Managing individual performance in work groups

This research was driven by the question, "In empowered work groups, who sh ould be responsible for determining disciplinary actions in response to gro up member poor performance: the formal manager, a single group member or th e group as a whole?" Results in a study of 231 group members representing 4 1 groups from four diverse organizations showed that the severity of discip linary actions made by formal managers is equivalent to actions taken by gr oups through consensus decision-making, Selecting one member of the group, however, to handle a poorly performing member resulted in relatively lenien t disciplinary actions. Consistent with this finding, the attitude survey r esults revealed that individual group members are reluctant to assume respo nsibility for disciplining a poorly, performing group member. (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.