Humans are very interesting beings since they relate and depend on each other for survival. Understanding their behaviors calls for an intensive study and critical contemplations on how they relate especially in their diverse social groups settings. Scholars such as Hogg and Abrams (2003) have identified that “social identity processes generate intergroup mannerisms, and intergroup mannerisms motivate the nature of relations between groups and therefore the form and content of social identity.”
Whenever a social group identifies its self as a community, it immediately begins to cast out the other non group members, thus opening a door for categorization which furthermore goes on to prompt competitiveness for the scarce resources between the in-groups and the out groups. In-groups are members within a particular group who have one uniting common bond (group they belong); while the out group is the opponent group (they don’t belong). This intergroups share common resources although some are privileged than the others may be due to their positions in the organization or due to a stiff competition among them.
Working in almost every organization becomes an eye opener for an individual to discover the social in-groups and out-groups within their newly joined organization. There are lots of experiences a person gets whenever he or she gets into a new social group. For example when I first got into my working environment therein was the in group of the employees we got in together, and the out group of the employees we found. Through the beginner months in the working place we identified that we belonged to three types of in-groups which we felt comfortable in relating and sharing our experiences together. These in-groups were; interns, new employees and the veteran trainer employees. We had a lot of things in common especially the working tools since we used the same equipments in delivering similar services to our clients. The other three groups (out-groups) were; administration staff, cleaners, and executive group. Within our in-group arose a complain on one member of the cleaner who was so arrogant to all our in-group members since she found of inconveniencing our group with her extreme behaviors of cleaning the working premises when we are busy working.
She did not have the courtesy to borrow permission whenever she was to clean the furniture one is using. This behavior irritated all the in-group members since she committed this offensive behavior severally without any apologies whenever she was confronted about the issue.
The conflict lasted for about two weeks then the executive member (human resource) followed up the case and finally managed to fire the hard necked cleaner after gathering enough evidence against the accused which proved her guilty. The unity I found in the group taught me a lot about the power of unity and determination to blow all the stumbling blocks in the inter-social group setting. 2008 when working in a company manufacturing ice creams, a situation a rouse where I found my self at longer head with the senor production manager who one day came to me complaining that there were about 200 pieces of ice cream packs missing from the production record.
The main output record indicated that the pieces were taken but the returns indicated nothing was sold. This meant that the distributors are the ones who did not accomplish their work since they did not account for the returns, yet the manager referred the blame on me. This situation annoyed me since in the whole issue there was enough evidence that I was not guilty yet the manager insisted that I had to compensate the loss, which prompted me to resign immediately. As a leader I would promote the enforcement of mutual understanding within the in-groups as well as the out groups which would lead to a peaceful environment, thus expansion in the in-group members as well as alleviating effects and impacts in the groups which are outside my in-group.
References:
Abrams, D. & Hogg, M. (2003) intergroup behavior and social identity Retrieved On July 4, 2012
http://iag_puc_2007.msimoes.dyndns.org:10080/textos/Administracao/ADM_2825-Organizacoes/artigos/hogg%20et%20al.pdf
Brewer, M. B. (2007). The importance of being we: Human nature and Intergroup relations. American Psychologist, 62(8), 728–738.
In M. A. Hogg & J. Cooper (Eds.); The SAGE Handbook of Social Psychology Retrieved On July 4, 2012 http://www.sage-ereference.com/abstract/hdbk_socpsych/n15.xml
