EAST AFRICA UNIVERSITY

GAROWE CAMPUS

FACULTIES OF:
BUSINESS AND MANAGEMNET
SOCIAL SCIENCE AND ECONOMICS

COURSE: ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR & LEADERSHIP

EAU GRW@2023

Lecture notes prepared/collected by:

Abdirahman I. Dirie
(B.Ed, M.Ed, PGDE, M.BA, PhD candidate)

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Disclaimer:
The lecture notes have been prepared by referring to many books and notes prepared by different
authors. This document does not claim any originality and cannot be used as a substitute for
prescribed textbooks. The information presented here is merely a collection of materials by the
lecturer of the course. This is just an additional tool for the teaching-learning process. These notes
have been prepared to help the students of EAU in their preparation for the examination. This is
going to give them a broad idea about the course. The ownership of the information lies with the
respective authors or institutions. Further, this document is not intended to be used for commercial
purposes and the lecturer is not accountable for any issues, legal or otherwise, arising out of the use
of this document.

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 COURSE DESCRIPTION

SEMESTER VI 3 CREDITS

Course Description:
Introduction to the theories of organizational environment & organizational goal setting,
organization structure & design, individual attitudes and perceptions, theories of motivation,
leadership, group dynamics, decision-making, organizational change & development. In addition,
this course aims at analyzing the nature and evaluation of theories and practice of organization and
management; handling the theoretical framework for organizational goals and responsibilities,
organizational structure, and analysis of environmental factors; evaluating and discussing theories
of leaderships, individual and group behaviors, conflicts motivation and organizational change.

TEXTBOOK: Behavior in organization, Author: JERALD GREENBERG

Course Objectives:
The underlying aim of this course shall be to acquaint students with fundamental concepts,
principles, and paradigms of Organization Behavior.
To this effect, apart from the discussions which shall be conflicted on the antecedents to the present
(modern) management and organizational principles and/or thoughts, much more emphasis will be
given to the group and individual attributes of organization behavior, organization design,
organization structure and systems approach to Organization and Management.

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Contents
COURSE DESCRIPTION .................................................................................................... 3
CHAPTER ONE: THE NATURE AND THE STUDY OF ORGANIZATIONAL
BEHAVIOR .......................................................................................................................... 5
CHAPTER TWO: LEARNING, PERSONALITY AND PERCEPTION ......................... 16
CHAPTER THREE: ATTITUDES AND JOB SATISFACTION: .................................... 28
CHAPTER FOUR: COMMUNICATION .......................................................................... 37
CHAPTER FIVE: GROUPS AND TEAMS ....................................................................... 45
CHAPTER SIX: LEADERSHIP ......................................................................................... 53
CHAPTER SEVEN: CONFLICT ....................................................................................... 64
CHAPTER EIGHT: ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE.................................................... 68
REFERENCES: ................................................................................................................... 77

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CHAPTER ONE: THE NATURE AND THE STUDY OF ORGANIZATIONAL
BEHAVIOR

Definition and Meaning

Organizational behavior (often abbreviated OB) is a field of study that investigates the
impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior within organizations, for the
purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an organization’s effectiveness.
Organizational behavior (often abbreviated as OB) is the study that investigates the impact
that individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior with in organizations.
Behavior refers to what people do in the organization, what their attitudes are, how they
perform. Because the organizations studied are often business organizations, OB is
frequently applied to topics such as absenteeism, employment turnover, productivity, human
performance, working in groups, and job satisfaction.

What is organizational behavior?

It is the field of study that focuses on three levels of behavior in organizations. One level is
the individual, another level is the group, the third level is the structure.

OB is the study of what people do in an organization and how their behavior affects the
organization’s performance.

OB includes the core topics of motivation, leader behavior and power, interpersonal
communication, group structure and processes, learning, attitude development and perception,
change processes, conflict, work design, and work stress.

What do we mean by Organization?

An organization is a consciously coordinated social unit, composed of a group of people, that
functions on a relatively continues basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals

Why study OB?

Today’s challenges bring opportunities for managers to use OB concepts.
In this section, we review some of the most critical issues confronting managers for which OB
offers solutions—or at least meaningful insights toward solutions.

Responding to Economic Pressures

When times are bad, though, managers are on the front lines with employees who must be fired,
who are asked to make do with less, and who worry about their futures. The difference between
good and bad management can be the difference between profit and loss or, ultimately, between
survival and failure. In good times, understanding how to reward, satisfy, and retain employees is
at a premium. In bad times, issues like stress, decision making, and coping come to the fore.
Responding to Globalization
Organizations are no longer constrained by national borders all major automobile makers now
manufacture cars outside their borders; Honda builds cars in Ohio, Ford in Brazil, Volkswagen in
Mexico, and both Mercedes and BMW in South Africa.
The world has become a global village. In the process, the manager’s job has changed.

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Increased Foreign Assignments
If you’re a manager and you are transferred to your employer’s subsidiary in another country, you
have to manage a workforce having different needs, aspirations, and attitudes.

Working with People from Different Cultures

To work effectively with people from different cultures, you need to understand how their culture,
geography, and religion have shaped them and how to adapt your management style to their
differences.

Overseeing Movement of Jobs to Countries with Low-Cost Labor

In a global economy, jobs tend to flow where lower costs give businesses a comparative
advantage. It’s not by chance that many in the United States wear clothes made in China, work
on computers whose microchips came from Taiwan, and watch movies filmed in Canada.

Managing Workforce Diversity

One of the most important challenges for organizations is adapting to people who are
different. We describe this challenge as workforce diversity. Whereas globalization focuses
on differences among people from different countries, workforce diversity addresses
differences among people within given countries.

Workforce diversity
acknowledges a workforce of women and men; many racial and ethnic groups; individuals with
a variety of physical or psychological abilities; and people who differ in age and sexual
orientation.

Improving Customer Service

Management needs to create a customer-responsive culture. OB can provide considerable
guidance in helping managers create such cultures—in which employees are friendly and
courteous, accessible, knowledgeable, prompt in responding to customer needs, and willing
to do what’s necessary to please the customer.

Improving People Skills

You’ll gain insights into specific people skills that you can use on the job. You’ll learn ways to
design motivating jobs, techniques for improving your listening skills, and how to create more
effective teams.

Stimulating Innovation and Change

An organization’s employees can be the impetus for innovation and change,
The challenge for managers is to stimulate their employees’ creativity and tolerance for change.
The field of OB provides a wealth of ideas and techniques to aid in realizing these goals.
Coping with “Temporariness
Today most managers and employees today work in a climate best characterized as “temporary.
permanent employees are replaced with temporary workers. Managers and employees must learn to
cope with temporariness, flexibility, spontaneity, and unpredictability. The study of OB can help
you better understand a work world of continual change, overcome resistance to change, and create
an organizational culture that thrives on change.
Working in Networked Organizations
Networked organizations use e-mail, the Internet, and video-conferencing allow employees to
communicate and work together even though they are thousands of miles apart. The manager’s job

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in a networked organization requires different techniques from those used when workers are
physically present in a single location.

Helping Employees Balance Work–Life Conflicts

Employees increasingly recognize that work infringes on their personal lives, and they’re not happy
about it. Recent studies suggest employees want jobs that give them flexibility in their work
schedules so they can better manage work–life conflicts. OB offers a number of suggestions to
guide managers in designing workplaces and jobs that can help employees deal with work–life
conflicts.
Creating a Positive Work Environment
organizations are trying to realize a competitive advantage by fostering a positive work
environment which means practicing engagement, hope, optimism, and resilience in the face of
strain.

Improving Ethical Behavior

Employees see people all around them engaging in unethical practices—elected official Employees
paid expense accounts or take bribes; corporate executives inflate profits so they can cash in
lucrative stock options; and university administrators look the other way when winning coaches
encourage scholarship athletes to take easy courses.
Managers and their organizations are responding to the problem of unethical behavior in a number
of ways. They’re writing and distributing codes of ethics to guide employees through ethical
dilemmas. They’re offering seminars, workshops, and other training programs to try to improve
ethical behaviors.
They’re providing in-house advisors who can be contacted, in many cases anonymously, for
assistance in dealing with ethical issues, and they’re creating protection mechanisms for employees
who reveal internal unethical practices.

WHAT MANAGERS DO

Let’s begin by briefly defining the terms manager and organization—the place where managers
work. Then let’s look at the manager’s job; specifically, what do managers do?
Managers get things done through other people. They make decisions, allocate resources, and direct
the activities of others to attain goals. Managers do their work in an organization, which is a
consciously coordinated social unit, composed of two or more people, that functions on a relatively
continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals. By this definition, manufacturing and
service firms are organizations, and so are schools, hospitals, churches, military units, retail stores,
police departments, and local, state, and federal government agencies. The people who oversee the
activities of others and who are responsible for attaining goals in these organizations are managers
(sometimes called administrators, especially in not-for-profit organizations).

Management Functions
In the early part of the twentieth century, French industrialist Henri Fayol wrote that all managers
perform five management functions: planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and
controlling. Today, we have condensed these to four: planning, organizing, leading, and
controlling. Because organizations exist to achieve goals, someone has to define those goals and the
means for achieving them; management is that someone. The planning function encompasses
defining an organization’s goals, establishing an overall strategy for achieving those goals, and
developing a comprehensive set of plans to integrate and coordinate activities. Evidence indicates
this function increases the most as managers move from lower-level to mid-level management.

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Managers are also responsible for designing an organization’s structure. We call this function
organizing. It includes determining what tasks are to be done, who is to do them, how the tasks are
to be grouped, who reports to whom, and where decisions are to be made. Every organization
contains people, and it is management’s job to direct and coordinate those people. This is the
leading function. When managers motivate employees, direct their activities, select the most
effective communication channels, or resolve conflicts among members, they’re engaging in
leading.

To ensure things are going as they should, management must monitor the organization’s
performance and compare it with previously set goals. If there are any significant deviations, it is
management’s job to get the organization back on track. This monitoring, comparing, and potential
correcting is the controlling function. So, using the functional approach, the answer to the question
“What do managers do?” is that they plan, organize, lead, and control.

Management Roles
In the late 1960s, Henry Mintzberg, then a graduate student at MIT, undertook a careful study of
five executives to determine what they did on their jobs. On the basis of his observations,
Mintzberg concluded that managers perform ten different, highly interrelated roles—or sets of
behaviors. As shown in the image, these ten roles are primarily (1) interpersonal, (2) informational,
or (3) decisional.

Interpersonal Roles:
All managers are required to perform duties that are ceremonial and symbolic in nature. For
instance, when the president of a college hands out diplomas at commencement or a factory
supervisor gives a group of high school students a tour of the plant, he or she is acting in a
figurehead role. All managers also have a leadership role. This role includes hiring, training,
motivating, and disciplining employees.

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The third role within the interpersonal grouping is the liaison role, or contacting others who provide
the manager with information. The sales manager who obtains information from the quality-control
manager in his or her own company has an internal liaison relationship. When that sales manager
has contacts with other sales executives through a marketing trade association, he or she has an
outside liaison relationship.

Informational Roles:
All managers, to some degree, collect information from outside organizations and institutions,
typically by scanning the news media (including the Internet) and talking with other people to learn
of changes in the public’s tastes, what competitors may be planning, and the like. Mintzberg called
this the monitor role. Managers also act as a conduit to transmit information to organizational
members. This is the disseminator role. In addition, managers perform a spokesperson role when
they represent the organization to outsiders.

Decisional Roles:
Mintzberg identified four roles that require making choices. In the entrepreneur role, managers
initiate and oversee new projects that will improve their organization’s performance. As
disturbance handlers, managers take corrective action in response to unforeseen problems. As
resource allocators, managers are responsible for allocating human, physical, and monetary
resources. Finally, managers perform a negotiator role, in which they discuss issues and bargain
with other units to gain advantages for their own unit.

Management Skills:
Still another way of considering what managers do is to look at the skills or competencies they
need to achieve their goals. Researchers have identified a number of skills that differentiate
effective from ineffective managers.
Technical Skills:
Technical skills encompass the ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise. When you
think of the skills of professionals such as civil engineers or oral surgeons, you typically focus on
the technical skills they have learned through extensive formal education. Of course, professionals
don’t have a monopoly on technical skills, and not all technical skills have to be learned in schools
or other formal training programs. All jobs require some specialized expertise, and many people
develop their technical skills on the jobs.

Human Skills:
The ability to understand, communicate with, motivate, and support other people, both individually
and in groups, defines human skills. Many people are technically proficient but poor listeners,
unable to understand the needs of others, or weak at managing conflicts. Because managers get
things done through other people, they must have good human skills.

Conceptual Skills:
Managers must have the mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations. These tasks
require conceptual skills. Decision making, for instance, requires managers to identify problems,
develop alternative solutions to correct those problems, evaluate those alternative solutions, and
select the best one. After they have selected a course of action, managers must be able to organize a
plan of action and then execute it. The ability to integrate new ideas with existing processes and
innovate on the job are also crucial conceptual skills for today’s managers.

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Disciplines that contribute to OB

Organizational behavior is an applied behavioral science built on contributions from a number of

behavioral disciplines, mainly psychology and social psychology, sociology, and anthropology.
Psychology’s contributions have been mainly at the individual or micro level of analysis, while the
other disciplines have contributed to our understanding of macro concepts such as group processes
and organization. Image two is an overview of the major contributions to the study of
organizational behavior.

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Psychology:
Psychology seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes change the behavior of humans and other
animals. Those who have contributed and continue to add to the knowledge of OB are learning
theorists, personality theorists, counseling psychologists, and, most important, industrial and
organizational psychologists. Early industrial/organizational psychologists studied the problems of
fatigue, boredom, and other working conditions that could impede efficient work performance.
More recently, their contributions have expanded to include learning, perception, personality,
emotions, training, leadership effectiveness, needs and motivational forces, job satisfaction,
decision-making processes, performance appraisals, attitude measurement, employee-selection
techniques, work design, and job stress.

Social Psychology:
Social psychology, generally considered a branch of psychology, blends concepts from both
psychology and sociology to focus on peoples’ influence on one another. One major study area is
change—how to implement it and how to reduce barriers to its acceptance. Social psychologists
also contribute to measuring, understanding, and changing attitudes; identifying communication
patterns; and building trust. Finally, they have made important contributions to our study of group
behavior, power, and conflict.

Sociology:
While psychology focuses on the individual, sociology studies people in relation to their social
environment or culture. Sociologists have contributed to OB through their study of group behavior
in organizations, particularly formal and complex organizations. Perhaps most important,
sociologists have studied organizational culture, formal organization theory and structure,
organizational technology, communications, power, and conflict.

Anthropology:
Anthropology is the study of societies to learn about human beings and their activities.
Anthropologists’ work on cultures and environments has helped us understand differences in
fundamental values, attitudes, and behavior between people in different countries and within
different organizations. Much of our current understanding of organizational culture, organizational
environments, and differences among national cultures is a result of the work of anthropologists or
those using their methods.

LEVELS OF OB
OB considers that organizations are made up of levels, moving up from the individual, to the group,
to the entire organizational structure. Each level contributes to the variety of activities that occur in
today’s workplace. The image below presents the three levels of analysis we consider in this note,
and shows that as we move from the individual level to the organization systems level, we deepen
our understanding of behaviourin organizations. The three basic levels are like building blocks:
Each level is constructed upon the previous level. Group concepts grow out of the foundation we
lay out in the section on individual behaviour. We then overlay structural constraints on the
individual and group in order to arrive at OB.

When we look at the different levels in the organization, we recognize that each has challenges that
can affect how the levels above and/or below might operate. We consider the challenges at the
individual, group, and organizational levels.

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Challenges at individual level

At the individual level, managers and employees need to learn how to work with people who may
be different from themselves in a variety of dimensions, including personality, perception, values,
and attitudes.

Individual Differences
People enter groups and organizations with certain characteristics that influence their behaviour,
the more obvious of these being personality characteristics, perception, values, and attitudes.
These characteristics are essentially intact when an individual joins an organization, and for the
most part, there is little that those in the organization can do to alter them. Yet they have a very real
impact on behavior.

Job Satisfaction
Employees are increasingly demanding satisfying jobs. Employers can pay the price when
employees are not satisfied with working conditions.

Motivation
Job performance is viewed as a function of three factors and is expressed with the equation below.
Mitchell, T. R. (1982). Motivation: New directions for theory, research, and practice. Academy of
Management Review, 7, 80–88; Porter, L. W., & Lawler, E. E. (1968). Managerial attitudes and
performance. Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press. According to this equation, motivation, ability, and
environment are the major influences over employee performance

Motivation is one of the forces that lead to performance. Motivation is defined as the desire to
achieve a goal or a certain performance level, leading to goal-directed behavior. When we refer to
someone as being motivated, we mean that the person is trying hard to accomplish a certain task.
Motivation is clearly important if someone is to perform well; however, it is not sufficient.
Ability—or having the skills and knowledge required to perform the job is also important and is
sometimes the key determinant of effectiveness. Finally, environmental factors such as having the
resources, information, and support one needs to perform well are critical to determine
performance. At different times, one of these three factors may be the key to high performance. For
example, for an employee sweeping the floor, motivation may be the most important factor that
determines performance. In contrast, even the most motivated individual would not be able to
successfully design a house without the necessary talent involved in building quality homes. Being
motivated is not the same as being a high performer and is not the sole reason why people perform
well, but it is nevertheless a key influence over our performance level.

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Empowerment
At the same time that managers are being held responsible for employee satisfaction and happiness,
they are also being asked to share more of their power. If you read any popular business magazine
nowadays, you will find that managers are referred to as “coaches,” “advisers,” “sponsors,” or
“facilitators,” rather than “bosses.” Employees’ responsibilities are increasing too.
In many organizations, employees have become “associates” or “teammates.” Decision making is
being pushed down to the operating level, where employees are being given the freedom to make
choices about schedules, procedures, and solving work-related problems.

