The document contents notes on Stress, Conflict & Knowledge Management . 1. Stress is defined as “a state of psychological and physiological imbalance resulting from the disparity between situational demand and the individual's ability and motivation to meet those needs.” 2. Conflict is a process, where perception (real or otherwise) leads to disruption of desirable state of harmony and stability in an interdependent world. 3. Knowledge management is the systematic management of an organization's knowledge assets for the purpose of creating value and meeting tactical & strategic requirements; it consists of the initiatives, processes, strategies, and systems that sustain and enhance the storage, assessment, sharing, refinement, and creation of knowledge.

1. 1
Stress and conflict management & knowledge
management
Definition of Stress:
Stress is defined as “a state of psychological and physiological
imbalance resulting from the disparity between situational
demand and the individual's ability and motivation to meet
those needs.”
Dr. Hans Selye, one of the leading authorities on the concept
of stress, described stress as “the rate of all wear and tear
caused by life.”
Stress can be positive or negative:
Stress is good when the situation offers an opportunity to a
person to gain something. It acts as a motivator for peak
performance.
Stress is negative when a person faces social, physical,
organizational and emotional problems.
Causes of Stress:
 Career Concern: If an employee feels that he is very much
behind in the corporate ladder, then he may experience

2. 2
stress. If he seems that there are no opportunities for self-
growth, he may experience stress. Hence, unfulfilled career
expectations are the significant source of stress.
 Role Ambiguity: It occurs when the person doesn't know what
he is supposed to do, on the job. His tasks and responsibilities
are not clear. The employee is not sure what he is expected to
do. It creates confusion in the minds of the worker and
results in stress.
 Rotating Work Shifts: Stress may occur in those individuals
who work on different work shifts. Employees may be
expected to work on day shift for some days and then on the
night shift. That may create problems in adjusting to the
shift timings, and it can affect not only personal life but also
family life of the employee.
 Role Conflict: It takes place when people have different
expectations from the person performing a particular role. It
can also occur if the job is not as per expectation, or when a
job demands a certain type of behavior that is against the
person's moral values.

3. 3
 Occupational Demands: Some jobs are more demanding than
others. Jobs that involve risk and danger are more stressful.
Research findings indicate, job that cause stress needs
constant monitoring of equipments and devices, unpleasant
physical conditions, making decisions, etc.
 Lack of Participation in Decision-making: Many experienced
employees feel that management should consult them on
matters affecting their jobs. In reality, the superiors hardly
ask the concerned employees before taking a decision. That
develops a feeling of being neglected, which may lead to
stress.
 Work Overload: Excessive workload leads to stress as it puts
a person under tremendous pressure. Work overload may take
two different forms. Qualitative work overload implies
performing a job that is complicated or beyond the
employee's capacity. Quantitative work overload is a result of
many activities performed in a prescribed time.
 Work Under load: In this, case, too little work or very easy
work is expected on the part of the employee. Doing less work

4. 4
or jobs of routine and simple nature would lead to monotony
and boredom, which can lead to stress.
 Poor Working Conditions: Employees may be subject to poor
working conditions. It would include bad lighting and
ventilation, unhygienic sanitation facilities, excessive noise,
and dust, presence of toxic gasses and fumes, inadequate
safety measures, etc. All these unpleasant conditions create
physiological and psychological imbalance in humans thereby
causing stress.
 Lack of Group Cohesiveness: Every group is characterized by
its cohesiveness, although they differ widely in its degree.
Individuals experience stress when there is no unity among
work group members. There are mistrust, jealousy, frequent
quarrels, etc., in groups and this lead to stress to employees.
 Interpersonal and Intergroup Conflict: These conflicts take
place due to differences in perceptions, attitudes, values and
beliefs between two or more individuals and groups. Such
conflicts can be a source of stress for group members.

