CRM Project

GROUP AND TEAM PERFORMANCE

There is a widespread belief that group performance is superior to individual performance for many tasks. This belief is based on the notion that something emerges in the interaction among people that enables a group to be better than the sum of its members. In other words, people inspire one another to be better than they would have been alone. It is true that for some tasks the coordinated efforts of two or more people are necessary because a single individual could not accomplish them alone. For example, several people are needed to build a house. Some tasks may require more than two hands, and others may require the lifting of objects that one person cannot do alone. For many tasks, however, groups are not necessarily better than individuals. Part of the reason is process loss—group members distract and keep one another from concentrating solely on the task at hand. There are additional reasons that we discuss as we compare the performance of individuals with that of groups.

Performance in the Presence of Others

One of the earliest known research findings concerning groups in psychology is that task performance is affected by the presence of others. In the late 1800s, Norman Triplett noted that the performance of bicycle riders was faster when they were racing against other people than when they were racing alone (Triplett, 1897). Subsequent research with laboratory tasks, however, did not always find that people performed better in the presence of others. Performance was better in the presence of others in some studies but worse in other studies.

Performing in front of an audience raises arousal, as this person will certainly experience. (Michael Malyszko/Taxi/Getty Images)

The most widely accepted explanation for these results was put forth by Zajonc (1965), who noticed that the type of task determined if performance is enhanced or inhibited by the presence of others. He suggested that the presence of others increases physiological arousal, which has effects on task performance. Performance is improved (the  social facilitation  effect) by other-induced arousal when the task is simple or well learned, such as bicycle riding. On the other hand, performance is decreased (the  social inhibition  effect) by other-induced arousal when the task is complex or new to the individual, such as solving a complex mathematics problem. These results suggest that for complex tasks, people should be given private space that allows them to keep their arousal levels relatively low. For simple tasks, the arousal produced by the presence of others can enhance performance, but other people can also be a distraction in the workplace, leading to poorer performance. There are no guarantees.

Group Versus Individual Performance on Additive Tasks

When researchers compare individuals to groups on task performance, they are usually concerned with an  additive task . The output of the task is countable, and the total output is the sum of the individual group-member outputs. The total output for a group of cashiers in a supermarket would be additive because the total sales are the sum of all the individual cashiers' sales. The effects of group process on additive task performance can be seen by comparing the output of an interacting group of people with an equal number of individuals who do not interact. The noninteracting individuals are referred to as a  nominal group . Their output reflects the output of a given number of individuals. The output of the interacting group, by comparison, reflects how well the same number of people will perform in a group.

Research dating back to the 19th century has consistently shown that nominal groups do as well as and usually better than interacting groups (J. H. Davis, 1969). This finding is well illustrated by research done over 100 years ago by an agricultural engineer in France named Maximilien Ringelmann. Kravitz and Martin (1986) described Ringelmann's research in which he compared the task performance of groups and individuals. Ringelmann noted that the sum of individual efforts often surpassed the effort of an equal number of people working in a group.  Table 12.1  summarizes how group and individual efforts compare. It shows the results across several different types of tasks involving the pulling and pushing of objects. The first column shows the number of people in the group. The second column shows the expected output of a group, which was calculated as the number of people in the group times the average individual performance. In other words, a group of two people should produce double the output of a single person, and a group of four people should produce four times the output of a single person. The third column shows the actual performance of the group. As the table illustrates, the actual interacting group output is considerably less than the expected group output. The percentage that the interacting group output is of the expected group output declines as the group size increases (see column 4). Clearly something is happening with the interacting group that is inhibiting performance.

TABLE 12.1 Strength of Object Pulling and Pushing as a Function of Group Size

Source: From “Ringelmann Rediscovered: The Original Article,” by D. A. Kravitz and B. Martin, 1986, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 936–941.

Size of Group	Expected Pull (KGS)	Actual Pull (KGS)	Percentage of Actual to Expected Performance
1	1	1	100
2	2	1.86	93
4	4	3.08	77
8	8	3.92	49

There are at least two explanations for the group effect on additive task performance. The first explanation is the possibility of process loss. Group members might interfere with one another's task performance, or they might spend time and effort on group maintenance activities rather than on the task at hand. This might explain inhibited performance in some studies, but with the rope-pulling task this does not seem likely. The nature of the task required that all group members concentrate their efforts on pulling the rope at the same time when a signal was given. Group members could not have been doing something else at the time.