What is happening is that managers are empowering employees. Empowerment means managers
are putting employees in charge of what they do. In the process, managers are learning how to give
up control, and employees are learning how to take responsibility for their work and make
appropriate decisions. The roles for both managers and employees are changing, often without
much guidance on how to perform these new roles

Behaving Ethically

In an organizational world characterized by cutbacks, expectations of increasing worker

productivity, and tough competition in the marketplace, it’s not altogether surprising that many
employees feel pressured to cut corners, break rules, and engage in other forms of questionable
practices.

Ethics starts at the individual level. While the word refers to moral conduct, ethics is also the study
of moral values or principles that guide our behaviour and inform us whether actions are right or
wrong. Ethics helps us “do the right thing,” such as not padding expense reports, or not phoning in
sick to attend the opening of Superman Returns. Individuals as well as organizations can face
ethical dilemmas. As we show in Chapter 9, the study of ethics does not come with black and white
answers. Rather, many factors need to be considered in determining the ethical thing to do. Those
individuals who strive hard to create their own set of ethical values and those organizations that
encourage an ethical climate in the face of financial and other pressures will be more likely to do
the right thing. Throughout this textbook you will find references to ethical and unethical
behaviour. The Focus on Ethics vignettes provide thought-provoking illustrations of how various
organizations deal with ethics.

Challenges at the Group Level

The behaviour of people in groups is more than the sum total of all the individuals acting in their
own way. People’s behaviour when they are in a group differs from their behaviour when they are
alone. Therefore, the next step in developing an understanding of OB is the study of group
behaviour.

Few people work entirely alone, and some organizations make widespread use of teams. Therefore,
most individuals interact with others during the workday. This can lead to a need for greater
interpersonal skills. The workplace is also made up of people from a variety of backgrounds. Thus,
learning how to work with people from different cultures has become more important. We review
some of the challenges that occur at the group level below.
Working with Others
Much of the success in any job involves developing good interpersonal or “people” skills. Positive
attitudes and behaviors and an ability to take responsibility for one’s actions are also key skills.

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Workforce Diversity
Workforce diversity has important implications for management practice. Managers need to shift
their philosophy from treating everyone alike to recognizing differences. They need to respond to
those differences in ways that will ensure employee retention and greater productivity, while at the
same time not discriminating against certain groups.
Diversity, if positively managed, can increase creativity and innovation in organizations, as well as
improve decision making by providing different perspectives on problems. When diversity is not
managed properly, there is potential for higher turnover, miscommunication, and more
interpersonal conflicts.

Challenges at the Organizational Level

OB becomes more complex when we move to the organizational level of analysis. Just as groups
are not the sum total of individuals, so organizations are not the sum total of individuals and
groups. There are many more interacting factors that place constraints on individual and group
behavior.

Productivity

An organization or group is productive if it achieves its goals and does so by transferring inputs
(labour and raw materials) to outputs (finished goods or services) at the lowest cost. Productivity
implies a concern for both effectiveness (achieving goals) and efficiency (watching costs). The late
management expert Peter Drucker stated that effectiveness is “doing the right thing,” while
efficiency is “doing things right.” For example, a hospital is effective when it successfully meets
the needs of its patients. It is efficient when it can do so at a low cost. If a hospital manages to
achieve higher output from its present staff—say, by reducing the average number of days a patient
is confined to a bed, or by increasing the number of staff-patient contacts per day—we say that the
hospital has gained productive efficiency. Similarly, a student team is effective when it puts
together a group project that gets a high mark. It is efficient when all the members manage their
time appropriately and are not at each other’s throats.

Developing Effective Employees

One of the major challenges facing organizations in the twenty-first century is how to engage
employees effectively so that they are committed to the organization. We use the term
organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) to describe discretionary behaviour that is not part of
an employee’s formal job requirements, but that nevertheless promotes the effective functioning of
the organization.

Successful organizations need employees who will go beyond their usual job duties, providing
performance that is beyond expectations. In today’s dynamic workplace, where tasks are
increasingly done in teams and where flexibility is critical, organizations need employees who will
engage in “good citizenship” behaviours, such as making constructive statements about their work
group and the organization, helping others on their team, volunteering for extra job activities,
avoiding unnecessary conflicts, showing care for organizational property, respecting the spirit as
well as the letter of rules and regulations, and gracefully tolerating the occasional work-related
impositions and nuisances.

Organizations want and need employees who will do those things that are not in any job
description. The evidence indicates that organizations that have such employees outperform those
that don’t. As a result, OB is concerned with organizational citizenship behavior.

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Putting People First

Professor Jeffery Pfeffer of the Stanford Graduate School of Business advocates that managers
should spend more time recognizing the value of the people who work for them. He emphasizes the
need to “put people first” in considering organizational objectives and suggests the people-first
strategy not only generates a committed workforce, but also significantly affects the bottom line.

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 CHAPTER TWO: LEARNING, PERSONALITY AND PERCEPRTION
INTRODUCTION
If a manager wants to explain and predict human behaviour, he/she needs to understand how
learning occurs or how people learn. So, it is very necessary to know the nature, process and
principles of learning.
According to S.P. Robbins, “learning is any relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs as
a result of experience.”
LEARNING PROCESS/NATURE
Theories of Learning: Learning is part of every one’s life. In our life, all complex behavior is
learned. Learning is defined as any relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs as a result
of experience. Whenever any change occurs learning is taken place in the individual. If an
individual behaves, reacts, responds as a result of experience which is different from others, a
person has encountered some new learning experience in his life. This definition consists of the
following four key elements:
i) Change process: Learning involves some change in oneself in terms of observable actions
explicitly shown to others or change in one’s attitude or thought process occur with oneself
implicitly. Change may be good or bad or positive or negative from an organization point of view.
If a person is happened to experience some negative incidents, that person will hold prejudices or
bias or to restrict their output. On the contrary, if a person is encountering some good incident, that
person is likely to hold positive attitude.
ii) Permanent change: Due to whatever exposure a person encounters, the impact what it
generates may be long lasting and permanent. Hence, the change must be of relatively permanent.
If change occurs due to fatigue or alcohol consumption or temporary adaptation, it may be
vanished once the goal is achieved.
iii) Setting behavioral actions: Explicit changes occurring in behavior is the main goal of
learning process. A change in an individual’s thought process or attitudes without any changes in
many explicit behavior will not be considered as learning process.
iv) Need for meaningful experiences: Some form of experiences is necessary for learning.
Experience may be acquired directly through observation or practice. If experience results in a
relatively permanent change in behavior, one can confidently say that learning has taken place.
Theories of Learning: There are three types of learning theories. These theories are classical
conditioning, operant conditioning and social learning.
FACTORS AFFECTING LEARNING
Motivation of the learner
Mental Set of the learner
Nature of learning
Material practice
Environment

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Theories of learning
Classical Conditioning Theory
Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov developed classical conditioning theory. When he was doing a
research on the chemical properties of saliva of dog, he noticed accidentally that the dog started
salivating the moment hearing the sound of a door of cupboard clinging. Based on his observation,
he wanted to do some experiment whether the dog can be conditioned to respond to any neutral
stimuli. He used a simple surgical procedure to operate the salivary glands of a dog to measure
accurately the amount of saliva.

Pavlov’s Experiment: Pavlov conducted his experiment in three stages.

Stage I: When Pavlov presented the dog with a piece of meat, the dog exhibited a noticeable
increase in salivation. The meat is unconditional stimulus and salivation is unconditional response.

Stage II: In this stage, the dog was not given a piece of meat but only exposed to a sound of ringing
bell; the dog did not salivate to the mere sound of a ringing bell.
Stage III: Pavlov decided to link both the presentation of meat and the ringing of a bell one after
the other with an interval of 5 minutes. After repeatedly hearing the bell before getting the meat,
the dog began to salivate as soon the bell rang. There is an association or link between meat and
ringing a bell. After repeating the association between meat and ringing a bell, the dog started
salivating merely at the sound of the bell, even if no food was offered. The dog is now
conditioned to respond to a sound of a bell and started salivating. This is called classical
conditioning process.

Thus, classical condition is defined as the formation of S-R link (Stimulus-Response) or habit
between a conditioned stimulus and a conditioned response through the repeated paring of
conditioned stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus. In this experiment, the meat is unconditioned
stimulus, and the expected response that is, salivating to the meat is called as unconditioned
response. The sound of a bell is a neutral stimulus which does not have any property to elicit
salivation, is called as conditioned stimulus.
Although it was originally neutral, if the bell was paired with meat (unconditioned stimulus) it
acquired the same property as meat eliciting the salivation.
The sound of a bell produced salivation when presented alone. This is called conditioned response,
that is, now the dog is conditioned to respond to the sound of a bell. Learning conditioned response
involves building up an association between a conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus.
When the stimuli, one is natural and the other one neutral are paired, the neutral one becomes a
conditioned stimulus and hence takes on the properties of the unconditioned stimulus.

APPLICATION OF CLASSICAL CONDITIONING PRINCIPLES AT WORK

Whenever President or Vice-President of Corporate Office visits factory site the employees in the
shop floor will more attentive at work and look more prim, proper and active in their work life. It
is quite natural that top management personnel visit (Unconditioned Stimulus) evoking or
eliciting a desired response- being prim and proper at work from the employees (Unconditioned
Response). The routine cleaning of windows or floor of the administrative office will be neutral
stimulus never evoking any response from the employees.

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If the visit of the top management personnel is associated with such cleaning process, eventually
the employees would turn on their best output and look prim and active the moment windows and
floor are being cleaned up. The employees had learned to associate the cleaning of the windows
with a visit from the head office. The cleaning process (conditioned stimulus) evoked attentive
and active work behavior (conditioned response). Similarly, Christmas Carols songs bring
pleasant memories of childhood as these songs are being associated with the festive Christmas
Spirit.
Classical conditioning is passive. It is elicited in response to a specific, identifiable event.

OPERANT CONDITIONING
Operant conditioned principle is proposed by B.F. Skinner, an American Psychologist. It is a type
of conditioning in which desired voluntary behavior leads to a reward or prevent a punishment.
Operant conditioning principle emphasizes strongly that the behavior of an individual is a function
of its consequences. If the consequences are pleasant, the behavior associated with such
consequences will be repeated again and again. If the consequences are unpleasant, the behavior
will be in extinct. The rationale behind this theory is that people learn to behave in order to get
something they want or to avoid something they don’t want. Operant condition is learned process.
The tendency to repeat such behaviour is influenced by the reinforcement or lack of reinforcement
brought about by the consequences of the behavior. The proper reinforcement strengthens a
behavior and increases the likelihood that it will be repeated.
Skinner’s Experiment: Skinner developed an apparatus to conduct a series of learning experiment
using rats. He named that apparatus as Skinner’s Box which has certain features such as a lever,
bowl, light, water container etc. A highly deprived rat is placed in the box. Once a rat nudges or
touches or hits the lever attached in the corner of the box, a piece of food pellet is dropped in the
bowl. By trial and error, the rat learns that hitting the lever is followed by getting a food pellet in
the bowl. Skinner coined the term operant response to any behavioral act such as pressing or hitting
or nudging the lever that has some effect on the environment. Thus in a typical experiment with a
skinner box, hitting or pressing the lever is an operant response, and the increased rate of lever
hitting or pressing that occurs when the response is followed by a pellet of food exemplifies operant
conditioning.
APPLICATION OF OPERANT CONDITIONING IN WORK LIFE
If a sales person who hits the assigned target of sales quota will be reinforced with a suitable
attractive reward, the chances of hitting further sales target in future will be exemplified. Skinner
argued that creating pleasant consequences (giving attractive rewards) to follow specific forms of
behavior (hitting sales target) would increase the frequency of that behavior. People will most
likely engage in desired behaviors if they are positively reinforced for doing so. Rewards are
most effective if they immediately follow the desired response. In addition, behavior that is not
rewarded is less likely to be repeated. A commissioned sales person wanting to earn a sizeable
income finds that doing so is contingent on generating high sales in his territory.
COGNITIVE LEARNING THEORY
Cognition refers to an individual’s thoughts, knowledge, interpretations, understandings or views
about oneself and his/her environment. Based on it cognitive theory argues that the person tries to
form his/her cognitive structure in memory, which preserves and organizes all information relating
to the events that may occur in learning situation. Here an experiment was conducted on a monkey
by Kohler. Kohler presented two sticks to a monkey in a cage. Both sticks were too short to reach a
banana lying outside cage. This produced an experience, or say, cognition, insight monkey.
What monkey did without any prior exposure, joined both sticks together and pulled the banana
inside the cage. Clearly learning took place inside the mind of monkey. Thus, the learning process
involved in this case is putting or organizing bits of information in a new manner perceived inside

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the mind. This type of learning is very imp in organizational behaviour for changing attitudes by
the individuals.

SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY

People learn through both observation and direct experience, which is called as social learning
theory. Individual learn by observing what happens to other people and just by being told about
something, as well as by direct experiences. By observing people around us, mostly from parents,
teachers, peers, films and television performers, bosses, we learn new behavior pattern.
The following four processes are vital to determine the influence that a model will have on an
individual.
i) Attention Process: People learn from a model only when they recognize and pay attention to
its critical features. People tend to be most influenced by models that are attractive, repeatedly
available similar to us in our estimation.
ii) Retention Process: A model’s influence will depend on how well the individual remembers
the model’s action after the model is no longer readily available.
iii) Motor Reproduction Process: After a person has seen a new behavior by observing the
model, the watching must be converted to doing. This process then demonstrates that the
individual can perform the modeled activities.
iv) Reinforcement Process: Individual will be motivated to exhibit they modeled behavior if
positive incentives or rewards are provided. Behavior that is positively reinforced will be given
more attention, learned better and performed more often.

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PERSONALITY
Meaning and Definition
personality is defined as the sum total of ways in which an individual reacts to and
interacts with others.

Personality Determinants
An individual’s personality is the result of heredity and environment. Heredity refers to factors
determined at conception. Heredity approach argues that the ultimate explanation of an
individual’s personality is the molecular structure of the genes, located in the chromosomes.
Physical environment determines cultural development and to the extent, that culture in turn
determines personality, a relationship between personality and environment becomes clear.
Climate and topography determine to a great extent the physical and mental traits of a people. The
people of mountains as well as deserts are usually bold, hard and powerful.

PERSONALITY TRAITS
Big Five Model gives five basic personality traits presented below.
● Extraversion. The extraversion dimension captures our comfort level with
relationships. Extraverts tend to be gregarious, assertive, and sociable. Introverts tend to
be reserved, timid, and quiet.
● Agreeableness. The agreeableness dimension refers to an individual’s propensity to defer to
others. Highly agreeable people are cooperative, warm, and trusting. People who score low on
agreeableness are cold, disagreeable, and antagonistic.
● Conscientiousness. The conscientiousness dimension is a measure of reliability. A highly
conscientious person is responsible, organized, dependable, and persistent. Those who score low
on this dimension are easily distracted, disorganized, and unreliable.
● Emotional stability. The emotional stability dimension—often labeled
by its converse, neuroticism—taps a person’s ability to withstand stress. People with positive
emotional stability tend to be calm, self-confident, and secure. Those with high negative scores
tend to be nervous, anxious, depressed, and insecure.
● Openness to experience. The openness to experience dimension addresses range of
interests and fascination with novelty. Extremely open people
are creative, curious, and artistically sensitive. Those at the other end of the
category are conventional and find comfort in the familiar.
PERSONALITY AND OB
Here we would discuss How the Big Five Personality Traits affect OB Criteria.

Emotional stability
WHY IS IT RELEVANT?
• Less negative thinking and fewer negative emotions
• Less hyper-vigilant
WHAT DOES IT AFFECT?
• Higher job & life satisfaction
• Lower stress levels

Extroversion
WHY IS IT RELEVANT?

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• Better interpersonal skills
• Greater social dominance
• More emotionally expressive
WHAT DOES IT AFFECT?
• Higher performance*
• Enhanced leadership
• Higher job & life satisfaction
Openness
WHY IS IT RELEVANT?
• Increased learning
• More creative
• More flexible & autonomous
WHAT DOES IT AFFECT?
• Training performance
• Enhanced leadership
• More adaptable to change
Agreeableness
WHY IS IT RELEVANT?
• Better liked
• More compliant and Conforming
WHAT DOES IT AFFECT?
• Higher performance*
• Lower levels of deviant behavior

Conscientiousness
WHY IS IT RELEVANT?
• Greater effort & persistence
• More drive and discipline
• Better organized & planning
WHAT DOES IT AFFECT?
• Higher performance
• Enhanced leadership
• Greater longevity

Other Personality Traits Relevant to OB

The other personality traits are Machiavellianism, narcissism, self-monitoring, propensity

for risk taking, proactive personality, and other-orientation.
core self-evaluation Bottom-line conclusions individuals have about their
capabilities, competence, and worth as a person.
Machiavellianism The degree to which an individual is pragmatic, maintains emotional
distance, and believes that ends can justify means.
narcissism The tendency to be arrogant, have a grandiose sense
of self-importance, require excessive admiration, and have a sense of entitlement.

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self-monitoring A personality trait that measures an individual’s ability to adjust his or
her behavior to external, situational factors. High risk-taking managers made more rapid
decisions and used less information than did the low risk takers. Interestingly, decision
accuracy was the same for both groups.
proactive personality People who identify opportunities, show initiative, take action,
and persevere until meaningful change occurs.
Other-orientation, a personality trait that reflects the extent to which decisions are affected by
social influences and concerns vs. our own well-being and outcomes. It appears that having a
strong orientation toward helping others does affect some behaviors that actually matter for
organizations.

