Chapter 5

Group dynamics, Team Building

and Conflict Management
 Group
• A group is defined as two or more interacting and
interdependent individuals who come together to achieve
particular goals. Members of a group relate to each other
in the same way and are united by common beliefs and
perceptions on relatively sustained and structured basis.

• A group can be defined as two or more freely interacting

individuals who share a common identify or purpose.

• A word group is defined as collection of interacting

employees who share certain norms and are struggling
towards member need satisfaction through the
attainment of group goals.
• Hence a group is a collection of people trying
to do a task to achieve a goal. Group members
regularly interact with each other and depend
upon each other to do their task. They share
common values and are affected in their
behavior and performance by group norms.
Groups may be formal or informal.
 Reason for joining group
Most people belong to a number of groups. It is obvious that
different groups provide different benefits to their members.
The common reason for joining groups is as follows.
• Security: by joining groups, individuals can reduce the
insecurity of standing alone. People feel stronger, have fewer
self doubts and are more resistant to threats when they are
part of a group.
• Status: inclusion in a group is viewed important by others
because it provides recognition and status for its member.
• Self esteem: a group can provide with a feeling of self worth.
In addition to conveying the status to those outside the
groups, members can also give an increased feeling of worth
to the group members themselves.
• Affiliation: groups can fulfill social needs. People enjoy the
regular interaction that comes with group members. For
many people, on the job, interactions are their primary
means of fulfilling their need for affiliation.
• Power: a group represents power, what cannot be achieved
individually often becomes possible through group action.
Individuals may align with other to protect themselves from
unreasonable demands by the management. For an
individual who wants to influence others, a group can offer
him or her power without a formal position or authority in
the organization.
• Goal achievement: people may join a group for goal
achievement. When it takes more than one person talents,
knowledge or power to complete the job, the stated goal can
be achieved easily.
 Characteristics of group
A group is a collection of two or more people who have a
common interest and interact each other to accomplish
their objectives. The main characteristics of a group can be
summarized as under.
• Collection of people: for a group to exist, it must have at
least two members. Groups cannot be formed without
individuals. A single person is never treated as group.
• Interaction: a group would be quite static without
interaction, so it is necessary for all members of the group
to interact with each other.
• Shared goal : the shared goal identifies a common concern
of all members. Group members desire for the attainment
of the same specific objectives. Individual members of the
group possess at least one common goal.
• Group leader: there should be a leader in every
group. The leader emerges within an informal
group and is accepted by group members. Leaders
in many formal groups are followed and obeyed
because employees perceive them as possessing
the power and influence to reward or punish
them if they do not comply with their request.
The informal leader emerges from within the
group and serves a number of functions.
• Status: a status system develops in a group. Members
are accorded by their groups. Individuals in leadership
roles possess status because of their roles. They are
ranked highly in the group status hierarchy.
• Norms: groups prepare an agreement among the
group members as to show how they should behave.
The more an individual complies with norms, the
more he accepts the group's standard of behavior.
Work group can utilize norms to bring about
acceptable job performance.
Stages of group formation and development

• Social scientists have long been interested in how

people form groups. It is a dynamic process. We
cannot predict exactly how all groups form.
Groups generally pass through standardized
sequence in their evolution. From the mid 1960s,
many organizational experts have believed that
groups pass through a standard sequence of five
stages. And these five stages of group
development are explained below.
 Forming stage:
This is the first stage of group development in which the
members introduce themselves. Individuals ask a number
of questions as they begin to identify with group
members. Forming stage is characterized by a great deal
of uncertainty and even confusion about the group’s
purpose, structure, leadership, acceptable behavior and
group rules. Members experience a form of socialization
as they try to find out what is expected of them and how
they will fit the group. Once the members come to think
of themselves as members of group, the forming stage is
complete.
 Storming stage:

• as the name implies, this stage is characterized by a high

degree of conflict and confrontation. Typically, the group
experiences many changes in the storming stage involving
membership expectation, interpersonal styles, problems of
group goals and individual goals, demands for performance
results etc. Members accept the existence of a group, but
conflict may develop over various issues such as leadership
authority, control and bindings imposed on individual
freedom. Group members negotiate roles that are needed for
effective group functioning and members tend to adopt and
maintain those roles for the duration of the group. When this
stage is complete, there will be a relatively clear hierarchy of
relationship among the group. Managing the expectations and
status is the great challenge of this stage.
 Norming stage:
• this stage is also referred to as initial integration in
which group really begins to come together as a
coordinated unit, developing close relationships and
demonstrating group cohesiveness. Members strive
to maintain harmony and keep a strong sense of
identity. Members want to protect the group from
breakdown. They have we feeling with high cohesion
and group identity. A keen interest in finding
mutually agreeable solutions also develops. This
stage is complete when the members accept a
common set of expectations consisting of an
acceptable way of doing things.
 Performing stage:
• during this stage a group emerges as a
matured, organized and well functional unit.
Having fully developed, the group may now
devote its energy in getting the job done.
Members are motivated by group goal and are
generally satisfied. Task performance and
human resource maintenance are the primary
challenge of this stage.
 Adjourning stage:
for permanent work groups, performing is the
last stage in their development. However, for
temporary committees, teams, task force
where there is limited task to perform, there is
adjourning stage. The group may cease to
exist because they have met their goals.
During this stage, the attention of the
members is directed towards winding up
activities.
• Responses of group members vary at this
stage according to their perceptions about the
group's goal accomplishment. Some may
boast about good achievements while others
may be subdued over only partial fulfillment
of goals. Some others may be depressed over
the loss of family and friendship during the life
of work groups
This model is helpful in summarizing the five
sages in the life cycle of a group. It helps to
managers to clearly understand the different
stages of development of different groups at
any point of time including their challengers
and management needs. Each stage may
indicate the effectiveness of a group. It clearly
brings out, the fact that most groups follow a
specific sequence in their evolution.
 TYPES OF GROUPS

• Managers and non managers belong to a

number of different groups within
organizations. Human beings belong to groups
for many different reasons. There are several
ways in which groups may be categorized.
From the organizational point of view, groups
may be classified into two major categories
 Formal group:
Formal group is a work unit that is formed as a part of the
origination structure by management decisions to perform
organizational jobs. Its members are selected by the management
and are required to assume certain roles. Formal groups tend to
be more rationally structured and less fluid. Members under
formal groups are selected according to their talents in order to
assume certain defined roles and undertake specific task. The
functioning of such a certain defined roles and undertakes specific
tasks. The functioning of such a group is governed by
organizational rules, work assignment and rational structure. The
placing of organization members in such areas as production
department, finance department, marketing department,
personnel department etc. are the example of formal groups.
Formal groups are of two types they are described below.
 A. Command group:
• A command group consists of a manager and a set of his
immediate subordinates directly reporting to him. The
command group is specified by the organizational hierarchy,
usually outlined in the chart. It is a relatively permanent group
and undertaken certain regular activities. As the span of
control of the department manager increases, the size of the
command group also increases. It continues to exist until a
decision is made to change or reconstitute the organizations
structure for some special reason. Different product divisions
(Product X, Product Y, and Product Z) and departments
(production, finance, marketing, personnel etc) are example of
command group.
 B. Task group:
• A task group is formed for performing a specific task. It
consists of a number of employees who work together to
complete a specific project or job. This group may or may
not be a part of the organizations structure. This group
may be composed of personnel specialists, corporate
vice president and workers from the shop floor. If it is
formed permanently, it is called a standing committee
and if formed temporarily for specific purpose, it is called
a committee or a task force. Examples of task groups are
committees, project group and task force.
 Informal group:
• informal groups develop naturally among and organizations
personnel without any directions from the management. It
is a voluntary unofficial formation of relationships coming
into existence by virtue of some commonly shared
background, needs, interest, value and purposes. Members
of such a group need not necessarily be from the same
department. It emerges naturally by virtue of the fact that
people seek in the organization some kinds of social
alliances, interactions and relationships on a selective basis
in course of their association with their jobs. Informal
groups are of two types.
 A. Interest group:
• interest groups are formed to share a common
interest in some job related event or possible
outcome. It is an informal or non structured group
members posse about specific issues. It emerges to
follow a specific common goal and share a common
interest. There are common interests of employees
in different areas like holidays, cafeteria, sports,
library, and overtime facilities and so on. Employees
form groups to promote their common interest.
 B. Friendship group:
• friendship groups are formed in an
organization because of the social affiliation
needs of the members such as needs for
belonging, for affiliation, acceptance etc.
Employees having common characteristics
such as age, ethnic background, political
sentiment ect form a friendship group. These
groups frequently extend their interaction and
communication to off the job activities.
• The formation of informal groups in an
organization does not signal anything
especially good or bad about management
practices. It is an important part of life in the
organizations. Friendship can bind people
together and help them and cooperate with
each other.
 Meaning of organizational behavior