A second and more likely explanation is a phenomenon called  social loafing —people do not put forth as much effort in a group as they would if they were working alone, and the larger the group, the less effort each person exerts. Latané, Williams, and Harkins (1979) found this phenomenon to be widespread in both laboratory and field settings. The social loafing effect can be diminished when group members believe that their individual output is being assessed. In a field study, social loafing was lower when employees felt their individual productivity was visible to others (Liden, Wayne, Jaworski, & Bennett, 2004). The phenomenon may also be limited to individualistic cultures, such as Australia, Canada, England, and the United States (see the discussion of culture values in  Chapter 9 ), where emphasis is placed on the self rather than on society. Earley (1989) found that Chinese management trainees who came from a collectivist country, where emphasis is placed on the group and society, did not demonstrate social loafing.

Brainstorming

Groups are often said to be superior to individuals in generating ideas or solutions to problems (Osborn, 1957). The theory is that group members inspire one another to generate ideas that they would not have thought of alone.  Brainstorming  is a group technique that is supposed to result in improved performance with this type of task. A group is given instructions to generate ideas without being critical or judgmental in any way. Ideas will be evaluated and modified later.

Unfortunately, research has failed to find that the performance of interacting groups that brainstorm is superior to that of nominal groups (McGlynn, McGurk, Effland, Johll, & Harding, 2004). Rather than inspiring one another, group members often inhibit one another. Part of the difficulty is undoubtedly attributable to process loss. The group may not spend as much time as individuals generating ideas. Perhaps even more important, individuals can be reluctant to share ideas in the group because of shyness or social anxiety. Alone a person might be more confident and secure in generating ideas. Finally, when working in a live group, members are spending most of their time listening to others rather than generating options.

Electronic brainstorming has been shown to enhance performance in an idea-generation task with the use of computers (Dennis & Valacich, 1993). Individuals are asked to enter ideas into a computer rather than writing them down. This technique has been found to produce performance equal to or better than that of nominal groups (the combined output of individuals who worked alone) and better than that of groups of individuals who shared their ideas. In Gallupe, Bastianutti, and Cooper's (1991) computer brainstorming study, subjects were aware that several people were working on the same task at the same time and that as ideas were entered onto the computer, they would be seen by everyone. Individuals were not known to one another, which may have reduced the social anxiety that could have inhibited performance in an interacting group. In a similar study, however, Valacich, Dennis, and Nunamaker (1992) found that anonymity made no difference in the performance of brainstorming individuals linked by computer. This study suggests that social anxiety is not the reason for the poorer performance of interacting groups.

Gallupe, Cooper, Grisé, and Bastianutti (1994) conducted a study that showed how electronic brainstorming produces better performance in part because people do not have to wait their turn for others to speak. They can type their responses as they think of them. When electronic brainstormers had to wait their turn to enter their responses onto the computer, performance was about the same as that for the interacting groups. This suggests that process loss is responsible for the poorer performance of interacting groups compared to computer or nominal brainstorming groups.

Paulus (2000) argued that the basic idea that group members inspire one another may be correct but that group process gets in the way. He has shown that exposure to the ideas of others can help people generate more ideas. He suggested a procedure whereby people first get together in a group to discuss ideas and then work alone to generate options. Research has shown that the initial group session helps facilitate the subsequent solitary session and results in increased performance (Paulus, 2000).

Group Problem Solving

So far we've shown that for additive tasks and brainstorming, nominal groups do better than interacting groups. This is not to say that individuals always outperform groups, however, as there are tasks that can be better done when people interact. Problem-solving tasks involve finding the solution to a given situation, such as solving a puzzle. For some problems, there can be a correct answer, but for others there might be a variety of solutions that could be reasonable. Performance is assessed as the time to find the right answer in the former case or the time to find a suitable answer (or the quality of the answer) in the latter. Studies of group problem solving often compare groups to their individual members, contrasting the group time to solve the problem with the time of the single best performer. Studies of problem solving have often found that groups perform as well or better than their best member, suggesting that for this sort of task a group can be a good choice (Bonner, Baumann, & Dalal, 2002).

