PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

(Common to ECE, EIE & IT)

Course Code: 18HS1MG02 Regulation: R18

 SYLLABUS
UNIT-6: Interpersonal Skills:
Organizational Conflict, Stress Management, Change and Development:
Organizational Conflict- Definition; Reasons; Types and Levels; Handling Styles.
Stress Management-Definition; Types; Model; Consequences and Strategies to manage
Organizational Change - Definition; Types; Resistance; Overcoming and Approaches: L ’
Three-Step Change Model, Kotter’ -Step Plan for Implementing Change.
Organizational Development- Definition; Nature and Interventions.

CONCEPTS / TOPICS

Topic. No. Topic

6.1 Definition of Organizational Conflict and reasons for it

6.2 Types / levels of Conflict & Handling Styles

6.3 Definition of Stress Management and its types

6.4 Stress Model, Consequences of stress and Strategies to manage it

6.5 Organization Change Definition & Types

6.6 Change Resistance and Overcoming approaches

6.7 L ’ T -Step Change Model

6.8 Kotter’ -Step Plan for Implementing Change

6.9 Organizational Development- Definition; Nature and Interventions

6.10
6.1 Definition of Organizational Conflict and reasons for it:
Definition: Conflict is a dynamic process in which two or more individuals in an organization
“ ” not lead to hostile
behaviours.

Sources/Causes/Reasons for arising conflict:

Every employee has needs and certain expectations at work, and conflict could arise in the
workplace when people feel that these are not being met or are being ignored. Conflict in
the workplace could be the result of:
1. Poor management
2. Unfair treatment
3. Unclear job roles
4. Inadequate training
5. poor communication
6. Poor work environment
7. Lack of equal opportunities
8. Bullying and harassment
9. Significant changes to products, organisational charts, appraisals or pay
systems
Other major causes of conflict in the workplace include:
• Personality clashes - the 'personality mix' within a team can be upset when a new
member of staff joins or if two colleagues suddenly fall out. Individuals may also
respond to difficult or challenging situations in an unhelpful or unproductive way.
• Unrealistic needs and expectations - conflict at work can often be caused when
employers ignore the needs of employees or set unrealistic expectations. For example,
arranging hours that make it difficult for employees to carry out childcare
responsibilities.
• Business values - most people have very clear ideas about what they think is fair,
and your organisation's procedures and policies must reflect this. For example, giving
someone a fair hearing or explaining the reasoning behind a decision.
• Unresolved workplace issues - for example, an employee might ask to be moved
to another team because of their manager's 'aggressive' leadership style. However, the
employee may have other reasons - for example, they may blame their manager for a
lack of training or career progression.
• Increase in workload - sometimes workplace conflict is caused because people feel
they are being pushed too hard and resentment sets in if they feel their workload is
unmanageable.
6.2 Types and levels of Conflict & Handling Styles:
T “ ”
individuals. Each level comes with its own unique challenges and solutions. The four levels of
conflict are:

1. Intrapersonal

This level refers to an internal dispute and involves only one individual. This conflict arises out
of your own thoughts, emotions, ideas, values and predispositions. It can occur when you are
“ ” “ ”
Managing intrapersonal conflict: Intrapersonal conflicts can happen daily but learning to
work through them can hone your critical thinking and decision-making skills. To manage
intrapersonal conflict:
• Follow your values
• Check your company policy
• Write the conflict down
• Be conscious of time

2. Interpersonal

This conflict occurs between two or more people in a larger organization. It can result from
different personalities or differing perspectives on how to accomplish goals. Interpersonal
conflict may even occur without one party realizing there was ever conflict.
Managing interpersonal conflict: Managing interpersonal conflict allows team members
to work together in finding a resolution. Colleagues can improve their relationships and even
come up with all new strategies or solutions to problems. Here are four steps you can use to
resolve interpersonal conflict in the workplace:
• Define the conflict
• Put the conflict into context
• Create options
• Agree on a solution
3. Intragroup

This level of conflict occurs between members of a single group when there are multiple
people with varying opinions, backgrounds and experiences working toward a common goal.
Even though they may all want to achieve the same goal, they may disagree about how to
reach it. Intragroup conflict can also occur when team members have differences in
communication styles and personalities.
Managing intragroup conflict:

Managing intragroup conflict can help maintain employee productivity and ensure teams
accomplish group goals. Here are three steps you can take to resolve intragroup conflicts
efficiently:
 • Discuss the conflict as a team
• Reach a decision

4. Intergroup

This level of conflict occurs between different groups within a larger organization or those
who do not have the same overarching goals.