• The term organizational behavior is an integrated form of

two separate words, organizational and behavior. The
first word organizational is derived from the word
organization which means relating to organization. The
other word is behavior which means, what a person does
or is a way of action. In other behavior can be defined as
the observable and measurable activities of human
beings. Thus, organizational behavior can be defined as
the study of human behavior in the organizations and
application of knowledge to make it more purposive,
responsive and cooperative. It represents the human
side of management, not the whole of management.
• In other words, organizational behavior is the
study and application of knowledge about how
people act within organization. It applies broadly
to the behavior of people in all types of
organization, such as business, government,
school and service organizations. It is the set of
actions to understand, predict, manage or control
individual and group activities in the organization
for improving organizational effectiveness.
The answer of following questions shows the scope of
organizational behavior.
• How people behave in an organization in given
circumstances?
• Why people join and continue the membership of an
organization?
• How do the people use the structure and technology to
achieve the goals of the organization as well as of their own
motives?
• What internal and external factors influence their behavior
in and outside the organization?
 Elements of organizational behavior
Organizational behavior is concerned with
understanding and describing human behavior
in an organizational setting. It is the field of
study that integrates behavioral science like
psychology, sociology and anthropology for the
human behavior in organizations. OB studies
three determinants of behavior in organizations;
they are individuals, groups and structure.
The basic elements of organizational behavior are
described below.
 People
• people constitute the internal social system of the
organization. They consist of individuals and groups.
Group may be classified as formal and informal, large
and small, interrelated and complex, effective and non
effective, contribution and non contributing and so on.
People are living, thin king and feeling beings who work
in organization to achieve their objectivespeople are
very dynamic in nature, therefore, human organizations
change every day. People may form, change and break
up the organization. Different attitudes, feeling,
emotions, values, customs and behaviors of the people
are studied in the organizational behavior.
 Structure
it defines the formal relationship of people in
organization. Structure defines the roles and
relationship of the people in an organization.
Different jobs are required to accomplish all of the
organizations activities. Organizational people
have to be related in some structural way so that
their work can be effectively coordinated. In other
words, different people in an organization are
given different roles and they have certain
relationship with others. Proper structure focuses
to division of labor so that people can perform
their duties or works to accomplish the
A well structure is developed focusing the works
designed to different people like managers,
accountant, workers, etc in the organization. All
people are related to each other to accomplish
the organizational goals in a coordinated
manner. Thus, structure relates to power and
duties. Structure must be effective, efficient,
appropriate and should also ensure that it suits
organizational people or participants.
 Technology:
• technology is related the physical and economic
conditions within the peoples work. It provides the
resource with which people work and affects the task that
they perform. People cannot accomplish anything without
technology. The technology used has a significant
influence on working relationships. The nature of
technology depends on the nature of organization and
influences work and working condition. The great benefit
of technology is that it allows people to do more and
better work but it also restricts people in various ways.
Technology brings effectiveness in the works classified to
different people in and organization. The stated tasks can
be better performed the related people in the easy way
with less time consuming.
 Environment
all organizations operate within an external
environment. A single organization does not exit
alone. It is a part of a larger system that contains
many elements, such as government, family, and
other organizations. All of these elements mutually
influence each other. It influences the attitude of
people, affects working conditions and provides
competition for resource and power. The
environment is considered very important in the
study of human behavior and organizational
behavior.
 Introduction of individual behavior

• It is well agreed that human behavior is

caused motivated and goal directed. To
understand the problems of an organization, a
careful study of an individual is essential. An
individual starts life with certain set of
characteristics. Each child right from the birth
is unique. Even identical twins may be found
to be different.
• Soon after the birth, a person is affected by his
environment. The inherited characteristics are
modified by learning experiences to produce a
complete personality. Genetics and
environments are so closely linked that it is
impossible to isolate the affect of any one in
developing of individual. The inherited mental
characteristics are modified by learning
experiences to produce a complete personality.
 Understanding the individual behavior

• There are millions of stars in the sky, but every

star is different. Similarly, there are millions of
people in the universe, but each person is
different from the multiple perspectives.
Organizations are composed of individuals.
Each individual is different from each other on
the basis of different psychological factors
such as motives, aspiration, perceptions and
abilities.
• Individual behavior means some concrete actions by
a person. Organizational behavior has a great
challenge as well as responsibility to deal with the
difference in individual behavior in the context of
organizations.
• Psychology, a discipline contributing to
organizational behavior, helps to examine how
people are similar, and how they differ in their
thinking, feeling, and behaviors. The behavior of an
individual is influenced by various factors.
 Factors influencing individual behavior

• Many characteristics of individual behavior are

inherited and many other are formed because
of various environmental factors. Individual
behavior is influenced by personal factor,
psychological factor, organizational factor,
environmental factor.
 1. Personal factors:
Every individual brings to the work place a
variety of personal characteristics and
attributes like age, gender, education,
intelligence, marital status, religion and
number of dependents etc.
 a. Age
age is an important factor that organizations are concern about.
Age has an impact on the performance, turnover,
absenteeism, productivity and satisfaction levels of employees.
In the other simple words, performance depends on age. As
advances, performance is likely to decline. Similarly, aging has
impact on turnover. Age absence relationship depends on
whether absenteeism is avoidable or unavoidable absence.
This is probably because of poor health associated with old
age. With regards to productivity, older age results in reduced
productivity. This is because of the decline in individual's skills
as he grows older in age. This is a positive association between
age and satisfaction.
 b. Gender
• there are important difference between men and women which
is because of their qualities and family responsibilities that affect
their job performance. Man is expected to be tough while a
woman is expected to be gentle and highly emotional. These
behaviors are developed due to differences in treatment that
the boys and girls receive in the family environment. While the
stability rate is higher among women employees, the
absenteeism rate is also higher. Research studies on male and
female employees say that there are no consistent male female
difference in problem solving ability and analytical skill. Even
though some work roles are assumed to be the exclusive of
women, such as nurses or air hostage, these roles are being
modified to accommodate man in these positions.
 c. Emotional intelligence:
• highly intelligent employees learn job related skills
and other organizational practices quickly, and
organization has to spend less time for training.
People with high intelligence have a good decision
making ability because of their good analytical
and reasoning a skill. They are very productive
and have a high achievement drive. This is the age
of emotional intelligence, and today's recruiting
managers make sure that candidate have it.
 d. Marital status:
• marital status has influence on absenteeism, turn over
and satisfaction. Married employee have fewer
absences, undergo less turn over and are more satisfied
with their jobs than the unmarried ones. In fact, married
employees are more conscious of their responsibilities.
Satisfaction levels were found to be in equal ratio among
both married and unmarried employees. Employees
belonging to both categories were unsatisfied in term of
the salary they got form organizations. Marriage imposes
additional responsibility hence the need for steady job
and steady income.
 e.Education:
• education has its effect upon individual
behavior largely through the level and type of
education received. Increased levels of
education serve to increase an individual's
expectations about positive outcome. These
outcomes are generally perceived to be a
more satisfying job, higher income level and
greater alternative sources for occupational
choice ie the good life.
 f.Religion:
• religion and culture also determine attitude towards
work and towards financial incentives. In other
words, religion and religiously based cultures that
play an important role in determining some aspects
of individual behavior, especially those that concern
morals, ethics and a code of conduct. Highly
religious people have high moral standards and
usually do not tell lies or talk ill of others. They are
highly contented thus strive of the goal of
achievement and self fulfillment.
 F Abilities:
• ability refers to the actual skills and capabilities that
a person possesses and is required for the effective
performance of activities. Ability of an individual is
made up of two sets of skills ie intellectual ability
and physical ability. Railways need to ensure that its
employees possess the necessary ability to engage
in the behavior required for effective performance.
This is accomplished either by careful selection of
people or by a combination of selection and
training.
 2. Psychological factor:
• Psychological factor: psychological factors may
include perception, attitude, psychological
needs, personality and motivation. All factors
are explained below.
 a. Perception

