BB0033 BBA102- Organization Behavior

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Bachelor of Business Administration-BBA Semester 1

BB0033/BBA102- Organization Behavior - 4 Credits

(Book ID: B1498)

Assignment Set- 1

Q.1 How do organizations manage political behaviour?

ANSWER:Political behavior in an organization entails people gaining and exercising power to obtain a specific outcome. Politics in organizations is often regarded as dirty play and back stabbing.

 Political behaviour cannot be eliminated, but it needs to be managed properly to take advantage of its positive aspects and reduce the possibility of its negative impact. The following steps are suggested:

· Defining job duties clearly

· Designing job clearly

· Encouraging ethical behaviour

· Promoting understanding and trust between formal and informal groups

· Allocating resources judiciously.

· Implementing appropriate performance appraisal system

· Optimizing job pressures.

Strategies used to achieve political ends are as follows:

· Consultation: Involving people to reach a desired decision or to bring about desired change.

· Rational persuasion: This involves convincing others by using reason, logic, information etc.

· Inspirational appeal: In this, support is sought by appealing to higher ideals, values or emotions of others.

· Ingratiating strategy: At times we make others appear important, trustworthy or good; with a view to make them accept our point of view or request

· Coalition strategy: At times individuals and groups collaborate with each other to achieve the desired end.

· Pressure strategy: Use of threats, intimidation or harmful consequences to gain support.

· Upward appeal: This involves seeking support of top level executives.

· Exchange strategy: Under this, favours or promises of favour are offered on exchange basis, to achieve desired the objective.

· Image building: This means making efforts to create a positive image for oneself.

· Rule manipulation: Refusing request of an adversary on the ground it is against the organizational rules, but granting a request from an ally, citing it as under exceptional circumstances.

· Escapgoating: Putting the blame for a failure on others and taking credit for any success.

Various guidelines have been proposed:-

Managers should be aware of the fact that certain people may regard the manager’s actions as political even if this is not so.

By granting adequate autonomy and responsibility to subordinates and receiving regular feedback, managers reduce the risk of political behavior.

Managers should limit the use of power if they wish to reduce the likelihood of being accused of political behavior.

Manager’s should clear the air by handling differences and conflict openly.

Managers should avoid covert behavior.

Management systems that evaluate subordinates realistically, rewards systems that are directly linked to performance

Q.2 Organizational behaviour helps managers to understand and manage human behaviour at their work place. Justify?

ANSWER: Organizations comprise people who show differentiated behaviours. Dealing with such varied behaviours is an essential activity of managers. Therefore, organizational behaviour helps managers to understand and manage human behaviour at their work place. Let us now have a look at how the study of OB is useful to managers:

· Understanding of self and others – Organizational behaviour is a useful tool for understanding human behaviour that can be studied at the individual, group or organizational level. The organizational behaviour helps an individual to understand him as well as others better. This also improves interpersonal relations among all levels of employees. The most significant topics covered under this aspect are: values and attitudes, perception, communication, leadership, transactional analysis, power and conflict. An understanding of these aspects will definitely help the managers in grooming their personality and managing others effectively.

· Motivation of human resources – the task of a manager is to get the work done through subordinates by inspiring them to achieve organizational goals. But, this can only be practiced by a manager if he is aware of the different patterns of individual’s needs and desires. Hence, organizational behaviour helps the manager to understand these differing need patterns and suitable methods of rewarding employees by fulfilling their needs.

· Effective communication – communication is very vital for all managers. It is only through communication that two people are able to exchange their views and opinions. Good communication can lead to wonders in the organization, whereas poor communication can create blunders. Therefore, to run the organization effectively, managers need to learn first how to communicate formally and informally with individuals and groups. Unit 10 will deal with the communication aspect.

· Effective organizational climate – this covers a broader view rather than focusing on narrow aspects. OB stresses upon creating a healthy climate comprising harmonious inter-personal relations, hygienic working conditions, fair and adequate compensation, better and safe equipment for performing the job, effective leadership, employees’ participation, etc.

