FOUNDATIONS OF GROUP BEHAVIOUR

• Group: means there are;

1. Two or more individuals,
2. Interacting and interdependent,
3. Come together to achieve particular objectives.
FORMAL GROUP INFORMAL GROUP
A designated work group defined Neither formally structured nor
by an organization’s structure, organizationally determined.
with designated work
assignments establishing tasks.

Directed towards organizational Increase social contact. Promote

goals. friendships as well cooperation at
work.

E.g.: The 6 members of an airline E.g.: Three employees from

flight crew are a formal group. different departments who
regularly have lunch or coffee
together are an informal group.
Types of group
Formal groups
1. Command group (A group composed of
Individuals who report directly to a given manager. e.g.: A school principal and her 18
teachers).
2. Task group (A group of people working together to complete a job task. Manufacturing
company have to do different task to produce a product such as; purchase department,
processing department sales department etc.

Informal group
1. Interest group (People working together to attain a specific objective with which each is
concerned.
 2. Friendship group (: People brought together because they share one or more
common characteristics. E.g.: Support for regional cricket teams during IPL matches.

– STAGES OF GROUP DEVELOPMENT

5 STAGE MODEL:
1. Forming • 2. Storming • 3. Norming • 4. Performing • 5. Adjourning
1. Forming stage: The first stage in group development, relating with much
uncertainty about the group’s purpose, structure and leadership.
At the beginning, anxiety is
high, people are uncertain
and they are overly polite
and pleasant. This stage can
last a while as people get to
know each other and the
team’s success at this stage
depends on their familiarity
with each other’s work
styles, their experience with
prior teams and clarity of
assigned tasks.
2. Storming:
Characterized by Intragroup conflict.
Members accept the existence of the group but resist the constraints it
imposes on individuality. Members try to find out their role and their
contribution to the goal.
There is conflict over who will control the group.
Hierarchy of leadership becomes clear.
3. Norming :
Close relationships develop and the group demonstrates cohesiveness.
Strong sense of group identity and camaraderie.
Group structure solidifies. At this point, performance increase as the team
begins to cooperate and focus on the goals.
4. Performing:
Structure at this point is fully functional and accepted.
At this point, relationships are formed and there is a clear and stable
structure. The team is mature, organized and has a sense of consensus and
cooperation. Problems and conflict, of course, do still arise, but they are dealt
with effectively. The prime focus of the team is on problem solving and
meeting goals; effectiveness is at its peak.
5. Adjourning:
For temporary groups, this is a preparation for disbanding. This is the point
where the project comes to an end and the team separates and goes their
separate ways.
Wrapping up activities is the focus rather than high task performance. Some
group members are upbeat, others may be depressed.

FOUNDATIONS OF GROUP BEHAVIOUR – GROUP PROPERTIES

Group Properties:
1. Roles. (Various part played by group members
2. Norms (rules & expectations within group
3. Status (rank given to group by other
4. Size
5. Cohesiveness (member sense of responsibility
- GROUP PROPERTIES
1. Roles: A set of expected behaviour patterns attributed to someone
occupying a given position in a social unit.
Diverse roles are played by group members.
Role perception
Role expectations
Psychological contract
Role conflict
- GROUP PROPERTIES
Role perception: An individual’s view of how he or she is supposed to act in a
given situation.
Friends, books, movies, TV.
Role expectations: The way others believe you should act in a given context.
E.g. a Supreme Court judge is viewed as having propriety and dignity and a
football coach is seen as aggressive, dynamic, and inspiring to his players.
Psychological contract : An unwritten agreement that sets out mutual
expectation what management expects from an employee and vice versa.e.g.
Employees expect to Management to treat justly, provide acceptable
working conditions, Employees are expected to respond by following
directions, and showing loyalty to the organization. Etc.
Role conflict : When compliance with one role requirement may make it
more difficult to comply with another, the result is role conflict. Eg.: Work vs
Family
 - GROUP PROPERTIES
2. Norms: Acceptable standards of behaviour within a group that are shared
by the group’s members. Norm’s generally informal rules that guide the
behaviour of group members. Norm differ among group, communities and
societies.
1. Performance norms: How hard members should work, what the level of
output should be, how to get the job done, what level of tardiness is
appropriate.
2. Appearance norms : Dress codes, when to look busy.
3. Social arrangement norms : Whom to have lunch with, whether to form
friendships with co workers.
4. Resource allocation norms : Assignment of difficult jobs, distribution of
resources like pay or equipment.

