Muhammad Ahmed (SP19-BBA-032)

1/4/2021 Organizational Behavior

Finals
To: Ma’am Naseem Habib

Finals
COMSATS LAHORE
Question 1: What are the potential environmental, organizational, and
personal sources of stress at work and the role of individual and cultural
differences?
Answer: Stress can be defined as the degree to which you feel overwhelmed or
unable to cope as a result of pressures that are unmanageable. There are a lot of
factors that contribute to stress at work and we’re going to discuss them.

Environmental Factors: The unpredictability of the future and uncertainty of

the business cycle can lead to economic uncertainty, which is very stressful for the
employees. Political threats and various changes in the country also cause stress for
the employees, although employees who live in political stable countries don’t
have to worry about this. Technology change is also a major cause of stress as any
new innovation can thrash an employee’s skill years of experience.
Organizational Factors: The design of the job, working conditions and physical
layout of the job can cause stress for the employees. Working in a crowded room
or being exposed to noise plus specific task demands are the major causes of stress
in an organization. Workplace harassment is also another cause of stress, people
from different cultures face racial discrimination from other employees. Mostly
women face sexual harassment from their senior bosses is also a cause of stress.
Personal Factors: Family issues can create stress at workplace, Family issues are
often closely related to work–life conflict. The relationship becomes a vicious
cycle: Work–life conflict affects stress levels, which in turn affect work–life
conflict.
Roll of Individual differences: Stress potential doesn’t lie in objective
conditions; rather, it lies in an employee’s interpretation of those conditions. An
individual perception of the job differs from each other e.g., the ability to perceive
a specific event and cope with it. The job experience is also a cause of stress.
People who are highly experienced have less stress at work, new employees take
time adjusting to the organization which causes them to feel stress. The personality
traits of the people such as their thoughts, feelings and behaviors are also causing
of stress. People who are workaholic, despite going to extreme are not able to
sometimes perform better than other people which really is a big cause of stress.
Role of cultural differences: Culture of an organization can also cause stress at
workplace; lack of training and job evaluation is also a cause of stress for the
employees. Working extra hours is seen as a sacrifice to help the family, whereas
in individualistic cultures, work is seen as a means of personal achievement that
takes away from the family.
1|Page
Question 2: What are the causes, consequences, and ethics of political
behavior?

Answer: One of the causes of political behavior is family, children follow in

their parent’s footsteps i.e., their values and ideologies, another one is the influence
of the teachers, as while growing up they are the ones who shape a person’s life
after the parents. Lastly, one is also influenced by their peer influence and peer
outlook.
For the consequences; on the small scale is how a person will react to the new
ideologies that are put forward by the political leaders. On a bigger level, political
behavior determines if socialism, communism or capitalism will prevail and or the
among the leftists and right wing which ones are more reasonable.
As for the ethics, people who are acquainted with a politician tend to be more
successful in life, one example is while applying for jobs people with political
acquaintance are referred to the employers by them and are accepted, another is
when/while making an ID card/ passport/ driving license don’t have to go through
the hassle of standing in the respective offices all day and can get them made from
their home.

Question 3: What impact does emotional labor have on employees?

Answer: Emotional labor is referred to the process of managing the emotions
and expressions of the employees, it was needed in every workplace and is a
common practice, employees learn to cope with the work place environment with
this. This takes a heavy toll on the employees, it brings them stress, they have to go
with the situation and not care about their feelings and suppress them, they suffer
from emotional exhaustion. Employees with better understanding of their own
emotions, although they are more likely to recover from emotional exhaustion,
experience a greater negative effect when there is a discrepancy between what they
feel and how they should act. There are two kinds of emotional labor. The first is
Surface Acting. It refers to worker’s recreating of feelings, that are not really felt,
by changing their outward appearance such as facial gesture, motions, or voice
tone, when displaying required feelings. The second is Deep Acting. It happens
when representative’s sentiments don’t fit the circumstance; then they utilize their
preparation or past experience to express fitted feelings.
2|Page
Some examples of emotional labor are; On an airplane, a host or hostess is
expected to be always cheerful while attending to the employees. Another great
example is when a teacher is grading the exams of their students, they should not
let their emotions control them grade the exams according to their mood.

