Brainy 1.1

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LEARNING OBJECTIVES  Define the meaning of stress.  Identify the extraorganizational, organizational, and group stressors.  Examine individual dispositions of stress.  Describe intraindividual and interactive conflict.  Discuss the effects of stress and conflict.  Present strategies for coping/managing stress and negotiation skills for conflict resolu-

tion.

Traditionally, the field of organizational behavior has treated stress and conflict separately. Even though they are conceptually similar, and individuals, groups, and organizations in interaction are more associated with conflict, at the individual (intraindividual) level, they can be treated together. Therefore, this chapter combines stress and conflict. Conceptually, going from micro to macro, the discussion starts off with the meaning of stress and then examines the causes of stress. This is followed by both the intraindividual and the interac- tive levels of conflict. Next, the effects of stress and conflict are examined, and the final part presents the ways of coping/managing stress and conflict with particular emphasis given to effective negotiation skills for resolving conflict.

THE EMERGENCE OF STRESS

A leading expert on stress, cardiologist Robert Eliot gives the following prescription for dealing with stress: “Rule No. 1 is, don’t sweat the small stuff. Rule No. 2 is, it’s all small stuff. And if you can’t fight and you can’t flee, flow.” What is happening in today’s orga- nizations, however, is that the “small stuff” is getting to employees, and they are not going with the “flow.” Stress has become a major buzzword and legitimate concern of the times.

Contemporary Environment Demands

There is considerable evidence that many managers and employees report feeling work-related stress and a recent survey from Towers Watson, the global professional ser- vices firm, found that 30% of U.S. workers claimed to have high levels of workplace stress,1 and the recent environment is making things worse. For example, globalization and strategic alliances have led to a dramatic increase in executive travel stress2 and reloca- tion,3 then there is 24/7 technology (e.g. tablets, laptops, and smartphones) keeping people

CHAPTER 9 Stress and Conflict

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constantly leashed to their job, and of course there’s the specter of massive job losses looming in today’s volatile economic environment. For example, on stress scales, people rank losing their job the eighth most stressful life experience, behind the death of a spouse (No. 1), or going to jail (No. 4), but ahead of the death of a close friend (No. 17), foreclo- sure on a mortgage or loan (No. 21) or in-law troubles (No. 24).4

Besides these external pressures, much of the stress comes from within. As one expert notes, “Too much stress from heavy demands, poorly defined priorities, and little on-the- job flexibility can add to health issues. By leaving stress unaddressed, employers invite an increase in unscheduled time off, absence rates, and health care costs.”5

Increased work hours resulting from 24/7 technology and competitive pressures are also taking a toll on today’s employees. Recent surveys indicate that a vast majority of employees work frequently after regular hours and reported their employer does not allow them to balance their work and personal life.6 A growing number meet the definition of a “workaholic”—a compulsive need to work at the expense of everything else in one’s life.7

The estimated costs of such workaholism, in terms of lost productivity, increased health care costs, and potential legal ramifications (disabilities and wage-and-hour claims) is $150 billion a year, and the warning signs of such problems have been identified as fol- lows:8

 Sending e-mails from home in the evenings or later;  Being the last one in the office;  Having difficulty delegating;  Exhibiting excessive perfectionism;  Skipping lunch;  Looking tired; and  Having an attitude consistent with depression or exhaustion.

This stressful workplace is highly variable around the world, with some countries bet- ter and some worse than the United States. For example, a Gallup world poll found about half of those in the United States described themselves as “thriving” compared to 83% in Denmark and only 2% in Cambodia.9 In the competitive global economy workplace stress is common in the major economic powers, but may take different forms. For example, a cross-cultural study comparing U.S. and Chinese employees found the Americans reported significantly more lack of job control, direct interpersonal conflict, anger, frustration, feel- ing overwhelmed, and stomach problems, but their Chinese counterparts had relatively more stress from job evaluations, work mistakes, indirect conflict, employment conditions, and lack of training.10 Even the French are feeling the pressure. At the big automaker Renault outside of Paris, in a recent five-month period three of its engineers killed them- selves. “In the suicide notes and conversations with their families before taking their lives, the three men voiced anxiety about unreasonable workloads, high pressure management tactics, exhaustion, and humiliating criticism in front of colleagues during performance reviews.”11In other words, there seems to be a worldwide stress epidemic and seems to be getting worse.

What Stress Is, and Is Not

Stress is usually thought of in negative terms. It is thought to be caused by something bad (for example, a college student is placed on scholastic probation, a loved one is seri- ously ill, or the boss gives a formal reprimand for poor performance). This is a form of dis-Co

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tress. But there is also a positive, pleasant side of stress caused by good things (for example, a college student makes the dean’s list; an attractive, respected acquaintance asks for a date; an employee is offered a job promotion at another location). This is a form of eustress. This latter term was coined by the pioneers of stress research from the Greek eu, which means “good.” Applied to the workplace, a large study by researchers at Cornell University of 1,800 managers identified examples of “bad” stress as office politics, red tape, and a stalled career and “good” stress as challenges that come with increased job responsibility, time pressure, and high-quality assignments.12A meta-analysis found that hindrance stressors (organizational politics, red tape, role ambiguity, and in general those demands unnecessarily thwarting personal growth and goal attainment) had a negative effect on motivation and performance. On the other hand, so-called challenge stressors (high workload, time pressure, high responsibility, and in general those demands that are viewed as obstacles to be overcome in order to learn and achieve) were found to have a positive effect on motivation and performance.13

Another interesting delineation involves two types of energy—“tense energy,” which is a stress-driven state characterized by a constant sense of pressure and anxiety, and “calm energy,” which is a stress-free “flow” state characterized by low muscle tension, an alert presence of mind, peaceful body feelings, increased creative intelligence, physical vitality, and a deep sense of well-being.14 On-the-job stress may enhance such energy levels. For example, a survey found over two-thirds of U.S. and international employees reported being either neutral or energized. Based on this evidence, one stress expert observed, “The number of employees who indicated a level of comfort and even positive energy in response to work-related stress confirms that challenging work helps employees remain focused and interested throughout their daily routines and more eager to contribute.”15

In other words, a completely stress-free workplace is not the ideal. Stress can be viewed in a number of different ways and has been described as the most imprecise word in the scientific dictionary. The word stress has also been compared with the word sin: “Both are short, emotionally charged words used to refer to something that otherwise would take many words to say.”16 Although there are numerous definitions and much debate about the meaning of job stress,17 Ivancevich and Matteson define stress simply as “the interaction of the individual with the environment,” but then they go on to give a more detailed working definition, as follows: “an adaptive response, mediated by individual dif- ferences and/or psychological processes, that is a consequence of any external (environ- mental) action, situation, or event that places excessive psychological and/or physical demands on a person.”18 Note the three critical components of this definition: (1) it refers to a reaction to a situation or event, not the situation or event itself; (2) it emphasizes that stress can be impacted by individual differences; and (3) it highlights the phrase “excessive psychological and/or physical demands,” because only special or unusual situations (as opposed to minor life adjustments) can really be said to produce stress.19

In another definition, Beehr and Newman define job stress as “a condition arising from the interaction of people and their jobs and characterized by changes within people that force them to deviate from their normal functioning.”20 Taking these two definitions and simplifying them for the purpose of this chapter, stress is defined as an adaptive response to an external situation that results in physical, psychological, and/or behavioral deviations for organizational participants.

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1. Stress is not simply anxiety. Anxiety operates solely in the emotional and psychologi- cal sphere, whereas stress operates there and also in the physiological sphere. Thus, stress may be accompanied by anxiety, but the two should not be equated.

2. Stress is not simply nervous tension. Like anxiety, nervous tension may result from stress, but the two are not the same. Unconscious people have exhibited stress, and some people may keep it “bottled up” and not reveal it through nervous tension.

3. Stress is not necessarily something damaging, bad, or to be avoided. Eustress is not damaging or bad and is something people should seek out rather than avoid. The key, of course, is how the person handles the stress. Stress is inevitable; distress may be prevented or can be effectively controlled.21

What About Burnout?

As far as the increasingly popular term “burnout” is concerned, some stress research- ers contend that burnout is a type of stress22 and others treat it as having a number of com- ponents.23 One stress and trauma support coordinator makes the distinction between stress and burnout as follows, “Stress is normal and often quite healthy. However, when the abil- ity to cope with stress begins to let us down, then we may be on the road to burnout.”24

John Izzo, a former HR professional in the occupational development area, suggests that burnout may be the consequence of “losing a sense of the basic purpose and fulfillment of your work.” He goes on to say that “Getting more balance or getting more personal time will help you with stress—but it will often not help you with burnout.”25 Research in this area shows that burnout is not necessarily the result of individual problems such as charac- ter or behavior flaws in which organizations can simply change people or get rid of them. In fact, Christina Maslach, a well-known stress researcher, says the opposite is probably true. She concludes that “as a result of extensive study, it is believed that burnout is not a problem of the people themselves but of the social environment in which people work.”26

She believes that burnout creates a sense of isolation and a feeling of lost control, caus- ing the burned-out employee to relate differently to others and to their work.27 Burnout is also most closely associated with the so-called helping professions such as nursing, educa- tion, and social work. So, even though technically burnout may be somewhat different from stress, the two terms will be treated the same here and used interchangeably.

Finally, conceptually similar to stress is conflict. Although there is some overlap in analyzing the causes and effects and managing stress and conflict, they are both covered in this chapter. The major difference, except for intraindividual conflict, is that conflict in the field of organizational behavior is more associated with disagreement or opposition at the interpersonal or intergroup level. After examining stressors, these levels of conflict are given attention.

THE CAUSES OF STRESS

The antecedents of stress, or the so-called stressors, affecting today’s employees are sum- marized in Figure 9.1. As shown, these causes come from both outside and inside the orga- nization, from the groups that employees are influenced by and from employees themselves.Co

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5 Extraorganizational Stressors

Although most analyses of job stress ignore the importance of outside forces and events, it is becoming increasingly clear that these have a tremendous impact. Taking an open-systems perspective of an organization (that is, the organization is greatly affected by the external environment), it is clear that job stress is not limited just to things that happen inside the organization, during working hours. In fact, one research study found that stress- ors outside the workplace were related to negative affect and feelings on the job.28

Extraorganizational stressors include things such as societal/technological change, globalization, the family, relocation, economic and financial conditions, race and gender, and residential or community conditions.