3. Status : A socially defined position or rank given to groups or group

members by others.
Status characteristics theory :
3 sources
1. The power a person wields over others.
Eg. control over a group’s resources.
2. A person’s ability to contribute to a group’s goals.
Eg. Star sportspersons, crack lawyers in law firms, top notch hospital
administrators.
3. An individual’s personal characteristics.
Eg. Money, intelligence, friendly personality.
FOUNDATIONS OF GROUP
BEHAVIOUR
- GROUP PROPERTIES
4. Size
Smaller groups are faster at completing tasks than larger ones.
Individuals perform better in smaller groups than in larger ones.
In problem solving, larger groups consistently get better marks than their
smaller counterparts.
If the goal is fact finding – larger groups more effective.
Smaller groups –doing something productive with that input.
- GROUP PROPERTIES
Social loafing : The tendency for individuals to expend less effort when
working collectively than when working individually.
Eg: German psychologist Max Ringelmann’s rope-pulling experiment. Late
1920s.
FOUNDATIONS OF GROUP
BEHAVIOUR
1 person – 63 kgs of force.
Group of 3 – per person force dropped to 53 kgs.
Group of 8 – fell further to 31 kgs!!!
Replications of this experiment have given similar results.
Cause :
Belief that others in the group are not carrying their fare share.
Since no clear relationship between an individual’s input and the group’s
output, individuals may be tempted to become free riders.
As managers, we must be able to identify and quantify individual efforts.
- GROUP PROPERTIES
Prevent Social Loafing :
Set group goals.
FOUNDATIONS OF GROUP
BEHAVIOUR
Increase intergroup competition.
Engage in peer evaluation.
Select highly motivated people who prefer working in groups.
Base group rewards on each member’s unique contribution.
- GROUP PROPERTIES
5. Cohesiveness : The degree to which group members are attracted to each
other and are motivated to stay in the group.
Affected by:
1. Time spent together by the group members.
2. Size – the smaller, the more cohesive.
3. External threats.
FOUNDATIONS OF GROUP
BEHAVIOUR
Relationship between cohesiveness and productivity depends on the group’s
performance related norms. (Refer Diagram)
FOUNDATIONS OF GROUP BEHAVIOUR –
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GROUP COHESIVENESS, PERFORMANCE
NORMS AND PRODUCTIVITY

- GROUP PROPERTIES
How to increase group cohesiveness?
1. Make the group smaller.
2. Encourage agreement with group’s goals.
3. Increase the time members spend together.
4. Increase the group’s status and the perceived difficulty for attaining
membership.
5. Stimulate competition with other groups.
6. Reward the group rather than individual members.
7. Physically isolate the group.
6. Diversity the degree to which members of the group are similar to, or
different from, one another. diversity influences group performance. Some
looks at cultural diversity and some at racial, gender, and other differences.
Diversity appears to increase group conflict

–GROUP DECISION MAKING

Group decision making techniques:
1. Interacting groups
2. Brainstorming
3. Nominal group technique
4. Electronic meeting.
1. Interacting groups: Typical groups in which members interact with each
other face to face rely on verbal and non-verbal communication.. Most of the
decision making happens in this meeting.
People interact face to face. Interacting group are affected by group thinking,
pressure to conform of opinion etc.
2. Brainstorming: An idea-generation process that specifically encourages
any and all alternatives while withholding any criticism of those alternatives.
Brainstorming indeed generate ideas. Group leader states the problem in a
clear manner so that all participants can understand.
6-12 people are sit for generating ideas as many alternatives as they can
generate in a given length of time. No criticism is allowed even if the idea is
bizarre.
All alternatives are recorded for later discussion and analysis.

Individuals working alone generate more ideas than a group in a

brainstorming session because of Production blocking: Many are talking at
once, which blocks the thought process and impedes the sharing of ideas.
–GROUP DECISION MAKING
3. Nominal group technique:
A group decision-making method in which individual members meet face to
face to pool their judgments in a systematic but independent way.
Restricts discussion or interpersonal communication during the decision-
making process. After presenting a problem, the group takes the following
steps:
1. Before any discussion takes place, each independently writes down ideas
on the problem.
2. Each member presents 1 idea to the group. No discussion takes place until
all ideas have been presented and recorded.
3. The group discusses the ideas for clarity and evaluates them.
4. Each group member silently and independently rank orders the ideas. The
idea with the highest aggregate ranking determines the final decision.
4. Electronic meeting: A meeting in which members interact on computers,
allowing for anonymity of comments and aggregation of votes.
Up to 50 people sit around a table on networked laptops. Issues are
presented to them, and they type their anonymous responses into their
computers.
Individual comments as well as the aggregate votes are displayed on a
projection screen.
This method decreased group effectiveness, more time to complete tasks,
reduced member satisfaction.