Group Decision Making

Groups within organizations frequently make decisions ranging from those that are relatively unimportant (e.g., the color of the new stationery) to those that significantly affect the lives and well-being of thousands (e.g., closing a plant and laying off all the workers). Organizations differ tremendously in the extent to which important decisions are made by individual managers (the autocratic approach) or by groups (the democratic approach). Even in the most autocratic organizations, however, it is common for individuals to make decisions only after consultation with a group or committee. The president of the United States consults the cabinet for important decisions, and the presidents of corporations usually have their “inner circles” of associates who serve the same purpose.

Evaluating the quality of a decision is not always an easy or straightforward undertaking. Often the evaluation depends on the values of the person doing the determination and the criterion chosen for comparison. If a government decides to go to war, the decision might be considered good by one person because the war was won and bad by another because many people were killed. For example, many Americans supported President George W. Bush's decision to use military force against Iraq in 2003 to overthrow the Saddam Hussein government, whereas others believed it was a bad decision that would cost too many lives. Similarly, if a company president decides to downsize and lay off thousands of employees, it might be considered a good decision by stockholders whose shares might go up in value and a poor decision by employees who might lose their jobs. A solution to this dilemma is to evaluate a decision against the objective that it was meant to obtain. The Iraq War might be considered a good decision because it accomplished the objective of overthrowing Hussein. If the criterion considers the cost in human life and money, the decision might be considered to have been a poor one. A layoff might be a good decision if it results in a financially healthier company, but a bad decision if it does not.

We review two areas of group decisions in this section. First is the issue of whether groups take more risks or are more conservative in their decisions than individuals. As we will see in our discussion of group polarization, this question has no simple answer. The second issue concerns how groups sometimes make inappropriate decisions, even though most of the group members know the decision is a poor one. This is the phenomenon of groupthink.

Group Polarization

If a group of people decides on one of several possible courses of action, will the choice involve greater or lesser risk than the choice made by an individual? In other words, are groups riskier or more conservative than individuals in their decisions? This question has been addressed by hundreds of studies comparing group decisions to the decisions of individuals. The answer is that group decisions often differ from the decisions of individuals, but whether they are riskier or more conservative depends on the nature of the decision.

The typical risky-decision study asks individuals and groups to choose one option from a series of options that vary in risk. For example, a decision task might involve deciding the acceptable odds of survival for undergoing elective surgery.  Table 12.2  is one of the choice-dilemmas (Kogan & Wallach, 1964) that have been used in many risk studies. In these studies, subjects are first asked to make an individual decision. The subjects are then placed into groups and are asked to come to a group decision. In most studies, the group decisions are more extreme than the mean of the individual decisions. For example, suppose that five subjects choose the following acceptable odds for the surgery problem: 20, 20, 20, 60, and 80 chances out of 100 of dying in surgery. The mean of their choices is 40. When placed in a group, however, the same five people are likely to reach a group decision that is closer to the majority position of 20 than the mean of the individuals alone.

TABLE 12.2 A Risk-Related Choice Task Used in Group Decision Research

Source: From Risk Taking: A Study in Cognition and Personality, by N. Kogan and M. A. Wallach, 1964, New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Mr. B, a 45-year-old accountant, has recently been informed by his physician that he has developed a severe heart ailment. The disease would be sufficiently serious to force Mr. B to change many of his strongest life habits—reducing his workload, drastically changing his diet, giving up favorite leisure-time pursuits. The physician suggests that a delicate medical operation could be attempted which, if successful, would completely relieve the heart condition. But its success could not be assured, and in fact, the operation might prove fatal.

In groups, the majority position typically holds more weight than the minority position, and the shift of the group is toward the majority view. If the majority of the group members make a risky choice, the group decision is likely to be riskier than the mean of its individuals. If the majority make a conservative choice, the group is likely to shift its decision in a conservative direction. This deviation from the group mean is called  group polarization  (Lamm & Myers, 1978), meaning that the group is more extreme (closer to one pole or the other) than the mean of its individuals.

