MGMT exam4

CH 9, 10, 14 Defining and Classifying Groups

• Groups in organizational behavior consist of two or more individuals who interact and depend on each other to achieve specific objectives.
• Formal groups are defined by the organization’s structure, with designated work assignments and tasks directed toward organizational goals. An example is an airline flight crew.
• Informal groups are not formally structured or organizationally determined. They often meet to fulfill social needs or connect employees with common interests, such as employees from different departments who regularly have lunch together.
• Group roles can vary in salience over time and may sometimes conflict, such as balancing the roles of being a parent and a manager.

Social Identity

• Shared experiences amplify our perception of events and increase our sense of bond and trust toward others.
• Social identity theory explains that people have emotional reactions to the success or failure of their group because their self-esteem is tied to the group's outcomes.
• Identification within organizations can occur through:
  • Relational identification: Connecting with others because of our roles.
  • Collective identification: Connecting with the aggregate characteristics of our groups.
• Strong identification with workgroups and organizations leads to positive attitudes and behaviors, while low identification can result in decreased satisfaction and fewer organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs).
• Immigrant workers often face strained identities and high turnover rates when they lack inclusive, supportive supervisors or do not feel part of the local community.
• Leaders' use of collective language ("we" or "us") instead of individualistic language ("I") can signal group inclusion and is correlated with increased sales and return-on-investment.

Ingroups and Outgroups

• An ingroup consists of members of a group you belong to, and you tend to see your ingroup as better than others, which can lead to favoritism.
• Favoritism can influence discrimination and prejudice in the workplace, often without hostility. Discriminatory behaviors can occur simply by treating people differently.
• When someone from your ingroup acts unethically, you are more likely to repair the relationship rather than punish them, even for serious offenses.
• Outgroups are those not in your ingroup, often seen as "all the same" and lacking individual characteristics. This perception can lead to polarization and misunderstanding.
• People may feel disgust towards outgroup members, derogate them, and treat them as having little worth.
• Religion can be a powerful source of ingroup-outgroup derogation. Groups heavily involved in religious rituals may become especially discriminatory and aggressive towards outgroups, particularly if those outgroups have more resources.
• The rise of automation and a robot workforce may lead to a less prejudiced workforce by creating a new social identity that sees all humans as part of the ingroup, potentially reducing human-to-human prejudice and discrimination.

Stages of Group Development

• Punctuated Equilibrium Model: Temporary groups with finite deadlines follow a unique sequence of actions.
  • First Meeting: Sets the group's direction and establishes behavioral patterns and assumptions.
  • Phase 1: Characterized by inertia, with slow progress and a fixed course of action.
  • Midpoint Transition: Occurs halfway through the group's allotted time, leading to major changes and a new direction.
  • Phase 2: Another period of inertia where the group executes plans made during the transition.
  • Final Meeting: Marked by accelerated activity to complete the work.
• Group Dynamics:
  • First Meeting: Establishes the group's purpose and direction quickly, often within the first few seconds.
  • Inertia in Phase 1: The group remains on a fixed course, even if new insights challenge initial assumptions.
  • Midpoint Transition: Acts as an alarm clock, prompting a burst of changes and new perspectives.
  • Phase 2: The group follows the revised direction set during the transition.
  • Final Burst of Activity: The last meeting is characterized by a rush to finish the work.
• Alternative Models:
  • Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing: Teams progress through stages of formation, conflict resolution, role agreement, and collaborative work.
  • Integration with Punctuated Equilibrium: These stages may occur in Phase 1, with a second performing and conforming stage in Phase 2 after reforming group norms and expectations.

Group Properties

• Understanding groups in organizations involves roles, norms, status, size, cohesiveness, and diversity.

