Description
ob notes
1 :::: INTRODUCTION TO ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR NEW PARADIGM The organizational behavior has a goal lo help the managers make a transition to the new paradigm. Some of the new paradigm characteristics include coverage of second-generation information technology and total quality management such as empowerment, re engineering and benchmarking, and learning organization for managing diversity of work. The new paradigm sets the stage for the study, understanding, and application of the timetested micro-variables, dynamics and macro-variables. One must know why management needs a new perspective to meet the environmental challenges and to shift to a new paradigm. A NEW PERSPECTIVE FOR MANAGEMENT Management is generally considered to have three major dimensions—technical, conceptual and human. The technical dimension consists of the manager's expertise in particular functional areas. They know the requirements of the jobs and have the functional knowledge to get the job done. But the practicing managers ignore the conceptual and human dimensions of their jobs. Most managers think that their employees are lazy, and are interested only in money, and that if you could make them happy in terms of money, they would be productive. If such assumptions are accepted, the human problems that the management is facing are relatively easy to solve. But human behavior at work is much more complicated and diverse. The new perspective assumes that employees are extremely complex and that there is a need for theoretical understanding given by empirical research before applications can be made for managing people effectively. MODERN APPROACH TO OB: The modern approach to OB is the search for the truth of why people behave the way they do. The organizational behavior is a delicate and complex process. If one aims to manage an organization, it is necessary to understand its operation. Organization is the combination of science and people. While science and technology is predictable, the human behavior in organization is rather unpredictable. This is because it arises from deep needs and value systems of people. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND FOR MODERN ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR Scientific Management Approach : was developed by F.W. Taylor at the beginning of the 20th century. This theory supported the use of certain steps in scientifically studying each element of a job, selecting and training the best workers for the job arid making sure that the workers follow the prescribed method of doing the job. It provided a scientific rationale for job specialization and mass production. His assumption was that employees are motivated largely by money. To increase the output, Taylor advised managers to pay monetary incentives to efficient workers. Yet, his theory was criticized by many employers and workers. Workers objected to the pressure of work as being harder and faster. Critics worried that the methods took the humanity out of labor, reducing workers to machines responding to management incentives. Therefore, Taylor's view is now considered inadequate and narrow due to the points given by the critics. Bureaucratic Approach While scientific management was focusing on the interaction between workers and the task, me researchers were studying how to structure the organization more effectively. Instead of trying to make each worker more efficient, classical organization theory sought the most effective overall organizational structure for workers and managers. The theory's most prominent advocate, Max Weber, proposed a 'bureaucratic form' of structure, which he thought would work for all organizations. Weber's idea! bureaucracy was , logical, rational and efficient. He made the naive assumption that one structure would work best for all organizations. Henry Ford, Henry Fayol and Frederick W. Taylor, the early management pioneers, recognized the behavioral side of management. However, they did not emphasize the human dimensions. Although there were varied and complex reasons for the emerging importance of behavioral approach to management, it is generally recognized that the Hawthorne studies mark the historical roots for the field of organizational behavior. Hawthorne Studies Even, as Taylor and Weber brought attention with their rational, logical approaches to more efficient productivity, their views were criticized on the ground that both approaches ignored worker's humanity. The real beginning of applied research in the area of OB started with Hawthorne Experiments. In 1924, a group of professors began an inquiry into the human aspects of work and working conditions at the Hawthorne plant of Western Electric Company, Chicago. The findings of these studies were given a new name 'human relations' the studies brought out a number of findings relevant to understanding human behavior at work. The Human element in the workplace was considerably more important. The workers are influenced by social factors and the behavior of
the individual worker is determined by the group. Hawthorne studies have been criticized for their research methods and conclusions drawn. But their impact on the emerging field of OB was dramatic. They helped usher in a more humanity centered approach to work. APPROACHES TO ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR There are mainly four approaches to organizational behavior. They are: Human Resources Approach : The human resources approach is concerned with the growth and development of people towards higher levels of competency, creativity and fulfillment, because people are the central resource in any organization. This approach help employees become better in terms of work and responsibility and then it tries to create a climate in which they can contribute to the best of their improved abilities. This approach is also known as 'supportive approach' because the manager's primary role changes from control of employees to providing an active support for their growth and performance. A Contingency Approach : A contingency approach to OB implies that different situations require different behavioral practices for effectiveness instead of following a traditional approach for all situations. Each situation must be analyzed carefully to determine the significant variables that exist in order to establish the more effective practices. The strength of this approach is that it encourages analysis of each situation prior to action. Thus, it helps to use all the current knowledge about people in the organization in the most appropriate manner. Productivity Approach : Productivity is a ratio that compares units of output with units of input. It is often measured in terms of economic inputs and outputs. Productivity is considered to be improved, if more outputs can be produced from the same amount of inputs. But besides economic inputs and outputs, human and social inputs and outputs also arc important. Systems Approach : A system is an interrelated part of an organization or a society that interacts with everyone related to that organization or society and functions as a whole. Within the organization 'people' employ 'technology' in performing the 'task' that they are responsible for, while the 'structure' of the organization serves as a basis for co-ordinating all their different activities. The systems view emphasizes the interdependence of each of these elements within the organization, if the organization as a whole is to function effectively. The other key aspect of the systems view of organization is its emphasis on the interaction between the organization and its broader environment,, which consists of social, economic, cultural and political environment within which they operate. Organizations arc dependent upon their surrounding environment in two main ways: First, the organization requires 'inputs' from the environment in the form of raw material, people, money, ideas and so on. The organization itself can be thought of as performing certain 'transformation' processes, on its inputs in order to create outputs in the form of products or services. Secondly, the organization depends on environment such as, public to accept its output. The systems view of organization thus emphasizes on the key interdependencies that organizations must manage. Within themselves the organizations must trade off the interdependencies among people, tasks, technology and structure in order to perform their transformation processes effectively and efficiently. Organizations must also recognize their interdependence with the broader environments within which they exist.
CONTEMPORARY ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR A Separate Field of Study : OB can be treated as a distinct field of study. It is yet to become a science. Now
efforts are being made to synthesize principles, concepts and processes in this field of study. Interdisciplinary Approach : OB is basically an interdisciplinary approach. It draws heavily from other disciplines like psychology, sociology and anthropology. Besides, it also takes relevant things from economics, political science, law and history. OB integrates the relevant contents of these disciplines to make them applicable for organizational analysis. e.g. it addresses issues, which may be relevant to the case, such as the following: • What facilitates accurate perception and attribution? • What influences individual, group and organizational learning and the development of individual attitudes toward .work? • How do individual differences in personality, personal development, and career development affect individual's behaviours and attitudes? • What motivates people to work, and how. does the organizational reward system influence worker's
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behaviour and attitudes? How do managers build effective teams? What contributes to effective decision-making? What are the constituents of effective communication? What are the characteristics of effective communication? How can power be secured and used productively? What factors contribute to effective negotiations? How can conflict (between groups or between a manager and subordinates) be resolved or managed? How can jobs and organizations be effectively designed? How can managers help workers deal effectively with change?
An Applied Science : The basic objective of organizational behaviour is to make application of various researches to solve the organizational problems, particularly related to the human behavioral aspect. Normative and Value Centered : OB is a normative science. A normative science prescribes how the various findings of researches can be applied to get organizational results, which are acceptable to the society. Thus, what is acceptable by the society or individuals engaged in an organization is a matter of values of the society and people concerned. Humanistic and Optimistic: OB focuses the attention on people from humanistic point of view. It is based on the belief that needs and motivation of people are of high' concern. Further, there is optimism about the innate potential of man to be independent, creative, predictive and capable of contributing positively to the objectives of the organization. Oriented towards Organizational Objectives : OB is oriented towards organizational objectives. In fact, OB tries to integrate both individual and organizational objectives so that both are achieved simultaneously. A Total System Approach: An individual's behavior can be analyzed keeping in view his psychological framework, interpersonal-orientation, group influence and social and cultural factors; Thus, individual's nature is quite complex and OB by applying systems approach tries to find solutions for this complexity.
2 : FOUNDATION OF ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
DEFINITION OF MANAGEMENT : Management is commonly defined as "Getting work done through other people". This simple definition explains the significance of the role of people. The work will not be done unless "people" want to do the work and if the work is not done then there will be no organization. Hence, the cooperation of the workers is crucial to the success or failure of the organization. DEFINITION OF ORGANISATION : According to Gary Johns, "Organizations are social inventions for accomplishing goals through group efforts". This definition covers wide variety-of groups such as businesses, schools, hospitals, fraternal groups, religious bodies, government agencies and so on. There are three significant aspects in the above definition, which require further analysis. They are as follows: • Social Inventions: The word "social" as a derivative of society basically means gathering of people. It is the people that primarily make up an organization. • Accomplishing Goals: All organizations have reasons for their existence. These reasons are the goals towards which all organizational efforts are directed. While the primary goal .of any commercial organization is to make money for its owners, this goal is inter-related with many other goals. Accordingly, any organizational goal must integrate in itself the personal goals of all individuals associated with the organization. • Group Effort: People, both as members of the society at large and as a part of an organization interact with each other and are inter-dependent. Individuals in themselves have physical and intellectual limitations and these limitations can only be overcome by group efforts. MEANING AND DEFINITION OF OB: OB is concerned with people's thoughts, feelings, emotions and actions in
setting up a work. Understanding an individual behavior is in itself a challenge, but understanding group behavior in an organizational environment is a monumental managerial task. As Nadler and Tushman put it, "Understanding one individual's behavior is challenging in and of itself; understanding a group that is made up of different individuals and comprehending the many relationships among those individuals is even more complex. Ultimately, the organization's work gets done through people, individually or collectively, on their, own or in collaboration with technology. Therefore, the management of OB is central to the management task—a task that involves the capacity to "understand" the behavior patterns of individuals, groups and organizations, to ''predict'" what behavioral responses will be elicited by various managerial actions and finally to use this understanding and these predictions to achieve "control". OB can then be defined as: "The study of human behavior in organizational settings, the interface between human behavior and the organizational context, and the organization itself." The above definition has three parts —the individual behavior, the organization and the (interface between the two. Each individual brings to an organization a unique set of beliefs, values, attitudes and other personal characteristics and these characteristics of all individuals must interact with each other in order to create organizational settings. OB is specifically concerned with work-related behavior, which takes place in organizations. In addition to understanding; the on-going behavioral processes involved, in 'their own jobs, managers must understand the basic human element of their work. OB offers three major ways of understanding this context; people as organizations, people as resources and people as people. Above all, organizations are people; and without people there would be no organizations. Thus, if managers are to understand the organizations in which they work, they must first understand the people who make up the organizations. As resources, people are one of the organization's most valuable assets. People create the organization, guide and direct its course, and vitalize and revitalize it. People make the decisions, solve the problems, and answer the questions. As managers increasingly recognize the value of potential contributions by their employees, it will become more and more important for managers and employees to grasp the complexities of OB. Finally, there is people as people - an argument derived from the simple notion of humanistic management. People spend a large part of their lives in; organizational settings, mostly as employees. They have a right to expect something in return beyond wages and benefits. They have a right to expect satisfaction and to learn new skills. An understanding of OB can help the manager better appreciate the variety of individual needs and' expectations. OB is concerned with the characteristics and behaviors of employees in isolation; the characteristics and processes that are part of the organization itself; 'and the characteristics and behaviors directly resulting from people with their individual needs and motivations working within the structure of the organization. One cannot understand an individual’s behavior completely without learning something about that individual's organization. Similarly, he cannot understand how the organization operates without; studying the people who-make it up. Thus, the organization influences and is influenced by individuals. ELEMENTS OF ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
The key elements in the OB are people, structure, technology and the environment in which the organization operates. • People: People make up the internal and social system of the organization. They consist of individuals • •
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and groups. The groups may be big or small; formal or informal; official or unofficial. Groups are dynamic and they work in the organization to achieve their objectives. Structure: Structure defines the formal relationships of the people in organizations. Different people in the organization are performing different type of jobs and they need to be (elated in some structural way so that their work can be effectively co-ordinated. Technology: Technology such as machines and work processes provide the resources with which people work and affects the tasks that they perform. The technology used has a significant influence on working relationships. It allows people to do more and work better but it also restricts' people in various ways. Environment: All organizations operate within an external environment. It is the part of a larger system that contains many other elements such as government, family and other organizations. All of these
mutually influence each other in a complex system that creates a context for a group of people. IMPORTANCE OF ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR OB offers several ideas to management as to how human factor should be properly emphasized to achieve organizational objectives. Barnard has observed that an organization is a conscious interaction of two or more people. This suggests that since an organization is Ihe interaction of persons, they should be given adequate importance in managing the organization. OB provides opportunity to management to analyze human behavior and prescribe means for shaping it to a particular direction. Understanding Human Behavior Organizational behavior provides understanding the human behavior in all directions in which the human beings interact. Thus, OB can be understood at the individual level, interpersonal level, group level and inter-group level. OB helps to analyze 'why' and 'how' an individual behaves in a particular way. Human behavior is a complex phenomenon and is affected by a large number of factors including the psychological, social and cultural implications. OB integrates these factors to provide* simplicity in understanding the human behavior.
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Interpersonal Level: Human behavior can be understood at the level of interpersonal interaction. OB provides • means for understanding the interpersonal relationships in an organization. Analysis of reciprocal relationships, role analysis and transactional analysis are some of the common methods, which provide such understanding. Group Level: Though people interpret anything at their individual level, they are often modified by group pressures, which then become a force in shaping human behavior, Thus, individuals should be studied in groups also.. Research in group dynamics has contributed vitally to OB and shows how a group behaves in its norms, cohesion, goals, procedures, communication pattern and leadership. These research results are advancing managerial knowledge of understanding group behavior, which is very important for organizational morale and productivity. Inter-group Level: The organization is made up of many groups that develop complex relationships to build their process and substance. Understanding the effect of group relationships is important for managers in today's organization. Inter-group relationship may be in the form of co-operation or competition.
The co-operative relationships help the organization in achieving its objectives. OB provides means to understand and achieve co-operative group relationships through interaction, rotation of members among groups, avoidance of win-lose situation and focusing on total group objectives.
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Controlling and Directing Behavior: After understanding the mechanism of human behavior, managers are required to control and direct the behavior so that it conforms to the standards required for achieving the organizational objectives. Thus, managers are required to control and direct the behavior at all levels of individual interaction. Therefore, OB helps managers in controlling and directing in different areas such as use of power and sanction, leadership, communication and building organizational climate favorable for better interaction. Use of Power and Sanction: The behaviors can be controlled and directed by the use of power and sanction, which are formally defined by the organization. Power is referred to as the capacity of an individual to take certain action and may be utilized in many ways. OB explains how various means of power and sanction can ,be utilized so that both organizational and individual objectives are achieved simultaneously. Leadership: OB brings new insights and understanding to the practice and theory of leadership. It identifies various leadership styles available to a manager and analyses which style is more appropriate in a given situation. Thus, managers can adopt styles keeping in view the various dimensions of organizations, individuals and situations. Communication: Communication helps people to come in contact with each other. To achieve organizational objectives, the communication must be effective. The communication process and its work in inter-personal dynamics have been evaluated by OB. Organizational Climate: Organizational climate refers to the total organizational situations affecting human behavior. Organizational climate takes a system perspective that affect human behavior. Besides improving the satisfactory working conditions and adequate compensation, organizational climate includes creation of an atmosphere of effective supervision; the opportunity for the realization of personal goals, congenial relations with others at the work place and a sense of accomplishment.
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Organizational Adaptation: Organizations, as dynamic entities are characterized by pervasive changes. Organizations have to adapt themselves to the environmental changes by making suitable, internal arrangements such as convincing employees who normally have the tendency of resisting any changes.
FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS OF ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR OB starts with the following six fundamental concepts revolving around the nature of people and organizations: The nature of people: • Individual differences • A whole person • Motivated behavior • Value of the person The nature of organization: • Social system • Mutual interest • Individual Differences: Individuals are different in their physical and mental traits. They are different not only in the physical appearance such as sex, age, height, weight, complexion and so on but also different in their psychological trait such as intelligence, attitude, motivation and perception. This belief that each person is different from all others is typically called the 'Law of Individual Differences'. Individual differences mean that the management has to treat them differently to get the best out of them. • A Whole Person: Though the organization may feel that they are employing only the individual's skill or intelligence, in fact, they employ the 'whole person'. This means that individual does not have only the skill and intelligence but he has a personal life, needs and desires as well. In other words, his personal life cannot be separated from his work life since people function as total human beings. When management practices OB, it is not only trying to develop a better employee but it also wants to develop a 'better person' in terms of all round growth and development. The benefit will extend beyond the firm into the larger society in which each employee lives. • Motivated behavior: It is the urge of the individual to satisfy a particular need that motivates him to do an act. The motivation could be positive or negative. Motivation is essential for the proper functioning of organizations. The organization can show to its employees how certain actions will increase their need fulfillment. • Value of the Person: It is more an ethical philosophy. It stresses that people are to be treated with respect and dignity. Every job, however simple, entitles the people who do it to proper respect and recognition of their unique aspirations and abilities. Since OB involves people, ethical philosophy is involved in one way or the other. The nature of an organization can be understood with the help of tjie description of following two points:
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Social System: A system is a group of independent and interrelated elements comprising a unified whole. In context with an organization, the individuals of a society are considered as a system organized by a characteristic pattern of relationships having a distinctive culture and values. It is also called social organization or social structure. Mutual Interest: Organizational relationships are most likely to be strong if different groups can negotiate strategies. This can be defined as the interests that are common to both the parties and are related to the accomplishment of their respective goals. This space for sharing ideas builds trust. Individuals who have shared mutual interests are likely to make their organization the strongest, because even though the views are different they have a shared concern for similar objectives. It is important for the individuals to think about their issues openly, and to incorporate the perspectives of their colleagues. This helps to build sustainable and harmonious activities that can operate in the mutual direct interests of the organization.
3 : Models of organizational behavior
CONCEPT OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR SYSTEM Organizations achieve their goals by creating, communicating and operating an organizational behaviour system. Organizational behaviour system defines organizational structure and culture and explains their impact on employees. The figure 3.1 shows the major elements of a good organizational behaviour system:
The primary advantage of OB system is to identify the major human and organizational variables that affect organizational outcomes. For some variables managers can only be aware of them and acknowledge their impact whereas for other variables, managers can exert some control over them. The outcomes arc measured in terms of quantity and quality of products and services, level of customer service, employee satisfaction and personal growth and development. ELEMENTS OF THE SYSTEM Organizations differ in the quality of organizational behavior that they develop. These differences are substantially caused by different models of organizational behavior that dominant management's thought in each organization. The model that a manager holds usually begins with certain assumptions about people and thereby leads to certain interpretations of organizational events. The following four models of organizational behavior are as follows: Autocratic Model : Here, the manager has the power to command his subordinates to do a specific job. Management believes that it knows what is best for an organization and therefore, employees are required to follow their orders. The psychological result of this model on employees is their increasing dependence on their boss. Its main weakness is its high human cost. Custodial Model : Here, focus is on better employee satisfaction and security. Under this model organizations satisfy the security and welfare needs of employees. Hence, it is known as custodian model. This model leads to employee dependence on an organization rather than on boss. As a result of economic rewards and benefits, employees are happy and contented but they are not strongly motivated. Supportive Model : It depends on 'leadership' instead of power or money. Through leadership, management provides a climate to help employees grow and accomplish in the interest of an organization. This model assumes that employees will take responsibility, develop a drive to contribute and improve them if management will give them a chance. Therefore, management's direction is to 'Support' the employee's job performance rather than to 'support' employee benefit payments, as in the custodial approach. Since management supports
employees in their work, the psychological result is a feeling of participation and task involvement in an, organization. Collegial Model : The term 'collegial' relates to a body of persons having a common purpose. It is a team concept. Management is the coach that builds a better team. The management is seen as joint contributor rather than as a boss. The employee response to this situation is responsibility. The psychological result of the collegial approach for the employee is 'self-discipline'. In this kind of environment employees normally feel some degree of fulfillment and worthwhile contribution towards their work. This results in enthusiasm in employees' performance. FOUR MODELS OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR Autocratic Power Authority Dependence on boss Subsistence Minimum Custodial Economic resources Money Dependence on organization Security Passive cooperation Supportive Leadership Support Participation Status and recognition Awakened drives Collegial Partnership Teamwork Self-discipline Self-actualization Moderate enthusiasm
Basis of Model Managerialorientation Employee psychological result Employee needs met Performance result
LIMITATIONS OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR • Organizational behaviour cannot abolish conflict and frustration but can only reduce them. It is a way to improve but not an absolute answer to problems. • It is only one of the many systems operating within a large social system. • People who lack system understanding may develop a 'behavioral basis', which gives them a narrow view point, i.e., a tunnel vision that emphasizes on satisfying employee experiences while overlooking the broader system of an organization in relation to all its public. • The law of diminishing returns also operates in the case of organizational behaviour. It states, that at some point increase of a desirable practice produce declining returns and sometimes, negative returns. The concept implies that for any situation there is an optimum amount of a desirable practice. When that point is exceeded, there is a decline in returns. For example, too much security may lead to less employee initiative and growth. This relationship shows that organizational effectiveness is achieved not by maximizing one human variable but by working all system variables together in a balanced way. • A significant concern about organizational behaviour is that its knowledge and techniques could be used to manipulate people without regard for human welfare. People who lack ethical values could use people in unethical ways. 4 : GLOBAL SCENARIO OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR SOCIAL CONDITIONS In many countries due to poorly developed resources, there is shortage of managerial personnel, scientists and technicians. Hence the required skills must be temporarily imported from other countries, and training programs need to be developed to train the local workers. Trained locals become the nucleus for developing others, thereby spreading the training through masses. Another significant social condition in many countries is that the local culture is not familiar with advanced technology. A few countries arc agriculture dominated and a few other manufacturing industries dominated. Naturally, the nature of their culture and work life will be different. POLITICAL CONDITIONS Political conditions that have a significant effect on OB include instability of the government, restricting industries to a particular area and nationalistic drives such as self-sufficiency in latest technologies. When the government is unstable, organizations become cautious about further investments. This organizational instability leaves
workers insecure and causes them to be passive and low in taking any initiatives. In spite of instability, a nationalistic drive is strong for locals to run their country and their organizations by themselves without any interference by foreign nationals. In some nations, organized labor is mostly an arm of the authoritarian state and in some other nations labor is somewhat independent. In some nations, State tends to be involved in collective bargaining and other practices that affect workers. For example, workers' participation in management are restricted by law while in other countries they are permitted. ECONOMIC CONDITIONS The most significant economic conditions in less developed nations are low per capita income and rapid inflation. Inflation makes the economic life of workers insecure when compared to developed countries. The different socio-economic and political conditions existing in countries influence the introduction of advanced technology and sophisticated organizational systems. A developed country can easily adopt advanced technology when compared to a less developed country. These limiting conditions cannot be changed rapidly because they arc too well established and woven into the whole social fabric of a nation. MANAGING AN INTERNATIONAL WORKFORCE Whenever an organization expands its operations to other countries, it tends to become multicultural and will then face the challenge of blending various cultures together. The managerial personnel entering another nation need to adjust their leadership styles, communication patterns and other practices to fit their host country. Their role is to provide fusion of cultures in which employees from both countries adjust to the new situation seeking a greater productivity for the benefit of both the organization and the people of the country in which it operates. Barriers to Cultural Adaptation • Managers and other employees who come into a host country tend to exhibit different behaviors and somewhat, see situation around them from their own perspectives. They may fail to recognize the key differences between their own and other cultures. These people are called, 'parochial'. • Another category of managers called 'individualistic' place greatest emphasis on their personal needs and welfare. They are more concerned about themselves than the host country. • Another potential barrier to easy adaptation of another culture occurs, when-people are predisposed to believe that their homeland conditions are the-best. This predisposition is known as the 'self-reference criterion' or 'ethnocentrism'. This feeling interferes with understanding human: behaviour in other cultures and obtaining productivity from local employees. Cultural Distance To decide the amount of adaptation that may be required when personnel moves to another country, it is helpful to understand the cultural distance between the two countries. Cultural distance is the amount of distance between any two social systems. Whatever may be the amount of cultural distance, it does affect the responses of all individuals to business. The manager's job is to make the employees adapt to the other culture and integrate the interests of the various cultures involved. Cultural Shock When employees enter another nation they tend to suffer cultural shock, which is the insecurity and disorientation caused by encountering a different culture. They may not know how to act. may fear losing face and self-confidence or may become emotionally upset. Cultural shock is virtually universal. Some of the more frequent reasons for cultural shock are as follows: • Different management philosophies • New language • Alternative food, dress, availability of goods • Attitude towards work and productivity • Separation from family, friends and colleagues • Unique currency system Many expatriates report difficulty in adjusting to different human resource management philosophies, the language, the different currency and work attitudes in another culture. Overcoming Barriers to Cultural Adaptation • Careful selection; of employees, who can withstand/adjust cultural shocks for international assignments* is important.
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Pre-departure training in geography, customs, culture and political environment in which the employee will be living will help for cultural adaptation. Incentives and guarantees for better position will motivate employees for cultural adaptation in the new country. Employees who return to their home country after working in another nation for sometime tend to suffer cultural shock in their own homeland. After adjusting to the culture of another nation and enjoying its uniqueness, it is difficult for expatriates to re-adjust to the surroundings of their home country. Hence, organizations need repatriation policies and programs to help returning employees obtain suitable assignments and adjust to the 'new' environments.
Cultural Contingencies Productive business practices from one country cannot be transferred directly to another country. This reflects the idea of cultural contingency that the most productive practices for a particular nation will depend heavily on the culture, social system, economic development and employee's values in the host country. Hence, the expatriate managers must learn to operate effectively in a new environment with certain amount of flexibility. Labor policy, personnel practices and production methods need to be adapted to a different labor force. Organization structures and communication patterns need to be suitable for local operations. MANAGEMENT'S INTEGRATING ROLE Once managers are in a host country, their attention needs to be directed toward integrating the technological approaches with the local cultures involved. Motivating and Leading Local Employees Same motivational tools may not suit the employees of all the nations. Hence, appropriate motivational techniques need to be implemented depending on the requirement of employees of that particular nation. Similarly, communication problems may also arise between the expatriate manager and the employees of the host country. Hence, managers need to make adjustments in their communication suited to< local cultures. If local culture is ignored, the resulting imbalance in the social system interferes with the productivity. Eventually, a cadre of employees with cross-cultural adaptability can be developed in organizations with large international operations. These employees are 'trans-cultural’ employees because they operate effectively in several cultures. They are low in ethnocentrism and adapt readily to different cultures without major cultural shock. They usually can communicate fluently in more than one language. Trans-cultural employees are especially needed in large, multinational firms that operate in a-variety of national cultures. For a firm to be truly multi-national in character, it should have ownership, operations, markets and managers truly diversified. Its leaders look to the world as an economic and social unit; but they recognize each local culture, respect its integrity, acknowledge its benefits and use its differences effectively in their organization.
6 PERSONALITY Maddi defines personality as, “A stable set of characteristics and tendencies that determine those commonalities and differences in the psychological behavior and that may not be easily understood as the sole result of the social and biological pressures of the moment". From the above definition we can infer that all individuals have some universally common characteristics. Yet they differ in some other specific attributes. From this perspective, personality means the way people affect others. It also involves people's understanding themselves, as well as their pattern of inner and outer measurable traits, and the person and situation interaction. People affect others depending primarily upon their external appearance such as height, weight, facial features, color and other physical aspects and traits. Personality traits are very important in organizational behavior. In particular, five personality traits especially related to job performance have recently emerged from research. Characteristics of these traits can be summarized as follows:
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Extroversion: Sociable, talkative and assertive. Agreeableness: Good-natured, cooperative and trusting. Conscientiousness: Responsible, dependable, persistent and achievement-oriented.
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Emotional Stability: Viewed from a negative standpoint such as tense, insecure and nervous. Openness to Experience: Imaginative, artistically sensitive and intellectual.
Identifying the above "big five" traits related to performance reveals that personality plays an important role in organizational behavior. Besides physical appearance and personality traits, the aspects of personality concerned with the self-concept such as self-esteem and self-efficacy and the person-situation interaction also play important roles. PERSONALITY FACTORS IN ORGANISATIQN5 Some of the important personality factors that determine what kind of behaviors are exhibited at work include the following: Need Pattern: Steers and Braunstein in 1976 ^developed a scale for the four needs of personality that became apparent in the 'work environment. They are as follows:
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The need for achievement: Those with a high achievement need engage themselves proactively in work behaviors in order to feel proud of their achievements and successes. The need for affiliation: Those in greater need for affiliation like to work cooperatively with others. The need for autonomy: Those in need for autonomy function in the best way when not closely supervised. The need for dominance: Those high in need for dominance are very effective while operating in environments where they can actively enforce their legitimate authority.
Locus of Control Locus of control is the degree to which an individual believes that his or her behavior has direct impact on the consequences of that behavior. Some people, for example, believe that if they work hard they will certainly succeed. They, strongly believe that each individual is in control of his or her life. They are said to have an internal locus of control. By contrast, some people think that what happens to them is a result of fate, chance, luck or the behavior of other people, rather than the lack of skills or poor performance on their part. Becausethese individuals think that forces beyond their control dictate the happenings around them, they are said to have an external locus of control. For example, certain individuals have an internal locus of control, which means they have a relatively strong desire to participate in the management of their organizations and have a' freedom to do their jobs. Thus, they may prefer a decentralized organization where they have a right of decision-making and work with a leader who provides them freedom and autonomy. They may like a reward system that recognizes individual performance and contributions. Conversely, people with an external locus of control, are likely to prefer a more centralized organization where they need not take any decisions. They may incline to structured jobs where standard procedures are defined for them. They may prefer a leader who makes most of the decisions and a reward system that considers seniority rather than merit. Introversion and Extroversion Introversion is the tendency of individuals, which directs them to be inward and process feelings, thoughts and ideas within themselves. Extroversion, on the contrary, refers to the tendency in individuals to look outside themselves, searching for external stimuli with which they can interact. While there is some element of introversion as well as extroversion in all of us, people tend to be dominant as either extroverts or introverts. Extroverts are sociable, lively and gregarious and seek outward stimuli or external exchanges. Such individuals are likely to be most successful while working in the sales department, publicity office, personal relations unit, and so on, where they can interact face to face with others. Introverts, on the other Hand, are quiet, reflective, introspective, and intellectual people, preferring to interact with a small intimate circle of friends. Introverts are more likely to be successful when they can work on highly abstract ideas such as R&D work, in a relatively quiet atmosphere. Since managers have to constantly interact with individuals both in and out of the organization and influence people to achieve the organization's goals, it is believed that extroverts are likely to be more successful as managers. Tolerance for Ambiguity
This personality characteristic indicates the level of uncertainty that people can tolerate to work efficiently without experiencing undue stress. Managers have to work well under conditions of extreme uncertainty and insufficient information, especially when things are rapidly changing in the organization's external environment. Managers who have a high tolerance for ambiguity can cope up well under these conditions. Managers, who have a low tolerance for ambiguity may be effective in structured work settings but find it almost impossible to operate effectively when things are rapidly changing and much information about the future events is not available. Thus, tolerance for ambiguity is a personality dimension necessary for managerial success. Authoritarianism and Dogmatism Authoritarianism is the extent to which an individual believes that power and status differences are important within' hierarchical social systems like organizations. For example, an employee who is highly authoritarian may accept directives or orders from his superior without much questioning. A person who is not highly authoritarian might agree to carry out appropriate and reasonable directives from his boss. But he may also raise questions, express disagreement and even refuse to carry out requests if they arc for some reason objectionable. Dogmatism is the rigidity of a person's beliefs and his or her openness to other viewpoints. The popular terms 'close-minded' and 'open-minded' describe people who are more and less .dogmatic in their beliefs respectively. For example, a manager may be unwilling to listen to a new idea related to doing something more efficiently. He is said to be a person who is close-minded or highly dogmatic. A manager who is very receptive to hearing about and trying out new ideas in the same circumstances might be seen as more open-minded or less dogmatic. Dogmatism can be either beneficial or detrimental to organizations, but given the degree of change in the nature of organizations and their environments, individuals who are, not dogmatic are most likely to be useful and productive organizational members. Risk Propensity : Risk-propensity is the decree to which an individual is willing to take chances and make risky decisions. A manager with a high-risk propensity might be expected to experiment with new ideas and to lead the organization in new directions. In contrast, a manager with low risk propensity might lead to a stagnant and overly conservative organization. Machiavellianism : is manipulating or influencing other people as a primary way of achieving one's goal. An individual tends to be Machiavellian, if he tends to be logical in assessing the system around, willing to twist and turn facts to influence others, and try to gain control of people, events and situations by manipulating the system to his advantage. Work-Ethic Orientation: Some individuals are highly work-oriented while others try to do the minimum Work that is necessary to get by without being fired on-the-job. The extremely work oriented person gets greatly involved in the job. Extreme work ethic values could lead to traits of "work holism" where work is considered as the only primary motive for living with very little outside interests. For a workaholic turning to work can sometimes become a viable alternative to facing non-work related problems. A high level of work ethic orientation of members is good for the organization to achieve its goals. Too much "work holism", however, might lead to premature physical and mental exhaustion and health problems, which is dysfunctional for both organization and the workaholic members. DESIRED PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS FOR EFFECTIVE MANAGERS Obviously, there arc some personality predispositions, which are favorable "to managerial effectiveness and to the success of managers. Apart from possessing the necessary skills and abilities, managers need to develop a high tolerance for ambiguity. There are many changes taking place in the internal and the external environment of an organization.. Naturally, several unpredictable factors are involved in any complex situation, which are beyond the managers’ control. Therefore, they should be able to, handle situations as they come, without experiencing undue stress. Thus, a high tolerance for ambiguity is a desired managerial trait. Managers with a good mix of achievements, affiliations and power will be successful in most situations. This is because they will have the drive to achieve the goals and the interpersonal orientation to get the job done through others. In sales and other people-oriented roles, extrovert managers will fit better in their jobs. Similarly, managers with internal locus of control will be more efficient as intellectual and skilled performers. Managers with good work ethic values will get more involved in their jobs and make things happen. They are likely to be more successful in their jobs. Managers with Type A personalities may suit very well for some jobs, which have inbuilt performance pressures and deadlines, but they
need to know how to relax through exercises and self-monitor their stress levels. Personality is a relatively stable factor, but our predispositions can be changed through conscious choice. For instance, our tolerance for ambiguity and ability to handle stress can be considerably enhanced; the attributions we make for success such as internal versus external-locus of control can be changed. Also, our latent needs can be activated and our skills in decision-making can be increased through training programs and by deliberately making the necessary changes. Recognizing the essential ingredients for managerial success is the first step towards making the changes. THE SELF-CONCEPT: SELF-ESTEEM AND SELF-EFFICACY People's attempt to understand themselves is called the self-concept in personality theory. The human self is made of many interacting parts and may be thought of as the personality viewed from within. This self is particularly relevant to the concepts of self-esteem and self-efficacy in the field of organizational behavior. People's self-esteem has to do with their self-perceived competence and self-image. Considerable research has been done on the role played by self-esteem outcomes in the organizational behavior. Most recently done studies indicate that self-esteem plays an important moderating role in the areas of emotional and behavioral responses and stress of organizational members. It was recently noted that, "both research and everyday experience confirm that employees with high self-esteem feel unique, competent, secure, empowered and connected, to the people around them" Self-efficacy is concerned with self-perceptions of how well a person can cope with situations as they arise. Those with high self-efficacy feel capable and confident of performing well in a situation. In the field of organizational behavior, self-efficacy is conceptually close to self-esteem. Miner points out the differences by noting that self-esteem tends to be a generalized trait (it will be present in any situation), while self-efficacy tends to be situation specific. Self-efficacy; has been shown to have an empirical relationship with organizational performance and other dynamics of organizational behavior. In summary, personality is a very diverse and complex cognitive process. It incorporates almost everything. As defined above, personality means the whole person. It is concerned with external appearance and traits, self and situational interactions. Probably the best statement on personality was made many years ago by Kluckhohn and Murray, "to some extent, a person's personality is like all other people's, like some other people's, and like no other people's." 7 : ATTITUDE In simple words, an "attitude" is an individual's point of view or an individual's way of looking at something. To be more explicit, an "attitude" may be explained as the mental state of an individual, which prepares him to react or make him behave in a particular pre-determined way. An attitude is defined as, "a learned pre-disposition to respond in a consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to a given object". Attitude is the combination of beliefs and feelings that people have about specific ideas, situations or other people. Attitude is important because it is the mechanism through which most people express their feelings. COMPONENTS OF ATTITUDE Attitude has three components, which are as follows: • Affective component • Cognitive component • Intentional component.
