1.  Define virtual team.

A team that consists of members who are separated by distance and connected by a computer is termed as virtual team. Members in virtual team communicate with each other online through internet.

2.  What do you mean by group?

A group is defined as two or more individuals interacting and interdependent, who have come together to achieve particular objectives. In other words, a group is the largest set of two or more individuals who are jointly characterized by a network of relevant communication, a shared sense of collective identity and one shared dispositions with associated normative strength.

3.  What are the important features of group?

The primary features of a group are enlisted as follows:

• Collection of two or more people
• Common goals or interest
• Interaction and interdependence
• Collective identity
• A stable structure
• Group norm and value

4.  Define formal group.

When a group is defined on the basis of organizational structure with designated work assignments establishing task, it is termed as formal group. Formal group are created deliberately to perform the assigned task by managements. Formal group are mainly classified into two categories namely: command group and task group.

5.  Define informal group.

When a group evolves spontaneously without being shown in the organization’s structure, with primary objective of fulfilling personal and social needs of its members, it is termed as informal

group. Informal group is further classified into two groups namely: interest group and friendship group.

6.  What do you mean by group dynamics?

Group dynamics refers to the social process by which people interact face-to-face in small groups. As the word dynamics comes from the Greek word meaning force, group dynamics refers to the study of forces operating within a group. Group dynamics is relevant in both formal and informal groups.

7.  Define self-managed work team.

Self –managed work team refers to self-organized, semi-autonomous small group of employees whose members determine, plan and manage their day-to-day activities and duties under reduced or no supervision. Self-managed work teams are primarily based on work process rather than specialized departments as core work units.

8.  List out the five major stages of group formation process.

The major stages of group formation are enlisted as follows:

• Forming
• Storming
• Norming
• Performing
• Adjourning

9.  State any four reasons why people join group.

From employees’ point of view	Form organizational point of view
Security Status Self-esteem Affiliation	Socialization of new employee Getting the job done Decision making Communication

1. What is a cross functional team?

When a team is formed drawing members from different departments or functional areas, it is termed as cross functional group. Cross functional team are formed to solve problems that are normally unsolved by individuals departments. Once the problem is solved, cross-functional team normally disbanded.

11.  Enlist few salient characteristics of a team.

The salient characteristics of team are enlisted as follows:

• Team is generally small in size.
• Team is generally formed to bring revolutionary change.
• Team is associated with common goal.
• Interaction is key essence of team.
• Team creates friendship among the members.

12.  Make a figurative presentation of the group development process.

It is given as follows:

13.  Mention the major factors affecting inter-group relations.

The major factors affecting inter-group relations are enlisted as follows:

• Composition of group (homogenous or heterogeneous)
• Size
• Frequency of interaction among group members clarity in goal (clear or ambiguous)
• Development time

14.  State the contingency variables affecting group behavior.

The key contingency variables affecting group behavior are enlisted as follows:

1. External conditions imposed on the group
2. Organizational strategy
3. Formal regulations
4. Authority structure
5. Organizational structure
6. Human resource selection process
7. Group numbers resources
8. Abilities
9. Personality
10. Group structure
11. Formal leader
12. Roles
13. Norms
14. Group status, size and composition

15.  What is social-loafing?

Social loafing is the tendency of group members to do less than they are capable of as individuals. Socials loafing explains the negative side if group size. As per social loafing, increase in group size is inversely related to individual performance.

16.  What are the issues related to group decision making?

The major issues related to the group decision making are enlisted as follows:

• Issues of time constraints
• Issue of group polarization
• Issue of group thinking
• Issue of real participation
• Issue of cost vs. benefit

17.  Enlist the types of group in organization.

The major types of group in an organization are enlisted as follows:

• Formal group
• Command group
• Task group
• Informal group
• Interest group
• Friend group

18.  State the major causes of group shift in group decision making process.

The major causes of group shift in group decision making process are enlisted as follows:

• When the group members exaggerate the situation.
• When group tasks extreme decision with excitement.
• When group members are influenced by extreme versions and altitudes.

19.              Explain the nature and significances of informal groups.

Nature and Significances of Informal Groups in Organization

Informal groups are neither formally structures nor organizationally determined. It is based on personal interaction, sentiments and social activities. It has members with common objectives or similar need for social affiliation and friendship. It quickly adapts to environmental changes but resists to the change within the group. Some of the key points that explain the significance of informal groups in organization are explained briefly.

