Group Termination

Abstract

A critical aspect of organizational work groups-the ending and termination stage-has been ignored by both group and organizational communication researchers in favor of a research focus on the assigmnent, development, and maintenance of groups. How work groups process the conclusion of their task and the personal and professional relationships developed in the group are important to examine and understand because individuals are continually assigned and recycled to various work groups, taskforces, andproduction teams. Rather than looking forfaulty group process or interaction deterioration to explain group termination, here the focus is specific to group relationships thiat terminate as part of the group's natural life cycle (e.g., completionz of task) or terminate due to organizational or systemic causes (mergers, acquisitions, tranisfers, promotions, reassignments).