The affective component of an attitude reflects 'feelings and emotions' that an individual has towards a situation. The cognitive component of an attitude is derived from 'knowledge' that an individual has about a situation. Finally, the intentional component of an attitude reflects how an individual 'expects to behave' towards or in the situation. For example, the different components of an attitude held towards a firm, which supplies inferior products and that too irregularly could be described as follows: • • • "I don't like that company"—Affective component. "They are the worst supply firm I have ever dealt with"—Cognitive component. "I will never do business with them again"'—Intentional component.
People try to maintain consistency among the three components of their attitudes. However, conflicting circumstances often arise. The conflict that individuals may experience among their own attitudes is called 'cognitive dissonance. ATTITUDE FORMATION AND CHANGE Individual attitude are formed over time as a result of repeated personal experiences with ideas, situations or people. One of the very important ways to understand individual behavior in an organization is that of studying attitude, which is situation specific and learned. An attitude may change as a result of new information. A manager may have a negative attitude about a new employee because of his lack of job-related experience. After working with a new person, a manager may come to realise that he is actually very talented and subsequently may develop a more positive attitude toward him. Work-Related Attitudes People in an organization form attitude about many things such as about their salary, promotion possibilities, superiors, fringe benefits, food in the canteen, uniform etc. Especially some important attitudes are job satisfaction or dissatisfaction, organizational commitment and job involvement. Job Satisfaction Job satisfaction is an attitude reflects the extent to which an individual is gratified or fulfilled .by his or her work. Extensive research conducted on job satisfaction has indicated that personal .factors such as an individual's needs and aspirations determine this attitude, along with group and organizational factors such as relationships with co-workers and supervisors, working conditions, work policies and compensation. A satisfied employee also tends to be absent less often, makes positive contributions, and stays with the organization. In contrast, a dissatisfied employee may be absent more often may experience stress that disrupts co-workers, and may keep continually looking for another job. Organizational factors that influence employee satisfaction include pay, promotion, policies and procedures of the organizations and working conditions. Group factors such as relationship with co-workers and supervisors also influence job- satisfaction. Similarly, satisfaction depends on individual factors like individual's needs and aspirations. If employees are satisfied with their job, it may lead to low employee turnover and less absenteeism and vice-versa. Organizational Commitment and Involvement Two other important work-related attitudes arc organizational commitment and involvement. Organizational commitment is the individual's feeling of identification with and attachment to an organization. Involvement refers
to a person's willingness to be a team member and work beyond the usual standards of the job. An employee with little involvement is motivated by extrinsic motivational factor and an employee with strong involvement is motivated by intrinsic motivational factors. There are a number of factors that lead to commitment and involvement. Both may increase with an employee's age and years with the organization, with his sense of job security and participation in decision-making. If the organization treats its employees fairly and provides reasonable rewards and job security, employees are more likely to be satisfied and committed. Involving employees in decision-making can also help to increase commitment. In particular, designing jobs, which are interesting and stimulating, can enhance job involvement. ATTITUDE: IT’S IMPORTANCE IN ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR Attitudes of both workers and management react to each other and determine mutual relationships. Attitude is an understanding or learning of why employees feel and act the way; they do and help supervisors in winning cooperation from them. So, it is very essential for the efficient working of an organization. From a personal perspective, attitudes provide knowledge base or prepare, our mental state, for our interaction with others, and with the world around us. This directly affects organizational behaviour, and in turn organizational working. Perception Perception is an important mediating cognitive process. Through this complex process, people make interpretations of the stimulus or situation they are faced with. Both selectivity and organization go 'into perceptual, interpretations. Externally, selectivity is affected by intensity, size, contrast, repetition, motion and novelty and familiarity. Internally, perceptual selectivity is influenced by the individual's motivation, learning and personality. After the selective process filters the stimulus situation, the incoming information is organized into a meaningful whole. Individual differences and uniqueness are largely the result of the cognitive processes. Although there arc a number of cognitive processes, it is generally recognized that the perceptual process is a very important one. It is a process that takes place between the situation and the behaviour and is most relevant to the study of organizational behaviour. For example, the observation that a department head and a subordinate may react quite differently to the same top management directive can be better understood and explained by the perceptual process.In the process of perception, people receive many different kinds of information through all five senses, assimilate them and then interpret them. Different people perceive the same information differently. Perception plays a key role in determining individual behaviour in organizations. Organizations send messages in a variety of forms to their members regarding what they are expected to do and not to do. In spite of organizations sending clear messages, those messages are subject to distortion in the process of being perceived by organizational members. Hence, managers need to have a general understanding of the basic perceptual process. Basic Perceptual Process Perception is influenced by characteristics of the object being perceived, by the characteristics of the person and by the situational processes. • Characteristics of the object include contrast, intensity, movement, repetition and novelty. • Characteristics of the person include attitude, self-concept and personality. The details of a particular situation affect the way a person perceives an object; the same person may perceive the same object very differently in different situations. The processes through which a person's perceptions are altered by the situation include selection, organization, attribution, projection, stereotyping process, and the halo effect process. Among these, selective perception and stereotyping are particularly relevant to organizations. Selective Perception Selective perception is the process of screening out information that we are uncomfortable with or that contradicts our beliefs. For example, a manager has a very positive attitude about a particular worker and one day he notices that the worker seems to be goofing up. Selective perception may make the manager to quickly disregard what he observed. For example, a manager who has formed a very negative attitude about a particular worker and he happens to observe a high performance from the same worker. In this case influenced by the selective perception process he too will disregard it. In one sense, selective perception is beneficial because it allows us to disregard minor bits of information. But if selective perception causes managers to ignore important information, it can become quite detrimental.
Stereotyping Stereotyping is the process of categorizing or labeling people on the basis of a single attribute. Perceptions based on stereotypes about people's sex exist more or less in all work places. Typically, these perceptions lead to the belief that an individual's sex determines which tasks he or she will be able to perform. For example, if a woman is sitting behind the table in the office, she will be very often, perceived as a clerk and not an executive at first. But it would induce holding an exactly opposite assumption about a man. Stereotyping consists of three steps: identifying categories of people (like women, politician), associating certain characteristics with those categories (like passivity, dishonesty respectively) and then assuming that any one who fits a certain category must have those characteristics. For example, if dishonesty is associated with politicians, we are likely to assume that all politicians are dishonest. PERCEPTION AND ATTRIBUTION Perception is also closely linked with another process called attribution. Attribution is a mechanism through which we observe behaviour and then attribute certain causes to it. According to Attribution theory, once we observe behaviour we evaluate it in terms of its consensus, consistency and distinctiveness. Consensus is the extent to which other people in the same situation behave in the same way. Consistency is the degree to which the same person behaves in the same way at different times. Distinctiveness is the extent to which the same person behaves in the same way in other situations. The forces within the person (internal) or outside the person (external) lead to the behaviour. For instance, if you observe that an employee is much more motivated than the people around (low consensus), is consistently motivated (high consistency), and seems to work hard no matter what the task (low distinctiveness) you might conclude that internal factors are causing that particular behaviour. Another example is of a manager who observes that an employee is late for a meeting. He might realize that this employee is the only one who-is laic (low consensus), recall that he is often late for other meetings (high consistency), and subsequently recall that the same employee is sometimes late for work (low distinctiveness). This pattern of attributions might cause the manager to decide that the individual's behaviour requires a change. At this point, the manager might meet the subordinate to establish some disciplinary consequences to avoid future delays. IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT Social perception is concerned with how one individual perceives other individuals. Conversely, impression management is the process by which the general people attempt to manage or control the perceptions that others form about them. People often tend to present themselves in such a way so as to impress others in a socially desirable manner. Thus, impression management has considerable' implications for activities like determining the validity of performance appraisals. It serves as a pragmatic, political tool for someone to climb the ladder of success in organizations. Employee Impression Management Strategies There are two basic strategies of impression management that employees can use. If employees are trying to minimize responsibility for some negative event or to stay out of trouble, they may employ a demotionpreventative strategy. On the other hand, if they are seeking to maximize responsibility for a positive outcome or to look better than what they really are, then they lean use a promotion-enhancing strategy. The demotion-preventative strategy is characterized by the following activities: • Employees attempt to excuse or justify their actions. • Employees apologies to the boss for some negative event. • Employees secretly tell their boss that they fought for the right thing, but were overruled. Employees using this approach try to disassociate themselves from the group and from the problem. The promotion enhancing strategies involve the following activities: • Employees harbor a feeling that they have not been given credit for a positive outcome. • Employees point out that they did more, but received a lesser credit. • Employees identify cither personal or organizational obstacles they had to overcome to accomplish an outcome and expect a higher credit. • Employees ascertain that they are seen with the right people at the right times. 9:::: MOTIVATION AND BEHAVIOR
The word motivation is derived from ‘motive', which means an active form of a desire, craving or need that must be satisfied. Motivation is the key to organizational effectiveness. The manager in general has to get the work done through others. These 'others' are human resources who need to be motivated to attain organizational objectives. DEFINITION According to George R. Terry, "Motivation is the desire within an individual that stimulates him or her to action." In the words of Robert Dubin, it is "the complex of forces starting and keeping a person at work in an organization". Viteles defines motivation as "an unsatisfied need which creates a state of tension or disequilibrium, causing the individual to move in a goal directed pattern towards restoring a state of equilibrium, by satisfying the need." According to Encyclopedia of Management. "Motivation refers to the degree of readiness of an organism to pursue some designated goals and implies the determination of the nature and locus of force inducing a degree of readiness." On the basis of above definitions, the following observations can be made regarding motivation: • Motivation is an inner psychological force, which activates and compels the person to behave in a particular manner. • The motivation process is influenced by personality traits, learning abilities, perception and competence of an individual. • A highly motivated employee works more efficiently and his level of production tends to be higher than others. • Motivation originates from the-needs and wants of an individual. It is a tension of lacking something in his mind, which forces him to work more efficiently. • It is also a process of stimulating and channelizing the energy of an individual for achieving set goals. • Motivation also plays a crucial role in determining the level of performance. Highly motivated employees get higher satisfaction, which may lead to higher efficiency. • Motivating force an^ its degree, may differ from individual to individual depending on his personality, needs, competence and other factors. • It helps the manager in analyzing and understanding human behavior and finding but how an individual can be inspired to produce desirable working behavior. • Motivation may be positive as well as negative. Positive motivation includes incentives, rewards and other benefits while negative motivation implies some punishment, fear, use of force etc. • The motivation procedure contributes to and boosts up the morale of the employees. A high degree of motivation may lead to high morale. FEATURES OF MOTIVATION • It is an internal feeling and forces a person to action. • It is a continuous activity. • It varies from person to person and from time to time. • It may be positive or negative. IMPORTANCE OF MOTIVATION : is an important part of managing process. A team of highly qualified and motivated employees is necessary for achieving objectives of an organization because of the following reasons: • Motivated employees make optimum use of available resources for achieving objectives. • Motivation is directly related to the level of efficiency of employees. • Motivated employees make full use of their energy and other abilities to raise the existing level of efficiency. • Motivated employees make goal-directed efforts. They are more committed and cooperative for achieving organizational objectives. • Motivated employees are more loyal and sincere to an organization. These factors help reduce absenteeism and labor turnover. • Motivation is considered as a backbone of good industrial relations. • Effectively motivated employees get more job satisfaction and possess high morale. • Motivation also helps in improving the image of an organization. The motivation process begins with identification of individual needs. For example, when an employee feels underpaid then what, then he tries to fulfill his needs by asking for a raise or by working harder to earn a raise or
by seeking a new job. He then chooses to pursue one or more of these options for instance, working harder while simultaneously looking for a job. If his hard work resulted in a pay rise, he probably feels satisfied and will continue to work hard. But if no raise has been provided he is likely to try another option. Since people have many different needs, the satisfaction of one need or set of needs is likely to give rise to the identification of other needs. Thus, the cycle of motivation is constantly repeated. Understanding human motivation is crucial for managing people. Extensive research has been performed to find out what makes people work and how to motivate them. This includes managers, social scientists, behaviorists and psychologists. A number of theories have been developed, even though there is no universally acceptable motivation theory. Understanding these theories facilitates the managers to get a better insight into the human behavior. NEED-BASED THEORIES TO MOTIVATION : Some of the widely known need-based theories are as follows: (a) Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Maslow Abraham proposed his theory in the 1940s. This theory, popularly known as the Hierarchy of Needs assumes that people are motivated to satisfy five levels of needs: physiological, security, belongingness, esteem and self-actualization needs. Maslow suggested that the five levels of needs are arranged in accordance with their importance, starting from the bottom of the hierarchy. An individual is motivated first and foremost to satisfy physiological needs. When these needs are satisfied, he is motivated and 'moves up' the hierarchy to satisfy security needs. This 'moving up process continues until the individual reaches the self-actualization level. Physiological needs represent the basic issues of survival such as food, sex, water and air. In organizational settings, most physiological needs are satisfied by adequate wages and by the work environment itself, which provides employees with rest rooms, adequate lighting, comfortable temperatures and ventilation. Security or safety needs refer to the requirements for a secure physical and emotional environment. Examples include the desire for adequate housing and clothing, the need to be free from worry about money and job security and the desire for safe working conditions. Security needs are satisfied for people in the work place by job continuity, a grievance resolving system and an adequate insurance and retirement benefit package. Belonging or social needs are related to the, social aspect of human life. They include the need for love and affection and the need to be accepted by one's peers. For most people these needs are satisfied by a combination of family and community relationships and friendships on the job. Managers can help ensure the 'satisfaction of these important needs by allowing social interaction and by making employees feel like part of a team or work group. Esteem needs actually comprise of two different sets of needs: • The need for a positive self-image and self-respect. • The need for recognition and respect from others. Organizations can help address esteem needs by providing a variety of external symbols of accomplishment such as job titles and spacious offices. At a more fundamental level, organizations can also help satisfy esteem needs by providing employees with challenging job assignments that can induce a sense of accomplishment. At the top of the hierarchy are those needs, which Maslow defines the self-actualization needs. These needs involve realizing one's potential for continued: growth and individual development. Since these needs are highly individualized and personal, self-actualization needs are perhaps the most difficult for managers to address. Therefore, an employee should try to meet these needs on his own end. However, an organization can help his employee by creating a climate for fulfillment of self-actualization needs. For instance, an organization can help in fulfillment of these needs by encouraging employee’s participation in decision-making process and by providing them with an opportunity to learn new things about their jobs and organization. This process of contributing to actual organizational performance helps employees experience personal growth and development associated with self-actualizing. Maslow's concept of the need hierarchy possesses a certain intuitive logic and has been accepted universally by managers. But research has revealed several shortcomings of the theory such as some research has found that five levels of needs are not always present and that the order of the levels is not always the same as assumed by Maslow. Moreover, it is difficult for organizations to use the need hierarchy to enhance employee motivation. (b) ERG Theory of Motivation Clayton Alderfer has proposed an alternative hierarchy of needs - called the ERG Theory of Motivation. The letters E, R and G stand for Existence, Relatedness and Growth. ERG Theory the need hierarchy developed by Maslow into three 9.2. The existence needs in this theory refers to the physiological and security needs of Maslow. Relatedness needs refers to belongingness and esteem needs. Growth needs refers to both self-
esteem and self-actualization needs. The ERG theory emphasis on the following key points regarding needs: o Some needs may be more important than others. o People may change their behavior after any particular set of needs has been satisfied. Although ERG Theory assumes that motivated behavior follows a hierarchy in somewhat the same fashion as suggested by Maslow, there are two important differences. ? Firstly, ERG theory suggests that more than one kind of need might motivate a person at the same time. For example, it allows for the possibility that people can be motivated by a desire for money (existence); friendship (relatedness), and an opportunity to learn new skills (growth) all at the same time. ? Secondly, ERG theory has an element of frustrations-regression that is missing from Maslow's need hierarchy. Maslow maintained that one heed must be satisfied before an individual can progress to needs at a higher level, for example, from security needs to belongingness. This is termed as satisfaction—progression process. Although the ERG theory includes this process, it also suggests that if needs remain unsatisfied at some higher level, the individual will become frustrated, regress to a lower level and will begin to pursue low level needs again. For" example, a worker previously motivated by money (existence needs) is awarded a pay rise to satisfy this needs. Then he attempts to establish more friendship to satisfy relatedness needs. If for some reason an employee finds that it is impossible to become better friends with others in the work place, he may eventually become frustrated and regress to being motivated to earn even more money. This is termed as ‘frustration-regression' process. (c) Two-factor Theory of Motivation Another popular need-based approach to motivation is the dual-structure approach developed by Frederick Herzberg. This is also known as Two-factor Theory. Herzberg developed this approach after interviewing 200 accountants and engineers in Pittsburg. He asked them to recall such occasions when they had been dissatisfied and less motivated. He found that entirely different sets of factors were associated with satisfaction and dissatisfaction. For instance, an individual who identified 'low pay' as causing dissatisfaction did not necessarily mention 'high pay' as a cause of satisfaction. Instead, several other factors, such as recognition or accomplishment, were cited as causing satisfaction. This finding suggests that satisfaction and dissatisfaction are at opposite ends of a single scale. Employees would, therefore, be satisfied, dissatisfied or somewhere in between. Herzberg argued that attitudes and motivation consists of a dual structure. One structure involves a set of factors that result in feelings ranging from satisfaction to no satisfaction. The other structure involves a set of factors that result in feelings ranging from dissatisfaction to no satisfaction. Herzberg identified two sets of factors responsible for causing either satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The factors influencing satisfaction are called motivation factors or motivators, which are related specifically to the job itself and the factors causing dissatisfaction are called hygiene factors, which are related to the work environment in which the job is performed. Motivators Achievement Recognition Advancement The work itself The possibility of personal growth Responsibility Hygiene or Maintenance Factors • Company policies Technical supervision Interpersonal relations with supervisor Interpersonal relations with peers Interpersonal relations with subordinates Salary Job security Personal life • Work conditions Status Based on these findings, Herzberg recommended that managers seeking to motivate employees should first make sure that hygiene factors are taken care of and that employees are not dissatisfied with pay, security and working conditions. Once a manager has eliminated employee dissatisfaction, Hertzberg recommends focusing on a different set of factors to increase motivation, by improving opportunities for advancement, recognition, advancement and growth. Specifically, he recommends job enrichment as a means of enhancing the availability of motivation factors. Although widely accepted by managers, Hertzberg’s dual structure approach however suffers from certain drawbacks. Other researchers who measured satisfaction and dissatisfaction based on different aspects reached very different conclusions. They have also criticized Herzberg's theory for its inability to define the
relationship between satisfaction and motivation and to pay enough attention to differences between individuals. Hence, at present Herzberg's theory is not held in high esteem by researchers in the field of motivation. The theory, however, had a major impact on managers and has played a key role in increasing their awareness of motivation and its importance in type work place. 'X' AND ‘Y' THEORIES OF MOTIVATION: Douglas McGregor observed two diametrically opposing viewpoints of managers 'about their employees; one is negative called "Theory of X" and another is positive called "Th of Y". Theory of X : following are the assumptions of managers. • Employees dislike work. • Employees must be coerced, controlled or threatened to do the work. • Employees avoid responsibilities and seek formal direction. • Most employees consider security of job, most important of all other factors in the job and have very little ambition. Theory of Y: Following are the assumptions of managers. • Employees love work as play or rest. • Employees are self-directed and self-controlled and committed to the organizational objectives. • Employees accept and seek responsibilities. • Innovative spirit is not confined to managers alone, some employees also possess it. Applicability of Theories 'X' and 'Y' Theory 'X' in its applicability, places exclusive reliance upon external control of human behavior, while theory 'Y', relies heavily on self-control -and self-direction. Theory 'X' points to the traditional approach of management. Literally, this theory of behavior is related to organizations that lay hard and rigid standards of work-behavior. Some examples of such organizations are organizations that break down jobs into specialized elements, establish 'norms of production, design equipment to control worker's pace of work, have rigid rules and regulations, that are sometimes very vigorously enforced. Theory 'Y’, on the other hand, secures the commitment of employees to organizational objectives. This motivational theory places emphasis on satisfaction of employees. While applying this theory, the use of authority, as an instrument of command and control is minimal. Employees exercise self-direction and selfcontrol. The concepts of 'Job' Enlargement', 'Participation' and 'Management by Objectives' are quite consistent with theory ' Y'. McGregor supports the applicability of motivational theory 'Y', instead of theory ‘X'. Organization should keep in mind that once theory 'X' is employed for organizational working, it is difficult for the management to shift to theory ' Y', all of a sudden. However, with systematic, judicious and slow steps, shifting in the practical applicability of theory 'X' to theory ' Y' usually can be achieved. MC-CLELLAND's NEED THEORY OF MOTIVATION: David C. McClelland and his associate Atkinson have contributed to an understanding of motivation by identifying 3 types of basic motivating needs. These needs as: Need for Power: According to this theory this is defined as the desire to be influential in a group and to control one's envt is an important motivation factor. Research suggests that people with a strong need for power, are likely to be superior performers and occupy supervisory positions. Such types of individuals generally look for positions of leadership, they act effectively, are outspoken, have a stubborn character and exert authority. Need for Affiliation: means the desire for human companionship and acceptance. Those with a high need for affiliation often behave the way they think other people want them to, in an effort to maintain friendship. They prefer a job that entails a good deal of social interaction and offers opportunities to make friends. The principal characteristics of such peoples' traits are as follows: • Desire to like and be liked. Enjoy company and friendship. Prefer cooperative situation. • Excel in group task. Star attraction in gathering. Leadership qualities. This need is closely associated with the "social-type” of personality, who are sociable, friendly, cooperative and understanding. Persons with high motivation for power and affiliation have better chances of becoming good managers.
Need for Achievement People with a high need for achievement, always feel ambitious to be successful; are ever prepared to face challenging situations and set arduous goals .for themselves. They are prone to take calculated risks; and possess a high sense of personal responsibility in getting jobs done. These people are concerned with their progress, and feel inclined to put in longer hours of work" Failures never dishearten them and they are always ready to put in their best efforts for excellent performance. Equity Theory J. Stacy Adams developed equity theory of motivation. The equity theory argues that motivations arise out of simple desire to be treated fairly. Equity can be defined as an individual's belief that he is being treated fairly relative to the treatment of others. The figure 9.4 shows the equity process. A person's perception of equity develops through a four-step process as shown below: 1. First an individual evaluates the way he is being treated by an organization. 2. The next step is for an individual to choose a co-worker who seems to be in a roughly similar situation and to observe how an organization treats him. In the crucial step of equity theory an individual 'compares' the two treatments. In the fourth step he evaluate a sense of equity to see if the two treatments seem similar or if the are different.
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Adam suggests that employees make these comparisons by focusing on input and outcome ratios. An employee's contributions or input to an organization include time, education, effort, experience and loyalty. Outcomes are what an individual receives from an organization such as, pay, recognition and social relationships. The theory suggests that people view their outcomes and inputs as ratio and then- compare their ratio to the ratio of someone else. This other 'person' may be someone in the work group. The comparison may result in three types of attitudes: • The individual may feel equitably rewarded, Under-rewarded. Over-rewarded. An individual will experience a feeling of equity when the two ratios are equal. If an individual has the feeling of equity then he should maintain the status quo. If he has a feeling of inequity then he is likely to change the input. The single most important idea for managers to remember about equity theory is that if rewards are to motivate employees, they must be perceived as being equitable and^ fair. However, managers must remember that different employees have different sense towards basis for a reward and this may result in problems. Hence, the best way to avoid such problems is to make all employees aware of the basis for rewards. NEW APPROACHES TO MOTIVATION IN ORGANIZATIONS: (a) Goal-Setting Theory This approach to motivation has been pioneered in the USA by Edwin Locke and his associates in 1960s and refined in 1980s. Goal-setting theory suggests that managers and subordinates should set goals for an individual on a regular basis, as suggested by MBO. These goals should be moderately difficult and very specific and of type that an employee will accept and make a commitment to accomplishing them. Rewards should be tied directly to accomplished goals. When involved in goal-settings, employees see how their effort will lead to performance, rewards and personal satisfaction. Salient features of this theory are as follows: • Specific goal fixes the needs of resources and efforts. • It increases performance. • Difficult goals result higher performance than easy job. • Better feedback of results leads to better performances than lack of feedback. • Participation of employees in goal has mixed result. • Participation of setting goal, however, increases acceptance of goal and involvements. • Goal setting theory has defined two factors,' which influences the performance. These are given below: o Goal commitment Self-efficiency. The mere act of goal setting does not ensure higher levels of motivation among employees. In fact, there seem to be 3 important criteria that goals must meet if they are to influence the behavior of org members. They are
goal specificity, goal difficulty and goal acceptance. Goal Specificity : Goals must be stated in specific terms if they are to motivate effective performance. Goals must be set in terms of measurable criteria of work performance, i.e., number of units produced, new sales etc. and must specify a lime period within which the goal is to be attained. It also gives a sense of personal satisfaction and accomplishment to workers if he is able to meet the specific goal. Goal Difficulty/Challenge : There exists a relationship between goal difficulty and work motivation. The more difficult- and challenging the goal is, the higher the level of motivation and performance. However, it is essential that goals are set at realistic levels. Goals that are very difficult to achieve are unable to motivate since it is beyond the capacity of the concerned individual. Goal Acceptance : In order to influence motivation and performance, a goal must be internalized by an individual. In other words, the person has to feel some personal ownership of the goal and must have commitment to achieve it. Goal Setting in Practice : The most obvious implication of goal-setting theory is that managers should be helping subordinates to set goals that are specific and reasonably difficult so that subordinates accept and internalize them as their own goals. Besides this, there are a number of issues that arise in implementing goal setting in practice. • Though specificity of goal is essential and measure ability is desirable, it should not affect in identifying meaningful and valid objective of goal attainment. • The manager can stimulate goal acceptance in at least three ways: o By involving subordinates in goal-setting process. o By demonstrating a supportive attitude and approach toward his subordinates. o By assigning various rewards to the achievement of goals. MBO is a managerial technique for improving motivation and performance using goal-setting principles. Cognitive Evaluation Theory : A researcher 'Charms' reported in 1960 that extrinsic motivation like pay or rewards for a job, which has an intrinsic-motivation content, which is prior to such rewards. It tends to decrease overall level of motivation. This proposal is called cognitive Evaluation Theory" which has been supported by a large number of research studies conducted subsequently. (b) Japanese Approach to Motivation : has gained increasing popularity around the world during the past few years. This approach is rather a philosophy of management than a theory or model. The basic tenet of the Japanese approach is that managers and workers should perform together as partners. Since both of them see themselves as one group, ail members are committed and motivated to work in the best interests of an organization. No one is called an employee; instead everyone is a team member, team leader or coach and everyone owns the 'share' of an organization. Like goal-setting meow, this is likely to become more common in businesses throughout the world. Integration of Motivation Theories: Thus several theories complicate our understanding. Some of these theories are compatible and some are not. The real challenge that a researcher has to face is integration of all or at least some of these together so that their inter and intra-relationships are established. This will also improve the understanding of motivation. Certain attempts are made in USA and elsewhere. Enhancing Motivation in Organizations: Managers trying to enhance the motivation of their employees can, of course, draw on any of the theories described above. They may in practice adopt specific interventions derived from one or more theories or they may influence motivation through the organization's reward system. The organization can enhance motivation in following ways: • Humanize the work environment: Respect the need to treat each employee as an individual. • Publicize both short and long-term organizational goals: Encourage personal and departmental goal setting. • Promote from within: It's great for morale and simplifies hiring procedures. • Use incentive programs: Inducing the feeling that 'if you're creative enough, you won't have to rely on expensive financial bonuses.' • Establish appropriate deadlines: Every project should have a deadline.
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Be liberal with praise: It's almost impossible to over praise and easy to under praise. Be consistent in your own work and in your relations with others. Show a personal interest in the people who work for you: Relations are always smoother between people who know each other on a personal basis than relations between people who merely want something from each other. Admit mistakes: People will respect you for it and will be less likely to hide their own mistakes. Don't whitewash unpleasant assignments: Prepare subordinates for unpleasant assignments well in advance and offer what support you can.
Managerial Approaches for Improving Motivation: A number of approaches can help managers motivate workers, to perform more effectively. The following steps promote intrinsic motivation: • Workers Participation in Management (WPM) Management by Objectives (MBO) • Organization Behavior Modification Job-Redesign Alternative Work Schedules. Two approaches, however, have been especially effective: linking pay to jot performance and QWL programs. Pay and Job Performance: Pay often can be used to motivate employee performance. But a pay plan also must be able to do the following tasks: • Create the belief that good performance leads to high levels of pay; • Minimize the negative consequences of good performance; and • Create conditions in which rewards other than pay are evaluated as related to good performance. Quality of Work Life Programs: is defined as an attempt through a formal program to integrate employee needs and well being with the intention of improved productivity, greater worker involvement and higher levels of job satisfaction. Programs for QWL improvements range from those requiring minor changes in an organization to those requiring extensive modifications in structure, personnel and the utilization of resources. There are three types of QWL programs, which are as follows: Quality Circles : are small groups of workers who meet regularly with their supervisor as their 'circle leader' to solve work-related problems. QCs give an employee an opportunity for involvement, social-need satisfaction, participation in work improvement and challenge and opportunity for growth. They are, in essence, vehicles for providing employees with opportunities to satisfy lower and upper-level needs as stated by Maslow, through the motivators described in 'Herzberg's theory. Alternative Work Schedule : Org also frequently use the modified 'work-week' as a way to increase employee motivation. A modified 'work-week' can be any work schedule that does not conform to a traditional 8 hours a day or 5 days a week format. The modified 'work-week' helps individual satisfy higher-level needs by providing more personal control over one's work schedule. It also provides an opportunity to fulfill several needs simultaneously. Job-Redesign : or changing the nature of people's job is also being used more as a motivational technique. The idea pursued here is that mangers can use any of the alternatives job rotation, job enlargement, job enrichment as part of motivational programme. Expectancy theory helps explain the role of work design in motivation. GROUP DYNAMICS DEFINITION OF A GROUP A group is a two or more individual who interact regularly with each other to accomplish a common purpose or goal. According to Marvin Shaw, "a group comprises, of two or more persons who interact with one another in such a manner that each person influences and is influenced by each other person'. The key parts of this definition are the concepts of interaction and influence, which also limit the size of the group. It is difficult for members to interact sufficiently in a large group. Groups or work teams are the primary tools used by managers. Managers need groups to co-ordinate individual behavior in order to reach the organizational goals. Groups can make a manager's job easier because by forming a group, he need not explain the task to each and every individual. A manager can easily coordinate with the work of an individual by giving the group a task and allow them to co-ordinate with each other. But for a group to work effectively, the interactions between its members should be productive. Therefore, managers must pay attention to the needs of individuals. Need for a Group : The reasons for the need, of groups are as follows: • Mgt of modern org make mutual efforts to introduce industrial democracy at workplace. They use project teams and work committees where workers get due recognition. They willingly participate in decision-
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making. The tasks in modern industries are becoming more complex, tedious arid of repetitive nature. Work committees, work groups and teams are formed to monitor the work. They also make the environment at workplace more lively. Groups help in making participative mgt more effective. Groups of all kinds and types help by cooperating in all the matters related to production and human relations to work effectively in the org. An individual cannot perform each and every task. Group efforts are required for its completion. For example, building a ship, making of a movie, construction of a fly-over, etc. All these require coordinated and unified efforts of many individuals, working in a group. A group can judge in a better way as compared to an individual. While accomplishing tasks, all members of a group together use their creative and innovative ideas than a single individual. In a group, individuals communicate with each oilier, discuss their work performances and take suggestions from each other to make it better. Group efforts affect an individual, his attitude and behavior. Group has the ability to satisfy the needs of its members.
