Key Themes (Organizational Behavior)

Quesitions: 1. A Senior Official at a labour Union stated All Stress Management does it help people cope with Poor Management. Employers should really be into Stress Reduction. Discuss the accuracy of this Statement. 2. Emotional Intelligence is more Important than Cognitive Intelligence in Influencing an Individual's success.  Do you agree or disagree with this Statement? Support your perspective. 3. Intuition is both an Emotional Experience and an Unconscious Analytic Process. One problem, however, is that not all Emotions signaling that there is a problem or opportunity represent intuition. Explain how we would know if your  gut feeling  is Intuition or not, and if not Intuition, Suggest what might be Causing them. 4. A Management Consultant is hired by a Manufacturing firm to determine the best site for its next Production Facility. The Consultant has had Several Meetings with the Company's Senior Executives regarding the factors to Consider when making the recommendation. Discus s the Decision Making problems that might prevent the Consultant from Choosing the best Site location. 5. In your Opinion has the Introduction of E-mail and other Information Technologies Increased or Decreased the Amount and Quality of Information Flowing through an Organization. Explain your answer. Answers: 1.According Richardson (2017), a healthy and stress free organizational set up is unlikely to experience the issues like low productivity, absenteeism, lack of enthusiasm and employee turnover. Stress, be it personal or occupational, can cause lack of interest in daily and occupational activities, deteriorate the immune system, create depression which will straightly direct to lack of productivity in the workplace. Hence, it is important for the organizations to opt for stress management of the employees. As mentioned by Lloyd, Bond and Flaxman (2017), managing the stress level of the employees is typically beneficial for the organizational management as it serves the in providing business advantages. Improved job performance: The employees who face less level of stress are more likely to perform better than the stress ones. Lack of stress in the organizational set-up serves as the tool of increasing employee satisfaction. As opined by Purnawati et al. (2016), in a less stressed organization, the employees are happy enough to ignore basic mismanagement. Moreover, lack of occupational stress helps the employees to put their complete concentration and dedication to the provided task. Thus, by reducing the stress level among the employees performance can be improved. Improved employee health: Stress among the employees can create a number of health disorders. As opined by Giga, Cooper and Faragher (2013), stress may create lack of appetite, panic sticks, depression, lack of concentration and many more. These may lead an organization to experience issues like absenteeism or increased employee turnover. Hence, by concentrating on stress management, the management can obtain cost benefit and undisturbed operation. Increased employee retention rate: As mentioned by Lloyd, Bond and Flaxman (2017), poor human resource management may create the issue of increased employee turnover rate. A high level of employee turnover makes the companies experience operational cost increase, lack of productivity and the most importantly the issue of decreased brand value. However, a stress-free work environment is capable to retain the employees within the organization and helps in eliminating these operational threats. Increased involvement: As discussed by Giga, Cooper and Faragher (2013), a stressful work environment is itself an example of poor employee management within an organization. It naturally withdraws the interest of the employees to work hard and make spontaneous inputs to the job role or organizational advancement. However, as stated by Lloyd, Bond and Flaxman (2017), reduced stress in the occupational life creates a sense of satisfaction among the employees which drives them to take intrinsic initiative for advancement of the organization. This increased involvement within the organizational process helps in upholding creativity and employee commitment to the organization. Improved team work: As mentioned by Giga, Cooper and Faragher (2013), poor management can create a dissatisfaction and irritability among the employees, which lead them to obtain a negative attitude towards the organization and a non-collaborative approach to the team. On the other hand, reduced stress in the organizational setup is a motivational factor to the employees. It helps them to be patient and collaborative to each other. It helps in team building and managing of the organization. Hence, the statement of the senior official can be identified as accurate for the organizational contexts. 2.As opined by Ashkanasy and Dorris (2017), emotional intelligence is the capacity of being aware of, control or express ones emotions and to manipulate it for successful interpersonal relationships. On the other hand, Dong Seo and Bartol (2014) have stated that cognitive intelligence is a specific function of brain- it is the ability analyze logical problems. Now, depending on the studies of the scholars and my own experience, I support the above mentioned statement. As mentioned by Fallon et al. (2014), in the occupational setup, people surely depend on their cognitive strength, however, it constitute a very small portion of their occupational life. People need to interact with their team members, seniors, managers and the clients. In such a context, one needs to focus on his or her ability to handle an effective interpersonal communication and interaction, which is largely dependent on their emotional intelligence. Hence, As discussed by Coetzee and Harry (2014), individuals with high level of emotional intelligence are likely to understand their emotions or mental cravings of their colleagues. Hence, it helps them to work with less commotion or conflict. Moreover, this understanding of others perspective helps them to manipulate or lead effectively. Moreover, as discussed by Fallon et al. (2014), the ability to label, understand