Modern Management: concepts and skills, 14/e

Managing Work Groups

To manage work groups effectively, managers must simultaneously consider the effects of both formal and informal group factors on organizational productivity. This consideration requires two steps:

1. Determining group existence

2. Understanding the evolution of informal groups

Determining Group Existence

The most important step managers need to take when managing work groups is to determine who the groups’ members are and what informal groups exist within the organization.

Sociometry is an analytical tool managers can use to make these determinations. They can also use sociometry to get information about the internal workings of an informal group, including the identity of the group leader, the relative status of group members, ...