· Good human relations – OB strives to maintain harmonious inter-personal relationships. The study of OB revolves around the people at work and their relations with each other. Thus, it provides directions to managers as to how to deal with employee problems in different situations. For example, a worker remains absent for a number of days and even when he turns up, he keeps himself away from the work. The reason might not always be less compensation/family problems/strict supervision etc.; it might so happen that the employee needs recognition for his work. Thus, OB helps managers to understand the different motives of different individuals and the ways to control them. You will study this in unit 3 and 6 of this book.

· Introduction of change in the organization – change is the law of nature and is inevitable. This is the result of social, technological, political, economic or other environmental factors. Dealing with human resistance is the toughest and the most challenging task of a manager. Therefore, OB guides managers on how to cope with human resistance by adopting different techniques for timely and smooth introduction of change.

Q.3 What are the prominent characteristics of emotions?

ANSWER:Emotions in workplace settings and emotional intelligence are hot topics in management today. Leading business journals such as Fortune and Harvard Business Review have featured articles on emotional intelligence. But there is more to emotions in the workplace than just emotional intelligence. The aim of this article is to acquaint managers with intriguing new research that examines both emotional intelligence and the broader issue of emotion, which has been shown to play a powerful role in workplace settings. We show that this research has a strong potential for practical application in organizations within many broad human-resource functions such as selection, performance management, and training, as well as implications for more narrow domains like customer service. We conclude that the study of emotions in organizational settings has provided new and important insights into the way in which people in organizations behave, and we offer advice for managers to enable them to develop and to maintain a positive emotional climate in their organizations.

Emotions in the workplace play a large role in how an entire organization communicates within itself and to the outside world. “Events at work have real emotional impact on participants. The consequences of emotional states in the workplace, both behavioral and attitudinal, have substantial significance for individuals, groups, and society”. “Positive emotions in the workplace help employees obtain favorable outcomes including achievement, job enrichment and higher quality social context”. “Negative emotions, such as fear, anger, stress, hostility, sadness, and guilt, however increase the predictability of workplace deviance,” and how the outside world views the organization.

“Emotions normally are associated with specific events or occurrences and are intense enough to disrupt thought processes. Moods on the other hand, are more “generalized feelings or states that are not typically identified with a particular stimulus and not sufficiently intense to interrupt ongoing thought processes” There can be many consequences for allowing negative emotions to affect your general attitude or mood at work. “Emotions and emotion management is a prominent feature of organizational life. It is crucial “to create a publicly observable and desirable emotional display as a part of a job role.”

Q.4 Mr.Keertilal is the HR Manager of Bright Electricals Put Ltd. He finds that theProduction Manager, Ms. Gang, is seen stressed over the past three months.Identify the organizational factors that Mr.Keertilal can look into as sources of her Stress?

ANSWER:Stress can be because of both internal and external factors. The various factors, which can be stressors are- money, traffic, job related stress, health or medical issues, lack of free time, relationships, family or friends etc. The organizational stressors can be:

a) Physical environment such as light, noise, temperature, polluted air, overcrowded work place etc.

b) Individual factors such as role conflict and role ambiguity, work overload or work under load, responsibility, working conditions, task demands, job future ambiguity, autonomy, frequent disagreements etc.

c) Group’s factors such as poor relations with peers, subordinates or boss, poor structural design, politics, lack of specific policies, organizational leadership, organizational life stage etc.

Let us look at some of the major sources of stress in detail:

A) Organizational factors:

i) Occupational Demands: Certain jobs are more stressful than others. If physical environment is not satisfactory, it can increase the anxiety. Even overcrowding can lead to frequent interruptions in work, which can be very stressful.

ii) Role Conflict: a role is a set of guidelines, which indicates how a person holding a position should behave. For example, a marketing person is expected to be friendly and cheerful. A nurse is expected to be caring and sympathetic. Role conflicts exist when a job includes such duties and responsibilities, which conflict which each other. Conflict arises when individuals have contradictory expectations from a person. For example, when an employee has to fulfil the demand of the boss by buying raw material from his nephew’s shop, and at another side he is expected to be honest to the organization.