A number of explanations have been offered for the group polarization phenomenon. One likely explanation is that the members who hold the minority view will likely conform to the majority, especially if one member's choice is far from the choices of the other group members. The individuals who find that others made the same choice that they did are likely to be convinced that theirs was the best choice. Most of the group discussion will be directed to convincing the minority that they should adopt the “correct” majority viewpoint. Although most of the research on group decision shifts has concerned risk-related decisions, this phenomenon probably holds for any type of choice situation. For example, decision shift would be expected in deciding how much money to spend on an item.

Groupthink

High-level decision-making groups in corporations and governments typically are comprised of experts who should be able to make good decisions. Unfortunately, something can happen to decision-making processes when groups of people get together, leading them to make decisions that any reasonably bright, informed individual would probably never make. Janis (1972) conducted in-depth analyses of decision fiascoes and developed a theory of what can go wrong when groups make decisions.  Groupthink  is a phenomenon that can occur when groups make decisions that individual members know are poor ones (Janis, 1972). Janis noted as examples the Ford Motor Company's decision to produce the Edsel, an automobile that lost $300 million; the Kennedy administration's decision to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, an invasion that was a total failure; and the Johnson administration's decision to escalate the Vietnam War, which the United States never won. Moorhead, Ference, and Neck (1991) analyzed the decision to launch the space shuttle Challenger in 1986. Despite warnings that cold weather could cause serious mechanical failures, NASA officials decided to launch the shuttle in freezing temperatures, resulting in a tragic accident that killed the entire crew.

The decision that led to the Challenger disaster was likely caused by groupthink, according to Moorhead, Ference, and Neck (1991). (NASA/ScienceSource/Photo Researchers)

According to Janis (1972), groupthink is likely to occur in highly cohesive groups with strong leaders when the social pressures to maintain conformity and harmony in the group take precedence over sound decision making. The likelihood of groupthink is increased when decision-making groups isolate themselves from outside ideas and influences. Note the following sequence of events: Suppose that the leader of the group presents a bad idea at a meeting. Each member might initially suspect that the idea is a poor one but is reluctant to be the one to say so. Much like the story “The Emperor's New Clothes,” no one wants to stick his or her neck out and question the leader's decision. As each individual looks around the room and notices that everyone is silent, he or she may begin to doubt his or her initial judgment. After all, if everyone else seems to be going along, perhaps the idea is not so bad. As the group process gets rolling, even the most minor reservation is quickly rationalized away, and pressure is put on individual members to conform to the group point of view. Some of the factors leading to groupthink are illustrated in  Figure 12.2 .

Figure 12.2  Several factors can lead to groupthink. Of the four shown here, group cohesiveness seems unnecessary, according to Aldag and Fuller (1993).

Janis (1972) offered several suggestions for avoiding groupthink. Two major themes appear throughout these suggestions. First, group leaders should serve as impartial moderators in group meetings rather than attempting to control the decision alternatives that are recommended. Second, group members at every stage of the decision-making process should critically evaluate decision alternatives and continually seek information that might support or refute the wisdom of a decision. Janis discussed specific actions that groups should take to maintain a critical and objective frame of mind. For example, groups should periodically break into smaller subgroups to discuss critical issues, and members of the decision-making groups should discuss issues with subordinates. These actions can help groups avoid getting caught in a cycle of groupthink that can result in making the wrong decision.

Aldag and Fuller (1993) reviewed the research on groupthink. They noted that few good tests of its propositions exist and that those that do exist support only part of the theory. For example, group cohesiveness does not seem to be necessary for groupthink to occur. Janis (1972), however, offered sound advice about how to avoid bad group decisions by soliciting a variety of views. This is a potential advantage of having diversity in the backgrounds of group members. A diverse group is likely to have different perspectives on a problem and its solution. We will discuss group diversity later in the chapter.

Team Innovation

Organizations today find themselves in a rapidly changing and competitive world that requires them to adapt and change. Much of that change occurs at the level of work teams that implement new innovations in the workplace. Innovation is the introduction of new ideas, procedures, or products into a team (De Dreu, 2006). Innovation is not the same as creativity in that team members don't necessarily invent the innovations that they adopt. Innovation is the process of introducing changes regardless of whether they were invented or borrowed.

