Foundations of Group

Behavior
Definition
A group is defined as a collection of individuals/members who
accept a common task, become interdependent in their
performance and interact with one another to promote its
accomplishment. The members:

• Are motivated to participate in the activities of the group

• View the group as a unified entity of interacting people

• Contribute differing amounts of their time and energy to group

activities

• Reach an agreement about a problem by interacting with the

other members of the group through different forms of interaction
Nature of Groups
• Normative View: It describes how a group is to be
organized and how its activities are to be carried out

• Techniques view: It consists of implementation of

techniques namely role plays, brainstorming,
sensitivity training, team building, transactional
analysis, Johari Window and self managed teams

• Internal view: It discusses how groups are formed,

their structure, processes and their functioning
Johari Window
Theories of Group formation
• Propinquity Theory: People associate with one another and
tend to form a group due to geographical proximity (located
close to one another)
Ex- Employees working in the same office

• Balance Theory: People who have similar attitudes towards

certain objects and goals tend to be attracted to each other and
form a group
Ex- Employees having same religion or lifestyle or position

• Exchange theory: Affiliation or association takes place when

the rewards are greater than the costs incurred
Ex- Employee forming a group with HOD
Formal Groups
Formal Groups are designated work-groups defined by the
organization’s structure to carry out specific tasks. The forms
are:

• Command Group: A group composed of employees who report

to a common manager/supervisor
Ex- Director of Audits and his/her five inspectors

• Task Group: A group consisting of employees working together

to carry out specific job tasks and may be dissolved once the
task is over
Ex- A group of dean, registrar, director and student mentor form a
disciplinary group to deal with a student’s case who is accused
of in-disciplined behavior in the campus/hostel
Dynamics of Formal Groups
• Examples of Formal work groups are committees, commissions,
boards, teams and task forces

• Committees may perform various functions- a service, advisory or

administrative functions

• Committees facilitates the integration of the ideas and opinions of its

members and help reduce conflicts between departments

• It brings together people with varied experience, knowledge and

abilities to solve organizational problems

• Since committees take a long time to arrive at a consensus, using them

for decision-making can be time consuming and costly
Informal Groups

• Informal group is neither formally structured nor organizationally

determined and appears in response to the need for social contract

• These groups are formed by the employees themselves because of

common interests and need for companionship, recreation and growth.
The forms are:

 Friendship Groups: They are formed because of cordial relationships

that the members share with one another based on similarity in age,
ethnic heritage or views
Ex- Employees having similar political views may form a group

 Interest Groups: These groups consists of employees working together

to attain a specific objective with which each is concerned
Ex- Employees forming a united body to seek improved working
conditions
Dynamics of Informal Groups-Norms
• Norms define how the members should behave in a particular
situation. They:
 Aid in the survival of the group an help it accomplish its
objectives

 Make the behavior of members more predictable

 Help the group avoid embarrassing situations

 Represent a group’s most important values

Dynamics of Informal Groups-Roles
• Role is defined as a set of expected behavior patterns
attributed to someone occupying a given position in a social
unit. The team roles are:
 Shaper
 Plant
 Monitor-evaluator
 Implementer
 Team worker
 Coordinator
 Completer-Finisher
 Resource investigator
 Specialist
Dynamics of Informal Groups-Difficulties and
Problems

• Prevent Organizational Change

• Role conflict
• Increased scope for rumors
• Pressure to confirm group norms
• Problems arising out of conflict between the formal and
informal status systems
• Employee’s participation of distributive justice
• Problems of status incongruity
Stages of Group Development

• Forming: Initial meeting together

• Storming: Resolving differences

• Norming: Agreeing purpose and conduct

• Performing: Achieving the purpose

• Adjourning/Mourning: Completion, ending or evolution

Activity
• Objective: To form an amoeba using the class students
Stages in Group Development
Group Roles
• Role refers to the set of behavior patterns which an individual
occupying a certain position in society is expected to display
• Role Identity: When a certain situation requires the individual
to make major changes in his/her behavior and attitude, the
individual does so in order to fit the role
• Role Perception: It involves understanding how one is
supposed to behave in a particular role by observing the
behavior of another individual in the same role
• Role Expectations: It refers to how an individual is expected to
behave in a given situation
• Role Conflict: An individual who is required to perform
diverse roles in life may find that compliance with one hinders
his compliance with another role
Group Norms
• Norms determine how the members should or should not
behave in certain circumstances
• Performance Norms: Every member of a group is provided
with explicit cues as to how hard they should work, level of
output they should deliver, how they should get the job done
and how they should communicate
• Appearance Norms: How to dress appropriately to work, how
to appear loyal to the organization and one’s own group and
how to appear busy
• Informal Norms: Such norms regulate social arrangements
• Resource Allocation Norms: They regulate assignment of
overtime work, assignment of projects and allocation of new
tools and equipments
Group Status, Size, Composition, Diversity and Leadership