iii) Role Ambiguity: Role ambiguity arises when a person is not certain about his duties and authority, rules and policies of the company, job security and methods of appraisal. It has been found that role ambiguity is related to low job satisfaction, job anxiety and physical and mental health.

iv) Role Overload: When a person is expected to perform beyond his competence and skills, it can create work overload. Constant pressure and unreasonable deadlines can cause stress in the organization.

v) Role Under load: This is another extreme situation where an employee has little or nothing to do. This can also be very stressful. It leads to low self-esteem and increased health problems. This kind of job can be unpleasant, boring and stressful.

vi) Interpersonal Relationships: Poor interpersonal relationships with superiors subordinates, co-workers or client can be a source of stress. In the absence of healthy and benign relationships, employees develop anxiety and hostility, which leads to stress.

vii) Poor Communication: Stress can be the result of poor communication or no communication in an organization. In such a situation, we start interpreting issues wrongly. We misunderstand others and develop a stressful situation.

viii) Responsibility: Sometimes high responsibility also acts as a stressor. It has been seen that people with more responsibility suffer from high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels.

ix) Job change: In the fast changing society, employees are expected to be ready for new job requirements. Job reengineering, computerization and modernization create uncertainty amongst the employees, which ultimately leads to stress.

x) Working Environment: The overall climate in the company can also be a cause of stress.

Faulty job design, physical setting such as heat, noise, pollution, safety measures or work shift can be the cause of stress. It is not only the physical environment, but also the psychological climate inside the company which is very important. If employees are not motivated to participate, they may feel left out and neglected. Even unfriendly attitude or unsupportive behaviour can create tensions and result in stress.

B) Personal Factors:

i) Impact of Life Change: Traumatic experiences in life can be extremely stressful and can affect your psychological wellbeing. Any kind of loss, any death in the family, divorce, marriage or retirement can also be a cause of stress. For example, the recent earthquake, tsunami and explosion in the nuclear reactors in Japan has not so much damaged the physical setup of the country, but has created unimaginable trauma in the minds of the people. In this situation of fear and anxiety, the people of Japan naturally will be in extreme stress.

ii) Personality Type: According to Friedman and Rose man, there are two different personality types Type A personality and Type B personality. The main characteristics of Type A personalities are that they are hardworking, ambitious and set high targets for themselves. They are impatient, aggressive, restless and competitive. Type B personalities work at a slow pace and set reasonable targets for themselves. They avoid fighting on every issue. They are more patient and try to maintain good interpersonal relationships with others. It has been said that Type A people are more stressful than Type B people.

iii) Other Reasons: Sometimes managing time can also be full of stress. In a limited time, people experience role conflicts due to the overlapping demands of the work and family. Excessive rules and regulations can be a cause of stress. Thus, the race of reaching the top can cause frustration and fear of failure. This will contribute to a situation of overall stress.

Q.5 What are the different levels of conflict?

ANSWER: Conflict can be defined as a process in which one party perceives that another party has negatively affected, or is about to negatively affects, something that the first party cares about. We all have some or other experience with conflict management and negotiation, in various disputes of our life, such as, with a salesman, among family members, with colleagues or with our employer.

Each conflict is made of a sequence of interlocking conflicts because it is considered as a process. In other words it indicates a series of events. There are various levels of conflicts which are as follows:

a) Latent conflict: In every organization conflict begins with latent conflict. Conflict can be created by any unexpected incident such as change in direction of the organization or over loaded employee being given another project, or promise of salary increase which was not implemented etc.

b) Perceived conflict: At this level the conflict arises as a misunderstanding between two parties. This misunderstanding can be resolved by improved communication.

c) Felt conflict: At this stage both the parties start highlighting the perceived conflict. They are emotionally involved and focus on differences of opinion. Here emotion becomes very important because negative emotion leads to low trust and wrong perception of the other party, and positive emotion will lead to more balanced behaviour in that particular situation..

d) Manifest conflict: The conflict becomes obvious to everybody or we can say it is a stage of open confrontation, where both the groups/ parties show aggression and act towards achieving their own goal and destroying the other party.

e) Conflict outcome: When a conflict reaches this stage, conflict resolution becomes very difficult. It may be either positive or negative. If the conflict is handled properly then it can help in developing great cooperation between the employees, and if not then it will lead to frustration and negative sentiments.