The phenomenal rate of change and economic turbulence, which is given detailed attention in the introductory chapters, has had a great effect on people’s lifestyles, and this of course is carried over into their jobs. Although medical science has increased the life spans of people and has eradicated or reduced the threat of many diseases, the pace of mod- ern living has increased stress and decreased personal wellness. The concept of wellness has been defined as “a harmonious and productive balance of physical, mental, and social well-being brought about by the acceptance of one’s personal responsibility for developing and adhering to a health promotion program.”29 Because people tend to get caught up in the rush-rush, mobile, urbanized, crowded, on-the-go lifestyle of today, their anxiety30 and wellness in general has deteriorated; the potential for stress on the job has increased. There is considerable evidence that “Balancing concern for one’s health with effortful striving is essential to sustained, long-term achievement. Conversely, the failure to attend to one’s health places an executive at risk of failure, and in the extreme, of death.”31

FIGURE 9.1. Categories of Stressors Affecting Occupational Stress

Extraorganizational

Stressors

Organizational Stressors

Group Stressors

Individual

Stressors

JOB

STRESS

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It is generally recognized that a person’s family has a big impact on one’s stress level. A family situation—either a brief crisis, such as a squabble or the illness of a family mem- ber, or long-term strained relations with parents, spouse, or children—can act as a signifi- cant stressor for employees. Also, recent trends have made it increasingly difficult for employees to adequately balance the responsibilities of their jobs and their families. As employees are working longer hours and bringing more work home at night,32 more and more pressure is being placed on work-family relationships33 and more emphasis on the coordination of work and vacation schedules, and the search for elder and child care options has become prominent and very stressful.34

Relocating the family because of a transfer or a promotion can also lead to stress. For example, under globalization, expatriate managers (those with an assignment outside their home country) may undergo cultural shock and then when repatriated (relocated to the home country) may experience isolation; both are significant stressors.35 For most people in recent years, their financial situation has also proved to be a stressor. Many people have been forced to take a second job (“moonlight”), or the spouse has had to enter the work- force in order to make ends meet. This situation reduces time for recreational and family activities. The overall effect on employees is more stress on their primary jobs.

Life’s changes may be slow (getting older) or sudden (the death of a spouse). These sudden changes have been portrayed in novels and movies as having a dramatic effect on people, and medical researchers have verified that especially sudden life changes do in fact have a very stressful impact on people.36 They found a definite relationship between the degree of life changes and the subsequent health of the person. The more change, the poorer the subsequent health. These life changes can also directly influence job perfor- mance. One psychologist, Faye Crosby, reports that divorce greatly interferes with work. She says, “During the first three months after a spouse walks out, the other spouse—male or female—usually is incapable of focusing on work.”37

Sociological-demographic variables such as race and gender can also become stress- ors. As the workforce becomes increasingly diverse (see Chapter 2), potential stress- related issues include differences in beliefs and values, differences in opportunities for rewards or promotions, and perceptions by minority employees of either discrimination or lack of fit between themselves and the organization.38 Researchers have noted over the years that minorities may have more stressors than whites.39 Although a review of evi- dence concluded that women experience more stress than men,40 an earlier meta-analysis performed on 15 studies found no significant sex differences in experienced and perceived work stress.41 There continues to be evidence that women perceive more job demands than men in both the male-dominated and female-dominated occupations.42 Also, people in the middle and upper classes may have particular or common stressors. The same is true of the local community or region that one comes from. For example, one researcher identified the condition of housing, convenience of services and shopping, neighborliness, and degree of noise and air pollution as likely stressors.43 With globalization adding to the cultural diver- sity of recent times, there is also recent research evidence suggesting that identical conflict episodes are perceived differently across cultures (in this case the United States and Japan).44 Thus, not only must race and gender be considered in analyzing extraorganiza- tional stressors, but also the country culture and economic system.45

Organizational Stressors

Besides the potential stressors that occur outside the organization, there are also those associated with the organization itself. Although the organization is made up of groups of Co

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individuals, there are also more macrolevel dimensions, unique to the organization, that contain potential stressors.46 Figure 9.2 shows that these macrolevel stressors can be cate- gorized into administrative policies and strategies, organizational structure and design, organizational processes, and working conditions. Some specific examples of more spe- cific job stressors especially related to performance includes role ambiguity, conflict and overload, job insecurity, work-family conflict, environmental uncertainty, and situational constraints. A meta-analysis found each of these to be negatively related to job perfor- mance.47

As organizations dramatically change to meet the environmental challenges outlined in the introductory chapters (globalization, economic turbulence, and diversity), there are more and more accompanying stressors for individual employees in their jobs. As recently described, organizations today must be fast, agile, and responsive; they must quickly respond to an ever-changing environment, constantly reinventing themselves.48 For exam- ple, a study by Deloitte and Touche found that 84% of U.S. companies were undergoing at least one major change intervention in their business strategy in order to compete in today’s environment. Programs such as reengineering, restructuring, and downsizing have become commonplace as the result of intense pressures to outperform the competition. Downsiz- ing, in particular, has taken and continues to take its toll on employees.49 The actual loss of jobs, or even the mere threat of being laid off, can be extremely stressful for employees. Additionally, the “survivors” of downsizing “often experience tremendous pressure from the fear of future cuts, the loss of friends and colleagues, and an increase in work-load.”50

In other words, downsizing often translates to longer hours and more stress for the surv- iors.51 Research indicates that such chronic occupational demands can lead to stress.52

Group Stressors

Chapter 10 indicates the tremendous influence that the group has on behavior. The group or team can also be a potential source of stress. Here is how one member recently described her team’s typical meeting:

The people are loyal and competent but very slow to make proactive changes. They also have a hard time with conflict so that issues go unaddressed for years. When I sit in staff meetings, we may be talking about a budget issue or a marketing topic but the real underlying issue seems to be two warring managers or an old conflict being rehashed.53

Unfortunately, sometimes these interpersonal conflicts in a group end up in a “bully- ing” problem. This is only a recently recognized problem. Different from sexual harass- ment or incivility, bullying is defined as “repeated, health-harming mistreatment that could involve verbal abuse, threatening, humiliating, or offensive behavior or actions; or work interference.”54 Obviously, bullying leads to tremendous stress for a victim and even those who witness this problem. More generally, group stressors can be categorized into two areas:

1. Lack of group cohesiveness. Since the historically famous Hawthorne studies, dis- cussed in Chapter 1, it has become very clear that cohesiveness, or “togetherness,” is very important to employees, especially at the lower levels of organizations. If an employee is denied the opportunity for this cohesiveness because of the task design, because the supervisor does things to prohibit or limit it, or because the other mem-Co

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bers of the group shut the person out, the resulting lack of cohesiveness can be very stress producing.

2. Lack of social support. Employees are greatly affected by the support of one or more members of a cohesive group. By sharing their problems and joys with others, they are much better off. If this type of social support is lacking for an individual, the situ- ation can be very stressful. There is even research evidence indicating that the lack of social support is so stressful that it accounts for some health care costs.55

In addition to the group per se, group-level dynamics may become stressors. For example, one study found that organizational politics was a potential source of stress in the work environment56 and another study found social stressors such as conflicts with coworkers and supervisors and social dislikes or ill will of all kinds, over time, can lead to depressive symptoms for the employees involved.57

FIGURE 9.2. Macrolevel Organizational Stressors

ADMINISTRATIVE POLICIES AND STRATEGIES

Downsizing

Competitive pressures

Merit pay plans

Rotating work shifts

Bureaucratic rules

Advanced technology

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND DESIGN

Centralization and formalization

Line-staff conflicts

Specialization

Role ambiguity and conflict

No opportunity for advancement

Restrictive, untrusting culture

ORGANIZATIONAL PROCESSES

Tight controls

Only downward communication

Little performance feedback

Centralized decision making

Lack of participation in decisions

Punitive appraisal systems

JOB

STRESS

WORKING CONDITIONS

Crowded work area

Noise, heat, or cold

Polluted air

Strong odor

Unsafe, dangerous conditions

Poor lighting

Physical or mental strain

Toxic chemicals or radiation

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Individual Stressors: The Role of Dispositions

In a sense, the stressors discussed so far (extraorganizational, organizational, and group) all eventually get down to the individual level. There is also more research and agreement on possible situational dimensions and individual dispositions that may affect stress outcomes. For example, individual dispositions such as Type A personality patterns, personal control, learned helplessness, and psychological hardiness may all affect the level of stress someone experiences. In addition, the intraindividual level of conflict stemming from frustration, goals, and roles, covered next under conflict, definitely has implications as individual stressors.

Type A Characteristics

The discussion of personality in Chapter 5 points out the complexity of, and individual differences in, personality dispositions and traits. Personality traits such as authoritarian- ism, rigidity, extroversion, supportiveness, spontaneity, emotionality, tolerance for ambi- guity, anxiety, and the need for achievement have been uncovered by research as being particularly relevant to individual stress.58 Most attention over the years, however, has cen- tered on the so-called Type A personality.

Although heart researchers have been working on the use of personality types and the resulting behavior patterns in order to predict heart attacks since the 1950s, in the late 1960s Friedman and Rosenman popularized the use of Type A and opposing Type B per- sonalities in the study of stress. These types were portrayed as relatively stable character- istics, and initially Friedman and Rosenman’s extensive studies found the Type A profile correlated highly with experienced stress and dangerous physical consequences.59In more recent years, however, there is increasing evidence that Type As face no higher risk of heart disease than anyone else.

Table 9.1 gives the reader a chance to see whether he or she tends to be a Type A or a Type B personality. A majority of Americans are Type A, and an even higher percentage of managers are Type A; one study found that 60% of the managers sampled were clearly Type A and that only 12% were Type B.60

Friedman and Rosenman define the Type A personality as “an action-emotion com- plex that can be observed in any person who is aggressively involved in a chronic, inces- sant struggle to achieve more and more in less and less time, and if required to do so, against the opposing efforts of other things or other persons.”61 Table 9.2 briefly summa- rizes the Type A and Type B profiles. Obviously Type A employees (managers, salesper- sons, staff specialists, secretaries, or rank-and-file operating employees) experience considerable stress. They are the ones who:

1. Work long, hard hours under constant deadline pressures and conditions for overload. 2. Often take work home at night or on weekends and are unable to relax. 3. Constantly compete with themselves, setting high standards of productivity that they

seem driven to maintain. 4. Tend to become frustrated by the work situation, to be irritated with the work efforts

of others, and to be misunderstood by supervisors.62

Here is how one obviously Type A manager described her activities:

350 e-mails a day in my inbox … cell phone, and laptop constantly in tow. Check my Outlook calendar and see that I’m double- or triple-booked in meetings every hour, plus Co

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a 7 A.M. global conference call. Being told by management that we cannot hire addi- tional head count because of a hiring freeze, despite the hefty increase in responsibility for my team.63

By contrast, as shown in Table 9.2, Type B personalities are very laid back, are patient, and take a very relaxed, low-key approach to life and their job.

