Control Process and Methods

Control Process

• Control is a dynamic, continuous process monitoring performance against predetermined standards and taking corrective action.
• Standards are predefined performance expectations, quantitative (e.g., sales targets) or qualitative (e.g., customer satisfaction). Benchmarking compares performance to industry best practices.
• Feedback control uses after-the-fact information, reactive, may not prevent problems.
• Concurrent control uses real-time information, taking immediate corrective action, proactive.
• Feedforward control uses anticipatory information, preventative, most proactive.
• Control loss occurs when performance deviates significantly and corrective action fails.
• Regulation costs are associated with implementing and maintaining control systems.
• Cybernetic feasibility considers organizational resources for control system implementation and maintenance.

Control Methods

• Bureaucratic control relies on rules, policies, and procedures, inflexible, top-down.
• Objective control measures performance based on observable behaviors or outputs (quantitative or qualitative). Behavior control focuses on actions; output control focuses on results.
• Normative control shapes behavior through shared values, beliefs, and norms, organic approach relying on strong organizational culture.
• Concertive control develops values, beliefs, rules within autonomous work groups, decentralized, empowering employees.
• Self-control (self-management) involves individuals setting goals, monitoring performance, rewarding/punishing themselves, requiring self-discipline and motivation.

Controlling Behaviors, Processes, and Outcomes

• Balanced Scorecard is a performance measurement system considering financial, customer, internal, and innovation/learning perspectives, providing a holistic view.
• Suboptimization focuses on one aspect of performance at the expense of others; the balanced scorecard helps avoid this.
• Economic Value Added (EVA) measures a company's profitability considering cost of capital, helping assess returns on investment.
• Customer defections are customers leaving a company, monitoring provides valuable insights for improvement.
• Quality is defined as excellence, value, and conformance to specifications, crucial for competitiveness.
• Sustainability integrates environmental and social considerations in business operations, becoming increasingly important. Four levels include waste prevention, recycling, treatment, and disposal.

Managing Teams

• Work teams achieve common goals, offering increased customer satisfaction, product quality, and employee satisfaction.
• Disadvantages of teams include high turnover and social loafing (reduced individual effort in a group). Potential for groupthink in decision-making, sharing advantages and disadvantages.
• Cross-training enables employees in multiple job roles, increasing flexibility and efficiency.
• Team characteristics include norms (shared expectations/rules), cohesiveness (team member attraction & motivation to stay), and size (optimal is typically 6-9 members). Conflict is inevitable, cognitive (issue-related) is beneficial, affective (emotional) is detrimental. Teams typically go through forming, storming, norming, and performing stages; and potential reversion.
• Enhancing team effectiveness requires structural accommodation (providing resources/support), and bureaucratic immunity (protection from excessive bureaucracy/interference). Individualism-collectivism and team diversity (in skills, perspectives) play roles in team efficiency.

Managing Service and Manufacturing Operations

• Productivity measures efficiency of inputs to outputs, higher productivity means more output per input. Partial productivity measures output per unit of a single input, while multifactor productivity measures multiple input.
• Quality in products is reliability, serviceability, and durability; whereas in service, it is reliability, tangibles, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. ISO standards (9000-quality management, 14000-environmental management) are relevant. Businesses use TQM (Total Quality Management) for improving product/service quality.
• Internal service quality affects employee satisfaction which impacts customer satisfaction. Effective service recovery is crucial after failure -- empowering employees to handle it is essential.
• Manufacturing operations are make-to-order, assemble-to-order, and make-to-stock production models; they demonstrate manufacturing flexibility. Production techniques include continuous-flow, line-flow, batch production, and job shops.
• Inventory management involves raw materials, component parts, work-in-process, and finished goods, with concepts like average aggregate inventory, weeks of supply, inventory turnover, ordering costs, setup costs, holding costs, stockout costs, Economic Order Quantity (EOQ). JIT (Just-in-Time) and Kanban systems minimize inventory levels, whereas MRP (Material Requirements Planning) schedules goods production. Independent and dependent demand systems differ.

Leadership Styles and Theories

• Leadership influences others towards organizational goals, focusing on doing the right thing, in contrast to managers focusing on doing things right.
• Trait theory suggests effective leaders possess certain personality traits (drive, honesty, confidence, stability), however, these are insufficient by themselves.
• Fiedler's Contingency Theory emphasizes leadership style effectiveness depends on the situation; task-oriented leaders excel in highly favorable/unfavorable situations, relationship-oriented leaders in moderately favorable situations. The LPC scale measures leadership orientation (relationship vs. task).
• Hersey and Blanchard's Situational Leadership Theory matches leadership style (telling, selling, participating, delegating) to follower readiness (job & psychological readiness).
• Path-Goal Theory suggests leaders clarify paths to goals and increase rewards. Styles include directive, supportive, participative, and achievement-oriented leadership.
• Normative Decision Theory helps leaders decide on degrees of employee participation in decision-making, including five decision styles (autocratic, consultative, group). Visionary leadership creates a future image, charismatic leadership inspires through personality/vision, and transformational leadership generates awareness and acceptance of a group's purpose. Transactional leadership focuses on leader/follower exchanges.

Explore the intricacies of the control process in organizations, including the dynamic nature of monitoring performance against standards. This quiz covers various control methods such as feedback, concurrent, and feedforward control, as well as the concept of regulation costs and cybernetic feasibility.