5. 5
 Organizational Changes: When changes occur, people have to
adapt to those changes, and this may cause stress. Stress is
higher when changes are significant or unusual like transfer or
adoption of new technology.
 Lack of Social Support: When individuals believe that they
have the friendship and support of others at work, their
ability to cope with the effects of stress increases. If this
kind of social support is not available, then an employee
experiences more stress.
Potential sources of stress
Environmental factors: just as environment uncertainty
influences the design of an organizational structure. It also
influences the design of an organization structure. It also
influences stress level among employee in that org. Changes in
business cycle create political uncertainties economics
uncertainties change terrorism.
 Environmental uncertainties of the business cycle.
 Political uncertainties of political system
 Threats of terrorism in developed and developing nation.

6. 6
 Innovation can make employee skills in similar forms of
technical change.
Organizational factors:
 Task demand: it is related to job stress.
 Role demand: it is related to functioning of an org.
 Interpersonal demand: it is related to the employees demand
and satisfaction.
Personal factors:
 Family issue: related to family relationship.
 Personal economic problems: economic problems of
overextended financial resources.
 Inherited personality: personality problems arise from basic
deposition.
Approaches to managing stress
1. Knowledge about Stress: In the first stage, an individual
should become knowledgeable about stress. He should know
about the process and effects of stress. He must find out the
major sources of his stress. He must anticipate stressful

7. 7
periods and plan accordingly in advance. He must be honest
with himself and decide what he can cope with what he cannot.
2. Physiological Fitness: Exercise in any form can help people
in coping with the stress. Non-competitive physical exercise
such as aerobics, walking, jogging, swimming, riding a bicycle,
playing softball or tennis has been recommended by physicians
as a way to deal with excessive stress levels. There is
evidence to suggest that individuals who exercise are much
less likely to suffer from certain types of stress related
exercises. With proper exercise, diet control and non-smoking
habits, blood pressure and cholesterol become controlled and
the body becomes more resistant to pressures. People are
more likely to get physically sick or emotionally depressed if
they are overweight or poorly nourished.
3. Time Management: Most of the people are very poor in
managing their time. They don’t know that what must be done
and when it would be desirable to do so. The result of poor
time management is feeling of work overload, skipped

8. 8
schedules and tension. A well organised person can often
accomplish twice as much as the person who is poorly
organised. Therefore, an individual must understand how to
manage his time so that he can cope with tensions created by
job demands. A few of the well-known time management
principles are :
 Preparing a daily list of activities to be attended to.
 Prioritizing activities by importance and urgency.
 Scheduling activities according to the priorities set.
 Knowing your daily schedule and handling the most demanding
parts of a job when you are most alert and productive.
4. Assertiveness: An individual should become assertive. He
should not say ‘Yes’ when he wants to say ‘No’. He should start
saying No to people or managers who demand too much of his
time. Being assertive is an important factor in reducing stress.
5. Social Support Network: Every person should have people
to turn to, talk to and rely upon. Good friends become highly
supportive during times of stress and crisis. Social network
includes friends, family or work colleagues. Expanding your

9. 9
social support system can be a means for tension reduction
because friends are there when needed and provide support
to get the person through stressful situations.
6. Readjust life Goals: Every individual must know what he
really wants to do. This should relate to not only the major
decisions of the life but to all activities in our life. He must
know what is important for him. Because of the severe
competition in life to go ahead, most individuals set very high
standards and goals for themselves. These high expectations
and limited resources to reach such expectations result in
stress. Accordingly, every person must readjust his goals and
make sure he has the ability and resources to reach such
goals. Perhaps the goals should be established after the
resources have been analyzed.
7. Relaxation Techniques: Every individual must teach
himself to reduce tension through relaxation techniques such
as Yoga, meditation, hypnosis and biofeedback. 15-20 minutes
a day of deep relaxation releases tension and provides a
person with pronounced sense of peacefulness. Deep

10. 10
relaxation conditions will bring significant changes in heart
rate, blood pressure and other physiological factors. Yoga is
probably the most effective remedy for stress. Studies have
revealed that Yoga has cured several stress related diseases.
8. Plan your life in Advance: So many times, people create
situations which induce stress because they neither did not
plan nor did a bad job of planning. The traditional Indian
attitude of “whatever will be, will be” a way of accepting the
unexpected difficulties in life. This attitude may be relevant
in those situations over which we do not have any control like
death in the family, but for other events in life, it is better to
plan in advance, so that we can confront them with confidence
when they occur.
Individuals may design their own strategies to reduce
stress, but it is a must for the organisations to develop
programmes that will help the employees in reducing their
stress. This will lead to less employee turnover, absenteeism
and as a result productivity will improve.

