TYBCOM SEM VI PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR AT WORK- English Version-munotes

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UNDERSTANDING WORK TEAMS - I
Unit Structure
1.0 Objectives
1.1 Introduction
1.2. Why have Teams Become So Popular?
1.3. Difference Between Groups and Teams
1.4. Types of Teams
1.5. Characteristics of Effective Team
1.6. Summary
1.7. Questions
1.8. References
1.0 OBJECTIVES
After reading this unit, you will be able to:
➢ Understand the Popularity of Teams ;
➢ Describe the Difference between Groups and Teams.
➢ Explain and Understand Types of Teams.
1.1. INTRODUCTION
A team is a group of in dividuals. As a member of a team all members are
working together for a common purpose. The individuals comprising a
team ideally should have common objectives and more or less think on the
same lines. Individuals who are not compatible with each other can never
form a team. They should have similar if not the same interests, thought
processes, attitude, perception and likings. Teams are Essential for any
business.They are the primary means for organizing work in contemporary
business firms. In this Chapter we will study in detail about the Teams in
Organizational Setup.
1.2. WHY HAVE TEAMS BECOME SO POPULAR?
There is a reason behind every change. Decades ago, when companies
such as W. L. Gore, Volvo, and General Foods introduced teams into their
production p rocesses, it made news because no one else was doing it. The
concept was so new at that time , but at present everything has been munotes.in

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2 changing tremendously. Today, it’s just the opposite. The organization
which doesn’t use teams has become newsworthy.
Nowaday s, Teams are everywhere. As organizations have restructured
themselves to compete more efficiently and effectively, they have turned
to teams as a better way to use employee talents. Teams are more flexible
and responsive to changing events than traditiona l departments or other
forms of permanent groupings. They can quickly assemble, refocus, and
disband. But don’t overlook the motivational properties of teams. Teams
encourage employee participation in operating decisions. So another
explanation for their p opularity is that they are an effective means for
management to democratize organizations and increase employee
motivation. Teams play an important role in the Motivational force of
employees. It also shows in their work performance.
The fact that organiza tions have turned to teams doesn’t necessarily mean
they’re always effective. Decision makers, as humans, can be swayed by
fads and herd mentality.Every Important thing has two sides , positive and
negative.We are going to study both sides in this and next chapter. Before
that, have a look at the difference between groups and Teams.
1.3. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GROUPS AND TEAMS
There is a difference between these two concepts. Groups and teams are
not the same thing. Group can be defined as two or more individ uals,
interacting and interdependent, who have come together to achieve
particular objectives.
A work group is a group that interacts primarily to share information and
make decisions to help each member perform within his or her area of
responsibility. W ork groups have no opportunity to engage in collective
work that requires joint effort. So their performance is merely the
summation of each group member’s individual contribution. There is no
positive synergy that would create an overall level of performa nce greater
than the sum of the inputs.
A work team , on the other hand, generates positive synergy through
coordinated efforts. The individual efforts result in a level of performance
greater than the sum of those individual inputs.So a work team is a gro up
whose individual efforts result in performance that is greater than the sum
of the individual inputs.
Exhibit 10 -1 highlights the differences between work groups and work
teams.
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Understanding Work Teams - I
3

(Source - Based on Robbins, S.P. Judge , T.A. & Vohra,, N.(2013)
Organ izational Behavior (15th Edition)Pearson Education.)
These definitions help clarify why so many organizations have recently
restructured work processes around teams. A group is not necessarily a
team.As a part of a team all members start to work together a nd strive
towards the achievement of a common goal.Management is also looking
for positive synergy that will allow the organizations to increase
performance. The extensive use of teams creates the potential for an
organization to generate greater outputs w ith no increase in inputs.
However,There is nothing inherently magical that ensures the achievement
of positive synergy in the creation of teams. Merely calling a group a team
doesn’t automatically improve its performance. Effective teams have
certain com mon characteristics. If management hopes to gain increases in
organizational performance through the use of teams, its teams must
possess these.
1.4. TYPES OF TEAMS

(Source - Based on Robbins, S.P. Judge , T.A. & Vohra,, N.(2013)
Organizational Behavi or (15th Edition)Pearson Education.)
Teams can make products, provide services, negotiate deals, coordinate
projects, offer advice, and make decisions. So there are the four most
common types of teams in an organization: problem -solving teams, self
managed work teams, cross -functional teams, and virtual teams (see
Exhibit 10 -2 ). Each type of team comes with its unique set of strengths munotes.in

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4 and weaknesses. In order to fully utilize your team, you first need to
understand where each type of team works the best.
Problem -Solving Teams
In the past, teams were typically composed of 5 to 12 hourly employees
from the same department who met for a few hours each week to discuss
ways of improving efficiency, quality and the work environment. Merrill
Lynch created a proble m-solving team to figure out ways to reduce the
number of days it took to open a new cash management account. By
suggesting cutting the number of steps from 46 to 36, the team reduced the
average number of days from 15 to 8. These problem -solving teams rar ely
have the authority to unilaterally implement any of their suggestions.
Definition
A problem -solving team consists of 5 -10 members from the same
department. The team will have a number of weekly meetings to resolve
specific business problems.
Advantages of Problem Solving Team
● Participants are selected from different teams, levels or even
companies.
● All d ecisions are made in teams , improving teamwork.
● Participants receive feedback on their methods from a skilled
facilitator.
● Members work together with th e client to define the outcome of the
programme
● Members customize the content of the programme to industry and
culture.
● The programme follows the reality of company strategy and
resources
In short, this type of team can relieve possible risks associated wi th certain
crises while developing thorough solutions which address multiple
business segments.
Self-Managed Work Teams
Unlike problem -solving teams, of which desirable outcomes focus on
recommendations, self -managed work teams are more concerned about
implementing and revising solutions. Problem -solving teams only make
recommendations. Some organizations have gone further and created
teams which not only solve problems but implement solutions and take
responsibility for outcomes.
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Understanding Work Teams - I
5 Self-managed work teams a re groups of 10 -15 employees who perform
highly related or interdependent jobs and take on many of the
responsibilities of their former supervisors. So generally, these tasks are
planning and scheduling work, assigning tasks to members, making
operating d ecisions, taking action on problems, and working with
suppliers and customers. Fully self -managed work teams even select their
own members and evaluate each other’s performance. Supervisory
positions take on decreased importance and are sometimes even
eliminated.
But research on the effectiveness of self -managed work teams has not
been uniformly positive. Self -managed teams do not typically manage
conflicts well. When disputes arise, members stop cooperating and power
struggles ensue, which leads to lower group performance. One large -scale
study of labor productivity in British establishments found that although
using teams in general does improve labor productivity, no evidence
supported the claim that self -managed teams performed better than
traditional t eams with less decision -making authority.
Definition
A self -managed work team consists of a small group of members who
are fully responsible for delivering a product or a service through peer
collaboration. In this type of team, a manager's guidance is of ten absent.
Advantage of Self -Managed Work Team
1. Employees may feel more engaged and valued.
2. Self -management can enhance productivity.
3. Self -management can spark innovation.
4. Employees may find more opportunities for personal and professional
growth.
5. Self -management can reduce your number of burned -out managers.
Moreover, although individuals on these teams report higher levels of job
satisfaction than other individuals, they also sometimes have higher
turnover rates and absenteeism.
Cross -Functional Teams
Nowadays, many organizations have embraced the use of cross -functional
teams in their operations. Starbucks created a team of individuals from
production, global PR, global communications, and U.S. marketing to
develop its Via brand of insta nt coffee. The team’s suggestions resulted in
a product that would be cost -effective to produce and distribute and that
was marketed through a tightly integrated strategy. This example
illustrates the use of cross -functional teams, made up of employees fr om
about the same hierarchical level but from different work areas, who
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6 Many organizations have used horizontal, boundary -spanning groups for
decades. In the 1960s, IBM created a large task force of employees from
across departments to develop its highly successful System 360. Today
cross -functional teams are so widely used .It is hard to imagine a major
organizational undertaking without one. All the major automobile
manufacturers —Toyota, Honda, Nissan, BMW, GM, Ford, and
Chrysler —currently use this form of team to coordinate complex projects.
Cisco relies on specific cross -functional teams to identify and capitalize on
new trends in several areas of the software market.
The teams are the equivalent of social -networkin g groups that collaborate
in real time to identify new business opportunities in the field and then
implement them from the bottom up.
Cross -functional teams are an effective means of allowing people from
diverse areas within or even between organizations to exchange
information, develop new ideas, solve problems, and coordinate complex
projects.
Definition
A cross -functional team consists of members on the same hierarchical
level but from various departments within an organization.
Advantages of Cross Fun ctional Team
● Cross -functional teams accelerate task completion.
● With their skillful and diverse members, cross -functional teams can
tackle various projects at hand.
● Cross -functional teams are dynamic and creative in producing
innovative ideas.
In Spite o f this, cross -functional teams are not easy to manage. Their
early stages of development are often long, as members learn to work with
diversity and complexity. It takes time to build trust and teamwork,
especially among people from different backgrounds w ith different
experiences and perspectives. Still s uch diversity in team members also
entails a high risk of workplace conflicts.
Virtual Teams
Virtual teams have recently arisen as new global group dynamic
trends. The teams described in the previous sectio n do their work face to
face. Virtual teams use computer technology to unite physically dispersed
members and achieve a common goal. They collaborate online —using
communication links such as wide -area networks, videoconferencing, or e -
mail—whether they’re a room away or continents apart.
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Understanding Work Teams - I
7 Virtual teams are so pervasive, and technology has advanced so far, that
it’s probably a bit inaccurate to call them “virtual.” Nearly all teams today
do at least some of their work remotely.
Despite their ubiquity, virt ual teams face special challenges. They may
suffer because there is less social rapport and direct interaction among
members. Evidence from 94 studies entailing more than 5,000 groups
found that virtual teams are better at sharing unique information like
information held by individual members but not the entire group, but they
tend to share less information overall.
Definition
A virtual team relies on digital technology to unite virtual members to
work towards common goals.
As a result, low levels of virt uality in teams results in higher levels of
information sharing, but high levels of virtuality hinder it.
For virtual teams to be effective, management should ensure that
(1) trust is established among members for eg.one inflammatory remark in
an email c an severely undermine team trust,
(2) team progress is monitored closely ,so the team doesn’t lose sight of its
goals and no team member “disappears”, and
(3) the efforts and products of the team are publicized throughout the
organization,so the team doe s not become invisible.

(Source - Based on Robbins, S.P. Judge , T.A. & Vohra,, N.(2013)
Organizational Behavior (15th Edition)Pearson Education.)

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8 Advantage of Virtual Team
● It has cultural and geographical diversity
● It increased productivity,
● It is m ore flexible for teammates.
Still It can create conflicting schedules, dependence on technology, a
sense of loneliness and difficulty getting to know colleagues, and Zoom
fatigue. It can also be a challenge for inexperienced leaders to manage
remote teams effectively, as overseeing online teams takes different tactics
than in -person management. Even working in the same office can decrease
team satisfaction when individuals fear or worry about their leaders. Thus,
the physical absence of leaders in virtual t eams encourages members to
connect more.
1.5. CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE TEAM
Effective teams have common characteristics
● They have adequate resources, effective leadership, a climate of
trust, and a performance evaluation and reward system which reflect s team
contributions.
● These teams have individuals with technical expertise as well as
problem -solving, decision -making, and interpersonal skills and the right
traits, especially conscientiousness and openness.
● Effective teams also tend to be small —with fewer than 10 people,
preferably of diverse backgrounds. members fill role demands and prefer
to be part of a group. And the work that members do provides freedom
and autonomy, the opportunity to use different skills and talents, the
ability to complete a whole and identifiable task or product, and work that
has a substantial impact on others.
● Finally, effective teams have members who believe in the team’s
capabilities and are committed to a common plan and purpose, an accurate
shared mental model of what is to be accomplished, specific team goals, a
manageable level of conflict, and a minimal degree of social loafing.
1.6. SUMMARY
Few trends have influenced jobs as much as the massive movement to
introduce teams into the workplace. The shift from workin g alone to
working on teams requires employees to cooperate with others, share
information, confront differences, and sublimate personal interests for the
greater good of the team. There is a difference between groups and
Teams.Teams are popular and there is a reason behind this change.There
are Four main types of Teams. Each Type has their advantage and
Disadvantage.Still working in a Team is so much Effective. In
organizational setup , working in Team plays a significant role and it
positively motivates e mployees to increase work performance. munotes.in

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1.7 QUESTIONS
Write long answers:
1 Explain the growing popularity of teams in organizations?
2 What is the difference between a group and a team?
3 What are the four types of teams?
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10 1.8. REFERENCES
● Robbins, S.P. Judge , T.A. & Vohra,, N.(2013) Organizational
Behavior (15th Edition)Pearson Education.
● J. R. Katzenbach and D. K. Smith, The Wisdom of Teams
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), pp. 21, 45, 85; and
D. C. Kinlaw, Developing Superior Work Teams (Lexington, MA:
Lexington Books, 1991), pp. 3 –21.
● J. H. Shonk, Team -Based Organizations (Homewood, IL: Business
One Irwin, 1992); and M. A. Verespej, “When Workers Get New
Roles,” IndustryWeek (February 3, 1992), p. 11.
● G. Bodinson and R. Bunc h, “AQP’s National Team Excellence
Award: Its Purpose, Value and Process,” The Journal for Quality and
Participation (Spring 2003), pp. 37 –42
● C. W. Langfred, “The Downside of Self -Management: A Longitudinal
Study of the Effects of Conflict on Trust, Autono my, and Task
Interdependence in Self -Managing Teams,” Academy of Management
Journal 50, no. 4 (2007), pp. 885 –900.
● J. Devaro, “The Effects of Self -Managed and Closely Managed Teams
on Labor Productivity and Product Quality: An Empirical Analysis of
a Cros s-Section of Establishments,” Industrial Relations 47, no. 4
(2008), pp. 659 –698.
● A. Shah, “Starbucks Strives for Instant Gratification with Via
Launch,” PRWeek (December 2009), p. 15.
● B. Freyer and T. A. Stewart, “Cisco Sees the Future,” Harvard
Busin ess Review (November 2008), pp. 73 –79.

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UNDERSTANDING WORK TEAMS - II
Unit Structure
2.0 Objectives
2.1 Introduction
2.2. Creating Effective Teams
2.3. What Factors Determine Whether Teams Are Successful
2.4.Turning Individuals into Team Players
2.5. Teams are not always the Answers
2.6. Su mmary
2.7. Questions
2.8. References
2.0 OBJECTIVES
After reading this unit, you will be able to:
➢ Understand the Importance of creating Effective Teams
➢ Describe the Factors which Determine Whether the Teams Are
Successful or not
➢ Explain how to turn individuals into team players.
➢ Elaborate why Teams are not always the answers.
2.1. INTRODUCTION
As we studied in the previous chapter, Teams play an Important role in
Organizational setup. It enables employees to grow their work experience.
This is the reason Teams are popular nowadays . There are Four types of
Teams and each type has its advantages and disadvantages too. Still the
effectiveness of being a member of the Work Team is significant. In this
chapter students are going to study the process of creating effective
Teams. There are some factors which influence the success of Teams. It is
not easy to hold every team member together. Students also understand
how to turn individuals into team players. Still it is important to note that
team is not th e answer for every situation .

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12 2.2. CREATING EFFECTIVE TEAMS
Creating an effective team is a really important task. Many have tried to
identify factors related to team effectiveness.However, some studies have
organized what was once a “veritable laundry list of characteristics'' into a
relatively focused model. Exhibit 10 -3 summarizes the factors which
make teams effective.
The following discussion is based on the model in Exhibit 10 -3 . Keep in
mind two points. First, teams differ in form and structur e. The model
attempts to generalize across all varieties of teams, but avoids rigidly
applying its predictions to all teams. Second, the model assumes
teamwork is preferable to individual work. Creating “effective” teams
when individuals can do the job be tter is like perfectly solving the wrong
problem.
The key components of effective teams can be organized into three
general categories.
● First are the resources and other contextual influences which make
teams effective.
● The second relates to the team’s composition.
● Finally, process variables are events within the team that influence
effectiveness.

(Source - Based on Robbins, S.P. Judge , T.A. & Vohra,, N.(2013)
Organizational Behavior (15th Edition)Pearson Education.) munotes.in