Managing intergroup conflict:

You can use intergroup conflicts as opportunities for building relationships between teams,
brainstorming new and creative id ’
overcome future conflicts. Here are three steps to help get you started:
• Discuss the issue with all relevant parties
• Have a closed meeting with necessary stakeholders
• Gather a variety of possible solutions

Tips for managing conflict in the workplace:

While you can use the previous steps to address certain levels of conflicts, consider the
following tips to help you manage workplace conflict in a variety of situations:
Schedule an appropriate meeting time and place: Ask everyone involved to set aside
time to resolve the conflict. Find a quiet, comfortable location where you can talk openly
without interruption.
Stay calm and be specific: Remain calm throughout the meeting and try to focus on
tangible impacts. Discuss specific details of a conflict so they can be openly addressed.
Use active listening: ’
understanding of their concerns and needs. If you are mediating the conflict, this step can help
’
Celebrate progress and successes: Acknowledge the efforts of team members to change
behaviour or strategy. When the team achieves goals because of the resolution, acknowledge
those wins and celebrate them.

6.3 Definition of Stress Management and its types:

Like motivation, stress is a very individual experience. One person can feel extreme pressure
and anxiety over a task that is looming, and another might look at the same task and see it as
an exciting challenge. Stress is an emotionally disruptive or unsettling condition of out mind
that occurs as a result of adverse external influences.
Definition:
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. Harris Rothenberg, a leading provider of employee
assistance program, finds that employees are having mental breakdowns and needing
professional help at higher rates than ever. The following table shows that work is one of the
top sources of stress:
Area Causes Most Stress
Financial worries 64%
Work 60%
Family responsibilities 47%
Health concerns 46%

Stressors: Researchers have argued that stressors associated with workload, pressure to
complete tasks, and time urgency, operate quite differently from hindrance stressors or
stressors that keep you from reaching you goals.
Demands and Resources: More typically stress is associated with demands and resources.
Demands are responsibilities, pressures, obligaddtions, and uncertainties that individuals face
R ’
resolve the demands. From the following OB poll it is proved that many employees feel
extreme stress:

Stress management is the attempt to cope with negative effects of stress through the
reduction of the stress response. B D F “S
different types of interventions, which are carried out to fight stress. These interventions
involve preventive measures like training, courses, working with specialists, etc.
Types of stress:
Given that stress has been linked as a co-factor in 95% or all disease processes, a keystone of
holistic, alternative health and healing is learning how to effectively manage stress.
Physical stress: Trauma (injury, infection, surgery)
Psychological stress: emotional stress (resentments, fears, frustration, sadness, anger,
grief/bereavement)
Psychosocial stress: relationship/marriage difficulties (partner, siblings, children, family,
employer, co-workers, employer)
Psycho-spiritual stress: A crisis of values, meaning, and purpose; joyless striving (instead of
productive, satisfying, meaningful and fulfilling work; and a misalignment withi ’
spiritual beliefs.

6.4 Stress Model, Consequences of stress and Strategies to

manage it:
A model of stress explore the potential sources of stress at work with some important
factors. Those potential sources are structures in relation with stress consequences as shown
in the following diagram:

