OB Study Material
OB Study Material
OB Study Material
0
Table of Contents
Concept of personality 22
5 Personality Determinants of personality 22
Types of personality 24
6 Perception Difference between Perception and 26
sensation
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Perceptual process 26
Factors affecting perception 26
Types of Values 29
7 Types of Attitudes 30
Values, Attitudes and Job
Formation of Attitudes 31
satisfaction Job satisfaction 32
Sources of Conflict 34
Conflict Management 34
Advantages of functional conflict 35
8 Conflict management Power 36
Chapter – 1
Introduction:
All organizations, (business, educational, or government) are social systems. The people run
these organizations. Human behavior is caused and highly unpredictable. Why people behave
as they behave has, therefore, been a subject of much interest and concern since our earlier
years. Therefore understanding human behavior has assumed great significance for the
managers for managing the people effectively. In other words, knowledge about why people
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behave as they behave helps managers extract maximum results from people’s efforts for
accomplishing organizational goals in an effective manner.
DEFINITION:
OB is concerned with the study of human behaviour at work. In other words, OB is the study
and application of knowledge about how people as individuals and as groups behave or act in
an organization.
According to Luthans “OB is directly concerned with the understanding, prediction, and control
of human behavior in the organizations”.
Davis and Newstrom have defined OB as “the knowledge and application of how people act or
behave within organization. It is a human tool for human benefit. It applies broadly to the
behavior of people in all types of organizations such as business, government, schools and
service organizations”.
Key Elements:
There are five key elements in an organization which needs to be managed properly. These are:
People, Structure, Technology, Job and the environment.
People:
People run organizations. People constitute individuals and groups. Though people have
much in common, they differ from each other. One can find glaring differences in people’s traits,
intelligence, personality etc. It is due to these individual differences the manager cannot adopt
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one formula or standard across the board for dealing with the employees. Instead, a manager
has to treat the employees with individual differences differently. Study of work teams and
groups in the organization is also important.
Human behavior is always caused. Behavior is directed towards some goals. There is
always a cause behind every human behavior or act. The manager should know the cause to
solve the problem. People are living, thinking, feeling beings. The manager therefore, needs to
treat them with human dignity, not just like an economic tool.
Structure:
Organizations are social systems. There are two types of social systems that exist side by
side in an organization. One is the formal and the other one is the informal social system. The
formal relationship of people in organizations is called as structure.
Different jobs are directed to accomplish the organizational goals and objectives. All
people performing different jobs at different levels have to be related in some structural way so
that their work can be effectively coordinated.
Technology:
Technology provides the resources with which people work and also affects the tasks
that they perform. The great benefit of technology is that it allows people to do more and
better work. But it also restricts people from doing things in various ways.
Managing technology is an important job of any management. Selection of technology,
procurement, installation, operation and maintenance is important and no compromise should
be made in procuring advanced technology. Based on the technology, an organization should
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formulate job structure and resultant procurement of human resource so that they are
complimentary to each other.
Jobs
Job is an assignment given to an individual. Job will have various tasks inbuilt in it.
Manager, therefore have to manage various tasks to accomplish a particular job. This may form
a part of managerial functions. Adequate delegation, supervision, application of various control
techniques makes the job simpler for the manager.
Environment:
All organizations operate within a given internal and external environment. In fact no
organizations exist alone. An organization is a part of a larger system that contains other factors
or elements such as government, the family, and other organizations. All of these mutually
influence one another in a complex way. Thus organizations are influenced by external
environment.
OB HAS EMERGED AS A SEPARATE FIELD OF STUDY. The nature it has acquired is identified as
follows.
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SCOPE OF OB
Motivation Leadership
Job Satisfaction Power and politics
Learning Orgl.
Values Behaviour
Structure
Culture
NEED FOR STUDYING ORGANIZATIONAL
ChangeBEHAVIOUR
Development
1. Organizational Behavior helps us to understand others and ourselves in a better way.
2. The knowledge of OB helps the managers to know individual employees better and
motivate employees to work for better results.