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13 According to this model, the effe ctiveness of a team included objective
measures of the team’s productivity, managers’ ratings of the team’s
performance, and aggregate measures of member satisfaction.
2.3. WHAT FACTORS DETERMINE WHETHER TEAMS
ARE SUCCESSFUL
Creating a Successful Team is a really important task. The four contextual
factors most significantly related to team performance are adequate
resources, effective leadership, a climate of trust, and a performance
evaluation and reward system that reflects team contributions.
Adequate Resources
Teams are part of a larger organization system; every work team relies on
resources outside the group to sustain it. A scarcity of resources directly
reduces the ability of a team to perform its job effectively and achieve its
goals.
According to a study, after looking at 13 factors related to group
performance, “perhaps one of the most important characteristics of an
effective work group is the support the group re ceives from the
organization.” This support includes timely information, proper e quipment,
administrative assistance, adequate staffing and encouragement.
Leadership and Structure
The Leader and Structure of the Team enables employees to work in a
proper direction. Teams can’t function if they can’t agree on who is to do
what and ens ure all members share the workload. Agreeing on the
specifics of work and how they fit together to integrate individual skills
requires leadership and structure, either from management or from the
team members themselves. It’s true in self -managed teams th at team
members absorb many of the duties typically assumed by managers.
However, a manager’s job then becomes managing outside rather than
inside the team.
Teams that establish shared leadership by effectively delegating it are
more effective than teams with a traditional single -leader structure.
Leadership is especially important in multi -team systems, in which
different teams coordinate their efforts to produce a desired outcome.
Here, leaders need to empower teams by delegating responsibility to them,
and they play the role of facilitator, making sure the teams work together
rather than against one another.
Climate of Trust
Trust is an essential factor for creating any Team . Trust is the foundation
of leadership. It allows a team to accept and commit to its leader’s goals
and decisions. Members of effective teams trust each other. They also
exhibit trust in their leaders. Interpersonal trust among team members
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14 behavior, and bonds members around the belief that others on the team
won’t take advantage of them.
Team members are more likely to take risks and expose vulnerabilities
when they believe they can trust others on their team.
Performance Evaluation and Reward Systems
Reward system is a source of Employee’s Motivation.Individual
performance evaluations and incentives may interfere with the
development of high -performance teams. So, in addition to evaluating and
rewarding employees for their individual contributions, managemen t
should modify the traditional, individually oriented evaluation and reward
system to reflect team performance and focus on hybrid systems which
recognize individual members for their exceptional contributions and
reward the entire group for positive outc omes.
Group based appraisals, profit sharing, gain sharing, small -group
incentives, and other system modifications can reinforce team effort and
commitment.
A. Team Composition
The team composition category includes variables which focus on how
teams sh ould be staffed —the ability and personality of team members,
size of the team, members’ preference for teamwork,allocation of roles
and diversity.
Abilities of Members
Part of a team’s performance depends on the knowledge, skills, and
abilities of its in dividual members. It’s true we occasionally read about an
athletic team of mediocre players who, because of excellent coaching,
determination, and precision teamwork, beat a far more talented group.
But such cases make the news precisely because they are unusual. A
team’s performance is not merely the summation of its individual
members’ abilities. However, these abilities set limits on what members
can do and how effectively they will perform on a team.
Research reveals some insights into team compositio n and performance.
First, when the task involves considerable thought like solving a complex
problem, high -ability teams —composed of mostly intelligent members —
do better than lower -ability teams, especially when the workload is
distributed evenly. That wa y, team performance does not depend on the
weakest link.
High -ability teams are also more adaptable to changing situations; they
can more effectively apply existing knowledge to new problems. Finally,
the ability of the team’s leader also matters. Smart t eam leaders help less -
intelligent team members when they struggle with a task. But a less
intelligent leader can neutralize the effect of a high -ability team.
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15 Personality of Members
Personality significantly influences individual employee behavior. Man y
of the dimensions identified in the Big Five personality model are also
relevant to team effectiveness; a review of the literature identified three.
Specifically, teams that rate higher on mean levels of conscientiousness
and openness to experience tend to perform better, and the minimum level
of team member agreeableness also matters: teams did worse when they
had one or more highly disagreeable members.
Research has also provided us with a good idea about why these
personality traits are important to t eams. Conscientious people are good at
backing up other team members, and they’re also good at sensing when
their support is truly needed.
One study found that specific behavioral tendencies such as personal
organization, cognitive structuring, achievemen t orientation, and
endurance were all related to higher levels of team performance. Open
team members communicate better with one another and throw out more
ideas, which makes teams composed of open people more creative and
innovative. So this is how per sonality factors influence the process of a
Team.
Allocation of Roles
Teams have different needs, and members should be selected to ensure all
the various roles are filled. A study of 778 major league baseball teams
over a 21 -year period highlights the im portance of assigning roles
appropriately. Teams with more experienced and skilled members
performed better. However, the experience and skill of those in core roles
who handle more of the workflow of the team, and who are central to all
work processes, we re especially vital.
In other words, put your most able, experienced, and conscientious
workers in the most central roles in a team. There are nine potential team
roles (see Exhibit 10 -4 ).
To increase the likelihood the team members will work well toge ther,
managers need to understand the individual strengths each person can
bring to a team, select members with their strengths in mind, and allocate
work assignments which can be fit with members’ preferred styles.
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(Source - Based on Robbins, S.P. Judg e , T.A. & Vohra,, N.(2013)
Organizational Behavior (15th Edition)Pearson Education.)
Diversity of Members
The degree to which members of a work unit (group, team, or
department) share a common demographic attribute, such as age, sex, race,
educational l evel, or length of service in the organization, is the subject of
organizational demography.
Organizational demography suggests that attributes such as age or the
date of joining should help us predict turnover. The logic goes like this:
turnover will be greater among those with dissimilar experiences because
communication is more difficult and conflict is more likely. Increased
conflict makes membership less attractive, so employees are more likely
to quit. Similarly, the losers in a power struggle are mo re apt to leave
voluntarily or be forced out.
Many of us hold the optimistic view that diversity should be a good
thing — diverse teams should benefit from differing perspectives. Two
meta -analytic reviews of the research literature show that demographic
diversity is essentially unrelated to team performance overall, while a third
actually suggests that race and gender diversity are negatively related to
team performance.
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17 Gender and ethnic diversity have more negative effects in occupations
dominated by w hite or male employees, but in more demographically
balanced occupations, diversity is less of a problem. Diversity in function,
education, and expertise are positively related to group performance, but
these effects are quite small and depend on the situa tion. Proper leadership
can also improve the performance of diverse teams. When leaders provide
an inspirational common goal for members with varying types of
education and knowledge, teams are very creative. When leaders don’t
provide such goals, diverse teams fail to take advantage of their unique
skills and are actually less creative than teams with homogeneous skills.
Evidence indicates that elements of diversity interfere with team
processes, at least in the short term. Cultural diversity does seem to be an
asset for tasks that call for a variety of viewpoints. But culturally
heterogeneous teams have more difficulty learning to work with each
other and solving problems. The good news is that these difficulties seem
to dissipate with time. Although newl y formed culturally diverse teams
underperform newly formed culturally homogeneous teams, the
differences disappear after about 3 months. Fortunately, some team
performance -enhancing strategies seem to work well in many cultures.
Size of Teams
Most expe rts agree, keeping teams small is a key to improving group
effectiveness.The most effective teams have five to nine members. And
experts suggest using the smallest number of people who can do the task.
It may require only four or five members to develop di versity of views and
skills, while coordination problems can increase exponentially as team
members are added. When teams have excess members, cohesiveness and
mutual accountability decline, social loafing increases, and more people
communicate less. Membe rs of large teams have trouble coordinating with
one another, especially under time pressure. If a natural working unit is
larger and team efforts are needed then, consider breaking the group into
sub teams.
Member Preferences
High -performing teams are likely to be composed of people who prefer
working as part of a group. Not every employee is a team player. Given
the option, many employees will select themselves out of team
participation. When people who prefer to work alone are required to team
up, th ere is a direct threat to the team’s morale and to individual member
satisfaction. This result suggests that, when selecting team members,
managers should consider individual preferences along with abilities,
personalities, and skills.
B. Team Processes
The final category related to team effectiveness is process variables such
as member commitment to a common purpose, establishment of specific
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18 social loafing. These will be especially imp ortant in larger teams and in
teams that are highly interdependent.
When each member’s contribution is not clearly visible, individuals tend
to decrease their effort. Social loafing, in other words, illustrates a process
of loss from using teams. But team s should create outputs greater than the
sum of their inputs, as when a diverse group develops creative
alternatives. Exhibit 10 -5 illustrates how group processes can have an
impact on a group’s actual effectiveness.
Teams are often used in research labo ratories because they can draw on
the diverse skills of various individuals to produce more meaningful
research than researchers working independently.

(Source - Based on Robbins, S.P. Judge , T.A. & Vohra,, N.(2013)
Organizational Behavior (15th Edition )Pearson Education.)
Common Plan and Purpose
Effective teams begin by analyzing the team’s mission, developing goals
to achieve that mission, and creating strategies for achieving the goals.
Teams that consistently perform better have established a clear sense of
what needs to be done and how.
Members of successful teams put a tremendous amount of time and effort
into discussing, shaping, and agreeing on a purpose that belongs to them
both collectively and individually. it provides direction and guidance
under any and all conditions. teams that don’t have good planning skills
are doomed; perfectly executing the wrong plan is a lost cause. Teams
should also agree on whether their goal is to learn about and master a task
or simply to perform the task; eviden ce suggests that different perspectives
on learning versus performance goals lead to lower levels of overall team
performance. It appears that these differences in goal orientation have
their effects by reducing discussion and sharing of information.
In sum, having all employees on a team strive for the same type of goal is
important. Effective teams also show reflexivity, meaning they reflect on
and adjust their master plan when necessary. A team has to have a good
plan, but it also has to be willing and able to adapt when conditions call
for it. Interestingly, some evidence does suggest that teams high in
reflexivity are better able to adapt to conflicting plans and goals among
team members.
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Understanding Work Teams - II
19 Specific Goals
Successful teams translate their common purpos e into specific,
measurable, and realistic performance goals. Specific goals facilitate clear
communication. They also help teams maintain their focus on getting
results. Consistent with the research on individual goals, team goals
should also be challengi ng. Difficult but achievable goals raise team
performance on those criteria for which they’re set. So, for instance, goals
for quantity tend to raise quantity, goals for accuracy raise accuracy, and
so on.
Team Efficacy
Effective teams have confidence in themselves; they believe they can
succeed. This is called team efficacy. ]Teams that have been successful
raise their beliefs about future success, which, in turn, motivates them to
work harder.
Two options are helping the team achieve small successes tha t build
confidence and providing training to improve members’ technical and
interpersonal skills. The greater the abilities of team members, the more
likely the team will develop confidence and the ability to deliver on that
confidence.
Mental Models
Effective teams share accurate mental models —organized mental
representations of the key elements within a team’s environment that team
members share. If team members have the wrong mental models, which is
particularly likely with teams under acute stress, th eir performance suffers.
If team members have different ideas about how to do things, the team
will fight over methods rather than focus on what needs to be done. One
review of 65 independent studies of team cognition found that teams with
shared mental m odels engaged in more frequent interactions with one
another, were more motivated, had more positive attitudes toward their
work, and had higher levels of objectively rated performance.
Conflict Levels
Conflict on a team isn’t necessarily bad. conflict has a complex
relationship with team performance. Relati onship conflicts —those based
on interpersonal incompatibilities, tension —are almost always
dysfunctional. However, when teams are performing no routine activities,
disagreements about task content whi ch is called task conflicts, stimulate
discussion, promote critical assessment of problems and options, and can
lead to better team decisions.
A study conducted in China found that moderate levels of task conflict
during the initial phases of team perform ance were positively related to
team creativity, but both very low and very high levels of task conflict
were negatively related to team performance. In other words, both too
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20 perform a cre ative task can inhibit performance. The way conflicts are
resolved can also make the difference between effective and ineffective
teams. A study of ongoing comments made by 37 autonomous work
groups showed that effective teams resolved conflicts by explici tly
discussing the issues, whereas ineffective teams had conflicts focused
more on personalities and the way things were said.
Social Loafing
As we noted earlier, individuals can engage in social loafing and coast on
the group’s effort because their parti cular contributions can’t be identified.
Effective teams undermine this tendency by making members individually
and jointly accountable for the team’s purpose, goals, and approach.
Therefore, members should be clear on what they are individually
responsib le for and what they are jointly responsible for on the team.
2.4. TURNING INDIVIDUALS INTO TEAM PLAYERS
Teams fit well in countries that score high on collectivism. But what if an
organization wants to introduce teams into a work population of
individu als born and raised in an individualistic society? A veteran
employee of a large company, who had done well working in an
individualistic company in an individualist country, described the
experience of joining a team: “I’m learning my lesson. I just had m y first
negative performance appraisal in 20 years.” So what can organizations do
to enhance team effectiveness —to turn individual contributors into team
members? Here are options for managers trying to turn individuals into
team players.
Selecting: Hiring Team Players
Some people already possess the interpersonal skills to be effective team
players. When hiring team members, be sure candidates can fulfill their
team roles as well as technical requirements. When faced with job
candidates who lack team skil ls, managers have three options. First, don’t
hire them. If you have to hire them, assign them to tasks or positions that
don’t require teamwork. If that is not feasible, the candidates can undergo
training to make them into team players. In established or ganizations that
decide to redesign jobs around teams, some employees will resist being
team players and may be un -trainable. Unfortunately, they typically
become casualties of the team approach.
Creating teams often means resisting the urge to hire the b est talent no
matter what. Personal traits also appear to make some people better
candidates for working in diverse teams. Teams made up of members who
like to work through difficult mental puzzles also seem more effective and
capitalize on the multiple po ints of view that arise from diversity in age
and education.

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Understanding Work Teams - II
21 Training: Creating Team Players
Training specialists conduct exercises that allow employees to experience
the satisfaction teamwork can provide. Workshops help employees
improve their problem -solving, communication, negotiation, conflict -
management, and coaching skills. Developing an effective team doesn’t
happen overnight —it takes time.
Rewarding: Providing Incentives to Be a Good Team Player
An organization’s reward system must be reworke d to encourage
cooperative efforts rather than competitive ones.It is usually best to set a
cooperative tone as soon as possible in the life of a team. As we already
noted, teams that switch from a competitive to a cooperative system do not
immediately sha re information, and they still tend to make rushed, poor -
quality decisions. Apparently, the low trust typical of the competitive
group will not be readily replaced by high trust with a quick change in
reward systems. These problems are not seen in teams th at have
consistently cooperative systems. Promotions, pay raises, and other forms
of recognition should be given to individuals who work effectively as
team members by training new colleagues, sharing information, helping
resolve team conflicts, and master ing needed new skills. This doesn’t
mean individual contributions should be ignored; rather, they should be
balanced with selfless contributions to the team.
Finally, don’t forget the intrinsic rewards that employees can receive from
teamwork. It’s exciti ng and satisfying to be part of a successful team. The
opportunity for personal development of self and teammates can be a very
satisfying and rewarding experience.
2.5. TEAMS ARE NOT ALWAYS THE ANSWERS
Teamwork takes more time and often more resources tha n individual
work. Teams have increased communication demands, conflicts to
manage, and meetings to run. So, the benefits of using teams have to
exceed the costs, and that’s not always the case. Before rushing to
implement teams, carefully assess whether t he work requires or will
benefit from a collective effort. There are three tests.
First, can the work be done better by more than one person? A good
indicator is the complexity of the work and the need for different
perspectives. Simple tasks that don’t r equire diverse input are probably
better left to individuals.
Second, does the work create a common purpose or set of goals for the
people in the group that is more than the aggregate of individual goals?
Many service departments of new -vehicle dealers ha ve introduced teams
that link customer -service people, mechanics, parts specialists, and sales
representatives. Such teams can better manage collective responsibility for
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Psychology of Human
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22 The final test is to determine whether the members of the group are
interdependent. Using teams makes sense when there is interdependence
among tasks —the success of the whole depends on the success of each
one, and the success of each one depends on the success of the others.
Soccer, for instance, is an obvious team sport. Success requires a great
deal of coordination between interdependent players. Conversely, except
possibly for relays, swim teams are not really teams. They’re groups of
individuals performing individually; whose total performance is merely
the aggregate summation of their individual performance.
2.6 SUMMARY
In short, after studying Popularity of Teams, Differences between group
and Teams, we also understand the types of Teams in the previous chapter.
Here we studied the effort s needed for creating effective teams. Again,
making a successful team is also a big responsibility. We analyze how a
manager or organization can deal with it. There are many individuals who
prefer to work independently. So It is really effortful to make t hem
capable of being part of a team. Each individual is unique and so their
opinions are. So dealing with this conflict and making a healthy way to
discuss the conflict is really important. Teams are Important in
Organizational setup.But not every situatio n or project needs a team ,
some tasks can be done individually too so it is essential to differentiate
between these requirements of the situation to use the full potential of an
Employee . It is a key to successful organizational performance.
2.7 QUESTI ONS
Write long answers:
a) How can organizations create team players?
b) When is work performed by individuals preferred over work
performed by teams?
c) What conditions or context factors determine whether teams are
effective?
2.8 REFERENCES
● Robbins, S.P. J udge , T.A. & Vohra,, N.(2013) Organizational
Behavior (15th Edition)Pearson Education.
● J. R. Katzenbach and D. K. Smith, The Wisdom of Teams
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), pp. 21, 45, 85; and
D. C. Kinlaw, Developing Superior Work Teams (Lexington, MA:
Lexington Books, 1991), pp. 3 –21.
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Understanding Work Teams - II
23 ● J. H. Shonk, Team -Based Organizations (Homewood, IL: Business
One Irwin, 1992); and M. A. Verespej, “When Workers Get New
Roles,” IndustryWeek (February 3, 1992), p. 11.
● G. Bodinson and R. Bunch, “AQP’s N ational Team Excellence
Award: Its Purpose, Value and Process,” The Journal for Quality and
Participation (Spring 2003), pp. 37 –42
● C. W. Langfred, “The Downside of Self -Management: A Longitudinal
Study of the Effects of Conflict on Trust, Autonomy, and Tas k
Interdependence in Self -Managing Teams,” Academy of Management
Journal 50, no. 4 (2007), pp. 885 –900.



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24 3
CONFLICT AND NEGOTIATION
Unit Structure:
3.0 Objectives
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Definition of Conflict
3.3 Transition in Conflict Thought
3.4 The Conflict Process
3.5 Negotiation
3.6 Global Implications
3.7 Summary
3.8 Glossary
3.9 Questions
3.10 References
3.0 OBJECTIVES
After reading this unit you should be able to:
 Define conflict and discuss the various views of conflict. To explain
conflict process and understand conflict handling styles.
 Explain the concept of negotiation.
 Understand the strategies of bargaining.
3.1 INTRODUCTION
Conflicts have been around for thousands of years. During industrial
revolution of 1800's labour union and management were at odds and
conflicts were settled violently. Today, situations have changed and
industrial conflicts a re settled for more amicably. They are resolved in a
spirit of co -operation between employers and employers.
Negotiation is one of the strategies adopted to resolve conflict.
Negotiation is an art of persuasion. Negotiator persuades others to listen to
his argument and decide how others can help you in achieving your goal.
The unit discusses distributive and integrative strategy of negotiation.

