How influence attempts affect the relation between formal structure and linearity
Master‟s thesis, MSC Human Resource Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business
June 15, 2014
Linde van Laar Student number: S1927957
Davidstraat 34 9725 BT Groningen Tel.: +31 (0)6 1021 6598 Email: lindevanlaar@gmail.com
Supervisor and first examiner J. Oedzes
Second examiner Prof. dr. H.B.M. Molleman
How influence attempts affect the relation between formal structure and linearity
Abstract: Many companies nowadays use work teams, specifically the use of self-managing work teams is increasing. In these teams, individuals are equal in formal rank. The current study investigates the development of informal rank differences between team members in an experimental setting, showing that stronger informal hierarchies develop in groups without formal structure to facilitate coordination and decision making. Influence attempts are proposed as the explanation for informal structure to grow steeper. The presence and absence of formal structure was manipulated in student groups in an experimental setting. Results confirmed the hypotheses that the absence of formal structure leads to both a steeper informal hierarchy and increased use of influence attempts. However, it was not supported that influence attempts mediate the relation between formal structure and informal hierarchy linearity. This probably means that this relation is more complex, with other factors influencing it, future research should focus on this.
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction ……… 2. Theory ……… 3. Method ……… 3.1. Sample ……… 3.2. Procedure ……… 3.2.1. Formal structure ……… 3.3. Manipulation ……… 3.4. Measures ……… 3.4.1. Influence attempts ……… 3.4.2. Linearity ……… 4. Results ……… 4.1. Descriptive statistics ……… 4.2. Test of hypotheses ……… 4.3. Additional analyses ……… 4.3.1. Equilibrium of coding ……… 5. Discussion ……… 5.1. Theoretical implications ……… 5.2. Practical implications ………
5.3. Limitations and future research directions ………
6. Conclusion ………
7. References ………
8. Appendix A: Example of a transcript ………
1 INTRODUCTION
In the recent years we have seen an increase in the use of teams to organize tasks in organizations (Lazear & Shaw, 2007). Team based structures are believed to support organizational adaptability and to create more meaningful individual roles that are broader, and more socially connected (Hollenbeck, Beersma & Schouten, 2012). Hollenbeck et al. (2012) distinguished as many as 42 types of teams, amongst which ad hoc teams, professional teams, autonomous work teams, and self-managing work teams, the latter will be the focus of this research. Elmuti already wrote about the growing number of Fortune 500 firms using self-managing work teams in 1996. By then more than half of those companies was making use of this specific team form.
Self-managed work teams can be defined as “groups of interdependent individuals that are able to self-regulate their behavior concerning relatively complete tasks” (Kuipers & Stoker, 2009: 399; Spreitzer, Cohen & Ledford, 1999; Cohen, Ledford & Spreitzer, 1996). Typical for those teams is the absence of a formal structure that guides coordination and decision making. By introducing self-managed work teams, organizations have started to employ more egalitarian structures, in which all employees formally have the same rank. Many organizations adopt self-managed work teams to improve both performance and the wellbeing of employees (Kuipers & Stoker, 2009; Cohen et al., 1996). Indeed, there is good reason to believe that it increases performance, Colvin (2012), Elmuti (1996), Carroll (2000) and Lambe, Webb, and Ishida (2009), among others, support this. According to Elmuti (1996) companies can benefit from self-managing work teams over more traditional teams because the former, among other things, “concentrates on solutions and is continually improving and innovating” (p. 5). Research done within different Fortune 500 firms showed for example a rise in productivity, lowered production costs and increased output (Elmuti, 1996: 6).