3. The most popular reason for studying OB is to learn how to predict human behavior and
then apply in useful way to make the organization more effective.
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4. Men run all organizations. It is the man working in the organization makes all the
difference. Then, it implies that effective utilization of people working in the organization
guarantees success of the organization.
CONTRIBUTING DISCIPLINES OF OB
1. PSYCHOLOGY: The discipline that has had the greatest influence on the field of OB is
psychology. It is a science that focuses directly on understanding and predicting
individual behavior. It has greatly contributed to intra-personal dynamics of human
behavior. The topics such as personality, perception, attitude, opinion, Learning, and
motivation describe intra personal aspects of OB.
2. SOCIOLOGY: Sociology is the study of people in relation to their fellow human beings.
Whereas psychologists focus on the individuals. sociologists study group of individuals.
The field of sociology has made valuable contribution to our understanding.
3. Anthropology: Anthropology is the study of societies to learn about human beings and
their activities. Anthropology helps us understand differences in fundamental values,
attitudes, and behavior between people in different regions and organizations.
Other social sciences: The other disciplines contributing OB are economics, Political sciences,
and history.
In his classic book, The Nature of Managerial Work, Henry Mintzberg describes a set of ten roles
that a manager fills. These roles fall into three categories:
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TABLE 1 Mintzberg's Set of Ten Roles
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Chapter – 2
MOTIVATION
‘Motivation’ is derived from the word “motive”. Motivation is an inner state of our mind that
activates and directs our behavior. It makes us to move or act. It is always internal to us.
Motivation is one’s willingness to exert efforts towards the accomplishment of his/her goal.
Definition:
2. Stephen Robbins states “Motivation is the willingness to exert high levels of effort
towards organizational goals, conditioned by the effort ability to satisfy some individual
need”.
Nature of Motivation
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4. Motives come and go: Motives emerged at a point of time may not remain with the
same intensity at the other point of time.
5. Motives interact with the environment: The environment in which we are at a point of
time may either trigger or suppress our motives.
Motivation Process
Motives: Almost all-human behavior is motivated. Motive prompt people to action. Motives
provide an activating thrust toward reaching a goal. Example: Need for food and water is
translated into hunger or thirst.
Goals: Motives are directed towards goals. Motives generally create a state of Physiological or
psychological imbalance. Example: One’s personality is deprived of friends and companions.
MOTIVATION PROCESS
1. People run organizations. Motivated employees are more productive and quality
conscious.
2. It enables managers to understand why people behave as they behave.
3. Appreciation of motivation helps the managers how to motivate their employees.
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4. Organizations need to have employees with required capability and willingness to use
the advanced complex technology to achieve the organizational goals.
5. It develops employees as future resources.
THEORIES OF MOTIVATION
I. MASLOW’S NEED HIERARCHY THEORY: It is based on the human needs. He classified all
human needs into a hierarchical manner from the lower to the higher order.
1. Physiological Needs: These needs are basic to human life and hence, include food, clothing,
shelter, air water and other necessities of life. These needs relate to the survival and
maintenance of human life.
2. Safety Needs: After satisfying the physiological needs, the next needs felt are called safety
and security needs. These needs find expression in such desires as economic security and
protection from physical dangers.
3. Social Needs: man is a social being. He is, therefore, interested in social interaction,
companionship, belongingness, etc. it is this socializing and belongingness why individuals
prefer to work in groups and especially older people go to work.
4. Esteem Needs: These needs refer to self-esteem and self-respect. They include such needs
which indicate self-confidence, strength and capability of being useful in the organization
5. Self-Actualization Needs: This level represents the culmination of all the lower,
intermediate, and higher needs of human beings. In other words, the final step under the
need hierarchy model is the need for self-actualization.
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II. HERZBERG’S MOTIVATION-HYGIENE THEORY:
The psychologist Frederick Herzberg extended the work of Maslow and proposed a new
motivation theory popularly known as Herzberg’s Motivation-hygiene (Two-Factor) Theory.
