Industrial and Organizational Psychology
Work Groups and Work Teams
Copyright Paul E. Spector, All rights reserved, March 15, 2005
Working Together
• Most people do not work in isolation but work with other
employees with whom they interact
• Work Group: Collection of people who interact and share
common or interrelated task goals.
• Work Team: Work group with
– Common task goals and objectives
– Coordinated effort
– Specified roles
•
Work group members may or may not work on the same
tasks.
– Sales groups may work completely independently, each person
with his or her own territory.
• Work team members work together to accomplish the
common tasks.
Group/Team Concepts
• Roles: Specialization of function within positions
– Formal: position title and description define with job analysis
– Informal: Emergent behavior in group
•
Status
– Power & influence, prestige, respect
– Partially inherent in role
• Norms
– Expected & accepted behavioral standards
– Productivity norms
– Dress norms
Group/Team Concepts 2
• Group Cohesiveness: Attraction of group members toward staying in
group
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High cohesive groups
Lower turnover
Stronger adherence to norms (homogenizer of behavior)
Greater satisfaction
Greater group influence
• Team Commitment
– Strength of an individual’s involvement in team and acceptance of team
goals
• Team Mental Model
– Shared understanding of task by team members
• Process Loss
– Effort/time spent by team members on non-task activities
Group Performance
• Individual tasks in work groups: co-acting effects
– Social facilitation
• Competition and arousal (audience)
– Social inhibition
• Distraction
• Group processes
• Arousal
• Group tasks: interdependence of group effort
– Assembly line: Performance = f(poorest individual)
– Additive: Performance = f(sum of individuals)
How Does Group Compare To Individuals?
Additive task (Kravitz and Martin, 1986) rope pull
Number of people
Predicted force of pull
Actual force of pull
1
2
4
8
1
2
4
8
1
1.86
3.08
3.92
• Social Loafing
– Identifiability reduces social loafing
• Brainstorming (creative task)
– Group inhibits individual performance
Group Diversity
• Differences among people in a group
– Cognitive diversity
• Knowledge, skill and values
– Demographic diversity
• Age, ethnicity, gender, nationality
• Effects on
– Job performance
– Job satisfaction
– Organizational commitment
• Positive effects when tasks require cooperation
• Negative effects when tasks don’t require cooperation
Group Interventions
• How should we work with groups?
– to increase productivity
– to increase satisfaction
– to make work more meaningful
•
• Increase cohesiveness
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Encourage formation of work groups
Allow socialization, on & off the job
Assign group tasks
Give group rewards
Allow employees to select coworkers
•
• Make group and organizational goals compatible
– Group rewards
– Profit sharing
– Participation
Autonomous Work Teams
• In factory setting self-managed work team has broad
control
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Makes entire product
Job rotation frequent and controlled by group
Groups can design, develop and purchase own tools
No quality inspectors (done by group)
Few direct supervisors
Supervisors as coaches
Participative
• Effectiveness
– Performance similar to traditional factory
– Greater job satisfaction
– Needs fewer managers/supervisors
Team Building
• Planned activities designed to improve team functioning
– Better communication
– Better task performance
– Less conflict
• Three characteristics
– Planned
– Conducted by a facilitator or consultant
– Existing work team
• Effects inconsistent
– Sometimes positive and sometimes no effects