Ch. 15 Effective Groups and Teams

Question 1

What is a self managed work team?

Answer 1

a group of employees who supervise their own activities and monitor the quality of the goods and services they provide

Question 2

What is a formal group?

Answer 2

a group that managers set to achieve org. goals

Question 3

What is an informal group?

Answer 3

a group that managers or non managerial employees form to help achieve their own goals or meet their own needs

Question 4

What is a top management team?

Answer 4

a group composed of the CEO, pres., and the heads of the most important departments

Question 5

What is a research and development team?

Answer 5

a team whose members have the expertise and experience needed to develop new products

Question 6

What is a command group?

Answer 6

a group composed of subordinates who report to the same supervisor; also called department or unit

Question 7

What is a task force?

Answer 7

a committee of managers or non managerial employees from various divisions or departments who meet to solve a specific problem; also called ad hoc committee

Question 8

What is a virtual team?

Answer 8

a team whose members rarely meet face-to-face but, rather, interact by using various forms of info tech such as email telephone fax

Question 9

What is the principal advantage of a virtual team?

Answer 9

enables managers to disregard distance and form teams whose members have knowledge, expertise, and experience to tackle a particular problem or take advantage of a specific opportunity

Question 10

What are synchronous technologies?

Answer 10

they let virtual team members communicate and interact with one another in real time simultaneously

Question 11

What are asynchronous technologies?

Answer 11

they delay communication such as email and websites

Question 12

What is a friendship group?

Answer 12

an informal group composed of employees who enjoy one another’s company and socialize together

Question 13

What is an interest group?

Answer 13

an informal group composed of employees seeking to achieve a common goal related to their membership in an organization

Question 14

What are group dynamics?

Answer 14

group size, tasks, and roles. dynamics affect the effectiveness of a group

Question 15

What is division of labor?

Answer 15

splitting the work to be performed into particular tasks and assigning tasks to individual workers

Question 16

What are some characteristics of a small group?

Answer 16

(1) interact more with each other and find it easier to coordinate their efforts (2) more motivated, committed, and satisfied (3) easier to share info (4) easier to see the importance of their personal contributions

Question 17

What is a disadvantage of a small group?

Answer 17

there are fewer resources available to accomplish their goals

Question 18

What are the advantages of a large group?

Answer 18

more resources (knowledge, expertise, skills, time and effort) and they allow for the division of labor

Question 19

What are the disadvantages of a large group?

Answer 19

problems of communication, lower levels of motivation satisfaction and commitment, harder to coordinate activities, and members may not see the importance of their involvement or contribution to the group

Question 20

What are the three determinants that a group is too large?

Answer 20

(1) members spend more time communicating what they know to others rather then actually applying their knowledge to solve problems and create new products (2) individual productivity decreases (3) group performance suffers

Question 21

What is task interdependence?

Answer 21

the degree to which the work performed by one member of a group influences the work performed by other members

Question 22

What are the stages of group development?

Answer 22

1. forming 2. storming 3. norming 4. performing 5. adjourning

Question 23

What is forming?

Answer 23

members try to get to know one another and reach a common understanding of goals and expected behaviors

Question 24

What is storming?

Answer 24

groups experience conflict and disagreements

Question 25

What is norming?

Answer 25

ties between group members form, and feelings of friendship and camaraderie emerge

Question 26

What is performing?

Answer 26

the real work of the group gets accomplished

Question 27

What is adjourning?

Answer 27

only for groups that will disband, this is when the group is dispersed

Question 28

What are group norms?

Answer 28

shared guidelines or rules of behavior that most members follow

Question 29

What are the three reasons for conformity?

Answer 29

(1) to obtain rewards and avoid punishments (2) to imitate members whom you like and admire (3) internalized the norm and believe its the right and proper way to behave

Question 30

What are the three ways a group could respond to deviance?

Answer 30

(1) might try to change the deviant ways, try to convince to conform, ignore or punish the deviant (2) expel the member (3) change the norm to be consistent with the members behavior

Question 31

Why do groups attempt to encourage a balance of conformity and deviance?

Answer 31

there must be a balance to maintain function within the group, if there is complete conformity work will not be done. if there is too much deviance no one will agree on anything and the task will still not be completed

Question 32

What is group cohesiveness?

Answer 32

the degree to which members are attracted to or loyal to their group

Question 33

What are the consequences of group cohesiveness?

Answer 33

(1) the level of participation will increase as cohesiveness increases, to a certain extent, and then more time will be spent socially than working (2) members may conform to norms when they are not functional (3) emphasis on group goals may become more important than the organizations goals

Question 34

What is social loafing?

Answer 34

the tendency of individuals to put forth less effort when they work in groups than when they work alone

Question 35

What are the steps to reduce social loafing?

Answer 35

(1) make individual contributions identifiable (2) emphasize the valuable contributions of individual members (3) keep group size at an appropriate level

Question 36

What are the four ways teams can contribute to group effectiveness?

Answer 36

(1) enhance performance (2) increase responsiveness to customers (3) increase innovation (4) increase motivation and satisfaction