The main objective of this study is to identify criteria that would allow us to determine when a collection of people is a group. A bibliographic search of the psychological literature has yielded the terms groupness, entitativity, and groupality. These three constructs are then theoretically analyzed and compared, and are found to share two main aspects: (a) the conception of groups as a conti…
Research on the linkage between sex diversity and relationship conflict has yielded inconsistent findings. In efforts to address this inconsistency and to better understand what contributes to group member perceptions of relationship conflict, interrelationships among sex dissimilarity, gender identity, and relationship conflict were examined utilizing theoretical frameworks from the literature…
Twenty-six multidisciplinary student design teams (n = 128) each built a robot that had to perform a specific task in a design contest. For these teams, an input—process—output framework of team member personality (input), generic and specific design behaviors (process), and contest result and supervisor and team member ratings of the design (output) was researched using correlations. Agreeable…
This article explores the conflict that emerged during the work of university researchers, education consultants, and district multishareholder teams engaged in a partnership for school reform. The authors draw on analysis of naturally occurring talk and other data collected over 2 years to explore the presence of conflict between a multishareholder team and a group of consultants during a 4-da…
This study examined the effects of training and sequence of nominal and interactive groups on idea generation. Participants in groups of three or four were either trained in idea generation skills or were simply engaged in an equivalent amount of practice. They subsequently were asked to brainstorm in either an alone-to-group or a group-to-alone sequence. Training had a significant positive eff…
A theoretical model integrating Schneider's Attraction-Selection-Attrition (ASA) framework, group personality composition, and group performance is presented. The proposed model focuses on three operationalizations of group composition based on the Big Five personality traits. This model suggests that for certain types of teams group minimum scores vary more than group mean scores, resulting in…
Three types of team planning processes differing in terms of timing and adaptation capacity are investigated. Deliberate planning and contingency planning occur during team transition phases; deliberate planning specifies a primary course of action whereas contingency planning specifies backup plans. Reactive adjustment is planning that occurs during the action phase when teams adapt plans to a…
In an initial test of Wagner's (1988) status violation theory, we examine how status violations, or the failure to behave in accord with the expectations attached to a person's status position in a group, may reduce the person's status position. Status violations highlight the underlying normative order that forms the group's expectations regarding appropriate status-related behaviors. Status v…
The present research examines the development of two dimensions of trust, cognitive and affective, in student project teams over the course of a semester. Empirical examination of the evolution of multidimensional trust and its unique antecedents was explored. The results show that early trust emerges as a one-dimensional factor early in the life span of a team; cognitive and affective trust em…
This study examines mechanisms underlying nationality-based discrimination from two different perspectives: social psychology and microeconomics. The authors studied 91 teams in a binational setting that were offered a new team member. National composition of the team and nationality of the new member were manipulated. Overall, the study showed that discrimination based on nationality does exis…
The aim of this research is to examine the role of information and communication technologies in the relationship between group effectiveness and group potency changes. A laboratory experiment compared 44 groups of four members, working in two communication media—face-to-face condition and computer-mediated communication (CMC). Groups developed a project during 4 weekly meetings during a 1-mont…
This article looks at leadership in interorganizational peer-led teams: people from different backgrounds and organizations who are at comparable hierarchical levels with the leader. It also looks at the challenges of leading such a group to a new model of thinking in which the traditionally dominant frame is no longer valid. This research, reporting on observations of 118 child and family team…
A group identification approach to social dilemmas is proposed, and the results of three studies are presented. Study 1 found that members of real groups were more cooperative than members of contrived groups and that this effect was mediated by group identification. Study 2 showed that participants were more cooperative when their in-group was in the majority and that this effect was moderated…
This study examined whether increasing evaluation concerns would increase the magnitude of the Köhler effect (i.e., one type of motivation gain that has been documented to occur in small groups). Evaluation concerns were manipulated by having participants work in the physical presence or virtual presence of their coworker. As anticipated, motivation gains were significantly greater for particip…
This study focused on the introduction of roles as a scripting tool in asynchronous text-based discussion groups. Five roles were selected: source searcher, theoretician, summarizer, moderator, and starter. Because existing research on role assignment often neglects to check whether the role assignment is successful, the main goal was to examine to what extent the participants enacted assigned …
There is a growing acceptance in the literature of a potentially significant causal role for ideas about globalization in shaping the trajectory of policy and institutional reform in contemporary Europe. Yet we still know remarkably little about policy-makers' understandings of globalization, save those they choose to declare publicly. This paper contributes to the important task of operational…
This paper draws on the findings from a research project on partnership arrangements between the police and housing departments on three Australian public housing estates to tackle problems associated with illicit drug activity and anti-social behaviour (ASB). The analysis focused on the setting up of the partnerships and the interactions that followed from these institutional arrangements. The…
This article directs attention to the role of ideational variables in shaping public management reform initiatives. It considers the contribution of both endogenous rhetorical styles and exogenous international fashions in explaining official agency talk in consensus and adversarial contexts. Departing from an earlier observation that convergence in talk across contexts is more likely than conv…
This paper argues that ‘leaderism’– as an emerging set of beliefs that frames and justifies certain innovatory changes in contemporary organizational and managerial practice – is a development of managerialism that has been utilized and applied within the policy discourse of public service reform in the UK. The paper suggests that ‘leaderism’ is an evolution of entrepreneurial and cultural mana…
Organizational change sometimes occurs as organizations ‘ingest’ innovations from without. This process represents a vital form of organizational learning and adaptation to the external environment. This study seeks to understand the factors that predict the adoption of Foreign Professional Specialty Occupation Visas, or H-1B visas, by Texas public school districts. The use of H-1B visas to hir…