ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we offer a broad overview of the group and teamwork literature through three prominent traditions in group and team communication research—one focused on decision-making and formal task-oriented groups (i.e., functional approaches to group decision-making), the other focused on the role of communication in creating the team itself (i.e., symbolic-interaction perspective), and the last one focused on both formal and informal team membership (i.e., network approaches). Throughout, we highlight the ways in which research and theorizing on teamwork and decision-making in organizational communication has been shaped over time by multidisciplinary perspectives that intersect around the processual and structural aspects of group interaction. This includes groupthink theory, the functional theory of group decision-making, social combination approach, symbolic convergence theory, structuration theory, the dialectic perspective, adaptive structuration theory, theories of self-interest, social exchange and dependency, and theories of mutual or collective interest. We consider the approaches taken to communication and to organization, noting the attention to culture, and trace how these various literatures consider the communication-organization spiral and the role of agency that shapes groups, teamwork, and decision-making in organizational contexts.
