Ch09

Organizational
Behavior, 9/E
Schermerhorn, Hunt, and
Osborn
Prepared by
Michael K. McCuddy
Valparaiso University

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Chapter 9 Study Questions

 What is the nature of groups in
organizations?
 What are the stages of group development?
 What are the foundations of group
performance?
 How do groups make decisions?

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 9
2

Study Question 1: What is the nature
of groups in organizations?
 A group is a collection of two or more
people who work with one another
regularly to achieve common goals.
 In a true group, members are mutually
dependent on one another and interact with
one another.
 Hot groups thrive in conditions of crisis
and competition.

3

 Effective groups achieve high levels of:
– Task performance.
• Members attain performance goals regarding quantity,
quality, and timeliness of work results.
– Members satisfaction.
• Members believe that their participation and experiences are
positive and meet important personal needs.
– Team viability.
• Members are sufficiently satisfied to continue working
together on an ongoing basis.

4

 How groups help organizations
– Groups are good for people.
– Groups can improve creativity.
– Groups can make better decisions.
– Groups can increase commitments to action.
– Groups help control their members.
– Groups help offset large organization size.

5

 Situations in which groups are superior to
individuals.
– When there is no clear expert in a particular
problem or task.
– When problem solving can be handled by a
division of labor and the sharing of
information.
– When creativity and innovation are needed.

6

 Potential benefits for group members.
– People learn from each other and share job skills and
knowledge.
– Groups are important sources of need satisfaction for
their members.
– Members can provide emotional support for each
other in times of crisis or pressure.
– Members’ contributions can help them experience
self-esteem and personal involvement.

7

 Social loafing.
– The tendency of people to work less hard in a
group than they would individually.
– Reasons for social loafing.
• Individual contributions are less noticeable in the
group context.
• Some individuals prefer to see others carry the
workload.

8

 Ways of preventing social loafing.
– Define member roles and tasks to maximize
individual interests.
– Raise accountability by identifying
individuals’ performance contributions to the
group.
– Link individual rewards to performance
contributions to the group.

9

 Social facilitation.
– The tendency for a person’s behavior to be
influenced by the presence of others.
– Positively affects performance when a person
is proficient on the task.
– Negatively affects task performance when the
task is not well-learned.

10

 Formal groups.
– Officially designated to serve a specific
organizational purpose.
– The head of a formal group is responsible for
the group’s performance and serves a
“linking-pin” role.
– May be permanent or temporary.
• Permanent work groups are command
groups.
• Temporary work groups are task groups.
11

 Types of formal groups.
– Cross-functional teams or task forces.
• Engage in special problem-solving efforts
drawing on input of the functional areas.
– Project teams.
• Formed to complete a specific task with a
well-defined end point.
– Virtual group.
• Members work together via computers.

12


 Informal groups.
– Emerge without being officially designated by
the organization.
– Types of informal groups.
• Friendship groups.

• Interest groups.

13

 Effects of informal groups.
– Can help people get their jobs done.
– Can speed up workflow by supplementing
formal lines of authority.
– Can satisfy needs that are thwarted or unmet
by the formal group.
– Can provide members with social satisfaction,
security, and a sense of belonging.
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Study Question 2: What are the
stages of group development?

15

 Forming stage.
– Initial entry of members to a group.
– Member challenges.
• Getting to know each other.
• Discovering what is considered acceptable
behavior.
• Determining the group’s real task.
• Defining group rules.

16

 Storming stage.
– A period of high emotionality and tension
among group members.
• Hostility and infighting.
• Formation of coalitions and cliques.
• Clarification of members’ expectations.
• Giving attention to obstacles to group goals.
• Understanding one another’s interpersonal styles.
• Finding ways to accomplish group goals while
satisfying individual needs.
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 Norming stage.
– The point at which the group really begins to
come together as a coordinated unit.
• Holding group together by maintaining a positive
balance.
• Letting the desire for group harmony obscure
group problems.
• Being mistaken about reaching ultimate maturity .

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 Performing stage.
– Marks the emergence of a mature, organized,
and well-functioning group.
• Meeting complex tasks and conflicts in creative
ways.
• Being motivated by group goals and achieving
satisfaction.
• Continuing to improve relationships and
performance.
• Adapting to changing opportunities and demands.

19


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 Adjourning stage.

– A well-integrated group is:
• Able to disband when its work is finished.

• Willing to work together in the future.

– Particularly important for temporary groups.

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foundations of group performance?

22


 Tasks.
– Technical demands of a task.
• Routineness, difficulty, and information
requirements.
– Tasks that are complex in technical demands
require unique solutions and more information
processing.

23


 Tasks (cont.).
– Social demands of a task.
• Relations, ego involvement, and controversies over
ends and means.
– Tasks that are complex in social demands
involve difficulties in reaching agreement on
goals or methods for accomplishing them.

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 Goals, rewards, and resources.
– Long-term performance relies on:
• Appropriate goals.
• Well-designed reward systems.
• Adequate resources.

