Organizational

Processes
SESSION 1 AND 2 – FOUNDATIONS OF GROUP BEHAVIOR
Agenda
• Welcome address
• Course outline discussion – evaluation components
• Activity
• Foundations of group behaviour
Basic ground rules
Be on time
◦ Allowed till 5 minutes after the session starts
◦ Attendance – any query to be resolved in the same week
◦ Name tents on desk
Course outline discussion
◦ Four quizzes (20%), three assignments (30%), case participation (10%) and class participation
(10%) and exam (30%)
◦ Assignment – no extension of deadlines
◦ Missed exam – ONLY medical emergency
Academic integrity – plagiarism check
Be attentive, sincere, and respectful
Ask lot of questions
◦ Interactive
◦ So what????

3
Group
• What is a group?
• Two or more individuals, interacting and interdependent, who have come together to achieve
particular objectives.
• Formal and informal groups

• Ingroups and Outgroups

Social Identity and Social Identity Threat
Social Identity Examples
Stages of Group Development
• Think about the group activity in your WhatsApp group
• When did you see major activity in the group?
• Punctuated-Equilibrium Model
• First meeting sets stage
• Inertia - Slower progress follows
• Transition at half time – initiating major changes
• Second phase of inertia
• Last meeting – accelerated activity
Describe the Punctuated Equilibrium Model
Exhibit 9-1 The Punctuated-Equilibrium Model
Group Properties
• Role
• Norms
• Status
• Size
• Cohesiveness
• Diversity
Roles
• Role – set of expected behaviour patterns attributed to someone occupying a given
position in a social unit.
• Role perception – individual’s view of how he/she is supposed to act in a given
situation.
• Bareilley Ki Barfi – 44:00 – 51:00
• Role expectation – how others believe a person should act in a given situation.
• Psychological contract – unwritten agreement that exists between employers and employees.
• Role conflict – situation where an individual is confronted by divergent role
expectations
• Work family conflict
• Role play and assimilation
 Norms
• Acceptable standards of behaviour within a group that are shared by the group members.
• Norms and Conformity
• Have you ever watched a movie just because your friends wanted to see it and you were either neutral or didn’t want to
watch the movie? Yes or No.
• Adjustment of behaviour to align to group norms.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8BkzvP19v4
• Norms and Behaviour
• In the orientation program (residential program) of a post-graduate school, all the students were told they are best talent of
the country and to remain best they have to stay till 3 am in the morning to work hard than rest of the institutes. One
student, Madhav Mishra, had a habit of sleeping by 10PM and waking up early. After listening to the seniors’ speech, he is
very much determined that from tonight he will be awake till 3 am and will work hard like everyone else. He talked to many
other first year students in his study group and almost all of those who had the habit of sleeping early are determined to be
awake till 3 am.
• Positive Norms and Group Outcomes
• You become part of group known for very high performance.
• Negative Norms and Group Outcomes
• You become part of group known for poor performance
• Deviant workplace behaviour – taking bribes, harassing colleagues, not coming on time, etc.
Status
• Status – socially defined position or rank given to groups or group members by
others.
• What determines status
• Status Characteristic Theory
• Flashback - Think about the times you play cricket when you were young. Who had status?
• Controls resources
• Ability to contribute to group’s goals
• Personal characteristics – something valued by group (build, physical appearance, intelligence, money, etc.)
• Status and Norms
• Status and Group Interaction
• Status and Inequity
• Group status – ingroup and outgroup
Size and Dynamics
Group work (social loafing video):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nzCEGN8eJM

The tendency for Individuals to expend less effort when working collectively than when working
individually.
Cohesiveness and Diversity
• Cohesiveness
• Degree to which group members are attracted to each other and are
motivated to stay in the group.
• High cohesiveness – high performance
• High cohesiveness – low performance?
• How to increase cohesiveness?