Group Property 1: Roles

• Individuals assume various roles in different groups, such as family roles, professional roles, and social roles.
• Different groups impose different role requirements, which can sometimes lead to role conflicts.
• Role conflicts can arise when the demands of different roles are incompatible, such as a job offer in one city conflicting with family preferences in another.
• Understanding role requirements involves drawing on role perceptions to frame appropriate behaviors and learning group expectations.
• Minimizing role conflict requires understanding the parameters of each role.

Role Perception

• Role perception is how you believe you should act in a given situation.
  • You acquire role perceptions from various stimuli around you, such as family, workplace, and media.
  • Example: Working, married parents often integrate their family roles into their work roles, influencing their leadership expectations.

Role Expectations

• Role expectations are how others believe you should act in a given context, influencing work performance.
• Psychological contract: An unwritten agreement between employees and employers that establishes mutual expectations.
• Management's role: Treat employees justly, provide acceptable working conditions, communicate clearly, and give feedback.
• Employees' role: Demonstrate a good attitude, follow directions, and show loyalty.
• Unethical expectations: Employees may face sanctions if they do not comply with unethical demands from employers.
• Consequences of management's failure: Negative effects on employee performance, turnover, and satisfaction.
• Reasons for employees not fulfilling their part: Loss of resources, workload, stress, and other obstacles.
• Benefits of fulfilling the contract: Employees feel grateful, identify with the organization, and are more willing to perform Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCBs).

Role Conflict

• Role conflict occurs when compliance with one role requirement makes it difficult to comply with another.
• Interrole conflict happens when the expectations of different groups you belong to are in direct opposition.
  • Examples of interrole conflict include:
    • Holding multiple jobs, such as being a software engineer and a guitarist in a metal band, which can interfere with each other.
    • Family/life roles conflicting with work roles, such as a mother trying to balance recovery from childbirth and caring for her infant with returning to work.
• Intra-role conflict can occur within a single job, such as nurses needing to provide aid during a disaster while managing personal emotional attachments.
• Role conflict is a significant source of stress for employees.
• During global mergers and acquisitions, employees may experience conflict between their identities as members of their original organization and the new parent company.
• Multinational mergers can lead to dual identification, where employees split their identification between the local division and the international organization.

Group Property 2: Norms

• Gusto's office design includes a "no shoes" policy, reflecting the company's unique norms.
• Norms are acceptable standards of behavior shared by group members, indicating what they should and should not do in certain situations.
• Different groups, communities, and societies have their own norms, but all groups have them.
• Norms are established through the social perception of group members, often initiated by a leader's suggestion and reinforced by group consensus and practice.
• For norms to be adopted and maintained, they must be accepted by all group members, not just imposed by leaders.

Norms and Emotions

• The emotions of group members can amplify the power of norms, especially in daily interactions.
• Coworkers may react negatively and uncivilly if you come to work sick.
• Norms can dictate which emotions individuals and groups experience, leading to shared interpretations of experiences.
• Employees can often see through attempts to comply with office norms if the reasons are not genuine.

Norms and Conformity

• Group conformity: Individuals often conform to group norms to gain acceptance and stability, especially when they perceive others are doing so or when experiencing conflict or frustration.
• Pressure to conform: Groups can exert strong pressures on members to change their behavior to match the group’s standards.
• Asch's conformity experiments: Solomon Asch's studies demonstrated the impact of group pressure on individual judgment. Participants were asked to match line lengths on cards, with obvious correct answers.
• Selective conformity: Individuals do not conform to all groups but are more likely to conform to reference groups—important groups where they identify as members or aspire to be members.
• Positive aspects of conformity: Conformity can lead to positive outcomes, such as adhering to prosocial norms like generosity and increased empathy.

Norms and Behavior

• Norms significantly influence employee behavior in the workplace.
• Initial experiments focused on the relationship between light levels and productivity. Surprisingly, productivity increased regardless of light intensity changes, suggesting group dynamics were more influential.
• A small group of women assembling telephones showed increased output and fewer absences due to their perceived elite status and management's attention.
• Workers' behavior was influenced by the attention they received rather than physical changes in their environment.
• In the bank wiring observation room, a wage-incentive plan revealed that group norms controlled individual output. Workers avoided maximizing output to prevent potential negative consequences like rate cuts, increased expected output, layoffs, or reprimands for slower workers.
• The group established norms to regulate fair output and enforced these norms through social pressure, including name-calling, ridicule, and physical actions.