11. 11
Some of the measures which organisations can take are
1. Selection and Placement: Individuals differ in their
response to stress situations. We know that ‘Type A’
individuals are more prone to stress. On the other hand, in the
organisations there are certain jobs which are more stressful
as compared to other jobs. While doing the selection and
placement of the employees, these factors must be kept in
mind. The individuals who are more prone to stress should not
be put on jobs which are stressful. The individuals who are
less prone to stress may adapt better to high stress jobs and
perform those jobs more effectively.
2. Goal Setting: Based on extensive amount of research it
has been concluded that individuals perform better when they
have specific and challenging goals and they receive feedback
on how well they are progressing towards those goals. Goal
setting can reduce stress as well as provide motivation. It will
result in less employee frustration, role ambiguity and stress.
3. Improved Communication: Sometimes due to lack of
effective communication from the superiors, the employees do

12. 12
not know what they have to do and how they have to do it.
This result in role ambiguity. Similarly, when two or more
persons have contradicting role demands from an employee, it
leads to role conflict if there is lack of proper communication.
Effective communication with employees reduces the
uncertainty by lessening role ambiguity and role conflict.
4. Redesigning Jobs: Organisations should redesign the
jobs in such a way as to give employees more responsibility,
more meaningful work, more autonomy and increased
feedback. This will help reduce the stress caused by
monotony, routine work, and work overload or under load and
role ambiguity. Job redesigning enhances motivation, reduces
the stress among the employees and enhances “Quality of
work life”.
5. Participative Decision Making: If the organisations give
the employees participation in those decisions that directly
affect them and their job performance, it can increase
employee control and reduce the role stress. The main reason
of role stress is that employees feel uncertain about their

13. 13
goals, expectations and how they will be evaluated. These
uncertainties can be reduced by the management by giving the
employees a right to participate in the decision making.
6. Building Teamwork: The management should try to create
such work environment in which there is no provision for
interpersonal conflict or inter group conflict. Such conflicts
are the causes of stress; such should be prevented from
building or eliminated if they develop. Accordingly such team
work should be developed that groups and the members are
mutually supportive and productive. Members of the group
should consider themselves as members of the same family
and seek social support from each other.
7. Personal Wellness Programmes: These personal wellness
programmes focus on the employees total physical and mental
condition. Organisations can provide facilities at their
premises for physical fitness such as gyms, swimming pools,
tennis courts etc. as well as psychological counseling. They
should hold seminars or workshops to make the employees
understand nature and sources of stress and the possible

14. 14
ways to reduce it. These workshops should help those
individuals who are already under stress. Moreover, a
supervisor can impact personal wellness of his subordinates
through positive example, encouragement and by practicing
the basic concepts and techniques of human resource
management.

15. 15
Conflict management
Conflicts are natural in all walks of daily life – both at
workplace and home. Thus, conflict is ever present and both
charming and maddening. But conflict is a complex and big
subject. There are many sources of conflict. Conflict occurs
when individuals or groups are not obtaining what they need or
want and are seeking their own self-interest.
Sometimes the individual is not aware of the need and
unconsciously starts to act out. Other times, the individual is
very aware of what he or she wants and actively works at
achieving the goal. It would be better to identify conflict at
an early stage and come to an understanding.
The concept of conflict is controversial. Psychologists and
sociologists have given different meanings. It is being defined
as a process by few, an obstructive behavior, and goal
incompatibility by others. Conflict can be expressed as:
Conflict is a process, where perception (real or otherwise)
leads to disruption of desirable state of harmony and stability
in an interdependent world.

