Cecilia Ridgway Lynn Chin Stanford University
This dissertation research asks how the division of collective responsibilities within a group affects the extent to which individuals bond to the group? Every day people divide and share tasks used to achieve group goals. However, there are numerous ways goal-oriented tasks may be structured. Do people work separately or together? Do they perform the same work tasks or are they responsible for different tasks? Do all group members have general skills that enable them to take over each other?s tasks or are the skills specialized and known to only a few? This dissertation studies the conditions under which the division of labor in task structure creates a sense of mutual interdependence, similarity, and joint responsibility versus a sense of separation, difference, and low efficacy between group members. The research goes beyond the overly-simplified question of whether task differences inhibit or enhance group solidarity to study how group attachment is affected by the way actual tasks are divided amongst group members, this dissertation goes beyond. The co-PI uses a micro-order approach to study the mechanisms which cause people to bond to immediate social groups by analyzing 1) how task structure affects patterns of interaction within a group and 2) how those patterns of interaction affect person-to-group attachment. The co-PI will conduct a series of experiments using university students to test of how different types of goal-oriented task structures affect person-to-group bonding.
Broader Impacts
This study has implications for how organizational task structure can affect member attrition rate. It will provide insights that will help us understand the fine line between motivating people to feel personally responsible and invested in their group and recognizing that people need to value others and understand that they cannot accomplish group work alone. By examining how task structure influences personal bonding to a group, this dissertation can help organizational planners better understand how they can structure in-group interaction. Organizations can use information about the effects of task structure to organize their daily work routines in ways that create a balance between cooperative coordination between employees and the desire for individuals to be responsible and self-autonomous at work. With this type of information, organizations may be able to help their work groups create a stronger sense of group solidarity and cohesion by creating group task structures that best fit the collective needs of their group. Thus, it is important to study the fine line between when skill specialization and task differentiation solidifies group solidarity and when they erode it.
