Managing Like a Man

UNIVERSITY

ACADEMIC THESIS

ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

ASSIGNMENT: ESSAY

Questions:

Read the case study ‘Managing Like a Man’ on pp.488-489 of McShane

and Travaglione (2003) and address all of the following questions:

1) What problems are being encountered from the perspective of the

employees?

2) What problems are being encountered by Sally, and what could the

organisation have done to address the problem?

3) What could Sally do to improve her leadership style?

4) Taking cross-cultural OB into account, discuss possible reasons why

Sally’s leadership style is questioned in Australia and accepted in

Asia.

Name: Edmond Ng

Date: 14 May 2004

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The nature of management in an organisation has considerably changed

over the years as a result of globalisation and workforce diversity. Today,

management is not solely about exercising legitimate power using directive

leadership (McShane and Travaglione 2003, pp.401-404, 465-466; Robbins

1997, pp.138-139) but also about building relationships with employees,

adapting leadership styles depending on situations, and working together

with people from diverse cultural backgrounds (McShane and Travaglione

2003, pp.7-11, 74-99).

To understand the management terrain in the various areas of

organisational behaviour mentioned above, the objective of this paper is to

analyse the case study, ‘Managing like a man at SilkQueen?’ (McShane

and Travaglione 2003, pp.488-489) and provide insights on the problems

encountered by Sally Dawson, the employees and the organisation at

SilkQueen. The paper will first focus on perception stereotyping and

primacy effect to explain how the employees perceive the situation and

Sally’s leadership. The problems faced by Sally will be next looked into to

understand how the organisation could have helped in various areas.

Theories on improving leadership styles will be discussed and Hofstede’s

cross-cultural framework will be used to explain why Sally’s...