Organizational Behavior Seminar Presentation

Instructor: Prof. Norihiko TakeuchiSpeaker: William ( LIU, Shih-Wei )

Group

Madness is the exception in individuals

but the rule in groups.

- Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

Lara Logan in the Arab Spring

Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt

Passengers Push Train to Rescue Woman

Minami Urawa station, Saitama, Japan

The Good and Evil within Groups

What are groups?

Defining and Classifying Groups

Group

Two or more individuals interacting and interdependent, who have come together to achieve particular objectives

Formal Group

A designated work group defined by the organization’s structure

Informal Group

A group that is neither formally structured nor organizationally determined

Robert Schrank’s Ten Thousand Working Days

The power of informal group is sometimes very big that managers cannot ignore

Sub-classifications of Groups (1)

Formal GroupsCommand Group– Report directly to a given

managerTask Group– To complete a job or task

in an organization but not limited by hierarchical boundaries

Informal Groups

Groups and Teams

  Groups TeamsDefinition Two or more

individuals interact for a goal

A special case of task group

Supervision Usually yes NoPerformance Sum of

individual’s workCoordinated work

Synergy No YesTime horizon Unspecific Specific or impliedAfter objects

attainedRemain Disband

Sub-classifications of Groups (2)

Formal GroupsCommand Group– Report directly to a given

managerTask Group– To complete a job or task

in an organization but not limited by hierarchical boundaries

Informal GroupsInterest Group– A specific objective with

which each is concernedFriendship Group– Share one or more

common characteristics

President

Vicepresident

Vicepresident

Vicepresident

Executivecommittee

Legaladvisor

Projectmanager

Projectmanager

Projectmanager

Cross-functional team(form of task group)

Functional group

Informal group

Types of Groups in Organizations

Why People Join Groups?

The Climax of Sport Events

Rupp Arena, Kentucky, USA

Why People Join Groups

SecurityStatusSelf-esteemAffiliationPowerGoal Achievement

The Workers in Scania

Young workers at Scania

Why People Join Groups

SecurityStatusSelf-esteemAffiliationPowerGoal Achievement

The importance of team work

The need to be a team player is so important nowadays that many companies resist hiring people that do not work with others

- Patricia Cook, CEO, Cook &Co.

"I don't have to be a team player. I'm the team owner.“

- New Yorker Cartoon

The Five-Stage Model of Group DevelopmentForming

– Members feel much uncertainty

Storming– Lots of conflict between

members of the groupNorming Stage

– Members have developed close relationships and cohesiveness

Performing Stage– The group is finally fully

functionalAdjourning Stage

– In temporary groups, characterized by concern with wrapping up activities rather than performance

Connie Gersick’s Video Experiment (1)

Gersick, C. J. G. (1989)

Connie Gersick’s Video Experiment (2)

Gersick, C. J. G. (1989)

Punctuated Equilibrium Model

Inertia

InertiaHalf-way point

How Groups Differ from Individuals?

Swarming Behaviors in Nature

Group Properties

GroupPerformance

NormsStatus

SizeCohesiveness

Roles

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Roles (1)

The development of roles

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Expected

role

Sent

role

Perceived

role

Enacted

role

Role

A set of expected behavior patterns attributed to someone occupying a given position in a social unit.

Role Conflicts

– Role Ambiguity: role sent is unclear.– Role conflict: messages and cues contradictory • Interrole conflict conflict between roles.

• Intrarole conflict conflicting demands from different sources.• Intrasender conflict single source sends contradictory

messages.• Person-role conflict is the discrepancy between role

requirements and an individual’s values, attitudes, and needs.

– Role overload: expectations exceed an individual’s capacities

Roles (2)

Role Expectations

How others believe a person should act in a given situation.

Role Perception

An individual’s view of how he or she is supposed to act in a given situation.

Zimbardo’s Prison Experiment

• Faked a prison using student volunteers

• Randomly assigned to guard and prisoner roles

• Within six days the experiment was halted due to concerns– Guards had dehumanized the

prisoners– Prisoners were subservient– Fell into the roles

The Experiment (2010)

Zimbardo’s Reflection

Deindividualization

The losing of self-awarenes in groups

Dehumanization

The denial of "humanness" to other people

Lord of Flies (1990)

William Golding, Lord of Flies (1945)

Norms

Norms

Acceptable standards of behavior within a group that are shared by the group’s members.

