UNIT – III : GROUP BEHAVIOUR

ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE

An organizational structure defines how job tasks are formally divided, grouped and coordinated.

Characteristics of Organizational structure

1. Work Specialization: The degree to which tasks in the organization are sub – divided into separate jobs.

2. Departmentalization: The basis by which jobs are grouped together: Functions, product, process, territory, customers etc

3. Chain of Command: The unbroken line of authority that extends from the top of the organization to the lowest echelon and clarifies who reports to whom.

4. Span of Control: The number of subordinates a manger can efficiently and effectively direct.

5. Centralization and Decentralization: Centralization refers to the degree to which decision-making is concentrated at a single point in the organization. In a decentralized organization, decision discretion is pushed down to lower – level employees.

6. Formalization: The degree to which jobs within the organization are standardized.

Organization Structure: Its determinants and outcomes.

Causes:

StrategySizeTechnologyEnvironment

Structural designs

MechanisticOrganic

PerformanceAnd

Satisfaction

Moderated by individual differences and cultural norms

Determines Leads to

Fig.,1: Determinants and outcomes of Organization Structure

1. Strategy Dimensions:

i. Innovation Strategy:

A strategy that emphasizes the introduction of major new products and services.

ii. Cost – minimization Strategy:

A strategy that emphasizes tight cost controls, avoidance of unnecessary innovation or marketing expenses and price cutting.

iii. Imitation Strategy:

A strategy that seeks to move into new products or new markets only after their viability has already been proven. Organizations take the successful ideas of innovators and copy them.

2. Organization Size:

There is considerable evidence to support that an organization’s size significantly affects its structure. The impact of size becomes less important as an organization expands.

3. Technology:

The term technology refers to how an organization transfers its inputs into outputs.

4. Environment:

An organization’s environment is composed of those institutions or forces that are outside the organization and potentially affect the organization’s performance.

Forms of Organisation Structure

1. Functional Organisation Structure

Advantages Disadvantages1. Logical reflection of

functions

2. Follows principle of occupational specialization

3. Maintains power and prestige of major functions.

4. Simplifies training

5. Means of tight control at top

1. Responsibility for profits at the top only.

2. Overspecializes and narrows view points of key personnel.

3. Limits development of general managers.

4. Reduces coordination between functions.

5. Makes economic growth of company as a system difficult.

Fig. 2: Functional Organisation Structure (Manufacturing Company)

Finance

Shareholders

Board of Directors

Managing Director

MarketingPersonnelProduction

Wages and Salary Administration

Industrial RelationsTraining and Development

2. Territorial Organisation Structure:

Advantages Disadvantages1. Places responsibility at a lower

level

2. Places emphasis on local markets and problems

3. Improves coordination in a region.

4. Takes advantages of economies of local operations

5. Better face-to-face communication with local interests.

6. Furnishes valuable training ground

1. Requires more persons with general manager abilities.

2. Tends to make maintenance of economical central services difficult.

3. Increases problem of top management control.

Fig. 3:Territorial Organisation Structure of LIC of India

Hyderabad(Division)

Head Office(Bombay)

Chennai(Division)

Bangalore (Division)

Trivandrum(Division)

Eastern Region

(Clacutta)

Central Region(Kanpur)

Northern Region

(New Delhi)

Southern Region

(Chennai)

Western Region

(Bombay)

Trichy(Branch)

Madurai(Branch)

Coimbatore(Branch)

Chidambaram(Branch)

for general managers

3. Organisation Structure based on products

Advantages Disadvantages1. Places attention and effort

on product line

2. Places responsibility for profits at the division level

3. Improves coordination of functional activities

4. Furnishes measurable training ground for general managers

5. Permits growth and diversity of products and services

1. Requires more persons with general manager abilities.

2. Tends to make maintenance of economical central services difficult.

3. Presents increased problem of top management control

Managing Director

Bus DivisionTwo-wheelerDivision

Car Division

Production Finance Marketing Personnel

Fig.4: Organisation Structure based on products (Automobile Organisation)

4. Organisation Structure based on customers

Advantages Disadvantages1. Encourages concentration on

customer needs

2. Gives customers feeling that they have an understanding supplier (banker).

3. Develops expertness in customer area.

1. May be difficult to coordinate operations between competing customer needs.

2. Requires managers and staff expert in customers problems

3. Customer groups may not always be clearly defined (for example, large corporate firms, Vs Other corporate businesses)

5. Organisation Structure based on process

Advantages Disadvantages1. Specialisation of functioning

2. Maintenance of equipment

3. Manpower utilization

1. Makes coordination difficult

2. Conflicts among managers of different processes arise.

6. Organisation Structure based on services:

President

Corporatebanking

Community-City banking

Agricultural banking

Real Estate &Mortgage loans

Fig. 5: Organisation Structure based on customers in a large bank

General Manager

Production Manager

WeavingDyeingSpinning

Fig. 6: Organisation Structure based on process in a Textile Mill

Advantages Disadvantages

1. Cost savings in concentrating service activities in special departments.

2. Development of high degree of expertness in specialist service areas.

1. Dangers of “efficient inefficiency”

2. Danger of service departments exercising too much control

3. Problem of obtaining adequate service for users.

President

Vice-PresidentManufacturing

Manager Pensions and Insurances

Manager Data Processing

services

ManagerLegal services

Manager Public

relations

Vice-PresidentManagement

Services

Vice-PresidentMarketing

Vice-PresidentFinance

Fig. 7: Organisation Structure based on services

7. Line and Staff Organisation Structure:

The staff positions (PRO, Secretary) are of purely advisory nature. They have the right to recommend, but have no authority to enforce their preference on other departments.

Advantages Limitations

1. Planned Specialisation

2. High quality decisions

3. Prospect for personnel growth

4. Training ground for personnel

1. Lack of well-defined Authority

2. Line and Staff Conflicts

Salesmen

Secretary General ManagerPublic Relations Officer

Manager-PersonnelManager-Finance

Manager-Production

Production Engineer Sales Officer

Manager-Marketing

Foreman

Workers

Sales Supervisor

Fig. 8: Line and Staff Organisation

8. Matrix Organization Structure

The essence of matrix management is the combining of functional and product forms of departmentation in the same organization structure. This kind of organization is depicted in the following figure.

DIRECTOR OF ENGINEERING

Chief Metallurgical

Engineer

Chief Electrical Engineer

Chief of Preliminary

Design

Chief Mechanical

Engineer

Chief Civil

Engineer

Project AManager

Project DManager

Project BManager

Project CManager

Fig. 9: Matrix Organisation in Engineering

LINE AND STAFF AUTHORITY RELATIONSHIPS

Authority and Power

Power is a much broader concept. It is the ability of individuals or groups to induce or influence the beliefs or actions of other persons or groups. Authority in organization is the power in a position ( and through it the person occupying the position) to exercise discretion in making decisions affecting others. It is, of course, power, but power in an organization setting.

Although there are many different bases or sources of power, the power we are most concerned with is legitimate power. It normally arises from position and derives from our cultural system of rights, obligations and duties whereby a “position” is accepted by people as being “legitimate”. In a privately owned business, authority of position arises primarily from the social institution of rights of private property. In government, this authority arises basically from the institution of representative government. Legitimate power is called authority.

Power may also come from the expertness of a person or a group. This is the power of knowledge. Physicians, lawyers, and professors may have considerable influence on others by the fact that they are respected for their special knowledge. Power may further exist as referent power, that is, influence which people or groups may exercise because people believe in them and their ideas. Thus Martin Luther King had very little legitimate power but, by the force of his personality, his ideas, and his ability to preach, he strongly influenced the behaviour of many people. Likewise, a movie star or a military hero might possess considerable referent power.

In addition, power arises from the ability of some people to grant rewards. University Professors have considerable reward power by being able to grant or withhold high grades. Coercive power is still another source. It is the power to punish, whether by firing a subordinate or withholding a merit increase.

Line and Staff Concepts

1. Line and staff are characterized by relationships and not by departmental activities.

2. Line functions are those related directly with the attainment of organizational objectives and staff functions help the line functions in attaining the objectives.

3. Line authority is defined as a direct authority which a superior exercises over his subordinates to carry an order and instructions. The nature of the staff relationship is advisory. The function of people in a pure staff capacity is to investigate, research, and give advice to line managers to whom they report.

4.A manager stands in a line authority position with respect to his immediate subordinates in the same department. If, however, he counsels his superior, the Chief Executive Officer, on overall company policy, the relationship becomes one of staff. Similarly, a staff advisor becomes a line manager in his own department. For example, the public relations director is a staff advisor to the Chief executive officer. But within the department of public relations, the director stands in a line authority position with respect to his immediate subordinates.

The following figure depicts line and staff authority relationships in an organization.

Benefits in using staff:-

SalesOfficer B

Purchase Officer A

SalesOfficer A

Manager – Quality Control

Personal Secretary

Legal Advisor

Manager – Personnel

Public Relations Directors

Chief Executive Officer

Manager – Finance

Internal Auditor

Manager – IR

Manager – HRD

Manager – Budgets

Manager – Accounting

Manager – Sales

Manager - Advertising

Manager – Purchase

Manager – Production

Manager – Marketing

Purchase Officer B

Flow of Line AuthorityFlow of Staff Authority

Fig. 10: Line and Staff Authority Relationships

Flow of Staff Authority

Fig. 10 : Line and Staff Authority Relationships

1. Expert Knowledge in economic, technical, political, legal, and social areas.

2. Staff personnel have enough time to think, to gather data, and to analyze the problems, when their superiors, busy in managing an operation, cannot do so.

3. As problems become more complex, staff analysis and advice become an urgent necessity.

Limitations in using staff

1. Danger of undermining Line Authority : Line managers feel that staff personnel encroach upon their normal authority. As a result, they are reluctant to follow staff advice and recommendation.

2. Lack of Responsibility of staff: Staff departments only propose a plan. Line managers must make the decision to adopt it and put it into operation. If anything goes wrong in the implementation of plan, the staff people put the blame on line managers.

3. Thinking in a Vacuum:- Staff people fail to give fully considered, well – balanced, and sound advice. They are more academic and less practical.

4. Managerial Problems:- It is not easy for a department head to be responsible to two or three people. This makes difficult to follow the principle of unity of command. Further more, too much staff activity may complicate the line executive’s job of direction and control.

Wide Vs Narrow Spans

A narrow span throughout an organization causes tall or vertical structure, and a wide span causes a flat or horizontal structure. For example, if 100 workers are to be supervised and the span is kept limited to five, there would be four levels as compared to three if the span is ten. In the first case, the number of supervisors is 25 while in the second case their number is only 11 as shown below.

Tall Structure Flat Structure (Span = 5) (Span = 10)

100 100

20 10

4 1

1

Advantages Disadvantages

1. Close Supervision

2. Close Control

3. Fast Communication between subordinates and superiors

1. Superiors tend to get too involved in subordinate’s work.

2. Many levels of management

3. High costs due to many levels

4. Excessive distance between lowest level and top level.

Fig. 11: Organisation with narrow spans (Tall Structure)

Advantages Disadvantages

1. Superiors are forced to delegate

2. Clear policies must be made

3. Subordinates must be carefully selected

1. Tendency of over loaded superiors to become decision bottlenecks.

2. Danger of superior’s loss of control

3. Requires exceptional quality of managers.

Organizational Designs

Mechanistic Vs Organic Models

Mechanistic Model Organic Model

High specialization Rigid departmentalization Clear chain of command Narrow spans of control Centralization High formalization

Cross – functional teams Cross – hierarchical teams Free flow of information Wide spans of control Decentralization Low formalization

Fig. 12: Organisation with wide spans (Flat Structure)

WORK GROUPS AND GROUP DYNAMICS IN ORGANIZATION

WORK GROUP:

Definition: A work group can be described as a collection of individuals working towards a common goal and who are inter-dependent to a signification degree as they relate to, and interact with each other while performing their tasks.

Formal and Informal Groups: Both formal and informal groups exist in organizations. Formal groups are collections of employees who are made to work together by the organization to get the job done smoothly and efficiently. For example,, if five members are put together in a section to attend to customer complaints they would be a formal group. Members who have been grouped together in a department (e.g. personnel department) with task responsibilities assigned to them, are also a formal group.

Informal groups, on the other hand, are groups that emerge or randomly get formed due to the formal group members’ interactions with each other, and thereby, develop common interests. For example, two members from the production department who interact with a couple of people from the marketing department during the course of their work, may find that they have similar ideas and interests, develop an affinity towards one another, and frequently meet and talk to each other on work and non – work related matters, thus forming an informal group on their own. Members of the informal groups sometimes also interact with each other outside the work place.

Psychological Groups: In some informal groups, members may develop a high level of sentiments or affinity among themselves and become aware of one another’s needs and potential contributions. Such a group is called a psychological group. A strong “We” feeling and a “We”. orientation among the group members is one of the characteristics of psychological groups.

Types of Groups

1. Command group: A manager and his or her immediate subordinates

2. Task group: Those working together to complete a job task

3. Interest group: Those working together to attain a specific objective with which each is concerned.

4. Friendship group: Those brought together because they share one or more common characteristics.

Why do people join Groups?1. Security

2. Status

3. Self – esteem

4. Affiliation

5. Power

6. Goal Achievement

Groups DynamicsGroup dynamics is a global or comprehensive term used to describe the nuances of groups’ operations. It encompasses the dynamics of interaction patterns within the group, pressures exerted by group members, the manner in which decisions are made in the group, how work gets done and members’ needs are met.

