Organisational Behaviour

Model Paper -1
SECTION-A
a. What is organisation?
A social unit of people that is structured and managed to meet a need or to pursue
collective goals. It is derived from the Greek word organon, itself derived from the better-
known word ergon which means "organ" – a compartment for a particular task.
b. What is perception?
Perception (from the Latin perceptio, percipio) is the process of
attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting
sensory information.
c. Explain the meaning of reinforcement?
It can be defined as anything that tends to increase the strength of response and induces
repetition of behavior. It can be of two type’s positive and negative reinforcement.
d. What is conflict?
Conflict arises from difference of opinion between the group members or individuals
while attaining the organizational goals.
e. Mention big 5 personality traits.
The big 5 personality traits are:
1) openness to experiance
2) emotional stability
3) extroversion
4) agreeableness
5) conscientiousness
f. What is group cohesiveness?
Group cohesiveness is the degree to which the group members are attracted to each other
& are motivated to stay in group. It defines the degree of closeness that members feel
with the groups.
g. What is holistic concept?
When the six concepts of organizational behaviour[Individual differences, A whole person,
Motivated behaviour, Value of the person, Social system, Mutual interest] are considered
together, they provide a holistic concept of the subject.
SECTION B (6 marks)
2. What are the challenges facing management in OB?
Some critical OB issues confronting the managers today are as follows:
1) Managerial challenges
a) Workforce diversity: one of the most common and important challenges facing
organisations is dealing with people who are different called as workforce diversity.
Organisation are becoming more heterogeneous in terms of gender, race and ethnicity. The
managers must learn to respect the diversity. They have to shift their philosophy from treating
everyone alike to recognizing differences and responding to those difference in a way that will
ensure employee retentions and greater productivity.
b) Changing demographics of workforce: the major challenge from changing demographics
of workforce relates to the following:
i) Dual career couples: this is a situation where both partners are actively pursuing
professional careers. The dual career couples limit the individual flexibility in accepting
assignments. This hinders the organisational flexibility in acquiring and developing their talent.
ii) Growing number of youngsters’: another form of diversity comes from younger people
entering the workforce. Generation- X employees are on an average about 25 years of age. These
employees bring new ways of thinking about the world of work and preferred employment
relationships’.
iii) Gender factor: now a days, they are becoming experimentive and moving into civil
services, engineering, information technology etc., many blue collar jobs are being increasingly
sought by women. These developments’ have their own implication for human resources
managers in organisations.
2) work place issues and challenges
a) Employee privacy: employers, have started to intrude and encroach too much into private
lives of the employees. managers need to be very sensitive to this issue since this trend creates
resentment among employees.
b) Employees’ rights: a concern related to employee privacy is employee right. in this
context, contraversies involves issues associated with job ownership and individual whie at
work.
c) unionism: in the recent years, general trend reguarding union membership has been steadily
declining. as a result, organisation carry the barden of providing the services to the employees
which were previously provieded by the unions.
d) changed employee expectations: employees expection are also changing with change in
work force demographics. now a days, employees demand empowerment and ecpect quality of
status with the management. today's average workers demand better treatment, challenging jobs
and career advancement.
3)Organisational Challenges
i) improving quality and productivity: Due to the advent of globalization, privatisation and
liberation, organisations are exposed to competition. In such a scenario, managers have to think
seriously about improving the quality and productivity.
ii) Managing Technology and Innovations: in today's competitive environment a significant
challenge confronting the managers is the set of issues involving the management of technology,
innovations and changes. Success will come only to those organisations that maintain their
flexibility continually improve their quality and out bet their competitors with innovative
products and services.
iii) Copying with Temporariness: Today, the young generation feels that the concept of
continuous improvement means constant change. Manager today face the stage of permanent
temporariness. The actual jobs that the workers perform are in a state of flux they have to
continuously update their knowledge and skills to perfrom new job requirments.
iv) Ethical Behaviour: A very important organisational challenge relates to ethical behaviours
and social responsibility. It is the duty of today's manager to create an ethically healthy climate
for their employees, where they can do their work productively and with clean conscience.
4) Global Challenges
i) Manging global environment: Internationalization of business had transformed the world
into a global village. Managers have to cope with unfamiliar laws, languages, practices, attitude,
management styles, ethics etc., HR function must change to acquire a global prespective.
Managers have to be flexible and proactive if they are to face these challenges.
ii) Manging Cultural Diversity: Today's managers have to learn to cope with people from
different cultures. Hence to work effectively one has to undersrand their culture and learn to
adapt management styles to different cultures.
5) Environmental Challenges: Every organisation exists within a external environment. The
environment is dynamic and is continuously changing, thus, the adaption process of organisation
must also be dynamic and sensitive.
i) Ecology: Ecology is concerned with the relationship of living things with their
environment. Every organistion must face the challenge to maintain and even create ecological
standards.
ii) Air, Water and Soil pollution: The genreal concept recommeded now a days is that
develpoment should be sustainable in long run and every project should cater to maintain is not
mend the direct harm to the evironment resulting the development measures.
iii) Personnel Policies: Personnel policies of the organisation should not be discriminatory
towards any particular caste, creed, religion, sex or nationality. there should be equal pay for
equal.
iv) consumerism:It is a call for a revised marketing concept.the original market concept as
to be broadend to include the societol marketing concept.
v) Research and Developmnet: To keep phase with the global challenges,the organisation
must under take technical and scientific reaearch
vi) International Policies: while doing a business on international skill, international policies
pose a major challenge.the organisation as to keep in mind the legislations and specific policies
of various countries while dealing with them.
vii) National Economic policies: Due to the raising inflationsary trends in economic, there is
always a government pressure on the organisation to reduce the prices and increase the wages. to
balance between these two is very challenging task.