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PERCEPTION
Perception is a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in
order to give meaning to their environment.
Factors That Influence Perception
A number of factors influence perception. There are three factors influencing perception which are
related to the perceiver, factors relate d to the target, Factors related to the situation.

FACTORS RELATED TO THE PERCEIVER

i)Projection: The perceiver tries to project his personality attributes in others is known as
projection.
ii)Mental makeup: The perceiver has preset notion in his mind about certain objects, events and
people. The moment he has to deal or act upon those events, he already knows how to act or react
as he has made his mental set up to deal with such situations.

iii)Stereotyping: Judging someone on the basis of one’s perception of the group to which that
person belongs.
In organizations, we frequently hear comments that represent stereotypes based on gender,
age, race, religion, ethnicity, and even weight.
“Men aren’t interested in child care,” “Older workers can’t learn new skills,” “Asian
immigrants are hardworking and conscientious.”
iv) Halo Effect: . When we draw a general impression about an individual on the basis of a
single characteristic, such as intelligence, sociability, or appearance, a halo effect is operating.
v) First Impression: The perceiver forms an impression about the perceived when he meets him
for the first time. First impression is normally difficult to change
vi) Recency Effect: Recency effect is the effect that the recent event has on the perceiver.
During performance appraisal, the employees are rated on the basis of their latest
performance.

FACTORS RELATED TO THE TARGET

Characteristics of the target also affect what we perceive. Loud people are more likely to be
noticed in a group than quiet ones. So, too, are extremely attractive or unattractive individuals.
Because we don’t look at targets in isolation, the relationship of a target to its background also
influences perception, as does our tendency.

FACTORS RELATED TO THE SITUATION:

Situation matters too. Factors in the situation are time, work setting and social setting The time at
which we see an object or event can influence our attention, as can location, light, heat, or any
number of situational factors.

PERCEPTUAL PROCESS:
Stage I: Receiving stimuli: The perception process starts with receiving stimuli. It depicts the
environmental stimuli being received by the fives sense organs.

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Stage II: Selection of the Stimuli: In this stage, selection of some stimuli happens for further
processing while the rest are screened out. This is governed by both factors external to the
individual, such as the size, intensity, repetition, contrast and internal to the individual, such as the
self-concept, belief, expectation, response disposition of the perceiver.

Stage III: Organization of stimuli: The selected stimuli are organized in the perceiver’s mind to
give it a meaningful term. The perceiver is influenced by figure and ground and perceptual
grouping.

Figure and Ground:

What a person observes is dependent on how a central figure is being separated from its
background. This implies that the perceived object or person or event stands out distinct from its
background and occupies the cognitive space of the individual. In a dance programme, the
spectators tend to perceive the dance performance against the back ground music, backdrop setup
etc. The perceiver thus tends to organize only the information which stands out in the
environment which seems to be significant to the individual.

Perceptual Grouping: It means grouping stimuli into an organized pattern. It happens on

the basis of proximity, similarity and closure.

Proximity: People tend to perceive things, which are nearer to each other, as together as group
rather than separately. If four or five members are standing together, we tend to assume that they
are belonging to same group rather than as separately. As a result of physical proximity, we often
put together objects or events or people as one group even though they are unrelated. Employees
in a particular section are seen as group.

Similarity: Persons, objects or events that are similar to each other also tend to be grouped
together. This organizing mechanism helps us to deal with information in an efficiently way rather
than getting bogged down and confused with too many details. For examples, if we happen to see
a group of foreign nationals at an International seminar, Indians are grouped as one group, British
as another, Americans as yet another based on the similarity of nationalities.

Closure: In many situation, the information what we intend to get may be in bits and pieces and
not fully complete in all respects. However, we tend to fill up the gaps in the missing parts and
making it as meaningful whole. Such mental process of filling up the missing element is called as
closure. For example, while giving promotions to the staff members, the managers will try to get
full information to make an effective decision, in absence of getting complete information,
managers try to make meaningful assumptions and based on that suitable decision will be made.

Stage IV: Interpretation: Assigning meaning to data is called interpretation. Once the inputs are
organized in human mind, the perceiver interprets the inputs and draws conclusion from it. But
interpretation is subjective as different people interpret the same information in different ways.

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Stage V: Behavior Response or Action: In this stage the response of the perceiver takes on both
covert and overt characteristics. Covert response will be reflected in the attitudes, motives, and
feelings of the perceiver and overt responses will be reflected in the actions of the individual.

IMPORTANCE OF PERCEPTION IN OB
People in organizations are always assessing others. Managers must appraise their
subordinate's performance, evaluate how co-workers are working. When a new person joins a
department he or she is immediately assessed by the other persons. These have important
effect on the organization.
Employment Interview: Employment interview is an important input into the hiring decision, and
perceptual factors influence who is hired and vis-à-vis the Quality of an organizations labour
force.
Performance Appraisals: Performance appraisal is dependent on the perceptual process. An
employee’s future is closely tied to the appraisal—promotion,
pay raises, and continuation of employment are among the most obvious outcomes.
Assessing Level of Effort: In many organizations, the level of an employee's effort is given high
importance. Assessment of an individual's effort is a subjective judgment susceptible to perceptual
distortions and bias.
Assessing Loyalty: Another important judgment that managers decide about employees
is whether they are loyal to the organization.

Productivity: What individuals perceive from their work situation will influence their
productivity. More than the situation itself than whether a job is actually interesting or
challenging is not relevant. How a manager successfully plans and organises the work of his
subordinates and actually helps them in structuring their work is far less important than how
his subordinates perceive his efforts.
Therefore, to be able to influence productivity, it is necessary to assess how workers perceive
their jobs.

Absenteeism and Turnover: Absence and Turnover are some of the reactions to the individuals
perception. Managers must understand how each individual interprets his job. and where there is a
significant difference between what is seen and what exists and try to eliminate the distortions.
Failure to deal with the differences when individuals perceive the job in negative terms will result
in increased absenteeism and turnover.
Job Satisfaction:
Job satisfaction is a highly subjective, and feeling of the benefits that derive
from the job. Clearly his variable is critically linked to perception. If job satisfaction is to be
improved, the worker's perception of the job characteristics, supervision and the organisation as a
whole must be positive.
Understanding the process of perception is important because (1) It is unlikely that any person's
definition of reality will be identical to an objective assessment of reality. (2) It is unlikely thattwo
different person’s definition of reality will be exactly the same. (3) Individual perceptions directly
influences the behaviour exhibited in a given situation.

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understanding what level of the hierarchy that person is currently on and focus on satisfying
needs at or above that level, moving up the steps in.

Implications of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory

This model helps the managers to understand and deal with issues of employee motivation at the
workplace. This model can be applied to motivate people at all levels in the organization.
Managers who understand the need patterns of their staff can help the employees to engage in
the kinds of work activities and provide the types of work environment that will satisfy their
needs at work. For instance, the employees love and belonging needs can be fully satisfied by
organizing yearly dinner and dance program, office week end parties, creating recreation clubs
or social clubs etc.

Fortunately, the workplace has the potential to offer need gratification for several different types
of needs, and mangers can motivate employees by giving appropriate organizational support
which will gratify individual’s needs. Thus, despite its drawbacks, Maslow’s theory offers
managers a good technique on understanding the motives or needs of individuals and how to
motivate organizational members.
Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory of Motivation
Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory is also called motivation-hygiene theory.
A theory that relates intrinsic factors to job satisfaction and associates extrinsic factors with
dissatisfaction.
hygiene factors Factors—such as company policy and administration, supervision, and salary—
that, when adequate in a job, placate workers. Herzberg argued that improvement in the hygiene
factors would only minimize dissatisfaction but not increase satisfaction and motivation
Motivating Factors. The presence of motivating factors always ensures job satisfaction and
happiness among the employees. They are: achievement, recognition, responsibility,
advancement, growth and the work itself. These motivating factors are relating to the work
content factors.

Implications for Managers

In Herzberg’s framework, these managerial reactions have focused primarily on the hygiene
factors surrounding the job, which has resulted in bringing individual to the theoretical “zero
point” of motivation. The two-factor theory would predict that improvements in motivation would
only appear when managerial action focused not only the factors surrounding the job but on the
inherent in most assembly line jobs and developing jobs that can provide increased levels of
challenge and opportunities for a sense of achievement, advancement, growth and personal
development.

ERG THEORY:
ERG Theory:
Alderfer proposed a modified version of Maslow’s need hierarchy and labeled as ERG theory.
Alderfer’s ERG refers to three groups of core needs – Existence, Relatedness and
Growth(ERG).

Existence Needs:

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These needs are various forms of physiological needs, such as hunger, thirst and shelter. In
organizational settings, the need for pay, benefits, and physical working conditions are included
in this category. This category is comparable to Maslow’s physiological and certain safety
needs.

Relatedness Needs:
These needs include interpersonal relationships with others in the workplace. This type of needs
in individuals depends on the process of sharing and mutuality of feelings between others to
attain satisfaction. This category is similar to Maslow’s safety, social and certain ego-esteem
needs.

Growth Needs:
These needs involve a person’s efforts toward personal growth on the job. Satisfaction of growth
needs results from an individual engaging in tasks that not only require the person’s full use of
his or her capabilities, but also may require the development of new capabilities. Maslow’s self-
actualization and certain of his ego esteem needs are comparable to those growth needs.

Implications of ERG Theory:

Alderfer has proposed two sets of views on individual’s aspirations and fulfillment. One is
satisfaction-progression and other frustration-regression. Satisfaction-progression is similar to
Maslow’s model in which once an individual’s basic needs are satisfied, he/she will progress to the
next level to satisfy the succeeding higher level to have them satisfied. Alderfer proposed yet
another view of individual’s aspirations and fulfillment. If people eventually become frustrated in
trying to satisfy their needs at one level, their next lower level needs will re-emerge and they will
regress to the lower level to satisfy more basic needs. This is called as frustration-regression.

For manages, ERG theory provides a more workable approach to motivation in organization.
Because of the frustration-regression approach component, it provides the manager with the
opportunity of directing employee behavior in a constructive manner even though higher order
needs are temporarily frustrated. In summary, ERG theory argues that satisfied lower-order needs
lead to the desire to satisfy higher-order needs; but multiple needs can be operating as motivators
at the same time and frustration in attempting to satisfy a higher-level need can result in regression
to a lower level need.

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 CHAPTER THREE: ATTITUDES AND JOB SATISFACTION:

INTRODUCTION
Attitudes are evaluative statements—either favorable or unfavorable—about objects, people, or
events. They reflect how we feel about something. When I say “I like my job,” I am expressing
my attitude about work. Attitudes are complex. If you ask people about their attitude toward
religion, Lady Gaga, or the organization they work for, you may get a simple response, but the
reasons underlying it are probably complicated. In order to fully understand attitudes, we must
consider their fundamental properties or components.

What Are the Main Components of Attitudes? Typically, researchers have assumed that attitudes
have three components: cognition, affect, and behavior. 1 Let’s look at each. The statement “My
pay is low” is the cognitive component of an attitude— a description of or belief in the way
things are. It sets the stage for the more critical part of an attitude—its affective component.
Affect is the emotional or feeling segment of an attitude and is reflected in the statement “I am
angry over how little I’m paid.” Finally, affect can lead to behavioral outcomes. The behavioral
component of an attitude describes an intention to behave in a certain way toward someone or
something—to continue the example, “I’m going to look for another job that pays better.”

Viewing attitudes as having three components—cognition, affect, and behavior—is helpful in

understanding their complexity and the potential relationship between attitudes and behavior.
Keep in mind that these components are closely related, and cognition and affect in particular are
inseparable in many ways. For example, imagine you realized that someone has just treated you
unfairly. Aren’t you likely to have feelings about that, occurring virtually instantaneously with
the realization? Thus, cognition and affect are intertwined. The below image illustrates how the
three components of an attitude are related. In this example, an employee didn’t get a promotion
he thought he deserved; a co-worker got it instead. The employee’s attitude toward his
supervisor is illustrated as follows: the employee thought he deserved the promotion (cognition),
he strongly dislikes his supervisor (affect), and he is looking for another job (behavior).

As we’ve noted, although we often think cognition causes affect, which then causes behavior, in
reality these components are often difficult to separate. In organizations, attitudes are important
for their behavioral component. If workers believe, for example, that supervisors, auditors,
bosses, and time-and motion engineers are all in conspiracy to make employees work harder for
the same or less money, it makes sense to try to understand how these attitudes formed, how they
relate to actual job behavior, and how they might be changed.

Does Behavior Always Follow from Attitudes? Early research on attitudes assumed they were
causally related to behavior— that is, the attitudes people hold determine what they do. Common
sense, too, suggests a relationship. Isn’t it logical that people watch television programs they
like, or that employees try to avoid assignments they find distasteful?

However, in the late 1960s, a review of the research challenged this assumed effect of attitudes
on behavior. One researcher—Leon Festinger—argued that attitudes follow behavior. Did you
ever notice how people change what they say so it doesn’t contradict what they do? Perhaps a
friend of yours has consistently argued that the quality of U.S. cars isn’t up to that of imports and
that he’d never own anything but a Japanese or German car. But his dad gives him a late-model
Ford Mustang, and suddenly he says U.S. cars aren’t so bad. Festinger proposed that cases of
attitude following behavior illustrate the effects of cognitive dissonance, any incompatibility an
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individual might perceive between two or more attitudes or between behavior and attitudes.
Festinger argued that any form of inconsistency is uncomfortable and that individuals will
therefore attempt to reduce it. They will seek a stable state, which is a minimum of dissonance.

Research has generally concluded that people do seek consistency among their attitudes and
between their attitudes and their behavior. They either alter the attitudes or the behavior, or they
develop a rationalization for the discrepancy. Tobacco executives provide an example. How,
you might wonder, do these people cope with the continuing revelations about the health dangers
of smoking? They can deny any clear causation between smoking and cancer. They can
brainwash themselves by continually articulating the benefits of tobacco. They can acknowledge
the negative consequences of smoking but rationalize that people are going to smoke and that
tobacco companies merely promote freedom of choice. They can accept the evidence and make
cigarettes less dangerous or reduce their availability to more vulnerable groups, such as
teenagers. Or they can quit their job because the dissonance is too great.
No individual, of course, can completely avoid dissonance. You know cheating on your income
tax is wrong, but you fudge the numbers a bit every year and hope you’re not audited. Or you tell
your children to floss their teeth, but you don’t do it yourself. Festinger proposed that the desire
to reduce dissonance depends on moderating factors, including the importance of the elements
creating it and the degree of influence we believe we have over them. Individuals will be more
motivated to reduce dissonance when the attitudes or behavior are important or when they
believe the dissonance is due to something they can control. A third factor is the rewards of
dissonance; high rewards accompanying high dissonance tend to reduce the tension inherent in
the dissonance. While Festinger argued that attitudes follow behavior, other researchers asked
whether there was any relationship at all. More recent research shows that attitudes predict future
behavior and confirmed Festinger’s idea that “moderating variables” can strengthen the link.

Moderating Variables, the most powerful moderators of the attitudes relationship are the
importance of the attitude, its correspondence to behavior, its accessibility, the presence of social
pressures, and whether a person has direct experience with the attitude. Important attitudes
reflect our fundamental values, self-interest, or identification with individuals or groups we
value. These attitudes tend to show a strong relationship to our behavior. Specific attitudes tend
to predict specific behaviors, whereas general attitudes tend to best predict general behaviors.
For instance, asking someone about her intention to stay with an organization for the next 6
months is likely to better predict turnover for that person than asking her how satisfied she is
with her job overall. On the other hand, overall job satisfaction would better predict a general
behavior, such as whether the individual was engaged in her work or motivated to contribute to
her organization.

Attitudes that our memories can easily access are more likely to predict our behavior.
Interestingly, you’re more likely to remember attitudes you frequently express. So, the more you
talk about your attitude on a subject, the more likely you are to remember it, and the more likely
it is to shape your behavior. Discrepancies between attitudes and behavior tend to occur when
social pressures to behave in certain ways hold exceptional power, as in most organizations. This
may explain why an employee who holds strong anti-union attitudes attends pro-union
organizing meetings, or why tobacco executives, who are not smokers themselves and who tend
to believe the research linking smoking and cancer, don’t actively discourage others from
smoking.

Finally, the attitude–behavior relationship is likely to be much stronger if an attitude refers to

something with which we have direct personal experience. Asking college students with no
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significant work experience how they would respond to working for an authoritarian supervisor
is far less likely to predict actual behavior than asking that same question of employees who have
actually worked for such an individual.

What Are the Major Job Attitudes?

We each have thousands of attitudes, but OB focuses our attention on a very limited number of
work-related attitudes. These tap positive or negative evaluations that employees hold about
aspects of their work environment. Most of the research in OB has looked at three attitudes: job
satisfaction, job involvement, and organizational commitment. A few other important attitudes
are perceived organizational support and employee engagement; we’ll also briefly discuss these.

Job Satisfaction: When people speak of employee attitudes, they usually mean job satisfaction,
which describes a positive feeling about a job, resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics.
A person with a high level of job satisfaction holds positive feelings about his or her job, while a
person with a low level holds negative feelings.

Job Involvement: Related to job satisfaction is job involvement, which measures the degree to
which people identify psychologically with their job and consider their perceived performance
level important to self-worth. Employees with a high level of job involvement strongly identify
with and really care about the kind of work they do. Another closely related concept is
psychological empowerment, employees’ beliefs in the degree to which they influence their
work environment, their competence, the meaningfulness of their job, and their perceived
autonomy. One study of nursing managers in Singapore found that good leaders empower their
employees by involving them in decisions, making them feel their work is important, and giving
them discretion to “do their own thing.” High levels of both job involvement and psychological
empowerment are positively related to organizational citizenship and job performance. High job
involvement is also related to reduced absences and lower resignation rates.

