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CMA Foundation · Fundamentals of Business Economics and Management · Introduction to Management

A plant manager at a Gujarat chemical company discovers a sudden shortage of a key raw material. He immediately takes corrective action by arranging an alternative supplier at short notice and reallocating production schedules. Under Mintzberg's roles, which role is he mainly performing, and in which category does it fall?

He is acting as a disturbance handler, which is a decisional role in Mintzberg's classification. The raw material shortage is an unexpected problem requiring immediate corrective action, such as finding another supplier and rescheduling production, rather than building contacts, passing on information or motivating staff.

  1. ADisturbance handler, a decisional roleCorrect
  2. BLiaison, an interpersonal role
  3. CDisseminator, an informational role
  4. DLeader, an interpersonal role

Explanation

Responding to unexpected problems such as a supply failure is the disturbance handler role, which Mintzberg places under decisional roles along with entrepreneur, resource allocator and negotiator. Liaison means building outside contacts, disseminator means passing information to subordinates, and leader means motivating staff; none describes crisis correction.

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