Organizational Productivity as a Function of Group Composition: A Self-Attention Perspective

Organizational productivity was studied from the perspective of self-attention theory. The other-total ratio is an algorithm that has previously been established to predict the effect of group composition on the individual's self-attention processes and resultant social behaviors. The other-total ratio was derived for subordinates in each of the 58 offices of a federal agency (where other-total ratio = supervisors / [supervisors + subordinates]). Organizational productivity increased as the subordinates' other-total ratios increased (i.e., as the number of subordinates decreased relative to the number of supervisors). This variation in organizational productivity as a function of group composition was found to be independent of any effect of employees' workload.