GROUPS

Social groups are collection of two or more

people interacting and interdependent, who
have come together to achieve particular
objectives.
 Nature of groups
• First, groups vary in their size
• Second, there is homogeneity among group
members
• Third, groups have well-defined roles
 Types of groups
1. On the basis of functions - religious groups,
educational group, political groups, economic
groups, management groups
2. On the basis of area - caste group, community
groups, national groups, international groups
etc..
3. On the basis of stability - permanent groups,
temporary groups.
4. On the basis of relationships - Charles H. Coolly
(1909) has classified groups into
(a) Primary group and
(b) Secondary group on the basis of relationships.
Characteristics of secondary groups
a. Lacks physical nearness
b. Wide area but less possibility of personal acquaintance
c. Status determined by functions
d. Not formed on the basis of identical aim
e. Limited responsibilities
f, Intentionally formed
g. Members are self-dependent than inter- dependent
h. Possibility of individualism
i. Relations are formal and casual
j. Relations not based on affection or love, but on
common interest.
Characteristics of primary groups
a. Identity of ends - The members has a common
goal.
b. Relationship is an end in itself - The relationships
are not `means' but end' in itself.
c. The relations are spontaneous - Relationships in
primary are not forced. The relations have deep
relation with the life itself.
d. Relationships in primary groups have the greatest
control. Every member in the group has control
over the other member in the group.
Types of group in organizational settings
In organizational settings, group can be
classified into
(a) Formal group: A designed work group
defined by the organization’s structure.
(b) Informal group: A group that is neither
formally structured nor organizationally
determined; appears in response to the need
for social contact.
• (a) Formal group –
behaviors, roles and responsibilities of its
members are defined.
Command group and Task group.
• A command group is determined by the
organization chart. It is composed of the
individuals who report directly to a given
manager.
• Task groups also organizationally determined,
represent those working together to complete
a job task.
(b) Informal group
A group neither formally structured nor organizationally
determined.
natural formation of people in the work environment that appear
as a result of the need of social contact.
more like the primary groups. It is possible to sub classify informal
groups as interest and friendship group.
interest group.
Those working to together attain a specific objective with which
each is concerned is called interest group..
friendship groups.
Groups often develop because the individual members have one or
more common characteristics.
Reasons for joining a group
 Employees Point of Views
1. Security - Joining a group may provide security against standing
alone. It provides them to resistence to threats.
2. Status - lnclusion in a group gives persons recognition and status.
3. Self -esteem - Inclusion in the groups provides people with feeling
of self-worth.
4. Affiliation - Groups fulfill social needs of affiliations and
interactions.
5. Power - There is power in number. Tasks that cannot be done
alone can be done in group. People join groups for this power.
6. Goal achievement - Many tasks need different talent, skills and
knowledge. Achievement of goals that demand different talent,
skill and knowledge become possible in group.
 Organizational point of view
1. Socialization of new employee
2. Getting job well done.
3. Decision making
4. Communication
5. Synergy effect
 STAGES IN GROUP FORMATION

• Group usually goes through a standard

sequence of stages. According to the five-
stage model of group formation, five stages
are involved in group formation. These stages
are as below:
1) FORMING -: The first stage in group development,
characterized by much uncertainty.
2) STORMING -: The second stage in group
development, characterized by intergroup conflict.
3) NORMING -: The third stage in group
development, characterized by close relationships
and cohesiveness.
4) PERFORMING-: The fourth stage in group
development, when the group is fully functional.
5) ADJOURNING -: The final stage in group
development for temporary groups, characterzied
by concern with wrapping up activities rather than
task performance.
There are some structural variables of
group.
i. Roles.
ii. Norms
iii. Status
iv. Size
v. Composition
vi. Cohesiveness
vii. Formal Leadership
 ROLES

• A set of expected behaviour patterns

attributed to someone occupying a given
position in a social unit.
• ROLE IDENTITY :
– Certain attitudes and behaviors consistent with a role.
• ROLE PERCEPTION:
– An Individual’s view of how he or she is supposed to act
in a given situation.
• ROLE EXPECTATIONS:
– How others believe a person should act in a given
situation.
– ( Psychological contract) : An unwritten agreement that
sets out what management expects from the employee
and vice versa
• ROLE CONFLICT:
– A situation in which an individual is confronted by
divergent role expectations.
 AN EXPERIMENT :ZIMBARDO’S
SIMULATED PRISON
One of the more illuminating role experiments
was done by Standford University Psychologist
Philip Zimbardo and his associates.
 NORMS

