Togt, Jorrit Jan Witte van der

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   University of GroningenThe effectiveness of concern for oneself and for others in voluntary groups and work groupsTogt, Jorrit Jan Witte van derIMPORTANT NOTE: You are advised to consult the publisher's version (publisher's PDF) if you wish to cite fromit. Please check the document version below.Document VersionPublisher's PDF, also known as Version of recordPublication date:1999Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research databaseCitation for published version (APA):Togt, J. J. W. V. D. (1999). The effectiveness of concern for oneself and for others in voluntary groups andwork groups. s.n.CopyrightOther than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of theauthor(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons).The publication may also be distributed here under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, indicated by the “Taverne” license.More information can be found on the University of Groningen website: https://www.rug.nl/library/open-access/self-archiving-pure/taverne-amendment.Take-down policyIf you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediatelyand investigate your claim.Downloaded from the University of Groningen/UMCG research database (Pure): http://www.rug.nl/research/portal. For technical reasons thenumber of authors shown on this cover page is limited to 10 maximum.Download date: 06-06-2022npeUt-iveness (-ynn,tl,e Netherlands ateral psychology doeszorking pattetns and: to which v/e cangtoup effectiveness,ave a downside inncern may enhanceugh it has not beennd Pratkanis, 1997).le antecedents andseeking, collective' of gtoup life whenrrnk is defcating forarch is necessary toas gÍoup membersds to high groupsuch that individualotked in NAM - ardy - I moved to arance Operations, aL,  1997: 185-8,  for  ary Gary Steel, it is arlued íor rvhat thevfollow you," whetereally felt at home'Just do it!" when Ihad already wnttenteally felt that myvhile I tealized that. encoufagement tobjective. Trust that8. SUMMARYThis thesis assesses the effectiveness of concem for oneself and concern for others in voluntarygroups and work groups. Self-concem is the degree to which gtoup members are motivated toputsue their own goals, interests, and aspirations, whereas other-concern indicates the degree towhich group members ate motivated to actively help others to pursue their goals, interests andaspirations. Self-concetn and other coflcern have previously been related to social informationprocessing ({orsgaatd, Meglino, and Lester, 1996), conflict behavior flanssen and Van de Vliert,1996;Yan de Vliett, 1997), performance of expedmental groups (Za:nder, 1971; Crown and Rosse,1995), and batgaining and negotiation behavior rn dyads (ltlacCdmmon and Messick, 1976).This thesis attempts to build a bridge between these two experimentally validated conceptsand the effectiveness of natutai gtoups by ptoviding a field validation. Àining fot btoadgeneraLizabil-ity of our findings, divergent samples were used; 748 members of 40 voluntary groups(intact Rotary clubs) and 1167 membets of 64 work gtoups in a large gas and oil producingcomPany. Following Hackman (1987, 1990), three criteria were adopted to assess gÍoupeffectiveness, namely the degtee to which goals are accomplished, interpersonal relations are well,and members'needs are satisfled.In the ftst study, we found that, irrespective of the level of self-concern, Rotary clubs'effectiveness was positively related to other-concern. As an empirical bonus, we found that thedegtee to which gtoup membeÍs petceive themselves as heterogeneous (a variable that wasoriginally included as a contÍol variable) qualified the effect of self-concem on effectiveness; self-concem had a detrimental effect on effectiveness only in heterogeneous groups. Furthermore,other-concetn mediated between heterogeneity and effect-iveness; the more homogeneous thegÍoup was, the higher other-concern was, and the higher effectiveness was.In the held teseatch in the gas and oil producing company, we included interdependence as aptedictot, which exptesses the degtee to which gtoup members are dependent upon each other tocomPlete their tasks and attain their goals. This construct has pteviously been related to self-concem and othet-concern (Pruitt, Rubin, and Kim, 1994). Other-concern was again positivelytelated to effectiveness, and self-concetn had a detrimental effect on gtoups in which the groupmembers were telatively independent. This effect disappeared in highly interdependent groups. Wealso found that self-concern was positively related to the level of absenteeism (the higher self-concem, the highet absenteeism), and the level of interdependence again qualiíred this effect. Undetcondition of high intetdependence, absenteeism was telatively high at all levels of self-concern,'wheteas under condrtion of low intetdependence, low self-concern resulted in low absenteeism.In both studies, we assumed self-concern and other-concern to be murually independent,and to have separate effects. However, fwo previous theories that applied self-concern and othet-concern, namely, the dual concem model (Van de VLiett, 1997) a.nd social motives theorySrÍcClintock, 7977), have adopted the assumpt-ion that self-concern and other-concernsrmultaneously codetermine conflict and negotiation behavior, respectively. This altematrvepatadigm, though less parsimonious, should be adopted if itprovides a betteÍ explanation of reaLity(cf. Bobko, 1985). We adopted this alternative paradigm of self-concern in a secondary analysis ofthe data of both field studies, developing three new variables that blended self-concem and otheÍ-conceÍn togethet. This altetnative patadigm did not explain signiFrcandy more variance than ourinitial model. Another assumption that is sometimes àpplied, namely, self-concem and other-concern as two exttemes on a bipolar continuum (e.g., Batson, 1989), has to be reiected too, sincethe two concerns were not related (r = .19, n.t for str-rdy 1 and r = .21, ns. fot study 2). Thus, thehrst conclusion ftom this thesis is that self-concem and other-concern should be considered asmun:ally independent vanables that have separate effects.A second conclusion is that the three diffetent critena of group effectiveness all have thesame relationship with self-concem and the same relatronship with otheÍ-concem. This runscounter to the observation in the empiÍical litetatute about group effectiveness, that a potpourri ofptedictors exist that do not have a consistent relationship urth the three criteria (e.g., Campion,57SUMMÀRYMedsker, and Higgs, 1993; Goodman, Atkin and Schoorman, 1983). we consistently found other-concetn and self-concem modetated by heterogeneity and interdependence to be ptedictots of adivetse set of effectiveness variables in very different group settings.Conclusion three is that, dependent upon the gtoup characteristics, self-concetn can hindergtoup effectiveness. Undet conditions ofhigh heterogeneity in study 1 and low interdependence instudy 2, self-concetn held a negative relationship with gtoup effectiveness, which disappeared undetconditions of medium to low heterogeneity and high interdependence, respectively. Ptactitionersshould bear in mind that inducing high seif-concem may turn out to be countelproductive in caseof low intetdependence.Conclusion four is that, irespective of the level of self-concern, other-concem uniformlyfosters group effectiveness in both voluntary gtoups and wotk gtoups. other-concemed goupmembers suPPort each othets' attainment of goals, inteÍests, and aspirations, which leads to goalaccomplishment, ptoductive interpetsonai relationships and individual need fulÍrllment within thegtoup. Though experimental studies found that the effect of other-concem is dependent upon thelevel of self-concern (e.g., ctown and Rosse, 1995, Janssen and van de vliert, 1996), it is iust themain effect of other concern that teally counts in these two field str_rdies.Taken together, the two field str:dies and the secondary analysis not only provide a val-idationof the concepts of self-concem and other-concem in natutal groups. They also enrich theorybuilding in (a) strengthening the assumption of mutual independence of both concetns, and (b)finding uniform telationships vrith the three effectiveness criteda, whereby (c) the relation betweenself-concem and effectiveness is dependent upon the levels of heterogeneify and interdependence,and wheteby (d) the relation between other-concem and effectiveness is uniform-ly positive on allthree effectiveness criteria.

The effectiveness of concern for oneself and for others in voluntary groups and work groups

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The effectiveness of concern for oneself and for others in voluntary groups and work groups

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