Organizational Commitment: In organizational commitment, an employee identifies with a

particular organization and its goals and wishes to remain a member. Most research has focused
on emotional attachment to an organization and belief in its values as the “gold standard” for
employee commitment.
A positive relationship appears to exist between organizational commitment and job
productivity, but it is a modest one.

A review of 27 studies suggested the relationship between commitment and performance is

strongest for new employees and considerably weaker for more experienced employees.
Interestingly, research indicates that employees who feel their employers fail to keep promises to
them feel less committed, and these reductions in commitment, in turn, lead to lower levels of
creative performance. And, as with job involvement, the research evidence demonstrates
negative relationships between organizational commitment and both absenteeism and turnover.

Theoretical models propose that employees who are committed will be less likely to engage in
work withdrawal even if they are dissatisfied, because they have a sense of organizational
loyalty. On the other hand, employees who are not committed, who feel less loyal to the
organization, will tend to show lower levels of attendance at work across the board. Research
confirms this theoretical proposition. It does appear that even if employees are not currently
happy with their work, they are willing to make sacrifices for the organization if they are
committed enough.

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Perceived Organizational Support: Perceived organizational support (POS) is the degree to
which employees believe the organization values their contribution and cares about their well-
being (for example, an employee believes his organization would accommodate him if he had a
child care problem or would forgive an honest mistake on his part). Research shows that people
perceive their organization as supportive when rewards are deemed fair, when employees have a
voice in decisions, and when they see their supervisors as supportive. Employees with strong
POS perceptions have been found more likely to have higher levels of organizational citizenship
behaviors, lower levels of tardiness, and better customer service. Though little cross-cultural
research has been done, one study found POS predicted only the job performance and citizenship
behaviors of untraditional or low power-distance Chinese employees—in short, those more likely
to think of work as an exchange rather than a moral obligation.

Employee Engagement: A new concept is employee engagement, an individual’s involvement

with, satisfaction with, and enthusiasm for, the work she does. We might ask employees whether
they have access to resources and the opportunities to learn new skills, whether they feel their
work is important and meaningful, and whether their interactions with co-workers and
supervisors are rewarding. Highly engaged employees have a passion for their work and feel a
deep connection to their company; disengaged employees have essentially checked out—putting
time but not energy or attention into their work.
A study of nearly 8,000 business units in 36 companies found that those whose employees had
high-average levels of engagement had higher levels of customer satisfaction, were more
productive, brought in higher profits, and had lower levels of turnover and accidents than at other
companies. Molson Coors found engaged employees were five times less likely to have safety
incidents, and when one did occur it was much less serious and less costly for the engaged
employee than for a disengaged one ($63 per incident versus $392). Engagement becomes a real
concern for most organizations because surveys indicate that few employees— between
17 percent and 29 percent—are highly engaged by their work. Caterpillar set out to increase
employee engagement and recorded a resulting 80 percent drop in grievances and a 34 percent
increase in highly satisfied customers.
Such promising findings have earned employee engagement a following in many business
organizations and management consulting firms. However, the concept is relatively new and still
generates active debate about its usefulness. One review of the literature concluded, “The
meaning of employee engagement is ambiguous among both academic researchers and among
practitioners who use it in conversations with clients.” Another reviewer called engagement “an
umbrella term for whatever one wants it to be.” More recent research has set out to clarify the
dimensions of employee engagement. This work has demonstrated that engagement is distinct
from job satisfaction and job involvement and incrementally predicts job behaviors after we take
these traditional job attitudes into account.

Are These Job Attitudes Really All That Distinct?

You might wonder whether these job attitudes are really distinct. If people feel deeply engaged
by their job (high job involvement), isn’t it probable they like it too (high job satisfaction)?
Won’t people who think their organization is supportive (high perceived organizational support)
also feel committed to it (strong organizational commitment)? Evidence suggests these attitudes
are highly related, perhaps to a troubling degree.
For example, the correlation between perceived organizational support and affective
commitment is very strong. That means the variables may be redundant—if you know someone’s
affective commitment, you know her perceived organizational support. Why is redundancy
troubling? Because it is inefficient and confusing. Why have two steering wheels on a car when
you need only one? Why have two concepts—going by different labels—when you need only
31
one? Although we OB researchers like proposing new attitudes, often we haven’t been good at
showing how they compare and contrast with each other. There is some distinctiveness among
them, but they overlap greatly, for various reasons including the employee’s personality. Some
people are predisposed to be positive or negative about almost everything.
If someone tells you she loves her company, it may not mean a lot if she is positive about
everything else in her life. Or the overlap may mean some organizations are just all-around better
places to work than others. Then if you as a manager know someone’s level of job satisfaction,
you know most of what you need to know about how that person sees the organization.

Measuring Job Satisfaction

Our definition of job satisfaction—a positive feeling about a job resulting from an evaluation of
its characteristics—is clearly broad. Yet that breadth is appropriate. A job is more than just
shuffling papers, writing programming code, waiting on customers, or driving a truck. Jobs
require interacting with co-workers and bosses, following organizational rules and policies,
meeting performance standards, living with less than ideal working conditions, and the like. An
employee’s assessment of his satisfaction with the job is thus a complex summation of many
discrete elements. How, then, do we measure it?.

Two approaches are popular. The single global rating is a response to one question, such as “All
things considered, how satisfied are you with your job?” Respondents circle a number between 1
and 5 on a scale from “highly satisfied” to “highly dissatisfied.” The second method, the
summation of job facets, is more sophisticated. It identifies key elements in a job such as the
nature of the work, supervision, present pay, promotion opportunities, and relationships with co-
workers. Respondents rate these on a standardized scale, and researchers add the ratings to create
an overall job satisfaction score.

Is one of these approaches superior? Intuitively, summing up responses to a number of job

factors seems likely to achieve a more accurate evaluation of job satisfaction. Research,
however, doesn’t support the intuition. This is one of those rare instances in which simplicity
seems to work as well as complexity, making one method essentially as valid as the other. The
best explanation is that the concept of job satisfaction is so broad a single question captures its
essence. The summation of job facets may also leave out some important data. Both methods are
helpful. The single global rating method isn’t very time consuming, thus freeing time for other
tasks, and the summation of job facets helps managers zero in on problems and deal with them
faster and more accurately.

How Satisfied Are People in Their Jobs?

Are most people satisfied with their jobs? The answer seems to be a qualified “yes” in the
United States and most other developed countries. Independent studies conducted among U.S.
workers over the past 30 years generally indicate more workers are satisfied with their jobs than
not. But a caution is in order. Recent data show a dramatic drop-off in average job satisfaction
levels during the economic contraction that started in late 2007, so much so that only about half
of workers report being satisfied with their jobs now.

Research also shows satisfaction levels vary a lot, depending on which facet of job satisfaction
you’re talking about. As in the below figure, people have typically been more satisfied with
their jobs overall, with the work itself, and with their supervisors and co-workers than they have
been with their pay and with promotion opportunities. It’s not really clear why people dislike
their pay and promotion possibilities more than other aspects of their jobs.

32
Although job satisfaction appears relevant across cultures, that doesn’t mean there are no cultural
differences in job satisfaction. Evidence suggests employees in Western cultures have higher
levels of job satisfaction than those in Eastern cultures. Below figure, provides the results of a
global study of job satisfaction levels of workers in 15 countries. (This study included 23
countries, but for presentation purposes we report the results for only the largest.) As the exhibit
shows, the highest levels appear in the United States and western Europe. Do employees in
Western cultures have better jobs? Or are they simply more positive (and less self critical)?
Although both factors are probably at play, evidence suggests that individuals in Eastern cultures
find negative emotions less aversive more than do individuals in Western cultures, who tend to
emphasize positive emotions and individual happiness. That may be why employees in Western
cultures such as the United States and Scandinavia are more likely to have higher levels of
satisfaction.

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 s

What happens when employees like their jobs, and when they dislike their jobs? One theoretical
model—the exit–voice–loyalty–neglect framework—is helpful in understanding the
consequences of dissatisfaction. Exhibit 3-5illustrates the framework’s four responses, which
differ along two dimensions: constructive/ destructive and active/passive. The responses are as
follows:
● Exit. The exit response directs behavior toward leaving the organization, including looking for
a new position as well as resigning.
● Voice. The voice response includes actively and constructively attempting to improve
conditions, including suggesting improvements, discussing problems with superiors, and
undertaking some forms of union activity.
● Loyalty. The loyalty response means passively but optimistically waiting for conditions to
improve, including speaking up for the organization in the face of external criticism and trusting
the organization and its management to “do the right thing.”
● Neglect. The neglect response passively allows conditions to worsen and includes chronic
absenteeism or lateness, reduced effort, and increased error rate.

Exit and neglect behaviors encompass our performance variables— productivity, absenteeism,
and turnover. But this model expands employee response to include voice and loyalty—
constructive behaviors that allow individuals to tolerate unpleasant situations or revive
satisfactory working conditions. It helps us understand situations, such as we sometimes find
among unionized workers, for whom low job satisfaction is coupled with low turnover. Union
members often express dissatisfaction through the grievance procedure or formal contract

34
negotiations. These voice mechanisms allow them to continue in their jobs while convincing
themselves they are acting to improve the situation. As helpful as this framework is, it’s quite
general. We now discuss more specific outcomes of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction in the
workplace.

Job Satisfaction and Job Performance: As several studies have concluded, happy workers are
more likely to be productive workers. Some researchers used to believe the relationship between
job satisfaction and job performance was a myth. But a review of 300 studies suggested the
correlation is pretty strong. As we move from the individual to the organizational level, we also
find support for the satisfaction–performance relationship. When we gather satisfaction and
productivity data for the organization as a whole, we find organizations with more satisfied
employees tend to be more effective than organizations with fewer.

Job Satisfaction and OCB It seems logical to assume job satisfaction should be a major
determinant of an employee’s organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Satisfied employees
would seem more likely to talk positively about the organization, help others, and go beyond the
normal expectations in their job, perhaps because they want to reciprocate their positive
experiences. Consistent with this thinking, evidence suggests job satisfaction is moderately
correlated with OCBs; people who are more satisfied with their jobs are more likely to engage in
OCBs. Why? Fairness perceptions help explain the relationship. Those who feel their co-workers
support them are more likely to engage in helpful behaviors, whereas those who have
antagonistic relationships with coworkers are less likely to do so. Individuals with certain
personality traits are also more satisfied with their work, which in turn leads them to engage in
more OCBs. Finally, research shows that when people are in a good mood, they are more likely
to engage in OCBs.

Job Satisfaction and Absenteeism: We find a consistent negative relationship between

satisfaction and absenteeism, but it is moderate to weak. While it certainly makes sense that
dissatisfied employees are more likely to miss work, other factors affect the relationship.
Organizations that provide liberal sick leave benefits are encouraging all their employees—
including those who are highly satisfied—to take days off. You can find work satisfying yet still
want to enjoy a 3-day weekend if those days come free with no penalties. When numerous
alternative jobs are available, dissatisfied employees have high absence rates, but when there are
few they have the same (low) rate of absence as satisfied employees.

Job Satisfaction and Turnover: The relationship between job satisfaction and turnover is
stronger than between satisfaction and absenteeism. The satisfaction–turnover relationship also is
affected by alternative job prospects. If an employee is presented with an unsolicited job offer,
job dissatisfaction is less predictive of turnover because the employee is more likely leaving in
response to “pull” (the lure of the other job) than “push” (the unattractiveness of the current job).
Similarly, job dissatisfaction is more likely to translate into turnover when employment
opportunities are plentiful because employees perceive it is easy to move. Finally, when
employees have high “human capital” (high education, high ability), job dissatisfaction is more
likely to translate into turnover because they have, or perceive, many available alternatives.

Job Satisfaction and Workplace Deviance Job dissatisfaction and antagonistic relationships with
co-workers predict a variety of behaviors organizations find undesirable, including unionization
attempts, substance abuse, stealing at work, undue socializing, and tardiness. Researchers argue
these behaviors are indicators of a broader syndrome called deviant behavior in the workplace
35
(or counterproductive behavior or employee withdrawal). If employees don’t like their work
environment, they’ll respond somehow, though it is not always easy to forecast exactly how. One
worker might quit. Another might use work time to surf the Internet or take work supplies home
for personal use. In short, workers who don’t like their jobs “get even” in various ways—and
because those ways can be quite creative, controlling only one behavior, such as with an absence
control policy, leaves the root cause untouched. To effectively control the undesirable
consequences of job dissatisfaction, employers should attack the source of the problem—the
dissatisfaction—rather than try to control the different responses.

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 CHAPTER FOUR: COMMUNICATION

INTRODUCTION

Communication is an important aspect of human behaviour. Communication is central to

everything that we do. Without communication an organization can’t function at all. No
managers can be successful without communicating effectively. Communication has been
derived from the Latin word “communis” which means common. Communication stands for
sharing of ideas in common.

According to Keith Davis, “communication is a process of information and understanding from

one person to another.”

ELEMENTS OF COMMUNICATION

The process models of communication contain six main elements such as i) sender, ii) message,
iii) receiver, iv) feedback, v) channel, vi) noise or interference. As communication occurs,
sender and receiver interact by encoding/sending and decoding/receiving messages. Encoding
means putting the message into words or diagram or nonverbal signals so that it can be
transmitted. The receiver hears, reads or looks in order to decode or interpret the message.

Sender:
Communication begins with sender, the individual who reacts to situations from a unique
vantage point, interpreting ideas and filtering experiences through their own perception. Sender
conceives his ides based on the accumulated attitudes, experiences, skills and cultural
conditioning.

Message:
The message is the idea of feeling transmitted from the sender to the receiver to achieve
understanding. It makes a connection between the sender and the receiver and may be made up
of signs, words and movement. The tone of voice, inflection, the rate of speech, facial
expression, touching and body movement may be misinterpreted by the receiver, or poorly
constructed message may lead to misunderstanding. The message the sender meant to send is not
always the message received.

Receiver:
The receiver decodes or interprets the message to achieve understanding. In doing this, the
receiver also acts as an individual from a unique vantage point, interpreting the idea according to
a particular personal perception of the message. This perception is also the result of the
receiver’s unique background of experiences, beliefs and concerns. Interpretation of the same
message may vary between people.

Feedback:
Feedback is an essential part of successful interpersonal communication. It is the receiver’s
response to the sender’s message, telling the sender how their message is being received and
helping the receiver confirm whether their perception of the message is correct. It can be
intentional or unintentional. Feedback:

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- Provides continuity in the communication
- Indicates effective understanding or misunderstanding of the message
- Stimulates further communication and discussion.

Channel:
A communication channel is the means of techniques used to signal or convey a message. For
example, a conversation, letter, telephone call, e-mail or television program.
Sometimes these channels are internal to the organization; other channels are outside the
organization and are thus external channels. An appropriate channel suits the communication
purpose, the need of the sender, the message and the needs of the receiver. Different lines or
channels of communication are used inside an organization. Horizontal channels operate between
colleagues at the same level within the organization’s structures, while vertical channels move
communication up and down between different levels in the organization.

Noise:
The message received is not necessarily the same as the message sent. Something other than
the intended message is received because noise or interference interrupts the intended
message. Noise or interference that interrupts the message or communication flow between
sender and receiver can lead to misunderstanding or to confused or ambiguous
communication.

TYPES OF COMMUNICATION:

There are nine patterns of communication:

Downward communication:

It refers to the flow of communication from supervisor to the subordinate. To improve downward
communication, managers can present job instructions clearly to subordinates, explain why
things need to be done in a particular way so that people who perform the jobs understand better.
For example, clear staff regulations, rules, handbooks, procedures manual etc. are the good
examples of downward communication.

Upward communication:
It refers to the flow is from the subordinate to the superiors. To improve upward communication,
screen upward messages so that the more relevant aspects of the information are received by top
management, provide the climate in which members can communicate both positive and
negative messages, detect biases when they occur, reduce status difference and wherever
possible, require quantified data to be submitted rather than provide subjective information for
decision making. For example, instituting suggestion scheme, union leader voicing their
demands to management, etc..

Lateral/Horizontal Communication:

It takes place between or among members who are at the same level in the organization. For
example, two supervisors of the same department or different department are discussing work
matters with each other. To improve lateral communication, it is desirable to establish openness
and trust among members of various department, develop reward systems that facilitate inter-
departmental cooperation, learn that what the other departments are doing by getting involved in

38
interdepartmental meetings and, if possible design the organization structure in such a way so
that greater opportunities of interdepartmental contact exist.

Diagonal Communication:

It refers to the flow of messages between persons who are in position at different levels of the
hierarchy and also in different departments. This type of communication takes place under
special circumstances.

Formal Communication:

The channels of communication established formally by the management are called formal
communication. These are used for the transmission of official messages within or outside
organization. However, it suffers from delay and also chances of distortion.

Informal communication:

Communication which takes place on the basis of informal or social relations among people in
an organization is known as informal communication. It is otherwise known as grapevine
communication. The grapevine has three main characteristics.

i) It is not controlled by management.

ii) It is perceived by most employees as being more believable and reliable than formal
communication issued by top management.
iii) It is largely used to serve the self-interests of those people within it and it is one of the
quickest means of communication.

Verbal Communication:

When the message is conveyed orally, it is called verbal communication. It is most economical
in terms of time and money.

Written Communication:
Communication that takes place between people in written form is called written
communication. For e.g. memos, reports, bulletins etc. It is permanent, tangible and verifiable.
But it is time consuming.

Nonverbal/Gestural communication:

Communicating nonverbally with body movements, with some gestures is known as nonverbal
communication.
The types of nonverbal communication can be classified into seven categories:
i) Body movements or kinesics
ii) Physical characteristics
iii) ching behavior
iv) Vocal qualities or paralanguage
v) Use of space or proximity
vi) Artifacts
vii) Environment
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FUNCTIONS OF COMMUNICATION
There are four major functions of communication. They are: Emotive, Motivation,
Information and Control.

