Research Methods and Issues

Group processes can be conceptualized as the mechanisms or intervening factors that connect properties of groups (e.g., group size, average skill level, diversity, or identity) to outcomes. Examples include the actions or communication that groups engage in while making decisions, negotiating, or coordinating their activities. These behaviors are driven by the group's task and associated performance goals, creating interdependencies among group members that lead to coordinated and actively integrated behavior. It is this set of behaviors that researchers investigating group processes attempt to capture and analyze.

Scholars have suggested that to fully understand how people organize, we must consider an [Page 699]individual's behavior and how others react to that behavior before we can predict how that person will behave at a later time. Mapping this process ...