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Article
Publication date: 12 February 2020

Developing collaborative interorganizational relationships: an action research approach

Sandra G.L. Schruijer

This paper aims to address the group dynamics that evolve when representatives from various organizations come together to develop and work on a joint goal. Its aim is to…

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to address the group dynamics that evolve when representatives from various organizations come together to develop and work on a joint goal. Its aim is to share the author’s learnings when it concerns the understanding of the group dynamics of interorganizational relationships and the development of collaboration between these organizations.

Design/methodology/approach

The perspective taken draws on social and organizational psychology, systems psychodynamics and organization development.

Findings

The paper concludes with reflections on generic learnings about collaboration, its dynamics and its development.

Originality/value

Various action research projects are presented that have been conducted in different sectors.

Details

Team Performance Management: An International Journal, vol. 26 no. 1/2
Type: Research Article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/TPM-11-2019-0106
ISSN: 1352-7592

Keywords

  • Interorganizational collaboration
  • Group dynamics
  • Action research

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Article
Publication date: 15 August 2016

Decision rules, escalation of commitment and sensitivity to framing in group decision-making: An experimental investigation

Petru Lucian Curseu, Sandra G. L. Schruijer and Oana Catalina Fodor

The purpose of this paper is to test the influence of collaborative and consultative decision rules on groups’ sensitivity to framing effect (FE) and escalation of…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to test the influence of collaborative and consultative decision rules on groups’ sensitivity to framing effect (FE) and escalation of commitment (EOC).

Design/methodology/approach

In an experimental study (using a sample of 233 professionals with project management experience), the authors test the effects of collaborative and consultative decision rules on groups’ sensitivity to EOC and FE. The authors use four group decision-making tasks to evaluate decision consistency across gain/loss framed decision situations and six decision tasks to evaluate EOC for money as well as time as resources previously invested in the initial decisions.

Findings

The results show that the collaborative decision rule increases sensitivity to EOC when financial resources are involved and decreases sensitivity to EOC when time is of essence. Moreover, the authors show that the collaborative decision rule decreases sensitivity to FE in group decision making.

Research limitations/implications

The results have important implications for group rationality as an emergent group level competence by extending the insights concerning the impact of decision rules on emergent group level cognitive competencies. Due to the experimental nature of the design, the authors can probe the causal relations between the investigated variables, yet the authors cannot generalize the results to other settings.

Practical implications

Managers can use the insights of this study in order to optimize the functioning of decision-making groups and to reduce their sensitivity to FEs and EOC.

Originality/value

The study extends the research on group rationality and it is one of the few experimental attempts used to understand the role of decision rules on emergent group level rationality.

Details

Management Decision, vol. 54 no. 7
Type: Research Article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/MD-06-2015-0253
ISSN: 0025-1747

Keywords

  • Group decision making
  • Escalation of commitment
  • Framing effect
  • Heuristics and biases

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Article
Publication date: 8 April 2014

Looking at the gap between social psychological and psychodynamic perspectives on group dynamics historically

Sandra G.L. Schruijer and Petru L. Curseu

– The paper aims to describe and understand the gap between the psychodynamic literature on groups and the social psychological perspective on group dynamics.

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Abstract

Purpose

The paper aims to describe and understand the gap between the psychodynamic literature on groups and the social psychological perspective on group dynamics.

Design/methodology/approach

As Wilfred Bion is the most influential group dynamics representative of the psychodynamic tradition the authors performed a citation analysis of Bion's work to find out whether it influenced the social psychological research on group dynamics. They compared three domains of literature: therapy/clinical, management/organization studies and social psychology. Moreover, they depict (by drawing on interviews with European pioneers in social psychology) the historical context in which European social psychology developed to explain the gap between the psychodynamic and social psychological approaches in the study of group dynamics.

Findings

The results clearly indicate the existence of a gap between the social psychological and psychodynamic perspectives on group dynamics. Moreover, the authors show that Bion did influence scholars studying or working with real-life groups and is cited more by American than European scholars. The attempt to build a legitimate scientific identity for social psychology provides a context for understanding of the neglect of the psychodynamic tradition.