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Conflict and Negotiation
25 3.2 DEFINITION OF CONFLICT
Conflict exists when there is disagreement or collision. The situation must
be percei ved as conflicting by both the parties. Conflict may be within an
individual when he finds his goals competing with each other. Conflict
may be within individuals, groups or organisations.
Chung and Megginston defined conflict as the struggle between
incom patible or opposing needs wishes, ideas, interests or people. Conflict
arises when individuals or groups encounter goals that both parties cannot
obtain satisfactorily.
This definition stresses conflicts within the individual members of the
group. The conf lict experienced by individual himself is not mentioned.
Here we are more concerned about the conflicts within the organisations.
This type of conflict can be highlighted by following definition.
Conflict is a process, that begins when one party perceives that another
party has negatively affected or is about to negatively affect something
that first cares about. This definition implies that whenever in any ongoing
activity there is a crossover of an interaction, there is a beginning of
conflict. The differ ent types of conflicts experienced at the organisational
level are :
 Incompatibility of goals.
 Differences over interpretation of facts.
 Disagreements based on behavioral expectations.
Before we understand the various views of conflict, it becomes necessar y
to understand the difference between conflict and competition.
Competitions takes place when two or more individuals have incompatible
goals but they do not interfere with each other as they try to obtain their
goals. Conflict occurs when individual or g roups have incompatible goals
and they try to interfere with each other as they try to reach their goals.
Thus, in competition one will not try to thwart or frustrate attempts of
other. In real life distinction between competition and conflict remains
true only when it is a healthy competition. E.g ., In the game of cricket,
competition generally, also involves conflict.
3.3 TRANSITION IN CONFLICT THOUGHT
The past decade has experienced changes in attitudes towards conflict in
organisations. There have been differences of opinions and views
regarding role of conflict in groups and organisations. The different views
of conflict are :
 Traditional view of conflict
 Human relations view of conflict.
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26 We would discuss each of these briefly :
1) Traditional view of conflict : It was a view that prevailed during
1930's and 1940s. This view stressed that;
Conflict in organisation was unnecessary and harmful.
Conflict in organisation was caused by poor communication, lack of trust
and op enness between people.
Failure of managers in understanding needs and aspirations of employees
was another main source of conflict. If above failures were corrected the
organisations would function smoothly.
The traditional view of conflict is a very simpl e approach to looking at
people who create conflict. In order to avoid conflict attention should be
focused on causes of conflict and correct the malfunctions, so that the
group and organisational performance can be improved.
The research studies do not su pport this approach to conflict resolution in
an organisation. Studies have shown that this approach to resolution of
conflict improves performance of the group.
The traditional view of conflict started undergoing change, when
researchers started realising that organisational conflicts are not always the
product of errors of management. The current view of conflict is called as
interactionist view of conflict.
2) Human Relations view of conflict : This view believes that conflict is
natural occurrence in al l groups and organisations. Because conflict is
inevitable part of interactions, human relations school has accepted
conflict, as a natural phenomenon of group life. This School believes that
conflicts cannot be eliminated. This view of conflict dominated from late
1940's to mid 70s.
3) Interactionist view of conflict : This suggests that no matter how an
organisation is designed and operated, conflict is inevitable and necessary
part of its functioning.
Harmonious and peaceful group is more likely to becom e apathetic and
not interested in change and innovative ideas. The interactionsist view,
encourages group to maintain an ongoing minimum level of conflict. This
keeps group viable, self critical and creative. This view still believes
excess of conflict can harm individuals and come in the way of attainment
of the goal of an organisation. But conflict definitely makes an
organisation more effective.
Interactionist view believes that conflicts can be functional or
dysfunctional. The functional conflicts are c onstructive forms of conflicts;
they can lead to innovative solutions and influence the functioning of on
organisation.
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Conflict and Negotiation
27 Functional Conflict: They are constructive forms of conflict and can lead
to innovative solutions. Functional conflict refers to confro ntation between
two ideas, goals and parties that improve employee's and organisation's
performance. Such conflicts are necessary for an effective functioning of
an organisation. The well managed conflicts help workers anticipate and
solve problems, feel c onfident and strengthen the relationship.
The benefits of functional conflict are :
They increase the awareness of what problems exist, who is involved and
how to solve the problem.
It motivates the members of the organisation. They are focused on the
problems and motivated to put plans for solving conflicts.
Conflicts promote change. Persons become aware of injustices,
inefficiencies and frustrations and see the need to correct them.
Conflict enhances morale and cohesion. The organisational members
come to gether, discuss and deal with their frustrations and resentment.
They learn about each other's needs, styles and values through conflict.
High quality discussions result when person express their opposing views
and perspectives. Each other's information is shared and checked to
develop new decisions.
Conflict stimulates interests and creativity.
Conflict adds to the tendency of working together. Some people enjoy
conflict in comparison with other forms of entertainment.
Conflict provides an opportunity to b e self -critical and critical of the
organisation as a whole.
The relationship between conflict and organisation performance is
indicated by a curve:
ORGANISATIONAL PERFORMANCE
LEVEL OF CONFLICT
The organisational performance is low when conflict level is e xtremely
high or low. Moderate levels of conflict contributes to high level of
organisational performance.
In a low level of conflict situation, performance is also low because of
lack of stimulation and arousal. The environment in the organisation is so
comfortable that employees become too complacent, do not find any need
to change the environment. On the contrary, when conflict level is too
high performance of organisation suffers because of inadequate co -
ordination and cooperation. The individuals spend more time either in
defending themselves or in attacking others.
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Psychology of Human
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28 The optimal level of performance results only when there is moderate
levels of conflict. The optimal level of conflict stimulates new ideas and
creative search for solutions.
Conflicts is i nevitable and necessary for effective performance of an
organisation. Dysfunctional conflicts are the ones that usually interfere
with the performance, of the group.
Dysfunctional conflicts are the conflicts that can block the attainment of
goal and affect the performance of group. There are three types of
conflicts as follows :
Conflicts can be related to content and goals of the work, such conflicts
are called as Task conflict.
Conflicts focusing on interpersonal relationship are called as Relationship
conflict.
Conflicts relating to how work can be done or should be done are process
conflict.
Studies show relationship conflict are always dysfunctional in nature.
Relationship conflict usually creates personality clashes and decrease
mutual understanding. I n such relations managers are required to spent lot
of time in resolving personality conflicts.
Low levels of process conflict and low to moderate levels of task conflict
are functional conflict. High level of process conflict may bring about
intense argum ents about who should do what; bring about uncertainty
about the task roles. This increases the time taken to complete the given
task. Low to moderate levels of task conflict has positive effect on group
performance.
3.4 THE CONFLICT PROCESS
The process ge nerally comprises of five stages.
Stage 1. Potential opposition on Incompatibility - These are the conditions
that give rise to conflict. They may not always directly lead to conflict.
The presence of one of these conditions is sufficient for the rise of
conflict. They can be also the sources or causes of conflict. These
conditions can be grouped into three categories.
 Communication
 Structure
 Personal variables
Communication - It can become an important source of conflict. The
misunderstandings or noise in the communication channels can give rise to
conflict. Studies suggest that the differing word connotations, jargons are
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Conflict and Negotiation
29 conditions to conflict. Research shows that the potential for confl ict
increases with too much or too little communication.
Structure - Structure refers to degree of specification in the tasks assigned
to group members. the jurisdiction of the role, compatibility of the goal,
the leadership styles, the reward systems are also included in the structural
aspect of the organisation. The relatedness and dependence of group in the
organisation also can become source of conflict. Interdependence can
create conflict, especially when gain of one group may be the loss of
another gr oup.
Personal Variables - The personality characteristics such as appearances,
sound, person's voice, smile, etc ., can alsobecome a source of annoyance.
When individuals are required to work with such people there are often
chances of conflict. Personal V ariables such as emotions and values can
become potential sources of conflict. Individuals who are highly
authoritarian in nature are rarely accepted by all the individuals, especially
at work place. Emotions that individuals carry along with them may carr y
emotions of events outside the organisation, and this also may become a
source of conflict. The anger and annoyance carried over can be perceived
as quiet irritating by colleagues and co -workers. Stage II - Cognitions and
personalization.
The conditions described in stage 1 effect something that one party cares
about and the potential for conflict is maximized.
The definition of conflict emphasises perception of conflict. One or more
parties must be aware of existence of conflict. This is the stage at whi ch
members become aware of the problem. Incompatibility of needs is
perceived and then only tension arises. This may not be the situation in all
the instances, both the parties may become aware of serious
disagreements, it may not create tension and anxiet y in both the parties but
when individuals become emotionally involved the parties experience
tension and anxiety. This is the felt conflict level, when individuals are
emotionally involved and start focusing on differences of opinions and
opposing interes ts. Thus, perceived conflict is sharpened.
Individuals may become emotionally involved and both parties experience
tension and anxiety. This is at the felt conflict level. Perceived conflict
may not always bring about tension and anxiety. "A" may be aware of
serious disagreement with "B", but still there may not be any tension or
anxiety. The disagreements may persist, still both parties may not be
disturbed.
The important aspect of stage II conflict are :
 Conflict issues are defined.
The way the conflict i s defined determines the outcome that might settle
the conflict. For e.g ., A worker defines salary agreements as loss to his
department as profit made by his department will be shared by other
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Psychology of Human
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30 a situation, where hike in the salary of other workers will amount to loss to
some other workers in the department. In such cases workers will be less
willing to make compromises for such agreements and hikes in the salary.
Definition of confli ct in such situation becomes more important.
iii) Perception of conflict is also influenced by emotions. Studies have
shown that negative emotions produced oversimplification of issues,
reductions in trust and negative interpretation of others party's beha viour.
Stage Ill Intentions: Intentions are the decisions to act in a given way.
Perceptions are followed by the emotions and intentions. Intention is
viewed as a separate stage because for responding to other's behaviour, we
need to understand their inten tions. But in all the situations behaviour and
intention may not be related. Behaviour does not accurately reflect the
person's intentions.
The conflict handling intension can be viewed on two dimensions:
Cooperativeness: It refers to degree to which one p arty attempts to satisfy
other party's concerns.
Assertiveness: The degree to which one party attempts to satisfy his or her
own concerns.
On the basis of these dimensions five conflict handling intentions can be
identified. They are :
1) Competing 2) Coll aborating 3) Avoiding 4) Accommodating
5) Compromising
Competing (Assertive and uncooperative) - It is a situation where one
party tries to attain its goal regardless of its impact on others. For e.g .,
When one person wins a race and other loses.
Collabor ating - Assertive and co -operative) each party desires to satisfy
concerns of other party and try to search for mutually beneficial outcome.
Herre parties resolve the conflict by clarifying the differences rather than
by adjusting with points of view of ot hers.
Avoiding: (Unassertive and uncooperative) The conflicting parties may
desire to withdraw and exit from the conflicting situation. It is just a way
of avoiding people with whom one disagrees.
Accommodating: (Unassertive and uncooperative) It refers to supporting
someone else's opinion, irrespective of one's reservations about it. One
party sacrifices self interest for the sake of others or may be for the
purpose of maintaining relationship.
Compromising (Midrange of assertiveness and cooperativeness). This is
a situation where each party is willing to give up something resulting in
compromising outcome. No party is either clearly winner or loser.
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31 The conflict handling, styles and prefer nces can be predicted on the basis
of the personality and intellec tual characteristics of the members of the
parties involved.
Stage IV Behaviour - This is a stage where conflict is expressed in the
behaviour. The behaviour stage includes statements, actions and reactions
made by conflicting parties. The behavior of part y members is a reflection
of intention of party, wrong calculations; unskilled expression may not
lead to desired expression of intention. In such situation behaviour may
not reflect the intentions of the parties involved.
Behaviour resulting from conflict is a dynamic process of interaction.
Conflict behaviour falls on a continuum. All the conflicts fall somewhere
on this continuum. The lower level continuum is subtle expression of
conflict like minor disagreements. E.g ., People start voicing their opinio ns
about the development project implemented or planned by Government,
citizens start challenging the utility and slowly conflict starts moving on
the upward continuum, resulting in violence and attack on the Government
functionaries. Strikes, riots and wa rs fall on the upper range of the
continuum.
The conflicts that reach the upper range of continuum are dysfunctional in
nature. On the contrary when conflict remains on the lower end of the
continuum it becomes a functional conflict.
The conflict managemen t strategries, help in dealing with the conflict
either in terms of resolving the conflict or stimulating the conflict.
Stage V Outcome: The outcome of the conflict may be functional where
conflict leads to improvement of the performance of the group. The
dysfunctional outcome comes in the wayof performance of group.
Functional Outcome: Conflict is constructive when it improves the quality
of decisions, stimulates creativity and innovations. This encourages
interest and curiosity among group members. it enc ourages environment
of self -evaluation and change. Conflict does not allow the group members
to passively accept the decisions. It encourages the group members to
question the assumptions, relevant alternatives and other possibilities.
Conflicts promote th e new ideas, re -evaluation of group's goals and
activities. The group becomes more responsive to change.
The best example would be Yahoo! Former CEO Tim Koogle was so
conflict averse that a sense of complacency settled. Managers were too
afraid to ask ques tions. Yahoo! Started out much more successfully than
Google, but soon it was over taken.
This shows conflict encourage groups to think and consider the relevant
alternatives. In the established groups, performance tends to improve
when there is conflict a mong groups rather than the close agreement.
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Psychology of Human
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32 Dysfunctional outcomes : These are destructive consequences of the
conflict. Uncontroll ed opposition increases the dissatisfaction among
group members, and reduces the effectiveness of group. Dysfunctional
outcomes of conflict are retarded group communication, in fighting among
the members of the group, etc. The problems do not remain restri cted to
economy, they become the personality problems.
Creating Functional Conflict : Anti conflict cultures were tolerated in the
past. In a competitive global economy organisations that do not encourage
varied views may not continue to survive. The organ isations that create
functional conflicts are the ones who encourage disagreement and punish
conflict avoiders. A manager must be capable of hearing bad news or
unwanted news without allowing a single line on his face to move, instead
he should have the ab ility to ask simple, even tempered questions
associated with the news.
3.5 NEGOTIATION
Bargaining and negotiations are the terms that are very often used to refer
to the same process.
Negotiation: It is an art of persuasion. The objective of negotiation is to
inspire or influence the other person or party to agree with your terms.
Negotiation is like a barter system where there is an exchange, a fair
exchange of goods and services. It is a part of conflict resolution process.
Negotiations include combinatio n of compromise, collaboration and
possibly some coercion on vital issues. The success of negotiation depends
on situational factors such as location, physical settings, time and
audience.
Location: Negotiating parties feel comfortable when they operate in
locations familiar to them. Therefore, many negotiators prefer to meet at a
neutral place. It has become possible for two different groups to meet and
discuss with the help of computer technology. Both the parties can contact
each other through e -mails. S uch messages can be emotionally charged
and may be misinterpreted also. E -mails are quick response or reactions,
therefore they aremore likely to be emotionally charged. Th traditional
system of writing a letter or memo has an advantage, where person can
give a second thought.
Physical settings: It refers to distance between two parties, their sitting
arrangements. The physical distance between the two partiescan influence
parties orientation towards each other and towards the disputed issue.
People who sit face to face are more likely to develop a win lose
orientation toward conflict situation.
Time passage and deadlines: The more time people invests in
negotiation the stronger their commitment to reaching an agreement. This
increases the motivation to reac h an agreement, but parties or persons
continue to stick to their positions or stand.
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33 Time deadlines motivate the parties to complete the negotiations. The time
deadlines become liability when exceeding deadlines is costly. As
deadlines approach, the nego tiators may soften their demands also.
Audience characteristics - Negotiations have audiences 1) one who is
going to put his interest at a stake 2) Management3) Other team members
and general public. Negotiators tend to act differently specially when
audie nces observe and have detailed information about the process. The
best example would be negotiations between Anna Hazare and Central
government.
In a situations where audiences receive only the end result the negotiators
behave differently. When audiences are directly watching the negotiators,
they tend to become more competitive, they are less likely to make
concessions, they are more likely to engage in political tactics. When there
are a large number of people watching the negotiators, they are also
conc erned with saving face. In general, audiences may make an indirect
appeal, where public opinion become important, when groups negotiate
with government. This is what happened when Anna Hazare sat for hunger
strike for Lokpal bill.
3.5.1 Approaches to negot iations - These are the bargaining strategies
adopted by groups. There are two approaches:
1) Distributive bargaining
2) Integrative bargaining
Distributive bargaining: The best example of distributive bargaining can
be seen if you accompany a smart housew ife who goes out for shopping.
They will negotiate over a purchase of a simple item. Where one simple
rule operates that is any gain I make is at your expense and vice versa.
Any gain that ashopkeeper makes is at your expense, and any gain that
you make is at the shopkeeper's expense. So the distributive bargaining is
negotiating over who gets what share of fixed pie. By fixed pie, it means
that bargaining partiesbelives that there is only a set amount of goods or
services to be divided. Fixed pies are zero sum games where every rupee
in one's party pocket, is a rupee out of their counter part's pocket.
The labour management negotiations over the wages are the best example
of fixed pie. The union leaders, when they come together with
management for negotiati on, try to get as much money as possible out of
management. Every single rupee that union leaders demand increases the
cost of management, therefore each party negotiates aggressively.
The essence of distributive bargaining is given below.
Party A and Part y B, each has target point in terms of what they want to
achieve.
Resistant - point is the lowest outcome that is acceptable to both of them.
It is a point below which the negotiations will be broken off rather than
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34 The gap between this two is the range of aspiration. There has to be over
lapping of aspirations of A and B, then only there can be some kind of
settlement.
People who make best gains out of distributive bargaining are those who
make first aggressive o ffer. Research shows that first offer is an indication
of power. Such people are more likely to make offers and speak initial first
in meetings.
Anchoring bias also suggests that people tend to fixate on the initial
information. A smart negotiator is one w ho begins first. Studies have
shown that such negotiators are more successful than others.
Revealing deadline is another important distributive bargaining tactic
adopted by negotiators. Consider the following example, Shreyash is
human resource manage. He is negotiating a salary with Adit, an MCA,
who is highly sought after by companies. Adit knows that company needs
him and decides to ask for extraordinary salary and many other benefits.
Shreyash informs Adit that company cannot meet his requirements. Adit
also tells Shreyash that he will consider other options. Worked over the
fact that company may loose a competent hand, he decides to tell Adit that
he (Shreyas) is under time pressure and needs to reach animmediate
agreement with him or else th job will b e offered to some other candidate.
Now what do you think? Is Shreyash a savy negotiator? Yes he is, By
revealing deadline, he has speeded up concession from negotiating
counterpart making him to reconsider his negotiations. Many believe that
such negotiato rs do not achieve the target, but in reality such negotiators
are more effective than others.
3.5.2 Integrative bargaining:
Integrative bargaining operates under assumption that there are one or
more settlements that can create win solution. In this bargai ning, both the
negotiating parties openly meet on the table, and review their options.
After discussion they agree to arrive at solution that meets the
requirements of both the parties.
Integrative Bargaining always has an advantage over distributive
barga ining. Integratie bargaining builds a long term relationship. Both the
parties leave the table with a sense of achievement, on the contrary
distributive bargaining leaves one party as a loser. It may further lead to
divisions in the groups, especially when people have to work together on
the long terms basis. On the contrary in integrative bargaining even if you
win you want your opponent to feel positive about it. Integrative
bargaining is not a common phenomena in most of the organisations. As
they do not have conditions required for such type of bargaining.
Integrative bargaining can become successful if parties are open with
information, concerns and are sensitive to the requirements of each other.
Both the parties must have trust in one another and must be willing to
maintain flexibility. This is the most ideal situation for integrative
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35 observed therefore, most of the negotiations in any organisation are aimed
at winning at any cos t.
Integrative bargaining can be achieved when individuals bargain in teams,
rather than individually. More ideas are generated when individuals
bargain in teams. Another way of achieving integrative bargaining is, to
put negotiable issues on table. The mo re negotiable issues are put for
discussion, the more options and preferences are thought about. This
results in better outcome for each party.
The outcome of negotiations are badly influenced by compromises, as
they reduce pressure for integrative bargain ing. Compromises occur when
one party caves in easily, then it does not require any effort to reach at
settlement. Thus, people landup getting much lesser, then if they had
obtained it by considering the issues and concerns of other party.
3.5.3 Five steps of negotiation process:
Preparation and planning - Before a party starts negotiation it must do
some amount of homework. It must understand A) Nature of conflictB)
History leading to negotiation C) Individuals involved and their perception
of conflict D) Aim and objective of negotiation E) the final goal of
negotiation F) What are the goals of other party G) What they may ask for
H) what are the hidden interests of other party, etc. If you are required
with all the information then you are in a better posi tion to seek your
desired goal.
Once you have gathered all information, use it to develop your own
strategy. Expert chess players have their strategy, they know the moves of
opponent and how they will be responding to it. As a part of strategy you
should d etermine yours and other's side's Best Alternative To a Negotiated
Agreement (BATNA). BATNA determines the lowest value acceptable to
you for a negotiated agreement.
Any offer you receive that is higher than BATNA is better agreement or
deal. You can becom e successful in your negotiation and when you make
an offer that other side finds more attractive than their BATNA.
Definition of ground rules : Once planning and strategy is ready the next
step would be to define and form ground rules and procedure. Groun d
rules are who will be negotiating? Where negotiations will take place?
Will there be any time limit? What will be the issues that will be
negotiated? What will be the specialised procedure if an agreement or
emphasis is reached? During this period both p arties will exchange their
initial proposals.
Clarification and Justification: Once the positions are exchanged, each
party will clarify and justify original demands. This should not be the form
of the confrontation. This is an opportunity for educating ea ch other
regarding the demands and explaining why they are important. Your offer
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36 Bargaining and problem solving : This is a give and take process and a
process of reaching at an agreeable solution, when both parties will require
to make concessions for each other.
Closure and Implementation : The last step of negotiations will be
formalizing an agreement and developing procedures for implementing it.
But in most of the organisation, the last step of negotiation process is
nothing but a handshake.
3.5.4 Guidelines for effective negotiations:
 Consider the other party's situation and view point.
 Always have a plan and correct strategy.
 Being with positive overture.
 Address problem and not personalities.
 Pay little attention to initial offers.
 Emphasise win -win solution.
 Create a climate of trust
 Have an open mind.
 Insists on using objective criteria.
 Adapt to cultural difference.
3.5.5 Individual Differences in Negotiation Effectiveness - This refers
to personal factors influen cing negotiation. It includes personality traits,
emotions and gender. We would discuss each of these briefly.
Personality Traits and Negotiation: Initial researches showed that
personality and negotiations are not directly related. Recent research
shows t hat several of big five traits are related to negotiation outcomes.
Negotiators who are agreeable or extraverted are not very successful when
it comes to distributive bargaining. Extroverts are more friendly and
outgoing, they tend to share more informatio n than what is required.
Agreeable people will find the ways in which they can cooperate rather
than protecting the interests of the organisation. These traits are slightly
helpful where integrative bargaining is concerned. But they become
liabilities when interests are really opposing each other. Distributive
bargaining can be best done by introvert who does not share much.
Introverts are more concerned with their own outcomes rather than
pleasing the other party and having good social support.
Finally int elligence also has its influence on effectiveness of negotiation.
The influence of personality and intelligence is not so strong on the overall
outcome of negotiation.
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37 Emotions in Negotiations: Distributive negotiations have better outcomes
when negotiato rs show anger. Anger induces concessions from opponents.
This is true when negotiators are instructed to show anger, even when they
are not angry. Positive moods and emotions lead to higher levels of joint
gains especially in integrative negotiation.
Gende r Differences in Negotiations: A popular stereo type is, women are
more cooperative and pleasant in negotiations than men. But evidence
shows that men negotiate better outcomes thanwomen. The difference
between men and women is relatively small. The differ ence observed in
outcomes of negotiations is because of differences attached to outcome.
Women are perceived as nicer than men in negotiations, because of the
confusion between gender and lower degree of power that women hold in
most of organisations. Beca use of the gender stereotype, compared to
men, women are penalized more if they initiate negotiations. When men
act tough and women act nice they fulfill the gender stereotype, and this is
one of the reasons why there are differences in negotiations of men and
women. Most of the negotiations, favour men rather than women as
women are criticised if they violate gender stereotype and if they do not
do so, even then they are criticised.
Third Party Negotiations: Often individuals and groups reach a point
where conflict cannot be resolved through direct negotiations. In such
cases they turn to the third part negotiator.
They third party performs four basic rules 1) Mediater, 2) Arbitrator, 3)
Conciliater, 4) Consultant.
1) Mediator:
A neutral third party who fac ilitates negotiated solutions by using
reasoning, persuasion and suggestion for alternatives.
Very often function in civil court and labour management.
He can become successful only when both parties aremotivated to resolve
the conflict.
Can become success ful only if the mediator is perceived as neutral and
non-coercive.
2) Arbitrator:
A third party to negotiation who has an authority to dictate an agreement.
Arbitrator can be voluntary when it is requested by parties.
Arbitrator is fixed when it is forced by law or contract.
It always results in settlement.
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38 This can leave one party defeated and dissatisfied, leading to resurfacing
of conflict.
3) Conciliator:
It is a trusted third party who provides an inf ormal communication link
between the negotiator and opponent.
The role of conciliator and mediator is more likely to overlap.
Conciliator do not only act as a communicating agent, they go beyond the
role.
They engage in fact finding, interpreting messages and persuading
disputes to develop agreements.
4) Consultants:
They have knowledge of conflict management.
They are impartial third party, engage into problem solving through
communication and analysis.
They do not aim at settlement they are more concerned with improving
relationship between the conflicting parties.
They help parties to develop an understanding and work with each other.
Thus, finding a solution based on mutual understanding.
3.6 GLOBAL IMPLICATIONS
Cross cultural differences between the con flict resolution strategies are not
really understood. There is a very little research done on it. There are
studies indicating the differences in U.S. and Asian managers. Compared
to Japanese negotiators, U.S. negotiators are more likely to see offers fro m
the counter parts as unfair and reject them. Another study showed that
U.S. managers were more likely to use competing tactics in the face of
conflict. Compromising and avoiding are the most preferred methods of
conflict management in China.
Cultural Dif ferences in negotiation:
Negotiation get complicated when negotiating parties hail from different
cultural backgrounds. Negotiation approaches vary across the countries.
Majority of negotiators from India, Japan, China, Argentina, France and
USA tend to ad opt win -win approach while sitting for negotiation.
Britishers, Mexicans, Germans, Nigerians and Spaniards generally use win
lose approach for negotiating. It is difficult to expect give and take
approach while negotiating with Spaniards and Germans, but i t is possible
with Indians and Mexicans. One study compared U.S. and Japanese
negotiators. It was found that Japanese negotiators communicated
indirectly and adapted their behaviours to thesituations. Follow upstudy
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39 effect, for Japanese negotiators early offers led to more information
sharing and better integrative outcome.
North American, Arab and Russian negotiators were compared. It was
observed that North American depended on fact and logic. They made
small concessions in early negotiations. To establish relationship, they
also reciprocated opponents concessions. Deadlines were important for
them. Arabians persuaded by using emotions. They made concessions
throughout the bargaining pro cess and always reciprocated to concessions
offered by the opposite parties. They approached deadlines very casually.
Russians used asserted ideals for bargaining. They made very few
concessions. Any concession offered by opposition was a sign of
weakness. They ignored deadlines.
Finally, it is important to adapt to cultural expectations of negotiator from
different countries. It helps in maintaining rapport and credibility of
potential outcomes. It is also necessary to be aware of one's own cultural
biases and nuances, so that they are not exploited by opponents.
3.7 SUMMARY
Conflicts can be defined as "The struggle between incompatible or
opposing needs, wishes, ideas, interests or people". Conflicts arise when
individual or groups encounter goals that bot h parties cannot obtain
satisfactorily. Conflict found in the organisation is a process that begins
when one party perceives another party has negatively affected, or is about
to negatively affect something that first cares about.
Conflict and competition, both have incompatible goals. Competition does
not always refer to interfering with the goals of other, whereas conflict
means interfering with the goals of others.
Three views of conflict are commonly discussed. Traditional view
prevailed during 1930s an d 1940s. It stressed that conflict in the
organisation was unnecessary and harmful. It holds that conflict is caused
by poor communication, lack of trust, and failure of managers in
understanding needs and aspiration of employees. Human relations view
of conflict (1970s) suggest that conflict is a natural occurrence in all
groups and organisations. It suggests that conflict cannot be eliminated but
they may benefit the performance of group. Interactionist view of conflict
believes that conflict is inevitabl e and necessary part of its functioning.
This is a recent view of conflict, it suggests that conflict can be functional
or dysfunctional.
Dysfunctional conflict is a conflict that affects the performance of group.
There are three types of dysfunctional con flict namely, Task Conflict,
Relationship Conflict and Process Conflict. Functional conflicts are
constructive forms of conflicts. They refer to confrontation between ideas
or goals of parties.
Generally organisational performance is low when conflict leve l is
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40 of performance. When conflict is low performance is also low because of
lack of stimulation.
The process conflict comprises of five stages each of these five stages
were discu ssed.
Negotiations: It is like a barter system, where there is fair exchange of
goods and services. Negotiations include combination of compromises and
collaboration. The success of negotiation depends on physical settings,
location, time and audience.
Approaches to negotiation: They are bargaining strategies adopted by
groups. They are 1) Distributive Bargaining and 2) Integrative Bargaining.
The process of negotiation involve five major steps, each of these steps
were discussed:
Negotiations are also infl uenced by emotions. Anger induces concessions
from opponent parties. Positive moods lead to joint gain of both parties.
There are gender differences in negotiations. Evidence shows that men
negotiate better than women. The difference between men and women is
observed because of the different importance attached to outcomes.
Third party negotiations take place when both parties cannot resolve
through direct negotiation. Third party negotiators perform four basic
types of negotiation.
 Mediator
 Arbitrator
 Conc iliator
 Consultant
Negotiation becomes complicated when negotiating parties hail from
different cultural backgrounds.
3.8 GLOSSARY
Intentions: It can be defined as a decision o ac in a given way.
Negotiation: It is an important process in which two or more parties
exchange goods and services and attempts to agree on exchange rate for
them.
Distributive Bargaining: It is one type of win -loose situation. In this form
of negotiation individuals seek to divide a fixed amount of resources. It is
one type of zero sum game. In this any gain that an individual makes
result in loss to another and vice versa. Distributive bargaining involves
negotiating over who gets what share of a fixed share.
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41 Integrative Bargaining: It is a bargaining strategy which leads to a win -
win situation.
3.9 QUESTIONS
Q.1 Define Conflict and discuss transitions in conflict thought.
Q. 2 Explain different perspectives on Conflict.
Q.3 Discuss the various stages in the Conflict Process.
Q.4 Write short notes on the following :
1. Functional Ou tcomes
2. Dysfunctional Outcomes
3. Bargaining Strategies
Q.5 Discuss the different steps involved in the Negotiation Process.
Q.6 Write a note on individual differences in negotiation effectiveness.
Q. 7 Discuss some important factors that help one effectively negotiate.
.Q.8 Write notes on the following :
1. Third party negotiations?
2. Cross cultural differences in negotiating styles.
3.10 REFERENCES
Robbins, S. P ., Judge, T. A ., &Sanghi, S. (2009). Organisational
Behaviour.(13 ed.), Pearson Education, Dorling Ki ndersley, New Delhi.
Newstrom, J. W ., and Davis, K. (2002). Organisational Behaviour :
Human Behaviour at Work (11th ed.). Tata McGraw -Hill.
Kumar V. B. (2011) Psychology of Human Behaviour at Work, Himalaya
Publishing House, Mumbai, pages 3 -32.