• Diversity
• Extent to which members of group are similar to, or different from, one another.
• Research
• Diverse view points; creativity/innovative outcomes; less error
• Higher conflicts
• Faultlines – perceived divisions that split groups into two or more subgroups based on individual differences
such as sex, race, age, work experience, and education.
Group Decision Making
Activity – Group Decision Making
• 5 minutes – individual ranking
• 10 minutes – group discussion
• Instructions - discuss each item to give a collective ranking as group
Desert Survival
It is approximately 10 am in mid-May and you have just crash landed in the Thar Desert, near
the India-Pakistan border. The plane has completely burnt out, only the frame remains.
Miraculously, the 10 passengers are uninjured but the pilot has been killed.
The pilot was unable to tell anyone of you about your position before the crash. However,
ground sightings taken shortly before the crash suggest that you are about 100 km off the course
filed in your flight plan. A few moments before the crash, the pilot indicated you were about 112
km south east of a small village. The village is the nearest known settlement.
The immediate area is quite flat and, except for the occasional thorn bush and cacti, is rather
barren.
Before the plane caught fire, your group was able to save the 10 items on the desk.
Your task is to rank them according to their importance to your survival in the desert. In the
group, rank the items starting with 1 for the most important, down to 10 for the least
important. Be prepared to justify your decisions!
Rankings
Individual Rank
(Give ranks to these
ITEM
items:1 most important
Group Rank Expert Rank
– 10 least important)
Torch
Pen Knife
Plastic Raincoat (large size)
Bandage Kit with Gauze
.45 Calibre Pistol (loaded)
Parachute (white and red)
1 litre of water per person
1 Pair of Sunglasses per Person
1 Coat per Person
Cosmetic Mirror
Expert Rankings
EXPERT RANKING OF
ITEM
IMPORTANCE
Torch 4
Pen Knife 6
Plastic Raincoat (large size) 7
Bandage Kit with Gauze 10
.45 Calibre Pistol (loaded) 8
Parachute (white and red) 5
1 litre of water per person 3
1 Pair of Sunglasses per Person 9
1 Coat per Person 2
Cosmetic Mirror 1
Discussion
• To what extent did the group discussion change the accuracy of
the answers?
• Which behaviors helped/hindered the decision making
process?
• What happened if you had an accurate individual score but was
not very persuasive in the group?
• What happened if a person had a poor individual score and was
very persuasive in the group?
• Did any conflict arise? How was it managed?
Group Decision Making
• Group versus individual
• Benefits of group decision making
• More complete information and knowledge
• Increased diversity of views
• Better chance of acceptance
• Weakness
• Takes more time
• Members conform to pressure
• Few members dominate the decision
• Ambiguous responsibility
• When to use group decision making?
• Time – Individual
• Creativity – Group
• Acceptance - Group
Groupthink and Groupshift
• Groupthink
• A phenomenon in which the norm for consensus overrides the realistic appraisal of
alternative courses of action. (e.g. cosmetic mirror in dessert survival activity)
• Groupshift/polarization
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc-UdMoNnrI&feature=emb_logo
• Change between a group’s decision and an individual decision that a member within
the group would make. (shift could be towards either conservatism or greater risk but
usually more extreme version of original position.

Pre discussion view on More extreme view after

smoking/game discussion
Discussion/Argument on
performance/religious Risky ---> more aggressive
same topic
view/etc. Conservative ---> more cautious
Group Decision Making
• TECHNIQUES
• Interacting Group – typical groups in which members interact with each other
face to face
• Rely on verbal and non-verbal communication.
• Brainstorming – idea generation process that specifically encourages any and
all alternatives while withholding any criticism of those alternatives.
• Leader states problem --> “think the unusual” --> Discussion without criticism
• Nominal group technique – individual members meet face-to-face to pool in
judgments in a systematic but independent fashion.
• Write individual view ---> Silent period – presentation ---> Group discussion ---> Each member silently
and independently rank-orders
Thank You!