Dissent is a vitally important part of group communication as a hedge against groupthink and as a lynch pin of functional decision-making. Previous research has shown that dissent leads to a number of benefits such as increased creativity and improved problem solving.
Opportunities to voice dissent have also been linked to increased job satisfaction and decreased turnover. Nevertheless, studies have also demonstrated the difficulty in expressing opinions that contradict majority beliefs.
Although previous research has examined various aspects of disagreement, these perspectives have largely focused on acts isolated from past and future actions rather than dissent in the context of sequences of events in group meetings.
In their article, recently published in Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, Garner and Ragland sought to find out how dissent conversations fit within larger patterns of interactions in groups.
The authors were eager to understand the following: What patterns of group interactions immediately follow dissent expressions, and how does dissent shape interaction patterns in workgroup meetings beyond the interactions that immediately follow the dissent?
To answer these questions, Garner and Ragland audio-recorded 10 workgroup meetings in three organizations — two nonprofit organizations and one municipal government agency. After transcribing the recordings, the authors coded their data using Poole's (1983) Group Working Relationship Coding System (GWRCS).
The analysis then proceeded in two steps: first, Markov analyses were used to detect micro-patterns in interaction events, answering the initial research question. Second, the authors used a phasic analysis described by Poole et al. (2000; see also Poole & Dobosh, 2010) to examine patterns that operate across multiple events through longer periods of time.
Immediately following dissent, groups typically tabled the dissenting member's concerns, either because the group could not resolve the dissent or because the group leader chose not to discuss the dissent further.
A longer view of these meetings revealed phases of dissent interspersed within periods of focused work. Two events in these meetings seemed to be turning points, one at least in the context of a single meeting, and one in the context of the sequences of meetings observed.
These breakpoints represented opportunities to add an additional layer of answer on the second research question, which focused on how dissent might shape future interactions. At one organization, dissent shaped future interactions by moving from open discussion to tabling. At another, the ways in which the dissenter gave in to the group seemed to promote more cooperation in future interactions.
These findings make two contributions to scholarship.
First, much of the literature on organizational and group dissent focuses on variables that affect dissent, but the present study examines how one dissent event influences future events. These data revealed groups' keen awareness of past dissent as they expressed and responded to present dissent.
Second, two breakpoints emerged as particularly important in the history of these groups, and those breakpoints revealed a dialectic mechanism that lay beneath dissent interactions. In one instance, managerialism seemed to subvert dissent while in the other instance, a synthesis developed as the group developed new norms for interaction.
Citation
- Garner, J. T., & Ragland, J. P. (2019). Tabling, discussing, and giving in: Dissent in workgroups. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 23(1), 57–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/gdn0000098
Note: This article is in the Social Psychology & Social Processes topic area. View more articles in the Social Psychology & Social Processes topic area.