Positive Norms and Group Outcomes

• Positive group norms can lead to positive outcomes, but other factors must also be present.
• Evolutionary explanations suggest norms developed to achieve positive outcomes, such as strong interaction and cooperation in groups facing threats.
• Cultural differences in norms may arise from varying levels of threat and the need for cooperation.
• Corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives aim to align employee values with positive norms, strengthening these norms and increasing the likelihood of positive impacts.
• Employee satisfaction with their groups can influence the adoption of CSR norms, with more satisfied employees more likely to embrace these norms.

Negative Norms and Group Outcomes

• Deviant workplace behavior (CWB): Voluntary actions that violate significant organizational norms and threaten the well-being of the organization or its members.
• Typology of deviant workplace behaviors:
  • Production: Leaving early, intentionally working slowly, wasting resources.
  • Property: Sabotage, lying about hours worked, stealing from the organization.
  • Political: Showing favoritism, gossiping and spreading rumors, blaming coworkers.
  • Personal aggression: Sexual harassment, verbal abuse, stealing from coworkers.
• Negative norms: Facilitate poor group outcomes and deviant behavior. For example, if team members or supervisors frequently miss work, others are likely to follow suit.
• Group influence: Employees are less likely to use family-friendly benefits if they perceive that their workgroup does not use them.
• Diversity awareness: Raising awareness about stereotyping can sometimes backfire, leading to more stereotype-consistent behavior.
• Organizational conditions: Few organizations admit to creating conditions that encourage deviant behaviors, but they exist.
• Workgroup attributes: Negative attributes in a workgroup can lead to more frequent CWBs, suggesting that "bad apples" come from "bad barrels."
• Mistreatment: Employees mistreated by supervisors, coworkers, or customers may engage in unethical behaviors. This mistreatment can lead to higher turnover, with nearly half of affected employees considering job changes and 12% actually quitting.
• Work pressure: Organizations pushing employees to work extra hours may indirectly facilitate deviant behavior.

Norms and Culture

• Cultural norms differ significantly between collectivist and individualist cultures, affecting behaviors and perceptions.
• Orientation can be temporarily influenced by group context. In an experiment, subjects primed with collectivist or individualist norms showed increased motivation when tasks were assigned in line with these norms.
• Workplace behaviors, such as negotiation strategies, are influenced by cultural norms. For example, aggressive strategies are more common in honor and face cultures (e.g., Qatar, China) compared to dignity cultures (e.g., U.S.).
• Asian cultures, despite valuing harmony, may adopt competitive strategies in professional settings to save face.
• Responses to norm violations vary by culture. In collectivist cultures, norm violators are seen as less powerful and evoke more moral outrage compared to individualistic cultures.

Group Property 3: Status

• Groups often stratify into higher- and lower-status members.
• The status of group members can reflect their status outside the group, but this is not always the case.
• Group size can influence members' behaviors, dynamics, and outcomes.
• These factors collectively impact the efficacy of a workgroup.
• Status: A socially defined position or rank given to groups or group members by others, influencing behavior and group dynamics.

Sources of Status:

• Power: Control over group resources and outcomes.
• Contribution: Ability to contribute to group goals.
• Personal Characteristics: Valued traits like good looks, intelligence, or a friendly personality.

Status and Norms:

• High-status individuals may deviate from norms if they have low group identification.
• They resist conformity pressures more effectively than lower-status members.
• High-status members can improve group performance but may introduce counterproductive norms.