A. Potential Sources of Stress among employees:

According to the above model, potential sources which causes stress are as follows:
1. Environmental Factors:
Uncertainty influences the design of organization’s structure and it influences stress
levels among employees. Indeed, uncertainty is the biggest reason people have trouble coping
with organizational changes. There are three main types of environmental uncertainty:
economics, political and technological.
2. Organizational Factors:
Pressures to avoid errors or complete tasks in a limited time, work overload, a
demanding and insensitive boss, and unpleasant co-workers are few examples. There are three
major factors recognized as (i) Task Demands, (ii) Role Demands and (iii) Interpersonal
demands
3. Personal Factors:
The typical individual may work between 40 and 50 hours a week. But the experiences
and problems people encounter in the other 120+ hours can spill over to the job. The final
category of sources of stress at work includes of an employee’s personal life, family issues and
personal economics problems.
4. Individual differences:
Some people thrive on stressful situations, while other are overwhelmed by them.
What differentiates people in terms of their ability to handle stress? What individual variables
moderate the relationship between potential stressors and experienced stress? At lease four
are relevant: perception, job experience, social support, and personality traits.
Job experiences tend to be negatively related to work stress. Voluntary turnover is ore
probable among people who experience more stress. Therefore, people who remain with an
organization longer are those with more stress-resistant traits. Secondary people eventually
develop coping mechanisms.
Social support: collegial relationships with co-workers or supervisors can buffer the impact
of stress. This is among the best documented relationships in the stress literature. Social
support acts as a palliative, mitigating the negative effects of even high-strain jobs.
Personality traits: Stress symptoms expressed on the job may originate in the person’s
personality. Perhaps the most widely studied personality trait in research on stress is
neuroticism.
And other important factors such as belief in locus of control, self-efficacy, Hostility, etc.
which we already discussed in chapter-4 perception and personality.
5. Cultural Differences:
Research suggests that the job conditions that cause stress show some differences
across cultures. One study revealed that, whereas US employees were stressed by lack of
control, Chinese employees were stressed by job evaluations and lack of training. It doesn’t
appear that personality effects on stress are different across cultures.
B. Consequences of Stress at Work:
Stress shows itself in a number of ways, such as high blood pressure, ulcers, irritability,
difficulty making routine decisions, changes in appetite, etc.
1. 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 that 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 other harmful physiological effects, including backaches,
eye strain, sleep disturbances, dizziness, fatigue, loss of appetite, and gastrointestinal
problems.
2. Phycological Symptoms:
Job dissatisfaction is an obvious cause of stress. But stress shows itself in other
psychological states for instance, tension, anxiety, irritability, boredom, and procrastination.
One study that tracked physiological responses of employees over time found that stress due
to high workloads was related to lower emotional well-being.
3. Behavioural Symptoms:
Research on behaviour and stress has been conducted across several countries and
over time, and the relationships appear relatively consistent. Behaviour-related stress
symptoms include reductions in productivity, increases in absences, safety incidents, and
turnover, changes in eating habits, increased smoking or consumption of alcohol, rapid speech,
fidgeting, and sleep disorders.
C. Strategies of managing stress:
What should we do about stress? Should we do anything? Because low to moderate levels of
stress can be functional and lead to higher performance, management may not be concerned
when employees experience them. However, employees are likely to perceive even low levels
of stress as undesirable. To manage stress there are some individual and organizational
approaches as follows:
1. Individual Approaches:
An employee can take personal responsibility for reducing stress levels. Many people
manage their time poorly. The well-organized employee, like the well-organized student, may
very well accomplish twice as much as the person who is poorly organised. A few of the best-
known time management techniques are:
(i) Maintaining to-do lists
(ii) Scheduling activities based on priorities and accomplishments
(iii) Doing the hard tasks first, and
(iv) Scheduling distraction-free time
The above time management skills can help minimise procrastination by focusing efforts on
immediate goals and boosting motivation even in the face of tasks that are less enjoyable.
Some of the other strategies:
• Physicians have recommend non-competitive physical exercise, as aerobics, walking,
jogging, swimming, cycling, etc.
• Individuals can teach themselves to reduce tension through relaxation techniques such
as meditation, mindfulness, and deep breathing.
• Work breaks, and taking help from recovering ponderers.
• As we have noted, friends, family, or work colleagues can provide an outlet when
stress levels become excessive.

2. Organizational Approaches:
Several-organizational factors that cause stress, particularly task and role demands.
Strategies to consider include the following tasks:
(i) Selection and placement, and training
Usually, individuals with little experience or an external locus of control tend to be
more prone to stress. Selection and placement decisions should consider these factors.
They should not hire only experienced with an internal locus.
(ii) Goal setting
Individuals perform better when they have specific and challenging goals and receive
feedback on their progress toward these goals. Goals can reduce stress and provides
motivation.
(iii) Redesigning jobs
Redesigning jobs to give employees more responsibility, ore meaningful work, more
autonomy, and increased feedback can reduce stress because theses factors give
employees greater control over work activities and lessen dependence on others.
(iv) Employee involvement
Role stress is detrimental to a large extent because employees feel uncertain about
goals, expectations, how they’ll be evaluated, and the life. By giving employees a voice
in the decisions that directly affect their job performance, management can increase
employee control and reduce role stress.
(v) Organizational communication
Increasing formal organizational communication with employees reduces uncertainty by
lessening role ambiguity and role conflict. Given the importance that perceptions play
in moderating the stress-response relationship.
(vi) Employee sabbaticals
Some employees need an occasional escape from the frenetic pace of their work.
Companies including Infosys, Qualcomm, Deloitte, Adobe, and even Government of
India have begun to provide extended voluntary leaves.
(vii) Wellness programs
Finally, if organization supports wellness programs, can typically provide workshops to
help people quit some negative habits, lose weight, eat and sleep better and they focus
on total physical and mental strength.