According to Herzberg “There are two types of needs, independent of each other”.
There is a set of job conditions, which operates primarily to build strong motivation and job
satisfaction. These are called ‘Motivational factors’. They are intrinsic in nature and help
increase one’s output. These factors have positive effect on morale, productivity, and job
satisfaction and overall efficiency of the organization.
Certain other factors do not motivate but they are needed in the organization. These are
called as ‘Hygiene or Maintenance factors’. When these factors are present they do not
motivate in a strong way, when absent they dissatisfy, that is why these factors are called
dissatisfiers. These factors are necessary to maintain a reasonable degree of satisfaction of
employees.
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Hygiene Factors Motivational factors
Company Policy and administration. Achievement
Technical supervision. Advancement
Interpersonal relationship with superiors. Possibility of Growth
Interpersonal relationship with peers. Recognition.
Interpersonal relationship with Work Itself
subordinates. Responsibility
Salary.
Job security.
Personal Life.
Working condition.
Status.
Need for affiliation. The desire for friendly and close interpersonal relationships.
The third need is affiliation (nAf). This need has received the least attention from researchers.
Individuals with a high affiliation motive strive for friendship, prefer cooperative situations
rather than competitive ones, and desire relationships that involve a high degree of mutual
understanding.
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IV. McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y
Douglas McGregor introduced Theory X and theory Y which are diagonally opposite to
each other. According to McGregor human beings display very high degree of behaviour relating
to achieving self-actualization. There is interaction of variety of need fulfilment behaviour by an
individual in different situations.
Theory X assumptions:
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Chapter – 3
COMMUNICATION
The word communication is derived from the Latin word “Communis’ which means common.
Communication involves imparting the common meaning to the other person.
Definitions:
Nature of communication:
1. Communication involves two parties, one who transmits and one who receives the
message.
2. The two parties must have ability to convey and listen to what the sender has to
communicate.
3. Communication includes sending the message and also receiving the response to the
message.
4. The message may be conveyed verbally in writing, by means of signs, gestures or
symbols.
5. Communication is a continuous process.
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4. Good communication system communicating quality information contributes positively
to the quality of decisions.
5. Communication flowing information throughout the organization maintains co-
ordination of activities across department in the organization.
6. It helps to mould the attitudes of the persons. It helps in developing labour-
management relationships.
PROCESS OF COMMUNICATION
1. Communicator: The communication process begins with the sender who has an
intended message to communicate. The characteristics of the communicators influence
the communication process.
2. Encoding: It refers to converting a communication message into symbolic form. Encoding
is necessary because information can only be transmitted from communicator to
receiver through symbols and gestures.
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3. Message: The message is the actual physical product from the source of encoding. When
we speak, the speech is the message, when we write, writing is the message. When we
gesture, the movements of our arms, the expressions on our face ore the message.
4. Medium: Medium is a channel through which a communication message travels.
Medium is the link that connects the communicator and the receiver. Face-to-Face
verbal communication, use of telephone, use of notice, circulars, statements etc.
5. Decoding: translating the sender message by the receivers is called decoding. Decoding
is the process by which the receiver draws meaning from the symbols encoded by the
communicator or sender
6. Receiver: the person who receives the message is called receiver. The communication
process is incomplete without the existence of the receiver of the message.
Communication to be effective needs to be receiver oriented.
7. Feedback: the actual response of the receiver to the message communicated to him is
known as feedback.
CHANNELS OF COMMUNICATION:
The channel of communication can be divided into three types:
II. Based on direction of flow : Based on direction of flow, channels of communication are of
four types:
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1. Horizontal communication: it is also called lateral communication. It takes place
between the peers. It refers to the transmission of information among positions of the
same level. This facilitates co-ordination among the peers or people working on the
same levels.
2. Upward communication: When communication flows from lower level employees to
higher-level employees it is called upward communication. It encourages employees to
participate in the decision making process and submit valuable ideas and suggestions.