Emotive:
Through communication, employees can express their frustrations and satisfactions to each other
and to management. In addition, communication provides a mechanism for individuals to
compare attitude and resolve ambiguous about their jobs, their roles and areas of conflict
between groups and individuals. If an employee is dissatisfied with his pay, he will often
communicate with others informally, to determine whether the feelings are justified or not.

Motivation:
A second major function of communication is to motivate, direct, control and evaluate the
performance of organizational members. Leadership is an influence process by which
supervisors attempt to control the behaviour and performance of subordinates. Communication is
the major vehicle of such control available to leaders. Hence, leadership activities, such as
issuing orders, rewarding behavior and performance, reviewing and evaluating performance,
making job and task assignments, and training and developing subordinates all involve
communication.

Information:
Communication serves a vital information function for decision-making. It is based on
technological orientation and facilitates information processing activities and ways to improve
the accuracy with which communication channels carry information going into individual, group
and organizational decisions.

Control:
Organizations are attempting to control the activities of individuals through the design and use of
formal communication channels. Most types of programs or standard operating procedures have
a large communication component to them. Hence, formal communication channels represent a
major structural means of control within organizations.

BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

Semantic Problems:

The use of inappropriate language, symbols, and words may affect the understanding capacity of
the receiver. The sender must ensure that the proper words and language are chosen to
communicate the intended message so that there is no room for misinterpretation or confusion as
the receiver decodes the message exactly as it was encoded. Many words commonly used in
communication carry quite different meanings for different people. Two general kinds’ of
semantic problems present barriers to communication.
i) Some words and phrases are so general or abstract that they invite varying interpretation.
ii) Semantic problem arise when different groups develop their own technical language.

Status Effects:

Status effect also hinder communication in as much as people occupying higher positions in the
organization have a tendency to tell a lot to the subordinates but not to listen. When people do

40
not listen, they do not understand each other and thus effective communication is blocked. Thus,
the superior-subordinate status comes in the way of effective communication taking place.

Physical Distraction:

When people communicate with each other, noise may also enter in the form of various types of
distraction. Distractions may occur because of situational factors such as constant telephone
interruptions, people walking in and out of the room, or loud noises in the background. Apart
from these physical noises, certain peculiar mannerism of the speaker may also be distracting to
the listener and hide effective listening.

Information Overload:

This refers to too much volume of information which is beyond the level of a person to
comprehend. Communication may be ineffective when too much information is transmitted at
one time or when complex information is presented within a short time frame. The problem is
compounded if the individual also has limited attention span and poor memory retention.
Managers are literally drowned in communication and unable to attend to them fully. This
includes variety of information received from different mode such as e-mail, memos, official
letters, reports, instructions, circular, telephone, meetings etc. is required to attend.

Time Pressures:

Time is always short, and this fact often leads to distortion in communication. A major
temptation when pressed for time is to short-circuit formal communication channels. Because of
time pressures, many messages are hastily and inadequately communicated by managers,
leaving the listener with much ambiguity and confusion as to what has been said and what action
should be taken. Since managers have to deal with a large number of people on an ongoing basis
within limited periods of time, giving incomplete information and verbally transmitted short,
telegraphic message seems inevitable.

Cultural Differences:

Words, colors and symbols have different meanings in different cultures and sometimes even
between sub-cultures within a national boundary.

Trust Level:
When there is lack of sufficient trust between the communicating parties, selective listening
takes place, resulting in ineffective communication. Complete information is seldom exchanged
under such circumstances and the withholding of information by one or both parties will further
aggravate the trust issue and impersonal problems. Evaluating tendencies develop selective
listening increases further and messages get distorted.

Selective Perception:

People have a tendency to listen to only part of a message and “block out” other information for
a variety of reasons. One of the most important of aspect is a need to avoid or reduce cognitive
dissonance. Thus, people have a tendency to ignore new information that conflicts with or denies
41
already established beliefs, values, and expectations. Selective perception occurs when the
receiver values the context of the communication including the role, identity, values, mood and
motives of the sender (Perceptual Distortion).

Self-Concept:

An individual’s motives and personality strongly influence the decoding or symbolic

interpretation process. An employee who has a highly felt need for advancement in an
organization and whose personality tend be to quite optimistic might read a smile and casual
comment from a supervisor as an indication that he is being groomed for promotion. A person
with low need for advancement and a pessimistic disposition may read nothing more than a
casual comment unrelated to anything else into the supervisor’s comment.

Absence of Two-way Communication:

If communication is only one way – from top to bottom or from superior to subordinate –
without any feedback, would hinder communication from taking place in an effective manner.
For instance, the receiver might decode the message in a way that was not intended. Neither the
receiver nor the sender will then realize that the message was misinterpreted until it becomes too
late to rectify the situations. For example, An examination question is one way communication
which could easily get misinterpreted by some students since attempts by students to seek
clarifications in the examination hall is usually discouraged.

OVERCOMING BARRIERS TO COMMUNICATION

There are number of ways managers can minimize a number of communication barriers. In
general, communication can be improved in two ways. First, the manger must sharpen his or her
skills in manipulating symbols, that is, process of encoding. This implies that the sender must
take as much care as possible in choosing symbols and establishing the context within which the
message is transmitted. There are number of techniques that are commonly employed by
managers to accomplish these ends.

Active listening:

It implies that the receiver of information engages in the following patterns of behavior.
a) stop talking since it is impossible to talk and listen at the same time, b) remove the distracting
elements as much as possible c) is patient and lets the other person say whatever needs to be
said, d) appreciate the emotion behind the speaker’s words and is empathic, e) is attentive, f)
creates a positive listening environment f) uses feedback mechanisms to check understanding g)
withholds judgment h) asks questions, i) reacts to the message and not he person. Active
listening takes a lot of energy and be perfected by conscious and constant practice.

Follow up and Feedback:

The process of feedback makes communication a two-way process. In face-to-face situations, the
sender should try to become sensitive to facial expressions and other signs that indicate how the
message is being received. It is often important to solicit questions of clarification from the
receiver. When more formal communication is involved, the writer may specify specific forms
and times for responding to insure feedback.
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Parallel Channels and Repetition:

A major principle of communication technology is to provide parallel channels of

communication that reinforce each other. Thus, a verbal request may be followed up with a
memo. In this way, the sender has ensured getting the attention of the receivers and also ensured
that the sender will have a record to refer to in case lie or she forgets in its order.
Timing:
A manager may ignore a memo or request simply because other problems are pressing in at the
same time. Two kinds of actions can be taken by management to ensure the accurate reception
of communication through timing. i) they may want to standardize the timing of specific
messages, ii) many organizations establish “retreats” or time away from normal job pressures to
transmit material, ideas and instructions to employees. This action insures the undivided
attention of the receivers.

Be patient and paying adequate attention:

When choosing a style of language, the sender must give a due consideration to the listener’s
intention, and his background. Effective use of language consists of tailoring one’s message for
the context of the receivers in order to maximize overall between the intended and received
messages.

Information Communication and Information Centers:

Running parallel to formal communication channel in an organization is an informal network

commonly called grapevines. They tend to be a universal fact of life in all organizations. They
have been used to serve not only informational functions but also motivational functions as well.
A number of employees needs are served by the powerful reinforce. Effective communicators
often combine formal and informal (grapevine) channels of communication. Thus a manager
may reinforce information received through formal with an off-the record talk with key
subordinates. In reverse directing, he or she might reinforce and clarify a formal written with an
informal chat session among employees.

Exception principle and need to know:

In order to deal effectively with the information overload problem many organizations try to
establish certain principles for actually limiting the extent of communications. Many firms
implement an “exception principle” in communication channels. This principle orders that only
communications regarding exceptional derivations, from orders, plans, and policies be
communicated upward on a routine basis. Hence, upper levels of management will receive only
that information which truly demands their attention. A closely related principle involves
downward communication. Here, managers should be selective and transmit information on a
“need to know” basis. In this way, lower level personnel receive only communication that is
immediately critical to carrying out their tasks. The success of these two principles depends on
the type of organization within which jobs are carried out. They will be most effective in highly
structured organizations where tasks are relatively simple and routine. In less formal
organization, in which work is rather complex and not highly structured, communication needs
to be as open and unrestricted as possible.

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Being empathetic in understanding:

Good communicators are able to reduce the chance of communication barrier and the associated
problems by communicating with empathy – a feeling and awareness of the other person and
their point of view. A good communicator is able to recognize emotions in others and respond
appropriately. It is reported that empathy as the foundation for the quality of a relationship. In a
satisfying relations both parties have empathy for the other person’s point of view and are also
willing to provide appropriate and sufficient feedback to achieve the understanding.

Using feedback mechanisms:

Since feedback involved both receiver and sender, it is important to understand the conditions
under which feedback session will be more effective both from the sender’s and receiver’s
perspective. For feedback to be most effective, the person giving the feedback must:

a) give specific and not general or vague feedback

b) give feedback immediately or soon after the event has taken place rather than long after the
event has occurred
c) give feedback on aspects that the receiver can rectify rather than on aspects over which the
individual has no control
d) Be descriptive than evaluative
e) Give feedback on a few critical issues where improvement is most urgently expected rather
than on a wide range of problem areas
f) Examine your own motivation in giving the feedback
g) Be sure that the receiver is ready to receive feedback
h) Be non-threatening and disregard you superior status while offering feedback.

Minimize Physical distraction:

Taking due care in minimizing the external noise, interruptions, awkward mannerism, unusual
and unwanted incidences etc. facilitate to heighten the attention levels of the members in
attempting to satisfy a higher-level need can result in regression to a lower-level need.

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 CHAPTER FIVE: GROUPS AND TEAMS
INTRODUCTION
Groups have been a central part of our everybody lives. At any given time, we are members in
many different groups such as family, student association, workgroups, different clubs.

A group is a collection of two or more individuals, interacting and interdependent, who have
come together to achieve a particular common objective.

According to D.H.Smith, “A group is the largest set of two or more individuals who are jointly
characterized by a network of relevant communication, a shared sense of collective identity and
one or more shared disposition with associated normative strength.

The above definition stresses the following points.

• Interaction
• Size
• Shared goal interest
• Collective Identity

TYPES OF GROUPS

Various methods are used to classify the types of groups that exist in our organizations. In
organizations, the predominant operating groups are the functional groups, task or project groups
and interest groups. In addition, groups are also classified as formal and informal groups.

Formal groups:

Formal groups are collections of employees who are made to work together by the organization
to get the job done smoothly and efficiently. For example, if five members are put together in a
department to attend to customer complaints they would be a formal group. The formal groups
are those whose primary purpose is facilitating, through member interactions, the attainment of
the goals of the organization. Task groups/project groups, command groups and committees
come under formal groups.

Task or Project Groups:

When a number of employees are formally brought together for the purpose of accomplishing a
specific task – for a short-term or long term period – such a collection of individuals is called a
task or project group. For example, the plant manager of a chemical processing plant may be
interested in identifying potential safety problems in the plant. To provide a coordinated effort,
the manager creates a four-person task force consisting of the production superintendent,
maintenance superintendent, director of engineering and the safety engineer. The group members
will deliberate these issues bring out suitable remediable measure for those safety problems
within a deadline period.

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If any problems are found, the plant manager may create other task forces to work toward the
elimination of the potential problems. These activities create a situation that encourages the
members of the task force to communicate, interact and to coordinate activities, if the purpose of
the group is to be accomplished.

Informal groups:

Informal groups are groups that emerge or randomly get formed due to the formal group
members’ interaction with each other, and thereby develop common interest. For example,
members who are showing interest in cricket will join together and share and enjoy taking about
the cricket games. Informal groups provide a very important service by satisfying their
members’ social needs. Because of interactions that result from the close proximity of task
interactions, group members play cricket together, spending their tea breaks together etc.
Friendship groups, Interest groups and Reference groups come under informal groups.

Interest and Friendship Groups:

The group members form relationships based on some common characteristics such as age,
political belief, or interests. Generally, it can be considered as informal group. Employees who
joined together to have their fringe benefits continued to have its implementation, to support a
peer who has been fired, or to seek more festival holidays etc. they tend to unite together to
further their common interest. Groups often develop because the individual members have one or
more common characteristics. This is called friendship groups. For example, recreation clubs,
social groups etc. Management usually doesn’t have any control over these informal groups.

REASONS FOR JOINING GROUPS:

The most popular reasons for joining a group are related to our needs for security,
identity, affiliation, power and engaging in common tasks.

Protection of common and individual Interest:

By joining a group, members can reduce the insecurity of being alone. The membership will
make them feel stronger, gaining resistant to threats, having fewer self-doubts etc. New
employees are particularly vulnerable to a sense of isolation and turn to the group for guidance
and support. Employees develop a sense of security at personal as well as professional front by
joining groups.

Status:
Inclusion in a group that is viewed as important by others provides recognition and status for its
members. Being a member of Rotary Club, the members feel pride and gain status and
recognition.

Self-Esteem:
Groups can provide people with feelings of self-worth. That is, in addition to conveying status to
those outside the group, membership can also give increased feelings of worth to the group
members themselves. The self-esteem is bolstered when members are accepted by a highly
valued group. Being assigned to a task force whose purpose is to review and make
recommendations for the location of the company’s new corporate headquarters can fulfill one’s
intrinsic needs for competence and growth.

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Affiliation:
Groups can fulfill social needs. People enjoy the regular interaction that comes with group
membership. For many people, these on-the-job interactions at work are the primary source for
fulfilling their needs for affiliation.

Power:
For individuals who desire to influence others, groups can offer power without a formal
position of authority in the organization. As a group leader he or she may be able to make
requests of group members and obtain compliance without any of the responsibilities that
traditionally go either formal managerial position.

Goal Achievement:
There are times when it takes more than one person to accomplish a particular task- there is a
need to pool talents, knowledge in order to complete a job. In such instances, management will
rely on the use of a formal group.

STAGES OF GROUP DEVELOPMENT:

i) Forming: At this stage, group members try to comprehend where they stand in the group and
how they are being perceived by others in the group. The members are very cautious in their
interactions with each other and the relationships among the group members are very superficial.
Members’ seldom express their feelings in the group and the individual members who are trying
to understand who they are in the group have concerns about how they will fit in the group as
permanent group members. This is characterized by much uncertainty about group’s purpose,
structure and leadership. Members are ‘testing the waters’ to determine what types of behavior
are acceptable. This stage is complete when members have begun to think of themselves as part
of a group.

ii) Storming: At this stage, disagreement tends to get expressed among the group members, and
feelings of anxiety and resentment are also expressed. Some power struggle may ensure at this
stage to determine who should assume the informal leadership role in the group. This storming
stage is also known as the sub-grouping and confrontation. This group is characterized by intra-
group conflict. Members accept the existence of the group, but there is resistance to the control
the group imposes on individuality. There is sometimes conflict over who will control the group.
When this stage is complete, there will be a relatively clear hierarchy of leadership within the
group.

iii) Norming: This stage is characterized by close relationships and cohesiveness. The group sets
norms, tries to attain some degree of cohesiveness, understands the goals of the group, starts
making good decision, expresses feelings openly and makes attempts to resolve problems and
attain group effectiveness. At this stage, members’ roles get defined, and task and maintenance
roles are assumed by group members. Group members’ also begin to express satisfaction and
confidence about being members of the group.

iv) Performing: This stage is characterized by collaboration and integration. The group
members evaluate their performance so that the members develop and grow. The group
relationships and structures are set and accepted. Group energy has moved from getting to know
and understand each other, to performing the task at hand. Feelings are expressed at this stage
without fear, leadership roles shared among the members, and the group members’ activities are
47
highly co-coordinated. The task and maintenance roles are played very effectively. The task
performance levels are high and member satisfaction, pride and commitment to the group also
high. Both performance and members’ satisfaction are sustained indefinitely;

v) Adjourning: This stage is characterized by concern with wrapping up activities rather

than task performance. The group prepares for its disbandment. High task performance is no
longer the group’s top priority. Instead, attention is directed towards finalizing activities. As the
group approaches the terminal phase, members break off their bonds of affection and stop
interaction with each other. Responses of group members vary in this state. Some feel pride in
what the group has accomplished. Others may be negative and critical of the way the
organization has treated the group and others may be sad over the loss of friendship gained
during the life of the work groups. These five stages of group development are only a suggestive
and not prescriptive. Sometimes, groups do not always proceed clearly from one stage to the
next. Sometimes, several stages go on simultaneously as when groups are storming and
performing at the same time. Under some conditions, high levels of conflict are conducive to
high group performance.

GROUP COHESION:
Cohesion refers to the extent of unity in the group and is reflected in the members’
conformity to the norms of the group, feelings of attraction for each other, and wanting
to be co-members of the group. Attraction, cohesion and conforming to norms are all
intertwined. The more the members feel attracted to the group, the greater will be the
group cohesion. The greater the cohesion, the greater the influence of group members to
persuade one another to conform to the group norms. The greater the conformity, the
greater the identification of the members with the group, and the greater the group
cohesion.

Cohesive groups work together to achieve the group goals. They can be considered as
valuable assets to the organization if the group’s goals coincide with the organization’s
goals.

Factors increasing Cohesiveness:

The following factors can facilitate to increase the cohesiveness of the work group.

i) Common conscent on Group Goals: If the group agrees on the purpose and direction of its
activities, this will serve to bind the group together and structure interaction patterns towards
successful goal accomplishment.

ii) Frequent Interactions: When group member have the opportunity to interact frequently with
each other, the probability for closeness to develop will increase. Managers can provide
opportunities for increased group interaction by calling frequent formal and informal meetings,
providing a common meetings place or physically designing the facilities so that group members
are within sight of one another.

iii) Personal Attractiveness: Cohesiveness is enhanced when members are attractive to one
another if mutual trust and support already exists. Personal attraction also helps group members
to overcome obstacles to goal accomplishment and personal growth and development.