Types of Groups : In an organization, there are three types of groups, which are as follows: • Functional or formal groups Functional groups are the groups formed by the organization to accomplish different organizational purposes. According to A L Stencombe, "a formal group is said to be any social arrangement in which the activities of some persons are planned by others to achieve a common purpose". These groups are permanent in nature. They have to follow rules, regulations and policy of the organization. A formal organizational group includes departments such as the personnel department, the advertising department, the quality control department and the public relations department. • Task group : are the groups formed by an organization to accomplish a narrow range of purposes within a specified time. These groups are temporary in nature. They also develop a solution to a problem or complete its purpose. Informal committees, task forces and work teams are included in task groups. The organization after specifying a group membership, assigns a narrow set of purposes such as developing a new product, evaluating a proposed grievance procedure, etc. • Informal group : the groups formed for the purposes other than the organizational goals. Informal groups form when individuals are drawn together by friendship, by mutual interests or both. These groups are spontaneous. According to Keith David, "the network of persons and social relations which is not established or required form an informal organization". These are the groups formed by the employees themselves at the workplace while working together. The organization does not take any active interest in their formation. Informal groups are very effective and powerful. These groups work as an informal communication network forming a part of the grapevine to the organizations. They are also like a powerful force, which an organization cannot avoid. Some managers consider them to be harmful to the interest of an organization. They suspect their integrity and consider as a virtual threat. Some managers do not consider them as threat and seek the help of group members in getting the organizational task accomplished GROUP FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT Groups can form when individuals with similar goals and motives come, together. Groups are formed voluntarily. The individuals of a group can join and leave the group any time and they can also change their tasks. Hence, understanding how groups form and develop is important for managers. There are certain motives because of which, the individuals join a group, which are as follows: Organizational motives to join groups: Orgns form functional and task groups because such groups help the organization in structuring and grouping the organizational activities logically and efficiently. • Personal motives to join groups: Individuals also choose to join informal or interest groups for unimportant reasons. Since joining these groups is voluntary, various personal motives affect membership. Some of these are shown in the figure 11.1: • Interpersonal attraction: Individuals conic together to form informal or interest group, as they arc also attracted to each other. The factors that contribute to interpersonal attraction are sex, similar attitudes,
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personality and economic standing. The closeness of group members may also be an important factor. Interest in-group activities: Individuals may also be motivated to join an informal or interest group because the activities of the group appeal to them. Playing tennis, discussing current events or contemporary literature, all these are group activities that individuals enjoy. Support for group goals: The individuals may also be motivated goals by the other group members to join. For example, a club, which is dedicated to environmental conservation, may motivate individuals to join. Individuals join groups, such as these in order to donate their money and time to attain the goals they believe in and to meet other individuals with similar values. Need for affiliation: Another reason for individuals to join groups is to satisfy their need for attachment. Retired/old aged individuals join groups to enjoy the companionship of other individuals in similar situation. Instrumental benefits: Group membership sometimes also helpful in providing other benefits to an individual. For example, a manager might join a Rotary/ Lions club if he feels that being a member of this club will lead to important and useful business contacts.
STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT : Members of new group are unfamiliar with one another's personalities and : hesitant in their interactions. The new group must pass s of development, which are depicted in the figure 11.2. Mutual Acceptance • Making Acceptance Sharing Acquaintances • Discussing Subjects Testing Each Other • Being Defensive
Slow Evolution to Next Stage
Communication and Decision-Making • Expressing Attitudes Establishing Norms • Establishing Goals Openly Discussing Tasks • Being Defensive
Burst of Activities to Next Stage
Motivation and Productivity • Cooperating Working Actively on Tasks • Being Creative
Slow Evolution to Next Stage
Control and Organization • Working Independently Assigning Tasks Based on Ability Being Flexible Figure 11.2 These different stages of group development are explained as follows: • Mutual Acceptance : During this stage, the members of the group get familiar with one another and check, which inter-personal behavior is acceptable and which is unacceptable by the other members of the group. This helps all the members of a group to know each other better and helps the group to move to the next stage easily. • Communication and Decision-making : During this stage, group members share their opinions and formulate the group's goals. Through communication and decision-making, the structure becomes clear and the group moves to the third stage. • Motivation and Productivity : characterized by a shared acceptance among members of what the group is trying to do. Each person recognizes and accepts his role as well as to accept and to understand the roles to others. Members also become more comfortable with each other and develop a sense of group identity and unity. • Control and Organization : in which the members perform the roles they have accepted and direct their group efforts toward goal attainment. In reality, this developmental sequence varies from group to group, depending on the time, personal characteristics of group members and frequency of interaction.
CHARACTERISTICS OF MATURE GROUPS As groups pass through the stages of development to maturity, they begin show signs of the following four characteristics: a role structure, behavioral norms, cohesiveness and informal leadership. • Role Structures A role is the part that an individual plays in a group to reach its goals. Some individuals are leaders, some focus on the group's task; some interact with other groups and so on. Role structure is the set of defined roles and interrelationships among those roles that the group members define and accept. The failure in role development result in role ambiguity, role conflict and role overload. Managers have to take steps to avoid role ambiguity, role conflict and role overload. • Behavioral norms Although informal groups do not have any specific goals to accomplish, but they must have some goals over a period of time. These goals are temporary and can be changed in accordance with the needs of the group members. The goals can be achieved effectively depending on the following factors: o The extent of cooperation with management. o Maintenance of an efficient communication system. o Satisfaction of the needs of group members. • Informal leadership Each informal group has one or more leaders. These leaders come forward on the basis of acceptance of all the group members. Every informal group has one primary leader apart from the secondary: leaders. The primary leader has more influence on the group members than the secondary leaders. • Cohesiveness Cohesiveness is defined as the attractiveness of group members towards the group. It also emphasizes on the group's ability to satisfy its members needs. It, therefore, helps the group members to work more consistently and make greater contribution to the achievement of the organizational goals. It is also psychologically more satisfying to all of its members. According to Cartwright there are four principal consequences of cohesiveness, which are as follows: o Ability of a group to retain its members. o Power of the group to influence its members. o Degree of participation and loyalty of members. o Feeling of security on the part of the members. Group Cohesiveness According to Rcnsis Likert, "cohesiveness is the attractiveness of the members towards the group or resistance of the members leaving it". It refers to the attachment of members with the group. According lo K. Aswalhappa, "cohesiveness is understood as the extent of liking each member has towards others and how far everyone wants to remain as the member of the group". Attractiveness is the key to cohesiveness. Cohesiveness is the extent to which group members are loyal and committed lo the group and to each other. In a highly cohesive group, the members work well together, support and trust one another and are generally effective at achieving their chosen goals. A group that lacks cohesiveness will not be very much coordinated. Its members will not support one another and they may face difficulty in reaching their goals. Managers should develop an understanding of the factors that increase and reduce group cohesiveness. Advantages of Group Cohesiveness The advantages of group cohesiveness are as follows: • The members of cohesive groups have high morale. • The members don't have conflicting views, which decreases the chances of in clash among the views of group members at the workplace or elsewhere. • Individuals of cohesive groups have no anxiety at the workplace. • Members of cohesive groups are regular at their work. • Cohesiveness increases productivity. • Organizations gain from the members of cohesive group because they communicate better they share ideologies and respect opinions of fellow employees. The following factors can increase group cohesiveness: • Competitiveness with other groups. • Inter-personal attraction. • Favourable evaluation from outsiders.
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Agreement on goals. Frequent interaction. The following factors decrease cohesiveness: Large group size. Disagreement on goals. Competitiveness within group. Domination by one or more members.
CONFLICT
Conflict arises from difference of opinion between the group members while attaining the organizational goals. An organization is an interlocking network of groups, departments, sections or work teams. In organizations everywhere, conflict among groups of different interests is unavoidable. According to one survey, managers spend an estimated 20 percent of their time dealing with group conflicts. The success of an organization depends upon the harmonious relations among all independent groups. Managers may either directly resolve the conflicts or they may act as mediators between two or more employees. In either case, knowledge and understanding of conflict and the methods of resolving it are important. Inter-group conflicts result from the ways in which organizations co-ordinate the work of different groups and distribute rewards among those groups. TYPES OF CONFLICT : The levels of group conflict are as follows: • Personal conflict: arise among employees, individuals because of their competitive roles. • Group conflict: within two or more groups due to difference in their attitudes and behavior. • Intra-organizational conflict: arising between levels of an org, which are of two types. Vertical conflict arises between higher and lower level of mgt. Horizontal conflict arises among the employees at same level. REASONS FOR CONFLICT Some of them are related to limited resources, cn problems, differences in interests and goals, different perceptions, attitudes and lack of clarity about responsibilities. The reasons for group conflicts are as follows: Communication problems: Groups often become very involved with their own areas of responsibility. They tend to develop their own unique vocabulary. Paying attention to an area of responsibility is a worthy Endeavor, but it can result in communication problems. The receiver of information should be considered when a group communicates an idea, a proposal, or a decision. Misinformed receivers often become irritated and then hostile. Incompatible goals: Inter-group conflict arises because of goal incompatibility. In other words, goal attainment by one group may reduce the level of goal attainment by other groups. This may be due to horizontal differentiation and task specialization. The conflict between production and marketing departments, line and staff departments, union and mgt are few ex. of inter-group conflicts that arise because of incompatibility of goals. Task interdependence: Task interdependence means to what extent a work, group relies on other organizational groups to complete its tasks. In simple words, it refers to the dependence of one group on another for resources or information. It can be said in genera] that as interdependence increases, the potential for conflict increases. Task ambiguity: The lack of clarity over job responsibilities is called task ambiguity and it frequently leads to aggression between groups. Inter-group conflict also arises when it is not clear which group is responsible for certain activities. Task ambiguity often arises where the organization is growing quickly or the organization's environment is changing rapidly. A good example of task ambiguity is inter-group conflict arising in the recruitment of new employees. It may be the responsibility of either the personnel department or any of the functional departments such as marketing, finance. The confusion may also arise regarding who has the final authority to execute the final decisions. Resource sharing: The relation between two groups can be affected by the degree to which they make use of a common pool of resources and the degree to which this common pool of resources is adequate to meet the demands of both the groups. Thus, conflict of this nature; arises because of the differences between aggregate demand of a group and available resources to meet them. Each party of the conflict competes with each other to get a larger share. The conflict between management and the labor union-is the best example. Such conflicts take place in the quantum of wages, amenities, working conditions and other related matters. Difference in work orientation: The ways in which employees do their work and deal with others vary widely with the functional areas of an organization. First, functional groups differ in their time perspectives. For example, R&D scientists have a longer-range of goals than manufacturing groups. The range of work of
manufacturing group is evaluated on how quickly it can manufacture high-quality products while the range of R&D scientists can be evaluated on the basis of product development and testing after a long period of time. Second, the goals of different functional groups vary to a large extent. The goals of manufacturing groups are more specific and clear-cut than the goals of R&D groups. Conflicting reward systems: Sometimes the ways in which reward systems in organizations arc designed create a situation in which one group can only. accomplish its goal at the expense of other groups. For example, staff departments may be rewarded for cutting costs and personnel while line departments are rewarded for increasing the amount of products sold or services provided. To increase the amount of products sold, the line group may have to depend even more heavily on staff groups such as advertising. However the staff groups are being rewarded for cutting costs and personnel provided the types of services asked for by line groups can prevent them from meeting their own goals. Conflicting reward systems inevitably result in poor inter-group relations. Different perceptions and attitudes: The attitudes, values and perceptions of members of various groups towards each other can be a cause and a consequence of the nature of their relationship. If the group relations begin with the attitudes of distrust, competitiveness, secrecy and closed communications, there is a possibility of conflicts, disagreements in their views and among themselves. This can affect the success of a group to accomplish their work in an effective manner. DYNAMICS OF INTER-GROUP CONFLICT The following points are covered in the dynamics of an inter-group conflict: Changes within each group: When there is inter-group conflict in an organization, systematic changes take place in the perceptions, attitudes and behaviors of the participants. They are as follows: ? The group demands more loyalty from individual members while facing an external threat. In the face of an external threat, past differences and difficulties between group members are forgotten and group cohesiveness increases. ? In an inter-group conflict, it is important for a group to respond quickly and in a unified manner to the activities of other groups. In an inter-group conflict, the organization and structure of the work group becomes more rigid. It leads to more coordination of activities, allocation of responsibilities to different group members. Changes in relation between groups: The nature of the relationships between groups also changes markedly during inter-group conflicts. Union-Management relationships during contract negotiations are one of the examples of the group dynamics. It becomes difficult for each group to see the positive behavior and attitude of the other group. Each party undervalues the interests of the other group. The changes that occur arc as follows: ? There are distortions of perception about one's own group and about the other group. ? The interaction and communication between groups' decreases. ? There is a shift among the groups from a problem-solving motive to a win-lose motive. ? There is increased ill feeling towards the rival group. Methods to Solve Inter-group Conflict indirectly: are as follows: ? Avoidance: It is an indirect method often used by the managers. It includes avoidance of direct approaches on the part of managers to solve among groups. But avoidance does not always minimize the problem. Matters can get worse if nothing is done and the groups can become more aggressive and unfriendly. • Encouragement: This is another indirect method to solve the group conflicts. It includes encouragement on the part of managers to the groups so that they will be able to meet and discuss their differences. By doing so, they can find out a solution without the involvement of management. • Bargaining: This is the indirect method, in which the groups agree as to what each of them will get and give others regarding their work. This makes the accomplishment of the assigned task much easier. For example, one group may agree to give the other, a quick turn around time on the repairs of needed equipment only if the Second group agrees to bring complaints about the quality of repairs to it before going to management. Bargaining between two groups is successful if both groups are comfortable with the agreement between them. • Persuasion: This is the indirect method, in which the groups find the areas of common interests among themselves. The groups try to find out those interests levels where they have the same say. Afterwards', the groups try to show how important it is to each of them in attaining organizational goals. But persuasion is possible only if there are no clashes between the groups and its members
Methods to Solve Inter-Group Conflict • Ignoring the conflict: This is a direct method used by (he managers to solve inter-group conflicts. Ignoring the conflict is characterized by the absence of behavior wherein the members of the groups avoids dealing with the dysfunctional aspects of the conflict. In this, a, group simply refuses to attack the other group. But the disadvantage of this method is that it ignores the causes of conflicts and as a result, the conflict situation frequently continues or gets worse over time. • Domination by the management: This method of solving inter-group conflicts emphasizes on improving the inter-group relations. To improve the inter-group relations, greater integration or collaboration among groups is needed. Management can use domination to minimize the conflicts by exercising its authority and power over the groups and their members. • Removing the key figures in the conflict: This is another direct method to solve the inter-group conflicts. If a conflict arises because of personality differences between two individuals, removing them is a possible solution. It includes the removal of the key figures in the conflict. The key figures that are to be removed may be leaders of the groups and removing them could lead to greater conflict. It is also difficult to pinpoint accurately the individuals who are the root-cause of conflicts. • Problem solving: Management can also establish a task force with representatives from groups in conflict to work on problems. The task force develops the ideas 'and procedures for improving group interaction and thereby attempt to solve the conflicts arising between the groups. o Appealing to super-ordinate goals. The final method to minimize the conflicts is to find superordinate goals. These are goals desired by two or more groups that can only be accomplished through the cooperation of the groups. When conflicting groups have to cooperate to accomplish a goal, conflict can be minimized. For example, a wide profit-sharing plan of a company may encourage groups to work together. If the profits of a company are distributed among employees at the end of the year, the conflicts among groups can reduce. The super ordinate goals are as follows: The assignment and coordination of work among groups should be clarified so that the daily disputes over minor issues can be avoided. o Managers should monitor reward systems to eliminate any win-lose conflicts among groups. o The use of co-operative approaches among groups in organizations often leads to more positive results than does the use of competitive approaches. o Managers can establish rules and standard procedures to regulate conflict in more constructive and effective ways. LEADERSHIP IN ORGANIZATIONS Leadership is an integral part of management and plays a vital role in managerial operations. It provides direction, guidance, and confidence to the employees and helps in the attainment of goals in much easier way. DEFINITION Leadership is the art of influencing and inspiring subordinates to perform their duties willingly, competently and enthusiastically for achievement of groups objectives. According to Wendell French, "Leadership is the process of influencing the behavior of others in the direction of a goal or set of goals or, more broadly, toward a vision of the future”, According to Keith Davis, “Leadership is the process of encouraging and helping others to work enthusiastically towards objectives”. According to Koontz and O'Donnell, "Leadership is the art or process of influencing people so that they will strive willingly towards the achievement of group goals". According to Peter Drucker, "Leadership means the lifting of man's visions to higher sights, the raising of man's performance to higher standard, the building of man's personality beyond its normal limitations". According to Grey and Starke, "Leadership is both a process and a property. As a process, it is used for non-coercive influence lo shape up the goals of a group or organization, to motivate behavior toward the achievement of those goals and to help define group or organizational culture. As a property, leadership is the set multi characteristics attributed to those who are perceived to be leaders". Thus, leaders are people who are able to influence the behavior of others without recourse to threats or other forms of force towards the individuals. Leaders are the people who are accepted by the other individuals, as a superior person to them. FEATURES OF LEADERSHIP
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Leadership is the process of influencing behavior of individuals of an organization. Leadership uses non-coercive methods to direct and coordinate the activities of the individuals of an org. Leadership directs the individuals to attain the tasks assigned to them by following the instructions of their leaders. A leader possesses qualities to influence others. Leadership gives the individuals, a vision for future. Leadership is a group activity. Leader influences his followers and followers also exercise influence over his leader. Leadership is meant for a given situation, given group for a pre-determined period of lime. Leadership is continuous process of influencing behavior. It encourages liveliness in the group.
Importance of Leadership • A leader should act as a friend of the people whom he is leading. • A leader must have the capacity to recognize the potentials of the individuals and transform them into realities. • A leader should have the confidence of the individuals of the organization. • A leader must be able to unite the people as a team and build up team spirit. • A leader should be able to maintain discipline among his group and develop a sense of responsibility. • A leader must be able to build up a high morale among the individuals of the organization. • A leader should motivate his people to achieve goals. • A leader should try to raise the morale of the individuals and should maintain ethical standards among the individuals. • A leader should act as a link between the work groups and the forces outside the organization. Difference between Leadership and Management Leading and managing go together but some differences exist between the two. The following are the differences between the leadership and the management: • Mgt takes rational and logical decisions while leadership takes decision on expectations of the followers. Leadership has an emotional appeal while management acts on rationality. • The mgt establishes relationship through a lawful authority while leadership establishes relationship through power. • Managers have formal authority but the leaders have no such authority. • All leaders are not managers and all managers are leaders. • Mgt is a process of planning, organizing, directing and controlling the activities of others to attain the organizational objectives. Leadership on the other hand, is a process of influencing the behavior of the people to attain their assigned tasks. A successful manager must possess both the managerial and leadership qualities. TYPES OF LEADERSHIP Autocratic or Authoritarian In this type of leadership, there is a complete centralization of authority in the leader, i.e., authority is centered in the leader himself. He has all the powers to make decisions. He uses coercive measures and adopts, negative method of motivation. He wants immediate obedience of his orders and instructions. Any negligence on the part of subordinates results in punishment. There is no participation from the subordinates in decision-making. A leader thinks that he is the only competent person in the organization. Democratic or Participative Democratic or Participative leadership is also known as group centered or consultative leadership. In this type of leadership, leaders consult their groups and consider their opinion in the decision-making process. Leaders encourage discussion among the group members on the problem under consideration and arrive at a decision depending on their consent. Participation or involvement of the employees in the decision-making process is also rewarded. Exchange of ideas among subordinates and with the leader is given encouragement. Leaders give more freedom to their group members, who feel that, their opinions arc honored and they are given importance. It develops a sense of confidence among subordinates and they derive job satisfaction. It improves quality of decision as it is taken after due consideration of valued opinions of the talented group members. The demerit of this type of leadership is that it takes more time to arrive at a decision, as a lot of time is wasted while taking the views from the
employee. It is, therefore, very time consuming. Laissez-faire or Free Rein : In this type of leadership, there is virtual absence of direct leadership. It is, therefore, known as "no leadership at all". There is complete delegation of authority to subordinates so that they can make decisions by themselves. Absence of leadership may have both positive and negative effects. Free rein leadership may be effective if members of the group are highly committed to their work. The negative aspect shows that the leader is not competent enough to lead his group effectively. Members may feel insecure and develop frustration for lack of decision-making authority. Bureaucratic This type of leadership emphasizes the rules and regulations of an organization. The behavior of a leader is determined by the rules, regulations and procedure to be followed under his leadership. The leader and the subordinates both follow these rules and regulations. Therefore, there is no difference between the management and the administration in this type of leadership. The employees, themselves cannot do anything in this regard. It is the rules that determine their performance. THEORIES OF LEADERSHIP . (a) Trait Theory This theory of studying leadership is taken into consideration to analyze the personal, psychological and physical traits of strong leaders. The assumption made in this theory was that some basic traits or set of traits differentiates leaders from non-leaders. For example, the leadership traits might include intelligence, assertiveness, above average height, self-confidence, initiative and understanding of interpersonal human relations. The existence of these traits determines the importance of leadership. Possession of these traits helps the individuals to gain possession of leadership. Since all individuals do not have these qualities, only those who have them would be considered potential leaders. Some of the weakness of this theory is: • All the traits are not identical with regard to essential characteristics of a leader. • Some traits may not be inherited, but can only be acquired by training. • It does not identify the traits that are most important and that are least important for a successful leader. • It does not explain the leadership failures, in spite of the required traits. • It has been found that many traits exhibited by leaders are also found among followers without explaining as to why followers could not become leaders. • It is difficult to define traits in absolute terms. • Thus, the trait theory has been criticized for lack of conclusiveness and predictability. (b) Behavior Theory The behavioral theory assumed that effective leaders behaved differently from ineffective leaders. It also identified the need of consistency of behavior of good leaders. This theory can be more clearly understood with the help of following case studies. • The Michigan Studies: Researchers at the University of. Michigan, led by Rensis Likert, began studying leadership in the late 1940s. Depending on broad discussions with both the managers and subordinates, the Michigan studies identified two forms of leadership behavior. They are discussed as below: ? Job-centered leadership behavior : The first was called job-centered leadership behavior, which focuses on performances and efficient completion of the assigned tasks. A job-centered leader interacts with group members to explain task procedures and oversee their work. ? Employee centered leadership behavior: The second behavior was identified as employee centered leader behavior, which focuses on, high performance standards to be accomplished. This can be done by developing a cohesive work group and ensuring that employees are satisfied with their jobs. Thus, the leader's primary concern is the welfare of the ordinates. The Michagan researchers thought a leader could show signs of one kind of behavior, but not both. • The Ohio State Studies: At about the same time, a group of researchers at Ohio State also began studying leadership. The Ohio State leadership studies also identified two major kinds of leadership behaviors or styles, which are as follows: ? Initiating-structure behavior: In initiating-structure behavior, the leader clearly defines the
leader-subordinate roles so that everyone knows what is expected. The leader also establishes formal lines of communication and determines how tasks will be performed. ? Consideration behavior: In consideration behavior, the leader shows concern for subordinates feelings' and ideas. He attempts to establish a warm, friendly and supportive. (c) The Path-Goal theory The path-goal model of leadership was introduced by Martin Evans and Robert House. Path-goal theory says that a leader can motivate subordinates by influencing their expectations. Leaders can motivate sub-ordinates by making clear what they have to do to get the reward they desire. The path-goal model assumes that leaders can change their style or behavior to meet the demands of a particular situation. This model identifies four kinds of leader behavior: directive, supportive, participative and achievement-oriented. According to this model managers can adjust their behavior to include any four kinds of leadership behavior mentioned above. For instance, while leading a new group of sub-ordinates, the leader may be directive in giving guidance and instructions to them. He may also adopt supportive behavior to encourage group cohesiveness, to look after their needs and ensuring that they get the rewards and benefits. As the group becomes more familiar with the task and as new problems are taken into consideration, the leader may use participative behavior by which he can participate with employees in making decisions and take their suggestions as well. Finally, the leader may use achievementoriented behavior to encourage continued high performance of sub-ordinates. Environmental characteristics are factors, which are beyond the control of subordinates. It includes task structure, the primary work group and the formal authority system. For instance, when structure is high, directive leadership is less effective than when structure is low. Sub-ordinates do not usually need their boss to repeatedly tell them how to do a routine job. According to the path-goal theory, these environmental factors can create uncertainty for employees. A leader who helps employees reduce such uncertainty can motivate them. The figure 14.1 shows the path goal model of leadership.
Leaders do not always have control over environmental factors, but the theory emphasizes that leaders can use the control they want, to adjust the environment and to motivate sub-ordinates. EMERGING PERSPECTIVES ON LEADERSHIP IN ORGANIZATIONS The new perspectives that have attracted attention are the concepts of substitutes for leadership and transformational leadership. Substitutes for Leadership The existing leadership theories and models try to specify what kind of leader’s behavior is appropriate for
different situations. They do not take into consideration, the situations where the leadership is not needed. The substitute concept identifies the situations where the characteristics of the subordinates, the task and the organization replace leaders' behaviors. For example, when a patient is admitted to an emergency room in a hospital, nurses, doctors and attendants act immediately without waiting for directive or supportive behaviors of leaders in an emergency ward. Several characteristics of the sub-ordinate may serve to replace or change .the behavior of the leaders. For example, employees with much ability and experience may not need to be told what to do. Similarly, a strong need for independence by the sub-ordinate may result in ineffectiveness of leaders’ behavior. Characteristics of the task that may substitute the leadership include, the availability of feedback and intrinsic satisfaction. For example, when the job is routine and simple, the subordinate may not need direction. When the task is challenging, the subordinate may not need or want support. Organizational characteristics that may substitute for leadership include formalization group cohesion, inflexibility and a rigid reward structure. For example, when policies are formal and rigid, leadership may not be needed. Transformational Leadership: number of labels: charismatic leadership, inspirational leadership, symbolic leadership and transformational leadership. This is a leadership that transmits a sense of mission, increases teaming experiences and inspires new ways of thinking. Charisma is a form of interpersonal attraction. Charismatic people attract followers and this type of leader has great power over his or her followers. Charismatic leaders are self-confident and can influence others. The followers of a charismatic leader identify with the leader's beliefs, accept, trust and obey the leader without questioning him and thereby contribute toward the success of the organizational goals. Leadership Skills There is now recognition in both leadership theory and practice of the importance of skills, how leaders should behave and perform effectively. Although there are many skills, such as cultural flexibility, communication, HRD, creativity, and self-management of learning, the research-based skills identified by Whetten and Cameron seem to be most valuable. Their personal skills model, involving developing self-awareness, managing stress and solving problems creatively; the interpersonal skills model, involving communicating supportively, gaining power and influence, motivating others and managing conflict, are especially comprehensive and useful. Finally, the widely recognized organizational behavior .techniques such as, training, job design and leaders can also effectively use behavioral mgt. STRESS MANAGEMENT The nature of stress has been studied by scholars in a wide range of academic disciplines. Physicians, psychiatrists, and researchers in management have all studied its causes and its symptoms, and have defined the term in a variety of different ways. Stress is defined as "the reactions of individuals to new or threatening factors in their work environments”. Stress can be either positive or negative. Some new work situations can bring us positive challenges and excitement. For example, promotions to new jobs present employees with positive stress. Employees may feel anxious about their new work assignments; they also anticipate them eagerly and look forward to the additional challenges, rewards, and excitement. In these cases, the new and uncertain job situations create positive stress. The positive stress is also called the Eustress. However, there are certain other types of work that are very threatening and anxiety-arousing. For example, depression in the economy can create negative stress for sales personnel, because they will be much more anxious about making sales commissions and sales quotas. For every individual there is an optimum level of stress under which he or she may perform to full capacity. If the stress experienced is below this optimum level, then the individual gets bored, the motivational level to work reaches a low, point, and apathy sets in. If one operates in a very low stress environment and constantly experiences boredom, the person is likely to psychologically or physically withdraw from work. Psychological withdrawal will result in careless mistakes being frequently made, forgetting to do things, and thinking of things other than work during work hours. Physical withdrawal will manifest itself in increased rates of tardiness and absenteeism, which may ultimately lead to turnover. Though the optimum stress level is different Form different individuals, each individual can sense and determine how much stress is functional for an individual to operate in a productive manner.
Research indicates that those who possess high tolerance of ambiguity, internal locus of control and self-esteem seem to effectively handle a high level of stress. An individual possessing high degree of tolerance for ambiguity allows him to experience very little anguish while operating under conditions of insufficient information or in an uncertain environment. People with an internal locus of control also handle stress well since they feel they are in control of the situation, rather than feeling controlled by the situation they are facing. This makes it possible for them to manage their environmental stress without experiencing its harmful effects. Those with high self-esteem also handle stress with ease since a high self-esteem increases the confidence and enables them to deal with stressful situations with calmness and clear thinking. The more successfully one handles a stressful situation without panicking or getting overwhelmed by it, the more confidently will the individual face further stressful situations. Thus, it is possible to raise one’s capacity to handle in different situations. SOURCES OF STRESS Stress is a reality of our everyday life. There are both positive and negative stresses that come from our work and non-work lives. As pointed out by Near. Rice, and Hunt (1980) and Sckaran (1986), among others, the work and non-work domains of one's life are closely interrelated. The stresses and strains experienced in one domain are carried over to the other. Thus, if one experiences stress at work, that stress will be carried over to the home. One major source of job stress is the job itself. The way the job is designed, the amount of time pressure an individual faces and the amount of expectations others have of a person at work can all lead to job stress. Interpersonal relationships are a second source of job stress. How much contact an individual has with coworkers and managers, how much time he or she deals with clients or consumers, and how pleasant those interactions are all influences of how much stress an individual experiences at work. Third source is problems in personal lives, which can spill over into the work environment, adding further tension to an already stressful work situation. SOURCES OF JOB STRESS • Job Characteristics o Role ambiguity Role conflict Role overload Ethical dilemmas • Interpersonal Relationships o Amount of contact with others , Dealing with people in other departments, Organizational climate • Organizational Factors • Personal Factors o Career concerns o Geographical mobility o Rate of life change Job Characteristics A major source of job stress is a person's role in the organization. A role is simply the set of expectations that other people in the organization have for an individual, For example, supervisors, coworkers, customers and suppliers expect an employee to behave in certain predictable ways. The expectations others have of an employee arc sometimes unclear, in conflict, or too high for the employee to meet within the time allotted, and he or she experiences stress. • Role Ambiguity: When there is a lot of uncertainty surrounding job definitions or job expectations, people experience role ambiguity. With the recent increase in mergers and acquisitions among major organizations, more and more employees arc experiencing job stress as a result of role ambiguity. Role ambiguity is anxiety arousing among employees that leads to job stress. • Role Conflict: Often employees discover that different groups of people in an organization have widely varying expectations of them, and that they cannot meet all those expectations. This inconsistency of expectations associated with a role is called role conflict, which results in stress. • Role Overload: Role overload is a situation in which employees feel they are being asked to do more than time or ability permits. Working under time pressure is especially stressful. • Role Underload: Role Underload is the condition in which employees have too little work to do or too little variety -in their work. For example, salespeople in a store with no customer, standing around all day with nothing to do, could be said to experience role underload. Ironically, role underload leads to low self-esteem, increased frequency of nervous symptoms and increased health problems. • Ethical Dilemmas: Ethical dilemmas such as whether or not one should report the observed unethical behaviors of another person can cause extreme levels of stress in individuals. This will be especially true for those who have strong moral values of right and wrong and a deep sense of personal and corporate social responsibility. Tensions arise because one might have to contend against one's own colleagues who might be close friends, and may fear of reprisal and other undesirable consequences.