Research limitations/implications

The authors conclude by exploring ways in which the psychodynamic tradition may fertilize the social psychological tradition in studying groups.

Originality/value

The paper is one of the first to address the discrepancy between the social psychological and psychodynamic perspectives in the study of group dynamics.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 27 no. 2
Type: Research Article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/JOCM-08-2012-0121
ISSN: 0953-4814

Keywords

  • Groups
  • Group dynamics
  • Psychodynamic perspectives
  • Wilfred Bion

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Book part
Publication date: 17 November 2010

Chapter 7 Integrating Multiple Voices: Working with Collusion in Multiparty Collaborations

Barbara Gray and Sandra Schruijer

The idea that relational processes are central to knowledge creation and knowledge sharing is an idea in good currency (Bouwen & Taillieu, 2004; Brown & Duguid, 1996;…

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Abstract

The idea that relational processes are central to knowledge creation and knowledge sharing is an idea in good currency (Bouwen & Taillieu, 2004; Brown & Duguid, 1996; Wenger, 1998). Rather than considering knowledge as a commodity that can be transferred from one mind to another, when knowledge is viewed as a relational practice, it resides in social interactions and is actualized in common practices that evolve within a particular community of practice (Sternberg & Horvath, 1999; Van Looy, Debackere, & Bouwen, 2000). Thus, knowledge is both embedded and emergent — subject to change as participants in a community interact with one another. To understand what is known, it becomes necessary to study how members of an organizational community interact and how their knowledge shifts over time.

Details

Relational Practices, Participative Organizing
Type: Book
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S1877-6361(2010)0000007011
ISBN: 978-0-85724-007-1

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Article
Publication date: 8 August 2016

Working with group dynamics while teaching group dynamics in a traditional classroom setting: An illustration of a systems-psychodynamic point of view

Sandra Schruijer

Based on an experience, the paper aims to describe how group dynamics can play out in a traditional classroom setting and reflect on how the author worked with these…

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Abstract

Purpose

Based on an experience, the paper aims to describe how group dynamics can play out in a traditional classroom setting and reflect on how the author worked with these dynamics from a systems psychodynamic perspective.

Design/methodology/approach

The experience involved teaching a two-day module on group dynamics to a class of 35 mature students enrolled in a business school. The author tried to create a space to understand and work with here-and-now dynamics as the module progressed.

Findings

Frustration grew among the students regarding the time spent on discussion and reflection. The group was split in two, with one subgroup opening up to experiencing and reflecting on the dynamics, whereas the other subgroup grew more frustrated and demanded that the author take up his authority. Apart from attempting to work with the dynamics, the author introduced relevant concepts and theories that could help to understand the dynamics. The group was characterized by an emotional climate of dependency while students projected hitherto unexplored frustrations onto the lecturer. Although the conditions for experiential learning were far from optimal, the group did experience group dynamics and did engage in reviewing their experiences. Learning did take place, although the depth varied among individuals.

Originality/value

Reflections are provided on the (im)possibilities of learning about group dynamics at business schools. Suggestions are given how to create conditions for experiential learning in management education.

Details

Team Performance Management, vol. 22 no. 5/6
Type: Research Article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/TPM-05-2016-0023
ISSN: 1352-7592

Keywords

  • Experiential learning
  • Group dynamics
  • Business schools
  • Systems-psychodynamic perspective

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Article
Publication date: 12 October 2015

Narcissistic group dynamics in multiparty systems

Sandra Schruijer

This paper aims to introduce and illustrate the notion of narcissistic group dynamics. It is claimed that narcissism does not simply reside within individuals but can be…

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to introduce and illustrate the notion of narcissistic group dynamics. It is claimed that narcissism does not simply reside within individuals but can be characteristic of groups and social systems. In this case, the focus is on narcissistic dynamics in multiparty systems.

Design/methodology/approach

Social psychological understandings of group narcissism are complemented with notions from psychoanalysis. A systems-psychodynamic perspective, informed by psychoanalysis and systems theory, is adopted.