Organisation Behaviour can help the organisation in facing and coping up these
challenges because these cannot be eliminated. there is no perfect solution organisational
problems, but if handled with care and dilegence, these are the challenges can be converted into
profitble opportunites. TQM, reengineering, leadership organisational culture, group norms etc.
are sum of the ob concepts which can help in facing various challenges.
.
3) why perception fails?
After the data have been received & organized the perceiver interprets or assigns
meaning to the information. Perception is said to have taken place only after the data have been
interpreted. Here people become judgemental & they distort what they see & ignore things that
they feel are unpleasant.
 Perceptual set- Previously held beliefs about objects influence an individual’s perception
of similar object. This is called perceptual set.
  Attribution- It refers to the process by which the individual determines & assigns causes
to the behaviour he/ she conceives. This knowledge about causes brings order &
predictability in certain actions, events & assists us in knowing how to respond.
 Stereo typing- It means judging someone on the basis of one’s perception of the group to
which that person belongs. A person is likely to categorise the others according to some
group characteristics like religion, nationality, occupation etc. It leads to inaccuracy &
negative consequences like social injustice, poor decision making etc.
 Halo effect- It refers to the tendency of perceiving people in terms of good & bad. Here
the person is perceived on single trait. This process is also called rusty halo or horns
effect.
 Perceptual context- The context in which an object is placed influences perception. It
gives meaning & value to simple stimuli, objects, events, situation etc. in the
environment.
 Perceptual defence- An individual is likely to put up defence when confronted with
conflicting, unexpectable or threating stimuli. The various defence may be denial of an
aspect by modification, distortion etc.

4) What is reward and explain its types.

