Chapter 10

Groups and Intergroup Processes

 Learning Goals
• Distinguish between formal and informal
groups
• Define the basic conceptual tools for
understanding groups
• Describe how and why cohesive groups form in
organizations
• Discuss the factors that affect group
effectiveness
• Understand the emergence and use of self-
managing teams in organizations
 Chapter Overview
• Introduction
• Formal and Informal Groups
• Basic Concepts for Understanding Groups in
Organizations
• Functions of Groups in Organizations
• A Model of Cohesive Group Formation
• Stages of Group Development
• Effects of Workforce Diversity
 Chapter Overview (Cont.)
• Social Structure of Groups
• Factors That Affect Group Effectiveness
• Self-Managing Teams
• Dysfunctional Consequences of Groups
• Intergroup Processes in Organizations
• International Aspects of Groups in
Organizations
• Ethical Issues About Groups in Organizations
 Introduction
• A collection of people trying to do a task or
reach a goal
• Features
– Repeated social interaction
– Mutual dependence to do a task or reach a goal
• Found throughout an organization
• Have both good and bad effects
• Can powerfully affect people’s behavior
 Formal and
Informal Groups
• Formal groups
– Functional groups
• Clusters of people formed by an organization’s
design
• Often permanent
• Examples: divisions, departments, work units
– Task groups
• Carry out specific tasks
• Often temporary
• Examples: process action teams, concurrent
engineering teams, task forces
 Formal and
Informal Groups (Cont.)
• Informal groups
– Found within and across formal groups
– Social interaction patterns affect their formation
– Form along interest lines, task requirements,
friendship patterns, and the like
– A “shadow organization”
 Basic Concepts for
Understanding Groups
in Organizations
Cohesiveness Norms

Understanding
groups

Required
Conformity and emergent
behavior
 Basic Concepts for
Understanding Groups
in Organizations (Cont.)
• Cohesiveness
– Members are attracted to the group’s task and
it’s members
– Members of a cohesive group like to be
together and care about each other
– Cohesive groups tend to perform better than
noncohesive groups especially if they are small
 Basic Concepts for
Understanding Groups
in Organizations (Cont.)
• Norms
– Rules of behavior for a group’s members
– Found in cohesive groups
– Typically unwritten rules
– Performance levels, social relationships,
relationships within the organization
– New members learn the group’s norms during
early stages of socialization
 Basic Concepts for
Understanding Groups
in Organizations (Cont.)
• Conformity to group norms
– Compliance: person goes along with the
norms but does not accept them
– Personal acceptance: internalized by the
person
• Person’s beliefs and attitudes are congruent with the
norms
• Has more powerful effect on behavior than
compliance
 Basic Concepts for
Understanding Groups
in Organizations (Cont.)
• Required behavior
– What a person must do because of membership
in an organization
– Also part of a person’s role in the formal group
– Examples
• At work on time
• Performing job duties a certain way
• Interacting with specific people in another work unit
 Basic Concepts for
Understanding Groups
in Organizations (Cont.)
• Emergent behavior
– Grows from social interaction among group
members
– Often defined by a group’s norms
– Newcomer learns these behaviors over time
 Functions of Groups
in Organizations
• Socialization of organization members
• Source of rewards for members
• Support members while they work:
especially important in hazardous work
 Functions of Groups
in Organizations (Cont.)
• Cohesive group norms supportive of
management
– Interdependent tasks: cooperative behavior
helps task accomplishment
– Produce innovative work behavior
– Self-policing: behavioral control is more
immediate than controls used by managers
 A Model of Cohesive
Group Formation
• Use to understand how and why groups form
in organizations
• Applies to all types of groups
• Key parts of model
– Activities: job duties and responsibilities
– Interactions: social interaction between two or
more people
– Sentiments: attitudes, beliefs, and feelings
about the person or persons in the interaction
 A Model of Cohesive
Group Formation (Cont.)