Group BehaviourThe behaviour of individuals in their personal capacity can be more easily controlled than the behaviour of group members. George Homans (1950, 61) studies small groups and their behaviour patterns and formulated theories capturing the complexity of group behaviour.

Required and Emergent Behaviour:George Homans made a distinction between what he called “required” and “emergent” behaviours. Required behaviours refer to those actions that the organization expects the employees to engage in to get the job done. These are communicated to employees through job descriptions, staff regulations and other formal documents. Emergent behaviours, on the other hand, are those behaviours that group members actually engage in at the work place as members of the informal group. Homans used three concepts: activities, interactions and sentiments to explain the required and emergent behaviours of group members.

Activities, Interactions and Sentiments:Activities are those behaviours that group members engage in, and include the efforts they make, both in getting the required groups tasks done, and engaging in social activities such as taking coffee breaks together, going out for lunch at the same time, chatting etc. The group task activities are required behaviours and the social activities are emergent behaviours.Interactions are the face-to-face dealings among group members, whether within their own work group or with other group members in the organization. Interactions involve information exchange – giving and receiving information.

Sentiments are feelings, attitudes, beliefs and values held by group members.

Activities result in interactions and interactions give rise to sentiments.

The relationships among the concepts discussed above are diagrammed in the following figure

Fig. 13 Task Requirements, Group Behaviours and Outcomes

Decision – making in Groups:

1. Individual decision making

2. Consultative decision – making

3. Group decision making

FORMAL GROUP INFORMAL GROUP PSYCHOLOGICAL GROUP

REQUIREMENTS OF THE JOB: DIVISION OF LABOUR, CO-ORDINATION

REQUIRED BEHAVIOUR EMERGENT BEHAVIOUR “WE” FEELING

- Activities - Interactions

ActivitiesInteractionsSentiments

GROUP PROCESSESNORMSCOHESION Etc

OUTCOMES

PsychologicalAwareness & Identification with Group

PerformanceProductivitySatisfaction of organizational Members

GROUP EFFECTIVENESS

A Framework for Examining Factors Influencing Group Effectiveness:

INPUTS THROUGHPUTS(Group Processes)

OUTPUTS

ORGANISATIONAL SETTING:

Work Environment, Seating, Layout

Workflow arrangementsGroup sizeReward system

NATURE OF TASK

Task complexity Analyzability of

procedures

GROUP MEMBERS’ CHARACTERISTICS & COMPOSITION

Skills, Abilities, Experience

Work values Status congruence Number of

Members

NORMS & COHESIONS

DECISION - MAKING PROCEDURES

TASK & MAINTENANCE ROLES

TASK PERFORMANCE

Quality Quantity Timeliness

HUMAN RESOURCES MAINTENANCE

Group Morale Member satisfaction

Fig. 14: Input – Throughput – Output Model of Group Effectiveness.

Properties and Characteristics of highly effective groups:

1. Members of the group are skilled in the various leadership and membership roles and functions.

2. Groups have been in existence sufficiently long to have developed effective working relationships.

3. Members and leaders have high confidence and trust in each other and are committed and loyal to the group.

4. Members are highly motivated to abide by the values important to the group, and all interactions, problem solving, and decision – making activities of the group occur in a supportive atmosphere.

5. The group is eager to help each member develop his/her full potential and the leader and members are willing to stretch themselves to accomplish difficult tasks.

6. The leader exerts influence in establishing the tone and atmosphere for work by his/her leadership principles and practices.

7. Creativity is encouraged in the group.

8. Communication flows freely in the group

9. Group remains flexible and adaptable.

STAGES OF GROUP DEVELOPMENT

1. Forming: The forming stage is when the work group is just formed and members are formally placed together in a work group. At this stage, group members try to comprehend where they stand in the group and how they are being perceived by others in the group. The members are very cautious in their interactions with each other and the relationships among the group members are very superficial. Any decisions made in the group are made by the more vocal members. Members seldom express their feelings in the group.

2. Storming: Some time after the formal group is created, internal sub – groups get developed. There are limited interactions initially among the group members due to the newness of the group.

However, small groups of two or three members interact with each other and make an effort to get to know each other better. Thus, sub – groups get formed. Once this sub – grouping process takes place and members begin to feel somewhat more comfortable in the group, they try to establish their positions and test their powers in the bigger group. At this stage, disagreements tend to get expressed among the group members, and feelings of anxiety and resentment are also expressed. Some power struggle may ensue at this stage to determine who should assume the informal leadership role in the group. This storming is also known as the sub – grouping and confrontation stage.

3. Norming: Norming is the next stage where the disagreements, differences, and power issues, which were dominant at the storming stage, get worked out. The group sets normals, tries to attain some degree of cohesiveness, understands the goals of the group; starts making good decisions, expresses feelings openly, and makes attempts to resolve problems and attain group effectiveness. This stage is also referred to by some as the individual differentiation stage and by others as the initial integration stage. At this stage in the group’s development the individual members’ roles get defined and the task and the maintenance roles are assumed by group members. Group members also begin to express satisfaction and confidence about being members of the group.

4. Performing: This final performing stage is reached when collaboration among the group members is at its highest. At this stage the group has matured fully. The members are committed to the group goals, have complete trust in each other, and allow honest disagreements to be freely expressed but make sure that the conflicts are satisfactorily resolved as and when they occur. The group evaluates members’ performance so that the group members develop and grow. Feelings are expressed at this stage without fear, leadership roles are shared among the members, and the group members’ activities are highly coordinated. The task and maintenance roles are played very effectively. The task performance levels are high and member satisfaction, pride, and commitment to the group are also high. Both performance and member satisfaction are sustained indefinitely. This stage is also referred to as the collaboration stage by some, and as the final integration stage by others. Since reaching this stage requires a long period of time and member homogeneity in values and goals, very few work groups in organization reach this final stage.

5. Adjourning: For permanent work groups, performing is the last stage in their development. However, for temporary committees, teams, task forces and similar groups that have a limited task to perform, there is an adjourning stage. In this stage, the group prepares for its disbandment. High task performance is no longer the group’s top priority. Instead, attention is directed towards wrapping up activities.

GROUP DECISION-MAKING TECHNIQUES

1. Interacting Groups: The most common form of group decision making takes place in interacting groups. In these groups, members meet face-to-face and rely on both verbal and non-verbal interaction to communicate with each other. But, interacting groups often censor themselves and pressure individual members towards conformity of opinion.

2. Brainstorming: Brainstorming is meant to overcome pressures for conformity in the interacting groups that retard the development of creative alternatives. It is an idea generation process that specifically encourages any and all alternatives while withholding any criticism of those alternatives.

In a typical brainstorming session, 6 to 12 people sit around a table. The group leader states the problem in a clear manner so that it is understood by all participants. Members then “freewheel” as many alternatives as they can in a given length of time. No criticism is allowed, and all the alternatives are recorded for later discussion and analysis. Brainstorming, however, is merely a process for generating ideas. The following two techniques go further by offering methods of actually arriving at a preferred solution.

3. Nominal Group Technique: It restricts discussion or interpersonal communication during the decision-making process, hence, the term nominal. Group members are all physically present, as in a traditional committee meeting, but members operate independently. Specifically, a problem is presented and then the following steps take place:

(i) Members meet as a group but, before any discussion takes place, each member independently writes down his or her ideas on the problem.

(ii) After this silent period, each member presents one idea to the group. Each member takes his or her turn, presenting a single idea until all ideas have been presented and recorded. No discussion takes place until all ideas have been recorded

(iii) The groups now discusses the ideal for clarity and evaluates them.

(iv) Each member silently and independently rank-orders the ideas. The idea with the highest aggregate ranking determines the final decision.

The chief advantage of the nominal group technique is that it permits the group to meet formally but does not restrict independent thinking, as does the interacting group.

4. Electronic Meeting: The most recent approach to group decision making blends the nominal group technique with sophisticated computer technology. It is called the computer-assisted group or electronic meeting upto 50 people sit around a table with a series of computer terminals. Issues are presented to participants and they type their responses onto their computer screen. Individual comments, as well as aggregate votes, are displayed on a projection screen in the room.

The major advantages of electronic meetings are anonymity, honesty and speed. Participants can anonymously type any message they want and it flashes on the screen for all to see at the push of a participant’s keyboard. And it is fast because chitchat is eliminated, and many participants can “talk” at once without stepping on one another’s toes.

Each of these four group decision techniques has its own set of strengths and weaknesses. The choice of one technique over another will depend on what criteria you want to emphasize and the cost-benefit trade off. For instance, the interacting group is good for building group cohesiveness, brainstorming keeps social pressures to a minimum, the nominal group technique is an inexpensive means for generating a large number of ideas, and electronic meetings process ideas fast.

Strengths of Group Decision making

1. Groups generate more complete information and knowledge.

2. They offer increased diversity of views

3. They generate higher quality decisions

4. Groups lead to increased acceptance of a solution.

Weakness of Group Decision making:

1. They are time consuming

2. There are conformity pressures in groups

3. Dominance by one or a few members

4. Ambiguous responsibility.

GROUP COHESIVENESS

Definition: The term cohesiveness means the extent to which members of a group like each other and want to remain members of the group. It refers to the extent of unity and agreement among the group members.

Sources of Group Cohesiveness (Factors influencing Group Cohesiveness)

1. Group size: All things being equal, small groups are more likely to be cohesive than large groups. The reason for this is simple. Small groups allow for much more interaction among group members than larger groups. When a group gets too large, it is hard to sustain a lot of contact among all the group members. The group tends to split into smaller groups that are cohesive within themselves, but may be isolated from the others.

2. Shared success in Meeting Goals: Shared success in meeting goals also increases group cohesiveness. When the group meets its goals, it reaffirms its self-image as an effective group and solidarity is sustained. Group failure, on the other hand, makes the group much less attractive to its members; people begin to question the abilities and motives of their coworkers.

3. Similarity of Attitudes and Values: One of the strongest sources of group cohesiveness is shared attitudes and values among group members. We enjoy spending time with others who hold the same opinions because they provide us with a feeling that our opinions are right. In contrast, people whose views differ greatly from our own evoke some fear in us that we are wrong-headed.

Consequences of Group Cohesiveness: On almost every index of satisfaction and morale, cohesive groups rank higher than non-cohesive groups. Members of cohesive groups evaluate other members in their group more positively, and have more favourable opinion of the group as a whole. There tends to be little conflict in cohesive groups, for members of cohesive groups tend to feel less tense and anxious with each other.

1. Communication: Members of cohesive groups communicate with each other more frequently. Members of cohesive groups tend to have more in common with each other, and therefore find conversation with each other to be more pleasurable. Research suggests that members of cohesive groups also show greater sensitivity to each other; they are more accurate in perceiving the feelings of fellow group members.

2. Hostility and Agression towards Non-group Members: Unfortunately, members of cohesive groups tend to have an overly negative view of individuals outside their own group. Because individuals in cohesive groups are so positive about their own groups, they tend to downplay the competence and effectiveness of other groups. As a result, members of cohesive groups tend to express increased hostility and aggression towards non-group members.

3. Productivity: The strongest influence group cohesiveness has on productivity is that it decreases productivity differences among members of a work group. Members of a cohesive group value the group’s good opinion and are unlikely to risk losing the group’s esteem by producing much more or less than the group expects.

However, group cohesiveness does not necessarily lead to higher overall productivity. In the largest scale study of the impact of group cohesiveness is as frequently associated with low productivity as with high productivity. Cohesiveness will decrease the amount of variability in performance among members of a work group, but will not necessarily increase the productivity of the group as a whole.

Factors influencing the Productivity of Cohesive Groups

1. Antagonism / Friendliness between Workers and Management

2. Dull Jobs / Interesting Jobs

EFFECTIVE TEAMS

Meaning: A team is a group of individuals who work in a face-to-face relationship to achieve a common goal and where individuals share collective accountability for the outcome of the team’s effort. The most important characteristic of a team is that it creates synergy, that is, the performance of the team is better than the collective performance of the individual members.

Work Groups and Teams The following table shows the differences between groups and teams.

Table 1: Difference Between Work Groups and Teams

Basis Work Groups Teams

Purpose Same as organization Specific

Work products Individual Collective

Process Discuss, Decide, Delegate Discuss, Decide, Do

Leadership A single leader Shared

Meetings Efficient Open, problem-solving

Accountability Individual Individual and mutual

Evaluation Indirect (e.g. financial) Direct (collective work

product)

Effective teams take time to build in an organization and comprise three processes:

(i) Team Development, (ii) Team Roles, and (iii) Team Effectiveness.

