Short Essay on organizational Groups!
In general, a number of people together at a given place and a given time can be considered as a group. People in a bus or the same compartment of a train or students in a class are all considered as groups.
However, from organizational point of view, a group is a team and a team has a different meaning and definition. According to Marvin Shaw, “a group is two or more persons who are interacting with one another in such a manner that each person influences and is influenced by each other person.”
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There are three key elements in the definition. First, there must be at least two people involved in forming a group. Second is the interaction among group members. For example, coworkers may work side by side on related tasks, but if they do not interact with each other, they do not constitute a team.
The third element is the influence of one group member on each other group member. This means that group members are mutually influencing each other with respect to the attainment of one or more common goals.
It should be noted that in order for the group members to interact with each other effectively, the group size should be reasonable and practical. It is difficult to interact closely with each other when the group size is very large. In fact the dynamics of large groups are significantly different than the dynamics of small groups. Accordingly, our concern is primarily with groups of reasonable size.
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Bartol and Martin suggest that midsize groups of seven or nine persons are most appropriate. Because of odd number of members, deadlocks can be avoided. Secondly, the groups are large enough to generate many different ideas but small enough to allow full and open interaction. The relationship of group size and performance is shown as follows:
One reason for decline in group efficiency for larger groups is known as “social loafing” which is the tendency to expend less effort in problem solving and more socializing with each other. Accordingly the size of the group has considerable impact on the quality and timeliness of the output of the group.