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42 4
EMOTIONS AND MOODS
Unit Structure
4.0 Objectives
4.1 Introduction
4.2 What Are Emotions and Moods?
4.2.1 Expressed Emotion:
4.2.2 Experienced Emotions: Anger and Happiness
4.3 Sources of Emotions and Moods
4.4 Emotional Labor
4.4.1 What Impact Does Em otional Labors Have an Employee’s?
5.5 Affective Events Theory
4.5.1 Factors Affecting Employee Experience At Work
4.6 Emotional Intelligence
5.6.1 Characteristics of Emotional Intelligent Person:
4.7 Emotion Regulation
4.7.1 How We Control Our Emotions
4.7.2 Strategies to Emotion Regulation
4.8. Ob Applications of Emotions and Moods
4.9 Summery
4.10 Questions
4.11 References
4.0 OBJECTIVES
After reading this unit you will be able to understand:
 The concept of Emotion
 The Sources of Emotions and Moods
 The concept Emotional Intelligence
 Applications of Emotions and Moods in OB
4.1 INTRODUCTION
Emotions are responsible for the finest inhuman achievement and for the
worst in history. They arethe source of pleasure as well as sorrowin our life.
Negative a nd long lasting emotions can make us sick. So, what are emotions?
Emotions are our body’s adaptive response. They exist to give us support for
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43 attention and energize our actions. (Cyders& Smith,2008).Emotions are a
mix of bodily arousal (heart pounding), expressive behaviors (quickened
pace) and conscious experience, including thoughts and feelings (panic, fear,
joy). (Mayers D.G.,2013)
4.2 WHAT ARE EMOTIONS AND MOODS?
At some point in eve ry person's life, people have experienced emotions
and moods of happiness, sorrow, anger, positivity, or negativity. These
experiences can be brought upon by a number of causes, and each is
reflected by the individual over a period of time. The psychologic al
process of expressing moods and emotions is a natural occurrence
throughout many peoples' lives.
How are moods and emotions different? The most basic answer is the
amount of time that each expression of mood vs. emotion takes place for.
An emotion is a short -lived feeling that comes from a known cause, or the
way a person feels at a particular time. Emotions can determine how a
person acts for a period of time through their body language, sudden facial
expressions, and decision making. A mood takes place for a longer period
of time and has no clear or identifiable beginning of formation. Moods are
typically prolonged instances of multiple emotions, though they may not
be shown as strongly.
To exemplify the definitions of moods vs. emotions, imagine the
following scenario: Craig was just hired for his dream job as a home
designer. The benefits he will receive from this job are fantastic, and he
believes that he will be able to support his growing family well for years
to come. In the immediate present and f or a short time after receiving the
big news, Craig experiences emotions of happiness and joy. After working
long hours for a few years, Craig feels that he does not have much
upward -mobility in his company, nor does he get to see his family very
often. Cr aig comes home from work each night in a negative mood
because of these prolonged factors. In order to have a more positive and
healthy mood and lifestyle, Craig takes a position as a self -employed
designer where he can set his own hours and spend more tim e with his
family.
4.2.1 Expressed Emotion:
A.) Detecting Emotions in Others:
To determine other people’s emotions we read their bodies, listen to their
voice tones and study their faces. Psychologists wondered whether non -
verbal language differs accordi ng to our culture and can our expressions
influence our experienced emotions. For example, in western culture, a firm
handshake conveys an outgoing, expressive personality. A gaze, an averted
glance or a stare indicates intimacy, submission or dominance. I n a study,
male -female pairs who were total strangers to each other, were asked to gaze
intently at each other for two minutes. They reported feeling a tingle of
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44 Most of us read nonverbal cues well. We are especially good at detecting
nonverbal threats. In a crowd of faces, a single angry face is identified much
faster than a single happy face. Experience can also sensitize us to particular
emotions, e.g., viewing a series of faces depicting anger to fear, physically
abused c hildren were much quicker to spot the signals of anger than non -
abused children. Hard to control facial muscles reveal signs of emotions that
a person may be trying to hide, e.g., eyebrows raised and pulled together
signal fear. Our brains are very good de tectors of subtle expressions. Seeing a
face for just 0.1 seconds also enabled people to judge attractiveness or
trustworthiness of a person (Willis & Todorov,2006). It is rightly said that
first impression occurs at lightning speed. Despite our brain’s em otion
detecting skills, it is difficult to detect deceiving expressions. The behavioral
differences between liars and truth -tellers are too minute for most people to
detect. However, some people are much better emotion detectors (especially
introverts) tha n others. It is difficult to detect emotions from written
communication because it does not have gestures, facial features and voice
tones to help detection of emotions. Electronic communication also provides
very poor quality nonverbal cues. That is why, people often use emoticons.
Lie Detection:
It is a common practice for researchers and crime detectors to use lie
detector - polygraph to detect the lies. The question arises how effective and
reliable is polygraph in detecting lies. The polygraph works on the principle
that certain emotion -linked bodily changes, such as changes in breathing,
cardiovascular activity and perspiration changes take place when a person
tells a lie, even if that person can control his facial expressions. The
tester/examiner asks questions to the testee and observes these bodily
changes taking place in the testee while answering the questions. The tester
starts questioning with certain question that may make any person nervous
and polygraph will show signs of arousal. These are ca lled control questions.
For example, a tester may ask in last 10 years have you taken anything that
does not belong to you? The arousal level shown on a polygraph, in response
to these control questions serves as the base line. Then the tester will ask the
critical questions, e.g., have you stolen anything from your previous
employer? The arousal level shown on polygraph in response to this question
will indicate whether the person is telling the truth or lying. For example, if
the arousal level while answe ring the critical question is weaker than the base
line arousal determined before, then we can say that person is telling the
truth. On the other hand, if the arousal shown in response to critical question
is more than base line arousal that means the pers on is telling the lie.
B.) Gender, Emotion and Nonverbal Behavior:
Studies have proved that women are better at reading emotional cues than
men, even if they are exposed to very little behavior of the other person, e.g.,
they can detect whether a male -female couple is a genuine romantic couple
or just pretending one(Barnes & Sternberg, 1989).Women’s nonverbal
sensitivity is due to their greater emotional literacy and they more
emotionally responsive. For example, in an experiment on emotional literacy,
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45 simply said, “I will feel bad”, while women said “It will be bittersweet; I’ll
feel both happy and sad”.(Barrett et.al., 2000). A study of people from 26
cultures found that women repor ted themselves as more open to feelings than
men. (Costa et.al. 2001). This clearly indicates that women are more
emotional than men. However, generally, people tend to attribute women’s
reactions to their emotions while men’s reactions to their circumstan ces,
except for the feeling of anger. Anger is considered as more masculine
emotion. Surveys showed that women are more likely to describe themselves
as empathic. Their heart rate goes up and they are more likely to cry when
they see someone in distress.
C.) Culture and Emotional Expression:
Studies have shown that there are universal facial expressions for basic
emotions across different cultures. Facial muscles speak a universal
language. In entire world, children cry when in distress and smile when they
are happy. Even people blind from birth, naturally show the common facial
expressions linked with emotions such as joy, sadness, fear and anger.
Musical expressions also cut across cultures. In all cultures, fast paced music
seems to be happy one and slo w music is considered as sad one.
Charles Darwin said that in prehistoric times, before our ancestors
communicated through words, they communicated threats, greetings and
submission through facial expressions. Their shared expressions help in their
surviv al. Emotional expressions help in our survival in other ways also, e.g.,
surprise raises the eyebrows and widens the eyes so that we can take in more
information. However, it is observed that people are more accurate in judging
emotions from their own cult ure, and there are cultural differences in how
much emotion will be expressed. For example, in western culture, people
openly show their emotions while in Asian cultures, people tend to have less
visible display of their emotions.
D.) The Effects of facia l Expression:
Studies indicate that expressions not only communicate emotions, they also
amplify and regulate them. People report feeling more fear than any other
emotion, when made to construct a fearful expression. It is said smile warmly
on the outsid e and you will feel better on the inside. So, your face feeds your
feelings. In an experiment, depressed patients felt better after getting Botox
injections that paralyze the frowning muscles. Similarly, it is reported that
people see ambiguous behaviors d ifferently depending on which finger they
move up and down while reading a story. If they read the story, while
moving an extended middle finger, the story behaviors seemed more hostile.
If read with a thumb up, they seemed more positive.
4.2.2 Experienced Emotions: Anger and Happiness
The experience of emotions in human beings can be placed on two
dimensions – Positive vs. Negative and Low Arousal vs High Arousal. Any
emotion is a combination of these two dimensions. For example, if we take
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46 is a negative feeling.Let us discuss two of the most noticeable and pervasive
emotions that impacts our lives. These are anger and happiness.
Anger:
Ancient wisdom describes anger as ‘a short madness’. It says that anger
‘carriesthe mind away’ and can be ‘many times more hurtful than the injury
that caused it’. In other words, it is trying to say that when we are angry, we
can’t think rationally and may do or say things that ultimately causes more
misery to us. However, Shakespeare held a different view and said that noble
anger makes a coward person brave and energizes us. Who is correct? The
answer is both are right. Anger can harm us. Studies have shown that chronic
hostility can cause heart disease, blood pressure, lead to impaired social
relationships and may even shorten our lives.
The question arises can we get rid of our anger? If yes, then how?
 Gender Differences: A Gallup teen survey showed that there are gender
differences in dealing with anger. It reported that to get rid of their anger,
boys usually move away from the situation that is causing them anger,
they do lot of physical activities such as exercising to get over their
anger. On the other hand, girls cope with their anger by t alking to a
friend, listening to music or writing down in diary or journal.

 Cultural Differences: Western culture, a predominantly an
individualistic culture, believes that people should vent their anger,
because internalizing the feeling of anger is more harmful. In fact,
‘recovery’ therapists encourage people to vent their rage against our dead
parents, confront our childhood abuser and curse our boss in our
imagination. Keeping anger within us is considered bad for our mental
and physical health.Western culture believes that venting out of anger can
be done through emotional release (either through aggressive act or
through imaginary act) or catharsis. There is some empirical support for
this line of thinking. Studies do show that sometimes, not always, the
anger subsides when people retaliate against a provoker. But anger
subsides only ifa person counterattacks directly his provoker, retaliation
is justifiable, their target is not intimidating (Geen et.al., 1977) and if they
do not feel anxious or guilty la ter on.If anger led physical or verbal acts
generate regret later on, it becomes maladaptive.
However, catharsis often fails to erase our feeling of rage. There can be
some reasons for it
1. Expressing anger may strengthen the anger instead of reducing it :
e.g., in case of road -rage. Ebbesenet. al. (1975) conducted an experiment
on laid off employees. They were allowed to vent their hostility and later
on given chance to express their attitude towards the company. Compared
to those laid off employees who wer e not given a chance to vent their
hostility in initial questionnaire, it was found that employees who were
given such a chance in first questionnaire, expressed more hostility. Their
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47 another study. Brad Bushman (2002) rightly said that venting to reduce
anger is like using petrol to put out a fire.

2. It may provoke retaliation and a minor conflict may turn into major
confrontation : In Asian culture, which is a community culture, giv ing
vent to your aggression in this manner is considered bad. People don’t
give went to their rage because they derive their identity from the group
and have a sense of interdependence. Such people consider venting their
anger as a threat to group harmony.

3. Angry outbursts are dangerous in another way : They may temporarily
calm us but this may act as reinforcement and so may be habit forming.

4. Anger can lead to prejudice : Americans developed prejudice against
immigrants and Muslims after 9/11.

Techniques to Control Anger:

1. Wait before reacting. You can bring down the level of physiological
arousal of anger by waiting.

2. Don’t ruminate. Ruminating inwardly serves to increase it

3. Calm yourself by exercising, playing an instrument or talking it through
with a friend.

4. Anger when used wisely can be a strength and can benefit the
relationship. Express the grievances in ways that promotes reconciliation
rather than retaliation.

5. Talk things over with the offender, thereby reducing the aggravation. Be
civil but assertive.

6. If conflict can’t be resolved, use forgiveness. Forgiveness releases anger
and calms the body.
Happiness:
Happiness is a state of mind or a feeling of contentment, satisfaction,
pleasure, or joy.’Positive psychology, describes happiness as a high ratio of
positive to negative feelings or sense of satisfaction with life.
A) Importance of Happiness in Our Lives:
Happiness/ unhappiness has tremendous impact on each and every aspect of
our lives. This impact can be temporary or long lasting, mi ld or severe.
Psychologists have been investigating the difference between happy and
unhappy people and how it affects them. Some of the conclusions are that
happy people p erceive the world as safer and they feel more confident,
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48 applicants more favorably, savor their positive past experiences without
thinking too much on the negative aspects, are more socially connected, live
healthier and more energized and satisfied lives (Mauss et.al., 2011) , earn
significantly more money (Diener et.al.,2002).
Baas et.al. (2008) stated that when your mood is gloomy, life as a whole
seems depressing and meaningless, you are critical of your surroundings and
thinking is skeptical, in such a situation, if you put in efforts to brighten your
mood, your thinking will get broadened and you will become more playful
and creative. In other words, you will get transferred from unhappy state to
happy state. When we are happy, our relationships, self -image, and hop es for
the future also seem more positive.
Feel - Good, Do - Good Phenomenon: Many research studies have reported
that happiness doesn’t just feel good, it does good, e.g., in many studies,
mood boosting experiences (such as finding money, recalling a happy event,
etc.) had made people more likely to give money, pick up someone’s dropped
papers, volunteer time and do other good deeds. Reverse of feel good and do
good was also found to be true. When you do good for someone, you feel
good.
B) The Short Life of Emotional Ups and Downs:
Studies have shown that over the long run, our emotional ups and downs tend
to balance out, not only over the days but also during the day. Positive
emotion rises over the early to middle part of most days and then drops off. A
stressful event can trigger a bad mood, but by the next day, the gloom almost
always lifts. Even when negative event persists for longer period, our bad
mood usually ends. For example, romantic breakup feels devastating, but
eventually the emotional wound heals and we move on in life.
Grief over the loss of a loved one or anxiety after a severe trauma such as
child abuse, rape, or the terrors of war, may last for longer period, but
eventually we get over it. No tragedy is permanently depressing. People who
become blind or get paralyzed too recover near normal levels of day to day
happiness.
People cope well with a permanent disability, though they do not rebound
back to former emotions of happiness and well -being. A major disability
leaves people less ha ppy than average, yet much happier than able bodied
people suffering from depression. Bruno et.al. (2008) commented that most
patients “locked -in” motionless body( being in coma) do not say they want to
die. The fact is that we overestimate the duration of our emotions and
underestimate our resiliency and capacity to adapt.
C.) Wealth and Well -Being:
To some extent, wealth does correlate with well -being, e.g., rich people are
typically happier, healthier than poor people who lack control over their
lives. M oney can help to get out of hunger and hopelessness and also buy
happiness. But once you have sufficient money for comfort and security,
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49 diminishing returns of phenomenon. The power of mo re money to increase
happiness is significant at low incomes and diminishes as income rises. In
every culture, those who strive hardest for wealth tend to live with lower
well-being, especially if they are seeking money to prove themselves, gain
power or s how -off rather than support their families.
D) Two Psychological Phenomena - Adaption and Comparison:
There are two psychological phenomena that explain why happiness is
relative. These are Adaptation and Comparison. Let us understand these two
principl es –

1) The Adaptation -Level phenomenon: This principle suggests that we
have a natural tendency to judge various stimuli in comparison to our past
experiences. Harry Helson (1977) explain this phenomenon by explaining
that on the basis of our past exper ience, we all reach certain neutral levels for
everything, e.g., there are certain levels at which we will not find sounds
either too loud or soft, temperatures as too high or low, events as pleasant or
unpleasant. We will feel just neutral about them. Onc e these neutral points
are developed, then we judge any new events or variations in existing events
in comparison to these levels, e.g., if temperature goes higher than our
neutral point temperature, then we find temperature too hot for our comfort.

