Week 5 Student Led Readings Flashcards
(9 cards)
Author: Barker
Year: 1993
The author examines how concretive control functions within self-managing teams. Barker explores how team members in these types of organizations collectively create a system of control that is based on shared values and norms, as opposed to traditional hierarchical or bureaucratic management structures.
The concept of “concertive control” is introduced as a form of discipline and regulation that emerges within teams, as workers collectively develop their own rules and norms. This system of control can become as restrictive as traditional managerial control, even though it originates from the workers themselves. The article critiques the idealization of self-managed teams as a liberating structure by showing how such teams can develop their own “iron cage” of control mechanisms.
Author: Asch
Year: 1955
Asch discusses the effects of group pressure on individual opinions. Asch examines how social forces influence personal judgments through a series of experiments, where subjects were asked to match the length of lines. The key experimental design involved one naive subject and several confederates who intentionally provided incorrect answers in some trials.
The results showed that group pressure significantly affected individual responses, with approximately 36.8% of participants conforming to the group’s incorrect answers. However, responses varied widely: some participants remained independent throughout the experiment, while others conformed nearly every time.
Asch’s study raised questions about the nature of conformity, demonstrating that people often yield to group pressure even when the group is clearly wrong. His experiments further explored the role of unanimity and size of the majority, finding that a group size of three was sufficient to exert maximum pressure, and that having even one ally reduced conformity significantly.
The study highlights concerns about the social process being “polluted” when consensus is achieved through conformity rather than genuine independent judgment. However, Asch also emphasizes that the capacity for independence remains significant, even in the face of strong social pressure.
Author: Gersick & Hackman
Year: 1990
The article explores the concept of habitual routines within task-performing groups, particularly within organizations. The authors aim to understand how these routines form, function, and either persist or change over time.
Definition of Group Habits: The authors define group habits as recurring patterns of behavior that groups adopt to handle frequently encountered stimuli. These habits often develop without conscious selection and help the group manage tasks more efficiently.
Functions of Group Habits:
Efficiency: Habits allow groups to operate without constantly reevaluating processes, saving time and mental energy.
Comfort and Stability: Familiar routines reduce uncertainty and increase members’ confidence, helping maintain group cohesion and reduce conflict.
Dysfunctions of Group Habits:
Miscoding Situations: Groups might apply routines to inappropriate contexts, leading to suboptimal performance.
Lack of Innovation: Over-reliance on routines can prevent creative problem-solving and adaptation to new challenges.
Development of Habits:
Importation: Groups sometimes adopt routines from outside influences, like organizational rules or past experiences of group members.
Early Creation: Groups establish routines early in their formation, often within their first interactions.
Evolution Over Time: Habits may evolve as groups gain experience, though this process is often slow and shaped by reinforcement.
Maintaining Habits:
Habits persist due to group inertia, the difficulty of change, social entrainment (where groups unconsciously synchronize behavior), and the power of group norms. Breaking from these habits requires explicit intervention or significant changes in the group’s environment.
When Habits Break: The article discusses circumstances that might lead a group to reevaluate its routines, such as encountering new challenges, experiencing failure, reaching milestones, receiving external interventions, or facing structural changes in group composition or tasks.
Author: Jehn
Year: 1995
The article explores the impact of different types of conflict within groups. The study employs multiple methods to investigate how conflict affects group performance, satisfaction, and dynamics.
Types of Intragroup Conflict: Jehn differentiates between three types of conflict:
Task Conflict: Disagreements about the content and outcomes of tasks.
Relationship Conflict: Interpersonal disagreements based on personal issues.
Process Conflict: Disputes about how tasks should be accomplished.
Benefits of Conflict:
Task Conflict: When managed appropriately, task conflict can have positive effects on group performance. It encourages critical thinking, fosters new ideas, and can lead to better decision-making by forcing members to consider different perspectives.
Moderate Conflict: A moderate level of conflict can enhance group performance, creativity, and innovation by promoting a deeper examination of ideas and preventing groupthink.
Detriments of Conflict:
Relationship Conflict: This type of conflict tends to have negative impacts, increasing stress and decreasing satisfaction and group cohesion. It distracts members from their tasks and can erode trust among group members.
Process Conflict: While process conflicts can be beneficial when they clarify roles and procedures, they often lead to inefficiency and frustration if they are unresolved or poorly managed.
Context Matters: The study emphasizes that the effects of conflict vary based on the context, including the nature of the group and the tasks they are engaged in. For example, groups with high levels of trust can handle task conflict more effectively, whereas groups with low trust are more negatively impacted by any form of conflict.
