LESSON NO.

1
ORGANISATION BEHAVIOUR
INTRODUCTION

Org. Behaviour (in short called as OB) is concerned with the study of the behaviour and
interaction of people in restricted or organised settings. It involves understanding people and
predicting their behaviour, and knowledge of the means by which their behaviour is influenced
and shaped.

Organisations are bodies or entities created for a statedpurpos e They may consist of one or more
people. In the case of a sole trader or single operator, he needs to build relationships with
suppliers, contractors, customers, clients, and the community. For those that consist of more than
one person, internal as well as external relationships have to be created and maintained.
Organisations therefore consist of individuals, groups, and relationships. Objectives, structures,
systems and processes are then created to give direction and order to activities and interactions.
OB is thus of great concern to anyone who organises, creates, orders, directs, manages, or
supervises the activities of others. It is also of concern to those who build relationships between
individuals, groups of people, different parts of organisation between different organisation, for
all these activities are founded on human interactions.

OB is therefore concerned with:-

1. The purposes for which organisations are created
2. The behaviour of individuals, and an understanding of the pressures and influences that cause
them to act and react in particular ways.
3. The qualities that individuals bring to particular situations.
4. The creation of groups i.e., collections of people brought together for given purposes.
5. The background and context within which activities take place.
6. The relationships and interactions with the wider environment with other organisations and
groups.
7. The management and ordering of the whole and its parts into productive and effective work
relationships.

GOALS OF O.B.
There are 4 primary goals of OB, which are as under:-
1. Describe
2. Understand
3. Predict, AND Behaviour.

4. Control
ELEMENTS OF O.B.

There are 4 key elements of ob, which are as under: -

1. The People
2. The structure
3. The Environment
4. The Technology

MEANING OF OB

1. It is the study and application of knowledge about how people act within organisations. IT IS
A HUMAN
TOOL FOR HUMAN BENEFIT AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT.
2. It is directly concerned with the understanding, predicting, and controlling of human
behaviour.
3. It represents the behavioural approach to management - not the whole of management.
4. It is not to be equated with the industrial psychology. For E.g., organisational structure and
management
processes, say, decision making play a direct role in OB, but they are indirectly discussed in
industrial
psychology.

5. It is directly concerned with the conceptual and human side of management, but not with the

technical side.

DETAILED STUDY OF THE 4 KEY ELEMENTS OF OB

1. PEOPLE

An Organisation is a well-knit social system. People work in organisations. They constitute

individuals and groups. Even in groups, there could be formal as well as informal classifications.
People join organisations to achieve their objectives. They are the LIVING, THINKING, and
FEELING beings. Although people have a few things in common, each person is individualised,
just as their palmprints. Heredity, endowment, social institutions contribute their share toward
make up of individuals. Every manager's approach to employee should be INDIVIDUAL, and
NOT STATISTICAL, therefore.

We must employ a whole person, and not his "hands" or "brain" only. Home life cannot be
separated from worklife. PEOPLE FUNCTION AS TOTAL HUMAN BEINGS. The objective
of OB is to develop a BETTER EMPLOYEE, A BETTER CITIZEN, AND A BETTER MAN.
The value of person asserts that people are to be treated differently from other factors. Of
production. People should be treated with respect and dignity. The concept of human dignity
rejects the old idea of employees as so many "hands" or economic tools. Organisations cannot
ignore human values.

2. ORGANISATION STRUCTURE
We have learnt that organisations are basically social systems, and come into being on the basis
of mutual interests. From sociology, we learn that all activities are governed by social and
psychological laws. Just as people have psychological needs, they have also social roles and
status. In organisations we find two types of social systems, namely, the formal, and the
informal, both of which coexist. It means that an organization's environment is dynamic, and not
static. All parts are interdependent and each part is influenced by other parts. People need
organisations, and organisations need people, is to state the obvious. If there is no sense of
mutuality, there is no reason why at all organisations cannot attain their objectives without the
people element therein, and so is true in reverse.

3. TECHNOLOGY

Technology helps people work with machines, tools, and the like. Thus, they are able to produce
more of goods and services, and offer them to the society. It helps people to do better work, but
technology element has both cost and benefit implications.

4. ENVIRONMENT
All organisations operate within an external environment. An organisation is a larger part of a
social system. The
external environment influences the Attitudes of people, affect work conditions, and provide
resources
OB IS A BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE

1. Bchavoiural science is considered to be a new science of an ancient subject.

2. Beh, Sc. Is the study of human behaviour.
3. The primary difference between beh.sc, and other social sciences lies in its methodology,
4. A beh.sc. depends upon rigorous scientific methodology in the collection of empirical data on
human

behaviour. The other social sciences use indirect documentary practice in building their body of
knowledge,
5. Why man behaves the way he does is a very complex process. The problem is so great that
many people argue
that there can be no precise science of behaviour. Human beings cannot be effectively controlled

CONTRIBUTING DISCIPLINES TO O.B.

OB is applied beh.sc. and is built upon contributions from a number of behavioural disciplines.
They are- Psychology, Sociology, Social psychology. Anthropology, and Political science.
Contributions of psychology operate at MICRO levels, while other contributions operate at the
MACRO level.

1. PSYCHOLOGY
Individual or general psychology has been defined in many ways- It is called the science of soul,
the science of mind, the science of behaviour. All said and done, J.B.WATSON has defined
psychology as the positive science of human behaviour. Behaviour is not mechanical. There is a
mind behind it and the behaviour is the expression of the working of the mind. WOODWORTH
has put it aptly - Psychology lost its soul first. Then it lost its mind, then it lost its consciousness,
and now lives with behaviour. Psychology seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes the
behaviour of men. Psychology attempts to study individual behaviour. Psychologists concern
themselves with perception, learning, personality, training, job satisfaction, leadership and
motivation.

2. SOCIOLOGY
Sociologists have contributed to the areas of group dynamics, organisation theory and structure,
bureaucracy,
power and conflict. Sociology focuses attention on people in relation to fellow human beings.

3. SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

This deals with interpersonal behaviour. In a broad sense, we can say that social behaviour
involves one of the three basic reactions. When an individual meets another individual, there is
social interaction. Bach individual affects the other individual with whom he comes into contact
and is in turn affected by them. Secondly, the individual may be interacting with a group- Then
also, behaviour gets affected. Finally, interaction of one group with the other groups. Social
psychology attempts to study the characteristics of all these various social behaviour. One major
area arresting the attention of social psychologists is CHANGE MANAGEMENT, and
particularly how to implement change forcefully without pain.

4. ANTHROPOLOGY

Anthropology is the science of man. Anthropologists study society, particularly the primitive
ones to learn about human beings and their activities. How we behave is a function of culture-
Our individual values system will affect our attitudes and behaviour on the jib . Thus ,
anthropology teaches how our culture affects organizational behaviour .

REMEMBER

O.B. IS NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH MANAGEMENT. OB IS CONCERNED WITH HOW PEOPLE INDIVIDUALLY AND IN-GROUPS ACT IN
ORGANISATIONS. MANAGEMENT IS CONCERNED WITH THE OPTIMUM ATTAINMENT OF ORGANISATIONAL GOALS> SINCE THOSE GOALS

CANNOT BE ATTAINED WITHOUT HUMAN INPUT, O.B.IS AN IMPORTANT SEGMENT OF MANAGEMENT.

THE CHALLENGES FACING MANAGEMENT

There are several challenges and critical issues facing managements, for which OB offers
solutions or atleast some meaningful insights towards solution. For e.g., more and more women
are joining the workforce and loyalties of employees to the organisations have become a thing of
the past, business competition is increasing across the globe. These are the critical issues being
faced by the managers of the present era. Therefore there is a greater need to understand OB
better and more than before. Some issues are discussed in detail:-

1. WORKFORCE DIVERSITY

In today's organisations members of the workforce differ in age, gender, race, ethnicity, and
education. When workers join organisations, they come with their differing expectations,
lifestyles and cultural values, and lifestyle preferences. Therefore the challenge for organisations
is to make them, selves accommodating to diverse groups of people at work place by addressing
their different lifestyles, family needs, cultural needs, and work styles. If diversity is managed
properly it can increase creativity and innovation. On the contrary, diversity, if not managed
properly, can result in higher turnover, increased interpersonal conflict and ineffective
communications.

CHANGING DEMOGRAPHIES OF WORKFORCE

Increasing number of womenfolk joining the workforce in industries, more and more of young
workers, increased life expectancy ( resulting in some cases the older workforce still continuing
serving industries), increasing tendency of husband and wife working in same organisations, and
in some cases in different organisations are all changing the demographics of workforce. Such
workforce requires to be handled with circumspection.

CHANGING EMPLOYEE EXPECTATION

Besides the changes in demographics of the workforce, employee expectations and aspirations
have changed from traditional allurement such as job security, good and attractive remuneration,
housing facility, empowerment. Quality of work life etc. Employees expect quality with
management. They will emphasis managing and leading by examples.

EXPANDING GLOBALISATION

Business has crossed the boundaries, and in fact, today it is popularly known as multi national
business. This has made managing men more complex. Globlisation of business process atleast
two challenges, namely, fist, Managers are frequently transferred to other countries different
from their own home country, where they come across several cultural differences among the
workforce who have to managed to care and caution., and Second, even in their own country,
managers have to work with superiors, subordinates, and peers, and who were born and brought
up in a different culture.

MOVING TOWARDS TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT

The Challenge before Managers here is, to have to Human Resources Deliver Quality Products
and services to the customers and clients
MODELS OF O.B: -
Models are frameworks or possible explanations why do people behave as they do at work.
There are so many models as organisations are very many. Varying results across the
organisations are substantially caused by differences in the models of O.B. Generally, O.B.
Models can be divided into 4 categories, namely, 1) The autocratic model, 2) The custodial, 3)
The supportive and 4) The collegial. The following Table shows the differences among the
Models: -

Custodial
Supportive
Collegial
Basis of Model
Power
Economic Resources Leadership
Partnership
Managerial
Orientation
Authority
Money
Support
Team Work
Employee
Orientation
Obedience
Security and Benefits Job Performance
Responsible Behaviour

Employee
Psychological
Result

Dependence on
Box
Dependence on
Organisation
Participation
Self discipline
Employee needs
met
Subsistence
Security
Status and recognition Self Actualisation
Performance
Result
Minimum
Passive Cooperation
Awakened drives
Moderate Enthusiasm

N.B For managing people, every organisation follows an organisational Behaviour system or
framework, commonly called "model of OB". Four models of OB are the automatic, custodial,
suppority, and collegial. Under autocratic model, managers use their power and authority, where
as employee become dependent on organisations in case of custodial model. Suppority model
supports employee and collegial model inculcates teamwork feeling among employees in the
organisation.

EVOLUTION OF O.B.
Although the interest in the welfare of workers is age old, the origin and development of O.B. is
traced back to
the beginning of the 19th Century.

The industrial revolution benefited workers in more than one way. It increased wages on the one
hand, and decreased the working hours, on the other. At the same time, two scientists –
ROBERT OWEN and ANDREW URE, pleaded for facilities to be given to the workers.
F.W.TAYLOR, inaugurated and revived interest in human resources at work. He advocated for
increase in production by rationalising it.

The significant events like the labour movement, and the great contributions made by the
Hawthorne Studies and Experiments gave a genesis to human relations movement The continued
developments in human relation's approach by 1950s gave birth to O.B.

LESSON NO. 2
FOUNDATIONS OF INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOUR
INTRODUCTION

All organisations are composed of individuals. No Organisation exists without individuals. The
organisational performance is largely affected by the way individuals behave at work. That
individuals with different characteristics behave differently in the similar and different situations
underlines the need for managers to understand individuals \human behavior at work., so as to
extract the best and maximum contribution from them.

THE INDIVIDUAL AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

'

Individuals differ from each other owing to their varying characteristics that form an individual's
individuality. This is the reason why each individual is considered an island in himself. All
individuals are different. This fact is supported by science. Each one is different from all others
just as each of their fingerprints is different. As regards individual differences at work, the
important ones are outlined below:-

1. Depending on different psychological make-ups, people differ in attaching importance to

rewards vis - a - vis
kinds of jobs. For e.g., while some people prefer to assume challenging jobs for expressing their
abilities;
others may prefer jobs offering job security.
2. People also differ in the type of compensation plan they want Some may prefer to have
compensation under
time wage system, while others may like piece wage system as their compensation plan.
3. People differ in the style of leadership they want to work under. While some may like to work
under
autocratic leadership style, others may prefer to work under democratic leadership or even
laissez-faire
leadership.
4. People also differ in their stamina to bear with job stress. While some prefer to flight, a few
may like to work
under extreme stress.
5. People may also differ in their expression to their grievances. Some may be extroverts, while
others may turn
out to be introverts.
6. Last, but not the least, people differ in personal characteristics like sex, age, race, education.
Perception, and
personality.
7. The individual differences cause differences in individual behavior
HUMAN BEHAVIOUR AND ITS CAUSATION

First, let us understand what the term "behaviour" means. It can be understood as a response to
certain stimuli, which is observable directly or indirectly. Behaviour is observed directly by
studying the responses of people at their work environment. Indirect observation refers to how
people describe decision making process and attitudes verbally.

The human behaviour is caused by certain reasons. Behaviour is the result of interaction between
individual characteristics and the characteristics of the environment in which the behaviour
occurs. In other words, behaviour is a function of both the person and the environment

As stated earlier, each person with a unique combination of characteristics is different from all
others. Some of these characteristics are inherited from birth, and quite a few things are learnt
over a period of time. Personal characteristics remain inside the person whereas environmental
ones outside the person these personal and environmental characteristics serve as the foundations
of individual human behaviour.
Now, let us understand how me characteristics of the person and the environment affect
behaviour at work
PERSONAL BIOGRAPHICAL FACTORS

These include sex age, education, abilities, both mental and physical, and psychological factors
Environmental factors include economic factors, political factors, cultural values, and
organisational factors like physical facilities, organisational structure and design, leadership
styles and reward system,

CAUSATION OF HUMAN BEHAVIOUR

The best way to understand human behaviour is to explain it through the system concept, A
system consists of four (4) definite elements, namely, the input, the thruput, the output, and the
feedback, Whatever enters in the system from the environment in the form of information serves
as raw materials or input. The thruput is the evaluation or transformation of input received.
Finally, employee's overt behaviour based on the thruput is the output. Feedback serves the
system with alternatives for changes in the sequence or time period of the systems operations.
Even a change in one small factor can bring about relatively large changes in behaviour.

MODELS OF MAN

A study of human behaviour is both rewarding and necessary to managers and managements all
over the world. It is doubtful whether the management can perform its functions successfully
without having understanding why people behave as they do. The fact remains that individual
differences among people cause differences in their behaviour. Based on individual differences
among people, individuals are classified into certain models or types. The following are the
important models of man observed in the organisations: -

1. Rational Economic Man

2. Self-Actualising Man
3. Complex Man
4. Social Man
5. Organisation Man.

RATIONAL ECONOMIC MAN

This is the oldest model of man. The basic doctrine of this model is that man strives for earning
more money in a rational manner. Thus- this model assumes that man can be motivated to
produce more by providing more economic incentives as is done in case of piece rate system of
reward. But, it is important to mention that man works following the marginal utility theory.
Similarly, the organisation also continues to give employees incentives till it is receiving
matching contribution from them. Beyond that, organisation will not do so, because it will incur
losses.
SELF ACTUALISING MAN

This model is based on the assumption that man is self-motivated and controlled. These
assumptions are mostly based on D.McGREGOR's Theory economic incentives have their
limitations in inducing man to work more. Man works more to satisfy his needs in a hierarchical
order as per ABRAHAM MASLOW's Theory. So to say. man is induced 10 make efforts to
reach where he can. Then, the sense of achievement gives him satisfaction.

COMPLEX MAN

The models discussed so far are based on relatively simplistic assumptions of man and his
behaviour. These assumptions say that man behaves according to certain pattern. But, it does not
hold true in reality for e.g., MASLOW’s Need Hierarchy Theory cannot be uniform or all
individuals, but there can be overlapping in needs. As stated earlier. Behaviour of individuals is
caused and individual differences make it unpredictable. Given the

two persons having the same needs, still they may behave differently because the variable that
determine human behaviour are themselves unpredictable. Thus, human being is quite complex
and so is his behaviour. Therefore, managers need to take clues for their managerial actions
realising that no single action can be utilized successfully in all situations, but depending upon
complexities of variables affecting human behaviour.

SOCIAL MAN

This concept is based on the assumption that man being a part of society is influenced and
motivated by social variables, according to this model, man is induced more by his desire to
maintain his social relationships and tips than economic motives. Added to this man's more
responsiveness to his •group pressure and sanction- In fact, the human relation's approach to
management beginning from the famous HAWTHORNE STUDIES is also based on the concept
of social man. Therefore, while dealing with individuals in organisations, managers need to be
concerned mainly with people's feelings about their Belongingness to their groups and society.

ORGANBATION MAN

This concept is attributed to WHYTE. In fact, the organisation man is a extension of social man.
Organisation man assumes that man attaches high importance to the loyalty to his organisation
and cordial relationship with his coworkers. Thus, this concept sacrifices individuality for the
sake of organisation. The reason being organisation itself takes care of individual interest. Its
implication for management is that management should design its various functions suitable to
satisfy the organisational needs.
 LESSON NO. 3
PERCEPTION
NOTABLE POINTS
1. Perception is a cognitive process of seeing, receiving, selecting, organising, interpreting and
giving meaning
to the environment around us.
2.Sensat i on differs from perception.

3. Sensation and perception are not one and the same. In a simple language, sensation may be
described as the response of a physical sensory organ to a stimulus. Our physical senses i.e.,
vision, hearing touch, smell, and taste are continuously bombarded by numerous stimuli that are
both inside and outside of our body. The reactions of our eye to colour ear to sound nose to
odour, and so on are examples of our every day sensation. Sensation activates the functioning of
the physical sensory organ itself. Therefore, one can say that sensation precedes perception, m
this way, sensation serves as a raw input to be processed so as to make sense out of them to
perceive the environment or stimuli around us.

4. Perception is much more than sensation. Perception depends upon the sensory raw data, yet it
involves the
cognitive process that includes filtering, modifying or even changing these sensation raw data to
make sense
out of them. In other words, the perceptual process adds to or and subtracts from the sensory
world,
THE PERCEPTUAL PROCESS
It consists of the following stages:-
1. RECEIVING STIMULI

The perception process begins with the reception of stimuli, which will be received from
various sources. Through the sensory organs, we see things, hear sound, nose smells, tongue
tastes, and touch things. In this way, the reception of stimuli is a physiological aspect of the
perception process. Stimuli may be external to us such as sound waves or inside of us such as
energy generation by muscles.

2. SELECTION OF STIMULI

People arc bombarded by a number of stimuli everyday. They cannot absorb or assimilate what
they observe or receive them from the environment all at a time. Hence, they select some stimuli
for further processing to attach meaning to them while the rest are screened. Selection of stimuli
is not made at random, but depending on the two types of factors, namely, external factors, and
the internal factors. Normally, people selectively perceive objects or things, which interest them
most in a particular situation and avoid those for which they are ineffective. This is also called as
the SELECTIVE PERCEPTION.

3. ORGANISATION OF STIMULI

Having selected the stimuli or data, these need to be organised in some form so as to assign
some meaning to them. Thus, organising the bits of information in to a meaningful whole is
called "ORGANISATION". There are three ways by which the selected data i.e., inputs are
organised. They are 1) Grouping, 2)Closure, and 3) Simplification. Grouping is based on
similarity principal. For e.g.. All the workers having similarity in certain aspects may be
perceived to have similar opinion about their supervisor or boss. The tendency to form a
complete meaning from an incomplete one is known as closure.As regards simplification, when
people find themselves overloaded with information they try to simplify it to make it more
meaningful and

4. INTERPRETATION

The data collected and organised remain meaningless for the perceiver till these are assigned
meanings. Assigning meanings to data is called interpretation. Thus, interpretation of data forms
one of the most important elements in the entire perceptual process. Strictly speaking, data
collected and organised do not make any sense without interpretation. Several factors influence
interpretation. The most important ones are halo effect, attribution, stereotyping, personality,
situation, person perceived etc.

FACTORS AFFECTING PERCEPTION

Factors that influence perception relate to the perceiver, perceived, and situation. All these
factors are of two kinds -1) Internal or endogenous factors, and 2) External or Exogenous factors.
These are discussed in some detail below.

1. INTERNAL FACTORS
These factors reside in the person concerned. They include a person's needs, desires, personality,
and experience.
2. EXTERNAL FACTORS
These factors relate to what is being perceived and the situation. These are size, intensity,
frequency, and status
etc.,
IMPROVING PERCEPTION
Perception can be improved b y making various attempts. Following are the important ones that
can help
improve one's perception.
1. PERCEIVING ONESELF ACCURATELY

That is to say, one should improve to know more about oneself. Frequent interactions with peers,
colleagues, free, frank and open communication with others and mutual trust are some
commonly adopted practices for perceiving more accurately.

2. IMPROVING ONE'S SELF CONCEPT

When people successfully accomplish what they want, it develops a sense of self-esteem. It also
indicates that
correct perception about on self helps perceive others also more accurately.
3. HAVING POSITIVE ATTITUDE
Positive attitude makes one's perception positive or more accurate. Hence, the managers need to
overcome
their personal bias, get rid of any negative feelings about others.
4. BE EMPATHET1C

Empathy means to be able to see a situation as it is perceived by other people. In a way, it is like
putting your feet in another's shoes. Looking at a problem from other's point of view enables the
person to perceive the other side of the problem.

5. AVOIDINGPERCEPTUAL DISTORTION
Some factors like the halo effect, stereotyping, attribution etc distort a person's perception about
things or
problems. Therefore, sincere and continuous efforts should be made to guard oneself against
such biases.
6. COMMUNICATING OPENLY

Experience suggests that sometimes perception gets distorted due to communication gap and
inadequate communication. In such case, effective communication needs to be developed to
ensure that the true and right message reaches the right place at the right time. This will enable to
know the problem in a better perspective, which in turn will improve a person's perception about
the problem.

PERCEPTION AND ITS APPLICATION IN ORGANISATIONS

The perception, in many cases, has important effect on organisations. A few of these are obvious,
and the same
is discussed below: -
1. EMPLOYMENT INTERVIEW

Different interviewers try to see different things in the same candidate differently, and thus
arrive at different perceptions. Who one thinks is a good candidate, the candidate can be seen
perceived by another interviewer as no good for the job. Interviewers form early Impressions
about the candidate, which ultimately weighs more in the selection. Therefore, interviewers must
be given adequate training in the skills of interviewing.

2. PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

Assessment of an employee's performance very much depends on the perception of the evaluator
about the employee, m practice, superior officers and executives closely tie an employee's future
to his performance and its appraisal. Promotions pay rises, and continuation of job is the most
obvious and common outcome of the employee's performance. Performance Appraisal is both
objective and subjective. It becomes objective when performance can be sufficiently quantified.
For e.g., a salesman's performance can be assessed based S on how many rupees of sales he
generated in his territory during a given period of time. However, many employees jobs are
evaluated subjectively. Therefore, these become judgmental. Judgement will become susceptible
to distortion. It might affect the performance appraisal process.

3. PERFORMANCE EXPECTATION

New employees during their selection process acquire a set of expectations booth about the
organisation and about the job. In case there is a big gap between the expectations and realities,
there will be problems of increased alienation of employee, absenteeism, and even turnover.

4. EMPLOYEE EFFORT

Sin many organisations, the level of an employee's performance is given high importance.
Hence, an employee's future in an organisation depends upon his effort made for achieving the
organisational goals. However, assessment of an individual's performance is subjective
judgement and thus, susceptible to perceptual distortions and bias also.

5. EMPLOYEE LOYALTY

While assessing employees the managers also make another important decision whether the
employee are loyal to the organization. Like effort, assessment of loyalty is also a subjective
judgement susceptible to perceptual distortions and bias. As an example an employee looking for
greener pastures outside the organisation may be labeled as disloyal to the organisation. As a
resultant behaviour, the organisation may cut his future advancement opportunities.