It is now accepted that Type As per se do not predict heart problems, and in fact Type As may release and better cope with their stress than do Type Bs. The more recent studies indicate that it is not so much the impatience that is closely associated with Type As that

TABLE 9.1. Type A and Type B Self-Test

To determine your Type A or Type B profile, circle the number on the continuum (the verbal descriptions represent endpoints) that best represents your behavior for each dimension.

Am casual about appointments 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Am never late

Am not competitive 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Am very competitive

Never feel rushed, even under pressure 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Always feel rushed

Take things one at a time 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Try to do many things at once; think about what I am going to do next

Do things slowly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Do things fast (eating, walking, etc.)

Express feelings 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 “Sit” on feelings

Have many interests 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Have few interests outside work

Total your score: __________________ Multiply it by 3: __________________. The interpretation of your score is as follows:

Number of Points: Less than 90

90 to 99 100 to 105 106 to 119

120 or more

Type of Personality: B

B A A

A Source: Adapted from R. W. Bortner, “A Short Rating Scale as a Potential Measure of Pattern A Behavior,” Journal of Chronic Diseases, Vol. 22, 1966, pp. 87–91.

TABLE 9.2. Profiles of Type A and Type B Personalities

Type A Profile Type B Profile

• Is always moving

• Walks rapidly

• Eats rapidly

• Talks rapidly

• Is impatient

• Does two things at once

• Can’t cope with leisure time

• Is obsessed with numbers

• Measures success by quantity

• Is aggressive

• Is competitive

• Constantly feels under time pressure

• Is not concerned about time

• Is patient

• Doesn’t brag

• Plays for fun, not to win

• Relaxes without guilt

• Has no pressing deadlines

• Is mild-mannered

• Is never in a hurry

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leads to heart problems, but rather anger and hostility.64 A leading medical researcher noted that the term “Type A” probably has outlived its usefulness. He stated: “Being a workaholic, being in a hurry, interrupting people, are not necessarily bad for your heart. What is bad is if you have high levels of hostility and anger, and you don’t bother to hide it when dealing with other people.”65 This conclusion was supported by an organizational psychiatrist who, after extensive study of the causes of stress in Japanese, German, and American workers, concluded that “how workers handle their own aggression is the key factor in determining whether they will experience the kind of stress that can lead to heart attacks, high blood pressure and other health problems.”66 However, before the relation- ship of Type A to severe physical outcomes is completely dismissed, it should be noted that anger, hostility, and aggression sometimes go along with a Type A personality.

Besides the debate surrounding the impact of Type A personality on health is the ques- tion of the performance and success of Type As versus Type Bs. It is pretty clear that Type As perform better67 and are typically on a “fast track” to the top. They are more successful than Type Bs. However, at the very top they do not tend to be as successful as Type Bs, who are not overly ambitious, are more patient, and take a broader view of things.68 The key may be to shift from Type A to Type B behavior, but, of course, most Type As are unable and unwilling to make the shift and/or to cope with their Type A characteristics.

Personal Control

Besides Type A personality patterns, another important disposition is an individual’s perception of control. As mentioned in Chapter 5’s discussion on job satisfaction, people’s feelings about their ability to control a situation are important in determining their level of stress. In particular, if employees feel that they have little control over the work environ- ment and over their own job, they will experience stress.69 Studies have shown that if employees are given a sense of control over their work environment, such as being given a chance to be involved in the decision-making process that affects them, this will reduce their work stress.70 A large study by Cornell University medical researchers found that those workers who experience a loss of control, especially in relatively low-level jobs, have triple the risk of developing high blood pressure. The researchers concluded that lack of control turns stress into physical problems. They also found that if a high-stress job included latitude to control the situation, there was no increase in blood pressure.71 A study in a hospital setting also found that employee perceptions of the amount of control they experience at work relate to stress, which in turn affects physiological outcomes such as blood pressure as well as psychological outcomes such as job satisfaction.72 Another study found that job control has an impact on stress and strain if the employee perceives organi- zational justice.73 In other words, it may not be job control per se, but the employee’s per- ception of fairness that has the resulting impact on stress.

Learned Helplessness

The feeling of loss of control goes back to some of the classic research on learned helplessness conducted by Seligman.74 Chapter 7 introduced this concept in relation to optimism. In conducting experiments on dogs who could not escape shock, Seligman found that they eventually accepted it and did not even try to escape. Later, when the dogs could learn to escape easily, they did not—they had learned to be helpless. Other studies found that people, too, can learn to be helpless,75 which helps explain why some employ-Co

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ees just seem to have given up and seem to accept stressors in their work environment, even when a change for the better is possible.

More recently, Seligman and his colleagues have concentrated on people’s attributions for their lack of control. Specifically, they suggest that people are most apt to experience helplessness when they perceive the causes of the lack of control:

1. To be related to something about their own personal characteristics (as opposed to outside, environmental forces)

2. As stable and enduring (rather than just temporary) 3. To be global and universal (cutting across many situations, rather than in just one

sphere of life)76

Further study and research on the sense of control in general and learned helplessness in particular will provide much insight into stress and how to cope with it.

Psychological Hardiness

Everyone has observed individual differences of people faced with stressors. Some people seem to go to pieces at the slightest provocation, whereas others seem unflappable in the face of extremely stressful situations. Those able to cope successfully with extreme stressors seem to have a “hardiness” disposition.

Kobasa and her colleagues studied executives under considerable stress who were both measurably hardy and nonhardy. She found that the hardy executives had a lower rate of stress-related illness and were characterized as having commitment (they became very involved in what they were doing); welcoming challenge (they believed that change rather than stability was normal); and feeling in control (they felt they could influence the events around them).77 She suggests that the predisposition of psychological hardiness helps those with it to resist stress by providing buffers between themselves and stressors.

Such buffering drawn from hardiness may be an important quality as organizations now and in the future demand more and more from their employees at all levels. As has been noted:

Why does the job seem so demanding? It isn’t just long hours or clumsy direction from above, though there’s plenty of that. All sorts of pressure, from the stress of participa- tory management techniques to the hyperkinesia of two-career marriages to the dismay of finding your workload increasing as you near 50, just when you thought you could adopt a more dignified pace, are working together to squeeze the oomph from hereto- fore steely-eyed achievers.78

Kobasa’s research would say that those with hardiness will be able to survive and even thrive in such an environment, but those who do not possess hardiness may suffer the harmful outcomes of stress and conflict. As concluded by the closely related “toughness” researchers in positive psychology, “once an individual becomes tough and thereby expe- riences the sustained energy (with minimal tension) necessary for successful coping, that person is likely to experience a greater variety of situations as challenging rather than threatening.”79 Also from the positive organizational behavior literature, in Chapter 7 it was mentioned that Avey, Luthans, and Jensen recently found that there was a significant negative relationship between employees’ psychological capital and their reported levels of stress.80 In other words, employees may be able to draw from their positive psycholog-Co

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ical resources (i.e., efficacy, hope, optimism, resiliency, and overall psychological capital) in order to combat the stressors that they face at work.

INTRAINDIVIDUAL CONFLICT

Although stress and conflict are treated differently, they are combined in this one chapter mainly because of the conceptual similarity between individual dispositional stressors and intraindividual conflict. After presenting the intraindividual forms of conflict in terms of frustration, goals, and roles, some more macro interactive conflict models are briefly reviewed as shown in Figure 9.3.

Conflict Due to Frustration

Frustration occurs when a motivated drive is blocked before a person reaches a desired goal. Figure 9.4 illustrates what happens. The barrier may be either overt (outward, or physical) or covert (inward, or mental-sociopsychological). The frustration model can be useful in the analysis of not only behavior in general but also specific aspects of on-the-job behavior. Theft of company property and even violence on the job may be a form of an aggressive outcome to job frustration. For example, a summary article on violence in the workplace noted that even though on-the-job killings have dropped in recent years, this is because of fewer homicides in places like taxis and convenience stores. Workplace homi- cides by “associates”—current and former coworkers, customers, and clients—are

Defense mechanisms actually on the upswing since 1997.81 In addition, employee crimes, as a form of displaced aggression (e.g., fictitious sales transactions, illegal kick- backs, and theft of office equipment and retail items meant for sales to customers), is also on the rise.82

FIGURE 9.3. Level of Conflict in Organizational Behavior

Macro Organizational

Intergroup

Interpersonal

Intra- individual

Micro CONFLICT

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5 There is increasing concern and research on aggression and violence in the workplace.

Although self-reported incidences of workplace aggression are a reaction to frustration, there is research evidence that individual differences (e.g., trait anger, attribution style, negative affectivity, attitudes toward revenge, self-control, and previous exposure to aggressive cultures) account for this aggression,83 but so do situational factors such as interactional justice and/or abusive supervision.84 Another study also found personality variables such as stress reaction and control correlated with workplace aggression, and the incidence of aggression depended on the perception of being victimized by others.85 The form of aggression may depend on the perception of organizational justice (i.e., the judged fairness),86 and there is a study that violent crime rates in the community of the workplace predicted the amount of reported aggression at that workplace.87 Implementing a violence- prevention policy and providing training to supervisors and employees in workplace-vio- lence awareness seems to decrease the incidence rate for employee-on-employee vio- lence.88

In addition to aggression and violence, the withdrawal reaction to frustration may be a major explanation for the “motivational problem” of employees. They may be apathetic or have “retired on the job” because they are frustrated, not because they have no motivation. Many employees’ motives have been blocked by dead-end jobs, high degrees of job spe- cialization, or supervisors who put up barriers. Similar to aggression there is research evi- dence that both perceived organizational support89 and personality variables90 affect what manner and what type of withdrawal behaviors employees exhibit. The fixation reaction to frustration may be used to explain irrational bureaucratic behavior. (The rules become the ends in themselves, and the frustrated employee pathetically adapts to the barriers.) Com- promise can help explain midcareer changes (frustrated employees go around the barriers) or “living outside the job” (frustrated employees cannot achieve motivated goals on the job, so they seek fulfillment outside the job). These reactions to frustration often cost orga- nizations a great deal because of the dysfunctions associated with aggression, withdrawal, and fixation. In the case of compromise, the employee’s motivation is forced outside the

FIGURE 9.4. A Model of Frustration

Need

(deficiency)

Drive

(deficiency

with direction)

Barrier

(1) Overt

(2) Covert

Goal/

incentive

(reduction of

the drives and

fulfillment of

deficiencies)

Frustration

Defense mechanisms

(1) Aggression

(2) Withdrawal

(3) Fixation

(4) Compromise

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organization. Although the discussion so far indicates the dysfunctional nature of frustra- tion, such negativity should not be automatically assumed.