Findings

Narcissistic group dynamics in a multiparty context are illustrated by observations from a two-day simulation of interorganizational relationships that is called “The Yacht Club” (Vansina et al., 1998).

Originality/value

In the social psychological literature, narcissism thus far has been largely understood as the prevalence of feelings of ingroup superiority vis-à-vis a particular outgroup. Sometimes the term narcissism is explicitly used, in other cases not, for example in social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1979), a theory that is built on group members’ need to regulate self-esteem. Psychoanalysts adopt an individualistic perspective while aiming to understand the underlying dynamics resulting in narcissism. A cross-fertilization of social psychological and psychoanalytic perspectives results in deindividualizing and depathologizing narcissism and a deeper understanding of the dynamics of (inter)group narcissism.

Details

Team Performance Management, vol. 21 no. 7/8
Type: Research Article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/TPM-06-2015-0031
ISSN: 1352-7592

Keywords

  • Group behavior
  • Multiparty
  • Narcissism

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Article
Publication date: 22 June 2012

Normative interventions, emergent cognition and decision rationality in ad hoc and established groups

Petru Curşeu and Sandra Schruijer

As normative interventions (NIs) have been claimed to be effective in improving decision quality in groups, the aim of the paper is to address the effectiveness of NIs in…

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Abstract

Purpose

As normative interventions (NIs) have been claimed to be effective in improving decision quality in groups, the aim of the paper is to address the effectiveness of NIs in ad hoc and established groups across several task domains.

Design/methodology/approach

Three experimental studies were conducted to test the effects of NIs on collective cognition, group rationality, and decision quality.

Findings

The first experimental study (58 groups) compared the effects of NIs on the emergence of group level cognitive structures. The results show that NIs lead to higher group cognitive complexity in established rather than in ad hoc groups. The second study tests the effects of NIs on group rationality (as emergent group competence) in a sample of 40 established groups and shows that NIs have synergic effects and foster group rationality. In the third study the insights of the first two studies are extended to a more realistic decision task performed by groups of managers. The results of the last study show that decision quality is higher in groups that received NIs as compared to groups that did not receive NIs.

Research limitations/implications

The results contribute to the group cognition literature by showing the synergic effects of NIs.

Practical implications

The results show that NIs are simple and effective ways of improving information processing and decision quality in established decision‐making groups.

Social implications

NIs help in achieving better decisions throughout society.

Originality/value

The paper is the first comprehensive test of the impact of NIs on group information processing across several cognitive tasks and the first to explore group rationality as an emergent group‐level competence.

Details

Management Decision, vol. 50 no. 6
Type: Research Article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/00251741211238337
ISSN: 0025-1747

Keywords

  • Group cognitive complexity
  • Normative interventions
  • Rationality
  • Group decision making
  • Decision making
  • Group dynamics
  • Information management

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Book part
Publication date: 17 November 2010

List of Contributors

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Relational Practices, Participative Organizing
Type: Book
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S1877-6361(2010)0000007002
ISBN: 978-0-85724-007-1

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Book part
Publication date: 17 November 2010

Chapter 1 Participative Organizing as Relational Practice

Chris Steyaert and Bart Van Looy

This book focuses on the concept and role of relational practices as a way to understand, conceive, and study processes of organization, and subscribes to a processual…

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Abstract

This book focuses on the concept and role of relational practices as a way to understand, conceive, and study processes of organization, and subscribes to a processual view of organization that, since Weick's seminal book The Social Psychology of Organizing, has turned the study of organizations into one of organizing. More than 30 years later, the field of organizing has increasingly expanded Weick's interpretive framework of sense making, resulting in a rich palette of conceptual frameworks that vary between such diverse processual approaches as complexity theory, phenomenology, narration, dramaturgy, ethnomethodology, discourse (analysis), practice, actor-network theory, and radical process theory (Steyaert, 2007). These various theoretical approaches draw upon and give expression to a relational turn that has transformed conceptual thinking in philosophy, literature, and social sciences, and that increasingly inscribes the study of organization within an ontology of becoming.

Details

Relational Practices, Participative Organizing
Type: Book
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/S1877-6361(2010)0000007005
ISBN: 978-0-85724-007-1

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