DISTORTION IN PERCEPTION
(Students are required to go through the notes in the APPENDIX)
APPENDIX
Perception is the process that individual use to require and make sense out of information from
the
environment. The process is complex and involves three main stages. The first stage is selecting
the filtering of stimuli that encounter so that only certain information receives our attention. For
example, suppose that a manager taking over a new unit has heard a rumor that a particular
individual in the unit has a short temper. If the manager is not careful, this piece of information
may cause the manager to pay particular attention to situations in which the person is impatient
or angry.

The second stage of title perceptual process is organizing, the patterning of information from the
selection stage.

Slowly pronounce each of the following (bur words:2)

M-A-C-T-A-V-I-S-H

M-A-C-D-O-N-A-L-D

M-A-C-B-E-T-H

M-A-C-H-I-N-E-R-Y

Like many people, you may have pronounced the last word as "MacHinery." This happens
because the previous pattern leads us to expect another word with the same type of
pronunciation. This exercise illustrates an interesting characteristic of perception: the tendency to
organize information into the patterns that we expect to perceive. In the example of the
individual rumored to have a short temper, the manager may begin to organize the selectively
perceived behavior into a pattern of incidents in which the individual was angry.

The third stage is interpreting, attaching meaning to the information that we have selected and
organized. In our example, the manager may, over time, begin to interpret (perhaps unfairly) the
organized information as indicating that the person does, indeed, have a short temper.

The perceptions of individuals are affected by a variety of factors such as experiences, needs,
personality, culture, and education. As a result, it is very likely that individuals will differ in their
perceptions of the very same situations and messages. Several common tendencies to distort
perceptions are particularly applicable to managerial communication and interactions. These
tendencies are stereotyping, the halo effect, projection, and perceptual defense. Awareness of
these perceptual tendencies can help managers avoid the misunderstandings that such distortions
often create.

STEREOTYPING Stereotyping is the tendency to attribute characteristics to an individual on the

basis of an
assessment of the group to which the individual belongs. When a manager engages in
stereotyping, two steps occur.
First, the manager categorizes the individual as belonging to a group whose members are
perceived as sharing certain common characteristics. Second, the manager uses those perceived
common characteristics to draw conclusions about the characteristics of the individual, rather
than acquiring information about the person's characteristics more directly.

Stereotyping leads to problems when the generalizations do not apply or do not apply equally to
all members of the group or when people try to generalize about less specifically related
characteristics. In such situations, managers may communicate inappropriate expectations. For
example, at American Medical International, Inc., a publicly owned hospital company based in
Beverly Hills, California, the precedent and chief operating officer, Gene Burleson ran into
communication difficulties because of Stereotyping. Burleson was addressing a meeting of
several hundred employees when one asked why the company did not have any women directors
or top executive. Observes reported that Burleson’s response implied that women cannot deal
with the stress of the executive suite. His reply offended many members of the audience and
caused the incident to be reported in The Wall Street journal. Burleson later "admitted he gave a
lame and a stupid answer" to the question

HALO EFFECTThe halo effect is the tendency to use a general impression based on one or a
few

characteristics of an individual to judge other characteristics of that same individual. For

example, a manager may use a general impression based on one thing a worker does, such as
compiling a well-done or poorly prepared report, 10 judge the worker's ability in other areas of
work, such as handling customers. To avoid the halo effect, interviewers and managers need to
make special efforts to collect enough data to make reasonable judgments in all the specific areas
that they are trying to evaluate.

PROJECTION Projection is the tendency of an individual to assume that others share his or her
thoughts,

feelings, and characteristics. Unfortunately, projection can encourage managers to engage in one-
way communication because they assume that they know how their employees feet on various
issues. Engaging in two-way communication to learn how other individuals really do feel about
various issues can help managers avoid the ill effects of projection.

PERCEPTUAL DEFENSE Perceptual defense is the tendency to block out or distort information
that one

finds threatening or that challenges one's beliefs. As a result, managers or workers may not be
very receptive to certain types of information. This may lead to the "shoot the bearer of bad
news' syndrome, in which a person tends to "behead" the bearer of bad news even though the
bearer was not the cause of the problem. Thus some managers get angry at employees who
provide information about serious problems thai cannot be ignored, even though the manager
needs to know about them.
Attribution Processes

One aid to understanding how perceptions ultimately influence managerial communication and
interpersonal processes is attribution theory. Attribution theory attempts to explain how
individuals make judgments or attributions about the causes of another's or their own
behavior.25 Such judgments often form the basis for subsequent actions. According to the
theory, we make causal judgments that are either dispositional (attributed to internal causes, such
as personality traits or a person's own efforts) or situational (attributed to external causes, such as
equipment or luck). For example, if Jane does not complete a work assignment on time, should
we attribute it to an internal factor like lack of effort or ability, or should we decide some work
context or other external issue is to blame? To make such judgments we consider consensus (the
degree to which the behavior is similar to the way most people act in a given situation),
consistency (the degree to which an individual behaves the same way' in this or a similar
situation at other times), and distinctiveness (the degree to which an individual behaves
differently in other situations). Thus if other staff member completed the same assignment on
time, Jane has had trouble completing the same assignment on time in the past, and she has
missed deadlines on several other types of assignments, we would make a probably make a
dispositional judgement why the assignment was late. On the other hand, if others also were late
in completing the assignment, Jane normally complete such

assignments by the deadlines, we are likely to attribute the difficulty to situational factors. The
attributions we
make are likely to influence how we handle resolving the late assignment.

In making causal judgments, managers need to be particularly aware of lie fundamental

attribution error, the tendency to underestimate the importance of situational influences and to
overestimate the importance of dispositional influences in explaining behavior. We are
particularly likely to make this error when we are attempting to explain the behavior of others.
Moreover, when here are successes and failures involved, we are likely to succumb to the self
serving bias. The self-serving bias is the tendency to perceive oneself as responsible for
successes and others as responsible for failures. b This tendency sets lie stage for serious
communication problems between managers and their subordinates. For instance, a manager may
attribute subordinates' successes to her or his own effective leadership but conclude that failures
are due to the subordinates' shortcomings. Subordinates, on the other hand, tend to see successes
as resulting from their own hard work and ability and to view failures as stemming from bad luck
or factors in the work environment, including areas controlled by their supervisor.

LESSON NO. 4
PERSONALITY
Q. 7.1. Define the term personality. Discuss the various determinants of Individual personality.
OR

"Personality is an organized whole without which an individual would have no meaning."

comment.

OR

"Personality essentially deals with the variations in thought and behaviour that differentiate one

person from

another." Elucidate this statement.

OR
"People are similar yet they are different." comment.
Personality: The term personality has been derived from Latin word 'per sonnare’, which means
to speak
through. Personality is traditionally refers to how people influence others through their external
appearances
(actions) more precisely. The term personality can be defined as.
Personality is a pattern of stable slates and characteristics of a person that influences his
behaviour toward goal
achievement. Each person has a unique ways of protecting these states."

"Personality is a broad amorphous designation relating to fundamental approaches of persons to

others and themselves. To most psychologists the term refers to the study of characteristic traits
of an individual, relationship between these trails and the way in which a person adjusts to other
people and situations."

"Personality is the sum total of ways in which an individual reacts and interacts with others. This
is most often
described in terms of measurable personality traits that a person exhibits"
"Personality is the dynamic organisation within the individual of those psychological systems
that determine his unique adjustments to his environment.
Academician define personality as.
(a) External appearance and behaviour
(b) The inner awareness of the self as a permanent organising force, and
(c) The particular organisation of measurable traits, both inner and outer.
Determinants of Individual Personality: People are very complex. They have different abilities
and interests.
Most failures on job, however, are not attributable to a person's amount of intelligence alone but
also to certain
personality characteristics. The personality is influenced by four major factors as:
(a) Cultural factors
(b) Family and social factors

(c) Situational factors

(d) Biological factors.
(a) Cultural factors: Culture largely determines what a person is and what a person will learn.
The culture with

in a person is brought up, is very important determinant of behaviour of a person. Culture is the
complex of these beliefs, values and techniques/or dealing with the environment which are
shared among contemporaries and transmitted by one generation to the next. Culture required
both conformity and acceptance from its members. According to Mussen, each culture expects
and trails its members to behave in the ways that are acceptable to the group. Inspite of the
importance of the culture on personality, researchers are unable to establish linear relationship
between these two concepts 'personality and culture'.

(b) Family & Social Factors: Family and social factors are important in shaping personality of an
individual.
The impact of these factors on personality can be understood by socialization process and
identification process.
Socialization Process: The contribution of family and social group in combination with the
culture is known as

socialization. It initially starts with the contact with the mother and later on the others members
of the family (father, brother, sister, co- relatives) & the social group plays influential role in
shaping an individual's personality.

Identification Process: Identification starts when a person begins to identify himself with some
other members
of the family. Normally child tries to behave as father or mother. He tries to emulate certain
actions of his parents.

Apart from socialization & identification processes, the personality of an individual is influenced
by the home environment. There is a substantial evidence to indicate that the overall
environment at home is created by parents is critical to personality development.

Family background apart, social class also influences a person's perception, perception of self
and others, and
perception of work, authority and money etc.
(c) Situational Factors: The effect of environment is quite strong. Knowledge, skill and language
are acquired

and represent important modifications of the behaviour. Learned modification in behaviour are
not passed on to the children, they must be acquired by them through their own personal
experience, through interaction with the environment According to Milgram situation exerts an
important press on the individual. It exercises constraints and may provide push. hi certain
circumstances it is not so much the kind of situation in which he is placed, that determine his
actions. He demonstrated that situation may potentially have a very big impact on the behavioral
expression of personality.

(d) Biological Factors: These can be discussed into three broad head:

(i) Physical features

(ii) Brain
(iii) Heredity

(i) Physical Features: Physical stature is the most important factor that contributes to personality.
An

individual's external appearance is proved to be having a tremendous effect on his personality.

For instance, the fact that person is short or tall, fat or skinny, handsome or ugly, black or whitish
will undoubtedly influence the person's effect on others and in turn, will affect the self concept.

(ii) Brain: It is another biological factor that influence the personality. Research in this field have
given
indication that better understanding of human personality and behaviour might come from the
study of the brain
(iii) Heredity : Certain characteristics primarily physical in nature are inherited from one's
parents, transmitted by genes in the chromosomes contributed by each parent The heredity plays
an important role in one's personality. The importance of heredity varies from one personality
trait to another. For instance, heredity is generally more important in determining a person's
temperament than values and ideas.
Q. 7.2. Can personality be measured ? If yes then discuss the various techniques and tests by
which personality
can be measured.
Measurement of Personality : Psychologists have devised a number of tests to measure the
various aspects of
personality, these are :

(1) Projective Techniques

(2) Situational Tests
(3) Personality Inventories.

(1)'Projective Techniques: These techniques are based on assumptions that responses to

unstructured stimuli

are likely to indicate an individual's underlying motives, attitudes and aspirations. These include
ink blots, incomplete sentences, ambiguous pictures, etc. It is called projective techniques
because the individual attributes his own traits or feelings to other persons or to inanimate
objects. They reveal the crucial aspects of personality. The two widely used projective tests are.
(a) Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
(b) Rorschach Test

(a) Thematic Apperception Test: It assumes that the meaning which an individual sees. in a
picture indicates something of his past experience, feelings, attitudes and motives. Apperceiving
relates to perception of a situation largely in terms of past experience rather than the immediate
present Here. the individual is exposed to ambiguous pictures and requested to make up a story
for each. The themes in these stories may involve conflict, affection, fear, contentment or
achievements.
(b) Rorschach Test: It involves ten cards containing ink blots. These ink blots are shown to the
individual at a

lime, in a prescribed way, with a request to state whatever he sees in them or whatever comes to
their mind in response to them. It is assumed that individual tends to project the predominating
aspects of his personality through these cards.

For example, One response to the card made by an adolescent girl whose parents were separated
was
Fig. A Rorschach type ink-blo

"This looks like a person here and another {here and they are carrying something-they are
fighting over the same
thing they are both trying to pull it towards themselves."
(2) Situational Tests: Involves to study the individual in daily situations when he is interacting
with others,

solving a problem or exploring a new environment. The purpose of this study is to observe the
individual in a context, which is similar to the one for which he is under review. This facilitates
the prediction as to how he will reget in a specific situation.

When it is not possible to arrange the situation, the individuals can be observed in their daily
environment consciously or at certain times in a day. For example, if the objective is to assess
their interpersonal skills, the examiner will observe them when they are working with other
persons.

3. Personality Inventories : These inventories are printed forms containing questions, adjectives
or statements

about human behaviour. They can be used to evaluate both normal and psychiatric
characteristics. The individual is required to indicate his reactions to different items. The
inventories are scored and assessed in terms of percentiles or statistical norms. Initially, they
involve merely single trait such as introversion- extroversion, subsequently, they have been
replaced by multiple trait inventories. Relatively the inventories are less time consuming and
easy to administer however, in certain cases, the individuals can give false impression about
themselves if they desire to do so.
 Q. 7.3. Explain the various theories of personality. Which of them is convincing to you and
why ?
Theories of Personality: Our time researchers have developed a number of personality theories.
Personality
theories can be grouped with five categories.

(a) Trait theory

(b) Freud theory
(c) Adler and Jung theories
(d) Social learning theories
(e) Holistic theories.

(a) Trait Theory : A personality trait can be defined as "an enduring attribute of a person that
appears
constantly in a variety of situations."
(i) Individual can be described in terms of construction of traits such as affiliation, achievement,
anxiety,
aggression and dependency.
(ii) Trait distinguish one personality from another.

(iii) The traits and the amount of each trait that a person has is assumed to be stable fairly and the
differences in personality and behaviour between two individuals is assumed to be the result of
the differences in the amount of each that each person has.

Thousands of words in English language refer to the characteristics of behaviour of traits. But the
fundamental question is how to reduce them to small number of meaningful nails. One technique
is the factor analysis. It is a complex statistical technique for reducing large number of
personality traits into small number of independent traits. The technique has the advantage of
reducing several hundred test responses. Norman provided the different descriptive objective
pairs of words for the same kind to trait (table )

Extroversion
Extroversion
Talkative--- Silent
Open--- Secretive
Adventures—Cautions
Agreeableness

Good natured--- Irritable

Gentle--- Headstrong
Cooperative--- Negativist

Conscientions ness
Tidy--- Careless
Responsible--- Undependable
Preserving --- Quitting
Emotional Stability

Calm---Anxious
Poised--- Nervous
Not Hypochodriacal --- Hypochodriacal

Culture
Artistically Sensitive ---Artistically insensitive
Refined --- Boorish
Intellectual--- Unreflective

Trait Dimension
Descriptive Objective Pairs
Extroversion

Talkative--- Silent
Open--- Secretive
Adventures—Cautions
Agreeableness

Good natured--- Irritable

Gentle--- Headstrong
Cooperative--- Negativist

Conscientions ness
Tidy--- Careless
Responsible--- Undependable
Preserving --- Quitting
Emotional Stability

Calm---Anxious
Poised--- Nervous
Not Hypochodriacal --- Hypochodriacal

Culture

Artistically Sensitive ---Artistically insensitive

Refined --- Boorish
Intellectual--- Unreflective

(b) Freud Theory : Freud contributed significantly towards the understanding of human
behaviour through his

concept of unconsciousness. According to freud, human mind is composed of three elements (i)
the preconscious (ii) the conscious and (iii) the unconscious. The items in the mind that can be
recognized only through freud association method are preconscious. The conscions element is
concerned with thoughts, feelings, beliefs and desires that we can learn about ourselves through
introinspection. The unconscious is basically concerned with ideas and wishes that can not be
learned through introinspection but can be determined from hypnotism, dreams and Freidian
Therapecific Techniques. According to Freud, the conscious is guided by a reasoned reality
principle and the unconscious is guided by the famous hedonist principle of pleasure. Freud
developed an organisation of personality consisting of three structures within the human mine-
the id, the ego and the superego. Their pans of the mind are primarily responsible for originating
human actions and reactions and modifications.

Id: Is the original and the most basic system of human personality. It consists of everything
psychologically that

is inherited and present at the time of the birth. At the base of the Freudian theory lies the id that
is primitive, instinctual and governed by the principles of greedy and pleasure. Id represents a
storehouse of all instincts, containing in its dark depths all wishes, desires and unconsciously
direct and determine our behaviour. Id is largely childish, irrational, never satisfied, demanding
and destructive of others. Id. is the foundation upon which all other parts of the personality are
erected.

Ego: As an individual learns to separate the unreality from reality in childhood, the ego develops.
The ego is the reality oriented pan in thinking, it is largely practical and works in an executive
capacity. Ego is rational and logical and in essence it is the conscious mediator between the
realities of the world and the id's demand. It constantly work to keep a healthy psychological
balance between id's impulsive demands and super ego's restrictive guidance. Ego regulates and
integrates the inner motives and conflicting demands, defends the person by using defense
mechanisms and master's the person's goals. The ego develops by creating an effective
perceptual mechanism that enables a person to adjust to the reality principle viz., tolerance of
tension, expectation of punishment, awareness of things and associated inhibitions of actions.
The most important characteristics of ego is that it has the ability to distinguish between mental
images and actual sources of tension release, and it responds to the real sources of tension
education. If the ego succeeds, the individual is content, otherwise he will be dissatisfied and
have a menial stress, ambivalence and burn out.

Super ego:It represents noblest thoughts, ideals, feelings that are acquired by a person from his
parents, teachers, friends, religion, organisation and colleagues etc. As a child grows and absorbs
parental and cultural altitudes and values, he develops a super ego. It is also labeled as 'ago-ideal'
that tells the individual what is acceptable. The primary concern of super ego is to determine
whether the action proposed by ego is the right or wrong so that the individual acts in accordance
with the values and standards of the society. If people violate the prohibitions of super ego they
may feel guilty.

In Freudian theory of personality, the instinctual drives of id and super ego are constantly
battling each other and seeking to breakout of bonds of reason the ego. As a person becomes torn
between this conflict, a friction develops and results in anxiety, an ominous feeling that all is not
well. Anxiety creates tension and as such as a person resorts 10 defensive mechanism in order to
reduce tension.

Adler and Jung theory : Adler emphasized the thrust for superiority as a drive which motivates
the individual. He developed the concepts of compensation and the inferiority complex based on
the drive for power. Individuals who are weak in one area of work tend to excel in another area
of work. Adler stressed social relationships instead of innate or biological factors. This as well as
his stress on individual uniqueness, style of life and the creative self bring him close to modern
theorists who consider themselves as psychoanalytic in approach.

Jung developed analytical psychology stressing the unconscious aspect of psychoanalysis. He

postulated (he collective unconsciousness. According to him, personality is based on
predisposing patterns borrowed by the individual from his ancestors. His collective unconscious
extends back through previous generations to the dawn of history. It is his notion of heredity
transference of acquired features, which is the least acceptable to modem theorists. Despite in
stress in the past Jung asserted that the operation of an individual's personality is as much future
oriented as rooted in the past. To the extent he asserted that the individual was not bound to the
past but could effectively build his future was a dynamic optimist.

(c) Social learning theory: The theory considers the situation as an important determinant of
behavior as against trait theories which assume that personality is characterized by the enduring
traits of an individual. According to this theory, an individual's action in a given situation,
individual’s appraisal of the situation and post enforcement to behavior is somewhat similar
situations. When the situation they encounter are relatively stable, individual's behavior will be
more or less consistent.

The main focus of the learning approach is on the patterns of behavior the individual learns in
coping with environment. Some behavior patterns are learned or acquired through direct
experience. Responses can also be acquired or learned without direct reinforcement. Social
learning theorists believe that reinforcement is not necessary for learning but they accept the
view (hat reinforcement facilitates learning by focusing attention. According to social learning
school, much of the human learning is vicarious or observational.

Reinforcement though not necessary for learning is very crucial for the performance of learned
behavior. The assumption of this theory is that people behave in the ways likely to produce
reinforcement. An individual's repertoire of learned behaviors is extensive; the particular action
chosen for specific situation depends upon me expected outcome. The reinforcement that
controls the expression of learned behavior may be

(a)Direct: Refers to the social approval or disapproval or alleviation of aversive conditions and
other tangible rewards.
(b) Vicarious: Refers to observation of someone else receiving reward or punishment for similar
behavior.
(c)Self- administered: Refers to evaluation of one's own performance with self praise or
reproach. Of all these, self administered reinforcement theory plays a vital role in social learning
theory
(b) Holistic Theories: Kolas a has grouped several theorists under a common title-Holistic
theorists. They include holistic, organism and field theorists who stress on the totality and inter
relatedness of all kinds of human behavior. In spite of the common aspect of emphases on the
individual as a whole, they differ in many ways.

Maslow has focused on the concept of needs derived from the positive and optimistic dimensions
of the individual's total functioning He has structured several levels of needs i.e. the hierarchy of
needs. His concept of self actualization need is of great significance. His concept of hierarchy of
needs has been greatly relied upon to understand human behavior in organizational settings.

Rogers visualizes personality in terms of the organism (or of the whole individual) functioning in
a phenomenal field (or the entire experience). The patterns of perceptions in this field provide the
basis for me self which seeks to become consistent with itself and its environment If this is not
possible for any reason the organism is exposed to threats . Based on his approach a new school
of thought called phenomenology has developed. This viewpoint assumes that the reality for the
individual consists of what he perceives in his field or experiences instead of things as they
factually are.

Herzberg approach considers man in his two aspects. One aspect of the man is 'Adam' or the
animal nature which aims to avoid the pain of adjustment to the environment, which the other
aspect is Abraham which motivates him to achieve and add to his existence the Adam aspect of
man possesses hygiene needs which are satiated through salary, working conditions and fringe
benefits. The Abraham aspect of man involves needs which are motivators including those
related to psychological growth of the individual in work settings, job enlargement, etc.

According to Lewin (field theorists) Lewin interprets Lumen behaviors and depicts the
individuals personality in a perceptual field in physical units. The field has been considered on
the psychological life space of the individual with forces attracting or diverting him in respect of
a goal.

Festinger has postulated cognitive dissonance as a motivating condition in the individual. As

soon as two conditions of an individual are inconsistent with each other, he tends to change one
of them to adhere to the other minimising the dissonance.
Q. 7.4. Write a brief note on personality traits.
Personality Traits : Personality traits are the enduring characteristics that describe an individual's
behaviour. The early work in the structure of personality revolved around attempts to identify
and level enduring characteristics that describe an individual's behaviour. Popular characteristics
include shy, aggressive, submissive, lazy, ambitions, loyal and timid. Efforts to isolate traits have
been hindered because there are so many of them. In one study, 17,953 individual traits were
identified. One researcher isolated 171 traits but concluded that they were superficial and lacking
in descriptive power. Then he reduced these set of traits in sixteen set of traits (Table 7.2). These
sixteen traits have been found to be generally steady and constant source of behaviour, allowing
prediction of an individual's behaviour in specific situations by weighting the characteristics for
their situational relevance.

PRIMARY TRAITS:

1 .Reserved vs. Outgoing

2. Less intelligent vs More intelligent
3. Affected by feelings vs. Emotionally stable
4. Submissive vs .Dominant
5. Serious
vs.
Hapy-go-lucky
6.
Expedient
vs.
Conscientious
7.
Timid
 vs.
Venturesome
8.
Tough-minded
vs.
Sensitive
9.
Trusting
vs.
Suspicious
10.
Practical
vs.
Imaginative
11.
Forthright
vs.
Shrewd
12.
Self-assured
vs.
Apprehensive
13.
Conservative
vs.
Experimenting
14.
Group-dependent
vs.
Self-sufficient
15.
Uncontrolled
vs.
Controlled
16.
Relaxed
vs.
Tense

Traits can additionally be grouped to form personality types. Instead of looking at specific
characteristics, we can group these qualities that go together into a single category. For example,
ambition and aggression tend to be highly correlated. Efforts to reduce the number of traits into
common groups tend to isolate introversion extroversion and something approximating high
anxiety and extroversion would be tense, excitable, unstable, warm, sociable and dependent.

