Group behaviour in organisations

Question 1

Tuckman (1965)

Answer 1

All groups go through the same five stages during formation

forming - storming - norming - performing - adjourning

Question 2

Belbin’s Theory of Team Roles (1981)

Answer 2

Action-oriented:
shaper, implementer, completer-finisher
People-oriented:  team leader role
coordinator, team worker, resource investigator
Thought-oriented:
plant, specialist, monitor evaluator

Question 3

Wedley and Field (1984)

Answer 3

pre-planning stage of decision making
identify problem/opportunity
formulate objective
familiarise with the problem
generate alternative solutions
evaluate alternatives
choose the best
implement
follow up with evaluation of the results

Question 4

Janis (1971)

Answer 4

groupthink
1. illusion of invulnerability
2. unquestioned belies
3. rationalising
4. stereotyping
5. self-censorship
6. mind guards
7. illusions of unanimity
8 direct pressure to conform

Question 5

Forsynth (2006)

Answer 5

Sins of Commission:
misuse of information in decision making process
Sins of Omission
overlooking key information
Sins of Imprecision
heuristic: availability heuristic(over-reliance on available information), conjunctive bias(fail to consider relationship between events), representativeness heuristic(rely on misleading information)

Question 6

Riggio (2009)

Answer 6

intra-group conflict
inter-group conflict
inter-individual conflict
all can interfere with achievement of goal and should be kept minimum

Question 7

Pruitt and Rubin

Answer 7

positive: strengthen unity, prevent groupthink, produce creative suggestions…
negative: distract, reduce productivity, waste time…

Question 8

Thomas (1976)

Answer 8

five strategies to manage conflict
competition
accommodation: one individual make sacrifice
compromise: each make compromise
collaboration
avoidance: does not resolve, provide cooling-off period

Question 9

Greenberg & Baron (2008)

Answer 9

Cohesive group:
Compete with other groups
Overcome severity (difficult situations) together
Have been together for a long time
A history of successfully achieving goal together
smaller

Question 10

Asch’s Study

Answer 10

Had a group of people decide which to lines were the same length as each other.
Initially stooges, as instructed, lied about which two lines were the same length.
People tended to give the wrong answer and gave the same answer as the stooges, despite the answer being fairly obvious.

Question 11

Vroom & Yetton

Answer 11

individual vs group decision making

individual: Quicker; Can avoid conflict of group discussion; Less expertise
group: Variety of idea; Critiques; Groupthink; conformity prevent individual idea

Question 12

Avoid groupthink

Answer 12

Open climate of discussion; avoid insulation, assigned roles of critical evaluators, avoid being directive