• Status: It is a social position or rank given to groups or group

members by others. Example: Best Executive , Most efficient
employee, etc
• Size: Small size groups are faster at completing tasks than
large ones, while large groups are good at obtaining diverse
opinions from its members
• Composition: Individuals with dissimilar skill-sets and
knowledge would have divers abilities and hence would
perform well
• Diversity: It is defined as the extent to which members of a
group are similar to or different from one another
• Leadership: Significant impact of the group leader on the
group members makes them imitate his/her behavior for the
success of the group
Group Cohesiveness
• Cohesiveness is defined as the average resultant force(attraction and motivation)
acting on the members of a group to stay in the group

• Induction refers to the influence of group members on productivity

• Stanley Schachter carried out a study to determine the effect of group cohesiveness
and induction on productivity

• The four experimental groups that were created are

 Highly cohesive groups with positive induction
 Groups with low cohesiveness and positive induction
 Highly cohesive groups with negative induction
 Groups with low cohesiveness and negative induction

• The study found that highly cohesive groups could exert either a positive or negative
influence on performance

• Less cohesive groups were not so influential

Group Cohesiveness Matrix
Groupthink and Groupshift

• Groupthink: It is a phenomenon in which the norm

for consensus overrides the realistic appraisal of
alternative courses of action

• Groupshift: It is a change in decision risk between the

group’s decision and the individual decision that
members within the group would make; can be either
towards conservation or greater risk
Group Decision-Making Techniques
• Brainstorming: It is an idea generation process that
specifically encourages any and all alternatives, while
withholding any criticism of those alternatives

• Nominal Group Technique: It is a technique in which

individual members meet face to face to pool their judgments
in a systematic but independent fashion

• Electronic meeting: It is a meeting in which members interact

on computers, allowing for anonymity of comments and
aggregation of views
Understanding Work Teams
Definition

A work team is a collection of people whose individual efforts

result in a level of performance which is greater than the sum
of their individual contributions. It results into
• Improved organizational performance

• Employee Benefits

• Reduced Costs

• Organizational Enhancement
Types of Work Teams
• Problem-solving Team: It consists of around 5 to 12 employees from
the same department who meet for a specific number of hours per
week to discuss various ways of improving quality, efficiency and the
work environment. Example: Quality circle

• Self-Managed Work Team: Self-managed autonomous work team

consists of around 10 to 15 employees who are assigned the
responsibilities like planning and designing work schedules, making
operating decisions and handling various work-related problems

• Cross-Functional Team: It consists of employees from the same

hierarchical level, but from different functional areas of the
organization to achieve a specific objective

• Virtual Team: A team that uses computer technology to tie together

physically dispersed members in order to achieve a common goal
Types of Work Teams
Creating Effective Teams
Team Effectiveness Model-Context

• Adequate resources: Timely information, proper equipment,

adequate staffing, encouragement and administrative assistance

• Leadership and structure: Delegation of responsibility with

facilitation

• Climate of trust: Interpersonal cooperation and trust

• Performance evaluation and reward systems: Group based

appraisals, profit sharing, gain-sharing, small group incentives,
etc
Team Effectiveness Model-Composition
• Abilities of members: Knowledge, skills and abilities of members

• Personality of members: Conscientiousness, Openness to experience and

Agreeableness

• Allocation of roles: Creator, Promoter, Assessor, Organizer, Producer, Controller,

Maintainer, Advisor and Linker

• Diversity of Members: The degree to which members of a work unit share a

common demographic attribute such as age, gender, race, educational level or length
of service in an organization and the impact of this attribute on turnover is known as
Organizational Demography

• Size: Five to nine members

• Member preferences: Abilities, personalities and skills

Key Roles of Teams
Team Effectiveness Model-Process

• Common Plan and Purpose: Analyzing team’s mission, developing

goals and creating strategies

• Specific goals: Specific, measurable and realistic performance goals

• Team efficacy: Confidence and belief of success in teams

• Mental Models: Knowledge and beliefs about how the work gets done
by team

• Conflict levels: Relationship conflicts and Task conflicts

• Social Loafing: When individuals work collectively or as a group, they

tend to expend less effort than what they would have put in individually
Turning Individuals into Team Players

• Providing a supportive environment

• Relevant skills and role clarity

• Focus on super-ordinate goals

• Team Rewards

• Selection

• Training

• Rewards

• Providing Diversity Training