• Perception is one of the important factors of

individual behavior. It is regarded as feeling
plus meaning. In other words, perception is
meaningful. It is essentially a psychological
process. Perception is the process whereby
people select, organize, and interpret sensory
stimulus into meaningful information about
their work environment.
• Perception is a process of obtaining
knowledge of external objects and events by
means of sense. The knowledge is obtained by
interpreting the sensory input. Below are
presented a few definitions of perception.
• Perception is defined as the process by which an
individual selects, organizes and interprets
information inputs to create a meaning picture
of the word.
• Perception is a process by which individuals
organize and interpret their sensory impressions
in order to give meaning to their environment.
• It is the base of every individual's behavior.
There can be no behavior without perception.
• It is a psychological process. It is basically learned. It is an
individual process.
• It differs form person to person and situation to situation.
People look at the same things yet perceive differently.
• Perceived world may not be the real world. It is not always
based on reality. There can be misperception or false
perception. Behavior of a perception is based on the
perception of what reality is, not on reality itself. For example,
we pour water to the rising sun in the morning because we
perceive that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. But
in reality, neither rises nor sets.
• It is directly related to the motivation and personality of a
person and vice versa. We perceive what we like to perceive.
• It can be developed. Perception can be developed through
education, experience and training.
 b. Attitudes:
• the term attitude is very common and used in everyday life to
describe people's behavior, it is a way of organizing and
perception. In others words, it is more or less stable tendency
to feel, think, perceive and act in a certain manner towards an
object or a situation. It is a tendency to act in a certain way,
either favorable or unfavorable concerning objects, people or
events. An attitude has three elements in it that lead to
measurable outcomes. These are feelings, thoughts and
behaviors. Feelings and thought can be measured by simply
asking individuals about their feelings and opinions. Behavior
can be measured either by actual ones actions or simply by
asking the person how he would act in a certain situation. By
measuring and integrating these three elements, a person's
attitude towards a given situation can be established.
• In general a person may have a positive attitude
which means a go9od outlook of life, or negative
attitude which means continuous complaining
about problems in life. For example, if you
showed a glass half filled with water to Ram and
Sham and asked them to describe it.
• If Ram says "the glass is half full" Sham says "the
glass is half empty" then there Rams attitude is
positive and that of Sham's is negative.
• Positive attitude is something that organizations
look for while interviewing candidates.
Organizationally speaking, an employee's
negative attitude about work may be reflected
by sun standard work performance, excessive
absenteeism, excessive complaining about work
environment or disobedience of rules or
authority. These altitudes can be changed either
by simply advice or by training and coaching.
 c. Psychological needs:
• psychological needs basically mean the
internal needs of a person. Individuals differ in
their patters of psychological needs. Such
needs are derived from the source within an
individual. Every individual has a different kind
of need. There are three basic psychological
needs, they are need or achievement, need
for affiliation and need for power.
 d. Personality
• : personality factors must be taken into account
in determining the suitability of an individual for
a position in an organization. it refers to personal
traits such as dominance, aggressiveness and
other quality reflected through a person's
behavior. An individual's personality determines
the type of activities for which he is suited and
the likelihood that the person would be able to
perform the task effectively.
 e. Motivation
• happy workers are the productive workers. To make
them happy proper motivation is so essential.
Motivation refers to all the forces operating within a
person to cause him to engage in certain kinds of
behavior rather than others. Motivation may be
internal eg a person's skill, ability and intelligence,
or external eg incentives, training etc. Further, a
person's motivation is influenced by his attitudes,
beliefs, values and goals.
 3. Organizational factors
individual behavior is influenced by a wide
variety of organizational system and
resources. Systems such as the organizational
structure and hierarchy strongly influence and
constrain both what individuals do and how
they do. Some of the main organizational
factors are organizational culture and climate,
tenure, reward system, leadership style etc.
 a. Organizational (policy, rules and
regulation) culture and climate
• : organizational culture and climate also affect
an individual's behavior at work. The various
dimensions of organizational culture are
values, ethics, belief, climate, and culture.
 b. Tenure:
• tenure refers to the length of time an employee spends with
an organization. It has s direct impact on productivity, job
performance, turnover and absenteeism. There is a positive
relationship between seniority and job productivity and a
negative relation between seniority and absenteeism. Tenure
is another important factor that has an impact on an
organizations turnover. The longer a person continues in a job,
the less likely he or she is to quit. It is also true that then is
positive relationship between tenure and satisfaction. People
who work longer with an organization are not only satisfied
with their work, but are also loyal to the organization.
 c. Reward system:
• reward system is another influencing factor to
the individual behavior. Then is positive
relationship between rewards and individuals
work performance. It means when people
perform well, they are positively reward through
awards, encouragement and appreciation. The
aim of rewards should be to develop among
employees pride in belonging to the
organization, and feeling that people are valued.
 d. Leadership style:
• leadership style is another factor that helps in
determining individual's behavior at work.
Leadership style can be divided as autocratic,
democratic, and free rein.
 4. Environmental factor:
• three main environment factors that affect
individual behavior are economic factors,
political and technological factors.
 a. Economic factors:
• economic factors play a very important role in
determining individual behavior. All work is
performed within economic framework that
both directly and indirectly the individual
behavior. Economic factors that influence
individual behavior are
• Employment opportunities: employment opportunities
have strong influence on individual behavior. Fewer job
opportunities create fear of losing the present job and
increase the emphasis on job and increase the emphasis
on job security and can change the basic motivation
pattern of the individual.
• Salaries and wages: salaries and wages satisfy various
individual needs. They provide food and shelter, are
measure of achievement and can even serve as status
symbol. Money is a complex variable and its effects on
behavior are tremendous. It is well known that wages
attract people to certain organizations and determine
their satisfaction on jobs.
 b. Political factors:
• political factor of a country affects individual
behavior in many ways. When a country's
political stable, it increases industries,
increase job opportunities and higher wages.
An unstable government companies are
reluctant to invest, economic status is
affected, jobs are affected, and ultimately
individuals get affected.
 c. Technological change:
• technological change is included as an economic factor
because of its potential effects upon individual job
opportunities. Technological change has its strongest
impact at lower level jobs, although increased automation,
robotics, computerization and more sophisticated
production technologies can affect individuals at all levels.
In addition to changing employment opportunities,
technological chance has its effect on job design. Although
the individual may stay employed, the skills required to
perform the job may be reduced, thus increasing the
downward pressure on wage rate.
 Levels of organizational behavior
• Individual level: organizations are composed of individuals
and their behaviors. Organizational behavior specially
focuses on the individual activities and behaviors. It
provides information for analyzing why and how an
individual behaves in a particular way. Human behavior is
a complex phenomenon and is affected by a large number
of factors such as psychological, social, cultural, ethical
and others. In order words, organizational behavior
focuses an individual level such as individual perception,
attitude, feelings, emotions, motivation, learning, values,
ethics etc.
OB integrates these factors to provide simplicity
in understanding human behavior. Similarly
human behavior can be understood at the
level of inter personal interaction.
Organizational behavior provides means for
understanding these interpersonal
relationships in the organization.
 Group Level:
• Organizational behavior also focuses on behavior at
the group level. We know that each member of the
group affects the behavior of other members and in
turn, is affected by them. The group also
determines the nature and patterns of
reinforcement the members receive in the course of
their interaction with one another. In understanding
group behavior, the factors that should be analyzed
are groups norms, group cohesion, and group
decision making.
• In a true sense, organizational behavior focuses on
managerial knowledge of understanding group behavior
which is very important for organizational moral and
productivity. In other words, the organization is made up
of many groups that develop a complex relationships to
build its process and matter. Understanding the effect of
group relationship is very essential for managers in
today's organization. Behavior provides means to
understand and achieve cooperative group relationships
and their activities through interaction, rotation of
members among groups, avoidance of win loss situation
and focus on total group goals and objectives.
 Organizational level

organizational
behavior also focuses on the activities of the different nature and type of the
organizations. Organizational level of OB includes ideas or concept and meaning of
organizations, ethics and values of the organizations, types of the organizations,
system of the organizations, environment of the organizations, policies and strategies
of organizations etc.
• It also studies or focuses on the mission, vision, goals
and objective of the organization as a whole
organization behavior also considers organizational
climate and the organizational adaption. Here
organizational climate refers to the total organizational
situations affecting human behavior, organizational
behavior suggests the approach to create organizational
climate in totality rather than merely improving the
physiological conditions or increasing employees
satisfaction by changing isolated work process.
 Factors affecting group behavior.
• The performance of any group is affected by
several factors other than reasons for forming
and the stages of its development. In a high
performance group, a group synergy often
develops in which the group's performance is
more than the sum of the individual
contributions of its members. There are
different factors affecting group behavior.
 Group structure:
• group structure refers to the interrelationships between
the individuals constituting a group, the characteristics
that make group functioning orderly and predictable.
Effective performance of groups depends on how they are
structured. Group effectiveness is necessary to achieve
needs and objectives of group members and the
organization. In fact, group structure is the basis for its
performance that leads to group effectiveness. Group
structure can be defined by the variables such as formal
leadership, roles, norms, group status, group size,
composition and cohesiveness.
 Formal leadership

Every group is run by a formal leader. In

organizational structure leaders are typically
identified by titles such as supervisor, finance
manager, department manager, foreman, shift
in charge, or task force head. For the purpose
of group success these leaders play important
roles. They inspire employees in the groups and
create an environment for them to work more
effectively towards organizational objectives.
 Cohesiveness

• It refers to the degree to which group members are

motivated and attached to each other with a view to
remain part of it. Cohesiveness reflects how
emotionally committed are the group members to
remain in the same groups for its success. It is very
difficult to work in a group where there is a low
degree of cohesiveness among members. Therefore,
it is the glue or esprit de corps that holds group
members together to ensure fulfillment of individual
as well organizational goals. There are a number of
factors that cause group cohesiveness. Some of these
are explained briefly as follows.
 Member similarity:
• the degree of cohesiveness will be high when
group members are similar in age,
backgrounds and values. In other words,
homogeneous groups will be more cohesive
than heterogeneous groups. It is because of
more trust and less conflict among the group
members with homogeneous character.
 Group size:
• a smaller size of the group tends to be more
cohesive the bigger one. It would be easier to
build understanding and to agree on goals in
small sized group.
 Member interaction:
when members interact frequently, there tends
to be more group cohesiveness because they
got a chance to share ideas and views in order
to avoid the situation of misunderstanding and
conflict.
 Somewhat difficult entry:
difficulty in recruitment and selection process of
a group member will make it difficult to enter
it. However, applications tend to be more
cohesive when they face a difficult
recruitment and selection process or being
selected to be a group member. The difficulty
in entering a group makes it prestigious to
work in that group
 Group success
a successful groups tends to be more cohesive
than group of repetitive failure records. Group
members of the successful group believe that,
because of their successive records in the
past, they will remain successful in the future
too.
 External competition and challenges

