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AS Level Business Studies > Unit 2 > Flashcards

Unit 2 Flashcards

1
Q

Def. manager

A

Responsible for setting objectives, organising resources and motivating staff so that the organisation’s aims are met.

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2
Q

What do managers do?

A

CPLOC
Coordinating - ensuring consistency between different parts of each firm
Planning - Setting objectives and preparations
Leading - directing and motivating staff
Organising - resources to meet the objectives
Controlling - managements by objectives to establish targets and measure performance.

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3
Q

Def. Leadership

A

The art of motivating a group of people towards achieving a common objectives

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4
Q

What are the four important leadership positions in business?

A
  • Directors
  • Managers
  • Supervisors
  • Worker’s representatives
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5
Q

Autocratic- main features? drawbacks? possible applications?

4 1 1

A

~~~
Main features:
•Leaders make all decisions
•Gives little information to staff
•Supervises workers closely
•Only one way communication
Drawbacks:
•Demotivates staff who want to contribute and accept responsibility
Possible applications:
•Defence forces and police
```

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6
Q

What are the four types of leadership styles?

A
  • Autocratic
  • Democratic
  • Paternalistic
  • Laissez-faire
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7
Q

Democratic- main features? drawbacks? possible applications? (3 2 2)

A

Main features:
•Participation encouraged
•Two way communication
•Workers are informed about the business
Drawback:
•Time consuming
•The level of involvement with sensitive issues for eg. having put staff on redundancy.
Possible application:
•With an experienced and flexible workforce
•In situations that demand a new way of thinking or a new solution

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8
Q

Paternalistic- main features? drawbacks? possible applications? ( 3 1 1)

A

Main features:
•Managers do what they think is the best for the workers
•There is no true participation in decision making, they always end up making the decision
•Managers want workers to be happy
Drawbacks:
•Some workers will be dissatisfied with not having any power or influence
Possible applications:
•When workers are young or inexperienced

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9
Q

Laissez-faire- main features? drawbacks? possible application? (2 2 2)

A

Main features:
•Managers delegate nearly all authority and decision making powers.
•Very broad limits established for staff.
Drawbacks:
•Lack of structure may lead to loss of job security of employees
•The lack of feedback may be demotivating
Possible applications:
•When managers are too busy or lazy
•In research institutions for experts.

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10
Q

What are Henry Mintzberg’s 3 groups of management roles?

A
  • Interpersonal roles - dealing with and motivating staff at all levels of organisation
  • Informational roles - acting as a source, receiver and transmitter of information
  • Decisional roles- taking decisions and allocating resources to meet the organisation’s objectives.
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11
Q

What are the Mintzberg’s 3 roles of management from interpersonal roles?

A

1) Interpersonal roles
•Figurehead: Symbolic leader of the organisation undertaking duties of social or legal nature eg. opening factories, giving important presentation.
•Leader: motivation subordinates; selection and training other managers/staff
•Liaison: Linking with managers and leaders of different divisions of organisations

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12
Q

What are the Mintzberg’s 3 roles of management from informational roles?

A

2) Informational roles
•Monitor (receiver): collecting data relevant to the business’s operations e.g attending seminars
•Disseminator: Sending information collected from external and internal sources e.g communicating with staff
•Spokesperson: Communicating information about the organisation to external stakeholders. e.g presenting reports to shareholders.

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13
Q

What are the Mintzberg’s 4 roles of management from decisional roles?

A

3) Decisional roles
•Entrepreneur: looking for new opportunities to develop the business e.g encouraging new ideas
•Disturbance handler: responding to stimuli that may put the business at risk, and assuming responsibility for threatening factors develop e.g responding to new competitors.
•Resource allocator: Allocating financial, physical and human resources e.g drawing up budgets.
• Negotiator: representing the organisation in negotiations e.g with government

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14
Q

What is McGregor’s Theory X?

A

Theory X: managers believe that workers dislike work, will avoid responsibility and are not creative. Leaders with this point of view tend to adopt autocratic style of management: have control, close supervision and no delegation of authority.

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15
Q

What is McGregor’s Theory Y?

A

Theory Y: Managers believe that workers can derive as much enjoyment from work as from rest and play, will accept any responsibility and are creative to contribute ideas. Leader with this point of view tend to adopt democratic or laissez faire style of management and give power and authority.

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16
Q

What does the best leadership style depend on?

A
  • Training and experience of the workforce and the degree of responsibility they are prepared to take on
  • the amount of time available for consultation and participation
  • The attitude of managers or management culture e.g have they always worked as autocratic managers.
  • The importance of issues when under consideration - how quickly decisions have to be made.
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17
Q

Style of managements in A Level questions?

