The Role of Cohesion and Productivity Norms in Performance and Social Effectiveness of Work Groups and Informal Subgroups

The study addresses the direct and indirect relationship of group cohesion and productivity norm with the perceived performance effectiveness (plan and current tasks implementation and performance success in challenging conditions) and social effectiveness (satisfaction with the group/subgroup and psychological comfort in the group/subgroup) at the levels of work groups and informal subgroups. Thirty-nine work groups from fifteen Russian organizations of different activity profiles, namely services, trade, and manufacturing, took part in the study. The vast majority of them were characterized by relatively low task interdependence. Within the work groups, informal subgroups (from one to three per group) were identified. The cohesion of groups and subgroups was positively and significantly stronger associated with their social effectiveness than with performance effectiveness. The cohesion of subgroups was also indirectly related to social effectiveness of the work groups, i.e., this association was mediated by the subgroup social effectiveness. The index of productivity norm was positively related to perceived performance effectiveness only at the subgroup level, but not at the group level. The productivity norm of the subgroups was also indirectly related to the perceived performance effectiveness of the groups, i.e., this association was mediated by the subgroup performance effectiveness. The indirect relationship between subgroup productivity norm and group performance effectiveness was more complex when cohesion within subgroups was taken into account.