TEAM DEVELOPMENT: Kormanski and Mozenter suggested the following stages of team development. These stages are sequential. Each stage has a task outcome and a relationship outcome, as shown below:

Table :2 A Model of Team-building

Stage Theme Task outcome Relationship outcome

One Awareness Commitment Acceptance

Two Conflict Clarification Belonging

Three Co-operation Involvement Support

Four Productivity Achievement Pride

Five Separation Recognition Satisfaction

TEAM ROLES: Margerison and McCann have identified key potential team roles for different team members. One member can play more than one team role. The members play these roles according to their preferences and skills. The team can also identify people with the relevant skills and encourage them to take on the roles that fit. The mine team roles they suggest are as follows:

1. Creator – Initiates Creative ideas

2. Promoter – Champions ideas after they are initiated

3. Assessor – Offers insightful analysis of options

4. Organiser – Provides Structure

5. Producer – Provides direction and follow-through

6. Controller – Examines details and enforces rules

7. Maintainer – Fights external battles

8. Adviser – Encourages the search for more information

9. Linker – Co-ordinates and integrates

TEAM EFFECTIVENESS: Dyer summarized the following characteristics of an effective work team as suggested by McGregor and Likert.

1. Commitment and inspiring goals

2. Role clarity

3. Self-disclosure (including confrontation)

4. Openness to feedback

5. Competence

6. Creativity with constructive confrontation

7. Collaboration / Support / Trust

8. Congruence between individual and group goals

9. Supportive Leadership

10. Management of Power

TEAM BUILDING: The process of making teams effective is called team-building. The following steps are suggested for team building.

1. Projection into the future: The team may prepare a common vision of its desirable future. Members individually or in small groups, may prepare a picture of their team as they see it in the next five or seven years. A specific future scenario will help to inspire individuals to move towards it. The future is a better diagnostic device than analysis of the past.

2. Linkage with individual goals: The vision of the team’s future should be linked with the individuals’ aspirations and goals. Individuals may discuss in small groups how their own aspirations and goals in life can be achieved through the ideal of the team’s future developed by the group.

3. Force field Analysis: The team may identify the forces which are positive and helping the team to move towards the desirable future and the forces which are likely to hinder its progress towards that future. Such analysis is helpful in selecting the next step.

4. Strengthening positive forces :The team may explore ways of reinforcing the positive aspects which can help the team achieve its desirable future. They can take each positive force and workout plans to strengthen it further.

5. Reducing Negative forces: The teams can take up all the restraining or inhibiting forces and can plan specific action steps to reduce, if not eliminate, them.

6. Monitoring: After decisions are taken to work on strengthening positive forces and reducing negative forces, a plan can be prepared to monitor the action being taken. The responsibility of monitoring can be taken by one or two members and the team may meet from time to time to review the progress.

Kormanski and Mozenter have suggested the following characteristics of team members contributing to team effectiveness.

Members of effective teams

Understand and are committed to group goals.

Are friendly, concerned and interested in others

Acknowledge and confront conflict openly

Listen to others with understanding

Include others in the decision-making process

Recognise and respect individual differences

Contribute ideas and solutions

Value the ideas and contributions of others

Recognise and reward team efforts, and

Encourage and appreciate comments about team performance

COMMUNICATION

Definition: The word communication has been derived from the Latin word “COMMUNIS”, which can be translated as common. Communication can be defined as the process through which two or more persons come to exchange ideas and understanding among themselves. In the words of Louis A allen, “Communication is the sum of all the things one person does when he wants to create understanding in the mind of another. It involves a systematic and continuous process of telling, listening and understanding”. As Haney has put it, “Communication is imminently essential in business, in government, military organizations, hospitals, schools, homes-anywhere people deal with one another. It is difficult, in fact, to imagine any kind of inter-personal activity which does not depend upon communication”.

COMMUNICATION PROCESS

A Communication process may involve various elements as shown below:

Fig. 15 The Communication Process

1. Sender: The person who intends to make contact with the objective of passing information, ideas to other persons is known as sender.

2. Ideas: This is the subject-matter of communication. This might be opinion, attitude, feelings, views, suggestions, orders, etc.

3. Encoding: Since the subject-matter of communication is abstract and intangible, its transmission requires the use of certain symbols such as words, actions, pictures, etc. Conversion of the subject-matter into these symbols is the process of encoding.

4. Channel: These symbols are transmitted through certain channels e.g radio, telephone, television, fax, computer etc., depending upon the situation of the two parties, viz sender and receiver.

5. Receiver: Receiver is the person to whom message is meant for.

Sender Ideas Encoding Channel Receiver Decodingr

Feedback

6. Decoding: Receiver converts the symbols received from the sender to give him the meaning of the message.

7. Feedback: Feedback is necessary to ensure that the receiver has received the message and understands it in the same sense as sender wants.

COMMUNICATION NETWORK

In an organization, there are a number of channels or paths connecting various positions for purposes of communication. The sum-total of these channels is referred to as ‘Communication network’. This is made up of two types of channels which are interrelated and interdependent, viz. formal and informal.

Formal Channel: The formal channel is the deliberately crated officially prescribed path for flow of communication between the various positions in the organization. It is a deliberate attempt to regulate the flow of organizational communication so as to make it orderly and thereby to ensure that information flows smoothly, accurately and timely to the points to which it is required. The channel of communication under this system is narrow, but ordinarily it does allow for flow of essential information. Besides it is easy to maintain, orderly in nature, support the authority of the superiors and provides for closeness of contact thereby reducing channels of miscommunication. It helps in exercising control over subordinates and in fixation of responsibility in respect of activities carried on by a person in the organization. It has certain limitations, such as, bottlenecks in the flow, enhancing organizational distance, greater possibility of transmission errors, screening at various filtering points, etc.

Informal Channel or Grapevine: The informal channel of communication, also known as ‘Grapevine’, is the result not of any official action, but of the operation of social forces at work place. It exists outsides the official network, though continuously interacting with it. This informal channel is generally multiple in nature: same person having social relationships with a number of people working in the same organization.

TYPES OF GRAPEVINE

Four types of informal channel have been identified: Single strand Gossip, Probability and Cluster as shown in the following figure:

In single strand network, the individual communicates with other individuals through intervening persons. In the gossip network, the individual communicates non-selectively. In probability network, the individual communicates randomly with other individuals according to the law of probability. In the cluster network, the individual communicates with only those individuals whom he trusts. Out of these informal networks, the cluster is most popular.

COMMUNICATION MEDIA

The subject-matter of communication, i.e. messages, ideas, suggestions, etc being abstract and intangible, their transmission and receipt require use of certain symbols, which become the media of communication. These symbols may be (i) words either oral or written; (ii) pictures including graphs and diagrams; and (iii) actions or gestures including facial expression. Of these, oral and written methods of communication are the most important.

Oral Communication; In oral communication, both the parties of the process i.e sender and receiver, exchange their ideas through oral words either in face-to-face communication or through any mechanical or electrical device, such as telephone etc.Oral communication is very helpful in face-to-face two-way communication where persons can exchange their feelings, fully and clarity regarding any doubt or ambiguity may be sought. It has very high degree of potentiality for speedy and complete interchange of information.

Single Strand Gossip ProbabilityCluster

Fig. 16 Informal Communication Network

Oral communication suffers from the disadvantages of absence of any permanent record of communication. Sometimes, it becomes time consuming especially in meetings and conferences when after various deliberations, nothing concrete comes out. There is also a possibility that the spoken words are not clearly heard or understood.

Written Communication: Communication in writing-written words, graphs, diagrams, pictures, etc – may take the form of letters, circulars, notes, manuals, etc.

Written communication possesses the capacity of being stored for future reference. The communication efforts may be minimized by simultaneous communication to various points through circulars, letters, emails, etc. It also enables the communication to take place between distantly placed parties without much cost.

Written communication, however, suffers from major drawbacks. It is very time consuming in terms of both preparing and understanding the message. Sometimes it is costlier than oral communication.

FORMS OF COMMUNICATION

1. Downward Communication

ORAL WRITTEN1. Personal instructions 1. Orders & instructions2. Lectures, conferences & meetings 2. Letters, memos, circulars3. Interviews, counseling 3. Bulletin & notice boards4. Social & cultural affairs 4. Posters5. Grapevine, rumours 5. Handbooks & manuals

6. Annual reports7. Union publications

2. Upward Communication

ORAL WRITTEN1. Face-to-face conversation 1. Reports2.Interviews 2. Personal Letters 3.Meetings & conferences 3. Grievances4. Social & cultural affairs 4. Suggestion system 5. Grapevine; rumours 5. Complaints system6. Telephone & other devices 6. Attitude & morale surveys

7. Union publications3. Horizontal Communication

ORAL WRITTEN1.Lectures, conferences, meetings 1. Letters, memos, reports2.Telephone & other devices 2. Handbooks & manuals3.Social & Cultural affairs 3. Annual Reports5. Grapevine; rumours 4. Union publications

DIRECTION OF COMMUNICATION

1. Downward Communication: Downward communication flows from superior to the subordinates.

2. Upward Communication: It flows from a subordinate position to a superior position.

3. Horizontal Communication: It is flow of information between persons of the same hierarchical level.

ESSENTIALS OF EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

There are several elements in communication which can be evaluated to assess directly the effectiveness of communication. These elements are:

1.Clarity 2. Adequacy 3. Timing & 4. Integrity

BARRIERS IN COMMUNICATION

The barriers in communication may be classified as (i) External (ii) Organizational and (iii) Personal barriers.

I.EXTERNAL BARRIERS

1. Semantic Barriers: Semantic barriers are obstructions caused in the process of receiving or understanding of the message during the process of encoding and decoding ideas and words. These barriers arise form the linguistic capacity of the parties involved. The following are some semantic barriers:

i. Badly expressed message

ii. Faulty translations

iii. Unclarified assumptions

iv. Specialist’s language

2. Emotional or psychological Barriers: Emotional or psychological factors are the prime barriers in inter – personal communication.

The following are some emotional barriers:

(i) Premature evaluation

(ii) Inattention

(iii) Loss by transmission & poor retention

(iv) Undue reliance on the written word

(v) Distrust of communicator

(vi) Failure to communicateII. ORGANIZATIONAL BARRIERS:

Major organization al barriers may be as follows:

1. Organizational policy

2. Organizational rules & regulations

3. Status relationships

4. Complexity in organization structure

5. Organizational facilities

III. PERSONAL BARRIERS

Barriers in Superiors:

1. Attitude of superiors 2. Fear of challenge to authority

3. Insistence on proper channel 4. Lack of confidence in subordinates

5. Ignoring communication 6. Lack of time

7. Lack of awareness

Barriers in subordinates

1. Unwillingness to communicate 2. Lack of proper incentive

MAKING COMMUNICATION EFFECTIVE:

There are various guidelines for making communication effective. American Management Association has suggested tem commandments of good communication. These are:

1. Clarity in Idea

2. Purpose of communication

3. Empathy in communication-projecting oneself into the view point of the

other person

4. Two – way communication

5. Appropriate language.

6. Supporting words with action

7. Value pf communication to the receiver

8. Follow – up action

9. Credibility in communication

10. Good listening.

CONTROLLING

The managerial function of controlling is the measurement and correction of performance in order to make sure that enterprise objectives and the plans devised to attain them are being accomplished. Planning and controlling are closely related. Without objectives and plans, control is not possible, because performance has to be measured against some established criteria.

THE BASIC CONTROL PROCESS (Feedback in Management control)

Critical control points and Standards:

Standards are yardsticks against which actual or expected performance is measured. The principle of critical – point control states: Effective control requires attention to those factors critical to evaluating performance against plans.

Types of Critical – Point Standards:

1. Physical standards

2. Cost standards

3. Capital standards

4. Revenue Standards

5. Program Standards

6. Intangible Standards

7. Goals as Standards

8. Strategic Plans as control points for strategic control.

Desired Performance

Actual Performance

Measurement of actual

Performance

Comparison of Actual

Performance against standards

Implementation of

CorrectionsProgram of Corrective

action

Analysis of causes of deviations

Identification of

deviations

Fig. 17: The Process of Control

Requirements for effective controls:

1. Tailoring controls to plans and positions

2. Tailoring controls to individual managers

3. Making sure that controls point up exceptions at critical points

4. Seeking objectivity of controls

5. Ensuring flexibility of controls

6. Fitting the control system to the organizational culture

7. Achieving economy of control

8. Establishing controls that lead to corrective action

CONTROL OF HUMAN ELEMENT

Recognition of human element is a significant factor while designing any control system. The management must try to know the reactions of subordinates for various types of controls imposed on them. Subordinates often resist controls which are likely to restrict their freedom and obstruct the achievement of their personal goals.

Why Control?

From the organization’s point of view, controls are almost indispensable to ensure that the employees work as per rules, procedures, standards and norms of the organization. Controls help circumscribe idiosyncratic behaviours and keep them in conformance with the organizational plans. Thus, controls are necessary to regulate the behaviour of organizational members and to increase organizational effectiveness. They also create predictability of the behaviour of organizational members. If there are no controls, the individuals will tend to pursue their personal goals at the cost of organizational goals.

In a study to analyse the impact of controls upon individuals, Tannenbaum came to the following conclusions:

(i) Control has both rational and symbolic implications. It tells what an individual must or must not do. It also implies something about the person’s importance and freedom in the organization.

(ii) Most persons prefer to exercise control over themselves and their surroundings. They usually experience greater satisfaction when they are able to exercise self-control.

(iii) When one can exercise some control, one is more likely to identify with and support the organisation’s objectives.

(iv) Persons who are unable to exercise control tend to be less satisfied with their work and to be apathetic and alienated. Such persons lack the personal involvement of those who exercise control.

