OBM Ch. 9

Group

Two or more individuals, interacting and interdependent, who have come together to achieve certain objectives. 

• e.g.) A sales group that is responsible for selling insurance, and each person on the team has come together to sell insurance for their organization.

Formal Group

Defined by the organization’s structure, with designated work assignments and established tasks.

• Behavior is directed toward organizational goals

• e.g.) Members of an airline flight crew

Informal Group

A group that is not defined by an organization’s structure; such a group appears in response to other needs, such as social clubs or interest groups. 

• e.g.) Three employees from different departments who regularly have lunch together

Social Identity Theory

Perspective that considers when and why individuals consider themselves members of groups.

• Social Categorization explains why people categorize others as belonging to different groups, whereas social identity explains why people identify with a particular group.

• Proposes that people have emotional reactions to the failure or success of their group because their self-esteem is tied to whatever happens to the group.

• Develop identities through:

  • Relational Identification: when we connect with others because of our roles

  • Collective Identification: when we connect with the aggregate characteristics of our groups.

Group Strengths

• Generate more complete information and knowledge → Bring more input and knowledge into the decision process.

• Increase diversity of views.

• Increased acceptance of a solution → During decision making, members are more likely to be accepting when dissenting opinions are framed as debates rather than disagreement.

Group Weaknesses

• Time consuming

• Conformity pressures → The desire to be accepted and considered an asset to the group can cause group members to settle for less.

• Group discussions can be dominated by one or few members.

• Group decisions suffer from ambiguous responsibility → In a group decision, the responsibility of any single member is diluted.

Group Effectiveness

• The effectiveness of a group is determined by perception

  • People may perceive effectiveness differently (e.g. someone might think speed is more effective than creativity, and vice versa, creating conflicts about which is most effective.

• Efficiency needs to be taken into account to determine the overall effectiveness of a group.

• Effectiveness is defined by:

  • Accuracy (requires group/individual decision)

  • Speed (requires individual decision)

  • Creativity ( requires group decision)

  • Acceptance (requires group decision)

Groupthink

Situations in which group pressures for conformity deter the group from critically appraising unusual, minority, or unpopular views.

• Occurs most often in the early stages of the group.

• More likely to occur when:

  • Differing opinions are suppressed–tendency to go along (associated with hierarchy).

  • Focus on performance vs. learning.

  • Clear group identity that protects membership.

• Solutions:

  • Reduce the size of the group

  • Leader plays an impartial role

  • Leader seeks input before expressing opinions

  • One member on the “Red Team”–meaning your job is to always come up with the thing that is not common, is the risk or the outlier idea; challenges the group.

Groupshift (group polarization)

A change between a group’s decision and an individual decision that a member within the group would make; the shift can be either toward conservatism or greater risk, but it is generally more toward an extreme version of the group’s original position.

• The way group members tend to exaggerate their initial position when discussing alternatives for the solution; shifts toward more risky decisions.

• Solution: Recognize that solutions can get exaggerated from the initial position

  • Shift more often goes toward greater risk

  • The shift can be seen by the pre-discussion

Group Decision-Making Techniques

• Interacting Groups

• Brainstorming

• Nominal Group Technique

Interacting Groups

Typical groups in which members interact with each other, relying on both verbal and nonverbal communication.

• Members meet face-to-face and rely on both verbal and nonverbal interaction to communicate with each other.

• Interacting groups often censor themselves and pressure individual members toward conformity of opinion.

Brainstorming

An idea generating process that specifically encourages any and all alternatives while withholding any criticisms of those alternatives.

Nominal Group Technique

A group decision-making method in which members meet to pool their judgements in a systematic, but independent fashion; restricts discussion during the decision-making process.

• When a problem is presented, the group takes the following steps:

  • Before any discussion takes place, each member independently records ideas about the problem.

  • Afterward, each member presents one idea to the group. No discussion takes place until all ideas have been presented and recorded.

  • The group discusses the ideas for clarity and evaluates them.

  • Each group member silently and independently rank-orders the ideas. The idea with the highest aggregate ranking determines the final decision.

• Nominal groups outperform brainstorming groups.

Group Properties

• Roles

• Norms

• Status

• Size & Dynamics

• Cohesion

Role Perception

An individual’s view on how to act in a given situation.

• e.g.) Working, married parents identify strongly with their family roles and positively translate these roles into work roles, such as their leadership expectations.

Role Expectations

How others believe a person should act in a given situation.

• Influences role perceptions

  • e.g.) If a supervisor expects their employee to innovate in their role, the employee is more likely to believe that creativity and innovation are a part of their role.

• Emotionally and motivationally charged

  • e.g.) Supervisors may perceive employees; roles more optimally than the employees themselves, in which case the pessimistic employees may exhibit diminished work engagement and performance.

• Psychological Contract: an unwritten agreement that exists between employees and employers that established mutual expectations. 

Role Conflict

A situation in which an individual is confronted by divergent role expectations; two or more role expectations that are mutually contradictory.

• Exists when compliance with one role requirement may make more difficult the compliance with another.

• e.g.) as a supervisor, conflict may occur when taking on two roles, such as mentor and boss.

• Interrole Conflict: a situation in which the expectations of an individual’s different, separate groups are in opposition.

  • e.g.) Many people hold primary and secondary jobs. Sometimes secondary jobs, such as a guitarist in a band, can interfere with the primary job (software engineer).

  • e.g.) Student and employee; CEO and parent

Norms

Acceptable standards of behavior shared by members that express what they ought to do and ought not to do under certain circumstances.

• Norms and Emotions:

  • Emotions can amplify the power of norms.

  • Frequent communication in a group increases the power of norms.

  • Individual emotions can influence the group and vice versa.

  • Researchers found norms dictated how people grew to interpret their shared emotions in the same way.

• Conformity: the adjustment of one’s behavior to align with the norms of the group.

  • e.g.) Asch’s Line Study

  • Reference Groups: important groups to which individuals belong or hope to belong. People are motivated to conform to and adopt the norms of these groups.

• Cover any aspect of group behavior.

Status

A socially defined position or rank given to groups or group members by others. 

• Status Characteristics Theory: a theory stating differences in status characteristics create status hierarchies within groups.

  • The power a person wields over others. Because they likely control the group’s resources, people who control group outcomes tend to be perceived as high status.

  • A person’s ability to contribute to a group’s goals. People whose contributions are critical to the group’s success tend to have high status.

An individual’s personal characteristics. Someone whose personal characteristics are positively valued by the group (good looks, intelligence, money, or a friendly personality) typically has higher status than someone with fewer valued attributes.

Size & Dynamics

Group size affects a group's overall behavior, however, the effect depends on the outcome of interest (e.g. performance, creativity).

• Large groups (12+)

• Small groups (2-7+)

• Social Loafing: the tendency for individuals to expend less effort when working collectively than when working individually.

Cohesion

The degree to which members hold a shared bond with one another and are motivated to stay in the group.

• Affects group productivity→studies consistently show that the relationship between cohesion and productivity depends on the group’s performance-related norms.