Interpersonal Relationships Another major source of stress in organization is poor interpersonal relationships with supervisors, subordinates, coworkers. or clients. When interpersonal relationships at work are unpleasant, employees develop a generalized anxiety, a diffuse feeling of dread about upcoming meetings and interactions. Three aspects of interpersonal relationships at work, which have a negative impact on job stress, are as follows: • Amount of contact with others: Jobs vary in terms of how much interpersonal contact is built into them. Too much prolonged contact with other people can cause stress. • Amount of contact with people in other departments: Having contacts with people outside one's own department creates a special sort of stress. People in other departments do not always have an adequate understanding of jobs outside their own areas, which can cause stress. • Organizational climate: The overall psychological climate of the organization can create stress. When day-to-day life in an organization is marked by unfriendly, distant, or hostile exchanges, employees are continually tense and this causes stress. Organizational Factors Following are the organizational factors that cause stress in individuals: • Work envt factors such as noise, heal, poor lighting, radiation and smoke are stress-inducing agents. • Insufficient resources such as time, budget, raw materials, space or manpower also induce stress in the work environment. When one has to produce and perform with inadequate resources on a long-term basis, this naturally imposes stresses and strains on the individuals who are responsible for getting the job done. • Structural factors in the organizational setting such as staff rules and' regulations and reward systems, may cause stress. • Lack of career promotion in organizations may be sometime cause stress. • Environmental factors of stress include sudden and unanticipated changes in the marketplace, technology, the financial market and so on. Personal Factors Employees’ personal lives have a marked effect on their lives at work. If things are going well personally, they are more likely to be upbeat and optimistic. They have more energy and patience for dealing with problems at work. On the other hand, if employees are having some personal problems, they might be more tense or distracted when they go to work. Factors that influence how much stress people bring from their persona! lives to the work setting are as follows: • Career Concerns: One major career concern that can cause stress is lack of job security. A second career concern that can cause employees stress is status incongruity, i.e., having jobs with less status, power and prestige than they think they deserve. • Geographical Mobility: Geographical moves create stress because they disrupt the routines of daily life. When geographical moves arc undertaken as part of a job transfer, the moves can be even more stressful. The transferred employees are likely to feel out of control at work, too, and experience their new work environments as unpredictable. EFFECTS OR CONSEQUENCES OF JOB STRESS Negative stress has unpleasant consequences for them, their families and for the organizations they serve. Effects on the Individual The impacts of distress on individuals are of following types: • The subjective or intra personal effects of stress are feelings of anxiety, boredom, apathy, nervousness, depression, fatigue, and anger. Sometimes experiencing the stress may cause aggressive behaviors on the part of the individual. • The cognitive effects include poor concentration, short attention span, mental blocks and inability to make decisions. • The physiological effects can be seen in increased heart and pulse rate, high blood pressure, dryness of throat, and excessive sweating. • The behavioral effects arc manifest in such things as accident proneness, drinking, excessive eating, smoking, impulsive behaviors, depression, and withdrawal behaviors. • The manifest health effects could be stomach disorders, asthma, eczema, and other psychosomatic disorders. In addition, the mental health, i.e. the ability lo function effectively in one's daily life, will also
decline as excessive stress is experienced. Consequences for the Family: Negative stress, which is handled by individuals in dysfunctional ways, such as drinking or withdrawal behaviors, will have an adverse effect on their home life. Spouse abuse, child abuse, alienation from family members, and even divorce could result from dysfunctional coping mechanisms. Consequences to Organizations The adverse consequences on an organization include low performance and productivity, high rates of absenteeism and poor decision-making. It also leads to lost of customers because of poor worker attitudes, increased alienation of the worker from the job, and even destructive and aggressive behaviors resulting in strikes and sabotage. The stresses experienced by employees who take on critical roles and are responsible for safety can sometimes be detrimental to the public. For instance, the stresses experienced by a train driver or railway guard, or that of an airline pilot, navigator, or air traffic controller may result in serious accidents. Needless to say that the costs of employee stress to the organization in terms of lost profits, poor image and loss of future business are enormous. METHODS OF MANAGING STRESS Stress is a factor that everybody has to contend with on a daily basis both in the work and non-work spheres of life. Since the body has only a limited capacity to respond to stress, it is important for individuals to optimally manage their stress level to operate as fully functioning human beings. There are several ways in which stress can be handled so that the dysfunctional consequences of stress can be reduced. Some of them are: Role Analysis Technique (RAT) Helps both the manager and the employee to analyze the requirements and expectations from the job. Breakingdown the job into various components clarifies the role of the job for the entire system. This also helps to eliminate reduction of work and thus lowering down the stress level. Job Relocation : Job relocation assistance is offered to employees who are transferred, by finding alternative employment for the spouses of the transferred employees and getting admissions in schools for their children in the new place. These arrangements help to reduce the anxiety and stress for the moving family. Recreational Program : Providing recreational facilities, arranging group meditation programs, help to reduce the stress levels of the employees. Employee Assistance Program : Another widely used strategy is the employee assistance Programs, which offer a variety of assistance to employees. These include counseling employees who seek assistance on how to deal with alcohol and drug abuse, handling conflicts at the work place, dealing with marital and other family problems. Career Counseling : helps the employee to obtain professional advice regarding career that would help the individual to achieve personal goals. It also makes the employees aware of what additional educational qualifications or specialized technical training, if any, By becoming knowledgeable about the possible avenues for advancement, the employees who consider their careers to be important can reduce their stress levels by becoming more realistic about their options and can start preparing themselves for it. Time Management : Another way of coping with stress is to manage time more effectively. People can learn to get better organized so that they can do their work more efficiently. Delegation : Another way of coping with job stress is to delegate some responsibilities to others. Delegation can directly decrease workload upon the manager and helps to reduce the stress. ! More Information and Help : Some new employees have to spend more time on a job than necessary because they are not sure what they are doing. So it is necessary that some help should be provided before doing the work that would lead to much efficient, effective work. It would also reduce anxiety and stress among the employees. Health Maintenance: Probably the most frequently used organizational stress management program is health maintenance. Many companies invest large sum of money in gym and sport facilities for maintaining the health of the employees.
Supervisor Training Another type of stress management Program that organizations are experimenting with is supervisor training. The emphasis on supervisory training Program is how to prevent job stress. Managers are trained to give better performance appraisals, to listen to employees’ problems more effectively, and to communicate job assignments and instructions more clearly. Individual Stress Reduction Workshops Some orgn have also sponsored individual stress reduction workshops for their employees. These programs include biofeedback, meditation to career counseling, time management and interpersonal skills workshops. In lectures and seminars, participants are given a basic understanding of the causes of stress and its consequences. Then, participants are given materials to help them identify the major sources of stress in their own lives, and some strategies for dealing with that stress more effectively. POWER AND POLITICS Power is easy to feel but difficult to define. It is the potential ability of a person or group to influence another person or group. It is the ability to get things done the way one wants them to be done. Both formal and informal groups and individuals may have power; it does not need an official position or the backing of an institution to have power. Influence can take many forms. One person has influenced another if the second person's opinions, behavior or perspectives have changed as a result of their interaction. Power is a factor at all levels of most organizations. It can be a factor in almost any organizational decision. POWER AND AUTHORITY Sometimes power and authority is used synonymously because of their objective of influencing the behavior of others. However, there is difference between the two. Power does not have any legal sanctity while authority has such sanctity. Authority is institutional and is legitimate. Power, on the other hand, is personal and does not have any legitimacy. But stilt, power is a crucial factor in influencing the behavior in organizational situation. Sources of Power John R. P. French and Bertram Raven identified five bases or sources of power: legitimate, reward, coercive, expert and referent power. Legitimate Power: A person's position within orgn provides him with legitimate power. The organization gives managers the power to direct the activities of their subordinates. Legitimate power is similar to formal authority and hence it can be created, granted, changed or withdrawn by the formal organization. The structure of the organization also identifies the strength of the legitimate authority by position location. For instance, higher-level positions exercise more power than lower-level positions in a classical hierarchical organizational structure. Organizations vary in how much legitimate power they grant to individuals. In such organizations, everyone knows who has the most power and few people challenge the power structure. Reward Power: This type of power is the extent to which one person has control over rewards that are valued by another. The greater the perceived values of such rewards, the greater the power. Organizational rewards include pay, promotions and valued office assignments. A manager who has complete control over such rewards has a good deal of power. Manager who uses praise and recognition has also a good deal of power. Coercive Power: People have coercive power if they have control over some form of punishment such as threat of dismissal, suspension, demotion or other method of embarrassment for the people. Perhaps, a manager can cause psychological harm also lo an employee. A manager’s coercive power increases with the number and severity of the sanctions over which the manager has control. Although the use of coercive power is often successful in the short run, it tends to create resentment and hostility and therefore is usually detrimental to the organization in the long run. Expert Power: It is more of personal power than organizational power. Expert power is that influence which one wields as a result of one's experience, special skill or knowledge. This power occurs when the expert threatens to withhold his knowledge or skill. Since any person who is not easily replaceable has more power as compared to those who are easily replaceable. If the sub-ordinates view their superior as competent, and knowledgeable, naturally they will obey and respect the superior. To the extent, that a low-ranking worker has important
knowledge not available to a superior, he is likely to have more power. Referent Power: A person who is respected by certain others for whatever reason has referent power over those people. A person with referent power may have charisma and people who respect that person are likely to get emotionally involved with the respected person and identify with, accept and be willing to follow him or her. People with referent power are often imitated by others with the star's actions, attitudes and dress. This imitation reflects the rising star's power over the imitations. HOW PEOPLE USE POWER An individual manager may have power derived from any or all of the five bases of power and the manager may use that power in different1 ways. Therefore, good managers must try to analyse the sources of their power and be careful how they use that power. The work of Gary Yukl provides both a way to predict the consequences of certain uses of power and guidelines for using power. The following table list^ the five sources of ;i leader's power and some of the variables that are likely to lead to three general types of employee responses or outcomes-commitment, compliance and resistance-when the leader uses the power. For instance, the table shows that a leader's use of referent power will lead employees to be committed lo the leader’s project if they see that the project is important to the leader. Using Legitimate Power The use of legitimate power is seldom challenged in an organization; when a superior asks a sub-ordinate to do something, the sub-ordinate usually complies without resistance. However, the way the superior makes the request and follows it up are very important for ensuring the sub-ordinate’s future compliance and the growth of the superior's referent power. Though the secretary does what the boss asks, still the boss could be cordial and polite when making requests and should whenever possible explain why a particular task needs to be done. The secretary who understands the importance of a task will be more likely to work enthusiastically on it. The boss must follow normal procedures and make sure the request is appropriate. For instance, a vicepresident whose secretary is busy should not assume that he or she can just ask a supervisor's secretary to drop all other work and type a letter. Such by passing of the normal chain of command can cause hard feelings among all the people involved. Most of these suggestions imply that managers must be sensitive to employees concerns. Managers who are insensitive to their employees may find that their legitimate power dwindles and that they must resort to coercive power. Using Reward Power The manager, before giving a reward, must be sure that the employee has actually done the job and done it well. Employees must know that they get rewarded for good work. Using Coercive Power For some people, using coercive power is a natural response when something goes wrong. But often employees resist coercive power, resent it and losing respect for people using that type, of power. Hence, coercion is now generally recognized to be the most difficult form of punishment to use successfully in an organization. Managers who wish to maintain their credibility should make threats only when they intend to carry through on them and should never threaten a punishment that they cannot bring about. A good manager will be such that the punishment fit the crime. For instance, warning an individual who uses copying machine to make -personal copies but firing someone who steals equipment from the organization. Public punishment makes everyone uneasy and humiliating and hence should be done private. Using Expert Power To gain power from their expertise, managers must make people aware of how much they know. Manager can use his expert power most effectively to address employee concerns. If a particular sales person faces any difficulty in selling a particular product and turns to manager for his help, the manager must be able to identify the defect and must be able to help and educate him. Using Referent Power Leaders have traditionally strengthened their referent power by hiring employees with backgrounds similar to their own. One of the most positive and subtle uses of referent power is the process of rote modeling. A respected manager who wants her employees to be punctual, considerate and creative can simply demonstrate those behaviors herself and her employees will likely imitate her actions. ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN
CONCEPT OF ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN Organizational design is the overall configuration of structural components that defines jobs, groupings of jobs, the hierarchy, patterns of authority, approaches to co-ordination and line-staff differentiation into a single and unified organizational system. Consider, for example, the differences in organizational design that might exist between a computer manufacturer and university. Since the computer manufacturer has to respond to frequent technological breakthroughs and changes in its competitive environment, it is likely to have a relatively flat and decentralized design whereas the university has a more stable environment and is less affected by technology. Therefore, it has a more centralized structure with numerous rules and regulations. DETERMINANTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN The key situational determinants of orgnal design are technology, orgnal env, and orgn size and life cycle. • Technology: Technology is the set of processes that an organization uses to transform various resources such as materials and labor into products or services. Joan Woodward was the first person to see the link between technology and organizational design. In particular. Woodward defined three basic types of technology. ? In unit or small-batch technology, products are manufactured according to customer specifications in small quantities. Examples are printing press and studios. ? In large batch or mass-production technology, products. are manufactured in assembly-line fashion by combining component pans to create finished goods. Examples are home-appliance," automobile and computer manufacturers. ? In continuous-process technology, products are transformed from raw materials into finished goods through a series of machine transformations that change the composition of the materials themselves. Examples are petroleum refiners, food processors and chemical manufacturers. Woodward viewed unit or small-batch technology as -the least complex while the continuous process technology as the most complex. She found that organizations within each set had similar designs but the designs varied somewhat from set to set. Bums and Stalker argued that managers should examine the rate of change in technology to determine the best organizational structure. They recommended a bureaucratic or mechanistic structure for organizations with slowly changing technology and an organic or flexible structure for organizations with rapidly changing technology. Charles Perrow concluded that me key question concerning an organization’s technology is whether it is routine or non-routine. In his view, a highly formalized centralized structure is appropriate for an organization that uses the same routine technology while a more flexible structure is necessary for an organization that often uses new technology. ' An orgn that uses continuous process, non-routine or intensive technology needs to ensure that its structure can adapt to changes in the technologies. Technology can affect all aspects of an organization, not just production and the same technological change can have very different effects on different orgns.
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Environment: The environment also influences the type of design an organization is likely to adopt. The environment of an organization consists of all the factors and conditions outside the organization that might affect it. which include customers, shareholders competitors, legislatures and regulatory agencies, economic factors, which include interest rates, unemployment rate, finance, objects, which include buildings, machines and events, which include as elections, war, floods etc. If the managers are good at analyzing and predicting changes in the environment, then, they can help the organization to take advantage of any change. Since the environment affects orgn both directly and indirectly, therefore, the managers must keep an eye on it and be ready to modify orgn's design to respond to environmental changes. Organizational Size and Life Cycle: Organization size refers to how large the organization is, usually, in terms of the number of its full-time employees. Life cycle refers to organization's maturity relative to that of other organizations.
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Size can affect org design in many different ways. A group of researchers in England found that large org tend to have more job specialization, more standard operating procedures, more rules and regulations, and more
decentralization than small organizations. Thus, as orgns grow in size, they should be prepared to adapt their design accordingly. An orgn's life cycle is related to its size. Organizations tend to follow a predictable pattern of growth. After they are created, they grow for some period of time and then eventually stabilize as a mature orgn. To summarize, an organization design needed by a small but rapidly growing business is different from an organization design needed by an established and entrenched industry giant growing at a stable and predictable rate. An organization's life cycle and growth rates are directly linked to the strategy that the organization is pursuing. The following figure 17.1 shows the organization cycle.
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The Matrix Organization: A matrix organization is created by overlaying product-based departmentalization on lo a functional structure. A matrix design is seldom used for an entire organization and is often used for a portion of it. Figure 17.3 shows the matrix organization.
A matrix design allows an organization to capitalize on the advantages of both functional and product departmentalization. It has also some drawbacks such as an organization lacks a clear chain of command thereby 'resulting into confusion about which manager lies authority over a given employee. The organization also has to devote more resources to coordination because of high levels of interdependence that result from a matrix. ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE CONCEPT :::: organizational culture is the set of values that states what an organization stands for, how it operates and what it considers important. According to Deal and Kennedy, a strong culture is. "a system of informal rules that spells out how people have to behave most of the time". Schein defines organizational culture as the pattern of basic assumptions that a given group has invented, discovered and developed while learning to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration. All the above definitions stress acceptable and unacceptable behavior of its members. For instance, one organization might value solidarity and loyalty to organization more than any other value whereas another organization might stress on good relations with customers. Such values are part of organizational culture in spite of not being formally written like rules and regulations of the organization. They do not usually appear in the organizational training Program and in fact, many organizations have difficulty in expressing their cultural values. However, an organization's values automatically enter every employee's personal values and actions over a period of time. Organizational culture has a profound influence on individual employees because it is generally an accepted set of values rather than a written set of rules with which employees might not argue.
Importance of Culture Culture plays a very significant role in any organization by communicating information about the overall acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Culture communicates whether the organization expects its managers to be aggressive or conservative in decisions-making, generous or moderate in supporting social causes and ruthless or kind in competitive dealings. Some orgns have clear, strong and well-defined culture whereas: others have ambiguous, weak and poorly defined cultures. Most managers agree that a strong and clear culture is preferable to weak and vague culture because it helps to provide a common frame of reference for managerial decision-making and a wide variety of other organizational activities. An orgnal culture generally lakes shape over time and is often deeply influenced by the values of the orgnal founders. As organizational culture evolves, various symbols, stories, heroes, slogans and ceremonies also come into being. These, then, serve to maintain and perpetuate the culture through subsequent generations of employees. Changing Organizational Culture Change is most often needed when the organization has lost its effectiveness and is struggling to either" carry out or change its strategic goals. The manager trying to change an organizational culture faces lots of difficulties. Because organizational culture embody the organizational values, which are embedded in organization's soul that stays stable irrespective of the changes in leadership and environment. It is, however, possible to change organizational culture, to improve the organization performance. For this managers must change employee's ideas about what is and what is not appropriate behavior. They must create new role model and new stories to help employees understand the meaning of what is happening around them. One way to brine about such changes is to manage the symbols that are important to the organization. An organization's suggestion box is a symbol of an organization's openness to the ideas of the employees. Some organizations try to emphasize the importance of employees’ ideas by rewarding them for their suggestions. However, if the suggestion box remains just a symbol and organization never translates the suggestions into actions, the box will have little effect on organization morale. Once successfully made, changes in the organizational culture will be as stable as the old culture was. However, any organization willing to change its culture must realize that such a change is never easy and cannot be brought about simply by ordering employees. MANAGEMENT OF CHANGE Change simply refers to alteration in the existing conditions of an organization. Even in most stable organizations change is necessary to maintain stability. The economic and social environment is so dynamic that without adapting to such change even the most successful organizations cannot survive in the changed environment. Therefore, management must continuously monitor the outside environment and be sufficiently innovative and creative to implement these changes effectively. Orgns encounter different forces for change. These forces come from external and internal sources of the organization. EXTERNAL FORCES External forces for change originate outside an organization. There are four key external forces for change: Demographic Characteristics: These include age, education, skill level and gender of employees. Organizations need to effectively manage these characteristics in order to receive maximum contribution and commitment from their employees. Technological Advancements: Both manufacturing and service organizations are increasingly using technology as a means to improve productivity and market competitiveness. Market Changes: The emergence of a global economy is forcing Indian organizations to change the way they do business. Organizations are entering into new partnerships with their suppliers in order to deliver higher quality products at lower prices. Social and Political Pressures: These forces are created by social and political events. Personal values affect employees’ needs, priorities and motivation. Therefore, managers need to adjust their managerial style according to the changing employee values. Political events also create substantial change in an organization. Although it is difficult for organizations to predict changes in political forces, many organizations hire lobbyists and consultants to help them detect and respond to social and political changes.
INTERNAL FORCES Internal forces for change come from inside the organization. This may come from both human resource problems and managerial behavior. Human Resource Problems These problems stem from employee perceptions about their work environment and conflict between an employee and organization needs. Organizations might respond to these problems by using the various approaches to job design by implementing realistic job previews and by reducing employees' role conflict, stress, work overload and ambiguity. Managerial Behavior Excessive interpersonal conflict between managers and their subordinates is a sign of implementing an immediate change. Inappropriate leader behavior such as inadequate direction and support are the cause of conflict between managers and their subordinates. Nature of Change Organizations introduce changes through people. Unless the people arc willing to accept the need and responsibility for organizational change, intended changes can never be translated into reality. In addition, individuals have to learn to adapt their attitudes and behavioral patterns to constantly changing environments. Mgt of change involves both individual and organizational change. Individual change is behavioral change, which is determined by individual characteristics of members such as their knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, needs, expectations and skills. It is possible to bring about a total change m_ an organization by changing behaviors of individual members through participative and. educative strategies. Although, the degree of difficulty involved in the change and the time taken to bring about the change will depend on the target of change. The attitudes towards change are largely dependent on the nature of the situation and the manner in .which changes are initiated and executed. Changing individual behavior is more time consuming and a difficult task. The linkage between attitude and behavior is not direct and therefore changing behavior is more difficult than changing attitudes. One's attitude does not necessarily get reflected in one's behavior. For example, we know that honesty is the best policy and we have favorable altitudes towards people- who are honest but in certain situations, we may still act in a less honest way. Changing group behavior is usually a more prolonged and harder task. Every group has its own dynamics of push and pull that attempt to neutralize the change that may have taken place in an individual. Due to this group dynamics, individual member's ‘changed behavior’ may revert to earlier normative behavior in order to maintain the change in the existing conditions. However, due to the same reasons of a group's over-riding influence on individual members, sometimes it may be easier to tackle the group as a whole rather than trying to change the behavior of members one by one. Bringing total behavioral change in all the groups and members of an orgn involves difficult long-range effort. More often than not, it is a slow painful process to usher a total cultural change in an orgn. It is possible to change total organization without focusing at the level of individual's change of knowledge, attitude and behavior. Modification in the organization's structures, policies, procedures and techniques leads to total organizational change. These types of changes alter prescribed relationships and roles assigned to members and eventually modify the individual members’ behavior and attitudes. As these two kinds of changes are interdependent, the complexity of managing change increases manifold. APPROACHES TO ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE As organizational change is a complex process, therefore managers must approach it systematically and logically. Some organizational changes are planned whereas other changes are reactive. Planned change is designed and implemented by an organization in an orderly and timely fashion in the anticipation of future change. Reactive change results from a reaction of an organization to unexpected events. In contrast to planned change, it is a piece-meal response to circumstances as they develop. External forces that the organization has failed to anticipate or interpret always bring about reactive change. Since reactive change may have to be carried out hastily, it increases the likelihood of a poorly conceived and poorly executed Program.
Planned change is always preferable to reactive change. Managers who sit back and respond to change only when they can no longer avoid it are likely to waste a lot of time and money trying to patch together a last-minute solution. The more effective approach is to anticipate the significant forces for change working in an orgn and plan ways to address them. To accomplish this, managers must understand the steps needed for effective change. A COMPREHENSIVE MODEL OF CHANGE The comprehensive model of change shown in the figure 20.1 shows seven steps that can lead to effective change. This model is useful for both planned and reactive change.
The seven steps of comprehensive model of change are as follows: Recognize need for change The first step in this model is recognizing need for change. For marketing managers who anticipate needed . change, recognition is likely to come much earlier, as a result of marketing forecasts indicating new market potential, expert indications about impending socio-economic change or a perceived opportunity to capitalize on a key technological breakthrough. These managers tend to ‘initiate change because they expect it to be necessary in the near future in any case’. Establish goals for change The manager must then set goals for the proposed change. It is important for the manager to specify goals that the change is supposed to accomplish. The goals can be set to maintain or increase the market standing, to enter new markets, to restore employee morale, to reduce turnover, to settle a strike and to identify good investment opportunities. Diagnose relevant variables An important next step is diagnosing organizational variables that have brought about the need for change. Turnover, for example, may be caused by a variety of factors such as low pay, poor working conditions, poor supervision, better alternatives in the job market or employee job dissatisfaction etc. Thus, if turnover is the
recognized stimulus for change, the manager must understand what has caused it in a particular situation in order to make the right changes. To carry out this diagnosis, the manager may discuss the situation with employees and other managers. Select change intervention After the manager has developed an understanding of the problem and its causes then he must select a change intervention that will accomplish the intended goal. An intervention is a specific change induced in an organization with the intention of solving a particular problem or accomplishing a specific objective. For example, if turnover is caused by low pay, then a new reward system is required and if the cause is poor supervision then interpersonal skills and training for supervisors is required. Plan implementation of change The manager must then carefully plan the implementation of change. Planning the implementation of change involves consideration of the cost of the change, how the change will affect other areas of the organization and the degree to which employees should participate in bringing about the change. Hastily implemented change can result in more harm than benefit. For example, if the change involves the use of new equipment, the manager should not make any changes that rely on the use of new equipment until it has arrived and been installed and workers know how to use it. Moreover, if change is thrust upon them too quickly, their resistance may stiffen. Implement change A systematically implemented change is more likely to proceed smoothly and to encounter fewer obstacles than is a change that is implemented too quickly and without adequate preparation. Evaluate implementation Finally, after the change has been implemented, the manager should verify that it has accomplished its intended goals. A change may fail to bring about the intended results. This may be due to inappropriate goals or inaccurate diagnosis of the situation or wrong selection of intervention. MODELS AND DYNAMICS OF PLANNED CHANGE Managers are criticized for emphasizing short-term, quick fix solutions to organizational problems. Quick-fix solutions do not really solve underlying problems and they have little staying power. Researchers and managers have thus tried to identify effective ways to manage the change process. The following models have been developed to effectively manage change: Lewin's Change Model Most theories of organizational change originated from the landmark work of social psychologist Kurt Lewin. Lewin developed a three-stage model of planned change, which explained how to initiate, manage and stabilize the change process. The three stages are unfreezing, changing and refreezing. Before reviewing each stage, it is important to highlight the assumptions on which, this model is based: 1. The change process involves learning something new, as well discontinuing current attitudes, behaviors and organizational practices. 2. Change will not occur unless there is motivation to change. This is often the most difficult part of the change process. 3. People are the hub of all organizational changes. Any change, whether in terms of structure, group process, reward systems or job design requires individuals to change. 4. Resistance to change is found even when the goals of change are highly desirable. 5. Effective change requires reinforcing new behaviors, attitudes and organizational practices. The following are the three stages of change: Unfreezing The focus of this stage is to make organization open to change. In doing so individuals are encouraged to replace old behaviors and attitudes with those desired by management. Managers also need to devise ways to reduce the barriers to change during this stage. Changing The focus of this stage is in providing employees with new information, new behavioral models, or new ways of looking at things. The purpose is to help employees learn new concepts to implement change. Role models, mentors, experts, benchmarking organization against world-class organizations and training are useful mechanisms to facilitate change.
Re freezing The focus of this stage is stabilizing the change during refreezing by helping employees integrate the changed behavior or attitude into their normal way of doing things. This is accomplished by first giving employees the chance to exhibit the new behaviors or attitudes. Once exhibited, positive reinforcement is used to reinforce the desired change. Additional coaching and modelling are also used at this point to reinforce the stability of the change. ORGANIZATIONAL SOURCES OF RESISTANCE According to Daniel Kantz and Robert L Khan, this can be divided into following six general groups. • • • • • • Over determination or structural inertia refers to the tendency of an organization's rules, policies and structure to maintain the existing conditions and therefore resist change even when change would benefit the organization more than stability. When an organization tries to change one of its division or part of the division without recognizing the interdependence of the division with other divisions of the organization, then it is said to have a narrow focus of change. Often a part of division cannot be changed without changing the whole division. Group inertia may weaken an individual’s attempt to bring about change. Resistance may also take the form of threatened expertise if the change lends to weaken special expertise built after years of experience. Organizational restructuring that involves reducing the number of job categories often meets this kind of resistance. Any change that may alter the power relationships within an organization may meet the form of resistance known as ‘threatened power’. Resistance may occur when a change threatens quantum of resource allocation from one part of the organization to another.
Individual Sources of Resistance : According to researchers, individuals have the following reasons for resisting change: • Simple habits create a lot of resistance. Most people prefer to do their work the way they did it last week rather than learn a new approach. • Perhaps the biggest cause of employee resistance to change is uncertainty. In the face of impending change, employees are likely to become anxious and nervous. They worry about their ability to meet new job demands therefore, leading to feeling of job insecurity. • Some people resist change to avoid feeling of loss. For example, many organizations change interventions and alter work arrangements, thus disrupting existing social networks. Social relationships are important to most people, so they resist any change that might adversely affect those relationships. Change may also threaten people's feelings of familiarity and self-confidence. • People may resist change because their perceptions of underlying circumstances differ from the perceptions of those who are promoting the change. OVERCOMING RESISTANCE TO CHANGE Managers need not abandon planned change in the face of resistance. Before recommending specific approaches to overcome resistance, there are three key conclusions that should be kept in mind. First, an organization must be ready for change. Second, the top management should inform the employees about the process of change. Third, the employees perceptions or interpretations of a change should be considered. The following methods of overcoming-resistance to change are as follows: • Participation: is generally considered the most effective technique for overcoming resistance to change. Employees who take part in planning and implementing change are better able to understand the reasons for the change than those who are not involved. They become committed to the change and make it work. Employees who have the opportunity to express their own ideas and to understand the perspectives of others are likely to accept change gracefully. It is a time consuming process. • Education and Communication: Educating employees about the need for and the expected results of an impending change help reduce their resistance. Managers should maintain an open channel of communication while planning and implementing change. However, it is also a time consuming process. • Facilitation of Change: Knowing ahead of lime that employees are likely to resist change then the manager should do as much as possible to help them cope with uncertainly and feeling of loss. Introducing change gradually, making only necessary changes, announcing changes in advance and allowing time for people to adjust to new ways of doing things can help reduce resistance.
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Force-Field Analysis: In almost any situation where a change is being planned, there are forces acting for and against the change. In force-field analysis, the manager list each set of forces and then try to remove or minimize some of the forces acting against the change. Negotiation: Where someone or some group will clearly lose out in a change and where that group has considerable power to resist, there negotiation is required. Sometimes it is a relatively easy way to avoid major resistance. Manipulation and Cooperation: This is followed when other tactics will not work or are too expensive. It can be quick and inexpensive, However, it can lead to further problems if people feel manipulated. Explicit and Implicit Coercion: This is adopted where speed is essential and where the change initiators possess considerable power. It is speedy and can overcome resistance.
Each of the above methods has its advantages and disadvantages. There is no universal strategy for overcoming resistance to change. Hence, an orgn that plans to introduce certain changes must be prepared to face resistance from its employees. An orgn should also have a planned approach to overcome such resistances. ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT OD refers to a broad range of behavioral science based strategies used to diagnose the need for change in orgns and to implement changes when necessary. OD can be defined as a technique for bringing change in the entire orgn, rather man focusing attention on individuals to bring change easily in the entire orgn. Nature of OD OD is a general strategy or approach to organizational change mat is employed to analyze and diagnose the sources of organizational problems and to develop and implement action plans for their solution. According to Bennis, OD has the following characteristics; • It is an educational strategy for bringing planned change. • It relates to real problems of an organization. • Laboratory training methods based on experienced behavior are primarily used to bring change. • Change agent applying OD technique for change is external to the forms of consultants. • There is a close working relationship between change agents and the people who are being changed. The relationships involve mutual trust, joint goals, means, and mutual influence. • The change agents share social philosophy about human value. They are humanists seeking to get a humanistic philosophy in organization. OD Interventions : It refer to various activities which consultant and client organization perform for improving organizational functioning by enabling organization members to better manage their team and organization cultures. French and Well have defined OD interventions as "sets of structured activities in which selected organizational units (target groups or individuals) engage with a task or a sequence of tasks where the task goals are related directly or indirectly to organizational improvement. Interventions constitute the action thrust of organization development; they make things happen and are what is happening.” Intervention Techniques Sensitivity Training: Is a small-group interaction under stress in an unstructured encounter group, which requires people to become sensitive to one another's feelings in order to develop reasonable group activity. In sensitivity training, the actual technique employed is T-group. T-group has several characteristic features: • The T-group is generally small, from ten to twenty members • The group begins its activity with no formal agenda • The primary role of trainer is to call attention of members from time to time lo the ongoing process within the group • The procedure lends to develop introspection and self-examination, with emotional levels of involvement and behavior. The objectives of such training are increased openness with others, more concern for others, increased tolerance for individual differences, less ethnic prejudice, understanding of a group process, enhanced listening skills and increased trust and support.
Process Consultation: Process Consultation (P-C) represents a method of intervening in an ongoing system. The basic content of P-C is that the consultant works with individuals and groups to help them learn about human and social processes and learn to solve problems that stem from process events. P-C consists of many interventions and activities which affect the various organizational processes such as. communication, roles and functions of group members, group problem-solving and decision-making, group norms, authority and leadership and inter-group cooperation and conflicts. Team Development: The underlying aim of team development is to increase trust among team members because people work better together when there is open and honest sharing about the problems and difficulties that they have with one another. As such, at the initial level, the attempt should be to develop such an environment where such trust can be developed among the team members.
