Final Exam môn Principle of Management | Trường Đại học Quốc tế, Đại học Quốc gia Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh

THE INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY (IU) – VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HCMC FINAL EXAMINATION Date: 23/8//2021 Duration: 110 minutes Student ID: BAFNIU 20204 Name: Nguyễn Quỳnh Mai
SUBJECT: Principles of Management School of Business Lecturer Signature: Signature: Full name: Nguyen Tan Minh, MBA Full name: Trinh Viet Dung, PhD GENERAL INSTRUCTION(S)
1. This is an open-book examination.
2. Submission MUST be made via Blackboard before 10 a.m., Monday 23/8/2021
3. There is no tolerance if any plagiarism is caught GOOD LUCK Question 1: (40 points) -
Discuss the process of perception and give an example to illustrate how you
perceive a phenomenon (20 points) -
How can being aware of individual biases and errors in perception help you in
managerial practices? (20 points) Question 2: (60 points)
You are Sales Team Leader of a group of 5 Sales Officers. Since June, all members
in your team have switched to online working. Every Monday, you hold a meeting to hear
reports from your staff. Due to the pandemic, it is much harder for acquiring new
customers. The weekly revenues earned by your team have dropped over time which in
turn reduces the commission and income of each member. Moreover, your current clients
will not lengthen the contract of purchasing your company’s products because of their
financial crisis. You can clearly observe a decline in your employees’ motivation. Having
less clients means that your employees have less work to do. Thus, they earn less than
before, and no one is sure about what will happen in future.
a. In this circumstance, which motivation theory can be used to explain the loss of
employee motivation? Provide a discussion of that theory and explain why you
think that theory is applicable in this situation. (25 points)
b. As a leader of the team, what would you do to motivate your employees? (20 points)
c. Which leadership style should you take to inspire your team members in this
case? Provide your rationale for taking that leadership style. (15 points) END OF THE EXAM ANSWER Question 1:
Discuss the process of perception and give an example to illustrate how you perceive a phenomenon
+ Perception is the process through which people receive, organize and interpret
information from the environment.
+ People can receive the same things or situations differently.
+ People behave based on their perceptions.
Whatever we talk about, whatever issues or problems come from life originate from perception.
People receive information the same way, people may organize information
differently based on what attracts us more. The difference comes from how we
interpret the information, based on our beliefs, our standing, our education levels,
or our experience. Therefore, people perceive the same things differently, then we behave differently.
For example, in the Covid-19 pandemic is happening seriously in Ho Chi Minh City,
many of us find this to be a very dangerous epidemic, especially when we are dealing
with delta mutations. Therefore, there are a lot of people who have complied with the
measures from the government, they stay where they are because they are aware that
things are really dangerous, anyone can become a victim. However, many people do
not allow the measures from the government, they went out and interact with many
people as if there is no epidemic because they are not aware that this is a dangerous
disease but only consider the information as fabricated and consider it the normal flu.
And in the end, they make themselves become victims. Meanwhile, many people have
been very compliant with the measures, but it is because of individuals with false
perceptions that the number of cases is increasing and spreading the disease in the community.
How can being aware of individual biases and errors in perception help you in managerial practices?
Perception of individual bias can help managers make decisions, assign tasks, or set goals
more easily. They can be more assertive in making decisions because they just follow
what they decide based on their individual bias. But this is not very good in management
practice, because they are based solely on their own biases. So it's only good that they can
make more assertive decisions. About being aware of cognitive errors can be of great
help. When you are aware of the errors, you will be able to distinguish between them.
From there, you will understand and avoid. So you will be able to identify the cause, the
source of a problem, or something more easily and will make predictions in the future.
And you will know what you should do to avoid errors as well. Question 2:
In this circumstance, which motivation theory can be used to explain the loss of employee
motivation? Provide a discussion of that theory and explain why you think that theory is applicable in this situation. -
In this circumstance, the two-factor theory can be used to explain the loss of
employee motivation. As we can see from this situation, there are 2 factors: - Job context:
+ The shift to working online has changed the working environment of
employees. Although there are still online meetings, when the working
environment is changed, especially with working from home, for those who
are not used to it before, this is what will make them easily lose their
motivation to work and low productivity.
+ The information about the epidemic did not show any positive signs, making
the workers even more confused and confused about how long they had to continue to fight and endure. - Job content:
+ Work is greatly affected and other concerns gradually arise. Officers
gradually become dissatisfied when they have to worry about too many things
when there is an epidemic out there and they have to accept the salary cut but
there is nothing to motivate them to continue working.
+ If they cannot connect with customers directly, it will be difficult for sales
officers to reach customers. And this will make them easily lose motivation
because their job as before the epidemic is that they will connect directly with
customers. This will help them easily capture customer psychology. Maybe it
is a person who likes to communicate but now they can only stay at home and work, lack of communication.
+ The number of customers is decreasing and there are no positive signs that
will make them confused and ambiguous in the future.
Therefore, in this situation, the two-factor theory is appropriate because two
factors affect the officer's motivation: the hygiene factors and motivator factors.
The hygiene factors are factors from the external. And as we discussed below,
many external factors affect the officer's motivation.
The motivator factors are factors that depend on the job itself. We can see in this
situation, the decrease in revenue and less work to do are the internal factors coming from the job.
As a leader of the team, what would you do to motivate your employees?
We need to increase job satisfaction which is influenced by motivator factors:
+ Encourage and reward by sending thank you or commendation letters in the general group
We need to decrease job dissatisfaction which is influenced by hygiene factors:
+ Share, chat so they don't feel lost in communication
+ Only share information from official sources and ensure that all workers have
access to psychosocial services.
Which leadership style should you take to inspire your team members in this case?
Provide your rationale for taking that leadership style.
In this case, we should apply Vroom-Jago leader-participation model to inspire team members.
Using Vroom-Jago leader-participation can help the leader to choose the method of
decision-making that best fits the nature of the problem situation.
In this situation, the leader can make choices based on consultative decisions and
group decisions. Because of this epidemic situation, the members' psyche will be
affected the most. Therefore, the leader needs to consult with the members to be
able to adjust and come up with the most appropriate solution based on each individual's circumstances.