Simil arly, if compared to our present income we get higher income, we feel a
temporary surge in our happiness, but later this new high becomes the new
normal level and then to again feel happy we will require income more than
this new normal level also. Same is true for other areas such as academic
rewards, social prestige, etc. For example, do you remember, the thrill you
had when cordless phones came in the market and you owned one (Those
phones worked only within a limited range of landline phones, giving you
very little flexibility). Later, mobile phones came into market and they gave
you the freedom to talk to anyone even while traveling far away from your
home. At that stage you were no more thrilled with cordless phones.
Afterwards, mobiles got upgraded to smart phones and now you could not
only talk with mobile phone but could also do lot more like using internet on
phone. Now does ordinary mobile phone gives you any happiness or
excitement? The answer will be no. This is exactly what the psychologists
meant when they said happiness is relative to our own experiences.
There is no permanent happiness. Tomorrow, suppose you get a chance to
live in an ideal world where you don’t have any economic worries or health
worries and your near dear ones give you unc onditional love. You will be
elated, but after some time you will adjust your adaptation level and this new
world will become your new normal. Now you will feel satisfied if events
exceed your expectations or you will feel dissatisfied if these events fal l
below your expectations. The point is that satisfaction or dissatisfaction are
just our judgments based on our past experiences.
2) Comparison -Relative Deprivation: We always compare ourselves to
others and our feeling of good or bad depends upon wit h whom we are
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50 deprivation. Such comparisons are the reason why rich people are more
satisfied with life than the poor people. However, Russell (1930,p90) noted
very aptly that “Begga rs do not envy millionaires, though of course they will
envy other beggars who are more successful”. Comparing ourselves with
those who are better off creates envy and comparing ourselves with those
who are worse off creates contentment.
E) Predictors of Happiness:
Happy people share many characteristics such as they have high esteem, are
optimistic, outgoing and agreeable, have close relationships or a satisfying
marriage, have work and leisure that engages their skills, have an active
religious faith, sl eep well and exercise Research shows that age, gender,
parenthood and physical attractiveness has no link with happiness, but genes
matter .
Heritability: In one study of identical and fraternal twins, it was found that
about 50% of the difference among pe ople’s happiness ratings was heritable.
Other studies have also indicated that identical twins raised apart are often
similarly happy.
Personal History and Culture: On the personal level, we already know that
our emotions tend to balance around a level de fined by our experiences. On
the cultural level, groups differ in the traits that they value. For example, self -
esteem and achievement are more important to Westerners due to emphasis
on individualism. Social acceptance and harmony are more important for
people living in communal cultures such as Japan, where family and
community is more important than personal achievements. However, apart
from our genes, studies indicate that relationship quality is also an important
determinant of our happiness.
So, depe nding on our genes, our values, our recent experiences, our
happiness seems to fluctuate around our “happiness set point”. Due to this
some people are always happy while others are always negative. However,
psychologists believe that our satisfaction with our lives is not fixed.
Happiness can increase or decrease. It can be influenced by factors under our
control.
4.3 SOURCES OF EMOTIONS AND MOODS
Emotions and moods can be caused by many reasons.
Personality: As all individuals, we must have built -in tende ncies to
experience certain moods and emotions more frequently than others do.
We also differ in how intensely we experience the same emotion, while
those who are affectively intense, experience good and bad moods and
emotions more deeply.
Day of the week or time of the day: You will have guessed by now that
people tend to be in their worst moods early in the week and in their best
moods late in the week. Monday morning is therefore not the best time to
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51 Weather: Have you heard of illusory correlation? It is the tendency of
people to associate two events when in reality there is no connection.
Many people think so, but the weather has little influence on our mood.
Stress: Stress can affect our moods and emotions ne gatively. The effects
build over time and constant levels of stress can worsen our moods and
emotions.
Social activities: For most us, social activities increase positive mood and
have little effect on negative mood. Positive mood seeks out social
interact ions. Physical, informal and epicurean activities are more strongly
related to positive moods than formal and sedentary events.
Sleep: Sleep quality does affect mood. If you are tired, you are more
likely to feel fatigue, anger and hostility, and therefore , it can impair
decision -making and make it difficult to control emotions.
Exercise: Exercise enhances our positive mood. This is especially good
for depressed people.
Age: Negative emotions seem to occur less, as people get older. Highly
positive moods la st longer for older individuals while bad moods fade
more quickly than for younger people. Emotional experience improves
with age.
Gender: Women are more emotionally expressive than men. They
experience them more intensely and hold onto emotions longer tha n men.
They display more frequent expressions of positive and negative emotions,
except anger. This is because men are taught to be tough and brave.
Women are social and nurturing, so they show more positive moods.
4.4 EMOTIONAL LABOR
Emotional labor is th e process of managing feelings and expressions to
fulfill the emotional requirements of a job. More specifically, workers are
expected to regulate their emotions during interactions with customers, co -
workers and managers. This includes analysis and decisi on making in
terms of the expression of emotion, whether actually felt or not, as well as
its opposite: the suppression of emotions that are felt but not expressed.
This is done so as to produce a certain feeling in the customer or client
that will allow t he company or organization to succeed.
Roles that have been identified as requiring emotional labor include those
involved in public administration, law, childcare, health care, social work,
hospitality, media, and espionage. As particular economies move f rom a
manufacturing to a service -based economy, more workers in a variety of
occupational fields are expected to manage their emotions according to
employer demands when compared to sixty years ago.
Usage of the term has also been extended to refer to unpa id work that is
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52 Definition of Emotional Labor
The sociologist Arlie Hochschild provided the first definition of emotional
labor, which is d isplaying certain emotions to meet the requirements of a
job. The related term emotion work (also called "emotion management")
refers to displaying certain emotions for personal purposes, such as within
the private sphere of one's home or interactions with family and friends.
Hochschild identified three emotion regulation strategies: cognitive,
bodily, and expressive. Within cognitive emotion work, one attempts to
change images, ideas, or thoughts in hopes of changing the feelings
associated with them. For example, one may associate a family picture
with feeling happy and think about said picture whenever attempting to
feel happy. Within bodily emotion work, one attempts to change physical
symptoms in order to create a desired emotion. For example, one may
attempt deep breathing in order to reduce anger. Within expressive
emotion work, one attempts to change expressive gestures to change inner
feelings, such as smiling when trying to feel happy.
While emotion work happens within the private sphere, emotional labor is
emotion management within the workplace according to employer
expectations. Jobs involving emotional labor are defined as those that:
 Require face -to-face or voice -to-voice contact with the public.
 Require the worker to produce an emotional state in another person.
 Allow the employer, through training and supervision, to exercise a
degree of control over the emotional activities of employees.
Hochschild (1983) argues that within this commodification process,
service workers are estranged from their own feelings in the workplace.
4.4.1 What Impact does emotional labors have an employee’s?
Emotional labor and emotional dissonance affect how an
employeeperforms at work. Emotional labor is an indicator of how
employees canhandle adversity at work if the y let their emotions hurt their
work.Emotional dissonance occurs when employees are not able to
controltheir emotions. Their real emotions become an obstacle to
jobperformance.Managers can identify workers who are having emotional
dissonance andprovide an outlet and training to help them deal with
personal issues. Thisway, the employee is able to perform on the job
positively by solvingpersonal issues.Employees who are able to utilize
deep acting are very productive,positive and are able to avoid job burnou t.
Harry was known for hispositive emotions at work and wasCustomer
ServiceRep of the Year forhis ability to calm disgruntled passengers and
handle negative stress
4.5 AFFECTIVE EVENTS THEORY
Affective events theory (AET) is a model developed by organizati onal
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53 Russell Cropanzano (University of Colorado) to explain how emotions
and moods influence job performance and job satisfaction. The model
explains the linkages between employees' intern al influences (e.g.,
cognitions, emotions, mental states) and their reactions to incidents that
occur in their work environment that affect their performance,
organizational commitment, and job satisfaction. The theory proposes that
affective work behavior s are explained by employee mood and emotions,
while cognitive -based behaviors are the best predictors of job satisfaction.
The theory proposes that positive -inducing (e.g., uplifts) as well as
negative -inducing (e.g., hassles) emotional incidents at work are
distinguishable and have a significant psychological impact upon workers'
job satisfaction. This results in lasting internal (e.g., cognition, emotions,
mental states) and external affective reactions exhibited through job
performance, job satisfaction , and organizational commitment.
Alternatively, some research suggests that job satisfaction mediates the
relationship between various antecedent variables such as dispositions,
workplace events, job characteristics, job opportunities, and employee
behavio r exhibited while on the job (e.g., organizational citizenship
behaviors, counter -productive work behaviors, and job withdrawal). To
that end, when workers experience uplifts (e.g., completing a goal,
receiving an award) or hassles (e.g., dealing with a di fficult client, reacting
to an updated deadline), their intention to continue or quit depends upon
the emotions, moods, and thoughts associated with the satisfaction they
derive from their jobs.
Other research has demonstrated that the relationship between job
satisfaction and turnover is fully mediated by intention to quit; workers
who report low job satisfaction are likely to engage in planned quitting.
However, this relationship does not account for employees who report
high job satisfaction, but quit un expectedly. Although extrinsic rewards,
such as better job offers outside their current organization, may influence
their decisions, employees' personality factors may also impact their
decisions to exit early from otherwise ideal jobs under ideal working
conditions.
Recipients often refer to specific events in exit interviews when
voluntarily leaving their current jobs. Minor events with subtle emotional
effects also have a cumulative impact on job satisfaction, particularly
when they occur acutely with h igh frequency. For example, perceived
stressful events at work are often positively associated with high job strain
on the day that they occur and negatively associated with strain the day
after, resulting in an accumulation of perceived job -related stress over
time. This is consistent with the general understanding in vocational
psychology that job satisfaction is a distal, long -term outcome that is
mediated by perceived job stress.
4.5.1 Factors affecting employee experience at work
The relationships betw een components associated with work (e.g., tasks,
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54 outcomes support AET. Tasks that are considered challenging, rewarding,
or that provide an opportunity to develop new skills induce positi ve affect
and increase job satisfaction. Alternatively, tasks that are rated as routine,
boring, or overwhelming are associated with negative affect (e.g., low
self-esteem, low self -confidence) and concerns over job evaluations. This
may lead workers to en gage in planned quitting behaviours.
The degree of autonomy workers have in their jobs affects their
productivity, satisfaction, and intention to quit. Research shows that the
ability to make decisions and influence what happens on the job has the
greatest impact on job satisfaction, particularly among young male
workers. Job autonomy even trumps income's effect on job satisfaction.
Alternatively, work overload significantly reduces job satisfaction among
middle -aged women and men but does not significantly impact job
satisfaction among young male workers. These differences between the
age and gender of workers indicate differences in career phase, where
young (male) workers are more likely to put up with or expect work
overload, while middle -aged workers te nd to be approaching their peak
and may expect some concessions (e.g., based on track record, merit, or
currency to the organization).
Likewise, work flexibility affects job satisfaction. In fact, the flexibility to
decide when work is performed ranks numb er one among women and
number two or three among men in determining the characteristics of a
satisfying job. Similar to job autonomy, job flexibility is more important
than income when evaluating job satisfaction. Flexibility to determine
one's work schedu le is an important contributor to job satisfaction across
the spectrum of low - and high -income jobs. Work flexibility empowers
employees by reducing the incidence of work -family conflicts and
engagement in planned quitting to improve overall quality of lif e. Positive
affect is a fringe benefit of work flexibility that pays rich dividends to both
employees and their employers, empowering the former and improving the
ability of the latter to retain workers.
Past research has suggested that workplace affect wa s a state -oriented
construct (like emotions and mood) that depended upon the work
environment or situations encountered at work. However, more recent
research describes affect as a dispositional trait that is dependent upon the
individual. Although workpla ce events have a significant impact on
employees, their mood largely determines the intensity of their reaction to
events experienced at work. This emotional response intensity tends to
affect job performance and satisfaction. Other employment variables, l ike
effort, leaving, deviance, commitment, and citizenship, are also affected
by positive and negative perceptions of events experienced at work.
General cognitive ability (also known as 'g') and personality also influence
job performance. Emotion and cogn ition help to explain Organizational
Citizenship Behaviours (OCB). For example, emotions about one’s job
(i.e., job affect) are strongly associated with OCBs directed at individuals,
while one’s thoughts or job cognitions are reportedly more strongly
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55 satisfied an individual employee is with her/his job within the organization
may depend upon how s/he perceives an incident experienced at work. Job
satisfaction also depends upon the emotion s and thoughts associated with
that perception, as well as the social support provided by co -workers and
the organization as a whole.
4.6 EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Most psychologists have considered intelligence a cognitive ability,
people also use their emot ions to help them solve problems and relate
effectively to others. Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to
accurately identify, assess, and understand emotions, as well as to
effectively control one’s own emotions (Feldman -Barrett &Salovey, 2002;
Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2000).
This concept was first introduced by Salovey and Mayer. According to
them, Intelligence is the ability to monitor one’s own and others emotions,
to discriminate among emotions and to use the information to guide one’s
think ing and actions. The idea of emotional intelligence is seen in Howard
Gardner‘sinterpersonal intelligence (the capacity to understand the
emotions, intentions, motivations, and desires of other people) and
intrapersonal intelligence (the capacity to unders tand oneself, including
one‘s emotions).
Emotional Quotient (EQ):
Emotional Quotient (EQ) is used to express emotional intelligence in the
same way as Intelligent Quotient (IQ) is used to express intelligence.
Emotional Quotient (EQ) is a ratio concept an d is a score of emotional
intelligence obtained by dividing chronological age by emotional age and
multiplying by 100. The formula of Emotional Quotient (IQ) is given
below.
Emotional Quotient (EQ) = Emotional Age/ Chronological Age* 100
Emotional intellig ence is a set of skills that underlie accurate appraisal,
expression and regulation of emotions. It is the feeling side of intelligence.
A good IQ and scholastic record is not enough to be successful in life.
You may find many people who are academically t alented but are
unsuccessful in their own life. They experience problems in their life,
workplace and interpersonal relationships. What do they lack? Some
psychologists believe that the source of their difficulty may be lack of
emotional intelligence.In si mple words, emotional intelligence refers to
the ability to process emotional information accurately and efficiently.
There are some characteristics of emotional intelligent person. Person who
are high on emotional intelligence who possess following charac teristics.
4.6.1 Characteristics of Emotional Intelligent Person :
 Perceive and be sensitive to your feelings and emotions.
 Perceive and be sensitive to various types of emotions in others by
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56  Relate your emotions to your thoughts so that you take them into
account while solving problems and taking decisions.
 Understand the powerful influence of the nature and intensity of your
emotions.
 Control and regulate your emotions and their expressions wh ile
dealing with self and others.
Daniel Goleman, an American author and journalist, popularized the
concept in his book Emotional Intelligence (1995). He expanded the
concept to include general social competence. The importance of
emotional intelligence h as been very well brought out in the following
words by Daniel Goleman “Emotional Intelligence is a master aptitude, a
capacity that profoundly affects all other abilities, either facilitating or
interfering with them. According to Daniel Goleman the term
encompasses has following five characteristics and abilities:
1) Self-Awareness : Knowing your emotions, recognizing feelings as they
occur, and discriminating between them.

2) Mood Management : Handling feelings so they're relevant tothe
current situation and yo u react appropriately.

3) Self-Motivation : Gathering up your feelings and directingyourself
towards a goal, despite self -doubt, inertia, andimpulsiveness.

4) Empathy : Recognizing feelings in others and tuning into theirverbal
and nonverbal cues.

5) Managing rela tionships : Handling interpersonal interaction, conflict
resolution, and negotiations.
Thus, emotional intelligence is not same as self -esteem and optimism.
Rather emotionally intelligent people are both social and self -aware.
Those scoring high on managing emotions enjoy higher -quality
interactions with friends (Lopes et.al.2004). They avoid being hijacked by
overwhelming depression, anxiety or anger. Being sensitive to emotional
cues, they know what to say to soothe a grieving friend, encourage a
colleague and manage conflict.
Emotional intelligence is less a matter of conscious efforts and more of
one’s unconscious processing of emotional information. (Fiori,2009).
Across many studies in many countries, those scoring high on emotional
intelligence showed somewhat better job performance. They could also
delay gratification in pursuit of long -term rewards, rather than being
overtaken by immediate impulses. They were emotionally in tune with
others and therefore often succeeded in career, marriage and parenti ng.