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ob notes
1 :::: INTRODUCTION TO ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR NEW PARADIGM The organizational behavior has a goal lo help the managers make a transition to the new paradigm. Some of the new paradigm characteristics include coverage of second-generation information technology and total quality management such as empowerment, re engineering and benchmarking, and learning organization for managing diversity of work. The new paradigm sets the stage for the study, understanding, and application of the timetested micro-variables, dynamics and macro-variables. One must know why management needs a new perspective to meet the environmental challenges and to shift to a new paradigm. A NEW PERSPECTIVE FOR MANAGEMENT Management is generally considered to have three major dimensions—technical, conceptual and human. The technical dimension consists of the manager's expertise in particular functional areas. They know the requirements of the jobs and have the functional knowledge to get the job done. But the practicing managers ignore the conceptual and human dimensions of their jobs. Most managers think that their employees are lazy, and are interested only in money, and that if you could make them happy in terms of money, they would be productive. If such assumptions are accepted, the human problems that the management is facing are relatively easy to solve. But human behavior at work is much more complicated and diverse. The new perspective assumes that employees are extremely complex and that there is a need for theoretical understanding given by empirical research before applications can be made for managing people effectively. MODERN APPROACH TO OB: The modern approach to OB is the search for the truth of why people behave the way they do. The organizational behavior is a delicate and complex process. If one aims to manage an organization, it is necessary to understand its operation. Organization is the combination of science and people. While science and technology is predictable, the human behavior in organization is rather unpredictable. This is because it arises from deep needs and value systems of people. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND FOR MODERN ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR Scientific Management Approach : was developed by F.W. Taylor at the beginning of the 20th century. This theory supported the use of certain steps in scientifically studying each element of a job, selecting and training the best workers for the job arid making sure that the workers follow the prescribed method of doing the job. It provided a scientific rationale for job specialization and mass production. His assumption was that employees are motivated largely by money. To increase the output, Taylor advised managers to pay monetary incentives to efficient workers. Yet, his theory was criticized by many employers and workers. Workers objected to the pressure of work as being harder and faster. Critics worried that the methods took the humanity out of labor, reducing workers to machines responding to management incentives. Therefore, Taylor's view is now considered inadequate and narrow due to the points given by the critics. Bureaucratic Approach While scientific management was focusing on the interaction between workers and the task, me researchers were studying how to structure the organization more effectively. Instead of trying to make each worker more efficient, classical organization theory sought the most effective overall organizational structure for workers and managers. The theory's most prominent advocate, Max Weber, proposed a 'bureaucratic form' of structure, which he thought would work for all organizations. Weber's idea! bureaucracy was , logical, rational and efficient. He made the naive assumption that one structure would work best for all organizations. Henry Ford, Henry Fayol and Frederick W. Taylor, the early management pioneers, recognized the behavioral side of management. However, they did not emphasize the human dimensions. Although there were varied and complex reasons for the emerging importance of behavioral approach to management, it is generally recognized that the Hawthorne studies mark the historical roots for the field of organizational behavior. Hawthorne Studies Even, as Taylor and Weber brought attention with their rational, logical approaches to more efficient productivity, their views were criticized on the ground that both approaches ignored worker's humanity. The real beginning of applied research in the area of OB started with Hawthorne Experiments. In 1924, a group of professors began an inquiry into the human aspects of work and working conditions at the Hawthorne plant of Western Electric Company, Chicago. The findings of these studies were given a new name 'human relations' the studies brought out a number of findings relevant to understanding human behavior at work. The Human element in the workplace was considerably more important. The workers are influenced by social factors and the behavior of
the individual worker is determined by the group. Hawthorne studies have been criticized for their research methods and conclusions drawn. But their impact on the emerging field of OB was dramatic. They helped usher in a more humanity centered approach to work. APPROACHES TO ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR There are mainly four approaches to organizational behavior. They are: Human Resources Approach : The human resources approach is concerned with the growth and development of people towards higher levels of competency, creativity and fulfillment, because people are the central resource in any organization. This approach help employees become better in terms of work and responsibility and then it tries to create a climate in which they can contribute to the best of their improved abilities. This approach is also known as 'supportive approach' because the manager's primary role changes from control of employees to providing an active support for their growth and performance. A Contingency Approach : A contingency approach to OB implies that different situations require different behavioral practices for effectiveness instead of following a traditional approach for all situations. Each situation must be analyzed carefully to determine the significant variables that exist in order to establish the more effective practices. The strength of this approach is that it encourages analysis of each situation prior to action. Thus, it helps to use all the current knowledge about people in the organization in the most appropriate manner. Productivity Approach : Productivity is a ratio that compares units of output with units of input. It is often measured in terms of economic inputs and outputs. Productivity is considered to be improved, if more outputs can be produced from the same amount of inputs. But besides economic inputs and outputs, human and social inputs and outputs also arc important. Systems Approach : A system is an interrelated part of an organization or a society that interacts with everyone related to that organization or society and functions as a whole. Within the organization 'people' employ 'technology' in performing the 'task' that they are responsible for, while the 'structure' of the organization serves as a basis for co-ordinating all their different activities. The systems view emphasizes the interdependence of each of these elements within the organization, if the organization as a whole is to function effectively. The other key aspect of the systems view of organization is its emphasis on the interaction between the organization and its broader environment,, which consists of social, economic, cultural and political environment within which they operate. Organizations arc dependent upon their surrounding environment in two main ways: First, the organization requires 'inputs' from the environment in the form of raw material, people, money, ideas and so on. The organization itself can be thought of as performing certain 'transformation' processes, on its inputs in order to create outputs in the form of products or services. Secondly, the organization depends on environment such as, public to accept its output. The systems view of organization thus emphasizes on the key interdependencies that organizations must manage. Within themselves the organizations must trade off the interdependencies among people, tasks, technology and structure in order to perform their transformation processes effectively and efficiently. Organizations must also recognize their interdependence with the broader environments within which they exist.
CONTEMPORARY ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR A Separate Field of Study : OB can be treated as a distinct field of study. It is yet to become a science. Now
efforts are being made to synthesize principles, concepts and processes in this field of study. Interdisciplinary Approach : OB is basically an interdisciplinary approach. It draws heavily from other disciplines like psychology, sociology and anthropology. Besides, it also takes relevant things from economics, political science, law and history. OB integrates the relevant contents of these disciplines to make them applicable for organizational analysis. e.g. it addresses issues, which may be relevant to the case, such as the following: • What facilitates accurate perception and attribution? • What influences individual, group and organizational learning and the development of individual attitudes toward .work? • How do individual differences in personality, personal development, and career development affect individual's behaviours and attitudes? • What motivates people to work, and how. does the organizational reward system influence worker's
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behaviour and attitudes? How do managers build effective teams? What contributes to effective decision-making? What are the constituents of effective communication? What are the characteristics of effective communication? How can power be secured and used productively? What factors contribute to effective negotiations? How can conflict (between groups or between a manager and subordinates) be resolved or managed? How can jobs and organizations be effectively designed? How can managers help workers deal effectively with change?
An Applied Science : The basic objective of organizational behaviour is to make application of various researches to solve the organizational problems, particularly related to the human behavioral aspect. Normative and Value Centered : OB is a normative science. A normative science prescribes how the various findings of researches can be applied to get organizational results, which are acceptable to the society. Thus, what is acceptable by the society or individuals engaged in an organization is a matter of values of the society and people concerned. Humanistic and Optimistic: OB focuses the attention on people from humanistic point of view. It is based on the belief that needs and motivation of people are of high' concern. Further, there is optimism about the innate potential of man to be independent, creative, predictive and capable of contributing positively to the objectives of the organization. Oriented towards Organizational Objectives : OB is oriented towards organizational objectives. In fact, OB tries to integrate both individual and organizational objectives so that both are achieved simultaneously. A Total System Approach: An individual's behavior can be analyzed keeping in view his psychological framework, interpersonal-orientation, group influence and social and cultural factors; Thus, individual's nature is quite complex and OB by applying systems approach tries to find solutions for this complexity.
2 : FOUNDATION OF ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
DEFINITION OF MANAGEMENT : Management is commonly defined as "Getting work done through other people". This simple definition explains the significance of the role of people. The work will not be done unless "people" want to do the work and if the work is not done then there will be no organization. Hence, the cooperation of the workers is crucial to the success or failure of the organization. DEFINITION OF ORGANISATION : According to Gary Johns, "Organizations are social inventions for accomplishing goals through group efforts". This definition covers wide variety-of groups such as businesses, schools, hospitals, fraternal groups, religious bodies, government agencies and so on. There are three significant aspects in the above definition, which require further analysis. They are as follows: • Social Inventions: The word "social" as a derivative of society basically means gathering of people. It is the people that primarily make up an organization. • Accomplishing Goals: All organizations have reasons for their existence. These reasons are the goals towards which all organizational efforts are directed. While the primary goal .of any commercial organization is to make money for its owners, this goal is inter-related with many other goals. Accordingly, any organizational goal must integrate in itself the personal goals of all individuals associated with the organization. • Group Effort: People, both as members of the society at large and as a part of an organization interact with each other and are inter-dependent. Individuals in themselves have physical and intellectual limitations and these limitations can only be overcome by group efforts. MEANING AND DEFINITION OF OB: OB is concerned with people's thoughts, feelings, emotions and actions in
setting up a work. Understanding an individual behavior is in itself a challenge, but understanding group behavior in an organizational environment is a monumental managerial task. As Nadler and Tushman put it, "Understanding one individual's behavior is challenging in and of itself; understanding a group that is made up of different individuals and comprehending the many relationships among those individuals is even more complex. Ultimately, the organization's work gets done through people, individually or collectively, on their, own or in collaboration with technology. Therefore, the management of OB is central to the management task—a task that involves the capacity to "understand" the behavior patterns of individuals, groups and organizations, to ''predict'" what behavioral responses will be elicited by various managerial actions and finally to use this understanding and these predictions to achieve "control". OB can then be defined as: "The study of human behavior in organizational settings, the interface between human behavior and the organizational context, and the organization itself." The above definition has three parts —the individual behavior, the organization and the (interface between the two. Each individual brings to an organization a unique set of beliefs, values, attitudes and other personal characteristics and these characteristics of all individuals must interact with each other in order to create organizational settings. OB is specifically concerned with work-related behavior, which takes place in organizations. In addition to understanding; the on-going behavioral processes involved, in 'their own jobs, managers must understand the basic human element of their work. OB offers three major ways of understanding this context; people as organizations, people as resources and people as people. Above all, organizations are people; and without people there would be no organizations. Thus, if managers are to understand the organizations in which they work, they must first understand the people who make up the organizations. As resources, people are one of the organization's most valuable assets. People create the organization, guide and direct its course, and vitalize and revitalize it. People make the decisions, solve the problems, and answer the questions. As managers increasingly recognize the value of potential contributions by their employees, it will become more and more important for managers and employees to grasp the complexities of OB. Finally, there is people as people - an argument derived from the simple notion of humanistic management. People spend a large part of their lives in; organizational settings, mostly as employees. They have a right to expect something in return beyond wages and benefits. They have a right to expect satisfaction and to learn new skills. An understanding of OB can help the manager better appreciate the variety of individual needs and' expectations. OB is concerned with the characteristics and behaviors of employees in isolation; the characteristics and processes that are part of the organization itself; 'and the characteristics and behaviors directly resulting from people with their individual needs and motivations working within the structure of the organization. One cannot understand an individual’s behavior completely without learning something about that individual's organization. Similarly, he cannot understand how the organization operates without; studying the people who-make it up. Thus, the organization influences and is influenced by individuals. ELEMENTS OF ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
The key elements in the OB are people, structure, technology and the environment in which the organization operates. • People: People make up the internal and social system of the organization. They consist of individuals • •
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and groups. The groups may be big or small; formal or informal; official or unofficial. Groups are dynamic and they work in the organization to achieve their objectives. Structure: Structure defines the formal relationships of the people in organizations. Different people in the organization are performing different type of jobs and they need to be (elated in some structural way so that their work can be effectively co-ordinated. Technology: Technology such as machines and work processes provide the resources with which people work and affects the tasks that they perform. The technology used has a significant influence on working relationships. It allows people to do more and work better but it also restricts' people in various ways. Environment: All organizations operate within an external environment. It is the part of a larger system that contains many other elements such as government, family and other organizations. All of these
mutually influence each other in a complex system that creates a context for a group of people. IMPORTANCE OF ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR OB offers several ideas to management as to how human factor should be properly emphasized to achieve organizational objectives. Barnard has observed that an organization is a conscious interaction of two or more people. This suggests that since an organization is Ihe interaction of persons, they should be given adequate importance in managing the organization. OB provides opportunity to management to analyze human behavior and prescribe means for shaping it to a particular direction. Understanding Human Behavior Organizational behavior provides understanding the human behavior in all directions in which the human beings interact. Thus, OB can be understood at the individual level, interpersonal level, group level and inter-group level. OB helps to analyze 'why' and 'how' an individual behaves in a particular way. Human behavior is a complex phenomenon and is affected by a large number of factors including the psychological, social and cultural implications. OB integrates these factors to provide* simplicity in understanding the human behavior.
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Interpersonal Level: Human behavior can be understood at the level of interpersonal interaction. OB provides • means for understanding the interpersonal relationships in an organization. Analysis of reciprocal relationships, role analysis and transactional analysis are some of the common methods, which provide such understanding. Group Level: Though people interpret anything at their individual level, they are often modified by group pressures, which then become a force in shaping human behavior, Thus, individuals should be studied in groups also.. Research in group dynamics has contributed vitally to OB and shows how a group behaves in its norms, cohesion, goals, procedures, communication pattern and leadership. These research results are advancing managerial knowledge of understanding group behavior, which is very important for organizational morale and productivity. Inter-group Level: The organization is made up of many groups that develop complex relationships to build their process and substance. Understanding the effect of group relationships is important for managers in today's organization. Inter-group relationship may be in the form of co-operation or competition.
The co-operative relationships help the organization in achieving its objectives. OB provides means to understand and achieve co-operative group relationships through interaction, rotation of members among groups, avoidance of win-lose situation and focusing on total group objectives.
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Controlling and Directing Behavior: After understanding the mechanism of human behavior, managers are required to control and direct the behavior so that it conforms to the standards required for achieving the organizational objectives. Thus, managers are required to control and direct the behavior at all levels of individual interaction. Therefore, OB helps managers in controlling and directing in different areas such as use of power and sanction, leadership, communication and building organizational climate favorable for better interaction. Use of Power and Sanction: The behaviors can be controlled and directed by the use of power and sanction, which are formally defined by the organization. Power is referred to as the capacity of an individual to take certain action and may be utilized in many ways. OB explains how various means of power and sanction can ,be utilized so that both organizational and individual objectives are achieved simultaneously. Leadership: OB brings new insights and understanding to the practice and theory of leadership. It identifies various leadership styles available to a manager and analyses which style is more appropriate in a given situation. Thus, managers can adopt styles keeping in view the various dimensions of organizations, individuals and situations. Communication: Communication helps people to come in contact with each other. To achieve organizational objectives, the communication must be effective. The communication process and its work in inter-personal dynamics have been evaluated by OB. Organizational Climate: Organizational climate refers to the total organizational situations affecting human behavior. Organizational climate takes a system perspective that affect human behavior. Besides improving the satisfactory working conditions and adequate compensation, organizational climate includes creation of an atmosphere of effective supervision; the opportunity for the realization of personal goals, congenial relations with others at the work place and a sense of accomplishment.
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Organizational Adaptation: Organizations, as dynamic entities are characterized by pervasive changes. Organizations have to adapt themselves to the environmental changes by making suitable, internal arrangements such as convincing employees who normally have the tendency of resisting any changes.
FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS OF ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR OB starts with the following six fundamental concepts revolving around the nature of people and organizations: The nature of people: • Individual differences • A whole person • Motivated behavior • Value of the person The nature of organization: • Social system • Mutual interest • Individual Differences: Individuals are different in their physical and mental traits. They are different not only in the physical appearance such as sex, age, height, weight, complexion and so on but also different in their psychological trait such as intelligence, attitude, motivation and perception. This belief that each person is different from all others is typically called the 'Law of Individual Differences'. Individual differences mean that the management has to treat them differently to get the best out of them. • A Whole Person: Though the organization may feel that they are employing only the individual's skill or intelligence, in fact, they employ the 'whole person'. This means that individual does not have only the skill and intelligence but he has a personal life, needs and desires as well. In other words, his personal life cannot be separated from his work life since people function as total human beings. When management practices OB, it is not only trying to develop a better employee but it also wants to develop a 'better person' in terms of all round growth and development. The benefit will extend beyond the firm into the larger society in which each employee lives. • Motivated behavior: It is the urge of the individual to satisfy a particular need that motivates him to do an act. The motivation could be positive or negative. Motivation is essential for the proper functioning of organizations. The organization can show to its employees how certain actions will increase their need fulfillment. • Value of the Person: It is more an ethical philosophy. It stresses that people are to be treated with respect and dignity. Every job, however simple, entitles the people who do it to proper respect and recognition of their unique aspirations and abilities. Since OB involves people, ethical philosophy is involved in one way or the other. The nature of an organization can be understood with the help of tjie description of following two points:
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Social System: A system is a group of independent and interrelated elements comprising a unified whole. In context with an organization, the individuals of a society are considered as a system organized by a characteristic pattern of relationships having a distinctive culture and values. It is also called social organization or social structure. Mutual Interest: Organizational relationships are most likely to be strong if different groups can negotiate strategies. This can be defined as the interests that are common to both the parties and are related to the accomplishment of their respective goals. This space for sharing ideas builds trust. Individuals who have shared mutual interests are likely to make their organization the strongest, because even though the views are different they have a shared concern for similar objectives. It is important for the individuals to think about their issues openly, and to incorporate the perspectives of their colleagues. This helps to build sustainable and harmonious activities that can operate in the mutual direct interests of the organization.
3 : Models of organizational behavior
CONCEPT OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR SYSTEM Organizations achieve their goals by creating, communicating and operating an organizational behaviour system. Organizational behaviour system defines organizational structure and culture and explains their impact on employees. The figure 3.1 shows the major elements of a good organizational behaviour system:
The primary advantage of OB system is to identify the major human and organizational variables that affect organizational outcomes. For some variables managers can only be aware of them and acknowledge their impact whereas for other variables, managers can exert some control over them. The outcomes arc measured in terms of quantity and quality of products and services, level of customer service, employee satisfaction and personal growth and development. ELEMENTS OF THE SYSTEM Organizations differ in the quality of organizational behavior that they develop. These differences are substantially caused by different models of organizational behavior that dominant management's thought in each organization. The model that a manager holds usually begins with certain assumptions about people and thereby leads to certain interpretations of organizational events. The following four models of organizational behavior are as follows: Autocratic Model : Here, the manager has the power to command his subordinates to do a specific job. Management believes that it knows what is best for an organization and therefore, employees are required to follow their orders. The psychological result of this model on employees is their increasing dependence on their boss. Its main weakness is its high human cost. Custodial Model : Here, focus is on better employee satisfaction and security. Under this model organizations satisfy the security and welfare needs of employees. Hence, it is known as custodian model. This model leads to employee dependence on an organization rather than on boss. As a result of economic rewards and benefits, employees are happy and contented but they are not strongly motivated. Supportive Model : It depends on 'leadership' instead of power or money. Through leadership, management provides a climate to help employees grow and accomplish in the interest of an organization. This model assumes that employees will take responsibility, develop a drive to contribute and improve them if management will give them a chance. Therefore, management's direction is to 'Support' the employee's job performance rather than to 'support' employee benefit payments, as in the custodial approach. Since management supports
employees in their work, the psychological result is a feeling of participation and task involvement in an, organization. Collegial Model : The term 'collegial' relates to a body of persons having a common purpose. It is a team concept. Management is the coach that builds a better team. The management is seen as joint contributor rather than as a boss. The employee response to this situation is responsibility. The psychological result of the collegial approach for the employee is 'self-discipline'. In this kind of environment employees normally feel some degree of fulfillment and worthwhile contribution towards their work. This results in enthusiasm in employees' performance. FOUR MODELS OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR Autocratic Power Authority Dependence on boss Subsistence Minimum Custodial Economic resources Money Dependence on organization Security Passive cooperation Supportive Leadership Support Participation Status and recognition Awakened drives Collegial Partnership Teamwork Self-discipline Self-actualization Moderate enthusiasm
Basis of Model Managerialorientation Employee psychological result Employee needs met Performance result
LIMITATIONS OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR • Organizational behaviour cannot abolish conflict and frustration but can only reduce them. It is a way to improve but not an absolute answer to problems. • It is only one of the many systems operating within a large social system. • People who lack system understanding may develop a 'behavioral basis', which gives them a narrow view point, i.e., a tunnel vision that emphasizes on satisfying employee experiences while overlooking the broader system of an organization in relation to all its public. • The law of diminishing returns also operates in the case of organizational behaviour. It states, that at some point increase of a desirable practice produce declining returns and sometimes, negative returns. The concept implies that for any situation there is an optimum amount of a desirable practice. When that point is exceeded, there is a decline in returns. For example, too much security may lead to less employee initiative and growth. This relationship shows that organizational effectiveness is achieved not by maximizing one human variable but by working all system variables together in a balanced way. • A significant concern about organizational behaviour is that its knowledge and techniques could be used to manipulate people without regard for human welfare. People who lack ethical values could use people in unethical ways. 4 : GLOBAL SCENARIO OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR SOCIAL CONDITIONS In many countries due to poorly developed resources, there is shortage of managerial personnel, scientists and technicians. Hence the required skills must be temporarily imported from other countries, and training programs need to be developed to train the local workers. Trained locals become the nucleus for developing others, thereby spreading the training through masses. Another significant social condition in many countries is that the local culture is not familiar with advanced technology. A few countries arc agriculture dominated and a few other manufacturing industries dominated. Naturally, the nature of their culture and work life will be different. POLITICAL CONDITIONS Political conditions that have a significant effect on OB include instability of the government, restricting industries to a particular area and nationalistic drives such as self-sufficiency in latest technologies. When the government is unstable, organizations become cautious about further investments. This organizational instability leaves
workers insecure and causes them to be passive and low in taking any initiatives. In spite of instability, a nationalistic drive is strong for locals to run their country and their organizations by themselves without any interference by foreign nationals. In some nations, organized labor is mostly an arm of the authoritarian state and in some other nations labor is somewhat independent. In some nations, State tends to be involved in collective bargaining and other practices that affect workers. For example, workers' participation in management are restricted by law while in other countries they are permitted. ECONOMIC CONDITIONS The most significant economic conditions in less developed nations are low per capita income and rapid inflation. Inflation makes the economic life of workers insecure when compared to developed countries. The different socio-economic and political conditions existing in countries influence the introduction of advanced technology and sophisticated organizational systems. A developed country can easily adopt advanced technology when compared to a less developed country. These limiting conditions cannot be changed rapidly because they arc too well established and woven into the whole social fabric of a nation. MANAGING AN INTERNATIONAL WORKFORCE Whenever an organization expands its operations to other countries, it tends to become multicultural and will then face the challenge of blending various cultures together. The managerial personnel entering another nation need to adjust their leadership styles, communication patterns and other practices to fit their host country. Their role is to provide fusion of cultures in which employees from both countries adjust to the new situation seeking a greater productivity for the benefit of both the organization and the people of the country in which it operates. Barriers to Cultural Adaptation • Managers and other employees who come into a host country tend to exhibit different behaviors and somewhat, see situation around them from their own perspectives. They may fail to recognize the key differences between their own and other cultures. These people are called, 'parochial'. • Another category of managers called 'individualistic' place greatest emphasis on their personal needs and welfare. They are more concerned about themselves than the host country. • Another potential barrier to easy adaptation of another culture occurs, when-people are predisposed to believe that their homeland conditions are the-best. This predisposition is known as the 'self-reference criterion' or 'ethnocentrism'. This feeling interferes with understanding human: behaviour in other cultures and obtaining productivity from local employees. Cultural Distance To decide the amount of adaptation that may be required when personnel moves to another country, it is helpful to understand the cultural distance between the two countries. Cultural distance is the amount of distance between any two social systems. Whatever may be the amount of cultural distance, it does affect the responses of all individuals to business. The manager's job is to make the employees adapt to the other culture and integrate the interests of the various cultures involved. Cultural Shock When employees enter another nation they tend to suffer cultural shock, which is the insecurity and disorientation caused by encountering a different culture. They may not know how to act. may fear losing face and self-confidence or may become emotionally upset. Cultural shock is virtually universal. Some of the more frequent reasons for cultural shock are as follows: • Different management philosophies • New language • Alternative food, dress, availability of goods • Attitude towards work and productivity • Separation from family, friends and colleagues • Unique currency system Many expatriates report difficulty in adjusting to different human resource management philosophies, the language, the different currency and work attitudes in another culture. Overcoming Barriers to Cultural Adaptation • Careful selection; of employees, who can withstand/adjust cultural shocks for international assignments* is important.
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Pre-departure training in geography, customs, culture and political environment in which the employee will be living will help for cultural adaptation. Incentives and guarantees for better position will motivate employees for cultural adaptation in the new country. Employees who return to their home country after working in another nation for sometime tend to suffer cultural shock in their own homeland. After adjusting to the culture of another nation and enjoying its uniqueness, it is difficult for expatriates to re-adjust to the surroundings of their home country. Hence, organizations need repatriation policies and programs to help returning employees obtain suitable assignments and adjust to the 'new' environments.
Cultural Contingencies Productive business practices from one country cannot be transferred directly to another country. This reflects the idea of cultural contingency that the most productive practices for a particular nation will depend heavily on the culture, social system, economic development and employee's values in the host country. Hence, the expatriate managers must learn to operate effectively in a new environment with certain amount of flexibility. Labor policy, personnel practices and production methods need to be adapted to a different labor force. Organization structures and communication patterns need to be suitable for local operations. MANAGEMENT'S INTEGRATING ROLE Once managers are in a host country, their attention needs to be directed toward integrating the technological approaches with the local cultures involved. Motivating and Leading Local Employees Same motivational tools may not suit the employees of all the nations. Hence, appropriate motivational techniques need to be implemented depending on the requirement of employees of that particular nation. Similarly, communication problems may also arise between the expatriate manager and the employees of the host country. Hence, managers need to make adjustments in their communication suited to< local cultures. If local culture is ignored, the resulting imbalance in the social system interferes with the productivity. Eventually, a cadre of employees with cross-cultural adaptability can be developed in organizations with large international operations. These employees are 'trans-cultural’ employees because they operate effectively in several cultures. They are low in ethnocentrism and adapt readily to different cultures without major cultural shock. They usually can communicate fluently in more than one language. Trans-cultural employees are especially needed in large, multinational firms that operate in a-variety of national cultures. For a firm to be truly multi-national in character, it should have ownership, operations, markets and managers truly diversified. Its leaders look to the world as an economic and social unit; but they recognize each local culture, respect its integrity, acknowledge its benefits and use its differences effectively in their organization.
6 PERSONALITY Maddi defines personality as, “A stable set of characteristics and tendencies that determine those commonalities and differences in the psychological behavior and that may not be easily understood as the sole result of the social and biological pressures of the moment". From the above definition we can infer that all individuals have some universally common characteristics. Yet they differ in some other specific attributes. From this perspective, personality means the way people affect others. It also involves people's understanding themselves, as well as their pattern of inner and outer measurable traits, and the person and situation interaction. People affect others depending primarily upon their external appearance such as height, weight, facial features, color and other physical aspects and traits. Personality traits are very important in organizational behavior. In particular, five personality traits especially related to job performance have recently emerged from research. Characteristics of these traits can be summarized as follows:
1. 2. 3.
Extroversion: Sociable, talkative and assertive. Agreeableness: Good-natured, cooperative and trusting. Conscientiousness: Responsible, dependable, persistent and achievement-oriented.
4. 5.
Emotional Stability: Viewed from a negative standpoint such as tense, insecure and nervous. Openness to Experience: Imaginative, artistically sensitive and intellectual.
Identifying the above "big five" traits related to performance reveals that personality plays an important role in organizational behavior. Besides physical appearance and personality traits, the aspects of personality concerned with the self-concept such as self-esteem and self-efficacy and the person-situation interaction also play important roles. PERSONALITY FACTORS IN ORGANISATIQN5 Some of the important personality factors that determine what kind of behaviors are exhibited at work include the following: Need Pattern: Steers and Braunstein in 1976 ^developed a scale for the four needs of personality that became apparent in the 'work environment. They are as follows:
• • • •
The need for achievement: Those with a high achievement need engage themselves proactively in work behaviors in order to feel proud of their achievements and successes. The need for affiliation: Those in greater need for affiliation like to work cooperatively with others. The need for autonomy: Those in need for autonomy function in the best way when not closely supervised. The need for dominance: Those high in need for dominance are very effective while operating in environments where they can actively enforce their legitimate authority.
Locus of Control Locus of control is the degree to which an individual believes that his or her behavior has direct impact on the consequences of that behavior. Some people, for example, believe that if they work hard they will certainly succeed. They, strongly believe that each individual is in control of his or her life. They are said to have an internal locus of control. By contrast, some people think that what happens to them is a result of fate, chance, luck or the behavior of other people, rather than the lack of skills or poor performance on their part. Becausethese individuals think that forces beyond their control dictate the happenings around them, they are said to have an external locus of control. For example, certain individuals have an internal locus of control, which means they have a relatively strong desire to participate in the management of their organizations and have a' freedom to do their jobs. Thus, they may prefer a decentralized organization where they have a right of decision-making and work with a leader who provides them freedom and autonomy. They may like a reward system that recognizes individual performance and contributions. Conversely, people with an external locus of control, are likely to prefer a more centralized organization where they need not take any decisions. They may incline to structured jobs where standard procedures are defined for them. They may prefer a leader who makes most of the decisions and a reward system that considers seniority rather than merit. Introversion and Extroversion Introversion is the tendency of individuals, which directs them to be inward and process feelings, thoughts and ideas within themselves. Extroversion, on the contrary, refers to the tendency in individuals to look outside themselves, searching for external stimuli with which they can interact. While there is some element of introversion as well as extroversion in all of us, people tend to be dominant as either extroverts or introverts. Extroverts are sociable, lively and gregarious and seek outward stimuli or external exchanges. Such individuals are likely to be most successful while working in the sales department, publicity office, personal relations unit, and so on, where they can interact face to face with others. Introverts, on the other Hand, are quiet, reflective, introspective, and intellectual people, preferring to interact with a small intimate circle of friends. Introverts are more likely to be successful when they can work on highly abstract ideas such as R&D work, in a relatively quiet atmosphere. Since managers have to constantly interact with individuals both in and out of the organization and influence people to achieve the organization's goals, it is believed that extroverts are likely to be more successful as managers. Tolerance for Ambiguity
This personality characteristic indicates the level of uncertainty that people can tolerate to work efficiently without experiencing undue stress. Managers have to work well under conditions of extreme uncertainty and insufficient information, especially when things are rapidly changing in the organization's external environment. Managers who have a high tolerance for ambiguity can cope up well under these conditions. Managers, who have a low tolerance for ambiguity may be effective in structured work settings but find it almost impossible to operate effectively when things are rapidly changing and much information about the future events is not available. Thus, tolerance for ambiguity is a personality dimension necessary for managerial success. Authoritarianism and Dogmatism Authoritarianism is the extent to which an individual believes that power and status differences are important within' hierarchical social systems like organizations. For example, an employee who is highly authoritarian may accept directives or orders from his superior without much questioning. A person who is not highly authoritarian might agree to carry out appropriate and reasonable directives from his boss. But he may also raise questions, express disagreement and even refuse to carry out requests if they arc for some reason objectionable. Dogmatism is the rigidity of a person's beliefs and his or her openness to other viewpoints. The popular terms 'close-minded' and 'open-minded' describe people who are more and less .dogmatic in their beliefs respectively. For example, a manager may be unwilling to listen to a new idea related to doing something more efficiently. He is said to be a person who is close-minded or highly dogmatic. A manager who is very receptive to hearing about and trying out new ideas in the same circumstances might be seen as more open-minded or less dogmatic. Dogmatism can be either beneficial or detrimental to organizations, but given the degree of change in the nature of organizations and their environments, individuals who are, not dogmatic are most likely to be useful and productive organizational members. Risk Propensity : Risk-propensity is the decree to which an individual is willing to take chances and make risky decisions. A manager with a high-risk propensity might be expected to experiment with new ideas and to lead the organization in new directions. In contrast, a manager with low risk propensity might lead to a stagnant and overly conservative organization. Machiavellianism : is manipulating or influencing other people as a primary way of achieving one's goal. An individual tends to be Machiavellian, if he tends to be logical in assessing the system around, willing to twist and turn facts to influence others, and try to gain control of people, events and situations by manipulating the system to his advantage. Work-Ethic Orientation: Some individuals are highly work-oriented while others try to do the minimum Work that is necessary to get by without being fired on-the-job. The extremely work oriented person gets greatly involved in the job. Extreme work ethic values could lead to traits of "work holism" where work is considered as the only primary motive for living with very little outside interests. For a workaholic turning to work can sometimes become a viable alternative to facing non-work related problems. A high level of work ethic orientation of members is good for the organization to achieve its goals. Too much "work holism", however, might lead to premature physical and mental exhaustion and health problems, which is dysfunctional for both organization and the workaholic members. DESIRED PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS FOR EFFECTIVE MANAGERS Obviously, there arc some personality predispositions, which are favorable "to managerial effectiveness and to the success of managers. Apart from possessing the necessary skills and abilities, managers need to develop a high tolerance for ambiguity. There are many changes taking place in the internal and the external environment of an organization.. Naturally, several unpredictable factors are involved in any complex situation, which are beyond the managers’ control. Therefore, they should be able to, handle situations as they come, without experiencing undue stress. Thus, a high tolerance for ambiguity is a desired managerial trait. Managers with a good mix of achievements, affiliations and power will be successful in most situations. This is because they will have the drive to achieve the goals and the interpersonal orientation to get the job done through others. In sales and other people-oriented roles, extrovert managers will fit better in their jobs. Similarly, managers with internal locus of control will be more efficient as intellectual and skilled performers. Managers with good work ethic values will get more involved in their jobs and make things happen. They are likely to be more successful in their jobs. Managers with Type A personalities may suit very well for some jobs, which have inbuilt performance pressures and deadlines, but they
need to know how to relax through exercises and self-monitor their stress levels. Personality is a relatively stable factor, but our predispositions can be changed through conscious choice. For instance, our tolerance for ambiguity and ability to handle stress can be considerably enhanced; the attributions we make for success such as internal versus external-locus of control can be changed. Also, our latent needs can be activated and our skills in decision-making can be increased through training programs and by deliberately making the necessary changes. Recognizing the essential ingredients for managerial success is the first step towards making the changes. THE SELF-CONCEPT: SELF-ESTEEM AND SELF-EFFICACY People's attempt to understand themselves is called the self-concept in personality theory. The human self is made of many interacting parts and may be thought of as the personality viewed from within. This self is particularly relevant to the concepts of self-esteem and self-efficacy in the field of organizational behavior. People's self-esteem has to do with their self-perceived competence and self-image. Considerable research has been done on the role played by self-esteem outcomes in the organizational behavior. Most recently done studies indicate that self-esteem plays an important moderating role in the areas of emotional and behavioral responses and stress of organizational members. It was recently noted that, "both research and everyday experience confirm that employees with high self-esteem feel unique, competent, secure, empowered and connected, to the people around them" Self-efficacy is concerned with self-perceptions of how well a person can cope with situations as they arise. Those with high self-efficacy feel capable and confident of performing well in a situation. In the field of organizational behavior, self-efficacy is conceptually close to self-esteem. Miner points out the differences by noting that self-esteem tends to be a generalized trait (it will be present in any situation), while self-efficacy tends to be situation specific. Self-efficacy; has been shown to have an empirical relationship with organizational performance and other dynamics of organizational behavior. In summary, personality is a very diverse and complex cognitive process. It incorporates almost everything. As defined above, personality means the whole person. It is concerned with external appearance and traits, self and situational interactions. Probably the best statement on personality was made many years ago by Kluckhohn and Murray, "to some extent, a person's personality is like all other people's, like some other people's, and like no other people's." 7 : ATTITUDE In simple words, an "attitude" is an individual's point of view or an individual's way of looking at something. To be more explicit, an "attitude" may be explained as the mental state of an individual, which prepares him to react or make him behave in a particular pre-determined way. An attitude is defined as, "a learned pre-disposition to respond in a consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to a given object". Attitude is the combination of beliefs and feelings that people have about specific ideas, situations or other people. Attitude is important because it is the mechanism through which most people express their feelings. COMPONENTS OF ATTITUDE Attitude has three components, which are as follows: • Affective component • Cognitive component • Intentional component.