2 mechanisms. Hierarchy is still the backbone and central nervous system of our organizations” (p. 1530)
To investigate how these informal hierarchies develop in groups, I draw on ethological research findings investigating the development of hierarchy in animal groups. This is legitimized because even though the social behavior of humans is quite in contrast to that of animals, their hierarchies are fairly similar (Chase, 1980). As animal groups by default are without formal structures, the development of informal hierarchy is the only way for animal groups to establish vertical relationships that guide behavior. Singh, Sharma and Krishna (2003) found that informal hierarchy forms via interaction (i.e. ignoring each other, attacking each other, or engaging in some common activity). In other words, animals use influence attempts to try and gain more influence. This has effect on the behavior of the animals involved in such a way that it influences the subsequent interactions, allowing an informal hierarchy to arise. These authors also found that animals interact with each other to clarify rank differences which helps them to structure subsequent interactions. More specifically animals show antagonistic behaviors (which is both aggressive and submissive behavior) to each other and establish dominant and subordinate ranks (Chase, 1980). Chase, Bartolomeo and Dugatkin (1994) argue that “The stream of interaction during hierarchy formation might contain a large proportion of sequences” (p. 395) and that those interaction sequences influence the total structure of relationships in the hierarchy. In other words, interactions with the goal of gaining influence between animals leads to winners and losers, such that losers tend to lose in subsequent interactions (loser effect) and winners tend to win in subsequent interactions (winner effect) (Chase et al., 1994). Just as in animal groups, I propose that human groups use attempts to influence each other, gain influence, and attain rank in the hierarchy.
3 This study investigates whether a reduced formal structure also leads to the establishment of an informal hierarchy between the team members of a human group, as the absence of formal structure creates fertile ground for the use of influence attempts. This would mean that employees in self-managed work teams use more influence attempts, and therefore the informal hierarchy among the team members increases. The paper is divided into four sections. First, in the theory section, I describe the conceptual model of this research, explaining the relationship between formal structure, influence attempts and informal hierarchy among team members. Second, the method section gives information about the sample, procedure, and measures. Third, the results section will describe the hypotheses testing as well as an additional analysis. Finally the discussion connects theory to the results, and describes practical and theoretical implications.
This study will be the first to apply perspectives from ethological research in human groups. More specifically I use influence attempts to explain the development of informal hierarchy in self-managing work teams. Second, according to Chase (1980) a lot of explanations on the shape of hierarchies are based on prior attributes of persons. Social dynamics and sequential interactions seem at least equally important for the forming of hierarchy. However, this does not explain why hierarchical differences arise in groups of people with a homogeneous position. Therefore I will resolve this gap by studying whether in homogeneous groups the use of influence attempts can be another reason for informal hierarchies to develop. Third, this study applies a unique method for analysis of the data. To be able to discover influence attempts I, together with my colleagues, performed a micro analysis on interaction amongst forty-one teams. This study is one of the first to use specific micro analysis to unravel influence attempts in work groups and how it determines the development of informal hierarchy. Finally, this study will help closing the gap recently recognized by McEvily, Soda, and Tortotiello (2014) that researchers fail to connect research on formal structures to research on informal hierarchies.
4 THEORY
Formal structure & informal hierarchy linearity. Formal structure is defined as “an official system of unequal person-independent roles and positions which are linked via lines of top-down command-and-control” (Diefenbach & Sillince, 2011: 1517). If there is no formal structure, it is not clear who does what and when, and coordination suffers. Whereas conflict is often bad for performance, cooperation is often beneficial (Halevy, Chou & Galinsky 2011). Magee and Galinsky (2008) argue that it is attractive to have hierarchical order because it is effective to coordinate activities, and that work tends to become confusing, inefficient, and frustrating when there is no formal structure. So a formal structure mainly facilitates the coordination of tasks, thereby decreasing levels of confusion and inefficiency.
Organizations are increasingly focusing on egalitarian structures. However, theorists have asserted that avoiding hierarchy is impossible. Even though work teams with an egalitarian structure do not have a formal hierarchy, hierarchical differences are never absent, because informal hierarchy will develop instead (Chase, 1980). Following Diefenbach and Sillince (2011) informal hierarchy is defined as “person-dependent social relationships of dominance and subordination which emerge from social interaction and become persistent over time through repeated social processes” (p. 1517).
5 According to Halevy et al. (2011) hierarchy is useful because it not only increases coordination, but it also reduces conflict and enhances cooperation. They argue that “organizational teams have at least three things in common: organizational members occupy different roles […], different roles are associated with different ranks or levels of authority […], and the joint task necessitates a clear division of labor and requires high levels of coordination” (p. 37). If hierarchy is not arranged in a formal way, it will emerge in an informal way. This is captured in hypothesis 1.
Hypothesis 1: Formal structure is negatively related to informal hierarchy linearity.