and prioritize ones own emotion helps a person in handling his own anxiety, sadness, joy and fear, help in regulate the professional life in a better way and obtain a work-life balance. Dong Seo and Bartol (2014) have stated that emotional intelligence is more important than the cognitive intelligence as an individuals success in an organization is largely dependent on his or her behavior in that institution. For a higher level manager, the faculty of emotional intelligence is essentially connected to his power of motivation and personal performance management. According to Ashkanasy and Dorris (2017), a good level of control over ones own emotions helps the employees to successfully perform and maintain a professional relationship with the organization. As opined by Dong Seo and Bartol (2014), an emotionally intelligent manager is likely to collect a better level of commitment from the employees as he is efficient in handling his and others emotions. As discussed by Ashkanasy and Dorris (2017), when one can empathize with others they tend to create an intimate relationship. With a high degree of emotional intelligence, the managers can build a highly committed and intimate relation with employees. As discussed by Dong Seo and Bartol (2014), a leader needs to have a high level of emotional intelligence to recognize emotion, maintain the positive motivation and identify the transformational leadership qualities among others. Moreover, a leader with high level of emotional control can handle a stressful situation without losing his or her emotional status and temperament. A clam composure often help in positively handle a commotion within an organization. As discussed by Dong Seo and Bartol (2014), a person who has a balance feelings with reason, logic and empathy is able to create a place for himself within an organization. A good level of emotional intelligence serves a strong social skill. The ability to communicate in a clear, concise and courteous manner helps an individual to win the heart of others. Hence, it can be stated that a high level of emotional intelligence helps an individual to be successful in his personal and professional life. 3.According to Thoma et al. (2015), all the gut feelings are emotional signals but not all emotional signals are intuition. Experience over a certain situation creates a mental model or template of the mind. The gut feeling which involve a rapid comparison of between the observed situation and the deep sited mental model and guide the individual to act according to the status of the template fit of that situation can be identified as intuitions. As opined by Remmers and Michalak (2016), the accuracy of the emotional signal largely depends on the strength and depth of experience of the individual. When someone observes a situation, he starts to compare the facts with his/her mental model or template, developed through experience. Then he or she takes the decision on well the facts has fitted to that model. As discussed by Heintzelman and King (2016), intuition is when ones mind collects a massive amount of data, and sorts it out or process so methodically, and promptly, that one is un aware of the development, but only left with the decision. On the other hand, as mentioned by Price (2016), all the emotional signals cannot be designated as intuitions. Not all the emotional signals are triggered by firmly grounded mental models. As discussed by Thoma et al. (2015), people often compare the current situations with some remote mental templates based on their small scale of experience, the relevance of which is relatively doubtable. In such a context, the gut feeling is more likely to direct to the decision which is prone to be proved as wrong. Such a gut feelings cannot be identified as the intuition. As mentioned by Remmers and Michalak (2016), gut feeling is an emotional signal when an individual can sense an unexplainable connection among a few apparently unobvious factors, or becomes aware of an environment by identifying it as not right, without any apparent logic. Hence, it can be said that to identify the whether the gut feeling is intuition or not, the individual needs to make introspection upon his/her level of expe rience on that certain fields or similar situations. However, the emotional signals those are not the intuitions, may have created based on the similarities one found in the pattern of the current situation and his or her experience on some remotely related situations. Hence, all the gut feelings should not be trusted for taking decisions, as the mental model used in a certain situation may not be the one which has been shaped depending on a good base of experience. 4.As mentioned by Schmoldt et al. (2015), the process of decision making is largely dependent on the mental or psychological setup of the decision maker. In this selected context, the major decision making problems those the consultant may experience are the followings: Emotional biasness: As mentioned by Trianni, Cagno and Farn (2016), humans are susceptible to various cognitive biasness that prevent them for making rational decisions. Individuals have their own notion or prejudices upon various factors. While making decision, these prejudices are often being used a information for supporting or rejecting a certain a alternative. In this context, if the consultant has any emotional longing for a certain place or a negative idea or experience regarding a place, he can take the decision based on that personal prejudice which may become non-profitable for the organization. Heuristics: As discussed by Blumenthal-Barby and Krieger (2015), heuristics are simple and efficient rule people use to make judgments or decisions. The three major types of heuristics can create discrepancy within the decision making process of oneself. Here, the availability heuristics, representative heuristics and anchoring and adjustment heuristics can be mentioned. As opined by Maitland and Sammartino (2015), the tendency to overweight the probability of events that are vivid or dramatic can direct to wrong decision. On the other hand, Blumenthal-Barby and Krieger (2015), has stated that overweighting the