Organizational Behavior: Group Development and Team Effectiveness

Organizational Behavior

Nature and Types of Groups
  • Formal Groups:
    • Established by an organization to facilitate the achievement of organizational goals.
  • Informal Groups:
    • Neither formally structured nor organizationally determined.
    • Emerge naturally in response to the interests of group members.
  • Definition of Groups:
    • Defined as two or more people interacting interdependently to achieve a common goal.
  • Types of Teams and Groups:
    • Management Teams:
    • Groups of individuals who share management responsibilities and make high-level decisions.
    • Work Teams:
    • Focuses on producing specific products or services.
    • Self-managed Work Teams:
      • Typically consist of 10 to 15 people who take on responsibilities of their former supervisors.
    • Cross-functional Teams:
    • Composed of people from different areas within the same hierarchical level to accomplish a task (e.g., task forces, committees).
    • Virtual Teams:
    • Use computer technology to connect physically dispersed members, overcoming time and space constraints.
    • Characteristics of virtual teams include the absence of paraverbal and nonverbal cues, and a limited social context.
Stages of Group Development
  1. Forming Stage:
    • Characterized by uncertainty as group members get to know each other.
  2. Storming Stage:
    • Characterized by intragroup conflict as members start to assert their opinions and roles.
  3. Norming Stage:
    • Characterized by the development of close relationships and increased cohesiveness among group members.
  4. Performing Stage:
    • The group is fully functional and effectively working towards its goals.
  5. Adjourning Stage:
    • The final stage for temporary groups, focused on wrapping up activities and reflecting rather than purely on performance.
Cohesiveness and Group Effectiveness
  • Cohesiveness:
    • Defined as the degree to which group members are attracted to each other and motivated to stay together.
  • Increasing Group Cohesiveness:
    1. Make the group smaller.
    2. Encourage agreement with group goals.
    3. Increase time members spend together.
    4. Increase the status of the group and difficulty of admission.
    5. Stimulate competition with other groups.
    6. Give rewards to the group rather than individuals.
    7. Physically isolate the group.
Relationship Between Group Cohesiveness, Performance Norms, and Productivity
  • Higher cohesiveness can lead to higher performance norms which can result in varying levels of productivity based on the context:
    • High cohesiveness & high performance norms result in high productivity.
    • Low cohesiveness & low performance norms result in low productivity.
    • Moderate levels of cohesiveness can lead to moderate or low productivity.
Team Effectiveness Model
  • Work Design Factors:
    • Autonomy, Skill variety, Task identity, Task significance.
  • Composition Factors:
    • Ability, Personality, Roles and diversity, Size, Flexibility, Teamwork preference.
  • Context Factors:
    • Adequate resources, Leadership, Climate of trust, Performance evaluation, and rewards.
  • Process Factors:
    • Common purpose, Specific goals, Team efficacy, Conflict management, Addressing social loafing.