In some cases frustration may actually result in a positive impact on individual perfor- mance and organizational goals. An example is the worker or manager who has high needs for competence and achievement and/or who has high self-efficacy (see Chapter 7’s dis- cussion) in being able to do a job well. A person of this type who is frustrated on the job may react in a traditional defensive manner, but the frustration may result in improved per- formance. The person may try harder to overcome the barrier or may overcompensate, or the new direction or goal sought may be more compatible with the organization’s goals. In addition, one research study found stress and strain levels were lower for participants with high self-efficacy than for those with lower self-efficacy.91

Once again, it should be remembered that defense mechanisms per se are not bad for the individual. They play an important role in the psychological adjustment process and are unhealthy only when they dominate the individual’s personality. Also, those who have suc- cessfully overcome frustration in the past by learning that it is possible to surmount barriers or find substitute goals are more tolerant of frustration than those who have never experi- enced it, or than those who have experienced excesses in frustration. There is also evidence that “venting” (an emotional reaction of expressing one’s negative feelings to others) has an adverse affect on performance and amplified the negativity.92 However, in general, a major goal of management should be to eliminate the barriers (imagined, real, or potential) that are or will be frustrating to employees. This goal may be accomplished through job redesign efforts (see Chapter 6) that are more compatible with employee motivation or leadership skills that get the frustrating barriers out of people’s way.

Goal Conflict

Another common source of conflict for an individual is a goal that has both positive and negative features, or two or more competing goals. Whereas in frustration motives are blocked before the goal is reached, in goal conflict two or more motives block one another. For ease of analysis, three separate types of goal conflict are generally identified:

1. Approach-approach conflict, where the individual is motivated to approach two or more positive but mutually exclusive goals.

2. Approach-avoidance conflict, where the individual is motivated to approach a goal and at the same time is motivated to avoid it. The single goal contains both positive and negative characteristics for the individual.

3. Avoidance-avoidance conflict, where the individual is motivated to avoid two or more negative but mutually exclusive goals.

To varying degrees, each of these forms of goal conflict exists in the modern organization, but approach-avoidance is most relevant to the analysis of conflict.

Approach-avoidance conflict results from organizational goals having both positive and negative aspects for organizational participants. Basic research in psychology suggests that the positive aspects of a given organizational goal are stronger and more salient at a distance (in time and/or space) than the negative aspects. On the other hand, as a person gets nearer to the goal, the negative aspects become more pronounced, and at some point the individual may hesitate or fail to progress any further at the point where approach equals avoidance. For example, managers engaged in long-range planning typically are very confident of a goal (a strategic plan) they have developed for the future. Yet, as the Co

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time gets near to commit resources and implement the plan, the negative consequences seem to appear much greater than they did in the developing stage. Managers in such a sit- uation may reach the point where approach equals avoidance. The result is a great deal of internal conflict and stress, which may cause indecision, physical reactions, or even depression.

Such approach-avoidance conflict and its aftermath are very common among decision makers and people in responsible positions in today’s organizations described in the intro- ductory comments. As noted in a cover story of Fortune, “To the survivors, the revolution feels something like this: scary, guilty, painful, liberating, disorienting, exhilarating, empowering, frustrating, fulfilling, confusing, challenging.”93 In other words, as these terms indicate, many managers in recent years have been experiencing very mixed feel- ings, or approach-avoidance reactions.

Role Conflict and Ambiguity

Closely related to the concept of norms (the “oughts” of behavior), role is defined as a position that has expectations evolving from established norms. People living in contem- porary society assume a succession of roles throughout life. A typical sequence of social roles would be that of child, son or daughter, teenager, college student, boyfriend or girl- friend, spouse, parent, and grandparent. Each of these roles has recognized expectations that are acted out like a role in a play.

Besides progressing through a succession of roles such as those just mentioned, the adult in modern society fills numerous other roles at the same time. It is not uncommon for the adult middle-class male to be simultaneously playing the roles of husband, father, pro- vider, son (to elderly parents), worker or manager, student (in a night program), coach of a Little League baseball team, church member, member of a social club, bridge partner, poker club member, officer of a community group, and weekend golfer. Women, of course, also have numerous, often conflicting, roles.94 Although all the roles that men and women bring into the organization are relevant to their behavior, in the study of organizational behavior the organizational role is the most important. Roles such as software developer, clerk, team leader, salesperson, engineer, systems analyst, department head, vice president, and chairperson of the board often carry conflicting demands and expectations. There is research evidence that such conflict can have a negative impact on well-being95 and perfor- mance and may be affected by cultural differences.96 For example, in a study of CEOs in international joint ventures, it was found that role conflict was lower when the foreign part- ner was dominant in the venture, but higher when the local parent was dominant. Role con- flict was inversely related to cultural distance.97

There are three major types of role conflict. One type is the conflict between the per- son and the role. There may be conflict between the person’s personality and the expecta- tions of the role. For example, a production worker and member of the union is appointed to head up a new production team. This new team leader may not really believe in keeping close control over the workers, and it goes against this individual’s personality to be hard- nosed, but that is what the head of production expects. A second type is intrarole conflict created by contradictory expectations about how a given role should be played. Should the new team leader be autocratic or democratic in dealing with the team members? Finally, interrole conflict results from the differing requirements of two or more roles that must be played at the same time. Work roles and nonwork roles are often in such conflict. For example, a successful executive working for a computer company said that she often worked from 7:30 A.M. to 11:30 P.M. Her long hours led to the breakup of a relationship. Co

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When she got word that her mother was seriously ill, she remembered: “I had about five minutes to be upset before the phone started ringing again. You get so far into it, you don’t even realize your life has gotten away from you completely.”98

The production team leader and the fast-climbing executive obviously represent the extreme cases of organizational role conflict. Yet to varying degrees, depending on the individual and the situation, people in every other position in the modern organization also experience one or all three types of role conflict. Staff engineers are not sure of their real authority. The clerk in the front office does not know whether to respond to a union-orga- nizing drive. The examples are endless. The question is not whether role conflict and ambi- guity exist—they do, and they seem inevitable.99 Rather, the key becomes a matter of determining how role conflict can be resolved or managed.100

INTERACTIVE CONFLICT

Besides the intraindividual aspects of conflict that are closely related to stress, the interac- tive aspects of conflict are also an important dynamic of organizational behavior. This sec- tion is specifically concerned with analyzing the interactive conflict that can result at the interpersonal and intergroup levels in today’s organizations.

Interpersonal Conflict

Those who have interpersonal conflict most often attribute the cause to a personality problem or defect in the other party. For example, as discussed in Chapter 6, research from attribution theory on the so-called fundamental attribution error suggests that people attri- bute others’ behavior to personal factors such as intelligence, ability, motivation, attitudes, or personality. Whetten and Cameron, however, go beyond this surface explanation and propose that there are four major sources of interpersonal conflict.101These can be summa- rized as follows:

1. Personal differences.Everyone has a unique background because of his or her upbringing, cultural and family traditions, and socialization processes. Because no one has the same family background, education, and values, the differences can be a major source of conflict. Disagreements stemming from the differences “often become highly emotional and take on moral overtones. A disagreement about who is factually correct easily turns into a bitter argument over who is morally right.”102

2. Information deficiency. This source of conflict results from communication break- down in the organization. It may be that the two people in conflict are using different information or that one or both have misinformation. Unlike personal differences, this source of conflict is not emotionally charged and once corrected, there is little resent- ment.

3. Role incompatibility. This type of interpersonal conflict draws from both intraindivid- ual role conflict (discussed in the previous section) and intergroup conflict (discussed in the next section). Specifically, in today’s horizontal organizations, managers have functions and tasks that are highly interdependent. However, the individual roles of these managers may be incompatible. For example, the production manager and the sales manager have interdependent functions: one supports the other. However, a major role of the production manager is to cut costs, and one way to do this is to keep inventories low. The sales manager, on the other hand, has a dominant role of increas-Co

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ing revenues through increased sales. The sales manager may make delivery promises to customers at are incompatible with the low inventory levels maintained by produc- tion. The resulting conflict from role incompatibility may have to be resolved by higher-level management or systems development through advanced information technology.

4. Environmental stress. These types of conflict can be amplified by a stressful environ- ment. In environments characterized by scarce or shrinking resources, downsizing, competitive pressures, or high degrees of uncertainty, conflict of all kinds will be more probable. “For example, when a major pet-food manufacturing facility announced that one-third of its managers would have to support a new third shift, the feared disruption of personal and family routines prompted many managers to think about sending out their résumés. In addition, the uncertainty of who was going to be required to work at night was so great that even routine management work was dis- rupted by posturing and infighting.”103

In addition to identifying some of the major sources of interpersonal conflict as in the preceding, it is useful to analyze the dynamics of individuals interacting with one another. One way to analyze their confronting others is through the response categories of (1) forc- ing (assertive, uncooperative); (2) accommodating (unassertive, cooperative); (3) avoiding (uncooperative, unassertive); (4) compromising (between assertiveness and cooperative- ness); and (5) collaborating (cooperative, assertive).104 Like role conflict, there is research indicating the complexity of interindividual and intragroup conflict,105 and it is not always bad. For example, one study found the following profile of high-performing teams: (1) low but increasing levels of process conflict; (2) low levels of relationship conflict, with a rise near project deadlines; and (3) moderate levels of task conflict at the midpoint of group interaction.106

Intergroup Behavior and Conflict

In addition to interpersonal (which includes intragroup) conflict, social psychologists have been concerned about intergroup conflict for a number of years. Intergroup behavior is even specifically identified as follows: “Intergroup behavior occurs whenever individu- als belonging to one group interact, collectively or individually, with another group or its members in terms of their reference group identification.”107

Several antecedent conditions have been identified for explaining intergroup conflict. These can be summarized as follows:108

1. Competition for resources. Most organizations today have very limited resources. Groups within the organization vie for budget funds, space, supplies, personnel, and support services.

2. Task interdependence. If two groups in the organization depend on one another in a mutual way or even a one-way direction (as in a sequential technological process), there tends to be more conflict than if groups are independent of one another. The more diverse the objectives, priorities, and personnel of the interdependent groups (for example, research and operations), the more conflict there tends to be.