(v) Those who exercise control may more willingly accept controls upon themselves. Due to greater involvement and loyalty, such persons might more readily submit to controls.

How do individuals react to Controls?

Subordinates often resist controls which are likely to restrict their freedom and obstruct the achievement of their personal goals. They react to controls in the following ways:

(a) Compliance: The employees cooperate with the management and offer their compliance willingly.

(b) Deliberate deviation: The employees may devise innovative ways of deviation from controls and may keep the deviations from being discovered.

(c) Agression: The employees may show aggressive behaviour against controls. They may try to sabotage the controls to render them ineffective.

(d) Apathy: The employees may adopt an attitude of indifference against the imposition of controls.

(e) Absenteeism: Some employees may absent themselves from the workplace to escape the controls temporarily. They may proceed on long leave.

(f) Transfer: Some employees may seek transfer to other departments to escape controls.

(g) Resignation: Some employees who are not willing to accept controls may leave the organization if they get suitable jobs somewhere else.

(h) Group Dynamics: Employees may from informal groups to resist the pressures brought upon them by controls.

(i) Unionisation: Employees may join labour unions to take up their grievances against the management controls. Unions try to nullify the adverse affects of controls on employees through the process of collective bargaining and other weapons such as strike, gherao, picketing etc.

Reasons for Human Resistance to Controls

Controls imply and involve a continuous check on the performance and behaviour of individuals. Some individuals adjust with controls, whereas others resist controls in one way or the other. People dislike and resist controls because of the following reasons:

i) The controls may be perceived as curbs to freedom of individuals and as instruments of oppression.

ii) The controls may suppress the creative and innovative urges and ability of the employees.

iii) The standards of performance may be imposed from the top and the subordinates have no say in their determination. The standards of performance may be rigid and unrealistic.

iv) The performance appraisal may concentrate on witch hunting and fault finding rather than guiding the employees for better action.

v) There may be no place for self control even for intelligent and responsible employees. Controls may be based on the assumption that people are basically lazy, they shirk work and they need to be supervised closely and strictly.

vi) The controls may be administered in a discriminatory, arbitrary and whimsical manner.

Overcoming Resistance to Controls

Controls are aimed at getting results through the people. The individual’s behaviour towards controls may range from their acceptance to total rejection. Therefore, the human element must be given due consideration while designing and implementing any type of control.

Whenever there is resistance to controls, the management should try to analyse the reasons of such resistance and take appropriate steps to overcome resistance or modify the controls.

In general the, following measures may be suggested to avoid or overcome resistance to controls by the workers.

i) The controls should be realistic and flexible. They should make allowance for general human behaviour.

ii) The controls should give adequate emphasis to self-direction and self-control of people. They should allow the people to make use of their creativity. They should not operate to suppress the genuine aspirations of people for self-expression and development.

iii) The people whose behaviour and performance are to be controlled must have a say in the determination of standards and administration of controls.

iv) The management should have faith in the ability and capacity of subordinates and should follow selective control only. “Control by exception” should be the rule where subordinates are responsible and can be depended upon.

v) The reward system in the organization should be integrated with the various kinds of controls. The subordinates should be offered rewards for acceptable performance and behaviour so that they may get positive reinforcement.

vi) There should be consistent operation of various kinds of controls. They should not give undue power to the superiors to discriminate between individuals.

vii) There should be two-way communication in the organization. The employees should be free to send their reactions and suggestions to the top management. The managers at various levels should be persuasive, they should tell their subordinates that controls are directed to achieve the goals of the organization and not curb the freedom of individuals.

LEADERSHIP

Definition: - Leadership is defined as the process of influencing group activities towards the accomplishment of goals in a given situation. Leadership is unanimously agreed as a psychological process of influencing followers and providing guidance to them. Leadership is essential to influence people to achieve mutually compatible objectives. In fact, all organizational success can be attributed to leadership.

FUNCTIONS OF A LEADER

1. Leader develops team work

2. Leader is a representative of subordinates

3. Leader is an appropriate counsellor

4. He uses power properly

5. Leader manages the time well

6. He strives for effectiveness

MANAGING AND LEADING

Leading and managing are not synonymous. The difference between these tow terms ‘leading’ and ‘managing are as under.

1. Relationships: The managerial relationship arises within the organizational context, whereas leadership does not have to originate in the context of the organization. For example, a mob can have a leader but cannot have a manager. Further, in an organization informal groups have leaders – not managers.

2. Sources of influences: Managers obtain authority from the organization and the leader gets power from his followers.

3. Sanctions: A manager has control over the positive sanctions such as promotion and awards for high task performance and the contribution to organizational objectives. He is also in a position to exercise negative sanctions such as with holding promotion or increments, demotion in some cases of extreme default or mistakes, etc. In a sharp contrast, a leader has altogether different type of sanctions to exercises and grant. He can grant or withhold access to satisfying the very purpose of joining the groups – social satisfaction and related task rewards. These sanctions are essentially

informal in nature. These informal sanctions are relevant to the individual with belongingness or ego needs; whereas the organization sanctions granted or exercised by the manager are geared to the psychological and security needs of individual.

4. Role continuance: A manager may contribute in office as long as his performance is satisfactory and acceptable to the organization. On the contrary, leader maintains his position through the wish of the followers i.e. how well he facilitates his group in accomplishing their objectives.

5. Reasons for following: People follow managers because their job description, supported by a system of rewards and sanctions, requires them to follow. On the other hand, people follow leaders on voluntary basis. Further, if there are no followers, leader cases to exist. But even if there are no followers managers may be there.

6. Accountability: Managers are accountable for the job behaviour of those managed as well as their won behaviour. Leaders are not accountable for the behaviour of their followers in the similar fashion of the manager’s accountability.

LEADERSHIP STYLES

Basically, three styles are listed out – autocratic democratic and free rein.

Autocratic/Authoritative/Directive style: An autocratic leader centralizes power and decision – making in himself and exercises complete control over the subordinates. He holds over the head of his subordinates the threat of penalties and punishment. He sets the group goal and strucut5res and work. He runs his own show. The leaders give order and the subordinates are to follow them ungrudgingly and unquestioningly. The problem with this style is that subordinates are made aware of what to do but not why. In autocratic situations, frustration, low morale and conflict develop easily. Subordinates are induced to avoid responsibility, initiative and innovative behaviour. Autocratic leadership can be only as good as the leader i.e. If the leader is weak and incompetent, the followers, will be weak and incompetent.

Autocratic style permits quick decision – making and hence can be applied with success in situations where.

1. The subordinates lack knowledge of company goals.

2. The subordinates are inexperienced or lack in training

3. The company endorses fear and punishment as accepted disciplinary

techniques

4. The leader prefers to be active, and dominant in decision – making and

5. There is little room for error in final accomplishment

Again under condition of stress or when great speed and efficiency are required autocratic leadership can yield positive outcome. It can increase productivity, and somewhat more surprising it can also enhance morale.

Democratic/participative style: In contrast to the autocrat, the democratic leader practices leadership by consultation. He is like a theory Y leader and invites decision sharing. Here authority is decentralized. Decisions are arrived at after consultation with followers and participation by them. The subordinates are also encourages to exploit their potential and assume greater challenging responsibilities. This style improves job satisfaction, group cohesiveness and morale of employees.

L

Autocratic

L

Participative Leadership styles

L

Free – rein

Participative leadership style is appropriate where:

1. The organization has communicated its goals and the objectives to the subordinates and the subordinates have accepted them.

2. Rewards and involvement are used as the primary means of motivation and control.

3. The leader truly desires to hear the ideas of his employees before making decisions.

4. The leader wishes to develop analytical and self- control abilities in his subordinates.

5. The workers are reasonably knowledgeable and experienced.

6. The subordinates desire active and true involvement in matters that affect them.

7. The time for task completion allows for the participation.

Participative style is a appreciated on the grounds that:

1. The leader cultivates the decision – making abilities of his subordinates.

2. The leader seriously listens to and thoroughly reviews the ideas of his subordinates and accepts their contributions wherever possible and practical.

3. Participative style is not always a bed of roses. It is attacked on the following grounds:

a. Participative style is a misleading term. There is always a danger of misinterpretation of decision sharing. Subordinates may view the leader as incompetent to handle crisis independently. Participation may also be interpreted as a sing of inefficiency on the part of the leader to deal with the problems and taking decisions.

b. Participative leadership is time – consuming.

c. It is a mean of abdication of the responsibility for some leaders.

Authoritarian / Democratic Styles

Authoritative Participative1. Manager exhibiting this style is

labeled as a ‘Theory X’ leader 2. Leader is autocratic, task –

oriented and restrictive3. Leader structures the task strives

to find out better methods, and keeps the employees busy on tasks.

4. One way communication5. Centralized decision – making

and quick decision6. Because of greater resistance

change winning over employee confidence and obtaining commitment to task is difficult.

Manager exhibiting this style is labeled as a ‘Theory Y’Leader is democratic, follower oriented and permissive.Leader is considerate of his subordinates, recognizes their needs and respects their human dignity.

Two – way communicationDecentralized decision-making and slow process of making decision.Because resistance to change is minimum, leader gains a consented and cohesive group confidence

Free – rein Leadership style:

Free – rein leader is a rather complete delegation of authority into the hands of the subordinates so that they must plan motivate, control and otherwise be responsible for their own actions. The free – rein leader avoids power and relinquishes the leadership position. Lack of self – confidence and fear of failure.

(i) The organizational goals have been communicate well and are acceptable to the subordinate.

(ii) The leader is interested in delegating decision – making fully.

(iii) The subordinates themselves are well – trained and highly knowledgeable concerning their tasks and are ready to assume responsibilities.

The problem with this abdicate style is that is trends to permit various units of an organization to proceed at cross-purposes and can degenerate into chaos. Hence it should be the rate excepting not a general rule.

THEORIES OF LEADERSHIP

1. Trait theories of Leadership:

The trait approach is concerned mainly with identifying the personality traits of the leader. Keith Davis summarized personality traits, which seem to have an impact on successful organizational leadership.

1. Intelligence: Research generally shows that leaders have higher intelligence than the average intelligence of their followers. Interestingly, however, leaders cannot be exceedingly much more intelligent than their followers.

2. Social maturity and breadth: Leaders tend to be emotionally stable and mature and to have broad interests and activities. They have an assumed respectful self – concept.

3. Inner motivation and achievement drives: Leaders have relatively intense motivational derives of the achievement type. They strive for intrinsic rather than extrinsic rewards.

4. Human relations attitudes: Successful leaders recognize the worth and dignity of their followers and are able to empathies with them. Leaders possess consideration. They are employee rather than production centered.

This approach to leadership implies that understanding leadership effectiveness in organization requires the identification and measurement of the personality traits, abilities and social skills of the leaders. (see Table 1)

Table:1

Personality Traits, Abilities, and social skills Most Frequently Associated with Effective Leadership

Personality Traits Abilities Social skillsAdaptability Intelligence Ability to enlist

cooperationAdjustment (normality) Judgement &

decisivenessAdministrative ability

Aggressive and assertiveness

Cooperativeness

Dominance Knowledge Popularity and prestige

Emotional balance & control

Fluency of speech

Independence Sociability (inter personal skills)

Originality & creativityPersonal integrity (ethical conduct)

Social participation

Self confidence Tact and diplomacy

II. BEHAVIOURAL THEORIES OF LEADERSHIP

Trait theories of leadership focus upon personal characteristics of the leader and try to explain leadership effectiveness of the basis of what type of person the leader is. An alternative approach is to focus instead on what the leader actually does when he or she is dealing with subordinates.

Behavioural theories of leadership effectiveness focus upon leader behaviour and seek to understand the relationship between what the leader does and how subordinates react emotionally (their levels of satisfaction with work) and behaviourally (their job performance).

The Ohio State studies: Researchers at Ohio state University identified two distinct, relatively broad categories of leader behaviour. The two categories were labeled consideration and initiating structure.

Consideration refers to the extent to which a leader is considerate of subordinates and concerned about the quality of his or her relationship with subordinates.

Initiating structure refers to the extent to which a leader is task-oriented and concerned with utilizing resources and personnel effectively in order to accomplish group goals. The nature of these two dimensions of leader behaviour is summarized in Table : 2.

Table: 2

Examples of behaviours Associated with Leader consideration and initiating structure.

Leader consideration Leader initiating structureFriendliness PlanningConsultation with subordinates Coordination

Recognition of subordinates DirectingOpen communication with subordinates

Problem solving

Supportiveness Clarifying subordinates rolesRepresentation of subordinates’ interests

Criticizing poor work Pressuring subordinates

Relationship to effectiveness: Consideration and initiating structure are thought of as two relatively independent dimensions of a leader’s behaviour. In other words, a leader with a high degree of consideration need not necessarily be low on initiating structure. Similarly, a leader who is characterized by a high level of initiating structure may be high or low on consideration.

Fig.1. Plots these two dimension of leadership behaviour in the form of a grid wherein the positions of four hypothetical managers are plotted.