Classes of Norms

• Performance norms• Appearance norms• Social arrangement norms• Allocation of resources

norms

Hawthorne’s study (1924-1932)

Du Pont’s Safety Norms to reduce working injuries

Du Pont Factory, Texas

Conformity

Conformity

Adjusting one’s behavior to align with the norms of the group

Reference Groups

Important groups to which individuals belong or hope to belong

Asch’s Study (1951)

Deviant Workplace Behaviors

Group norms can influence the presence of deviant behaviorProduction Leaving early

Intentionally working slowlyWasting resources

Property Sabotage Lying about hours worked Stealing from the organization

Political Showing favoritismGossiping and spreading

rumorsBlaming coworkers

Personal Aggression Sexual harassmentVerbal abuseStealing from coworkers

S.L. Robinson, and R.J. Bennett 1995.

The Inner Ring

I believe that in all men’s lives at certain periods, and in many men’s lives at all periods between infancy and extreme old age, one of the most dominant elements is the desire to be inside the local Ring

Of all the passions, the passion for the Inner Ring is most skillful in making a man who is not yet a very bad man do very bad things

C. S. Lewis, The Inner Ring

Iraq Prison Abuse Scandal

Bad Apples? Scapegoat?

Philip Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect (2007)

Are we born good and corrupted by an evil society or born evil and corrected by a good society?

Status

A socially defined position or rank given to groups or group members by others

Power over OthersPower over Others

Ability to Contribute Ability to

Contribute

Personal Characteristics

Personal Characteristics

Group MemberStatus

Group MemberStatus

Norms & InteractionNorms &

Interaction

Size

Group Size

Performance

Expec

ted

Actual (d

ue to loafing)

Social LoafingThe tendency for individuals to expend less effort when working collectively

Prevent social loafing• Setting group goals• Intergroup competition• Peer evaluation• Distribute group

rewards based on individual effort

Cohesiveness

Degree to which group members are attracted to each other and are motivated to stay in the group

To increase cohesiveness• Make the group smaller• Encourage agreement with group goals• Increase time members spend together• Increase group status and admission

difficulty• Stimulate competition with other groups• Give rewards to the group, not

individuals• Physically isolate the group

Cohesiveness

Cohesiveness

Lowperformance

Lowestperformance

High

Low

Low High

Highperformance

Moderateperformance

Per

form

ance

no

rms

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How Groups Think?

Group Decision Making

Strengths Weaknesses

• Complete information• Diversity• More accuracy• Increased acceptance

• Time consuming• Pressure to conform• Domination by few• Ambiguous

responsibility

Group Thinking

Groupthink

Norm for consensus overrides realistic appraisal of alternative course of action

Group Shift (Group Polarization)

An exaggeration of initial position of the group Can be either toward conservatism or greater risk

Group Thinking in the Political Field

“There’s a win-win on the table here, but there’s also a lose-lose—and Washington may choose the latter”

- Newsweek

US Congress, Washington, DC

Student occupying Taiwan Congress in Mar. 2014

The Herd Behavior in Housing Bubble

The Housing Bubble, New York Times Cartoon

Herd behavior

Individuals in a group act collectively without centralized direction

Big Pharma R&D Team Boosts Profit The Background (back to 2002)• The pharmaceutical industry

was mediocre and growing slow in 2002

• Average year profit increase 1%• The Stock Exchange Index

declined 25% The Issue• Patent expirations can erase

30% of stock's value overnight• Need for stronger R&D to

produce new drug

Comparison (back to 2002)

Eli Lilly PfizerStock Price $62 a share $30 a shareblockbusters Forteo (osteoporosis, 2002)

Strattera (attention dis., 2002)Cymbalta (depression, 2001)Cialis (male impotence, 2003)

Lipitor (cardiovascular, 1996)Norvasc (blood pressure, 1999)Zoloft (depression, 1991)Viagra (male impotence, 1998)

Pfizer’s Strategy2000 Takeover of Warner-Lambert2003 Acquisition of Pharmacia

The efforts of Peter Corr

Critics• It is quite clear that greater scale in

research and development does not mean greater productivity

• Scientists had recently been drawn to Abbott Laboratories and Eli Lilly

Measures• Reduce the number of projects that

fail late in development• Forging earlier and stronger links

between researchers and marketing executives

Result• Ann Arbor Prize• Pfizer released SIX new

drugs compared to four of Eli Lilly

Peter B. Corr, PhD., Senior Vice President for Science and Technology, Pfizer

Thank You