The degree to which organizational members integrate an organization's identity into themselves influences their loyalty, performance, and effectiveness within that organization. With the eyes of a dynamic external environment increasingly interested in and vocal about the internal operations and outputs of organizations, managers have to recognize the dynamic link between the organizational identity held by its members and the effectiveness of the organization and to develop strategies that allow the organization to adapt its internal image to the environment better.

This section investigates the connection between organizational identity and organizational effectiveness by defining organizational identity, exploring concepts of group dynamics to establish measurements for organizational effectiveness, assessing Social Identity Theory and frameworks for shaping organizational identity, and considering how organizational identity can hinder an organization's effectiveness.

When considering the positive results of Team Hachi Project, a collaborative action research project to assess the viability of team learning with remedial students in a lecture-based Japanese university, researchers considered if the Hawthorne Effect was more responsible for improvements than the team learning process they had introduced. This introduced a question about whether the results represented substantive or superficial improvements in student performance and satisfaction (Duncan, 2013). Reviewing assessment, survey, video, and interview data collected during the research cycles illuminated the Hawthorne Effect as a useful tool that teachers can leverage to influence substantial improvements in student and classroom, especially when integrated with scaffolding techniques suggested in Lev Vygotskiǐ’s (1978) theory of cognitive development and situational leadership approaches proposed in Gerald Grow’s (1996) self-directed learning model.

This paper is adapted from:

Duncan, B. (2013). Assessing the viability of team learning with remedial students in a lecture-based Japanese higher education culture. Ann Arbor, MI: ProQuest LLC, Fielding Graduate University. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1352039981

This paper was published in the December 2018 issue of Kyiv International University Higher Education Journal

https://kymu.edu.ua/upload/pdf_files/small-group_learning_research.pdf

(C) 2022 by Brent Duncan, PhD. All rights reserved. Contact Dr. Duncan using the Contact Us form at Synthegrate.com.

Summary

To consider the potential impact of the Hawthorne Effect on student learning outcomes in Team Hachi Project, this article will do the following:

1. Summarize the research design, process, and results of Team Hachi Project.
2. Discuss the Hawthorne Effect's integration with scaffolding and situational leadership practices in a small-group learning environment.
3. Conclude that intentionally leveraging the Hawthorne Effect to generate varying levels of attention can be an effective practice for rapidly scaffolding dependent learners toward interdependence and self-direction, improving performance and satisfaction, and fostering motivation to persist.