Status and Group Interaction:

• Individuals seeking higher status become more assertive.
• High-status members may conceal their status to promote harmony.
• Lower-status members participate less, potentially reducing group performance.
• Supervisors should encourage lower-status members to speak up.
• A mix of high and mid-status individuals can be beneficial for group performance.
• Accurate knowledge of the status hierarchy improves performance and networking.

Status Inequity:

• Perceived inequity leads to corrective behaviors and negative emotions.
• Large status differences correlate with poorer performance, lower health, and higher turnover intentions.
• Power-based status inequity drives interpersonal conflict, while other forms promote healthy competition.

Status and Stigmatization:

• Association with stigmatized individuals can negatively affect others' perceptions of you.
• "Stigma by association" can lead to negative evaluations even with brief or coincidental associations.
• Low-status members may legitimize their beliefs and withhold support from stigmatized individuals.

Group Status:

• Early development of "us and them" mentality.
• High-status ingroups can create discrimination against outgroups.
• Low-status groups may use ingroup favoritism to compete for higher status.
• High-status groups may increase bias against outgroups in response to perceived discrimination, leading to polarization.

Group Property 4: Size and Dynamics

• The size of a group affects its behavior, with larger groups (12+ members) being better for diverse input and idea generation, while smaller groups (around 7 members) are more productive.
• Group size stereotypes influence behavior, with smaller groups perceived as more trustworthy and larger groups seen as harder to help.
• Social loafing is the tendency for individuals to put in less effort when working in a group compared to working alone, challenging the assumption that group productivity equals the sum of individual efforts.
• Social loafing is more prevalent in individualistic cultures (e.g., the United States, Canada) and less common in collectivistic cultures (e.g., Eastern societies).
• Individuals with a strong work ethic, high conscientiousness, and agreeableness are less likely to engage in social loafing.
• Virtual groups may face social loafing issues, especially if members are dissimilar or have significant family responsibilities.
• Strategies to prevent social loafing include:
  • Setting group goals to create a common purpose.
  • Increasing intergroup competition to focus on shared outcomes.
  • Engaging in peer evaluations.
  • Selecting highly motivated members who prefer group work.
  • Basing group rewards on individual contributions and ensuring each member's work is identifiable.

Group Property 5: Cohesiveness

• For a group to be highly functioning, it must act cohesively as a unit.
• Certain types of diversity can enable teams to perform better in different ways.
• Cohesiveness: The shared bond that drives group members to work together and stay in the group.

Factors Influencing Cohesiveness:

• Time spent together
• Small group size
• High interaction due to group purpose
• External threats bringing members closer

Impact on Productivity:

• High cohesiveness with high performance norms leads to high productivity.
• High cohesiveness with low performance norms results in low productivity.
• Low cohesiveness with high performance norms increases productivity, but not as much as high cohesiveness/high norms.
• Low cohesiveness with low performance norms results in low-to-moderate productivity.

Encouraging Group Cohesiveness:

• Make the group smaller.
• Encourage agreement with group goals.
• Increase the time members spend together.
• Increase the group’s status and the perceived difficulty of attaining membership.
• Stimulate competition with other groups.
• Give rewards to the group rather than to individual members.
• Physically isolate the group.

Group Property 6: Diversity

• Diversity in Group Membership: Diversity refers to the degree to which group members are alike or different. The impact of diversity is influenced by contextual factors and how it is perceived.
• Perceived vs. Actual Diversity: There is often a modest link between actual diversity and perceived diversity. Members may balance a need to belong with a need to be distinctive.

Types of Group Diversity:

• Surface-level Diversity: Includes characteristics like gender and race. It can increase conflict and lower group morale, especially early on.
• Deep-level Diversity: Involves differences in values or opinions, which can lead to conflict but can be managed by effective leadership.
• Functional Diversity: Differences in skills and abilities can enhance team performance and innovation, contingent on factors like leadership and knowledge sharing.

