Abm 47 Chapter 12

Chapter 12
INFORMAL AND FORMAL

GROUPS
OBJECTIVES
At the end of the unit, the students should be
able to understand
1. Group dynamics
2. The nature and effects of Informal groups
3. Informal leaders
4. Differences between task & social leadership
roles
5. Brainstorming, nominal, delphi, & dialectic
techniques
6. Weaknesses of group meetings.
Group dynamics
social process by which people
interact face to face in small groups.
The word “dynamics” comes from

the Greek word meaning “force”;
hence group dynamics refers to the
study of forces operating within a
group.
TYPES OF GROUPS
1. Formal groups
established by the organization and have a
public identity and goal to achieve
a. temporary group – e.g. committee or task

force
b. team – more natural and enduring, formed

when people perform tasks together as part of
their job assignment
TYPES OF GROUPS
2. Informal groups
emerge on the basis of common
interests, proximity and friendships.
•
Differences Between Informal
and Formal Organizations
BASIS OF INFORMAL FORMAL ORG.
COMPARISON ORG.
General nature Unofficial Official
Major Power and Authority and

concepts politics responsibility
Primary focus Person Position
Differences Between Informal and
Formal Organizations
BASIS OF INFORMAL FORMAL ORG.
COMPARISON ORG.
Source of Given by group Delegated by
leader power management
Guidelines for Norms Rules
behavior
Sources of Sanctions Rewards and
control penalties
Formal and informal
organizations and their effects
Potential benefits and problems
associated with the informal
organizations
Benefits Problems
• makes a more effective total • develops undesirable rumor
system
• lightens workload on • encourages negative
management attitudes
• helps get the work done • resist change
• tends to encourage • leads to interpersonal and

cooperation intergroup conflicts
• fills in gap in a manager’s • reject and harasses some
abilities employees
Potential benefits and problems
associated with the informal
organizations
Benefits Problems
• gives satisfaction and stability • weakens motivation and
to work groups satisfaction
• improves a safety valve for • operates outside of

employee emotions management’s control
• encourages managers to • supports conformity

plan and act more carefully
• contributes to higher • develops role conflicts

cohesiveness
Management guidelines for action of
influencing informal organizations:
1. accept and understand informal organizations
2. identify various levels of attitudes and behaviors
within them
3. consider possible effects on informal; systems when
taking any kind of action
4. integrate as far as possible the interests of informal
groups with those of the formal organization
5. keep formal activities from unnecessary threatening
informal organizations
FORMAL GROUPS
Committee
– a specific type of group meeting in which members in their
group role have been delegated the authority to handle the
problem at hand.
Size
– the size of the group tends to affect the way it works
Composition
– leaders often have the opportunity to select the members by
considering various factors like committee’s objective, member’s
interest level and time available to serve and the past history of
working relationships among potential members
agendas: surface agenda – official task of the group

hidden agenda – member’s private emotions and motives
w/c they have brought w/ them but keep hidden
leadership roles
– groups tend to require not one but two types of leadership
roles: task leader and social leader
task roles social roles
• define a problem or goal for the • support the contributions of others;
group encourage them by recognition
• requests facts,ideas & opinions • sense the mood of the group & help
from members members become aware of it
• provide facts, ideas or opinions • reduce the tension and reconcile

disagreements
• * summarize the discussion • modify your position; admit an error
• determine whether agreement has • facilitate participation of all

been reached members
• evaluate the group’s effectiveness

Structured approaches:
A. Brainstorming
– is a popular method for encouraging creative
thinking in groups of about eight people. It is built
around four basic guidelines for participants:
1. generate as many ideas as possible

2. be creative, freewheeling and imaginative
3. build upon (piggyback), extend or combine earlier
ideas
4. withhold criticism of others’ ideas
B. Nominal group technique. It exist in name only,
with members having minimal interaction prior to
producing a decision. Here are steps that
nominal groups often follow:
1. individual are brought together and presented with a

problem
2. they develop solutions independently, often writing
them on cards
3. their ideas are shared with others in a structures
format
4. brief time is allotted so that questions can be asked –
but only for clarification
5. group members individually designate their
preferences for the best alternatives by secret ballot
6. the group decision is announced
C. Delphi Decision Making
A panel of relevant people is chosen to address an
issue. Members are selected b’coz they are experts
and a series of questionnaires are sequentially
distributed to the respondents who do not need to
meet face-to-face and all responses are in written
form. Panelist may be ask to identify future problems,
project market trends or predict future state of affairs.
Explanations of conclusions also can be shared and
replies are gathered from all participants, summarized
and fed back to the members for their review. Then
participants are asked to make another decision on
the basis of new information then the process may be
repeated several times until the responses converge
satisfactorily and a final report is prepared.
D. DialecticDecisionMethods.(DDM)
Weaknesses of Committees
1. slowness and expensiveness
2. groupthink – tendency of a group to bring individual
thinking in line with the average quality of the group’s
thinking
3. polarization – rigid and extreme position in one’s
attitudes
4. escalating commitment – act of persevering to advocate
a course of action and possibly allocating additional
resources to a project, despite rational evidence that it
will result in failure
•

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Chapter 12

INFORMAL AND FORMAL

The word “dynamics” comes from

a. temporary group – e.g. committee or task

b. team – more natural and enduring, formed

Major Power and Authority and

• tends to encourage • leads to interpersonal and

• improves a safety valve for • operates outside of

• encourages managers to • supports conformity

• contributes to higher • develops role conflicts

agendas: surface agenda – official task of the group

• provide facts, ideas or opinions • reduce the tension and reconcile

• determine whether agreement has • facilitate participation of all

• evaluate the group’s effectiveness

1. generate as many ideas as possible

1. individual are brought together and presented with a

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