Exhaustive Study Guide: Group Behavior, Teams, and Organizational Development

Group Dynamics and the Definition of Groups

Defining a Group: There is no universal consensus on the definition of a group, but Gordon ( $2001$ ) provides four essential criteria that must be met: - Perception as a Unit: Members must see themselves as a collective unit (e.g., three people walking together vs. eight random shoppers). - Group Rewards: Membership must provide some form of benefit or reward to the individuals. - Corresponding Effects: An event affecting one member must have a significant impact on all members. - Common Goals: All members must share a specific aim or purpose.
Group Sizes and Classifications: - Dyad: A group consisting of exactly $2$ people. - Triad: A group consisting of exactly $3$ people. - Small Group: Typically defined as containing between $4$ and $20$ members (Forsyth, $2019$ ).
Reasons for Joining Groups: - Assignment: The most common workplace reason; being appointed to a department or committee. - Physical Proximity: People form groups with those who live or work nearby. The "bomber wing" at Florence, Colorado ( $1999$ ), included Ted Kaczynski, Ramzi Yousef, and Timothy McVeigh, who formed a social group despite extreme isolation due to their physical hall proximity. - Affiliation: The human need to be with others. Research by Mayo ( $1946$ ) and studies on POWs in WWII vs. Korea/Vietnam demonstrate that isolation leads to lower morale and higher death rates. POWs in WWII had groups for emotional support and norms (not talking to enemies), whereas later POWs were isolated and scraped walls just for contact. - Identification: Associating with a group's image (e.g., wearing T-shirts for "BTS" or "Los Angeles Lakers"). Cialdini ( $1976$ ) coined the term "basking in reflected glory" to describe how students wear school colors more often after a football victory ( $ext{"We won"}$ vs. $ext{"They lost"}$ ). - Emotional Support: Groups like Alcoholics Anonymous provide specific support systems. - Assistance: Forming study groups or alliances (e.g., the show Survivor) to achieve difficult tasks. - Common Interests and Goals: Groups like geology clubs or political parties organized around shared passions or objectives.

Factors Affecting Group Performance

Group Cohesiveness: The extent to which members like and trust each other. Benefits include higher performance, decision quality, member satisfaction, and creativity. High cohesiveness can also be negative if it results in loyalty to the group over the organization (e.g., the Hollywood Division of LAPD covering for internal property crimes in the $1980 ext{s}$ ).
Group Homogeneity: - Homogeneous Groups: Members share similar characteristics. - Heterogeneous Groups: Members are more different than alike. - Slightly Heterogeneous Groups: Identified by Mascio et al. ( $2008$ ) as high-performing; they consist mostly of similar people with one or two dissimilar members adding tension/vantage points ( $d = .17$ improvement over homogeneous; $d = .12$ over heterogeneous).
Stability of Membership: The more consistent the membership over time, the higher the performance. Greek organizations (fraternities/sororities) are often more active than honorary societies because members join earlier and stay longer.
External Factors: - Isolation: Physical distance from other groups increases internal cohesion. - Outside Pressure: Increases cohesion via psychological reactance. Ruback and Juieng ( $1997$ ) found drivers took $42.75 ext{ seconds}$ to leave a park space if someone honked vs. $26.47 ext{ seconds}$ if no one was waiting.
Group Size: Smaller groups are more cohesive, but larger groups may be more productive/innovative. Ideal size for satisfaction is approximately $5$ members. - Additive Tasks: Performance = sum of individual efforts (e.g., bowling teams). - Conjunctive Tasks: Performance depends on the weakest member (e.g., assembly lines). - Disjunctive Tasks: Performance depends on the most talented member (e.g., brainstorming).
Group Status: High status increases cohesion. Organizations often use "hell weeks," tough training, or hazing to artificially inflate status.
Ability and Confidence: High-ability members and high team efficacy/potency lead to better outcomes.
Communication Structure: Different networks (Chains, Centralized, Circles, Open) impact speed and satisfaction. Open/Circle structures are best for socializing; Centralized is best for speed in problem-solving.
Group Roles: Success requires a balance of Task-oriented roles (ideas, coordination) and Social-oriented roles (encouraging participation). Individual roles (blocking, self-promotion) hinder productivity.

Individual Versus Group Performance

Social Facilitation and Inhibition: - Social Facilitation: Positive effects of the presence of others on well-learned tasks. - Social Inhibition: Negative effects on complex or unlearned tasks. - Audience Effects: Passive observers; impact depends on size, proximity, and status of the audience. - Coaction: Performing tasks alongside others (e.g., gamblers bet more and eat more in groups). - Pool Shooting Accuracy: Good players increased accuracy from 71 ext{%} to 80 ext{%} when watched; poor players decreased from 36 ext{%} to 25 ext{%} (Michaels et al., $1982$ ).
Social Loafing: Individuals exert less effort in groups. - Free-rider Theory: Effort is reduced because individual input isn't necessary for success. - Sucker Effect: Individuals lower performance to match lazy coworkers.
Groupthink: Members become so cohesive they ignore contrary info (e.g., Bay of Pigs invasion). Reduced by using a "devil’s advocate" or dividing into subgroups.
Nominal vs. Interacting Groups: - Nominal Groups: Individuals work alone and results are pooled. - Interacting Groups: Individuals work together. - Brainstorming: Nominal groups typically produce more and better quality ideas than interacting groups. Virtual brainstorming is superior to face-to-face for large groups.
Group Polarization: Groups tend to take more extreme positions than individuals (e.g., risk-averse individuals become extremely cautious as a group).

