CHAPTER 3

Review of
Literature
Submitted in partial
fulfillment of Project work
for the Degree of Bachelor
of Business Administration
Submitted By
Ajay.T.R
S6 BBA

Submitted To
Sindhu Manoj Madam
BBA Department

K.M.M. College of Arts and Science

,Thrikkakara

NEED FOR THE STUDY

Interpersonal relationships at the work place are getting more diverse day by
day. The accelerated growth of diversity in the workforce over the past 20
years have developed new ways in managing employee relations, making it
one of the major challenges faced by the managers. To meet this challenge,
there is a need for the managers to improve their skills such as active listening,
adaptability and decision-making. These core skills can assist supervisors and
managers in tackling difficulties that may arise within their workforce.

One of the basic skills for a manager to practice and understand is

Interpersonal Communications or Enhanced Interpersonal Relationship, as it
is the foundation for all actions in a workplace and it provides him an
opportunity to build relationships with the overall workgroup without
alienating anyone in the work environment. Working with diverse groups of
people requires a tremendous amount of interaction. If these interactions are
positive, they can help in creating the right workplace climate, attitudes,
beliefs and behaviors. In addition, as interactions occur daily, it is important
for managers to have the respect of their employees. If this respect is absent,
the supervisor or manager will have a hard time getting things accomplished.
Good Interpersonal communication provides an employee with opportunities
to develop and extend his personal sphere of Interpersonal relations in his
work environment. This encourages professional satisfaction and the ability to
influence, negotiate and leverage valuable information as a method to enhance
ideas.
Managers who undertake responsibilities for a good interpersonal relationship
in their organization would normally pose with many critical questions to
themselves. Some of these might include the strategies, its impacts & various
issues arising while implementing the strategies etc. It is these questions and
their subsequent answers that improves the organizational effectiveness

through proactive solution. All these points are in favour of nurturing a good
interpersonal relationship and makes it an important field of study.

REVIEW OF THE RESEARCH LITERATURE

Organizing Relationships: Traditional and Emerging Perspectives on
Workplace Relationships
-

Patricia M.
Sias

Patricia M. Sias is a Professor of Communication in the Edward R. Murrow

College of Communication at Washington State University. Her research
centers on workplace relationships. She has published articles in and served on
the editorial boards of a variety of academic journal including Communication
Monographs, Human Communication Research, Management Communication
Quarterly, Western Journal of Communication, Communication Quarterly and
Journal of Applied Communication Research. She served as Secretary and
Chairperson of the Organizational Communication Division of the National
Communication Association. She has won numerous awards for her research
including the W. Charles Redding Outstanding Dissertation in Organizational
Communication Award from the International Communication Association,
several Top Paper awards from the National Communication Association, and
the Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award from the Washington State
University College of Liberal Arts.
Janie Hardin Fritz, Duquesne University has quoted the following about
Patricias work.
"Organizing Relationships makes a contribution to the discipline in its
treatment of this area from multiple perspectives, in its deliberate
engagement/suggestions of future research directions, and its functional
purpose of bringing together extant research on this important topic in a

coherent and organized way. It adds cumulatively to our knowledge of

organizational communication and relationships, it fits within the horizon of
the established parameters of our field while opening new areas for
engagement, and, moreover, it is a very interesting read. It will, no doubt,
become a touchstone for the field of organizational communication."
Communication Miracles at Work: Effective Tools and Tips for
Getting the Most from Your Work Relationships
-

Matthew
Gilbert.

Matthew Gilbert teaches communication skills that can help anyone improve
relationships with coworkers, managers, and clients. Readers learn to
communicate well, break bad communication habits, and communicate
effectively to achieve workplace harmony. Topics include the influence of
corporate culture on employees ability to get along with each other, the role
of stress in ineffective communication, gender issues, and communication
skills for navigating a variety of real-world situations. Offering practical
advice that can be applied to any job, this book demonstrates that improving
communication is the key to having better day to day experiences at work.
Lauren Szokoly have quoted the following words about Gilberts work.
I found this book to be quite interesting. Gilbert describes the various
communication problems that occur not only with a coworker or boss but as
well as with coworkers of the opposite sex and with customers.
Miscommunication can also be caused by a long term problem that has not
been resolved among two coworkers; employees who feel that they are
superior to other employees and managers who speak down to their
employees. All of Gilbert's examples made me realize that even though I have
never encountered such communication problems with coworkers, but also to
keep my eyes open about future miscommunications which may occur
sometime throughout my working experience.

Trust & Betrayal in the Workplace: Building Effective Relationships in

Your organization
-Dennis S. Reina Ph.D. &
Michellel L.Reina Ph.D.
Dennis S. Reina, Ph.D., and Michelle L. Reina, Ph.D. are organizational
development researchers, practitioners, speakers, and principals of The Reina
Trust Building Institute. They specialize in working with leaders to build
trust and make their organizations measurably more adaptive and capable to
achieve strategic results.
Richard Hossack, Ph.D., President of Mercer Delta consulting limited, Toronto
quoted the following words about Reinas work They have given us the
insights and tools to take on one of the most important constructs in personal
and business relationships with the means to build trust immediately and over
the longer term. This is a must read.
Leading by Feel
-Timothy Butler &
James Waldroop,
Harvard Business Review
While Butler and Waldroop's article gives practical advice to managers on how
to capitalize on employees' varied interpersonal skills, "Leading by Feel takes
a more philosophical approach. HBR asked 18 leaders and scholars (including
business executives, leadership researchers, psychologists, and a cult expert)
where emotional intelligence comes from and how leaders learn to use it.
Their responses differed dramatically, but there were some common themes:
the importance of consciously and conscientiously sharpening one's emotional
skills and the danger of letting anyones emotional intelligence skill dominate.