Composed, confident, trustful, adaptable, warm, sociable and dependent

Tense, excitable, unstable

cold, and sky
Composed, confident, trustful,
adaptable, calm, cold, and sky
Four Types Thesis
High anxiety Low anxiety

Tense, excitable, unstable

warm,
sociable,
and
dependent

As the trails ignore situational contents, they are not contingent oriented and therefore largely
ignore the dynamic interchange that occurs between a person's personality and his environment.
As a result, personality trails tend to be more valuable as predictors with individuals who hold a
trait at its extreme. We might be able to predict some common behaviours among extreme
extroverts or individuals who are highly anxious. But since the majority of people are in the vast
middle range on most trait characteristics, personality traits must be considered in their
situational context.

THE ABILITY –JOB FIT (PERSONALITY-JOB FIT)

This explains and predicts the behaviour of people at work. Jobs make deferring demands on
people and that people differ in the abilities they possess. Employee performance, therefore, is
enhanced when there is a high ability-job fit. for adequate job performance depend on the ability
requirements of the job.

So, for example, performance standards. Directing attention at only the employee's abilities or
the ability requirements of the job ignores that employee performance depends on the interaction
of the two.

What predictions can we make when the fit is poor? As alluded to previously, if employees lack
the required abilities, they are likely to fail. If you are hired as a word processor and you can't
meet the job's basic keyboard typing requirements, your performance is going to be poor
irrespective of your positive attitude or your high level of motivation. When the ability-job fit is
out of sync because the employee has abilities that far exceed the requirements of the job, our
predictions would be very different. Job performance is likely to be adequate, but there will be
organizational inefficiencies and possible declines in employee satisfaction. Given that pay tends
to reflect the highest skill level that employees possess, if an employee's abilities far exceed that
necessary to do the job, management will be paying more than it needs to. Abilities significantly
above those required can also reduce the employee's job satisfaction when the employee’s desire
to use his or abilities is particularly strong and is frustrated by the limitation of the job.

MATCHING PERSONALITY AND JOBS

Obviously, individual personalities differ. So, too, do jobs. Following this logic, efforts have
been made to match the proper personalities with the proper jobs. The most researched
personality job-fit theory is the six- personality-types model. This model states that an
employee's satisfaction with and propensity to leave his or her job

Holland's Typology of Personality and Sample Occupations

Type
Personality Characteristics
Sample Occupations

Realistic: Prefers physical activities that require skill, strength and coordination

Shy, genuine, persistent, stable,

conforming, Practical
Mechanical, drill press operator,
assemblyline worker , farmer
Investigative:
Prefers

activities Involving thinking , organising and understanding.

Analytical,
original,
Curious
,independent
Biologist, economist, Mathematician,
news reporter
Social: Prefers activities that involve
helping and developing others
Sociable, friendly, cooperative,
understanding
Social worker, teacher, counselor,
clinical psychologist
Conventional:
Prefers

rule- regulated, orderly and nambiguous activities

Conforming, efficient, practical,

unimaginative , inflexible
Accountant , corporate Manager, bank
teller, File clerk
Enterprising : prefers verbal
activities
where
there

are opportunities to influence other and attain power

Self-confident,

ambitious, energetic, domineering Business manager

Lawyer, real-estate Agent, public

relations specialist, small

Artistic: Prefers ambiguous and unsystematic activities that allow creative expression

Imaginative, disorderly, idealistic ,

emotional, practical
Painter, musician, writer, Interior
decorator
Depend on the degree to which the individual’s personality matches his or her occupational
environment . Six major personality types have been identified . They are listed in Exhibit 3-2,
along with their compatible occupations.

**************************
LESSON NO. 5
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION

Organizational behaviour modification (referred to as OBMod, for short) developed separately

from goal-setting, and has different explanations for behaviour. Nevertheless, in recent years
links have developed between the two that make them a powerful combination.

In the chapter on personality we looked at internal, dispositional approaches to understanding

behaviour. Organizational behaviour modification, on the other hand, takes a situational, or
external, approach. It Concentrates on behaviour and the events in the environment that
encourage or discourage such behaviour, rather than on attitudes or personality.

We have already dealt, in Chapter 2, with the links between personality and behaviour, but what
of attitudes?
Once again, the assumption underlying the internal, dispositional approach is that attitudes cause
behaviour. This

assumption, as we have seen, is questionable. There is considerable evidence to show that there
is a fairly weak relationship between attitudes and behaviour. Indeed, attitudes often express how
we think we would like to see ourselves behaving than rather how we actually behave. For
example, attitude surveys suggest that the general public is against the invasion of privacy by the
press. However, newspaper editors have firm evidence that the pictures and stories resulting
from such invasions increase sales. Alistair Cooke has reported that over 70 per cent of the
American public thought that television coverage of the pre-trial of the American hero 0. J.
Simpson was undesirable. But over 90 per cent had watched

It also appears that the assumption that attitudes cause behaviour is only part of the picture.
There is evidence from psychological research to suggest that behaviour can influence the
formation and change of attitudes. The attitude/behaviour relationship is interactive. For
example, before the wearing of seat-belts was made compulsory, the UK government spent
considerable sums of money trying to change the public's attitude to seat- belt wearing. Despite
many different publicity campaigns the level of seat-belt usage remained depressingly low. Upon
the introduction of legislation making seat-belt wearing compulsory, with financial and other
penalties for non-compliance, usage leapt to almost 100 per cent. Although we have no direct
evidence, we suspect that this change in behaviour also produced a change in attitude toward
seat-belt usage. The same may be true for drinking and driving.

There are a number of possible explanations of why the way we behave should influence our
attitudes, but perhaps the most appealing involves the concept of consistency. We like to be
consistent and keep our behaviours and attitudes in line with each other. If we behave in a
particular way we feel that this must be a representation of our attitudes.

The OBMod approach, therefore, ignores attitudes and personality and concentrates solely upon
observable
behaviour.
Exercise:
Before reading further, you should turn to Appendix 4 and attempt the case study on
absenteeism.

The basic postulate of OBMod can be stated very simply - so simply that some may say it is just
applied common sense. It is that behaviour is determined by its consequences. In other words,
people learn to behave in ways that produce rewards, and avoid behaving in ways that produce
either no rewards or even punishment. Inevitably, managers will already be using some of the
techniques that will be discussed, but without being aware of their theoretical background. By
providing a theoretical structure, we will enable managers to make

more effective use of the techniques. OBMod is based on the work of psychologists who studied
learning, or
to use the technical term, conditioning. In particular, the names most commonly associated with
the theory are

those of Thomdike and, perhaps most commonly, Skinner. Skinner takes the approach that since
we cannot observe mental states such I as attitudes and personality traits, we should concern
ourselves only with observable behaviour. If we extend this to the work situation, what managers
should be concerned with is not employees' attitudes, but how they behave (i.e. what they do). It
is often difficult to get managers to talk only of behaviour. They often, quite understandably,:
slip into talking about personalities and attitudes. But employees' attitudes should not be the
manager's concern, as long as they are behaving correctly. Organizations do not pay people for
the attitudes, they hold, but for their behaviour. As such, we are perfectly justified in asking
someone to behave differently. We are not justified in trying to change their personality or
attitudes, even if we could. We cannot change personality; we can change behaviour. As with
goal-setting, however, the required behaviour must be described as precisely as possible.
We have said that behaviour is determined by its consequences. How can these be classified?
The possible range
is shown below:

• We receive something nice

• Something nasty is taken away
• Something nice is taken away
• Something nasty is given

NICE
NASTY
Positive
reinforcement
Punishment
Punishment
Negative
reinforcement

The first two consequences lead to an increase in-the behaviour that preceded them. To use the
correct technical term, they are reinforcers, because they reinforce the behaviour concerned. The
first, giving something nice, is called positive reinforcement, the second, negative reinforcement,
because something nasty is taken away. The last two are different forms of punishment. They
will tend to suppress the behaviour that occurs before them.

All of these" may be neatly summarized in a diagram, as shown in Figure 5.1. There is one
outcome, however, that will not fit into the diagram, that is if, following the behaviour, it is
neither rewarded nor punished. This will lead to the behaviour not being repeated.

Most managers, we find, are fairly happy with positive reinforcement, but negative
reinforcement is not as clear. Let us take an example from parenthood. We find it unpleasant
when a baby cries. If, by picking the baby up, we stop it crying, we will pick it up the next time it
cries. Stopping the cries negatively reinforces our behaviour of picking the baby up, as it stops
the nastiness. (Note that, from the baby's point of view, being picked up is nice and hence the
crying is positively reinforced. Next time the baby wants to be picked up, it will cry.) Another

amiliar example is a fire alarm. The loud noise of the alarm is unpleasant and people will try to
escape from it. They do so by getting out of the building; leaving the building has been
negatively reinforced - the noise stops.

Now that the range of possible consequences has been described, let us consider how effective
each one can be at influencing behaviour. This is where, in some respects, common sense and
psychology part company. We think you will agree, after considering the arguments, that
psychology has the more accurate explanation.
The effectiveness of each of the consequences is largely determined by how frequently it
follows, or does not follow, each occurrence of the behaviour. These patterns of how frequently
behaviour is rewarded or punished are called schedules.

How to maintain behaviour. If we are trying 10 get someone to learn a new behaviour then it is
appropriate to reinforce their successful attempts every time they occur; but what about
maintaining behaviour that has already been learnt? Consider a schedule that has already been
learnt, where the behaviour is rewarded, let us say, every twenty times it occurs. For example,
pulling a lever to obtain a reward, If the mechanism was switched off, how quickly would you
realize there was no point in pulling the lever any more? Probably after between 20 and 40
further pulls. Now consider the situation where the reward occurs on average every twenty times.
The reward could be on the next pull of the lever or many hundreds of pulls later. To deter mine
when this mechanism had been switched off would take a very long time indeed. This is the
principle, of course, of one-armed bandit machines. This is also why you keep being trapped by
the company 'bore'. You have only (o reward them by paying attention once every so often and
they will continue to pester you. This is called variable ratio reinforcement. Variable ratio
reinforcement is far more effective in maintaining behaviour, even undesirable behaviour, than
reinforcement that occurs every time (fixed ratio reinforcement). The person knows it will pay
off at some time, so they keep trying.

(As well as fixed and variable ratios, there can also be fixed and variable times. The effects are
similar; fixed time reinforcement is a relatively ineffective way of maintaining behaviour. It
remains, of course, the most common way of paying salaries).

How to stop undesirable behaviour. What options are open to us if we now want [o stop
undesirable behaviour? The strategies available are those of punishment and non-reward. (Notice
here that non-reward is not the same as ignoring. Non-reward means that the person gets no
benefit whatsoever as a result of their behaviour.) Which of these strategies, non-reward or
punishment is likely to be more effective in changing behaviour?

All the evidence suggests that non-reward leads to the behaviour being extinguished, punishment
merely suppressed it. This is not to say that punishment is never effective. Punishment, by itself,
can be effective under certain conditions. (When reading further it might be instructive to think
of the ways in which society tries to suppress crime.)

Unfortunately for managers (and perhaps for society in general), the ways in which rewards and
punishment influence behaviour are not the same. For rewards to be effective in maintaining
behaviour they need occur only every so often, (Think of the fruit machine as an example.)
Punishment, on the other hand, has to fulfil two criteria if it is to be effective. It must occur every
time the behaviour occurs, and as soon as possible after the behaviour. This may help us under
stand why hangovers rarely have a long-term influence over drinking habits. The rewards of
drinking to excess are immediate, the punishment is some way off. In addition, you may
sometimes escape without having a hangover. (Interestingly, one way of treating alcoholics is to
use drugs that produce an unpleasant effect immediately after any alcohol is consumed.) The
same argument applies to many aspects of preventive medicine, e.g. smoking, diet, etc. The
rewards are immediate, the possible negative consequences some way off. It is unlikely that
teenagers' smoking habits will be influenced by the prospect of lung disease when they are old.

To summarize: to keep undesirable behaviour going it needs to be reinforced only once every so
often (variable ratio reinforcement), to stop it by using punishment requires punishment to be
administered every time. It is hardly surprising that prisons are a highly ineffective way of
influencing the behaviour of criminals.

As an example of how organizations attempt to use punishment, take the case of trying to deal
with persistent lateness by a particular individual. One method commonly used is the memo. A
memo pointing out the requirements for strict time-keeping is sent to everyone, including the
culprit. This may affect the culprit's behaviour for a short time , but they will then start re-
offending. The other effect it will have is on those who are innocent, who may arrive late
occasionally but do not abuse the system, and who compensate by working into their lunch
break. Often these individuals will rebel, working strictly to the clock.

The other common method is to ignore the problem in its early stages. Each individual late
arrival is recorded, but is not commented on. When an unacceptable number have accumulated a
'trigger point' is reached. This is normally a specified number of latenesses over a specified
period. What follows is a gradual escalation of punishment. Oral warnings are followed by
written warnings. These are then followed by formal dismissal procedures. Under these
circumstances, punishment is unlikely to be effective. For it to be so, the individual needs be
made aware that each and every incidence will be questioned as soon as it occurs, and that
moderate sanctions will be applied. (Very harsh sanctions would probably lead to avoidance
through absenteeism.)

It should be apparent that the conditions for using punishment or discipline effectively are very
limited. Managers, and other individuals with responsibility for enforcement, are rarely in a
position where they can monitor people all the time. The difficulties associated with the effective
use of punishment lead us, therefore, to the following conclusion:

Schemes should concentrate on the encouragement of desirable behaviour rather than trying to
use discipline to
eliminate the undesirable.

So far we have been considering the effects of punishment alone. Most effective, however, is
when punishment for the undesirable behaviour is coupled with reinforcement of the desired
behaviour. Under such circumstances the punishment does not have to fulfil the requirements
just described; even mild and infrequent punishment

will be effective. Just raised eyebrows from a boss who uses reinforcement effectively will be
enough to
discourage unwanted behaviour.
Now that we have dealt with the basic concepts, let us consider some applications. One nice
example of the difference between fixed ratio and variable ratio reinforcement is one that will be
immediately applicable, if you want to improve the productivity of beaver trappers! One group
of beaver trappers in the Canadian forests were given a $1bonus for every beaver skin. Another
similar group were given the chance to roll dice each time they brought in a skin. If they rolled
two successive odd numbers they got $4. The cost of each of the schemes was the same.
Productivity in the first group rose by 50 per cent, in the latter group by 108 per cent (Saari and
Latham, 1982).

Another area in which OBMod has been used is in dealing with absenteeism and lateness. At this
point you should turn to your suggestions for solving the problem at Chestnut hospital (Appendix
4). We suspect that you will have adopted a medical model (no pun intended) in trying to solve
the problem. Such a model sees absenteeism as a symptom of some underlying problem. The
assumption is that absenteeism is a symptom of dissatisfaction with some aspect, or aspects, of
the job. The solution, therefore, i? to improve job satisfaction. This may indeed have some
impact, but there is often a limit to what can be done to improve satisfaction, shift- work still
needs to be worked, and many other 'dirty' and undesirable jobs need to be done. In addition, the
rewards for staying away from work are powerful, and rarely capable of being influenced by
management.

OBMod, on the other hand, looks not at the influences that are thought to underlie absenteeism,
but rather at the consequences to the employee of attendance or non-attendance. It adopts a
'direct action' model. Let us consider some possibilities.

Some schemes have used reinforcement as an alternative. One such example was reported from a
factory in Liverpool. The factory was to be closed and the production lines transferred to another
part of the country. The workers were under notice of redundancy, but it was essential that
production be maintained until the new factory was in production. Unfortunately, the factory was
suffering absenteeism levels of 30 per cent and above, due to a 'mystery virus' that appeared to
strike mainly on Mondays and Fridays. Because of the law relating to redundancy, pay could not
be stopped for these absences. In order to improve attendance, management instituted a weekly
prize draw of £500. Participation in the draw was by means of tickets. Each employee received a
draw ticket whenever they attended for work on time. Absenteeism dropped to very low levels
and the management reported that workers were even turning up on their days off in order to
collect tickets. Other schemes have used a cash bonus, paid to every employee who had attended
on a number of randomly selected days during a set period - the random choice of days provided
the variable ratio.

These further examples demonstrate one of the conditions under which such reinforcement
works best; the expenditure of a little additional investment on the part of the individual, together
with the potential for a large pay-out - for example football pools and national lotteries. Indeed,
the use of prize draws is widely used as a marketing technique.
Some managers object to such schemes on the basis that you are paying people extra to do what
they are already being paid to do. This is a perfectly legitimate position to take. If, however, you
have tried everything else, what do you do? Your principles may also have a cost - continuing
high levels of absenteeism.

It is perhaps worth noting the contrast between schemes that re- ward attendance, and those that
punish absenteeism. Schemes that use punishment usually do so by giving an attendance bonus
and then removing it for an absence. (On initial inspection the attendance bonus may sound like
a reward, but this was not the way it was perceived, as we shall see.) For example, managers
recently tried to improve the attendance of a group of UK civil servants (driving test examiners)
by giving a £30 weekly bonus for attendance. The whole sum was forfeited for any non-
attendance during the week, no matter what the reason for the absence. The scheme provoked a
national one-day strike! It might be worth considering how this, not inconsiderable, sum could
have been used to improve attendance by variable ratio reinforcement.

An interesting example of the removal of reinforcers was reported by the Merseyside police.
They used to concentrate upon catching those who were stealing car stereo equipment, to little
effect. They then switched their strategy to that of identifying those cars whose owners might
have purchased stolen stereos. They examined parked cars, looking for incongruities, for
example, an old car with a high priced modern stereo, and then contacted the owners for an
explanation. As soon as it became known that this was happening, the market for stolen stereos
declined sharply.

It is very common, in fact, to find organizations actually rewarding the very behaviour that they
say they wish to discourage. Some organizations, for example, give annual budgets to
departments. If it is not all spent, ii is reclaimed by the centre and next year's budget is cut. As
the manager of such a department what do you logically do in these circumstances? - you spend
up to your budget limit.

There are also organizations which use positive reinforcement effectively, perhaps without
knowing the terminology involved. One of them employs tanker drivers to deliver hazardous
liquids and gases to customers. These are delivered through complicated valves and pipes that
transfer the chemicals from the tanker to the

customer's tanks. Drivers who phone for advice receive a bonus each time they do so. It might be
thought that this would encourage drivers to phone for trivial reasons and, indeed, the system
may be Open to some abuse. Consider however, the situation that may occur where workers are
discouraged from asking, usually because they tear some form of punishment, even if only
ridicule. Which costs would the company rather bear - some trivial requests for advice, or a
tanker exploding in a city street?
The other examples are from two organizations which are probably aware of the theoretical
background. Both are large American organizations - Xerox and American Airlines. At Xerox,
'X' certificates, redeemable for $25, were introduced into the personnel department. Every
member of the department, not just managers, could give Xs to others. They could be given for
any work-related behaviour, for example excellent attendance or cooperation. They could also be
given to people in other departments. At American Airlines, passengers are given coupons [hat
they may give to staff whom they feel deserve some recognition, (We are not sure how
effectively these schemes might transplant to the culture of the UK.)

A final example concerns the problems associated with routine maintenance procedures
('Komaki et al.., 1977). All the rewards and punishments are geared Co encourage short-cuts. If a
part is not checked, it will probably be ail right anyway, and the mechanic saves time right now.
In addition, there is no reinforcers to encourage them to carry out the checks as specified. If
something does eventually go wrong, then what evidence is there to rebut the claim that 'it
seemed all right when checked'? The evidence of successive reports by the consumer magazine
Which" on the quality of car servicing by garages lends strong support to our analysis. All of
these examples show how behaviour may be influenced by reinforcers, but what different types
of re in forcers are there?

REINFORCERS

Reinforcers may be classified in a number of ways. Perhaps the most basic distinction is between
primary, secondary, and generalized. Primary reinforcers are those that are essential for life, such
?s food, water, etc. They equate closely to the physiological level of Maslow's hierarchy. For this
reason they are common to everyone. Unfortunately they may quickly lose their effectiveness as
reinforcers. This process is known as satiation. Food, for example, is only a reinforcers if you are
hungry. Immediately after a big meal the prospect of food is unlikely to be reinforcing.
Secondary reinforcers gain their reinforcing strength through association with primary
reinforcers. Social reinforcers such as attention and praise originally gained their reinforcing
value because other people, e.g. parents, were the source of primary reinforcers. Other
reinforcers may gain their power from social reinforcers. Status symbols, for example, are
reinforcing because they are approved of by a social group that is important to the individual.
Finally, generalized reinforcers are so called because of their general effect. The best example is
money. This is reinforcing for most people because it can be exchanged for items that they find
reinforcing. For this reason generalized reinforcers are particularly powerful. In rganizations,
however, secondary reinforcers are widely used. We will return to this shortly.

Another important distinction between reinforcers has already been considered briefly in the
sections on Herzberg and the Job characteristics model (see Chapter 4). This is the distinction
between 'intrinsic' and 'extrinsic' motivators.

INTRINSIC VERSUS EXTRINSIC REINFORCERS

The difference between intrinsic and extrinsic reinforcers lies in whether they originate from the
job itself, or from external sources. This distinction is not always clear-cut. As we shall see,
some reinforcers may have elements of both.

Perhaps a good example of intrinsic reinforcement is provided by computer games especially, it

would appear, for adolescent males. The rewards are so powerful that for some the games
become almost addictive. This reinforcement is also an example of what Bandura (1986) would
call a 'naturally-occurring' reinforcement. Such

reinforcers follow automatically from the behaviour concerned. Many intrinsic reinforcers are
naturally-
occurring.

Unlike intrinsic reinforcement, extrinsic reinforcement has to be provided 'artificially'. Pay is

perhaps the classic example of an extrinsic reinforcer. Behaviour does not automatically produce
pay as reinforcement. Administrative schemes have to be developed to ensure that it is delivered.

According to Deci (1975'), the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic reinforcement is not
one of merely
academic interest- It has considerable practical implications,

Intrinsic reinforcement is, other things being equal, more powerful than extrinsic reinforcement.
It is also, from the organization's point of view, the most cost-effective. If individuals get high
levels of reinforcernent just from doing the job, they are likely to do the job more effectively. As
we have seen, jobs can be redesigned so as to enhance such intrinsic reinforcement. It would,
however, be naive to assume that everyone can have a job that is intrinsically reinforcing. For
those in this fortunate situation, doing the job is a pleasure in itself.

What happens when extrinsic motivation, such as pay, is 'added' to a task that is already
intrinsically reinforcing? According to Dec. (1975) the effect of introducing the extrinsic
reinforcer is to 'undermine' the strength of the intrinsic reinforcer. If you start paying people for
doing things that they presently do because they enjoy doing them, you will reduce the level of
intrinsic reinforcement. Individuals, when given such extrinsic reinforcement, seem to switch
from being intrinsically motivated, to being extrinsically motivated. This is likely to mean that
once you have started extrinsic reinforcement, you will have to continue with it if you want the
behaviour to continue. You will not be able to rely on a return to intrinsic motivation producing
the same levels of effort.

Whilst initial studies tended to support Deci's theory, later work suggests that the effects of
extrinsic reinforcement are not as simple as originally thought. Pay, for example, does not
always reduce intrinsic motivation. As a result of these, and other, findings, Deci modified and
elaborated his ideas into what is now known as cognitive evaluation theory' (Deci and Ryan,
1980).
Cognitive evaluation theory makes the same basic distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic. It
now, however, makes a further distinction between two different types of extrinsic
reinforcement, Extrinsic reinforcers may he classified, according to Deci, according to whether
they are controlling or informational. Controlling extrinsic motivation will reduce intrinsic
motivation, informational extrinsic reinforcers will not reduce it, and may even enhance it.
Information, especially Chat which is seen as providing evidence of personal competence,
appears to enhance intrinsic motivation. On the other hand, people tend to resent being
controlled,

Like other aspects of reinforcers, whether they are controlling or informational cannot be
determined objectively. Pay, for example, can be seen as Either. Pay may he perceived as a
method of control a bribe to behave in a particular way. Alternatively, it may be seen as a source
of information, indicating how management evaluates behaviour or performance. Whether it is
perceived as controlling, informational, or a mixture of the two, is something that can only be
determined subjectively. The individual's perception of its nature is what counts. Two
individuals may perceive the same pay rise in different ways. This will influence their behaviour.
It will obviously be in the organization's interest to ensure that reinforcers are perceived as
informational rather than controlling.

