Group and teamwork is essential to any business as workers need to learn to share ideas and solve problems together. The benefits of group work include psychological intimacy which is, the emotional and psychological closeness between group members. Integrated involvement is the closeness achieved through these activities. It is very important for managers to understand the dynamics of group behavior. Although there are many benefits to group work there are some downsides as well. Social loafing and loss of individuality can result in less contribution from an individual as they tend to rely on the input of others.
Despite these downsides there are factors that can increase group effectiveness such as the structure of the group, the process in which they make decisions and solve problems as well as diversity among its members and creativity. When more people are able to share their ideas more can be brought to the table benefiting the group as a whole.
Samsung not only understands the importance of teamwork within their company but also the partnering with other companies as well. An article from CRN.com commented, “He said that as an extension to Samsung’s Partners in Innovation program, the company wants to assign a direct rep to each solution provider account to not only build a more tight-knit relationship, but to more readily provide the resources needed to engage in new trends such as cloud computing and the consumerization of IT.” Samsung certainly understands the importance of partnering with other companies as they try to conduct business.
Within the company teamwork is valued and rewarded as well. The Samsung company website states, “Additional group incentives are provided to a group that demonstrates excellent productivity, teamwork, and contribution to the Company. To fund these rewards, each unit of Samsung Electronics allocates budget for group incentives.” This proves Samsung not only encourages teamwork but believes in the importance of putting money aside to fund it as well.
Organizational Behavior 