Acceptable standard of behavior within a group

that are shared by the group’s members.
COMMON CLASSES OF NORMS:
i. performance norms.
ii. appearance norms.
iii. social arrangement norms.
iv. to allocation of resource norms.
Some Norms Are More Important Than Others:

1. If it facilitates the groups survival.

2. If it increases the predictability of group members
behaviors.
3. If it reduces embarrassing interpersonal problems for
group members
4. If it allows members to express the central of the
group and clarify what is distinctive about the group’s
identity
 Conformity
Conformity means adjusting one’s behaviour to
align with the norms of the group.
Social norms:
Social Norms are rules indicating how
individuals ought to behave in specific
situations. a.
i) Descriptive norms
what most people do in a given situation; or
what is generally seen as appropriate or
adaptive behavior in that situation.
2. injunctive norms :
what should (or should not) be done, not
merely what most people do.

We follow norms apparently, for two important

reasons.
i. normative social influence
Ii. informational social influence-
 STATUS

“Status is socially defined position or

rank given to groups or group members
by others.”
a. STATUS AND NORMS:
b. STATUS EQUITY:
c. STATUS AND CULTURE:
• SIZE:
– Smaller groups are faster at completing tasks than are larger
ones n are better doing something productive with that input.
– If the group is engaged in problem solving, fact finding, diverse
input, larger groups consistently get better marks.
– Groups of approximately seven members tend to be more
effective for taking action.
• SOCIAL LOAFLING:
“The tendency for individuals to expend less effort when
working collectively than when individually.”
– German Psychologist named Max Ringlemann compared the result of
individual and group performance on a rope-pulling task.
• Equity by reducing effort.
• Individual’s input n group output is clouded and there will be reduction in efficiency
when individual think that their contribution cannot be measured.
• Cultural difference also plays important role.
 COMPOSITION
Tendency of group share attribute in terms of common
personalities, gender, age, education, functional
specialization and experience etc.
• Group Demography: The degree to which of a group
share common demographic attribute, such as age, sex, race,
educational level or length of service in the organization and
the impact of this attribute on turnover.
– Research studies generally substantiate this conclusion that heterogeneous groups those
composed of dissimilar individuals, would be likely to have diverse abilities and
information and should be more effective. Especially on cognitive, creativity-demanding
tasks. Diversity promotes conflict which stimulates creativity and leads in turn to
improved decision making.
– Culturally heterogeneous groups have more difficulty in learning to work with each
other and in solving problems.
• Cohorts: Individuals who, as part of a group, hold a
common attribute.
– Group demography suggests that such attributes should help us to predict turnover.
– Turnover will be greater among those with dissimilar experiences because
communication is more difficult.
– Conflict and power struggles are more likely and more severe when they occur.
– The increased conflict makes group membership less attractive, so employee are more
likely to quit.
– Separate work groups in which a large portion of members entered at the same time,
there is considerably more turnover among those outside this cohort.
– People who enter a group or an organization together, or at approximately the same
time, are more likely to associate with one another, have similar perspective on the
group or organization and thus be more likely to stay.
– Variance within group in respect to attributes other than date of entry, such as social
background, gender differences, and level of education might similar create
discontinuities or bulges in the distribution that will encourage some members to leave,
 COHESIVENESS

• Degree to which group members are attracted to each

other and are motivated to stay in the group.
– Studies show that the relationship of cohesiveness and
productivity depends on the performance- related norms
established by the group.
• If performance –related norms are high(eg. High output, quality
work, cooperation with individuals outside the group), a group will
be more productive.
• If cohesiveness is high and performance norms are low,
productivity will be low.
• If cohesiveness is low and performance norms are high,
productivities increases but less than in the high cohesiveness-
high norms situation.
• Where cohesiveness and performance related norms are both low,
productivity will tend to fail into the low to moderate range.
Relationship between Group cohesiveness Performance Norms,
and productivity

Cohesiveness
High Low
Performance Norms

Moderate
High

High Productivity
Productivity

Moderate to low
Low

Low Productivity
productivity
What can you do to encourage group cohesiveness.

1. Make the group smaller.

2. Encourage agreement with group goals.
3. Increase the time members spend together.
4. Increase the status of the group and the perceived difficulty
of attaining membership in the group.
5. Stimulate competition with other groups.
6. Give rewards to the group rather than to individual
members.
7. Physically isolate the group.
CONT TNGENCY VARIABLE AFFECTING
GROUP BEHAVIOUR
• Synergy:
An action of two or more substances that results in an effect that
is different from the individual summation of the substances.

