Essay About Contingency Theory And Free Riding

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3.1        CONTINGENCY THEORY        Many university courses today incorporate a ‘group project’. Students are formed into groups and assigned a task designed to generate a ‘product’ of some kind. Regarding to the student conflict, in a small group communication like discussion of the group projects for academic work carries with it the risk of “free riding”. Free riding refers to one or more members of the group limiting the work that they contribute, in the knowledge that they will nevertheless benefit from the efforts of the other members. Free riding includes intentional and unintentional free riding. (West, 1994) The symptoms of a free rider in small group communication of student are they attends meetings but has minimal input, complete task when they are delegated to them, and prefers not to present ideas or engage in public speaking. The problem with free riding is that when it is discovered, other team members may feel like suckers who are being taken advantage of, and they reduce their effort accordingly. Equality of workload in teams therefore affects how much effort team members exert on behalf of the team.         The contingency theory can use to overcome the free riding conflict. Contingency theory is a set of behavioural theory which postulates that there is no single way or the best method to organize and lead an organization in a management set up. Instead, a leader should be appointed who can make decisions based on the situation and relative conditions. (Fiedler, F. E., 1967) This theory was made popular by Fred Fiedler with his famous Contingency model, which paved way for further contingency theories and models with more details and understanding. In contingency theory of leadership, the success of the leader is a function of various contingencies in the form of subordinate, task, and/or group variables. The effectiveness of a given pattern of leader behavior is contingent upon the demands imposed by the situation. These theories stress using different styles of leadership appropriate to the needs created by different organizational situations. When free riding conflict occurs in a student group discussion, a group must appoint a suitable leader or current leader to adopt a different approach to address this issue. According to Fiedler, there are two types of leadership which is task-oriented leadership and relationship-oriented leadership. Task-oriented relationship deals with accomplishment and handling the unit by handing out tasks. While the relationship-oriented relationship deals with the interpersonal skills and relationship of the leader with his subordinates. (Fiedler, F. E., 1967)         Group projects sometimes take over students’ lives, with the consequence that they neglect other parts of the curriculum. Some students may be more resistant to this than others may. Thus, a group member may come under peer pressure to devote more time and effort to the project than they feel is appropriate and appear to back out of doing the work entailed. Thus he or she may seem to be free riding despite having no intention whatever of taking unfair advantage of the work of others. In this situation, the task-oriented relationship may suitable to use at here. As a leader, a schedule that showing the task or tasks that each member is to undertake should be prepared. Soon after starting work, leader may try to find out if there are students who consider as a free rider in their group, who taking advantage of them and their hard work. Besides, the leader also can ask for the student who responsible in combine the task to pay attention to the unproductive member. After discovered the free rider in the group, leader can giving the free rider a deadline for the producing of work; and agreeing among themselves how they will do the work if it is not forthcoming. By using the task-oriented approach, the free riding conflict will be in control and also minimize the extent of free riding.