Procedimientos

The study of groups in work situation has been an important activity of behavioral scientist ever since the pioneering work of the Hawthorne Researchers over seventy years ago. The outcome of numerous studies into different aspects of the behaviour of groups is a considerable store of useful and practicable knowledge about the working of groups. Typical areas of research have included the study of group effectiveness, inter-groups competition, and group cohesiveness.

Groups at work are formed as a direct consequence of an organisation's need to differential itself. A group is basically a collection of individuals, contributing to some common aim under the direction of a leader, and who share a sense of common identity.

Thus, a group is more than an aimless crowd of people waiting in an airport lounge or at a bus stop. A group has some central purpose, temporary or permanent, and a degree of self awareness as a group, and in the work situation most tasks are in fact undertaken by groups and teams, rather than by individuals. Groups are also widely used for solving problems, creating new ideas, making decisions and coordinating tasks.

These group functions are what the organisation itself needs to fulfill its purpose. However individuals

themselves need groups. Groups provide stimulus, protection, assistance and other social and psychological requirements. Groups therefore can work in the interest of organizations as a whole as well as in the interests of individual members.

One of the earliest distinctions to be made between groups (arising from the Hawthorne investigations) was between formal and informal groups. Formal groups were those set up by the management of an organisation to undertake duties in the pursuit of organisation goals. Some writers have described formal groups as official groups, to avoid the confusion that can arise when describing groups operating in an informally structured organisation. Such groups may be informal in the sense that they have few rules, enjoy participative leadership and have flexible roles. Nevertheless they are completely official. What is meant by informal organizations are those groupings which the employees themselves have developed in accordance with their own needs. These, of course, are unofficial. Every organisation has these unofficial groups and research has shown how important they are for organizational effectiveness.

Classification/Types of Groups.

There can be different types of groups that might exist in an organisation. The most common way of distinguishing between groups is to categorizing the groups into formal or informal groups. Formal groups are deliberately created by the organization in order to help the organizational members achieve some of the important the organizational goals. The informal groups, in contrast, develop rather spontaneously among an organization's members without a direction from the organizational authorities.

There are various types of formal groups that are found in an organization. These are:

•Command group which is determined by the organizational chart depicting the approved formal connections between individuals in an organization.

Examples of command group are Director and the faculty members in a business school, school principal and teachers, production manager and supervisors, etc.

•Task groups comprising some individuals with special interest or expertise, are created by the organizational authorities to work together in order to complete a specific task. Task groups are often lot restricted to the organizational hierarchy and can be cross-functional in nature. Examples of task group might be people working on a particular project.

Standing committee is a permanent committee

in an organization to deal with some specific type’s f problems that may arise more or less on a regular basis.

Examples of standing committees include the standing committee in a university to discuss various academic and administrative issues.

•Task force/ad hoc committee, in contrast, is a temporary committee formed by organizational members from across various functional areas for a special purpose. Meetings can also come under this category.

Various types of informal groups are:

•Interest groups are formed when a group of employees band together to seek some common objectives, like protesting some organizational policy or joining the union to achieve a higher amount of bonus.

•Friendship groups develop among the organizational members when they share some common interest like participating in some sports activities or staging the office drama, etc..

•Reference groups are the groups, with which individuals identify and compare themselves. These could be within the organization when a middle level executive compares himself with the higher level executive and longs for the perks and benefits enjoyed by the latter. The reference group might exist outside the organization as well when an individual compares himself with his batch mate working in other organizations or an ideal group of people he likes to have friendship.

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Groups Norms & Group Cohesiveness.

Group development process:

A useful way of looking at the development of group was devised by B. Tuckman (1965) who saw groups as moving through four key stages of development. Later (1977) he added a fifth stage. The final model can be summarized as follows:

•Forming is the initial stage of group development when the group members first come in contact with others and get acquainted with each other. This stage is characterized predominantly by a feeling of uncertainty among the group members as they now try to establish ground rules and pattern of relationship among themselves.