• when group members feel more insecure from

the external competition and have feeling of
threat from the outsider, they remain
compact, and that results in increasing group
cohesiveness. In such a case, all members of
the group value their skill and ability to cope
with the external challenges and threats.
 Group process

• Group behavior is also influenced by group

processes. Group processes include the
communication patterns used by members for
information exchanges, group decision making,
leader behavior, power dynamics, conflict
interactions and the like.
In order to understand work group behavior group
process is important. The following concepts are
essential to understand group process.
 Social loafing
• in group task where each members
contribution is not clearly visible, there is a
tendency for individuals to decrease their
efforts. Social loafing occurs when people
exert less effort when working in groups than
when working alone. It is a kind of process loss
working in a group.
 Synergy:
but group process can also produce positive
results. It can produce output sum of their
inputs. Synergy is a condition in which the
interaction of two or more people produces
higher quality and quantity of solutions than if
these people worked alone on the problem.
The concept of synergy can be used to
understand group processes.
 The social facilitation effect
• performing a task in front of other can have a positive
or negative effect on individual performance. The
social facilitation effect refers to this tendency for
performance to improve or decline in response to the
presence of others. It is believed that the
performance of simple, routine tasks tend to be
speeded up and made more accurate by the presence
of others. Where the work is more complex, requiring
close attention, the presence of others is likely to
have a negative effect on performance.
 Meaning of team

• Teams are one of the major forces behinds today's

revolutionary changes in organizations. They
comprise groups of two or more people who
interact and influence each other, are mutually
accountable for achieving common objectives, and
perceive themselves as a social entity with an
organization. Groups and teams are not the same
things. Groups refer to an assemblage of people or
objects gathered together, whereas team usually
refers to people organized to work together.
 According to Schemer horn

• Teams are groups of people who work actively

together to achieve a purpose for which they
are accountable.
• From this definition; it appears that all team
exist to fulfill some purpose, such as
assembling a product, providing a service,
playing a cricket game, or making an
important decision.
 Types of teams

• Different types of team are formed and

existed at our workplace to solve problems
and make change to improve performance.
Some important types of teams are briefly
discussed below.
 Problems solving teams
• organizations use team in creative problem solving.
Problems solving team comprises employee
involvement team. Employee involvement team applies
to wide variety of teams whose members meet
regularly to collectively examine important workplace
issues and problems. They discuss ways to enhance
quality, better satisfy customers, raise productivity, and
improve the quality of work life. One special type of
problem solving team is quality circles. It is small goup
of persons who meet periodically, an hour or so once a
week, to discuss and develop solutions for problems
relating to quality, productivity or costs.
 Cross functional team:
cross functional team consists of employees form
about the same hierarchical level but from
different work areas in an organization. This is an
effective means of allowing employees from
diverse areas within an organization to exchange
information, develop new ideas, solve problems
and coordinate complex tasks. There the diversity
of work team can help to identify creative or
unique solution. Especially, it takes time to build
trust and team work, among people because of
different background with different experiences.
 Virtual teams
until recently, team work was confined in concept and practice
to those circumstances in which members could meet face to
face. Now the advent of new technologies and sophisticated
computer program has changed all that. Virtual teams, as ones
whose members meet at least part of the time electronically
and with computer support. Such teams operation across
space, time and organizational boundaries with members who
communicate mainly through electronic technologies. Through
communications technology, team members can participate in
important decisions, yet on their home turf. Recent evidence
suggests that effective virtual teams creatively combine email,
video conferencing, internets, and other communication
channels to suit their needs.
 Self managing teams
• a self managed work team is a formal group of employees that
operates without a manager. This is a small group of
employees, typically 10 to 15 in number, who perform highly
related or interdependent jobs and bear the responsibilities of
their supervisors. Typically, this includes planning and
scheduling of work, assigning task to members, collective
controls over the pace of work making operating decisions and
taking action on problems. Fully self managed work teams
even select their own members in it, and have the members
evaluate each other's performance. As a result, supervisory
position will have little importance and may even be
eliminated.
  
Team work

• Similar to groups, teams are also popular in organization. The

value of teams is increasing because of their roles in
employee motivation, productivity, employee satisfaction,
improving communication, expanding job skills and
contributing to the organizational flexibility. Then what is the
difference between teamwork and group work. Teams are
groups of two or more people who interact and influence
each other and are mutually accountable to achieve
organizational objectives. They also perceive themselves as a
social entity with in an organization. It is stated that all teams
are groups but not all groups are teams, because some
groups are just make up of people who have no specific
purpose to achieve except their social interaction
• In fact, teamwork occurs when group members work
together in ways that utilize their skills in order to
achieve their common purpose. Nowadays, high
performance teams are very popular. These teams are
deployed in high performing organizations which have
business operations in different parts of the world.
These teams make revolutionary changes in
organizations by responding to the needs of the
competing environment. Such teams have strong core
value to guide behavior of team members towards
achievement of tam goals. Such teams also have
creativity and thus encourage innovation.
• The management of men is very challenging
task because of the dynamic nature of the
people. Not two persons are similar in mental
abilities, traditions, sentiments, and behavior.
They differ widely also as groups, and are
subject to many and varied influences. People
are responsive, they feel, think and act, and
therefore they cannot be operated like a
machine.
• The word behavior is related here with
psychology. Behavior includes anything a
person or animal does that can be observed in
some way. Behavior unlike minds or thoughts
or feelings, can be observed, recorded and
studied. No one ever says or heard a mind, but
we can see and hear behavior. We can see and
measure what a person does and hear and
record what a person says.
• All of the social sciences share the common
assumption that human social behavior can be
studied scientifically, although there are great
debates, concerning how best to accomplish
this. Social scientists believe that certain
patents and regularities in human behavior
enable them to predict and explain human
behavior to a substantial extent.
• Behavior of human being is caused, goal directed
and unpredictable. Therefore, understanding
human behavior has assumed great significance for
the managers for managing people effectively. In
other words, knowledge about why people behave
as they behave helps managers extract maximum
results from people's efforts for accomplishing
organizational goals in an effective manner. For this
managers need to seek answer mainly to these two
questions.
 Difference between group and team
Group Team
•
Strong, clearly focused a Shared leadership goals.
single leader.
Less accountability and Mutual accountability
Individual accountability.
Runs efficient meetings Encourages open ended
discussion and active problem
solving meeting.

Indirect evaluation Direct evaluation

 Features of quality circle

• Membership: the membership of most quality

circle is composed of volunteer from a
particular area or department. Nowadays
membership is composed of white color and
technical areas rather than blue color existed
before.
• Budget: most of the circles have no formal
budget of their own and do not directly
control any organization resources.
• Time: most of circles spent 1 to 2 hours weekly
for meeting purpose after office hours in Japan.
• Meeting agenda: meeting agenda of most
quality circle are programmed to improve
quality, productivity, and cost reduction and job
humanization.
• Reward for contribution: they do not have
financial feature and major focus is placed on
the fact that rewards for participating are
intrinsic and indirect not direct and financial.
• Leadership: most of the circle activities are
managed by a facilitator instead of manager.
• Power: circle is not particularly threatening to
the basic management authority in the
organization except to meet and make
suggestions.
• The features that budget, power and financial
rewards are only the secondary means to
achieve quality goals. Primary means is the co
operation and employees should take lesson
from Japanese quality control circle.
 Advantages of quality circle

• Better quality of product, services and work life.

• High level of employee motivation
• Increase in market share through reduction of
product/service cost
• Improvement in work methods and procedures
• Increase in output
• Efficiency improvement in employees
• Facilitates two way communication system
• Facilitates participate management and joint
responsibility taking
 However, it too has some disadvantages, they are

• Increase in training and meeting expenses.

Sometimes salary cost may also increase due
to increased efficiency in employees.
• There is greater possibility to resist in quality
circle activation by middle level management.
• Employee's expectation may grow.
• The non member employee in quality circle
can be dissatisfied.
• Small organization may not be able to apply
quality circle due to limited resources and
unpredictable future viability.
• Quality circle can be applied only when the
following conditions are fulfilled
-Top and middle management must believe in
participated management
-Employees should be enthusiastic
-Educational standard of the staff should be high
enough to understand quality circle activities
-The size of organization should be big enough
to form and support training expenses.
 Quality control circle in Nepal

• Quality control system in Nepalese business enterprise is

very poor till now. Future viability of business, at the era
of the cut throat competition and globalization, largely
depends upon quality products and services along with
highly motivated employees and aggressive marketing.
To that end quality circle is the best means available to
managers at this point in time. Nepal too is not far from
this reality. So far we know, no formal effort has been
made by government as well as private sector to adopt
the concept and benefit of quality circle.
 Group decision making

• Decisions are taken either by an individual or by a

group. When a decision is taken by an individual in the
organization, it is known as individual decision. Group
decision refers to the decision which is taken by a
group of organizational members. There are many
situations which suddenly come up as ill structure
problems which are unlikely to be solved by a single
individual. In such situation, the manager may assign
the problems to a group of expert for
recommendation.
• It is often argued that group can make higher
quality decisions than individual's decision
making. In this section we will look at the
advantages of both group and individual
decision making, identify when groups should
be preferred, and review the more popular
techniques for improving group decision
making.
 Advantages of group decision making

More complete information and knowledge: it is

said that two heads are better than one. By
accumulating the ideas and thinking of several
individuals, groups bring more input to the
decision process.
• Generates more alternatives: because of the above
advantages groups can identify more alternatives
than individual. This opens up the opportunity for
more approaches and alternatives to be considered.
• Increased acceptance of a solution: the members
involved in the group decision know the reality and
fact behind the decision, are more likely to accept it
and are motivated to communicate it to their units/
departments.
 Disadvantages:

• Time consuming: a lot of time is taken to arrange the

group meeting. And conflicts are quite common in
group decision making as compared to individual
decision making.