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57 4.7 EMOTION REGULATION
Emotional self -regulation or emotion regulation is the ability to respond to
the ongoing demands of experience with the range of emotions in a
manner that is socially tolerable and sufficiently flexible to permit
spontaneous rea ctions as well as the ability to delay spontaneous reactions
as needed. It can also be defined as extrinsic and intrinsic processes
responsible for monitoring, evaluating, and modifying emotional
reactions. Emotional self -regulation belongs to the broader set of emotion
regulation processes, which includes both the regulation of one's own
feelings and the regulation of other people's feelings.
Emotion regulation is a complex process that involves initiating,
inhibiting, or modulating one's state or behavior in a given situation – for
example, the subjective experience (feelings), cognitive responses
(thoughts), emotion -related physiological responses (for example heart
rate or hormonal activity), and emotion -related behavior (bodily actions or
expressions). Functionally, emotion regulation can also refer to processes
such as the tendency to focus one's attention to a task and the ability to
suppress inappropriate behavior under instruction. Emotion regulation is a
highly significant function in human life.
Every day, people are continually exposed to a wide variety of potentially
arousing stimuli. Inappropriate, extreme or unchecked emotional reactions
to such stimuli could impede functional fit within society; therefore,
people must engage in some form of emo tion regulation almost all of the
time.[6] Generally speaking, emotion dysregulation has been defined as
difficulties in controlling the influence of emotional arousal on the
organization and quality of thoughts, actions, and interactions. Individuals
who are emotionally dysregulated exhibit patterns of responding in which
there is a mismatch between their goals, responses, and/or modes of
expression, and the demands of the social environment. For example, there
is a significant association between emotion dysregulation and symptoms
of depression, anxiety, eating pathology, and substance abuse. Higher
levels of emotion regulation are likely to be related to both high levels of
social competence and the expression of socially appropriate emotions.
4.7.1 How W e Control Our Emotions
While there are many ways to influence one’s emotional state for the
better, emotion regulation often involves what experts call “down -
regulation,” or reducing the intensity of emotions. A grieving person
might down -regulate his sadn ess by recalling something amusing. An
anxious person may cope by distracting herself from the thought that is
causing her anxiety. Emotion regulation can also include “up -regulation,”
or amping up one’s emotions, which can be useful when an imminent
dange r or challenge calls for a healthy dose of anxiety or excitement.
The process model of emotion regulation proposed by psychologist James
Gross emphasizes that people can act to control their emotions at different
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58 focused emotion regulation”) and after they have already begun to react
emotionally (“response -focused emotion regulation”).
Why Emotion Regulation Is Important
Unlike small children, adults are expected to be able to manage their
emotions —especially anxiety and anger —in a manner that is socially
acceptable. When emotional control fails, people often say or do things
they later regret and wish they had been able to keep their emotions in
check. Emotion dysregulation is a component of certain forms of mental
illness. Over time, it could have a negative impact on one’s personal well -
being and social relationships.
4.7.2 Strategies to Emotion Regulation
A. Situation selection
Situation selection involves choosing to avoid or approach an e motionally
relevant situation. If a person selects to avoid or disengage from an
emotionally relevant situation, he or she is decreasing the likelihood of
experiencing an emotion. Alternatively, if a person selects to approach or
engage with an emotionally relevant situation, he or she is increasing the
likelihood of experiencing an emotion.
Typical examples of situation selection may be seen interpersonally, such
as when a parent removes his or her child from an emotionally unpleasant
situation. Use of sit uation selection may also be seen in psychopathology.
For example, avoidance of social situations to regulate emotions is
particularly pronounced for those with social anxiety disorder and
avoidant personality disorder.
Effective situation selection is not always an easy task. For instance,
humans display difficulties predicting their emotional responses to future
events. Therefore, they may have trouble making accurate and appropriate
decisions about which emotionally relevant situations to approach or to
avoid.
B. Situation modification
Situation modification involves efforts to modify a situation so as to
change its emotional impact. Situation modification refers specifically to
altering one's external, physical environment. Altering one's "internal"
environment to regulate emotion is called cognitive change.
Examples of situation modification may include injecting humor into a
speech to elicit laughter or extending the physical distance between
oneself and another person.
C. Attentional deployment
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59  Distraction : Distraction, an example of attentional deployment, is an
early selection strategy, which involves diverting one's attention away
from an emotional stimulus and towards other content. Distraction has
been shown to reduce the intensity of painful and emotional
experiences, to decrease facial responding and neural activation in the
amygdala associated with emotion, as well as to alleviate emotional
distress. As opposed to reappraisal, individuals show a relative
preference to engage in distraction when facing stimuli of high
negative emotional intensity. This is because distraction easily filters
out high -intensity emotional content, which would otherwis e be
relatively difficult to appraise and process.
 Rumination : Rumination, an example of attentional deployment, is
defined as the passive and repetitive focusing of one's attention on
one's symptoms of distress and the causes and consequences of these
symptoms. Rumination is generally considered a maladaptive emotion
regulation strategy, as it tends to exacerbate emotional distress. It has
also been implicated in a host of disorders including major depression.
 Worry : Worry, an example of attentional deploy ment, involves
directing attention to thoughts and images concerned with potentially
negative events in the future. By focusing on these events, worrying
serves to aid in the down -regulation of intense negative emotion and
physiological activity. While wor ry may sometimes involve problem
solving, incessant worry is generally considered maladaptive, being a
common feature of anxiety disorders, particularly generalized anxiety
disorder.
 Thought suppression : Thought suppression, an example of attentional
deplo yment, involves efforts to redirect one's attention from specific
thoughts and mental images to other content so as to modify one's
emotional state. Although thought suppression may provide temporary
relief from undesirable thoughts, it may ironically end up spurring the
production of even more unwanted thoughts. This strategy is generally
considered maladaptive, being most associated with obsessive -
compulsive disorder.
D. Cognitive change
Cognitive change involves changing how one appraises a situation so as to
alter its emotional meaning.
 Reappraisal : Reappraisal, an example of cognitive change, is a late
selection strategy, which involves a change of the meaning of an event
that alters its emotional impact. It encompasses different substrategies,
such as positive reappraisal (creating and focusing on a positive aspect
of the stimulus), decentering (reinterpreting an event by broadening
one's perspective to see "the bigger picture"), or fictional reappraisal
(adopting or emphasizing the belief that event i s not real, that it is for
instance "just a movie" or "just my imagination"). Reappraisal has
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60 emotional responding. As opposed to distraction, individuals show a
relative preference to engage in reappraisal when facing stimuli of low
negative emotional intensity because these stimuli are relatively easy
to appraise and process. Reappraisal is generally considered to be an
adaptive emotion regulation strategy. Compared to suppression
(including both thought suppression and expressive suppression),
which is positively correlated with many psychological disorders,
reappraisal can be associated with better interpersonal outcomes, and
can be positively related to well -being. However, some rese archers
argue that context is important when evaluating the adaptiveness of a
strategy, suggesting that in some contexts reappraisal may be
maladaptive. Furthermore, some research has shown reappraisal does
not influence affect or physiological responses t o recurrent stress.
 Distancing : Distancing, an example of cognitive change, involves
taking on an independent, third -person perspective when evaluating an
emotional event. Distancing has been shown to be an adaptive form of
self-reflection, facilitating th e emotional processing of negatively
valenced stimuli, reducing emotional and cardiovascular reactivity to
negative stimuli, and increasing problem -solving behavior.
 Humour : Humour, an example of cognitive change, has been shown
to be an effective emotion regulation strategy. Specifically, positive,
good -natured humour has been shown to effectively up -regulate
positive emotion and down -regulate negative emotion. On the other
hand, negative, mean -spirited humour is less effective in this regard.
E. Response modulation
Response modulation involves attempts to directly influence experiential,
behavioral, and physiological response systems.
 Expressive suppression : Expressive suppression, an example of
response modulation, involves inhibiting emotional expression s. It
has been shown to effectively reduce facial expressivity, subjective
feelings of positive emotion, heart rate, and sympathetic activation.
However, the research findings are mixed regarding whether this
strategy is effective for down -regulating negat ive emotion. Research
has also shown that expressive suppression may have negative social
consequences, correlating with reduced personal connections and
greater difficulties forming relationships. Expressive suppression is
generally considered to be a mal adaptive emotion regulation strategy.
Compared to reappraisal, it is positively correlated with many
psychological disorders, associated with worse interpersonal
outcomes, is negatively related to well -being, and requires the
mobilization of a relatively s ubstantial amount of cognitive resources.
However, some researchers argue that context is important when
evaluating the adaptiveness of a strategy, suggesting that in some
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61  Drug use: Drug use, an example of response modu lation, can be used
to alter emotion -associated physiological responses. For example,
alcohol can produce sedative and anxiolytic effects and beta blockers
can affect sympathetic activation.
 Exercise : Exercise, an example of response modulation, can be use d
to down -regulate the physiological and experiential effects of
negative emotions. Regular physical activity has also been shown to
reduce emotional distress and improve emotional control.
 Sleep : Sleep plays a role in emotion regulation, although stress a nd
worry can also interfere with sleep. Studies have shown that sleep,
specifically REM sleep, down -regulates reactivity of the amygdala, a
brain structure known to be involved in the processing of emotions, in
response to previous emotional experiences. O n the flip side, sleep
deprivation is associated with greater emotional reactivity or
overreaction to negative and stressful stimuli. This is a result of both
increased amygdala activity and a disconnect between the amygdala
and the prefrontal cortex, whic h regulates the amygdala through
inhibition, together resulting in an overactive emotional brain. Due to
the subsequent lack of emotional control, sleep deprivation may be
associated with depression, impulsivity, and mood swings.
Additionally, there is som e evidence that sleep deprivation may
reduce emotional reactivity to positive stimuli and events and impair
emotion recognition in others.
4.8. OB APPLICATIONS OF EMOTIONS AND MOODS
Many components of organizationalbehavior, such as making decisions,
innov ation, motivation, and management, might influence our
understanding of moods and emotions.
Decision -making : Emotions and emotions have a substantial impact on a
person's life, shapinghow they make decisions. Problem -solving skills are
enhanced by positive emotions. Individualswith positive emotions and
moods are much more likely to make good judgments. As a result,positive
people come up with smarter ideas.
Creativity : It seems that individuals who are experiencing positive
emotions or moodsare much more f lexible and transparent;this could also
explain why they're productive andoriginal. Managers should seek to
maintain staff happiness because that will help them achievethe
organisation’s objectives more successfully and effectively Andrade &
Dan (2009).
Motivation : Individuals are driven to the extent that their actions are
expected to result in thedesired consequence. Employees who are highly
motivated in their occupations are emotionallyinvested in them, which
causes them to become more engaged in their w ork and physically
andemotionally involved in the experience of acting to attain a goal Hume
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62 Leadership : Leaders who share positive emotions are seen as more
effective, whilefollowers who are in a happy emotional atmosphere are
more creative. Leade rs that are goaloriented inspire staff to be more
optimistic, cooperative, and motivated, resulting in more goodsocial
interactions with co -workers and consumers. By sparking emotions and
attaching them toan interesting vision, leaders help others accept c hange
and feel attached to a new plan Neharika(2019); Bradley (2020); Hoy
(2018).
Work -life satisfaction: Both work and home events have an impact on
the relationshipbetween moods and work -life satisfaction. A happy mood
at work will usually flow over into your off -work hours, and a negative
mood at work can be transformed into a positive mood aftera break.
However, the emotions of your household might sometimes interfere with
your own. Asa result, there is a positive and negative association between
emotion s and job satisfaction.
Deviant workplace behavior: Behaviours that are out of the ordinary in
the job – Negativeemotions that contravene established organisational
standards are linked to deviant behaviour.We experience unpleasant
sentiments and engage in hostile deviant behaviour when we
resentsomeone for something we don't have but desperately want. Many
studies have discovered thatindividuals who experience negative
emotions, specifically anger, are more likely to engage inunethical
behaviour at work th an people who choose not to.
Customer service: Customer service is influenced by an employee's
emotional state, whichhas an impact on customer satisfaction. Employees
may be able to pass on their emotions tocustomers. When someone
expresses pleasant emotion s such as laughter and smiles at you, youbegin
to imitate their behaviour. As a result, when employees display happy
emotions,consumers are more likely to respond positively. This is what I
refer to as emotional contagion,and it's vital because happy custo mers buy
for longer than angry customers. When an employeeis grumpy or
obnoxious, though, such unpleasant emotions have a detrimental impact
oncustomers.
4.9 SUMMERY
In emotions we first talked about its definition. Lastly, we discussed about
experiencing two major emotions, that is, anger and happiness. We saw in
detail what are the consequences of anger and how it can be controlled. In
case of happiness, we discussed the definition, nature of happiness and
how there is a positive yet limited connection b etween wealth and feeling
of well -being. How two psychological phenomena -adaptation and
comparison can influence the experience of happiness.
Further, we have seen sources of emotions and moods in which we
discussed Personality, Day of the week or time of the day, Weather,
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63 emotions and moods. Then in this unit we have seen emotional labor, its
definition and Impact.
We have also seen affective events theoryand factors affecting emplo yee
experience at work. One important concept and components related to
intelligence were also discussed that is Emotional Intelligence,
Emotional labor also discussed in form of definition of emotional laborand
what impact does emotional labors have an em ployee’s
At last, we have seen affective events theorywith knowing the factors
affecting employee experience at workand emotion regulation with how
we control our emotions and strategies to emotion regulation
4.10 QUESTIONS
1. What are emotions and moods? Dis cuss.
2. Write in brief the different sources of emotions and moods.
3. Write brief note on emotional labor.
4. Discuss in detail about emotional intelligence.
5. Discuss in detail on emotion regulation
4.11 REFERENCES
Robbins, S. P. Judge, T. A. (2019). Essentials o f Organizational Behavior.
(14th ed.). Indian subcontinent reprint, Pearson India Education Services
Myers, D. G. (2013). Psychology .10thedition; International edition. New
York: Worth Palgrave Macmillan, Indian reprint 2013
Ciccarelli, S. K. & Meyer, G. E . (2008). Psychology. (Indian sub -continent
adaptation). New Delhi: Dorling Kindersley (India) pvt ltd.
Andrade, E.B., & Dan, A. (2009) "The enduring impact of transient
emotions on decision making." Organizational Behaviour and Human
Decision Processes 109 .1: 1-8.
Bradley, A.J. (2020). Gartner Blog Network. Hoy, M.B. (2018). Alexa,
Siri, Cortana, and more: an introduction to voice assistants. Medical
reference services quarterly, 37(1), 81 -88.
Hume, D. "Emotions and moods." Organizational behaviour (201 2): 258 -
297. Neharika, V., Stephen, P., Timothy, A. (2019). CH -4: Organizational
Behaviour. 116, 137 -142

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64 5
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE AND
STRESS MANAGEMENT - I
Unit Structure
5.0 Objectives
5.1 Introduction
5.2. Forces for change
5.3. Planned Change
5.4. Resistance to Change
5.5. Overcoming Resistance to Change
5.6. The Politics of Change
5.7. Approaches to Managi ng Organizational Change
5.8. Creating a Culture for Change
5.9. Summary
5.10. Questions
5.11. References
5.0 OBJECTIVES
After reading this unit, you will be able to:
➢ Understand the Forces for change, planned change , ;
➢ Describe the Resistance to Ch ange and how to overcome it .
➢ Explain The Politics of Change
➢ Elaborate the Approaches to Managing Organizational change
➢ Reflect on Creating a Culture for Change
5.1. INTRODUCTION
This chapter is about change and stress. Here you will find environmental
forces that require firms to change, why people and organizations often
resist change, and how this resistance can be overcome. Study the review
processes for managing organizational change. Then we move to the topic
of stress and its sources and conseque nces in the next chapter.Lets start
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65 5.2. FORCES FOR CHANGE
No company today is in a particularly stable environment. Even those with
dominant market share must change, sometimes radically. Exhibit 18 -1
summarizes six specific force s stimulating change.

(Source - Based on Robbins, S.P. Judge , T.A. & Vohra,, N.(2013)
Organizational Behavior (15th Edition)Pearson Education.)
Almost every organization must adjust to a multicultural environment,
demographic changes, outsourcing and i mmigration. Technology is
continually changing jobs and organizations. It is not hard to imagine the
very idea of an office becoming an antiquated concept in the near future.
The housing and financial sectors recently have experienced extraordinary
economi c shocks, leading to the elimination, bankruptcy, Tens of
thousands of jobs were lost and may never return.
Competition is changing. Competitors are as likely to come from across
the ocean as from across town. Successful organizations will be fast on
their feet, capable of developing new products rapidly and getting them to
market quickly. In other words, they’ll be flexible and will require an
equally flexible and responsive workforce. Consumers who are otherwise
strangers now meet and share product infor mation in chat rooms and
blogs. Companies must continually adjust product and marketing
strategies to be sensitive to changing social trends. Consumers, employees,
and organizational leaders are more sensitive to environmental concerns.
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66 Not even globalization’s strongest proponents could have imagined how
world politics would change in recent years. Throughout the industrialized
world, businesses —particularly in the banking and financial sectors —have
come under new scrutiny.
5.3. PLANNED CHANGE
A group of housekeeping employees who work for a small hotel
confronted the owner: “It’s very hard for most of us to maintain rigid 7 -to-
4 work hours,” said their spokeswoman. “Each of us has signif icant family
and personal responsibilities. And rigid hours don’t work for us. We’re
going to begin looking for someplace else to work if you don’t set up
flexible work hours.” The owner listened thoughtfully to the group’s
ultimatum and agreed to its requ est. The next day, a flextime plan for
these employees was introduced.
A major automobile manufacturer spent several billion dollars to install
state-of-the-art robotics. One area that would receive the new equipment
was quality control, where sophisticat ed computers would significantly
improve the company’s ability to find and correct defects. Because the
new equipment would dramatically change the jobs in the quality -control
area, and because management anticipated considerable employee
resistance to it, executives were developing a program to help people
become familiar with it and deal with any anxieties they might be feeling.
Both these scenarios are examples of change, or making things different.
However, only the second scenario describes a planned change. Many
changes are like the one that occurred at the hotel: they just happen. Some
organizations treat all change as an accidental occurrence. In this chapter,
we address change as an intentional, goal -oriented activity.
What are the goals of planne d change?
First, it seeks to improve the ability of the organization to adapt to
changes in its environment.
Second, it seeks to change employee behavior. Change agents are
responsible for managing change activities in organizations . They see a
future f or the organization that others have not identified, and they are
able to motivate, invent, and implement this vision. Change agents can be
managers or non -managers, current or new employees, or outside
consultants.
5.4. RESISTANCE TO CHANGE
Many change a gents fail because organizational members resist change.
Our egos are fragile, and we often see change as threatening. One recent
study showed that even when employees are shown data that suggest they
need to change, they latch onto whatever data they can find that suggests
they are okay and don’t need to change. Employees who have negative
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67 of sick time, and quitting. All these reactions can sap the organization of
vital energy wh en it is most needed. Resistance to change can be positive
if it leads to open discussion and debate. These responses are usually
preferable to apathy or silence and can indicate that members of the
organization are engaged in the process, providing change agents an
opportunity to explain the change effort. Change agents can also use
resistance to modify the change to fit the preferences of other members of
the organization. When they treat resistance only as a threat, rather than a
point of view to be disc ussed, they may increase dysfunctional conflict.
Resistance doesn’t necessarily surface in standardized ways. It can be
overt, implicit, and immediate. It’s easiest for management to deal with
overt and immediate resistance, such as complaints, a work slo wdown, or
a strike threat.
The greater challenge is managing resistance that is implicit or deferred.
These responses —loss of loyalty or motivation, increased errors or
absenteeism —are more subtle and more difficult to recognize for what
they are. Deferre d actions also cloud the link between the change and the
reaction to it and may surface weeks, months, or even years later. Or a
single change of little inherent impact may be the straw which breaks the
camel’s back because resistance to earlier changes ha s been deferred and
stockpiled.
There are different sources for resistance. Individual sources reside in
human characteristics such as perceptions, personalities, and needs.
Organizational sources reside in the structural makeup of organizations
themselve s. It’s worth noting that not all change is good. Speed can lead to
bad decisions, and sometimes those initiating change fail to realize the full
magnitude of the effects or their true costs. Rapid, transformational change
is risky, and some organizations have collapsed for this reason. Change
agents need to carefully think through the full implications.
5.5. OVERCOMING RESISTANCE TO CHANGE
Eight tactics can help change agents deal with resistance to change.
Education and Communication
Communicating the logic of a change can reduce employee resistance on
two levels. First, it fights the effects of misinformation and poor
communication: if employees receive the full facts and clear up
misunderstandings, resistance should subside. Second, communication can
help “sell” the need for change by packaging it properly.
Participation
It’s difficult to resist a change in decision in which we’ve participated.
Assuming participants have the expertise to make a meaningful
contribution, their involvement can reduce re sistance, obtain commitment,
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68 advantages are the negatives: potential for a poor solution and great
consumption of time.
Building Support and Commitment
When employees’ fear and anxie ty are high, counseling and therapy, new -
skills training, or a short paid leave of absence may facilitate adjustment.
When managers or employees have low emotional commitment to change,
they favor the status quo and resist it. Employees are also more accep ting
of changes when they are committed to the organization as a whole. So,
firing up employees and emphasizing their commitment to the
organization overall can also help them emotionally commit to the change
rather than embrace the status quo.
Develop Pos itive Relationships
People are more willing to accept changes if they trust the managers
implementing them.One study surveyed 235 employees from a large
housing corporation that was experiencing a merger. Those who had a
more positive relationship with th eir supervisors, and who felt that the
work environment supported development, were much more positive
about the change process. Another set of studies found that individuals
who were dispositionally resistant to change felt more positive about the
change if they trusted the change agent. This research suggests that if
managers are able to facilitate positive relationships, they may be able to
overcome resistance to change even among those who ordinarily don’t like
changes.
Implementing Changes Fairly
One way organizations can minimize negative impact is to make sure
change is implemented fairly. procedural fairness is especially important
when employees perceive an outcome as negative, so it’s crucial that
employees see the reason for the change and percei ve its implementation
as consistent and fair.
Manipulation and Cooptation
Manipulation refers to covert influence attempts. Twisting facts to make
them more attractive, withholding information, and creating false rumors
to get employees to accept change are all examples of manipulation. If
management threatens to close a manufacturing plant whose employees
are resisting an across -the-board pay cut, and if the threat is actually
untrue, management is using manipulation.
Cooptation, on the other hand, comb ines manipulation and participation.
It seeks to “buy off” the leaders of a resistance group by giving them a key
role, seeking their advice not to find a better solution but to get their
endorsement. Both manipulation and cooptation are relatively inexpen sive
ways to gain the support of adversaries, but they can backfire if the targets
become aware they are being tricked or used. Once that’s discovered, the
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69 Selecting People Who Accept Change
Research suggests the ability to easily accept and adapt to change is
related to personality —some people simply have more positive attitudes
about change than others. Such individuals are open to experience, take a
positive attitude toward change, are willing to take risks, and are flexible
in their behavior. A study of 258 police officers found those higher in
growth -needs strength, internal locus of control, and internal work
motivation had more positive attitudes about organizational change
efforts. Individuals higher in general mental ability are also better able to
learn and adapt to changes in the workplace.
In sum, an impressive body of evidence shows organizations can facilitate
change by selecting people predisposed to accept it. Besides selecting
individuals who ar e willing to accept changes, it is also possible to select
teams that are more adaptable. Studies have shown that teams that are
strongly motivated by learning about and mastering tasks are better able to
adapt to changing environments. This research sugge sts that it may be
necessary to consider not just individual motivation, but also group
motivation when trying to implement changes.
Coercion
Last on the list of tactics is coercion, the application of direct threats or
force on the resisters. If managem ent really is determined to close a
manufacturing plant whose employees don’t acquiesce to a pay cut, the
company is using coercion. Other examples are threats of transfer, loss of
promotions, negative performance evaluations, and a poor letter of
recommen dation. The advantages and drawbacks of coercion are
approximately the same as for manipulation and cooptation.
5.6. THE POLITICS OF CHANGE
No discussion of resistance would be complete without a brief mention of
the politics of change. Because change i nvariably threatens the status quo,
it inherently implies political activity. Politics suggests the impetus for
change is more likely to come from outside change agents, employees new
to the organization , or managers slightly removed from the main power
structure. Managers who have spent their entire careers with a single
organization and achieved a senior position in the hierarchy are often
major barriers to change. It is a very real threat to their status and position.
Yet they may be expected to impleme nt changes to demonstrate they’re
not merely caretakers. By acting as change agents, they can convey to
stockholders, suppliers, employees, and customers that they are addressing
problems and adapting to a dynamic environment. Of course, as you might
guess , when forced to introduce change, these longtime power holders
tend to implement incremental changes. Radical change is too threatening.
This explains why boards of directors that recognize the imperative for
rapid and radical change frequently turn to ou tside candidates for new
leadership.
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70 5.7. APPROACHES TO MANAGING
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE
Now we turn to several approaches to managing change: Lewin’s classic
three step model of the change process, Kotter’s eight -step plan, action
research, and organizati onal development.
Lewin’s Three -Step Model
Kurt Lewin argued that successful change in organizations should follow
three steps: unfreezing the status quo, movement to a desired end state,
and refreezing the new change to make it permanent. (See Exhibit 1 8-3 .)

