Social loafing is the decline in member effort that often occurs in groups. This paper discusses factors that may contribute to social loafing, and proposes a model integrating these factors. The model attempts to move social loafing research from the laboratory to the workplace. Recommendations are offered for reducing social loafing in work groups.

Workplace bullying has a well-established body of research internationally, but the United States has lagged behind the rest of the world in the identification and investigation of this phenomenon. This paper presents a managerial perspective on bullying in organizations. The lack of attention to the concept of workplace dignity in American organizational structures has supported and even encouraged both casual and more severe forms of harassment that our workplace laws do not currently cover. The demoralization victims suffer can create toxic working environments and impair organizational productivity. Some methods of protecting your organization from this blight of bullying are proposed.

Two studies focused on the particular processes by which organizational newcomers acquire information from their peers. Analysis of semistructured interviews with 30 nonsupervisory professional new hires at one organization and of questionnaires completed by 73 new hires from a variety of organizations and occupational groups indicated the types of information newcomers acquire from peers, the channels through which they acquire it, and the relationship between type and channel. Results also suggested that information acquisition is affected by type of organization entered, newcomer-peer work interactions, and newcomer occupation and experience level, but not by organizational size. Directions for future research on organizational entry processes and implications for practitioners are discussed.

To cite this article: Susan D Baker , Debra R Comer & M Linda Martinak (2008) All I'm askin' is for a little respect 1 : How can we promote civility in our classrooms?, Organization Management Journal, 5:2, 65-80To link to this article: http://dx.

Dissipative self-organization, a theoretical framework with roots in physics and biochemistry, has often been proposed as having relevance to change in social systems. Specifically, the processes and design features associated with dissipative self-organization have been used to describe the dynamics of social groups and organizations, especially in cases where highly turbulent and/or near-chaos conditions are present. A study assessing the usefulness of the self-organization paradigm as applied to the small group is described herein. The study took place within the context of a Tavistock-like group intervention, wherein the necessary condition for self-organization, a situation of turbulence, was induced within experimental groups. Based upon an approach suggested by Ackoff (1981), the general self-organization model served as a hypothetical idealized design of a self-organizing task group. A quasi-experimental design provided a test of whether the presence of self-organizing characteristics made any difference in group effectiveness among experimental groups and in a comparison condition where turbulence was not induced. The study provided preliminary support for the usefulness of the paradigm in understanding small group dynamics within the turbulent or non-equilibrium conditions. Specifically, task effectiveness within the experimental condition was found to correlate significantly with the degree to which groups developed the properties or design features specified by the self-organization paradigm. Consistent with the model, fewer significant relationships were found within the comparison condition between effectiveness and the presence of self-organization design features.