• Minority domination: group members differ in terms

of their status, knowledge skills, experience etc.
Some time group discussion can be dominated by
one or few strong member. They can have excessive
influence than the majority of the group members.
• Pressures to conform: there are conformity pressures in
groups. Group decisions may also represent undesirable
compromises. It is also called group think, people do not
accept the decision from inside but they say ok form outside
which harms the decision quality.
• Ambiguous (unclear) responsibility: in individual decision
making the responsibility is clear but in group decision
making it is diluted. Nobody is responsible for the final
outcome, that’s why it is said that group s responsibility is
nobody's responsibility
Note: the advantage of group decision-making is
disadvantages of individual decision-making and vice versa.
 Individual vs. groups: effectiveness and efficiency

• Whether groups are more effective than

individuals? depends on the criteria we use for
defining effectiveness. In terms of accuracy,
group decisions will tend to be more accurate.
Furthermore, they produce better quality
decisions, there are more creative solutions,
and acceptance is also high.
• But effectiveness cannot be considered without also assessing
efficiency. Groups are less efficient than individuals. They take
more time, speed is slow and conflicts and pressure to
conformity are high. In deciding whether to use groups, then,
consideration should be given to assessing whether increases in
effectiveness are more than enough to offset the losses in
efficiency.
• If the organizations top requirements criteria are speed and
efficiency, individual decision making is preferred than group
decision making. For rest of the factors it would be better to go
through group decision making than individual decision making.
 Techniques of group decision making

• It is to say that in many instances group

decision making is preferable to individual
decision-making. Thus while the necessity and
benefits of group decision making are
recognized, numerous problems are also
associated with it.
• Some of the techniques employed to make
the group decision making process more
effective and decision making more efficient in
which creativity is encouraged, are as follows.
 Brainstorming:
this method uses a group of people, usually
between five to ten. They sit around a table.
They generate ideas. The basic purpose of this
technique is on generation of ideas rather
than on evaluation of ideas. They try to
generate large number of ideas. All the
generated ideas are written on the board so
that every member in the meeting can see all
the ideas and try to improve upon such ideas.
• Evaluation and ranking of ideas is not allowed
in this method. Thus the group never really
concludes the problem solving process. The
basic rules used in this method are
• Do not criticized the ideas: members are not
allowed to criticize during the ideas given by
their colleagues during brainstorming.
• Provide as many ideas as possible: another
rule for brainstorming is collection of ideas
from as many members as possible. All the
presented ideas are noted down for further
discussion.
• Speak freely: every member is free to put
ideas no matter how wild they are. The only
thing is that ideas are presented without any
sort of hesitation.
 Normal group technique

• This technique is also similar to brainstorming

except that the approach is more structured.
In this technique individuals are not allowed
to communicate . The process of decision
making in normal groups has five steps
• Step one: the group meets face to face, but
each member is given the problem in writing
and is asked to silently and independently
write down ideas on how to solve the
problem.
• Step two: Each member in turn verbally
presents one idea to the group; there is no
discussion until all ideas are exhausted.
• Step three: the group discuss ideas, both to
clarify and elaborate on them and provide
evaluation.
• Step four: each individual independently and
anonymously ranks the ideas.
• Step five: the group decision is determined to
be the idea with the highest aggregate ranking
 Delphi techniques

• Developed by researchers at the Rand

Corporation, the Delphi method aims at
providing member with each other. Indeed, in
Delphi groups, there is no face to face contact
at all. There are five steps to the Delphi
techniques. They are
• Step one: each individual member independently
and anonymously writes down comments,
suggestions, and solutions to the problem.
• Steep two: all the comments are sent to central
location.
• Step three: each member is sent the written
comments of all other members.
• Step four: each member provides feedback on
the others comments, writes down new idea
stimulated by their comments and forwards
these to the central location
• Step five: step three and four are repeated as
often as necessary until consensus is reached.
• This method is the modification of nominal group
techniques, except that it involves obtaining the
opinions of experts physically separated from each
other and unknown to each other. The process used
in Delphi technique is very time consuming. It is
primarily useful in board range, long term complex
issues.
• Both the Delphi and nominal group technique are
relatively new, but each has had excellent records of
success.
 Basic differences between them are
• Delphi participants are typically anonymous to one
another, while nominal group technique participants
become acquainted.
• Nominal group technique participants meet face to face
around a table, while Delphi participants are physically
distant and never meet face to face.
• In the Delphi process, all communication between
participants is by way of written questionnaires and
feedback from the monitoring staff, but in nominal group
technique, communication is direct between participants.
 Electronic meeting

• This is the age of information technology. To

speed up the meeting process this technique
has been developed. It combines the NGT with
sophisticated computer technology. It is
regarded as the most recent approach to
group decision making.
• Up to 50 people sit around a horseshoe
shaped table. Issues are presented to the
participants, who type their responses on to
their computer screens. Individual comments,
as well as aggregate votes, are displayed on a
projection screen in the room.
 How to improve group decision making?

• A lot of efforts have been made by the social

scientist and other to develop strategies to make
group decision making more effective, less time
consuming and less costly. Four such techniques
which are becoming very popular are
• Brain storming
• Nominal group technique
• Delphi techniques
• Electronic meeting
• A short description of all of them has already
been presented in above paragraphs. Those
techniques have been developed to avoid the
weakness of traditional group decision making
methods.
 Issues in managing work teams

• Teams can be utilized in small and large

organizations, on the shop floor and in offices,
and in countries around the world. Teams
must be initiated for performance based
reasons, and proper planning and
implementation strategies must be used.
Major issues in work teams are
 Team performance
organizations changing to a team based
management need to recognize the time and
effort involved in making such a change.
Organizations typically expect too much, too
soon when they implement teams. In fact,
things often get worse before they get better.
The pain of working on teams starts soon, but
gains are attained after a long period of time
only.
• Team and workforce diversity: teams composed of
diversified work force (heterogeneous) are more
successful than homogeneous team members.
Managing diversity on teams is a balancing act
which is not so easy. The advantages and
disadvantages of diversity are
• Advantages: multiple perspectives, greater
openness to new ideas, increased creativity,
flexibility, multiple skills.
• Disadvantages: confusion, complexity,
miscommunication, difficulty in reaching a single
decision, conflict etc.
• Energy of teams: teams are not effective at all times. They are
very effective at the beginning time and they start showing
declining performance soon. Team spirit, idea sharing,
cooperation and effectiveness start declining. Teams start
showing maturity stage and suffer from group think.
Groupthink refers to the tendency of the members of a highly
cohesive group to lose their evaluate capabilities or abilities.
The issue here is how to maintain or continue the effectiveness
and efficiency of team at all stages or time periods. There are
certain suggestions. They are
• Prepare members to deal with the problems of maturity in
advance.
• Offer refresher training
• Encourage teams to treat their development as a constant
learning experience.
• From where to star team work? The last but not the least
complex issue is from where to start the team work in the
organization. The change must start at the top. Top management
has to play three important roles. They are
• First, top management must decide to go to a team based
organization for sound business performance- related reasons.
• Second, top management should active in communicating the
reasons for the change to the rest of the organization.
• Third, top management has to support the change effort during
the difficult period.
the issue here is are all the top managers ready to start team work
form the top, and ready to play the above three roles. These are
not the easy task for all top level managers in all organization.  
 Quality circles
• Quality circle is a Japanese innovation. It is a
small group phenomenon which comprises
employees from the same work area or doing
a similar type of work, meeting voluntarily and
regularly to identify, analyze and resolve work
related problems. The group members meet
regularly (e.g. an hour or so once a week) and
discuss problems and issues like production,
quality, productivity or cost.
• The group also monitors regular progress in the
use of quality circle in India was made in 1981 at
Bharat heavy electrical limited implementation
process. The concept was initially developed by
Japans union of scientists and engineers in 1962
and expanded all over the world. In the United
States the concept was first successfully
implemented in 1974 at Lockheed in California.
Later on, it became an international movement.
The roles and responsibility of different people involved in the quality
circle are follows