3. Jurisdictional ambiguity. This may involve “turf” problems or overlapping responsi- bilities. For example, conflict might occur when one group attempts to assume more control or take credit for desirable activities, or give up its part and any responsibility for undesirable activities.Co

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4. Status struggles. This conflict occurs when one group attempts to improve its status and another group views this as a threat to its place in the status hierarchy. One group may also feel it is being inequitably treated in comparison with another group of equal status in terms of rewards, job assignments, working conditions, privileges, or status symbols. Human resources departments justifiably often feel they are treated inequi- tably in relation to marketing, finance, and operations departments.

Groups in conflict behave differently from smoothly cooperating groups. Here is a real-world example:

A division of Litton Industries needed to integrate West and East Coast operations in order to provide customers a full spectrum of services. The West Coast group had been running call centers for 30-some years, were hard working, but resistant to change. The East Coast operation was cobbled together through recent acquisitions and specialized in enterprise-wide process consulting. This East Coast group was freewheeling, risk- taking and could care less about Litton culture and tradition. The resulting conflict left virtually no communication or unified sense of direction between the two groups. Covert sabotage was routinely waged by both sides to dilute one another’s effectiveness.109

There is recent research evidence that such groups in conflict change both internally and in their intergroup perceptions. For example, one study of 70 top management teams found internally that the degree of trust moderated the relationship between task conflict (the per- ception of disagreements about decisions made by the group) and relationship conflict (an emotional perception of interpersonal incompatibility).110 Another study found that low intragroup cohesiveness and negative relationships across groups were significantly related to higher perceptions of intergroup conflict.111 Overall, most experts today emphasize the importance of making a cost-benefit analysis of the conflict situation at any level and then setting up dispute resolution systems112 and, most recently, setting up systems through advanced information technology that eliminate conflict inherent in traditional (i.e., hierar- chical and functional specializations) organization designs.

THE EFFECTS OF STRESS AND INTRAINDIVIDUAL CONFLICT

As has been pointed out, stress and conflict are not automatically bad for individual employees or their organizational performance. In fact, it is generally recognized that low levels of stress and conflict can even enhance job performance. For example, one study found that mild stress, such as getting a new supervisor or being involuntarily transferred, may have the positive result of an increased search for information in the job.113 This may lead employees to new and better ways of doing their jobs. Also, mild stress may get employees’ “juices” flowing and lead to increased activity, change, and overall better per- formance. People in certain jobs, such as in sales or creative fields (for example, newspaper journalists and television announcers who work under time pressures), would seem to ben- efit from a mild level of stress. People in other jobs, such as police officers or physicians, may not benefit from constant mild stress.

Research is also emerging that indicates that the level of difficulty, the nature of the task being performed, personal dispositions (such as Type A, personal control and learned helplessness, and psychological hardiness, and psychological capital, discussed in previous sections), other psychological dispositions (such as negative affectivity114), and neuroti-Co

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cism115 may affect the relationship between stress and performance. However, it is still safe to conclude that:

1. The performance of many tasks is in fact strongly affected by stress. 2. Performance usually drops off sharply when stress rises to very high levels.116

It is the dysfunctional effects of high levels of stress and conflict that should be and are a major concern for contemporary society in general and for effective human resource man- agement in particular. The problems due to high levels of stress and conflict can be exhib- ited physically, psychologically, or behaviorally by the individual.

Physical Problems Due to Stress and Conflict

Most of the attention and basic research over the years have been devoted to the impact that stress has on physical health. Specific physical health concerns that have been linked to stress include the following: (1) immune system problems, where there is a lessened ability to fight off illness and infection; (2) cardiovascular system problems, such as high blood pressure and heart disease; (3) musculoskeletal system problems, such as tension headaches and back pain; and (4) gastrointestinal system problems, such as diarrhea and constipation.117 For example, heart attacks are a way of life (or death in this case) on stress- packed Wall Street. For the 5,000 people who work at the stock exchange, the heart attack death rate is 60% higher than the national rate for men between 18 and 65, and it was one of the first employers to install a defibrillator (used to restart the heart by electric shock).118

The situation on Wall Street has even worsened in recent years because of the threat of ter- rorism, the corporate scandals, and the extreme volatility of the market.

Obviously, serious physical ailments from stress have a drastic effect on the individ- ual; not always so obvious, but just as serious, are the effects that physical problems such as heart disease can have on the organization. Ivancevich and Matteson have provided the following worksheet for computing the costs of replacing employees lost to heart disease in a company employing 4,000 people.119

These figures are just estimates, but they dramatically illustrate how heart disease alone can affect costs and sheer numbers of employees in a typical organization. Obvi- ously, not all heart disease can be directly linked to stress; environmental conditions and the person’s general state of health, heredity, and medical history also certainly contribute. However, there seems to be enough evidence that stress can and does contribute to this dreaded disease and to other physical problems as well.

1. Number of employees 4,000

2. Men in age range 45 to 65 (0.25 line 1) 1,000

3. Estimated deaths due to heart disease per year (0.006line 2) 6

4. Estimated premature retirement due to heart problems per year (0.003line 2) 3

5. Company’s annual personnel losses due to heart disorders (sum of lines 3 and 4) 9

6. Annual replacement cost: the average cost of hiring and training replacements for experienced employees (line 5 $50,000)

$450,000

7. Number of employees who will eventually die of heart disease if present rate continues (0.5 line 1) 2,000

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Psychological Problems Due to Stress and Conflict

Although considerable attention has been given to the relationship between stress and physical health, especially within the medical community, not as much has been given to the impact of stress on mental health. Yet, at least indirectly if not directly, the psycholog- ical problems resulting from stress may be just as important, if not more important, to day- today job performance as the physical problems. High levels of stress may be accompanied by anger, anxiety, depression, nervousness, irritability, tension, and boredom. One study found that stress had the strongest impact on aggressive actions, such as sabotage, interper- sonal aggression, hostility, and complaints.120

These types of psychological problems from stress, in turn, are especially relevant to poor job performance, lowered self-esteem,121 resentment of supervision, inability to con- centrate and make decisions, and job dissatisfaction.122 These outcomes of stress can have a direct cost effect on the organization. For example, the National Centers for Disease Con- trol reported that psychological stress is the source of numerous job-related insurance claims.123 Court cases have also brought stress-related problems stemming from employ- ment under the employer’s workers’ compensation insurance.124 Experts are predicting that if the number of stress-related workers’ compensation claims continues to grow at cur- rent rates, these claims will lead all other claims,125 in an era when health care benefits for psychological problems have plummeted.126

Of even greater significance, the outcomes of stress can have a subtle, but very real, effect on the styles and effectiveness of managers in key positions. For example, managers who are under constant stress may become very moody, and their subordinates soon learn not to disturb them, even with important information, because they will just “bite your head off.” Such managers may also realize, at times, that they are acting this way; they may feel that they are not living up to the expectations of their important position and suffer a loss of self-esteem. In this state they may also procrastinate and continue to put things off and not make needed decisions. And, finally, they may resent their boss for trying to get them back on track and begin to hate the job in general. Coworkers, subordinates, and bosses may become very disgusted with such a manager and explain the behavior away as being the result of a “rotten personality,” when in fact the problems are the result of stress and conflict. If the manager had a heart attack, everyone would feel sorry and say that he or she was under too much stress, but a manager’s moodiness, low self-esteem, inability to make a decision, and dissatisfaction with the boss and the job cause people to get angry and say that the manager is “no darned good” or “can’t get along with anyone.” Both a heart attack and a psychological problem may have the same cause (too much stress and conflict), and although people may react to them differently, the negative effect on performance is the same in the case of a psychological problem, or perhaps even worse.

Behavioral Problems Due to Stress and Conflict

As has been the case with other topics covered in this text, the behavioral unit of anal- ysis may be most helpful—in this case, in analyzing the effects of job stress and conflict. Direct behaviors that may accompany high levels of stress include undereating or overeat- ing, sleeplessness, increased smoking and drinking, and drug abuse. When it is realized that 6% of the population are alcoholics, that another estimated 10% are problem drinkers, and that several billion doses of amphetamines and barbiturates are consumed annually,127

the potential problems for employee behavior caused by alcohol and drug abuse become dramatically clear. For example, one company had such a problem with on-the-job drink-Co

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5ing that it bought a breath-alcohol meter to test its employees. The president of the union in this firm stated: “There were a couple of people who came to work drunk every day.”128 Although the meter has not been used yet, one worker was overheard to say, “I guess I’ll have to stop going to the bar at lunchtime.”129 Besides being dangerous, as in this com- pany, which used a lot of dangerous equipment, these problems may be manifested in tar- diness, absenteeism, and turnover.

There is research evidence over the years indicating a relationship between stress and especially absenteeism and turnover.130 For example, workers may experience stress and react by getting drunk and staying home from work the next day with a hangover. They then feel bad about this drinking. They may feel that they are letting everyone down “the morning after” and eventually quit or are fired from the job. In the meantime the absentee- ism rate climbs, and subsequently the turnover rate increases, both of which are very costly to the organization in terms of filling in for absent workers and replacing those who have left. Staying away from a job that is causing stress or quitting the job is a “flight” reaction to the situation. Actually, this may be a healthier reaction than a “fight” reaction, in which the person may stay on the stress-producing job and become angry and/or aggressive.

Like the psychological problems resulting from stress and conflict, the behavioral problems are often not attributed to stress by coworkers or supervisors and generate little sympathy. But, also like the psychological and the physical symptoms of stress, the behav- ioral problems can be controlled, more effectively managed, and even prevented by the individual and the organization. These coping strategies are discussed next.

COPING STRATEGIES FOR STRESS AND CONFLICT

Much of the discussion so far in this chapter and, at least indirectly, a lot of the material in previous and subsequent chapters (for example, discussions of job design, goal setting,

One of the major causes of stress for managers comes from time pressures. No matter how fast some man- agers work and how much time they put in, they are still unable to get all their work done. One of the most effective ways of dealing with this problem is the use of time management techniques. Today many organizations from Chase Manhattan to Exxon to Xerox a retraining their managers in how to get more done in less time. Some of the most helpful guide- lines for effective time management are the follow- ing:

1. Make out a “to-do” list that identifies everything that must be done during the day. This helps keep track of work progress.

2. Delegate as much minor work as possible to subor- dinates.

3. Determine when you do the best work—morning or afternoon—and schedule the most difficult assignments for this time period.

4. Set time aside during the day, preferably at least one hour, when visitors or other interruptions are not permitted.

5. Have the secretary screen all incoming calls in order to turn away those that are minor or do not require your personal attention.

6. Eat lunch in the office one or two days a week in order to save time and give yourself the opportu- nity to catch up on paperwork.

