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Kinicki/Williams, Management, 9e: Chapter 2 Management Theory: Essential Background for the Successful
Manager
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SELF-ASSESSMENTS
SELF-ASSESSMENT 2.1
What Is Your Orientation toward Theory X/Theory Y?
This Self-Assessment is designed to reveal students’ orientation as a manager—whether it tends
toward Theory X or Theory Y.
STUDENT QUESTIONS
1. To what extent do you think your results are an accurate reflection of your beliefs about
others? Are you surprised by the results?
2. As a leader of a student or work-related project team, how might your results affect your
approach toward leading others? Explain.
3. If an employee doesn’t seem to show ambition, can that be changed? Discuss.
SUPPLEMENTARY ACTIVITY
Students should be put into groups based on their Self-Assessment scores. Students who scored
highly should be grouped together, and students who did not score well should be grouped
together.
Students who scored well should discuss what their organization is doing to proactively create,
acquire, and transfer knowledge.
What is their organization doing especially effectively?
Kinicki/Williams, Management, 9e: Chapter 2 Management Theory: Essential Background for the Successful
Manager
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A list of organizational learning initiatives can be drafted.
Students who did not score highly should discuss how to better create, acquire, and transfer
knowledge:
What could their current organization be doing wrong?
A list of recommendations can be made.
Each group should share their lists with the class.
Return.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 2.2
To What Extent Is Your Organization Committed to Total Quality Management?
STUDENT QUESTIONS
1. Which of the five dimensions is most and least important to the organization? Are you
surprised by this conclusion? Explain.
2. Based on the three lowest-rated items in the survey, what advice would you give to senior
leaders in the company?
3. Considering all of the questions in the survey, which three do you think are most important in
terms of fostering TQM in a company? Why?
SUPPLEMENTAL ACTIVITY
Kinicki/Williams, Management, 9e: Chapter 2 Management Theory: Essential Background for the Successful
Manager
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BRS Solutions Corp. is a large telecommunications company. The organization’s executives
promote revenue and profitability over other measurements. Bonuses are provided for employees
based only on sales numbers, and resources are allocated based on seniority with the company.
Return.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 2.3
Are You Working for a Learning Organization?
STUDENT QUESTIONS
1. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this company in terms of being a learning
organization?
2. If you were CEO of this organization, what changes would you make based on your survey
results? Explain.
3. What suggestions would you make for how this organization might (1) build a commitment to
learning, (2) work to generate ideas with impact, and (3) work to generalize ideas with impact?
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4. How does the learning score for the organization probably compare with the scores of other
organizations you are familiar with?
SUPPLEMENTAL ACTIVITY
Students should be put into groups based on their Self-Assessment scores. Students who scored
highly should be grouped together and students who did not score highly should be grouped
together.
Students who scored well should discuss what their organization is doing to proactively create,
acquire and transfer knowledge. Students who did not score highly should discuss how to better
create, acquire and transfer knowledge. What could their current organization be doing wrong?
Kinicki/Williams, Management, 9e: Chapter 2 Management Theory: Essential Background for the Successful
Manager
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GROUP EXERCISE
WHICH ARE THE BEST COMPANIES TO WORK FOR IN THE UNITED STATES AND WHY?
Objectives
Introduction
To pick their 100 Best Companies to Work For, Fortune partners with the Great Place to Work
Institute to conduct the most extensive employee survey in corporate America. Any company
that is at least five years old and has more than 1,000 U.S. employees is eligible for
consideration. Companies nominated for Best Companies to Work For lists must go through an
application process and are selected and ranked predominantly on the basis of employees’
response to the Trust Index© Survey (2/3 of the score) which measures employee perception of
Instructions
Four key organizational characteristics are used to rank all companies being considered as the
best place to work:
● Credibility
● Respect
● Fairness
Kinicki/Williams, Management, 9e: Chapter 2 Management Theory: Essential Background for the Successful
Manager
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● Pride/Camaraderie
Here are the companies, in random order:
• Genetech
• Quicken Loans
• Google
Questions for Discussion
1. What similarities and differences do you see in management approaches across these
companies?
2. What theories discussed in this chapter are being used by these companies?
3. How different was the group ranking from the individual rankings? Why do you think
this occurred?
4. Why did the group order its ranking in the way that it did?
5. How close was the group ranking to Fortune’s? Your instructor has the results.
6. Which of these companies would each of you like to work for? Explain your rationale.
Source: “100 Best Companies to Work For 2017”, Fortune Magazine, http://fortune.com/best-
companies/2017/
Tip for online and large in-person classes:
ONLINE
Kinicki/Williams, Management, 9e: Chapter 2 Management Theory: Essential Background for the Successful
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Copyright © 2020 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of
McGraw-Hill Education.
