Why group size matters (go back »)

There is this term in psychology coined the 'bystander effect'. This means that if a person is in trouble and there are plenty of bystanders around, they would be less likely to help than if there is only one bystander around. This is due to the diffusion of personal responsibility. Meaning that the bystander would think that someone else would do it, or if no one else is doing it, they do not need to either. This is why team size in a company is important. If a team, for instance, one that handles customer complaints, is too big, the employees would feel less personally responsible to handle individual customer complaints, unless there is a system in place to assign personal responsibility.

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