The subjective nature of reinforcers is important. Many managers make the assumption that
everybody's reinforcers are the same. Indeed, they usually assume that they are the same as their
own (another example of the false consensus effect, see page 99). Some reinforcers are, indeed,
almost universal. Money is a good example, like most universal reinforcers, it is an example of a
generalized reinforcer it can be exchanged for other things that people want. If, however, the
pay-off was a night at the opera, how would you feel? Different people will have different
reactions. Some reinforcers arc difficult for others to understand. For example, adolescent

children often get reinforcement from 'winding up' their parents. The parents find this difficult to
understand as they feel that by shouting at their children and sending them to their room, they are
punishing them. II may also 'pay off because, when such arguments occur, real issues can be
avoided. (This is 'uproar' in TA terms - page 104.) To take an example that applies to many
societies, what are the reinforcers for the hooliganism of a minority of male adolescents? The
only method of accurately determining what the reinforcers are is to remove potential
reinforcers. When the behaviour stops, you have found the key. We can, however, speculate as to
what

They might be. It is quite likely that group approval is involved. As we shall see later, social
rewards are amongst the strongest reinforcers known. The disapproval of society may, strange as
it may seem, also be a potential reinforcer. Appearing in court or in the media may be reinforcing
- much like [he adolescent and parent situation described earlier. Given that these are some of the
potential reinforcers, what can society do about it? As we have seen, punishment is unlikely to be
effective. In order for it to work it must occur every time the disruptive behaviour occurs. This is
almost certainly impossible. We may be able to remove some of the reinforcers, for example,
media coverage. But perhaps the only effective method is to change the hooligans' perception of
what is n-reinforcing for them.

SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY

Exercise
Before reading further, please complete the career questionnaire in Appendix 5.

Earlier in this chapter we reminded you of the distinction between internal and external
explanations for people's behaviour. Personality theory in general tends to seek an internal
explanation for why people behave as they do. OBMod, on the other hand, tends to concentrate
on the situation, in its most radical form (e.g. Skinner, 1993), the importance of internal,
cognitive and affective (i.e. emotional), factors are. discounted altogether. This dichotomy,
between either totally internal or totally external explanations is, however, false. Internal and
external, as we have seen in the chapter on personality, interact with each other.

In behavioral theory this interact ion its approach is best expressed in 'social cognitive theory.'
This was
developed by Bandura (1988), and grew out of his earlier social learning theory.

Social learning theory sought to explain some element of behaviour that did not appear
explicable in terms of 'radical' behaviorist theory. For example, it is not unusual to observe
someone perform a complex sequence of behaviours without there being of any evidence of them
having been previously reinforced. Adolescents who are keen to start driving often have a very
good idea of what to do in their first driving lesson, despite never having driven before. Radical,
behaviorist theory would require that these complex behaviours be shaped. Cruder, and then
increasingly more accurate approximations to each of the behaviours in the complex sequence of
'driving a car' would need to have been reinforced. Yet the evidence is that learning seems to
have taken place, without the behaviour being undertaken and reinforced. This suggests that
other processes are taking place.

It would appear that learning can take place cognitively, rather than behaviorally. We do not
apparently have to undertake the behaviour in order to learn. Nor do we have to experience
reinforcement, or punishment, directly. We can learn indirectly or, to use Bandura's term,
incawuaty. For example, when joining a new company we do not attempt to find out what the
norms are about time keeping, by arriving five minutes later each day until some one in authority
objects. Rather, we observe what behaviour in others is rewarded or punished. In other words,
we learn vicariously by watching other people. We assume that if we follow their examples we
will reap the same rewards, and avoid possible punishment. This process learning in the absence
of any observable behaviour - was originally called modeling. It is now more commonly referred
to as mastery modeling.

LESSON NO.6
VALUES, ATTITUDES AND JOB SATISFACTION
WHAT ARE VALUES ?

Values have a moral flavour. Values represent an individual's ideas as to what is right. Wrong,
good or bad or desirable. We all have a set of values and what we think is important Values
represent basic convictions that specific mode or conduct is personally or socially preferable to
an opposite mode of conduct.

Values are important in the study of Organisation Behaviour, as they help us understand
attitudes, perceptions,
and motivations. Values generally influence one's behaviour.
ALLPORT’s CLASSIFICATION OF VALUES
1. Theoretical i.e., discovery of a truth through rational approach.

2-Econom i c
3.Aest het i c
4.Soci al
5.Political i.e. relating to power and influence.
6.Reli gi ous

Different people have different set of values. Now a days, H is seen (bat particularly younger
employees are
bringing a set of new values to the workplace.
WHAT ARE ATTITUDES?

Attitudes are evaluative statements concerning people, events or objects. They reflect how one
feels about something. An attitude can also be defined as an enduring organisation of
motivational- emotional. perceptual and cognitive processes with respect to some aspect of the
individual world. An attitude is an entity or a process which exists in a person even though we
are unable to observe it directly A common feature of attitudes is that they involve emotional
reactions, a belief component- and an action component.

The emotional component of an attitude develops as a conditioned response be association with

stimuli that have either rewarding or punishing effects. Thus, affective components are learnt
through classical conditioning methods.

The cognitive component of a social attitude consists of the individual's perceptions, beliefs, and
ideas of an object. The behavioural component of attitude consists of the tendency to act or real
towards an object in certain Things.
In Organisation Behaviour, we are interested in the Attitude - Behaviour relationship It is not a
simple relationship, because behaviour is determined not only by attitudes, but also by external
factors in a given social system or situation.

Attitudes are not the same as values. Values are broader in concept. So attitudes are more
specific than values
contain a moral flavor how ever. Values and attitudes are related to one another.
Attitudes are acquired from parents, teachers and group members Attitudes are somewhat less
stable,
Advertisement tends to change people 's attitudes towards a certain product or service .
TYPES OF ATTITUDES

In organisations, attitudes are important because they affect job behaviour. A person has
thousands of attitudes, but from the organisational point of view, only 3 attitudes are of interest,
namely. Job satisfaction. Job Involvement, and Organisation commitment.

Job satisfaction refers to an employee's general attitude towards his job. A person with high level
job satisfaction holds positive attitude towards the job, while an employee not satisfied with his
job holds negative attitude towards his job.

Job involvement measures the degree to which a person identifies with his job, his active
participation in it, and considers his performance important to his self-worth. Individuals who
express high commitment see their identity as closely attached to that of die organiastion.
Individuals who express high commitment see their identity as closely attached to that of the
organisation- Highly committed employees will be better performers and have lower turnover
than those having lower levels of commitment to the organisation.

FUNCTIONS OF ATTITUDES

All people have attitudes is to say the obvious. Attitudes are said to contribute to stability and
behavioural consistency. 4 (four) personality functions are served by the maintenance and
modification of social attitudes. They are 1) Adjustment, 2) Value expression, 3) Knowledge and
4) Ego-defensive. Let us study each of them in some detail:-

1. ADJUSTMENT FUNCTION

The function affirms that people strive to maximise the rewards and to minimise the penalties in
their external environment. Attitudes acquired in the service of the adjustment function are a
means for reaching desired goals or for avoiding undesirable result.

2. EGO-DEFENSIVE FUNCTION

Many of our attitudes have the function of defending our self-image. When we cannot admit to
ourselves that we have feelings of inferiority, we may project those feelings on some convenient
-minority group and better our egos by attitudes of superiority towards this minority group.
3. THE VALUE EXPRESSIVE FUNCTION

The function of value expressive attitudes is to reveal the self-image of a person. There are some
attitudes, which prevent the man from revealing his true nature to himself, and others, other
attitudes have the function of giving positive expression to his central values and to the type of
person he conceives himself to be.

4. THE KNOWLEDGE FUNCTION

This function is based on the need to understand, make sense of and give adequate structure to
the universe. Attitudes which are inadequate for dealing with new and changing situations are
discarded because they lead to contradictions and inconsistencies.

PROCESS OF ATTITUDE CHANGE

An attitude that no longer serves its function will cause the individual holding that attitude to feel
frustrated. To
change altitudes which serves an adjustment function, one or the two conditions must be
satisfied: -
1. The attitude and the activities related to it no longer provide the satisfaction they once
provided- and
2- The individual's level of aspiration has been raised.

For management, one way to change attitudes is to change the environment and its rewards.
Changes in attitudes occur more readily when people perceive that they can accomplish their
objectives by raising their existing altitudes.

The next important agent of attitude change is the opinion leader i.e. who interprets and relays
information to the rank and File members of the community If the manager is an opinion leader,
he may have a great influence on the attitudes developed by workers who hold him in high
esteem.

JOB SATISFACTION

Job satisfaction of an individual expresses one's altitude towards the job. It is all a question of
one's cognition, emotions, and behavioural tendencies- According to VROOM, job satisfaction is
the positive orientation of an individual towards the work, which he is presently performing- A
person with high level of job satisfaction holds very positive altitude about the workplace, and
conversely, a person dissatisfied with the job embraces negative attitudes towards the job
environment- The opposite of job satisfaction is job alienation.

Job satisfaction typically refers to the attitudes of a single employee. It may also refer to the
general level of
attitude within the group.
Job satisfaction is one part of life satisfaction. The nature of one's environment off the job
influences one's
feeling on the job. Job satisfaction influences one's general life satisfaction.

Job satisfaction is very important in OB., because it was assumed that high satisfaction leads to
high employee performance. This assumption may not be correct always HERZBERG’s
Motivation model suggests that satisfaction is not always a strong motivator. The more accurate
relation ship is that high performance leads to high job satisfaction, which then becomes
feedback top influence future performance.

When people perform better, they will get higher rewards, which will lead to grater satisfaction.
But, if rewards
are seen as inadequate for one’s level of performance, dissatisfaction will occur.
THEORIES OF JOB SATISFACTION
There are 3 Major theories, which are mentioned below:-

1. Need fulfillment
2. Reference Group
3. HERZBERG's 2-Factor theory.

According to Need fulfillment theory, a person is satisfied if he gets what he wants, and the more
he wants of
something, the more satisfied he is when he gets it, and more dissatisfied when he does not get it

As per Reference group theory, although it is similar to the Need fulfillment theory, it is
predicted that an individual looks for guidance to a Reference group. If a job needs the interest,
desires, and requirements of a person's reference group, he will like it, and if it does not, he will
not like it.

HERZBERG's Theory relates to both performance and job satisfaction. It says that an enriched
job leads to job satisfaction. On the other hand, a non-enriched job can only lead to lack of
dissatisfaction, hence it cannot serve as a motivator leading to performance.

Let us remember that although there are theories, to explain job satisfaction, job satisfaction
itself is related to a
number of employee variables like age, occupation, size of the organisation turnover, and
absenteeism etc.
ORGANBATIONAL COMMITMENT

In everyday use, the word commitment is used to mean the sense of being bound emotionally or
intellectually to some course of action. In the context of an organisation, a starting point is
provided by MOWDAY, PORTER, and STEERS' definition of oreganisational commitment,
which has 3 components as given below: -
1. A strong belief and acceptance of organisational goals and values.
2. A willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organisation.
3. A strong desire to maintain membership in the organisation.

Research in organisational commitment has been examined primarily in relation to employee

turnover. Other researchers have established a relationship between job satisfaction and turnover
intentions and between organisational commitment and Job performance. Individuals who are
committed to the organisation are less likely to leave their jobs than those who are uncommitted.
Individuals who are committed to the organisation

tend to perform at a higher level and also tend to stay with the organisation, thus decreasing
turnover and
increasing organisational effectiveness.
HOW TO ENHANCE ORGANISATIONAL COMMITMENT?
Research indicates that the following factors may enhance organisational commitment: -

1.High level of freedom or independence or autonomy.

2.Work tenure, length of service
3.Employee satisfaction with personal performance.
4.Perceived fair performance appraisals.
5.Challenging and interesting work

6.Resources and equipment those employees need to be effective on their jobs.

7.Investment in training and development
8.High quality supportive and friendly supervision.
9.High level of responsibility.
10.Broad task design and teamwork.
11.High employee morale based on a climate of trust and cooperation
12.Effective reward management.
13.Effective channel of communication.
14.Part ownership for employees when possible.
15.Selection based on merit.
16.Career progress or job advancement.
17.Employee satisfaction derived from the non-work environment and activities, including health
and physical

conditions.
18.Continuous review of employees' salaries to ensure that a fair and competitive pay is
guaranteed by the
organisation at all times.
FACTORS THAT INHIBIT EMPLOYEE COMMITMENT
1. Unclear and ambiguous roles.
2. The use of punishment by the superior.
3. Alternative employment available.
4. Tension on the job
5. A conviction that the organisation is uncaring about employee's welfare.
6. Unfair performance appraisal.

IMPLICATIONS FOR H.R. MANAGERS

Commitment denotes an action that is not only personal to the committed worker, but also to a
completely voluntary and rational action. Management cannot force it Neither can they hire a
consultant to initiate it The employee can also withdraw it if it is considered as no longer serving
a mutual purpose, for both the employee and management Since the committed employee almost
always expects something in return, the management of human resources should find ways of
reciprocating committed employees. If persistent decreases in commitment, resulting in low level
of commitment in-groups or experienced employees are found, managers will need to be aware
that low commitment norms may impact on new employees and will need advice on ways to
improve commitment levels. Managers concerned about both turnover and work performance
have to be aware of the need to apply a different set of policies in each case.

LESSON NO. 7
LEARNING
WHAT IT IS?
According to Mcghee, Learning has taken place if an individual behaves, reacts, responds as a
result of
experience in a manner different from the way he formerly behaved.

Learning is change in behaviour through education and training, practice and experience. It is
accompanied by acquisition of knowledge. Skills, and expertise which are relatively permanent.
Temporary changes may be only reflexive and fail to represent any learning. If reinforcement
does not accompany the practice or experiences, the temporary change in behaviour will
eventually disappear. It is reinforcement, which makes learning or change in behaviour enduring
by strengthening and intensifying certain aspects of an individual's behaviour.

Learning may be described as " the process of acquiring the ability to respond adequately to a
situation which may or may not have been previously encountered, the favourable modification
of response tendencies consequent on previous experience, particularly the building of a new
series of complex coordinated motor response, the fixation of times in memory so that they can
be recalled or organised., the process of acquiring insight into situation. Thus learning can be
defined as a relatively permanent change in behaviour as a result of prior experience.

NATURE OF LEARNING
1. Learning involves a change, though not necessarily improvement, in
behaviour. Learning may be good or bad from an organisation point of view. For e.g., bad habits,
prejudice,
stereotypes and work restrictions may be learnt by individual.
2. Change in behaviour must be relatively permanent. Temporary changes may be only reflexive
and fail to
represent any learning. Changes caused by fatigue or temporary adaptations are not covered in
learning.
3. The change in behaviour should occur as a result of experience, practice or training. The
change may not be
evident until a situation arises in which the new behaviour can occur.
4. The practice or experience must be reinforced in order for learning to occur. If reinforcement
does not
accompany the practice or experience, the behaviour will eventually disappear.
5. Learning is reflected in behaviour. A change in an individual's thought process or attitudes,
not accompanied
by behaviour, is no learning.
THEORIES OF LEARNING
There are 4 theories, which explain how individuals learn new patterns of behaviour as shown
the diagram given
below: -
TYPES OF LEARNING
1 CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
The classical behaviorists, particularly PAVLOV, and WATSON, attributed learning to the
connection between
stimulus and response. (STIMULUS- ---> RESPONSE).
2 OPERANT CONDITIONING

The operant behaviorists such as SKINNER described the role of consequences in understanding
the learning process. (RESPONSE ---> STIMULUS). Operant behaviour means voluntary or
learnt behaviour in contrast to reflexive or unlearnt behaviour.

3. COGNITIVE LEARNING

Cognitive theories felt that learning is achieved by thinking about the perceived relationship
between events and individual goals . The process within the individual concerned with
receiving, and interpreting information make the individual learn new patterns of behaviour.

It is an integrative theory of learning, which explains that people learn through observation and
direct experience. Modeling is an social learning. People learn through observation and direct
experience. Social learning theory is a behavioral theory. It draws heavily from the classical and
operant conditioning concepts and even goes beyond that. The influence of models is central to
the social learning view point. The following processes determine the influence that a model will
have on an individual:-

1.Attentional process - People only learn from a model when they recognise and pay attention to
its critical
features. We tend to be most influenced by models that are attractive, repeatedly appearing,
which we think are
important or we see as similar to us.
2. Retention process --- A model's influence will depend on how well the individual remembers
the model's
action, even after the model is no longer readily available.
3. Motor Reproduction process -- After a person has seen a new behaviour by observing the
model, the
watching ,must be converted into doing. This process demonstrates that the individual can
perform the modeled
activities.
4. Reinforcement process - Individuals will be motivated to exhibit the modeled behaviour if
positive
incentives or rewards are provided. Behaviours that are reinforced will be given more attention,
learnt better, and
performed often.
RELATIONSHIP OF LEARNING WITH O.B.

Learning has direct impact on training activities- It can give insights into how best to develop
skills that the employee will need to perform effectively. The manager who undertakes to
produce changes in behaviour will teach employees to engage in behaviour that will help the
organisation achieve its objectives. When individuals are late for work, disobey orders or engage
in dysfunctional behaviour, the manager will attempt to teach functional behaviour. When the
employee is performing satisfactorily. Managers will give' the employee feedback and other
forms of rewards so as to strengthen the desirable behaviour.

Learning provides an explanation as to why employers prefer to hire people with job experience.
This will result
in higher job performance.
CLASSICAL CONDITIONING THEORY EXPLAINED

The classical behaviorists such as PAVLOV and WATSON attributed learning to the connection
between stimulus and response. This theory was explained by IVAN PAVLOV , who conducted
experiments to teach dog to salivate when a bell rang. He measured the quantity of saliva
secreted by a dog. When PAVLOV presented the dog with a piece of meat (unconditional
stimulus), it resulted in increase in salivation (unconditional response),On the other hand ,when
he merely rang a bell (natural stimulus), the dog had no salivation . Next PAVLOV linked the
meat and the ringing the bell. After doing this time ,PAVLOV rang the bell without meal. This
time, the dog salivated merely at the sound of the bell. even when no food was offered. What had
happened was that the dog had learnt to respond to the bell This classical conditioning has a
lasting impact on the understanding of learning Classical conditioning can be explained in
another way- Say, the association of cleaning the administration office of the plant with the visit
of a top official from headquarters Every time the top executive visited the plant, cleaning would
take place. This wanton for years. People had learnt to associate the cleaning of office with the
visit of top executive,

Classical conditioning is passive- It represents a small part of total human learning. It can only
explain simple
reflexive behaviour. Something happens, and we react in a specific way But most human
behaviour is voluntary,

rather than reflexive. Most human behaviour operates on the environment. The latter type of
behaviour is
learnt through OPERANT CONDITIONING.
OPERANT CONDITIONING THEORY EXPLAINED.

Operant is defined behaviour that produces effect. Operant conditioning is based on the work of
B.F.SKJNNER, who advocated that individuals emit responses that are rewarding and will not
emit response that are either not rewarded or are punished- Operant conditioning is voluntarily
learnt behaviour and it is determined, maintained and controlled by its consequences. In contrast
respondent behaviour is an involuntary or unlearned response to an environment stimulus.

Operant conditioning is based on the premise that behaviour is a function of consequences.

People learn to behave to get something they desire or to avoid something they do not like.
Behaviour is I likely to be repeated if consequences are unfavorable. Thus, the relationship
between behaviour and consequences is the essence of operant conditioning

Operant conditioning is a powerful tool for managing people in organisations. Most behaviours
in organisations are learnt, controlled, and altered by consequences. If a manager wants to
influence behaviour, he must be able to manipulate the consequences. Thus, it can be concluded
that the behavioural consequences that are rewarding increase the rate of response, while the
adverse consequences decrease the rate of response.

COGNITIVE LEARNING THEORY EXPLAINED

Cognition refers to an individual’s ideas, thoughts, knowledge, interpretations, understanding

etc. about himself and his environment. Cognitive theory of learning assumes that the organism
learns the meaning of various objects and events and learned responses depends upon the
meaning assigned to stimuli. Cognitive theorists argue that the learner forms a cognitive structure
in memory, which preserves and organises information about the various events that occur in a
learning situation.

SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY EXPLAINED

Social learning is learning achieved through the reciprocal interaction between people,
behaviour, and their environment. Social learning theory integrates the cognitive and operant
approaches to learning. People learn through the observation and direct experience. Social
learning theory is a behavioural theory. It draws heavily from the classical and operant
conditioning concepts and even goes beyond that. Through Modeling, people acquire behaviours
by directly observing and imitating others. When the manager or a coworker, who can be
models, demonstrate desirable behaviour, it can have major impact on a person's work efforts.
Many patterns of behaviour are learnt by watching the behaviour of models such as parents,
teachers, superiors, role models, film stars etc.

The influence of models is central to the social learning viewpoint. Social learning also takes
place vial)
Modeling, (also called as vicarious learning), 2) Symbolism, and 3) self-control.
SHAPING BEHAVIOUR

In any organisation, managers are concerned with making the subordinates learn those behaviour
that are most beneficial to the organisation. When a manager moulds individuals by guiding their
learning in graduated steps, he is shaping behaviour.

A manager can shape behaviour by systematically reinforcing each successive step that moves
individuals closer to the desired response. If an employee who has been chronically late for work
comes say, in 20 minutes (as against his usual habit of coming 30 minutes late), the manager can
reinforce this behaviour so that it comes more close to the desired behaviour to the work on time.

STRATEGIES FOR REINFORCEMENT

Reinforcement is very important for learning to occur. Reinforcement increases the strength of
responses and tends to induce repetitions of the behaviour that preceded the reinforcement. Four
(4) types of reinforcement strategies can be employed by managers to influence the behaviour of
employees. These are;- 1) Positive reinforcement 2) Negative reinforcement 3) Extinction and 4)
Punishment.

POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT EXPLAINED

This strategy uses rewards that stimulate desired behaviour and strengthens the probability of
repeating such behaviour in the future. Positive reinforcers can be primary or secondary. Primary
reinforcers have direct beneficial consequences and include food, clothing and shelter.
Secondary reinforcers bring pleasure but have a variety of meanings for individuals such as
money, promotion and praise. Money is considered secondary because it is used to purchase
primary reinforcers. i.e., food.

Effective reinforcers must meet two conditions - First, the reward should be contingent upon the
performance. Second, the reward should match with the needs of the worker. Because positive
reinforcers differ among individuals. Managers must therefore either develop a reward system
that is appropriate for all the members of their workgroup or tailor their rewards to suit each
individual.

NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT EXPLAINED

This is also known as AVOIDANCE LEARNING. Negative reinfiorcers takes place when
individuals learn to avoid or escape from unpleasant consequences. Much lawful behaviour in
our society is based on avoidance learning. For e.g., people learn to drive carefully to avoid
accidents. In the workplace, avoidance learning usually occurs when peers or supervisors
criticize an individual's actions.

Negative reinforcement relies on avoidance of punishment or the threat of punishment. For

instance, we learn to watch for traffic when crossing streets, and we learn to bundle up on cold
days to avoid accidents and to protect ourselves from cold. However, punishment or threat of
punishment is not implied in any of these actions. In work environment, training, safety warning,
orientation sessions and counseling help alert employees against negative consequences of
undesirable behaviour. When coupled with positive reinforcement for appropriate behaviour, the
effect can be extremely useful.

EXTINCTION EXPLAINED

It is an effective method of controlling undesirable behaviour. It refers to non- reinforcement. It

is based on the principle that if a response is not reinforced, it will eventually disappear. The
absence of all forms of reinforcement is used to remove or extinguish undesirable behaviour. A
disruptive employee who, for e.g., picks fights and is apparently punished by the supervisor may
continue the disruptions because of the attention they bring. By ignoring or isolating the
disruptive employee, attention is withheld and possibly also the motivation for fighting.