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iv) Inter-group Competition: Competition with other groups, both written and external to the
organization is a mechanism that acts to bring groups closer together for attaining a common
purpose.

v) Favorable Evaluation: If a group has performed in an outstanding manner, some recognition

for its performance by management serves to elevate the prestige of the group in the eyes of the
group members and other members of the group. Favorable evaluation helps make group
members feel proud about being members of the group.

vi) Group Size: As the size of the group increases, the frequency of interaction between
members decreases, thus decreasing the probability of maintaining cohesiveness. Past studies
have shown the groups of four to six members provide the best opportunity for interaction.

Pleasant experiences with the group: When group members are attracted to each other or there
is a full trust and cooperation, interaction may become a pleasant experience resulting in high
level of cohesiveness in the group.

vii) Lack of Domination: When one or few members dominate the group, cohesiveness cannot
adequately develop. Such behavior can create smaller “cliques” within the group or identify
individual members as isolates or deviates.

viii) Gender of Members: It is reported that women tend to have greater cohesion than men.
A possible reason is that women are more likely to be feeling types than thinking types.

ix) Previous Success: If a group has a history of success, it builds an espirit de corps that
attracts and unites members. Successful organizations find it easier to attract and hire new
employees than unsuccessful ones.

x) Humor: Humor has been linked to increased cohesion in several studies. It is reported that
the greater the cohesion, the greater the influence of the group over the behavior of members and
subsequently group performance. As groups are composed of individuals who are attracted to the
goals of the group and to each other, one would expect to find a strong relationship between
cohesiveness and group performance. The major difference between highly cohesive and low
cohesive groups would be how closely members conformed to the group norms. Further, the
group performance would be influenced not only by cohesion, but by the level of group norms.

GROUP DECISION MAKING:

Decisions made by the members of the group in a collective way is known as group decision
making. Groups offer excellent techniques for performing many of the steps in the decision
making process. If the group is composed of individuals with diverse backgrounds, the
alternatives generated should be more extensive and the analysis will be more critical.

Strengths of Group Decision-making:

The following aspects identified the main advantages that groups offer over individuals in the
making of decisions.
i) More information and knowledge: By aggregating the resources of several individuals, the
group brings more input into the decision process.

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ii) Increased diversity of views: Group brings heterogeneity to the decision-making process and
this opens up the opportunity for more approaches and alternatives to be considered.

iii) Increased acceptance of a solution: The group acceptance facilitates higher satisfaction
among those employees required to implement it.

iv) Increased legitimacy: The group decision making process is consistent with demographic
ideals and therefore may be perceived as being more legitimate than decisions made by an
individual.

Weakness of group decision making:

Some of the main disadvantages are:

i) Time-consuming: It takes time to assemble a group.

ii) Pressures to conform: The desire by group members to be accepted and considered as an asset
to the group can result in squashing any overt disagreement, thus encouraging conformity among
viewpoints.

iii) Domination by the few: Few people will try to dominate the group discussion. If such people
are happened to be mediocre, the group overall effectiveness will suffer.

iv) Ambiguous responsibility: In group decision, the responsibility of any single member is
reduced.

Teams require individuals with technical expertise, as well as problem-solving, decision-making

and interpersonal skills and high scores on the personality characteristics of extroversion,
agreeableness, conscientious and emotional stability. Effective teams are neither too large nor
too small- typically they range in size from five to twelve people. They also have adequate
resources, effective leadership and a performance evaluation and reward system that reflect team
contribution Effective teams have members committed to a common purpose, specific team
goals, member who believe in the team’s capabilities and a manageable level of conflict.

TEAMS:

Team is a small no. of people with complementary skill who are committed for common purpose
for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.

Types of Teams
There are four common types of teams:

i) Problem-solving Teams:

The primary goals of these teams are improving quality, efficiency and the work environment.
The members share ideas or offer suggestions about how work process and methods can be
improved. Quality circles are one of the problem solving teams where the work group members
meet regularly to discuss and solve problems. The team members use tools and techniques to

50
examine these problems and to present to management solutions and the costs and benefits of
solving a problem.

ii) Self-managed Teams:

This refers to a team of employees who perform highly related or inter-dependent jobs and to
take on many of the responsibilities of their former supervisors. Typically, this includes planning
and scheduling of work, assigning tasks to members, collective control over the pace of work,
making operating decisions and taking action on problems. Self-managed teams meet their own
goals and measure their own performance once top management sets the overall objectives. Fully
self-managed work teams even select their own members and have the members evaluate each
other’s performance.

iii) Cross-functional Teams:

This refers to a type of teams where employees from about the same hierarchical level, but from
different work areas, who come together to accomplish a task. Examples of Cross functional
include task force to resolve emergency cases, committee composed of members from across
departmental lines etc.

iv) Virtual Teams:

Teams that use computer technology to tie together physically dispersed member in order to
achieve a common goal. They allow people to collaborate on-line using communication links
such as wide area networks, video conferencing or e-mail. The three primary factors that
differentiate virtual teams from face to face teams are: i) the absence of Para verbal and non-
verbal cues, ii) limited social context and iii) the ability to overcome time and space constraints.
In virtual teams the members will never have an opportunity to have an access of Para language
and non-verbal communication. And also suffer social support and less direct interaction among
members.

Difference between Groups and Teams:

Group: A group that interacts primarily to share information to make decision to help each group
member perform within his or her area of responsibility. Work groups have no need or
opportunity to engage in collective work that requires joint effort.

Team: A group whose individual effort results in a performance that is greater than the sum of
the individual inputs. A team gets a greater degree of individual commitment towards the
common shared goal. The efforts of the team members result in more synergy and may achieve a
better total performance.

TEAM BUILDING:

It is defined as planned interventions facilitated by a third-party consultant that

developed problem solving procedures and skills, increase role clarity, solve major problems and

51
improve effectiveness of work groups. Experts have clustered team-building activities into four
general types such as interpersonal process, goal setting, defining roles and problem solving.

i) Interpersonal Process: The resolution of conflicts between and among the team members by
creating a system of open communication by providing training on listening skills, negotiation
skills etc.

ii) Goal Setting: Focusing on shared understanding of the mission and goals of the team. During
this activity the team members clarify general goals and define specific tasks and sub goal to be
accomplished within a specific time with set measurement criteria and reporting mechanisms.
iii) Defining Roles: The members must define the roles without any ambiguity and ensure that
instructions are very clear. The responsibilities, norms and expressions and requirements of each
role are clarified.
iv) Problem Solving: The member must identify the problem and must follow steps such as
gathering and analyzing data, finding causes, understanding solutions, choosing solutions,
planning an action and implementing and evaluating the action.

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 CHAPTER SIX: LEADERSHIP

INTRODUCTION
Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve
a common goal. Leadership is defined as the process of influencing others to get the job done
more effectively over a sustained period of time. Leaders play a critical role in influencing the
work behavior of others in the system.
According to Pearce & Robbinson, “Leadership is the process of influencing others to work
towards the attainment of specific goals.”

Importance of Motivation
• Task support
• Psychological Support
• Development of individuals
• Building the team spirit
• Motivation
• Provides feedback
• Facilitates change
• Maintains discipline

STYLES OF LEADERSHIP

A-Autocratic style
Also known as authoritarian leadership, is a leadership style characterized by individual control
over all decisions and little input from group members. Autocratic leaders typically make choices
based on their own ideas and judgments and rarely accept advice from followers. Autocratic
leadership involves absolute, authoritarian control over a group.
Characteristics of Autocratic Leadership
Some of the primary characteristics of autocratic leadership include:
•Little or no input from group members
•Leaders make the decisions
•Group leaders dictate all the work methods and processes
•Group members are rarely trusted with decisions or important tasks

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Advantages:
Autocratic leadership can be beneficial in some instances, such as when decisions need to be
made quickly without consulting with a large group of people. Some projects require strong
leadership in order to get things accomplished quickly and efficiently.
In situations that are particularly successful, such as during military conflicts, group members
may actually prefer an autocratic style. It allows members of the group to focus on performing
specific tasks without worrying about making complex decisions..

Disadvantages:
While autocratic leadership can be beneficial at times, there are also many instances where this
leadership style can be problematic. People who abuse an autocratic leadership style are often
viewed as bossy, controlling, and dictatorial, which can lead to resentment among group
members.
Because autocratic leaders make decisions without consulting the group, people in the group may
dislike that they are unable to contribute ideas.

B-Democratic style
It is also known as participative leadership, is a type of leadership style in which members of the
group take a more participative role in the decision-making process. Researchers have found that
this learning style is usually one of the most effective and lead to higher productivity, better
contributions from group members, and increased group morale.

Characteristics:

Some of the primary characteristics of democratic leadership include:

•Group members are encouraged to share ideas and opinions, even though the leader retains the
final say over decisions.
•Members of the group feel more engaged in the process.
•Creativity is encouraged and rewarded.

Advantages:

Because group members are encouraged to share their thoughts, democratic leadership can leader
to better ideas and more creative solutions to problems. Group members also feel more involved
and committed to projects, making them more likely to care about the end results. Research on
leadership styles has also shown that democratic leadership leads to higher productivity among
group members.

Disadvantages:

While democratic leadership has been described as the most effective leadership style, it does
have some potential downsides. In situations where roles are unclear or time is of the essence,
democratic leadership can lead to communication failures and uncompleted projects. In some
cases, group members may not have the necessary knowledge or expertise to make quality
contributions to the decision-making process.

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Democratic leadership works best in situations where group members are skilled and eager to
share their knowledge. It is also important to have plenty of time to allow people to contribute,
develop a plan and then vote on the best course of action.

C-Laissez-faire style
This style is also known as delegative leadership, is a type of leadership style in which leaders
are hands-off and allow group members to make the decisions. Researchers have found that this
is generally the leadership style that leads to the lowest productivity among group members.
Characteristics:
•Very little guidance from leaders
•Complete freedom for followers to make
decisions •Leaders provide the tools and resources
needed
•Group members are expected to solve problems on their own Laissez-faire leadership can be
effective in situations where group members are highly skilled, motivated and capable of
working on their own. While the conventional term for this style is 'laissez-faire' and implies a
completely hands-off approach, many leaders still remain open and available to group members
for consultation and feedback.

Disadvantages

Laissez-faire leadership is not ideal in situations where group members lack the knowledge or
experience they need to complete tasks and make decisions. Some people are not good at setting
their own deadlines, managing their own projects and solving problems on their own. In such
situations, projects can go off-track and deadlines can be missed when team mem.

THEORIES OF LEADERSHIP

There are three major approaches to leadership: a) trait theories, b) behavioral theories, c)
situational theories. Trait theories highlight that there exists a finite set of individual traits
or characteristics that distinguish successful from unsuccessful leaders. Behavioral theories
highlight that the most important aspect of leadership is not the traits of the leader, but what the
leader does in various situations. Successful leaders are distinguished form unsuccessful leaders
by their particular style of leadership. Situational theories outline that the effectiveness of the
leader is not only determined by his or her style of behavior, but also by the situation
surrounding the leadership environment. Situational factors include the characteristics of the
leader and the subordinates, the nature of the task and the structure of the group.

TRAIT THEORY:

Some of the significant characteristics of leaders are categorized as follows:

- Physical Characteristics – age, appearance, height, weight
- Social Background – Education, social status, mobility
- Intelligence – Intelligence, ability, judgment, knowledge, decisiveness, fluency of speech

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- Personality – Aggressiveness, alertness, dominance, enthusiasm, extroversion, independence,
creativity, personal integrity, self-confidence
- Task-related Characteristics – Achievement drive, drive for responsibility, initiative,
persistence, enterprise, task orientation
- Social Characteristics – Administrative ability, attractiveness, cooperativeness, popularity,
prestige, sociability, interpersonal skill, tack and diplomacy.

The list of important leadership traits is endless and grows with each passing year. It has not yet
been shown that a finite set of traits can distinguish successful from unsuccessful leaders. For
example, successful research administrators are usually inquisitive, independent, perspective,
and experts within their field. Successful sales manages are usually high-need achievers
gregarious, enthusiastic and project a professional stature, What may be important traits for one
occupation may not be important for other roles in the same organization. Uniformity of traits
across all levels is thus questioned. Trait identifies who the leader is, not the behavioral patterns
he or she will exhibit in attempting to influence subordinate actions.

BEHAVIOURAL THEORY:

The foundation for the style of leadership approach was the belief that effective leaders utilized
a particular style to lead individuals and groups to achieving certain goals, resulting in high
productivity and morale. Unlike trait theories, the behavioral approach focused on leader
effectiveness, not the emergence of an individual as a leader. There are two prominent styles of
leadership such as task orientation, and employee orientation.

Task orientation is the emphasis the leader place on getting the job done by such actions as
assigning and organizing the work, making decision, and evaluating performance. Employee
orientation is the openness and friendless exhibited by the leader and his concern for the needs
of subordinates. Two major research studies directed toward investigating the behavioral
approach to leaderships is i) Ohio State University Studies and ii) University of Michigan
Studies.

Ohio State Studies: Initiating Structures and Consideration: They identified two independent
leadership dimensions.
- Initiating Structure: This concerned the degree to which the leader organized and defined the
task, assigned the work to be done, established communication networks and evaluated work-
group performance.
- Consideration, which was defined as behavior that involves trust, mutual respect, friendship;
support and concern for the welfare of the employee. Consideration refers to an emphasis on an
employee orientation leadership style. Their findings indicated that a mixture of initiating-
structure and consideration leader behavior, which are achieved the highest effectiveness,
depends largely on situational factors.

Michigan State Studies: Two distinct styles of leadership were developed from their studies:
- Job-centered leaderships style, which focused on the use of close supervision, legitimate and
coercive power, meeting schedules and evaluating work performance.
- Employee-centered style, which is people oriented and emphasis delegation of responsibility
and a concern for employee welfare, needs, advancement and personal growth. Their findings

56
 reported that employee centered and job centered styles result in productivity increase.
However, job centered behavior created tension and pressure and resulted in lower satisfaction
and increased turnover and absenteeism. Employee centered style is the best leadership style.

-Leadership’s style is too complex to be viewed as unidimensional, but more than two
dimensions may complicate the interpretation of leadership behavior. The measurement of
leadership style for each of the approaches was accomplished through the use of questionnaire.
This method of measurement is both limited and controversial. Further, in search of the most
effective leadership’s style, the research findings suggested that a universally accepted best
style was inappropriate to the complexities of modern organizations.

Managerial Grid: The five basic approaches to management identified by Black and Mouton
are based on the two dimensions of concern of people and concern for production that are
associated with leaders. A managerial grid is formed based on these two dimensions which are
rated on 9-point scale. If manager is securing the lowest score on these two dimensions is
identified as impoverished style of managers who are low on both their concern of people and
production, 1,9 or country club style is designated to those managers who are having high
concern for people but low concern for production. The 5, 5 or the middle-of-the road style
concerns the moderate levels of concern for both people and production. The 9,1 or task
management style is one where there is a high concern for production but very little concern for
people and finally, 9,9 or team management style is one where the manager has high concern for
both people and production. According to Blake and Mouton the one best style for all mangers is
the 9,9 or team management style.

Likert’s System Four Model: Rensis Likert suggests that managers operate under four different
systems.
System I – Exploitative Authoritative: The manager believes in very authoritarian manner and
actually exploits the subordinates
System II – Benevolent Authoritative: The manager takes a paternalistic approach while still
being autocratic. Behaving as benevolent autocratic, the leader maintains strict control over the
subordinates albeit in a paternalistic manner.
System III – Consultative: The manager consults the subordinates and still maintains the right
to make the final decision.
System IV – Participative Groups: The manager uses a democratic style and makes decision
by consensus and majority vote.

Likert feels that the best way for all organizations to manage employees is to move towards
System IV.

Situational Theory:

Situational approaches to leadership take the position that there is no “one best way to lead in all
the situations. Effective leadership style will vary from situations to situation, depending on
several factors such as the personality predisposition of the leaders, the characteristics of the
followers, the nature of task being done and other situational factors.
Tannenbaum and Schmidt reported that the use of authority by the manager (boss centered
leaderships style) or the area of freedom given to subordinates (subordinate centered leadership)
is a function of the following factors such as i) forces in the manager – value system, confidence

57
in subordinates, leadership predispositions and feelings of security and insecurity), ii) forces in
the subordinates (their needs for independence or dependence, readiness to assume
responsibility, tolerance for ambiguity, abilities, knowledge and experience and inclination to
participate in decision making) and iii) forces in the situation (type of organization, group
effectiveness, time pressures and the nature of the problem itself).

Fiedler’s Contingency Model of Leadership: Fiedler developed a model to predict work group
effectiveness by taking into consideration the best fit between the leadership style and the degree
of favorableness of the situation. The following three factors are considered to check whether the
situation will be favorable or unfavorable. These factors are i) Leader- Member relations, ii) Task
structure of the group, iii) Perceived position power of the manager.

Leadership Style Assessment – Leased Preferred Coworkers Scale: Fiedler developed a scale
to rate the type of relationship a supervisor holds towards the least preferred coworkers on a
twenty-item questionnaire. The supervisor is asked to describe the person with whom he has
associated with leaders. A managerial grid is formed based on these two dimensions which are
rated on 9-point scale. If manager is securing the lowest score on these two dimensions I, I is
identified as impoverished style of managers who are low on both their concern of people and
production, 1,9 or country club style is designated to those managers who are having high
concern for people but low concern for production. The 5, 5 or the middle-of-the road style
concerns the moderate levels of concern for both people and production. The 9,1 or task
management style is one where there is a high concern for production but very little concern for
people and finally, 9,9 or team management style is one where the manager has high concern for
both people and production. According to Blake and Mouton the one best style for all mangers is
the 9,9 or team management style.