An influence attempt is “behavior used intentionally to gain acceptance of a request or support for a proposal” (Yukl, 2013: 204). If there is no formal structure to coordinate tasks, another mechanism has to come in play to gain acceptance of a request or support for a proposal because it is not obvious that the target person will accept what someone says right away (e.g. carry out a task). Influence tactics are especially useful when the person using the tactic has little authority over the target person (Yukl, 2013) as it is not formal power that does make the target person accept the proposal. In egalitarian structures, members‟ formal positions are equal, team members then have little authority over others and can try to influence them by giving their opinion and/or suggesting a way of action.
6 the subsequent interactions may strengthen this position by also winning subsequent attempts, or weakening by losing them. This means that someone winning an interaction causes linearity to change, however, one interaction is not creating a stable new informal hierarchy immediately, a lot of interactions in which influence attempts are used are needed to create this (Chase et al., 1994).
I expect that in a strong formal structure where the roles are clear, the need to influence each other is not necessary because the formal structure creates higher levels of coordination and lower levels of conflict (Anderson & Brown, 2010). In an egalitarian structure however, there is room for the use of influence tactics because roles are not evident. The relations among the team members have to form via social interactions and only become stable when the process of influencing each other is repeated over time (Chase et al., 1994). This suggests that there is a negative relationship between having a formal leader and the use of influence tactics. Stated formally:
Hypothesis 2: Formal structure is negatively related to the use of influence tactics.
In conclusion, formal structure will lead to lower informal hierarchy linearity because it will lower the need to use influence tactics. As stated by Halevy et al. (2011), to successfully solve a problem, or execute a joint task, a clear division of labor, and high levels of coordination are needed. However, high levels of coordination are hard, if not impossible, to accomplish if there is no hierarchy, either formal or informal. A formal leader merely uses his influence to coordinate activities (e.g. make subordinates carry out a task), therefore everyone knows their rank, and linearity among the subordinates will be relatively low. If there is no formal leader, ranks have to be determined. Individuals can then use influence tactics to gain some influence in the team. As each individual wants to secure a good position within the group, there will be numerous interactions, each resulting in winners, losers, and ties whereupon positions will vary across time (i.e. high linearity).
7 Hypothesis 3: The use of influence tactics mediates the relationship between formal structure and informal hierarchy linearity, such that a formal structure reduces the use of influence attempts, and lowers informal hierarchy linearity.
METHOD Sample
The hypothesis in this paper were tested using data obtained from video surveillance on forty-one teams consisting of either four or five persons. Participants were all students of the faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen, either bachelor or master. Participation was voluntary, and was granted with either small financial compensation or study credits. To assure confidentiality, each team and each individual were assigned a number and the videos were only seen by the researchers. The participants signed a consent form to give permission for this.
There was a total 41 teams, in which 184 participants participated. Of those 94 were male, and 90 female. Participants had an average age of 22.44 years (SD = 2.02). Each participant had to indicate, on a seven point scale, to which degree he or she masters the English language (1 = “I have a hard time speaking and reading” and 7 = “I can read and speak easily”). The mean was 4.88 (SD = 1.08), not one person reported to have a hard time speaking and reading in English.
Procedure
8 survive. After five minutes the individuals met in another room to discuss their results. The group got ten minutes to come up with a list on which they could all agree. Right after this group discussion, all participants individually had to fill in two digital questionnaires, the first contained pair-wise influential questions previously used by Singh et al. (2003) which measured the percentage of encounters won by each individual (e.g. “who was most influential A or B”), the latter contained questions about process issues like conflict and coordination.
All group discussions were video-taped, this enabled us to write a transcript in which all spoken sentences and visible behaviors such as laughing were covered. Each transcript was checked by one of the other researchers, such that this researcher watched the video while reading the transcript. When all transcripts were finished, we started adding „interaction units‟. According to Bales (1951) an interaction unit is a part of what someone says or does, containing sufficient information to assign it to an interaction category (I will elaborate on the interaction categories in the measures section). When all interaction units were added, we assigned them all to an interaction category. To guarantee inter-rater reliability, we all encoded fifteen of the same groups and then tested for (dis)agreements on our coding. The inter-rater reliability was between .70 and .93 ( = .84, SD = .05). It was only then that we started to encode the remaining video‟s individually. Appendix A shows a part of a transcript that has interaction units which are assigned to an interaction category.
