MAN3025 Chapter 13

Interpersonal conflict

A cause of conflict. Personality clash, differing beliefs or perceptions, competitiveness

Task Group

A group created by the organization to accomplish a relatively narrow range of purposes within a stated or implied time horizon.

Team

A group of workers that functions as a unit, often with little or no supervision, to carry out work-related tasks, functions, and activities. Include self-managed teams, cross-functional teams, high performance teams.

Functional Group

A permanent group created by the organization to accomplish a number of organizational purposes with an unspecified time horizon

Informal Leader

A person who engages in leadership activities but whose right to do so has not been formally recognized by the organization or group (expert or referent power leaders)

Formal Leader

A person who is elected or designated to engage in leadership activities. formally appointed.

Role ambiguity

Arises when the sent role is unclear and the individual does not know what is expected of him or her

Forming

Attempting to define the task and how it will be accomplished through discussions of task-related concepts/issues.

-Having clear and reasonable expectations of employees. -Sending clear and straightforward role cues. -Taking into account the employee's other roles and personal value system. -Recognizing an individual's capabilities and limits.

Avoid role ambiguity, conflict, and overload by:

Group

Consists of two or more people who interact regularly to accomplish a common purpose or goal.

Informal or Interest Group

Created by its members for purposes that may or may not be relevant to those of the organization

Storming

Defensiveness, intragroup competition, and the formation of factions; arguing among members, even when they agree.

Conflict

Disagreement among two or more individuals or groups

Norming

Establishing and maintaining team ground rules. More friendliness and confiding in one another.

Socialization

Generalized norm conformity that occurs as a person makes the transition from being an outsider to being an insider in the organization

Factors that reduce cohesiveness

Group size, disagreement on goals, intragroup competition, domination, unpleasant experiences

Intergroup Conflict

Interdependence, different goals, competition for scarce resources.

Factors that increase cohesiveness

Intergroup competition, personal attraction, favorable evaluation, agreement on goals, interaction

Why do people join groups and teams?

Interpersonal attraction, group activities, group goals, need satisfaction.

Role Overload

Occurs when expectations for the role exceed the individual's capabilities to perform

Role Conflict

Occurs when the messages and cues composing the sent role are clear but contradictory or mutually exclusive.

Person-role conflict

Results from a discrepancy between the role requirements and the individual's personal values, attitudes, and needs.

1. Forming 2. Storming 3. Norming 4. Performing

Stages of Team Development

Norms

Standards of behavior that the group accepts for and expects of its members

Virtual teams

Teams composed of people from remote work sites who work together online

Performing

The ability of the group/team to prevent or work through problems. Members develop a close attachment to the team.

Cohesiveness

The extent to which members are loyal and committed to the group; the degree of mutual attractiveness within the group

Role

The parts that individuals play in groups in helping the group reach its goals.

Negotiation

The process in which two or more parties reach agreement on an issue even though they have different preferences regarding that issue. Include Psychological (individual differences), Contextual (Situational characteristics), Mathematical (Game Theory), and Behavioral (Cognitive approaches).

Role Structure

The set of defined roles and interrelationships among those roles that the group members define and accept

Task specialist role

concentrating on getting the group's task accomplished

interrole conflict

conflict between roles.

Conflict between organization and environment

conflict with competition, consumer groups, employees.

Norm Conformity

group or team pressure an initial (ambiguous) stimulus prompting group behavior individual traits that reflect their propensity to conform the influence of situational factors related to the group if you don't conform to what is expected you are going to have to leave

Intrarole Conflict

may occur when the person gets conflicting demands from different sources within the context of the same role

Norm Variation

norms and their application vary within a group or team (internal)

Intrasender Conflict

occurs when a single source sends clear but contradictory messages.

Socioemotional role

providing social and emotional support to others on the team

Norm Generalization

the norms of one group cannot always be generalized to another group (external)

Optimal level of conflict

-Too little conflict, the organization underperforms -Too much conflict, the organization suffers from low performance -A moderate level of conflict can raise performance

Benefits of Teams

-give more responsibility for task performance to workers who do the tasks -empower workers by giving them greater authority and decision making freedom -allow organizations to capitalize on the knowledge and motivation of their workers -enable the organization to shed its bureaucracy and to promote flexibility and responsiveness