Groups and Organizations: Characteristics, Dynamics, and Future Trends

1. Chapter 5 Groups and Organizations

2. Chapter Outline • Social Groups • Group Characteristics and Dynamics • Formal Organizations in Global Perspective • Alternative Forms of Organization • Organizations in the Future

3. Social Groups A collection of two or more people who: • Interact frequently. • Share a sense of belonging. • Have a feeling of interdependence.

4. Aggregates and Categories • Aggregates happen to be in the same place at the same time but only interact briefly. • Airline passengers, shoppers, waiting at a traffic light • Categories may have never met one another but share a similar characteristic. • Students, elderly, Native Americans

5. Types of Social Groups

6. Cooley’s Primary and Secondary Groups • Primary group - small group whose members engage in face-to-face, emotion-based interactions. • Secondary group - larger group in which members engage in impersonal relationships for a limited period of time.

7. Sumner’s Ingroups and Outgroups • Groups set boundaries between insiders and outsiders. • Distinguishing between ingroups and outgroups helps us establish our identity. • May encourage group cohesiveness, but may also promote classism, racism, sexism and ageism.

8. Group Size

9. Small Groups • Small groups have interaction patterns that do not exist in larger groups. • In a dyad, participation of both members is crucial to the group’s survival. • When a triad is formed, the relationship and interaction patterns change. • As size increases, communication patterns change.

10. Group Leadership Styles • Authoritarian leaders - often criticized for fostering intergroup hostility. • Democratic leaders - praised for supportive behavior and blamed for being indecisive in a crisis. • Laissez-faire leaders - do not provide active leadership.

11. Research on Group Conformity • Asch - demonstrated that people will bow to social pressure in small group settings. • Milgram - obedience to authority may be more common than most of us would like to believe. • Pryor and McKinney - suggest a relationship between group conformity and harassment.

12. Groupthink • Members of groups limit their opinions to focus on consensus. • Members of a group arrive at a decision that individual members believe is unwise. • 1986 challenger tragedy has been cited as an example of this process.

13. Types of Formal Organizations

14. Weber’s Ideal Characteristics of Bureaucracy • Division of Labor • Hierarchy of Authority • Rules and Regulations • Qualification-Based Employment • Impersonality

15. Shortcomings of Bureaucracy • Inefficiency and Rigidity • Resistance to Change • Perpetuation of Race, Class, and Gender Inequalities

16. Alternative Forms of Organization “Humanizing” the bureaucracy: • Greater sharing of power and responsibility. • Encouragement of participants to share their ideas and try new approaches. • Efforts to reduce the number of people in dead‑end jobs and to help people meet family responsibilities.

17. Elements of the Horizontal Model for Corporations • Work is organized around “core” processes. • Hierarchy is flattened. • Teams manage everything and are accountable for measurable performance goals.

18. Elements of the Horizontal Model for Corporations • Performance is measured by customer satisfaction, not profits. • Team performance is rewarded. • Employees have regular contact with suppliers and customers. • Employees are trained in how to use information to make their own decisions.