Transcript PERFORMANCE Chapter 9

PERFORMANCE
Chapter 9
Group Performance

Increasing importance in today’s
workplace
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Teams/Groups are more common now
Global competition will require more effort
from employees
Downsizing requires adaptability & extra
effort
Resources may be scarce
Adaptive Group Performance
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Beneficial due to changing nature of
work
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Changing technologies alter work tasks
Mergers, downsizing, & corporate
restructuring – dealing with uncertain
conditions
Globalization & Diversity - working in
different cultures
Social Facilitation
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Social facilitation: improvement in performance
in the presence of others (both audience and
coaction)
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Triplett’s (1898) early studies on cyclists –
performed better when racing against others
than being timed alone against others than
being timed alone
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Coaction – performing a task in the presence
of one or more other individuals who are
performing a similar activity
Social Facilitation (cont)
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Zajonc’s motivational analysis of social
facilitation (1965)
–
Presence of
others
Dominant Responses vs. Nondominant
Responses
Dominant
responses
increase and
nondominant
responses
decrease
If task requires
dominant
response
If task requires
nondominant
response
Social
facilitation
Social
interference
Social Facilitation (cont)
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Zajonc’s motivational analysis of social
facilitation (1965)
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Social Facilitation occurs on simple tasks that
require dominant responses
Social Impairment occurs for complex tasks that
require nondominant responses
Examples:
– Making speeches
– Getting dressed in familiar & unfamiliar clothes
– Playing games
Theories of Social Facilitation
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Zajonc’s Drive Process: Zajonc suggests
compresence (responding to the presence of
others) leads to increased readiness and
arousal (psychologically & physiologically)
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Motivational Processes: Cotrell’s evaluation
apprehension theory (also, self-presentation
theory): when working in the presence of others
a general concern of how others are evaluation
them, and this apprehension facilitates their
performance on simple, well learned tasks
Theories of Social Facilitation
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Cognitive Processes: distraction-conflict theory
when people are in the presence of others their
attention is divided by the other people and the
task
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This attentional conflict increases motivation
and so it facilitates performance on simple, well
learned tasks
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Recall is poorer when original stimulus was
presented in the presence of others
Alone or with Others ?
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Prejudice as a dominant response
Electronic performance monitoring
Study groups
Group Productivity
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Social Loafing – the reduction of individual effort
when people work in groups compared to when
they work alone
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Productivity losses in groups
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Steiner’s law of group productivity
Actual productivity = Potential productivity – losses
owing to faulty process
The Ringelmann Effect
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People become less productive when they work
with others
Loss increases as group become larger
Group Productivity
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The Ringelmann Effect
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People become less productive when they
work with others
Loss increases as group become larger
Causes of Loss
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Coordination problems
Reduction of effort
Potential
Productivity
600
500
Pseudo
groups
400
Actual
groups
300
200
100
Alone
Dyads
6-person
groups
Social Loafing
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Social loafing depends on a number of
group-level factors, including:
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Identifiability
Free-riding
Goals
Cures for Social Loafing
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Involvement
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exciting, challenging, involving tasks limit loafing
Karau and William's (1993) collective effort
model, or CEM
social compensation: involved members work
harder to compensate for others
Identification with the group: Social identity
Building an Effective Team
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Steiner’s social combination theory
predicts productivity depends on
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Group composition: Who is in the group, how
do they fit together?
The group’s task: What must the group do to
reach its goals?
Building an Effective Team
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Group composition
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Members’ knowledge, skills, abilities, or KSAs
outperform less skilled groups “the best
individuals make the best teams”
Group Diversity may outperform less diverse
groups b/c their wide range of talents & traits
enhances their cognitive flexibility – i.e.,
creativity, alternatives, solutions
Men and women in performance groups (solo
status)
Building an Effective Team
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Steiner’s taxonomy of tasks and task demands
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Distinguishes between the types of tasks
groups perform based on how members’ inputs
are combined
Task Demands – the effect that a problem or
task’s features, including its divisibility and
difficulty, have on the procedures the group
can use to complete the task
Asks three basic questions…. Divisibility,
Quantity vs. Quality, Interdependence
Task Demands
Question
Task
Type
Qualities
Divisible Subcomponents
can be identified
Can the task be
and assigned to
specific
broken down
members
into subtasks?
Unitary
The task does not
have
subcomponents
Examples
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Playing a
football game
Building a
house
Preparing a sixcourse meal
Pulling on a
rope
Reading a book
Solving a math
problem
Quantity vs. Quality
Quantity:
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Maximizing The more
produced the
better the
performance
Is quantity
produced
more
important than
quality of
performance ?
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Generating
many ideas
Lifting a great
weight
Scoring the
most goals
Quality:
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Optimizing
A correct or
optimal
solution is
needed
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Developing the
best answer
Solving a math
problem
Interdependence
Individual inputs are
added together
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Compensatory Decision is made by
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Additive
How are
individual
inputs
Disjunctive
combined
to yield a
group
product ?
averaging together
individual decisions
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Pulling a rope
Shoveling snow
Estimating a pig’s weight
by asking 3 people to guess
& averaging their guesses
 Averaging ratings of job
applicants
Group selects one
solution or product
from a pool of
members’ solutions
or products
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Conjunctive
All group members
must contribute to
the product for it to
be completed
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Discretionary
Group decides how
individual inputs
relate to group
product
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Picking one person’s
answer to a math problem
to be the group’s answer
Letting one art project
represent the entire school
Climbing a mountain
Eating a meal as a group
Deciding to shovel snow
together
Choosing to vote on the
best answer to a problem
Types of Tasks
Additive Task – a task or project that a group can
complete by cumulative combining of members’
input
 Compensatory Task – a task or project that a
group can complete by averaging together
individual members’ solutions or recommendations
 Groups outperform individuals on additive tasks
and compensatory tasks.
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Types of Tasks
Disjunctive Task – a task or project that is
completed when a single solution, decision, or
recommendation is adopted by the group
 Groups perform well on disjunctive tasks if the
group includes at least one individual who knows
the correct solution (truth-wins rule on Eureka
problems)
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Groups rarely perform better than the best
member (synergy, or an assembly bonus effect)
Types of Tasks
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Conjunctive Task – a task that can be completed
successfully only if all group members contribute
Groups perform poorly on conjunctive tasks unless less
skilled members increase their efforts (the Köhler Effect)
or the task can be subdivided.
Köhler Effect – an increase in performance by groups
working on conjunctive tasks that require persistence but
little coordination of effort and is likely due to the increase
effort expended by the less capable members.
The effectiveness of groups working on discretionary
tasks covaries with the method chosen to combine
individuals’ inputs (see Table 9-3).
Brainstorming
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Brainstorming rules
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Be expressive
Postpone evaluation
Seek quantity
Piggyback ideas
Brainstorming…
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Brainstorming groups are not as creative as
nominal groups due to
 Social loafing
 Production blocking
 Social matching
 Illusion of productivity.
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Other methods: brainwriting, synectics, the
nominal-group technique (NGT), and electronic
brainstorming (EBS), offer advantages over
traditional brainstorming.