Fig.1 The Ohio state dimensions of consideration and initiating structure

Manager 1, who rates high on both dimensions, has a leadership style characterized by a high degree of directing and controlling subordinates and a high level of concern and warmth toward employees. Manager 2 shows neither of these characteristics in his leadership style and would probably be characterized as a “laissez-fair” or a “do nothing” manager. Manager 3 does a lost of planning, directing and soon but does little to show his concern or interest in subordinates. Manager 4 is just the opposite of Manager 3. He is very friendly and supportive toward his subordinates but does little to control, direct to plan their work.

Low

.Manager 3 .Manager 1

.Manager 2 .Manager 4

High

LowHigh

Consideration

Initi

atin

g St

ruct

ure

The key question that must be addressed is : which style of leadership is most effective? As we would expect, leaders who rate high on consideration tend to have subordinates who are more satisfied, who express fewer grievances, and who stay with the organization longer. However, when we turn to the issue of subordinate performance, the pattern of results is much less clear-cut. It does not appear that being either high or low on consideration or initiating structure alone has a straight forward impact on the performance of subordinates. There is some evidence, however, to indicate that leaders exhibiting high levels of both consideration and initiating structure generate higher levels of subordinate performance. Thus, the main conclusion that can be drawn from the behavioural theories of leadership is that a more considerate leadership style will cause subordinates to be more satisfied.

Leadership effectiveness depends upon the existence of a “fit” between the leader’s behaviour and the demands of the situation. This basic notion is diagramed in Fig.2.

Fig.2 Leadership effectiveness depends on a fit between the leader’s behaviour and the demands of the situation.

III. Group and Exchange Theories of Leadership:

The group theories of leadership have their roots in social psychology. Classic exchange theory, in particular, serves as an important basis for this approach. This means simply that the leader provides more benefits / rewards than burdens costs for followers. There must be a positive exchange between the leader and followers in order for group goals to be accomplished. A through review of research indicated that leaders who take into account and support their followers have a positive impact on attitudes, satisfaction, and performance.

A few important research studies indicate that followers / subordinates may actually affect leaders as much as leaders affect followers / subordinates.

Leader Behaviour

Demands of the situation

Leadership effectivenessFIT

IV. Contingency theories of Leadership:

Fred Fielder proposes a widely recognized situation-based model for leadership effectiveness. Fiedler developed a unique operational technique to measure leadership style. Measurement is obtained from scores that indicate the least preferred coworkers (LPC). This LPC approach calculates the degree to which leaders favourably perceive their works coworkers and relates to leadership style in the following manner.

1. The human relations, or “lenient”, style is associated with the leader who gives a relatively favourable description of the least preferred coworkers.

2. The task-directed, or “hard-nosed”, style is associated with the leader who gives a very unfavourable description of the least preferred coworker.

Fiedler’s contingency model of leadership effectiveness

This model contained the relationship between leadership style and the favourableness of the situation. Situational favourableness was described by Fiedler in terms of three empirically derived dimensions.

1. The leader-member relationship, which is the most critical variable in determining the situation’s favourableness.

2. The degree of task structure, which is second most important input into the favourableness of situation.

3. The leader’s position power obtained through formal authority, which is the third most critical dimension of the situation.

Situations are favourable to the leader if all three of the above dimensions are high and vice-versa.

Fiedler’s Contingency Theory

When Fiedler examined the relationships among type of leader situational favourability, and task performance, the pattern diagramed in Fig.3 emerged.

SITUATIONAL FAVOURABILITY

High

Low

Task oriented leader

Relationship oriented leader

Task oriented leader

Relationship oriented leader

Task oriented leader

Relationship oriented leader

Fig. 3 Relationships among leadership style, situational favourability, and performance effectiveness according to Fiedler’s contingency theory.

V.Path-Goal leadership Theory:

It is derived from the expectancy framework of motivation theory. This is a healthy development because leadership is closely related to work motivation on the one hand and power on the other. The House Version of the theory incorporates four major types or styles of leadership. Briefly summarized, these are:

1. Directive leadership: Subordinates know what is expected of them, and specific directions are given by the leader. There is no participation by subordinates.

2. Supportive leadership: The leader is friendly and approachable and shows a genuine concern for subordinates.

3. Participative leadership: The leader asks for and uses suggestions from subordinates but still makes the decisions.

4. Achievement-oriented leadership: The leader sets challenging goals for subordinates and shows confidence that they will attain these goalsand perform well.

Two of the situational factors that have been identified so far are the personal characteristics of subordinates and the environmental pressures and demands facing subordinates.

Using one of the four styles contingent upon the situational factors as outlined above, the leader attempts to influence subordinates’ perceptions and motivate

PER

FOR

MA

NC

E

EFF

EC

TIV

EN

ESS

them, which in turn leads to their role clarity, goal expectancies, satisfaction and performance. This is specifically accomplished by the leader as follows:

1. Recognizing and / or arousing subordinates’ needs for outcomes overwhich the leader has some control.

2. Increasing personal pay offs to subordinates for work-goal attainment.

3. Making the path to those payoffs easier to travel by coaching and direction.

4. Helping subordinates clarify expectancies

5. Reducing frustrating barriers.

6. Increasing the opportunities for personal satisfaction contingent on effective performance.

The following figure summarizes this path-goal approach.

Subordinate characteristics

Locus of control & / or ability

Leader /Behaviour / styles

DirectiveSupportiveParticipativeAchievement-oriented

Environmental Forces

Task characteristicsFormal authority systemPrimary work group

SubordinatesPerceptionMotivation

Outcome

SatisfactionRole clarityGoal clarityPerformance

A summary of path-goal relationship

VI. A social Learning Approach:

Social learning theory can provide a model for the continuous, reciprocal interaction between the leader, the environment and the behaviour. These interactions are shown the following figure.

LEADER(includes cognitions)

LEADER BEHAVIOUR ENVIRONMENT

VII. EMERGING THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS FOR LEADERSHIP

1. Charismatic Leadership Theories: The modern development of charismatic concept is attributed to the work of Robert House. On the basis of the analysis of political and religious leaders, House suggests that charismatic leaders are characterized by self-confidence and confidence in subordinates ideological vision, and the use of personal example. Followers of charismatic leaders identify with the leader and the mission of the leader, exhibit extreme loyalty to and confidence in the leader, emulate the leader’s values and behaviour and derive self-esteem from their relationship with the leader. Charismatic leaders have superior debating and persuasive skills and technical expertise, and foster attitudinal, behavioural, and emotional changes in their followers.

Charisma is an attributional phenomenon and it varies with the situation. Leader traits that foster charismatic attributions include self-confidence, impression-management skills, social sensitivity, and empathy. Situations crisis requiring dramatic change, or followers who are very dissatisfied with the status quo included in the extension of charismatic. Leadership is also the recognition of a darkside. Charismatic leaders tend to be portrayed as wonderful heroes, but as the following table shows there can also be unethical consideration associated with charismatic leaders.

A Social Learning approach to Leadership

Table: Ethical and unethical characteristics of charismatic leaders.

Ethical charismatic leader Unethical charismatic leader Uses power to serve others Aligns vision with followers’

needs and aspirations Considers and learns from

criticism Stimulates followers to think

independently and to question the leader’s view.

Open, two-way communication Coaches, develops and supports

followers; shares recognition with others

Relies on internal moral standards to satisfy organizational and societal interests

Uses power only for personal gain

Promotes own personal vision Censures critical or opposing

views. Demands own decisions be

accepted without question One-way communication Insensitive to followers’ needs Relies on convenient, external

moral standards to satisfy self interests.

2. Transformational Leadership Theory:

Identifying charismatic characteristics of leaders can become very important organizations transform traditional ways of being led to meet the challenge of dramatic change. It is this transformation process that has led to the transformational theory.

Burns identified two types of political leadership: transaction and transformational. The more traditional transactional leadership involves an exchange relationship between leaders and followers, but transformational leadership is based more on leaders’ shifting the values, beliefs and needs of their followers. The following table summarizes the characteristics and approaches of transactional versus transformational leaders.

Table: Characteristics and Approaches of Transactional Versus Transformational Leaders.

Transactional Leaders1. Contingent Reward: Contracts exchange of rewards for effort, promises

rewards for good performance, recognizes accomplishments.2. Management by exception (active): Watches and searches for deviations

from rules and regulations and standards, takes corrective action.

3. Management by exception (passive):Intervenes only if standards are not met.

4. Laissez-faire: Abdicates responsibilities and avoids making decisions.

Transformational Leaders1. Charisma: provides vision and sense of mission, instills pride, gains respect

and trust.2. Inspiration: Communicates high expectations, uses symbols to focus

efforts, expresses important purposes in simple ways.3. Intellectual stimulation: promotes intelligence, rationality and careful

problem solving.4. Individual Consideration: Gives personal attention, treats each employee

individually, coaches and advises.

On the basis of his research findings, Bass includes that transactional leadership is a prescription for mediocrity and that transformational leadership leads to superior performance in organizations facing demands for renewal and change. He suggests that fostering transformation leadership through policies of recruitment, selection, promotion, training and development will pay off in the health, well-being, and effective performance of today’s organizations.

Tichy and Devanna conducted interviews with top executives of major companies and found that effective transformational leaders share the following characteristics.

(1) They identify themselves as change agents.

(2) They are courageous

(3) They believe in people

(4) They are value-driven

(5) They are lifelong learners

(6) They have the ability to deal with complexity, ambiguity and uncertainty.

(7) They are visionaries.

POWER

“Power is the ability to get things done in the way one wants them to be done” – STEPHEN.P.ROBBINS.

Power is broader than authority. It includes organizational authority plus the personal elements of the power holder. Power is the ability to influence and control others in the organization. Power has both positive and negative aspects.

1. Power is interpersonal in nature

2. It is person-specific, time-specific and issue-specific.

3. Power includes dependency and reciprocal relationships

4. Power can expand and contract

5. Power is the most important dimension of any organizational activity.

6. It arises from a source. The greater and stronger the source, the greater is the power.

7. If an authority or person does not exercise his power he is failing in his duty. May be somebody else will exercise that power.

SOURCES OF POWER

1. Legitimate power – based on position in the organization.

2. Random power – the ability to reward or punish.

3. Coercive power – the ability to pressurize others into obedience, indirect methods of bringing about compliance.

4. Expert power – knowledge or skill of the boss.

5. Information power – arises due to possession of valuable information.

6. Connection power – power that arises on account of ability to co-ordinate or liaise with many people.

7. Apparent power – which the power holder shows, though he may not possess.

8. Reflected power – which a person exercises in the name of another authority.

BERLES’ LAWS OF POWER

1. Without power chaos will exist. Power will fill any vacuum in the organization.

2. Power is a personalized aspect of management.

3. Power co-exists with responsibility.

4. Power is exercised through institutional positions.

MANAGEMENT OF POWER

Herbert Goldhammer and Shills have proposed the following measurement:

THE AMOUNT OF POWER OF AN INDIVIDUAL = Successful events or exercise of power, divided by attempts of power exercise.

MULDERS’ THEORY POWER DISTANCE

No two individuals can be in same position in the organization when it comes to power. There has to be a difference in their powers which is called “power distance”. Generally individual tries to reduce power distance with superiors and increase power distance with subordinates.

POWER DYNAMICS

DISTRIBUTION – Power is never distributed equally across managers in an organization. There are variations.

DEPENDENCY – Power is exercised in a situation of dependency. The more “y” depends on “x”, the more “x” can exercise powers on “y”.

COMPLIANCE – People comply with legitimate power and expert power more often than other forms.

UNCERTAINITY OF POWER – Power is uncertain like all other aspects of an organization.

POLITICS

“When power is exercised for personal gains it is politics. It exists in all organizations. Many times organizational decisions are made not in rational manner but due to compromise, accommodation and bargaining”- (HERBERT GOLDHAMMER AND SHILLS). Very often people feel that politics is necessary for advancement of career. Generally, greater the power, more the politics. That means more politics is involved at top management than in lower levels.

DIMENSIONS OF POLITICAL BEHAVIOUR

1. Scapegoating others.

2. Passing the buck-not taking responsibility

3. Red herring tactics (giving false leads or ideas)

4. Sabotage.

5. Manipulation of information

6. Discrediting others – denying credit or robbing credit

7. Forms cliques and coteries

8. Building bad image / label on others

9. Creating quid-pro-quos, or reciprocal behaviour.

ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE

Concept: According to Joe Kelly, “Climate may be thought of as the perception of the characteristics of an organization. Organizational climate conveys the impressions people have of the organizational internal environment within which they work. It may also be viewed as the degree to which organizational rules are enforced by the administrative component.

Fore hand and Gilmer have defined organizational climate as “a set of characteristics that describe an organization and that: a) distinguish one organizational from another, b) are relatively enduring over a period of time, and c) influence the behaviour of people on the organization.”

DIMENSIONS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE

1. Members’ Orientation2. Interpersonal relationships3. Individual Freedom4. Degree of control5. Type of Structure6. Management Orientation (style)7. Reward System8. Communication9. Conflict Management10. Degree of Trust11. Risk – taking

Factors Influencing Organizational Climate

Lawrence James and Allan Jones have classified the factors that influence organizational climate into five major components.

1. Organizational context – mission, goals and objectives, functions etc.2. Organization structure – size, degree if centralization and operating

procedures3. Leadership Process – leadership styles, communication, decision –

making and related processes 4. Physical Environment – employee safety, environmental stresses,

working conditions and physical space characteristics5. Organizational values and norms –conformity, loyalty, impersonality

and reciprocity.

