organization behavior it is aimed to describe systematically how people behave under variety of conditions. Furthermore it helps understand why people behave the way they do. The study also enables the organization to make future prediction of how the employees behave. Finally it aims to control and develop the worker’s activities at work. The other important aspect of organization behavior is that it takes into account the importance of human resource in an indispensible part of an organization. As the owner of Wal-Mart was quoted as saying, “The people are the key”. (Luthans 2011). This is because technology can be easily copied but the beliefs, creativity, values and motivation that the employees bring into an organization cannot be replicated. It always is a unique factor and this is what the organizations need to capitalize on...
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...|Q. No.1 |The establishment of panchayats, block samiti and zila parishad fulfils the need of the following principle | | |(a) |The principle of leadership |(b) |The principle of grass-root | | |(c) |The principle of democratic approach |(d) |The principle of whole family approach | |Q. No. 2 |Method Demonstration as an extension teaching method is classified under | | |(a) |Individual contact |(b) |Group contact | | |(c) |Mass contact |(d) |None | |Q. No. 3 |Large group when divided into smaller groups (units) for a short period of discussion is called | | |(a) |Brain storming |(b) |Buzz session | | |(c) |Conference |(d) |Workshop | |Q. No. 4 |The modified version of a panel discussion in which three or more resource persons discuss a specific topic is called | | ...
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...characteristics of effective teams and team players in an organizational context. The class focuses on methods of understanding and improving the performance of work teams. A holistic view of teams is obtained through combining psychological theories and current practices in contemporary business organizations. A heavy emphasis is placed on experiential learning, including a variety of team-building exercises mainly of the dynamics of small group processes, with students provided the opportunity to become aware of how they personally work in teams. Your ability to learn during this course depends upon your understanding of the text, an open and active participation during class and your thoughtful introspection. Course Requirements and Grading * Class attendance is mandatory. I expect you to attend every class (and be on time), since you cannot participate unless you are present. You may skip only one class during the semester. Any additional nonappearance will be penalized with 2 points for each nonappearance in your final course grade. I expect you to participate completely in all class activities. You can contribute to class learning and your own learning by openness to new ideas and a willingness to share your thoughts and ideas with others in the class. * Personal diary - 5% * Class presentation - 30% (in teams) * Final project - 65% (in teams) Personal diary In order to better understand the team processes and your behavior in a team context, you are expected...
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...Professional Development: Critiquing Research The ability to critique (critically analyse and evaluate) research from both the qualitative and quantitative paradigms is an essential skill for occupational therapists. It is this skill, integrated with expertise gained from clinical practice that underpins evidence based practice (EBP). Although there are many definitions of EBP, Muir Gray (1997) defines it as “an approach to decision making in which the clinician uses the best evidence available, in consultation with the patient, to decide upon the option which suits the patient best." The purpose of this assignment is to enable the development of skills in critical analysis by critiquing a research article, which will contribute to further development of knowledge and skills in using EBP in clinical settings. A framework developed by Hek and Moule (2006) (see pages 3- ) has been used to guide the critique of a research article. A framework was used as Caldwell et al (2010 pg e1) argue that “ frameworks assist the novice healthcare practitioner with learning about approaches to research by giving consideration to aspects of the similarities and differences between the qualitative and quantitative research paradigms.” This framework was chosen as it is comprehensive and covers points/questions raised during the critiquing process, although it is important to remember that it is not a definitive checklist and other...
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...DESIGN THINKING: CHARACTERISTICS AND PROMISES Arkin Efeoglu1, Charles Møller2, Michel Sérié3, Harry Boer2 1 2 SAP Germany Aalborg University, Denmark 3 SAP Germany arkin.efeoglu@sap.com ABSTRACT This paper analyses a variety of Design Thinking methods to identify a governable pattern that is required to roll out Design Thinking as mindset in a multi-national company. A comparative analysis is essential to unveil focal points that lead to this organizational mindset transformation. Hence, a thorough understanding of the method and its core values may avoid uncoordinated innovation capabilities. Ultimately innovation will not be an R&D topic in an organization anymore but become part for every employee’s job, irrespective of his or her position. Keywords: Design thinking methods and characteristics, Review 1. INTRODUCTION A number of new innovation methods have emerged during the past two decades with an increasing interdisciplinary collaboration between the engineering, economic and social sciences. In spite of this, it is still a challenge to develop and introduce new innovations. One approach that increasingly makes its way to businesses of all sizes is called Design Thinking. This approach seems to be more promising to operationalize the innovation capabilities of a company (Brenner and Witte, 2011). Design Thinking is a human-centered problem solving method that mostly leads to radical innovative solution in terms of the feasibility, desirability...
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