This important book reexamines old assumptions concerning the nature of group cohesion in industrial firms as it is influenced by management actions. Based upon a carefully controlled study, it offers a sound theoretical base and a replicable method, both vital to students of group processes and organizational theorists. The study indicates that high stress was positively related to intragroup conflict regardless of group sanctions encouraging cohesiveness but that when managers rewarded group behavior under high stress a climate was created in which competitive behavior could occur without inducing conflict and nonproductive behavior.

Timely, thoroughly documented, the book extends and integrates prior work in an area vital to managers and theorists alike. Its research design and results should establish the book as the central authority on group cohesiveness in industry.