Likert’s System Four Model: Rensis Likert suggests that managers operate under four different
systems.
System I – Exploitative Authoritative: The manager believes in very authoritarian manner and
actually exploits the subordinates
System II – Benevolent Authoritative: The manager takes a paternalistic approach while still
being autocratic. Behaving as benevolent autocratic, the leader maintains strict control over the
subordinates albeit in a paternalistic manner.
System III – Consultative: The manager consults the subordinates and still maintains the right
to make the final decision.
System IV – Participative Groups: The manager uses a democratic style and makes decision by
consensus and majority vote.

Likert feels that the best way for all organizations to manage employees is to move towards
System IV.

Leadership Style Assessment – Leased Preferred Coworkers Scale: Fiedler developed a scale
to rate the type of relationship a supervisor holds towards the least preferred coworkers on a
twenty-item questionnaire. The supervisor is asked to describe the person with whom he has
worked least well in accomplishing some task. The model postulates that a low LPC score
(unfavorable avoidable evaluation) indicates the degree to which a leader is ready to reject those
with whom he cannot work. Therefore, the lower the LPC score, the greater the tendency for the
leader to be task oriented. On the other hand, a high LPC (favorable evaluation) indicates a

58
willingness to perceive even the worst coworker as having some positive attributes. Therefore,
the higher the LPC score, the greatest the tendency for the leader to be employee oriented.

Favorable Situation: The situation is considered as highly favorable if it possesses a high level
of positive interpersonal relations between leaders and members, a well-defined task structures
and a leaders perceive that they are bestowed with strong perceived positional power. In such
type of situation the leader will have a great deal of control over situations and will simply have
to make sure that he gives the necessary instructions to get the task done. There is no need for
him to waste time talking to each employee in order to be perceived as friendly. A task-oriented
style will be effective in such situation.

Unfavorable Situation: The situation is considered as highly unfavorable if it possesses a low

level of interpersonal relationship between leaders and members, a poorly defined task and a
relatively a weak perceived power. The leader of a task-force committee which is appointed to
solve problems encountered in the work setting is likely to find him in such a situation. In such
type of situation, the leader is in highly vulnerable situations and there is no other way to enforce
a strict discipline and order to bring the situation in normalcy than following relationship
oriented style.

Moderately Favorable Situation: Here the leader might find herself in a mixed situation. For
instance, a manager might have good relationship with her workers, but the task structure and
position power of the leader may be low. For example, a bank officer may have a good
relationship staff member, but the task structure or the power to control the staff members (either
to reward or punish members) is not strong enough. In such situations, the manager will be very
successful and get the desirable results if he follows more of relationships oriented style than
task oriented task style.

The major findings of fielder are that the task-oriented leaders perform better than relationship
oriented leaders in both extreme situations that are very favorable and those that are unfavorable.
Relationship oriented leaders tend to perform better than task oriented leaders in situations that
are intermediate in favorableness. These findings suggest that each of the leadership style can be
effective in certain situation. Fiedler also suggests that the organization can change the
effectiveness of the group’s performance by changing the favorableness of the situations or by
changing the leader’s preferred style through education and training.

Fiedler’s contingency model has proven to be major addition to the study of leadership in
organizations for a number of reasons. First, the contingency model was one of the first
approaches to leadership that included situational factors within its theoretical framework. The
model will probably continue to be an important source of new ideas, propositions and
hypotheses about situational leadership. Second, it provides the subtle but important implication
that one should not speak of leadership as being either good or poor. Rather, a more realistic
viewpoint would be that a manager’s style of leading may be effective in one situation but not in
another. Finally, leadership effectiveness is a function of the leader’s style and the interaction of
situational factors. The organization may improve the effectiveness of a particular work

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environment either modifying the situational factors or attempting to change the manager’s
leadership style.

Path-Goal Theory of Leader Effectiveness:

A second situational theory of leadership has been proposed by House and Evan. The principle
function of the leader is facilitating to increase valence perception of their subordinates and
clarify and increase expectancy probabilities of them. This will in turn make them to put greater
amount of effort and derive higher level of satisfaction and performance in their work. The
theory is composed of two basic propositions such as i) role of the leader and ii) dynamics of the
situation. The two main aspects of this model are as follows:

Leadership Role: Leader behavior is acceptable and satisfying to the extent that subordinates
perceive such behavior as a source of satisfaction or instrumental to future satisfaction. There are
four styles of leadership:

- Directive Leadership Behavior: This deals with planning, organizing, controlling and
coordinating of subordinate’s activities by the leader. It is similar to the traditional dimension of
initiating structure in that the leader’s emphasis is on letting the subordinates know what is
expected of them.

- Supportive Leadership Behavior: This concerns giving support consideration to the needs of
the subordinates, displaying concern for their well-being and welfare and creating a friendly and
pleasant environment.

- Participative Leadership Behavior: This deals with sharing of information and an emphasis
on consultation with subordinates and use of their ideas and suggestions in reaching group-
related decision.

- Achievement-Oriented Leadership Behavior: This deals with setting challenging goals,

expecting subordinates to perform at the highest level, continually seeking improvement in
performance. The leader wants good performance, but at the same time displays confidence in
the ability of his subordinates to do a good job.

Dynamics of Situation: The leadership style is determined by the situation in which the leader
functions. Two main factors that influence the situational effectiveness of the leader’s behavior
are: a) the characteristics of the subordinates and b) the characteristics of his work environment,
including task, work group and other organizational factors. The theory proposes that leader
behavior will be perceived as acceptable to subordinates to the extent that the subordinates see
such behavior as either an immediate source of satisfaction or as needed for future satisfaction.

Characteristics of Subordinates: Subordinates characteristics are seen to partially determine

this perception. The following are the characteristics:

- Ability: This refers to the subordinate’s perception of his or own ability

- Locus of Control: This deals with the degree to which an employee believes that he or she has
control of what happens to him. People who believe that they controlled their environment and
who believe what happens to them occurs because of their behavior are called internal. People

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who believe what happens to them is not under their control and occurs because of luck or fate
are externals.
- Need and Motives: A subordinate’s dominant needs may affect the impact of leader behavior.
For example, individuals with high safety and security needs may accept an instrumental leader
style, but employees with high affiliation and esteem needs may react more positively to a
supportive leader.

Characteristics of Work Environment:

There are three broad aspects work environment such as i) task structures, ii) primary work
group and iii) formal authority system.

Path-Goal theory states that leaders can exercise four different kinds of styles such as directive
leadership, supportive leadership, participative leadership and achievement oriented leadership.
The Path-Goal theory postulates that any of the four styles can be used effectively by the leader,
depending upon situational factors such as subordinate characteristics (ability internal or external
locus of control, needs and motives), and attributes in the work setting (task characteristics,
authority system and the nature of the primary work groups). If there is a good fit between the
leadership style and the situational factors in the work setting, then subordinates will experience
job satisfaction, accept and value the leader as a dispense or valued rewards and will engage in
motivated behavior because they will know that their effort will lead to performance and that
performance will lead to valued rewards. The rationale behind the theory is that leader can help
the subordinates to achieve their goals by providing what is missing in the situation. Employees
are helped by the leader to see the path by which their efforts will lead to performance and
performance to desired rewards. The leader can take care of the missing links in the situation and
facilitate to fulfill the needs of the subordinates. This suggests that leaders should involve their
subordinates as much as possible in goal setting. This will enhance a person’s sense of control
over the organization’s goal and have significant benefits in terms of job satisfaction, self-esteem
and self-efficacy as well as productivity improvement for the organization. Goals need to be
difficult enough to be challenging and yet realistic and achievable. Goal setting needs to be
consistent across everyone and over time.

Hersey and Blanchard’s Life Cycle Model of Situation Leadership: Heresy and Blanchard
developed a situational model focusing on the followers’ characteristics. Successful leadership is
achieved by selecting the right leadership style, which is contingent on the level of the followers’
developmental level. It is the followers who accept or reject the leader, so that they are important
factors in a leader’s success. Blanchard defined developmental level as the skill and willingness
of people to take responsibility for directing their own behavior. It consists of two components
such as job maturity (Job competence – skills and abilities) and psychological maturity
(motivation and willingness to take responsibility).

Situational Leadership Styles:

Situational leadership uses the same two leadership dimensions – task and relationship behavior.
However, the situational leadership approach goes a step further by considering each as either
high or low and then combining them into for specific leadership styles:

Directing, Coaching, Supporting and Delegating.

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i) Directing: (high directive – low supportive): The leader defines roles and tells people what
tasks to do and how, when and where to do them. It emphasis directive behavior.
ii) Coaching: (high directive – high supportive): The leader provides both directive behavior
and supportive behavior)
iii) Supporting (low directive-high supportive): The leader and follower share in decision-
making, with the main role of the leader being facilitating and communicating.
iv) Delegating: (low directive-low supportive): The leader provides little direction or support.

INSPIRATIONAL APPROACHES TO LEADERSHIP

These contemporary leadership theories view leaders as individuals who inspire followers
through their words, ideas, and behaviors.

A. Charismatic Leadership. Charisma, as defined by Max Weber, is “a certain quality of an

individual personality, by virtue of which he or she is set apart from ordinary people and
treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers
or qualities. These are not assessable to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine
origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a
leader.”

B. Transformational Leadership. While transformational leadership does divide leadership

into two categories, these are not opposites but complements. Transformational leadership
builds on top of transactional leadership and produces levels of follower effort and
performance that go beyond what would occur with a transactional approach alone. But the
reverse is not true.

Leadership Types. This theory of leadership divides leaders into two types, based on their
methods and outcomes:

a. Transactional Leaders: those who guide or motivate their followers in the direction of
establish goals by clarifying role and task requirements. These leaders were described in the
other (non-inspirational) sections of this chapter.

b. Transformational Leaders: those who inspire followers to transcend their own self-
interests for the good of the organization and are capable of having a profound or
extraordinary effect on their followers.

What Makes Leadership Effective:

• The following points make the leadership effective.

• Sound mental and physical health
• Knowledge and Intelligent
• Clear cut and worthy goal
• Conviction
• Sense of responsibility
• Motivation
• Initiative and Drive

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• Leader’s own personality, past experience & expectation
• Expectation & behaviour of his superior
• Expectation & behaviour of his subordinate
• Task Requirement
• Organisational culture & climate

--------------------------------------------

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 CHAPTER SEVEN: CONFLICT
INTRODUCTION
Human beings experience conflict in their everyday life. Hence organizations are not free of it.
Conflict has considerable influence on individual and organizational performance. Therefore
conflict management is very necessary.
According to Kolb and Bartinek, “conflict can be a disagreement, the presence of tension, or
some other difficulty within or between two or more parties.

TYPES OF CONFLICT

Intrapersonal Conflict: When conflict occurs within an individual, it is called intrapersonal

conflict. It occurs in three ways.

a) Approach-Approach Conflict-Here an individual must choose between two alternatives

which have expected positive outcome.

b) Avoidance-Avoidance Conflict- Here an individual must choose between two

alternatives which have expected negative outcome.

c)Approach-Avoidance Conflict- Here an individual must decide whether to do something that is

expected to have both positive and negative outcomes.

Interpersonal Conflict: When conflict occurs in between individual to individual, it is called

interpersonal conflict.

Intragroup Conflict: When conflict occurs within one group, it is called intragroup conflict.

Intergroup Conflict: When conflict occurs amongst different groups, it is called intergroup
conflict. It occurs in three ways.

a) Vertical Conflict-It refers to conflicts that occur between individuals at different levels
Conflict between the superior and subordinate is an example of vertical conflict.

b) Horizontal conflict-It refers to tensions between employees or groups at the same

hierarchical level. Horizontal conflict occurs because of interdependence among the parties
concerned in the work situation.

c)Line & Staff Conflict- It refers to the conflicts that arise between those who assist or act in an
advisory capacity (staff) and those who have direct authority to create the products, process, and
services of the organizing (line).

CONFLICT PROCESS

The conflict process can be categorized into five stages. They are as follows:

Stage I: Potential opposition or incompatibility:

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This covers the present condition that creates opportunity for conflicts to arise. This may be one
of the conditions responsible for the occurrence of conflict. The major sources of conflict can be
further categorized as communication, structure and personal variables. Communication: It is
reported that word connotations, jargon, insufficient exchange of information and noise in the
communication channel are all barriers to communication and potential antecedent conditions to
conflict.
Stage II: Cognition and personalization:
Perception or sense making plays a major role in the resolving conflict. Conflict may either be
perceived or felt in nature. Perceived conflict is defined as awareness by one or more parties of
the existence of conditions that create opportunities for conflict to arise. Felt conflict is defined
as emotional involvement in a conflict creating anxiety, tenseness, frustrations or hostility.
Negative emotions have been found to produce over simplification of issues, reductions in trust,
and negative interpretations of the other party’s behavior.
Stage III: Intentions:
Using two dimensions – cooperativeness (the degree to which one party attempts to satisfy the
other party’s concerns) and assertiveness (the degree to which one party attempts to satisfy his or
her own concerns) – five conflict handling intentions can be identified.
As follows: i) competing (assertive and uncooperative), ii) collaborating (assertive and
cooperative), iii) avoiding (unassertive and uncooperative), iv) accommodating (unassertive and
cooperative) and
ii) compromising (mid-range on both assertiveness and cooperativeness).
Stage IV: Behaviour:
All conflicts manifest in behavior somewhere along with continuum ranging from no conflict or
minor conflict such as minor disagreements or misunderstanding, overt questioning or
challenging of others, to annihilatory conflict such as threats and ultimatum, aggressive physical
attacks or overt efforts to destroy the other party.
Stage V: Outcomes:
The outcomes of conflict may be functional or dysfunctional. Conflict is constructive when it
improves the quality of decision, stimulates creativity and innovation, encourages interest and
curiosity among group members, provides the medium through which problems can be aired and
tensions released and fosters an environment of self-evaluation and change.

CAUSES OF INTER-GROUP CONFLICT:

There are three basic sources of inter-group conflict: i) goal incompatibility, ii) decision-making
requirements and iii) performance expectations.
Interdependence: Conflict potential increases when groups are interdependent. The different
types of Interdependence are as follows:
1. Pooled interdependence—no direct interaction occurs between groups; interdependence exists
because their pooled performance determines organizational performance (e.g., the Cadillac,
Buick and Chevrolet divisions at General Motors). Creates relatively low conflict potential.
2. Sequential interdependence—Occurs when one group must complete its task before another
group can complete its task (e.g., two groups on an assembly line). Makes conflict more likely
because output (quality and quantity) of one group depends on the task input of another.
3. Reciprocal interdependence—the output of each group is the input for
other groups and vice versa (e.g., the anesthesiology, nursing, and surgical teams in an operating
room). Creates high conflict potential. All organizations have pooled interdependence; complex
organizations have sequential interdependence; and the more complex organizations have
reciprocal interdependence. The more complex the organization, the greater the conflict
potential.

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B. Goals Difference: Groups with different goals have different expectations that can cause
conflict when the groups interact. Goal differences become more evident when resources are
limited and are allocated across the groups. Conflict pressures increase when groups think
resources have not been allocated equitably. Different goal can produce different perceptions.
Different time horizons can produce different times perspectives and affect perceived importance
of problems (e.g., a company president's time perspective of five-to-ten years vs. a foreman's
perspective of one month to one year).
C. Perceptual Differences: Status incongruency-one group perceiving itself as more prestigious
than another can provoke intergroup conflict. Inaccurate perceptions often causes groups to
develop stereotypes about other groups, which can provoke conflict and erode intergroup
relations. When conflict is low rational model describes the organization where goals are
consistent across participants, power and control are centralized, decision process are orderly,
logical, rational, rules and norms are norms of efficiency, information is extensive, systematic
and accurate.
When conflict is high political model describes the organization where goals are inconsistent and
pluralistic within the organization, power and control are decentralized and shifting coalitions
and interest groups, decision process are disorderly and result of bargaining and interplay among
interests.

Conflict management Techniques:

The various strategies for minimizing and resolving conflicts can be classified into five
categories: i) Avoidance, ii) Accommodating, iii) Compromise, iv) Competition and v)
Collaboration.

Avoidance:
This strategy involves a general disregard for the causes of the conflict and the person might
diplomatically sidestep a conflicting issue, postpone addressing it till later, or withdraw
physically or psychologically from a threatening situation. Avoiding mode is used when the
individual is both unassertive and uncooperative – that is, the person has a very low concern for
his own and his opponent’s needs. The individual follows the following three methods:

i) Non-attention: The manager totally avoids or ignores the dysfunctional situation. Individuals
tend to “look the other way” or disregard hostile action in hopes that the situation will resolve
itself in time.
ii) Physical separation: It involves moving conflicting groups physically apart from each other.
The rationale is that if the groups cannot interact, conflict will diminish.
iii) Limited interaction: Groups are allowed to interact only on formal situations.

Accommodation:
Accommodation is a negotiation style where one party is willing to oblige or adapt to meet the
needs of the other party. That party that accommodates loses and the other party wins.
Accommodation is useful for negotiation on minor matters. The negotiation parties may not look
for creative, new solutions. Accommodation might take the form of selfless generosity, or
obeying another’s order rather unwillingly or giving in to another person’s point of view. In all
these cases, the individual neglects his or her own concern to satisfy the concerns of their other
party. There is an element of self-sacrifice.

Competition:
Competition occurs when one party negotiates to maximize its results at the expense of the other
party’s needs. Competition leads to one party gaining the advantage over the other. One party
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wins while the other party loses. Although it is quick and can be used as counter against another
person, this option usually produces a win-lose result. Competing is a power oriented mode of
resolving tensions and one uses whatever power one has or can muster such skills, knowledge,
abilities, rank being well-connected etc. to win.

