Assignment Code: MTTM 1/MTM 1/TMA/2022

Course Code: MTTM/MTM-1

Assignment Name: Management Functions and Behaviour in Tourism

Year: 2022

Verification Status: Verified by Professor

1. Describe responsibilities of a professional manager. 20

Ans) The responsibilities of a professional manager are as follows:

Responsibility towards Customers: A firm's responsibility towards its customer is in terms of ensuring that the desired quality of product at a reasonable price is made easily available to the customers. It is the responsibility of the manager to provide the right match between quality and price.

Responsibility towards Shareholders: The main responsibility of the manager is to ensure the security of the shareholders' capital. The manager must ensure that the firm does not become bankrupt. In other words, the manager must, at least, ensure the survival of the firm. The manager has to ensure that the shareholders are able to earn profit on their capital.

Responsibility towards Employees: Employees are the most important resource. The manager has to ensure that employees are getting a fair deal in terms of wages and salaries. The responsibility of a manager is to ensure that all dealings with the employees are fair. Whether it is determining the profit linked bonus that is being calculated or the provident fund of a retired employee, which has to be paid, you must ensure that the employees are not cheated, harassed or embarrassed.

Responsibility towards Suppliers: Suppliers provide the raw materials, components and parts necessary for the production of products. The manager's responsibility towards suppliers of funds, i.e., banks and other financial institutions, is that not only he has to make the interest payments but make the repayment on time as per the agreed repayment schedules.

Responsibility towards Distributors and Retailers: A manager is responsible for ensuring regular supplies to the distributors. The products that are supplied to the distributor must be checked for quality to ensure that second grade or inferior quality goods are not shipped.

Responsibility towards Industry and Competition: A manager is responsible to register the firm as a member of industry association and comply with all its rules and regulations.

Responsibility towards Union: A manager should acknowledge employees' union as a friend rather than as a foe of the firm. Most problems with unions arise because of the assumption of the managers that unions have no constructive contribution. A responsible manager must understand and appreciate the fact that the management and union have a great degree of mutual dependence and the union cannot further its interests at the cost of the firm's interests and vice versa.

Responsibility towards Society: The manager has responsibility towards his surroundings and the people living in the vicinity of his factory and office. Firms behave irresponsibly when they pollute the environment by releasing harmful gasses, discharging toxic effluents into nearby rivers, lakes or seas, and dumping their waste matter in surrounding lands. A manager should make sure that the operations of the firm do not obstruct, disturb, disrupt or destroy physical structures (historical buildings, monuments), the flora and fauna, and animal and human life.

2. Discuss the managerial levels and roles of a top executive. 20

Ans) To efficiently accomplish the goals of an organisation, a manager must combine and coordinate the use of people, technology, job tasks, and other resources.

Levels of Managers

The First Level Managers: These managers work closely with the staff members who typically produce an organization's outputs of goods or services. In some organisations, they are referred to as foremen or supervisors. You might work with those who make products or provide services directly. Consequently, you might be a first-level manager. This includes the superintendent of the office who oversees the work of typists, dispatch clerks, etc. in some government agencies.

The Middle Level Managers: These managers have a variety of duties as well as linking or connecting tasks. They oversee the first level managers' operations. For instance, a district educational officer or a block development officer are members of the middle level, and the principals of the schools and the gramme sevaks report to them, respectively.

The Top Level Managers: The top level managers are a limited group of decision-makers in charge of the organization's overall strategic management. The organization's top managers are in charge of creating the organization's goals and strategies. The organization's top management is responsible for recognising the demands of the political, social, and competitive surroundings. A district magistrate, president, or chief executive are examples of high administrative positions.

Roles of a Top Level Executive

1. The highest level manager's function in establishing one's identity is the first one. By making your company distinctive in one or more ways, you may help it find its specific position in the world. Your employees might be content thanks to your effective employee welfare efforts.

2. The second position is the top executive's enabling role. It is your responsibility to develop a variety of resources, including men, materials, workspaces, and a positive work environment. Your men can receive training and skill updates.

3. The synergizing role is the third responsibility of the top level individual. You might believe that in order to accomplish the objectives of your organisation, you must increase your human and material resources. These resources can work together to help your organisation reach its objective.

4. The fourth position is referred to as the senior executive's balancing duty. If you want to accomplish the organization's purpose, your job as a manager is to force your subordinates to follow the rules, expectations, regulations, or procedures.

5. Link building is the senior executive's fifth responsibility. As a senior manager, you must be aware of your organization's social responsibilities for the good of other organisations, the community, and society as a whole. You could want to connect your organisation with other technical, financial, governmental, or policy-making groups that share your objectives.

6. Future-focused is a top executive's sixth role. For the purpose of responding to new needs and challenges, you could choose to grow, diversify, alter, or reorganise your organisation. You should be ready for the significance of the potential future role your organisation may play.