Teams and Team Development

Definition of a Work Team: $3$ or more individuals interacting intensively to provide a product or service.
Key Characteristics of Teams: - Interdependence: Reliance on help/expertise of others. - Power Differentiation: Attempting to treat all members as equals. - Social Distance: Using informal address and nicknames to decrease distance.
Types of Teams: - Work Teams: Self-managing groups (e.g., production crews). - Parallel/Cross-functional Teams: Representatives from different departments (e.g., marketing, engineering, shipping). - Project Teams: Temporary groups formed for a one-time output (e.g., hiring a new CEO). - Management Teams: Direct and advise other teams.
Stages of Team Development (Tuckman, $1965$ ): - Forming: Getting to know one another; anxiety; clarifying mission. - Storming: Frustration and disagreement; challenging roles. - Norming: Acceptance of leader; tension easing; shared mental models. - Performing: Goal accomplishment; high participation; innovative suggestions.
Failures in Teams: Factors include lack of empowerment, excessive meeting requirements, lack of skill, and unclear objectives.

Conflict Management and Resolution

Defining Conflict: Psychological and behavioral reaction to perceived goals being blocked or relationship expectations being violated.
Types of Conflict: Dysfunctional (hinders productivity) and Functional (stimulates ideas).
Causes of Conflict: Competition for resources, Task interdependence, Jurisdictional ambiguity, Communication barriers, Beliefs (mistrust, helplessness), and Personality.
Difficult Personalities (Bramson/Brinkman): - Need for Control: Tank, Sniper, Know-It-All. - Need for Perfection: Whiner, No Person, Nothing Person. - Need for Approval: Yes Person, Maybe Person. - Need for Attention: Grenade, Friendly Sniper, Think-They-Know-It-All.
Conflict Styles: - Avoiding: Ignoring conflict (includes "triangling" via a third party). - Accommodating: Giving in to settle. - Forcing: Win-lose; win at all costs. - Collaborating: Win-win; both sides get what they want. - Compromising: Give-and-take. Uses a "Settlement Range" between Least Acceptable Result ( $ext{LAR}$ ) and Maximum Supportable Position ( $ext{MSP}$ ). Influenced by the Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement ( $ext{BATNA}$ ).
Resolution Methods: - Mediation: Neutral third party facilitates; 69.4 ext{%} of EEOC claims were resolved this way in $2020$ , taking average of $147 ext{ days}$ . - Arbitration: Neutral third party decides. Can be Binding or Nonbinding.

Managing Organizational Change

Sacred Cow Hunts: Identifying and eliminating outdated practices. - Paper Cow: Unnecessary forms/reports (e.g., a $1,015 ext{-hour}$ report read by no one). - Meeting Cow: Unnecessarily long or frequent meetings. - Speed Cow: Unnecessary deadlines that increase stress and decrease quality (e.g., same-day delivery costing $ext{–}45,000$ unnecessarily).
Stages of Acceptance (Carnall & By, $2014$ ): - Denial: Denying change will occur. - Defense: Justifying the old way. - Discarding: Realizing change is inevitable. - Adaptation: Testing the new system. - Internalization: Becoming comfortable in the new culture.
Lewin’s Stages: Unfreezing (convincing change is needed), Moving (implementation), Refreezing (formalizing policy).
Individual Reactions to Change: - Change Agent: Enjoys change for the sake of it. - Change Analyst: Only changes for a compelling reason. - Receptive Changer: Willing to change if things are broken. - Reluctant Changer: Resists initially but eventually goes along. - Change Resister: Hates change and tries to stop it.

Empowerment and Occupational Development

Vroom-Yetton Decision Model: Flowchart considering decision quality, leader info, problem structure, and importance of acceptance. - Strategies: Autocratic I/II, Consultative I/II, Group I.
Levels of Employee Input: - Following: Close supervision; no control. - Ownership of Own Product: Responsible for quality but told what tasks to do. - Advisory: Providing suggestions with no guarantee of implementation. - Shared/Participative: Equal vote or consensus decision-making. - Absolute: Total authority and responsibility/consequences.
Flexible Work Arrangements: - Flextime: Bandwidth (potential hours), Core hours (everyone present), Flex hours (choice). - Compressed Workweeks: Working $40 ext{ hours}$ in fewer than $5 ext{ days}$ (e.g., $4/10$ or $3/12$ ). - Reduced Hours: Peak-time pay (higher pay for busy shifts) and Job sharing. - Telecommuting: Remote work; increased from 22 ext{%} in $2019$ to 42 ext{%} in $2020$ due to COVID-19.

Downsizing and Workforce Reductions

Alternatives to Layoffs: Hiring freezes, outsourcing, early retirement incentives (e.g., Ford offering $3$ to $9 ext{ months}$ pay), and pay cuts.
Outplacement Stages during Layoff: Denial, Anger, Fear, Acceptance.
Impact of Downsizing: - Victims: Experience health problems (headaches, heart trouble) and emotional betrayal. - Survivors: Suffer anxiety, skepticism, and lower morale. - Organization: Research by Cascio ( $2002$ ) shows downsized firms between $1982$ and $2000$ did not necessarily improve financial success.