The affective component of an attitude reflects 'feelings and emotions' that an individual has towards a situation. The cognitive component of an attitude is derived from 'knowledge' that an individual has about a situation. Finally, the intentional component of an attitude reflects how an individual 'expects to behave' towards or in the situation. For example, the different components of an attitude held towards a firm, which supplies inferior products and that too irregularly could be described as follows: • • • "I don't like that company"—Affective component. "They are the worst supply firm I have ever dealt with"—Cognitive component. "I will never do business with them again"'—Intentional component.
People try to maintain consistency among the three components of their attitudes. However, conflicting circumstances often arise. The conflict that individuals may experience among their own attitudes is called 'cognitive dissonance. ATTITUDE FORMATION AND CHANGE Individual attitude are formed over time as a result of repeated personal experiences with ideas, situations or people. One of the very important ways to understand individual behavior in an organization is that of studying attitude, which is situation specific and learned. An attitude may change as a result of new information. A manager may have a negative attitude about a new employee because of his lack of job-related experience. After working with a new person, a manager may come to realise that he is actually very talented and subsequently may develop a more positive attitude toward him. Work-Related Attitudes People in an organization form attitude about many things such as about their salary, promotion possibilities, superiors, fringe benefits, food in the canteen, uniform etc. Especially some important attitudes are job satisfaction or dissatisfaction, organizational commitment and job involvement. Job Satisfaction Job satisfaction is an attitude reflects the extent to which an individual is gratified or fulfilled .by his or her work. Extensive research conducted on job satisfaction has indicated that personal .factors such as an individual's needs and aspirations determine this attitude, along with group and organizational factors such as relationships with co-workers and supervisors, working conditions, work policies and compensation. A satisfied employee also tends to be absent less often, makes positive contributions, and stays with the organization. In contrast, a dissatisfied employee may be absent more often may experience stress that disrupts co-workers, and may keep continually looking for another job. Organizational factors that influence employee satisfaction include pay, promotion, policies and procedures of the organizations and working conditions. Group factors such as relationship with co-workers and supervisors also influence job- satisfaction. Similarly, satisfaction depends on individual factors like individual's needs and aspirations. If employees are satisfied with their job, it may lead to low employee turnover and less absenteeism and vice-versa. Organizational Commitment and Involvement Two other important work-related attitudes arc organizational commitment and involvement. Organizational commitment is the individual's feeling of identification with and attachment to an organization. Involvement refers
to a person's willingness to be a team member and work beyond the usual standards of the job. An employee with little involvement is motivated by extrinsic motivational factor and an employee with strong involvement is motivated by intrinsic motivational factors. There are a number of factors that lead to commitment and involvement. Both may increase with an employee's age and years with the organization, with his sense of job security and participation in decision-making. If the organization treats its employees fairly and provides reasonable rewards and job security, employees are more likely to be satisfied and committed. Involving employees in decision-making can also help to increase commitment. In particular, designing jobs, which are interesting and stimulating, can enhance job involvement. ATTITUDE: IT’S IMPORTANCE IN ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR Attitudes of both workers and management react to each other and determine mutual relationships. Attitude is an understanding or learning of why employees feel and act the way; they do and help supervisors in winning cooperation from them. So, it is very essential for the efficient working of an organization. From a personal perspective, attitudes provide knowledge base or prepare, our mental state, for our interaction with others, and with the world around us. This directly affects organizational behaviour, and in turn organizational working. Perception Perception is an important mediating cognitive process. Through this complex process, people make interpretations of the stimulus or situation they are faced with. Both selectivity and organization go 'into perceptual, interpretations. Externally, selectivity is affected by intensity, size, contrast, repetition, motion and novelty and familiarity. Internally, perceptual selectivity is influenced by the individual's motivation, learning and personality. After the selective process filters the stimulus situation, the incoming information is organized into a meaningful whole. Individual differences and uniqueness are largely the result of the cognitive processes. Although there arc a number of cognitive processes, it is generally recognized that the perceptual process is a very important one. It is a process that takes place between the situation and the behaviour and is most relevant to the study of organizational behaviour. For example, the observation that a department head and a subordinate may react quite differently to the same top management directive can be better understood and explained by the perceptual process.In the process of perception, people receive many different kinds of information through all five senses, assimilate them and then interpret them. Different people perceive the same information differently. Perception plays a key role in determining individual behaviour in organizations. Organizations send messages in a variety of forms to their members regarding what they are expected to do and not to do. In spite of organizations sending clear messages, those messages are subject to distortion in the process of being perceived by organizational members. Hence, managers need to have a general understanding of the basic perceptual process. Basic Perceptual Process Perception is influenced by characteristics of the object being perceived, by the characteristics of the person and by the situational processes. • Characteristics of the object include contrast, intensity, movement, repetition and novelty. • Characteristics of the person include attitude, self-concept and personality. The details of a particular situation affect the way a person perceives an object; the same person may perceive the same object very differently in different situations. The processes through which a person's perceptions are altered by the situation include selection, organization, attribution, projection, stereotyping process, and the halo effect process. Among these, selective perception and stereotyping are particularly relevant to organizations. Selective Perception Selective perception is the process of screening out information that we are uncomfortable with or that contradicts our beliefs. For example, a manager has a very positive attitude about a particular worker and one day he notices that the worker seems to be goofing up. Selective perception may make the manager to quickly disregard what he observed. For example, a manager who has formed a very negative attitude about a particular worker and he happens to observe a high performance from the same worker. In this case influenced by the selective perception process he too will disregard it. In one sense, selective perception is beneficial because it allows us to disregard minor bits of information. But if selective perception causes managers to ignore important information, it can become quite detrimental.
Stereotyping Stereotyping is the process of categorizing or labeling people on the basis of a single attribute. Perceptions based on stereotypes about people's sex exist more or less in all work places. Typically, these perceptions lead to the belief that an individual's sex determines which tasks he or she will be able to perform. For example, if a woman is sitting behind the table in the office, she will be very often, perceived as a clerk and not an executive at first. But it would induce holding an exactly opposite assumption about a man. Stereotyping consists of three steps: identifying categories of people (like women, politician), associating certain characteristics with those categories (like passivity, dishonesty respectively) and then assuming that any one who fits a certain category must have those characteristics. For example, if dishonesty is associated with politicians, we are likely to assume that all politicians are dishonest. PERCEPTION AND ATTRIBUTION Perception is also closely linked with another process called attribution. Attribution is a mechanism through which we observe behaviour and then attribute certain causes to it. According to Attribution theory, once we observe behaviour we evaluate it in terms of its consensus, consistency and distinctiveness. Consensus is the extent to which other people in the same situation behave in the same way. Consistency is the degree to which the same person behaves in the same way at different times. Distinctiveness is the extent to which the same person behaves in the same way in other situations. The forces within the person (internal) or outside the person (external) lead to the behaviour. For instance, if you observe that an employee is much more motivated than the people around (low consensus), is consistently motivated (high consistency), and seems to work hard no matter what the task (low distinctiveness) you might conclude that internal factors are causing that particular behaviour. Another example is of a manager who observes that an employee is late for a meeting. He might realize that this employee is the only one who-is laic (low consensus), recall that he is often late for other meetings (high consistency), and subsequently recall that the same employee is sometimes late for work (low distinctiveness). This pattern of attributions might cause the manager to decide that the individual's behaviour requires a change. At this point, the manager might meet the subordinate to establish some disciplinary consequences to avoid future delays. IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT Social perception is concerned with how one individual perceives other individuals. Conversely, impression management is the process by which the general people attempt to manage or control the perceptions that others form about them. People often tend to present themselves in such a way so as to impress others in a socially desirable manner. Thus, impression management has considerable' implications for activities like determining the validity of performance appraisals. It serves as a pragmatic, political tool for someone to climb the ladder of success in organizations. Employee Impression Management Strategies There are two basic strategies of impression management that employees can use. If employees are trying to minimize responsibility for some negative event or to stay out of trouble, they may employ a demotionpreventative strategy. On the other hand, if they are seeking to maximize responsibility for a positive outcome or to look better than what they really are, then they lean use a promotion-enhancing strategy. The demotion-preventative strategy is characterized by the following activities: • Employees attempt to excuse or justify their actions. • Employees apologies to the boss for some negative event. • Employees secretly tell their boss that they fought for the right thing, but were overruled. Employees using this approach try to disassociate themselves from the group and from the problem. The promotion enhancing strategies involve the following activities: • Employees harbor a feeling that they have not been given credit for a positive outcome. • Employees point out that they did more, but received a lesser credit. • Employees identify cither personal or organizational obstacles they had to overcome to accomplish an outcome and expect a higher credit. • Employees ascertain that they are seen with the right people at the right times. 9:::: MOTIVATION AND BEHAVIOR
The word motivation is derived from ‘motive', which means an active form of a desire, craving or need that must be satisfied. Motivation is the key to organizational effectiveness. The manager in general has to get the work done through others. These 'others' are human resources who need to be motivated to attain organizational objectives. DEFINITION According to George R. Terry, "Motivation is the desire within an individual that stimulates him or her to action." In the words of Robert Dubin, it is "the complex of forces starting and keeping a person at work in an organization". Viteles defines motivation as "an unsatisfied need which creates a state of tension or disequilibrium, causing the individual to move in a goal directed pattern towards restoring a state of equilibrium, by satisfying the need." According to Encyclopedia of Management. "Motivation refers to the degree of readiness of an organism to pursue some designated goals and implies the determination of the nature and locus of force inducing a degree of readiness." On the basis of above definitions, the following observations can be made regarding motivation: • Motivation is an inner psychological force, which activates and compels the person to behave in a particular manner. • The motivation process is influenced by personality traits, learning abilities, perception and competence of an individual. • A highly motivated employee works more efficiently and his level of production tends to be higher than others. • Motivation originates from the-needs and wants of an individual. It is a tension of lacking something in his mind, which forces him to work more efficiently. • It is also a process of stimulating and channelizing the energy of an individual for achieving set goals. • Motivation also plays a crucial role in determining the level of performance. Highly motivated employees get higher satisfaction, which may lead to higher efficiency. • Motivating force an^ its degree, may differ from individual to individual depending on his personality, needs, competence and other factors. • It helps the manager in analyzing and understanding human behavior and finding but how an individual can be inspired to produce desirable working behavior. • Motivation may be positive as well as negative. Positive motivation includes incentives, rewards and other benefits while negative motivation implies some punishment, fear, use of force etc. • The motivation procedure contributes to and boosts up the morale of the employees. A high degree of motivation may lead to high morale. FEATURES OF MOTIVATION • It is an internal feeling and forces a person to action. • It is a continuous activity. • It varies from person to person and from time to time. • It may be positive or negative. IMPORTANCE OF MOTIVATION : is an important part of managing process. A team of highly qualified and motivated employees is necessary for achieving objectives of an organization because of the following reasons: • Motivated employees make optimum use of available resources for achieving objectives. • Motivation is directly related to the level of efficiency of employees. • Motivated employees make full use of their energy and other abilities to raise the existing level of efficiency. • Motivated employees make goal-directed efforts. They are more committed and cooperative for achieving organizational objectives. • Motivated employees are more loyal and sincere to an organization. These factors help reduce absenteeism and labor turnover. • Motivation is considered as a backbone of good industrial relations. • Effectively motivated employees get more job satisfaction and possess high morale. • Motivation also helps in improving the image of an organization. The motivation process begins with identification of individual needs. For example, when an employee feels underpaid then what, then he tries to fulfill his needs by asking for a raise or by working harder to earn a raise or
by seeking a new job. He then chooses to pursue one or more of these options for instance, working harder while simultaneously looking for a job. If his hard work resulted in a pay rise, he probably feels satisfied and will continue to work hard. But if no raise has been provided he is likely to try another option. Since people have many different needs, the satisfaction of one need or set of needs is likely to give rise to the identification of other needs. Thus, the cycle of motivation is constantly repeated. Understanding human motivation is crucial for managing people. Extensive research has been performed to find out what makes people work and how to motivate them. This includes managers, social scientists, behaviorists and psychologists. A number of theories have been developed, even though there is no universally acceptable motivation theory. Understanding these theories facilitates the managers to get a better insight into the human behavior. NEED-BASED THEORIES TO MOTIVATION : Some of the widely known need-based theories are as follows: (a) Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Maslow Abraham proposed his theory in the 1940s. This theory, popularly known as the Hierarchy of Needs assumes that people are motivated to satisfy five levels of needs: physiological, security, belongingness, esteem and self-actualization needs. Maslow suggested that the five levels of needs are arranged in accordance with their importance, starting from the bottom of the hierarchy. An individual is motivated first and foremost to satisfy physiological needs. When these needs are satisfied, he is motivated and 'moves up' the hierarchy to satisfy security needs. This 'moving up process continues until the individual reaches the self-actualization level. Physiological needs represent the basic issues of survival such as food, sex, water and air. In organizational settings, most physiological needs are satisfied by adequate wages and by the work environment itself, which provides employees with rest rooms, adequate lighting, comfortable temperatures and ventilation. Security or safety needs refer to the requirements for a secure physical and emotional environment. Examples include the desire for adequate housing and clothing, the need to be free from worry about money and job security and the desire for safe working conditions. Security needs are satisfied for people in the work place by job continuity, a grievance resolving system and an adequate insurance and retirement benefit package. Belonging or social needs are related to the, social aspect of human life. They include the need for love and affection and the need to be accepted by one's peers. For most people these needs are satisfied by a combination of family and community relationships and friendships on the job. Managers can help ensure the 'satisfaction of these important needs by allowing social interaction and by making employees feel like part of a team or work group. Esteem needs actually comprise of two different sets of needs: • The need for a positive self-image and self-respect. • The need for recognition and respect from others. Organizations can help address esteem needs by providing a variety of external symbols of accomplishment such as job titles and spacious offices. At a more fundamental level, organizations can also help satisfy esteem needs by providing employees with challenging job assignments that can induce a sense of accomplishment. At the top of the hierarchy are those needs, which Maslow defines the self-actualization needs. These needs involve realizing one's potential for continued: growth and individual development. Since these needs are highly individualized and personal, self-actualization needs are perhaps the most difficult for managers to address. Therefore, an employee should try to meet these needs on his own end. However, an organization can help his employee by creating a climate for fulfillment of self-actualization needs. For instance, an organization can help in fulfillment of these needs by encouraging employee’s participation in decision-making process and by providing them with an opportunity to learn new things about their jobs and organization. This process of contributing to actual organizational performance helps employees experience personal growth and development associated with self-actualizing. Maslow's concept of the need hierarchy possesses a certain intuitive logic and has been accepted universally by managers. But research has revealed several shortcomings of the theory such as some research has found that five levels of needs are not always present and that the order of the levels is not always the same as assumed by Maslow. Moreover, it is difficult for organizations to use the need hierarchy to enhance employee motivation. (b) ERG Theory of Motivation Clayton Alderfer has proposed an alternative hierarchy of needs - called the ERG Theory of Motivation. The letters E, R and G stand for Existence, Relatedness and Growth. ERG Theory the need hierarchy developed by Maslow into three 9.2. The existence needs in this theory refers to the physiological and security needs of Maslow. Relatedness needs refers to belongingness and esteem needs. Growth needs refers to both self-
esteem and self-actualization needs. The ERG theory emphasis on the following key points regarding needs: o Some needs may be more important than others. o People may change their behavior after any particular set of needs has been satisfied. Although ERG Theory assumes that motivated behavior follows a hierarchy in somewhat the same fashion as suggested by Maslow, there are two important differences. ? Firstly, ERG theory suggests that more than one kind of need might motivate a person at the same time. For example, it allows for the possibility that people can be motivated by a desire for money (existence); friendship (relatedness), and an opportunity to learn new skills (growth) all at the same time. ? Secondly, ERG theory has an element of frustrations-regression that is missing from Maslow's need hierarchy. Maslow maintained that one heed must be satisfied before an individual can progress to needs at a higher level, for example, from security needs to belongingness. This is termed as satisfaction—progression process. Although the ERG theory includes this process, it also suggests that if needs remain unsatisfied at some higher level, the individual will become frustrated, regress to a lower level and will begin to pursue low level needs again. For" example, a worker previously motivated by money (existence needs) is awarded a pay rise to satisfy this needs. Then he attempts to establish more friendship to satisfy relatedness needs. If for some reason an employee finds that it is impossible to become better friends with others in the work place, he may eventually become frustrated and regress to being motivated to earn even more money. This is termed as ‘frustration-regression' process. (c) Two-factor Theory of Motivation Another popular need-based approach to motivation is the dual-structure approach developed by Frederick Herzberg. This is also known as Two-factor Theory. Herzberg developed this approach after interviewing 200 accountants and engineers in Pittsburg. He asked them to recall such occasions when they had been dissatisfied and less motivated. He found that entirely different sets of factors were associated with satisfaction and dissatisfaction. For instance, an individual who identified 'low pay' as causing dissatisfaction did not necessarily mention 'high pay' as a cause of satisfaction. Instead, several other factors, such as recognition or accomplishment, were cited as causing satisfaction. This finding suggests that satisfaction and dissatisfaction are at opposite ends of a single scale. Employees would, therefore, be satisfied, dissatisfied or somewhere in between. Herzberg argued that attitudes and motivation consists of a dual structure. One structure involves a set of factors that result in feelings ranging from satisfaction to no satisfaction. The other structure involves a set of factors that result in feelings ranging from dissatisfaction to no satisfaction. Herzberg identified two sets of factors responsible for causing either satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The factors influencing satisfaction are called motivation factors or motivators, which are related specifically to the job itself and the factors causing dissatisfaction are called hygiene factors, which are related to the work environment in which the job is performed. Motivators Achievement Recognition Advancement The work itself The possibility of personal growth Responsibility Hygiene or Maintenance Factors • Company policies Technical supervision Interpersonal relations with supervisor Interpersonal relations with peers Interpersonal relations with subordinates Salary Job security Personal life • Work conditions Status Based on these findings, Herzberg recommended that managers seeking to motivate employees should first make sure that hygiene factors are taken care of and that employees are not dissatisfied with pay, security and working conditions. Once a manager has eliminated employee dissatisfaction, Hertzberg recommends focusing on a different set of factors to increase motivation, by improving opportunities for advancement, recognition, advancement and growth. Specifically, he recommends job enrichment as a means of enhancing the availability of motivation factors. Although widely accepted by managers, Hertzberg’s dual structure approach however suffers from certain drawbacks. Other researchers who measured satisfaction and dissatisfaction based on different aspects reached very different conclusions. They have also criticized Herzberg's theory for its inability to define the
relationship between satisfaction and motivation and to pay enough attention to differences between individuals. Hence, at present Herzberg's theory is not held in high esteem by researchers in the field of motivation. The theory, however, had a major impact on managers and has played a key role in increasing their awareness of motivation and its importance in type work place. 'X' AND ‘Y' THEORIES OF MOTIVATION: Douglas McGregor observed two diametrically opposing viewpoints of managers 'about their employees; one is negative called "Theory of X" and another is positive called "Th of Y". Theory of X : following are the assumptions of managers. • Employees dislike work. • Employees must be coerced, controlled or threatened to do the work. • Employees avoid responsibilities and seek formal direction. • Most employees consider security of job, most important of all other factors in the job and have very little ambition. Theory of Y: Following are the assumptions of managers. • Employees love work as play or rest. • Employees are self-directed and self-controlled and committed to the organizational objectives. • Employees accept and seek responsibilities. • Innovative spirit is not confined to managers alone, some employees also possess it. Applicability of Theories 'X' and 'Y' Theory 'X' in its applicability, places exclusive reliance upon external control of human behavior, while theory 'Y', relies heavily on self-control -and self-direction. Theory 'X' points to the traditional approach of management. Literally, this theory of behavior is related to organizations that lay hard and rigid standards of work-behavior. Some examples of such organizations are organizations that break down jobs into specialized elements, establish 'norms of production, design equipment to control worker's pace of work, have rigid rules and regulations, that are sometimes very vigorously enforced. Theory 'Y’, on the other hand, secures the commitment of employees to organizational objectives. This motivational theory places emphasis on satisfaction of employees. While applying this theory, the use of authority, as an instrument of command and control is minimal. Employees exercise self-direction and selfcontrol. The concepts of 'Job' Enlargement', 'Participation' and 'Management by Objectives' are quite consistent with theory ' Y'. McGregor supports the applicability of motivational theory 'Y', instead of theory ‘X'. Organization should keep in mind that once theory 'X' is employed for organizational working, it is difficult for the management to shift to theory ' Y', all of a sudden. However, with systematic, judicious and slow steps, shifting in the practical applicability of theory 'X' to theory ' Y' usually can be achieved. MC-CLELLAND's NEED THEORY OF MOTIVATION: David C. McClelland and his associate Atkinson have contributed to an understanding of motivation by identifying 3 types of basic motivating needs. These needs as: Need for Power: According to this theory this is defined as the desire to be influential in a group and to control one's envt is an important motivation factor. Research suggests that people with a strong need for power, are likely to be superior performers and occupy supervisory positions. Such types of individuals generally look for positions of leadership, they act effectively, are outspoken, have a stubborn character and exert authority. Need for Affiliation: means the desire for human companionship and acceptance. Those with a high need for affiliation often behave the way they think other people want them to, in an effort to maintain friendship. They prefer a job that entails a good deal of social interaction and offers opportunities to make friends. The principal characteristics of such peoples' traits are as follows: • Desire to like and be liked. Enjoy company and friendship. Prefer cooperative situation. • Excel in group task. Star attraction in gathering. Leadership qualities. This need is closely associated with the "social-type” of personality, who are sociable, friendly, cooperative and understanding. Persons with high motivation for power and affiliation have better chances of becoming good managers.
Need for Achievement People with a high need for achievement, always feel ambitious to be successful; are ever prepared to face challenging situations and set arduous goals .for themselves. They are prone to take calculated risks; and possess a high sense of personal responsibility in getting jobs done. These people are concerned with their progress, and feel inclined to put in longer hours of work" Failures never dishearten them and they are always ready to put in their best efforts for excellent performance. Equity Theory J. Stacy Adams developed equity theory of motivation. The equity theory argues that motivations arise out of simple desire to be treated fairly. Equity can be defined as an individual's belief that he is being treated fairly relative to the treatment of others. The figure 9.4 shows the equity process. A person's perception of equity develops through a four-step process as shown below: 1. First an individual evaluates the way he is being treated by an organization. 2. The next step is for an individual to choose a co-worker who seems to be in a roughly similar situation and to observe how an organization treats him. In the crucial step of equity theory an individual 'compares' the two treatments. In the fourth step he evaluate a sense of equity to see if the two treatments seem similar or if the are different.
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Adam suggests that employees make these comparisons by focusing on input and outcome ratios. An employee's contributions or input to an organization include time, education, effort, experience and loyalty. Outcomes are what an individual receives from an organization such as, pay, recognition and social relationships. The theory suggests that people view their outcomes and inputs as ratio and then- compare their ratio to the ratio of someone else. This other 'person' may be someone in the work group. The comparison may result in three types of attitudes: • The individual may feel equitably rewarded, Under-rewarded. Over-rewarded. An individual will experience a feeling of equity when the two ratios are equal. If an individual has the feeling of equity then he should maintain the status quo. If he has a feeling of inequity then he is likely to change the input. The single most important idea for managers to remember about equity theory is that if rewards are to motivate employees, they must be perceived as being equitable and^ fair. However, managers must remember that different employees have different sense towards basis for a reward and this may result in problems. Hence, the best way to avoid such problems is to make all employees aware of the basis for rewards. NEW APPROACHES TO MOTIVATION IN ORGANIZATIONS: (a) Goal-Setting Theory This approach to motivation has been pioneered in the USA by Edwin Locke and his associates in 1960s and refined in 1980s. Goal-setting theory suggests that managers and subordinates should set goals for an individual on a regular basis, as suggested by MBO. These goals should be moderately difficult and very specific and of type that an employee will accept and make a commitment to accomplishing them. Rewards should be tied directly to accomplished goals. When involved in goal-settings, employees see how their effort will lead to performance, rewards and personal satisfaction. Salient features of this theory are as follows: • Specific goal fixes the needs of resources and efforts. • It increases performance. • Difficult goals result higher performance than easy job. • Better feedback of results leads to better performances than lack of feedback. • Participation of employees in goal has mixed result. • Participation of setting goal, however, increases acceptance of goal and involvements. • Goal setting theory has defined two factors,' which influences the performance. These are given below: o Goal commitment Self-efficiency. The mere act of goal setting does not ensure higher levels of motivation among employees. In fact, there seem to be 3 important criteria that goals must meet if they are to influence the behavior of org members. They are
goal specificity, goal difficulty and goal acceptance. Goal Specificity : Goals must be stated in specific terms if they are to motivate effective performance. Goals must be set in terms of measurable criteria of work performance, i.e., number of units produced, new sales etc. and must specify a lime period within which the goal is to be attained. It also gives a sense of personal satisfaction and accomplishment to workers if he is able to meet the specific goal. Goal Difficulty/Challenge : There exists a relationship between goal difficulty and work motivation. The more difficult- and challenging the goal is, the higher the level of motivation and performance. However, it is essential that goals are set at realistic levels. Goals that are very difficult to achieve are unable to motivate since it is beyond the capacity of the concerned individual. Goal Acceptance : In order to influence motivation and performance, a goal must be internalized by an individual. In other words, the person has to feel some personal ownership of the goal and must have commitment to achieve it. Goal Setting in Practice : The most obvious implication of goal-setting theory is that managers should be helping subordinates to set goals that are specific and reasonably difficult so that subordinates accept and internalize them as their own goals. Besides this, there are a number of issues that arise in implementing goal setting in practice. • Though specificity of goal is essential and measure ability is desirable, it should not affect in identifying meaningful and valid objective of goal attainment. • The manager can stimulate goal acceptance in at least three ways: o By involving subordinates in goal-setting process. o By demonstrating a supportive attitude and approach toward his subordinates. o By assigning various rewards to the achievement of goals. MBO is a managerial technique for improving motivation and performance using goal-setting principles. Cognitive Evaluation Theory : A researcher 'Charms' reported in 1960 that extrinsic motivation like pay or rewards for a job, which has an intrinsic-motivation content, which is prior to such rewards. It tends to decrease overall level of motivation. This proposal is called cognitive Evaluation Theory" which has been supported by a large number of research studies conducted subsequently. (b) Japanese Approach to Motivation : has gained increasing popularity around the world during the past few years. This approach is rather a philosophy of management than a theory or model. The basic tenet of the Japanese approach is that managers and workers should perform together as partners. Since both of them see themselves as one group, ail members are committed and motivated to work in the best interests of an organization. No one is called an employee; instead everyone is a team member, team leader or coach and everyone owns the 'share' of an organization. Like goal-setting meow, this is likely to become more common in businesses throughout the world. Integration of Motivation Theories: Thus several theories complicate our understanding. Some of these theories are compatible and some are not. The real challenge that a researcher has to face is integration of all or at least some of these together so that their inter and intra-relationships are established. This will also improve the understanding of motivation. Certain attempts are made in USA and elsewhere. Enhancing Motivation in Organizations: Managers trying to enhance the motivation of their employees can, of course, draw on any of the theories described above. They may in practice adopt specific interventions derived from one or more theories or they may influence motivation through the organization's reward system. The organization can enhance motivation in following ways: • Humanize the work environment: Respect the need to treat each employee as an individual. • Publicize both short and long-term organizational goals: Encourage personal and departmental goal setting. • Promote from within: It's great for morale and simplifies hiring procedures. • Use incentive programs: Inducing the feeling that 'if you're creative enough, you won't have to rely on expensive financial bonuses.' • Establish appropriate deadlines: Every project should have a deadline.
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Be liberal with praise: It's almost impossible to over praise and easy to under praise. Be consistent in your own work and in your relations with others. Show a personal interest in the people who work for you: Relations are always smoother between people who know each other on a personal basis than relations between people who merely want something from each other. Admit mistakes: People will respect you for it and will be less likely to hide their own mistakes. Don't whitewash unpleasant assignments: Prepare subordinates for unpleasant assignments well in advance and offer what support you can.
Managerial Approaches for Improving Motivation: A number of approaches can help managers motivate workers, to perform more effectively. The following steps promote intrinsic motivation: • Workers Participation in Management (WPM) Management by Objectives (MBO) • Organization Behavior Modification Job-Redesign Alternative Work Schedules. Two approaches, however, have been especially effective: linking pay to jot performance and QWL programs. Pay and Job Performance: Pay often can be used to motivate employee performance. But a pay plan also must be able to do the following tasks: • Create the belief that good performance leads to high levels of pay; • Minimize the negative consequences of good performance; and • Create conditions in which rewards other than pay are evaluated as related to good performance. Quality of Work Life Programs: is defined as an attempt through a formal program to integrate employee needs and well being with the intention of improved productivity, greater worker involvement and higher levels of job satisfaction. Programs for QWL improvements range from those requiring minor changes in an organization to those requiring extensive modifications in structure, personnel and the utilization of resources. There are three types of QWL programs, which are as follows: Quality Circles : are small groups of workers who meet regularly with their supervisor as their 'circle leader' to solve work-related problems. QCs give an employee an opportunity for involvement, social-need satisfaction, participation in work improvement and challenge and opportunity for growth. They are, in essence, vehicles for providing employees with opportunities to satisfy lower and upper-level needs as stated by Maslow, through the motivators described in 'Herzberg's theory. Alternative Work Schedule : Org also frequently use the modified 'work-week' as a way to increase employee motivation. A modified 'work-week' can be any work schedule that does not conform to a traditional 8 hours a day or 5 days a week format. The modified 'work-week' helps individual satisfy higher-level needs by providing more personal control over one's work schedule. It also provides an opportunity to fulfill several needs simultaneously. Job-Redesign : or changing the nature of people's job is also being used more as a motivational technique. The idea pursued here is that mangers can use any of the alternatives job rotation, job enlargement, job enrichment as part of motivational programme. Expectancy theory helps explain the role of work design in motivation. GROUP DYNAMICS DEFINITION OF A GROUP A group is a two or more individual who interact regularly with each other to accomplish a common purpose or goal. According to Marvin Shaw, "a group comprises, of two or more persons who interact with one another in such a manner that each person influences and is influenced by each other person'. The key parts of this definition are the concepts of interaction and influence, which also limit the size of the group. It is difficult for members to interact sufficiently in a large group. Groups or work teams are the primary tools used by managers. Managers need groups to co-ordinate individual behavior in order to reach the organizational goals. Groups can make a manager's job easier because by forming a group, he need not explain the task to each and every individual. A manager can easily coordinate with the work of an individual by giving the group a task and allow them to co-ordinate with each other. But for a group to work effectively, the interactions between its members should be productive. Therefore, managers must pay attention to the needs of individuals. Need for a Group : The reasons for the need, of groups are as follows: • Mgt of modern org make mutual efforts to introduce industrial democracy at workplace. They use project teams and work committees where workers get due recognition. They willingly participate in decision-
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making. The tasks in modern industries are becoming more complex, tedious arid of repetitive nature. Work committees, work groups and teams are formed to monitor the work. They also make the environment at workplace more lively. Groups help in making participative mgt more effective. Groups of all kinds and types help by cooperating in all the matters related to production and human relations to work effectively in the org. An individual cannot perform each and every task. Group efforts are required for its completion. For example, building a ship, making of a movie, construction of a fly-over, etc. All these require coordinated and unified efforts of many individuals, working in a group. A group can judge in a better way as compared to an individual. While accomplishing tasks, all members of a group together use their creative and innovative ideas than a single individual. In a group, individuals communicate with each oilier, discuss their work performances and take suggestions from each other to make it better. Group efforts affect an individual, his attitude and behavior. Group has the ability to satisfy the needs of its members.