PUNISHMENT EXPLAINED

Through punishment, managers try to correct improper behaviour of subordinates by providing

negative consequences. Giving harsh criticism, denying privileges, demoting, and reducing an
individual's freedom to do his or her job are common forms of punishment in the workplace.
Punishment is the historic method of reducing or eliminating undesirable behaviour. Sometimes,
 punishment frustrates the punished and leads to antagonism towards the punishing manager or
supervisor. As a result, the effectiveness of the punishing agent diminishes over a period of time.
Because of the possible dangers of punishment, it should be administered properly. The
following points in this regard deserve to be noted: -

1. The specific undesired behaviour, not the person, should be punished. If it is directed at the
person,
punishment will receive revenge.
2. The punishment should be enough to extinguish the undesired behaviour. Under punishment
may not deter the
behaviour; over punishment may produce unrealistic results.
3. Punishment should be administered privately By administering the punishment in front of
others, the worker
is doubly punished in the sense that he loses face in the eyes of coworkers and the management.

4. Punishment should quickly follow the act- It is more effective when applied immediately after
the undesirable behaviour is produced. Further, punishment should follow every occurrence of
the undesirable behaviour.

5. Punishment is effective in modifying behaviour if it forces the person to select a desirable

behaviour that is reinforced. If this is not done, the undesirable behaviour tends to reappear
causing fear and anxiety in the person being punished.

6. Punishment must be administered carefully so that it does not become a reward for undesirable
behaviour.
SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT

Reinforcement always does not follow a particular response. For e.g., studying hard for
examinations sometimes yields high grades, and at other times, it may not be so- Another
example could be, sometimes-keeping top performance in one's job may result in high praise and
recognition, but it may not be always praised and recognised. Therefore one can say that
reinforcement follows certain definite rules. These rules are known as schedules of
reinforcement. The influence of schedules was systematically studied by B.F.SKINNER and co-
workers there are four (4) distinct schedules of reinforcement- they are as follows: -

Interval
Ratio
Fixed Interval
Fixed Ratio
Variable Interval
Variable Ratio
1. Fixed interval schedule

This schedule demands that a fixed amount of time have to elapse before reinforcement is
administered. In many organisations, monetary reinforcement comes at the end of a period of
time- Most workers are paid hourly, weekly or monthly for the time spent on their jobs- This
method offers the least motivation for hard work among workers because pay tied to time
interval rather than actual performance. The occurrence of reinforcement depends largely on the
passage of time

2.Variable Time Schedule

The availability of reinforcement is also controlled mainly by the passage of time in a variable
interval schedule. In some cases, reinforcement can be obtained after a short period has passed.
In others, a much longer interval must elapse before it again becomes available. As a result of
such uncertainty, variable interval schedule of reinforcement yields moderate and steady rates of
response. Suppose a plant manager visits the Shop floor at 1100 hrs, everyday (fixed interval),
performance tends to be high just prior to his visit and thereafter it declines. Under variable
interval schedule, the manager visits at random intervals and none knows for sure when the
manager visits. As a result, performance tends to be higher and there would be less fluctuations
than under the fixed interval schedule

3.Fixed ratio schedule

In this case, rewards are showered after a fixed or constant number of responses. For e.g., piece
rate incentive
plan is a fixed ratio schedule. It tends to produce high rate of response which is both vigorous
and steady.
Workers try to produce as many as pieces as possible in order to pocket the monetary rewards.
Therefore, the
response level here is significantly higher than obtained under an interval schedule.
4.Variable ratio schedule

When the reward varies relative to the behaviour of the individual, he is reinforced on a variable
ratio schedule. Salespersons on commission represent examples of individuals on such a
reinforcement schedule. On some occasions, they make a sale after only two calls on potential
customers. On other occasions, they might need to make twenty or more calls to secure a sale.
The reward then, is variable in relation to the members of successful calls the salesperson makes.

***********************

LESSON NO. 10
ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE AND DESIGN
A structure consists of 3 components, namely, 1) Complexity, 2) Formalisation, and
3)Centralisation. Each of it
is explained below:-
1. COMPLEXITY EXPLAINED
It has 3 differentiations namely, a) The Horizontal Differentiation, b) The vertical
Differentiation, and c) The
Spatial Differentiation. Each of which is explained below
a) HORIZONTAL DIFFERENTIATION

Refers to the degree of differentiation between units based on the orientation of members, the
nature of the tasks they perform, and their education and training. The larger the number of
different operations within an organisation that require specialised knowledge and skills, the
more horizontally complex that organisation is, because diverse orientations make it more
difficult for organisational members to communicate and more difficult for managements to
coordinate their activities.

b) VERTICAL DIFFERENTIATION

Vertical Differentiation is the depth of the organisational hierarchy. When differentiation

increases, complexity increases as the number of hierarchical levels in the organisation increases.
The more levels are there between top management and operations. The greater the potential for
communication distortion, the more difficult it is to coordinate the decisions of the managerial
personnel and the more difficult it is

for top management to oversee closely the actions of operatives.

Vertical and Horizontal differentiation are not independent of one another. Vertical
differentiation may be viewed as a response to an increase in the Horizontal Differentiation. As
work is split into smaller parts, it becomes increasingly necessary to coordinate tasks.

c) SPATIAL DIFFERENTIATION
Refers to the degree to which the location of an organisation's facilities and personnel are
geographically
dispersed. The more that an organisation is differentiated along these dimensions, the more
complex it is.
2. FORMALISATION

It means the degree to which jobs within the organisation is highly formalised, then the job
incumbent has a minimum amount of discretion over that is to be done, and how it is to be done.
Employees in that case know how exactly to handle inputs and produce uniform output. The kind
of job that people are engaged in also helps and influences the degree of formalisation. Jobs in
the production area are most formalised, whereas those in the Sales area or R and D cannot be
made formal to the same degree, because production involves repetitive activities, but sales
department must be flexible in order to respond to changes in the market place and environment.
Similarly, research activity is made flexible if it has to be innovative.
3.CENTRALISATION
It refers to the degree to which decision making is concentrated at a single point in the
organisation. It includes
formal authority. If the top management makes the organisation's key decisions with little input
from lower
level personnel, then the organisation is centralised. On the other hand, the more the lower level
personnel
provide input, the more decentralised the organisation.
FORCES DETERMINING AN ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE
The following forces have been identified as determinants of an organisation's structure: -
1. SIZE

Size influences structure. As an organisation hires more operations, it will derive more economic
benefits from specialisation. As a result. Horizontal differentiation will be increased, and so also
vertical differentiation to coordinate the horizontally differentiating units This expansion in size
will result in spatial differentiation. All these increases in complexity in top management's
abilities to supervise directly the activities within the organisation. Formal rules and regulations
will replace the control through direct surveillance. This increase in formalisation may be
accompanied by still greater vertical differentiation as management creates new units to
coordinate the expanding and diverse activities of organisation! members- Finally, as the top
management is further removed from the operating level, it becomes difficult for senior
executives to take quick decisions. The solution lies in substituting decentralised decision
making for Centralisation. There is a strong inverse relationship between size and centralisation.
In a small organisation it is possible for management to exercise control by keeping decisions
centralised. As size increases, management is physically unable to exercise control in the manner
and is forced to decentralise.

2. TECHNOLOGY

The word Technology has 2 roots, namely ,1) Techno, and 2)Logos. Technology consists of
skill of hand or techniques , whereas Logos stands for Knowledge. Technology has
1)Technoware , 2) Humanware , 3)Infoware. Technology is a body of particular type of
knowledge and relates to direct problem solving intervention . It consists of equipment's,
machines or tools ,sets of activities, methods or processes, arrangements or patterns. In other
words, the technology refers to how an organisation transfers its inputs into outputs. Every
organisation has one or more technologies for converting financial, human, and physical
resources into productivity use.

Technology has certain general features., such as specialisation, integration, discontinuity, and
change. As technology increases specialisation also tends to increase. As work is split up into
smaller parts, integration is required to put them back together again to make a whole product, a
whole organisation, and a whole society. The integration is more difficult in a high technology
society than in a low technology society, because high technology tends to make the system
more complex and make its parts more interdependent. The technology revolution produces an
associated social revolution. Technology is moving so fast that it is creating social problems long
before society could develop solutions. At the plant level, new forms of organisation, new way

of supervision, new compensation structures, and many more changes are required to absorb
technology.
More mobility is needed to absorb technology.

As technology changes, jobs also change. Technology needs more professional, scientific and
other technical personnel to keep the system going. In most sophisticated plants the ratio of white
collar to blue collar employees has increased. Technology upgrades the skill and intellectual
inputs of the total workforce.

3. ENVIRONMENT

An organizations environment represents anything outside the organisation itself. The

environment is composed of these institutions or forces that affect the performance of the
organisation, but over which the organisation has little control. These include suppliers,
government regulatory agencies and so on.

Organisations must adapt to their environments if they are to succeed because organisations are
dependent on their environments if they are to survive. Changing environments produce
uncertainties if management cannot predict in what ways their environments are moving. By
changing the organisation's structure the management can change environmental uncertainty

Formalisation and environmental uncertainty are inversely related. Stable and certain
environments lead to high
formalisation because stable environments create a minimal need for rapid response.

The environment also affects centralisation. If the environment is large and multi-faceted, it
becomes difficult for management to monitor. As a result, the structure become decentralized. It
is for this reason the marketing function in organisations is decentralized. Decentralization
allows for more rapid response.

4. POWER CONTROL

Size , technology ,and environment cannot explain filly an organisation's structure. Power and
politics can explain why an organisation’s is what it is. Power control explanation states an
organisation's structure is the result of a power struggle by internal constituents who are seeking
to future their interests. Like all decision is organisations, the structural decision is not fully
rational. Managers do not necessarily choose that alternative that will maximise the
organisation’s interest. There is much room for the decision -maker to manoeuver. The power
control position argues that those in power will choose a structure that will maintain their
control.

LESSON NO. 11
POWER, AUTHORITY, AND CONTROL MECHANISM
POWER

Power is the ability to influence other's behaviour. Power, from an organisation's point of view,
is the degree of influence an individual has in decision making, without being authorised by the
organisations to do so. Therefore, power is extra-organisational in nature. For E.g., in political
organisations, a close relative of a high up may influence decisions of that high up without
having any sanction from the organisation.

Power is not only one's influence over decision-making, but also it limits the scope of actual
decision making
TYPES OF POWER
This is also known as Bases of power or springs from which power flows.
1. THE LEGITIMATE POWER

This is positive power or official power. It comes from the rules of the organisation. It gives
leaders the power to control resources and to reward and punish others. People accept this power
because they believe it is desirable and necessary to maintain order and discipline in a society.

2. CHARISMATIC POWER

This is the power of attraction and devotion, the desire of one person to admire another person.
The leaders have a personal magnetism, an air of confidence and a belief in objectives. Joan of
Arc, Mahatma Gandhi, and Subhash Chandra Bose are examples.

3. EXPERT POWER

This is also known as the authority of knowledge, which comes as a result of one's specialised
learning. This is the power of knowledge and skill of special kind that are important in getting
the job done. A person's professional competence or knowledge gives him the expert power- His
credibility increases. He can lead other persons to trust his judgement and decisions.

4. REWARD POWER

This comes from authority. The leader has the power to give tangible rewards such as promotion,
attractive work assignments, psychological rewards etc. The subordinate has to believe that he
has access to higher authorities . This reward power can also increase the leader's charismatic
and legitimate power.

5.COERCIVE POWER

This power comes from authority. It is the ability to threaten or punish. The leader can give
tangible punishments like dismissals, demotion, low rating etc. Self-esteem of a subordinate
increases because of reward power and decreases because of punishment or coercive power.
6.POLITICAL POWER

It arises from a leader's ability to work with people and social systems to gain allegiance and
support. It develops in all organisations. There are a number of tactics that leaders can use to
gain political power. For e.g., if you do something for me, I will do something for you. It relies
on the norm of reciprocity in society where two persons in a continuing relationship feels a
strong obligation to repay their social debts. When these trade- off are successful, both parties
get something they want.

AUTHORITY

MAX WEBER defines authority, as the willing and unconditional compliance of people, resting
upon their belief that it is legitimate for superior to impose his will on them and illegitimate for
them to refuse to obey. It can be defined as legitimate right to give orders and get orders obeyed.

CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTHORITY

1. There is existence of RIGHT in authority

2. The RIGHT of giving order is legitimate
3. Authority gives a right to decision making.
4. A person with authority influences the behaviour of others that might otherwise not take place.
5. Exercising authority is subjective.

SOURCES OF AUTHORITY
There are 3 theories, namely, the Formal Authority Theory, the Acceptance Theory, and the
Competence
Theory. Let us discuss each of them-
1. FORMAL AUTHORITY THEORY

Authority does not vest in a managerial position. It is delegated from the top management. For
e.g., a supervisor in production department gets authority from the production manager, a CEO
gets from the Board of Directors or owners. In the Indian situation of public limited companies,
owners have some limitations of authority. Similarly , a manager has limited authority delegated
by his superior.

2. ACCEPTANCE THEORY

The essence of this theory is that people differ in the degree of effort they contribute to achieve
the objectives of the organisation. The degree of effective authority possessed by the manager is
measured by the willingness of subordinates to accept it- There are numerous problems in this
theory. A manager will not know whether the

subordinate will accept the order. For e.g., For a manger to be successful, he needs both
leadership and
authority.
3. COMPETENCE THEORY

There is a feeling that authority is generated by personal competencies. URWICK identifies

formal authority as being conferred by organisation, technical authority as being implicit in
special knowledge or skill and personal authority as being conferred by seniority or popularity.

LIMITATIONS OF AUTHORITY
In an organisation, the quantum of authority decreases at successively lower levels. K is
maximum at the highest
level, and minimum at the lowest level. The authority is not absolute. It is subject to various
social, legal,
political, and economic factors. Similarly, the use of authority by a superior over his subordinate
is restricted by
various factors.
Limits of authority at various level in an organisation

Highest Level
Lowest Level
DIFFERENCESBETWEEN POWER AND AUTHORITY

Both power and authority, no doubt, has the objective of influencing the behaviour of others, but
they are not synonymous . Power is q question of one's capability to exert influence in getting the
desired result. Power has no legal sanctity, while authority does. Both have different mount of
legitimacy. Authority is institution and legitimate, while power is personal and carries little
legitimacy. Authority is delegated by higher management, while power is earned and gained by
leaders on the basis of their leadership and personality, activities, and in situations

HOW TO CONTROL O.B.?

Organisations are primarily people oriented. Through people, organisations achieve their
established and predetermined goals. Organisations regulate the behaviour of their people
through the process of control. There is a distinction between CONTROL and CONTROLS. The
latter is not simply the plural of the former. CONTROL is normative in approach, whereas
CONTROLS deals with measurement, information, analysis and operation. CONTROL sets the
direction, deals with the expectations of behaviour and performance. CONTROLS are a means to
achieve CONTROL at the end. CONTROL is the process of bringing congruence of

he gap between the desired and actual state of things in the organisation. It can be taken at any
stage -
individual level, group level or organisational level.
WHY CONTROL?

While it is true that in natural social units like a family or community, there is in-built control
mechanism, and, therefore, members fulfil their obligations by carrying on the activities of the
units. In organisations, just because there is a structure of roles, responsibilities, and relation
ships they do not automatically contribute to organisational objectives. The organisations must
devise ways and means to achieve conformity of behaviour to certain specified standards.

PRE REQUISITES OF CONTROL

1. Control should bring about set performance.

2. Therefore, establish a performance standard
3. Communicate the standard to all concerned both orally and in writing.
4. Establish reward and reinforcement systems to support the compliance of behaviour.

5. Study the organisational needs, and try to bring about a fit between the two needs of
organisation and the
individual.
MEANS OF CONTROL

According to A.ETZIONI, who has authored the book - MODERN ORGANISATIONS, 1964,
an organisation can apply 3 types of sanctions for controlling behaviour. Sanctions are a kind of
rewards and penalties, which can be applied on individuals or groups to induce people to
conform to norms. The 3 types of sanctions are as follows.

1. PHYSICAL SANCTIONS

This is a kind of coercive power, which includes inflicting pain, restricting movement etc. This is
generally applied at lower levels of employees because they are not largely self motivated. Such
people will have to be coerced to move towards corporate goals. For e.g., dismissals,
suspensions, demotion etc.

2. MATERIAL SANCTIONS

These are just the opposite of physical sanctions. These are based on the control and allocation of
material resources and rewards. People perceive benefits when material sanctions are applied,
and, therefore, conform to the expected behaviour. These type of sanctions are common in most
of the organisations. Carrot-and-stick policy in organisations, role of money, and other material
awards and rewards at the lower level of employees become more important.

3. SYMBOLIC SANCTIONS

These sanctions are not a threat to the employees. There is no claim on material rewards too. But,
symbolic sanctions are quite important for those who receive them. These are applied at higher
levels of employees who get psychological satisfaction. Such symbols may be normative like
prestige and esteem, love and acceptance etc.

REMEMBER the use of various sanctions is determined by the possession of power and
authority, which are
influencing factors in controlling behaviour. Modem organisations do not like to employ
sanctions for

controlling behaviour.
They employ proper leadership, communication, and organisational
climate.
POWER DISTANCE

People are different from one another because of variations in the physical, mental and
intellectual capabilities. This in turn creates differences in wealth and power. According to
HOFSTEDE, who used the term POWER DISTANCE, in societies the inequalities in power and
wealth can be measured to the extent to which a society accepts the fact that power and wealth is
unequally distributed. A high power distance society accepts large and wide differences in
institutions and organisations. Employees show a great deal of respect for those in authority.
Designations, ranks and status carry weight. When negotiating in certain countries (where high
power distance is a means to get things done specially) organisations find it negotiable if they
send their representatives having status with those having similar status and recognition. India is
one country where there is high power distance. Examples of DENMARK, AUSTRIA can be
cited where there is low power distance.

In simple language, POWER DISTANCE means "WILLING ACCEPTANCE OF UNEQUAL

POWER".

LESSON NO. 12

MANAGEMENT OF CONFLICT OR CONFLICT IN ORGANISATION

INTRODUCTION
 Conflict is a basic fact of life in groups and organisations. The raison d' etre for conflicts to arise
is the emergence of organisations. First of all, organisations are people oriented. These people
have different personalities and psyches, and so are their perceptions, and values. Next, the
assignments of jobs have contrasting characteristics, there is some inequality in status, and
competition takes place. Finally, organisations have scare resources even for which to get
possession, competition occurs. Thus, one can say with all the authority under one's belt,
conflicts are unavoidable in organisations. Wherever there is social interaction and social
interdependence conflicts are bound to arise, and it is just natural. However, only some conflicts
are beneficial, while others are not beneficial to organisations. A manager must understand such
situations of conflict, and deal with it appropriately. The whole idea is to manage conflicts in
such a way so as to achieve both individual and organisational goals. The point to be emphasised
is that social conflict,

both good and bad, is normal and a recurring phenomenon of our social system.

MEANING OF CONFLICT

We must, first of all, understand that conflict occurs in various situations \ background \ settings.
It is generally understood as a kind of controversy, clash, strife etc.. Generally speaking, conflict
appears to be a disagreement, contradiction, and incompatibility.

According to VSP RAO, and PS NARAYANA -

Authors of ORGANISATION THEORY AND BEHAVIOUR, Published by VIKAS
PUBLISHING HOUSE P.LTD. ' CONFLICT IS A PROCESS IN WHICH AN EFFORT IS
PURPOSEFULLY MADE BY ONE PERSON OR UNIT TO BLOCK ANOTHER THAT
RESULTS IN FRUSTRATING THE ATTAINMENT OF HIS OR HER INTERESTS".

FEATURES OF CONFLICT
1. When 2 or more parties pursue mutually incompatible goals, conflicts arise.
2. If 2 parties or more have perspectives differing from one another, conflicts occur. In other
words, perceptions differ.
3. Sometimes, deliberate behaviour also brings about conflict.
4. Conflicts could be hidden or surface up

Conflicts and competition are not one and the same. In a conflict, one side interferes with the other's
opportunity to acquire resources or perform activities. In competition, both sides try to win, but
neither side actively interferes with the other.

VIEWS ON CONFLICT
There are 3 Schools of Thought on Conflict. They are 1) Classical, 2) Behavioural, and 3) Inter-
actionist.

According to the Classical School, conflict if found in organisations is an abnormality, and it will
prove to be a dangerous process. Conflict induces mainly negative outcomes such as, anger,
confusion, lack of cooperation etc.
 The Behavioural school is of the view that Conflict is harmful, and it must be avoided at all
costs. Those who generate conflict are trouble makers and were bad for the organisation.
However, even this school of Thought viewed that conflicts are natural occurrences in
organisations.

The Inter - actionist school of thought views that in some cases, conflicts are helpful, facilitative,
and functional- Conflict is not an organisational abnormality. On the other hand, it is a normal
feature of social intercourse. It is a fact of life that must be understood, rather than fought. This
School further says that conflict is neither good nor bad for organisations. Even the so-called
perfect organisations also come across conflicting situations. This school is of the view that
conflict is not only inevitable, but also desirable. If there is no conflict, there is no change, and
no innovation. That means organisations are apathetic and static, both of which are detrimental.

POSITIVE CONCEQUENCES OF CONFLICT

1. Conflicts are major catalysts and activators of change in organisations. When there is conflict,
the effort of
organisations would be diverted to look for and search for new solutions.
2. Sometimes, groups present consensus decisions, which are not necessarily optimal, rational. If
conflicts are
found there, then the whole course of decision may change to be in favour of organisations,
3. Conflict arouses interest and curiosity- When there is an open disagreement, people tend to put
forward
imaginative solutions. Conflicts also help people to learn and develop themselves.

4. When we observe inter group conflict and competition, chances are that the groups are brought
closer together, instead of deviating from one another. In many situations, if these groups have to
face a common enemy, then organisational groups show up with internal unity.

5. Conflict is necessary to organisational life. It helps balance power relationships between

departments.
NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF CONFLICT
1. Any conflict for that matter builds stress in people. Losers feel alienated. A climate of mistrust
and suspicion
develops.

2. When there is conflict, we also observe diversion of energy. All the efforts wilt be directed
towards winning the conflict, rather than move towards accomplishment of corporate goals.
Narrow interests prevail. Long term goals are forgotten.

3. When there is intense conflict, people shy away from active collaboration, resulting in tension
build up, and
communication breakdowns.
CONFLICT AS A SERIES OF STAGES
L.R.PONDY, in his article - ORGANISATIONAL CONFLICT: CONCEPTS AND MODELS,
published in the ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE QUARTERLY, VOL.12, 1967, outlines
conflict in various stages namely, LATENT CONFLICT, PERCEIVED CONFLICT, FELT
CONFLICT, and CONFLICT AFTERMATH. He advocates that conflict to be understood as a
dynamic process, thus indicating a series of events. It can be diagrammatically shown as under: -

Now, the explanation of the above diagram.

1. LATENT CONFLICT

Each episode begins with a latent conflict. The sources are within the organisation. Competition
for scarce resources, for positions in the organisation, role conflict etc. However, it has not
surfaced up. The conflict is hidden. These are the antecedent conditions for conflicts to come on
surface. So, there is anticipation of conflict.

2. PERCEIVED CONFLICT Here, basic sources such as those listed in the patent conflict are
not there. Conflicts arise in this stage, purely due to misunderstanding, which can be improved
by improving the communication between the parties differing in perception
3. FELT CONFLICT
This arises as a result of disagreement over interpretation. In this stage, conflict will not arise
unless the
differences become personalized or internalized.
4. MANIFEST CONFLICT
This is the stage for open confrontation. There could be the negative consequences such as open
aggression,
sabotage, apathy, withdrawal - all leading towards organisational ineffectiveness.
5. CONFLICT AFTERMATH

The aftermath of a conflict could be either positive or negative depending upon how the conflict
is resolved. If it is genuinely resolved, it can lead to a more enduring and cooperative
relationship between organisational participants. If, on the other hand, a conflict is merely
suppressed but not resolved, the latent conditions of conflict may be aggravated, and explode in
more violent and serious forms. This legacy is called as CONFLICT AFTERMATH

ANALYSING CONFLICT
According to VSP RAO and PS NARAYANA, authors of ORGANISATIONAL THEORY
AND
BEHAVIOUR, a conflict could be analysed as under. A Diagrammatic sketch is given below: -
.

