Socially rejected while cognitively successful? The impact of minority dissent on groups’ cognitive complexity

Antecedents and consequences of group cognitive complexity: a conceptual review

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the literature on the antecedents and consequences of group cognitive complexity (GCC) and integrate the empirical work by using the composition/compilation framework of emergence and the input-mediator-output-input (I-M-O-I) model of team effectiveness.

Design/methodology/approach

Through a systematic search in extant databases, the authors found 27 empirical studies exploring the antecedents and consequences of GCC.

Findings

The extant literature is dominated by a compilational approach on GCC, experimental designs and a focus on exploring the antecedents of GCC (group composition and processes mostly), thus providing useful insights for organizational interventions. The work on the implications of GCC for individual or organizational level outcomes is however scant. Future endeavors could rely more on a multilevel exploration of GCC, take a developmental rather than a one-shot approach and explore the impact of new ways of working on the emergence of GCC.

Originality/value

The authors propose an integration of extant empirical work on GCC by using two complementary frameworks: the I-M-O-I model and the composition/compilation framework. The authors highlight the implications for practice and draw future research directions.

Revisiting Women Empowerment Through a Cultural Lens a In-Depth Analysis of Empowerment Methodologies in Horticulture in Rural Ethiopia

As previous research in international development has clearly demonstrated (see Banerjee and Prasad, 2008 for an overview), cultural values have an impact on the conceptualization of empowerment. In this paper we explore the implications of Power Distance as a cultural dimension for the use of participatory methodologies toward achieving women empowerment in rural areas in the Global South. Our critical analysis of cultural differences between the intervention facilitator (a Western-based NGO) and a rural community in SNNPR (Southern Nations, Nationalities and People’s Regions) in Ethiopia reveals how discrepancies in the perception of cultural values impacted the different stages of the intervention. These discrepancies ranged from the principles of facilitation (facilitation from the back and its paradoxical effects in such hierarchical contexts) to the focus on tools (on equality between individuals rather than focus on the family as the smallest unit). Discrepancies also surfaced from the selection criteria of participants (highly vulnerable groups; one spouse per family; number of participants from one community all of which prevented the impact of the intervention to be more powerful in the long run) and from how the participants are organized during trainings (the ratio of mixed vs. segregated groups and the criteria of group segregation – this can play a large role in regard to the potential openness of conversations and the creation of safe spaces to explore new identities which are the key to empowerment). Through all the stages of the intervention, we make suggestions on how to better implement such methodologies in the future, in a context-sensitive manner, by considering the cultural differences in assumptions and practices.

Firm-level digital transformation affects individual-level innovative behavior: Evidence from manufacturing firms in China

Digital technologies significantly impact on manufacturing firms as they innovate their business processes in response to rapidly changing environments. Therefore, the proper use of digital technology to promote innovative behavior has become an important topic in research. However, few studies have examined how firm-level digital transformation affects individual-level innovative behavior. Drawing on the minority dissent perspective, we explored the mechanism by which digital transformation affects innovative behavior. Surveying 540 participants from Chinese manufacturing firms revealed that firm-level digital transformation was significantly correlated with both crossfunctional minority dissent and individual-level innovative behavior. Moreover, minority dissent played a partial mediating role in the relationship between digital transformation and innovative behavior. This study sheds new light on how firm-level digital transformation can determine individual-level innovative behavior.

Integrative Complexity, Participation, and Agreement in Group Discussions

This study tested status-contingency theory and conversion theory on a task in which members made ordered judgments instead of dichotomous judgments. In groups, participants discussed whether “under God” should be in the pledge of allegiance and reached consensus on an ordered scale. Members’ contributions were scored for integrative complexity. In groups with more dispersion of opinion, members with opinions less discrepant from other group members did not have higher integrative complexity than members with more discrepancy of opinion, failing to support status-contingency theory for nondichotomous decisions. In support of conversion theory, members with more discrepant opinions were more influential when they had higher integrative complexity in their arguments. Replicating past research, groups with longer discussions had higher integrative complexity.

The bittersweet effect of power disparity

Purpose

Collaborative systems are particular cases of multi-team systems in which several groups representing various interests meet to debate and generate solutions on complex societal issues. Stakeholder diversity in such systems often triggers power differences and disparity and the study explores the dual role of power disparity in collaborative settings. The purpose of this paper is to extend the power approach-inhibition model (Keltner et al., 2003) to the group level of analysis and argue that, on the positive side, power disparity increases the cognitive activity of the interacting groups (i.e. task-related debates), while on the other hand it generates a negative affective climate.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors collected data at two time points across nine behavioral simulations (54 teams, 239 participants) designed to explore the cognitive and affective dynamics between six parties interacting in a collaborative decision task.

Findings

The results show that power disparity increases cognitive activity in collaborative multi-party systems, while it hinders the affective climate, by increasing relationship conflict and decreasing psychological safety among the stakeholders.

Practical implications

This study provides important theoretical and practical contributions mostly for the consultation processes, as interventions might be directed at fostering the positive effects of power disparity in collaborative setting, while mitigating its drawbacks.

Originality/value

By extending the approach-inhibition model to the group level, this is one of the first empirical studies to examine the dual nature of the impact that power disparity has on the cognitive (i.e. positive effect) and affective (i.e. negative effect) dynamics of multi-party collaborative systems (i.e. multi-team systems).

Minority Dissent and Social Acceptance in Collaborative Learning Groups

The main aim of this paper is to test the extent to which social acceptance moderates the impact of minority dissent on group cognitive complexity (GCC). We hypothesize that divergent views expressed by a minority increase GCC especially when the group climate is open to divergent contributions (e.g., a socially accepting group climate). We also hypothesize that group size has a non-linear association with GCC in such a way that GCC increases as group size increases from low to average and then GCC decreases as group size further increases from average to high. We test these hypotheses in a sample of 537 students (258 women, with an average age of 23.35) organized in 92 groups that have worked together in the same group throughout the semester, and show that: (1) group size has a decreasing positive association with GCC, (2) both minority dissent and social acceptance are beneficial for GCC and (3) groups with the highest GCC are those that experience minority dissent and develop a socially accepting climate (in which group members can equally participate to the task), allowing the majority to process the dissenting views extensively.

Too Close or Too Far Hurts

Groups encounter difficulties in becoming better than their individual members. This study assesses the nature of the relationship between cognitive distance (operationalized as the extent to which the best performing individual is detached from the rest of the group) and two types of group synergy: weak cognitive synergy (collective performance is better than average individual performance) and strong cognitive synergy (collective performance exceeds the performance of the best individual in the group). We hypothesized that the relationship between cognitive distance and group cognitive synergy has an inverted U shape and we test this curvilinear relationship in two studies using judgmental and decision-making tasks. The first study shows that cognitive distance is beneficial for both weak and strong group cognitive synergy up to a point and then it becomes detrimental. A second study replicates the findings only for weak and not for strong synergy in a task that evaluates individual and collective rationality in decision making.