Types of Groups : In an organization, there are three types of groups, which are as follows: • Functional or formal groups Functional groups are the groups formed by the organization to accomplish different organizational purposes. According to A L Stencombe, "a formal group is said to be any social arrangement in which the activities of some persons are planned by others to achieve a common purpose". These groups are permanent in nature. They have to follow rules, regulations and policy of the organization. A formal organizational group includes departments such as the personnel department, the advertising department, the quality control department and the public relations department. • Task group : are the groups formed by an organization to accomplish a narrow range of purposes within a specified time. These groups are temporary in nature. They also develop a solution to a problem or complete its purpose. Informal committees, task forces and work teams are included in task groups. The organization after specifying a group membership, assigns a narrow set of purposes such as developing a new product, evaluating a proposed grievance procedure, etc. • Informal group : the groups formed for the purposes other than the organizational goals. Informal groups form when individuals are drawn together by friendship, by mutual interests or both. These groups are spontaneous. According to Keith David, "the network of persons and social relations which is not established or required form an informal organization". These are the groups formed by the employees themselves at the workplace while working together. The organization does not take any active interest in their formation. Informal groups are very effective and powerful. These groups work as an informal communication network forming a part of the grapevine to the organizations. They are also like a powerful force, which an organization cannot avoid. Some managers consider them to be harmful to the interest of an organization. They suspect their integrity and consider as a virtual threat. Some managers do not consider them as threat and seek the help of group members in getting the organizational task accomplished GROUP FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT Groups can form when individuals with similar goals and motives come, together. Groups are formed voluntarily. The individuals of a group can join and leave the group any time and they can also change their tasks. Hence, understanding how groups form and develop is important for managers. There are certain motives because of which, the individuals join a group, which are as follows: Organizational motives to join groups: Orgns form functional and task groups because such groups help the organization in structuring and grouping the organizational activities logically and efficiently. • Personal motives to join groups: Individuals also choose to join informal or interest groups for unimportant reasons. Since joining these groups is voluntary, various personal motives affect membership. Some of these are shown in the figure 11.1: • Interpersonal attraction: Individuals conic together to form informal or interest group, as they arc also attracted to each other. The factors that contribute to interpersonal attraction are sex, similar attitudes,
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personality and economic standing. The closeness of group members may also be an important factor. Interest in-group activities: Individuals may also be motivated to join an informal or interest group because the activities of the group appeal to them. Playing tennis, discussing current events or contemporary literature, all these are group activities that individuals enjoy. Support for group goals: The individuals may also be motivated goals by the other group members to join. For example, a club, which is dedicated to environmental conservation, may motivate individuals to join. Individuals join groups, such as these in order to donate their money and time to attain the goals they believe in and to meet other individuals with similar values. Need for affiliation: Another reason for individuals to join groups is to satisfy their need for attachment. Retired/old aged individuals join groups to enjoy the companionship of other individuals in similar situation. Instrumental benefits: Group membership sometimes also helpful in providing other benefits to an individual. For example, a manager might join a Rotary/ Lions club if he feels that being a member of this club will lead to important and useful business contacts.
STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT : Members of new group are unfamiliar with one another's personalities and : hesitant in their interactions. The new group must pass s of development, which are depicted in the figure 11.2. Mutual Acceptance • Making Acceptance Sharing Acquaintances • Discussing Subjects Testing Each Other • Being Defensive
Slow Evolution to Next Stage
Communication and Decision-Making • Expressing Attitudes Establishing Norms • Establishing Goals Openly Discussing Tasks • Being Defensive
Burst of Activities to Next Stage
Motivation and Productivity • Cooperating Working Actively on Tasks • Being Creative
Slow Evolution to Next Stage
Control and Organization • Working Independently Assigning Tasks Based on Ability Being Flexible Figure 11.2 These different stages of group development are explained as follows: • Mutual Acceptance : During this stage, the members of the group get familiar with one another and check, which inter-personal behavior is acceptable and which is unacceptable by the other members of the group. This helps all the members of a group to know each other better and helps the group to move to the next stage easily. • Communication and Decision-making : During this stage, group members share their opinions and formulate the group's goals. Through communication and decision-making, the structure becomes clear and the group moves to the third stage. • Motivation and Productivity : characterized by a shared acceptance among members of what the group is trying to do. Each person recognizes and accepts his role as well as to accept and to understand the roles to others. Members also become more comfortable with each other and develop a sense of group identity and unity. • Control and Organization : in which the members perform the roles they have accepted and direct their group efforts toward goal attainment. In reality, this developmental sequence varies from group to group, depending on the time, personal characteristics of group members and frequency of interaction.
CHARACTERISTICS OF MATURE GROUPS As groups pass through the stages of development to maturity, they begin show signs of the following four characteristics: a role structure, behavioral norms, cohesiveness and informal leadership. • Role Structures A role is the part that an individual plays in a group to reach its goals. Some individuals are leaders, some focus on the group's task; some interact with other groups and so on. Role structure is the set of defined roles and interrelationships among those roles that the group members define and accept. The failure in role development result in role ambiguity, role conflict and role overload. Managers have to take steps to avoid role ambiguity, role conflict and role overload. • Behavioral norms Although informal groups do not have any specific goals to accomplish, but they must have some goals over a period of time. These goals are temporary and can be changed in accordance with the needs of the group members. The goals can be achieved effectively depending on the following factors: o The extent of cooperation with management. o Maintenance of an efficient communication system. o Satisfaction of the needs of group members. • Informal leadership Each informal group has one or more leaders. These leaders come forward on the basis of acceptance of all the group members. Every informal group has one primary leader apart from the secondary: leaders. The primary leader has more influence on the group members than the secondary leaders. • Cohesiveness Cohesiveness is defined as the attractiveness of group members towards the group. It also emphasizes on the group's ability to satisfy its members needs. It, therefore, helps the group members to work more consistently and make greater contribution to the achievement of the organizational goals. It is also psychologically more satisfying to all of its members. According to Cartwright there are four principal consequences of cohesiveness, which are as follows: o Ability of a group to retain its members. o Power of the group to influence its members. o Degree of participation and loyalty of members. o Feeling of security on the part of the members. Group Cohesiveness According to Rcnsis Likert, "cohesiveness is the attractiveness of the members towards the group or resistance of the members leaving it". It refers to the attachment of members with the group. According lo K. Aswalhappa, "cohesiveness is understood as the extent of liking each member has towards others and how far everyone wants to remain as the member of the group". Attractiveness is the key to cohesiveness. Cohesiveness is the extent to which group members are loyal and committed lo the group and to each other. In a highly cohesive group, the members work well together, support and trust one another and are generally effective at achieving their chosen goals. A group that lacks cohesiveness will not be very much coordinated. Its members will not support one another and they may face difficulty in reaching their goals. Managers should develop an understanding of the factors that increase and reduce group cohesiveness. Advantages of Group Cohesiveness The advantages of group cohesiveness are as follows: • The members of cohesive groups have high morale. • The members don't have conflicting views, which decreases the chances of in clash among the views of group members at the workplace or elsewhere. • Individuals of cohesive groups have no anxiety at the workplace. • Members of cohesive groups are regular at their work. • Cohesiveness increases productivity. • Organizations gain from the members of cohesive group because they communicate better they share ideologies and respect opinions of fellow employees. The following factors can increase group cohesiveness: • Competitiveness with other groups. • Inter-personal attraction. • Favourable evaluation from outsiders.
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Agreement on goals. Frequent interaction. The following factors decrease cohesiveness: Large group size. Disagreement on goals. Competitiveness within group. Domination by one or more members.
CONFLICT
Conflict arises from difference of opinion between the group members while attaining the organizational goals. An organization is an interlocking network of groups, departments, sections or work teams. In organizations everywhere, conflict among groups of different interests is unavoidable. According to one survey, managers spend an estimated 20 percent of their time dealing with group conflicts. The success of an organization depends upon the harmonious relations among all independent groups. Managers may either directly resolve the conflicts or they may act as mediators between two or more employees. In either case, knowledge and understanding of conflict and the methods of resolving it are important. Inter-group conflicts result from the ways in which organizations co-ordinate the work of different groups and distribute rewards among those groups. TYPES OF CONFLICT : The levels of group conflict are as follows: • Personal conflict: arise among employees, individuals because of their competitive roles. • Group conflict: within two or more groups due to difference in their attitudes and behavior. • Intra-organizational conflict: arising between levels of an org, which are of two types. Vertical conflict arises between higher and lower level of mgt. Horizontal conflict arises among the employees at same level. REASONS FOR CONFLICT Some of them are related to limited resources, cn problems, differences in interests and goals, different perceptions, attitudes and lack of clarity about responsibilities. The reasons for group conflicts are as follows: Communication problems: Groups often become very involved with their own areas of responsibility. They tend to develop their own unique vocabulary. Paying attention to an area of responsibility is a worthy Endeavor, but it can result in communication problems. The receiver of information should be considered when a group communicates an idea, a proposal, or a decision. Misinformed receivers often become irritated and then hostile. Incompatible goals: Inter-group conflict arises because of goal incompatibility. In other words, goal attainment by one group may reduce the level of goal attainment by other groups. This may be due to horizontal differentiation and task specialization. The conflict between production and marketing departments, line and staff departments, union and mgt are few ex. of inter-group conflicts that arise because of incompatibility of goals. Task interdependence: Task interdependence means to what extent a work, group relies on other organizational groups to complete its tasks. In simple words, it refers to the dependence of one group on another for resources or information. It can be said in genera] that as interdependence increases, the potential for conflict increases. Task ambiguity: The lack of clarity over job responsibilities is called task ambiguity and it frequently leads to aggression between groups. Inter-group conflict also arises when it is not clear which group is responsible for certain activities. Task ambiguity often arises where the organization is growing quickly or the organization's environment is changing rapidly. A good example of task ambiguity is inter-group conflict arising in the recruitment of new employees. It may be the responsibility of either the personnel department or any of the functional departments such as marketing, finance. The confusion may also arise regarding who has the final authority to execute the final decisions. Resource sharing: The relation between two groups can be affected by the degree to which they make use of a common pool of resources and the degree to which this common pool of resources is adequate to meet the demands of both the groups. Thus, conflict of this nature; arises because of the differences between aggregate demand of a group and available resources to meet them. Each party of the conflict competes with each other to get a larger share. The conflict between management and the labor union-is the best example. Such conflicts take place in the quantum of wages, amenities, working conditions and other related matters. Difference in work orientation: The ways in which employees do their work and deal with others vary widely with the functional areas of an organization. First, functional groups differ in their time perspectives. For example, R&D scientists have a longer-range of goals than manufacturing groups. The range of work of
manufacturing group is evaluated on how quickly it can manufacture high-quality products while the range of R&D scientists can be evaluated on the basis of product development and testing after a long period of time. Second, the goals of different functional groups vary to a large extent. The goals of manufacturing groups are more specific and clear-cut than the goals of R&D groups. Conflicting reward systems: Sometimes the ways in which reward systems in organizations arc designed create a situation in which one group can only. accomplish its goal at the expense of other groups. For example, staff departments may be rewarded for cutting costs and personnel while line departments are rewarded for increasing the amount of products sold or services provided. To increase the amount of products sold, the line group may have to depend even more heavily on staff groups such as advertising. However the staff groups are being rewarded for cutting costs and personnel provided the types of services asked for by line groups can prevent them from meeting their own goals. Conflicting reward systems inevitably result in poor inter-group relations. Different perceptions and attitudes: The attitudes, values and perceptions of members of various groups towards each other can be a cause and a consequence of the nature of their relationship. If the group relations begin with the attitudes of distrust, competitiveness, secrecy and closed communications, there is a possibility of conflicts, disagreements in their views and among themselves. This can affect the success of a group to accomplish their work in an effective manner. DYNAMICS OF INTER-GROUP CONFLICT The following points are covered in the dynamics of an inter-group conflict: Changes within each group: When there is inter-group conflict in an organization, systematic changes take place in the perceptions, attitudes and behaviors of the participants. They are as follows: ? The group demands more loyalty from individual members while facing an external threat. In the face of an external threat, past differences and difficulties between group members are forgotten and group cohesiveness increases. ? In an inter-group conflict, it is important for a group to respond quickly and in a unified manner to the activities of other groups. In an inter-group conflict, the organization and structure of the work group becomes more rigid. It leads to more coordination of activities, allocation of responsibilities to different group members. Changes in relation between groups: The nature of the relationships between groups also changes markedly during inter-group conflicts. Union-Management relationships during contract negotiations are one of the examples of the group dynamics. It becomes difficult for each group to see the positive behavior and attitude of the other group. Each party undervalues the interests of the other group. The changes that occur arc as follows: ? There are distortions of perception about one's own group and about the other group. ? The interaction and communication between groups' decreases. ? There is a shift among the groups from a problem-solving motive to a win-lose motive. ? There is increased ill feeling towards the rival group. Methods to Solve Inter-group Conflict indirectly: are as follows: ? Avoidance: It is an indirect method often used by the managers. It includes avoidance of direct approaches on the part of managers to solve among groups. But avoidance does not always minimize the problem. Matters can get worse if nothing is done and the groups can become more aggressive and unfriendly. • Encouragement: This is another indirect method to solve the group conflicts. It includes encouragement on the part of managers to the groups so that they will be able to meet and discuss their differences. By doing so, they can find out a solution without the involvement of management. • Bargaining: This is the indirect method, in which the groups agree as to what each of them will get and give others regarding their work. This makes the accomplishment of the assigned task much easier. For example, one group may agree to give the other, a quick turn around time on the repairs of needed equipment only if the Second group agrees to bring complaints about the quality of repairs to it before going to management. Bargaining between two groups is successful if both groups are comfortable with the agreement between them. • Persuasion: This is the indirect method, in which the groups find the areas of common interests among themselves. The groups try to find out those interests levels where they have the same say. Afterwards', the groups try to show how important it is to each of them in attaining organizational goals. But persuasion is possible only if there are no clashes between the groups and its members
Methods to Solve Inter-Group Conflict • Ignoring the conflict: This is a direct method used by (he managers to solve inter-group conflicts. Ignoring the conflict is characterized by the absence of behavior wherein the members of the groups avoids dealing with the dysfunctional aspects of the conflict. In this, a, group simply refuses to attack the other group. But the disadvantage of this method is that it ignores the causes of conflicts and as a result, the conflict situation frequently continues or gets worse over time. • Domination by the management: This method of solving inter-group conflicts emphasizes on improving the inter-group relations. To improve the inter-group relations, greater integration or collaboration among groups is needed. Management can use domination to minimize the conflicts by exercising its authority and power over the groups and their members. • Removing the key figures in the conflict: This is another direct method to solve the inter-group conflicts. If a conflict arises because of personality differences between two individuals, removing them is a possible solution. It includes the removal of the key figures in the conflict. The key figures that are to be removed may be leaders of the groups and removing them could lead to greater conflict. It is also difficult to pinpoint accurately the individuals who are the root-cause of conflicts. • Problem solving: Management can also establish a task force with representatives from groups in conflict to work on problems. The task force develops the ideas 'and procedures for improving group interaction and thereby attempt to solve the conflicts arising between the groups. o Appealing to super-ordinate goals. The final method to minimize the conflicts is to find superordinate goals. These are goals desired by two or more groups that can only be accomplished through the cooperation of the groups. When conflicting groups have to cooperate to accomplish a goal, conflict can be minimized. For example, a wide profit-sharing plan of a company may encourage groups to work together. If the profits of a company are distributed among employees at the end of the year, the conflicts among groups can reduce. The super ordinate goals are as follows: The assignment and coordination of work among groups should be clarified so that the daily disputes over minor issues can be avoided. o Managers should monitor reward systems to eliminate any win-lose conflicts among groups. o The use of co-operative approaches among groups in organizations often leads to more positive results than does the use of competitive approaches. o Managers can establish rules and standard procedures to regulate conflict in more constructive and effective ways. LEADERSHIP IN ORGANIZATIONS Leadership is an integral part of management and plays a vital role in managerial operations. It provides direction, guidance, and confidence to the employees and helps in the attainment of goals in much easier way. DEFINITION Leadership is the art of influencing and inspiring subordinates to perform their duties willingly, competently and enthusiastically for achievement of groups objectives. According to Wendell French, "Leadership is the process of influencing the behavior of others in the direction of a goal or set of goals or, more broadly, toward a vision of the future”, According to Keith Davis, “Leadership is the process of encouraging and helping others to work enthusiastically towards objectives”. According to Koontz and O'Donnell, "Leadership is the art or process of influencing people so that they will strive willingly towards the achievement of group goals". According to Peter Drucker, "Leadership means the lifting of man's visions to higher sights, the raising of man's performance to higher standard, the building of man's personality beyond its normal limitations". According to Grey and Starke, "Leadership is both a process and a property. As a process, it is used for non-coercive influence lo shape up the goals of a group or organization, to motivate behavior toward the achievement of those goals and to help define group or organizational culture. As a property, leadership is the set multi characteristics attributed to those who are perceived to be leaders". Thus, leaders are people who are able to influence the behavior of others without recourse to threats or other forms of force towards the individuals. Leaders are the people who are accepted by the other individuals, as a superior person to them. FEATURES OF LEADERSHIP
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Leadership is the process of influencing behavior of individuals of an organization. Leadership uses non-coercive methods to direct and coordinate the activities of the individuals of an org. Leadership directs the individuals to attain the tasks assigned to them by following the instructions of their leaders. A leader possesses qualities to influence others. Leadership gives the individuals, a vision for future. Leadership is a group activity. Leader influences his followers and followers also exercise influence over his leader. Leadership is meant for a given situation, given group for a pre-determined period of lime. Leadership is continuous process of influencing behavior. It encourages liveliness in the group.
Importance of Leadership • A leader should act as a friend of the people whom he is leading. • A leader must have the capacity to recognize the potentials of the individuals and transform them into realities. • A leader should have the confidence of the individuals of the organization. • A leader must be able to unite the people as a team and build up team spirit. • A leader should be able to maintain discipline among his group and develop a sense of responsibility. • A leader must be able to build up a high morale among the individuals of the organization. • A leader should motivate his people to achieve goals. • A leader should try to raise the morale of the individuals and should maintain ethical standards among the individuals. • A leader should act as a link between the work groups and the forces outside the organization. Difference between Leadership and Management Leading and managing go together but some differences exist between the two. The following are the differences between the leadership and the management: • Mgt takes rational and logical decisions while leadership takes decision on expectations of the followers. Leadership has an emotional appeal while management acts on rationality. • The mgt establishes relationship through a lawful authority while leadership establishes relationship through power. • Managers have formal authority but the leaders have no such authority. • All leaders are not managers and all managers are leaders. • Mgt is a process of planning, organizing, directing and controlling the activities of others to attain the organizational objectives. Leadership on the other hand, is a process of influencing the behavior of the people to attain their assigned tasks. A successful manager must possess both the managerial and leadership qualities. TYPES OF LEADERSHIP Autocratic or Authoritarian In this type of leadership, there is a complete centralization of authority in the leader, i.e., authority is centered in the leader himself. He has all the powers to make decisions. He uses coercive measures and adopts, negative method of motivation. He wants immediate obedience of his orders and instructions. Any negligence on the part of subordinates results in punishment. There is no participation from the subordinates in decision-making. A leader thinks that he is the only competent person in the organization. Democratic or Participative Democratic or Participative leadership is also known as group centered or consultative leadership. In this type of leadership, leaders consult their groups and consider their opinion in the decision-making process. Leaders encourage discussion among the group members on the problem under consideration and arrive at a decision depending on their consent. Participation or involvement of the employees in the decision-making process is also rewarded. Exchange of ideas among subordinates and with the leader is given encouragement. Leaders give more freedom to their group members, who feel that, their opinions arc honored and they are given importance. It develops a sense of confidence among subordinates and they derive job satisfaction. It improves quality of decision as it is taken after due consideration of valued opinions of the talented group members. The demerit of this type of leadership is that it takes more time to arrive at a decision, as a lot of time is wasted while taking the views from the
employee. It is, therefore, very time consuming. Laissez-faire or Free Rein : In this type of leadership, there is virtual absence of direct leadership. It is, therefore, known as "no leadership at all". There is complete delegation of authority to subordinates so that they can make decisions by themselves. Absence of leadership may have both positive and negative effects. Free rein leadership may be effective if members of the group are highly committed to their work. The negative aspect shows that the leader is not competent enough to lead his group effectively. Members may feel insecure and develop frustration for lack of decision-making authority. Bureaucratic This type of leadership emphasizes the rules and regulations of an organization. The behavior of a leader is determined by the rules, regulations and procedure to be followed under his leadership. The leader and the subordinates both follow these rules and regulations. Therefore, there is no difference between the management and the administration in this type of leadership. The employees, themselves cannot do anything in this regard. It is the rules that determine their performance. THEORIES OF LEADERSHIP . (a) Trait Theory This theory of studying leadership is taken into consideration to analyze the personal, psychological and physical traits of strong leaders. The assumption made in this theory was that some basic traits or set of traits differentiates leaders from non-leaders. For example, the leadership traits might include intelligence, assertiveness, above average height, self-confidence, initiative and understanding of interpersonal human relations. The existence of these traits determines the importance of leadership. Possession of these traits helps the individuals to gain possession of leadership. Since all individuals do not have these qualities, only those who have them would be considered potential leaders. Some of the weakness of this theory is: • All the traits are not identical with regard to essential characteristics of a leader. • Some traits may not be inherited, but can only be acquired by training. • It does not identify the traits that are most important and that are least important for a successful leader. • It does not explain the leadership failures, in spite of the required traits. • It has been found that many traits exhibited by leaders are also found among followers without explaining as to why followers could not become leaders. • It is difficult to define traits in absolute terms. • Thus, the trait theory has been criticized for lack of conclusiveness and predictability. (b) Behavior Theory The behavioral theory assumed that effective leaders behaved differently from ineffective leaders. It also identified the need of consistency of behavior of good leaders. This theory can be more clearly understood with the help of following case studies. • The Michigan Studies: Researchers at the University of. Michigan, led by Rensis Likert, began studying leadership in the late 1940s. Depending on broad discussions with both the managers and subordinates, the Michigan studies identified two forms of leadership behavior. They are discussed as below: ? Job-centered leadership behavior : The first was called job-centered leadership behavior, which focuses on performances and efficient completion of the assigned tasks. A job-centered leader interacts with group members to explain task procedures and oversee their work. ? Employee centered leadership behavior: The second behavior was identified as employee centered leader behavior, which focuses on, high performance standards to be accomplished. This can be done by developing a cohesive work group and ensuring that employees are satisfied with their jobs. Thus, the leader's primary concern is the welfare of the ordinates. The Michagan researchers thought a leader could show signs of one kind of behavior, but not both. • The Ohio State Studies: At about the same time, a group of researchers at Ohio State also began studying leadership. The Ohio State leadership studies also identified two major kinds of leadership behaviors or styles, which are as follows: ? Initiating-structure behavior: In initiating-structure behavior, the leader clearly defines the
leader-subordinate roles so that everyone knows what is expected. The leader also establishes formal lines of communication and determines how tasks will be performed. ? Consideration behavior: In consideration behavior, the leader shows concern for subordinates feelings' and ideas. He attempts to establish a warm, friendly and supportive. (c) The Path-Goal theory The path-goal model of leadership was introduced by Martin Evans and Robert House. Path-goal theory says that a leader can motivate subordinates by influencing their expectations. Leaders can motivate sub-ordinates by making clear what they have to do to get the reward they desire. The path-goal model assumes that leaders can change their style or behavior to meet the demands of a particular situation. This model identifies four kinds of leader behavior: directive, supportive, participative and achievement-oriented. According to this model managers can adjust their behavior to include any four kinds of leadership behavior mentioned above. For instance, while leading a new group of sub-ordinates, the leader may be directive in giving guidance and instructions to them. He may also adopt supportive behavior to encourage group cohesiveness, to look after their needs and ensuring that they get the rewards and benefits. As the group becomes more familiar with the task and as new problems are taken into consideration, the leader may use participative behavior by which he can participate with employees in making decisions and take their suggestions as well. Finally, the leader may use achievementoriented behavior to encourage continued high performance of sub-ordinates. Environmental characteristics are factors, which are beyond the control of subordinates. It includes task structure, the primary work group and the formal authority system. For instance, when structure is high, directive leadership is less effective than when structure is low. Sub-ordinates do not usually need their boss to repeatedly tell them how to do a routine job. According to the path-goal theory, these environmental factors can create uncertainty for employees. A leader who helps employees reduce such uncertainty can motivate them. The figure 14.1 shows the path goal model of leadership.
Leaders do not always have control over environmental factors, but the theory emphasizes that leaders can use the control they want, to adjust the environment and to motivate sub-ordinates. EMERGING PERSPECTIVES ON LEADERSHIP IN ORGANIZATIONS The new perspectives that have attracted attention are the concepts of substitutes for leadership and transformational leadership. Substitutes for Leadership The existing leadership theories and models try to specify what kind of leader’s behavior is appropriate for
different situations. They do not take into consideration, the situations where the leadership is not needed. The substitute concept identifies the situations where the characteristics of the subordinates, the task and the organization replace leaders' behaviors. For example, when a patient is admitted to an emergency room in a hospital, nurses, doctors and attendants act immediately without waiting for directive or supportive behaviors of leaders in an emergency ward. Several characteristics of the sub-ordinate may serve to replace or change .the behavior of the leaders. For example, employees with much ability and experience may not need to be told what to do. Similarly, a strong need for independence by the sub-ordinate may result in ineffectiveness of leaders’ behavior. Characteristics of the task that may substitute the leadership include, the availability of feedback and intrinsic satisfaction. For example, when the job is routine and simple, the subordinate may not need direction. When the task is challenging, the subordinate may not need or want support. Organizational characteristics that may substitute for leadership include formalization group cohesion, inflexibility and a rigid reward structure. For example, when policies are formal and rigid, leadership may not be needed. Transformational Leadership: number of labels: charismatic leadership, inspirational leadership, symbolic leadership and transformational leadership. This is a leadership that transmits a sense of mission, increases teaming experiences and inspires new ways of thinking. Charisma is a form of interpersonal attraction. Charismatic people attract followers and this type of leader has great power over his or her followers. Charismatic leaders are self-confident and can influence others. The followers of a charismatic leader identify with the leader's beliefs, accept, trust and obey the leader without questioning him and thereby contribute toward the success of the organizational goals. Leadership Skills There is now recognition in both leadership theory and practice of the importance of skills, how leaders should behave and perform effectively. Although there are many skills, such as cultural flexibility, communication, HRD, creativity, and self-management of learning, the research-based skills identified by Whetten and Cameron seem to be most valuable. Their personal skills model, involving developing self-awareness, managing stress and solving problems creatively; the interpersonal skills model, involving communicating supportively, gaining power and influence, motivating others and managing conflict, are especially comprehensive and useful. Finally, the widely recognized organizational behavior .techniques such as, training, job design and leaders can also effectively use behavioral mgt. STRESS MANAGEMENT The nature of stress has been studied by scholars in a wide range of academic disciplines. Physicians, psychiatrists, and researchers in management have all studied its causes and its symptoms, and have defined the term in a variety of different ways. Stress is defined as "the reactions of individuals to new or threatening factors in their work environments”. Stress can be either positive or negative. Some new work situations can bring us positive challenges and excitement. For example, promotions to new jobs present employees with positive stress. Employees may feel anxious about their new work assignments; they also anticipate them eagerly and look forward to the additional challenges, rewards, and excitement. In these cases, the new and uncertain job situations create positive stress. The positive stress is also called the Eustress. However, there are certain other types of work that are very threatening and anxiety-arousing. For example, depression in the economy can create negative stress for sales personnel, because they will be much more anxious about making sales commissions and sales quotas. For every individual there is an optimum level of stress under which he or she may perform to full capacity. If the stress experienced is below this optimum level, then the individual gets bored, the motivational level to work reaches a low, point, and apathy sets in. If one operates in a very low stress environment and constantly experiences boredom, the person is likely to psychologically or physically withdraw from work. Psychological withdrawal will result in careless mistakes being frequently made, forgetting to do things, and thinking of things other than work during work hours. Physical withdrawal will manifest itself in increased rates of tardiness and absenteeism, which may ultimately lead to turnover. Though the optimum stress level is different Form different individuals, each individual can sense and determine how much stress is functional for an individual to operate in a productive manner.
Research indicates that those who possess high tolerance of ambiguity, internal locus of control and self-esteem seem to effectively handle a high level of stress. An individual possessing high degree of tolerance for ambiguity allows him to experience very little anguish while operating under conditions of insufficient information or in an uncertain environment. People with an internal locus of control also handle stress well since they feel they are in control of the situation, rather than feeling controlled by the situation they are facing. This makes it possible for them to manage their environmental stress without experiencing its harmful effects. Those with high self-esteem also handle stress with ease since a high self-esteem increases the confidence and enables them to deal with stressful situations with calmness and clear thinking. The more successfully one handles a stressful situation without panicking or getting overwhelmed by it, the more confidently will the individual face further stressful situations. Thus, it is possible to raise one’s capacity to handle in different situations. SOURCES OF STRESS Stress is a reality of our everyday life. There are both positive and negative stresses that come from our work and non-work lives. As pointed out by Near. Rice, and Hunt (1980) and Sckaran (1986), among others, the work and non-work domains of one's life are closely interrelated. The stresses and strains experienced in one domain are carried over to the other. Thus, if one experiences stress at work, that stress will be carried over to the home. One major source of job stress is the job itself. The way the job is designed, the amount of time pressure an individual faces and the amount of expectations others have of a person at work can all lead to job stress. Interpersonal relationships are a second source of job stress. How much contact an individual has with coworkers and managers, how much time he or she deals with clients or consumers, and how pleasant those interactions are all influences of how much stress an individual experiences at work. Third source is problems in personal lives, which can spill over into the work environment, adding further tension to an already stressful work situation. SOURCES OF JOB STRESS • Job Characteristics o Role ambiguity Role conflict Role overload Ethical dilemmas • Interpersonal Relationships o Amount of contact with others , Dealing with people in other departments, Organizational climate • Organizational Factors • Personal Factors o Career concerns o Geographical mobility o Rate of life change Job Characteristics A major source of job stress is a person's role in the organization. A role is simply the set of expectations that other people in the organization have for an individual, For example, supervisors, coworkers, customers and suppliers expect an employee to behave in certain predictable ways. The expectations others have of an employee arc sometimes unclear, in conflict, or too high for the employee to meet within the time allotted, and he or she experiences stress. • Role Ambiguity: When there is a lot of uncertainty surrounding job definitions or job expectations, people experience role ambiguity. With the recent increase in mergers and acquisitions among major organizations, more and more employees arc experiencing job stress as a result of role ambiguity. Role ambiguity is anxiety arousing among employees that leads to job stress. • Role Conflict: Often employees discover that different groups of people in an organization have widely varying expectations of them, and that they cannot meet all those expectations. This inconsistency of expectations associated with a role is called role conflict, which results in stress. • Role Overload: Role overload is a situation in which employees feel they are being asked to do more than time or ability permits. Working under time pressure is especially stressful. • Role Underload: Role Underload is the condition in which employees have too little work to do or too little variety -in their work. For example, salespeople in a store with no customer, standing around all day with nothing to do, could be said to experience role underload. Ironically, role underload leads to low self-esteem, increased frequency of nervous symptoms and increased health problems. • Ethical Dilemmas: Ethical dilemmas such as whether or not one should report the observed unethical behaviors of another person can cause extreme levels of stress in individuals. This will be especially true for those who have strong moral values of right and wrong and a deep sense of personal and corporate social responsibility. Tensions arise because one might have to contend against one's own colleagues who might be close friends, and may fear of reprisal and other undesirable consequences.