6.5 Organization Change Definition & Types:

No company today is in a particularly stable environment. Even those with the
dominant market share must change, sometimes radically.
A scenario for example: how the market for smart phones has been volatile. During 4th quarter
of 2016, 77 million iPhones we sold, compared with 76.8 million Samsung sales. Contrast this
with the fourth quarter of 2015, in which considerably 71.5 million we sold, versus
considerably 83.4 Samsung phones. At the same time, the Chinese mobile phone company
Oppo and its parent company, BBK Electronics, have been moving rapidly into the market
and collectively they hold only 6% less market share than either Samsung or Apple. Few year
back dominant players like Nokia, Xiaomi, Blackberry shrinking dramatically in size.
In this many markets, competitors are constantly entering and exiting the field, gaining and
losing ground quickly.
Change management is defined as the methods and manners in which a company describes
and implements change within both its internal and external processes. This includes preparing
and supporting employees, establishing the necessary steps for change, and monitoring pre-
and post-change activities to ensure successful implementation.
A. Forces for change:
“Change or die!” is the rallying cry among today’s managers worldwide”. To summarise, there
are 6 important change forces which highly influences the managers:
1. Nature of the workforce: Reasons: More cultural diversity, Aging population, Increased
immigration and outsourcing.
2. Technology: Major changes as Faster, cheaper, and more mobile computers and handheld
devices. Emergence and growth of social-networking sites, Deciphering of the human genetic
code are dominating.
3. Economics shocks: Rise and fall of global housing market, Financial sector collapse, Global
recession, etc. are influencing scenarios.
4. Competition: Increasing Global competitors, Mergers and consolidations, Increased
government regulation of commerce, are the reasons.
5. Social Trends: Increased environmental awareness, Liberalization of attitudes toward gay,
lesbian and transgender employees, more multitasking and connectivity, etc. are the reasons.
6. World Politics: Rising health care costs, negative social attitudes toward business and
executives, opening of new markets worldwide are major reasons for change.
B. Types of change:
With organizational change strategies, companies can avoid stagnation while minimizing
disruption. Preparation is integral for success, especially during a change effort. However, one
’ T
understand what change management models exist and then figuring out what best suits your
company or team.
1. Organization Wide Change
Organization wide change is a large-scale transformation that affects the whole company. This
could include restructuring leadership, adding a new policy, or introducing a new enterprise
technology. Organizational change can be considered as further four types:
a. Strategic transformational change: All changes will affect some aspects of a
company, but not all changes are transformational. Minor modifications to existing
tools or policies will influence but not completely redefine a business. Big changes,
on the other hand, transform companies.
b. People-centric organizational change: While all changes affect people, people-
centric types of organizational change include instituting new parental leave policies
or bringing on new hires.
c. Structural change: Structural changes involve major shifts in the management
hierarchy, team organization, and the responsibilities attributed to different
departments, employees, or teams. These changes often overlap with people-
centric changes as they directly affect most, if not all, employees.
 d. Remedial change: Remedial changes are reactionary. This type of change occurs
when a problem is identified, and a solution needs to be implemented. As these
changes are designed to address an issue; they call for immediate action.
2. Transformational Change
T ’
that are best suited to withstand rapid change in their industry are nimble, adaptable, and
prepared to transform their game plans when the need arises.
3. Personnel Change
Personnel change happens when a company experiences hyper-growth or layoffs. Each of
these types of organizational change can cause a significant shift in employee engagement and
retention.
4. Unplanned Change
Unplanned change is typically defined as necessary action following unexpected events. While
unplanned change cannot be predicted — it can be dealt with in an organized manner.
5. Remedial Change
Leaders implement remedial changes when they identify a need to address deficiencies or
poor company performance.

6.6 Change Resistance and Overcoming approaches:

Our egos are fragile, and we often see change as threatening. Resistance to change can be
positive if it leads to open discussion and debate. Resistance doesn’t necessarily surface in
standardized ways. It can be overt, implicit, immediate or deferred.

a. Resistance to Change:
The greater challenge is managing resistance that is implicit or deferred because these
responses, loss of loyalty or motivation, increased errors or absenteeism are more subtle and
more difficult to recognize for what they are. The following are sources of resistance to
change:

1. Individual sources
a. Habit
b. Security
c. Economics factors
d. Fear of unknown
e. Selective information processing
2. Organizational sources
a. Structural inertia
b. Limited focus of change
c. Group inertia
d. Threat to expertise
e. Threat to established power relationships
Individual resources reside in human characteristics such as perceptions, personalities and
needs. Organizational sources reside in the structural makeup of organizations themselves.