Improving Organizational Climate

The following techniques may be helpful in improving the organizational climate

1. Two- way Communication2. Concern for people3. Participative decision – making 4. Change in policies, procedures and rules5. Technological changes

JOB SATISFACTION

Meaning: Job satisfaction will be defined as the amount of overall positive affect (or feelings) that individuals have towards their jobs. When we say that an individual has high satisfaction, we means that the individual generally likes and values his job highly and feels positively towards it.

Sources (causes) of Job satisfaction

1. Pay: Wages do play a significant role in determining job satisfaction, and are as significant to while – caller workers as to blue – collar workers. Pay is such an important determinant of job satisfaction because it is instrumental in fulfilling the needs. Moreover, pay can serve as a symbol of achievement and a source for recognition.

2. The work itself : the two most important aspects of the work itself that influence job satisfaction are variety and control over work methods and work place.

In general, jobs with a moderate amount of variety produce the most job satisfaction. Jobs with too little variety cause workers to feel bored and fatigued. Jobs with too much variety and stimulation cause workers to feel psychologically stressed and “burned out”.

Jobs that give workers some autonomy in how they do their work also provide the greatest job satisfaction. In contrast, Management control over work methods and work place consistently leads to high levels of job dissatisfaction.

3. Promotions: Promotional opportunities have a moderate impact on job satisfaction. A promotion to a higher level in an organization typically involves positive changes in supervision, job content, any pay. Jobs that are at the higher levels of an organization usually provide workers with moiré freedom, more

challenging work assignments, and higher salary. Executives gain comparatively greater rewards from their promotions than blue – collar and white – collar clerical workers.

4. Supervision: Like promotions, supervision, is a moderately important source of job satisfaction. Two dimensions of supervisor style in particular, seem to have some impact on employee job satisfaction. The first dimension is employee – centeredness or consideration. Supervisors who establish a supportive personal relationship with subordinates and take a personal interest in them contribute toothier employees’ satisfaction. The other dimension of supervisory style that seems to contribute to employees’ satisfaction is influence, or participation, in decision making. Employees who participate indecisions that affects their jobs display a much higher level of satisfaction with their supervisors and with their overall work situation.

5. Work Group: Having friendly and cooperative coworkers is a modest source of job satisfaction to individual employees. People like the opportunity to have conversation with each other as they work, and especially dislike jobs in which they are physically separated from each other. The work group also serves as a social support – system for employees.

6. Working conditions: Working conditions, too, contribute in a modest way to job satisfaction. Features such as temperature, humidity, ventilation, lightning and noise, work schedules, cleanliness of the workplace, and adequate tools and equipment can all affect job satisfaction.

A Model of Job Satisfaction

The model of job satisfaction presented in the following figure summarizes what we know about what determines whether employees will be generally satisfied.

Fig.1: A Model of job satisfaction

EXPECTATIONS ABOUT JOB

Pay work itself, promotions, supervision, coworkers, working conditions

ACTUAL JOB CONDITIONS

Pay work itself, promotions, supervision, coworkers, working conditions

EMPLOYEE JOB SATISFACTION

DISCREPANCIES

Basically, job satisfaction is determined by the discrepancy between what individual expect to get out of their jobs and what the job actually offers: A person will be dissatisfied if there is less than the desired amount of a job characteristics in the job. For instance, if a person expects to be promoted in six months and then is not, the person will be dissatisfied. A person will be satisfied if there is no discrepancy between desired and actual conditions.

CONSEQUENCES OF JOB SATISFACTION

Now, we examine the ways in which job satisfaction affects employee behaviour.

1.Performance: Of all the behaviours that job satisfaction or dissatisfaction could affect, there is none some important to managers as performance. Are satisfied workers more productive workers? It seems somehow natural that more positive feelings about work would lead to greater output and higher –quality work. Unfortunately, four decades of research intro this issues does not lend support to this belief.

First, the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance is weak. Empirical research studies suggest that these tow variables are not closely related to each other in any simple fashion. Other factors, besides job satisfaction – for instance, the condition of the work equipment or the workers own abilities – have a much greater impact on how much a person can produce than his or her job satisfaction does.

Second, there is substantial evidence to suggest that job performance leads to job satisfaction, rather than vice- versa. As the model in fig.2 indicates, performance leads to satisfaction and rewards play a major role in the relationship.

Fig 2: The relationship between satisfaction and performance

Perceived equity of rewards

Performance (accomplishment) Satisfaction

Intrinsic rewards

Extrinsic rewards

Employees who perform well should receive both more intrinsic rewards and more extrinsic rewards. Workers who have successfully completed their jobs will received more intrinsic rewards (e.g. feelings of accomplishment) as a result of their efforts. Moreover, employees who perform well should also receive more extrinsic rewards (e.g. play and promotions) in recognition of their superior work. As a result of all these rewards, the best performers will also be the most satisfied workers.

In contrast, employees who perform poorly will probably feel worse about their competence and will probably also receive less pay and fewer promotions. Consequently, the model would predict that these poor performers will be less satisfied with their jobs.

2. Withdrawal behaviour:

a. Turnover: Turnover is of considerable concern to managers because it disrupts normal operations and necessitates the costly selection and training of replacements. Workers who have relatively low levels of job satisfaction are indeed the most likely to quit their jobs. However, while the relationship between job satisfaction and turnover is strong it is important to note that the availability of other places of employment also influences turnover.

b. Absenteeism: Job satisfaction is also highly related to absenteeism. Workers who are dissatisfied are more likely to take “mental health” days (i.e. days off not due to illness or personal business). Relatively low-paid workers are especially likely to take days off when they are frustrated with work. This is because low –paid workers will incur relatively little loss of income if they are absent.

3. Union Activity: Job dissatisfaction is major cause of unionization. In an important study of union organizing researchers found that employees’ interest in Unionization is based on dissatisfaction with working conditions and a perceived lack of influence to change those conditions. Employees become frustrated by low wages, by arbitrary and strict discipline, and by uncorrected safety hazards. When employers fail to respond to employee complaints employees realize that their power is not sufficient to deal with their best solution. Satisfied employees are seldom interested in unions; they don’t perceive that they need them.

It is also not surprising that job dissatisfaction has an impact on other union activities, such as calling strikes or filing union grievances. Work units with low levels of job satisfaction do have more strikes and file more grievances than units with high level of job satisfaction.

Recent changes in Job satisfaction Levels

Let’s look at the changes in attitudes among three large groups of workers: the young (under 30); middle managers; and blue collar workers (see table 1)

Table:1

Job Satisfaction surveys: Now, we shall discuss the use of job satisfaction surveys in organizations. More specifically, we are concerned with three issues: 1. what are the most reliable and valid methods of measuring job satisfaction? 2. When should job satisfaction surveys be utilized? 3. How should job satisfaction surveys be administered?

I. Measuring Job satisfaction: While a wide variety of instruments are available for use in surveying job related attitudes, a few stand out as especially useful: the Job Descriptive Index (JDI), the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) and the Porter Need satisfaction Questionnaire (NSQ).

a. Job Descriptive Index: Probably the most well known job satisfaction survey is the Job Descriptive Index (JDI). The JDI has separate satisfaction scales for pay, promotion supervision, work and coworkers. It has been used in a large variety of organization with employees from all different levels of education and income. It requires only ten to fifteen minutes to administer and is also available in a Spanish – language version.

Three Dissatisfied Work Groups

Young Workers1. Unrealistic job expectations2. Over-qualification for jobs3. Unresponsiveness to authoritarians

management

Middle Managers1. Lack of influence in decision making2. Frequent layoffs during recessions3. Declining earning power

Blue – Collar Workers1. Lack of mobility out of blue – collar jobs2. Lack of respect given by media3. Low pay, uninteresting work

For example,

Work on Present Job Present pay Opportunities for promotion

– Routine – Satisfying– Good– Uninteresting

– Adequate – Insecure– Less than I deserve– High paid

– promotion on merit

– promotion on seniority

– Dead – end job– Unfair promotion

policy

b. Minnesota satisfaction Questionnaires: The Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) has 100 items, 5 items for each of the following 20 factors.

Very Dissat

Dissat N Sat. Very Sat.

1 Ability utilization : 2 Achievement : 3 Activity : 4 Advancement :

5 Authority :

6 Company policies & Practices :

7 Compensation : 8 Coworkers : 9 Creativity :

10 Independence :

11 Moral Values :

12 Recognition :

13 Responsibility :

14 Security :

15 Social Service :

16 Social Status :

17 Supervision-human relations :

18 Supervision – technical :

19 Variety :

20 Working conditions :

General satisfaction can be measured by summing the scores for all twenty items. While the JDI gives abroad picture of employees’ attitudes toward five major components of their jobs, the MSQ gives a more detailed picture of employees’ specific satisfaction and dissatisfaction.

c. Porter Need satisfaction Questionnaire: The NSQ is typically used for management workers only. Its questions focus mostly on the particular problems and challenges of managerial jobs. Sample items appear in the following figure.

Sample Items from the Porter Need satisfaction Questionnaire

Instructions: Circle the number on the scale that represents the amount of the characteristics being rated. Low numbers represent low or minimum amounts, and high numbers represent high or maximum amounts.

1. The opportunity for personal growth and development in my management position.

a. How much is there now?

(Minimum) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (Maximum)

b. How much should there be?

(Minimum) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (Maximum)

2. The following of security in my managerial position

a. How much is there now?

(Minimum) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (Maximum)

b. How much should there be?

(Minimum) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (Maximum)

Attributes of Good surveys

There are several characteristics that make these three instruments so well respected:

1. Validity: These instruments measure what they are intended to measure.

2. Reliability: These instruments have been demonstrated to produce stable, consistent results, and provide clear instructions to respondents.

3. Content: These survey instruments identify the wide range of factors that affect work life and organizational effectiveness.

4. Languages Level: The item in these scales are clearly and unambiguously worded and can be used in many different firms.

II. Uses of Job satisfaction Surveys:

1. To diagnose potential problems in organizations. 2. To discover the causes of absenteeism and turnover3. To assess the impact of organizational changes on employee attitudes.4. To stimulate better communication between management and workers.5. To provide accurate information about the degree to which employees may

be willing to vote for a union if given the chance.

III. Survey Administration:

Some important factors that managers might want to consider in conducting job satisfaction surveys include the following.

1. Timing: Satisfaction surveys are most effective if they are set up as part of a regularly scheduled, long-term programme.

2. Sampling: Obviously it is much less expensive to survey a representative subgroup of the population than to canvas or survey the entire population.

3. Explaining the purposes of the survey: Management has to be honest with employees about the purposes of the survey and what will be done with the results. It should not give false promises and create false expectations.

4. Standardizing the conditions of survey administration: Times for employees to complete the survey have to be arranged rooms for taking the survey have to be provided. It is important, too, that survey administrators be

trained in how to answer frequent or typical questions, such as “why are we doing a Survey now?”

5. Feedback meeting: It is generally a good idea to hold discussions between managers and workers after the results of the satisfaction survey have been tabulated. Moreover, problem – solving committees can be set up to work on specific problems identified by the attitude survey.

Keys to Effective Management

1. Managers should be especially concerned with employee complaints about low pay and unchallenging work.

2. Managers need to be aware that increasing job satisfaction is not a likely solution to increasing productivity.

3. Managers should be more concerned about the impact of job satisfaction on employee turnover, absenteeism and Unionization.

4. In assessing the levels of job satisfaction, it is important for managers to look not only at overall job satisfaction, but also at who is satisfied.

5. It designed and administered effectively, job satisfaction surveys can provide managers with a wealth of data about their work units.

ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

OD is a practical and systematic approach to launching and diffusing change in organizations. It is an attempt to improve the overall organizational efficiency. OD aims at improving the work effectiveness of individuals, groups and total organizational system.

CHARACTERISTICS:

1. Long range effort2. Broad based: OD is used broadly to describe a variety of change

programmes3. Dynamic process4. Systems view: It recognizes that organizational structure and managerial

performance are mutually interdependent. The organization is treated as an interrelated whole and no part of the organization can be changed without affecting other parts.

5. Research – based: Most of the OD interventions are research based. They conduct surveys, collect data, evaluate and then take decisions.

6. Goal setting and planning

7. Normative re-educative strategy: OD is based on the principle that “norms form the basis for behaviour and change is a re-educative process of replacing old by new ones”.

Objectives:1. To increase the level of trust and mutual emotional support among all

organizational members.2. To increase the incidence of confrontation of organizational problems both

within groups and among groups3. To increase an environment in which authority of assigned role is

augmented by authority based on knowledge and skill. 4. To increase the openness of communications, laterally, vertically and

diagonally.5. To increase the level of enthusiasm and personal satisfaction in the

organization.6. To find solutions to problems with greater frequency7. To increase the level of self and group responsibility in planning and

implementation.

OD PROCESS

1. Problem identification and definition2. Collection of necessary data3. Diagnosis4. Planning of change and its implementation5. Evaluation and feedback

Action Research: A Model of Organization development:

The model involves an extensive collaboration between the OD consultant and the client organization.