Challenges of Group Diversity:

• Conflict and Cohesion: Diverse groups may experience more conflict and lower cohesion initially but can become more open-minded and creative over time.
• Faultlines: Perceived divisions within groups based on characteristics like race, gender, or experience can lead to subgroups, which generally harm group performance and cohesion.

Managing Faultlines:

• Crosscutting roles, common goals, and pro-diversity beliefs can mitigate the negative effects of faultlines. Training and policies that welcome diversity can enhance team effectiveness.
• Cultural Differences: The impact of diversity on group performance can vary by culture. For example, collectivist values can either help or hurt group performance depending on the task.

Group Decision Making

• Group decision making is a fundamental aspect of the U.S. legal system and many other countries.
• Many organizational decisions are made by groups, teams, or committees.
• Group decision making has several advantages, including diverse perspectives and shared responsibility.
• Group dynamics can present unique challenges, such as groupthink and conflicts.
• Techniques exist to maximize the effectiveness of group decision making.

Groups Versus the Individual

Strengths of Group Decision Making:

• Groups generate more complete information and knowledge by aggregating diverse resources.
• Increased diversity of views allows for more approaches and alternatives.
• Groups lead to increased acceptance of solutions, as members are more likely to support decisions they participated in.

Weaknesses of Group Decision Making:

• Group decisions are time-consuming, especially for virtual groups.
• Conformity pressures can suppress dissent and lead to suboptimal decisions.
• Group discussions can be dominated by one or a few members, reducing overall effectiveness.
• Ambiguous responsibility dilutes accountability in group decisions.

Effectiveness and Efficiency:

• Group decisions are generally more accurate than the average individual but less accurate than the most accurate individual.
• Individuals are faster in decision-making compared to groups.
• Groups are more effective when creativity is important and when acceptance of solutions is crucial.
• Group decision making consumes more work hours than individual decision making.
• Groups may be inefficient if information is heavily dispersed and not effectively shared among members.

Groupthink and Groupshift

Groupthink:

• Groupthink occurs when group pressures for conformity prevent critical evaluation of alternative viewpoints, often leading to poor decision-making.
• It is more likely in groups focused on performance over learning.
• It tends to happen early in a group's tenure, especially when there is a strong group identity and a perceived threat to the group's positive image.
• To minimize groupthink, managers can:
  • Monitor group size to reduce intimidation.
  • Encourage leaders to remain impartial.
  • Appoint a devil’s advocate to challenge the majority view.
  • Use exercises to discuss diverse alternatives and potential risks before considering possible gains.

Groupshift:

• Groupshift, or group polarization, describes the tendency of group members to adopt more extreme positions after group discussions.
• This phenomenon can be seen as a form of groupthink.
• Group discussions often lead to more extreme views due to:
  • Persuasive arguments making members more comfortable with extreme positions.
  • Diffusion of responsibility, as no single member is solely accountable for the decision.
  • Desire to differentiate from the outgroup by taking more extreme stances.

Group Decision-Making Techniques

• Interacting groups rely on verbal and nonverbal interactions but often face issues like self- censorship and conformity pressures.
• Brainstorming encourages generating many alternatives without criticism to overcome conformity pressures.
  • The group leader clearly states the problem.
  • Members freely suggest ideas without criticism.
  • All ideas are recorded for later discussion.
  • Drawback: Individuals working alone often generate more ideas due to "production blocking" where simultaneous talking impedes thought processes.
• Nominal Group Technique (NGT) restricts discussion and interpersonal communication, allowing independent idea generation.
  • Steps: 1. Members write down ideas independently. 2. Each member presents one idea without discussion. 3. Group discusses ideas for clarity and evaluation. 4. Members rank-order ideas independently; the highest-ranked idea is chosen.
  • Advantage: Allows formal meetings without restricting independent thinking. Research shows NGT often outperforms brainstorming.