16. 16
Characteristics of Conflict:
1. Conflict is a Process:
Conflict occurs in ‘layers’. First layer is always
misunderstanding. The other layers are differences of values,
differences of viewpoint, differences of interest, and
interpersonal differences. It is also called a process because
it begins with one party perceiving the other to oppose or
negatively affect its interests and ends with competing,
collaborating, compromising or avoiding.
2. Conflict is Inevitable:
Conflict exists everywhere. No two persons are the same.
Hence they may have individual differences. And the
differences may be because of values or otherwise, lead to
conflict. Although inevitable, conflict can be minimized,
diverted and/or resolved. Conflict develops because we are
dealing with people’s lives, jobs, children, pride, self-concept,
ego and sense of mission. Conflict is inevitable and often good,

17. 17
for example, good teams always go through a “form, storm,
norm and perform” period.
3. Conflict is a Normal Part of Life:
Individuals, groups, and organisations have unlimited needs
and different values but limited resources. Thus, this
incompatibility is bound to lead to conflicts. The conflict is
not a problem, but if it is poorly managed then it becomes a
problem.
4. Perception:
It must be perceived by the parties to it, otherwise it does
not exist. In interpersonal interaction, perception is more
important than reality. What we perceive and think affects
our behaviour, attitudes, and communication.
5. Opposition:
One party to the conflict must be perceiving or doing
something the other party does not like or want.

18. 18
6. Interdependence and Interaction:
There must be some kind of real or perceived
interdependence. Without interdependence there can be no
interaction. Conflict occurs only when some kind of interaction
takes place.
7. Everyone is inflicted with Conflict:
Conflict may occur within an individual, between two or more
individuals, groups or between organisations.
8. Conflict is not One-dimensional:
It comes into different ways in accordance with degree of
seriousness and capacity. At times, it may improve even a
difficult situation.
1. Available Resources
It’s not unusual for co-workers to fight over resources. We
all need them to do our jobs well—whether it’s time in a

19. 19
meeting room or paper for a copier. Scare resources can
create conflicts between even the best of co-workers.
2. Conflicting Work Styles
Everyone is different. Some people value organization.
Other people don’t. Some people like to do things early.
Others like to wait until just before the deadline. When
styles clash, conflicts occur.
3. Differences In Perception
We all see things differently. Co-workers understand this.
Most respect different views on things. But differences in
perception can cause conflicts fueled by gossip or “turf
wars.” Conflicting perceptions can also cause office politics
to emerge.
4. Conflicting Goals
Goals in a workplace sometimes conflict with each other. If
your boss says turnaround time is critical and you say it’s
in-depth, high quality service, a conflict could ensue among
co-workers.

20. 20
Then there are times when conflicts occur between
department goals and organization goals. Conflicts like
these cause confusion and resentment.
5. Conflicting Deadlines
No one likes to be held up when a job has to get done. But
when different activities have the same deadline with only
one person to do the job, conflicts can erupt. If both tasks
are urgent, the situation creates pressure, which can boil
over into a major conflict between co-workers.
6. Conflict in the Workplace Can Assuming another Role
Occasionally, you must ask associates to do something
beyond their responsibilities. If this causes the associate
to step into another person’s role, a power struggle can
occur.
A conflict can also occur if one co-worker views a task as
her responsibility but another co-worker takes over that
task.
7. Different Ethics

21. 21
Everyone’s values are different. But occasionally you have
to ask an agent to do something that may conflict with his
or her value system. This can create a major conflict
especially if it involves a closely held moral value or a
religious principle. When work bangs heads with personal or
religious values, conflicts arise.
8. Miscommunication
Organizations often change policies. When policies change
and co-workers aren’t informed, conflicts occur. Conflicts
also occur when managers fail to apply workplace policies
consistently to every call agent and worker. The
differences in treatment can create dissension.
Conflict in the workplace is a painful reality. It’s also
inevitable. Setting rules firmly in place helps, but conflicts
can still occur. If they’re minor, you can let them go. If
they’re major, resolve them quickly.

