flowchart LR F[Forming<br/>Polite, uncertain] --> S[Storming<br/>Conflict] S --> N[Norming<br/>Cohesion] N --> P[Performing<br/>Productive] P --> A[Adjourning<br/>Reflective] style F fill:#E3F2FD,stroke:#1565C0 style S fill:#FFEBEE,stroke:#C62828 style N fill:#FFF8E1,stroke:#F9A825 style P fill:#E8F5E9,stroke:#1B5E20 style A fill:#F3E8FD,stroke:#8430CE
17 Group Behaviour
17.1 What is a Group?
A group is two or more individuals, interacting and interdependent, who have come together to achieve particular objectives (robbinsjudge2018?). The two italicised words separate a group from a mere collection of people: shoppers in a queue are not a group; the audit team huddled over quarterly numbers is.
Marvin Shaw’s working definition adds the felt-membership criterion: a group is “two or more persons who interact with one another such that each person influences and is influenced by each other person” (shaw1981?). Stogdill’s definition emphasises interaction over time.
TipThree Working Definitions
| Author | Definition | What it foregrounds |
|---|---|---|
| Robbins & Judge | “Two or more individuals interacting and interdependent, who come together to achieve particular objectives.” | Interdependence + objective |
| Marvin Shaw | “Two or more persons who interact such that each person influences and is influenced by each other person.” | Mutual influence |
| Edgar Schein | “A number of people who interact with one another, are psychologically aware of one another, and perceive themselves to be a group.” | Felt membership |
17.2 Types of Groups
The most-tested classification is formal vs informal — and within each, several sub-types.
TipFormal and Informal Groups
| Class | Sub-type | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Formal | Command | Defined by the organisation chart | A manager and her direct reports |
| Formal | Task | Created to complete a task | Cross-functional product launch team |
| Formal | Committee | Standing or ad-hoc body for decisions / advice | Audit committee |
| Informal | Friendship | Bound by liking and shared characteristics | Lunch group, alumni circle |
| Informal | Interest | Bound by a common concern | Office cricket club; informal tax study group |
| Informal | Reference | Group whose values one looks up to | Industry professionals one aspires to join |
Robbins’s later editions also list psychological groups — small, highly interactive — and work groups vs work teams, where teams have a shared responsibility, a complementary skill mix, and positive synergy; the typical team outperforms the sum of its individual contributions, the typical group does not.
17.3 Why People Join Groups
The standard list — security, status, self-esteem, affiliation, power, goal achievement (robbinsjudge2018?). The list is intuitive: groups satisfy basic psychological and social needs that solitary work cannot.
17.4 Stages of Group Development
Bruce Tuckman’s 1965 model — refined in 1977 with Mary Ann Jensen — is the most-tested group-stage framework. The five-stage version (tuckmanjensen1977?):
TipTuckman’s Five Stages of Group Development
| Stage | What happens | Mood |
|---|---|---|
| Forming | Members get acquainted, define purpose and rules | Polite, uncertain |
| Storming | Conflict over roles, leadership, direction | Tense, sometimes hostile |
| Norming | Group settles norms, develops cohesion | Collaborative |
| Performing | Group works at full capacity on the task | Productive |
| Adjourning | Temporary group disbands; members move on | Reflective, sometimes nostalgic |
A useful caveat: real groups do not always pass cleanly through the stages — they regress under stress, and project teams sometimes “punctuated equilibrium” their way to performance only after a half-time crisis (Connie Gersick).
17.5 Group Properties
Robbins’s six group properties — predict outcomes such as performance and satisfaction.
TipSix Group Properties
| Property | What it asks |
|---|---|
| Roles | What is each member expected to do? |
| Norms | What standards of behaviour are shared? |
| Status | What is each member’s relative standing? |
| Size | How many members? |
| Cohesiveness | How strongly do members bond and stay? |
| Diversity | How varied is the membership? |
17.5.1 Norms and conformity — Asch’s experiment
Solomon Asch’s 1955 line-judgment experiment is the textbook demonstration of conformity. When seven confederates gave a clearly wrong answer about line lengths, around one-third of subjects also conformed at least once. The lesson: groups exert powerful pressure to fit in, even on factual matters (asch1955?).
17.5.2 Cohesiveness
A cohesive group is one whose members are tightly bound, want to stay, and are willing to work together. Cohesion is desirable up to a point: it raises satisfaction and reduces turnover. But it can also amplify groupthink — the next bullet.
17.5.3 Group size
Larger groups bring more knowledge but raise coordination costs. The Latin proverb captures it: “Too many cooks spoil the broth.” Empirical work suggests:
- 5–7 members → most effective for problem-solving.
12 members → fact-finding more efficient, action less so.
A social-loafing effect appears as size grows: each member exerts less effort on a collective task than they would individually. Bibb Latané’s “rope-pulling” experiments are the classic demonstration (latane1979?).
17.6 Group Decision Making
Groups make most managerial decisions. The trade-off vs the individual decision — covered in Topic 4 — is worth restating here.
