Case 1 The Virtual Environment Work Team (Summary) T.A Stearns was a national fax accounting firm whose main business was its popular tax preparation service for individuals. The work as carried out in a virtual environment by four programmers in the greater Boston area. Tom Andrews is a tax lawyer, a graduate of the University of Maine and a former hockey player there. At 35, Tom has worked on the programs for six years and is the longest-standing member of the team. Along with his design responsibilities, Tom is the primary liaison with Stearns. He is also responsible for training new team members. Cy Crane, a tax accountant and computer science graduate of the University of Massachusetts, is 32 years old, married, with two children …show more content…
Illusion of invulnerability . There is excessive optimism and risk taking. As we can see here there is excessive optimism and risk taking behavior shown by the team as they kept the innovation to themselves having optimism regarding that the management won’t easily find out about it. Also the risk taking behavior can be seen when they ignore the company policy for their own benefits. rationalizations by the members of the group to discount warnings. This can be seen when the members ignore the threat of being caught and when Dave hinted Tom he rationalized thinking if everything’s all right why does Dave has to worry. An unquestioned belief in the group’s Inherent Morality . The group ignores questionable ethical or moral issues or stances. Here the group ignores the moral issues and stances by keeping the innovation to themselves knowing about the company policy of suggested rewards. Working for Stearns for a long time they should have been more loyal. Self-censorship of any deviation from the apparent group consensus. This can be easily seen in this case as no one person came out with the truth unless it was finally out Illusion of unanimity – silence is interpreted as consent. Here Cy and Tom swore the other members to the oath of secrecy thinking what they thought was everybody’s thinking but this actually might not have been the case. Self -appointed mind guards who protect the group from adverse information. In this case study Tom was the self-appointed mind
Norton takes an interesting view on the outside influences that partake in the paranoia of the
1. What type of decision was the group instructed to reach (e.g. majority, consensus, authoritarian, etc.)
Members fail to communicate their desires and/or beliefs to one another, and, most importantly, sometimes even communicate the very opposite of their wishes based on what they assume are the desires and opinions of others. People make incorrect assumptions about consensus. Based on inaccurate perceptions and assumptions, members make a collective decision that leads to action. It is in the action that it becomes apparent that the decision is contrary to individual desires. Members experience frustration, anger, and dissatisfaction with the organization. Often this leads to the forming of sub-groups that take combative or blaming positions toward each other.
No one can be trusted in fear that they might report to the Thought Police. This held true for families as well. Children are sometimes known to turn in their own parents to the thought police for such simple things as hoarding spices for food. One has to watch his or her facial expressions at all times, because "the smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself - anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide." (Orwell, p.65) Those who think for themselves are arrested by the Thought Police and sent to the Ministry of Love, where they are re-educated or killed. Sometimes both.
Groupthink can be defined as a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in irrational decision-making. In 1971, twenty-four psychologically stable men took part in a trial known as The Stanford Prison Experiment. The purpose of the experiment was to prove that an individual’s perception of their own power is heavily influenced by social context and societal expectations of their role. The men involved in the experiment were assigned either the role of a prisoner or a guard to represent positions in society, both with power and without. More specifically, the conductors of The Stanford Prison Experiment focused on analyzing the different behavioral
For example, when Winston sits down to write in his dairy, he writes “in sheer panic, only perfectly aware of what he was setting down” (Orwell, 11). In this instance, Winston is afraid of the act of writing in a dairy, but he decides to do so in sheer panic. This results as the effect of Oceania’s Party psychological manipulation of the mind. Every time a person decides to do something, they will have a sheer image of the poster and the caption “Big Brother Is Watching You” in the back of their heads. Hence, this action limits the person capability to act freely and express their inner sentiments. (Critical Reception, 11-23)
The Groupthink symptom, Rationale, is described as when victims of Groupthink ignore warnings: they also collectively construct rationalizations in order to discount warnings and other forms of negative feedback that, taken seriously, might lead the group members to reconsider their assumptions each time they recommit themselves to past decisions. An illustration of this symptom is first presented in Act 1 of The Crucible when Reverend Parris tries warn Abigail. Parris discloses, “ Now look you, child, your punishment will come in it’s time. But if
Knowing this the Party tries manipulate the people making them trust the party and not the brotherhood who is trying their hardest to get the people away from trusting the party. The party have completely made people betray their family and friends for the party. The thought police throughout the entire book constantly are looking for people who are trying to betray the party and who is having thoughts of betrayal or anything that would affect the party. Whenever the thought police can find rebellious activity or thoughts of odd activities citizens are contacted and
The term groupthink in this report is defined as, the social psychological phenomenon that results in groups during pressure situations. This social psychology theory is broken down into eight signs. Illusion of invulnerability, Collective rationalization, Belief in inherent morality, Stereotyped views of out-groups, Direct pressure on dissenters, Self-censorship, Illusion of unanimity, Self-appointed “mindguards”. According to research conducted by Irving Janis, there are three conditions to groupthink. The first, "high group cohesiveness" which is the direction for a group to be in unity while working towards a goal, or to satisfy the emotional needs of its members. Secondly, the structural faults such as insulation of the group, lack
The island nation of Neptune a longtime U.S. ally is in a current crisis with Saturn Neptune’s primary regional rival. Saturn has imposed three distinct efforts to improve its strategic position at the expense of Neptune: Fomenting Insurgency, Naval Blockade, and occupation of Ringneck Island. In response to this escalation by Saturn, the United States has decided to stand up a Joint Task Force (JTF) with in the Pegasus Command (USPEGCOM) Area of Responsibility (AOR)
Virtual Team on the other hand is a group of people working across time, space, and organizational boundaries which communication links are strengthened by the internet. It should be noted that virtual teams can also mean individuals spread across different cultures and languages. (“Virtual Team - Origin, Definition and its Scope,” 2016). More so, this team of geographically dispersed professionals working together as a unit despite distance are committed to achieving a single objective, holding one another mutually accountable.
Groupthink theory often occurs without the group’s realization. Irving Janis formed 8 different symptoms that indicate groupthink. The first of these symptoms is illusions of vulnerability. This occurs when members of the group are overly optimistic and believe that nothing negative will arise from their decision. Janis describes it as taking great risks and acquiring the attitude of “everything is going to be OK, because we are a special group”. Secondly we have belief in inherent morality. This symptom is characterized as the groups thought that they could do no wrong. They believe that they have high morality, that they are right in all situations and they ignore the ethical consequences that could arise because of their decisions. As the third
Belief in inherent morality- Professionally expert people alleged what they know was ethically wrong, they ignored their own sense of responsibility by trusting their fellow members who allowed misconduct was right. The pressure of groupthink is very powerful in corporate organization, and it forces people toward uniformity of norms, often at the expense of their own personal values.
This business case investigation discusses in depth about the process of virtualization of servers in an organization and the various benefits of doing so. Giving a brief introduction to the concept of virtualization, it was introduced in the late 1960s when the resources of mainframe computers were divided between several applications. [1] The term virtualization has since then been expanded in terms of practical application. The conversion of the physical server into a pool containing several virtual machines which act individually as one computer is known is hardware virtualization.
One of their main strategy is to diversify their main business into many areas as possible as they can. Company is greatly looking the extent to which they are feasible with going to a new area and based on that they try to enter into different markets at a lower cost using their strong brand image in the global industries. This company is always looking for challenging venture in the market. While most of the organizations being risk averse, this organization act as a risk seeker in the market who will accept the challenge of going into new ventures very quickly. However, almost all the ventures they enter into has been a success as at now. This is because they always accept their