Comparison of Techniques:

• Interacting groups: Good for commitment to a solution, high social pressure, potential for interpersonal conflict, and development of group cohesiveness.
• Brainstorming: Moderate number and quality of ideas, low social pressure, high task orientation, and development of group cohesiveness.
• Nominal Group Technique: High number and quality of ideas, moderate social pressure, high task orientation, and moderate development of group cohesiveness.

CHAPTER 10

• Groups vs. Teams: Groups are collections of individuals who coordinate their efforts, while teams are a type of group with complementary skills committed to a common purpose and performance goals.
• Types of Team Arrangements: There are five types of team arrangements, each with distinct characteristics and purposes.
• Characteristics of Effective Teams: Effective teams have clear goals, mutual trust, unified commitment, good communication, negotiating skills, appropriate leadership, internal and external support, and relevant skills.
• Creating Team Players: Organizations can foster team players through selection, training, and rewarding team-oriented behaviors.
• When to Use Individuals vs. Teams: Teams are beneficial for tasks requiring diverse skills, perspectives, and collaboration, while individuals are preferable for tasks needing specialized expertise or quick decisions.
• Example of Team Success: SoaPen, created by a diverse all-female team, exemplifies the importance of complementary expertise and perspectives in achieving entrepreneurial success.
• Advantages of Teams: Teams are more flexible and responsive to change, can quickly adapt, and promote a collaborative mindset in individual decision-making.
• Challenges of Teams: Teams can be prone to decision-making errors and dynamics that may lead to suboptimal outcomes. Understanding the conditions and member interactions is crucial for team effectiveness.

Learning Objectives

• Groups vs. Teams: Groups are collections of individuals who coordinate their efforts, while teams are a type of group with complementary skills committed to a common purpose and performance goals.
• Types of Team Arrangements: There are five types of team arrangements, each with distinct characteristics and purposes.
• Characteristics of Effective Teams: Effective teams have clear goals, relevant skills, mutual trust, unified commitment, good communication, negotiating skills, appropriate leadership, and internal and external support.
• Creating Team Players: Organizations can foster team players through selection, training, and rewarding team-oriented behaviors.
• When to Use Individuals vs. Teams: Teams are beneficial for tasks requiring diverse skills, perspectives, and collaboration, while individuals are preferable for tasks needing specialized expertise or quick decision-making.
• Example of Team Success: SoaPen, created by a diverse all-female team, exemplifies the power of teamwork in achieving innovative solutions and entrepreneurial success.
• Advantages of Teams: Teams are more flexible and responsive to change, can quickly assemble and disband, and promote a collaborative mindset in individual decision-making.
• Challenges of Teams: Teams can be prone to decision-making errors and dynamics that may hinder their effectiveness. Understanding the conditions and member interactions is crucial for team success.

Differences Between Groups and Teams

• Groups vs. Teams: Groups and teams are distinct, though often used interchangeably. A group is defined as two or more individuals interacting and interdependent, coming together to achieve certain objectives.

Work Groups:

• Interact primarily to share information and make decisions to help members perform within their areas of responsibility.
• Performance is the sum of individual contributions, with no positive synergy.
• Limited to information gathering for decision makers outside the group.

Work Teams:

• Generate positive synergy through coordination, resulting in performance greater than the sum of individual inputs.
• Dynamic and constantly adapting, focusing on the processes or actions involved in engaging as a team.
• Constructed to be purposeful and symbiotic in member interaction.

Commonalities:

• Both work groups and work teams involve behavioral expectations, collective normalization efforts, active group dynamics, and some level of decision making.

Organizational Structure:

• The use of teams can potentially generate greater outputs without increasing employee headcount, but merely labeling a group as a team does not ensure improved performance. Effective teams possess certain common characteristics that management should foster to achieve increased organizational performance.