– A group’s performance can suffer when:
• Goals are unclear, unchallenging, or arbitrarily imposed.
• Goals are focused too much on individuals.
• Adequate budgets, facilities, good work methods and
procedures, and the best technologies are not available.

25


 Technology.
– Provides the means to get work accomplished.

– The right technology must be available for the
task at hand.
– Workflow technology can affect the way
group members interact.

26

 Membership characteristics.
– A group must have the right skills and
competencies available for task performance
and problem solving.
• Homogeneous groups may not perform well if they
lack the requisite experiences, skills, and
competencies.
• Heterogeneous groups may perform well if they
effectively utilize a variety of experiences, skills,
and competencies.

27


 Membership characteristics (cont.).
– Diversity-consensus dilemma.
• Increasing diversity among group members makes
it harder for group members to work together, even
though the diversity itself expands the skills and
perspectives available for problem solving.

28

– FIRO-B theory.
• Identifies individual differences in how people
relate to one another in groups.
• Based on needs to express and receive feelings of
inclusion, control, and affection.
• Groups whose members have compatible
characteristics are likely to be more effective.
• Groups whose members have incompatible
characteristics are likely to be less effective.

29

– Status.
• A person’s relative rank, prestige, or standing in a
group.
– Status congruence.
• Occurs when a person’s position within the group
is equivalent in status to positions held outside the
group.
• When status incongruence is present, problems
will likely occur.

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 Group size.
– Can make a difference in a group’s
effectiveness.
– As group size increases, performance and
member satisfaction increase up to a point.
– As a group size continues to grow,
communication and coordination problems
often set in, and performance and satisfaction
may decline.
– Problem-solving groups should have 5 to 7
members.
31

 Group dynamics concern the forces
operating within groups that affect the way
members relate to and work with one
another.
 From a systems perspective, the
throughputs for a group or team are group
dynamics.
32


 What goes on within groups.
– Work group behaviors.
• Required behaviors — those that are formally
defined and expected by the organization.
• Emergent behaviors — those that group members
display in addition to what the organization asks of
them.

33

 What goes on within groups.
– Member relationships.
• Activities — the things people do or the actions
they take.
• Interactions — interpersonal communications and
contacts.
• Sentiments — the feelings, attitudes, beliefs, or
values held by group members.

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 What goes on between groups.
– Intergroup dynamics.
• The dynamics that take place between two or more
groups.
– Ways to achieve positive intergroup dynamics.
• Refocusing members on a common enemy or goal.
• Negotiating directly.
• Training members to work more cooperatively.
• Refocusing rewards on contributions to the total
organization and how much groups help each
other.
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Study Question 3: What are the foundations of
group performance?

36

Study Question 4: How do groups
make decisions?
 How groups make decisions.
– Decision by lack of response.
• One idea after another is suggested without any discussion-
taking place; when the group finally accepts the idea, all
others have been bypassed and discarded by simple lack of
response rather than by critical evaluation.
– Decision by authority rule.
• The chairperson, manager, or leader makes a decision for the
group.
– Decision by minority rule.
• Two or three people are able to dominate or “railroad” the
group into making a decision to which they agree.

37

make decisions?
 How groups make decisions (cont.).
– Decision by majority rule.
• Formal voting may take place, or members may be polled to
find the majority viewpoint.
– Decision by consensus.
• Discussion leads to one alternative being favored by most
members and the other members agree to support it.
– Decision by unanimity.
• All group members agree totally on the course of action to be
taken.

38

make decisions?
 Potential advantages of group decision
making.
– More knowledge and expertise is applied to
solve the problem.
– A greater number of alternatives are examined.
– The final decision is better understood and
accepted by all group members.
– More commitment among all group members
to make the final decision work.

39

make decisions?
 Potential disadvantages of group decision
making.
– Individuals may feel compelled to conform to
the apparent wishes of the group.
– The group’s decision may be dominated by
one individual or a small coalition.
– Group decisions usually take longer to make.

40

make decisions?
 Ways to avoid groupthink.
– Assign the role of critical evaluator to each
group member.
– Have the leader avoid seeming partial to one
course of action.
– Create subgroups that each work on the same
problem.
– Have group members discuss issues with
outsiders and report back.
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make decisions?
 Ways to avoid groupthink (cont.).
– Invite outside experts to observe and react to
group processes.
– Assign someone to be a “devil’s advocate” at
each meeting.
– Write alternative scenarios for the intentions
of competing groups.
– Hold “second-chance” meetings after
consensus is apparently achieved.
42

make decisions?
 How to improve group decisions.
– Brainstorming.
• Group members actively generate as many ideas
and alternatives as possible, and they do so
relatively quickly and without inhibitions.
– Nominal group technique.
• Puts people in small groups of six to seven
members and asks everyone to respond
individually and in writing to a “nominal”
question.
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make decisions?
 How to improve group decisions (cont.).
– Delphi technique.
• Involves generating decision-making alternatives
through a series of survey questionnaires.
– Computer-mediated decision making.
• Group decision making takes place across great
distances with the aid of group decision support
systems.

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COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2005 © John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
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45

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