representatives and expecting the result produced by the representatives will surely be replicated with the population may create a fallacy in a decision. Last but not the least, as discussed by Trianni, Cagno and Farn (2016), in the anchoring and adjustment heuristics, overweighting the first piece of information received may also lead to a mistaken decision. People often tend to make su bsequent judgments on the first piece of information and ignore the probability of the different pattern in following scenarios. Thus, heuristics often lead to distorted decisions. The self justification effect: As mentioned by Schmoldt et al. (2015), people tend to make decisions which creates a positive public image for them. While making decisions in a organizational context, the decision maker often try to create an imagery that he rational, competent and continue to support his or choice as the withdrawal of support may create a sense of lack of confidence. According to such self justification effect can often be found when the decision maker identifies the organizational project as personal engagement and start to think that he is staking his reputation with that decision. Here, the consultant may also face such a situation while making decision regarding the selection of new project site. Memories or experiences: As discussed by Trianni, Cagno and Farn (2016), while making decisions the decision makers often rely on their mental makeup shaped by previous experiences. In the context of evaluating the situations, people often believe upon their gut feeling. However, as mentioned by Schmoldt et al. (2015), not all the gut feeling prove to be effective as those may not be based on a firm root of experience and consecutive mental models. People often relate the situation with a remote template based on their memory which may not be relevant in present context. On the other hand, as mentioned by Trianni, Cagno and Farn (2016), a bad experience may debar the decision making from taking a alternative which closely matches the variables of current situations and ignore the possibility of opposite result in this new situation. Hence, in the selected context, such a weak gut feeling may direct the consultant to take a relatively profitable alternatives for the cite selection for the organization. 5.In the business organizations, the flow of information along with the information practices seems to be the most important facts. With the emergence of technology along with the introduction of e-mail facility makes the information flow in the organization easier than the other non-technical means. With the help of electronic means like email, text message system etc the organizations try to transfer important information and files swiftly and without hampering the security measures. By employing one single unit called data base, the organizations can be able to acquire information from its different departments (Durugbo, Tiwari Alcock, 2013). With the help of Online Analytical Processing (OLAP), the employees of an organization can get the access information of any particular client with which they can come to a decision. The electronic technologies help the organizations to store their important information at one single location from where all the employees can access data. This employment also enables the employees from lower designation to communicate with their employers more easily. In this way, the information flow can be made more lucid. Moreover, the implementation of email and other technologies help the introvert individual to seek for assistance which they may not ask in face to face communication system (Quaresma, Silva Marreiros, 2013). Less paper oriented work helps the organizations to work in a more structured way as they can get the access of any information at any time with the help of the data base. The email facility enables the employees to verify their ideas with the help of drafts which saves the time for face to face enquiry. In this way, the attention can be shifted to increase the organizational production level. By employing electronic information circulating mediums, the organization allows its employees to take active participation in the open discussions and express their views over several organizational aspects (Lim, 2013). It also breaks the stereotypes which tend to differentiate the employees into certain groups and classes. It also ensures the participation of each and every employee of the organization in the information flow process which helps the talented employees who do have innovative ideas for organizational growth but fear to express them face to face. However, this employment has several negative aspects as well on the organizational culture. Though this strategy saves maximum of organizational time by transferring the information in faster way, it also faces difficulty to acquire all the advantages of face to face communication. In face to face communication system, the employees tend to face obstacle to clarify all their confusion at a time for which they need to send mail frequently to their seniors (Ledbetter, 2013). Moreover, employees who are not tech savvy enough, face difficulty to acquire electronic communication means to transfer information. The employment of technology for data transferring is not always regarded as safe because any individual with bad intention can also have the access of the information with which they can take any action the organization. In addition, the installation of new technology in large organization can be expensive based on their number of employees. References: Ashkanasy, N., Dorris, A. (2017). Emotions in the Workplace. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 4(1). Blumenthal-Barby, J. S., Krieger, H. (2015). Cognitive biases and heuristics in medical decision making: a critical review using a systematic search strategy. Medical Decision Making, 35(4), 539-557. Coetzee, M., Harry, N. (2014). Emotional intelligence as a predictor of employees' career adaptability. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 84(1), 90-97. Dong, Y., Seo, M. G., Bartol, K. M. (2014). 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