Reward systems are a critical part of any organizations design. How well they fit with
the rest of the systems in an organization has an important impact on how effective the
organization is and on the quality of life that people experience in the organization.
Types of reward systems:
I Monetary rewards:
In the form of salary, incentive pay & benefits serves the purpose of directly recognizing the
comparative value of organizational roles & the contribution individual may make in performing
them.
Types:
 Variable pay: Variable pay or pay-for-performance is a compensation program in which a
portion of a person’s pay is considered at risk.
 Bonuses: They usually reward individual accomplishment & are frequently used in sales
organizations to encourage higher profits.
 Profit sharing: It refers to the strategy of creating a pool of money to be disbursed to
employees by taking a stated percentage of a company’s profits.
 Stock options: Employee stock option programs give employees the right to buy a specified
number of a company’s shares at a fixed price of a specified period of time.
II.Non-Monetary rewards:
It may be environmental rewards may be manifested in the physical surrounding in which work
is performed & perceptions in their leadership quality.
Types:
 Opportunity to learn, develop, & advance as an employee : Employees understand they
need to grow, learn and develop new skills in order to advance.
 Flexible hours; Family, children, friends, sports, hobbies & other activities all have demands
on today’s employees.
 Recognition; In today’s high paced work environment it is reported that employees consider
it very rare & infrequent that they receive recognition of their work & efforts.
 The opportunity to contribute: The opportunity to be part of the team. To work closely
with managers & management. To be involved in key decisions.

5) what are the practical reasons for group formation?

REASONS FOR GROUP FORMATION:

 From individual point of view:
 Companionship.
 Identity.
 Information.
 Security.
 Esteem.
 Sense of belongingness.
 Outlet of frustration.
 Generation of new ideas.
 Self-evaluation.
B. From Organization point of view:
 Sense of responsibility.
 Filling of gaps.
 Restraining the authority.
 Proper & careful planning.
 Information.
 Potential managers.

6) what is OD? explain its technologies. (interventions)

O D seeks to change beliefs, attitudes, values, structures & practices so that the
organization can better adapt to technology and live with the fast pace of change.

TECHNIQUES/INTERVENTION OF OD

BEHAVIOURAL TECHNIQUES:-
1} Sensitivity Training: Sensitivity training is a small-group interaction under stress in an
unstructured encounter group, which requires people to become sensitive to one another's
feelings in order to develop reasonable group activity. In sensitivity training, the actual technique
employed is T-group.

2} Process Consultation: Process Consultation (P-C) represents a method of intervening in an

ongoing system. The basic content of P-C is that the consultant works with individuals and
groups to help them learn about human and social processes and learn to solve problems that
stem from process events
3} Team Development: The underlying aim of team development is to increase trust among team
members because people work better together when there is open and honest sharing about the
problems and difficulties that they have with one another.. It is effective technique, requiring
help of skilled consultant, by which members of a group diagnose how they work together &
plan changes that will improve their effectiveness.
4} Grid Organization Development: Grid organization development, developed by Blake and
Mounton, is a comprehensive and systematic OD Program. The Program aims at individuals,
groups and the organization as a whole. It utilizes a considerable number of instruments,
enabling individuals and groups to assess their own strength and weaknesses. It also focuses on
skills, knowledge and processes necessary for effectiveness at the individual, group and inter-
group and total organization levels.
5} Survey feedback: This is the most popular & widely used technique involving 2 basic activity,
first collecting data about organization through Surveys & questionnaire & second, conducting
feedback meetings & workshops in which data is presented to members. The data collected is
then analysed by managers, change agents who find the problem, evaluate the results & find the
solutions.
6} Role-Playing: Role playing is learning by doing technique used for human relations &
leadership training. Its objective is narrow i.e. to increase the trainees’ skill in dealing with
others. It provides an opportunity for developing human relations understanding & skills & to
put into practice the knowledge acquired from text books, lectures, discussions etc.
STRUCTURAL TECHNIQUES:-
1} Changes in organization structure: The organization structure may be changed to make it
more efficient by redefining the flow of authority. There can also be changes in functional
responsibility such as a move from product to matrix organizational structure.
2} Work-design: It is a broad term which means the process of defining tasks & jobs to achieve
organizational & employee goals. It takes into account the organizational structure, the
information flow & decision, the differences among employees, & the reward system. Within the
broad scope of work design lies the job design.
3} Job enrichment: It is a motivational technique which emphasizes the need for challenging &
interesting work. It implies increasing the contents of a job or the deliberate upgrading of
responsibility, scope & challenge in work. A job is enriched when the nature of job is made
exciting, creative or gives the job holder more decision-making, planning & controlling powers.
4} Management by objectives: It is also known as goal management.MBO is a process whereby
both managers & subordinates work together in identifying goals & setting up objectives & make
plans together in order to achieve these objectives. Their objectives & goals should be consistent
with the organizational goals.
5} Job enlargement: It is a motivational technique referring to add few more task element
horizontally. It involves addition to tasks to reduce the monotony in performing certain repetitive
jobs by lengthening the cycle of operations.

