Abstract
The study proposes a research on the impact of group dynamics on the efficiency of employees. Survey will be used as the method of study, where a convenience sample will be selected and the units of analysis arrived at using the stratified sampling method. The sample size will be determined by randomly selecting a sufficient number of both male and female non-managerial employees. The number of female respondents should be approximately equal to the number of male respondents to reduce the chances of making representation mistakes. Questionnaires will be given out to the respondents to reduce the amount of time spent on data collection.
Introduction
In many companies, employees come from different cultural backgrounds, families, countries and sometimes continents. Companies also employ people who belong to different sexes and age groups. Whenever people with different cultural orientations and attitudes come together, conflicts are likely to arise. The occurrence of conflicts in companies can cause drastic effects on their productivity. On the contrary, the different groups easily integrate and form friendship with each other. The reason for this unexpected situation is the existence of more factors that unite human beings than those that divide them. For example, people who belong to certain classes, sexes, religions, nations, tribes and other social classes share many habits. Therefore, when they work together, they easily integrate because of these common factors. The best case study is drinking among male workers. Many male employees drink and worry about how to treat their pregnant wives. Many of them also spend most of their time talking about women. On the other hand, the female employees menstruate every month and many of them get pregnant after some years. This paper hypothesizes around these factors and goes into determining whether they affect productivity or not.
Problem Statement
All entrepreneurs aim at making maximum profits from their businesses. Hence, they must utilize all the available resources to achieve this objective. However, employees are always the most critical resource in the achievement of all the desires of the company. Therefore, research must study all the factors that affect their performance with the purpose of improving the productivity of the company. This research discusses the impact of group dynamics on the performance of both female and male non-managerial employees in companies. It defines group dynamics in terms of the behaviors and qualities that certain groups of people share. Precisely, the workers are female and male. Hence, they share certain habits and experiences. The female employees share experiences such as pregnancy, menstruation and attitudes towards men. On the other hand, the male employees share experiences such as drinking, having pregnant wives and relating to women. Both sexes also share behaviors such as relating with bosses and fellow workers. The research measures performance through determining the number of units each category of employees produce in a single day under certain circumstances.
Hypothesis
Group behaviors have a profound impact on the productivity of employees and companies. There is enough reason to determine the nature of the impact of group dynamics on the performance of employees. This study uses the following questions to achieve this goal:
- What are the specific group behaviors in organizations and how do they impact productivity?
- Do group dynamics impact the productivity of companies?
- What degrees of particular group behaviors cause effects on the productivity of employees in a company?
Review of the Literature
Jackson-Dwyer (2013) argues that the concept of group behavior arose from the desire to link the elements of social integration in the creation of new ideas and items. However, he believes that scholars have done little research in this area, leading to the underestimation of the importance of group dynamics. Kelley (2013) adds to this argument by arguing that groups that share traits transmit information faster than those that have nothing in common. The promptness in the transmission of information can help the employees make wise decision while on duty. He goes further to argue that the exchange of information in an organization occurs more smoothly when the employees are in a good relationship. They can easily achieve their desired levels of productivity by working together without conflicts.
Longres (2000) indicates that the relationship of individuals within a group falls under the social processes. He also argues that the level of productivity among employees who exhibit similar behaviors is more likely to be higher than other employees. According to him, such employees are not afraid of criticism. They always welcome new ideas both from their colleagues and the administrators.
According to Babbie (2013), people who work together eventually develop some similar behaviors and their relationship improves as they continue working together. The similarity in their behaviors develops due to the friendship that also continues to develop among them. He proposes several factors as being responsible for the enhancement of group behaviors. Some of these factors include regular business interactions and solidarity among the employees (Creswell, 2013). Scholars of social sciences argue that the relationship among members of the society requires an environment that facilitates their occurrence among the members. This environment consists of social factors, ethnographic aspects and behavior-related elements.
According to Longres (2000), factors that influence proper group dynamics may vary depending on the background of individual workers and their relationship with fellow workers. He further argues that the background of every individual has a profound effect on the quality of relationship among the employees at the workplace. He justifies this argument by insisting that the environment at the workplace is similar to the environment at home. Therefore, people can develop relationships similar to family relationships with fellow employees (Longres, 2000). Jackson-Dwyer (2013) insists that good relationships among the employees while on duty encompass a very big part of group behavior. According to his observation, interpersonal relationships lead to change, and employees develop and better their performance gradually as they interact with one another.
Scholars have put forward a number of theories with the purpose of explaining group behavior. Most of their theories pay much attention to the advantages that come with good relationships among staff members. Therefore, researchers should put all theories and perspectives on this issue into consideration when analyzing the impact of group behaviors on the performance of employees. An inclusive approach is the best method for exploring relationships among members of any society.