          Thus we can see that conflict has different levels. A manager should try to understand it, and a moderate level of stress should be maintained so that organizational performance should be high. With higher level of stress people spend more time defending themselves and attacking others.

Conflict is a part of our day today life. Conflict exists when the action of one party is perceived as interference in another party’s goal and action. Conflict can be either constructive or destructive. Constructive conflict is desirable for a growing organization. The process of conflict has five levels -latent, perceived, felt, manifest and conflict outcome. Conflict is broadly divided into three types: individual, group, and organization conflicts. The sources of conflict can be scarcity of resources, lack of clarity of roles and responsibilities, interdependence, specialization, incompatible goals, difference of perception, values and attitude, poor communication, cultural barriers etc. There are various approaches of managing conflicts. People can use any style according to the requirement of the environment and the people involved in it.

Q.6 Explain the process of communication in detail?

ANSWER:A process is a sequence of related or structured activities, which lead to a specified and expected outcome. The main components of the communication process are as follows:

1. Context – communication gets affected by the context in which it takes place. This context may be physical, social, chronological or cultural. Every communication proceeds with the context. The sender chooses the message to communicate within a context to maintain its viability and reliability.

2. Sender / Encoder – Sender / Encoder is a person who sends the message. A sender makes use of symbols (words, graphic, or visual aids) to convey the message and produce the required response. For instance – a teacher delivering a lecture to his or her students. The Sender can be any individual, a group or an organization. The views, background, approach, skills, competencies, and knowledge of the sender have a great impact on the message.

3. Message – The message is a key idea that the sender wants to communicate. It is a sign that elicits the response of recipient. “When we speak, the speech is a message; when we write, the writing is a message; when we express, the expression is the message; every movement of our arms, eyes, head, legs etc. is a message in itself. Therefore, the communication process begins with deciding about the message to be conveyed. It must be ensured that the main objective of the message is clear.

4. Encoding – the sender encodes his ideas and thoughts into some form of logical and coded message- which may be oral, written or in some other form of expression. Berol describes four conditions, which affect the encoded message – skill, attitudes, knowledge, and socio-cultural system. Talking about skills, it’s the listening skills, reading, speaking, writing and reasoning skills, on which the success of communication depends. Attitudes do influence an individual’s behaviour. Communication gets restricted to the amount of knowledge about a certain topic. Finally, one’s position in the socio-cultural system also influences the communicate source.

5. Medium – medium is a means used to exchange / transmit the message. The sender must choose an appropriate medium for transmitting the message, else the message might not be conveyed to the desired recipients. The choice of appropriate medium of communication is essential for making the message effective and correctly interpreted by the recipient. This choice of communication medium varies depending upon the features of communication. For instance – if you want to communicate with illiterate people, you will have to use a very familiar language with easy words; you cannot send e-mails to people in rural areas who are totally unaware about the use of computers. Hence, the sender should always visualize the situation of the receiver before sending the message.

6. Recipient / Decoder – recipient / decoder is a person for whom the message is intended. He may be a reader, a listener or an observer. The degree to which the decoder understands the message is dependent upon various factors such as knowledge of recipients, their responsiveness to the message, and the reliance of encoder on decoder.

7. Decoding – decoding is the process where the receiver translates the message into symbols, ideas and form which is understood by him. This requires that the receiver should have proper knowledge of the language and terminology used in the message. Even the receiver’s predisposed attitudes, cultural background, motives, mood and interest, can distort the message being transferred.

8. Feedback – feedback is the response by the receiver to the sender’s message. Feedback is the main component of the communication process as it permits the sender to analyze the efficacy of the message. It helps the sender in confirming the correct interpretation of the message by the decoder. Feedback may be verbal (through words) or non-verbal (in the form of gestures, postures, etc.). It may take the written form also in the form of memos, reports, circulars, notices, etc.

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