Does the chosen population consist of teams?
The study aimed to test whether the chosen population consisted of teams, teams tend to be more cohesive than groups, also exhibit a high degree of work interdependence and outcome interdependence, have shared leadership roles and team members are mutually accountable. It was in this vein that team characteristics were tested in this study, as teams would need to possess higher levels of group emotional intelligence than groups due to the higher volumes of interactions, interdependences and relations in teams (Druskat, Wolff, Messer & Koman, 2003).
Section 2.2 provided the definition of the word team. Team characteristics were provided and the differences between a group and a team were highlighted. The theories of group or team development were also discussed in detail. The major differences highlighted were that teams tend to be more cohesive than groups, also
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exhibit a high degree of work interdependence and outcome interdependence, have shared leadership roles and team members are mutually accountable. These team characteristics were tested in the empirical study.
According to the empirical study the groups exhibit most of the team characteristics although the study could not conclusively establish that the selected groups were in fact teams since the shared leadership domain proved not to be reliable in the questionnaire and was subsequently removed. The groups exhibited high levels of all the other team characteristics since the aggregate mean score for team characteristics was 4.27 with an aggregate standard deviation of 0.86. The task dependence domain received the highest average score of 4.51 followed by the mutual accountability domain at 4.27. The outcome dependence domain received an average score of 4.26 while the team cohesion domain received the lowest average score of 4.04 with an aggregate standard deviation of 1.12 which shows that the responses were widely spread around the mean. The Umlilo shift received an average team characteristics score of 4.20, the Ayoba shift received an average score of 4.44 and the Inkosi shift received an average score of 4.17.
The outcome pertaining to team characteristics is based on the following hypothesis: H0 1: The selected groups do not exhibit any team characteristics.
The null hypothesis is rejected since the selected groups exhibit most of the features of a team, although it cannot be concluded that the selected groups are in fact teams due to the fact that the shared leadership characteristic questions had to be removed from the analysis.
SUB PROBLEM 2
What is the predominant decision making process in the selected groups?
In section 2.7 an overview of group decision making was also presented and the functional model of decision making which hinges on group communication was the
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chosen theory to describe the elements of group decision making. Five different methods of team decision making were highlighted in section 2.8 namely:
The command style of group decision making,
Decision made by authority after group consultation,
Decision by averaging individual’s opinion,
Decision made by majority, and
Decision by consensus.
According to the empirical study the predominant decision making method in the selected population was: by manager after consulting the team. 44% of the respondents selected this type of decision making method. The Umlilo and Ayoba shift use this type of decision making method while decisions in the Inkosi shift are made by the manager without consulting the team. Therefore decisions in two of the three shifts are made by the manager after consulting the team.
The outcome pertaining to the teams’ decision making method is based on the following hypothesis:
H0 2: The selected teams do not use the same team decision making method.
The null hypothesis is supported and it is therefore concluded that the chosen teams do not use the same decision making method when making decisions.
SUB PROBLEM 3
Do the group members of the selected groups participate in group decision making?
The survey results show that the respondents felt that they participated in decision making with the overall decision participation average score of 3.86 with Umlilo shift having an average score of 4.20, Ayoba shift having an average score of 3.80 and the Inkosi shift scoring an average of 3.67.
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Hence the results of the team decision making questionnaire show that most of the group members felt that they did participate in decision making, but this contradicts what was observed in the team decision making method question.
The outcome pertaining to the group member’s participation in group decision making is based on the following hypothesis:
H0 3: The selected team members do not participate in team decision making.
The null hypothesis is rejected since most of the respondents felt that they do participate in decision making since. The average score participation in decision making domain received a high average score of 3.86, therefore the chosen group members do participate in group decision making.
According to the survey results most of the respondents felt that decisions in their teams were made by their managers after consulting the team or even without consulting the team. The survey results show high levels of participation in decision making not consistent with decisions made by managers after consulting the team or even without consulting the team. This could be due to the statement or question on team decision making method not being clear.
The statement and the options provided were: In my team decisions are made by:
Manager without consulting the team 1 Averaging individual's opinion 3 Consensus 5
Manager after consulting the team 2 Majority 4
This statement might have proved to be ambiguous to the respondents since it does not highlight the type of decision it is trying to analyse. As stated in the study there are three different types of decisions which are made by organisations. According to Bowett (n.d.), organisations make three different types of decisions i.e. strategic decisions, tactical decisions and operational decisions. Strategic decisions are made by the owners or directors of the business, tactical decisions are made by the managers of the business and operational decisions are made by most employees. There is a possibility that the respondents might have answered this question thinking of tactical decisions.
