Julia Franco, the VP of Operations at Zeta Manufacturing, is concerned about the consistently low levels of productivity in the assembly plant.At a meeting with company executives, she proposes the introduction of some social activities to increase cohesiveness among the workers, and thereby improve productivity.Gordon Wong, the VP of Human Resources, disagrees."This group of workers is known to frequent the local pub everyday after work and vacation together on long weekends.If you increase cohesiveness any further, productivity will probably come to a complete halt!" Who do you think is correct? Explain your answer.

This question is intended to test students' understanding of the relationship between cohesiveness, norms, and performance.Like Julia, many students automatically assume that high cohesiveness will lead to improved performance.However, this is only true if the group productivity norms support the goals of the organization.If, as Gordon suggests, cohesiveness is high and group productivity norms are poor from an organizational standpoint, then increasing cohesiveness will not lead to improved performance.Julia may have to reduce the cohesiveness of the group first (e.g., by removing key members, adding new members, or perhaps introducing competition or conflict into the group)and then encourage the adoption of better performance norms, perhaps through an incentive program, as one example, before trying to increase cohesiveness.