Groups In Work Essay Research Paper 1

Groups In Work Essay, Research Paper

1. Introduction

There is a popular saying A group is more than the sum of its parts . A group is not just a collection of people. It is considered as a set of two and more interacting individuals to achieve certain goals and meet certain needs (George and Jones, 1999, Greenberg and Baron, 1997). The first stage in the analysis of group performance should be to examine the background of the group firstly. The second stage would be to distinguish the task context and the process in the analysis of group behaviour (Hunt, 1992). Finally, some recommendations should be given to improve the effectiveness. Based on the behaviour of Group 6 in Organisational Behaviour course, this assignment assesses the performance in this group and suggests certain implementations to improve the performance and reduce the disadvantages.

2. Background

Concerning the two different aspects, e.g. member and group, this section would focus on the brief background introduction about Group 6.

2.1 Member

Group 6 consists of nine students. There is one distinction that is worthy of noticing: five members are from Britain, in contract, other four come from Asian countries and areas, such as China, Indonesia, and Taiwan. Due to the different national character, this distinction could influence the individual s behaviours in the group (Hofstede, 1997).

2.2 Group

First of all, the type of group should be defined in this case. Concerning the formation of Group 6, it is appointed to finish the case study in each lecture of Organisational Behaviour and to draw the group conclusion after group discussion. Hence, it can be considered as a formal and task force group, which is a collection of people to work together and to achieve the specific target (George and Jones, 1999).

The second factor that could be stated is development stage. Using Bruce W. Tuckman s five-stage model, which includes forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning, Group 6 completed five stages in eight lectures. However, because of the task appointed to complete in the first lecture, it should be noticed that group completed the procedure from the first step to the forth step in Week One.

Another factor considered is the group characteristics, including size, composition, function, and status. Composed of nine students, that have different courses, different national cultures and education backgrounds, Group 6 could be stated a small heterogeneous group. George and Jones (1999) argue that such a group might have a certain potential advantages, e.g. more frequent interactions, more satisfactions, and more points of view.

3. Performance Analysis

Generally, it could be considered that the performance of Group 6 is gradually effective in the whole group development stage. Moreover, it could be stated as a cohesive group because of the strong membership valuation and interdependent cooperation. On the other hand, some ineffective performance still occurred in the process of group work. Combining these two parts, three factors could be essential to the extent in which they influence the performance, i.e., personality of members, problem of social loafing, and characteristic of task. The first two factors could be identified as internal factor, in contrast, the last one could be external.

3.1 Personality of Members

Some observations reveal that personality factor can cause some members to hesitate in offering their opinion and knowledge, which can cause low performance of these members in turn (West, Borrill, and Unsworth, 1998). As an internal factor affecting behaviour, personality is determined by nature and nurture (George and Jones, 1999). One s national character could be formal or informal factor to influence the forming of one s personality due to the social and educational environment. Being mentioned in the background, this group could be divided into two cultural sections: eastern and western. In Hofstede (1997) research, four different criteria could be measured national cultures: individualism versus collectivism; large or small power distance; strong weak uncertainty avoidance; and masculinity and femininity. Focusing on the first two criteria, China, Taiwan and Indonesia belong to the countries that have large power distance and low individualism. On the contrary, Britain belongs to small power distance and high individualism section. Recalling the performance in Week One, the British students gave more opinions than the Asian students. It seemed that the group lacked mutual communication. The phenomenon was discussed in Week Four to explain the ineffective performance of the group. Some Asian student argued that the phenomenon was due to their national cultures that regard a listener, not a debater, as a virtue when someone giving ideas and points. Hence, personality affected by national character could be one key factor in individual performance.

3.2 Social Loafing

George and Jones (1999) define that social loafing are prevalent while members regard their individual contribution as unidentifiable and unimportant. Being an internal problem in group motivation and performance, social loafing seems not easy to avoid. Concerning the reason that people are more interested in themselves than their group-mates, this phenomenon is more common in individuali