1. Compensation for the low capacity manager’s ability: managers may not be capable in all the fields. In same, he may snag the ability. Especially, in planning and other decision making his snags (i.e. low capacity) can be compensated by his subordinates informally, if he has the goes relationship with informal group.
2. Useful channel of communication: Communication through informal group is faster than formal. Any information through the channel of informal groups spreads quickly. Thus the informal group proves to be very useful channel for effective communication.
3. Compel managers to plan and act cautiously: informal groups induce the managers to plan and act cautiously because of weak plan and action is always undermined by the groups.
4. Provides sense of belongingness and security: informal group provides satisfaction and stability of work team to attain a sense of belongingness and security. A new employee will

remain an isolate until the group accepts him as a member he attains a sense of belongingness and security.

• Greater performance and supervision: Informal groups help get the jobs done or control performance. If the manager feels that his work team is co-operating him, he has less need for checking frequently and confidently delegate and decentralize work. The informal group supports leads to general supervision instead of close supervision, which enhances the productivity of the employees later on.
• Reduced frustration and allied employee: Informal groups are the safety value for the frustration and allied employee because if any employee feels irritated with his superior’s behavior, he can talk it to his group members and can dissipates his unpleasant feelings.

20. What do you mean by group? What are the reasons for joining groups? Explain.

Meaning of Group

Group is a collection of two or mare individuals, interacting and interdependent, who have come together to achieve particulars common objectives. A group is an aggregation of people who interact with each other, are aware of one another, have common objectives, and perceive themselves to be a group.

Mere collection people cannot constitute a group. For example, a crowd in front of a shop in the market watching will not be called as group because people do not interact with one another, and also do not share a common purpose.

Reason of People Forming and Joining Group

People form and become members of a group for a variety of different reasons. Some of them are explained below.

1. Safety and security: Groups provide protection to their members from outside pressures. That is why workers join trade unions to feel safe and secure.
2. Relatedness or belongingness needs: People being social belong, relating to groups satisfies a numbers of their social needs. In every organization, there are many persons who are very isolated or who prefer to be absent from work most of the times. Studies shows, such phenomena occur more where people are unable to belong to groups.
3. Esteem needs: when one member of a group and does some good piece of work, gets praised from other. This is turn, brings a sense of recognition to the group members, on the one hand, and a sense of fulfillment of one’s need for growth towards achievement of work and better prospects, on the other side.
4. Power: one of the appealing aspects of group is that they represent power and also offer power to their members. Workers enjoy much greater power by joining groups than they do as

individuals. This is because of at least two reasons: (i) there is strength in numbers, and  (ii) united we stand, divide we fall.

• Identity: as a member of a group, and individuals gets identity who am I? In practices we understand ourselves through the behavior of other towards us. For examples, when people praise, we feel great, if others laugh at us, we see ourselves as the funny ones.

21. What are the stages of group development? Describe with suitable examples.

Stages of Group Development

The most widely accepted stages of group development are explained below:

1. Forming stages: The first stage for almost every group is an orientation stage. This stage is marked by a great deal of caution, confusion, courtesy and uncertainty about the group’s purpose, structure, and leadership. The formal leader exerts a great influence in structuring the group and shaping member expectations. This stage is complete when members of the group have begun to think of themselves as part of a group.
2. Storming stage: this stage is characterized by conflict, confrontation, concern and criticism. Struggles for the individual power and influences are common. In case, the conflict becomes extremely intense and dysfunctional; the group may dissolve or continue as an ineffective group that never advances to higher levels of group maturity.
3. Norming stage: this is the stage in which close relationship among the members develops. The group develops cohesiveness. The group now assume to certain identity and camaraderie.
4. Performing stage: this is the highest level of group maturity. This state is marked teamwork, role clarity, and task accomplishment. Conflict is identified and resolves through group discussion. The members of this group are aware through group discussion. The members of the group are aware of group’s process and the extent of their own involvement of the group.
5. Adjourning stage: this stage is recognized as the last stage of group i.e. completing every task and the group will be automatically adjourned. Groups are adjourned for two reasons. First, the group has completed its task. Second, the members decide to disband and close the group with sentimental feeling.

22. Why should managers be aware of the informal group? Describe the element of group cohesiveness.

Reasons For Aware of Informal Group

A manager should be aware of the informal group in regards to both positive and negative aspects. The rational manager should focus on negative side than positive because negative aspects of informal groups are more dangerous and create problems to entire organization.

Some of the key reasons that highlight the necessity of being aware about informal groups are listed below.

• Informal group can have unfair views to the management.
• Unnecessary politics may arise in organization.
• Informal groups may end at any time.
• Informal group may not have best leadership to energize and synergize the work efficiency.
• Informal groups can create the ethnical confusion in organization as views are interacted to produce contrast views.
• Informal group sometimes is translated in organizational activities. Element of Group Cohesiveness

Group cohesion means the degree to which the group members are attracted to each and remain within the group. It is usually reflects by its resistance to disruption by outside forces. Group cohesive develops out of the activities, interaction, and sentiments of the members.

