Self-Regulation Approach in Management - Essay Example

Critics argue that the self-regulation approach is more effective than the old one. The manager can influence employees through informal superior-subordinate interaction to communicate employees' rights and responsibilities. Suggested also is the need for interaction may be endangered by the growth of communication technology. Behavior modeling is needed for communicating shared values. Employees absorb, analyze, and then digest the behavior of managers toward them (Drory and Zaidman 2007). It should be noted that an organization's policies and practices may encourage or discourage responsible behavior among employees through the moral messages they convey. As a result, one would expect the way workers approach their responsibilities to be compatible with the organization's moral (and behavioral) environment.

Attitudes are learned throughout life and are embodied within the socialization process. Researchers suggest that humans have several basic cognitive competencies that are prepared to be actualized given proper experience. Besides inherited response tendencies that are general to vertebrates and those that are specific to humans, some tendencies appear to be unique to an individual's genetic inheritance. “New research should aim at differentiating cognitive from emotional responses and at examining the interaction of affect and cognition in maintaining and overcoming negative stereotypes” (Bailey et al 1999, 155). People can learn behaviors from verbal instruction and feedback about their performance. The affective component of the attitude involves persuasion and susceptibility. “Attitude toward a specific change consists of a person's cognitions about that change, affective reactions to that change, and behavioral tendency toward that change” (Klecker and Loadman 1999, 213). In addition to learning specific behaviors or skills, individuals appear to learn broader classes of behaviors. For example, people may learn how to behave as a male or female, a member of an ethnic community, and so on.

Decisions made today provide guidelines for future production operations. The follow­ing are considered in decision-making: decide the capacity needed to meet agreed production and corporate objectives and when production should commence; decide where the plant should be located and the type of technology to use. ’Bounded rationality’ means limited information available for analyses and decision-making. “Organizational decision-makers operated within ‘’bounded rationality and tended to be "satisfied because they have not the wits to maximize” (Pfiffner 2005, 217). Following Cooke and Mellers (1998) decision-making really involves removing doubt. But in terms of ‘bounded rationality,’ it involves a limited number of decisions and approaches because it is impossible to predict and foresee all information. It involves having an objec­tive to achieve and the tests of whether that objective is being achieved or not from the control criteria. Decisions involve the future and involve choice therefore they can be wrong. The only way to cope with the complexity is to develop certain techniques and stipulate criteria for decision-making.

A quality circle comprises a group of workers and supervisors in a single area or depart­ment within an organization or department, which meets regularly to study ways of improving quality and to monitor progress towards such goals. Companies seek to establish quality circles largely on a voluntary basis. Those volunteer­ing will often be up to half of the direct and indirect workers involved in the activities of a particular department. They are offered training in the analysis and identification of quality problems and problem-solving procedures. “QC membership may reflect the size of the workgroup” (Tang and Tollison 1993, 579). Once this training is completed the circle is formed and is invited to tackle particular quality problems nominated by man­agement or identified by the circle itself. Each quality circle will normally tackle a series of projects, one at a time, identifying quality problems and means of eliminating such problems and establishing targets (often financial targets) to be achieved through qual­ity improvement (Eboch 1998).