Joint action planning Action behaviour for Action behaviour(Objectives) accomplishing these

objectivesNew plan of act

Feedback to client Determination of Discussion andObjectives & plan work of thisOf action feedback

Data gathering and Discussion and work Feedback to clientDiagnosis by the on these problems groupCo-consultant

Organizational Feedback to client Reassessment ofPerceptions of the group problems things through dataProblem gathering

Data gathering

The action research model

Techniques of OD

1. Sensitivity training: It is also known as T- group training. It consists of a small group of ten to twelve people – The objectives to improve interpersonal relations.

2. Team Building: The main purpose is to improve effectiveness of work.

3. Survey Feedback: Steps:

a. Collection of datab. Feedback the information to the employeesc. Develop an action pland. Follow – up

4. Grid Training: T develop manager’s leadership skills – involves two parts and six overlapping phases

Part – I Management DevelopmentPart –II Organization Development

5. System Four Management:

System1: Exploitative – Autocratic (strict) – No freedom- threats & punishments

System 2: Benevolent – Autocratic – some freedom for subordinates – Few rewards

System 3: Consultative – Democratic

substantial but not complete confidence Major decisions centralized at the top Some decisions decentralized at lower levels

System 4: Participative – Democratic

Full confidence in subordinates Decision making highly decentralized

Evalution

Goal Attainment

Laboratory Seminar Training

Team development

Inter group development

Organizational setting

Organization Development

Management Development

6. MBO: Steps

1. Goal setting2. Action plan3. Evaluation and Feedback

ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

Change is an alternation of an organizations environment, structure, technology or people. Change is an organizational reality handling change in an integral part of every manager’s job.

Forces for change: More and more organization today face a dynamic and changing environment. This, in-term, requires these organizations to adapt, Exhibit – 1 Summarizes size specific forces that are acting as stimulants for change.

Exhibit – 1 : Forces for change

Forces ExamplesNature of the Work force More cultural diversity

Increase in professionals Many new entrants with inadequate

skills

Technology Faster and cheaper computers TQM programmes Reengineering programmes

Economic Shocks Again real estate collapse Russian devaluation of the ruble Change in oil prices

Competition Global competitors Mergers and consolidations Growth of e –commerce

Social trends Attitude to wards smokers Delayed marriage by young people Popularity of sport –utility vehicle

World Politics Collapse of Soviet Union Opening of markets in China Black rule of South Africa

Managing Planned change:

Planned change is concerned with change activities that are intentional and goal oriented, proactive and purposeful. It is also concerned with changing the behaviour of individuals and groups with in the organization.

Changes within an organization need a catalyst. People who act as catalysts and assume the responsibility for managing the change process are called change agents. Change agents can be managers or non –managers, employees of the organization or outside consultants.

What can change Agents change?What can a change agent change? The options essentially fall into four categories: Structures, technology, physical setting and people.

Exhibit- 2 :- change options:

Changing structure involves making an alternation in authority relations, coordination mechanisms, job redesign, or similar structural variables. Changing technology encompasses modifications in the way work is processed and in the methods and equipment used. Changing the physical setting covers altering the space and layout managements in the workplace. Changing people refers to changes in employee attitudes, skills, expectations, perception, and behaviour.

Resistance to change: One of the most-well-documented findings from studies of individual and organizational behaviour is that organizations and their members resists change. The sources of resistance fall into two categories: Individual and organizational sources.

Individual Resistance: Individual sources of resistance to change reside in basic human characteristics such as perceptions, personalities and needs. An individual is likely to resist changes for the following reasons: Habit, Security Fear of the unknown, Concern over personal loss, and the belief that the change is not in the organizations best interest.

TechnologyStructure

What are the change options?

Physical setting

People

a. Habit: As human beings, we are creatures of habit. Life is complex enough; we don’t need to consider the full range of options for the hundreds, of decisions we have to make every day. To cope with this complexity, we all rely on habits or programmed responses. But when confronted with change, this tendency to respond in our accustomed ways becomes a source of resistance.

b. Security : People with a high need for security are likely to resist change because it threatened their feelings of safety.

c. Fear of the Unknown: changes substitute ambiguity and uncertainty for the known. Employees in organizations have the dislike for uncertainty. If for example, the introduction of TQM means production workers will have to learn statistical process control techniques, some may fear they will be unable to do so. They may, therefore, develop a negative attitude towards TQM or behave dysfunctionally if required to use statistical techniques.

d. Concern over personal loss:- another cause of resistance is the fear of losing what one already possesses. Change threatens the investment in the status quo. The more people they resist change. Because, they fear loss of their position, money, authority, friendships, personal convenience, or other benefits that they value. That is v\why senior employees’ resists change more than do relatively new employees.

e. Belief: A final cause of resistance is a person’s belief that the change is incompatible with the goals and best interest of the organization.

Organizational Resistance:- Organizations, by their very nature, are conservative. They actively resist change. Government agencies want to continue doing what they have been doing for years, whether the need for their service changes or remains the same. Educational institutions, which exist to open minds and challenge established doctrine, are themselves extremely resistant to change. Size major sources of organizational resistance have been identified. They are as follows:

1. Structural Inertia: Organization as have built – in mechanisms to produce stability. For example, the selection process systematically selects certain people in and certain people out.

Training and other socialization techniques reinforce specific role requirements and skills. Formalization provides job descriptions, rules and procedures for employees to follow.

The people who are hired into are organizations are chosen for fit, they are then shaped and directed to behave in certain ways. When an organization is confronted with change this structural inertia acts as a counter balance to sustain stability.

2. Limited forces of change:- Organizations are made up of a interdependent subsystem. You cannot change one without affecting the others. For example, if management changes the technological processes without simultaneously modifying the organizations structure to match, the change in technology is not likely to be accepted. So limited changes in sub systems tend to get nullified by the larger system.

3. Group Inertia:- Even if individuals want to change their behaviour, group norms may act as a constraint. An individual union member, for instance, may be willing to accept changes in his job suggested by management. But if union norms dictate resisting any unilateral change made by management, he is likely to resists.

4. Threat to Expertise: Changes in organizational patterns may threaten the expertise of specialized groups. The introduction of decentralized personal computers, which allow managers to gain access to information directly from a company’s main frame, is an example of a change that was strongly resisted by many information systems departments in the early 1980s.Why? Because decentralized end – user computing was a threat to the specialized skills held by those in the centralized information systems departments.

5. Threat to established power relationships:- Any redistribution of decision-making authority can threaten long – established power relationships within the organization. The introduction of participative decision-making or self – managed work teams is the kind of change that is often seen as threatening by supervisors and middle managers.

6. Threat to established resource allocations:- Those groups in the organization that control sizable resources often see change as a threat. They tend to be content with the way things are will the change, for instance, mean a reduction in their budgets or a cut in their staff size? Those that most benefit from the current allocation of resources often feel threatened by changes that may affect future allocations.

Techniques for overcoming resistance to change

When management sees resistance to change as dysfunctional, what actions can it take? Several tactics have been suggested for use by managers or other change agents in dealing with resistance to change. These include education and communication, participation, facilitation and support, negotiation, manipulation and cooptation, and coercion. These tactics are described in the following exhibit

Exhibit : 3: Techniques for reducing resistance to change

Technique When used Advantages DisadvantagesEducation and Communication

When resistance is due to misinformation

Clear up misunderstanding

May not work where mutual trust and credibility are lacking

Participation When resistors have the expertise to make a contribution

Increase involvement and acceptance

Time-consuming; has potential for a poor solution

Facilitation and support

When resisters are fearful and anxiety ridden

Can facilitate needed adjustments

Expensive; no guarantee of success

Negotiation Necessary when resistance comes from a powerful group

Can “buy” commitment

Potentially high cost; opens door for others to apply pressure, too

Manipulation and cooptation

When a powerful groups endorsement is needed

Inexpensive, easy way to gain support

Can back fire, causing change agent to lose credibility

Coercion When a powerful groups endorsement is needed

Inexpensive, easy way to gain support

May be illegal, may undermine change agent’s credibility

Approaches to Managing Organizational change

1. LEWIN’S THREE – STEP MODEL: Kurt Lewin argued that successful change in organizations should follow three steps: unfreezing the status quo, movement to a new state, and refreezing the new change to make it permanent.(see Exhibit – 4)

Exhibit – 4 : Lewin’s three – step change model

Unfreezing refers to change efforts to overcome the pressures of both individual resistance and group conformity.

Refreezing means stabilizing a change intervention by balancing driving and restraining forces. The status quo can be considered to be an equilibrium state. To move from this equilibrium – to overcome the pressures of both individual resistance and group conformity- unfreezing is necessary. It can be achieved in one of three ways (see Exhibit – 5)

The driving forces, which direct behaviour away from the status quo, can be increased. The restraining forces, which hinder movement from the existing equilibrium, can be decreased. A third alternative is to combine the first two approaches.

1. Action Research: Action research refers to a change process based on the systematic collection of data and then selection of a change action based on what the analyzed data indicate. Their importance lies in providing a scientific methodology for managing planned change. The process of action research consists of five steps: diagnosis, analysis, feedback, action and evaluation.

2. Organizational Development: Organizational Development (OD) is a term used to encompass a collection of planned – change interventions built

Unfreezing Movement Refreezing

Desired State

Status Quo

Driving Forces

Restraining forces

Time

on humanistic – democratic values that seek to improve organizational effectiveness and employee well- being. The following briefly identifies the underlying values in most OD efforts.

3. Respect for people:- Individuals are perceived as being responsible, conscientious and caring. They should be treated with dignity and respect.

4. Trust and Support:- The effective and healthy organization is characterized by trust, authenticity, openness and a supportive climate.

5. Power Equalization: Effective organizations deemphasize hierarchical authority and control.

6. Confrontation: Problems should not be swept under the rug. They should be openly confronted.

7. Participation:- The more that people who will be affected by a change are involved in the decisions surrounding that change, the more they will be committed to implementing those decisions.

ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENSS

Concept: Many people define effectiveness in terms to a single evaluations criterion. For instance:

1. Effectiveness could be defined as the degree to which organization realize its goals.

2. Effectiveness of an organization can be seen in terms of survival of the organization.

3. Organizational effectiveness is the extent to which an organization, given certain resources and means, achieve its objectives without placing undue on its members.

4. Effectiveness is the ability of an organization to mobilize its centres of power for action – production and adaptation.

Efficiency Vs Effectiveness

According to Peter F Drucker, “efficiency means better performance, while effectiveness refers to productivity”. An efficient manager is one who does right things; an effective manager, on the other hand, is one who does things right.

Perspectives on Effectiveness

David Lawless highlights the importance of three perspectives of effectiveness. They are – individual, group and organizational effectiveness. The relationship among these three perspectives of effectiveness is shown in the following diagram

The causes of individual effectiveness include physical attributes, personality traits, motivation, morale, etc. The causes of group effectiveness comprise of leadership, communication, socialization etc.

The causes of organizational effectiveness include technology, environmental, competence and many other variables.

Organizational effectiveness

Group Effectiveness

Individual effectiveness

Fig.1 Three different perspective of effectiveness

Organizational Effectiveness

Causes of Organizational effectiveness

Group effectivenessCauses of group effectiveness

Individual effectiveness

Causes of individual effectiveness

Fig. 2.

Approaches to Organizational Effectiveness

There are four broad approaches to OE, namely, the goal attainment approach, systems approach, strategic consistencies approach and the behavioural approach.

A. The goal Attainment Approach: An organization primarily exists to accomplish goals. Goal attainment is probably the most widely used criterion of organizational effectiveness. Organization’s effectiveness is appraised in terms of the accomplishment of ends rather than means. The goal approach has widespread common sense and practical appeal.

SOME RESEARCH STUDIES

James L Price – A Conceptual study

Price has reviewed and analyzed fifty studies and developed a model comprising of a dependent variable called “effectiveness” and five intervening independent variables, namely, productivity morale conformity, adaptiveness and institutionalization. In his model, there are five system –economic system, political system,(internal and external system),control system, population system, and ecology system (or environmental system). These systems through intervening variables determine effectiveness. The fig 3 depicts his model.

Mahoney and Wetzel – An Empirical study

Mahoney and Wetzel have developed models for two types of organizations –general business organization and research and development organizational units. These scholars have identified twenty four variables that are useful in predicting effectiveness. The important variables in business organization are productivity, support and utilization, planning reliability, and initiation. The important variables for research development are reliability co –operation and development. The difference between these two models is explained in terms of ultimate criterion. Business organization has ultimate goals of profitability productivity and

The economic system The political systemThe control systemThe population systemThe ecology system

Productivity ConformityMoraleAdaptivenessInstitutionalization

Effectiveness

Fig 3

efficiency and research and development’s goals are the professional competence and development.

These models are presented here under

B. Systems Approach to organizational effectiveness:

General Business Model

Overall Effectiveness

Reliability InitiationProductivity

Utilization

Development

Planning

FlexibilitySupervision & Control

Co-operation

Support

Cohension Supervisory support

Fig.4

Research and Development Model

Overall effectiveness

Reliability

Productivity

Planning

Cohesion Coordination

Supervisory Control

Flexibility

Co-operation Development

Fig 5

A systems approach to OE implies that organizations are made up interrelated and interacting elements. The effectiveness of total system is dependent on the performance emphasis the inter parts. The open – system perspective emphasizes the inter – relationships between various parts of an organizations and its environment as they jointly influence effectiveness.