The key elements of group cohesiveness are explained briefly.

1. Group size: one of the important and necessary conditions for the existence of the group is that members interact and communicate with each other. If the group is so large that members do not get to know each other, there is a little likelihood that the group will be high in cohesiveness. This is a logical assumption that would be made by those who understand the difficulties of communication I large groups. Research studies have found that inverse relationship does not exists between the size of the group and the group cohesive. As the size increases, its cohesiveness decreases.
2. Member similarity: the degree of cohesiveness will be high when group members are similar in age, backgrounds and values. In other words, homogeneous group will be more cohesive than heterogeneous group. It is because of more trust and less conflict among the group members with homogeneous character.

• Member interaction: when member interact frequently, there trends to be more group of cohesive because they got chance to share ideas and views in order to avoid the situation of misunderstanding and conflict.
• Groups success: A successful group tends to be more cohesive than a group of repetitive failure records. Group members of the succession group believe that, because of their successive records in the past, they will remain successful in the future too.

23. Explain the concept of self-managed work team and discuss the major issues in managing work teams.

Self-managed Work Team

Self-managed work team refers to self-organized, semi-autonomous small group of employees whose members determine, plan and managed their day-to-day activities and duties under reduced or no supervision. Self-managed work teams are primarily based on work process rather than specialized departments as core work units. Typically, self-managed teams are group of 10-15 employees who perform related or interdependent jobs. They select their own members and evaluate each other’s performance. It increases productivity and satisfaction. However, the effectiveness of self-managed teams is dependent on situation. They have reduced the importance of supervisor position. Due to this reason, many companies in U.S. Europe, Japan are putting to their effort to developed self-managed team in their organizations.

Major Issues in Managing Work Teams

The major issues that need to be addressed in managing work-team are explained below.

1. Facilitate the adoption of TQM

The TQM requires encouragement to employee by management to share ideas and implement improvements. Team provides the vehicle for employees to share ideas and to implement improvement. The issue is how to make the work teams effective for quality problem solving, especially in terms of size, ability, resources, mobilization etc.

• Workforce diversity on team performance

The strongest case for diversity on work teams is when these teams areengaged in problem-solving and decision-making tasks. Diverse groups have more difficulty working together and solving problem but this dissipate with time.

• Increasing team effectiveness

An important issue is how to increase and maintain team effectiveness. For this, the following things should be taken into considerations.

• Prepare member to deal with the problem of maturity- remind them that they are not unique.
• Offer refresher training

• Offer advanced training
• Encourage team to treat their development as a constant learning experience.

24. Elucidate the concept of group dynamics and state how group norms are developed and enforced.

Concept of Group Dynamics

The social process by which people interact face to face in small group is called group dynamics. The word ‘dynamics’ comes from the Greek word meaning ‘force’, hence group dynamics refers to the study of forces operating within a group. Two important historical landmarks in our understanding of small groups are the research of Elton Mayo and his associates in the 1920s and 1930s and the experiments in the 1930s of Kurt Lewin, the founder of the group dynamics movement. Mayo showed that workers tend to establish informal groups that affect job satisfaction and effectiveness. Lewin showed that different kinds of leadership produced different responses in groups.

Groups have properties of their own that are different from the properties of the individuals who make up the group. The special properties of groups are illustrated by a simple lesson in mathematics. Suppose we say ‘one plus one equals three.’ In the world of mathematics that is a logical error. But in the world of group dynamics it is entirely rational to say ‘one plus one equals three’. In a group, there is no such thing as only two people, for no two people can be considered without including their relationship, and that relationship is the third element in the equation.

Development and Enforcement of Group Norms

Group norm is standard of behaviour. In other words, groups norm is a rule that tells the individual how to behave in a particular group. Thus, group norms identify the stai1dards against which the behaviour of group member will be evaluated and help the group members know what they should or should not do. Norms could be formal or could be informal.

According to Schein, there are pivotal and-relevant group norms while the pivotal norms are confirmed by every member of the group, the relevant norms are desirable to be confirmed by the members. With increase in the size of the group, the acceptability of norms tends to lessen. Small deviation of norms is allowable. However in case of extreme deviation, the deviator gets punished. For example, when the union is on strike, if its member attending to work are punished by being boycotted by the group. Hence, norms serve as the basis for behaviour of group members. They predict and control the behaviour of member in groups.