3. Downward communication: It refers to the flow of information from higher level to the
lower level. Such communication may consist of verbal messages, conveying orders,
Policies, Procedures, or written matters conveyed through notices, circulars, handbooks,
etc.
4. Diagonal communication: It refers to flow of messages between persons who are in
positions at different levels of the hierarchy and also in different departments. This type
of communication takes place under special circumstances.
Chapter – 4
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LEADERSHIP
Koontz has defined leadership as “the art or process of influencing people so that they
will strive willingly and enthusiastically towards the achievement of group goals”.
Characteristics of leadership:
Leadership Management
leaders do the right things Managers do things right
Leaders challenge the status quo. Managers accept the status quo.
Leaders take a long-term view. Managers take a short-term view.
Leaders can use his /her informal Managers hold formal positions and
influence. enjoy formal authority.
Leaders create a vision and inspire Managers achieves result by directing
others.
LEADERSHIP STYLES:
The way the leader influences his/her followers is called “leadership styles”. There are three
basic styles of leadership:
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1. Autocratic leadership or Authoritative style
2. Democratic or participative style
3. Laissez-Faire or Free Rein style
1. Autocratic or Authoritative style: In autocratic style, the leader centralizes power and
decision-making in himself/herself. The leader commands complete control over the
subordinates who are compelled to obey the orders. The subordinates have no
opportunity to make suggestions or take part in decision-making function.
2. Democratic or Participative Style: In democratic style of leadership, the leaders take
decision in consultation with the subordinates. In other words, the subordinates
participate in decision-making function. Hence, the style is also known as participative
style.
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3. Laissez Faire Style: Laissez faire style is just the opposite of autocratic style. In laissez-faire
style, the manager-leader leaves decision-making to the subordinates. The leader
completely gives up his/her leadership role. The subordinates enjoy full freedom to decide
as and what they like.
Nonetheless, laissez faire style is found suitable in the following situations when:
1. Mental and Physical Health: A healthy mind rests in a healthy body. A leader needs to
have sound health both mental and physical to be able to bear the pulls and
pressures of his role as leader. He must also possess stamina and balanced
temperament.
2. Knowledge and Intelligence: One most important requirement of a leader is to have
required knowledge of human-behavior, psychology and professional competence. In
order to evince his convincing competency, the leader also must update himself
continuously and keep renewing himself.
3. Clear-cut and Worthy Goals: Actions without clear cut directions lead nowhere. That
is why there is very little achievement in spite of a lot of movement in life.
4. Conviction: Swami Vivekananda said “Great convictions are the mothers of great
deeds” It is always man and women with conviction who influence others.
5. Sense of Responsibility: A leader also must be of sense of responsibility for the task
assigned to him. In other words, a leader must discharge his responsibility thrusted
upon him willingly and cheerfully.
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6. Motivation: Effective motivation comes from within not from outside. Strictly
speaking, real motivation cannot be imposed or injected from outsides.
7. Initiative and Drive: You know that electric energy locked up in the power house is of
no use unless it is flown through the cables and manifested itself through the medium
of various gadgets so as to be beneficial.
Chapter – 5
PERSONALITY
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CONCEPT OF PERSONALITY:
DETERMINANTS OF PERSONALITY:
The various determinants of personality are broadly classified into three groups, namely,
1. Heredity
2. Environment and
3. Situation
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2. Environment: Every individual is born and brought up in a particular environment.
Environment leaves an imprint on the personality of an individual. Environment should
be viewed from the point of view of norms, ethics and value that are observed and the
attitude displayed by the social group. These factors actually formulate the culture of
the society from which the organizations draw their human resource requirements. The
cultural background is important to evaluate personality. It is therefore important to
study early conditions under which the child has been brought up, norms followed in
the family and the existence of cultural value system in the society. All these factors
have a marked influence on the personality of an individual.
3. Situation: Individual has to interact with number of problems in a given situation, which
does not remain constant. Situation changes from time to time. There is a need to
recognise the person-situation interaction. Thus personality is situational, the
uniqueness of each situation and any measure of personality must be examined.