A

There is no RIGHT or WRONG style of managements, there is only an APPROPRIATE one.

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18
Q

Def. Informal Leader

A

A person who has no formal authority but has the respect of colleagues and some power over them. They are people who can lead without formal power, perhaps because of their experiences, personality or knowledge.

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19
Q

Def. Emotional intelligence (EI)

A

The ability of managers to understand their own emotions, and those of the people they work with, to achieve better business performance.

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20
Q

What are the four main EI factors?

A
  • Self awareness- knowing what you feel is important and using that to guide decision making, having a realistic view of your abilities and having self confidence.
  • Self management- being able to recover quickly from stress, being trustworthy, having self control and showing initiative.
  • Social awareness- sensing what other people are feeling, being able to take their views into account and being able to get on with wide range of people.
  • Social skills- Understanding different social situations, being persuasive, being able to negotiate and lead.
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21
Q

Def. HRM

A

Human Resource management: the strategic approach to the effective management of an organisation’s workers so that they help business gain competition.

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22
Q

HRM focuses on? (6)

A
  • Planning the workforce needs
  • Recruiting and selecting staff
  • appraising, training and developing staff
  • Preparing contracts of employment for all staff (permanent, temporary, full- or part-time).
  • developing appropriate pay systems
  • measuring and monitoring staff performance
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23
Q

Def. workforce planning

A

Analysing and forecasting the number of workers and the skills of those workers that will be required by the organisation to achieve its objectives

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24
Q

What is the starting point of workforce planning?

A

Workforce audit: a check on the skills and qualifications of all existing workers/managers

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25
Q

Def. Labour turnover

A

Measures the rate at which employees are leaving an organisation.

number of staff leaving in 1 year/ avg number of staff employed (all) x100

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26
Q

What does the number of staff required in the future depends on? (5)

A
  • Forecast demand for the firm’s product: influenced my external conditions. Might recruit temporary or part-time staff with the flexible hours contracts
  • The productivity levels of staff: the higher the productivity the less staff needed
  • The objective of the business: such as wanting to expand => more employees needed.
  • Changes in the law regarding worker’s rights: such as introduce minimum wage level
  • The labour turnover and absenteeism rate: if more employees leave, more needed to be recruited.
27
Q

What does the skills of staff required if based on?

A
  • The pace of technological change in the industry such as machinery used.
  • The need for flexible or multi-skilled staff as businesses try to avoid specialisation.
28
Q

When is workforce planning effective?

A

Only if it is linked in closely with the firm’s long term objectives

29
Q

Def. Recruitment

A

The process of identifying the need for a new employee, defining the job to be filled and the type of person needed to fill it, attracting suitable candidates for the job and selecting the best one.

30
Q

What are the 5 stages of recruitment?

A
  1. Establishing the exact nature of the job vacancy and drawing up a job description
  2. Drawing up person specification
  3. Preparing a job advertisement
  4. Drawing up shortlist of applicants
  5. Conducting the interviews
31
Q

Step 1: drawing up a job description

Def + What it includes + What for

A

Job description: A detailed list of the key points about the job to be filled - stating all its key tasks and responsibilities.

i) job title
ii) details of the tasks to be performed
iii) responsibilities involved
iv) place in the hierarchical structure
v) working conditions
vi) how the performance is assessed

Used for attracting the right type of people

32
Q

Step 2: Drawing up person specification

Def + What for

A

Person specification: A detailed list of the qualities, skills and qualifications that a successful applicant will need to have.

-Helps eliminate applicants

33
Q

Step 3: Preparing a job advertisement

A

self explanatory

34
Q

Step 4: Drawing up shortlist of applicants

A

self explanatory

35
Q

Step 5 Conducting interviews

What are the types of interviews? (3)

A
  • Methodical: assessed according to achievements, intelligence, skills, appearance…
  • Aptitude: to assess abilities in certain tasks
  • Psychometric: assess character, attitude, personality
36
Q

Advantages of internal recruitment (6)

A
  • Saves cost for induction training
  • Quicker
  • Saves cost for advertising
  • Applicant knows the culture, doesn’t take long to get used to
  • Provides motivation from promotion
  • The assessor is aware of applicant’s abilities
37
Q

Advantages of external recruitment (4)

A
  • External applicants bring in new ideas and practices
  • Wider choice of potential
  • Avoids resentment within the business
  • Standards of applicants may be higher
38
Q

What are the three types of training?