Formal structure
Teams were based on one of two conditions, namely:
(1) A five person team in which one person is assigned a leader role, the others are subordinates. Between those subordinates no hierarchical differences are assigned. (2) A four person team in which no one is assigned a specific role, i.e. no hierarchical
differences are assigned.
There were 20 teams in the first condition, and 21 teams in the second condition. Thus there were 20 teams (condition 1) in which there was a formal structure. In this research I mainly focused on the participants who were assigned a subordinate role. Unless mentioned otherwise the leader is thus excluded from the analyses I made.
9 leader is able to influence the team in a formal way and the subordinates have a formal subordinate role. The leader also gets the opportunity to evaluate and reward the subordinates because this, according to Galinsky, Gruenfeld and Magee (2003), creates a more realistic leader position.
Manipulation
In the first condition, I manipulated the presence of a formal structure by appointing one formal leader and four formal subordinates in the group. To create a realistic leader position I used a manipulation which was previously used by Galinsky et al. (2003). The leader was given power such that he was able to not only evaluate, but also reward the subordinates. The leader was given instructions that emphasized this, the researcher told the leader the following:
“You will be the leader of the group.
Together with your team, you will try to find a group solution to the survival task. As the leader, you are in charge of leading this process. You will decide how to structure the discussion. You will be in charge of the team members and you will set the standards by which they are evaluated.
Because you are the group leader, you receive two raffle tickets that each represent a chance of winning a 10 Euro extra reward. This raffle will be conducted at the end of the experiment. One of these tickets is for you. At the end of the experiment, you will decide who gets the other ticket. You should give the ticket to the one subordinate that you think performed best in the group.
Thus, as a leader, you will be in charge of directing the discussion, evaluating your subordinates’ performance, and determining who gets the opportunity of winning the 10 Euro extra reward.”
The subordinates in condition 1 got the following instruction:
10 Together with your team, you will try to find a group solution to the survival
task. One of the other members is appointed as the leader of the team. This means that he/she will be in charge. He or she directs the discussion process and sets standards to evaluate you and the other subordinates.
In addition, the team leader has received two raffle tickets that each represent a chance of winning a 10 Euro extra reward in a raffle that we will conduct after this experiment is over. One of the tickets is for the team leader him-/herself. At the end of the experiment, the team leader will decide who gets the other ticket. He or she will give the ticket to the one subordinate that he or she thinks performed best in the group.
In conclusion, the leader will be in charge of directing the discussion, will evaluate your performance, and will determine whether or not you deserve a chance of winning the 10 Euro extra reward.”
Thus a subordinate did not get possibility to evaluate or reward, even more, the instruction indicated that the leader had resources the subordinate was willing to get.
All participants in condition 2 held the same hierarchical position, basically no specific position was assigned upfront. The instruction for them was as follows:
“Your role is the role of team member.
Together with the other team members, you are responsible for finding a group solution to the survival task. Therefore, you all carry responsibility for a good outcome of the task.
11 So also the participants in the groups which held condition two and therefore did not have a leader got a chance of winning a 10 Euro extra reward. After the experiment the bonus was randomly assigned to one of the participants. This was not to cause any hierarchical relation but to motivate all participants to get involved in the experiment and to make sure participants in both conditions got the same (chance of) reward for participating.
Measures
Influence attempts
Influence attempts were measured by observed behavior. It was only based on spoken sentences and visible behaviors such as laughing, but not on the underlying sources such as education. We categorized behavior based on twelve interaction categories previously specified by Bales (1951). All spoken sentences and visible behaviors where assigned to a category, which are specified in table 2.
1. Shows solidarity Raises other‟s status, gives help, reward. 2. Shows tension release Jokes, laughs, shows satisfaction.
3. Agrees Shows passive acceptance, understands, concurs, complies. 4. Gives suggestion Direction, implying, autonomy for other.
5. Gives opinion Evaluation, analysis, expresses feeling, wish. 6. Gives orientation Information, repeats, clarifies, confirms. 7. Asks for orientation Information, repetition, confirmation. 8. Asks for opinion Evaluation, analysis, expression of feeling. 9. Asks for suggestion Direction, possible ways of action.