22. 22
Knowing which type of conflict you’re dealing with can help
you resolve the issue. The key is not letting conflicts hurt
morale and productivity.
Functional conflict is healthy, constructive disagreement
between groups or individuals, while dysfunctional conflict is
unhealthy disagreement that occurs between groups or
individuals.
Functional Conflict
The critical factor is the willingness to explore and resolve it
mutually appropriately handled, conflict can provide an
important opportunity for growth. . Functional conflict that to
improve the group performance and support their goals of the
group. The organization without functional conflict, there a
constant complement and the organization will become
stagnant. Thus, functional conflict can be considered a type of
‘creation tension’.
Dysfunctional Conflict:
Dysfunctional conflict is hinders the achievement of
organizational goal or harm the organizations performance.

23. 23
Most of the cases which the functional conflicts become
dysfunctional are impossible to accurately to determine.
Pressure and conflict level may help to create a healthy and
positive movement toward a group of target may be great
damage and dysfunctional to another group. Dysfunctional
conflict may produce negative effect of personal, group or
organizational performance. However, beneficial conflicts are
often to make the good conflict change to bad conflict.
Several identifiable elements may occur in dysfunctional
conflict. Information is withheld. Feelings are expressed too
strongly. The conflict is obscured by a double message.
Feelings are denied or projected onto others. Conflicts are
not resolved, so issues build up. Dysfunctional Conflict
Nonproductive conflicts are characterized by feeling that are
misperceived or stated too intensely. The problem occurs
when the emotions distort the content issue.

24. 24
Knowledge Management
Knowledge management is the systematic management of an
organization's knowledge assets for the purpose of creating
value and meeting tactical & strategic requirements; it
consists of the initiatives, processes, strategies, and systems
that sustain and enhance the storage, assessment, sharing,
refinement, and creation of knowledge. Knowledge
management (KM) therefore implies a strong tie to
organizational goals and strategy, and it involves the
management of knowledge that is useful for some purpose and
which creates value for the organization.
Component Description
1. Strategy
A KMS should be part of a strategy that identifies the key
needs and issues within the organisation, and provide a
framework for addressing these.
1.1. A problem or opportunity facing the organisation needs to
exist. What particular worldview justifies the existence of a

25. 25
KM system? (What point of view makes this system
meaningful?)
1.2. Purpose / objective A KMS should have an explicit Knowledge
Management objective of some type such as collaboration,
sharing good practice or the like.
1.3. Policy Any KMS should be linked to an organisational policy
1.4. Governance Any KMS must be managed properly and a
governance framework that articulates roles and
responsibilities is a necessary part of a KMS.
1.5. Culture The culture, values and beliefs of the people within an
organisation affects the way in which they may be receptive
to a KMS.
1.6. Risk what are the risks within an organisation to the success of
a KMS?
2. Actors
People are central to any KMS and there are different
participants with differing backgrounds and experiences.
There are a number of roles to carry out a range of activities
involved in an effective KMS.

26. 26
2.1. Owner Who owns the business process and has the authority to
abolish this system or change its measures of performance?
2.2. Source who/what currently holds the knowledge and where
does it reside?
2.3. Clients who are the beneficiaries of this particular system?
(Who would benefit or suffer from its operations?)
2.4. Managers Who is responsible for implementing this system?
(Who would carry out the activities which make this system
work?)
2.5. Enablers who else need to be involved to make the knowledge
system work such as IT administrators or HR support staff
2.6. Boundary Spanners Those people who connect workgroups
in the organisation
3. Infrastructure
Most KMSs will require some form of infrastructure to enable
the system to function.
3.1. Facilities what facilities are required to support the KMS
function?