.
INTER
INTRA
INTER
INTRA
INTER
INTRA
INDIVIDUAL LEVEL CONFLICT
Under this, we cover two levels - 1) Inter individual conflict, and 2) Intra individual conflict-
Intra individual conflict is internal to the person and it is quite difficult to analyse. Every one of
us has some
needs. To fulfil these needs, we join organisations. If needs are not fulfilled, then frustration
begins, and leads to

negative behaviour, which, in turn, will affect job performance. If the individual goals and
organisational goals are not integrated then, there is incongruity, in which case an individual
faces a conflict within himself. He faces dilemmaic situations. Basically, Intra individual conflict
arises due to divergent goals, or arising from out of multiple roles to be played daily.

Sometimes, an individual faces goal conflict, and role conflict. Goal conflict arises when an
individual faces a goal, which has both positive and negative features or when 2 or more
competing goals exist. Goal conflict has got 3 types, each of which is explained below

1.
APPROACH-APPROACH CONFLICT
A person wants two positive situations, but can have only one. The person might be torn between
two lucrative
jobs.
2. APPROACH-AVOIDANCE CONFLICT
In this form of goal conflict, the person wants to achieve a goal that has both positive and
negative aspects. For e.g., a marketing executive may get enhanced status in an unpleasant
station of posting. A student may work hard to get a top position in an examination, but it is
accompanied by several sacrifices.

3. AVOIDANCE-AVOIDANCE CONFLICT
Here, a person is faced with2 negative goals. He may not choose either of them. He may simply
leave them
situation. For e.g., a person may dislike his job, but he has no alternate job.

Now coming to the role conflict, it is the result of divergent role expected of a person on the job.
A role is a set of expectations people have about the behaviour of a person in a position. An
individual occupies many different position s in a variety of organisations and perform multiple
roles. Professors may be teachers, researchers, consultants, community leaders etc. A supervisor
is a link between top management and lower level employees. He has to manage people
reporting to him, and he is himself managed by his superior. Thus, he has multiple roles to
perform. In such situations, role conflicts arise.

Role ambiguity is another feature. Ambiguity is said to occur when an individual is not too sure
of his duties and responsibilities. As a result, he is not able to enact the role. When employees
are not clear about their duties and responsibilities, job performance is affected.

Role conflict results in psychological stress leading to emotional problems.

In order to resolve role conflict, participative management techniques help. Persuasion can also
help to bring subordinate's goals nearer to organisational goals. However, it must be remembered
that role conflict cannot be planned away.

INTERPERSONAL CONFLICT

As the heading itself suggests, it is between one person and the other, one department and the
other. Each person is pressurising to acquire some scarce resources. Interpersonal conflicts arise
due to personality differences, different perceptions, changing values and interests, differences in
power and status, and when resources are scarce.

INTERGROUP CONFLICT

Most of the departments in the organisations compete for allocation of scarce resources and
power. Inter group conflicts over authority and jurisdiction are also quite common. Sources of
Inter group conflict are 1) Incompatible goals, 2) Task interdependence, 3) Resource allocation,
4)Competitive incentives and rewards, and 5) Line and staff conflicts, 6)Differences in
perception and values, and finally, 7) Heterogeneity of members.

INTRA ORGANISATIONAL CONFLICT

 Normally, within an organisation, 3 kinds of strains can be seen and experienced. They are 1)
The Horizontal
strain, 2) The Vertical strain, and 3) The line and staff conflict.,

The horizontal strain refers to conflict between employees or departments at the same
hierarchical level in an organisation. Sometimes, when one department is interdependent
functionally on another dependent, any breakdown in the performance of one may affect the
performance of the other, in which case the strain is bound to occur.

The vertical strain occurs as a result of superior-subordinate relations going awry. This may be
due to inadequate
communication, and a lack of shared perceptions of members at various levels.

The Line and staff conflict is inherent in the very concept itself. The concept says that various
functions could be split into 2 categories, namely, hierarchical, and nonhierarchical. Line
manager's look down upon staff specialists. They consider the latter to be impediments. The staff
specialists complain that the line managers don't heed to their advice, and will use their services
as a last resort. Line managers hold the view that staff specialists oversteps its authority. There
are many other differences between these two structures, such as line managers resent new ideas,
and they do not support and implement even the best of ideas offered by the staff specialists.

INTER ORGANISATIONAL CONFLICT

The bases of inter group conflict are essentially the same as for inter organisational conflict.
They are 1) Incompatible objectives and 2) conflicts over status, prestige and money. However,
inter organisational conflict is more extensive, more diffuse than the conflict of persons or
groups.

When one organisation is in conflict with another organisation. It helps both the organisations in
4 ways: -
1. Individuals join together under a common bond to fight for values dear to their organisation.
2. Objectives and values change to that extent so as to fight out the organisation that is in conflict
with our

organisation.
3. Making organisational members aware of the strategy and tactics of the antagonist.
4. It acts as an agency of social control.

When do we say that two organisations are in conflict? There are 3 conditions, which explains
the above
features. They are as under-

1. Each of the organisations must be present in the image of the responsible decision maker of the
other. Simply stated, if one organisation does not know the other organisation, a conflict cannot
exist until each tries to know the other.
 2. A decision on the part of one organisation must affect the other organisation significantly.
Two organisations,
which are not in competition, cannot be in conflict.
3. Whenever two organisations are expanding into a common field, so that possession of part of
the field by
one excludes the other, conflict is possible.
MANAGEMENT OF CONFLICT

There are 2 types of conflict, namely, 1) Constructive, and 2) Destructive. There is enormous
disagreement over the consequential effects of conflict on the social system. One school of
thought seems to view conflict as undesirable since it inevitably leads to disruption of the social
system. An opposite view considers social conflict essential to the effective functioning of every
social system. In fact, neither view is absolutely accurate. Some conflict and deviance disrupts
the system, and other instances of conflict and deviance are beneficial to the system.
Discriminating between the two, however, is no simple task.

Social conflict also aids group cohesiveness by providing an outlet for hostility. If it does not,
then the group members will become apathetic or drop out of group membership. As group
members shed their inhibitions about expressing negative feelings, they develop stronger ties to
their group membership. A group whose members continuously argue over ideas and issues can
be very productive.

According to SAMUEL DEEP - Author of HUMAN RELATIONS IN MANAGEMENT,

published by GLENCOE PUBLISHING CO., CALIF. 1978, P.212, constructive and destructive
conflicts can be identified with the help of following table

CONSTRACTIVE CONFLICT WHEN

DESTRUCTIVE CONFLICT WHEN
1. Problems are brought out, identified and

clarified.
2. Group think is avoided.
3. Creativity is promoted.

4. More taught goes into ideas. Individual

effort is estimulated.

5. Encourage group cohesiveness and provides for a system of checks and balances within
organisation.

Too much stress is created for individual.

Group decision making becomes week.

Cooperation is replaced by infighting
Focus on short range goes at the cost of long range goals.
Goals are distorted and resolution of conflict is viewed as
WIN-LOSE, rather than as WIN-WIN.
There are 2 ways to deal with conflict in an effective way. They are - to create and stimulate
constructive
conflict, and to resolve destructive conflict.
CONFLICT STIMULATION TECHNIQUE

We must realise that conflict is not always negative. Its positive features are very many, on
which one has to lay stress. Man looks for challenges both as an individual, and as part of a
social group. If there is no novelty, there is no gain. A manager must determine the optimal level
of conflict stimulation, rather than attempt at minimum conflict. When to stimulate situations in
which conflict is too low generally involve people who are afraid to "ROCK THE BOAT", as the
proverb goes. They passively accept things the way they are. There is too much lethargy, lack of
disagreement as group members tolerate each other's weaknesses. If managers are surrounded by
sycophants and "YES" men, and managers believe in maintaining peace, cooperation at all costs.
And always work for consensus decisions, lack of new ideas and employees show high
resistance to change them, we have to presume that all such situations require stimulation of
conflict.

According to S.P.ROBBINS, author of "CONFLICT MANAGEMENT AND CONFLICT

RESOLUTION,
communication among group members stimulate conflict. Ambiguous or threatening messages
encourages

Rumours, if plantedvintellugenly, also help in stimulating conflict. Secondly,

disturbing the status quo of organisations by bringing outsiders also helps. Thirdly, restructuring
the organisation so that new entrants or responsibilities will create uncertainty is also a way to
stimulate conflict. Fourthly, encourage competition.

TECHNIQUES OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION

Following are some of the frequently employed techniques:-
1. DOMINANCE THROUGH POSITION

He simplest technique is, of course, elimination of other party. That is to say, to force the
opponent to give up fighting. Conflicting parties are told to maintain calmness and composure,
an appearance of grace and drop the fight. Groups are not allowed to interact with each other.
However, it should be noted that it is not always possible to effectively resolve interdepartmental
conflicts through dominance or use

of positional authority.
2 APPEALS PROCEDURE
This is a conventional method. It is the people in disagreement who approach higher authority to
help them
arrive at a solution.
3. LIAISON GROUPS / INTERMEDIARIES
It is possible to reduce interdepartmental conflicts by setting up special liaisons between the
conflicting
departments. Sometimes, outside consultant are brought to act as arbitrators.
4. MEMBER ROTATION

By rotating members between interdependent departments creates an atmosphere where the new
comer can exchange his views with others. Role reversal or empathy helps them in removing
misunderstandings and thus reduce conflict.

5. REDUCE INTERDEPENDENCE

Where 2 departments have to work in an interdependent fashion and share scarce resources, there
is potential for conflict. In this situation, interdependence will have to be reduced. But how this
can be achieved? Departments be provided with resources and inventories that are independent
of those provided for other departments, but this is expensive. Sometimes, formal integration can
be achieved to facilitate coordination and smooth workflow.

6. SUPERORDINATE GOALS

Superordinate goals are goals common to all the parties and hence pooling of resources are
required. Superordinate goals demand interdependence and cooperation between departments. I n
that case, opposing parties work together harmoniously to achieve the common purpose.

7. IDENTIFYING A COMMON ENEMY

" A STRONG ENEMY IS A UNIFYING FORCE" is the principle underlying this method of
resolving conflict. When there is a common threat and overriding common purpose of victory or
survival, then the opposing parties forget their differences and join hands to combat the situation.

THOMPSON'S APPROACH TO CONFLICT RESOLUTION

There are 5 styles as given in the following diagram. They are - 1) Competing, 2) Collaborating,
3) Avoiding, 4) Accommodating and 5) Compromising.. Under Assertive style. Competing and
collaborating techniques are included, while under Non-assertive style. Avoiding and
Accommodating are included. In between these two classifications lie compromising.

There are 5 styles as given in the following diagram. They are - 1) Competing, 2) Collaborating,
3) Avoiding, 4) Accommodating and 5) Compromising.. Under Assertive style. Competing and
collaborating techniques are included, while under Non-assertive style. Avoiding and
Accommodating are included. In between these two classifications lie compromising.

COMPETING .. This is power-oriented, and relies on punishment, fights, arguments.

COLLABORATING .. This is WIN-WIN style. There is open sharing of information, and
listening. All
alternatives are considered. Both parties get benefit of a permanent nature.
AVOIDING.. This style brings about withdrawal, indifference, apathy, and detachment.
ACCOMODATING .. In this style, parties are generous, and self-sacrificing. Emphasis is on
common interests.
Deemphasis on differences.
COMPROMISING.. This style is traditional. Nobody wins. There is give- and- take in this style.
That is,
LOSE-LOSE style.
Five style of Conflict Management
Conflict-Hand,
Style
Appropriate Conditions
Competing
1. When quick, decisive action is vital ( e.g. emergencies.)
2. On important issues when unpopular actions need implementing (cost cutting, enforcing

unpopular rules, discipline).

3. On issues vital to company welfare when you know you are right.
4. Against people who lake advantage of noncompetitive behavior.

Collaborating
1. To find an integrative solution when both sets of concerns ore too important to be
compromised.
2 . When your objective is to learn.

-
3. To merge insight* from people with different perspectives.
4. To gain commitment by incorporating concerns into a consensus.
5. To work through feelings that hove interfered with a relationship.

Compromising
1. When goats ore important but not worm m" effort or potential disruption of more assertive

modes.
2. When opponents with equal power are committed to mutually exclusive goals.
3. To achieve temporary settlements to complex issues.
4. To arrive at expedient solutions under time pressure.
5. As o backup when collaboration or competition is unsuccessful.

PROF. K.V. MURTHY

59
Competing
Collaborating
Avoiding
Accommodating
Compromising
Avoiding

1. When an issue is trivial or more important issue are pressing.

2. When you perceive no chance of satisfying your concerns.
3. When potential disruption outweighs m benefits of resolution.
4. To let people cool down and regain perspective.
5. When gathering information supersedes immediate decision.
6. When others can resolve the conflict more effectively.
7. When issues seem tangential or symptomatic or other issues.

Accommodating1. When you find you ore wrong-to allow a better position to be heard, to learn,
and to show
your reasonableness.
2. When issues are more important to others than to yourself-to satisfy others and maintain

cooperation.
3. 16 build social credits for later issues.
4. To minimize loss when you ore outmatched and losing.
5. When harmony and stability ore especially important.
6. To allow employee to develop by learning from mistakes.

LESSON NO. 13
ORGANISATIONAL CLIMATE AND CULTURE
(This lesson is being dealt with under 2 parts. The first part deals with the CLIMATE, while the
second part
deals with the CULTURE)
PART ONE: ORGANISATIONAL CLIMATE
INTRODUCTION

Organisational climate is a set of characteristics that describe an organisation and that

distinguishes one organisation from another, and are relatively enduring over a period of time
and influence the behaviour of people in the organisations. It is the summary perception which
people have about the organisation. Thus, it is the global expression of what is organisation is.

Organisation climate is thus, THE MANIFESTATION OF ATTITUDES OF

ORGANISATIONAL MEMBERS TOWARD THE ORGANISATION ITSELF. An
organisation tends to attract and keep people who fit its climate, so that its pattern is perpetuated
atleast to some extent. Organisation climate is a very important factor to be considered in
studying and analysing organisations because it has a profound influence on the outlook, well
being and attitudes of organisational members and thus on their total performance. It affects the
behaviour of the people in 3 ways as under:-
1. Defining the stimuli that confront the individual.
2. Placing constraints upon the individual's freedom of choice
3. Providing source of reward and punishment.

Organisational climate thus provides a useful platform for understanding each characteristics of
organisations,
such as stability, creativity, and innovation, communication and effectiveness etc.

Organisational climate should be viewed from total system's point of view. There may exist
different climates within different departments in the organisation and the se sub climates will be
integrated to form the organisation climate.

FACTORS AFFECTING ORGANISATIONAL CLIMATE

In every organisation, there exist certain elements which exercise influences on the existing
climate. These are:-

1. Organisation structure.
2. Organisation context.
3. Physical environment
4. Process
5. System values and norms

Let us study each of the above in some detail: -

1. Organisation Structure

Structure is a framework that establishes formal relationships and delineate authority and
functional responsibility. The actual arrangement of hierarchy affects the climate. Highly
decentralised structure results in sound climate when the management feels the necessity of high
degree of inputs to the total output. In a sharp

contrast, if the management feels the necessity of maintaining greater degree of consistency in
operations regarding decision making, it will follow decentralised nature and structure. THUS
STRUCTURE AFFECTS CLIMATE.

2. Organisational Context

If the company is wedded to such a policy, then it is effectively utilising the resources - both
human and non- human. In that case, one can say that the climate is good. The manpower
philosophy is generally expressed by rules, regulations and policies etc. The point is that the
reactions of the employees and the degree to which they welcome and accept the managerial
philosophy is very critical to the development of sound and favourable organisational climate.
The climate is said to be highly favourable wen the existing management techniques are such
that the employee's goals are perfectly matched to the ideals of organisation.
3. Physical Environment

It includes the external conditions of environment, the size and location of the building in which
am employee works, the size of place, the size of city - all these affect the organisational climate.
Office decor, size and space a person has in doing the work are important factors to be borne in
mind as they affect climate. High level of noise brings a bad feeling and leads to frustration,
nervousness. And aggression and will have a negative effect on the organisational climate.

An employee performing his job in a relatively clean, quiet, and safe

environment will have a favourable perception of organisational climate.
4. Process

There are so many elements of the process which an organisation follows to achieve its
objectives. The elements include communication, decision making, innovation and leadership. In
all these processes the relationship between superior and subordinate is visible and therefore the
superior cannot afford to ignore this visible interface.

A leader has to be aware of the possible influence of his actions on the climate when deciding
about the most appropriate control and supervision technique for a given situation. When a
leader mismatches his style to the situation it might abort any hope of attaining organisational
objectives.

5. System values and norms

Every organisation has a formal value system where certain kinds of behaviours are rewarded
and encouraged and certain kinds of behaviour forces an individual to formal sanctions. The
formal value system is communicated to employees through rules, regulations and policies. From
the organisational point of view, both formal and informal groups are very powerful in
exercising influence on climate.

WHAT CONSTITUTES A FAVOURABLE CLIMATE?

Climate can range along a continuum from favourable to neutral to unfavourable. Both
employees and employers want a more favourable climate, because of its benefits, such as better
performance and job satisfaction.

The typical elements which contribute to make a climate favourable are given below: -
1. Quality of leadership.
2. Amount of trust.

3. Communication, both upward and downward.

4. Feeling of useful work.
5. Responsibility
6. Fair rewards
7. Reasonable job pressures
8. Opportunity
9. Reasonable controls, structure and bureaucracy
10. Employee involvement, and participation.

Employee feels that the climate is favourable when they are doing some thing useful that
provides a sense of personal worth. They frequently want challenging work that provides
intrinsic satisfaction. Many employees also want responsibility. They want to be listened to and
treated as if they have value as individuals. They want to feel that the organisation really cares
about their needs and problems.

PART II
NOW. PART TWO: ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
INTRODUCTION

Organisational culture represents common perception shared by members of an organisation.

Individuals with altogether different background or at different levels in the organisation have a
tendency to describe the organisation culture in almost similar terms.

According to CAMPBELL, IT IS CONCERNED WITH HOWEMPLOYEES PERCEIVE THE

SIX BASIC CHARACTERISTICS, NAMELY, THE INDIVIDUAL, AUTONOMY,
STRUCTURE, REWARD, CONSIDERATION AND CONFLICT.

Organisation culture refers to a system of shared meaning held by members, which distinguishes
one organisation from another organisation. Organisation culture is always unique and distinct.
That is how one can distinguish one organisation from another.

CHARACTERISTICS OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE

Following are the characteristics, which can be called as the essence of culture:-

1. Member identity
2. People focus
3. Group emphasis
4. Control
5. Unit integration.
6. Risk tolerance
7. Reward criteria
8. Means-ends orientation

9.Conflict tolerance
10. Open system focus.
Now, each of the above is discussed in some detail:-
Member Identity: The degrees to which employees identify with the organisation as a whole,
rather than

with their type of job or field of professional expertise.

2. People focus: The degree to which management decisions take into consideration to effect
outcomes on
people with the organisation.
3. Group emphasis: The degree to which work activities are organised around groups rather than
individuals.
4. Controls: The degree to which rules, regulation and direct supervision are used to oversee and
control
employee behaviour.
5. Unit Integration: The degree to which units within the organisation are encouraged to operate
in a coordinated

or interdependent manner.
6. Risk Tolerance: The degree to which employees are encouraged to be aggressive, innovative
and risk taking.
7. Reward criteria: The degree to which rewards such as salary increases and promotions are
awarded according

to employee performance, rather than seniority (MERITOCRACY vs. GERONTOCRACY),

favoritism, or
other performance factors.
8. Means-ends orientation: The degree to which management focuses on results rather than on
the techniques
and processes used to achieve those results or outcomes.
9. Conflict tolerance: The degree to which employees are encouraged to air conflicts and
criticism openly.
10. Open system focus: The degree to which the organisation monitors and responds to changes
in the external
environment.

Appraising the organisation on these 10 characteristics, then, gives a composite picture of the
organisation's culture. This is the basis for feelings of shared understanding that members have
about the organisation, how things are done in it and the way members are supposed to behave.

FUNCTIONS OF CULTURE
Culture performs a number of functions in organisations. A few of them are given below:-

1. It has boundary defining role i.e., it creates distinctions between one organisation and another.
2. It conveys a sense of identity for organisation members.
3. Culture facilitates the generation of commitment to something larger than one's individual self
interest.
 4. It enhances the social system stability. Culture is the social glue that holds the organisation
together by
providing standards for employees about what to say and do.
5. Culture serves as a sense making and control mechanism that guides and shapes the attitudes
and behaviour of
employees.
TRANSMISSION OF CULTURE TO EMPLOYEES
Culture is transmitted to employees in a number of ways. The following 4 ways help us
understand how
employees learn culture in the organisations:-

1. Stories: This is circulated throughout organisations, which typically contain events etc. launched
by the organisation's founding fathers. Their philosophy, value systems, attitudes get circulated .
There are other aspects in the organisation, which also get circulated. Some of these are - rule
breaking, rags to riches stories, reductions in work force, relocation of employees, reactions to
past mistakes, and coping strategies in the organisation to manage change and turbulence in the
environment. These stories provide explanations and legitimacy to current practices in the
organisation.

2. Rituals: These are repetitive sequences of activities which express and reinforces the Key values
of the organisation, besides, what goals are more important, and which people are important and
which of them are of no consequence.

3. Material symbols: Some organisations provide their top executives with chauffeur driven car, and
other facilities, travel for self and family at the organisation's cost and other perquisites. The
material symbols include the size and layout of offices, the elegance of furnishings, executive
perks and dress. This symbol conveys to employees who is important, the degree of
egalitarianism, and the behaviour like risk taking, conservatism, authoritarian, participation,
individualism, which are appropriate.

4. Language: Many organisations and units within organisations use language as a way to identify
members of a culture or sub culture. By learning this language, members attest to their
acceptance of culture and in so doing help to preserve it.

Organisations over time often develop unique terms to describe equipment, offices, key
personnel, suppliers. Customers or products that relate to its business. New employees are
frequently overwhelmed with acronyms and jargons. This terminology acts as a common
denominator that unite members of a given culture or sub culture.

MAINTAINING ORGANISATION CULTURE

 An organisation's culture does not pop out of thin air. Once established, it rarely fades away. An
organisation's current customs, traditions and general way of doing things are largely due to what
it has done before and the degree of success it has had with those endeavors. This leads us to the
ultimate source of an organisation's culture i.e., its founders fathers.

Once a culture is in place, there are practices like the human resources practice which reinforces
the organisation's culture. The selection process, performance evaluation criteria, reward
practices, training and career development activities and promotion procedures ensure that those
hired fit in with the culture, reward those who support it, and penalise those who challenge it.
Besides, the following 3 forces play a particularly

important part in sustaining a culture. They are:-

1. Selection process and practices.

2. Actions of top management
3. Socialisation needs.

Let us discuss each of these in some detail:-

1. Selection process and pr actives: The goal of the selection process is to identify and hire
individuals who have knowledge, skill and abilities to perform the jobs within the organisation
successfully. But typically more than one candidate will be identified who meets any given job
requirement. When that point is reached, it would be naive to ignore that the final decision as to
who is hired is significantly influenced by the decision maker's judgement of how well the
candidates will fit into organisation. This attempt to ensure a match, whether purposely or
inadvertently results in the hiring people who have values essentially consistent with those of the
organisation or atleast in some values. Additionally, the selection process provides information
to applicants about the organisation. Candidates learn about the organisation and if they perceive
conflict between the values and those of the organisation, they can self-select themselves out of
the applicant pool selection, therefore, selection becomes a two way traffic, allowing either
employees or applicants to abrogate a marriage if there appears to be a mismatch. In this way,
the selection process sustains an organisation's culture by selecting those individuals who might
attack or undermines its core values.

2. Actions of top management: The actions of top management also have a major impact on the
organisation's
culture. Through what they say and how they behave, senior executives establish norms that
filter down
 through the organisation as to whether risk-taking is desirable, how much freedom managers
should give their subordinates. What is appropriate dress, what actions will pay off in terms of
pay raises, promotion, rewards, and the like.

