Group Decision Making Report Essay

1. What type of decision was the group instructed to reach (e.g. majority, consensus, authoritarian, etc.)

     What is groupthink? There is a simple definition for it, but is it truly that simple? The term groupthink refers to the inclination of group members to have the same opinions and beliefs; it frequently leads to mistakes. It often occurs without an individual being aware of it. Conflict is considered to be a harmful element when related to groups, but conflict is good when considering groupthink because it helps to eliminate the existence of a groupthink. The explanation sounds simple enough, but it is more complex than the description given.

Group members can achieve consensus in their decision making when they follow all of these steps except

Social exchange theory includes the following concepts: success, stimulus, value, deprivation, satiation, aggression, and approval. Homans defined each of these concepts explicitly in his book and various articles. The success concept which he defines is the principle of reward. (Homans, 1983, p. 33) While stimulus is defined when a stimulus presents itself and it resembles a previously rewarded activity, that individual is likely to repeat that action again. (Homans, 1950, Chapter 4) Homans defined value as a system of rewards and punishments. (Homans, 1983, p. 32) Deprivation and satiation was defined as the more often a reward has recently been received, the less valuable further rewards become. And if forced for a long time to go without a certain reward, an individual will lose interest and move on. (Homans, 1983, p. 33) Lastly, aggression and approval falls under the principle of distributive justice. When behavior does not receive the expected reward the response is anger. Yet, when the individual receives a greater reward than what is expected or does not receive punishment he will be pleased. (Homans, 1950, Chapter 4).

In everyday interactions people are always looking to have a positive experience among those with whom they interact. According to the Social Exchange theory, with each interaction an individual has with another, that individual attempts to maximize the positive outcomes and minimize the negative. The purpose of this paper is to apply the Social Exchange theory to an authentic real life situation to best illustrate the theory and the key concepts that it holds. In applying the social exchange theory from demonstration, to application, to then explanation, a better understanding in

This stage sees group members begin to confront each other as they begin to vie for roles within the group that will help them to belong and to feel valued. Thus as members begin to assert their individual personalities, the comfort of the forming stage begins to come under siege. Members experience personal, intra and inter group conflicts. Aggression and resentment may manifest in this stage and thus if strong personalities emerge and leadership is unresponsive to group and individual needs, the situation may become destructive to the

William F. Baxter sets forth four goals that he says “frame the solutions to problems of human organizations.” “1. The spheres of freedom, 2. Waste is a bad thing, 3. Every human being should be regarded as end rather than as a means to be used for the betterment of another, and 4. Both the incentive and the opportunity to improve his share of satisfactions should be preserved to every individual” (pgs. 355-356). He states that the starting point of any analysis is with people individually their own separate “unit”. He says that most decisions about what is going to be done should be thought of to the benefit of human beings, and how the action taken is going to affect us.

The Social Exchange theory proposes that we make decisions with the goal to maximize benefits and minimize costs (Newman, 2009, p.64). The choices we make require social approval and self-sufficiency. A family will make sacrifices if they perceive the action will equal rewards. Basically the theory refers to a give and take relationship where there needs to be balance for the relationship to be satisfying.

Social Exchange Theory – Social behavior exchange theory is an exchange between parties as a representative of consent and status (Homans, 1958, p.

The discussion is an open-process, meaning that the decision making is done amongst the group members, not just the leader. Unlike an authoritative leader, the leader of this group allows the members to be a part of his or her final say. By doing this, it helps to keep everyone on the same page and moving forward in the same direction.

Group member cohesiveness was absent from the group meeting for several reasons, but the primary reasons were due to the fact that the group members did not have a common description of value or structure to the discussion. Each member viewed their own area of involvement within the organization as being more valuable than any other area, and it was this exclusion of other valuable traits that lead the group to begin to clash in such a

As people, when confronted with a problem where a solution must be found, our ideal situation is to come up with the best possible one. To do this, we ideally gather the most knowledgeable, intelligent individuals into a group and attempt to derive the best solution to the problem. With the collection of these people, one would think that finding the best possible answer to the problem would be a rather simple task. However, what has happened in many situations is the complete opposite. Rather than finding the best possible solutions, many ideal, cohesive groups arrive at the worst possible answer largely due to problems in communication within the group. This is what we call the radical theory of

Please register as a student and use the following link to access the cases (only the questions for the first case are shown below):

Chapter conclusion: Benefits for employees are very important for companies. Benefits for employees include various insurance plans, paid vacation days, paid sick leave, paid days off, etc. Different companies need to establish different benefit plans based on their company conditions. In brief, benefit in one of the bridge between employers and employees.

Organizational behavior helps managers to improve the organization in a good way. Decision making process is the one of the behavior in human organizational behavior. According to McShane and Von Glinow (2000), “decision making a conscious process of making choices among one or more alternatives with the intention of moving toward some desired state of affairs”. Decision making is a linear process and it includes six steps such as identifying the problems, gather and evaluate data, list and evaluate alternatives, select best action, implement the decision and getter feedback (refer to Figure 1 in Appendix 1).