• Quality circle members have to meet regularly to identify

and discuss issues and problems related to their circle.
They also learn statistical techniques, promote circle
programs and help to select new circle members and
should follow the code of conduct. In case of need for
any technical services, people from other departments
are invited to assist. It means non members are also
invited to contribute to the circles activities.
• Quality circle leaders are elected by consensus of the
members. They are responsible for providing
operating environment for every member of the
circle. Leaders are responsible for maintaining a
cordial work atmosphere and cohesive team spirit in
order to enhance a sense of belongingness among the
circle members. The main functional responsibilities
include: monitor progress, maintain records, keep
meeting on track, facilates members, assign work for
all to perform and create an environment to perform.
• The top management appoints the coordinator. He or
she is responsible for providing administration and
support service for the circle. The coordinator will also
remain a member of the steering committee which
oversees the overall functioning of the circle and is also
responsible for keeping relations with the outside world
to know about external activities related to the circle.
The main responsibilities of the coordinator includes:
providing support services and resources, resolve
conflicts and obtain management support and
participation.
• The steering committee comprises heads of
different functional departments under the
leadership of the chief executive of the
organization. It will provide broad guidance and
advice on different circle related matters. More
specifically, it is responsible for budgetary
arrangements, training for the leaders,
delegation of authority and responsibly for
using resources and resolving conflicts.
 Quality circle process

• As mentioned the members of the circle meet

every hour on specified weekday. The
company itself within its premises will mostly
arrange the venue for the circle meeting. The
quality circle process starts with the following
steps.
 Holding preparatory meeting:

• during this meeting members make

introduction, select the circle leader and
deputy, name the circle, obtain a working kit
and get special instruction to accomplish
specified tasks.
Establishing goals and objectives of the circle:

• in this step all members should be familiar

with the company's goals, productivity trends
and operation process. This will help them to
establish goals and objectives of the circle. In
fact, in this step members can say why their
circle exists and what objectives it has.
Brainstorming for problem identification:

During this step members are responsible for

finding the issues and problems that they
really try to get into. They hold discussion on
different causes and effects of the issues and
problems and try to identify most important
cause to be considered to solve the problems.
In this process they mainly engage in the
preparation of cause and effect diagram, in-
depth analysis of sub causes, taking
responsibility for verification of the causes by
members, as well as for members' comments
on the causes.
Brainstorming for choosing the best solution:

• once strong causes and sub causes are

identified, brainstorming session will be
organized to find the best solution to the
problem. The session will choose the best
solution.
 Verifying solutions:
• once a solution to a problem is found, the next
step is to develop action plans for its
verification by the members. In this process
activities are assigned for individual members
to investigate and verify the solution to the
problem. Once selection is made, they should
prepare a case report and present it to the
management.
 Implementation and follow up:
once management agrees with the given
solution, it will be implemented. After
implementation, the circle itself will be
responsible for the follow up of the activities
in documented properly and feedback for the
improvements in future circle activities is
provided.
 Self managed work team

• Self managed work teams also know as self

directed work teams or empowered teams or
autonomous work groups refer to work groups
empowered to make decisions about
planning, doing and evaluating their daily
work. Team members are allowed to make
decisions on selection of inputs, scheduling
and allocating task among members, training
and development, performance evaluation,
and controlling.
• Unlike in traditional marketing and personnel
departments where employees are more or
less selected from similar backgrounds, self
managed work team comprises members
from diverse backgrounds. Such teams
comprise multi skilled members from various
backgrounds such as engineers, sociologist, HR
expert and etc.
• Self managed work teams configured by
redesigning jobs. The central aspect of such
redesign is to put together a work team in
which members can work autonomously. The
team is free to decide for following thing.
• Which working methods will be used
• Who shall belong to the group
• Who shall take charge of directive duties if
they come into performance(leadership)
• Who shall perform which duties(internal task
allocation)
• The team is free to decide on individual
production methods, internal leadership,
recruitment, and internal distribution of tasks.
Under this approach, the main focus will be on
work team and its tasks instead of focusing on
the one man one job relationship. The main
characteristics of the configuration include.
• The team is assigned a whole task, and since
team members are clear about their mission
they find the task meaningful to perform.
• The composition of the team will be such that
all of the skills required to perform tasks will
be presented and thus the team can work in a
very fixable way.
• The team will receive full autonomy in the
matters of formulation of team policies, their
execution and even in selecting required
qualified team members.
• The reward system will be designed in order to
motivate teams rather than individual team
members. In other words, performance based
group reward system will be designed to
encourage collective performance.
• Self managing team are popular because of
their contributions to productivity and quality
improvements, production improvements,
faster response to technological change.,
reduction in absenteeism and turnover,
improved work attitudes and quality of work
life. All functions of traditional management at
the lower level will be transferred to the team
leader.
• However, self managing teams are not always right
options for workplaces. It largely depends on the
nature of organization, behavior of people and work
situation. This approach of participation, involvement,
and empowerment must be consistent with leadership
behavior, culture and organizational structure. Only
then the benefits of such teams will be available.
 Meaning of conflict

• Conflict is the process that begins when one party

perceives that another party has negatively affected,
or is about to negatively affects, something that the
first party cares about.
Conflict is a difficult and controversial topic. Conflict
has been defined from several stand points in
literature. In one approach, it has been related with
tension and is defined as expression of hostility,
negative attitude, antagonism, misunderstanding,
aggression, rivalry, disputes etc.
• Although there are differences in the
conceptualization of conflict, organizational
experts agree that conflict is an open
expression of tensions. It arises when there is
disagreement between two or more
individuals or groups.
 Types of conflict

• Conflict within an individual: this conflict

arises due to incompatibility of individuals
expected roles with his or her own values and
beliefs. When a private business owner asks
his secretary not to send any visitor into his
private office, for an ethical secretary, it is
difficult to tell visitors that his boss is not in
the office. This is the conflict of expected role
and personal values.
• Interpersonal conflict: this conflict arises when
there are clashes of interest between two or
more individuals in the organizations. A
manager at the same level in organization
competes with the other managers to be
promoted for a post of executive director. This
is an example of interpersonal conflict.
Conflict between the individual and the group

in some cases, although the individual belongs

to a group, he or she may dislike the group's
operation style and thus conflict arise. For an
example, the manager takes disciplinary
action against a member of a group. This may
cause conflict between the individual and the
group.
 Inter group conflict:
this is the conflict between two groups in an
organizational. This conflict arises due to
clashes of group interests. A good example of
such conflict is the conflict between labors
and management.
 Sources of conflict

• As indicated earlier, conflict interpersonal,

intra personal, inter group arise and increase
in the organization with differences in the
goals, interests and priorities. Below are
presented important causes of conflict in
organizational setting.
 Incompatibility of goals:
• in the situation of competing goals between
individuals and groups, conflict may arise.
Specially with increasing diversity in
organizations, various groups represented may
develop competing goals, which then become
the basis of conflict. In the example of
privatization, the union may disagree with
company policy over privatization if the union
goals of its member's welfare do not match the
company goal of privatization.
 Different values and beliefs
Individual's values and beliefs are largely affected by
their educational backgrounds, work experience and
training. People representing a culture will have
unique values and beliefs different from other
cultures. When two companies merge together,
people with different cultures come together and the
situation of conflict arises due to differences in their
values and beliefs systems. To take the example of
privatization, even within a group some members
believe that privatization is good for employees and
the company future, whereas some others believes
that it can cause layoffs.
 Scarce resources
perhaps the most obvious cause of conflict is
scarce resources. No organization has
unlimited resources available. Resources are
always scarce. In our organizations, conflict
arises at the time of allocating money, space,
furniture; personnel etc. in every organization
individuals and groups are competing for
resources to achieve their goals.
 Task interdependence:
• task interdependence refers to the degree of
collective action required to work for the completion
given tasks. In this situation groups or group
members must have to share common inputs to
complete tasks. When the task of one group is
interdependent with the tasks of others to share
inputs and when inputs are delayed or delivered in
an incomplete or unsatisfactory form, serious
conflict may result. The higher the tasks are
interdependent, the greater the chance of conflict.
 Ambiguous rules:
• when work rules are incomplete and difficult to
understand, a situation of conflict arises.
Ambiguous rules mean task ambiguity and thus it
becomes difficult to work on given responsibility.
Conflict will obviously also increase when there is
ambiguity among individuals and groups over
their responsibility. There will therefore be
confused and thus try to reclaim their
responsibility. This will be the cause of conflict.
 Communication problem:
• conflict in organizations may arise due to
incomplete and faulty communication
between group members and groups. Many
people lack skills and motivation to
communicate and may result in conflict.
• Wages and salary, bonus, personnel cause,
multiple unionisms affiliated with national
practices, working conditions and hours of
work ,
 Nature and the types of inter group conflict