Difference between work groups and work teams

Point of work groups work teams

differentiation
Goal To share information and The individual efforts result in
make decisions to help a collective performance.
each member perform.
Leadership Group may have Team have shared leadership.
designated leaders.
Synergy There is no positive Generates positive synergy
synergy to create greater through coordinated effort to
performance. increase performance.
Accountability Individually accountableTeams are mutually as well as
for performance. individually accountable for
performance.
Skill Random and varied skills Complementary skills
Trust and Groups may not share Teams share the culture of
collaboration similar degree of Trust and Trust and collaboration.
collaboration
Example Task group, friend group, Problem solving team, football
study group. team, cricket team etc.
Types of teams
Four most common types of teams in an organization: problem-solving
teams, self- managed work teams, cross-functional teams, and virtual teams

Problem-Solving Teams composed of 5 to 12 hourly employees from the

same department who met for a few hours each week to discuss about
problem, improving quality, efficiency, and the work environment.
These problem-solving teams rarely have the authority to implement any of
their suggestions.
Self-Managed Work Teams
Improved version of Problem-solving teams. Some organizations create
teams to solve problems as well as implement solutions and take
responsibility for outcomes.
These teams are groups of employees (typically 10 to 15) who perform
highly related or interdependent jobs and take on many of the
responsibilities of their former supervisors.
Typically, these tasks are including planning and scheduling work, assigning
tasks to members, making operating decisions, taking action on problems,
and working with suppliers and customers as well as self-managed work
teams even select their own members and evaluate each other’s
performance. So Supervisory positions are decreased and even eliminated.
During conflicts, members stop cooperating which leads to lower group
performance.
Moreover, these teams report higher levels of job satisfaction than other
individuals that increase higher turnover rates.
Cross-functional teams
Employees who come, from the same hierarchical level but from different
work areas, together to accomplish a task.
To solve the problem organization create task force. Cross-functional teams
are an effective to exchange information, develop new ideas, solve
problems, and coordinate complex projects.
It takes time to build trust and teamwork, because people come from
different backgrounds with different experiences and perspectives.
Virtual Teams
The teams that use computer technology to unite physically dispersed
members and achieve a common goal.
Members collaborate online—using communication links such as wide-area
networks, videoconferencing, or e-mail to communicate and share
information and make decision making and complete task.
For virtual teams to be effective, management should ensure that (1) trust is
established among members (2) team progress is monitored closely and (3)
the efforts of the team are publicized throughout the organization.
Team effectiveness
Means Objective measures of the team’s productivity, managers’ ratings of
the team’s performance, and Aggregate measures of member satisfaction.
The key components of effective
teams into three general categories;
1.contextual 2.composition
3.process .
1. Contextual effectiveness:
Adequate Resources: A scarcity of
resources directly reduces the ability
of a team to perform its job
effectively and achieve its goals.to
effective performance need timely
information, proper equipment, adequate staffing, encouragement, and
administrative assistance
Leadership and Structure; leaders need to empower teams by delegating
responsibility, specifying task and organizing structure.
Climate of Trust; Members of effective teams trust each other. They also
exhibit trust in their leaders. Interpersonal trust among team members
facilitates cooperation, reduces the need to monitor each other’s’ behavior,
and bonds member.
Performance Evaluation and Reward Systems; Individual performance
evaluations and incentives may increase high-performance.
2. Team Composition
The team composition includes —the ability and personality of team
members, allocation of roles and diversity, size of the team, and members’
preference for teamwork.
The ability and personality of team members; team’s performance depends
on the knowledge, skills, and abilities of its individual members and the
ability of the team’s leader. Personality significantly influences individual
employee behavior. The Big Five personality model are also relevant to team
effectiveness.
Allocation of roles and diversity; assigning roles appropriately to the
members as, supervisors, advisor, maintainer, controller and producer etc.
diversifying team members as age, sex, race, educational level etc. diversity
affect team performance .
Size of the team; keeping teams small is a key to improving group
effectiveness. The most effective teams have five to nine members. When
teams have excess members, cohesiveness and mutual accountability
decline, social loafing increases, and more people communicate less.
Members’ preference for teamwork; when selecting team members,
managers should consider individual preferences along with abilities,
personalities, and skills. High-performing teams are likely to be composed of
people who prefer working as part of a group.

3. Team Processes
Including member commitment to a common purpose, establishment of
specific team goals, team efficacy, a managed level of conflict, and minimized
social loafing.
Common Plan and Purpose; Effective teams begin by analyzing the team’s
mission, developing goals to achieve that mission, and creating strategies for
achieving the goal.
Specific Goals; Successful teams translate their common purpose into
specific, measurable, and realistic performance goals. Specific goals facilitate
clear communication and help to get results.
Team Efficacy; Effective teams have confidence in themselves; they believe
they can succeed.
Conflict level; when teams are performing no routine activities,
disagreements about task content (called task conflicts ) stimulate
discussion, promote critical assessment of problems and options, and can
lead to better team decision.
Social Loafing; Effective teams undermine this tendency by making members
individually and jointly accountable for the team’s purpose, goals, and
approach.
Turn individuals into team players
Selecting: Hiring Team Players
When hiring team members, be sure candidates can fulfill their team roles as
well as technical requirements. Diversity in age and education as personal
traits.

Training: Creating Team Players

Training allow employees to experience the satisfaction teamwork.
Workshops help employees improve their problem-solving, communication,
negotiation, conflict-management, and coaching skill.
Rewarding: Providing Incentives to Be a Good Team Player
An organization’s reward system encourage cooperative efforts rather than
competitive ones.
Add basic individual-incentive system an annual bonus based on achievement
of team goals.