Personality traits:
Personality traits are the characteristics of an individual when exhibited in large number
of situations. More predominant the traits in an individual are, more consistence the individual
is and more frequent occurrences in diverse situations. There are thousands of traits that have
been identified. However 16 personality factors have been identified, which are called the
source, or primary traits. These and their opposites are given below
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Types of Personality
Type A: People having Type A personality are always moving, walking and eating rapidly. They
feel impatient with the speed the events take place. They always strive to do two or three thing
at any one time and cannot cope with leisure. They are generally obsessed with work involved
with numbers.
Type B: People possessing Type B personality never suffer from sense of urgency and take thing
as it comes coolly. They do not discuss achievement and leave it to the superiors to identify it.
People having B type of personality play for fun and relaxation rather than to show off. These
people have the tendency to relax without guilt.
Introvert Personalities: Introvert is one of the two basic orientations of people have. Persons
with introvert orientation are primarily oriented to the subjective world. Such people look
inward and experience and process their thoughts and ideas within themselves. They also avoid
social contracts and initiating interaction with other group mates, withdrawn, quiet and enjoy
solitude. People with introvert personality are found more inclined to excel at tasks that require
thought and analytical skill.
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Extrovert Personalities: Simply speaking, extroverts are just contrary to introverts. Extroverts
are friendly, sociable, lively, gregarious aggressive and expressing their feelings and ideas
openly.
Introverts Extroverts
Like quiet for concentration Like variety and action.
Tend to be careful with details, dislike Tend to work faster, dislike
sweeping statements. complicated procedure.
Have trouble remembering names and Are often good at greeting people.
faces. Often act quickly, sometimes without
Like to think a lot before they act, thinking.
sometimes without acting. Like to have people around.
Work contentedly alone. Usually communicate freely.
Have some problems communicating. Are often impatient with long and
Tend not to mind working on one slow jobs.
project for a long time
uninterruptedly.
Judging Personalities: People with judging personality types like to follow a plan, make
decisions and need only that what is essential for their work.
Perceptive Personalities: These are the people who adapt well to change, want to know the
entire job and at times may get over committed. After going through the following table you are
able to understand better about the two types of personalities.
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Judging Type Perceptive Type
Work best when they can plan work Adapt well to changing situations.
and follow the plan. Do not mind leaving things open for
Like to get things settled. alterations.
May decide things too quickly. May have trouble making decisions.
Want only essential things needed to Want to know all about their work.
begin their work. Tend to be curious and welcome new
Tend to be satisfied once they reach a information on a thing or a situation or
judgment. a person even at later stages.
Chapter – 6
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PERCEPTION
We all come across various objects or things in our everyday life. We are also constantly
bombarded with various stimuli. Then, what we do in practice is while we receive some objects,
we expect others. Further, we look at the same things yet perceive it differently. For example
looking at a painting, some may perceive it as beautiful, the others as ugly.
Stephen P. Robbins defines perception as “a process by which individuals organize and interpret
their sensory impression in order to give meaning to their environment”
People usually mean sensation and perception the same. But, there is a
clear-cut distinction between the two. In simple words, sensation may be described as the
response of a physical sensory organ to some stimuli. Our physical senses i.e., vision, hearing,
touch, smell and taste are continuously bombarded by numerous stimuli that are both inside
and outside of our body. Our physical sensory organs often react to these stimuli. The reaction
of our eye to colour, ear to sound, nose to odor, and so on are the examples of our every day
sensations.
Perception is much more than sensation. As noted before, perception
depends upon the sensory raw data, yet it involves a cognitive process that includes filtering,
modifying or even changing these sensation raw data to make sense out of them.
PERCEPTUAL PROCESS
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Factors Affecting Perception:
IMPROVING PERCEPTION:
1. Perceiving oneself Accurately: In order to perceive others accurately, one first needs to
perceive oneself accurately. Therefore, one needs to improve more awareness about
himself/herself.