TipGroup vs Individual Decisions
| Strengths of group decisions | Weaknesses of group decisions |
|---|---|
| More information and knowledge | Time-consuming |
| More diverse alternatives | Pressure to conform — groupthink |
| Higher acceptance | Domination by a few |
| Greater legitimacy | Diffusion of responsibility |
17.6.1 Groupthink and group polarisation
- Groupthink (Janis, 1972) — deterioration of mental efficiency, reality-testing and moral judgment in highly cohesive groups, when the desire for unanimity overrides realistic appraisal of alternatives (janis1972?).
- Group polarisation — group discussion shifts the position of members toward a more extreme version of their pre-discussion average (the risky-shift phenomenon when the shift is toward riskier choices).
17.6.2 Structured techniques
Already covered in Topic 4: Brainstorming (Osborn), Nominal Group Technique (Delbecq & Van de Ven), Delphi (RAND). Each is designed to capture the strengths of group input while curbing its weaknesses.
17.7 Teams
A team is a special kind of group — one whose members commit to a common purpose, set of performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable (Katzenbach & Smith, 1993) (katzenbachsmith1993?).
TipGroup vs Team — Katzenbach & Smith
| Feature | Group | Team |
|---|---|---|
| Accountability | Individual | Mutual |
| Skills | Often homogeneous | Complementary |
| Synergy | Neutral | Positive |
| Performance | Sum of individuals | More than the sum |
17.7.1 Types of teams (Robbins)
TipFour Common Team Types
| Type | Purpose | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Problem-solving teams | Suggest improvements | Quality circles |
| Self-managed teams | Take operational decisions, responsible for output | Saturn assembly cells |
| Cross-functional teams | Members from different departments | Product launch team |
| Virtual teams | Geographically dispersed; computer-mediated | Multinational software development |
17.7.2 Belbin’s nine team roles
Meredith Belbin’s research at Henley identified nine roles — every effective team needs each role, though one person may play more than one (belbin2010?):
TipBelbin’s Nine Team Roles
| Role | What they do |
|---|---|
| Plant | Creative ideas, problem solver |
| Resource Investigator | Outward-facing, finds opportunities |
| Co-ordinator | Clarifies goals, delegates |
| Shaper | Drives the team forward, challenges |
| Monitor Evaluator | Sober judgement, weighs options |
| Teamworker | Listens, builds harmony |
| Implementer | Turns ideas into action |
| Completer Finisher | Polishes, eliminates errors |
| Specialist | Provides deep expertise |
17.8 Practice Questions
Q 01
Tuckman
Easy
Arrange Tuckman's stages of group development in the correct order:
View solution
Correct Option: A
Mnemonic: Form-Storm-Norm-Perform-Adjourn.
Q 02
Asch
Medium
The classic experiment demonstrating group conformity using line-length judgments was conducted by:
View solution
Correct Option: A
Solomon Asch's 1955 line-judgment experiment showed that around one-third of subjects conformed to a clearly wrong group answer at least once.
Q 03
Social Loafing
Medium
The tendency of individuals to exert less effort when working collectively than alone is called:
View solution
Correct Option: C
Social loafing — Bibb Latané's 1979 rope-pulling experiments. Effort per person falls as group size grows on collective tasks.
Q 04
Group Types
Easy
A standing audit committee of a listed company is best classified as a:
View solution
Correct Option: C
An audit committee is created by the organisation, has a formal mandate, and a defined membership — a formal committee.
Q 05
Group vs Team
Medium
Match the feature with the appropriate concept (Katzenbach & Smith):
| (i) | Mutual accountability | (a) | Group |
| (ii) | Individual accountability | (b) | Team |
| (iii) | Performance is sum of individuals | (c) | Group |
| (iv) | Performance is more than the sum | (d) | Team |
View solution
Correct Option: A
Mutual accountability and positive synergy → team; individual accountability and neutral synergy → group.
Q 06
Belbin
Medium
In Belbin's team-roles framework, the role that polishes the work and eliminates errors is:
View solution
Correct Option: C
The Completer Finisher ensures the work meets the highest standards. Plant = creative ideas; Shaper = challenger; Resource Investigator = outward-facing networker.
Q 07
Groupthink
Easy
Groupthink, the deterioration of judgment in highly cohesive groups, was identified by:
View solution
Correct Option: B
Irving Janis's Victims of Groupthink (1972). Bay-of-Pigs invasion is the textbook case.
Q 08
Group Size
Medium
For problem-solving and decision-making tasks, the most effective group size is generally:
View solution
Correct Option: B
Empirically, 5–7 is the sweet spot. Above 12, fact-finding remains efficient but action becomes harder.
ImportantQuick recall
- Group = two or more interacting, interdependent individuals with a common objective.
- Types: Formal (command, task, committee) and Informal (friendship, interest, reference). Team = group + mutual accountability + complementary skills + positive synergy.
- Tuckman’s stages: Forming → Storming → Norming → Performing → Adjourning.
- Six properties: roles, norms, status, size, cohesiveness, diversity. Best size for problem-solving: 5–7.
- Conformity → Asch (1955). Social loafing → Latané (1979). Groupthink → Janis (1972). Group polarisation → risky shift.
- Structured techniques: Brainstorming, NGT, Delphi.
- Belbin’s 9 team roles: Plant · Resource Investigator · Co-ordinator · Shaper · Monitor Evaluator · Teamworker · Implementer · Completer Finisher · Specialist.