Organisational Behaviour 151030025-A24/25

Week 5: (Chapters 9 & 10)

Group Behaviour & Work Teams

Dr Helen Macnaughtan hm39@soas.ac.uk

 Group Behaviour & Work Teams

▪ Defining Groups (Types of Groups)

▪ Factors integral to Group Behaviour

▪ Group Decision Making

▪ Defining and Identifying Work Teams

▪ Effective Team Building (Week 7 Tutorial Presentations)

 Defining Groups

• A group is defined as two or more individuals,

interacting and interdependent, who have come together
to achieve particular objectives.

• Groups can be either formal or informal.

– Formal groups: those defined by the organisation’s
structure
– Informal groups: alliances that are neither formally
structured nor organisationally determined.
 Defining Groups
• Social identity theory:
considers when and why individuals consider
themselves members of groups.
– Social identities help us understand who we are and
where we fit in with people.
– People have emotional reactions to the failure or
success of their
group because own
self-esteem gets
tied into the
performance of
the group.
Defining Groups
Downside →
Ingroups and Outgroups
– Ingroup favoritism occurs when we see members of
our group as better than other people, and people not
in our group as all the same.

– Whenever there is an ingroup, there is by necessity an

outgroup, which is sometimes everyone else, but is
usually an identified group known by the ingroup’s
members.

– Can create e.g. rivalry, animosity, sense of injustice

 Defining Groups
• Social Identity Threat

– Ingroups and outgroups pave the way for social

identity threat, which is akin to stereotype threat.

– Individuals believe they will be personally

negatively evaluated due to their association with
a devalued group, and they may lose confidence
and performance effectiveness.
 Roles & Groups
• Role: a set of expected behavior patterns attributed to
someone occupying a given position in a social/work unit

• We take on a number of diverse roles, both at work

and not at work (in society / family)

– Role perception: one’s perception of how

to act in a given situation; how we act at work/job

– Role expectations: how others believe one should act

in a given situation; how others expect us to act at work
 Roles & Groups
• Psychological contract
unwritten agreement that exists between employees and
their employer. It sets out mutual expectations—what
employers expect from employees, and vice versa.
Roles & Groups
 Roles & Groups
• Role conflict: situation in which an
individual experiences divergent
role expectations.
– We can experience inter-role
Workplace
conflict when the expectations of Employer
Colleagues
our different, separate groups are
in some degree of opposition.

– Or when there is change: e.g. during

an M&A, employees can be torn
between their identities as members of
the original organisation and of the
new parent company
 Group Behaviour & Work Teams

▪ Defining Groups (Types of Groups)

▪ Factors integral to Group Behaviour

▪ Group Decision Making

▪ Defining and Identifying Work Teams

▪ Effective Team Building

 Norms & Group Behaviour
• Norms:
– Acceptable
standards of
behaviour within a
group that are
shared by the
group’s members.

Employee buy-in to positive

norms (behaviours) increases
the probability of positive
group outcomes…
 Status & Group Behaviour

• Status: a socially defined position or rank given to

groups or group members by others.

– Status characteristics theory: status is derived from

one of three sources:

• The power a person wields over others.

• A person’s ability to contribute to a group’s goals.
• An individual’s personal characteristics.
Status, Norms & Group Behaviour
• Status and Norms: high status individuals often
have more freedom to deviate from norms.

• Status and Group Interaction: high status people are

often more assertive.

• Status Inequity: perceived inequity creates

disequilibrium and can lead to resentment

• Status and Stigmatization: stigma by association

(e.g. if somebody with a negative reputation is in a group, others in the
group may be associated with the same negative reputation)
 Size & Group Behaviour
• Group size can affect the group’s overall behaviour

– Large groups are good for gaining diverse input.

– Smaller groups are better doing something
productive with that input.

Social loafing:
the tendency
for individuals to expend
less effort when working
collectively than alone
 Diversity & Groups
• Diversity: degree to which members of the group are
similar to, or different from, one another.
– Can increase group conflict, in the short term, but…

• Culturally and demographically diverse groups are

shown to perform better over time

– Diversity helps groups

be more open-minded,
collect more ideas,
be more creative
 Group Behaviour & Work Teams

▪ Defining Groups (Types of Groups)

▪ Factors integral to Group Behaviour

▪ Group Decision Making

▪ Defining and Identifying Work Teams

▪ Effective Team Building

 Group Decision Making
• Organisations often use formal groups for
decision-making activities

• What are the strengths and weaknesses of using

groups rather than individuals for decisions?
 Group Decision Making
• Strengths of group decision making:
– More complete information and knowledge
– Increased diversity of views
– Different member skills
– Transparency
– Increased acceptance of
solutions
• Weaknesses:
– Time consuming
– Conformity pressures
– Dominance of a few members
– Ambiguous responsibility
 Group Decision Making
• Groupthink: situations in which group pressures
for conformity deter the group from critically
appraising unusual, minority, or unpopular views.