(Source - Based on Robbins, S.P. Judge , T.A. & Vohra,, N.(2013)
Organizational Behavior (15th Edition)Pearson Education.)
The status quo is an equilibrium state. To move from equilibrium —to
overcome the pressures of both individual resistance an d group
conformity — unfreezing must happen in one of three ways (see Exhibit
18-4).
The driving forces, which direct behavior away from the status quo, can be
increased. The restraining forces, which hinder movement away from
equilibrium, can be decreased. A third alternative is to combine the first
two approaches.
Companies that have been successful in the past are likely to encounter
restraining forces because people question the need for change. Similarly,
research shows that companies with strong cultu res excel at incremental
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71 Positive incentives such as pay increases, liberal moving expenses, and
low-cost mortgage funds for new homes might encourage employees to
accept the change. Ma nagement might also unfreeze acceptance of the
status quo by removing restraining forces. It could counsel employees
individually, hearing and clarifying each employee’s specific concerns and
apprehensions. Assuming most are unjustified, the counselor coul d assure
employees there was nothing to fear and offer tangible evidence that
restraining forces are unwarranted. If resistance is extremely high,
management may have to resort to both reducing resistance and increasing
the attractiveness of the alternativ e if the unfreezing is to be successful.
Research on organizational change has shown that, to be effective, the
actual change has to happen quickly. Organizations that build up to change
do less well than those that get to and through the movement stage
quickly. Once change has been implemented proved to be successful the
new situation must be refrozen so it can be sustained over time. Without
this last step, change will likely be short -lived and employees will attempt
to revert to the previous equilibriu m state. The objective of refreezing,
then, is to stabilize the new situation by balancing the driving and
restraining forces.
The formal rules and regulations governing behavior of those affected by
the change should also be revised to reinforce the new situation. Over
time, of course, the work group’s own norms will evolve to sustain the
new equilibrium. But until that point is reached, management will have to
rely on more formal mechanisms.
Kotter’s Eight -Step Plan for Implementing Change
John Kotter o f the Harvard Business School built on Lewin’s three -step
model to create a more detailed approach for implementing change. Kotter
began by listing common mistakes managers make when trying to initiate
change. They may fail to create a sense of urgency abo ut the need for
change, to create a coalition for managing the change process, to have a
vision for change and effectively communicate it, to remove obstacles that
could impede the vision’s achievement, to provide short -term and
achievable goals, and to an chor the changes into the organization’s
culture. They may also declare victory too soon.
Kotter then established eight sequential steps to overcome these problems.
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72

Notice how Kotter’s first four steps essentially extra polate Lewin’s
“unfreezing” stage. Steps 5, 6 and 7 represent “movement,” and the final
step works on “refreezing.” So Kotter’s contribution lies in providing
managers and change agents with a more detailed guide for successfully
implementing change.
Action Research
Action research is a change process based on the systematic collection of
data and selection of a change action based on what the analyzed data
indicate. Its value is in providing a scientific methodology for managing
planned change.
Action r esearch consists of five steps: diagnosis, analysis, feedback,
action, and evaluation. The change agent, often an outside consultant in
action research, begins by gathering information about problems,
concerns, and needed changes from members of the organi zation. This
diagnosis is analogous to the physician’s search to find specifically what
troubles a patient. In action research, the change agent asks questions,
reviews records, and interviews employees and listens to their concerns
Diagnosis is followed b y analysis. What problems do people key in on?
What patterns do these problems seem to take? The change agent
synthesizes this information into primary concerns, problem areas, and
possible actions. Action research requires the people who will participate
in any change program to help identify the problem and determine the
solution. So the third step — feedback —requires sharing with employees
what has been found from the first and second steps. The employees, with
the help of the change agent, develop action plans for bringing about any
needed change. Now the action part of action research is set in motion.
The employees and the change agent carry out the specific actions they
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73 scienti fic underpinnings of action research, is evaluation of the action
plan’s effectiveness, using the initial data gathered as a benchmark.
Action research provides at least two specific benefits. First, it’s problem
focused. The change agent objectively look s for problems, and the type of
problem determines the type of change action. Although this may seem
intuitively obvious, many change activities are not handled this way.
Rather, they’re solution centered. The change agent has a favorite
solution —for examp le, implementing flextime, teams, or a process
reengineering program —and then seeks out problems that the solution fits.
Second, because action research engages employees so thoroughly in the
process, it reduces resistance to change. Once employees have ac tively
participated in the feedback stage, the change process typically takes on a
momentum of its own under their sustained pressure to bring it about.
Organizational Development
Organizational development (OD) is a collection of change methods that
try to improve organizational effectiveness and employee well -being. OD
methods value human and organizational growth, collaborative and
participative processes, and a spirit of inquiry. Contemporary OD borrows
heavily from postmodern philosophy in placing hea vy emphasis on the
subjective ways in which people see their environment. The focus is on
how individuals make sense of their work environment. The change agent
may take the lead in OD, but there is a strong emphasis on collaboration.
These are the underly ing values in most OD efforts:
1. Respect for people.
Individuals are perceived as responsible, conscientious, and caring. They
should be treated with dignity and respect.
2. Trust and support.
An effective and healthy organization is characterized by trust,
authenticity, openness, and a supportive climate.
3. Power equalization.
Effective organizations deemphasize hierarchical authority and control.
4. Confrontation.
Problems should be openly confronted, not swept under the rug.
5. Participation.
The more engaged in the decisions they are, the more people affected by a
change will be committed to implementing them. Here are six OD
techniques or interventions which bring about change.

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74 Sensitivity Training
A variety of names — sensitivity trainin g, laboratory training, encounter
groups, and T -groups (training groups) —all refer to an early method of
changing behavior through unstructured group interaction. Members were
brought together in a free and open environment in which participants
discuss th emselves and their interactive processes, loosely directed by a
professional behavioral scientist who created the opportunity to express
ideas, beliefs, and attitudes without taking any leadership role. The group
was process oriented, which means individua ls learned through observing
and participating rather than being told. Many participants found these
unstructured groups intimidating, chaotic, and damaging to work
relationships.
Survey Feedback
One tool for assessing attitudes held by organizational mem bers,
identifying discrepancies among member perceptions, and solving these
differences is the survey feedback approach. Everyone in an organization
can participate in survey feedback, but of key importance is the
organizational “family” —the manager of any given unit and the
employees who report directly to him or her. All usually complete a
questionnaire about their perceptions and attitudes on a range of topics,
including decision -making practices; communication effectiveness;
coordination among units; an d satisfaction with the organization, job,
peers, and immediate supervisor. Data from this questionnaire are
tabulated with data pertaining to an individual’s specific “family” and to
the entire organization and then distributed to employees. These data
become the springboard for identifying problems and clarifying issues that
may be creating difficulties for people. Particular attention is given to
encouraging discussion and ensuring it focuses on issues and ideas and not
on attacking individuals. For inst ance, are people listening? Are new ideas
being generated? Can decision making, interpersonal relations, or job
assignments be improved? Answers should lead the group to commit to
various remedies for the problems identified.
Process Consultation
Managers often sense their unit’s performance can be improved but are
unable to identify what to improve and how. The purpose of process
consultation (PC) is for an outside consultant to assist a client, usually a
manager, to perceive, understand, and act upon pro cess events' ' with
which the manager must deal. These events might include workflow,
informal relationships among unit members, and formal communication
channels. PC is similar to sensitivity training in assuming we can improve
organizational effectivenes s by dealing with interpersonal problems and in
emphasizing involvement. But the PC is more task directed, and
consultants are there to “give the client ‘insight’ into what is going on
around him, within him, and between him and other people.” They do not
solve the organization’s problems but rather guide or coach the client to
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75 improvement. The client develops the skill to analyze processes within his
or her unit and can continue to call on i t long after the consultant is gone.
Because the client actively participates in both the diagnosis and the
development of alternatives, he or she arrives at greater understanding of
the process and the remedy and is less resistant to the action plan chose n.
Team Building
Organizations increasingly rely on teams to accomplish work tasks. Team
building uses high -interaction group activities to increase trust and
openness among team members, improve coordination efforts, and
increase team performance. Here, we emphasize the intragroup level,
meaning organizational families (command groups) as well as committees,
project teams, self -managed teams, and task groups.
Team building typically includes goal -setting, development of
interpersonal relations among team members, role analysis to clarify each
member’s role and responsibilities, and team process analysis. It may
emphasize or exclude certain activities, depending on the purpose of the
development effort and the specific problems with which the team is
confr onted. Basically, however, team building uses high interaction
among members to increase trust and openness.
Intergroup Development
A major area of concern in OD is dysfunctional conflict among groups.
Intergroup development seeks to change groups’ attit udes, stereotypes,
and perceptions about each other. Here, training sessions closely resemble
diversity training , except rather than focusing on demographic
differences, they focus on differences among occupations, departments, or
divisions within an orga nization. In one company, the engineers saw the
accounting department as composed of shy and conservative types and the
human resources department as having a bunch of “ultra -liberals more
concerned that some protected group of employees might get their fe elings
hurt than with the company making a profit.” Such stereotypes can have
an obvious negative impact on coordination efforts among departments.
Among several approaches for improving intergroup relations, a popular
one emphasizes problem solving. Each group meets independently to list
its perceptions of itself and of the other group and how it believes the
other group perceives it. The groups share their lists, discuss similarities
and differences, and look for the causes of disparities. Are the groups’
goals at odds? On what basis were stereotypes formulated? Have words
and concepts been defined differently by each group? Answers to
questions like these clarify the exact nature of the conflict.
Once they have identified the causes of the difficulty, the groups move to
the integration phase —developing solutions to improve relations between
them. Subgroups can be formed of members from each of the conflicting
groups to conduct further diagnosis and formulate alternative solutions.
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76 Appreciative Inquiry
Most OD approaches are problem centered. They identify a problem or
set of problems, then look for a solution. Appreciative inquiry (AI) instead
accentuates the positive. Rather than looking for problems to fix, it seeks
to identify the unique qualities and special strengths of an organization,
which members can build on to improve performance. That is, AI focuses
on an organization’s successes rather than its problems. The AI process
consists of four steps —discovery, dreaming, design, and discovery —often
played out in a large -group meeting over a 2 - or 3-day time period and
overseen by a trained change agent. Discovery sets out to identify what
people think are the organization’s strengths. Employees recount times
they felt the organization worked best or wh en they specifically felt most
satisfied with their jobs. In dreaming, employees use information from the
discovery phase to speculate on possible futures, such as what the
organization will be like in 5 years. In design, participants find a common
vision of how the organization will look in the future and agree on its
unique qualities. For the fourth step, participants seek to define the
organization’s destiny or how to fulfill their dream, and they typically
write action plans and develop implementation s trategies.
AI has proven an effective change strategy in many famous
organizations.Senior managers were able to use employees’ information to
better their methods of making financial forecasts, improve IT
investments, and create new performance -management tools for managers.
The end result was a renewed culture focused on winning attitudes and
behaviors.
5.8. CREATING A CULTURE FOR CHANGE
We’ve considered how organizations can adapt to change. But recently,
some OB scholars have focused on a more proactive approach —how
organizations can embrace change by transforming their cultures. In this
section, we review two such approaches: stimulating an innovative culture
and creating a learning organization.
Stimulating a Culture of Innovation
Certain characteris tics surface repeatedly when researchers study
innovative organizations. We’ve grouped them into structural, cultural,
and human resource categories. Change agents should consider
introducing these characteristics into their organization to create an
innov ative climate. Before we look at these characteristics, however, let’s
clarify what we mean by innovation.
Definition of Innovation
We said change refers to making things different. Innovation, a more
specialized kind of change, is a new idea applied to initiating or improving
a product, process, or service. So all innovations imply change, but not all
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77 improvements. Innovations can range from small incremental
improvements, such as netbook com puters, to radical breakthroughs.
Sources of Innovation
Structural variables have been the most studied potential source of
innovation. A comprehensive review of the structure –innovation
relationship leads to the following conclusions:
1. Organic structu res positively influence innovation. Because they’re
lower in vertical differentiation, formalization, and centralization, organic
organizations facilitate the flexibility, adaptation, and cross -fertilization
that make the adoption of innovations easier.
2. Long tenure in management is associated with innovation. Managerial
tenure apparently provides legitimacy and knowledge of how to
accomplish tasks and obtain desired outcomes.
3. Innovation is nurtured when there are slack resources. Having an
abundanc e of resources allows an organization to afford to purchase
innovations, bear the cost of instituting them, and absorb failures
4. Interunit communication is high in innovative organizations. These
organizations are high users of committees, task forces, cross -functional
teams, and other mechanisms that facilitate interaction across
departmental lines. Innovative organizations tend to have similar cultures.
They encourage experimentation. They reward both successes and
failures. They celebrate mistakes. Un fortunately, in too many
organizations, people are rewarded for the absence of failures rather than
for the presence of successes. Such cultures extinguish risk taking and
innovation. People will suggest and try new ideas only when they feel
such behaviors exact no penalties. Managers in innovative organizations
recognize that failures are a natural by -product of venturing into the
unknown.
Within the human resources category, innovative organizations actively
promote the training and development of their members so they keep
current, offer high job security so employees don’t fear getting fired for
making mistakes, and encourage individuals to become champions of
change. Once a new idea is developed, idea champions actively and
enthusiastically promote it , build support, overcome resistance, and ensure
it’s implemented. Champions have common personality characteristics:
extremely high self -confidence, persistence, energy, and a tendency to
take risks. They also display characteristics associated with
trans formational leadership —they inspire and energize others with their
vision of an innovation’s potential and their strong personal conviction
about their mission. Ideal champions are good at gaining the commitment
of others, and their jobs provide considerab le decision -making discretion;
this autonomy helps them introduce and implement innovations.
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78 People in collectivist cultures prefer appeals for cross -functional support
for innovation efforts; people in high power distance cultures prefer
champions to wo rk closely with those in authority to approve innovative
activities before work is begun; and the higher the uncertainty avoidance
of a society, the more champions should work within the organization’s
rules and procedures to develop the innovation. These findings suggest
that effective managers will alter their organization’s championing
strategies to reflect cultural values. So, for instance, although ideal
champions in Russia might succeed by ignoring budgetary limitations and
working around confining pr ocedures, champions in Austria, Denmark,
Germany, or other cultures high in uncertainty avoidance will be more
effective by closely following budgets and procedures.
Creating a Learning Organization
Another way an organization can proactively manage chan ge is to make
continuous growth part of its culture —to become a learning organization.
What’s a Learning Organization?
“All organizations learn, whether they consciously choose to or not —it is
a fundamental requirement for their sustained existence.” Jus t as
individuals learn, so too do organizations. A learning organization has
developed the continuous capacity to adapt and change.Some
organizations just do it better than others. Most organizations engage in
single -loop learning. When they detect errors, their correction process
relies on past routines and present policies. In contrast, learning
organizations use double -loop learning. They correct errors by modifying
objectives, policies, and standard routines. Double -loop learning
challenges deeply roote d assumptions and norms. It provides opportunities
for radically different solutions to problems and dramatic jumps in
improvement. Proponents of the learning organization envision it as a
remedy for three fundamental problems of traditional organizations:
fragmentation, competition, and reactiveness. First, fragmentation based
on specialization creates “walls” and “chimneys” that separate different
functions into independent and often warring fiefdoms. Second, an
overemphasis on competition often undermine s collaboration. Managers
compete to show who is right, who knows more, or who is more
persuasive. Divisions compete when they ought to cooperate and share
knowledge. Team leaders compete to show who the best manager is. And
third, reactiveness misdirects management’s attention to problem solving
rather than creation. The problem solver tries to make something go away,
while a creator tries to bring something new into being. An emphasis on
reactiveness pushes out innovation and continuous improvement and, i n its
place, encourages people to run around “putting out fires.”
Managing Learning
Managers can do following things to make their firms learning
organizations
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79 Establish a strategy.
Management needs to make explicit its commitment to change,
innovation , and continuous improvement.
Redesign the organization’s structure.
The formal structure can be a serious impediment to learning. Flattening
the structure, eliminating or combining departments, and increasing the
use of cross -functional teams reinforce s interdependence and reduces
boundaries.
Reshape the organization’s culture.
To become a learning organization, managers must demonstrate by their
actions that taking risks and admitting failures are desirable. That means
rewarding people who take chan ces and make mistakes. And management
needs to encourage functional conflict. “The key to unlocking real
openness at work,” says one expert on learning organizations, “is to teach
people to give up having to be in agreement. We think agreement is so
import ant. You have to bring paradoxes, conflicts, and dilemmas out in the
open, so collectively we can be more intelligent than we can be
individually.”
5.9. SUMMARY
The need for change has been implied throughout this text. “A casual
reflection on change s hould indicate that it encompasses almost all of our
concepts in the organizational behavior literature.” For instance, think
about attitudes, motivation, work teams, communication, leadership,
organizational structures, human resource practices, and organ izational
cultures. Change was an integral part in our discussion of each. If
environments were perfectly static, if employees’ skills and abilities were
always up to date and incapable of deteriorating, and if tomorrow were
always exactly the same as toda y, organizational change would have little
or no relevance to managers. But the real world is turbulent, requiring
organizations and their members to undergo dynamic change if they are to
perform at competitive levels. There are different approaches to cha nge
that enable the Employee , manager and organization to manage the
consequences of it .
5.10. QUESTIONS
Write long answers:
1. What forces act as stimulants to change, and what is the difference
between planned and unplanned change?
2. What forces act as sources of resistance to change?
3. What are the four main approaches to managing organizational
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80 5.11 REFERENCES
● Robbins, S.P. Judge , T.A. & Vohra,, N.(2013) Organizational
Behavior (15th Edition)Pearson Education.
● J. Birkinshaw, G. Hamel, and M . J. Mol, “Management Innovation,”
Academy of Management Review 33, no. 4 (2008), pp. 825 –845; and
J. Welch and S. Welch, “What Change Agents Are Made Of,”
BusinessWeek (October 20, 2008), p. 96.
● P. G. Audia and S. Brion, “Reluctant to Change: SelfEnhanc ing
Responses to Diverging Performance Measures,” Organizational
Behavior and Human Decision Processes 102 (2007), pp. 255 –269.
● J. D. Ford, L. W. Ford, and A. D’Amelio, “Resistance to Change: The
Rest of the Story,” Academy of Management Review 33, no. 2 ( 2008),
pp. 362 –377

