Final answer:
A manager acting as a disturbance handler while closing factories and laying off employees is performing a decisional role. This involves critical decision-making to shape the organization's future, including handling the downsizing process and its consequences for employees.
Step-by-step explanation:
When a manager is acting as a disturbance handler to close factories and lay off employees, she is performing a decisional role. This role involves making significant decisions that shape the future of the organization, such as those related to downsizing. Downsizing is a critical and difficult decision that arises from the need to address a company's failure to meet profitability targets. Managers have to handle various challenges such as work overload, conflict, and ambiguity in their roles, as well as managing the impact on both the employees who are laid off and those who remain.
According to industrial-organizational psychology, the process of delivering the news, supporting outgoing employees with separation packages, and maintaining the morale of retained employees are crucial for the health of the organization. The way these processes are handled can affect employees' intent to quit, their commitment to the organization, and feelings of job insecurity.