Peer Analysis

Analyze peer posts and provide a response with a new academic peer reviewed article. This is the feedback instructor provided so please adhere to their feedback as well:
  The discussion board should be a “conversation” between you and your colleagues.  I know you are sticking to third-person voice, but for the discussion board only, its OK to create a friendlier tone for this class.  For example, instead try:

“Hi Lois,

I see how you reflected upon certain aspects of….”

Instead of

“In the post, Jackson reflects…..

Post Authored by: James
Team Cohesion

Anything composed of different parts depends on connections between those parts. It is likely that anyone reading this document is inside of a building, or at least was inside of some structure during the day. That structure was probably made of wood, steel, and concrete in each of those materials must be interconnected. Another way to express that interconnectedness between structural members would be cohesiveness. In a business environment, teams of people also need to have appropriate levels of cohesiveness. The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of team cohesion and its impact on retaining team members.

Discussion

Cohesion in Teams

One early definition of group cohesion be described it as a socio-psychological construct that consists primarily of the forces that act on group members to stay in that group. Since this definition is focused inwardly just to the group, other scholars added the task that unites the group. The revised definition would call group cohesion a dynamic process that is evident in the tendency of a group to remain united together in the pursuit of the goals of the team (Bliuc et al, 2020).  Lu (2015) also suggests a view of cohesion that acknowledges both social and task components to its nature. Another framework for the study of team cohesion suggests three different levels or dimensions: vertical bonding, horizontal bonding, and organizational bonding. These terms refer to how members trust and relate to their leaders, their peers, and the overall organization within which the smaller team exists (Orme & Kehoe, 2019).

Cohesion Effect on Retention   

DiMeglio et al. (2005) associate group cohesion with job satisfaction and higher retention. In the authors study within the nursing profession, targeted team-based strategies were able to increase cohesion within teams of nurses, increasing job satisfaction, and decreasing turnover. With decreased turnover, not only can organizations achieve higher levels of performance, but they can avoid the potentially high costs that turnover creates in recruiting, training, and reduce productivity.

Conclusion

This brief exploration of team cohesion demonstrated a positive impact on retaining team members. Cohesiveness often has a social component and a task component. Cohesiveness can also be viewed to go vertically as well as horizontally within the hierarchy of an organization. Members of cohesive teams often experience increased job satisfaction and reduced turnover. Some organizations seem to be more predisposed to focus on cohesion. Using online database searches indicated specific areas and occupations where the concept of team cohesion seems to be more prevalent. From a quick meta-data analysis viewpoint, the top three areas that seemed to key on the word cohesion were, in order, the military, nursing, and sports teams.  Perhaps leaders from other sectors and businesses could also experience greater job satisfaction and reduce turnover through cohesive teams.