UGC NET/JRF EXAM, December-2019* Labour and Social Welfare

People in organisation use various strategies to handle conflict to counteract the immediate demand of the situation. The conceptual of conflict management by Pareek (1982b) and others (Bose and Pareek, 1986, Rahim, 1983, 1990) emphasized that conflict management strategies require a viable rather than a fixed approach.

Pareek (1982b) proposed eight types of conflict management strategies used in organisational set-up under avoidance and approach mode of conflict.

The avoidance mode of conflict includes resignation, withdrawal appeasement and diffusion, where as the approach mode encompasses confrontation, arbitration compromise and negotiation.

Application of any of these conflict-handling strategies depends upon the criticality of conflict issues and in-group integration.

While there are very few general rules in organisational change, some general principles hold true for all organisations. In our experience, a good place to start for most organisations in competitive, dynamic environments is to look at the four content levers of change.

These are technology, quality, costs and marketing-four areas that can be targeted for change. Technology does not refer only to tools, equipment and machinery. It also includes information, knowledge and activities that are involved in the physical transformation of inputs into outputs.

The outputs may be products or services. Any physical transformation task has a choice of technologies associated with it. In a business environment characterised by increased global competition, management of technology has become a major area of concern for organisations.

Quality is all about meeting or exceeding customer expectations. It is a critical element in any change effort because customers are the ultimate judge of the success of the change effort.

If the change does not result in products and services that meet or exceed customer expectations, it has obviously not achieved its purpose. Costs or productivity constitutes the third content area of change.

In today's business environment, customers are very costconscious and are unwilling to pay for products or services that do not meet their expectations. With increased competition, they have more choices.

Consequently, they are no longer dependent on a single supplier or a few suppliers for products and services. Widening the choice has resulted in customers demanding more value for their money.

A challenge for most organisations is to enhance quality while reducing costs. This requires carefuily planned processes, systems and work habits. Marketing refers to the mechanisms for delivering products and services to the customer.

It includes: attracting new customers to your organisation's offerings; retaining existing and new customers; and examining your distribution channels, marketing structures and procedures.

Each of these content areas is supported by a set of structures, processes and procedures such as human resource practices. Any changes in the content areas will also require corresponding changes in these structures, processes and procedures.

In the first phase of appreciation, it is not necessary to work out these details but you need to be aware of the linkages that need to be strengthened at the implementation stage. Change is, above all, a social process.

For it to be successful, it needs to be supported by the initiative and enthusiasm of the organisation's members. Attention to people management is critical to create this positive energy. Employees should have meaningful work, and have the freedom to initiate ideas for improvement.

They should be positively oriented towards change. There should be material and organisational incentives to performance. The organisational climate should encourage development of a sense of self-efficacy among members.

If a change programme has to be effective, it cannot afford to ignore this important aspect of people management. Thus we have identified eight organisational aspects that are crucial to any change process:

1. Leadership
2. Strategy
3. Structure
4. People management
5. Technology
6. Marketing
7. Quality
8. Costs

These eight aspects together constitute the levers of organisational change. They should not be viewed as eight separate dimensions but as eight interrelated dimensions of change. Leadership is the basis or foundation on which change is built. It is the principal driver of change.

The three contextual aspects of change are strategy, structure and people management. These three aspects set the context for change. They also make organisational changes enduring and permanent.

These three aspects are not visible to customers but they facilitate changes in four content areas of change-technology, marketing, qualify and costs. These are the four areas where organizational change is visible in a concrete form to suppliers, customers and competitions.

Edgar Schein describes three dimensions of organizational roles.

These are:
1. Inclusionary-a social dimension (e.g.. outsider, probationary status, permanent status)
2. Functional-a task dimension (e.g., sales, engineering, plant operations)
3. Hierarchical-a rank dimension (e.g., line employee, supervisor, middle manager. officer).

The Ohio State Studies: Researchers at Ohio State University began by generating a list of behaviours exhibited by leaders. Ultimately, the Ohio State researchers concluded there were only two independent dimensions of leader behaviour: consideration and initiating structure.

Consideration involves leader behaviour associated with creating mutual respect or trust and focuses on a concern for group members' needs and desires. Initiating structure is leader behaviour that organizes and defines what group members should be doing to maximize output.

These two dimensions of leader behaviour were oriented at right angles to yield four behavioural styles of leadership: low structure-high consideration, high structure-high consideration, low structure-low consideration, and high structure-low consideration.

The ethnocentric staffing policy means manning of senior management cadre for overseas operations by home country individuals. The basic purpose of adhering to this policy is that the managers are fully aware of the company's policies and programmes and they can implement these policies and programmes more efficiently.

