TU Wien:Human Resource Management and Leadership VO (Köszegi)/HRML Prüfung 09/2021
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
5th Exam Date (Winter Term 2020/21)
Thursday, 16th September 2021
Please write down your Matriculation Number, Name and Signature on your work sheet
paper.
Question 1: Ideas about Human Nature
In the following, four different ideas about human nature and work motivation are proposed (a-d).
To which basic idea of human nature and which scientific paradigm do these statements
belong? Discuss the theoretical foundations of each statement and critically highlight their
strengths and weaknesses.
a) Humans preferably work in teams, as solidarity and cooperation are easier achieved in
smaller groups. Generally, interpersonal relationships have a positive effect on
performance of workers. As managers, we therefore need to implement leadership and
team building seminars.
b) People want to do meaningful things, they want do have freedom to do the things how
they want, and they want to be good in things. Thus, as managers we need to create a
value driven culture and give freedom for self-organization.
c) People’s needs are constantly changing as they strive for self-development. As
managers we therefore need to implement appraisal and incentive systems, and manage
by objectives.
d) Happiness can only be reached through consumption. Therefore, monetary incentives
are necessary for motivation. But since humans are lazy and are not able to discipline
themselves to work, the need to be subdued to explicit rules. As managers, we have to
construct such rules to help workers to become happy.
Question 2: HR Planning In the following, there are four statements about HR planning, but only one of the statements is correct. Please discuss each statement, whether it is correct or not and substantiate your answer with theoretical and empirical arguments for each statement (a-d). a) Demand forecasting of employees can be done with analytical methods. Those methods combine experience from past performance with coefficients derived from the production and are exact, deterministic as well as time- and cost-efficient, but solely focus on the economic efficiency. b) There is a trade-off between quality and quantity of employees. As managers, we have to find the best educated employees for the job, as the company will be more cost efficient. c) Disruptive technological shifts (e.g. Internet, AI, robotics, etc.) significantly change skill demands for workers. While cognitive tasks are not feasible for automation, manual tasks with high degree of routine likely to be done by machines in the future. d) Human resource planning includes the analysis of the quantitative and qualitative employee requirements. Recruitment of new employees is a possibility to close skill gaps, if they cannot be closed through training or re-staffing.
Question 3: HR Selection In the following, there are four statements about HR selection, but only one of the statements is correct. Please discuss each statement, whether it is correct or not and substantiate your answer with theoretical and empirical arguments for each statement (a-d). a) Adverse selection is achieved when unsuitable (unqualified/unproductive) candidates refrain from applying, while as many as possible suitable (qualified/productive) candidates apply. b) Selection procedures are effective when there is a high probability that the candidate is unqualified, the company suffers high losses in case that the candidate is unqualified, or if the costs of the test are low. c) The methods for an efficient recruitment process are self-selection, probation, assessment techniques and performance-based pay. These methods help to deal with the problem of asymmetric information. d) Reducing cognitive biases and systematic errors of judgement is an important task in candidate assessment in recruiting processes. Therefore, ability tests are used, where the performance of the applicants is steady, irrespective of the bias of the recruiter, the company culture or the wording of the job advertisement.
Question 4: Job Design and Team Work In the following, there are four statements about Job design and Team Work but only one of the statements is correct. Please discuss each statement, whether it is correct or not and substantiate your answer with theoretical and empirical arguments for each statement (a-d). a) The motivational potential in a job mainly depends on whether a job provides substantial freedom, independence, and discretion to the individual. Feedback about the effectiveness of the employee’s performance is less relevant. b) Team development follows a five-stage-model: forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. The role of leadership changes in the different stages. Even if teams successfully manage the transition from one phase to another, reverting to earlier stages is possible. c) The Asch experiment shows that humans tend to decrease their individual effort in groups if they perceive that the other group members put in less effort than they themselves. This phenomenon is called group conformity and occurs when the individual contribution cannot be measured. d) The main advantage of highly specialized work is increase of labor productivity and quality. As managers, we therefore should design jobs that reduce the need for adaption and change capabilities to a minimum.
Question 5: Future Challenges
In the following, there are four statements about AI related challenges, but only one of the
statements is correct. Please discuss each statement, whether it is correct or not and
substantiate your answer with theoretical and empirical arguments for each statement (a-d).
a) In the future, the number of jobs that include repetitive activities and require low digital
skills will be reduced. In contrast, employment for job profiles requiring high digital skills
and nonroutine tasks may increase. Salaries will change contrary to this development, as
low skilled workers will be rare and thus, have to be paid better.
b) AI supported decisions require clear objectives, good input data and appropriate
prediction models. As the decisions can be made fully automated, no human judgment is
needed.
c) Predictive analytics is used for recruitment, loans, insurance contracts, credit ratings etc.
as they are making better, more objective and thus fairer decisions. Unlike humans, they
do not suffer from cognitive and personal biases or prejudices.
d) The number of platform workers is increasing strongly in Europe. If the work is worker-
initiated, they experience a high degree of autonomy and control over their work.
Nevertheless, strong dependencies to the platform are among others the challenges gig
workers are facing that have their work determined by a platform.