Large in-person classes: Instructor can post the randomly generated companies above on the
screen and split students up into larger groups (i.e. 5-6). The questions for discussion can also
be shortened; for example, question 6 can be eliminated.
Kinicki/Williams, Management, 9e: Chapter 2 Management Theory: Essential Background for the Successful
Manager
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CAREER CORNER GROUP EXERCISE
UNDERSTANDING THE BUSINESS
Learning Objectives
Introduction
The goal of this exercise is to help students differentiate themselves from other interviewees by
focusing on the career readiness competency of understanding the business. The steps in the
exercise offer students a generalized approach for demonstrating knowledge of the business for
any future potential employer by asking them to research what matters to an organization. The
Instructions
The primary purpose of this exercise is to broaden your students’ understanding of how business
works by conducting research on a specific company. First, each group will research a given
company utilizing the rubric presented in Section 2.9 Career Corner: Managing Your Career
Readiness:
• The company’s mission and vision statements.
• The company’s core values and culture.
• The history of the company?
• Key organizational players.
Students may not be able to find the answers to all of these, but should try using the company’s
website, Wikipedia, and other websites to find as much as possible.
CAREER
READINESS
Kinicki/Williams, Management, 9e: Chapter 2 Management Theory: Essential Background for the Successful
Manager
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Copyright © 2020 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of
McGraw-Hill Education.
I. Start the activity with a class discussion on how to prepare for a job interview. Encourage
the students to be specific in describing their process. If there is time, have your students
read INC’s “27 Most Common Job Interview Questions and Answers.”
II. Put students into groups of 4 or 5. Ask each group to select a company to research. We
suggest prompting the groups to pick a company they are interested in. Alternatively, you
can select 4 or 5 companies that will be participating in your campus’ career fair.
III. Have each group research the following seven questions:
1. What are the company’s mission and vision statement?
2. What are the company’s core values and culture?
3. What are the key historical facts of the company?
4. Who are the key organizational players?
5. What are the company’s products? Who are their customers?
6. What are the company’s current challenges? What are their current
accomplishments?
7. What do the company’s current and former employees have to say about the
company?
IV. Ask each group to answer these five interview questions based on their research:
1. What is the biggest challenge facing the company’s industry?
2. Where do you see this company in five years?
3. If you were the CEO, what would be your top 3 priorities and why?
4. What about our company makes you want to work here?
5. What questions do you have for me?
V. Have each group prepare a 5 to 10-minute presentation that:
2. Includes two questions for the interviewer.
VI. Select two or three groups to present to the class.
VII. Facilitate a class discussion on interview preparedness using the following questions:
1. How did researching the seven questions help you tailor your responses to the
interview questions?
2. How did you generate the questions to ask the interviewer?
3. Besides the company website, which websites were the most helpful in finding
the information needed to answer the seven questions?
4. How can you incorporate this process into your proactive learning behavior?
Tip for online classes:
Kinicki/Williams, Management, 9e: Chapter 2 Management Theory: Essential Background for the Successful
Manager
Kinicki/Williams, Management, 9e: Chapter 2 Management Theory: Essential Background for the Successful
Manager
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UBER CONTINUING CASE
Chapter 2: Management Theory
This part of the Uber cumulative case focuses on Chapter 2 and provides parallels to
management theory. This continuing case’s real-world application of management knowledge
and skills is designed to help students develop critical-thinking ability and realize the practical
power of sound managerial skills for solving problems.
The case includes five multiple-choice questions and two essay-based questions. The essay-
based questions can also be used in-class to spur discussion.
1. Compare and contrast the management styles of Kalanick and Khosrowshahi. How are
they different? Do they share any similarities? Explain.
2. Assume you are Uber’s new CEO. Utilize the four components of total quality
management to ensure riders have safe rides.
Total quality management (TQM) is based on four components: (1) making continuous
improvement a priority; (2) getting every employee involved; (3) listening and learning
Kinicki/Williams, Management, 9e: Chapter 2 Management Theory: Essential Background for the Successful
Manager
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MANAGER’S HOT SEAT
No Manager’s Hot Seat for this chapter.
Kinicki/Williams, Management, 9e: Chapter 2 Management Theory: Essential Background for the Successful
Manager
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APPLICATION-BASED ACTIVITY
There are no application-based activities for this chapter.
