Social Motivation and the Effectiveness of Work Groups.

Abstract

A framework for the study of the nature and effects of interpersonal interaction for the performance effectiveness of work groups was presented and empirically tested. The central hypothesis was that group members' interpersonal behaviors significantly affect both their enthusiasm and capacity to work together in the future. Specifically, the way people interpret interpersonal behaviors affects the way they feel, and the way they feel has implications for the way they behave and the way they continue to view their work life. The construct of Social Motivation was introduced as a summary measure of the motivating potential of a group's social processes in the service of task performance. Data were collected using a combination of questionnaire, interview, and observational protocols, and the hypothesized framework was tested using twenty work groups (representing 124 individual respondents) engaged in either production, service, or sales work at four different organizations. Results from stepwise multiple regression analyses suggested several conclusions. Overall, Social Motivation might be most aptly characterized as a group-level affective construct, influenced by aspects of group composition, by the nature of interpersonal behaviors in a group, and by the adequacy of group performance. Social Motivation accounted for 54% of the variance in ratings of Performance Effectiveness and 37% of the variance in ratings of Task Motivation. In sum, social processes appear to be a significant and important source of motivation for work groups. Processes of participation and interpersonal adjustment were most important for the collective assessment of the motivating properties of a group's social processes. Interpersonal behavior, in turn, was influenced by differences in task and organizational contexts. Overall, empirical findings from the current study indicated that a work group that was balanced in terms of attitudes, interpersonal skills, and task skills developed interpersonal behaviors that were experienced as motivating, and that such a group was effective in the performance of its work.