• Groupshift: a change between a group’s

decision and an individual decision that a
member within the group would make.
 Group Decision Making
• Most group decision making in organisations
takes place in interacting groups
– Members meet face-to-face and rely on both
verbal and nonverbal interaction to communicate
with each other (digital meetings more complex)

• Interacting groups sometimes

censor themselves and
pressure individual members
toward conformity
of opinion
 Group Decision Making
Brainstorming can overcome
pressures for conformity:

– In a brainstorming session:
• The group leader states
the problem
• Members then ‘free-wheel’ as many alternatives
as they can
• No criticism is allowed
• One idea stimulates others, and group members
are encouraged to ‘think the unusual’
or ‘think outside the box’
 Group Decision Making
• The nominal group technique:
seeks to restrict discussion during
initial decision-making process

– Group members are all present, but members

operate independently

– Permits the group to meet formally but does not

restrict independent thinking, as does the
interacting group
 Group Decision Making

• Steps for a nominal group:

– Each member independently writes down his/her

ideas on the problem.
– After this silent/independent period of time,
each member presents one idea to the group.
– The ideas are discussed for clarity.
– Each group member rank-orders the ideas.
– The idea with the highest aggregate ranking
determines the final decision.
 Group Decision Making
When is nominal method useful?

•When some group members are much more vocal than others.
•When some group members think better in silence.
•When there is concern about some members not participating.
•When the group does not easily generate quantities of ideas.
•When all or some group members are new to the team.
•When the issue is controversial or there is heated conflict.
•When there is a power-imbalance between facilitator and
participants or participants: the structure of the NGT session can
balance these out.
•When stakeholders like a(/some) quantitative output of the
process.
 Group Decision Making

Table shows that each of the group-decision techniques has its own
set of strengths and weaknesses. The choice depends on what criteria
you want to emphasise, how people work most productively, and the
cost-benefit trade-off
 Implications for Managers
• Managers should recognise that operating in groups
can dramatically affect individual behaviour in
organisations (potential positive & negative outcomes)

→ Therefore, pay special attention to roles, norms,

and cohesion—to understand how these are
operating within a group is to understand how the
group is likely to behave

• Size: e.g. use larger groups for fact-finding

activities and smaller groups for action-taking tasks

• Provide measures of individual performance

 Group Behaviour & Work Teams

▪ Defining Groups (Types of Groups)

▪ Factors integral to Group Behaviour

▪ Group Decision Making

▪ Defining and Identifying Work Teams

▪ Effective Team Building

Differences: Groups vs Teams

Japan Forum

BAJS
Conference

Co-authoring
 Sport ‘Teams’

Which sports are more

akin to groups and which
are akin to teams ?
 Differences: Groups vs Teams
Work groups Teams
Strong, clearly focused leader Shared leadership roles

Individual accountability Individual & mutual accountability

Group purpose = organisational Team purpose = developed by team

Individual work outputs Collective outputs

Open-ended discussion;
Efficient meetings
active problem-solving

Effectiveness measured indirectly Collective performance measured

(e.g. firm financial performance) directly

Discusses, decides, delegates Discusses, decides, delivers

 Group v Team ?
Company wants to create a new product
for the market

Do they use a Group or a Team ?

→ They can use both for different purposes….

 Group v Team ?
The company assembles a group of people from various departments to
brainstorm ideas for a new product.

They have the shared experience of working at the same company, but
they have different priorities.

The finance representative wants to make money.

The tech representative wants to create an innovative product

incorporating modern technological advances.

A representative from the company's foundation or CSR role

wants to have a low carbon footprint.

All these perspectives can help inspire a product that fulfils

many distinct goals for the company…
 Group v Team ?
Once the company decides on its new product, they hand the
project to the design team and the marketing team.

These teams focuses on building, then promoting the product

to the public/customers.

e.g. Marketing Team members work on many strategies,

including a print campaign in leading magazines, a social
media campaign and product placement on TV.

While the team uses different strategies, members are working

together to achieve the team's shared final objective of
effectively promoting the product to the best advantage
 Popularity of
Work Teams
Why are teams popular?

– Teams can achieve feats an individual could never

accomplish.
– Teams are flexible and responsive to changing
events.
– They can quickly assemble, deploy, refocus, and
disband.
– They are an effective means to democratize
organisations and increase employee involvement.
– They introduce a collaborative mindset.
Types of Teams
 Effective Teams

Why?
What?

Who?