27. 27
3.2. Equipment what equipment is required to enable the KMS to
function effectively?
3.3. Repositories Where wills the KMS store any information or
knowledge?
3.4. Instruments There may be a series of instruments, tools or
templates required to support the capture, creation and
sharing of the corporate knowledge. This might also include
directories, taxonomies or ontologies.
3.5. Software Any software solutions that enable or comprise the
KMS
3.6. Networks the social or electronic networks that enable a KMS
3.7. Hardware is there are requirement for any additional
hardware
4. Functionality
KMS’s are developed to support and enhance knowledge-
intensive processes, tasks or projects of e.g., creation,
construction, identification, capturing, acquisition, selection,
valuation, organization, linking, structuring, formalization,
visualization, transfer, distribution, retention, maintenance,

28. 28
refinement, revision, evolution, accessing, retrieval and last
but not least the application of knowledge.
a) Information and Content Governance
A KM focus is on community outcomes, and the knowledge
needed to meet those outcomes. When planned and
implemented effectively, Knowledge Management efforts
serve to improve information governance and content
governance. As a result, organizations can avoid content
“sprawl,” in which data grows faster than it can be managed,
resulting in disorganized, disconnected, inefficient and
sometimes even unusable sources of knowledge (file shares,
SharePoint, databases, etc.).
b) Increased Focus on Outcomes
Successful Knowledge Management efforts are focused on
ideal outcomes that help key teams meet critical business
objectives. Before implementing a KM system, organizations
are encouraged to identify critical objectives based on
multiple roles or personas. These typically include individual

29. 29
outcomes, department-level outcomes and corporate
outcomes. This enables the organization to place a laser focus
on work processes; information management methods and
knowledge capture procedures that drive those outcomes.
c) Improvements to Workforce Behaviors
The best Knowledge Management systems do much more than
focus on technology solutions as the be-all and end-all; KM
systems also focus on improving behavioral changes within the
organization. This kind of holistic, comprehensive effort
provides infinite opportunities to improve people’s
collaborations with one another, and to improve their
interactions with work-related documents and information.
d)Putting Business Needs First
The needs of the business are always the first focus of a
strategic Knowledge Management system. When implementing
a new KM system, the needs and goals of the community of
users are the first to be identified. This leaves the business
free to figure out which technology-enabling solutions will

30. 30
support those needs and goals, rather than allowing the
technology solutions to determine the outcomes.
e)More Explicit Knowledge
Much knowledge within an organization implied or tacit
knowledge, essentially what people know rather than what is
searchable or reusable which is not always easy for users to
grasp or make use of in an efficient and consistent way. With
an effective KM model in place, organizations are better
prepared to capture critical project, team and departmental
knowledge through more explicit mediums such as success
stories and user stories. This shift from implicit to explicit
knowledge ultimately makes key data resources more
discoverable and reusable.
f)Specified Team Roles
Knowledge Management efforts also typically encourage more
specific types of roles for key teams, which ultimately serves
to advance knowledge management. These include such critical
roles as Knowledge Manager, Community or Team
Administrator, Power Users and others. When everyone knows

31. 31
what their role is within the organization and its Knowledge
Management system, they can focus more keenly on their
tasks and responsibilities with efficient access to the
information they need to be successful.
g)Top-Down Support Structures
Knowledge Management efforts not only encourage top-down
support, but this kind of support is absolutely necessary to
make the Knowledge Management system work. With a top-
down support structure, managers at all levels lead by
example, participate in various Knowledge Management
communities and strive to keep teams organized in such a way
that best meets the business’ ideal outcomes.
h)Optimized Technology Investments
Last but not least, your organization can look forward to
optimized technology investments after implementing a
comprehensive KM strategy. Knowledge Management efforts
optimize investments in technology by avoiding the old adage
that “technology is the solution.” This kind of attitude only
serves to allow technology to determine business outcomes. In

32. 32
a more efficient system, technology resources will be
configured as tools to enable the business to meet its very
specific set of outcomes, rather than determining them
altogether.
i) Building A knowledge Management
At this stage we have had a look at the components and
definitions that related to knowledge management (KM). This
section deals with knowledge management frameworks and
models. The old saying that a picture paints a thousand words
is very much applicable in this case. A good model can
integrate various elements and show relationships in a way
that is much harder to do in writing.
But first, what are the components of a knowledge
management framework? At the most basic level, KM consists
of the following steps:
 Identification of needs
 Identification of knowledge resources

33. 33
 Acquisition, creation, or elimination of knowledge related
resources/processes/environments
 Retrieval, application and sharing of knowledge
 Storage of knowledge