10. Disagrees Shows passive rejection, formality, withholds help. 11. Shows tension Asks for help, withdraws out of the field.
12. Shows antagonism Deflates other‟s status, defends or asserts self. Table 2: Categories used in observation (Bales, 1951: 59)
12 Only the fourth and fifth category suffice this definition, as, according to Bales (1951), the former is based on attacking the outer situation and giving suggestions on how to cope with the situation, and the latter is based on dawning insight and includes expression of desire. If, for example, member A says “I suggest we put oxygen on the first place, because you cannot survive without oxygen” then the first part of that sentence is suggesting a possible way of action and the second part is an evaluation of the situation, it provides insight. Even more important, the behavior of member A saying this is used to get acceptance for his/her wish of putting oxygen on place number one. Other team members can then accept this, or try to influence A‟s opinion and propose something else.
To test my hypotheses four researchers have transcribed all forty-one video‟s such that all verbal and relevant non-verbal actions were written down. This made us able to encode all video‟s so that we could sum up the total use of each communication category, of which I used those that I labeled influence tactics.
Linearity
I focus on influence as a measure of linearity because even though hierarchies are based on different sources (e.g. power, status and prior attributes), it all leads to different levels of influence in decision making (Anderson & Kilduff, 2009). So following these researchers I measure linearity in terms of influence to be able to see how it affects the task structure of a group.
13 The da value is the total of Pa values (proportion of encounters won) in a row. The accuracy of the da value can be checked, that is, the sum of all da values should be equal to 6, because as we saw in table 1, if the dominance relationships were to be linear, the four participants would have dominance scores as 3, 2, 1, and 0 (Singh et al., 2003). The sum of all da values in table 2 is 6.04, this minor deviation is due to rounding of the Pa values.
I then used the Pa values and da values as input for the modified version of the basic Landeau equation (figure 2) to calculate the strength of the hierarchy. The linearity level of a team was expressed on a scale with a range from zero to one (Singh et al., 2003).
Figure 2: Landeau equation
RESULTS Descriptive statistics
14 Test of hypotheses
The results of my hypotheses testing is showed in table 5. I tested them by excluding the leader in all teams which held the first condition, by doing this I was able to measure the informal hierarchy linearity among the subordinates. Because influence attempts were measured on an infinite scale, I standardized this variable before testing my hypotheses.
Hypothesis 1 suggested that formal structure was negatively related to informal hierarchy linearity. This hypothesis was supported by the data. Results show that in the presence of formal hierarchy condition, informal hierarchy linearity was significantly higher compared to the absence of formal structure condition (t(40) = 2.209; p = .033; R2 = .111).
The second hypothesis, which suggested a negative relation between formal structure and the use of influence tactics, is also supported as I found that the use of influence tactics was significantly lower in the formal hierarchy condition compared to the absence of formal structure condition (t(40) = 2.471; p = .018; R2 = .135).
15 Additional analyses
As we coded all spoken sentences and visible behaviors, we gathered a lot of data beyond what we needed for testing the hypothesis, therefore I will first present an additional analysis.
Equilibrium of coding
Behavior was categorized based on twelve interaction categories previously specified by Bales (1951). All spoken sentences and visible behaviors where assigned to a category, which we already saw in table 2. “There is a symmetrical relation between the top half and the bottom half of the list of categories, with the middle line between categories 6 and 7” (Bales, 1951: 10). This means that each pair of interactions (i.e. 1 and 12, 2 and 11 etc.) are opposites of each other, for example whereas category three represents agreement, category ten represents disagreement. According to Bales (1951) each pair of categories can be considered a distinct phase in the communication process, and both categories of a pair will be used equally often.
16 As we can see from table 6, all pairs of interactions correlate at least marginally. There is one pair (i.e. agrees and disagrees) that correlates at the .10 level and one pair (i.e. shows solidarity and shows antagonism) that correlate at the .05 level. All other opposite pairs correlate at a .01 level.