7. A top executive's seventh responsibility is to have an impact. This refers to having an effect on others through one's organisation. A top manufacturer of a product can have a significant impact on regulations in the industry in which it works in a number of different ways.

8. The last but not least is to supervise the staff members who report to a top executive. Building in them a sense of pride that they are working in a highly important field of work that is so vital for society will help you think of ways to give the members of your organisation a sense of fulfilment.

3. What do you understand by managerial ethos? How culture and Ethos are maintained? 20

Ans) Ethos are the customary traits and principles of people, groups, and races, etc. The personality and core principles of managers as a profession are addressed by managerial ethos. Managers now hold certain values, such as autonomy, equity, security, and opportunity.

Every organisation has distinct traditions and practises of its own. These traditions and practises are rarely spelled out openly. However, over time, organisations do establish ingrained taboos about what should or should not be done, norms of conduct and customs to mark important occasions, as well as jargon or secret codes that are only known by insiders. These characteristics, along with many more, are collectively referred to as the organization's "culture." You may have also noticed that there is frequently a shared perception regarding these organisational characteristics. These "pictures" can occasionally be fairly stable, travelling from one generation to the next without much modification. You may be wondering how this occurs.

Socialization is the process through which people are taught to uphold tradition and keep the uniformity of their ethos and behaviours. It is a process of adaptation through which "new" members learn the fundamental principles, rules, and traditions necessary to be "accepted" into a group. Although the 'fresher' stage of admission into an organisation is when socialisation is at its most intense, the process lasts the duration of a person's career there. This is done to uphold customs and preserve uniformity. People who do not learn to fit into the organisational culture become the subject of criticism and are frequently dismissed by the organisation. The process of socialisation comprises three phases:

Prearrival: The goal of this phase is to make sure that potential members join an organisation with a specific set of beliefs, values, and expectations. Usually, this is handled right within the selecting process. The goal of selection is to find the "proper type" of candidates who will best "fit" an organization's needs. Thus, an organisation takes an effort to establish a good fit even before allowing an outsider to "enter," which helps to develop a consistent culture inside the organisation. The selection of the criteria for this "right match" is influenced, knowingly or unintentionally, by the beliefs of an organization's founding fathers as well as the ethos of the current top management.

Encounter: A new member must go through a step called an encounter after being admitted to the organisation. There is always a chance that his or her expectations of an organisation and the OC will diverge. If the actual picture and OC match, the encounter step goes without a hitch, confirming the image. The person typically has two options available if the imbalance between the two is severe. First, the person goes through more socialisation, which separates him or her from earlier expectations, replaces them with new ones, and aids in acclimating him or her to the current system. Second, he or she leaves out of disappointment. The outcome in both situations is the same: the preservation of traditions and practises.

Metamorphosis: The metamorphosis stage is where people who realised there was a discrepancy between their expectations and OC but chose not to drop out. This process of problem-solving and transformation is known as metamorphosis. When this transformation is finished, the members have a common understanding of OC and are 'comfortable' with their roles in the company. Successful transformation causes the member's productivity to be in line with the organization's "norm," as well as "average" levels of commitment and a decreased propensity to leave the company. These are all examples of behaviour that is "typical" or "normative."

4. Write short notes on: 10X2=20

a) Modes of conflict management

Ans) Conflict resolution techniques include the following.

Stimulating Productive Conflict

Most of us have been taught to avoid conflict and even disagreement since we were young. You've probably heard the sayings "Don't argue," "Stop fighting," and "It's better to turn the other cheek" a number of times. However, there are instances when it is necessary to provoke conflict since the desire to avoid conflict is not always beneficial. A succession of groups were created in an intriguing attempt to address an issue.

Some groups had a member who had been planted there to oppose the consensus position, whereas other groups did not. Every group that had a planted member consistently produced a more clever response than the other groups. However, when asked to remove a member, all organisations who had a planted member decided to do so, despite there being ample proof that the dispute was advantageous. Managers must go through this intolerance to confrontation in order to foster constructive conflict.

Resolving Inter-party Conflict

When a group exhibits traits like apathy, complacency, resistance to necessary change, lack of excitement for developing alternatives, etc., inciting conflict is a necessary mode of conflict management. Although many work units in organisations exhibit these symptoms, which necessitates the use of suitable conflict stimulation solutions, heightened manifest conflicts are more frequent. Therefore, in order to be most useful, you should not only be familiar with many conflict-resolution techniques but also be able to recognise when to apply each technique.

There is a wealth of literature in this field, and several authors have provided various taxonomies for examining potential conflict resolution techniques. Here, we look at Feldman's suggestions for resolving intergroup disputes.

