Facilitating successful focus groups requires both science and art. One element that can fully challenge focus group facilitators includes how to handle the unfocused focus group. This article describes "unfocus" and the benefits and disadvantages of unfocus in focus groups. Lessons learned from and approaches taken on this journey are shared to…

Argues that the needs of the bereaved are rarely met. Describes communication characteristics of self-help groups and offers evidence for their effectiveness. Suggests directions for future research. (MS)

Compares decision processes of consensus and devil's advocacy within an additive task, a disjunctive task, and a conjunctive task structure. Finds that high-conflict decision processes such as devil's advocacy enhances decision making in disjunctive tasks, retards decision making in additive tasks, but has no effect on decision making in…

Compares two contrasting perspectives of social contagion processes (structural equivalence and cohesion) associated with the organizational outcome variables of commitment and role ambiguity in organizations. Finds that structural equivalence was more associated with role ambiguity and that commitment was more associated with cohesion. (MS)

J. Hage and F. Hull (1981) developed a typology of organizations based on two major dimensions--scale and complexity. The typology delineates four types of organizations: Type 1, "traditional" organizations, typically small-scale structures with low complexity; Type 2, "mechanical" organizations that are large scale, low complexity structures…

A study examined the relationships between (1) employee job performance and organizational relationships, (2) employee job performance and communication processes, (3) organizational relationships and communication processes, and (4) task characteristics and structural characteristics. Data were gathered from approximately 200 employees of a state…

This paper contains a theoretical analysis and empirical study that support the major premise of Robert Dubin's minimal-linkage construct-that restricting communication links increases organizational stability. The theoretical analysis shows that fewer communication links are associated with less uncertainty, more redundancy, and greater…

Examines which leadership model provides a better explanation of the relationship between leadership behavior and group outcomes--the group leadership influence model or the leaderless group discussion model. Discusses implications for group leadership from a leaderless group discussion perspective based on the findings of a laboratory descriptive…

This book describes how talk is used to build social organization within face-to-face interaction among a group of urban black children, an analysis providing the opportunity to study language, culture, and social organization from an integrated perspective. Children from a southwest Philadelphia neighborhood were tape-recorded during peer-group…

A study of coordination modes in work group communication was conducted to evaluate and expand leadership contingency models. A total of 106 people in classes and workshops on organizational communication completed seven questionnaires resulting in nine measures of six independent variables representing the following contingency factors from…

A study assessed the validity of applying the Spitzberg and Cupach dyadic model of communication competence to small group interaction. Twenty-four students, in five task-oriented work groups, completed questionnaires concerning self-competence, alter competence, interaction effectiveness, and other group members' interaction appropriateness. They…

A preliminary study investigating the perceptions of intergroup relations in the bargaining process supports Kenneth Burke's concepts of order and mystery. Questionnaires, interviews, and direct observations of teachers' and school boards' teams involved in contract negotiations show that people closest to the bargaining saw more order in the…

Investigates the effective decision-making theory's (EDMT) prediction that cultural individualism-collectivism, self-construal, and group composition influence turn-taking behavior and conflict behavior in small groups. Finds, for example, that independent self-construal is a predictor of the number of turns and competitive conflict tactics in…