• As stated earlier, groups are popular in modern

organizations. They are real vehicles for change and
development. These groups have different goals,
interests and preferences. To achieve them, groups
need to activate themselves to acquire authority
and resources. In the process of acquiring the, a
situation of inter group conflict may arise. It is the
situation of opposition and clashes between groups.
There are different types of inter group conflict
some of them are as follows
• Vertical conflict: this form of conflict arises at
different levels in organizations. When
employees feel that they are highly controlled
and their freedom is jeopardize (put at risk) by
their supervisors, they try to resist and thus
vertical conflict arises. This type of conflict
might be the results of inadequate
communication, goal conflict etc.
 Horizontal conflict
• : this form of conflict arises between different
work groups at the same hierarchical level of
organization. Such conflicts normally happen in a
situation when each department at the same
level is pursuing its own interests and references,
neglecting its effects on other departments.
When employees in different departments have
differences in their attitudes, values and beliefs,
these types of conflict will arise in organizations.
 Line staff conflict:
• organizations have both line and staff functions.
Line and staff work as regular employees
responsible directly for some process and
produce part or all of goods or services. Staff
factions are executed by the HR department,
account department, legal department etc.
employees in these departments are responsible
for giving advice and support to line mangers eg
production manager, marketing manager, etc.
they are technical employees and might have
control over resources.
 Diversity based conflict
people of different backgrounds, races, ethnicity
and religions are working at the same
workplace. Many people in organizations try to
identify themselves in some of these diversity
categories, and this may result in conflict.
Sometime conflict arising from diversity will be
so strict that it is difficult for the management
to control. To avoid such conflict, organizations
are providing diversity management training for
their diversified employees.
 Resolving conflict through negotiation

• Negotiation is the interactive social process in

which people engage, when their aim to reach
an agreement with another party or parties on
behalf of themselves. Negotiation is a
resolution of a disagreement using give and
take within the context of a particular
relationship.
• Negotiation is a communication process used
to put deals together or resolve conflicts. It is
a voluntary, non binding process in which the
parties control the outcome as well as the
procedures by which they will make an
agreement.
• Negotiation is an effective conflict
management process. It refers to the process
by which two conflicting parties attempt to
resolve their different goals by redefining the
terms of their interdependence. While
negotiating, two conflicting parties will make a
joint decision to agree, even though they still
have different preferences. There are two
types of negotiation strategies.
• Distributive strategy: this refers to the win lose
situation where one party's gain is another
party's loss. This type of strategy is often
adopted to solve economic issues such as
increment of salary and sharing other
monetary benefits in organization. Using this
model, parties begin negotiations by describing
their initial offer point for each item on the
agenda. Both parties will try to find one
another's resistance point know the gainful
area which is satisfying for both in the process
• Integrative strategy: using this strategy, parties
in conflict will try to find a solution of
problems that will benefit both. This strategy
is useful to use the resources for the benefit of
all involved in the conflict process. Each party
involved in conflict tries to identify issues,
review alternatives, openly expresses
preferences and they jointly reach a mutually
acceptable solution.
 Arbitration
 
• Arbitration, a form of 
alternative dispute resolution (ADR), is a technique
for the resolution of disputes outside the courts. A
third party reviews the evidence in the case and
imposes a decision that is legally binding on both
sides and enforceable in the courts.
• Arbitration is a conflict resolution process where a
third party (arbitrator, who is the expert of conflict
management) is invited to settle the disputes.
• Arbitration is often used for the resolution of 
commercial disputes, particularly in the
context of 
international commercial transactions. In
certain countries such as the United States,
arbitration is also frequently employed in
consumer and employment matters
 Process of arbitration
• Preparation of agreement paper signing both
parties of the conflict.
• Arbitrator examines the dispute through attendance
of witness and investigations. The dispute is studied
in detail form relevant point of view.
• The arbitrator finally makes decision to resolve the
conflict. The decision is now ready to accept by the
conflicting party this decision should rest on equity
and justice.
 Mediation

• In mediation, two or more people come together

to try to work out a solution to their problem. A
neutral third person, called the mediator, is there
to help them along. Most mediators have some
training in conflict resolution. Unlike a judge or
an arbitrator, the mediator does not take sides or
make decisions. The mediator's job is to help the
disputants evaluate their goals and options and
find their own mutually satisfactory solution
• In court, a judge or jury looks back to
determine who was right and how was wrong,
and then imposes a penalty or award based
on its decision. Because the mediator has no
authority to impose a decision, nothing will be
decided unless both parties agree to it. It is
less formal than arbitration, but there are
distinct stages to the mediation process.
• Stage 1.
• Mediators opening statement: the mediator
introduces everyone, explains the goals and
rules of the mediation, and encourages each
side to work cooperatively towards a
settlement.
• Step 2. Disputants: opening statements: each
party is invited to describe, in his or her own
words, what the dispute is about and how he
or she has been affected by it her own words,
what the dispute is about and how he or she
has been affected by it.
• Stage 3 : joint discussion: the mediator may
try to get the parties talking directly about
what was said in the opening statists. This is
the time to determine what issues need to be
addressed.
• Stage 4: private caucuses: the private caucus is
a chance for each party to meet privately with
the mediator to discuss the strengths and
weakness of his or her position and new ideas
for settlement.
• Stage 5: joint negotiation: after caucuses, the
mediator may bring the parties back together
to negotiate directly
• Stage 6: closure: this is the end of the mediation. If
an agreement has been reached, the mediator may
put its main provisions in writing as the parties
listen. The mediator may ask each side to sign the
written summary of agreement or suggest they take
it to lawyers for review. If the parties want to, they
can write up a sign a legally binding contract. If no
agreement was reached, the mediator will review
whatever progress has been made and advise every
one of their options, such as meeting again later,
going to arbitration, or going to court.
 Legal action
• Legal action is the process of consulting a legal
action in court. Litigation is formal way which
usually presents the possibility to submit
evidence and the option to appeal a judge's
decision. A dispute is in litigation when it has
become the subject of a formal court action.
• The biggest difference s between arbitration and
litigation are that arbitration is private, informal
and there is no possibility of an appeal to the
arbitrator's decision.
• Arbitration is also much quicker and cheaper
than litigation.
 Types of conflict

• Individual level conflict: the nature of

individual conflict is different from group level
or organizational level conflict it is also called
micro level conflict. In this case, the individual
is not in a position to take a decison about
certain matter. All individuals have conflict
within themselves. Individual conflicts are of
two type's intra individual conflict and inter
individual conflict.
 Intra individual conflict:
• this is also called intra personal conflict. it
arises inside the individual member. There is
no other person involved. It is internal to the
person and is probably most difficult type of
conflict to analyze. He faces a conflict within
himself. This type of conflict can be related
two thing they are goal conflict and role
conflict.
 Sources of intra personal conflict are

• Goal conflict: it occurs when a goal that an individual

is attempting to achieve ha should positive and
negative features. It also occurs when two or more
competing goals exist.
• Role conflict: it arises when roles are conflicting in
nature. For example, a supervisor has to perform two
different roles. He is both a boss and a subordinate.
If he follows the orders of manager she will be
attached by subordinates an if he satisfies the
subordinate's desire he will be attacked by managers.
 Inter personal conflict
• in this type of conflict two or more individuals
are involved rather than one individual. It
arises from difference between the choices
made by different individuals. Each individual
has a separate alternative of action. For
example, the quality control supervisor's job is
to find errors in others work. But the worker is
unhappy with the supervisor. This leads
conflict between supervisor and worker.
 Sources or reasons of inter personal conflicts are

• Personality differences: some people have

difficulty in getting along with each other
• Perceptions: because of differences
imperceptions conflict arises quickly and
easily.
• Clashes of values and interest
• Power and status differences
• Scare resources etc
 Group/ team level conflict
• Group/ team level conflict: groups serve
various purposes not only for themselves but
for the organizations as well. Conflicts are
quite common between the groups or
between the members of the same group. The
very nature of a moderns group leads to
conflict. Some of the important of groups
which generates conflict is given below.
• Heterogeneity of members (the factors that generate
conflict are personality differences such as
background, education, age sex etc.)
• Communication distortions( members of the group try
to distort the communication and conflicts are
generated) twist
• Decision making: joint decision making promotes
conflict
• Unclear roles and responsibility: every member
blames each others for poor performance.
 Group level conflicts are much more
dangerous than the individual level
conflicts. They are of two types

• Intra group conflict: it arises when differences

over an issue appear between the members of
the same group. This type of conflict is within the
same group unlike inter personal conflict. No two
groups or members of the group are involved.
Intra group conflict may arise in three ways as
given below
 Reasons or sources of intra group conflict are

• New problem : when the group faces a novel

problem with as not faced in the past
• New value system: when new values are
imported from the social environment into the
group
• Role differences: when person extra group
role comes into conflict with his or her intra
group role.
 Inter group conflict
• in this type of group level conflict there is the
involvement of two or more groups. The
whole group (suppose marketing department)
is in conflict with the whole other group
(suppose finance department). Inter group
conflicts over authority; jurisdiction and
resources are extremely common. Every group
is in at least partial conflict with every other
group it interacts with.
 Reasons for inter group conflict are

• Differences in goals: it is quite natural to have

differences in goals of various groups. If group A
attains its goal group B cannot attaint. This leads
towards group conflict because goals of two groups
are incompatible in nature.
• Task interdependence: it refers to the dependence
of one group on another for resources or
information. There are three types of
interdependence among group: pooled, sequential
and reciprocal.
• Resource allocation: resources are necessary to
achieve the group in practice. Every group tries to
receive higher level of resource but some groups
succeed and other fails. The result is inter group
conflict.
• Competitive rewards system: when task are
interdependent between which generates conflict. To
win more reward groups are motivated to exceed at
the expense or cost of other groups.
• Other reasons: they are line and staff conflict,
difference in perceptions, participative decision making
etc.
 Sources of conflict

