Managing Quality and Performance •
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New Manager Self-Test: What Is Your Attitude Toward Organizational
Regulation and Control?
Managers have to control people for organizations to survive, yet control should be the right
amount and type. Companies are often less democratic than the society of which they are a part.
Enthusiastic new managers may exercise too much of their new control and get a negative
backlash. However, too little control may mean less accountability and productivity. The
challenge for new managers is to strike the right balance for the job and people involved. This
exercise helps students understand their beliefs toward the regulation of other people.
Organizational control is the systematic process through which managers regulate
organizational activities to make them consistent with the expectations established in plans,
targets, and standards of performance.
To effectively control an organization, managers require information about performance
Discussion Question #1: You’re a manager who employs a participative control approach.
You’ve concluded that corrective action is necessary to improve customer satisfaction, but first
you need to convince your employees that the problem exists. What kind of evidence do you
think employees will find more compelling: quantitative measurements or anecdotes from your
interactions with customers? Explain your answer.
Spotlight on Skills: Cyberslackers Beware: Big Brother is Watching
When employees have access to the Internet’s vast resources, and the ability to communicate
quickly via e-mail and instant messaging with anyone in the world, that’s got to be good for
productivity, right? Not necessarily, as many organizations are discovering. Many companies
are experiencing a growing problem with “cyberslackers,” people who spend part of their