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But the goal of the study was to establish how the operational decisions were made in the organisation. Possibly the following amended statement could have provided consistent results:
In my team operational decisions are made by:
Manager without consulting the team 1 Averaging individual's opinion 3 Consensus 5
Manager after consulting the team 2 Majority 4
Perhaps this statement would have yielded consistent results.
SUB PROBLEM 4
What is the team emotional intelligence level of the selected groups?
According to Druskat and Wolff (2008) the group emotional structure contains norms that influence awareness and response to emotion at individual, group and cross boundary levels. These norms are expectations shared by team members of appropriate behaviour in a specific context, of the value of each member and of free flow of information (Bagraim et al., 2007). Group emotion competence norms are particularly important for groups involved in interdependent, long-term tasks where the quality of member relationships and the capacity to address rather than avoid emotional threat or challenge are likely to influence group effectiveness (Druskat, Wolff, Messer and Koman, 2003).
The survey results show that the chosen groups have good levels of group EI with the average group EI score of 3.95. The Ayoba shift has the highest group EI average score of 4.23 in the selected population while the Inkosi shift has the lowest group EI average score of 3.73. The lowest average group EI score in the population is higher than the middle score of 3.00. Therefore none of the chosen groups have low average group EI scores.
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The outcome pertaining to team emotional intelligence is based on the following hypothesis:
H0 4: The selected teams have low levels of team emotional intelligence.
The null hypothesis is rejected since the survey results show that the chosen groups have good levels of team EI.
SUB PROBLEM 5
To what extent does team emotional intelligence influence team decision making in the selected groups?
In section 3.9 the impact of group EI on team decision making was discussed. It was established that the GEC norms produce group social capital which affects the environment in which team decisions are made.
According to the empirical study the relationships between the team EI and the team decision making is positively correlated and is significant at the 5 percent level of significance since the P-value is less than 0.05. Therefore team EI impacts team decision making in the chosen groups.
The outcome pertaining to the impact of team emotional intelligence in team decision making is based on the following hypotheses:
H0 5: There is no statistically significant relationship between team EI and team decision-making in the chosen population.
The null hypothesis is rejected since there is a significant relationship between team EI and team decision making. We thus conclude that team EI impacts team decision making.
According to the literature study individual level norms and cross-boundary level norms are positively correlated with team decision making since they produce trust and network ties which are critical in group decision making. The empirical study confirmed
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what was suggested by the literature study and found that the individual norms and cross-boundary level norms are positively correlated with team decision making.
The literature further highlighted that group level norms are negatively correlated with group decision making since group level norms produce group identity and group efficacy which are both negatively correlated with group decision making. High levels of group identity can results into group polarisation and groupthink since group members are far more likely to respond positively to the arguments offered by in-group members than out-group members. Those who hold a shared social identity (group identity) may end up persuading each other to take extreme stances in group decision making (Mackie and Queller, 2000 cited in Forsth, 2009). Therefore group identity negatively affects team decision making.
Groups with high self-efficacy may become over confident, thinking their decisions are always correct and might not feel the need to exploit all unshared information in the group before developing a consensus (Lam and Schaubroek, 2011). These groups may tend to base their decisions on superficial or shared information alone and might overlook important information and still falsely believe that they are making the right decision (Lam and Schaubroek, 2011).
According to the empirical study the following relationships are significant and positively correlated at the 5 percent level of significance:
relationship between group level norms and participation in team decision making; and
relationship between group level norms and team decision effectiveness.
This contradicts the findings of the literature study, and might have been caused by the removal of the team decision making process domain. The domain had to be removed from the study due to its low Cronbach’s alpha value of 0.13; this might have caused the inconsistent results experienced in the empirical study since group level norms influence the group decision making process domain. Moderate levels of group identity
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and group efficacy are necessary for groups to function but high levels of these two social capital domains have a negative impact in group decision making.
6.4 RECOMMENDATIONS
Managers should make an effort to promote team characteristics within their groups since doing so will improve their groups’ effectiveness as teams are more efficient that groups. Managers can also share their leadership responsibilities with their team members in order to promote this important team characteristic.
Team members should be given a greater role in team decision making and the managers should not be allowed to make all the decisions for the group. At the moment most of the group decisions are made by the manager after consulting the team or without consulting the team. By making all the decisions the managers are not using the potential of their group members. Their group members are skilled in their respective occupations and possess the knowledge to make good decisions as a collective. This will increase the acceptance and the implementation of the decisions since the group would take full ownership of the decision.
