Conformity

This chapter speaks about Asch’s classic study about how individuals will conform to the group even in the face of unambiguously true information. Similar trends were witnessed in the real world during the Bay of Pigs fiasco, where President Kennedy’s top advisors succumbed to groupthink and failed to recognize Cuba’s military strength and foresight in predicting the planned US invasion. Contrary to common sense, individuals tend to resolve the cognitive dissonance they experience when faced with group pressure by changing their deeply held (and objectively true) opinions. Conformity to work processes is necessary in any workplace environment, but when taken to the extreme, it can lead to false perceptions about agreement, a lack of speaking out, and ultimately poor decision-making.

The Impact of Fraud on Financial Performance of Deposit Money Banks: Evidence from Nigeria

This study demonstrated new evidence sustaining the idea that the issue of fraud has a long history and that fraud in deposit money banks affect performance when fraud are proxied with data extracted from inappropriate auditing process, peer group pressure, computer fraud and management looting using the Generalized Least Square Method (GLS) and the z-statistics as method of data analysis. The data used in the study were adjusted with the Jarque-Bera test of normality to remove any form of spurious result as variable normality is a standardized requirement for any linear model while the cronbach apha value was used to test the validity, consistency and reliability of the data. The main aim of the study is to investigate if variables like computer fraud, managers looting; inappropriate auditing, peer group pressure affect bank performance. To achieve this objective, research questions and hypotheses were formulated and variables were proxied for fraud and deposit banks performance as distilled from related literatures. The GLS result was used to test the formulated hypotheses with a standard z-value of 1.96. The GLS regression results revealed that there are negative relationships between bank frauds and performance while the z-test shows that bank frauds affect deposit money bank performance in Nigeria. The study therefore recommends that an efficient and modern financial technological structure such as Computer Aided Auditing Tools & Techniques (CAATTs) would combat fraud in deposit money banks in Nigeria.

PRINCIPLES OF TEAM BUILDING IN PROJECT ACTIVITY

Статья посвящена особенностям процесса формирования команды проекта. Показано, что этот процесс обусловлен специфическими свойствами команд, которые позволяют отличать их от коллективов, характеризуемых жесткой структурой подчинения. Выявлено, что к числу таких свойств команды относится интеграция интеллектуальных и личностных ресурсов, нахождение и использование внутренних резервов, которые нельзя вовлечь в управление административными методами, отсутствие группового давления. Показано, что процесс командообразования должен строиться на основе анализа компетенций и ролей каждого члена команды, а также их интеграции в совместную работу. The article is devoted to the features of the team building process in project teams. It is shown that this process is due to the specific properties of teams, which make it possible to distinguish them from the collective characterized by a rigid subordination structure. It has been revealed that such team properties include the integration of intellectual and personal resources, finding and using internal reserves that cannot be involved in the management of administrative methods, and the absence of group pressure. It is shown that the team building process should be based on an analysis of the competencies and roles of each team member, as well as their integration into joint work.

Role of Socialization Patterns in Adopting Rigid Sectarian Identities

Religion is an essential part of individuals’ daily routine practices in the Pakistani society. People rigorously own and defend their particular religious beliefs in the extremely diversified population of the country. The induction of sectarian ideologies in the mindset of children begins with their early socialization. This process further develops with the passage of time and the mindset of children becomes extremely rigid. Sectarian rigidity advances the elements of disrespect and intolerance among the believers of adverse sectarian groups. This study was aimed to explain the role of socialization patterns (religious ideological orientation, cultural socialization and peer group pressure) in enhancing sectarian rigidity in the society. Survey research was conducted in two high ranking universities of Lahore (one government university and one private university). It was based on the responses collected from 250 participants who were selected through the application of simple ransom sampling technique. Two hypotheses were tested to evaluate the relationship and the predictive role of socialization patterns in enhancing the element of sectarian rigidity in individuals. The results of the current study revealed that there was a significant positive relationship between socialization patterns and sectarian rigidity after the application of Pearson product-moment correlation test. Furthermore, the results computed through multilinear regression analysis showed a significant and positive predictive role of socialization patterns in enhancing sectarian rigidity. Thus, religious ideological orientation, cultural socialization and peer group pressure influenced the behavior of individuals that generate rigid sectarian identities in the society.

Understanding the individual's reactions to the organizational change: a multidimensional approach

PurposeThe objective of this research is to analyze in a multidimensional perspective the individual responses to organizational change, specifically about the implementation of a new performance evaluation system, investigating some antecedents of the individual reactions to change.Design/methodology/approachCompanies from the education industry were surveyed, and standardized questionnaires were applied. We obtained a sample size of 386 valid responses. The structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to assess the measurement model and test the hypotheses.FindingsThe results indicate positive reactions to the organizational change, without ambivalent responses. Employees' cognitive and behavioral reactions are influenced by the individuals' anticipation and past similar organizational change and do not depend on the perceived threat to social work life. The influence of group pressure and organizational readiness on cognitive and behavioral reactions differs in the direction that group pressure affects behaviors but not thoughts, and organizational readiness affects thoughts but not behaviors.Research limitations/implicationsLimitations include the inadequate measures of individuals' emotional reaction, preventing this dimension from being tested.Originality/valueThis research provides theoretical contributions as the literature on organizational change lacks a multidimensional view on individuals' reactions to change. The main contribution of this study is to investigate how each of the individual and organizational antecedents of the employees' responses to the change influences the cognitive and behavioral reactions towards the change employing a multidimensional approach.

Emergence of moderate opinions as a consequence of group pressure

In this work, we study a continuous opinion dynamics model considering 3-agent interactions and group pressure. Agents interact in a fully-connected population, and two parameters govern the dynamics: the agents’ convictions [Formula: see text] that are homogeneous in the population, and the group pressure [Formula: see text]. Stochastic parameters also drive the interactions. Our analytical and numerical results indicate that the model undergoes symmetry-breaking transitions at distinct critical points [Formula: see text] for any value of [Formula: see text], i.e. the transition can be suppressed for sufficiently high group pressure. Such transition separates two phases: for any [Formula: see text], the order parameter [Formula: see text] is identically null ([Formula: see text], a symmetric, absorbing phase), while for [Formula: see text], we have [Formula: see text], i.e. a symmetry-broken phase (ferromagnetic). The numerical simulations also reveal that the increase of group pressure leads to a wider distribution of opinions, decreasing the extremism in the population.

Social Collateral Model for Islamic Microfinance

This study examines the social collateral model for Islamic microfinance in Malaysia. Using qualitative instruments on academics and officers of microfinance institutions as the sample study, this study identifies the components that should be included in the social collateral model for Islamic microfinance. Based on interviews and focus group discussions, this study found that similar to the conventional microfinance, the Islamic microfinance also include social capital, group pressure, entrepreneurship skills, and culture as the components of the social collateral model. In addition, this study found that religiosity represents another important component of the social collateral model for Islamic microfinance