Activities Interactions Sentiments

 A Model of Cohesive
Group Formation (Cont.)
• Factors affecting cohesive group formation
– Allow social interaction
• Proximity (closeness) of people
• No physical isolation
• Low noise level
• Required interaction
• Incomplete job descriptions
 A Model of Cohesive
Group Formation (Cont.)
• Factors affecting cohesive group formation
(cont.)
– Allow social interaction (cont.)
• Free time at work
• Not tied to work area
• Work requires little attention
• Low absenteeism and turnover
 A Model of Cohesive
Group Formation (Cont.)
• Factors affecting cohesive group formation
(cont.)
– Restrict social interaction
• Large distance between people
• Physical barriers
• High noise level
• Low required interaction
• Thorough job description
 A Model of Cohesive
Group Formation (Cont.)
• Factors affecting cohesive group formation
(cont.)
– Restrict social interaction (cont.)
• Little free time
• Tied to work area
• Work requires attention
• High absenteeism and turnover
 A Model of Cohesive
Group Formation (Cont.)
• Bases of attraction
– Attracted to each other to form a cohesive
group
– Similarities: attitudes, beliefs, gender, ethnic
background, age, social status, education
– Share common experiences
 A Model of Cohesive
Group Formation (Cont.)
• Bases of attraction (cont.)
– Membership can satisfy a person's desire for
social interaction
– Group is instrumental for reaching a goal

Join a college sorority or fraternity because of belief

that companies like to hire college graduates who have
had such involvement.
 A Model of Group Formation
Activities
Factors allowing Factors restricting
social interaction social interaction
Interactions
Bases of
attraction
Sentiments

Cohesive group

Group norms
 When Should Cohesive
Groups Form?
Cohesive groups should form when
Factors restricting
social interaction
Factors allowing are more than
social interaction
 When Should Cohesive
Groups Form? (Cont.)
Cohesive groups should not form when
Factors allowing
social interaction
are less than
Factors restricting
social interaction
 Stages of
Group Development
• Groups can develop in a series of stages
• Each stage emphasizes something different
• Early aspects focus on the group’s social
structure: norms, roles, social status, and
role relationships
• Stages have different implications for
member behavior and group performance
 Stages of
Group Development (Cont.)
• Not discrete and clearly identifiable states;
plateaus in the group's evolution
• Newly formed groups of strangers: likely
experience all stages of development
 Stages of
Group Development (Cont.)
• Group formation stage (forming)
– Learn about each other and task
– Define social and task boundaries
• Intragroup conflict stage (storming)
– Discuss social roles
– Emergence of leadership
 Stages of
Group Development (Cont.)
• Group cohesion stage (norming)
– Define roles and relationships among them
– Has an identifiable culture
– Conflict focuses on task
• Task orientation stage (performing)
– Members accept group norms
– Energy focuses on doing the task
 Stages of
Group Development (Cont.)
• Termination stage
– Disband
– Redefine the group's goals
• Stages repeat
– New members
– Redistribution of members
– Reorganization
– Organizational redesign
 Effects of
Workforce Diversity
• Workforce diversity: both positive and
negative effects on group development and
functioning
• Positive effects
– Diverse outlooks can potentially help create
more solutions to problems
– Find better ways of doing group’s work
 Effects of
Workforce Diversity (Cont.)
• Positive effects (cont.)
– Especially useful to organizations that use
teams to analyze work
– Successful management
• Knowledge of group dynamics
• Understand and accept differences
 Effects of
Workforce Diversity (Cont.)
• Negative effects
– Misinterpretation of group members' intentions
because of different ways of viewing the world
– Especially likely to happen when members hold
stereotypes about other members
– Communication difficulties if group members do
not have a common first language
– Distrust may exist because group members fear the
new and unknown
– High conflict potential
 Effects of
Workforce Diversity (Cont.)
• Other effects
– Takes longer to pass through the early stages of
group formation and become cohesive
– Introduces wide variation in bases of attraction
– Makes the process of becoming cohesive
longer, more complex, more difficult
– Although the empirical research is mixed,
results support the above statements
 Social Structure
of Groups
• Role
– Task roles: aspects of group’s task
– Maintenance roles: behavioral processes within
the group
– Individual roles: behavior that often focuses on
individual needs
• Status structure: relative position of roles
and relationships among roles
 Social Structure
of Groups (Cont.)
• Communication network
– Central role
– Peripheral role
– Connecting role
• Power and influence patterns
– Formal appointed group leader
– Informal leaders
 Factors That Affect
Group Effectiveness
• Group effectiveness
– Member satisfaction
– Reaching the goals of both group and
organization
• Physical environment
– Affects interaction
– Table layout
– Physical boundary defining group
– Group size and size of work area
 Factors That Affect
Group Effectiveness (Cont.)
• Member characteristics
– Compatibility of needs
– Compatibility of personality
– Decreased conflict