Question 4: What are the motivational benefits of the specific alternative

work arrangements?

Answer: This will motivate employees in such a way that generally; it will
reduce stress, absenteeism and increase productivity. It will help employees stay
positive about their jobs, when employees embrace different work schedules and
believe they are beneficial in maintaining a healthy work/life balance. Employee
may be unhappy with the hours they and begin searching for a new job.  By
allowing the flexibility of alternative work arrangements, they develop
commitment to the organization. Some great benefits of specific alternative work
arrangements are; employees have more control over how and when they do their
work, having this liberty makes them work more efficiently. One of the biggest
workplace issues is stress, by allowing flexibility employees are more positive
about their jobs and manage to meet the real-life demands. Offering these work
alternatives not only benefits the employee, but also the employer.  Flexible work
arrangements attract people who prefer nontraditional hours. Currently, millions of
workers are choosing to work part-time jobs so they can have more control over
their work and personal lives. Making these choices available will help attract
more talent and decrease turnover. Employees indicate that their greatest stressor is
balancing work and family. When they get some relief from this stress, employees
indicate they are much happier and healthier as they are able to get more sleep and
energize more. Managers are accustomed to managing their employees and
instructing them on how, when, and where to produce the actual work.  Managers
need to be coached to allow employees the flexibility to do the work on their
schedule.  It is important to provide employees with objective performance goals
and measures. When employees have autonomy and the freedom to manage their
work schedules, it helps build trust with the employees, their managers, and the
company. 
Alternative work arrangements are becoming more and more mainstream now a
days and after one of the most sought after-job perks and it is worth exploring for
the employers.

3|Page
Question 5a: What is the role of dependence in power relationships?
Answer: Dependency plays an important role in power relationships, the
greater someone is dependent on you, the more power you have over him. It
depends on the requirement and needs of the others. If there is something that you
and only you can do for the other person, then you have a massive amount of
power over them and can even exploit them. Dependency depends on the sources
of supply, if that thing is commonly available everywhere then no one can hold
monopoly over it therefore cannot hold power over anyone e.g., money,
intelligence or some rare gems or a new product that has taken the industry by
storm. A good example is; recently new graphics cards have been released which
are the best cards to exist to date, scalpers used bots online to quickly buy most of
the stock at MSRP and are now selling more the double the original price, they are
exploiting the buyers and no legal action can be took against them because
monopoly is not a crime. To minimize dependency and someone’s power on you,
several other options should be looked into, if someone holds a monopoly over
something, they will definitely exploit you and charge a premium. Organizations
for example are contracted to several suppliers instead of one so they can continue
to make products incase one of the suppliers fails to meet demands.

Question 5b: How is leadership different from power?

Answer: Power is a person's ability to control activities of other individuals, it
is having the authority to decide and influence matters and people according to
one's wishes. Power gives orders and instructions, takes no time to listen, deprives
itself of the creativity of others except for the execution of orders. Power means
you have enough resources and rights to manage or control people or organization.
Power tends to ‘divide and rule’. Leadership is the ability to inspire people to
follow your instructions voluntarily and manage the completion of a project
without exercising any form of force, it is the ability to create and articulate a
vision, set performance standards, and create focus and direction. Leadership is
painting a vision for others to follow. Power is self-oriented where leadership is a
team oriented. A leader is a respected person, a leader is someone who is ‘made’
by others, he has built such reputation among others that people willingly follow
them, believing they will lead them to the right path. A great example is a political
system of a country, a dictator has absolute power, no one can defy him, he is the
final authority in the country. While in a democratic system, a leader of the country
4|Page
is elected through the interests of the nation and all the decision he makes are for
the right of the people while dictator does everything to remain in power and
control the country for his own good.

5|Page