It is worth nothing that not all change is good. Rapid, transformational change is risky, so
change agents need to think through the full implications carefully. Speed can lead to bad
decisions. And sometimes those initiating change fail to realize the full magnitude of the effects
or their true costs.

B. Overcoming Resistance to Change:

Eight tactics can help change agents deal with resistance to change:

1. Communication: When a company communicates a rationale that balances the

interests of various stakeholders and formal information sessions decreased
employees anxiety about the change, while providing high-quality information about
the change increased their commitment to it.

2. Participation: Assuming participations have the expertise to make a meaningful

contribution, their involvement can reduce resistance, obtain commitment and
increase the quality of these change decisions.

3. Building Support and Commitment: When managers or employees have to low

emotional commitment to change, they resist it and favour the status quo. Employees
are also more accepting of changes when they are committed to the organization as a
whole.

4. Develop Positive Relationships: People are more willing to accept changes if they
trust the managers implementing them and see them as legitimate.

5. 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.

6. Manipulation and Cooperation: Manipulation refers to covert influence attempts.

Twisting facts to make them more attractive, withholding information, and creating
false rumours to get employees to accept change are examples. Cooperation on the
other hand combines manipulation and participation.

7. Selecting People who accept change: Ability to accept and adapt easily to change
is related to personality. Some people are simply more receptive to change. Individuals
who are emotionally stable are willing to take risks and are flexible in their behaviour.

8. Coercion: The direct threats or force on the resisters is called coercion. If

management is determined to close a manufacturing plant whose employees don’
acquiesce to pay cur, the company is using coercion.
6.7 Lewin’s Three-Step Change Model:
So far, several approaches are discussed to manage change. Lewin’s classic three step change
model conceptualized by Kurt Lewin argued that change in organizations should follow three
steps:

By definition, status quo is an equilibrium state. To move from equilibrium to overcome the
pressures of both individual resistance and group conformity unfreezing must happen in one
of three ways. For one, the driving forces, which direct behaviour away from the status quo,
can be increased. For another, 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.

Once the movement stage begins, it’s important to keep the momentum going. Organizations
that build up to change do less well than those that get to and through the movement stage
quickly. When change has been implemented, 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 equilibrium state. The objective of refreezing, then, is
to stabilize the new situation by balancing the driving and restraining forces.
6.8 Kotter’s Eight-Step Plan for Implementing Change:
John Kotter of 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
about the need for change, a coalition for managing the change process, and a vision for
change, and they may fail to communicate effectively about it and or to another the changes
into the organization’s culture.
So Kotter’s contribution lies in providing managers and change agents with a more detailed
guide for successfully implementing change.
1. Establish a sense of urgency by creating a compelling reason for why change is needed
2. Form a coalition with enough power to lead the change.
 3. Create a new vision to direct the change and strategies for achieving the vision
4. Communicate the vision throughout the organization
5. Empower others to act on the vision by removing barriers to change and encouraging
risk taking and creative problem solving.
6. Plan for, create, and reward short-term ‘wins’ that move the organization toward to
new vision
7. Consolidate improvements, reassess changes, and make necessary adjustments in the
new programs
8. Reinforce the changes by demonstrating the relationship between new behaviours and
organizational success.

6.9 Organizational Development- Definition; Nature and

Interventions:
Organization 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 process, and a spirit of inquiry.
Contemporary OD borrows heavily from postmodern philosophy in placing heavy emphasis
on the subjective ways people see and make sense of their work environment.
The change agent may take the lead in OD, but there is a strong emphasis on collaboration.
There are some OD interventions or techniques for bringing about change:
1. Sensitivity Training:
This refers to an early method of changing behaviour through unstructured group
interaction. Current organizational interventions such as diversity training, executive
coaching, and team-building exercises are descendants of this early OD intervention
technique.
2. Survey Feedback:
One tool for assessing the attitudes of organizational members, identifying
discrepancies among member perceptions, and solving differences is the survey
feedback approach. Everyone in the 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.
3. Process Consultation:
Managers often sense that their performance can be improved but are unable to
identify what to improve and how. The purpose of Process Consultation is for an
outside consultant to assist a client usually a manager, through crafting “a relationship
through a continuous effort of ‘jointly deciphering what is going on..” to make co-
authored choices about how to go on.
4. Team Building:
We’ve noted throughout this text that 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.
5. Intergroup development:
A major area of concern in OD dysfunctional conflict among groups. Intergroup
development seeks to change groups’ attitudes, stereotypes, and perceptions about
each other.
6. 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. AI focus on an organization’s success rather than its problems.

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