A possible explanation for categories 3 (agrees) and 10 (disagrees) to correlate „only‟ marginally is that a lot of disagreement was expressed by giving opinion. If often happened that for example person A said “I have water on the first place”, and B answered by saying “I have it on the second place”. Even though B disagreed with A, B did only give his/her opinion. Another reason for the higher use of category 3 might be that groups often checked for consensus before writing down an answer, for example A says “So we all agree on putting water on the second place?” on which all others (i.e. B, C, and D) answer “yes”.
The reason for categories 1 (shows solidarity) and 12 (shows antagonism) to correlate less than expected might be that the latter only contains interactions that are used in a rather harsh way, such as an active attack to one‟s status, while the former includes more subtle interactions, such as helping someone (Bales, 1951). Even though the video‟s showed a lot of discussion, personal attacks were seldom. Helping behavior on the other hand was showed quite often as someone was for example writing down the items on the final list and someone helped him/her by naming the items in the right order.
17 result with the inter-rater reliability tells us that performed the coding of the transcripts in a correct way.
DISCUSSION
The purpose of this study was to research the relation between formal structure, influence attempts and informal hierarchy linearity. More precisely, I investigated whether the absence of formal structure led to a steeper informal hierarchy, and if this relation was mediated by the use influence attempts. I used data from 41 groups to test my hypotheses, two of the three hypotheses were supported. In this section I elaborate on the theoretical and practical implications, and the limitations and future research directions.
Theoretical implications
The first hypothesis which suggested that formal structure was negatively related to informal hierarchy linearity is supported. This implies that as many theorists have suggested that groups are indeed never hierarchy free, because informal hierarchy linearity develops when there is no formal structure. (Among others, Magee & Galinsky, 2008; Diefenbach & Sillince, 2011)
Magee and Galinsky (2008) argue that it is attractive to have hierarchical order because it is effective to coordinate activities. They argue that work tends to become confusing, inefficient, and frustrating when there is no formal structure, and that coordination will therefore suffer. This study suggests that groups have a natural tendency to resolve these performance issues by creating informal hierarchies. Halevy et al. (2011) found that formal structure enhances performance because it, among other things, increases coordination.
The second hypothesis suggested that formal structure was negatively related to the use of influence attempts, this is also supported by the data. So groups without a formal hierarchy use more influence attempts. This supports findings by Chase et al. (1994) who argued that hierarchy formation goes hand in hand with interaction sequences to gain influence.
18 might lead to things getting worse, before getting better. As team members need to learn new behaviors and responsibilities first, there will be a fall-off in effectiveness before it pays off (Sims, Henry, Manz & Charles, 1995). Groups should coordinate behavior of the team members so that they together can work to success, because those teams in which members agree on their rank profit from less conflict and enhanced performance (Anderson & Brown, 2010).
The third hypothesis which captured the mediating effect was rejected. I suggest that prior attributes and social dynamics work together in a complex way to create a hierarchy. It is proved that if a formal structure is absent, informal hierarchy linearity will develop instead. Singh et al. (2003) found that interaction among animals is influencing the subsequent interaction, allowing an informal hierarchy to arise. However the mediating effect of influence tactics among people is not proven by this research.
I suggest that the development of informal hierarchy is a more complex process than depicted in this research. Many factors have been found to influence group processes. Magee and Galinsky (2008: 355) for example argue that “one reason for this incipient hierarchical differentiation is that individuals form inferences and make judgments of others‟ competence and power based on only seconds of observation. Therefore, differences in task participation, which emerge within minutes of interaction, can produce hierarchical differentiation that shapes the entire group experience”. This would mean that physical appearance is, among other things, influencing informal hierarchy linearity.
19 Practical implications
This research shows that groups without formal structure engage in more influence attempts than groups with formal structure. I expect that influence attempts can have some negative consequences for teams. Interactions in which influence is exerted are used to try and gain influence, which helps to structure subsequent interactions. However, as long as there is no stable informal hierarchy, coordination will suffer. For a practitioner this is important to know because it can mean that introducing a team with an egalitarian structure for a short cycle time is not beneficial because this team suffers from coordination problems as its members are trying to gain influence.