Teams innovate out of necessity, from both internal factors (organizational constraints and workload) and external factors (turbulent environment) (Anderson, De Dreu, and Nijstad, 2004). A turbulent and challenging environment is the case for high-tech companies that produce products in rapidly advancing fields. Extreme competition requires constant innovation for organizations to maintain their market share and survive. Teams also innovate because of organizational constraints that require innovations to overcome obstacles and heavy workloads that require new ways to get work done more efficiently.

Teams vary in their orientation to innovation. Those teams that take time to critically discuss how they do things and how they can do them better are the best innovators (Somech, 2006). Such discussions involve sharing differences of opinion that can produce conflicts about tasks among members. A moderate level of such conflict is optimal in facilitating innovation in teams (De Dreu, 2006), especially when that conflict is cooperative (see the discussion on team conflict earlier in this chapter).

Team KSAOs

An important issue for organizations that use teams to accomplish important work is whether or not there are special team KSAOs that determine whether a person is a good team member and, perhaps more importantly, whether the levels of team KSAOs among members relate to team performance. Research has shown that at least some KSAOs that predict job performance for individuals also predict for teams. For example, the higher the mean cognitive ability in a team (computed by averaging team member scores), the higher the team performance is likely to be (Stewart, 2006). Determining additional team KSAOs that also relate to team performance would inform both selection and training of members.

As might be expected, several team KSAOs have been identified that relate to team performance. Three are particularly important:

1. To be a good team member requires knowledge of teamwork (Hirschfeld, Jordan, Feild, Giles, & Armenakis, 2006). Such knowledge is concerned with how individuals can effectively work together in teams and develop good working relationships with others.

2. An effective team member has good social skills (Morgeson, Reider, & Campion, 2005). Beyond knowing how to work in teams, a person must have skills in communicating with and influencing others.

3. Certain personality characteristics make a person particularly suited to teamwork. Jackson, Colquitt, Wesson, and Zapata-Phelan (2006) showed that individuals who are collectivistic as opposed to individualistic (see  Chapter 9 ) in their values perform better in teams.

Taken together, these studies suggest that the most effective team members have knowledge of how to work in teams and skill in doing so, as well as a personality that is suited to working closely with others.

GROUP DIVERSITY

Demographic shifts have resulted in increasing numbers of minorities and women in the workplace, not only in North America but in much of the rest of the industrialized world (Triandis, 2003). Coupled with the greater reliance on teamwork, group diversity has become an important issue for organizations (Mohammed & Angell, 2004). Diversity or differences among people can be divided into two types: cognitive and demographic (Van der Vegt & Janssen, 2003). Cognitive diversity concerns people's knowledge, skills, and values. Demographic diversity consists of more visible attributes of people, such as age, gender, and race-ethnicity. An important issue concerns the impact of diversity within work groups on member performance and reactions.

Jackson, Joshi, and Erhardt (2003) reviewed 63 studies that addressed the impact of diversity within groups—that is, the effect on groups of having members that are different from one another. They noted that diversity can have both positive and negative effects but that results across studies are inconsistent. Some of the reasons are that different types of diversity have been investigated in different studies and that diversity can have different effects depending on the task. Mannix and Neale (2005), for example, concluded that cognitive diversity is likely to be helpful for team innovation, but demographic diversity is not. However, demographic diversity is helpful when there is a need to get the perspectives of a diverse population of potential clients or customers in marketing situations (Jackson & Joshi, 2004).

Organizational context is also important for diversity. Van der Vegt and Janssen (2003) found no relation of either cognitive or demographic diversity with performance in teams from a Dutch company. However, the diverse groups were the best performers when the job required coordinating with teammates and the worst performers when the job could be done independently. In another Dutch study, a similar pattern was found for job satisfaction when the joint influences of diversity and group goals were investigated (Schippers, Den Hartog, Koopman, & Wienk, 2003). There is no overall correlation between diversity and jobsatisfaction. However, members of teams with group goals are more satisfied if they are diverse; members of teams with individual goals are more satisfied if they are not diverse. Taken together, these studies suggest that diversity can have negative effects when people have no stake in getting along with one another because their jobs are independent or their goals are not linked. However, when there is a necessity to work well with others, not only does the negative aspect of diversity disappear, but also there can be significant advantages in both performance and satisfaction.