7. Discourage drop-in visitors by turning your desk so that you do not have eye contact with the door or hallway.

8. Read standing up. The average person reads faster and more accurately when in a slightly uncomfort- able position.

9. Make telephone calls between 4:30 and 5:00P.M. People tend to keep these conversations brief so that they can go home.

10. Do not feel guilty about those things that have not been accomplished today. Put them on the top of the “to-do” list for tomorrow.

OB IN ACTION: TAKING TIME TO MANAGE TIME

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organizational behavior modification, group dynamics, political strategies, leadership styles, organization processes and design, control techniques, management of change, and organization development techniques) suggest ways to manage and cope more effectively with stress and conflict. There are even overall theories being developed on coping with stress,131 basic research on the role that personality132 and trust133 can play in coping with stress and conflict in organizations, and practical guidelines for converting stress into suc- cess.134 The accompanying OB in Action: Taking Time to Manage Time suggests some simple techniques, such as time management, that can be used to cope with stress, and there are many lists of steps to take in order to avoid stress and burnout found in the prac- titioner literature.135

Interactive behavior at both the interpersonal and intergroup levels resulting in conflict rather than stress per se has its own solutions for coping and managing. For example, a win-win strategy of conflict resolution or types of strategies such as avoidance, defusion, containment, or confrontation136 are well known in conflict management and there is emerging basic research indicating how conflict management can influence the success of global virtual teams in today’s organizations.137 There continue to be many practitioner- oriented books138 on resolving conflict in the workplace, but the more academic, research- based approach has concentrated on negotiation skills. After a summary of both the indi- vidual and organizational coping strategies for stress, the negotiation skills of conflict res- olution conclude the chapter.

Individual Coping Strategies

Today, self-help remedies, do-it-yourself approaches, weight-loss clinics and diets, health foods, and physical exercise are being given much attention in the mass media. Peo- ple are actually taking responsibility, or know they should be taking responsibility, for their own wellness. Individual coping strategies for dealing with stress make sense. In other words, as described in the accompanying OB in Action: Making it Work by Not Doing it All, most people don’t have to be convinced of the value of taking charge and actually making a change in their lives. Today, this coping responsibility goes beyond physical well-being to also include psychological well-being, spiritual vitality, and ethics.139

Some specific techniques that individuals can use to eliminate or more effectively manage inevitable, prolonged stress are the following:

1. Exercise. Today, it is not whether you win or lose, but whether you get some good exercise that counts. People of all ages are walking, jogging, swimming, riding bicy- cles, or playing softball, tennis, or racquetball in order to get some exercise to combat stress. Although this seems to make a great deal of sense and many laypeople and physicians swear by it, there still is no conclusive evidence that exercise will always reduce the chances of heart disease or stroke. But there seems little doubt that it can help people better cope with the pressures of life, and as Shawn Achor recently explains, “Physical activity can boost mood and enhance our work performance in a number of other ways as well, by improving motivation and feelings of mastery, reducing stress and anxiety, and helping us get into flow--that “locked in” feeling of total engagement that we usually get when we’re at our most productive.” 140

2. Relaxation. Whether a person simply takes it easy once in a while or uses specific relaxation techniques such as biofeedback or meditation, the intent is to eliminate the immediately stressful situation or manage a prolonged stressful situation more effec- tively. Taking it easy may mean curling up with a good book in front of a fireplace or Co

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watching something “light” (not a violent program or a sports program) on television. There is even some recent research evidence that those who do expressive writing about stressful events in their lives experience health benefits.141 Meditation involves muscle and mental relaxation; the person slowly repeats a peaceful phrase or word or concentrates on a mental picture in a quiet location. There is growing research evi- dence that such meditation can have a desirable physical142 and mental impact on people.143 Achor notes, “research even shows that regular meditation can perma- nently rewire the brain to raise levels of happiness, lower stress, even improve immune function.”144 However, whether it can have a practical impact on job stress is yet to be determined. Nevertheless, a number of firms are using it. For example, a stockbroker who regularly uses meditation stated: “It’s widely known that this indus- try has a lot of stress. So where a lot of people drink alcohol, we meditate. It’s not that we don’t feel stress. It just doesn’t hit us as much.”

3. Behavioral self-control. Chapter 12 gives specific attention to behavior management. By deliberately managing the antecedents and the consequences of their own behav- ior, people can achieve self-control. For example, sales managers who have a steady stream of customer complaints all day could change the antecedent by having an assistant screen all complaints and allow only exceptions to reach them. They could also manage the consequences by rewarding themselves with an extra break when they remain calm and collected after interacting with a particularly angry customer. Besides managing their own behavior to reduce stress, people can also become more aware of their limits and of “red flags” that signal trouble ahead. They can avoid peo- ple or situations that they know will put them under stress. In other words, this strat- egy involves individuals’ controlling the situation instead of letting the situation control them.

4. Cognitive therapy. Besides behavioral self-control techniques, a number of clinical psychologists have entered the stress field with cognitive therapy techniques. Tech- niques such as Ellis’s rational emotive model and cognitive behavior modification have been used as an individual strategy for reducing job stress. Building self-efficacy (confidence, see Chapter 7) through Bandura’s social cognitive theory has also been used.145 Research has shown that those of low self-efficacy are stressed both emo- tionally and physiologically, but those with high self-efficacy are unfazed by heavy workloads.146 Thus, the goal is to gain or enhance one’s sense of efficacy over stress- ful situations, as an individual coping strategy for stress reduction, through successful performance experience, vicarious experience, social persuasion, and/or controlling physiological and emotional states.147

5. Networking. One clear finding that has come out of social psychology research over the years is that people need and will benefit from social support.148 Applied as a strategy to reduce job stress, this would entail forming close associations with trusted empathetic coworkers and colleagues who are good listeners and confidence builders. These friends are there when needed and provide support to get the person through stressful situations. Today, such alliances, especially if deliberately sought out and developed, are called networks and now social capital.149 Although the specific rela- tionship between social support and stress reduction appears complicated,150 there is some research evidence that a networking strategy may be able to help people cope better with job stress151 and be more effective152 and successful managers.153Co

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Organizational Coping Strategies

Organizational coping strategies are designed by management to eliminate or control organizational-level stressors in order to prevent or reduce job stress for individual employees. Earlier in the chapter, the organizational stressors were categorized in terms of overall policies and strategies, structure and design processes/functions, and working con- ditions (see Figure 9.2). A major challenge facing the management of conflict at this orga- nization level is to answer questions such as: “How do you ensure that relevant information gets transferred between two parts of an organization that have different cultures? How do you encourage people from units competing for scare corporate resources to work together?”154

It logically follows that each of these areas would be the focus of attention in develop- ing organizational coping strategies. In other words, each of the specific stressors would be worked on in order to eliminate or reduce job stress. For example, in the policy area, atten- tion would be given to making performance reviews and pay plans as equitable and as fair as possible. In the structural area, steps would be taken to back away from high degrees of formalization and specialization. The same would be done in the areas of physical condi- tions (for example, safety hazards would be removed, and lighting, noise, and temperature would be improved) and processes/functions (for example, communication and informa- tion sharing would be improved, and ambiguous or conflicting goals would be clarified or resolved). With increased globalization, the coping strategies to manage the stress of expa- triates has received increased attention. For example, one study found that the effectiveness of problem-focused coping strategies of expatriate adjustment is moderated by cultural dis- tance and position level but not by time on the assignment.155

Today, firms such as Hewlett-Packard and the large software firm SAS realize they are putting tremendous pressure on employees in competitive battles and are giving consider- able effort to de-stressing the organization. For example, HP requires employees to have personal/ leisure goals (e.g., weight loss, exercise, take time off for the family) as well as job goals. If employees fall short of their personal/leisure goals, supervisors are held responsible. When a milestone is reached, for example, leaving at 2:00 P.M. to take a daughter in-line skating, coworkers are encouraged to applaud with the same gusto as land- ing a big sales order. At SAS they not only have all the usual benefits but also nutrition counseling, youth day camps, and medical facilities on-site. The firm’s 4,000 employees bring 700 children to the day care facility and will soon enroll them in SAS kindergarten.

The Association for Fitness in Business estimates that thousands of companies today offer stress-coping programs ranging from counseling services, lunchtime stress-manage- ment seminars, and wellness publications to elaborate company-run fitness centers where employees can sweat out the tension. There is evidence that these stress management pro- grams are increasing and are being evaluated more rigorously.156 Some are getting quite creative. For example, Pixar (the movie maker) created Pixar University (PU), an in-house operation with free classes for employees in data programming, tai chi, gesture drawing, improvisational acting, and juggling.

In general, most firms today are trying to reduce stress and conflict through work-fam- ily initiatives. These involve both reorganization initiatives (e.g., restructuring of jobs and job duties, telecommuting, part-time work and job sharing, and flexible scheduling) and work and life benefit policies and programs (e.g., on-site child care and/or elder care, paid family and medical leave, release time for personal/family events, and limits on frequency and distance of business travel).

Employee assistance programs (EAPs) have also become a very valuable organiza- tional response to help employees cope with stress. EAPs are currently implemented in Co

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over half of U.S. organizations with 50 or more employees and have been found to consis- tently reduce absenteeism, health care costs, and disciplinary action.157 EAPs typically provide employees with services such as confidential counseling and/or follow-up on issues of personal or work-related concerns. They also provide family workshops and con- sultations (related to marriage, single parenting, working parents), stress management workshops, relaxation seminars, and other kinds of support. Often, the mere presence of mind that EAPs provide—knowing that there is support available—can help ease some of the stress that employees face in today’s environment.158

Besides work-family programs and EAPs, because of the stress resulting from down- sizing in recent years, growing concern is also being given to both those who are let go and those who survive. For example, theoretical models159 are being created and basic research160 is being done on coping with job loss. One stream of research has examined the role that procedural justice (perceptions of fairness) plays on those affected by downsizing. In three studies (of those already laid off, survivors of a firm that had downsized, and those scheduled to be laid off), it was found that fair procedural justice had a positive impact.161

A summary of these studies noted:

All three studies showed that the negative effects of layoffs can be blunted by the way company managers deal with the downsizing. Employees were more hostile when they thought procedures leading to the layoffs were not handled fairly, with sufficient notice and fair treatment of employees during downsizing. When procedures were seen as fair, employees still supported and trusted their firms even after the layoffs had occurred.162

Organizations experiencing downsizing need to be sure that those let go are as positive as possible so that there are not negative repercussions (e.g., in the community or even with customers). However, of even more concern are those suffering from what was described earlier as “survivor syndrome.” As one survivor from a downsized firm describes this mod- ern-day malady: “Just when we begin to think our jobs are safe, they change the rules on us. We don’t know who’s in charge, who we can trust or what we’re supposed to be doing. The more unsettling it gets around here, the less productive we are.”163 The key issue is not only whether these survivors are stressed-out, but also whether stress is affecting their per- formance.