How openly you as a manager should confront the problem is the main dimension along which intergroup conflict-resolution tactics differ. Conflict-avoidance tactics' main trait is that they make an effort to prevent the conflict from becoming public. Conflict-defusion techniques aim to "cool" the emotions of the people involved while keeping the conflict in abeyance. Strategies for containing conflict permit some conflict to manifest but strictly regulate which topics are discussed and how they are discussed.

b) Sources of conflict

Ans) Large number of potential sources of conflict exist in organisational life as antecedent

conditions and there is realistic basis for some conflicts. Some such sources are:

1. Competition for Limited Resources: Any group exists for the purpose of attaining some goals with the help of available resources. These resources may be tangible like men, materials, and money or intangible like power, status or the manager’s time.

2. Diversity of Goals: Groups in organisation have different functions to perform and as such they develop their own norms and goals. Theoretically the achievement of these goals should achieve overall organisational goals but, often, in real life the reverse is true.

3. Task Interdependence: Groups in an organisation do not function independent of one another. They have to interact with one another in order to accomplish their tasks.

4. Differences in Values and Perception: A lot of conflict is generated within organisation because various groups within the organisation hold ‘conflicting’ values and perceive situations in a narrow, individualistic manner.

5. Organisational Ambiguities: As implied, conflict may emerge when two organisational units compete over new responsibility. Intergroup conflict stemming from disagreement about who has responsibility for ongoing tasks is an even more frequent problem.

6. Introduction of Change: Change can breed intergroup conflict. Acquisitions and mergers, for example, encourage intergroup conflict, competition, and stress. When one organisation is merged into another, a power struggle often exists between the acquiring and acquired company.

7. Nature of Communication: One of the major fallacies abounding about conflict is that poor communication is the cause of all conflicts. A typical statement is : “If we could just communicate with each other, we could eliminate our differences.”

8. Aggressive Nature of People: Another factor that has a large potential for generating conflict within an organisation is personality characteristics that account for individual idiosyncrasies and differences.

5. Describe the process of organizational change (20)

Ans) Kurt Lewin's description of the three stages of Unfreezing, which he used to define the change process, is the finest.

Unfreezing

Practically speaking, change doesn't happen without any preceding perspective or context. The old patterns of perspective imply a questioning and doubting of pre-existing assumptions and feelings to the extent that the new is different from the old and the old had worth to the persons. Most substantial change necessitates a thawing of both emotional and intellectual energies in order to occur. The following steps are involved in defrosting:

Recognising the Driving Forces: The first step toward organisational change is acknowledging significant alterations in the environment and issues within the organisation. Managers of the institute may acknowledge these demands for change and take appropriate action. However, in many organisations, the need for change may go ignored until a significant issue arises, at which point it can be too late to address it. It is crucial for individuals like you to cultivate acute sensitivity toward both the internal and exterior world.

Increasing the Driving Forces: Once the need for change has been determined, it must be explained to the participants in the change process. Members are more inclined to adopt a change if they understand why it is necessary, as was already mentioned.

The following tactics can be used to improve members' acceptance of a change.

1. Declare your desire for change.

2. Explain the possible advantage.

3. Defend the interests of those who are concerned.

4. Participate others in the process.

5. Share the evolution of the change.

6. Employ a reputable change agent.

7. Reiterate earlier modifications.

Managing the Resisting Forces: The majority of tactics used to increase driving forces can also be used to lessen resistive forces. People resist change because they think it will hurt them, so it's important to convince them of its necessity and advantages. Understanding the reason why people resist change might help you design a plan to lessen the resistance.

Moving

The individual is prepared for new behaviour and a shift in perspective throughout the moving or shifting phase. It is crucial that he or she be given the chance to explore with new behavioural patterns, presumptions, perceptions, and emotions. It is a period of learning via trial and error, marked by uncertainty and hesitance. Before the entire pattern of behaviour can be imagined, the individual elements of a new pattern of behaviour must first be learned under the watchful supervision of a competent adult. In order to move or change, organisational components must be altered. Organizational transformation was once understood to involve changing just one organisational subsystem.

Refreezing

The formation of a new perspective that is conducive to the new desirable behaviour and compatible with it constitutes the last stage. In essence, the newly constructed and integrated portion of one's overall perspective has been made to fit the entire. As a result, it is possible for the new behaviour to become automatic. This is the time when the person or group starts to reap the benefits of their new behaviour, whether they are extrinsic (such as social acceptance, financial reward, and the like) or intrinsic (such as ego pleasure, sense of mastery, and self-fulfilment). The organisation must maintain organisational fit among many elements that support the newly learned behaviour if it is to constantly reinforce it. The organisation will experience instability without such organisational compatibility. The newly discovered behaviour may soon be abandoned since it cannot be properly reinforced in a volatile organisational context.