Interpersonal Relationships Another major source of stress in organization is poor interpersonal relationships with supervisors, subordinates, coworkers. or clients. When interpersonal relationships at work are unpleasant, employees develop a generalized anxiety, a diffuse feeling of dread about upcoming meetings and interactions. Three aspects of interpersonal relationships at work, which have a negative impact on job stress, are as follows: • Amount of contact with others: Jobs vary in terms of how much interpersonal contact is built into them. Too much prolonged contact with other people can cause stress. • Amount of contact with people in other departments: Having contacts with people outside one's own department creates a special sort of stress. People in other departments do not always have an adequate understanding of jobs outside their own areas, which can cause stress. • Organizational climate: The overall psychological climate of the organization can create stress. When day-to-day life in an organization is marked by unfriendly, distant, or hostile exchanges, employees are continually tense and this causes stress. Organizational Factors Following are the organizational factors that cause stress in individuals: • Work envt factors such as noise, heal, poor lighting, radiation and smoke are stress-inducing agents. • Insufficient resources such as time, budget, raw materials, space or manpower also induce stress in the work environment. When one has to produce and perform with inadequate resources on a long-term basis, this naturally imposes stresses and strains on the individuals who are responsible for getting the job done. • Structural factors in the organizational setting such as staff rules and' regulations and reward systems, may cause stress. • Lack of career promotion in organizations may be sometime cause stress. • Environmental factors of stress include sudden and unanticipated changes in the marketplace, technology, the financial market and so on. Personal Factors Employees’ personal lives have a marked effect on their lives at work. If things are going well personally, they are more likely to be upbeat and optimistic. They have more energy and patience for dealing with problems at work. On the other hand, if employees are having some personal problems, they might be more tense or distracted when they go to work. Factors that influence how much stress people bring from their persona! lives to the work setting are as follows: • Career Concerns: One major career concern that can cause stress is lack of job security. A second career concern that can cause employees stress is status incongruity, i.e., having jobs with less status, power and prestige than they think they deserve. • Geographical Mobility: Geographical moves create stress because they disrupt the routines of daily life. When geographical moves arc undertaken as part of a job transfer, the moves can be even more stressful. The transferred employees are likely to feel out of control at work, too, and experience their new work environments as unpredictable. EFFECTS OR CONSEQUENCES OF JOB STRESS Negative stress has unpleasant consequences for them, their families and for the organizations they serve. Effects on the Individual The impacts of distress on individuals are of following types: • The subjective or intra personal effects of stress are feelings of anxiety, boredom, apathy, nervousness, depression, fatigue, and anger. Sometimes experiencing the stress may cause aggressive behaviors on the part of the individual. • The cognitive effects include poor concentration, short attention span, mental blocks and inability to make decisions. • The physiological effects can be seen in increased heart and pulse rate, high blood pressure, dryness of throat, and excessive sweating. • The behavioral effects arc manifest in such things as accident proneness, drinking, excessive eating, smoking, impulsive behaviors, depression, and withdrawal behaviors. • The manifest health effects could be stomach disorders, asthma, eczema, and other psychosomatic disorders. In addition, the mental health, i.e. the ability lo function effectively in one's daily life, will also
decline as excessive stress is experienced. Consequences for the Family: Negative stress, which is handled by individuals in dysfunctional ways, such as drinking or withdrawal behaviors, will have an adverse effect on their home life. Spouse abuse, child abuse, alienation from family members, and even divorce could result from dysfunctional coping mechanisms. Consequences to Organizations The adverse consequences on an organization include low performance and productivity, high rates of absenteeism and poor decision-making. It also leads to lost of customers because of poor worker attitudes, increased alienation of the worker from the job, and even destructive and aggressive behaviors resulting in strikes and sabotage. The stresses experienced by employees who take on critical roles and are responsible for safety can sometimes be detrimental to the public. For instance, the stresses experienced by a train driver or railway guard, or that of an airline pilot, navigator, or air traffic controller may result in serious accidents. Needless to say that the costs of employee stress to the organization in terms of lost profits, poor image and loss of future business are enormous. METHODS OF MANAGING STRESS Stress is a factor that everybody has to contend with on a daily basis both in the work and non-work spheres of life. Since the body has only a limited capacity to respond to stress, it is important for individuals to optimally manage their stress level to operate as fully functioning human beings. There are several ways in which stress can be handled so that the dysfunctional consequences of stress can be reduced. Some of them are: Role Analysis Technique (RAT) Helps both the manager and the employee to analyze the requirements and expectations from the job. Breakingdown the job into various components clarifies the role of the job for the entire system. This also helps to eliminate reduction of work and thus lowering down the stress level. Job Relocation : Job relocation assistance is offered to employees who are transferred, by finding alternative employment for the spouses of the transferred employees and getting admissions in schools for their children in the new place. These arrangements help to reduce the anxiety and stress for the moving family. Recreational Program : Providing recreational facilities, arranging group meditation programs, help to reduce the stress levels of the employees. Employee Assistance Program : Another widely used strategy is the employee assistance Programs, which offer a variety of assistance to employees. These include counseling employees who seek assistance on how to deal with alcohol and drug abuse, handling conflicts at the work place, dealing with marital and other family problems. Career Counseling : helps the employee to obtain professional advice regarding career that would help the individual to achieve personal goals. It also makes the employees aware of what additional educational qualifications or specialized technical training, if any, By becoming knowledgeable about the possible avenues for advancement, the employees who consider their careers to be important can reduce their stress levels by becoming more realistic about their options and can start preparing themselves for it. Time Management : Another way of coping with stress is to manage time more effectively. People can learn to get better organized so that they can do their work more efficiently. Delegation : Another way of coping with job stress is to delegate some responsibilities to others. Delegation can directly decrease workload upon the manager and helps to reduce the stress. ! More Information and Help : Some new employees have to spend more time on a job than necessary because they are not sure what they are doing. So it is necessary that some help should be provided before doing the work that would lead to much efficient, effective work. It would also reduce anxiety and stress among the employees. Health Maintenance: Probably the most frequently used organizational stress management program is health maintenance. Many companies invest large sum of money in gym and sport facilities for maintaining the health of the employees.
Supervisor Training Another type of stress management Program that organizations are experimenting with is supervisor training. The emphasis on supervisory training Program is how to prevent job stress. Managers are trained to give better performance appraisals, to listen to employees’ problems more effectively, and to communicate job assignments and instructions more clearly. Individual Stress Reduction Workshops Some orgn have also sponsored individual stress reduction workshops for their employees. These programs include biofeedback, meditation to career counseling, time management and interpersonal skills workshops. In lectures and seminars, participants are given a basic understanding of the causes of stress and its consequences. Then, participants are given materials to help them identify the major sources of stress in their own lives, and some strategies for dealing with that stress more effectively. POWER AND POLITICS Power is easy to feel but difficult to define. It is the potential ability of a person or group to influence another person or group. It is the ability to get things done the way one wants them to be done. Both formal and informal groups and individuals may have power; it does not need an official position or the backing of an institution to have power. Influence can take many forms. One person has influenced another if the second person's opinions, behavior or perspectives have changed as a result of their interaction. Power is a factor at all levels of most organizations. It can be a factor in almost any organizational decision. POWER AND AUTHORITY Sometimes power and authority is used synonymously because of their objective of influencing the behavior of others. However, there is difference between the two. Power does not have any legal sanctity while authority has such sanctity. Authority is institutional and is legitimate. Power, on the other hand, is personal and does not have any legitimacy. But stilt, power is a crucial factor in influencing the behavior in organizational situation. Sources of Power John R. P. French and Bertram Raven identified five bases or sources of power: legitimate, reward, coercive, expert and referent power. Legitimate Power: A person's position within orgn provides him with legitimate power. The organization gives managers the power to direct the activities of their subordinates. Legitimate power is similar to formal authority and hence it can be created, granted, changed or withdrawn by the formal organization. The structure of the organization also identifies the strength of the legitimate authority by position location. For instance, higher-level positions exercise more power than lower-level positions in a classical hierarchical organizational structure. Organizations vary in how much legitimate power they grant to individuals. In such organizations, everyone knows who has the most power and few people challenge the power structure. Reward Power: This type of power is the extent to which one person has control over rewards that are valued by another. The greater the perceived values of such rewards, the greater the power. Organizational rewards include pay, promotions and valued office assignments. A manager who has complete control over such rewards has a good deal of power. Manager who uses praise and recognition has also a good deal of power. Coercive Power: People have coercive power if they have control over some form of punishment such as threat of dismissal, suspension, demotion or other method of embarrassment for the people. Perhaps, a manager can cause psychological harm also lo an employee. A manager’s coercive power increases with the number and severity of the sanctions over which the manager has control. Although the use of coercive power is often successful in the short run, it tends to create resentment and hostility and therefore is usually detrimental to the organization in the long run. Expert Power: It is more of personal power than organizational power. Expert power is that influence which one wields as a result of one's experience, special skill or knowledge. This power occurs when the expert threatens to withhold his knowledge or skill. Since any person who is not easily replaceable has more power as compared to those who are easily replaceable. If the sub-ordinates view their superior as competent, and knowledgeable, naturally they will obey and respect the superior. To the extent, that a low-ranking worker has important
knowledge not available to a superior, he is likely to have more power. Referent Power: A person who is respected by certain others for whatever reason has referent power over those people. A person with referent power may have charisma and people who respect that person are likely to get emotionally involved with the respected person and identify with, accept and be willing to follow him or her. People with referent power are often imitated by others with the star's actions, attitudes and dress. This imitation reflects the rising star's power over the imitations. HOW PEOPLE USE POWER An individual manager may have power derived from any or all of the five bases of power and the manager may use that power in different1 ways. Therefore, good managers must try to analyse the sources of their power and be careful how they use that power. The work of Gary Yukl provides both a way to predict the consequences of certain uses of power and guidelines for using power. The following table list^ the five sources of ;i leader's power and some of the variables that are likely to lead to three general types of employee responses or outcomes-commitment, compliance and resistance-when the leader uses the power. For instance, the table shows that a leader's use of referent power will lead employees to be committed lo the leader’s project if they see that the project is important to the leader. Using Legitimate Power The use of legitimate power is seldom challenged in an organization; when a superior asks a sub-ordinate to do something, the sub-ordinate usually complies without resistance. However, the way the superior makes the request and follows it up are very important for ensuring the sub-ordinate’s future compliance and the growth of the superior's referent power. Though the secretary does what the boss asks, still the boss could be cordial and polite when making requests and should whenever possible explain why a particular task needs to be done. The secretary who understands the importance of a task will be more likely to work enthusiastically on it. The boss must follow normal procedures and make sure the request is appropriate. For instance, a vicepresident whose secretary is busy should not assume that he or she can just ask a supervisor's secretary to drop all other work and type a letter. Such by passing of the normal chain of command can cause hard feelings among all the people involved. Most of these suggestions imply that managers must be sensitive to employees concerns. Managers who are insensitive to their employees may find that their legitimate power dwindles and that they must resort to coercive power. Using Reward Power The manager, before giving a reward, must be sure that the employee has actually done the job and done it well. Employees must know that they get rewarded for good work. Using Coercive Power For some people, using coercive power is a natural response when something goes wrong. But often employees resist coercive power, resent it and losing respect for people using that type, of power. Hence, coercion is now generally recognized to be the most difficult form of punishment to use successfully in an organization. Managers who wish to maintain their credibility should make threats only when they intend to carry through on them and should never threaten a punishment that they cannot bring about. A good manager will be such that the punishment fit the crime. For instance, warning an individual who uses copying machine to make -personal copies but firing someone who steals equipment from the organization. Public punishment makes everyone uneasy and humiliating and hence should be done private. Using Expert Power To gain power from their expertise, managers must make people aware of how much they know. Manager can use his expert power most effectively to address employee concerns. If a particular sales person faces any difficulty in selling a particular product and turns to manager for his help, the manager must be able to identify the defect and must be able to help and educate him. Using Referent Power Leaders have traditionally strengthened their referent power by hiring employees with backgrounds similar to their own. One of the most positive and subtle uses of referent power is the process of rote modeling. A respected manager who wants her employees to be punctual, considerate and creative can simply demonstrate those behaviors herself and her employees will likely imitate her actions. ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN
CONCEPT OF ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN Organizational design is the overall configuration of structural components that defines jobs, groupings of jobs, the hierarchy, patterns of authority, approaches to co-ordination and line-staff differentiation into a single and unified organizational system. Consider, for example, the differences in organizational design that might exist between a computer manufacturer and university. Since the computer manufacturer has to respond to frequent technological breakthroughs and changes in its competitive environment, it is likely to have a relatively flat and decentralized design whereas the university has a more stable environment and is less affected by technology. Therefore, it has a more centralized structure with numerous rules and regulations. DETERMINANTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN The key situational determinants of orgnal design are technology, orgnal env, and orgn size and life cycle. • Technology: Technology is the set of processes that an organization uses to transform various resources such as materials and labor into products or services. Joan Woodward was the first person to see the link between technology and organizational design. In particular. Woodward defined three basic types of technology. ? In unit or small-batch technology, products are manufactured according to customer specifications in small quantities. Examples are printing press and studios. ? In large batch or mass-production technology, products. are manufactured in assembly-line fashion by combining component pans to create finished goods. Examples are home-appliance," automobile and computer manufacturers. ? In continuous-process technology, products are transformed from raw materials into finished goods through a series of machine transformations that change the composition of the materials themselves. Examples are petroleum refiners, food processors and chemical manufacturers. Woodward viewed unit or small-batch technology as -the least complex while the continuous process technology as the most complex. She found that organizations within each set had similar designs but the designs varied somewhat from set to set. Bums and Stalker argued that managers should examine the rate of change in technology to determine the best organizational structure. They recommended a bureaucratic or mechanistic structure for organizations with slowly changing technology and an organic or flexible structure for organizations with rapidly changing technology. Charles Perrow concluded that me key question concerning an organization’s technology is whether it is routine or non-routine. In his view, a highly formalized centralized structure is appropriate for an organization that uses the same routine technology while a more flexible structure is necessary for an organization that often uses new technology. ' An orgn that uses continuous process, non-routine or intensive technology needs to ensure that its structure can adapt to changes in the technologies. Technology can affect all aspects of an organization, not just production and the same technological change can have very different effects on different orgns.
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Environment: The environment also influences the type of design an organization is likely to adopt. The environment of an organization consists of all the factors and conditions outside the organization that might affect it. which include customers, shareholders competitors, legislatures and regulatory agencies, economic factors, which include interest rates, unemployment rate, finance, objects, which include buildings, machines and events, which include as elections, war, floods etc. If the managers are good at analyzing and predicting changes in the environment, then, they can help the organization to take advantage of any change. Since the environment affects orgn both directly and indirectly, therefore, the managers must keep an eye on it and be ready to modify orgn's design to respond to environmental changes. Organizational Size and Life Cycle: Organization size refers to how large the organization is, usually, in terms of the number of its full-time employees. Life cycle refers to organization's maturity relative to that of other organizations.
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Size can affect org design in many different ways. A group of researchers in England found that large org tend to have more job specialization, more standard operating procedures, more rules and regulations, and more
decentralization than small organizations. Thus, as orgns grow in size, they should be prepared to adapt their design accordingly. An orgn's life cycle is related to its size. Organizations tend to follow a predictable pattern of growth. After they are created, they grow for some period of time and then eventually stabilize as a mature orgn. To summarize, an organization design needed by a small but rapidly growing business is different from an organization design needed by an established and entrenched industry giant growing at a stable and predictable rate. An organization's life cycle and growth rates are directly linked to the strategy that the organization is pursuing. The following figure 17.1 shows the organization cycle.
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The Matrix Organization: A matrix organization is created by overlaying product-based departmentalization on lo a functional structure. A matrix design is seldom used for an entire organization and is often used for a portion of it. Figure 17.3 shows the matrix organization.
A matrix design allows an organization to capitalize on the advantages of both functional and product departmentalization. It has also some drawbacks such as an organization lacks a clear chain of command thereby 'resulting into confusion about which manager lies authority over a given employee. The organization also has to devote more resources to coordination because of high levels of interdependence that result from a matrix. ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE CONCEPT :::: organizational culture is the set of values that states what an organization stands for, how it operates and what it considers important. According to Deal and Kennedy, a strong culture is. "a system of informal rules that spells out how people have to behave most of the time". Schein defines organizational culture as the pattern of basic assumptions that a given group has invented, discovered and developed while learning to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration. All the above definitions stress acceptable and unacceptable behavior of its members. For instance, one organization might value solidarity and loyalty to organization more than any other value whereas another organization might stress on good relations with customers. Such values are part of organizational culture in spite of not being formally written like rules and regulations of the organization. They do not usually appear in the organizational training Program and in fact, many organizations have difficulty in expressing their cultural values. However, an organization's values automatically enter every employee's personal values and actions over a period of time. Organizational culture has a profound influence on individual employees because it is generally an accepted set of values rather than a written set of rules with which employees might not argue.
Importance of Culture Culture plays a very significant role in any organization by communicating information about the overall acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Culture communicates whether the organization expects its managers to be aggressive or conservative in decisions-making, generous or moderate in supporting social causes and ruthless or kind in competitive dealings. Some orgns have clear, strong and well-defined culture whereas: others have ambiguous, weak and poorly defined cultures. Most managers agree that a strong and clear culture is preferable to weak and vague culture because it helps to provide a common frame of reference for managerial decision-making and a wide variety of other organizational activities. An orgnal culture generally lakes shape over time and is often deeply influenced by the values of the orgnal founders. As organizational culture evolves, various symbols, stories, heroes, slogans and ceremonies also come into being. These, then, serve to maintain and perpetuate the culture through subsequent generations of employees. Changing Organizational Culture Change is most often needed when the organization has lost its effectiveness and is struggling to either" carry out or change its strategic goals. The manager trying to change an organizational culture faces lots of difficulties. Because organizational culture embody the organizational values, which are embedded in organization's soul that stays stable irrespective of the changes in leadership and environment. It is, however, possible to change organizational culture, to improve the organization performance. For this managers must change employee's ideas about what is and what is not appropriate behavior. They must create new role model and new stories to help employees understand the meaning of what is happening around them. One way to brine about such changes is to manage the symbols that are important to the organization. An organization's suggestion box is a symbol of an organization's openness to the ideas of the employees. Some organizations try to emphasize the importance of employees’ ideas by rewarding them for their suggestions. However, if the suggestion box remains just a symbol and organization never translates the suggestions into actions, the box will have little effect on organization morale. Once successfully made, changes in the organizational culture will be as stable as the old culture was. However, any organization willing to change its culture must realize that such a change is never easy and cannot be brought about simply by ordering employees. MANAGEMENT OF CHANGE Change simply refers to alteration in the existing conditions of an organization. Even in most stable organizations change is necessary to maintain stability. The economic and social environment is so dynamic that without adapting to such change even the most successful organizations cannot survive in the changed environment. Therefore, management must continuously monitor the outside environment and be sufficiently innovative and creative to implement these changes effectively. Orgns encounter different forces for change. These forces come from external and internal sources of the organization. EXTERNAL FORCES External forces for change originate outside an organization. There are four key external forces for change: Demographic Characteristics: These include age, education, skill level and gender of employees. Organizations need to effectively manage these characteristics in order to receive maximum contribution and commitment from their employees. Technological Advancements: Both manufacturing and service organizations are increasingly using technology as a means to improve productivity and market competitiveness. Market Changes: The emergence of a global economy is forcing Indian organizations to change the way they do business. Organizations are entering into new partnerships with their suppliers in order to deliver higher quality products at lower prices. Social and Political Pressures: These forces are created by social and political events. Personal values affect employees’ needs, priorities and motivation. Therefore, managers need to adjust their managerial style according to the changing employee values. Political events also create substantial change in an organization. Although it is difficult for organizations to predict changes in political forces, many organizations hire lobbyists and consultants to help them detect and respond to social and political changes.
INTERNAL FORCES Internal forces for change come from inside the organization. This may come from both human resource problems and managerial behavior. Human Resource Problems These problems stem from employee perceptions about their work environment and conflict between an employee and organization needs. Organizations might respond to these problems by using the various approaches to job design by implementing realistic job previews and by reducing employees' role conflict, stress, work overload and ambiguity. Managerial Behavior Excessive interpersonal conflict between managers and their subordinates is a sign of implementing an immediate change. Inappropriate leader behavior such as inadequate direction and support are the cause of conflict between managers and their subordinates. Nature of Change Organizations introduce changes through people. Unless the people arc willing to accept the need and responsibility for organizational change, intended changes can never be translated into reality. In addition, individuals have to learn to adapt their attitudes and behavioral patterns to constantly changing environments. Mgt of change involves both individual and organizational change. Individual change is behavioral change, which is determined by individual characteristics of members such as their knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, needs, expectations and skills. It is possible to bring about a total change m_ an organization by changing behaviors of individual members through participative and. educative strategies. Although, the degree of difficulty involved in the change and the time taken to bring about the change will depend on the target of change. The attitudes towards change are largely dependent on the nature of the situation and the manner in .which changes are initiated and executed. Changing individual behavior is more time consuming and a difficult task. The linkage between attitude and behavior is not direct and therefore changing behavior is more difficult than changing attitudes. One's attitude does not necessarily get reflected in one's behavior. For example, we know that honesty is the best policy and we have favorable altitudes towards people- who are honest but in certain situations, we may still act in a less honest way. Changing group behavior is usually a more prolonged and harder task. Every group has its own dynamics of push and pull that attempt to neutralize the change that may have taken place in an individual. Due to this group dynamics, individual member's ‘changed behavior’ may revert to earlier normative behavior in order to maintain the change in the existing conditions. However, due to the same reasons of a group's over-riding influence on individual members, sometimes it may be easier to tackle the group as a whole rather than trying to change the behavior of members one by one. Bringing total behavioral change in all the groups and members of an orgn involves difficult long-range effort. More often than not, it is a slow painful process to usher a total cultural change in an orgn. It is possible to change total organization without focusing at the level of individual's change of knowledge, attitude and behavior. Modification in the organization's structures, policies, procedures and techniques leads to total organizational change. These types of changes alter prescribed relationships and roles assigned to members and eventually modify the individual members’ behavior and attitudes. As these two kinds of changes are interdependent, the complexity of managing change increases manifold. APPROACHES TO ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE As organizational change is a complex process, therefore managers must approach it systematically and logically. Some organizational changes are planned whereas other changes are reactive. Planned change is designed and implemented by an organization in an orderly and timely fashion in the anticipation of future change. Reactive change results from a reaction of an organization to unexpected events. In contrast to planned change, it is a piece-meal response to circumstances as they develop. External forces that the organization has failed to anticipate or interpret always bring about reactive change. Since reactive change may have to be carried out hastily, it increases the likelihood of a poorly conceived and poorly executed Program.
Planned change is always preferable to reactive change. Managers who sit back and respond to change only when they can no longer avoid it are likely to waste a lot of time and money trying to patch together a last-minute solution. The more effective approach is to anticipate the significant forces for change working in an orgn and plan ways to address them. To accomplish this, managers must understand the steps needed for effective change. A COMPREHENSIVE MODEL OF CHANGE The comprehensive model of change shown in the figure 20.1 shows seven steps that can lead to effective change. This model is useful for both planned and reactive change.
The seven steps of comprehensive model of change are as follows: Recognize need for change The first step in this model is recognizing need for change. For marketing managers who anticipate needed . change, recognition is likely to come much earlier, as a result of marketing forecasts indicating new market potential, expert indications about impending socio-economic change or a perceived opportunity to capitalize on a key technological breakthrough. These managers tend to ‘initiate change because they expect it to be necessary in the near future in any case’. Establish goals for change The manager must then set goals for the proposed change. It is important for the manager to specify goals that the change is supposed to accomplish. The goals can be set to maintain or increase the market standing, to enter new markets, to restore employee morale, to reduce turnover, to settle a strike and to identify good investment opportunities. Diagnose relevant variables An important next step is diagnosing organizational variables that have brought about the need for change. Turnover, for example, may be caused by a variety of factors such as low pay, poor working conditions, poor supervision, better alternatives in the job market or employee job dissatisfaction etc. Thus, if turnover is the
recognized stimulus for change, the manager must understand what has caused it in a particular situation in order to make the right changes. To carry out this diagnosis, the manager may discuss the situation with employees and other managers. Select change intervention After the manager has developed an understanding of the problem and its causes then he must select a change intervention that will accomplish the intended goal. An intervention is a specific change induced in an organization with the intention of solving a particular problem or accomplishing a specific objective. For example, if turnover is caused by low pay, then a new reward system is required and if the cause is poor supervision then interpersonal skills and training for supervisors is required. Plan implementation of change The manager must then carefully plan the implementation of change. Planning the implementation of change involves consideration of the cost of the change, how the change will affect other areas of the organization and the degree to which employees should participate in bringing about the change. Hastily implemented change can result in more harm than benefit. For example, if the change involves the use of new equipment, the manager should not make any changes that rely on the use of new equipment until it has arrived and been installed and workers know how to use it. Moreover, if change is thrust upon them too quickly, their resistance may stiffen. Implement change A systematically implemented change is more likely to proceed smoothly and to encounter fewer obstacles than is a change that is implemented too quickly and without adequate preparation. Evaluate implementation Finally, after the change has been implemented, the manager should verify that it has accomplished its intended goals. A change may fail to bring about the intended results. This may be due to inappropriate goals or inaccurate diagnosis of the situation or wrong selection of intervention. MODELS AND DYNAMICS OF PLANNED CHANGE Managers are criticized for emphasizing short-term, quick fix solutions to organizational problems. Quick-fix solutions do not really solve underlying problems and they have little staying power. Researchers and managers have thus tried to identify effective ways to manage the change process. The following models have been developed to effectively manage change: Lewin's Change Model Most theories of organizational change originated from the landmark work of social psychologist Kurt Lewin. Lewin developed a three-stage model of planned change, which explained how to initiate, manage and stabilize the change process. The three stages are unfreezing, changing and refreezing. Before reviewing each stage, it is important to highlight the assumptions on which, this model is based: 1. The change process involves learning something new, as well discontinuing current attitudes, behaviors and organizational practices. 2. Change will not occur unless there is motivation to change. This is often the most difficult part of the change process. 3. People are the hub of all organizational changes. Any change, whether in terms of structure, group process, reward systems or job design requires individuals to change. 4. Resistance to change is found even when the goals of change are highly desirable. 5. Effective change requires reinforcing new behaviors, attitudes and organizational practices. The following are the three stages of change: Unfreezing The focus of this stage is to make organization open to change. In doing so individuals are encouraged to replace old behaviors and attitudes with those desired by management. Managers also need to devise ways to reduce the barriers to change during this stage. Changing The focus of this stage is in providing employees with new information, new behavioral models, or new ways of looking at things. The purpose is to help employees learn new concepts to implement change. Role models, mentors, experts, benchmarking organization against world-class organizations and training are useful mechanisms to facilitate change.
Re freezing The focus of this stage is stabilizing the change during refreezing by helping employees integrate the changed behavior or attitude into their normal way of doing things. This is accomplished by first giving employees the chance to exhibit the new behaviors or attitudes. Once exhibited, positive reinforcement is used to reinforce the desired change. Additional coaching and modelling are also used at this point to reinforce the stability of the change. ORGANIZATIONAL SOURCES OF RESISTANCE According to Daniel Kantz and Robert L Khan, this can be divided into following six general groups. • • • • • • Over determination or structural inertia refers to the tendency of an organization's rules, policies and structure to maintain the existing conditions and therefore resist change even when change would benefit the organization more than stability. When an organization tries to change one of its division or part of the division without recognizing the interdependence of the division with other divisions of the organization, then it is said to have a narrow focus of change. Often a part of division cannot be changed without changing the whole division. Group inertia may weaken an individual’s attempt to bring about change. Resistance may also take the form of threatened expertise if the change lends to weaken special expertise built after years of experience. Organizational restructuring that involves reducing the number of job categories often meets this kind of resistance. Any change that may alter the power relationships within an organization may meet the form of resistance known as ‘threatened power’. Resistance may occur when a change threatens quantum of resource allocation from one part of the organization to another.
Individual Sources of Resistance : According to researchers, individuals have the following reasons for resisting change: • Simple habits create a lot of resistance. Most people prefer to do their work the way they did it last week rather than learn a new approach. • Perhaps the biggest cause of employee resistance to change is uncertainty. In the face of impending change, employees are likely to become anxious and nervous. They worry about their ability to meet new job demands therefore, leading to feeling of job insecurity. • Some people resist change to avoid feeling of loss. For example, many organizations change interventions and alter work arrangements, thus disrupting existing social networks. Social relationships are important to most people, so they resist any change that might adversely affect those relationships. Change may also threaten people's feelings of familiarity and self-confidence. • People may resist change because their perceptions of underlying circumstances differ from the perceptions of those who are promoting the change. OVERCOMING RESISTANCE TO CHANGE Managers need not abandon planned change in the face of resistance. Before recommending specific approaches to overcome resistance, there are three key conclusions that should be kept in mind. First, an organization must be ready for change. Second, the top management should inform the employees about the process of change. Third, the employees perceptions or interpretations of a change should be considered. The following methods of overcoming-resistance to change are as follows: • Participation: is generally considered the most effective technique for overcoming resistance to change. Employees who take part in planning and implementing change are better able to understand the reasons for the change than those who are not involved. They become committed to the change and make it work. Employees who have the opportunity to express their own ideas and to understand the perspectives of others are likely to accept change gracefully. It is a time consuming process. • Education and Communication: Educating employees about the need for and the expected results of an impending change help reduce their resistance. Managers should maintain an open channel of communication while planning and implementing change. However, it is also a time consuming process. • Facilitation of Change: Knowing ahead of lime that employees are likely to resist change then the manager should do as much as possible to help them cope with uncertainly and feeling of loss. Introducing change gradually, making only necessary changes, announcing changes in advance and allowing time for people to adjust to new ways of doing things can help reduce resistance.
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Force-Field Analysis: In almost any situation where a change is being planned, there are forces acting for and against the change. In force-field analysis, the manager list each set of forces and then try to remove or minimize some of the forces acting against the change. Negotiation: Where someone or some group will clearly lose out in a change and where that group has considerable power to resist, there negotiation is required. Sometimes it is a relatively easy way to avoid major resistance. Manipulation and Cooperation: This is followed when other tactics will not work or are too expensive. It can be quick and inexpensive, However, it can lead to further problems if people feel manipulated. Explicit and Implicit Coercion: This is adopted where speed is essential and where the change initiators possess considerable power. It is speedy and can overcome resistance.
Each of the above methods has its advantages and disadvantages. There is no universal strategy for overcoming resistance to change. Hence, an orgn that plans to introduce certain changes must be prepared to face resistance from its employees. An orgn should also have a planned approach to overcome such resistances. ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT OD refers to a broad range of behavioral science based strategies used to diagnose the need for change in orgns and to implement changes when necessary. OD can be defined as a technique for bringing change in the entire orgn, rather man focusing attention on individuals to bring change easily in the entire orgn. Nature of OD OD is a general strategy or approach to organizational change mat is employed to analyze and diagnose the sources of organizational problems and to develop and implement action plans for their solution. According to Bennis, OD has the following characteristics; • It is an educational strategy for bringing planned change. • It relates to real problems of an organization. • Laboratory training methods based on experienced behavior are primarily used to bring change. • Change agent applying OD technique for change is external to the forms of consultants. • There is a close working relationship between change agents and the people who are being changed. The relationships involve mutual trust, joint goals, means, and mutual influence. • The change agents share social philosophy about human value. They are humanists seeking to get a humanistic philosophy in organization. OD Interventions : It refer to various activities which consultant and client organization perform for improving organizational functioning by enabling organization members to better manage their team and organization cultures. French and Well have defined OD interventions as "sets of structured activities in which selected organizational units (target groups or individuals) engage with a task or a sequence of tasks where the task goals are related directly or indirectly to organizational improvement. Interventions constitute the action thrust of organization development; they make things happen and are what is happening.” Intervention Techniques Sensitivity Training: Is a small-group interaction under stress in an unstructured encounter group, which requires people to become sensitive to one another's feelings in order to develop reasonable group activity. In sensitivity training, the actual technique employed is T-group. T-group has several characteristic features: • The T-group is generally small, from ten to twenty members • The group begins its activity with no formal agenda • The primary role of trainer is to call attention of members from time to time lo the ongoing process within the group • The procedure lends to develop introspection and self-examination, with emotional levels of involvement and behavior. The objectives of such training are increased openness with others, more concern for others, increased tolerance for individual differences, less ethnic prejudice, understanding of a group process, enhanced listening skills and increased trust and support.
Process Consultation: Process Consultation (P-C) represents a method of intervening in an ongoing system. The basic content of P-C is that the consultant works with individuals and groups to help them learn about human and social processes and learn to solve problems that stem from process events. P-C consists of many interventions and activities which affect the various organizational processes such as. communication, roles and functions of group members, group problem-solving and decision-making, group norms, authority and leadership and inter-group cooperation and conflicts. Team Development: The underlying aim of team development is to increase trust among team members because people work better together when there is open and honest sharing about the problems and difficulties that they have with one another. As such, at the initial level, the attempt should be to develop such an environment where such trust can be developed among the team members.
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