Some guidelines to help downsized organizations combat the problems of survivor syndrome include the following:164

1. Be proactive. Before Compaq Computer in Houston laid off 2,000 employees, the corporate human resources department developed a comprehensive communication campaign and trained all managers not only in how to outplace people but also in how to help survivors.

2. Acknowledge survivors’ emotions. The state of Oregon, which had cut back 1,000 employees, held workshops for survivors that allowed them to vent their frustrations and develop skills that would allow them to think of change as an opportunity for growth.

3. Communicate after the downsizing. After laying off 20% of its workforce, Patagonia Inc., an outdoor apparel manufacturer in California, implemented a monthly (then twice-monthly) open forum during which employees can meet with the CEO during work hours to have their questions answered and hear about the firm’s progress. In the jobholders’ meetings at Pitney Bowes Inc., management gives an employee $50 for the toughest question asked.Co

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4. Clarify new roles. Not only is there a need for communication of the big picture; it also is important to explain how each employee’s job has changed, if at all, and relate how each individual contributes to the new big picture in the downsized organization.

NEGOTIATION SKILLS: GOING BEYOND CONFLICT MANAGEMENT

In recent years negotiation has moved from the industrial relations field to the forefront of necessary managerial skills. As Neale and Bazerman noted: “Everyone negotiates. In its various forms, negotiation is a common mechanism for resolving differences and allocat- ing resources.” They then define negotiation as “a decision-making process among inter- dependent parties who do not share identical preferences. It is through negotiation that the parties decide what each will give and take in their relationship.”165

Although some organizational behavior scholars note that there are similarities between negotiation strategies and conflict management,166 negotiation can go beyond just resolving conflict and become a managerial skill for personal and organizational success. For example, a manager can successfully negotiate a salary raise or a good price for sup- plies. After note is taken of some of the biases or errors that negotiators commonly make and the traditional negotiation techniques that have been used, the remainder of the chapter is devoted to the newly emerging skills needed for effective negotiation for conflict reso- lution and successful careers.

Traditional Negotiation Approaches

When negotiating, people in general and managers in particular tend to have certain biases and make certain errors, which prevents them from negotiating rationally and get- ting the most they can out of a situation. To compound the problem, there is recent research indicating that negotiators tend to repeat their mistakes.167 The research on these common mistakes can be summarized as follows:

1. Negotiators tend to be overly affected by the frame, or form of presentation, of infor- mation in a negotiation.

2. Negotiators tend to nonrationally escalate commitment to a previously selected course of action when it is no longer the most reasonable alternative.

3. Negotiators tend to assume that their gain must come at the expense of the other party and thereby miss opportunities for mutually beneficial trade-offs between the parties.

4. Negotiator judgments tend to be anchored on irrelevant information, such as an initial offer.

5. Negotiators tend to rely on readily available information. 6. Negotiators tend to fail to consider information that is available by focusing on the

opponent’s perspective. 7. Negotiators tend to be overconfident concerning the likelihood of attaining outcomes

that favor the individual(s) involved.168

Besides these common bias problems, negotiators traditionally have taken either a dis- tributive or a positional bargaining approach. Distributive bargaining assumes a “fixed pie” and focuses on how to get the biggest share, or “slice of the pie.” With teams so pop-Co

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ular in today’s organizations, there is growing research on the effectiveness of teams in dis- tributive bargaining. One study found that teams, more than individuals, developed mutually beneficial trade-offs among issues in the negotiation and discovered compatible interests. However, the common belief that teams have a relative advantage over individual opponents in negotiations was not supported by actual outcomes.169 The conflict manage- ment strategies of compromising, forcing, accommodating, and avoiding, mentioned ear- lier, all tend to be associated with a distributive negotiation strategy. As noted by Whetten and Cameron:

Compromise occurs when both parties make sacrifices in order to find a common ground. Compromisers are generally more interested in finding an expedient solu- tion.… Forcing and accommodating demand that one party give up its position in order for the conflict to be resolved. When parties to a conflict avoid resolution, they do so because they assume that the costs of resolving the conflict are so high that they are bet- ter off not even attempting resolution.170

Closely related to distributed bargaining is the commonly used positional bargaining approach. This approach to negotiation involves successively taking, and then giving up, a sequence of positions. In its simplest form, this is what happens when one haggles in an open market. However, positional bargaining also happens in international diplomacy. Fisher and Ury note that such positional bargaining can serve a useful purpose: “It tells the other side what you want; it provides an anchor in an uncertain and pressured situation; and it can eventually produce the terms of an acceptable agreement.”171

Both distributed and positional bargaining have simplistic strategies such as “tough person,” or “hard”; “easy touch,” or “soft”; or even “split the difference.” Characteristics of the “hard” strategy include the following: the goal is victory, distrust others, dig in to your position, make threats, try to win a contest of will, and apply pressure. By contrast, the “soft” strategy includes these characteristics: the goal is agreement, trust others, change your position easily, make offers, try to avoid a contest of will, and yield to pressure.172

The hard bargainer typically dominates and has intuitive appeal. However, both research173 and everyday practice are beginning to reveal that more effective negotiation approaches than these traditional strategies are possible.

Contemporary Negotiation Skills

There are now recognized alternative approaches to traditionally recognized distrib- uted and positional bargaining and the hard versus soft strategies in negotiation. Whetten and Cameron suggest an integrative approach that takes an “expanding the pie” perspective that uses problem-solving techniques to find win-win outcomes.174 Based on a collaborat- ing (rather than a compromising, forcing, accommodating, or avoiding) strategy, the inte- grative approach requires the effective negotiator to use skills such as (1) establishing superordinate goals; (2) separating the people from the problem; (3) focusing on interests, not on positions; (4) inventing options for mutual gain; and (5) using objective criteria.175

Recent practical guidelines for effective negotiations have grouped the techniques into degrees of risk to the user as follows:

1. Low-risk negotiation techniques a. Flattery—subtle flattery usually works best, but the standards may differ by age,

sex, and cultural factors.Co py ri gh t © 2 01 5. I nf or ma ti on A ge P ub li sh in g. A ll r ig ht s re se rv ed . Ma y no t be r ep ro du ce d in a ny f or m wi th ou t pe rm is si on f ro m th e pu bl is he r, e xc ep t fa ir u se s pe rm it te d un de r

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b. Addressing the easy point first—this helps build trust and momentum for the tougher issues.

c. Silence—this can be effective in gaining concessions, but one must be careful not to provoke anger or frustration in opponents.

d. Inflated opening position—this may elicit a counteroffer that shows the oppo- nent’s position or may shift the point of compromise.

e. “Oh, poor me”—this may lead to sympathy but could also bring out the killer instinct in opponents.

2. High-risk negotiation techniques a. Unexpected temper losses—erupting in anger can break an impasse and get one’s

point across, but it can also be viewed as immature or manipulative and lead opponents to harden their position.

b. High-balling—this is used to gain trust by appearing to give in to the opponent’s position, but when overturned by a higher authority, concessions are gained based on the trust.

c. Boulwarism (“take it or leave it”)—named after a former vice president of GE who would make only one offer in labor negotiations, this is a highly aggressive strategy that may also produce anger and frustration in opponents.

d. Waiting until the last moment—after using stall tactics and knowing that a dead- line is near, a reasonable but favorable offer is made, leaving the opponent with little choice but to accept.176

Besides these low- and high-risk strategies, there are also a number of other negotia- tion techniques, such as a two-person team using “good cop–bad cop” (one is tough, fol- lowed by one who is kind), and various psychological ploys, such as insisting that meetings be held on one’s home turf, scheduling meetings at inconvenient times, or interrupting meetings with phone calls or side meetings.177 There are even guidelines of if, when, and how to use alcohol in negotiations. As the president of Saber Enterprises notes, when the Japanese come over to negotiate, it is assumed that you go out to dinner and have several drinks and toast with sake.178 Because of globalization and the resulting increase of nego- tiations between parties of different countries, there is emerging research on the dynamics and strategies of negotiations across cultures.179

In addition to the preceding guidelines for effective negotiation skills, there is an alter- native to positional bargaining and soft versus hard strategies that has been developed by the Harvard Negotiation Project. This alternative to traditional negotiation is called the principled negotiation, or negotiation on the merits, approach. There are four basic ele- ments in this alternative approach to negotiation. Very simply, they are:

1. People. Separate the people from the problem. 2. Interests. Focus on interests, not positions. 3. Options. Generate a variety of possibilities before deciding what to do. 4. Criteria. Insist that the result be based on some objective standard.180

The principled skills go beyond hard versus soft and change the game to negotiation on the basis of merits. For example, in soft bargaining the participants are friends, in hard bargaining they are adversaries, but in the principled approach they are problem solvers; in soft bargaining the approach is to trust others, in hard bargaining there is distrust of others, but in the principled approach the negotiator proceeds independent of trust; and in the soft approach negotiators make offers, in the hard approach they make threats, but in the prin-Co

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cipled approach they explore common interests.181 These principled negotiation skills can result in a wise agreement. As noted by Fisher and Ury:

The method permits you to reach a gradual consensus on a joint decision efficiently without all the transactional costs of digging in to positions only to have to dig yourself out of them. And separating the people from the problem allows you to deal directly and empa- thetically with the other negotiator as a human being, thus making possible an amicable agreement.182

Along with social, emotional, behavioral, leadership, team, and communication skills, these negotiation skills are becoming increasingly recognized as important to management of not only conflict but also effective management in general.

SUMMARY

This chapter examines both stress and conflict. Although not always bad for the person (for example, the father of stress studies, Hans Selye, feels that complete freedom from stress is death) or the organization (low levels of stress may lead to performance improvement), stress is still one of the most important and serious problems facing the field of organiza- tional behavior. Stress can be comprehensively defined as an adaptive response to an exter- nal situation that results in physical, psychological, and/or behavioral deviations for organizational participants. The causes of stress can be categorized into extraorganiza- tional, organizational, and group stressors, as well as individual stressors and dispositions. In combination or singly, they represent a tremendous amount of potential stress impinging on today’s jobholder—at every level and in every type of organization.

