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Group Dynamics

Group Dynamics. October 7, 2008. Agenda. Visitor from Deloitte Take your quizzes Go over last week’s quiz Group Dynamics Programming Assignment details Upcoming. Group work: integral to organizations. Increasingly, organizations are relying more and more on group work

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Group Dynamics

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  1. Group Dynamics October 7, 2008

  2. Agenda • Visitor from Deloitte • Take your quizzes • Go over last week’s quiz • Group Dynamics • Programming Assignment details • Upcoming

  3. Group work: integral to organizations • Increasingly, organizations are relying more and more on group work • Broad technology choices in organizations

  4. The role of proximity in collaboration • Proximity leads to collaboration because it fosters informal communication (Hagstrom, 1965) • Allen (1977): if you’re farther away than 30 meters from a colleague, you might as well be several miles away • Dormitory residents most likely to form friendships when they live in close proximity

  5. Study to test questions about proximity • 70 semi-structured, hour long interviews with scientists in 3 fields • Survey of 66 psychologists • Archival study of 93 members of a large organization • Data collected: • Whether each possible pair of 93 researchers (4278) published a research report • Proximity in terms of the org chart • Physical proximity • Research similarity

  6. Role of similar interests? Perhaps researchers with similar interests have offices near each other? But this doesn’t explain it fully Proximity provides opportunity for informal interaction

  7. What does informal communication do? • Proximity leads to frequency of communication • As distance between people increases, phone communication does as well (Mayer, 1976) • Same relationship with electronic messages (Eveland & Bikson, ‘87) • Perhaps people close to each other like each other more (Zajonc, 1968)

  8. Physical proximity related to frequency of communication in planning and writing stage of research

  9. Quality of communication • Proximity leads to communication that involves more than one sensory channel • “Richer” communication can enable researchers to develop ideas, find common interests • Which stage of research do you think has the most frequent communication?

  10. Cost of communication • Proximity enables • “low-cost” communication • quick interactions • Time savings • For information workers, time is the scarcest resource

  11. Communication technology requirements Communication tools for planned and unplanned interactions in same and different times • Coordination and management tools • Task-oriented tools to integrate products Typically most tools support only a single type of process

  12. Tools can facilitate unplanned interactions at a low-cost • As with proximity, tools need to provide frequent communication • Maintaining and building shared knowledge • Provide backchannel and feedback mechanisms

  13. Technology and feedback • What is backchannel response? • What does it do? • What happens without feedback? • Multi-channel communication can lead to a lack of feedback, not knowing who might be talking Emoticons can be used for spontaneous feedback, but are limited :-), LOL, IMHO

  14. Communication technologies enable different feedback • Webcams, video-conferencing • Teleconferencing

  15. Media Spaces

  16. Audio space (Ackerman et al.) • IM • Email

  17. Virtual Worlds

  18. And now for stuff from your reading….

  19. Attributes of Group Behavior • Cohesiveness • Egocentrism • Extremitization • Groupthink (Janis, 1972) Name some consequences of bad group decisions

  20. Face to face and Electronic Groups • Face-to-face groups often have predictable behavior • Electronic group behavior is less predictable

  21. Laboratory studies vs. naturalistic observation

  22. E-groups: more equal participation • In 3-person electronic groups, each member tended to talk 1/3 of time • Status cues missing in e-groups

  23. Flaming • Groups tend to make more extreme (risky) decisions than individuals • Electronic discussion-more likely to result in flaming behavior • Expt.: 102 flaming remarks vs. 12 in f2f (24 meetings) • Electronic groups reduce conformity

  24. Decision quality • Impacts of high status people • Who is risk seeking and who is risk averse? • E-groups • will consult more people • ignore faulty reasoning of those with good social skills or high status • May experience more conflict • Make riskier choices

  25. Time to decisions • Takes four times as long for e-groups as f2f (3-person groups) • Decisions by e-groups that were rushed were more extreme • Faster decisions not necessarily better

  26. Electronic group dynamics • Technology can change the dynamics of a group • Moreover, particular kind of computer media can affect group communication • Organizational/management policies can be used to guide dynamics

  27. Your programming assignment • Groups of three • Any language you want • Must be an educational game or experience for kids (think 12 and under) in schools • Must accept input from multiple kids at once • Must display individual views to each student and group view to be displayed at front of classroom • Sign up on Wiki… meet with me Wed and Fri

  28. Upcoming • This week – small group meetings • BE ON TIME • Next Tuesday – Grudin’s challenges for groupware • Next Thursday – Programming for Groupware

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