Reflections about syndicate group work
"I always had a different opinion to our group leader, but he always made me give in, even when I was not at all persuaded by his arguments, I can't explain how that happened". This statement made by one of my group members is quite revealing. While she recognizes the dominance of our leader´, she is perplexed because she fails to understand how she was manipulated.
How did he do it? Was it only his dominance or were there perhaps Machiavellic elements in his behaviour who made his opinion prevail? And was it beneficial to our groups' effectiveness? I will try to solve this question in the main part of the essay.
First, I will give a short overview of our groups' development and then examine critically the reasons for our moderate level of motivation, basing my argument on Vroom´s expectancy theory.
The development of our team could be best described with a combination of one element of the "Five ?Stage-Model" of Tuckman and main parts of the "punctuated-equilibrium- model". (Arrow, 1997). The first syndicate group meeting can be characterised as the storming phase in which intragroup conflict prevails. We were not confident at all about how to attack the problem and the strategy to apply. All members participated actively, trying to impose their point of view. At this stage, cultural differences play a major role. For instance, in Korean culture, dominated by low individualism and high power distance, employees should adapt to the company's identity, (Chung, Adams, 1997), whereas in Europe people tend to claim that it is the company's responsibility to integrate the employee. For example, one Chinese member claimed that it should be the employee's responsibili ...