How?
 Effective Teams
• Team Context:
Why is team needed and what factors are needed to
ensure success?

– Clear Goal(s)
– Adequate Resources
– Leadership Structure
– Climate of Trust
– Performance Evaluations
and Rewards
 Effective Teams
• Team Composition: Who should be in a team?

– Size of teams
– Abilities of members
– Diversity
– Personality

– Member roles
Effective Teams
 Effective Teams
• Team Processes: how should a team operate?

– Common Plan and Purpose; Specific Goals

• Reflexivity (adapt/adjust plan when necessary)

– Team Efficacy (confidence & belief in team)

– Team Identity
– Team Cohesion

– Conflict Levels
– Social Loafing
 Effective Teams
• Creating Team Players

– Selecting: hiring team players

– Training: create team players
– Rewarding: incentives to be a good team player
 Individuals vs Teams
When not to use teams…
• Ask:
– Can the work be done better by one person?
– Is there really a common goal or purpose?
– Is there need for collective delivery?

– Are the members

of the group
interdependent?
(every member crucially
contributes to success)
 Group Behaviour & Work Teams

▪ Defining Groups (Types of Groups)

▪ Factors integral to Group Behaviour

▪ Group Decision Making

▪ Defining and Identifying Work Teams

▪ Effective Team Building (Next Tutorial Topic)

 Team Building
Team Context:
Why is a team needed?
What types of Teams can an organizational use?
What are potential Strengths & Weaknesses?

Team Processes: How can a team operate effectively?

How can an organization encourage ‘high performance’
via teams and teamwork

Team Design: Who should be in a team?

Optimum Selection: Size? Expertise? Diversity?
How can Diversity in a Team be a strength & a weakness?
 Effective Team Building
Synergy is where the team is more than the sum of its parts
– Allows diverse information to be brought together
in new combinations
– Allows people to learn and spark off one another
– Ability to cancel out individual errors
– Space for better exploration of decisions
 Effective Team Building
How to build an effective team:
– Create a real team
– Create a compelling direction and vision
– Design the team in a way that enables it to be effective
• Design the task
• Grant it the authority and autonomy
• Make it psychologically safe
• Think about the size and composition of the team (diversity,
knowledge, skills and attitudes)
– Ensure the team receives organisational support
– Make timely interventions to ensure the team is
working
 Effective Team Building
Think about building diversity in teams
Relationship Task
oriented oriented
attributes attributes

Department/unit,
Diversity on Gender, age,
organisational
readily nationality,
tenure, education,
detectible ethnicity, religion
formal title
attributes

Personality, Task knowledge,

Diversity on attitudes, values, experience, cognitive
underlying abilities,
sexual identity, communication skills,
attributes social identity mental models
 Next Week is Reading Week

Use the time productively to catch-up

We are now over halfway through textbook

For OB: watch videos; read textbook chapters

→ Advance Preparation/Revision for MCT

 OB: Multiple Choice Test
• The Multiple Choice Test (MCT – TS1) is 50% of assessment

• Date: Wednesday 23 April

• Time: To be Confirmed: Between 11am-4pm
• Venue: BGLT, SOAS (on-campus only)

• Preliminary information re MCT will be uploaded to Moodle in Reading Week

• Final lecture class on Wednesday 19 March (09:00) is Revision Class for MCT

Important Action:
• Block off Wednesday 23 April in your Calendars for the MCT
Week 5 Lecture – Resources (textbook chapters & videos)

Chapter 9 (textbook): Foundations of Group Behavior

https://soas.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1352790432

Chapter 9 (video): Group Behavior (Obenauer)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-6Gv9aHnXg

Chapter 10 (textbook): Understanding Work Teams

https://soas.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1352790432

Chapter 10 (video): Work Teams (Obenauer)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctsSDZ-uXtg
 Week 7 Tutorial: Team Building in Organisations

CIPD: “High-performing teams – an evidence review”

https://www.cipd.org/uk/knowledge/evidence-reviews/high-performing-teams/

OB Textbook p.338-341: Creating Effective Teams

https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.soas.idm.oclc.org/lib/soas-
ebooks/reader.action?docID=7184744&ppg=339
OB Textbook p.333-336: Types of Teams
https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.soas.idm.oclc.org/lib/soas-
ebooks/reader.action?docID=7184744&ppg=334

Video TedTalk: “How Diversity makes Teams more Innovative”

Rocío Lorenzo: How diversity makes teams more innovative | TED Talk

Guidance for Presentation Topics:

(1) What are the various types of teams organisations can use and what might be strengths &
weaknesses?
(2) How can organisations create effective and high-performing teams?
(3) How can DEI impact teamwork in organisations? What are the pros & cons of diverse teams?