Compromising:
Compromise is the settlement of differences through concessions of one or both parties. In
compromising, the party tries to find some expedient, mutually acceptable solutions with
partially satisfies both parties, though neither is fully satisfied. A compromising stance addresses
the issue without avoiding it, but does not explore the alternative in a way that would be
completely satisfying to both parties as in the case of collaboration. Compromising involves
“splitting the difference”, exchanging concessions and seeking quick middle-ground solutions.

Collaboration:
Collaboration occurs when people cooperate to produce a solution satisfactory to both.
Collaborating involves an attempt to work with the other person to find solutions that would be
satisfying to both parties. Here, the underlying concerns of both parties are explored in depth, the
disagreements examine in detail and resolutions arrived at by combining the insights of both the
parties. A creative solution usually emerges because of the joint efforts of both the parties who
are keen on both gaining from the situation without hurting the other.

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 CHAPTER EIGHT: ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
INTRODUCTION
Culture deals with past and current assumptions, experiences, values, attitudes, beliefs,
expectations, customs etc. Culture relates to the informal aspects of organizations rather than
their official elements. They focus on the values, beliefs and norms of individuals in the
organization Culture is manifested by symbols and rituals rather than through the formal
structure of the organization.

The values and behaviour that contribute to the unique social and psychological environment of
an organization is called organizational culture. It refers to the system of shared meaning held
by the members that distinguishes one organization from other organization.
Features of Organizational Culture:
Shared meaning
Values and Norms
Behavioural Consistency
Descriptive
Organisational Philosophy
Clear Guidelines
Sense of Belongingness

Factors determining org. culture

Org. Founder:
Whatever impression founders create about the organization, it continues and develops for a long
period of time.
Corporate success & shared Experiences:
Corporate success for a long period develops a strong culture. If the members share common
experience, it remains in their mind forever.
Innovation & risk taking:
Innovative and risk taking employees develop a strong culture.
Outcome rather than technique: Organisations whose managers focus on outcome rather than
technique, they develop strong culture.

Competitiveness:
Organizations whose employees are competitive are actually stronger than non-competitive.

Shared interpretation:
Organizations whose members have common perception and thinking about organizational
values, norms, they can develop a strong culture.
Functions of Organizational Culture
● It distinguishes one organization from another organization. That means it creates
brand name for the organization.
● It develops a sense of identity amongst its members.
● It promotes commitment amongst employees to achieve organizational goals.
● It develops appropriate standards for employees & holds them together to achieve
those standards.
● It provides a control mechanism for shaping the attitude & behaviour of
employees.

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Transmission of organizational Culture/How is culture learnt:

● Stories:
The stories be these true or false, told to the organizational members can have a
profound impact on organizational culture.
● Symbols:
Examples of symbols include the size of offices, the elegance of office furnishing etc for
certain employees. The value of these symbols is that they communicate important
cultural values.
● Language:
Organizations use a language in terms of specific slogan, metaphor to convey special
meaning to employees. It symbolizes what the company stands for to both employees
and society.
● Rituals:
Rituals such as annual function, award ceremonies etc reinforce the key values of the
organization, which goal is imp, which people is important. The annual function is an
example of ritual performed in an educational institution.

ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE

The way we individuals change due to age, education, change of job, illness, change in
geographical area, organizations also change due to several reasons over a period of time.
Change is necessary for survival and growth. Changes are constantly taking place in our
environment. Changes occur outside organization that requires internal adaptation. The manager
has to ensure that individual and groups in organizations, and structures, process and behaviors
of sub-systems must adapt to the changing external and internal environments. In effect, the
manager is a change agent who facilitates changes to occur in the various subsystems of the
organization needed.

Any alteration which occurs in the overall work environment of an organization is called
organizational change.
FACTORS AFFECTING CHANGE:

There are both external and internal forces that result in pressure for change,

External Factors:

The external forces that create the need for change come from various sources. Some of them are
as follows:

a-Competitive Market Force:

Competition is changing. The global economy means that competitors are as likely to come from
across the ocean as from across town. Heightened competition also means the established
organizations need to defend themselves against both traditional competitors that develop new
products and services and small, entrepreneurial firms with innovative offers. Successful
organizations will be the ones that can change in response to the competitor.

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Government laws and regulations:
These are frequent impetus for change. Creation of special economic zones and foreign direct
investment in India sparked off major changes in the IT Industries, Insurance, and Car
manufacturing industries.
More foreign automobile industries are setting up plants and generating more employment opportunities
in India.

b-Technology:
It creates the need for change. For example, technological developments in sophisticated and
extremely expensive diagnostic equipment have created significant economy of scale for hospitals and
medical centers. Assembly-line technology is undergoing dramatic change as organizations replace
human labor with robots. Even in the greetings card industry, electronic mail and internet have
influenced the way people send greetings.

c-Labor Markets:
The fluctuation in labor markets forces managers to change. For instance, the demand for
webpage designers and website managers made it necessary for organizations that need those
kinds of employees to change their human resources management activities to attract and
retain skilled employees in the areas of greatest need.

d-Economic Changes:
Economic changes affect almost all organization. The appreciation of rupee value against the
US dollar affects the export prospects of knitwear products from India to America as those
products cost more to Americans. But even in strong economy, uncertainties about interest
rates, government budgets deficits and current exchange rates create conditions that may force
organizations to change.

Internal Factors:

Internal forces can also stimulate the need for change. These internal forces tend to originate
primarily from the internal operations of the organizations or from the impact of external
changes.

a-Structural factors:
A structural force would be the inability to transmit important information from the top of the
organization to the lower level cadre. Because of numerous layers in the hierarchy,
information moves slowly from one level to the next. This could be viewed as a process or a
behavioral problem involving a failure to communicate effectively.

b-Strategy:
A redefinition or modification of an organization’s strategy often introduces a host of change.
The strategic move of Reliance Industries in getting into retail business in urban and rural
markets made them to introduce a change in the managerial approach as well as the human
relations approach to gain acceptance from the different cross section of the customers.

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c-Organizations Workforce:

In recent times, the work force composition is varied and is not very static. Its composition
changes in terms of age, education, sex and so forth. In a stable organization with a large pool of
seasoned executives, there might be a need to restructure jobs in order to retain younger
managers who occupy lower ranks. The compensation and benefit system might also need to be
adapted to reflect the needs of an older work force.

d-Introduction of new technology:

The introduction of new equipment represents another internal force for change. Employees may

manufacturing industries. More foreign automobile industries are setting up manufacturing

plants and generating more employment opportunities in India.

b-Technology:
It creates the need for change. For example, technological developments in sophisticated and
extremely expensive diagnostic equipment have created significant economy of scale for
hospitals and medical centers. Assembly-line technology is undergoing dramatic change as
organizations replace human labor with robots. Even in the greetings card industry, electronic
mail and internet have influenced the way people send greetings.

c-Labor Markets:
The fluctuation in labor markets forces managers to change. For instance, the demand for
webpage designers and website managers made it necessary for organizations that need those
kinds of employees to change their human resources management activities to attract and retain
skilled employees in the areas of greatest need.

d-Economic Changes:
Economic changes affect almost all organization. The appreciation of rupee value against the
US dollar affects the export prospects of knitwear products from India to America as those
products cost more to Americans. But even in strong
economy, uncertainties about interest rates, government budgets deficits and current exchange
rates create conditions that may force organizations to change.

Internal Factors:

Internal forces can also stimulate the need for change. These internal forces tend to originate
primarily from the internal operations of the organizations or from the impact of external
changes.

a-Structural factors:
A structural force would be the inability to transmit important information from the top of the
organization to the lower level cadre. Because of numerous layers in the hierarchy, information
moves slowly from one level to the next. This could be viewed as a process or a behavioral
problem involving a failure to communicate effectively.

b-Strategy:
A redefinition or modification of an organization’s strategy often introduces a host of change.
The strategic move of Reliance Industries in getting into retail business in urban and rural
71
 markets made them to introduce a change in the managerial approach as well as the human
relations approach to gain acceptance from the different cross section of the customers.
c-Organizations Workforce:
In recent times, the work force composition is varied and is not very static. Its composition
changes in terms of age, education, sex and so forth. In a stable organization with a large pool of
seasoned executives, there might be a need to restructure jobs in order to retain younger
managers who occupy lower ranks. The compensation and benefit system might also need to be
adapted to reflect the needs of an older work force.

d-Introduction of new technology:

The introduction of new equipment represents another internal force for change. Employees may

have their jobs redesigned, they need to undergo training on how to operate the new equipment
or they may be required to establish new interactions patterns with their work group.
e-Employee Attitudes:
Employee attitudes such as increased job satisfaction may lead to increased absenteeism, more
voluntary resignations, and even labor strikes. Such events will often lead to changes in
management policies and practices.

RESISTANCE TO CHANGE

In planning for change, the team leaders must take into consideration the various factors on
which the members exhibit their resistance to implement the change process. For example, the
company wanted to install a new software program in cash counter computer terminals to
facilitate the fast movement. But some employees may not respond favorably and display their
refusal to cooperate by increasing absenteeism, sub-standard work, joining of union increased
labor turn over etc. Resistance to change can also be a source of functional conflict. For example,
resistance to a reorganization plan or a change in a product line can stimulate a healthy debate
over the merits of the idea and result in a better decision.

Resistance can be overt, implicit, immediate or deferred. It is the easiest for management to deal
with resistance when it is overt and immediate such as employees strike, work slowdown etc. The
greater challenge is managing resistance that is implicit or deferred. Such as loss of loyalty to the
organization, loss of motivation to work, increased errors or mistakes increased absenteeism etc..

a-Individual Resistance

Individual sources of resistance to change lie in basic human characteristics such as perceptions,
personalities and needs.

Habit: The team members are habituated or conditioned to do their job or activity in a particular
way. When they are asked to do differently, they tend to respond to resist change. When
employees are asked to move to new office building across the town, they are likely to change
their routine habits like waking up ten minutes earlier, finding new parking place, adjusting to
new office layout, developing new lunch time routine etc.

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Security: The team members with a high need for security are likely to resist change because it
threatens their feelings of safety. When Indian Railway introduced new online booking for their
reservations, employees may have similar fears.

Economic Factors: If the members feel that the new changes result in lower pay, they may likely
to resist change process. Changes in jobs or established work routine can also arouse economic
fears if people are concerned that they won’t be able to perform the new tasks or routines to their
previous standards, especially when the pay is closely tied to productivity.

Fear of the Unknown: The cashiers or secretaries might fear the new activities due to lack of
knowledge in operating the new software program. They might develop a negative attitude
towards working with new programs or behave dysfunctional if required to use them. Employees
in organizations hold the same dislike for uncertainty. For example, if an organization introduced
TQM, the production employees will have to learn statistical process control techniques.
Therefore, they may develop a negative attitude towards TQM or behavior dysfunctional if
required, to use statistical techniques.

Selective Information Processing: Once the team members shape their world through their
own way, they prefer to do their work based on their perceptions. If the change process demands
to follow the new method, the members tend to resist. So individuals are guilty of selectively
processing information in order to keep their perception intact. They hear what they want to
hear.
They ignore information that challenges the world they have created.

b-Organizational Resistance

Some organizations prefer to follow their routine and reluctant to venture new things or follow
any new methods of doing. Government agencies want to continue doing what they have been
doing for years, whether the need for their service changes or remains the same. Six major
sources of organizational resistance have been identified. They are as follows:

Structural Inertia: Organizations have built in mechanisms to produce stability. For instance,
the training and orientation programs reinforce specific role requirements and skills.
Formalization provides job descriptions, rules and procedures for employees to follow. Once
the routine has been established, organization is very reluctant to adapt to new changes. When
an organization is confronted with the change process, the team members tend to resist.

Limited Focus of Change: The change process is interlinked. One activity cannot be changed
without affecting the others. If change is introduced in technology without considering the
structural changes, the change in technology is not likely to be accepted. Organizations are
made up of number of interdependent subsystems.

Group Inertia: Some times the group norm or standards could act as a constraint. For
example, the union norms may dictate resistance to change process.

Threat to Expertise: The change process could threaten the expertise of team members of the
groups. Once the members feel that they are forced to learn something new, they tend to resist.
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The introduction of decentralized personal computers, which allow managers to gain access to
information directly from a company’s mainframe, is an example of a change that was strongly
resisted by many information system departments in the 1980s. Because of decentralized end-
user computing was a threat to the specialized skills held by those in the centralized information
system departments.
Threat to Established Power Relationship: The change process can threaten long established
power relationships within the organization. Due to this reason, the members can resist the
change.

Threat to established resource allocation: The group, which enjoys sizable resources, may not
like to accept the change process that facilitates reduction in their budget.

OVERCOMING RESISTANCE TO CHANGE

John Kotter and Leonard Schlesinger offered six ways of overcoming resistance to change,
which are highly situation dependent. More than one of these techniques may be used in any
given situations.

□□Education and Communication: If the logic and advantages of the change are explained
early to the team members, resistance can be reduced. This can be achieved through one-to-one
discussions, memos, group presentations, or reports. This tactic assumes that the source of
resistance lies in misinformed or poor communication. If the team members received the full
facts and have their misunderstanding cleared up, their resistance will subside. Once people
have bought into the idea, they will implement the change. The only problem is that this could
be very time consuming process, if too many people are to be communicated with.

□□Participation and Involvement: Resistance to change can be reduced or eliminated by

having those involved participate in the decision of the change through meetings and induction. It
is difficult for individuals to resist a change decision in which they participated. Once people
have had an opportunity to contribute ideas and become a part of the change process, they will be
less inclined to see it fail. However, working in committees or task forces is a time consuming
activity, and hence it will take a longer time to bring about changes.

□□Facilitation and Support: Easing the change process and providing support for those caught
up in it is another way managers can deal with resistance. Retraining programs, allowing time off
after a difficult period, and offering emotional support and understanding may help. This
emotional support can be given through empathic listening, offering training and other types of
help. Such facilitation and emotional support help individual to deal more effectively with their
adjustment problems. This process can be time consuming and there is no guarantee that it will
always work.

□□Negotiation and Agreement: It is sometimes necessary for a team leader to negotiate with
potential resistance or exchange something of value for a lessening the resistance. For instance, if
the resistance is from a few powerful individuals in the team, a specific reward package can be
negotiated that will meet their individual needs. Though in some instances this may be the
relatively easy way to gain acceptance, it is possible that this could be an expensive way of
effecting changes as well. Also, if the use of this strategy becomes public knowledge, others
might also want to try to negotiate before they accept the change.

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□□Manipulation and Co-optation: The team leader seeks to ‘buy off’ the key members who
are resisting by giving them an important role in the change decision. The team leader’s advice is
sought, not to arrive at a better decision but to get their endorsement. Some of the co-opting
tactics include selectively sharing information and consciously structuring certain types of events
that would win support. This can be a quick and relatively easy and inexpensive strategy to gain
support. However, the purpose will be defeated if people feel they are being manipulated.

□□Explicit and Implicit Coercion: The team leaders can force the members to go along with
changes by threats involving loss or transfers of jobs, lack of promotion, etc. Such methods,
though not uncommon, i s more difficult to gain support for future change efforts. This strategy
can be particularly resorted to when changes have to be speedily enforced or when changes are of
a temporary nature. Though speedy and effective in the short run, it may make people angry and
resort to all kinds of mean behaviors in the long run.

LEWIN’S MODEL OF CHANGE/APPROACHES TO MANAGING ORG.

CHANGE/PLANNED CHANGE

Kurt Lewin argued that successful change in organizations should follow three steps
i) Unfreezing the status quo
ii) Movement to a new state
iii) freezing the new change to make it permanent.

Unfreezing:
It is actually the process of preparing the system for change through disconfirmation of the old
practices, attitudes, tendencies, or behaviors. This is the initial phase where those involved in
the change experience a need for something different and a sense of restlessness with the status
quo. In essence, the feeling that the system is hurting itself badly now and desperately requires a
change to survive, is sensed by all. Initiative for changes efforts are taken to overcome the
pressures of both individual resistance and group conformity.

Movement to a new state:

Changing or moving is the phase where the changes that have been planned are actually
initiated and carried out. Changes could relate to the mission, strategy, objectives, people, tasks,
work roles, technology, structure, corporate culture, or any other aspects of the organization.
Well thought out changes have to be carefully implemented with participation of the members
who will be affected by the change. Changes incorporated too quickly without adequate
preparation will result in resistance to change.

Refreezing:
It is the last phase of the planned change process. Refreezing ensures that the planned changes
that have been introduced are working satisfactorily, that any modifications, extra
considerations, or support needed for making the changes operational are attended to, and that
there is reasonable guarantee that the changes will indeed fill the gap and bring the system to the
new, desired state of equilibrium. This necessarily implies that the results are monitored and
evaluated, and wherever necessary corrective measures are taken up to reach the new goal. If
the refreezing phase is neglected or temporarily attended to, the desired results will not ensure
and the change may even be total disaster.

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Forced Field Analysis:
Kurt Lewin stated that there are two types of forces operating in the change process. I) Those
forces which prepare or make the system ready for changes to occur, are called as driving
forces,
ii) Those forces which oppose or operate against changes taking place in the system, are called
as restraining forces. If the two sets of forces are equal in strength, then the systems is in a state
of equilibrium and changes will not occur. If the driving forces are stronger than the restraining
forces, then the system will be changing to find a new equilibrium as the gap to be filled gets
narrowed down. A more viable option is to reduce existing resistance by dealing with and
minimizing the forces that resist the change. In practice, a combination of both strategies –
reducing the restraining factors and increasing the driving forces often ensures best results.

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Stephen P. Robbins, “Organizational Behaviour”, Third Canadian Edition, 2003.
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