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81 6
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE AND
STRESS MANAGEMENT - II
Unit Structure
6.0 Objectives
6.1 Introduction
6.2. Work Stress and Its Management
6.3. What Is Stress?
6.4 Demands –resources model.
6.5. Potential Sources of Stress
6.6. Individual Differences
6.7. Cultur al Differences
6.8. Consequences of Stress
6.9. Managing Stress
6.10. Summary
6.11. Questions
6.12. References
6.0 OBJECTIVES
After reading this unit, you will be able to:
➢ Understand Work Stress And Its Management
➢ Explain What Is Stress?
➢ Elaborate Dem ands–resources model.
➢ Understand Potential Sources of Stress
➢ Describe Individual Differences and Cultural Differences
➢ Explain Consequences of Stress and ways for Managing Stress.
6.1. INTRODUCTION
In the previous Chapter we studied Changes and how they i nfluence an
employee. Readiness to change is most of the time difficult but with
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82 change in detail. Now in this chapter we will discuss Work Stress and Its
Management. First we unde rstand the concept of stress. Then it is
necessary to focus on sources of stress to manage them properly. Then
after discussing consequences we can study ways of managing stress
effectively.
6.2. WORK STRESS AND ITS MANAGEMENT
Friends say they’re stressed from greater workloads and longer hours
because of downsizing at their companies. Parents worry about the lack of
job stability and reminisce about a time when a job with a large company
implied lifetime security. There are surveys in which employees comp lain
about the stress of trying to balance work and family responsibilities.
Indeed, work is, for most people, the most important source of stress in
life.
6.3. WHAT IS STRESS?
Stress is a dynamic condition in which an individual is confronted with an
opportunity, demand, or resource related to what the individual desires and
for which the outcome is perceived to be both uncertain and important.
Although stress is typically discussed in a negative context, it is not
necessarily bad in and of itself; it al so has a positive value. It’s an
opportunity when it offers potential gain. Consider, for example, the
superior performance an athlete or stage performer gives in a “clutch”
situation. Such individuals often use stress positively to rise to the
occasion an d perform at their maximum. Similarly, many professionals
see the pressures of heavy workloads and deadlines as positive challenges
that enhance the quality of their work and the satisfaction they get from
their job.
Recently, researchers have argued that challenge stressors —or stressors
associated with workload, pressure to complete tasks, and time urgency —
operate quite differently from hindrance stressors —or stresses that keep
you from reaching your goals.Although research is just starting to
accumulate , early evidence suggests challenge stressors produce less strain
than hindrance stressors. Researchers have sought to clarify the conditions
under which each type of stress exists. It indicates that employees who
have a stronger affective commitment to th eir organization can transfer
psychological stress into greater focus and higher sales performance,
whereas employees with low levels of commitment perform worse under
stress. And when challenge stress increases, those with high levels of
organizational su pport have higher role -based performance, but those with
low levels of organizational support do not.
More typically, stress is associated with demands and resources. Demands
are responsibilities, pressures, obligations, and uncertainties individuals
face in the workplace. Resources are things within an individual’s control
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83 6.4 DEMANDS –RESOURCES MODEL
When you take a test at school or undergo your annual performance
review at work, you feel stress because you confront opportunities and
performance pressures. A good performance review may lead to a
promotion, greater responsibilities, and a higher salary. A poor review
may prevent you from getting a promotion. An extremely poor review
might even result in your being fired. To the extent you can apply
resources to the demands on you —such as being prepared, placing the
exam or review in perspective, or obtaining social support —you will feel
less stress.
Research indicates adequate resources help reduce the stres sful nature of
demands when demands and resources match. If emotional demands are
stressing you, having emotional resources in the form of social support is
especially important. If the demands are cognitive —say, information
overload —then job resources in the form of computer support or
information are more important. Thus, under the demands –resources
perspective, having resources to cope with stress is just as important in
offsetting it as demands are in increasing it.

(Source - Based on Robbins, S.P. J udge , T.A. & Vohra,, N.(2013)
Organizational Behavior (15th Edition)Pearson Education.)
6.5. POTENTIAL SOURCES OF STRESS
As the model in Exhibit 18 -8shows, there are three categories of potential
stressors: environmental, organizational, and personal.
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84 Environmental Factors
Just as environmental uncertainty influences the design of an
organization’s structure, it also influences stress levels among employees
in that organization. Indeed, uncertainty is the biggest reason people have
trouble coping with organizational changes. There are three main types of
environmental uncertainty:
1) Economic
2) Political
3) Technological
Changes in the business cycle create economic uncertainties. When the
economy is contracting, for example, people become increasingly anxious
about their job security.
Political uncertainties don’t tend to create stress among North Americans
as they do for employees in countries such as Haiti or Venezuela. The
obvious reason is that the United States and Canada have stable political
systems, in which change is typically implemented in an orderly manner.
Yet political threats and changes, even in countries such as the United
States and Canada, can induce stress. Threats of terrorism in developed
and developing nations, or the difficulties lead to political uncertainty that
becomes stressful to people in these countries. Because innovations can
make an employee’s skills and experience obsolete in a very short time,
computers, robotics, automation, and similar forms of technological
change are also a threat to many people and cause them stress.
Organizational Factors
There is no shortage of factors within an organization that can cause
stress. Pressures to avoid errors or complete tasks in a limited time, work
overload, a demanding and insensitive boss, and unpleasant coworkers are
a few examples. These factors can be categorized around task, role, and
interpersonal demands.
Task demands relate to a person’s job. They include the design of the job ,
working conditions, and the physical work layout . Assembly lines can put
pressure on people when they perceive the line’s speed to be excessive.
Working in an overcrowded room or a visible location where noise and
interruptions are constant can increase anxiety and stress. As customer
service grows ever more important, emotional labor becomes a source of
stress.
Role demands relate to pressures placed on a person as a function of the
particular role he or she plays in the organization. Role conflicts create
expectations that may be hard to satisfy. Role overload occurs when the
employee is expected to do more than time permits. Role ambiguity means
role expectations are not clearly understood and the employee is not sure
what to do. Individuals who face high situational constraints are also less
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85 When faced with hassles at work,they will not only have higher levels of
distress at the time, but they’ll also be less likely to take steps to eliminate
stressors in the future.
Interpe rsonal demands are pressures created by other employees. Lack of
social support from colleagues and poor interpersonal relationships can
cause stress, especially among employees with a high social need. A
rapidly growing body of research has also shown tha t negative co -worker
and supervisor behaviors, including fights, bullying, racial harassment,
and sexual harassment, are especially strongly related to stress at work.
Personal Factors
The typical individual works about 40 to 50 hours a week. But the
experiences and problems people encounter in the other 120 -plus can spill
over to the job. This includes factors in the employee’s personal life:
family issues, personal economic problems, and inherent personality
characteristics. National surveys consistentl y show people hold family and
personal relationships dear. Marital difficulties, the breaking of a close
relationship, and discipline troubles with children create stress. Employees
often can’t leave at the front door when they arrive at work. Some people
are poor money managers or have wants that exceed their earning
capacity. The economic problems of overextended financial resources
create stress and take attention away from work.
Studies in three diverse organizations found that participants who reporte d
stress symptoms before beginning a job accounted for most of the variance
in stress symptoms reported 9 months later. The researchers concluded
that some people may have an inherent tendency to accentuate negative
aspects of the world. If this is true, t hen a significant individual factor that
influences stress is a person’s basic disposition. That is, stress symptoms
expressed on the job may actually originate in the person’s personality.
Stressors Are Additive When we review stressors individually, it’s easy to
overlook that stress is an additive phenomenon —it builds up. Each new
and persistent stressor adds to an individual’s stress level. So a single
stressor may be relatively unimportant in and of itself, but if added to an
already high level of stres s, it can be dangerous. To appraise the total
amount of stress an individual is under, we have to sum up his or her
opportunity stresses, constraint stresses, and demand stresses.
6.6. INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
Some people thrive on stressful situations, wh ile others are overwhelmed
by them. These four —perception, job experience, social support, and
personality —are relevant. Employees react in response to their perception
of reality, rather than to reality itself. Perception, therefore, will moderate
the rel ationship between a potential stress condition and an employee’s
reaction to it. Layoffs may cause one person to fear losing his job, while
another sees an opportunity to get a large severance allowance and start
her own business. So stress potential doesn ’t lie in objective conditions;
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86 Experience on the job tends to be negatively related to work stress. Two
Reasons have been found. First is selective withdrawal. Voluntary
turnover is mor e probable among people who experience more stress.
Therefore, people who remain with an organization longer are those with
more stress -resistant traits or those more resistant to the stress
characteristics of their organization. Second, people eventually develop
coping mechanisms to deal with stress. Because this takes time, senior
members of the organization are more likely to be fully adapted and
should experience less stress. Social support —collegial relationships with
co-workers or supervisors —can buff er the impact of stress. This is among
the best -documented relationships in the stress literature. Social support
acts as a soothing, negative effect of even high -strain jobs. Perhaps the
most widely studied personality trait in stress is neuroticism, neur otic
individuals are more prone to experience psychological strain. Evidence
suggests that neurotic individuals are more prone to believe there are
stressors in their work environments, so part of the problem is that they
believe their environments are mor e threatening. They also tend to select
less adaptive coping mechanisms, relying on avoidance as a way of
dealing with problems rather than attempting to resolve them.
Work -holism is another personal characteristic related to stress levels.
Workaholics are people obsessed with their work; they put in an enormous
number of hours, think about work even when not working, and create
additional work responsibilities to satisfy an inner compulsion to work
more. In some ways, they might seem like ideal employees. That’s
probably why when most people are asked in interviews what their
greatest weakness is, they reflexively say, “I just work too hard.”
However, there is a difference between working hard and working
compulsively. Workaholics are not necessarily more p roductive than other
employees, despite their extreme efforts. The strain of putting in such a
high level of work effort eventually begins to wear on the workaholic,
leading to higher levels of work –life conflict and psychological burnout.
6.7. CULTURAL D IFFERENCES
Research suggests the job conditions that cause stress show some
differences across cultures. A study of 5,270 managers from 20 countries
found individuals from individualistic countries experienced higher levels
of stress due to work interferi ng with family than did individuals from
collectivist countries. The authors proposed that this may occur because,
in collectivist cultures, working extra hours is seen as a sacrifice to help
the family, whereas in individualistic cultures, work is seen as a means to
personal achievement that takes away from the family. Evidence suggests
that stressors are associated with perceived stress and strains among
employees in different countries. In other words, stress is equally bad for
employees of all cultures.

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87 6.8. CONSEQUENCES OF STRESS
Stress shows itself in a number of ways, such as high blood pressure,
ulcers, irritability, difficulty making routine decisions, loss of appetite,
accident proneness. These symptoms fit under three general categories:
physio logical, psychological, and behavioral symptoms. Physiological
Symptoms Most early concern with stress was directed at physiological
symptoms because most researchers were specialists in the health and
medical sciences. Their work led to the conclusion tha t stress could create
changes in metabolism, increase heart and breathing rates and blood
pressure, bring on headaches, and induce heart attacks. Evidence now
clearly suggests stress may have harmful physiological effects. One study
linked stressful job de mands to increased susceptibility to upper
respiratory illnesses and poor immune system functioning, especially for
individuals with low self -efficacy. Many other studies have shown similar
results linking work stress to a variety of indicators of poor hea lth.
Psychological Symptoms
Job dissatisfaction is “the simplest and most obvious psychological
effect” of stress. But stress shows itself in other psychological states —for
instance, tension, anxiety, irritability, boredom, and procrastination. For
examp le, a study that tracked physiological responses of employees over
time found that stress due to high workloads was related to higher blood
pressure and lower emotional well -being.
Jobs that make multiple and conflicting demands or that lack clarity about
the incumbent’s duties, authority, and responsibilities increase both stress
and dissatisfaction. Similarly, the less control people have over the pace of
their work, the greater their stress and dissatisfaction. Jobs that provide a
low level of variety, significance, autonomy, feedback, and identity appear
to create stress and reduce satisfaction and involvement in the job. Not
everyone reacts to autonomy in the same way, however. For those with an
external locus of control, increased job control increase s the tendency to
experience stress and exhaustion.
Behavioral Symptoms
Research on behavior and stress has been conducted across several
countries and over time, and the relationships appear relatively consistent.
Behavior -related stress symptoms include reductions in productivity,
absence, and turnover, as well as changes in eating habits, increased
smoking or consumption of alcohol, rapid speech, fidgeting, and sleep
disorders.
A significant amount of research has investigated the stress –performance
relationship. The most widely studied pattern of this relationship is the
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88
(Source - Based on Robbins, S.P. Judge, T.A. & Vohra,, N.(2013)
Organizational Behavior (15th Edition)Pearson Education.)
The logic underlying the f igure is that low to moderate levels of stress
stimulate the body and increase its ability to react. Individuals then often
perform their tasks better, more intensely, or more rapidly. But too much
stress places unattainable demands on a person, which resu lt in lower
performance. In spite of the popularity and intuitive appeal of the inverted -
U model, it doesn’t get a lot of empirical support. So we should be careful
of assuming it accurately depicts the stress –performance relationship.
Researchers have beg un to differentiate challenge and hindrance stressors,
showing that these two forms of stress have opposite effects on job
behaviors, especially job performance. A meta -analysis of responses from
more than 35,000 individuals showed role ambiguity, role con flict, role
overload, job insecurity, environmental uncertainty, and situational
constraints were all consistently negatively related to job performance.
There is also evidence that challenge stress improves job performance in a
supportive work environment , whereas hindrance stress reduces job
performance in all work environments.
6.9. MANAGING STRESS
Because low to moderate levels of stress can be functional and lead to
higher performance, management may not be concerned when employees
experience them. E mployees, however, are likely to perceive even low
levels of stress as undesirable. It’s not unlikely, therefore, for employees
and management to have different notions of what constitutes an
acceptable level of stress on the job. What management may consi der to
be “a positive stimulus that keeps the adrenaline running” is very likely to
be seen as “excessive pressure” by the employee.
Individual Approaches
An employee can take personal responsibility for reducing stress levels.
Individual strategies that have proven effective include time -management munotes.in

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89 techniques, increased physical exercise, relaxation training, and expanded
social support networks.
Many people manage their time poorly. The well -organized employee,
like the well -organized student, can ofte n accomplish twice as much as the
person who is poorly organized. So an understanding and utilization of
basic time -management principles can help individual better cope with
tensions created by job demands.
A few of the best -known time -management princip les are
(1) Making daily lists of activities to be accomplished,
(2) Prioritizing activities by importance and urgency,
(3) Scheduling activities according to the priorities set,
(4) Knowing your daily cycle and handling the most demanding parts of
your job when you ar e most alert and productive, and
(5) Avoiding electronic distractions like frequently checking email, this
can limit attention and reduce efficiency.
These time -management skills can help minimize procrastination by
focusing efforts on immediate goals and boos ting motivation even in the
face of tasks that are less desirable. Physicians have recommended
noncompetitive physical exercise, such as aerobics, walking, jogging,
swimming, and riding a bicycle, as a way to deal with excessive stress
levels. These activi ties increase lung capacity, lower the at -rest heart rate,
and provide a mental diversion from work pressures, effectively reducing
work -related levels of stress.
Individuals can also teach themselves to reduce tension through relaxation
techniques such as meditation, hypnosis, and deep breathing. The
objective is to reach a state of deep physical relaxation, in which you focus
all your energy on release of muscle tension. Deep relaxation for 15 or 20
minutes a day releases strain and provides a pronounce d sense of
peacefulness, as well as significant changes in heart rate, blood pressure,
and other physiological factors. A growing body of research shows that
simply taking breaks from work at routine intervals can facilitate
psychological recovery and redu ce stress significantly and may improve
job performance, and these effects are even greater if relaxation
techniques are employed.
As we have noted, friends, family, or work colleagues can provide an
outlet when stress levels become excessive. Expanding y our social support
network provides someone to hear your problems and offer a more
objective perspective on a stressful situation than your own.
Organizational Approaches
Several organizational factors that cause stress — particularly task and
role demand s—are controlled by management and thus can be modified or
changed. Strategies to consider include improved employee selection and
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90 employee involvement, improved organizational co mmunication,
employee, and corporate wellness programs.
Certain jobs are more stressful than others but, as we’ve seen, individuals
differ in their response to stressful situations. We know individuals with
little experience or an external locus of contro l tend to be more prone to
stress. Selection and placement decisions should take these facts into
consideration. Obviously,management shouldn’t restrict hiring to only
experienced individuals with an internal locus, but such individuals may
adapt better to high-stress jobs and perform those jobs more effectively.
Similarly, training can increase an individual’s self -efficacy and thus
lessen job strain. Individuals perform better when they have specific and
challenging goals and receive feedback on their pro gress toward these
goals. Goals can reduce stress as well as provide motivation. 100
Employees who are highly committed to their goals and see purpose in
their jobs experience less stress because they are more likely to perceive
stressors as challenges rat her than hindrances. Specific goals perceived as
attainable clarify performance expectations. In addition, goal feedback
reduces uncertainties about actual job performance. The result is less
employee frustration, role ambiguity, and stress. Redesigning jo bs to give
employees more responsibility, more meaningful work, more autonomy,
and increased feedback can reduce stress because these factors give
employees greater control over work activities and lessen dependence on
others.But, not all employees want en riched jobs. The right redesign for
employees with a low need for growth might be less responsibility and
increased specialization. If individuals prefer structure and routine,
reducing skill variety should also reduce uncertainties and stress levels.
Role stress is detrimental to a large extent because employees feel
uncertain about goals, expectations, how they’ll be evaluated, and the like.
By giving these employees a voice in the decisions that directly affect
their job performance, management can incre ase employee control and
reduce role stress. Thus, managers should consider increasing employee
involvement in decision making, because evidence clearly shows that
increases in employee empowerment reduce psychological strain.
Increasing formal organizatio nal communication with employees reduces
uncertainty by lessening role ambiguity and role conflict. Given the
importance that perceptions play in moderating the stress –response
relationship, management can also use effective communications as a
means to sh ape employee perceptions.
Some employees need an occasional escape from the frenetic pace of their
work. Proponents say they can revive and rejuvenate workers who might
otherwise be headed for burnout. Our final suggestion is organizationally
supported wel lness programs. These typically provide workshops to help
people quit smoking, control alcohol use, lose weight, eat better, and
develop a regular exercise program; they focus on the employee’s total
physical and mental condition. Some help employees impro ve their
psychological health as well. A meta -analysis of 36 programs designed to
reduce stress showed that interventions to help employees reframe
stressful situations and use active coping strategies appreciably reduced
stress levels. Most wellness progr ams assume employees need to take munotes.in

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91 personal responsibility for their physical and mental health and that the
organization is merely a means to that end. Most firms that have
introduced wellness programs have found significant benefits.
6.9. SUMMARY
In this chapter we discussed Work Stress and Its Management. It is
important to cope with stress and for that we have to study the concept of
stress . It gives awareness about sources of stress.Even Consequences of
stress enables employees to work on coping st rategies and then there are
ways which leads individual to manage their stress.Stress is a part of life
but to improve work performance and overall progress of individual it is
necessary to study and add these healthy strategies to individual’s
lifestyle. It will enhance personal and Organizational Development. Even
taking care of organizational stress is a responsibility of Organization too
and they should work on it with the cooperation of employees. It will
definitely improve organization’s performance f or the long run.
6.10. QUESTIONS
Write long answers:
1. What is stress, and what are the possible sources of stress?
2. What are the consequences of stress?
3. What are the individual and organizational approaches to managing
stress?
6.11 REFERENCES
● Robbin s, S.P. Judge , T.A. & Vohra,, N.(2013) Organizational
Behavior (15th Edition)Pearson Education.
● J. Birkinshaw, G. Hamel, and M. J. Mol, “Management Innovation,”
Academy of Management Review 33, no. 4 (2008), pp. 825 –845; and
J. Welch and S. Welch, “What C hange Agents Are Made Of,”
BusinessWeek (October 20, 2008), p. 96.
● P. G. Audia and S. Brion, “Reluctant to Change: SelfEnhancing
Responses to Diverging Performance Measures,” Organizational
Behavior and Human Decision Processes 102 (2007), pp. 255 –269.
● J. D. Ford, L. W. Ford, and A. D’Amelio, “Resistance to Change: The
Rest of the Story,” Academy of Management Review 33, no. 2 (2008),
pp. 362 –377
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