2. Improving one’s Self-Concept: When people successfully accomplish what they want, it
develops a sense of self-regard and self-esteem. It is called ‘self-concept’. Research studies
suggest that people having self-concept tend to perceive others more accurately.
3. Being Empathetic: Empathy means to be able to see situation, as other people perceive it.
In a way, it is like putting your feet in another’s shoes. Looking at a problem from others’
point of view enables the person to perceive the other side of the problem
4. Having Positive Attitudes: Positive attitude makes one’s perception positive or more
accurate. Hence, the managers need to try to overcome their personal bias, get rid of any
negative feelings, if any, they have of others. These enhance an individual’s perceptual
skill.
5. Avoiding Perceptual Distortions: As discussed earlier, some factors such as halo effect
stereotyping, attribution, first impression, etc. distort one’s perception about things or
problems.
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6. Communicating Openly: Experience suggests that sometimes perception gets distorted
due to communication gap or / and inadequate communication. In such case, effective
communication needs to be developed to ensure that true and right message reaches at
the right place and at the right time.
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Chapter – 7
VALUES
Value represents individual’s standards, faith, ideals or even events and activity. Value is
very important constituent of an individual’s life. It is the broad frame of behaviour. Values are
imbibed by an individual based on inheritance and environment. The values are basic thing that
gives us a sense of right and wrong, good and bad. Values are learned. These change as
individuals grow and mature. Values are stable.
Definitions:
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(d) Social value: Is related to love of people, sense of belonging and an attitude of ‘we’ feeling.
Such value is very important in the organization that brings together the employees which are
bound by a sense of participation that leads to high level of motivation and high productivity.
(e) Political value: It refers to power and influence in the organization. Right people must be
placed at the right positions so that they are able to influence the people.
(f) Religious value: It is related to display of value which would bring unity and understanding
amongst the people in the organization based on common religious platform.
ATTITUDES:
Definition
According to G.W. Allport, “Attitude is a mental and neutral state of readiness organized
through experience, exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon individual’s response to
all objects and situations with which it is related.”
Features:
Types of attitudes:
Job related attitudes are of three types: Job satisfaction, Job involvement, and organizational
Commitment.
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1. Job satisfaction: It is related to general attitude towards the job. A person having a high
level of satisfaction will generally hold a positive attitude while dissatisfied people will
generally display negative attitude towards life. ‘Attitude’, in organization context generally
indicates job satisfaction because they are inter-related in organizational behaviour.
2. Job involvement: It is the degree to which a person identifies himself (psychologically) with
his job, actively participates and considers his perceived performance level important to
self-worth. High level of involvement indicates that the individual cares for his job. Higher
the job satisfaction, lower will be absenteeism and employee turnover.
3. Organizational commitment: Organizational Commitment is an attitude about employees’
loyalty to their organization. It is a process through which employees identify with the
organization and want to maintain membership in the organization.
FORMATION OF ATTITUDE:
Direct Experience: one’s direct experience with an object or person serves as a powerful source
for his/her attitude formation. In other words, attitudes are formed on the basis of one’s past
experience in concerned object or person.
Social Learning: The process of deriving attitudes from family, peer groups, religious,
organizations a culture is called social learning.
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JOB SATISFACTION
The study of Job satisfaction is one of most important factors in the study of human behaviour
in the organization. Job satisfaction focuses on employee attitude towards his job. It has three
important dimensions:
a) Job satisfaction can be measured by the emotional response to a job situation, hence it
cannot be seen, and it can only be inferred.
b) Job satisfaction is related to what you actually get as reward and what you expect to get.
If the difference between the actual reward and expectation is minimum or negligible
then a person will display a positive attitude and if there is wide difference between the
two, a person will display a negative attitude towards his job and therefore the
satisfaction level will be low.
c) Job satisfaction is related to job dimensions. These can be expressed in terms of job
content, remuneration, attitude of co-workers, and opportunity of growth that job is
able to provide in terms of promotion and last but not the least the expert loyal and
experienced leadership is available in terms of supervision.