• Social facilitation effect :

The tendency for performance to improve or decline in
response to the presence of others.
– The performance is simple routine task tends to be speeded up and
made more accurate by the presence of others.
– When the works is more complex, requiring closer attention, the
presence of others is likely to have a negative effect on performance.
– People seem to perform better on a task in the presence of others if
that task is very well learned but poorer if it is not well learned.
 Questions for review
1. Compare and contrast command, task, interest, and friendship groups.
2. What might motivate to join a group?
3. Describe the five stages of group development.
4. What is the relationship between a work group and the organization of which it is a part?
5. What are the implications of Zimbardo’s prison experiment for OB?
6. Explain the implication of the Asch experiments
7. How are status and norms related?
8. How can group’s demography help to predict turnover?
9. Why do people join group? Explain.
10. What is role? Why role expectation is powerful determinate of behaviour in organization?
11. What is difference between role identity and role perception?
12. What are common class of norms?
13. What is conformity? Describe types of norms and discuss why we are conform ed?
14. How are status and equity related?
15. How does size of the group affect overall behaviour?
16. What are the impact of group demography on turnover?
17. What is cohessiveness ? And how does it correlate to productivity?
18. Discuss group process with example.
19. Critical Thinking:
20. Identify five role u play. What behaviors do they require? Are any of these roles in conflict? If so, in what way?
How do you resolve these conflicts?
21. “High cohesiveness in a group leads to higher group productivity”. Do you agree or disagree? Explain.
22. What effect, if any, do you expect that workforce diversity has on a group’s performance and satisfaction?
 WORK TEAMS
Work group Work team

Work group is a group that interacts primarily A work team is a small group of people with
to share information and to make decisions to complementary skills who are committed to a
help each member perform within his or her common purpose, common performance goals
area of responsibility. and an approach for which they hold
themselves mutually accountable.
The goal is to share information The goal is collective performance
Neutral or negative synergy Positive synergy
Individual accountability Individual and mutual accountability
Skill are random and varied Skills are complementary
Clear focused leader Shared leadership roles
Measures effectiveness indirectly (eg. Measures effectiveness directly assessing
financial performance overall business) collective work performance
Individual work products Collective work products
Discusses, decides and delegates Discusses, decides and does
Purpose same as organizations Specific purposes
Runs efficient meetings Encourages active problem solving meetings
`
Teams can be useful because we get following benefits
Enhanced performance Increased productivity
Improved quality
Improved customer services
(This can be achieved because wasted efforts are avoided, errors are reduced, and more output is
obtained from less input)
Employee benefits Quality of working life (As employees have more sense of self control sense of self Worth, self
fulfillment and human dignity)
Q Lower stress (as 1't team does not rely on
traditional hierarchical manager based system )
Reduced Costs Tower turn over
Lower absenteeism
Fewer injuries’
(As there is high job satisfaction, reduced scalp, few
errors are made, fewer Workers compensation claims)
Organizational enhancements Increased innovation and flexibility to react quickly (employees feel closer and touch with top
management and develop new ways of doing their job)
 COST OF TEAMS

• Frustration and confusion of new roles:

• Traditional staffs may feel like losers during the
change to a team structure.
• Not all people have ability or interest to work in
a team.
• Pay scales for technical staffs according to their
‘new ro1es’: building a team costs more.
• The process of full team development is slow
• Premature abandonment of the developing
team
 TYPES OF TEAMS
1. PROBLEM-SOLVING TEAMS:
Groups of 5 to 12 employees from the same department who meet
for a few hours each week to discuss ways of improving quality,
efficiency, and the work environment.
2. SELF-MANAGED WORK TEAMS (Also autonomous team or self
dependent teams)
Groups of 10 to 15 people who take on responsibilities of their former
supervisors.
3. CROSS-FUNCTIONAL TEAMS:
employees from about the same hierarchical level, but from
different work areas, who come together to accomplish a task.
a) Task force: A temporary cross functional team
b) Committees: Group made up of members from across departmental
lines.

4. VIRTUAL TEAMS The three primary factors that differentiate virtual

teams from face-to-face teams are (1) the absence of paraverbal and
nonverbal cues; (2) limited social context; and (3) the ability to
overcome time and space constraints.
 Questions for Review
1. Compare and contrast command, task , interest and
friendship groups.
2. What might motivate you to join a group?
3. Describe the five –stage group –development model.
4. What is the relationship between a work group and
the organization of which it is a part?
5. What are the implication of Zimbardo’s prison
experiment for OB?
6. Explain the implications of the Asch experiments.
7. How are status and norms related?
8. Why do people join group? Explain.
• “High cohesiveness in a group leads to higher
group productivity .” Do you agree or
disagree? Explain.