INTERVENTIONS WITH WORK GROUPS IN ORGANIZATIONS

Most organizations consist of a network of interrelated work groups. In order for the organization to function effectively, individuals must coordinate their efforts within their own groups, and groups must coordinate their efforts with one another. In this section, we discuss three techniques that can be used to improve group functioning. The autonomous work team is an alternative to the traditional organization of a factory. Items are assembled by small teams of employees rather than by all production employees. The autonomous work team idea has been adapted for nonmanufacturing organizations as well. Quality circles are groups of employees who meet to provide suggestions to management about how to improve productivity. Team building is a family of procedures used to improve the functioning of teams.

Autonomous Work Teams

In the traditional factory, the assembly of a product is broken down into many small operations. For large, complex products, like an automobile, there can be hundreds or thousands of operations, each done by a separate employee. Because assembling a product requires the coordinated effort of a large number of people, many resources must be devoted to supervision. The autonomous work team is an alternative system whereby an entire product is assembled by a small team of employees. A factory will be comprised of many work teams, each assembling an entire product. Because assembly of a product involves only the coordination of team members, relatively few resources are necessary for supervision. Teams are relied on to manage themselves, requiring far fewer supervisors.

Autonomous work groups at Butler Corporation assemble entire grain dryers, which is the cylinder surrounded by steam. (© Stan Zack/Alamy)

The details of how autonomous work teams operate vary from organization to organization. One such system, described by Hackman and Oldham (1980), was implemented by the Butler Corporation when it opened a new grain dryer plant. A grain dryer is a large piece of farm equipment that contains over 3,000 parts (see photograph). At Butler, each dryer is assembled by an autonomous work team. Each team is responsible for managing itself and for product assembly. Ten distinguishing characteristics of the teams at Butler are listed in  Table 12.3 . As you can see, each member of the team learns each operation, so that after about 18 months on the job every employee can assemble an entire dryer. The team is responsible for the quality of the finished product, which it must test before sending it out of the plant. If a dryer is defective after it is placed into use on a farm, a team member might have to make a service call to fix it. The role of supervisors is different at Butler. There are few of them, and their major function is to offer advice and training to team members. The approach is participative with frequent staff meetings and an advisory committee comprised of members from different teams.

TABLE 12.3 Distinguishing Features of Autonomous Work Groups at Butler Corporation

Source: From Work Redesign, by J. R. Hackman and G. R. Oldham, 1980, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

1. Employees frequently rotated jobs. 2. After about 18 months, most employees knew the entire production process. 3. Groups designed and purchased their own tools. 4. Group members went on service calls to do warranty repairs. 5. Quality control inspection was done by group members. 6. There were few supervisors. 7. Group members participated in hiring and firing. 8. Supervisors served as coaches providing counseling and training. 9. There were weekly group meetings and monthly plant meetings. 10. There were employee advisory groups to management.

Research has shown that autonomous work teams can benefit employees and organizations. Job satisfaction is sometimes higher with autonomous work teams than more traditional approaches (Cordery, Mueller, & Smith, 1991). Job performance has been found to be the same in manufacturing organizations (Wall, Kemp, Jackson, & Clegg, 1986) or better (Banker, Field, Schroeder, & Sinha, 1996). However, the decreased need for supervisory personnel can result in an overall greater efficiency for these autonomous work teams, even when productivity is the same (see the Research in Detail box). Although there can be advantages to autonomous work teams, they aren't suitable for all situations. Langfred (2005) found that to be in an autonomous team means surrendering some individual autonomy. Thus such teams are best suited to tasks that require a high level of interdependent effort among members to complete tasks.

RESEARCH IN DETAIL

It is rare in field settings to be able to do a true experiment in which two or more experimental conditions are created and subjects are randomly assigned to them. Wall, Kemp, Jackson, and Clegg (1986) conducted a quasi-experiment, meaning that the design of the study was an approximation to an experiment. Two factories that represented the two experimental conditions of interest were compared, but employees were not randomly assigned to work at each factory. It is therefore possible that the observed effects were due to differences in the two factories rather than the autonomous work group treatment.

The study was conducted at a candy manufacturing company in England. Officials of the company decided to experiment with autonomous work groups by trying them at one factory. The researchers were enlisted to evaluate the effects of the new system. The productivity, job satisfaction, and mental health of employees at the autonomous work group factory were compared to those factors for employees at a matched factory that used the traditional assembly-line approach. Data were collected 6 months, 18 months, and 30 months after the new factory began operation.