SECTION C (14 MARKS)

ANSWER THE FOLLOWING:

7. As a skilled manager how can you manage perception process?

Successful managers understand the importance of perception as an influencing factor on

behaviour & they act accordingly. They are aware of perceptual distortion & differences that are
likely to exist in any situation.
A manager who is responsible for managing the perception process must consider the
following points:
 High level of self-awareness: Managers must know that individual needs, experience &
expectations can all affect perception. They must be able to identify it when there is
distorting situation.
 Collecting information from different sources: the successful managers minimizes bias
of personal perception by seeking out the viewpoints of others. These insights are used to
gain additional perspective on situations & the problems or opportunities they represent.
 Be empathetic: Different people define the same situation somewhat differently. The
managers rises above personal impressions to understand problems as seen by the other
people.
 Influence others perception: The successful managers are able to influence the
perceptions of others so that work events & situations are interpreted as accurately as
possible & to the advantage of all concerned.
 Avoid common perceptual distortions: Managers should avoid distortions which
include the use of stereotype & halo effect as well as selective perception & projection.
 Avoid inappropriate attributions’: Everyone has a tendency to try & explain why
events happened & why people behaved as they did. The manager must be careful to
establish the real reasons why things happened & avoid quick or inappropriate
attributions.
 Use of diverse management programmes: As firms globalize themselves, diversity
management assumes greater relevance. The challenge is to leverage the benefits of this
 diversity while minimizing the perceptual & behavioural problems that tend to
accompany heterogeneity.
 Know yourself: A powerful way to minimize perceptual biases is to know & became
more aware of one’s values, beliefs, prejudice etc.
8. explain the scope and application of organisation behaviour in management and
contributions of other discipline.
OB refers to the behaviour of the people in the organiztion because organisations
themeselves do not behave.the field of ob does not depend upon assumptions based intution &
gut feeling but attempts to gather information regarding as issue in a scientific manner under
controlled conditions.
the scope of ob is as follows:
1. Personality: It is the combiation of inner and outer quality of a human being interacting with
each other. Here ob helps the organization to perceive the employee personality towards the
organization.

2. Attitude: Is an action or tendency to behave positively or negatively towards a certain idea,

person, and situation. here ob helps to percieve how an employee develop and change their
attitude towards the organization.

3. Perception: It is the process of receiving the information & making sense of the world of
around us. ob helps in deciding which informtion to notice, how to categorize the information &
how to interpret it within the framework of existing knowledge.

4. Learning: It is the permanent change in behaviour that is the result of experience. ob helps
employee in modification of thier behaviour through training, practice, ans reinforcement etc.

5. Motivation: It is the an internal energy which energies a person/ employee to complete

his/her activity. here ob help in motivating the ability to change the behaviour of a
person/employee.

6. Leadership: Leader is a person who influences the activites of subordinates, takes risk, and
takes initiative to achieve organizational goals.

7. Group Dynamics: when 2 or more people work together, harder & faster towards
achievement of goals it is called a group. it concentrates on face to face work group philosophy.

8. Organizational change: OB helps in changing the attitude of the employees to accept new
technologies, idea or concept.

9. Organizational culture: The beliefs tradition, rules, customs, that employee follow in the
organization are called organizational culture.