•Storming is the next stage that is characterized by a high degree of conflict among the members. Members often show hostility towards each other and resist the leader's control. If these conflicts are not adequately resolved, the group may even be disbanded. But, usually

the group eventually come in terms with each other and accepts the leadership role at the end of this stage.

•Norming is the third stage of the group development process during which the group members become closer to each other and the group starts functioning as a cohesive unit. The group members now identify themselves with the group and share responsibility for achieving the desired level of performance of the group.

Norming stage is complete when the group members can set a common target and agree on the way of achieving this.

•Performing is the fourth stage when the group is finally ready to start working. As the group is not fully formed after resolving their internal conflicts of acceptance and sharing responsibility, they can now devote energy to achieve its objectives.

•Adjourning is the final stage when the group, after achieving the objectives for which it was created, starts to gradually dissolve itself.

Group norms can be seen to develop at Stage 3 in the above analysis. Norms, in this context are common standards of social and work behavior, which are expected of individuals in the group. Norms are rules of behavior or proper ways of action which are accepted as legitimate by group members. Once such norms are influenced by organizational factors; such as policies, management style of superiors, and rules and procedures. They are also influenced by individual employees, whose standards may or not be in line with those of the official organisation. For Example, a group norm for the young men in an engineering workshop could be to follow a fashion of wearing long hair. This would conflict with organizational norms concerning the safety of employees in the workplace. Another example of a conflict between official and unofficial group norms can be drawn from situation where a group itself decides to operate a certain level of output over a given time, regardless of targets set by the management in their search for increased efficiency and productivity. The ideal situation, from an organization's point of view, is attained when the unofficial norms of the group are in harmony with the official norms of the organisation.

There is no doubt that part of the leadership role of a manager is to secure this harmony in his or her own section.

Group Cohesiveness.

Group cohesiveness means the degree of attachment of the members to their group. This refers to the ability of the group members to stick together. It also implies to the ability of a group to attract new members.

If group cohesion is high, the interaction between

members of the group is high and the degree of agreement in group opinion is high. A very cohesive group will demonstrate strong loyalty to its individual members and strong adherence to its established norms.

Individual who cannot accept these norms are cast out from the protection of the group. As Tuckman's analysis shows, cohesiveness develops over time and a newly-formed group has little cohesiveness.

There are several factors which can help cohesiveness to develop in a group. These include the following:

• Similarity of work

• Physical proximity in the workplace.

• The work-flow system

• Structure of tasks

• Group size (smaller rather than larger)

• Threats from outside

• The prospect of rewards

• Leadership style of the manager

• Common social factors (age, race, social status etc.).

In general the reason why people do develop into closely knit groups are threefold: because of those things they have in common, because of pressures from outside the group, and because of their need to fulfill their social and affiliation needs.

STATUS

The existence of status is a common feature of every organized group whether it is society, organization, or work group. Status is the relative ranking that a person holds in a group, organization or society. A status is a position that has been determined as being important in the relationships of the group. It typically refers to a specific hierarchical position within a particular organization. There are four scales by which one can describe various types of status.

1.Ascribed-Achieved.

This dimension of status measures the extent to which prestige or value is earned or is a matter of birth right. In the society, a certain amount of prestige is derived merely from being born into a prominent family. On the other hand a person may earn it through his own work and admiration of others.

2.Functional-Scalar.

This is related with the vertical and horizontal positions. In an organization, the position of a person may be evaluated on the basis of its rank in the hierarchy.

3.Personal-Positional.

This scale relates status to the extent to which prestige

or value is based on characteristics of the individual himself or based on the position he holds without regard to the person who occupies it.

4. Active-Latent.

This dimension arises because a person performing various roles may have different status with each role.

For example a person may be lowly placed in an organization; consequently his status is very low in the organization. But if he is holding a high position in the trade union, this status may affect his working in the