UGC NET/JRF EXAM, JUNE-2025 Labour and Social Welfare

These are the four cultural predispositions (EPRG framework) identified by Howard V. Perlmutter to describe how MNCs manage global operations.

Ethnocentric: Home-country practices dominate; key positions are filled by parentcountry nationals.

Polycentric: Host-country practices are preferred; subsidiaries operate independently with local managers.

Regioncentric: Management integrates operations within a region (e.g., EU, ASEAN) and develops regional strategies.

Geocentric: The MNC adopts a global mindset, selecting the best people from any country and integrating worldwide best practices.

The EPRG model helps firms decide staffing policies, cultural alignment and global business strategies.

On-boarding includes orientation sessions, introduction to colleagues, office tour, explanation of policies, training schedules and assignment of tasks.

It ensures the employee settles smoothly, understands the organisational culture and begins contributing effectively.

Medical tests, mentoring and counselling may occur later, but on-boarding always precedes structured development activities.

Moonlighting refers to employees holding additional jobs outside their primary employment.

It increases fatigue, stress and burnout, reducing wellbeing and engagement. It may create ethical issues, conflicts of interest and reduced performance at the main job.

Gender sensitivity, hybrid work and discipline all support wellbeing, while moonlighting works against it.

Extinction refers to eliminating reinforcement that maintains a behaviour so that the behaviour gradually disappears.

According to operant conditioning, behaviours persist when they are reinforced. If reinforcement is withdrawn consistently, the behaviour weakens and eventually stops.

Example: if attention reinforces disruptive behaviour, removing attention (reinforcement) leads to decline of that behaviour.

Extinction is widely used in organisational behaviour modification and behavioural psychology.

Trait theorists believe leaders possess stable, inherent attributes such as intelligence, confidence, honesty, sociability and emotional stability.

Early leadership research in the 1930s-1950s heavily emphasised traits as predictors of leadership emergence.

This approach assumes leaders are "born" with certain characteristics that make them different from others.

Behavioural, contingency and situational theories focus on actions and context, not inherent traits.

According to the transactional model of stress by Lazarus & Folkman, stress is not caused directly by the event but by how the individual appraises it.

A situation perceived as threatening creates high stress, while the same situation interpreted as manageable creates low stress.

This subjective evaluation determines emotional response, coping behaviour and psychological strain.

Thus, interpretation acts as the key moderating variable between potential stressors and actual stress levels.

The unitary approach considers conflict as unnecessary because it assumes organisational harmony and shared goals.

The unitary perspective views the organisation as an integrated team where employer and employees share common interests.

Trade unions are often seen as irrelevant or disruptive because loyalty is expected to be directed toward the organisation.

Conflict is assumed to arise only due to poor communication, misguided individuals or deviant behaviour-not due to structural causes.

Thus, in this approach, conflict is not inherent but considered avoidable and unnecessary.

John T. Dunlop's Systems Theory (1958) explains that industrial relations consist of three actors-employers, employees and government-operating within a shared environment.

This IR system interacts with the economic, political and technological environment of society.

Rules governing work relationships are produced through interactions among the actors.

Hence, industrial relations are viewed as a subsystem shaped by the larger social system.

The Code of Discipline was framed and introduced in 1958 during the 16th session of the Indian Labour Conference.

It was a voluntary agreement between employers and trade unions to promote industrial peace.

The Code aimed at preventing strikes, lockouts, unfair labour practices and resolving disputes through mutual negotiation.

It established norms for grievance handling and maintaining harmonious workplace relations.

Introduced in 1958, it became a foundational step toward cooperative labour-management relations in India.

Amalgamation of two or more trade unions requires majority approval from at least half of the members of each union.

According to the Trade Unions Act, 1926, Section 24, amalgamation is valid only if a minimum of 50% of the members of each union vote in favour.

This ensures democratic consent before dissolving or merging the identities of unions.

Once approved, the new entity must register the amalgamation details with the Registrar.

Central Government approval is not required for union mergers under the Act.