4. Socialisation: It is a continuous process of transmitting key elements of an organisation's culture

to its employees. It consists of both formal methods and informal means for shaping the
attitudes, thoughts, and behaviour of employees. Viewed from the organisation's perspective.
Socialisation is like placing an organisation's finger prints on people. From the employee's point
of view, it is the essential process of learning the ropes to survive and prosper within the
company.

Socialisation can be conceptualized as a process consisting of three stages as stated below:-

1. Pre-arrival: It encompasses all the learning that occurs before a new member joins the
organisation.
2. Encounter: The new employee sees what the organisation is really like and confronts the
possibility that
expectations and reality may diverge.
3. Metamorphosis: It is a relatively long lasting change. Here the new employee adjusts to his
work group's
values and norms.
The Socialisation process can be depicted in a diagram, which follows:
OUTCOMES
DETAILED EXPLANATION TO THE 3 STAGES OF SOCIALISATION PROCESS
1. THE PRE-ARMVAL STAGE
It explicitly recognise that each individual arrives with a set of values, attitudes, and
expectations. These cover both the work to be done and the organisation. For instance, in many
jobs, particularly professional work , new members will have undergone a considerable
Socialisation in the school as well as during training. One major purpose of a business school, for
e.g., is to help students socialise to the attitudes and behaviour, a corporation would look for. If
business executives believe that successful employees will value profit, ethics, loyalty, hard
work, desire to achieve, and willingly accept directions from their superiors, organisations can
hire such employees \ individuals who have been cast in the mould by business schools. The
selection process is used in most organisations to inform prospective employees about the
organisation as a whole. The selection process enables the organisation to select the right person
for the right job, who will possess right attitudes, behaviour

and aptitude. This will help the new employee to socialise in the new organisation faster and
quicker. The selection process also enables both the selector and the person seeking selection to
know each of them fits into the other or not. Thus, it becomes a filtering process. Both the
organisation and the individual must match to be successful on both the parts.
2. THE ENCOUNTER STAGE

In this stage, the individual employee confronts a possible dichotomy between the expectations
about co- workers, the job, boss, and the organisation in general, and realities. As the proverb
goes - EXPECTATIONS MAY NOT ALWAYS CORRESPOND TO REALITIES. When there
is a gap between the expectations and realities, it is better for the new employee to undergo
socialisation so that the previous assumptions made about the organisation and its environment
be put aside and replaced with the realities. Even then, if an individual is not able to come to the
grip of realities, one may alienate from the organisation after having joined it. That is why,
during the selection process, all the emphasis be placed on PERSON-JOB FIT, and the
PERSON- ORGANISATION FIT.

Finally, a new member must work out any problems discovered during the encounter stage. This
may mean accepting realities and incorporating changes in one self in attitudes, behaviour etc.
Once the change is well received and accepted and appreciated, the 3rd stage begins, which is
called the metamorphosis stage.

3. METAMORPHOSIS STAGE

When the new employee becomes comfortable with the realities, one can say that the
metamorphosis has been accomplished. The new employee has internalised the norms of the
organisation and the work group, the new employee will be accepted by the peers as a trusted
and valuable individual.. While with the work group the new

employee must demonstrate that the organisation's norms, expected attitude, and behaviour,
organisation's rules
and procedures, policies, appraisal and reward system, and job requirements are acceptable.
Successful metamorphosis should bring positive impact on the new employee's productivity and
commitment to
the organisation, and reduce the propensity to alienate from the organisation.
IMPACT OF CULTURE ON PERFORMANCE AND SATISFACTION
The following diagram depicts organisation culture as intervening variable
Strength
Perceived as
Employees form an overall subjective perception of the organisation based on such factors as of
degree of group
emphasis, support of people, risk tolerance, and management's willingness to tolerate conflict.
This overal

perception becomes, in effect, the organisation culture or personality. These perceptions could be
favourable
or unfavourable. The employee's performance is affected as a result of these perceptions.

Culture does not have an equal impact on both employee performance and satisfaction. There is
relatively a strong relationship between culture and satisfaction, but this is moderated by
individual differences. In general, the satisfaction would be highest when there is congruence
between the individual needs and the culture. It can be straightaway said that job satisfaction
often varies according to the employee's perception of the organisation's culture.

It is a point of debate whether culture and performance is directly related or not. A number of
studies show that the two are inter related, but the relationship is moderated by the organisation's
technology. Performance will be higher when the culture suits the technology. If the culture is
informal, creative and supports risk taking and conflict, performance will move up even if the
technology is non-routine and unconventional or extremely new.

LESSON NO. 14
ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT
(THIS LESSON IS IN TWO PARTS. PART – I DEALS WITH ORGANISATIONAL
CHANGE
& PART – II DEALS WITH ORGANISATIONAL DEVELOPMENT)
PART – ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE
INTRODUCTION

We are aware of the axiom that the only certainty in this world is that there will be CHANGE.
As one English poet said: THE OLDER ORDER CHANGETH. YIELDING PLACE TO NEW.
If we compare closely, we find that in many respects, an organisation is akin to a living
organism. Just like animated, organisations do not remain the same over a period of time. As a
matter of fact, either through a planned change or through efforts an organisation can adapt to
changes in its external and internal circumstances. Just as any animate needs to respond to the
barrage of changes taking place in its environment, organisation do face changing circumstances
in its life cycle,. Organisations must be receptive to changes and in its scheme of things accept,
welcome, and incorporate changes; otherwise, organisations will be overtaken by changes, and
find it difficult to manage change.

WHY ORGANISATIONAL CHANGES?

We begin by comparing organisations with animate human beings. Why organisations change
can be better understood by understanding why individuals change. Individuals experience two
types of changes - one, they try to adjust and adopt to changes happening in the external
environment such as the offer of a new job, competition etc, and second, even if nothing changes
in the external environment, still individuals automatically keep changing from adulthood to old
age, family responsibilities etc.

Like human beings, organisations are also open systems. Therefore the same reasons also apply
to organisational changes. So to say, organisations change both because of situational
fluctuations in the environmental demands, as well as because it is in their nature to grow and
develop..
A list of some of the changes which affected almost all organisations in the past few years is
given below:-

1. Technological innovations have multiplied, products and know how are fast becoming
obsolete.
2. Basic resources have progressively become more expensive.
3. Competition has sharply increased.
4. Communication and computers have reduced the time needed to make decisions.
5. Environmental and consumers interest groups have become active and more influential.
6. The drive for social equity has gained momentum
7. The economic inter dependence among countries has become more apparent and a necessity.

All the reasons for organisational changes can be classified into 2 categories, namely, External
reasons, and Internal
Reasons. They are mentioned below, one by one: -
EXTERNAL REASONS

1. Government Rules and Regulations

2. Competition
3. Technological Advances
4. Change in people requirements.

INTERNAL REASONS

1. Change in Leadership
2. Introducing new technology
3. The Domino Effect (One change in a significant area triggering off several major and minor
changes)
4. Crisis situations in organisations.
5. Organisational Life Cycle.

LARRY GREINER’S 5 PHASES OF ORGANISATIONAL LIFE

oung
Matured
Age of the organisation
TYPES OF CHANGES
They are of 2 types essentially:-
1. Reactive changes
2. Proactive changes.

Reactive changes occur when the forces compel organisation to implement change without
delay. In other words, when demands made by the forces are complied in a passive manner, such
a change is called reactive change.

Proactive changes occur when some factor make organisations sit and look up the changes
affecting the organisation, and accordingly move the organisation towards change, rather than
resisting them. That means, organisation leaders prepare themselves and their organisations to
change in a planned manner.

DEFERENCES BETWEEN REACTIVE CHANGE AND PROACTIVE CHANGE

Reactive Change

1. Involves reflexive Behaviour

2. Covers a limited part of the system
3. Responds to immediate symptoms

Proactive Change
1. Involves purposive behaviour
2. Coordinates the various parts of the system as a hole.
3. Address to the underlying forces creating symptoms.

Remember, you respond reflexively to a sudden intense light by blinking your eyes or by
papillary contraction. Undoubtedly, this automatic and instant response to a force which you are
unable to fight against. But, your purposive response to the same force may involve devising a
plan either to shield the eyes or removing the light. Obviously, this involves coordination of the
central nervous system and psychomotor capacities.

PLANNED CHANGE

We have learnt that proactive changes are effected in a planned manner after assessing the
underlying effects of the forces operating in the external and internal environment. When
changes are effected after working when and how they will be introduced and carried out in the
organisations, they become planned changes. In that case, the manager or leader must constantly
assess the changes in both the environments, and take immediate corrective measures to bring
about planned changes in a planned and deliberate manner.

Changes can be introduced successfully when there are conducive factors in the system. KURT
LEWIN has developed a useful technique, namely, THE FORCE FIELD ANALYSIS, for
diagnosing whether or not the given system is conducive for introducing change.

FORCE FIELD ANALYSIS

LEWIN'S model of CHANGE is derived from the laws of physics, which state that the position
of an object and
its direction are determined by the forces operating on it. In his model, LEWIN used three terms,
namely, the

driving forces, the resisting forces, and quasi-static equilibrium, to explain human behaviour at
any given point of time. He contends that a person's behaviour is the product of two opposing
forces. One force pushes toward preserving the status quo (i.e., restraining or resisting force),
and another force (i.e., the driving force) pushes for change. When the two opposing forces are
approximately equal ( i.e., quasi-static equilibrium), current behaviour has occurred. For
changing behaviour, the forces maintaining status quo must be overcome. This can be
accomplished by increasing the driving forces, reducing the restraining forces or by converting a
restraining force to driving force

LEWIN'S CHANGE MODEL

LEWIN's Change model is a three-step process consisting of UNFREEZING, CHANGING,
AND RE-
FREEZING. Each of these steps is explained below:-
UNFREEZING
No change occurs in a vacuum. To the extent the new perspective differs from the old one, the
old one implies doubting of its own existence. This necessitates unlearning of old things in order
to learn new things. This is called as UNFREEZING.

Unfreezing involves encouraging individuals to discard old behaviour by taking up the

equilibrium state that maintains status quo. Unfreezing is accomplished by linking rewards with
willingness to change, and punishment with unwillingness to change. Thus, individuals are made
to feel that they have to forget their old ways and accept the new ways. They are convinced to
accept that change needs to happen. In this way, the individuals are made to surrender
themselves by boundaries of their status quo to be opened in preparation for change.

CHANGING

The second step in the change process is changing or moving. Having unlearnt the previous
experience and practices, the concerned person is now ready for accepting new behaviour and
the change perspective. Then efforts are made to bring new attitude, values and behaviours,
which become substitutes to the old ones. Individuals are provided models to emulate their
behaviour. This helps them to identify themselves. Intemalisation is another process of changing.
Intemalisation refers to such situation where an individual is required to behave in a new manner
in order to operate effectively in such given situation. What happens when an individual behaves
time and again in the same way and that particular behaviour becomes the individual's usual or
routine behaviour. Thus, this implies the trial and error learning of a new behaviour.

REFREEZING

Refreezing is the final step in the change process. In this step, new attitudes, values, and
behaviours are established as the new status quo. For this, the new ways of operating are
cemented and reinforced. The managers need to ensure the organisational compatibility so that
the new behaviour is repeated time and again. In the absence of organisational compatibility, the
new behaviour is likely to extinguish.

In most of the training programmes for business executives, what happens is during the training
programme, the executives learn umpteen number of behaviours. Some of them they accept also
as necessary. But, when they go back to their organisation, they soon to forget the new behaviour
because of want of appropriate atmosphere inn the organisation to display their newly learnt
behaviour. Therefore, this calls for reinforcement of new

behaviour to make it one's usual or status quo behaviour.

RESISTANCE TO CHANGE
Although change is inevitable, people tend to resist it in a rational response based on self interest.
Resistance to
change is not always bad or harmful. In some cases, resistance to change is positive also.
Resistance to change
can also be a source of conflict in the various functions of the organisation.. for e.g., resistance to
change in product line can stimulate a healthy debate over the merits of the idea, and, thus, result
in a better decision. However, it also hinders adaptation and progress.

Some evidence of resistance to change is overt such as wildcat strikes, work stoppages, protests,
sit-in-strikes etc. Resistance to change is very subtle and indirect, sometimes. For e.g.,
dissatisfaction, grievances, requests for transfer, absenteeism and conflict among the members of
a work team. Resistance to change can be divided for analytical purposes into two broad
categories, namely, the individual and organisational resistance. The following diagram shows
the various reasons for resistance to change:-

DIAGRAM SHOWING VARIOUS REASONS OF RESISTANCE TO

CHANGE

Driving Forces for Change

Internal forces

1. New Technology
2. Changing work values
3. Creation of new knowledge
4. Product obsolescence
5. Desire for leisure and alternative work schedule.
Environmental Forces
1. Competition
2. Change in consumer demands
3. Resource availability
4. Social and political change
5. International changes
Forces Resisting Change
Individual Resistance
1. Fear of the unknown
2. New learning
3. Disruptions of stable friendship
4. Distrust of management
Organisational Resistance
1. Threat to the power structure
2. Inertia of organisational structure
3. System relationship
4. Sunk costs and vested interest
INDIVIDUAL RESISTANCE
Individuals resist change for various reasons. Given below are 4 reasons why individuals may
resist change:-
1. FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN
Changes often bring with it ambiguity and uncertainty. If, for example, the introduction of a new
computer system requires that the em employees learn some specific statistical techniques, some
may fear that they will be unable to do so. They may, therefore, develop a negative attitude
toward the introduction of new computer system.

2. NEWLEARNIING

For doing a new task, one requires to learn a new language, develop a new technology, or adjust
to a totally new culture. No doubt, learning new ideas can be exciting, most people report that
excitement comes only after the learning has taken place and absorbed.

3. DISRUPTION OF STABLE FRIENDSHIP

Almost all organisational changes disrupt the previous stable friendship. This, in turn, results in
uncomfortable
feelings of social isolation and loneliness. This may serve as a source of indirect resistance to
change.
4. DISTRUST OF MANAGEMENT
There are well documented findings available from the history of labour relations that managers
exploited
labour. That is why employees often suspect the reason for change and try to oppose them.
ORGANISATIONAL RESISTANCE
The organisational structure itself resists changes. The 4 reasons in this regard are given below:-
1. THREATS TO POWER SRUCTURE

Most changes have the capacity to disrupt the organisational power structure. Introduction of
decentralised decision making is example of change that is often seen as threats to power of
supervisors and middle level managers but a welcome by lower level of employees.

2. STRUCTURAL INERTIA

Organisational structures have several mechanisms designed to bring stability. Accordingly, job
assignments, selection and training of new employees, and performance reward systems are
designed to bring and maintain stability. These by themselves act as resisting change. Whenever
'an organisation is confronted with change, this structural inertia acts as a counterbalance to
maintain stability.

3. SYSTEM RELATIONSHIPS

As stated earlier, any change has a Domino effect. Changes in one subsystem affects changes in
other subsystems also. For e.g.. a change in the accounting department may influence the
methods of reporting and record keeping of every other department. Hence, the other
departments may resist to change.

4. SUNK COSTS and VESTED INTERESTS

Sunk costs are investments in fixed assets, such as land and building, machinery etc. Vested
interests are the personal commitments of individuals to programmes, policies, or other people.
As individuals find it difficult to abandon, so the organisations fins it difficult to recoup the sunk
cost. This is a source of resistance to change.

REMEMBER IT IS WELL ACCEPTED THAT UNLESS THE PRESENT CONDITIONS

CREATE ENOUGH DISCOMFORT, THERE IS NO MOTIVE TOCHANGE. THEREFORE,
THE CHALLENGE BEFORE MANAGEERS (WHO ARE CALLED TO BECOME CHANGE
AGENTS) TO ASSESS EMOTIONAL ASPECTS OF PEOPLE WITH REGARD TO
CHANGE ISSUES FOR MANAGING RESISTANCE TO CHANGE.

MANAGING RESISTANCE TO CHANGE

In a sense, resistance to change is simply a form of feedback that can be used very productively
to manage the resistance to change i.e. one can usher change. There are six key strategies for
managing resistance to change. They are summarised below: -

1. EDUCATION AND TRAINING

If reasons are known, why employees resist change details can be provided to the employees at
various levels as to why change is called for - its pros and cons. Employees can be educated
about the change through face-to- face discussions, memos, group presentations etc.. New
information is a powerful force for change in ambiguous situations. For e.g.. New employee
orientations are particularly effective in changing the behaviour of new employees, because they
would not have known how to behave otherwise. Studies on the introduction of computers in the
workplace indicate that providing employees with opportunities for hands-on experience helps
alleviate some of the fears about the new technology. Employees who have experience with
computers display more positive attitudes and greater efficiency.

2. PARTICIPATION

Before a change is introduced, it is better to involve people in bringing about the change so badly
required by the organisation. Once employees participate in decision making, they can not
disown. Sometimes, employees even after participation in the decision making process may
resist change due to peer pressures and work group pressures. Such resistance can be minimised,
provided the leader for such employees is a votary of change.

3. FACILITATION AND SUPPORT

Another strategy for managing resistance to change is providing support and empathy to those
employees who have trouble in dealing with change. Counseling and therapy, skill training are
examples of support extended by the employees. However, like education and participation
strategies, as explained above, this strategy also suffers from drawbacks, such as time-consuming
and expensive also.

4. NEGOTIATION

Negotiation with a group of powerful individuals resisting change is yet another strategy. A
specific reward package can be negotiated with the powerful employees to meet their individual
needs. Of course, it can be expensive if too much money change s hands,

5. MANIPULATION

It implies covert attempts to influence people resisting change. Sometimes, the facts may have to
be twisted to make them more attractive. Withholding information deliberately (such information
if received becomes unpleasant), and planting rumours intelligently among those who resist
change may force employees accept change. Like other strategies, this strategy has its own
drawbacks.

6. COERCION
The organisation, as a last resort, can apply direct threats on those who resist change. Threats of
transfer, loss of
promotion, unsatisfactory recommendations from supervisors are all examples of coercion.
SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION OF CHANGE IN ORGANISATIONS

First of all, let us understand that resistance to change is normal in the initial stages. However,
for managing change, the change strategy must include the three steps advocated by LEWIN,
namely, THE UNFREEZING, CHANGING, AND REFREEZING. This facilitates the
achievement of organisational changes in a consistent and desired manner. GRIENER 'S study
has revealed that successful changes appeared to follow a relatively consistent pattern, while
there was inconsistent pattern in unsuccessful changes. GREINER has identified the following 8
eight stages through which organisations can successfully implement change: -

1. Internal or external pressures create a need for change, which is shared in the organisation,
particularly at the
top level.
2. An outsider, either a new executive or consultant who has the reputation for creating change
enters the

organisation.
3. This change agent encourages the organisation to reexamine its past practices and present
problems.
4. The top team assumes a direct role in conducting the reexamination of past practices.

5. The change agent provides people at different levels with new ideas and methods for
developing solutions to
the organisational problems.
6. The change agent with the help of top management involves at different levels in the
organisation to diagnose
previous practices and their relevance in the future or present context.
7. The initial solutions are tested or implemented on a small scale, and, if found successful,
applied over the whole
organisation or in some more parts of the organisation.
8. As the change efforts spread, they get absorbed permanently, and they will become the way of
life in
organisations.
NOW, THE SECOND PART OF THE LESSON
PART II: ORGANISATION DEVELOPMENT
MEANING OF 0. D.
According to KOONTZ et al: OD is a systematic, integrated and planned approach to improve
the effectiveness
of the enterprise. It is designed to solve problems that adversely affect the operational efficiency
at all levels.
According to BURKE, O.D. is a planned process of change in an organisations culture through
the utilization of
behavioural science technology, research, and theory.

According to FRENCH and BELL, O.D. is a systematic approach to organisational improvement

that applies behavioural science theory and research in order to increase individual and
organisational well being and effectiveness,

From the above narration, one can understand that OD IS A LONG TERM, MORE
ENCOMPASSING CHANGE APPROACH MEANT TO IMPROVE INDIVIDUAL AS WELL
AS ORGANISATIONAL WELL BEING IN A CHANGED SITUATION.

NOTABLE POINTS ON ORGANISATIONAL DEVELOPMENT (O.D.)

1. An on-going process of change in the context of an organisation.

2. Systematic approach.
3. Makes use of Behavioural sciences, technology, research etc.
4. Pro-active, long-range research effort.
5. Focuses on the culture of the formal work teams,

Originated out of experiments conducted by DOUGLAS McGREGOR in UNION CARBIDE,

USA. Other names associated with OD are - BLAKE AND MOUTON, HERBERT
SHEPARD etc.
7. In India, it emerged in 1960's.
8. Professors PAREEK, T.V.RAO, ABAD AHMAD, NITISH DE, GAURANG
CHATTOPADHYAY, GOPAL

VALECHA have been the researchers and consultants in OD Area.

9. HMT and L&T, KAMANI GROUP, TISCO, ORIENT PAPER MILLS. BOKARO STEEL
PLANT,
INDIAN ALUMINUM COMPANY, HINDUSTAN STEEL, SBI are some of the prominent
organisations

which have embarked on the journey to OD.

10. Institutions like - ASCI, IIMs JSABS, etc. conduct OD training programmes regularly.
11. OD deals with problems of Organisational Change.
12. OD is a social invention and a hangs technique.
13. It is NOT a set of techniques, but a process of Change.
14. OD seeks improvements and improvements are necessary for survival and growth.
15. OD is a planned approach organisation-wide.
16. OD starts from the upper echelons of the organisation.
17. OD can also be applied to new organisations to shape it in a particular mould.

A PRAGMATIC APPROACH TO O.D.

1. Don't start off in a big way.

2. Choose receptive points of entry.(i.e.. Departments we people are receptive to change).
3. Focus on the link pins. This will help in Team-building.

4. Work with autonomous parts (i.e., a Department which does not depend on other departments
for approval to

initiate change).
5. Use internal resources and develop them from the very beginning.
6. Start up at the top and get their commitment.
7. Work with forces supportive of change.
8. Have multiple points of entry.
9. Work on organisation's problems as perceived, NOT as imagined.
10. Use pro-active behaviour.

TECHNIQUES USED IN THE TEAM BUILDING

1. Role Analysis Technique (RAT)

2. Role Negotiation Technique (RNT)
3. Interdependency Exercise.
4. The Appreciations and Concerns Exercise.
5. Responsibility Charting.
6. Appreciable Inquiry.
7. Visioning.
8. Force Field Analysis.
9. A GESTALT Approach to Team-building.
CHARACTERISTICS OF 0. D
1. OD is a systematic approach to planned change. It is a structured cycle of diagnosing
organizational problems
and opportunities .
2. OD is grounded in solid research and theory. It involves the application of our knowledge of
behavioral
science to the challenges that the organisations face.
3. OD recognises the reciprocal relationships between individuals and organisation. It
acknowledges that for
organizations to change, individuals must change also

4. OD is goal oriented. It is a process that seeks to improve both individual and organisational
well being
and effectiveness.
5. OD is designed to solve problems.
OBJECTIVES OF OD
1. Improve organisational performance as measured by profitability, market share,
innovativeness etc.
2. Make organisation better adaptive to environment.
3. Make the members willing face organisational problems and contribute to creative solutions to
the problems
of the organisation.
4. Improve internal behaviour patterns such as interpersonal relations, intergroup relations, level
of trust and
support among the role players.
5. Understand one's own self and others, openness and meaningful communication and
involvement in planning
for organisational development.
MODELS OF OD

There are three Models of OD. They are: THE KURT LEWIN'S THREE STEP MODEL, THE
GRINER'S SEQUENTIAL MODEL, AND THE LEAVITT'S SYSTEM MODEL. Let us take
each of these in the following paragraphs

1. THE KURT LEWIN'S MODEL

This Model is based on the premises that before actually introducing a change, organisation
needs to be prepared for change, motivated to change, stabilised and integrated the change into
behaviours of organisation. Accordingly, LEWIN'S change model includes three steps in its
process, namely, the UNFREEZING, THE CHANGING, and THE REFREEZING.(Students
have been told about this in the first part of this lesson, while dealing with ORGANISATION
CHANGE)

2. THE GREENER'S MODEL

According to this Model, change occurs in terms of certain sequences. The external stimulus
pressures the management of organisations to initiate the change process. The management in
response to stimulus is motivated to take actions to introduce change in the organisation.
Following the actions to introduce change, the various change stages occur in a subsequential
manner such as diagnosis of the problem, invention of a new solution, experimentation with the
new solution and reinforcement from positive results. It is depicted below:-

Phase
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
PROF. K.V. MURTHY
77

Pressure
On Top
Manage-
ment

Recognit
ion of the
specific
problem

Reorient
ation to
internal
problem

Arousal
to take
action
Reinforce-
ment from
positive result

Experimenta
tion of the
new solution

Invention
of the new
solution

Diagnosis
of the
problem
area

Intervent
-ion at
the top

Commit
ment to
new
course of

Search
for the
results

Acceptance of
new practic
THE LEAVITT'S MODELL

This Model is founded on the interactive nature of the various subsystems in a change process. In
an organisational system, there are 4b interacting subsystems, namely, the people, the
environment, the structure (SUB TASKS), and the Technology. Due to their interacting nature,
change in anyone of the sub system tends to have consequences for the other sub systems also.
Change s in any one of the sub systems can be worked out depending upon the situation. How
the various sub systems interact with each other in a change process is depicted in the following
diagram:-

DIAGRAM SHOWING INTERACTING SUBSYSTEMS OF LEAVITT’S MODEL

STRUCTURE
TASK
TECHNOLOGY
PEOPLE
OD INTERVENTIONS

How to bring about OD? The answer is through OD intervention. Interventions are the set of
structural activities in which selected organisational units, be they individual or groups, engage
with a task or a sequence of task. Goals are directly or indirectly related to organisational
improvement. For this, an umpteen number of alternatives i.e., OD interventions exist. One way
of classifying these methods is by knowing the target of change. In practice, the target of change
may be the individuals, their groups within the organisations or the organisation as a whole. OD
interventions aimed at these targets are discussed below in seriatim.