The results showed that employees in the autonomous work group factory were more satisfied with their jobs than employees in the traditional factory. Their productivity, however, was not better. In fact, during the first 6 months of operation, the productivity of the autonomous work groups was quite disappointing. Much of the difficulty was attributed to problems with new equipment and the time needed for training employees in the new production procedures. By the 30-month time period, performance in both factories was equivalent. Because the autonomous work group factory had fewer supervisors, however, it was found to be more cost efficient.

One finding illustrates the difficulties in drawing conclusions from quasi-experimental studies. The turnover rate was found to be higher in the autonomous work group factory than the traditional factory. This finding was surprising because employees of the former factory were more satisfied with their jobs than employees of the latter factory. The authors noted that the unemployment rate in the area of England where the autonomous work group factory was located was lower than it was where the traditional factory was located. They speculated that the unemployment rate may have been the cause of the turnover rate differences rather than the type of factory. Because of the design of the study, we cannot be certain why the difference occurred. This study does provide evidence to support the idea that autonomous work groups can be more cost efficient than traditional factory structures. Organizations should be aware, however, that extra effort and time may be needed for successful implementation of the system.

Source: From “Outcomes of Autonomous Workgroups: A Long-Term Field Experiment,” by T. D. Wall, N. J. Kemp, P. R. Jackson, and C. W. Clegg,1986, Academy of Management Journal, 29, 280–304.

Quality Circles

A quality circle is a group intervention that gives employees the opportunity to have greater input into issues at work.  Quality circles  are groups of employees who meet periodically to discuss problems and propose solutions relevant to their jobs. Typically the groups are comprised of people who have similar jobs in manufacturing organizations, and discussions revolve around issues of product quality and production efficiency. As with autonomous work teams, the use of quality circles has been attempted in all types of organizations.

In theory, quality circles have benefits for both employees and organizations. They allow individual employees to enjoy greater participation, which many find stimulating and enjoyable. It can be a welcome break from routine work to spend time discussing work problems with colleagues. For the organization, it should mean better production procedures because the people who do the work are often the most knowledgeable about what the problems are and how they can be solved.

Too little research has been done on quality circles to draw any firm conclusions about their effects on employees or organizations (Van Fleet & Griffin, 1989). The few studies that have investigated quality circle benefits have yielded somewhat mixed results (Bettenhausen, 1991). Marks, Mirvis, Hackett, and Grady (1986) conducted one of the few studies that compared participants with nonparticipants in the same organization. They found that employees who participate in the quality circle program are more productive and have fewer absences than employees who do not. These results are quite promising, but they need to be replicated in other organizations before we can conclude that quality circles will increase productivity and reduce absence.

The quality circle idea has been adapted to focus on employee health rather than job performance. The German  health circle  or Gesundheitszirkel is an intervention in which groups of employees discuss ways to improve health and well-being. Aust and Ducki (2004) identified 11 studies with results that showed mostly positive effects of health circles. Not only did studies show that many suggestions were implemented, but some found increases in both health and well-being as well.

Team Building

Team building  refers to any of a number of activities designed to enhance the functioning of work groups or teams. Some team-building efforts are task oriented—they attempt to help team members improve how they accomplish their team tasks. Other efforts are interpersonally oriented—they are concerned with how well team members communicate and interact. This approach presumes that teams will perform better when their members can communicate and interact with one another effectively (Buller, 1986).

There is no one particular way in which team building is done, but three factors characterize team-building efforts (Buller, 1986). First, team building is a planned activity—that is, it consists of one or more exercises or experiences that are designed to accomplish a particular objective. Second, team building is typically conducted or facilitated by a consultant or trainer who is an expert in the particular form of team building that is being done. It would be difficult for a team to run itself through team building, for the trainer is an integral part of the experience. Third, team building usually involves an existing work team. Individuals are trained in team building to enhance their individual team skills within their work teams.

Team building often involves team members discussing problems and coming up with solutions. The role of the team trainer is to facilitate the discussion by getting team members talking to one another. This might involve directing questions such as these at individuals:

“Tom, what sorts of problems have you been having with product quality?”

“Ellen, why don't you seem to get the information that you need?