Managing Conflict: Jehn argues that the key to maximizing the benefits of conflict while minimizing its detriments is effective conflict management. This includes fostering an environment where task conflict is encouraged but relationship and process conflicts are minimized.
Author: Milliken & Martins
Year: 1996
The article provides an extensive review of how diversity affects organizational groups at various levels. The authors investigate the impact of diversity on group outcomes, such as turnover, performance, and creativity, while also examining the underlying cognitive, affective, and communication-related processes that mediate these effects.
Types of Diversity:
The authors differentiate between observable diversity (race, gender, age) and non-observable diversity (education, functional background, values).
Observable attributes often evoke more immediate responses, including biases or stereotypes, while non-observable attributes influence how group members interact and contribute.
Impact of Diversity:
Positive Effects: Diversity can increase creativity, generate a wider range of perspectives, and improve problem-solving and decision-making within groups.
Negative Effects: High levels of diversity can lead to lower group integration, higher turnover rates, communication difficulties, and dissatisfaction among group members.
Affective, Cognitive, and Communication Consequences:
Affective Consequences: Individuals in diverse groups often feel less integrated and less satisfied, especially when differences are visible (race, gender). However, over time, this negative affective impact can decrease as the group stabilizes.
Cognitive Consequences: Diversity fosters a richer variety of ideas, which can enhance group performance, though only if the group is able to manage the initial integration challenges.
Communication Consequences: Diverse groups tend to communicate more formally and less frequently, which can hinder group cohesion but may improve boundary-spanning activities (i.e., reaching outside the group for information).
Symbolic and Strategic Significance of Diversity:
Diversity can also have symbolic importance within organizations, as it signals inclusivity to both internal and external stakeholders. This can affect how individuals perceive opportunities for advancement, power dynamics, and representation in organizations.
Challenges and Management:
The authors emphasize that while diversity offers substantial potential benefits, organizations often struggle to manage its downsides. High turnover, dissatisfaction, and process losses can occur unless groups actively manage diversity by fostering inclusion and encouraging constructive conflict resolution.
Author: Edmondson
Year: 1999
The article explores the relationship between psychological safety and learning behaviors within organizational teams. Edmondson’s research focuses on understanding how an environment of psychological safety can influence group dynamics, particularly learning behaviors such as asking questions, seeking feedback, and sharing information.
Psychological Safety:
Defined as the shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. In psychologically safe environments, team members feel comfortable expressing their opinions, asking questions, admitting mistakes, and seeking help without fear of being humiliated or punished.
Learning Behavior in Teams:
Edmondson emphasizes the importance of learning behavior for team effectiveness, particularly in environments where knowledge sharing and collaborative problem-solving are critical. Teams with high levels of psychological safety are more likely to engage in learning behaviors, including openly discussing errors, experimenting, and sharing insights.
Research Methodology:
The study used a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to examine work teams in manufacturing and healthcare organizations. The findings suggest that psychological safety significantly affects whether teams engage in behaviors necessary for continuous learning and improvement.
Impact on Performance:
While psychological safety facilitates learning behaviors, Edmondson also finds that learning behavior is a mediator between psychological safety and team performance. Teams with higher psychological safety perform better because they are more likely to engage in the kinds of behaviors that lead to continuous improvement and adaptability.
Barriers to Psychological Safety:
Factors that can undermine psychological safety include hierarchical structures, fear of retribution, and environments where mistakes are heavily penalized. Edmondson argues that leaders play a crucial role in fostering psychological safety by encouraging openness, providing support, and modeling learning behavior.
Author: Roberson & Colquitt
Year: 2005
The article presents a model for understanding how perceptions of justice develop and affect team dynamics and effectiveness. The authors focus on the concept of team justice, how fairness is perceived by members of a team, and the processes that lead to shared perceptions of justice.
Shared Team Justice:
The authors propose that shared team justice emerges when members of a team converge in their perceptions of how the team is treated. This shared sense of justice comes from frequent interactions and shared experiences within the team.
Social network theory is applied to explain how interactions between team members, through mechanisms like structural equivalence and cohesion, lead to the convergence of justice perceptions.
Configural Team Justice:
Not all teams develop shared justice perceptions. In some cases, differences in members’ roles, leader-member exchanges, or physical dispersion can lead to configural team justice. This occurs when justice perceptions differ across subgroups within a team, leading to a patterned or fragmented understanding of fairness.
Network Effects:
The model is based on social network theory, which examines the patterns of relationships between team members. The extent to which members occupy similar positions in a network (structural equivalence) or frequently interact (cohesion) influences how they perceive fairness within the team.
Barriers to Convergence:
Certain factors, such as member diversity, varying quality in leader-member exchange (LMX) relationships, and physical dispersion of team members, can prevent the emergence of shared justice perceptions. These barriers lead to configural rather than shared justice.
