Module 12. Group Dynamics Flashcards
What is Homans framework, elaborate on the two parts?
The human group concept investigating and understanding human dynamics in groups. Homans’s framework consists of two parts: the first includes three elementary concepts and the relationship between them, and the second (Social system) includes more abstract concepts and the relations among these concepts and the first three elementary concepts.
Homan argued that we seek to describe people’s behaviour including three types of comments. Which are these?
- Activities refer to movements, action, work, typing, writing, and the like. These are, basically, things people do. 2. Sentiments, refer to feelings (happy, sad, angry), attitudes (this is her job, he is liberal), or beliefs. Sentiments constitute the inner state of the person, the things an individual subjectively perceives.
- Interactions, including working together with someone, eating together, and the like.
Which two parts does social systems consist of?
- External system, the relations among interaction, activity, and sentiment that are imposed on a group by forces external to it (such as a larger group, a manager, an organization, or a course instructor who imposed rules and procedures);
- Internal system, the relations among interaction, activity, and sentiment that are spontaneously elaborated and standardized by the members of the group.
Define “group dynamics”
The complex forces that are acting upon every group throughout its existence which cause it to behave the way it does. It is always moving, doing something, changing, becoming, interacting, and reacting, and the nature and direction of its movement is determined by forces being exerted upon it from within itself and from outside.
What factors affects Group Development and Performance?
Context Purpose Composition and diversity Structure Processes Leadership
What are the group contextual factors?
- External environment, which could include factors such as industry characteristics; political, and legal expectations
- Organizational characteristics such as business strategy, production technology, organization structure
- Organizational culture such as norms and values.
What is included in the group purpose?
Goals and objectives to be attained.
Further, specific task and project characteristics determine its performance. These include required activities and interactions, the required level of interdependence among group members to accomplish the task and the task’s time frame and deadlines
What three thing may affect the composition and diversity within a group?
Members Attributes: individuals come to the group with some pattern of values on each of the four sets of attributes: They have basic knowledge, skills, and abilities; they hold values, beliefs, and attitudes; they have distinct personality characteristics.
Member’s Demographic Characteristics: such as age, sex, and race, may affect his or her performance as a group member either by themselves or through their relationships with other attributes.
Member’s Need: Individuals come to the group with some pattern of needs that they would like to fulfill via the group’s experience. Needs for affiliation, Needs for achievement, Needs for power, Needs for economic or material resources
What is the optimal group size?
Effective team size seems to range from 3 members to a normal upper limit of about 20 members. Yet while the optimal group size seems to be correlated with the degree of project complexity and leadership competence, most argue that effective work groups range in size from 7 to 12 members.
What is group technology referring to and what three factors can it consist of?
A way to structure the team.
- Norms are expectations shared by group members of how they ought to behave under a given set of circumstances. Work attitude are an example.
- Spontaneously developed emergent role system. Some emergent role systems develop norms that are contrary to management goals but that satisfy the members’ own needs and reduce their frustrations.
- Values also play a special role in the formation of norms. Values can be held by a single individual; norms cannot because they emerge from the interactions in the group.
Role differentiation is an area related to structure, describe and exemplify a few different roles.
- Task roles: Individuals who assume task roles are interested in getting the job done. They often emerge as the informal leaders of work groups. Ex Coordinator. Coordinates group activities, connects different ideas and suggestions, and clarifies relationships.
- Relationship roles. individuals who assume relationship roles are often the most popular members of groups because they work to facilitate social and emotional relationships among group members. Ex Followers. Passive but friendly group members.
- Individual Roles: These roles are expressions of individual personalities and individual needs. Ex Aggressor. Verbally attacks other team members and their contributions.
- Status is defined as the degree of esteem, respect, or prestige an individual command from others. Awareness of Status: Participants often write in their papers that there were no differences in status among members of their group. However, status always exists in groups and affects behavior and performance.
- Rejection from the Deviant: A deviant is an individual whose behavior differs from what is regarded as standard. In a group sense, a deviant is one who does not subscribe to the group’s norms.
- Subgroupings of Members. Subgroupings are recurrent patterns of relationships among individuals within the group that become established. Some of these relationships are temporary and some are enduring.
What is boundary management?
The management of the relationship between a team and other teams or other organizational entities, a process related in part to context and purpose elements
Describe communication networks and name the four different ones.
First, a given member’s centrality is strongly related to his or her satisfaction with the group experience. This relationship is particularly strong among people with relatively dominant personalities. Second, people who are placed in central positions in the network come to be viewed as leaders by the other group members.
Chain, “Y”, Circle and Wheel
Name two types of leadership.
- Monitoring (obtaining and interpreting data about performance conditions and events that might affect them) 2. Taking action (creating or maintaining favorable performance conditions).
Both influence group process and group effectiveness.
Team leaders were found to influence team cognitive processes, motivational processes, affective processes, and coordination processes.
What is social loafing?
The effort extended by a group was less than the sum of individual efforts. The term free rider refers to a person who obtains benefits from being a member of a group but who does not bear a proportional share of the costs of providing those benefits.