The manager of the Inkosi shift should try to include or consult his team members when making group decisions. The Inkosi shift felt that their team decisions were made by the manager without consulting the team. Though the Umlilo and the Ayoba shifts felt that they are part of the decision making process, the ultimate decision in both these shifts are made by the manager after consultation. Though making decisions by majority and by consensus yields a bigger buy-in from team members, these methods might not be necessarily suitable for an organisation in the freight handling industry.
The operations planning departments in this industry are expected to make the correct decisions in very short periods of time and do not necessarily have the time to reach majority or consensus in decision making. Therefore the better decision making method for this industry is for managers to make most of the group’s decisions after consulting
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with their groups to get the group’s input in order to arrive at the correct decision. The groups’ managers should use the majority or consensus decision making methods in making group decisions that are not urgent to promote participation in decision making.
The Inkosi shift demonstrated the lowest group EI of all the three shifts. Though the group EI levels of the Inkosi shift are not significantly lower, the manager of this group should put in place arrangements to improve the levels of group EI in his shift. This will improve group decision making and will also improve the effectiveness of the group decision that are taken. As suggested in the literature study groups can improve their group emotional intelligence through training or individuals with high levels of emotional intelligence can be introduced into the shift.
This study highlighted the influence of team EI on team decision making and the organisation should take active steps to improve the group EI of the chosen groups. The organisation should promote the individual level norms as they increase the levels of trust within the group; and trust positively affects group decision making.
Cross-boundary norms should also need to be promoted as they help the group overcome the hindrances of mind guards and be able to gather feedback from other external individuals or groups. One symptom of groupthink is to stereotype and categorise those outside the group in ways that see their views as unacceptable. Having relational ties with individuals outside of the group will go a long way in addressing this symptom and would ensure that the group receives feedback from the external environment which might assist the group in their decisions.
Group level norms should be kept at a moderate level in the chosen groups since the literature study highlighted that high levels of group identity can lead to group think and group polarity. Also high levels of group efficacy can negatively affect group decision making.
Cross-boundary norms which promote network ties assist groups not to fall victim to groupthink since it allows the groups to receive feedback from external sources. Cross-
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boundary norms can assist in group decision making by introducing external perspectives. This would help the group overcome the hinderances of mind guards. Therefore the organisation should promote socialising between the three shifts and the external environment.
6.5 AREAS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
The study can provide a basis for further research. During the study, it was discovered that there are several areas of study that are related to the research problem. The areas of research that were identified are:
A similar study can be carried out using an updated team characteristic questionnaire to ascertain whether the population consists of teams since the shared leadership domain proved not to be reliable in the questionnaire and was subsequently removed.
Another study can be carried out using an updated team decision making questionnaire to ascertain whether group emotional intelligence affects the team decision making process as this domain was removed from the questionnaire used in this study.
Research should be conducted on other groups to verify the results of this study by testing whether group emotional intelligence affects group decision making. The study should be ideally conducted on groups which use the consensus or the majority decision making methods to establish how team EI influences team decision making in groups with high interaction.
Another study can be carried out to ascertain whether the educational levels of team members affects the levels of team emotional intelligence in the chosen teams.
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A study can be carried out to ascertain whether the group’s gender mix affects its levels of team emotional intelligence. This will be an interesting study to conduct of the population used for this study seeing that the population consists of a very high number of males (25) and a very low number of females (7).
The impact of the organisational culture on the use and the development of team emotional intelligence within the organisation should be studied.
The impact of the organisational culture in the team decision making process should be researched.
The impact of the organisational culture on the use of team emotional intelligence in team decision making can also be researched.
The influence of group’s cultural diversity on team emotional intelligence should be researched.
The influence of group member’s locus of control on team emotional intelligence should be researched.
The impact of team emotional intelligence on the team’s acceptance of performance appraisals should be investigated.
The impact of team emotional intelligence on the team’s openness and acceptance to change should be explored.
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6.6 CONCLUDING REMARKS
The aim of the study was to establish whether there was a relationship between team emotional intelligence and team decision making. The findings confirmed that there was a relationship between group emotional intelligence and group decision making. The empirical study could not conclusively establish that the selected groups were in fact teams. The empirical study could also not establish whether the selected groups use the functional model of decision making process in group decision making. The selected shifts can use this study to understand their team decision making methods and processes. The shifts will then be able to assess whether they are using the correct decision making process for the work they do and the environment they function in.
The empirical study suggested that all the three shifts have good levels of emotional intelligence which all the three shifts can use in their decision making process. The Inkosi shift scored the lowest average score in team EI and can use this study to put in place measures to improve the group emotional intelligence in their group after