A group’s culture, including its norms and patterns of behavior,
is formed through the process of structuration, or how the verbal and nonverbal
interaction among members both creates and maintains the group. Structuration
processes apply to face-to-face interaction, as well as to groups appropriating computer
technology.
All groups must find ways to deal with their primary (interpersonal)
and secondary (task-related) tensions.
Groups develop in stages, typically moving from the formation
stage to the production stage, but members always need to deal simultaneously
with socioemotional and task concerns, at all stages.
Group socialization of new and/or established members
and the group is a complex process of learning how to fit together. Effective
communication
is important to socialization, and effective socialization influences other
group processes, such as norms and roles. Socialization involves antecedent,
anticipatory, encounter, assimilation, and exit phases.
Whereas formal rules may exist to govern some of the group’s
interaction, informal rules (norms) that guide members’ behaviors evolve—sometimes
unconsciously—with the tacit approval of the members themselves. This holds
true with some modification in groups using computer-mediated communication.
With their personal behaviors and skills, group members
carve out roles in conjunction with other group members.
All groups need both task and maintenance functions to
be performed; self-oriented roles detract from the group’s purpose.
Effective management of role structure is relevant to
within-group processes, as well as intergroup processes.