In addition to stress, the dynamics of interactive behavior at interpersonal and group levels, and the resulting conflict, play an increasingly important role in the analysis and study of organizational behavior. Conflict and stress are conceptually and practically sim- ilar, especially at the individual level. Conflict at the intraindividual level involves frustra- tion, goal conflict, and role conflict and ambiguity. Frustration occurs when goal-directed behavior is blocked. Goal conflict can come about from approach-approach, approach- avoidance, or avoidance-avoidance situations. Role conflict and ambiguity result from a clash in the expectations of the various roles possessed by an individual and can take the forms of role conflict, intrarole conflict, or interrole conflict.

Interpersonal conflict is first examined in terms of its sources (personal differences, information deficiency, role incompatibility, and environmental stress). Then the analysis of interpersonal conflict is made through the response categories of forcing, accommodat- ing, avoiding, compromising, and collaborating. Intergroup conflict has also become important. The antecedents to intergroup conflict are identified as competition for resources, task interdependence, jurisdictional ambiguity, and status struggles.

The effects of stress and intraindividual conflict can create physical problems (heart disease, ulcers, arthritis), psychological problems (mood changes, lowered self-esteem, resentment of supervision, inability to make decisions, and job dissatisfaction), and/or behavioral problems (tardiness, absenteeism, turnover, and accidents). A number of indi- vidual and organizational strategies have been developed to cope with these stress-induced problems. Exercise, relaxation, behavioral self-control techniques, cognitive therapy tech- niques, and networking are some potentially useful coping strategies that individuals can apply to help combat existing stress. Taking a more proactive approach, management of organizations tries to eliminate stressors, reduce work-family conflict, and implement employee assistance programs (EAPs). A special concern for organizations today is to deal Co

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with the stress resulting from downsizing that affects both those laid off and the survivors. To manage this stress, downsizing organizations must fully communicate and display fair procedural justice for those let go. To counter survivor syndrome, downsized organizations can follow such guidelines as being proactive, acknowledging survivors’ emotions, com- municating after the cuts, and clarifying new roles. In any case, whether on an individual or an organizational level, steps need to be taken to prevent or reduce the increasing job stress facing today’s employees.

The last part of the chapter is concerned with negotiation skills. Going beyond indus- trial relations and conflict management, negotiation skills are becoming increasingly rec- ognized as important to effective management and personal success. Traditionally, negotiators have depended on distributed and positional bargaining. Relying on simplistic hard or soft strategies, this traditional approach is now being challenged by more effective alternative negotiation skills. Practical low-risk strategies include flattery, addressing the easy points first, silence, inflated opening position, and “oh, poor me.” High-risk strategies include unexpected temper losses, high-balling, Boulwarism, and waiting until the last moment. In addition, alternatives to traditional distributed and positional bargaining are the integrative approach, which uses a problem-solving, collaborative strategy, and the princi- pled, or negotiation on the merits, approach, which emphasizes people, interests, options, and criteria. These negotiation skills go beyond hard versus soft strategies and change the game, leading to a win-win, wise agreement.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND REVIEW

1. How is stress defined? Is it always bad for the individual? Explain. 2. What are the general categories of stressors that can affect job stress? Give some

examples of each. 3. What are some of the dispositions that may influence an individual’s reaction to

stress? Give an example of each. 4. What is frustration? What are some of its manifestations? How can the frustration

model be used to analyze organizational behavior? 5. Explain approach-avoidance conflict. Give a realistic organizational example of

where it may occur. 6. What are some of the major sources of interpersonal conflict? Which do you think is

most relevant in today’s organizations? 7. How do groups or teams in conflict behave? What are some antecedent conditions of

intergroup conflict? 8. Job stress can have physiological, psychological, and behavioral effects. Give an

example of each and cite some research findings on the relationship between job stress and these outcomes.

9. Coping strategies for job stress exist for both the individual and the organizational levels. Summarize and evaluate these various strategies for preventing and/or more effectively managing stress.

10. A modern-day malady is survivor syndrome. What does this refer to, and how can organizations help combat it?

11. Compare and contrast the traditional versus the new negotiation skills. Why do you think the new skills lead to better agreements?Co

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Many employees feel that on-the-job stress is dif- ficult to control, but at least when they get home they can relax. However, as the nature of work changes, the home is no longer the sanctuary it once was. With advanced information technology and customer demands for 24-hour service, an increasing number of employees are on call at all times or working the “graveyard” shift that used to exist only for factory workers. For example, today there are numerous Wal-Mart stores, Wal- greens drugstores, and supermarkets that never close. And consider the Heartland Golf Park in Deer Park, Long Island. A golfer who wants a late evening tee-off time can get one up to 3:00 A.M. The strategy has proven so popular that within 90 days of the time it was introduced, the wait time at midnight had grown to two and a half hours. Avid golfers do not mind, however, as the course is well lit and they can play as if it were high noon.

All around the country, businesses are realiz- ing that there is a great deal of profit that can be added to the bottom line if they remain open out- side of “normal” hours. One research firm esti- mates that this strategy can add 5% to overall profits, a hefty sum given that more and more businesses are finding their profit margins being narrowed by the competition.

In some cases, the decision to expand work- ing hours has been a result of customer needs. Kinko’s Inc. moved to a 24-hour schedule when people literally started banging on their doors after regular business hours and asking them to let them come in for desperately needed photocopies. As a news article recently put it, “The company’s … stores are magnets for ambassadors of the night: everyone from dreamers pursuing secret schemes and second careers to executives putting the final touches on tomorrow’s presentation.” In Chicago, Kinko’s set up an office in the lobby of the Stouffer Renaissance Hotel, a favorite spot of international executives. Customers from differ- ent time zones had been coming down at odd hours to ask the hotel to fax materials abroad and to help them with their desktop publishing. The hotel was not equipped to provide these services, so it asked Kinko’s to help out. The guests are delighted with the new service, and the hotel is

happy to be able to accommodate them thanks to their profitable arrangement with Kinko’s.

Banks have also begun to offer 24-hour ser- vice. In addition to their ATM machines, which can be found just about everywhere, some banks now offer round-the-clock service: customers can call in and find out within 10 minutes whether they qualify for a new-car loan. A growing num- ber of banks also offer after-hours customer ser- vices ranging from safe deposit boxes to $1,000 credit lines to overdraft protection. All the cus- tomer has to do is call or log in at any hour and provide the necessary information.

Some critics are concerned that this develop- ment will result in increasing costs to business and added stress to employees. After all, when people work late at night or put in a 15-hour day, they are likely not only to make far more mistakes than if they were on a 9-to-5 schedule but also to become fatigued and burned out. Nevertheless, at the present time approximately two-thirds of all U.S. workers, around 75 million people, do not work traditional 9-to-5 hours—and the number is definitely growing. Additionally, organizations that are engaged in international business, such as brokerage firms, are finding that their operations in Europe and Asia require them to keep odd hours. A U.S.-based broker must be up or on call in the wee hours of the morning because Europe’s stock exchanges are doing business. By the time the broker wraps up trading on the Pacific Stock Exchange in the early evening (Eastern Standard Time), there are only a few hours before the Asian stock exchanges open. Simply put, in an increas- ing number of businesses, it is possible to work round-the-clock—and, of course, to pick up the stress that goes along with this lifestyle.

1. How would a Type A personality feel if his or her organization suddenly announced that everyone was to be on call 24 hours a day because the company was moving to round- the-clock customer service?

2. How would psychological hardiness help people deal with these emerging round-the- clock operations?

REAL CASE: Round-the-Clock-Stress

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3. What are some ways employees and their organizations could cope with the stress

caused by these new round-the-clock devel- opments?

Jim Miller has been a ticket agent for Friendly Airlines for the past three years. This job is really getting to be a hassle. In order to try to reduce the mounting losses that Friendly has suffered in recent months, management have decided to do two things: (1) overbook their flights so that every seat possible will be filled and (2) increase their service to their customers and live up to their name. Jim, of course, is at the point of application of this new policy. When checking in passengers, he is supposed to be very courteous and friendly, and he has been instructed to end every transac- tion with the statement, “Have a nice flight.” The problem, of course, is that sometimes there are more passengers holding confirmed reservations checking in than there are seats on the plane. Rightfully, these people become extremely upset

with Jim and sometimes scream at him and even threaten him. During these confrontations Jim becomes “unglued.” He breaks into a sweat, and his face turns bright red. The company guidelines on what to do in these situations are very vague. When Jim called his supervisor for advice, he was simply told to try to book passengers on another flight, but be friendly.

1. Is Jim headed for trouble? What would be some physical, psychological, and behav- ioral outcomes of this type of job stress?

2. What could the company do to help reduce the stress in Jim’s job?

3. What individual coping strategies could Jim try in this situation?

Sandy Celeste was 40 years old when her divorce became final. She was forced to go to work to support her two children. Sandy got married right after graduating from college and had never really held a full-time job outside the home. Neverthe- less, because of her enthusiasm, education, and maturity, she impressed the human resources manager at Devon’s Department Store and was immediately hired. The position involves super- vising three departments of men’s and women’s clothing. Sandy’s training consisted of approxi- mately two months at another store in the Devon chain. She spent this training period both selling merchandise and learning the supervisor’s responsibilities. On the first day of her supervi- sory job, Sandy learned that, because of size con- straints at the store, six clothing departments are all located in the same area. In addition to Sandy, there are two other supervisors in the other departments. These three supervisors share the

service of 28 full-and part-time salespeople. Because the various departments are so jammed together, all the salespeople are expected to know each department’s merchandise. Devon’s mer- chandising philosophy is that it will not finish one department or storewide sale without starting another. Both the clerks and the supervisors, who work on a commission and salary basis, are kept busy marking and remarking the merchandise as one sale stops and another starts. To make matters worse, Devon’s expects the employees to re-mark each item just prior to closing time the night after a big sale. The pressure is intense, and customers are often neglected and irritated. However, all the salespeople realize that when the customer suf- fers, so do their commissions. As a supervisor, Sandy is expected to enforce the company’s pol- icy rigidly. Soon after taking the position as supervisor, Sandy began to experience severe headaches and a gnawing stomach ache. She

Organizational Behavior Case: Sorry, No Seats Are Left; Have a Nice Flight

Organizational Behavior Case: A Gnawing Stomach Ache

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CHAPTER 9  STRESS AND CONFLICT 279

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would like to quit her job, but realistically she can’t because the pay is good and she needs to support her children.

1. To what do you attribute Sandy’s health problems?

2. What are some possible extraorganizational, organizational, group, and individual stress- ors?

3. Is there anything that this company could do to alleviate stress for its supervisors? What individual coping strategies could Sandy try?

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