1. INDIVIDUAL FOCUSSED INTERVENTIONS

Targeted at individuals are the skills training, sensitivity training, job redesign, role negotiation,
and career
planning.
a) THE SENSITIVITY TRAINING
Also called as T-Group training or Laboratory training, this training is designed to help
individuals understand how their behaviour affects others. Members are brought together in a
free and open environment in which participants discuss themselves. The discussion is loosely
directed by a professional behavioural scientist called as the facilitator, who intervenes only to
help the group move forward. The objective of training is to increase sensitivity towards others.
The outcome of such training should, therefore, help employees understand others better,
become aware of own feelings and perceptions and improve communication.

SKILLS TRAINING

This refers to increasing the job knowledge, skills, and abilities that are necessary to do a job
effectively. Skill training is imparted either in formal class room setting or on the job. The need
for imparting skill training arises as a result of the rapid changes that organisations face in the
technical management. The job knowledge needs to be continuously updated to move with
change. This way, the organisation can ensure that their workforce not only get motivated but
also they are prepared to accept changes in the technology without a whimper of protest. Another
advantage is that the new employees' level of output can also be increased along with the old
employees.

JOB REDESIGN

As an OD intervention, job redesign helps jobs to improve the fit between individual skills and
the demands of the job. We have already known that job redesign can be accomplished by such
interventions as job enrichment, job enlargement, job simplification, and job rotation. These
methods are used as OD techniques for realigning task demands and individual capabilities.

ROLE NEGOTIATION

Sometimes, group members have differing expectations of one another within the working
relationship. Role negotiation is a simple technique whereby individuals meet and clarify their
psychological contract. In doing this, the expectations of each party are clarified and negotiated.
The outcome of role negotiation is improved understanding between the members.

CAREER PLANNING

It refers to matching an individual's career aspirations with the opportunities available in the
organisation. In other words, it involves activities offered by the organisation to individuals to
identify strengths, weaknesses, specific goals and they would like to occupy. Career planning
activities benefit both the individuals and the

organisation. Counseling sessions are held to help employees identify their skills and
deficiencies, if any. The organisation can then plan its training and development programmes
based on the information to improve individual's skills required for assuming higher
responsibilities. Such a process may help the organisation identify and also nurture the talented
employees for potential promotion.

f) MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT TRAIN ING

This encompasses a host of techniques designed to enhance a manager's skills on the job.
Training for management development generally focuses on 4 types of learning, namely, verbal
information, intellectual skills, attitudes, and development. Management development training
becomes successful when it becomes experiential training or action learning. Simulation,
business games, role playing, case studies, group and syndicate discussions, and sensitivity
training are some of the methods employed for management development training, out of the
several available. The most appropriate ones should be chosen and targeted, as otherwise,
training efforts go in vain

2 ORGANISATION AND GROUP FOUSSED INTERVENTIONS

OD interventions aimed at changing the organisation itself or changing the work groups within
the organisation include SURVEY FEEDBACK,MBO,QUALITY OF WORKLIFE, TEAM
BUILDING, ANDPROCESS CONSULTATION. These are briefly discussed below: -

1. SURVEY FEEDBACK

Widely used intervention whereby employee attitudes are solicited using a questionnaire. This is
called as SURVEY FEEDBACK. The questions included in the questionnaire intend to diagnose
the problem within the organisation and to identify areas or opportunities for change. The data so
generated is attitudinal in nature. The data is tabulated and distributed to employees. These data
then become springboard for identifying problems and clarifying issues that may be creating
difficulties for people. Generally, feedback of results is given only to the group which generated
the idea. Thus, once the problems are diagnosed, necessary corrective measures are taken to
resolve the organisational problems. After sometime, a second survey is conducted to measure
improvement in the situation.

2. M.B.O.

It involves joint goal setting between employees and managers. The process includes the setting
of initial objectives, periodic progress reviews, and problem solving to remove the obstacles to
goal achievement. All these are steps involving participation actively by both the employees and
their managers.

As an OD intervention, MBO has a 3-step approach. First, it clarifies what an organisation

expects from its employees, Second, I it provides knowledge of results, which is very much
required as essence in effective job performance, and Third, MBO is an opportunity to improve
performance, meaningful communication and increased participation in decision making.
If MBO is rightly implemented in organisations as an OD intervention, the organisation will be
successful in
linking the organisation goals with the goals of the organisation.
3. QUALITY OF WORKLIFE (QWL)

QWL consists a whole package of terms and notions, all of which speak about the common goal
of humanizing the workplace. DAVID and NEWSTROM have perceived a wide range of QWL
activities as open communication, equitable reward systems, a concern for employee job security
and participation in job design.

The INTERNATIONAL LABOUR OFFICE (ILO) has listed the following interventions of
QWL:-

a) Hours of work and arrangements of working time

b) Working organisation and job content
c) Impact of new technologies on working conditions
d) Working condition of women, young workers, older workers and other special categories.
e) Work related welfare services and facilities
f) Shop floor participation in the improvement of working conditions.

Any comprehensive list of QWL programmes would encompass job redesign, participative
management and involving unions, education, training and legislative measures. The very
purpose of this intervention is to change the climate at work so that a better quality of work life
is created.

4. TEAM BUILDING

All organisations consist of people, primarily as important inputs. People are required to work in
teams or work groups. Hence, there is a need for TEAM BUILDING. It is an OD intervention
designed to improve the effectiveness of a work group. It usually begins with defining the goals
and priorities of the group. The following 4 areas in TEAM BUILDING are critical:_

1. Team building should develop effective communication amongst members

2. Team building encourages members to interact and learn that their work is interdependent.
3. Team building should emphasis team goals
4. Team building should stress on flexibility. It should exemplify effective teamwork.

5. PROCESS CONSULTATION

In reality, no organisation operates perfectly. When managers sense that there is room for
improving their company's performance, but do not know hoe to improve it, the process
consultation comes to their rescue. This concept has been clearly conceptualized by EDGAR
SCHEIN. The distinguishing feature of process consultation approach is that an outside
consultant is used to assist usually a manager to perceive, understand and act on process events.
Rather, the consultant acts as a guide or coach who advises the process to help the

clients or managers to solve their own problem. The role of the consulted is to help employees
help themselves. The processes most often targeted are COMUNICATION, CONFLICT
RESOLUTION, DECITION MAKING, GROUP ENTER ACTION, AND LEADERSHIP. The
steps involved in process consultation are the following :

a) Entering the organisation.

b) Defining the relationship.
c) Choosing and approach.
d) Gathering data and diagnosing problems.
e) Intervening, and finally.
f) Leaving the organisation gradually

We must remember that the various OD interventions are merely the just means to an end.
Interventions themselves do not drive change, where as certainly business compulsions and
business emergencies and business need do. OD interventions are a means for moving the
organisation and its employee in amore effective direction.

FACTORS INFLUENCING CHOICE OF 0. D. INTERVENTION

The selection of a right OD intervention is quite crucial. If the managers are not aware of the
right intervention, they had better involve outside consultant to undertake the necessary job.
Selection of an OD intervention is influenced by three important factors, each of which is
described in some detail: -

1. APPLICABILITY:

It means the potential of a given intervention to bring disered result. It also means to address
enough the real problem and also to be a ware if it is promising for being solved. One have to
examine the pros and comes associated with every intervention on a given problem. Next, the
consultant will need to evaluate the client system care fully and with grate concern before
actually introducing any intervention, however right and adequate it may be.

2. FEASIBILITY:
Feasibility means the suitability of unintervention to suight the client system that is to say, the
consultant needs
to evaluate whether unintervention can actually be effectual introduced in given type of client
system.
3. ACCEPTABILITY:
Whatever applicability an fusibility an unintervention carries, it has no use and effeteness unless
it is acceptable to the client system. It means unintervention needs to be accepted by its client
system to bring desired result. It simply means that sufficient preparatory work is required in
working out and appropriate intervention.

O.D. AND MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT

OD is a strategy which is planned and implemented from the top with a view to bring planned
organisation
change for increasing organisational effectiveness.

By, management development, on the

other hand is the means to, increase the skills and ability of management staff. Since managers
are expected to be conversant with the latest changes in social, economic, technological and
political environments, organisations usually send their managers to attend management
development programmes to institutes of higher learning. Some organisations
involvement

the information they need to design the chance and when others have considerable power to
resist

will be committed to
implementing change
consuming

if participators design an

inappropriate
change
Facilitation and
support
When people are resting because of
adjustment problems

No other approach works as well with adjustment problems

Can
be

time consuming and still fail

Negotiation and
agreement

When someone or some group will clearly lose out in a change and when that group has
considerable power to resist

Sometimes
it
is
a
relatively easy way to
avoid major resistance

Can be too expensive in many cases if it alerts

other
to
negotiate
for
compliance
Manipulation
and co-optation
When other tactics will not work or
are too expensive

It can be a relatively quick and inexpensive solution to resistance problems

Can led to future problems if people feel manipulated

Explicit
and
implicit coercion
When speed is essential and the
change
initiators
possess
considerable able power

It is speedy and can overcome any kind of resistance

Can be risky if it leaves people mad at the initiators

LESSON NO. 15
ORGANISATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS
Organisational effectiveness is a function of specificity of organisational objectives, structures,
and process variables. Organisational effectiveness defies a single definition. It requires multiple
criteria that the different organisational functions are subject to evaluation employing different
characteristics.

According to DRUCKER, "TO BE EFFECTIVE IS THE JOB OF THE EXECUTIVES".

According to SINHA,
the term “EFFECTIVENESS" is often used interchangeably with productivity and efficiency.
FLORENCE and BROWN employed the term "PRODUCTIVITY" to mean output from one
particular factor of
production or particular form of input, and the term "EFFICIENCY", to mean total output from
the total inputs.
STEERS observed that effectiveness is best judged against an organisation's ability to compete in
a turbulent
environment and successfully acquire and use its resources.
THE TERM EFFECTIVENESS EXPLAINED

Effectiveness is concerned with goal accomplishment. It answers two questions. One, whether
the goal was achieved? and. Two, whether the goal was appropriate? It is not concerned with the
cost of achieving the goal; rather, it is concerned with the appropriateness and the
accomplishment of the goal.

Suppose you are incharge of a project to build a new plant to manufacture small cars for an
automobile entrepreneur. Suppose this plant is built in the desired time limit set out and planned,
and that it meets all design requirements and specifications. Thus, we can say tentatively you and
your work group in the organisation got the plant built in time. You have been EFFECTIVE. The
goal was reached and the goal was appropriate.

THE TERM EFFICIENCY EXPLAINED

Efficiency is concerned with the cost of goal achievement. It answers the question of how much
it costs us in terms of money, personnel, equipment, psychological factors etc., to achieve the
goal. Thus, it is a ratio of output to input. Efficiency is concerned with accomplishing the goal
using the best possible method. Suppose in the above example of building a plant for the
automobile entrepreneur, you exceed the your budget by a large margin, and there is much waste,
and overtime, rework etc. In other words, the resources that you used greatly exceeded that
which should have been used in building this plant, we can conclude that EVEN THOUGH YOU
HAVE BEEN EFFECTIVE, YOU HAVE NOT BEEN EFFICIENT. The plant was built, no
doubt, but at larger costs than planned and budgeted.

REMEMBER: IT IS DIFFICULT TO ESTABLISH A CORRELATION BETWEEN THESE

TWO TERMS, NAMELY, EFFECTIVENESS, AND EFFICIENCY. EFFECTIVENESS
CENTERS MORE ON THE HUMAN SIDE OF ORGANISATIONAL VALUES AND
ACTIVITIES, WHEREAS EFFICIENCY CENTRES ON TECHNOLOGY. IT IS THE
RESULT OF A BLEND OF VAST NUMBER OF VARIABLES INCLUDING
TECHNOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, PERSONAL COMPETENCIES OF THE EMPLOYEES
AND THE INNOVATIVE ABILITIES OF THE MANAGERS ETC.

Let us take another example for a better understanding. Suppose you are incharge of
Departmentation of Transportation task force for your city. Your group decided that it is
necessary to build an expressway through the middle of the middle of the town. You design all
specifications for this road contract for its construction and its cost remained within the allotted
budget (a rare case indeed). At first glance, you conclude that your group has been both effective
and efficient; the road was built; it meets specifications, and it was built with minimum resources
being employed. However, let us assume that once the road is built, traffic usage is significant.
Furthermore, additional projections show that for the next 5 years, usage will be 50% below the
road capacity. After evaluation carefully and research, you find that the people of city would
have preferred a mass transit system, and that the expressway has not delivered results as
planned. Or preferred.

Thus, your group did not meet the second test of EFFECTIVENESS; namely, the goal was not
appropriate. If your group had more citizen input, you might have known this prior to
constructing the road, but you did not. Therefore, the final conclusion is that you, indeed, you
were efficient - the road was built and met with specifications, but you were not effective.

APPROACHES TO ORGANISATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS

There are 4 approaches, namely: -

1. The Goal Attainment Approach

2. The Systems Approach
3. The Strategic Constituencies Approach, and
4. The Behavioural Approach.

Each of these approaches is described below: -

1. THE GOAL ATTAINMENT APPROACH

An organisation is born with the objectives, by the objectives, and for the objectives. According
to CHESTER BARNARD, what we mean by effectiveness is the accomplishment of recogised
objectives of cooperative effort; the degree of accomplishment indicates the degree of
effectiveness. Organisations effectiveness is appraised in terms of the accomplishment of ends,
rather than the means.

2. THE SYSTEMS APPROACH

According to this approach, it is the ability of the organisation to transform inputs into outputs,
for which
purpose, the total effectiveness of a system is dependent on the performance of all sub-parts,
whereas goal
attainment aims at accomplishment of goals. The systems approach views such factors as
relations with the environment to assure continued receipt of inputs and positive acceptance of
outputs, responsiveness to the changing environment, efficiency with which transformation may
take place, employee satisfaction, clarity of communication etc.

3. THESTRATEGIC CONSTITUENCIES APPROACH

It is similar to the systems approach, but with a slightly different emphasis. It farther says that an
organisation faces competing demands from various interest groups, both within, and outside the
organisational environment. Therefore, an organisation will have to remove unimportant and
non-competing groups, and choose only critical or strategic constituencies in the environment to
survive. THIS APPROACH IS QUITE DIFFICULT BECAUSE WHAT IS CRITICAL
TODAY, IT MAY NOT BE TOMORROW.

4. THE BEHAVIOURAL APPROACH

In this approach, the behaviour of individuals assumes importance, because it affects success or
failure of organisations. When there is compatibility between the individual goals and that of the
organisation, there is a high degree of organisational effectiveness, which is, an IDEAL situation,
rarely met. When there is no Compatibility, there is less effectiveness. Here lie the challenges for
organisations to bring compatibility, diagnose the causes for underlying low effectiveness,

PROBLEMS IN MEASUREMENT OF ORGANISATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS

All organisations would like to work with effectiveness, but in this process, the organisation
must take up the serious exercise of demarcating what constitutes HIGH EFFECTIVENESS, and
WHAT CONSTITUTES LOW EFFECTIVENESS. ALWIN BROWN has identified the
following reasons for the failure of organisations to achieve organisational effectiveness: -

1. Failure of administrators to act when they need to act.

2. Delay in taking action.
3. Taking wrong action.
4. Lack of sufficient effort.
5. Excessive effort in relation to the need.
6. Excessive quality or effort in relation to the problem.
7. Wasted effort.

After diagnosing the causes for low effectiveness, the organisation can take necessary and
corrective action over
the controlled factors.
The study to measure the organisational effectiveness is difficult because of the following
reason:-
1. There is a difficulty to set the standards for ensuring objective oriented measurement. None is
able to say whether an organization should be regarded as effective although profits are high,
while accompanied by labour unrest, and absenteeism etc.

2. If goals are evenly set, then it is difficult to set the acceptable standards, both tangible and
intangible.
3. The very important aspect is that there is no way of estimating the degree to which a great
number of variables
other than the organisational elements may have contributed to the achievement of certain
objectives.
4. Organisations can hardly be classified as good or bad on the basis of their earnings records
alone.

5. The criteria used to measure effectiveness may not be sufficiently stable. Their meaning for
organisational performance may change. In times of fast changing price levels, comparing profits
for one year with those of another year may be of no use. Instability effectively precludes the
possibility of a long lasting generalisable set of performance indicators on which the manager,
the administrator or researchers can rely.
TYPICAL ORGANISATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS OF STRATEGIC CONSTITUENCY
Constituency

Owners
Employees
Customers
Suppliers
Creditors
Unions

Local community
Government agencies
Typical of criteria

Return on investment, growth in earnings

Compensation, fringe benefits, satisfaction with the working conditions
Satisfaction with price, quality, services
Satisfaction with payments, future sales potential
Ability to pay for indebtedness

Competitive wages and benefits satisfactory, working conditions,

willingness to bargain fairly.

Involvement of membership organisation in local affairs, no damned to the

community environment
Compliance with laws: avoidance of penalties.

COMPARISON OF THE 4 APPROACHES TO ORGANISATIONAL EFFECRTIVENESS

Approach
Definition
An organisation is effective tot he extent that-
When useful
The approach is preferred when-
Goal attainment
It accomplishes its stated goals
Goals are clear time bound and
measurable
Systems
It acquires needed resources
A clear connection exist between
input and output
Strategic constituencies All strategic constituencies are atleast
minimally satisfied
Constituencies
have

powerful influences on the organisation and the organisation must

respond to the demands.

Competing values
The emphasis of the organisation in the four
major areas matches constituents’ preferences.

The organisation is unclear about its own emphasis or changes in criteria over time are of
interest.

FACTORS IN ORGANISATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS

Knowing only the criteria or approach to OE is not sufficient enough for managers and
researchers. It is also equally important for them to, identify the underlying factors towards
organisational effectiveness. Besides, one should also know the interrelationship among the 3
factors mentioned below. Viewed from this angle, LIKERT has classified all the factors under 3
groups, which are given below: -

1. Causal factors
2. Intervening factors
3. End result factors

TABLE SHOWING THE INTERRELATIONSHIP

AMONG THE 3 FACTORS
Implication of ‘Efficiency’ and ‘Effectiveness’

Consider this: A manager may be very efficient, but that does not necessarily make him effective
as well. Efficiency is generally concerned with ‘how well’ and ‘how much’ a task has been
performed. Some of the factor contributing to the efficiency of a person is his intelligence,
Knowledge, skill and imagination. A highly intelligence person can be clever, but that does not
make him wise as well. A highly efficient manager can be competent, but that alone cannot
guarantee his being effective as well.

Effectiveness relates to the contribution a manager may have made while performing his task –
in term of ‘what
results’, ‘how much’ and ‘what quality’. The factor that determine a managers effectiveness are

♦ The extent to which he achieves results – not just performs tasks;

♦ The extent to which he goes beyond what is normally required of him ;and

♦ The extent to which this quality in him is (a) self – sustaining; (b) on –going; and (c)

motivational for others.

Effective people are not problem- minded; they are opportunity minded. The feed opportunities
and starve
problems.

But is there a chance that efficiency is not the answer? Is getting mare things done in less time
doing to make a difference – or will it just increase the pace at which I react to the people and
circumstances that seem to control my life.

Could there be something I need to see in a deeper, more fundamental way – some paradigm
within myself that
the way I see my time, my life, and my own nature?
- Stephan R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

This comes from dedicated, Systematic working by person mellowed with maturity. Intelligence,
Knowledge, Skill and imagination –the components of efficiency – are, no doubt, important
supportive factors and are welcome; but they alone are not enough. Many brilliant people turn
out to be failures as result- achievers, whereas even plodders (like the tortoise in that famous
allegory) emerge as very effective result – achievers.

The features of efficiency and effectiveness can be summarized as shown in table

TABLE what is Efficiency and Effectiveness
Efficiency is
Effectiveness
♦ Concerned with ‘how well’ and ‘how
much’ of a performed task.
♦ Concerned with desired results:
•
Delivers the goods;
•
Happens on time;
•
Is cost-effective; and
•
Leaves on side effect.
♦ Relies on intelligence, knowledge,
skill and imagination.
♦ Relies on : wisdom
♦ Almost Uni.-dimensional
•
The specific ‘target’ is the target; and
•
Neither the manager nor his superiors
expect anything more.
♦ Multi-dimensional:
•
The ‘contribution ’ is the targer;
•
Going beyond the confines of current
assignment ; and
•
A ‘motivational process’ which is self-
sustaining and ongoing.
♦ Doing thing right.
♦ Doing the right thing.

How do you go about acquiring effectiveness? Is there a set of exercise, prescribed steps, or
exclusive qualities that we can adopt, and thus hope to make ourselves effective as managers?
Disappointing thought it may seem, the answer is ‘No’. Effectiveness does not even have an
entity of its own; it is the sum total of a number of attributes, qualities and attributes that go into
‘distilling’ effectiveness in you.
Take the case of a chemical compound. It too has no entity of its own; it is created when a
number of specific ingredients are put together in such a manner that the desired chemical
reaction is set into motion. Some atoms of a specific kind and potency are brought together to
produce the required molecules, and some molecules of desired number and potency are brought
together to , finally , create the desired compound . Take away the atoms, and the molecules will
not be formed, and thus the compound itself will not come into being; or you may get a
monstrous compound instead!

So much for the ingredients making a compound! Then there is the important question of
providing, and maintaining, the ambiance; for example, the right combination of temperature,
atmospheric pressure and other catalytic factor. In other words the right environment. It is true
that for creating the same compound under varying combinations of temperature, pressure and
catalytic factors, the formulation of the ingredients themselves may required suitable variations.

This is equally true of managerial effectiveness. In order to upgrade yourself from an efficient to
an effective manager, you will not only need to imbibe certain ‘ingredients’ determining yours
style of management, but also create and maintain a conductive ‘environment ‘.

I shall now attempt to suggest both the ‘ingredient ’ and the ‘environment ’ which ought to
propel you towards managerial effectiveness. Let me emphasize here that these ‘ingredients’ are
essentially the managerial qualities and know- how that have already been discussed in the
preceding chapters; and the ‘atmosphere’ comprises the attitudinal alignments that have been
recommended earlier. While summarizing those qualities and attitudinal factors here, I hope to
convince you that your managerial effectiveness can be acquired only when you make use of
those qualities and attitudinal factors in unison and in an integrated manner.