Types of Teams

• Teams can perform various functions such as making products, providing services, negotiating deals, coordinating projects, offering advice, and making decisions.
• Problem-solving teams: These teams focus on identifying and solving specific issues within an organization.
• Self-managed work teams: These teams operate without a manager and are responsible for their own planning, scheduling, and decision-making.
• Cross-functional teams: These teams consist of members from different departments or areas of expertise, working together to achieve a common goal.
• Virtual teams: These teams work together from different geographical locations, often relying on technology for communication and collaboration.
• Multiteam systems: These systems involve multiple teams working together, often referred to as a "team of teams," and are used to handle complex tasks.

Problem-Solving Teams

• Problem-solving teams, such as quality-control teams, have been used for many years, primarily in manufacturing.
• These teams are typically permanent and meet regularly to address quality standards and product issues.
• An example is Vincero, a direct-to-consumer watchmaker, which employs a full-time quality- control team to hand-check every watch.
• The use of quality-control teams has expanded to other fields, including the medical field, to improve patient care services.
• These teams usually do not have the authority to implement their suggestions independently, but significant improvements can occur when their recommendations are paired with implementation processes.

Self-Managed Work Teams

• Self-managed teams: These teams autonomously decide how to solve problems and share their experiences with other teams. They typically consist of 10-15 members who perform interdependent jobs and take on supervisory responsibilities such as planning, scheduling, task assignment, operating decisions, and interactions with suppliers and customers.
• Responsibilities: Self-managed teams handle planning and scheduling work, assigning tasks, making operating decisions, addressing problems, and working with suppliers and customers. They may also select their own members and evaluate each other’s performance.
• Impact on supervisory roles: The establishment of self-managed teams often reduces the importance of former supervisory positions, which may be eliminated.
• Challenges: Managers may find it difficult to relinquish control, requiring a commitment to allow teams to handle problems independently.
• Effectiveness: Research on self-managed teams shows mixed results:
  • Rewards: Teams are more effective when team-promoting behaviors are rewarded, particularly when economic rewards depend on team input.
  • Conflict: The impact of conflict on team effectiveness varies. Conflict can reduce cooperation and performance, but it can also boost performance if members feel safe to speak up.
  • Member behavior: Members of self-managed teams report higher job satisfaction but may also experience higher absenteeism and turnover. Some studies show no significant productivity advantage over traditional teams.
  • Leadership: In the absence of controlled supervision, ineffective leaders may emerge more readily.

Cross-Functional Teams

• Cross-functional teams consist of employees from the same hierarchical level but different work areas, collaborating to achieve a common task.
• These teams help in exchanging information, developing new ideas, solving problems, and coordinating complex projects.
• Challenges in forming and managing cross-functional teams include:
  • Leadership ambiguity due to the need for diverse expertise, requiring a climate of trust to manage leadership shifts without conflict.
  • Extended early development stages as members adapt to higher levels of diversity and complexity.
  • Time needed to build trust and teamwork among members with different experiences and perspectives.

Virtual Teams

• Virtual teams use technology to unite physically dispersed members to achieve a common goal, collaborating online through communication links such as wide-area networks, corporate social media, videoconferencing, and e-mail.
• Example: Cisco uses virtual teams to identify and capitalize on new trends in the software market, functioning like social-networking groups of employees from different areas collaborating in real time.
• Management of virtual teams differs from face-to-face teams due to differences in social cue conveyance and the sense of distance between members.
• Information sharing: Virtual teams may share more unique information but can be less open to sharing overall.
• Trust is crucial for the effectiveness of virtual teams. Management should:
  • Ensure trust is established among members.
  • Monitor progress closely to keep the team focused and ensure no member disappears.
  • Publicize the team's efforts and products throughout the organization to prevent the team from becoming invisible.

