Workforce Arrangements Quarter
Workgroup Design Quarter (hereinafter, the Quarter) is the first of four lectures of Operations Quadrivium (hereinafter, the Quadrivium):
- The Quarter is designed to introduce its learners to enterprise discovery, or, in other words, to concepts related to obtaining data needed to administer the enterprise effort; and
- The Quadrivium examines concepts of administering various types of enterprises known as enterprise administration as a whole.
The Quadrivium is the first of seven modules of Septem Artes Administrativi, which is a course designed to introduce its learners to general concepts in business administration, management, and organizational behavior.
Contents
Outline
The predecessor lecture is Stakeholder Engagement Quarter.
Concepts
- Group. Two or more individuals, interacting and interdependent, who have come together to achieve particular objectives.
- Group. Two or more interacting and interdependent individuals who come together to achieve specific goals.
- Informal group. A group that is neither formally structured nor organizationally determined; such a group appears in response to the need for social contact.
- Formal group. A designated workgroup defined by an organization's structure.
- Interacting group. A typical group in which members interact with each other face to face.
- Reference group. An important group to which individuals belong or hope to belong and with whose norms individuals are likely to conform.
- Role. A set of expected behavior patterns attributed to someone occupying a given position in a social unit.
- Role. Behavior patterns expected of someone occupying a given position in a social unit.
- Role ambiguity. When role expectations are not clearly understood.
- Role expectations. How others believe a person should act in a given situation.
- Role overload. Having more work to accomplish than time permits.
- Role perception. An individual's view of how he or she is supposed to act in a given situation.
- Status. A prestige grading, position, or rank within a group.
- Status. A socially defined position or rank given to groups or group members by others.
- Status characteristics theory. A theory that states that differences in status characteristics create status hierarchies within groups.
- Group cohesion. The extend to which members of a group support and validate one another while at work.
- Group cohesiveness. The degree to which group members are attracted to one another and share the group's goals.
- Group cohesion. A situation when group members are emotionally attached to one another and motivated toward the group because of their attachment.
- Norm. A standard or expectation that is accepted and shared by a group's members.
- Norm. An acceptable standard of behavior within a group that is shared by the group's members.
- Groupthink. A phenomenon in which the norm for consensus overrides the realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action.
- Groupthink. When a group exerts extensive pressure on an individual to align her or his opinion with others; opinions.
- Conformity. The adjustment of one's behavior to align with the norms of the group.
- Hawthorne Studies. A series of studies during the 1920s and 1930s that provided new insights into individual and group behavior.
- Groupshift. A change between a group's decision and individual decision that a member within the group would make; the shift can be toward either conservatism or greater risk but it generally is toward a more extreme version of the group's original position.
- Stereotype threat. The degree to which we internally agree with the generally negative stereotyped perceptions of our groups.
- Group functioning. The quantity and quality of a group's work output.
- Social loafing. The tendency for individuals to expend less effort when working collectively than when working individually.
- Social loafing. The tendency for individuals to expend less effort when working collectively than when working individually.
- Workgroup. A group that interacts primarily to share information and to make decisions to help each group member perform within his or her area of responsibility.
- Group decision-making. individual decision-making
- Work team. A group whose individual efforts result in performance that is greater than the sum of the individual inputs.
- Work team. A group whose members work intensely on a specific, common goal using their positive synergy, individual and mutual accountability, and complementary skills.
- Self-managed work team. A work team of 10 to 15 people who take on responsibilities of their former supervisors.
- Self-managed work team. A type of work team that operates without a manager and is responsible for a complete work process or segment.
- Virtual team. A work team that use computer technology to tie together physically dispersed members in order to achieve a common goal.
- Virtual team. A type of work team that uses technology to link physically dispersed members in order to achieve a common goal.
- Problem-solving team. A work team of 5 to 12 employees from the same department who meet for a few hours each week to discuss ways of improving quality, efficiency, and the work environment.
- Problem-solving team. A work team from the same department of functional area that's involved in efforts to improve work activities or solve specific problems.
- Cross-functional team. A work team composed of individuals from various functional specialties.
- Cross-functional team. A work team composed of individuals from various functional specialties.
- Cross-functional team. A work team of employees from about the same hierarchical level, but from different work areas, who come together to accomplish a task.
Methods
- Group decision-making technique.
- Nominal group technique. A group decision-making method in which individual members meet face to face to pool their judgments in a systematic but independent fashion.
- Thumb vote. A quick pulse to get a sense of where the team are in terms of commitment, or agreement on a decision, etc. thumb up generally means agree, yes, or good, and thumb down disagree, no or bad; the analog version of this allows the thumb to be anywhere on the half circle to indicate differing degrees of agreeability.
- Survey feedback. The use of questionnaires to identify discrepancies among member perceptions; discussion follows, and remedies are suggested.
Instruments
Practices
The successor lecture is Workteam Leadership Quarter.