Caution: group tasks requiring variations in performance

call for differences in member characteristics
 Factors That Affect
Group Effectiveness (Cont.)
• Group characteristics
– Group goals: specific, clear
– Performance feedback, especially on difficult
tasks
– Interdependent groups should receive group not
individual rewards
 Factors That Affect
Group Effectiveness (Cont.)
• Group size effects
– Productivity lower in large groups than in small
ones
– Small groups better for tasks with high
cooperation requirements
– Small enough to let people know performance
of other group members
 Self-Managing Teams
• Specific task
• Autonomous
• Decision authority
 Dysfunctional Consequences
of Groups
• More time than individuals
– To do some tasks
– Development of group structure
– Managing conflict in during group
development
• Loss of individual identity
• Diffusion of responsibility
 Dysfunctional Consequences
of Groups (Cont.)
• Social loafing (free rider) and sucker effects
can reduce group performance
– Social loafing (free-rider effect)
• Perceive one's effort as unimportant, or
• Not easily noticed by other group members
– Sucker effects: reduce one's effort as response
to feeling of inequity from social loafing
 Dysfunctional Consequences
of Groups (Cont.)
• Groupthink
– Try to get consensus
– Consider few alternatives
– Do not regularly reexamine assumptions
 Intergroup Processes
in Organizations
• Happens at point of interaction between
members of two groups
• Examples: marketing, manufacturing,
design engineering
• Task interdependence from work process
design and organizational design
• Groups with different orientations to tasks,
time, and goals: high conflict potential
 Intergroup Processes
in Organizations (Cont.)
• Forces affecting intergroup interactions
– View their group as composed of members with
differing characteristics
– View other groups as having homogeneous
members
– Tend to favor people from their group
 Intergroup Processes
in Organizations (Cont.)
• Forces affecting intergroup interactions
(cont.)
– Positively value its purpose
– Diversity in group membership
– Conflict in intergroup processes needs attention

Such social psychological responses can lead to

categorization, stereotyping, and perceptual distortion
of members from other groups.
 Intergroup Processes
in Organizations (Cont.)
• Workforce diversity and informal groups
– Gender
– Race
– Country of origin
– Age
• Stereotyping and perceptual distortion of
such informal groups
• Affects quality of intergroup behavior
 International Aspects of
Groups in Organizations
• Cross-cultural variations in tendency to
accept group pressure for conformity to
group norms
– Japanese encourage high conformity to norms
of a group that has the person's primary loyalty
– German students in some experimental research
showed a low tendency to conform
– Moderate conformity among people in Hong
Kong, Brazil, Lebanon, and the United States
 International Aspects of
Groups in Organizations (Cont.)
• Strength of pressure to conform and
intensity of rejection of deviates varies
– French, Swedish, and Norwegian groups:
highest in conformity pressure and intensity of
rejection
– German and British groups: much lower in
those pressures
 International Aspects of
Groups in Organizations (Cont.)
• Cross-cultural differences in intergroup
processes
– Collectivistic cultures
• Expect little expression of conflict; favor
suppressing conflict
• Prefer to personalize interaction; focus on people,
despite what group they represent
• Group membership is an important part of
interaction
 Ethical Issues About Groups
in Organizations
• Major ethical issues
– Conformity to group norms
– Informed free choice
 Ethical Issues About Groups
in Organizations (Cont.)
• Conformity to group norms
– Cohesive groups develop powerful forces of
socialization to their norms
– Are managers required to inform recruits about
all cohesive groups in the organization?
 Ethical Issues About Groups
in Organizations (Cont.)
• Selection of members for self-managing teams
– Self-managing teams require extensive interaction
among members for success
– Do managers have an ethical duty to screen people
for membership based on the strength of their
social needs?
– Should managers make membership on such
teams voluntary, so people can choose whether to
join a team?
 Ethical Issues About Groups
in Organizations (Cont.)
• Informed free choice
– Conflict levels within groups, especially
heterogeneous groups, can be high and
continuous
– Do managers have an ethical duty to screen
people for group membership based on the
amount of conflict they can tolerate?