Method
The method of data collection and analysis in this study is survey. It is appropriate for the study because of the following reasons:
- Designing them takes less time compared to other methods
- Surveys have no complicated procedures
- Researchers can use modern technology in carrying out surveys
- Researchers can involve very many respondents in the research using surveys
- Surveys produce very few errors compared to many other methods of research
- Researchers can collect both qualitative and quantitative data using the survey method.
The survey method has several disadvantages. Some of them include:
- Respondents may also lie to the researchers with the purpose of hiding some truths.
- Respondents may not be comfortable when responding to questions that present them negatively.
Sampling Technique
The study will utilize the stratified sampling method with the purpose of selecting both male and female respondents. The random sampling method will then help select a sufficient number of male and female respondents. In this sampling technique, each member has an equal chance of being selected.
Advantages
The stratified method reduces the sampling error while the random sampling method gives each member of the population an equal chance of being selected. Therefore, the researchers expect good results due to the reduction of the likelihood of errors. In addition, it helps avoid rehearsed answers, which may lead to the achievement of unplanned research objectives.
Disadvantages
The random sampling method is often not good at collecting data that can represent populations.
The proposed study will use the survey method of data collection and analysis. The research will involve a sample size of non-managers from the X Company (put the name of the company you used in the study: use the nearest to your college or home for convenience). Some of them will be men and the rest will be women. The selection of these two groups is based on their convenience. They are easy to access compared to going to all the companies in the country or world. The sample size should also be easy to work with and enough to function as a representative sample (Babbie, 2013). The research will use these employees because they mostly work in groups. Hence, have similar behaviors.
Questionnaires will be used to collect information from the respondents to save on the amount of time spent on data collection. The study will be both qualitative and quantitative in design. The data collected through the qualitative approach will be coded to ease the process of converting it to numbers for easy analysis using statistical tools. The research will also require computers to store the data. In fact, many advantages are associated with analyzing interactions from the standpoint of the theoretical approaches. However, exclusively adopting one theory and ignoring others will not be wise. Such a decision may result in limiting the understanding of social interactions in society (Longres, 2000).
The study will focus on a uniform unit of analysis, non-managerial staff in X Company, which will lead to the attainment of reliable results that will help in making inferences. Specifically, the researchers will convert all the data into percentages to easily compare the effect of the independent variable on the employees. The target population will be both male and female employees working in X Company. The researcher will randomly pick a number of men and women from the target population. This number of employees will serve as a representative of all the non-managerial employees in all companies in the world. The researchers should collect all the information they deem necessary from the respondents (Babbie, 2013).
According to the attribution theory, people make assumptions about issues by unconsciously categorizing them either as internal or external (Longres, 2000). The proponents of this theory further argue that internal attribution entails inferences about issues basing on the abilities, behavior and feelings that people experience. On the other hand, external attributions arise from critical analyses of situations.
Conclusion
This research hypothesizes that group dynamics impact the productivity of companies. It proposes a research that aims at confirming or refuting this argument. The researchers will use the stratified sampling method in selecting the respondents. The proposal also proposes the use of questionnaires for the sake of saving the time the researchers will use in the collection of data. In summary, this research uses research tools to investigate what happens when people work together in a certain environment. It is an important study because when people are in close contact, their relationship and behaviors affect their performance in some ways.
References
Babbie, E. (2013). The basics of social research (6th Ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Creswell, J. W. (2013). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Jackson-Dwyer, D. (2013). Interpersonal relationships (Vol. 10). London, United Kingdom: Routledge.
Kelley, H. H. (2013). Personal relationships: Their structures and processes. New York, NY: Psychology Press.
Longres, J. F. (2000). Human behavior in the social environment (1st ed.). Itasca, IL: FE Peacock Publishers.
Appendix: Questionnaire
This questionnaire is meant to help establish whether group dynamics have an impact on productivity in companies. Please be as honest as possible.
Tick as appropriate:
- Do you drink before going to work?
- Y
- N
- Are you male or female?
- M
- F
- If yes, how does drinking affect your efficiency?
- Seriously
- Mildly
- Not at all
- Does pregnancy affect the productivity of female employees
- Y
- N
- Not Sure
- Does having pregnant wives affect the productivity of male employees?
- Y
- N
- Not Sure
- Does the productivity of women reduce during some parts of the month?
- How many units do female workers produce in a day?
- How many units do male employees produce in a day?
- How do employees relate to each other?
- Do they have adversarial groups among them?
- Are there gender related conflicts in the company?
- Y
- N
- If yes, how do they affect productivity?
- How do the employees relate with the managers?