This research also shows that although you can eliminate formal hierarchy, informal hierarchy cannot be eliminated. Informal hierarchy develops over time, it can be based on different sources. Unfortunately I was not able to prove that the use of influence attempts was one of the reasons for a hierarchy to develop, as it appears to be a complex relation between different variables such as physical appearance and expertise. Berger, Rosenholtz and Zelditch (1980) elaborate on status organizing processes, those processes cause people to evaluate others and develop beliefs about them based on any characteristic, for example age, sex, race and education
Limitations and future research directions
Even though this was an extensive research in which I, together with my colleagues, gathered a lot of data, there are some limitations as well. First, because data were conducted in an experimental setting in which only students participated who had no knowledge on this task, I am not sure whether the results can be generalized and will be useful in an organizational context.
Second, I only tested one form of formal structure. I focused on teams in which there was one leader and all other participants had the same hierarchical rank. However, as there are many different forms of teams, in many teams people get assigned to different ranks, such that there are more than two ranks in a team.
20 However we did not control for this. But also, to be able to perform this micro analysis I focused on 41 teams, results can become more convincing if a larger number of teams is being investigated.
Future research should focus on different sorts of real life teams. Those teams should thus not only be based on the one form of formal structure which I used in this research, but also on teams with more assigned hierarchical differences. Besides, as prior attributes and social dynamics appear to work together in a complex way to create a hierarchy, other factors than only influence attempts should be considered as a mediator.
CONCLUSION
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24 Appendix A: Example of a transcript
Group 21, condition 3 Start video: 12/02/2013, 15.17.40
Person A: Asian guy, glasses Person B: Asian girl, grey vest Person C: Asian girl, glasses
Person D: black guy, black sweater with red stripes
B-0: /We have to arrange by importance6/ {{schuift met de briefjes en pakt het definitieve papier}}4/
B-0: /What do you think it's important?/8 A-B: /I think food4/ or water is important/4 C-B: /[Food, yeah food]/5
B-0: /So ah but they also have oxygen4/. Setting oxygen, figures5/. Okay6/{{schrijft het op}}/4
D-0: /[Oxygen]3/ C-0: /[Yeah]/3 B-0: /And then../4 C-B: /[[Food]]/5
D-B: /[Oxygen6/, food5/ and water]5/ B-0: /Food concentrate6/
C-B: /Yeah. Water eh..3/ D-B: /[Water]/3
D-0: /Solar power?/8
B-0: /Yeah they have like a receiver transmitter4/ so this is for communication /5 C-B: /[Yeah]/3
D-B: /Yeah communication3/
C-B: /Compass4/ has a compass5/ and map4/ so maybe they can, we can try to find the way to..5/
A-0: /[How bout signal flares?4]/
D-0: /[Eeh cause I think someone must be5/]
25 C-B: /[Yeahhh..3/ No I... Hmmmm]11/
A-Y: /[Is it?8/ Nohh5/
B-0: /It's in the moon so.5./ So we have food6/, we have oxygen6/, water6/, we have the communication6 /
D-B: /Or map10/ B-0: /[The mappaa] /5
A-0: /I think space is really large5/ and map maybe is not work/5 C-A: /[Eeeh okay]/3
B-0: /Eeeeehm...6/ The milk/4 Laughing2 / A-0: {{laughing}}2/
C-0: {{laughing}}2/ D-0: {{laughing}} 2/
A-B: /We have food6/ and water../6 C-0: /[Haha I don't think yeaaaah]/5
D-0: /But what is the important ones8/ because we have like../5 B-0: /Yeah maybe the injury one/5
A-B: /[Yeh3]/ D-B: /Okay3/
B-0: /And the next..the heating?4/
A-B: /[Alright heating]3/ [[For it's very cold]]/5 C-B: /[Heating]/3
B-Y: /[Forth.. ]6/
D-B: /Or us signal flares5/ {{B gaat alles opschrijven4/
A-0: /How 'bout self-inflating life raft.4/ Is it like we can move from.. to others/5 B-A: /[[But10/ on the moon you don't need to5/ ]]/{laughing}/2
C-B: /[Yeahh]3/ {D laughing}2/
B-0: /Matches4/, nylon4/, maybe pistols4?/ For protection5/ D-B: /[No]10/ [[Or compass]5]/
B-D: /Compass, yeah3/ {{schrijft het op}}4/ B-0: /Matches?8/
C-B: /[matches yeah I would think so]/5 D-B: /[Matches]3/