10. Organizational Development: It seeks to change when their is belief, space attitude values
structure and practices so that orghanization can better adopt to tecchnology and survive with
pace of fast changes.
 Organisational behaviour is an interdisciplinary approach as it has borrowed concepts,
theories, models and practices of physical science as well as social sciences.

a) Psychology: The term 'psychology' is derived from the Greek World 'Psyche' which
means 'soul' or 'spirit'. Organisational behaviour studies human behaviour which is concerned
mainly with the psychology of the people. Psycology as science, measures, explains and suggests
the apporpriate human behaviour. individual behaviour is governed by perception, learning and
personality. industrial psychology understands people's behaviour at work, particularlly under
different working conditions, stress, conflicts and other behaviour of employees.

b) Sociology: Sociology also has a major impact on the study of organisational

behaviour. sociology makes the use of scientific methods in accumulating knowledge about the
social behaviour of the groups. It specifically studies, social group, social behaviour, society,
customs, institutions, social classes, status, social mobility, prestige etc.,.

c) Anthropology: Anthropology is concerd with the interactions between people and

their environment, especially their cultural envirinment. Culture is the major influence on the
structure of organisations as well as on the behaviour of people within organisations. 'Anthropo'
is a Greek word which means 'man' and 'logy' means 'Science'.

d) Polotical Science: Political Science is usually, thought of as the study of political

systems. But political scientist are intersted in how and why people aquire power, political
behaviour, decision making, conflict, the behaviour of a interest group and coalition formation.

e) Economics: Economist study the production, distribution and consumption of goods

and services. Students of the organisational behaviour share the economist's interest in such area
as labour market dynamices, productivity, human resources, planning and forecasting and cost
benifit analysis.

f) Science: The scientific methods attempt to produce information that is objective in the
sense that it is certifiable and indeoendent if a person's opinions or preferances. scientific
methods is the backbone of organisational behaviour. Ogranisational behaviour is based on the
systemetise study of facts, behaviour their relationships and predictions.

g)Technology: the level of technological development affects the behaviour of the

employees. Morden is the age of computerisation. It as come within the frame work of the model
of organisational behaviour. The study of technological development is becoming essential for
understanding the ogranisational behaviour, because people are influenced by the technological
development.

h) Engineering: Engineering also influences the study of ogranisational behaviour. Some

topic are common to engineering as well as organisational behaviour. Eg:- work measurement,
productivity measurement, work flow analysis, work design, job design and labour relations.

i) Medicine: Stress is becoming a very common problem in the ogranisations as well as

in the people working in organisations. Researches shows that controlling the causes and
consequences of stress in and out of organisational settings, is important for the well being of the
individual as well as the organisations.
Thus, it can be concluded that organisational behaviour has an inter-disciplinary focus. It
draws from a variety of other fields and attempts to describe behaviour as opposed to prescribing
how behaviour can be changed in consistent and predictable ways.

9. explain the various steps in OB mod process.

OB modification can be defined as technique for modifying the behavior of the

organizational members so that they are engaged in desirable behavior.

Steps/Process of OB modification:
 Identification:
The first step in OB modification is identification of performance related
behavior. Behaviors should be identified as desirable or undesirable from the
organization point of view.
Critical behaviors such as absenteeism, tardiness, complaints, not listening to
instructions etc. that have significant impact on the employees performance should be
identified & given due attention. These behaviors can be identified through discussion
with employees or his immediate superior or colleague.

 Measurement:
After identification of the critical behavior of the employees, the next step is to
measure the frequency of the critical behavior over time. The measurement can be
done by observation & by extraction of information from records. If the frequency
is within the acceptable limit, no action is required but if it exceeds the limit it
requires immediate attention. The measurement helps the manager in determining
the success in changing the employee’s behavior.

 Analysis:
In the next step the managers have to do, a functional analysis of the behavior
that requires modification. This analysis will determine what circumstance lead to
a particular type of behavior, what are the consequences of such behavior etc.
  Intervention:
Once the critical behavior has been identified and after the circumstances which
cause such behavior have been determined, the next step will be to develop an
effective intervention strategy. Various strategies like positive or negative re-
enforcement, punishment etc.; can be used at this stage. The use of particular
strategy depends upon the type of situation faced.
 Evaluation;
The last stage in OB modification is the evaluation whether the intervention strategies are
working properly or not. Evaluation will reveal whether the undesirable behavior have been
substituted by desirable behavior or not. If there has been a change in behavior whether it is
permanent or temporary. Further it will also show whether there is important in the performance
or not. If there is positive change, it suggests that the interventions are successful & if the change
is not significant it may call for alternative or more appropriate strategies.

