GROUP

DYNAMICS
ANDREW J.
DUBRIN

GROUP
Collection of people who
interact with one
another, work toward
some common purpose,
and perceive themselves
as a group.

TEAM
Members have
complementary skills and
committed to a common
purpose, a set of
performance goals and
an approach to task.

GROUP

TEAM

Strong, focused
leader
Individual
accountability

Leader shares
leadership roles
Individual & mutual
accountability
Actual joint work
products
Open-ended
question and full
participation in
problem solving

Run efficient
meetings

GROUP NORMS
Guidelines for acceptable
and unacceptable
behaviours that are
informally agreed on by
group members.
*OCB= Organizational Citizenship Behaviour
*IA=Individual Attitudes
*GN= Group Norms

OCB= IA+GN

FORMAL GROUP
Formed by the
organization to
accomplish specific
tasks and achieve goals.

INFORMAL GROUP
Emerge over time
through the interaction of
workers
Satisfy a social or
recreational purpose

TYPES OF WORK
TEAMS

CROSS-FUNCTIONAL TEAM
Composed of workers from
different specialties, but at
about the same
organizational level, coming
together to accomplish a
task.

Improving quality, reducing costs & engaging in system

development.
Team leader has both technical & process skills.
PROS: communication, saves time

VIRTUAL TEAM
Small group of people who
conduct almost all of their
collaborative work by electronic
communication rather than
face-to-face meetings.
Teleworkers, E-mail, groupware, videoconferencing, electronic
brainstorming
PROS: strategic alliances, new workforce demographic
CONS: differences in perception of time &
different non-work days

CREW
Group of specialists each of
whom has specific roles,
performs brief events that are
closely synchronized with the
work of other specialists, and
repeats these events under
different environmental
conditions.

TOP MANAGEMENT
TEAMS
Group of managers at the top
most organization

OTENTIAL PROBLEM
WITHIN GROUPS

GROUP POLARIZATION
Situation in which
postdiscussion attitudes tend
to be more extreme than
prediscussion attitudes.
CAUTIOUS
SHIFT

RISKY SHIFT

SOCIAL LOAFING
Freeloading or shirking
individual responsibility, when
a person is placed in a group
setting and removed from
individual accountability.

GROUPTHINK
Deterioration of mental
efficiency, reality testing and
moral judgement in the interest
of group cohesiveness.
Extreme form of consensus
Valued getting along more
than getting things done

MPLICATIONS FOR MANAGERIAL PRACTIC

Be aware of group norms and the

extent to which they facilitate
inhibit reaching organizational
objectives.
When forming a new work group or
team, recognize that time is needed
before the group will be able to
achieve maximum performance.
Be aware that group effectiveness is
not a random occurrence.