Japanese managers have proved successful in implementing their home country policy. This is perhaps the reason for two-thirds of Japanese foreign subsidiaries having Japanese presidents. But, on the other hand, home country managers often find it difficult to assimilate with the local environment, with the result that this system entails upon efficiency.

Polycentric staffing policy is just the reverse of ethnocentric policy, meaning that overseas operations are managed by host country individuals. A US based express delivery company, FedEx employs less than one-half of one per cent home country personnel in overseas operations.

Their rationale is that local managers are aware of local problems and so they can handle the problems more efficiently. However, the question is how loyal are locals towards the parent company.

In a geocentric staffing policy, senior managers are recruited irrespective of their nationality; from the home country, host country, or from a third country. Gillette, JP Morgan, and many others follow a geocentric policy.

The merit of this policy is that the company can avail the services of best-proven managers from wherever they are recruited.

Authority-Delegation involves granting the necessary authority to subordinates to perform the tasks assigned to them. Authority is the sum of powers and rights to use financial, material and human resources as well as to decide, act or not to act. Authority is needed to perform a given responsibility.

Without commensurate authority it may be very difficult and even impossible to carry out the work entrusted. Where only the tasks are assigned but adequate authority is not granted, the subordinate cannot be expected to perform the task assigned to him.

In the formal organisation authority originates by virtue of an individual's position and the extent of authority is higheśt at the top management levels and reduces successively as we go down the corporate ladder. Thus, authority flows from top to bottom, i.e., the superior has authority over the subordinate.

Authority relationships help to maintain order in the organisation by giving the managers the right to exact obedience and give directions lo the workforce under them.

Authority determines the superior subordinate relationship wherein the superior communicates his decision to the subordinate, expecting compliance from him and the subordinate executes the decision as per the guidelines of the superior.

The extent to which a superior can exact compliance also depends on the personality of the superior.

Example - When a sales manager asks his sales officer (subordinate) to set up a sales office. Here, the sales manager must give him the right to acquire and use necessary resources for setting up a sales office.

According to Robbins (1996) the conflict process has five stages, namely potential opposition, cognition and personalization, intentions, behaviour and outcomes.

Stage 1: Potential Opposition or incompatibility. The first step in the conflict process is the presence of conditions which create opportunities for conflict to arise. These conditions include communication, structure and personal variables.

Semantic differences and misunderstandings may create opportunities for conflict. Structure includes variables such as size, degree of specialization of group members, member-goal compatibility, leadership style, reward systems and the degree of dependence between groups.

Differences between individual value systems and personality characteristics may be sources of conflict. Individuals who are highly authoritarian and dogmatic, and who demonstrate low selfesteem lead to potential conflict.

Stage 2: Cognition and personalization. If the conditions in Stage 1 negatively affect something that one party cares about, then the potential for opposition becomes actualized in the second stage.

The conditions can only lead to conflict when one or more of the parties are affected by, and aware of the conflict. A conflict which is perceived is not necessarily personalized.

A may be aware that B and A are in serious conflict, but it may not make A tense. It is at the felt level, when individuals become emotionally involved, that parties experience anxiety, tension, frustration and hostility.

Stage 3: Intentions. Intentions intervene between people's perceptions and emotions and their overt behaviour. These intentions are decisions to act in a given way.

This stage is important because individuals have to infer the other's intent in order to know how to respond to their behaviour. Conflicts are often escalated because one party attributes the wrong intentions to the other.

Stage 4: Behaviour. Conflict becomes visible during this stage. This stage includes the statements, actions and reactions made by the conflicting parties. These conflict behaviours are usually overt attempts to implement each party's intentions.

The following techniques can be used to manage the conflict during this stage:
(a) problemsolving meetings between conflicting parties;
(b) goal-setting where the cooperation of everyone is needed;
(c) expanding the resources which create the conflict;
(d) withdrawing or avoiding the conflict;
(e) playing down the differences while emphasizing common interests;
(f) compromising;
(g) using formal authority to solve the conflict;
(h) training people to alter their attitudes and behaviour;
(i) altering the structural variables.

Stage 5: Outcomes. Outcomes of conflict may be functional, in that the conflict results in an improvement in performance. It may also be dysfunctional, in that it hinders performance.

Functional conflict improves the quality of decisions, stimulates creativity and innovation, encourages interest among group members and provides the medium through which problems can be aired and tension released.

Better and more innovative decisions will result from situations where there is some conflict. Conflict may also have dysfunctional and destructive outcomes. Uncontrolled opposition breeds discontent, which acts to dissolve common ties and eventually leads to the destruction of the group.

Conflict may retard communication, reduce group cohesiveness and cause subordination of group goals to the primacy of infighting between members.