Page 86 - Effective group discussion theory and practice by Adams, Katherine H. Brilhart, John K. Galanes, Gloria J

The Small Group as a System 69

collaborating virtual groups may be so cutting-edge and multidimensional that no one
member has the answer and may not even know whom to ask. However, the informa-
tion they do collect and create among each other is archived and retrievable from the
different electronic meeting platforms available to them. Members of virtual groups
likely have strong ties to their own organizations and consider their commitment to
the virtual group as secondary. They do take longer to build their relationships and
commitment to their group than face-to-face groups. They are particularly reliant on
29
30
regular feedback to increase trust and their commitment to each other. Virtual
groups often have no clearly defined formal positions of power, so members con-
stantly have to negotiate power. Power distance is particularly more ambiguous if their
means of communication is mostly e-mail; however, if their technology is richer, they,
like their face-to-face counterparts, will develop status markers for each other. Finally,
each virtual group member must answer to his or her own parent organization. The
multiple parent organizations that contributed members to the virtual group have
their own norms, cultures, expectations, and even demands—and these all affect the
internal decision-making processes of the virtual group.

Communicating Across Boundaries
In our previous discussion, we emphasized that contemporary groups constantly
interact with their environments. Ancona and Caldwell suggest that groups need
members who serve as boundary spanners by constantly monitoring the group’s envi- Boundary Spanner
31
ronment to bring in and take out information relevant to the group’s success. A group member
Boundary spanners serve three main functions. The first is initiating transactions to who monitors the
import or export needed resources, such as information or support. For instance, in group’s environment
our example of an effective group, Norm contacted Reverend Lacy for advice about to import and export
organizing the new congregation and help in gaining approval from the association. information relevant
A second boundary-spanning function consists of responding to initiatives of outsid- to the group’s
ers. Someone may ask a group member what the group discussed at a particular meet- success.
ing; that member must then decide whether and what information to relate. The final
function involves changes in the membership of the group—new people may be
brought into the group either temporarily or permanently. For example, in an unorth-
odox move, members decided to invite Gary’s wife, Christy, to attend church board
meetings in his place as a nonvoting member during a two-month stretch when he was
unable to attend meetings. This enabled Gary to keep up with the board information
and maintain, through Christy, relationships that he had formed. The management of
the group’s relationship with the environment is crucial and can spell success or fail-
ure for the group. If the church board had decided to be secretive and not share
openly with the congregation what was discussed and decided at board meetings, the
congregation would have been unlikely to support the church with time, energy, and
resources.
Boundary spanning between other groups within an organization—also part of a
group’s environment—is also important. Drach-Zahavy and Somech suggest that how
well an organization performs is largely a function of how well individual groups
within that organization perform, with effective boundary spanning between groups a

gal37018_ch03_051_074.indd 69 3/28/18 12:34 PM