Impact on Team Effectiveness:
Teams with shared justice perceptions are more likely to have better outcomes, including higher satisfaction, trust, cooperation, and performance. On the other hand, configural justice can lead to fragmentation, reduced cohesion, and lower effectiveness.
Author: Van Knippenberg & Schippers
Year: 2007
reviews the literature on the impact of diversity in work groups, focusing on both its positive and negative effects on group performance and processes. The article covers studies conducted between 1997 and 2005, highlighting key issues and proposing areas for future research.
Definition of Diversity:
Diversity is defined as differences between individuals on dimensions such as gender, age, ethnicity, education, and functional background. The focus is on how these differences affect group functioning, performance, and social interactions.
Two Main Perspectives:
Social Categorization Perspective: This perspective suggests that differences between group members lead to the formation of subgroups (ingroup vs. outgroup), which can cause conflict, lower cohesion, and reduce group performance. Group members tend to favor those similar to them and may exclude or distrust those they see as different.
Information/Decision-Making Perspective: On the other hand, diversity brings a variety of perspectives, knowledge, and skills, which can enhance creativity, problem-solving, and decision-making in groups. Diversity is seen as a source of innovation and better group performance when managed effectively.
Inconsistent Findings:
The authors note that the research shows mixed results regarding the effects of diversity. In some cases, diversity enhances group performance by promoting innovation, while in other cases, it leads to conflict and reduces performance. This inconsistency is attributed to oversimplified models that fail to account for complex underlying processes.
Moderators of Diversity Effects:
The authors suggest that the effects of diversity depend on several moderating factors, such as the level of cooperation and interdependence within the group, how long the group has been together (team tenure), and members’ “diversity mindsets”—their attitudes toward working in diverse groups.
Faultlines:
One of the key concepts discussed is “faultlines,” which occur when multiple diversity dimensions (e.g., age, gender, and ethnicity) align to form clear subgroups within a team. Strong faultlines can lead to divisions and conflict, while weak or crosscutting faultlines (e.g., when diversity dimensions do not align perfectly) may mitigate the negative effects of diversity.
Author: Ott, Parkes, & Simpson
Year: 2007
Cartwright & Zander (1968)
They focus on group dynamics, which is the study of how groups develop, function, and interact with individuals, other groups, and larger institutions. Their main points emphasize:
Group interdependence and dynamic processes over static structures.
The need for interdisciplinary approaches in the study of groups.
Practical applications for practitioners.
2. Blake, Shepard, and Mouton (1964)
These authors analyze intergroup dynamics and recognize that conflict is an inherent aspect of group interaction. They propose a framework for understanding group tensions:
Three forces create friction: formal roles, personal backgrounds, and the role of representing a group.
Groups create norms, values, and rules, and individuals who deviate face pressure to conform.
They offer options for managing conflict: win-lose battles, third-party intervention, or compromise.
3. Alderfer (1987)
Alderfer’s work centers on intergroup relations theory, integrating individual, group, and organizational dynamics:
Groups are part of larger social systems, and individuals function within these embedded systems.
He explores factors like group boundaries, power differences, and leadership behavior that shape intergroup dynamics.
His work also touches on identity groups (e.g., based on race or geography) and organizational groups (based on work experience).
4. Katzenbach & Smith (1993)
Their work addresses team performance and structure, focusing on the importance of teamwork in organizations:
Teams, when oriented toward performance, can achieve far more than individuals alone.
They critique the U.S. emphasis on individualism, which can undermine teamwork.
High-performance organizations are described by six characteristics: balanced results, clear aspirations, committed leadership, an energized workforce, competitive advantage, and open communication.
5. Thomas (1995)
Thomas provides insights into diversity management and the importance of addressing both differences and similarities:
Diversity includes similarities, and managing it requires recognizing the specific dimensions of diversity (race, gender, etc.).
Thomas outlines eight ways to manage diversity, with the most effective approach being mutual adaptation, where organizations and individuals actively understand and integrate diverse perspectives.
6. Orsburn & Moran (2000)
They promote self-directed work teams, advocating that these teams improve commitment, responsibility, and performance:
The success of these teams depends on top-level commitment, trust between employees and management, and risk-taking, among other factors.
The key to effective teamwork is fostering an environment of collaboration and aligning team behavior with rewards for team success.
7. Majchrzak, Malhotra, Stamps & Lipnack (2004)
These authors discuss the potential of virtual teams in a world where technology enables people to work together without being physically co-located:
Virtual teams, when properly managed, can be as successful as traditional teams.
This reflects the evolution of management theories, moving toward flexible, collaborative workplaces supported by technology.