There are number of dimensions which effect job satisfaction. Some of the important factors
that determine job satisfaction of the employees in the organization are as under: -
1. Work Content: Content of the work itself is a major source of satisfaction. The content of the
work should be encouraging and interesting and have variety inbuilt in it so that it is not boring.
It should lend itself opportunities to use employee skills, ability and experience. Once such job
is completed successfully, the workers get a great sense of satisfaction.
2. Pay and promotion policy: Salary and wages play important part in the study of job
satisfaction. Pay system and promotion policy of the organization must be just, unambiguous
and in line with the prevalent industry norms and employee expectations. Employee wages and
salary must ensure him the social status and should be able to fulfil the expectations.
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3. Supportive working condition: Working conditions have an impact on employees’ job
satisfaction. The working place should be neat and clean with necessary facilities as per the law.
Light, ventilation, cleanliness, enough space for work, immediate availability of supervision,
adequate latest tools etc. will definitely add to job satisfaction. If the work place were closer to
home, it would add to employee retention.
4. Work group: Work group of multi skilled persons with one goal will be able to function
effectively if they are friendly and co-operative. The work group serves as a source of support,
comfort, advice and assistance to individual worker. A good work group makes the job more
enjoyable. The work group support is essential for job satisfaction.
5. Supervision: Qualified supervisors should be available for advice, guidance and problem
solving. Supervisors should be placed close to the place of work and should be available. Such
supervision improves the morale and job satisfaction of employees.
6. Personality job fit: Individuals should be assigned the job that suits their interest. Job-person
fit helps the organization to achieve the objectives. It helps the person to get the job
satisfaction.
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Chapter – 8
CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
Austin and others define conflict as “a disagreement between two or more individuals
or groups, with each individual or group trying to gain acceptance of its views or objective
over others.”
Sources of conflict:
CONFLICT MANAGEMENT:
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1. Avoiding: One or both parties could avoid facing the conflict. This strategy is useful
when issues involved in conflict are of a very minor nature or when more important
issues deserve attention. Avoidance is a poor strategy hence if someone else is able to
handle the situation of conflict more effectively he should be allowed to do so.
2. Accommodating: In accommodating mode a person scarifies his own interest for satisfy
other person’s interest. This mode is usually adopted when other person’s view is
stronger, you want to achieve goodwill and indicate that you are reasonable.
3. Competing: This strategy may be adopted when other strategies of conflict resolution
are not workable. Competing is also useful in emergencies where quick decisions are
required. This strategy is based on win-lose principle of managing conflicts.
4. Compromising: Compromising is a mode when both parties try to find out mutually
acceptable solution that sacrifices both the parties partially. In compromising, there is no
clear winner or loser. None of the party is fully satisfied.
5. Collaborating: This involves attempt of one party to work with the other party in
cooperative manner and find solutions to the problem for mutual benefits. This strategy
signifies when two sets of solutions are important for both parties to be compromised.
The strategy attempts a win-win situation to reach the goals.
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POWER
Power, in the organizational context is derived from the official position held by an
individual in an organization. Leaders use power as a means of attaining group goals. Leader
uses power to ensure compliance of job assigned to them. Power is also used to control various
activities of individuals and groups. When we discuss power, authority is associated with it.
Authority is acquired from the organizational hierarchy.
1. Reward power: Reward power source derives from the person’s control over resources.
Example: Salary, bonuses, rewards
2. Coercive power: The power to punish or reward the power to threaten and to use one’s
position to force others to take action. Coercive power is based on the ability to cause
unpleasant experience of the people. Example: Threats and Punishment.
3. Legitimate Power: The power which is exercised in accordance with organizational rules.
This power is exercised with the authority of organization.
4. Referent power: This depends on charisma or personal attraction of the individual.
Interpersonal skill and emotional support from others are the sources of power for a
person.
5. Expert power: Power which is derived from knowledge. This power is based on
acknowledgement of others expertise.
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