Group development: A review of the literature and a commentary on future research directions

Group Facilitation, Spring 2001 by Smith, George

The use of groups, and more specifically teams, in organizations has been on the rise during the past decade. While many benefits have been attributed to these organizational arrangements, few researchers and practitioners have stepped back to look at the history and research underlying many of the models that are used to understand and anticipate group/team development. This paper takes a step in that direction as it reviews many of the developmental models, their roots and patterns.

Keywords:

Groups, Teams, Group Development, Models, Theories

INTRODUCTION

Today's organizational landscape is laden with small groups and teams. Organizations in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors are utilizing work groups, task forces, blue ribbon commissions and panels, and various types of teams and support groups to accomplish their missions and objectives. In addition, groups are being implemented at all hierarchical levels and have assumed many roles and responsibilities central to the functioning of these organizations. Team and group work has become so prevalent that Hackman (1990) has stated that "Virtually everyone who has worked in an organization has been a member of a task-performing group at one time or another" (p. 2).

Despite the presence of groups in today's organizations, there are still questions that need to be addressed and dealt with. Central to such an examination is an understanding and evaluation of the existing group development literature. An understanding of this literature is important since one critical concern that has been raised by Bettenhausen (1991) and Nahavandi and Aranda (1994) is whether our current knowledge and understanding is sufficient to warrant the use of these organizational types and more specifically what are our limits in understanding group and team development. Therefore, it is important that we understand what we purport to "know" about this phenomenon prior to any speculation about what should be done to improve the field.

This paper attempts to address this issue and others by reviewing and categorizing many of the existing group development models. In addition, the paper focuses on the commonalities across the models (especially within categories) and provides a discussion that raises issues for future research. If this paper serves no other purpose, its primary intention is to act as a stimulus to reopen investigation into group development and to inject some additional doubt into the models, ideas and theories that are currently being implemented on the job, taught in the classroom and used in related research endeavors.

GROUP DEVELOPMENT DEFINED

As a point of entry into this work it is necessary to define the phrase "group development." Finding an acceptable definition of this phrase is difficult because it has been defined in many ways and with varying degrees of depth and complexity. Berkowitz (1974), for example, has stated that group development "refers to the fact that group process undergoes modification which enables the group to have more alternative ways to solve problems" (p. 311), while Ridgeway's (1983) and Bennis and Shepard's (1956) definitions of group development focus on the group's need for improved communication patterns.

The definition that best fits the models discussed in this paper was provided by Sarri and Galinsky (1974). In this definition these two authors have defined group development as "changes through time in the internal structures, processes, and culture of the group" (Sam and Galinsky, 1974, p. 72). As outlined in this definition group development entails changes within three different dimensions. The first dimension, the social dimension, is concerned with the organization of the group's structure and the patterns of the participants' roles and structures. The second dimension focuses on the group's activities, tasks and the operative processes of the group and is labeled the activity dimension. The final dimension, group culture, includes properties such as group norms, values and a shared group purpose.

The definition is important to the present discussion as it outlines the types of activities and events that groups may deal with during their development. More specifically, the definition is significant in that it serves as a representation of the types of changes that occur in the various developmental models. As previously noted, the primary reason for including this definition is to establish an understanding of what is meant by the phrase "group development." While the definition is relevant to the models discussed in this paper, the crux of the review deals with an examination of the similarities and differences between the existing models with the intent of raising questions and issues that relate not only to the models themselves but to various methodological issues used in gathering the data and developing the models. It should however be noted that the models in this paper do contain provisions for each of three dimensions outlined in the Sarri and Galinsky definition.