Total No. of Questions [Total No. of Pages 2
M.B.A. DEGREE EXAMINATION, MAY 2018
First Year
Perspectives of Management
Time 3 Hours Maximum Marks 70
SECTION A
Answer any three questions × 5 15)
Q1) Concept of Management
HENRY FAYOL
Planning premises
Need of decentralisation
Line and staff conflicts
CPM
SECTION B
Answer any three questions × 15 45)
Q2) Explain the nature and scope of management.
Q3) Explain significance of planning. Discuss types of plans.
Q4) What are the factors influencing span of control?
Q5) What are the barriers of communication? Explain.
Q6) What are the different techniques of control?
Q7) Explain decision making process and decision tree analysis.
SECTION C
Case Study (Compulsory) (10 Marks)
Q8) Read the following case and answer the questions given at the end.
Kavery Limited publishes fortnightly magazine titled Kavery. The magazine is
published in four regional languages. The company has its own printing press with
M.S. Subramaniam as Press Manager. He is responsible for the overall working of the
press. The press runs on two shift basis for six days per week and performs all
activities related to magazine printing, that is starting from typesetting stage to
binding stage. For making magazine successful, its timely publication is one of the
crucial factors. The Press Manager has a total Employee strength of nearly 300 with
six persons at the senior management level who work in the day shift and 25
supervisors and 120 operators for each shift. Each supervisor has 4 to 10 operators
directly reporting to him. The number of operators reporting directly to a supervisor
varies according to nature of work involved in different sections.
One day, the Press Manager attended a seminar on management by objectives organised
by the local management association and addressed by a consultant on MBO.
He was highly inspired by the theme of MBO and intended to install this system in
the press. He was very much sure that he would make performance evaluation of the
Employees easier and improve their productivity.
Subramaniam worked several days on what the output objective of the press would
be. After finishing this work, he called a meeting of his senior staff. He gave a written
statement containing the objectives of each functional area of the press to senior staff
members and requested each member to review the objectives, ask questions for clarification,
and then prepare specific operational plans and quotas for his respective departments,
supervisors, and operators.
Is this a workable MBO system? Explain your stand.
Had this been the Press Manager, would you have proceeded to install MBO
differently why?
As the Press Manager, how will you proceed to define press's objectives?