Suchergebnisse

Causal modeling procedures are utilized to investigate the relationship between cohesion and productivity in 54 recently formed work groups within the framework of a nine-month longitudinal field study. The results provide evidence of the central role of group acceptance of organizational goals in determining both productivity and cohesion. Goal acceptance affected group productivity positively via two routes: (1) directly and (2) indirectly via its direct effects on group drive. The results also suggest that the relationship between cohesion and productivity is reciprocal but that causation in either direction occurs only in groups exhibiting high goal acceptance and high drive levels. Implications of these findings for the management of work groups are discussed.

Power and restrictive participation are often identified as primary issues which can retard the productivity of work groups. The study describes team member responses to a questionnaire regarding bases of social power used within 19 interdisciplinary clinical team meetings and their relationship with team decision-making style, participation in team decisions, and team meeting productivity. Physicians were found to effect almost all treatment decisions, and autocratic decision making was found to be more prevalent than consensual decision making. It is suggested that the generally held belief that the interdisciplinary team approach is equivalent with shared decision making and broad-based participation needs careful re-examination. Implications of the findings for shared decision making in health care teams and work groups in general are discussed. The importance for managers and team leaders to understand and appropriately facilitate the dynamics of power in work groups is emphasized.

The purpose of this exploratory study is to visually map the dynamics of work groups using a method that emerged from chaos/complexity research. The verbal statements of members of 16 work groups were categorized using the Group Development Observation System. A Wavelet Transform Test was used to produce visual representations of the dynamic interaction patterns in each group's data string. Overall, the patterns that emerged in all 16 groups were similar in shape but different with regard to color, overall tone, and visual clarity. The groups were divided into three tiers based on these visual differences. Significant differences were noted among the tiers. The results support the concept that groups are complex adaptive systems and that the generated images provide a broader perspective of these systems, which may help researchers to explore human groups in more depth.

ST. PETERSBURG BEACH, FLA. — To be successful as an enrollment manager in a changing environment, you'll need to cultivate high‐functioning work teams that communicate a shared vision.

Individual regression in groups stems from anxiety arising from each individual's attempt to construct a psychodynamic equilibrium between one's demands for adequate self-identity (individuality that is not a threat to other group members) and group membership (affiliation that is not a threat to one's identity). The dilemma of reconciling needs for individuality and group membership provokes annihilation anxiety in which one resorts to regressive action in order to protect one's self from anxiety associated with uncertain object-relations, annihilation and feelings of persecution, and loss of affiliation. As a result, group cultures often are characterized by unconscious actions and shared fantasies stemming from the sum of individual regressed and primitive coping defenses. Individual regression and other primitive defensive actions are observable at the group level of analysis, and lend themselves to description as a group culture. The psychodynamics of individual and group regression with four work-group typologies is illustrated. Each typology represents a predominant coping pattern observed in groups as members attempt to contain their basic anxiety.