10. what is group? explain the different types of groups.

A group consists of a number of individuals working together for a common

objective.Group are useful for the organization as they provide norms of behaviour for its
members & also help them to shape their work behaviour & attitudes towards the organization.

types of groups are classified into two groups:-

1) formal group: a formal group is a work unit that is established as a part of an organisation
and its structure. It is set up by managerial initiatives. Its members are selected a management
and are required to assume certain goals and to undertake specific task relating to the goals of
organisation.

formal groups are classified into two types:-

a) command group: command group consist of manager and a set of his immediate subordinates
directly reporting to him. it is relatively permanent work group and undertake certain regular
activities.

b) task group: it represent individuals working together to complete assigned job. the structure
of the tasked force can cut cross the hierarchical boundaries to complete the job task.

Eg: committee

2) informal group: an informal group is a volentary unofficial association of members of an

organisation who are mutually attracted and alligned by vartue of certain commonly shared
interest, values and needs

Eg: ladies club, sports club etc.,

a) friendship group: it emerges to meet the social affiliation needs of members which frequently
extented outside a work issuation this maybe based on age or similar interest factor.

b) interest group: it emerges to pursuve certain common goals and interest of a group.

Eg: cricket group, fans group etc.,

c) reference group: these are the group in which the person is identified or to which he would
like to belong reference groups are important group to which individual belongs or hope to
belong with the norms of individual are likely to conform.

d) cliques: a group of people who are spending lot of time together and seem unfriendly towards
people who are not in the group.

11. explain the various factors affecting change.

 EXTERNAL FACTORS/ FORCES: These include all those factors of macro

& task environment which directly & indirectly affect the functioning of an organization.
If there is any change in these factors the organization has to align itself as it has hardly
any control on these forces.
 INTERNAL FACTORS/ FORCES: These may be either derived from the change in
external environment or internal management or arise from sources within the company.

Technology: It is the major external force which calls for change. The adoption of
new technology hasprofound impact on the organization that adopts them.
Management will have to increase the investment in training and education if the
employees because employees skills are becoming absolute more quickly.
Marketing conditioning: Marketing conditions are no more static. They are in the processor
rapid change as the needs, desires and expectations of the customers change rapidly and
frequently. Successful organization will be those who can change in response to the competition.

Social changes: Social and cultural environment suggest some things that the organization have
to adjust for. These changes may be due to spread of education, knowledge and a lot of
government efforts.

Political factors: Political environment within and outside the country have an important impact
on the business. The interference of the government in the business has increased tremendously
in most of the countries. The corporate sector is regulated by lot of laws and regulations.

 Work force diversity: Work force diversity related to globalization, is powerful

external forces invoking change. Diversity makes an organization reposition
itself, its strategies, launch of new projects, create a new idea, developing a new
 market plan, design a new operation and assess emerging trends from a new
prospective. This all involve change.
finacial forces: it play an important role in order for a change in buying of any raw material is
important as there is an profit motive and day to day business activities act as the main source for
this end, the motivational aspects in organization

: Internal factors/ forces:

Internal forces may be either derived from change in external environment or may be
because of management include forces. Other is arising from sources within the company.
Major with work force: The nature and profile of workforce has changes over a passage of
time. Different work values have been expressed by different generations.

Change in managerial personnel: Old managers are replaced by new one which may be
necessitated because of promotion, retirement, transfer or dismission. Each manager brings his
own ideas and way of working in the organization which changes the informal and interpersonal
relationships.

Effective existing management structure: Efficiency in existing organization structure,

arrangement may lead to change.

To avoid developing inertia: Sometimes changes takes place just to avoid developing inertia o
inflexibility. Some of conscious managers take into account this view that organization should be
dynamic because every time any single method is not the best tool of management.

Falling effectiveness: The organization which face falling effectiveness in terms of working
personnel, productions, co-ordination, co-operation, etc. are motivated to do something about it.
These falling effective triggers change.