Multiteam Systems

• As tasks become more complex, teams often grow, leading to higher coordination demands. This can create a tipping point where adding another member does more harm than good.
• Multiteam systems are collections of two or more interdependent teams that share a superordinate goal, essentially forming a "team of teams."
• An example of a multiteam system is NASA's mission to Mars, which involves numerous interdependent teams such as researchers, scientists, engineers, and ground crews, all working towards the common goal of sending astronauts to Mars.
• Factors that make smaller teams effective do not always apply to multiteam systems and can sometimes hinder their performance.
• Boundary spanners are individuals whose job is to coordinate efforts across all teams within a multiteam system, reducing the need for some team member communication and lowering coordination demands.
• Boundary spoilers are individuals or teams that hinder effective communication and coordination within a multiteam system. Training to adopt the same perspectives or assumptions can help mitigate these issues.
• Employees can identify with either their own team or the multiteam system as a whole. Strong identification with one's own team can lead to conflicts, but developing an identification with the multiteam system can reduce conflicts and improve overall performance.
• Leadership in multiteam systems differs from standalone teams. A multiteam leader must facilitate coordination between teams and lead them.
• Research shows that teams receiving more attention and engagement from organizational leaders feel more empowered and are more effective in solving their own problems.

Creating Effective Teams

• Teams can be created deliberately or evolve organically, such as tech startup teams often formed by friends.
• Noam Wasserman's research indicates that nearly 40% of tech startup founders were friends before starting their business.
• Being friends increases the likelihood of failure, with each additional friend on the founding team increasing the likelihood of founders leaving the startup by nearly 30%.
• Factors related to team effectiveness have been organized into a focused model, summarized in Exhibit 10-3.
• The key components of effective teams are categorized into three general areas:
  • Resources and other contextual influences: External factors that contribute to team effectiveness.
  • Team composition: The makeup of the team, including skills, personalities, and roles.
  • Process and state variables: Internal events and dynamics within the team that affect its effectiveness.

Team Context

• Adequate Resources: Teams need external resources such as timely information, proper equipment, adequate staffing, encouragement, and administrative assistance to perform effectively.
• Leadership and Structure: Effective teams require clear role allocation and shared workload. Leaders should be transformational and empowering, significantly influencing job attitudes, performance, and turnover intentions.
• Culture or Climate: Teams benefit from a shared vision, collaborative environment, performance quality concern, encouragement of creativity, and frequent interaction. Positive team climates enhance financial and innovation performance.
• Performance Evaluation and Reward System: Hybrid performance systems that recognize both individual and team contributions are essential. Group-based appraisals and incentives can reinforce team effort and commitment, but care must be taken to avoid bias and discrimination.
• Crises and Extreme Contexts: In high-stress situations, effective leadership, structured coordination, adaptability, and informed decision-making are crucial. Leaders should support problem-solving, initiate planning, and help team members understand the situation. Positive affectivity can buffer the negative impacts of crises.

Team Composition

• Effective teams require careful consideration of member abilities, personalities, role allocation, diversity, cultural differences, team size, and member preferences.

Abilities of Members:

• Team performance is influenced by the knowledge, skills, and abilities of its members. Key abilities include conflict resolution, collaborative problem solving, communication, goal setting, and planning. Complementary backgrounds enhance innovation and creativity.

Personality of Members:

• Personality traits from the Big Five model significantly impact team effectiveness:
  • Conscientiousness: Important for backing up team members and sensing when support is needed.
  • Agreeableness: Teams with agreeable members perform better and are more cohesive.
  • Openness: Leads to more idea sharing, creativity, and innovation.
  • Emotional Stability: Helps teams handle conflict and leverage it to improve performance.
  • Extraversion: Can increase helping behaviors in a cooperative team climate.
  • Proactive Personality: Important for team innovation.

Allocation of Roles:

• Teams need members to fill various roles based on their skills and preferences. Core roles are crucial for team performance, as demonstrated by a study of major league baseball teams.

Diversity of Members:

• Demographic diversity has a small negative effect on team performance and creativity. However, diverse perspectives can be beneficial, though they may complicate communication and increase conflict.

Cultural Differences:

• Cultural diversity can initially interfere with team processes but can be beneficial for tasks requiring diverse viewpoints. Teams with high-cultural-status members tend to perform better.

Size of Teams

• Smaller teams (5-9 members