• Incompatible /unsuited goals

• Different values and beliefs
• Scare resources
• Task interdependence
• Ambiguous rules
• Communication problems
  
Approaches to conflict management

• We have already discussed that conflict arises

at individual, group, and organizational level.
So, according to the nature, level and impact
of conflict a proper approach has to be
chosen. For simplicity purpose, they can be
classified as
 Structural conflict management approaches

• Conflict and fire are similar in nature. If there

is no conflict there will be no challenges and
no dynamics. But if conflict is too high, it
brings a great loss to the organization.
Considering the above contradiction hard
reality, Robbins has offered conflict resolution
and stimulation techniques that allow
managers to control conflict levels.
A short explanation of both of the techniques
is given below
• Conflict stimulation techniques: conflict is not always
negative. The question here is went to stimulate
conflict. Rather than always trying to minimize conflict,
a good leader must determine the most effective level
of conflict stimulation for the well being of the
organization
• Conflict resolution structural techniques
Different experts have offered different techniques
to resolve conflict. Conflict can be resolved or
prevented by applying an appropriate structure
technique. According to SP Robbins they are
• Problem solving: this technique tries to identify and
solve the common problems of conflicting parties. For
this purpose, face to face meeting of the conflicting
parties are arranged, problem are identified and
conflict are resolved through open discussion.
• Super ordinate goals: another technique is creating a
super ordinate goal ie a common goal. This appeal all
the parties involved and cannot be accomplished
without the cooperation of each of the conflicting
parties.
• Expansion of resources: this technique is especially
useful when a conflict is the outcome of scarcity of
resources. Expansion of resources can create a win
win situation to the conflicting parties.
• Avoidance (withdrawal): this technique tries to
reduce conflict by avoiding it altogether. The
options available are withdrawal, indifference etc.
But these options cannot bring good solution in
the long run. Parties to conflict fail to address
important problems.
• Smoothing: in this technique similarities are
highlighted but differences between parties are
disguised (hide). This offers only a temporary
solution. The problem here is conflict may emerge in
the near future because differences are not
addressed they are only kept a side for the time
being.
• Compromise: in this style, there is no distinct winner
or loser because each party is expected to give up
some of value for a concession. This technique
involves offers and counter offers to arrive at a
mutually satisfying solution.
• Authoritative command: in this technique managers
use formal power to resolve the conflict. it is also called
dominance through position. It is the easiest technique
to use. Although conflicting parties may not be happy
with managers decision but they have t o accept it at
any cost.

• Altering the human variable: perceptions, attitudes,

values and beliefs can be change to mitigate (less)the
source of conflict. Among the measures used to change
the human variables are a series of human relations
training programs launched in organizational setting.
• Altering the structure variables: a major
source of conflict is structural variables itself.
So, to resolve the conflict, structural variables
and communication pattern needs to be
changed. It can be done through job redesign,
transfer, creation of coordinating positions
and so on.
• Delphi technique: this technique was originally developed by
Rand Corporation in the late 1940s to predict the demand for
manpower in the organization. Using this decision making
technique, a series of questionnaires is distributed among
experts for filling in who work independently and avoid any
sort of face to face discussion. An intermediary establishes
contacts with these experts and accumulates questionnaires.
The main jobs of the intermediary are to collect and
summaries responses and feed back the responses to the
panel of experts along with a follow up questionnaire. The
panel members again send back their responses. This cycle is
repeated until a convergence is reached, with final decision
making.
 What Is Stress?

• Stress is defined as a state of psychological and

physiological imbalance resulting from the disparity
between situational demand and the individual's
ability and motivation to meet those needs.
• Stress can be positive or negative
• Stress is good when the situation offers an opportunity
to a person to gain something. It acts as a motivator for
peak performance.
• Stress is negative when a person faces social, physical,
organizational and emotional problems.
• Although stress is typically discussed in a negative
contest, it is not necessarily bad in and of itself; it also
has a positive value. It's an opportunity then it offers
potential gain. Consider, for example, the superior
performance an athlete or stage performer gives in a
clutch situation. Such individuals often use stress
positively to rise to the occasion and perform at their
maximum. Similarly, many professionals see the
pressures of heavy workloads and deadlines as positive
challenges that enhance the quality of their work and
satisfaction they get from their job.
 Managing stress

• Individual approaches: an employee can take personal

responsibility for reducing stress levels. Individual strategies
that have proven effective include time management
techniques, increased physical exercise, relaxation training, and
expanded social support networks.
• Many people manage their time poorly. The well organized
employee, like the well organized student, can often accomplish
twice as much as the person who is poorly organized. So an
understanding and utilization of basic time management
principles can help individual better cope with tensions created
by job demand. A few of the best known time management
principles are
• Making daily lists of activities to be accomplished
• Prioritizing activities by importance and urgency
• Scheduling activities according to the priorities set and
• Knowing your daily cycle and handing the most demanding parts
of your job when you are most alert and productive.
Physician have recommended noncompetitive physical exercise,
such as aerobics, walking, jogging, swimming and riding a
bicycle, as a way to deal with excessive stress levels. These forms
of physical exercise increase heart capacity, lover the at rest
heart rate, provide a mental diversion form work pressures, and
even slow the physical and mental effects of aging.
• As we have noted, friends, family, or work
colleagues talk to provide an outlet when
stress levels become excessive. Expanding
your social support net work provides
someone to hear your problems and offer a
more objective prospective on the situation
than your own.
 
• Organizational approaches: several factors that
cause stress particularly task and role demands
are controlled by management and thus can be
modified or changed. Strategies to consider
include improved personnel selection and job
placement training, realistic goal setting, resign of
jobs, increased employee involvement, improved
organizational communication, employee
sabbaticals, and corporate wellness programs.
 Causes of stress
• Career Concern: If an employee feels that he is very much behind in the
corporate ladder, then he may experience stress. If he seems that there are no
opportunities for self-growth, he may experience stress. Hence, unfulfilled career
expectations are the significant source of stress.
•
• Role Ambiguity: It occurs when the person doesn't know what he is supposed to
do, on the job. His tasks and responsibilities are not clear. The employee is not
sure what he is expected to do. It creates confusion in the minds of the worker
and results in stress.
•  
• Rotating Work Shifts: Stress may occur in those individuals who work on different
work shifts. Employees may be expected to work on day shift for some days and
then on the night shift. That may create problems in adjusting to the shift timings,
and it can affect not only personal life but also family life of the employee.
• Role Conflict: It takes place when people have different
expectations from the person performing a particular role.
It can also occur if the job is not as per expectation, or
when a job demands a certain type of behavior that is
against the person's moral values.
•  
• Occupational Demands: Some jobs are more demanding
than others. Jobs that involve risk, and danger are more
stressful. Research findings indicate, job that cause stress
needs constant monitoring of equipments and devices,
unpleasant physical conditions, making decisions, etc.
• Lack of Participation in Decision-making: Many experienced
employees feel that management should consult them on
matters affecting their jobs. In reality, the superiors hardly ask
the concerned employees before taking a decision. That
develops a feeling of being neglected, which may lead to
stress.
• Work Overload: Excessive workload leads to stress as it puts a
person under tremendous pressure. Work overload may take
two different forms:
Qualitative work overload implies performing a job that is
complicated or beyond the employee's capacity.
Quantitative work overload is a result of many activities
performed in a prescribed time.
• Work Underload: In this, case, too little work or very easy work is
expected on the part of the employee. Doing less work or jobs of
routine and simple nature would lead to monotony and boredom,
which can lead to stress.

• Poor Working Conditions: Employees may be subject to poor

working conditions. It would include bad lighting and ventilation,
unhygienic sanitation facilities, excessive noise, and dust, presence
of toxic gasses and fumes, inadequate safety measures, etc. All
these unpleasant conditions create physiological and psychological
imbalance in humans thereby causing stress.

• Lack of Group Cohesiveness: Every group is characterized by its

cohesiveness, although they differ widely in its degree. Individuals
experience stress when there is no unity among work group
members. There are mistrust, jealousy, frequent quarrels, etc., in
groups and this lead to stress to employees.
• Interpersonal and Intergroup Conflict: These conflicts take place due to
differences in perceptions, attitudes, values and beliefs between two or more
individuals and groups. Such conflicts can be a source of stress for group
members.
•  
• Organizational Changes: When changes occur, people have to adapt to those
changes, and this may cause stress. Stress is higher when changes are
significant or unusual like transfer or adoption of new technology.
•  
• Lack of Social Support: When individuals believe that they have the
friendship and support of others at work, their ability to cope with the effects
of stress increases. If this kind of social support is not available, then an
employee experiences more stress.
•  
Following habits can remarkably help to relieve stress:
• Regular meditation,
• Physical exercise,
• Balanced diet,
• Focused thinking,
Control of anger,
• Managing Depression,
• Maintaining calmness in stressful situations,
• Having a positive attitude towards life,
• Harmony towards self and others, etc