Some Research Studies

Seashore and Yuchtman: These researchers at Michigan University have identified ten effectiveness dimensions in their study of 75 insurance agencies. These effectiveness dimensions are business volume, production cost, new member productivity youthfulness of members, business mix, work force growth, devotion to management, maintenance cost, member productivity, and market penetration.

According to them, organizational effectiveness can be assessed by the following steps:

i. Providing an inclusive taxonomy of resourcesii. Identifying different types of resources that are mutually

relevant for the organizations under study.iii. Determining the relative positions for the compared

organizations on the basis of information concerning the amounts and kinds of resources available for the organization and its efficiency in using these resources to get further resources.

Georgopolous and Tannenbaum: These organizational scientists have empirically studied an organization that specialized in the delivery of retail merchandise. According to them, the concept of effectiveness subsumes the following three criteria, viz.

i. Organizational productivity

ii. Organizational flexibility in the form of successful adjustment to internal organization changes and successful adaptation to externally induced changes.

iii. Absence of infra- organizational strain or tension and of conflicts between organizational subgroups.

C. The Strategic Constituencies Approach:

It is similar to systems approach in appearance but with slightly different emphasis. Like systems view strategic constituencies approach also considers the interdependencies among different sub – systems in the organization but it is not concerned with the entire environment. It rather seeks to appease only that part of environment that can threaten the organization’s survival. An effective organization is one that satisfies the demands of these constituencies in its environment from which it requires support for its continued existence.

To see the effectiveness through this approach certain steps should follow:

1. Management should identify all integral constituencies in the environment on which the survival of organization depends.

2. The relative power of each constituency should be evaluated by considering the degree of dependence of the organization on them.

3. Identify the expectations those constituencies hold for the organization.

4. Management should, then arrange these constituencies in order of their power and expectations.

5. Organizational effectiveness would, then, be assessed in-terms of its ability to satisfy these constituencies that are ranked.

D. Behavioural Approach to OE: Behavioural approach to OE emphasizes their role of individual behaviour as the effects organizational success or failure. When employees agree with the objectives of the organization (employer) then it results in perfect integration of the individual and organizational goals. This leads to high degree of organizational effectiveness. The diagram – 6 throws light on the behavioural theory of OE.

Gap

Goals

Goals

Organizational

Individual

Fig.6

When the integration of both individual and organizational goals is high in degree, it results in high degree of OE and vice – versa. The following figure depicts this view.

Rensis Likert on OE:

Linkert, a famous social scientists, has identified three variables namely, casual, intervening and end – result variables- which determine effectiveness.

Casual variables:- These variables include the strategies of a leader skills of a manager, decisions of Management and the policies and the structure of the organizational.

Intervening variables: Some examples of these intervening variables are motivation, communication, decision-making and problem solving techniques etc.

Output or end –result variables:- These variables comprises of production, costs, sales turnover, profit volume etc.

The relationship among casual variables, intervening variables and output variables can be seen in the following diagram.

Achieving Organizational Effectiveness

Casual Variables

Intervening variables

Output variables

Effectiveness

Fig.8

The degree of effectiveness is high

The degree of effectiveness is low

Organizational

Organizational

GoalsGoals

Individual Individual Goals Goals

Fig.7

According to Alwin Brown, there are seven reasons for the failure of organizations to achieve effectiveness:

a. Failure of administrators to act when they need to b. Delay in decision – makingc. Taking the wrong actiond. Lack of sufficient efforte. Excessive effort in relation to the needf. Excessive quality or effort in relation to the problem g. Waste effort

Having diagnosed the causes low effectiveness, the organization, can take necessary and corrective action over the controllable factors. Tannenbawn and his associates have constructed a set of diagnostic indices of organizational effectiveness. They are as follows:

(i) Understanding: This is the extent to which the relations are accurately perceived.

(ii) Vormative conformity: This is the extent to which the actual behaviour confirms to the perceived behaviour.

(iii) Affective conformity: This is the extent to which the actual behaviour confirms to the desires and reflections.

(iv) Satisfaction and dissatisfaction: This is the extent to which the prescribed, perceived or actual relations are also desired or rejected.

(v) Affective atmosphere: This is the state of balance between the affectively positive and affectively negative choices in an organization.

(vi) Centralization: This is the extent of concentration of choices (prescribed, actual, perceived, or rejected) in a particular person or group.

ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE

THE NATURE OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE: People are affected by the culture in which they live. For example, a person growing up in a middle-class family will be taught the values, beliefs, and expected behaviours common to that family. The same is true for organizational participants. Society has a social culture; where people work has an organizational culture.

Definition: When people join an organization, they bring with them the values and beliefs they have been taught. Quite often, however, these values and beliefs are insufficient for helping the individual succeed in the organization. The person needs to learn how the particular enterprise does things.

Edgar Schein, who is probably most closely associated with the study of organizational culture, designs it as, “a pattern of basic assumptions – invented, discovered, or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration- that has worked well enough to be considered valuable and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems.”

More recently, Joanne Martin emphasizes the different perspectives of cultures in organizations. She notes:

“As individuals come into contact with organizations they come into contact with dress norms, stories people tell about what goes on, the organization’s formal rules and procedures, its formal codes of behavior, rituals, tasks, pay systems, jargon, and jokes only understood by insiders and so on. These elements are some of the manifestations of organizations culture”. However, she adds that there is another perspective of culture as well.

“When cultural members interpret the meanings of these manifestations, their perceptions, memories, beliefs, experiences and values will vary,so interpretations will differ – even of the same phenomenon. The patterns or configurations of these interpretations, and the ways they are enacted, constitute culture.”

Characteristics:- Organizational culture has a number of important characteristics. Some of the most readily agreed upon are the following:

1. Observed behavioural regularities: When organizational participants interact with one another, they use common language, terminology, and rituals related to deference and demeanor.

2. Norms: Standards of behaviour exist, including guidelines on how much work to do, which in many organizations comedown to” Do not do too much; do not do too little”.

3. Dominant Values: There are major values that the organization advocates and expects the participants to share. Typical examples are high product quality, low absenteeism, and high efficiency.

4. Philosophy: There are policies that set forth the organization’s belief about how employees and/or customers are to be treated.

5. Rules: There are strict guidelines related to getting along in the organization. Newcomers must learn those “ropes” in order to be accepted as full – fledged members of the group.

6. Organizational Climate: This is an overall “feeling” that is conveyed by the physical layout, the way participants interact, and the way members of the organization conduct themselves with customers or other outsiders.

Uniformity of culture: An organizational culture is a common perception held by the organizations members. Everyone in the organization would have to share this perception. However, all may not do so to the same degree. As a result, there can be a dominant culture as well as subcultures throughout a typical organization.

A dominant culture is a set of core values shared by a majority of the organization’s members. For example, most employees at southwest Airlines seems to subscribe to such values as hard work, company loyalty, and the need for customer service. At Hewlett – Packard, most of the employees seem to share a concern for product innovativeness, product quality, and responsiveness to customer needs.

Important, but often overlooked, are the subcultures in an organization. A subculture is a set of values shared by a minority of the organization’s members. Subcultures typically are a result of problems or experiences that are shared by members of a department or unit.

Strong and weak cultures:- Some Organizational cultures could be labeled “strong” others “Weak”. Strong managers, strong cultures, strong organizational cultures are often shaped by strong leaders. However, besides this leadership factor, there seem to be two major factors that determine the strength of an organizational culture: Sharedness and intensity. Sharedness refers to the degree to which the organizational members have the same core values. Intensity is the degree of commitment of the organizational members to the core values.

The degree of sharedness is affected by two major factors: Orientation and rewards. Inorder for people to share the same culture values, they must know what these values are. Many organizations begin this process with an orientation programme. New employees are told about the organization’s philosophy and method of operating. Sharedness is also affected by rewards. When organizations give promotions, recognition, and other forms of reward to those who adhere to the core values, these actions help others better understand these values.

The degree of intensity is a result of the reward structure. When employees realize that they will be rewarded for doing things “the organization’s way”, their desire to do so increases. Conversely, when they are not rewarded ore they feel there is more to be gained by not doing things the organization’s way, commitment to core values diminishes. Although recognition and other non financial rewards are important, money still plays an important role.

CREATING AND MAINTAINING A CULTURE

Some organizational cultures may be the direct, or at-least indirect, result of actions taken by the founders. However, this is not always the case. Sometimes founders create weak cultures, and if the organization is to survive, a new top manager must be installed who will show the seeds for the necessary strong culture. Thomas Watson Sr. of IBM is a good example.

How organizational cultures start:- While organizational cultures can develop in a number of different ways, the process usually involves some version of the following steps:

1. A single person (founder) has an idea for a new enterprise.2. The founder brings in one or more other key people and creates a core

group that shares a common vision with the founder. That is, all in this core group believe that the idea is a good one, is workable, is worth running some risks for, and is worth the investment of time, money and energy that will be required.

3. The founding core group begins to act in concert to create an organization by raising funds, obtaining patents, incorporating, locating space, building, and so on.

4. At this point, others are brought into the organization, and a common history begins to be built.

Most of today, successful corporate giants in all industries basically followed these steps. Three well-known representative examples are Motorola, Mc Donald’s and Wal-mart.

Maintaining Cultures through steps of Socialization:

Once an organizational culture is started and begins to develop, there are a number of practices that can help solidify the acceptances of core values and ensure that the culture maintains itself. These practices can be described in-terms of several socialization steps.

1. Selection of Entry – level Personnel:- The first step is the careful selection of entry – level candidates. Using standardized procedures and seeking specific traits that tie to effective performance, trained recruiters interviews candidates and attempt to screen out those whose personal styles and values do not make a “fit” with the organization’s culture.

2. Placement on the Job: - The second step occurs on the job itself, after the person with a fit is hired. New personnel are subjected to a carefully orchestrated series of different experiences whose purpose is to cause them to question the organizations norms and values and to decide whether or not they can accept them. For example, many organizations with strong cultures make it a point to give newly hired personnel more work than they can handle. At proctor of Gamble, for example, new personnel may be required to colour in a sales territory map. The experience is designed to convey the message, “while you are smart in some ways, you are in Kindergarten as far as what you know that this organization”. The objective is also to teach the new entrant into the culture the importance of humility.

3. Job Mastery: - Once the initial “cultural Shock” is over, the next step is mastery of one’s job. This is typically done via extensive and carefully reinforced field experience. For example, Japanese firms typically put new employees through a training programme for several years. As personnel move along their career path, their performance is evaluated and additional responsibilities are assigned on the basis of progress.

4. Measuring and Rewarding Performance: - The next step of the socialization process consists of meticulous attention to measuring operational results and to rewarding individual performance. These systems are comprehensive and consistent and they focus on those aspects of the business that are most crucial to competitive success and to corporate values. For example, at proctor and Gamble there are three factors that are considered most important: building volume, building profit, and making changes that increase effectiveness or add satisfaction to the job. Promotions and merit pay are determined by success in each of these critical areas.

5. Adherence to important values: - The next step involves careful adherence to the firm’s most important values. Identification with these values helps employees reconcile personal sacrifices brought about by their membership in the organization. They learn to accept these values and to trust the organization not to do anything that would hurt them.

6. Reinforcing the stories and folklore: The next step involves reinforcing organizational folklore. This entails keeping alive stories that validate the organization’s culture and way of doing things. The folklore helps explain why the organization does things a particular way. One of the most common forms of folklore is stories with morals the enterprises wants toi reinforce. For example, at proctor and Gamble, there is a story about the outstanding brand manager who was fired for overstating the features of a product. The moral of the story is that ethical claims are more important than making money.

7. Recognition and Promotion:- The final step is the recognition and promotion of individuals who have done their jobs well and who can serve as role models to new people in the organization. By pointing out these people as winners, the organization encourages others to follow their example. Role models in strong – culture firms are regarded as the most powerful ongoing training programme of all. Morgan Stanley, the financial services firm chooses role models on the basis of energy, aggressiveness, and team play. Proctor and Gamble looks for people who exhibit extraordinary consistency in such areas as tough mindedness, motivational skills, energy and the ability to get things done through others.

Changing Organizational Culture:- Sometimes an organization determines that its culture has to be changed. For example, the external environment has undergone drastic change and the organization must either adapt to these new conditions or it may not survive. However, changing old cultures can be quite difficult. Predictable obstacles include entrenched skills, staff, relationships, roles and structures that work together to reinforce traditional culture patterns. In addition, powerful stakeholders such as Unions, Management or even customers may support the existing culture.

Despite the significant barriers and resistance to change, cultures can be managed or changed overtime. This attempt to change culture can take many different forms. Simple guidelines such as developing a sense of history, creating a sense of oneness, promoting as sense of membership, and increasing exchange among members are helpful. Also, organizations attempting to change their culture must be careful not to abandon their roots and blindly copy the so –called “successful” or “excellent” companies. Pragmatically changing an organization culture affects almost every aspect of the business.

Conditions for the cultural change process:-

1. Felt need2. Management Commitment3. Shared Mindset4. Employee involvement5. Focused training6. Accountability

Those conditions set the stage for the actual change process. This process includes strategic planning, organizational assessments, and work improvement/HR practices. The major systems which require change are: Strategy, Structure, Processes, rewards and people.