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ACCA Applied Knowledge · Business and Technology · Individual and group behaviour in business organisations

A project team at Marlow Ltd has members who rarely challenge the team leader's proposals, and the team assumes its decisions are always right. Which term best describes this tendency to seek agreement at the expense of critical evaluation?

The tendency is called groupthink. A cohesive group values agreement and loyalty so highly that members stop challenging the leader and stop evaluating alternatives critically, producing poor decisions and a false belief that the group is always right.

  1. AGroupthinkCorrect
  2. BSocial loafing
  3. CRole ambiguity
  4. DGroup polarisation

Explanation

Groupthink, described by Janis, occurs when a cohesive group puts consensus ahead of realistic appraisal of alternatives. Social loafing concerns reduced individual effort, not suppressed challenge. Role ambiguity is about unclear duties, and polarisation is about positions becoming more extreme.

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