A
  • Induction training
  • On-the-job training
  • Off-the-job training
39
Q

What is induction training? (5)

A
  • Given to all new recruits
  • Introducing them to co workers
  • Explaining internal organisational structure
  • Outline the premises
  • Making clear of health and safety issues
40
Q

What is on-the-job training? (3)

A
  • Training at the place of work
  • Cheaper
  • Content of training is controlled by the business
41
Q

What is off-the-job training? (3)

A
  • Training away from place of work e.g university
  • Expensive
  • Brings in new ideas
42
Q

Disadvantages of training. (2)

A
  • Expensive

- “Poaching” - well qualified staff leaving for better businesses

43
Q

Disadvantages of not training. (5)

A
  • Less productivity in staff
  • Inflexibility in variety of tasks
  • Poor quality
  • Demotivation due to boredom (lack of challenge)
  • Accidents may occur
44
Q

Def. Staff appraisal

Why is it important?

A

The process of assessing the effectiveness of an employee judged against preset objectives
-To enable a worker to continuously achieve a sense of self-fulfilment.

45
Q

Why should the HRM involve all managers in staff development?

A

-To ensure that the training and development needs are well coordinated between all departments.

46
Q

Def. Employment contracts

What does it include?

A

A legal document that sets out the terms and conditions governing a worker’s job.
-Employee’s working hours, rate of pay, holiday entitlement, the employer.

47
Q

Def. Dismissal

A

Being dismissed or sacked from a job due to incompetence or breach of discipline.
An employer must give warning before dismissal can take place, however in cases such as stealing, the organisation can dismiss with immediate effect.

48
Q

Def. Redundancy

A

When a job is no longer required, so the employee doing this job becomes redundant through no fault of his or her own.

49
Q

How can redundancy be carried out?

A
  • Often follows “last in, first out” because there would be smaller redundancy pay, and these employees would have less experience in the business
  • Voluntary redundancy. However employees who are easily employed elsewhere may be the ones to leave
50
Q

What are the effects of redundancy?

A
  • Employees loose job security

* the firm is seen as acting in an unethical manner => external stakeholders may react negatively.

51
Q

How do HRM make sure of employee welfare?

A

•Offer counselling or other services where staff need support for example for family or financial problems
=> would lead to higher sense of loyalty and motivation to do well in the business

52
Q

Possible reasons for dismissal could be:

A
  • Inability to do the job
  • Continuous negative attitude
  • Continuous disregard to health and safety procedures
  • deliberate destruction of an employer’s property
  • bullying
53
Q

Advantages of part time and flexible contracts for employees?

A
  • Suitable for certain types of workers like students, or elderlies
  • Adds variety to their working lives
54
Q

What are the 6 types of employment contracts and definitions of them?

A
  • Temporary employment contract: lasts for a fixed time period e.g 6 months
  • Permanent employment contract: last forever until dismissal or redundancy
  • Full time employment contract: for a fixed hours and time of the days or the week.
  • Part time employment contract: for a less than the normal full working week e.g 8 hours per week
  • Flexi-time contract: employment contract that allows staff to be called in at times most convenient to employers and employees e.g at busy times of the day
  • Outsourcing: not employing staff directly, but using other agencies
55
Q

Advantages of part time and flexible employment for the business?

A
  • Staff can be required to work on busy periods
  • Available staff if another is absent
  • The efficiency of staff can be assessed before offered full time
  • ‘teleworking’ saves overheads
56
Q

Disadvantages of flexible and part time employment for the business?

A
  • More staff to manage
  • Hard to establish effective communication -meetings are hard to plan
  • Motivation may be less because of lack of involvement of the staff w the business
57
Q

Disadvantages of flexible and part time employment for the workers?

A
  • Earn less
  • Paid at lower rate
  • Less rights
58
Q

Def. teleworking

A

Staff working from home but keeping contact with the office by means of modern IT communication

59
Q

Def. Soft HRM

A

An approach to managing staff that focuses on developing staff so that they reach self-fulfilment and are motivated to work hard and stay in the business.

60
Q

Disadvantages of hard HRM?

A
  • May increase recruitment and induction training cost as temporary workers have to be frequently recruited
  • Demotivated workers from little job security
  • Bad publicity
61
Q

What are core and peripheral workers?

A

Core: Full-time, Permanent
Peripheral: Temporary, Part-time, Self-employed.

62
Q

What are the 6 types of employment?

A
  • Temporary employment contract
  • Permanent employment contract
  • Part time employment contract
  • Full time employment contract
  • Flexi-time contract
  • Outsourcing
63
Q

Def. Unfair dismissal

A

Ending a worker’s employment contract for a reason that the law regards as being unfair.

64
Q

Def. Hard HRM

A

An approach to managing staff that focuses on cutting costs e.g temporary and part-time employment contracts, offering max flexibility but with min training cost.

AS Level Business Studies (5 decks)

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