The Exaggerated Effectiveness of Teamwork - Essay Example

?Findlay et al., In Search of Perfect People: Teamwork and Team Players in the Scottish Spirits Industry, Human Relations 53, 12 (Dec 2000 1549-1574. Print. Has examined whether teamwork can bring in normative integration in an organization through socialization and peer pressure. In variance with mainstream research, this study is critical about the exaggerated effectiveness of teamwork and observes that the members of a team cannot be treated as if they are subjects of social engineering. It is through case studies of spirit producing companies of Scotland that this study arrives at its conclusions. This article has also explored to what extent the team members can be expected to internalize the normative demands of the company. Findlay et al. have reviewed contemporary psychological research on the subject in their study and have expressed reservations on the common notion that “teamwork…(is).. a vehicle for regulating individualism” (1553). This article also expresses the opinion that both psychological and critical literature on teamwork in an organization, though seemingly arrive at the same conclusions, “have a tendency to overstate the extent of normative integration and underplay the complexity of its characteristics” (Findlay et al., 1554). The notion that self-governance and increased responsibility are coercive is refuted here. The contradiction in the inferences made by psychological and critical research is emphasized. It is pointed out that while psychological research expects improved performance in teamwork to arise from collectivization, the critical research expects the same to happen out of coercion (Findlay et al., 1553). The findings of this study suggest that majority of the respondents thought teamwork was introduced in the company to enhance the technical convenience rather than to enhance normative integration, performance and output. Difficulties in communication with the team leader were expressed by majority of respondents, which show the conflict between governance and normative integration. More than half of the respondents were cynical about teamwork. The overall assessment made by the researchers of this study is that by team-working, certain management objectives like, “positive attitude, risk-taking, individual and group responsibility and and supportiveness have been achieved albeit very unevenly” (Findlay et al., 1567). The research revealed a gap between the values promoted through teamwork and its practice. This study is directly relevant for the proposed research because it examines why do many managers prefer that their employees work in teams, and also whether this necessarily deliver the workplace outcomes that these managers envisage. The strength of this study lies in the exhaustive interviews taken by giving representation to managers, team leaders, team members and union representatives, and the extensive data collected out of them. This lends a great amount of authenticity and validity to the research. The use of two groups to validate the data is another aspect that imparts credibility to this research. The weakness in the methodology of this study is that the dominant members in each group might have influenced the discussion that happens in the groups. Secondly, the sample of this study is limited but even then the study attempts to refute most of the mainstream and conventional research that has happened in the same field. In an overall analysis, this study can be accepted with some reservations but is important because it calls for a change in preconceived ideas on teamwork and future research. Kirkman, B.L., Jones, R.G. and Shapiro, D.L., Why Do Employees Resist Teams? Examining the Resistance Barrier to Work Team Effectiveness, The International Journal of Conflict Management, Vol.11, No.1 (2000): p.74-92.Print. Explores why resistance on the part of employees has accompanied the increase in the use of teamwork in organizations. The inference arrived at, is that this is caused by issues of trust and low tolerance of faith. This study endorses the findings of the study carried out by Findlay et al. (2000) being cynical about the effectiveness of teamwork in organizations. This article has traced the history of self-managing work teams since the early 1990s and has observed that compared to ordinary work-teams, SMWTs shoulder more responsibility and have more autonomy. The study reminds that though better productivity and more positive employee attitudes and behavior are expected of work-teams, there has not been any conclusive finding that this is so. Previous literature is reviewed to reveal this phenomenon and the possible explanation which has been offered (resistance to change). The two empirical studies done so far to find out the cause of employee resistance to teamwork also have been reviewed. These two studies had attributed the resistance to issues like, “(1) managerial support, (2) role clarity, (3) workload distribution issues, and (4) team social support… (and also the)… fairness of the criteria used to make decisions about teams (i.e., procedural justice) and the fairness of the interpersonal treatment received during the transition to teams (i.e., interactional justice” (Kirkman, Jones and Shapiro, 76). In this particular study, Kirkman, Jones and Shapiro have attempted to extent these findings to a wider context by content analyzing 1,060 open-ended comments of employees. Trust, cultural values and tolerance for trust have been taken as the variables to be examined in this study. This study has given rise to a set of fairness issues involved in teamwork. This study is relevant to the proposed research because it reasserts that there is resistance to teamwork among employees. This partially answers one of the research questions formulated for the proposed study, namely, does teamwork necessarily deliver the workplace outcomes that the managers envisage?, in negative. The strength of this particular research study is that it is derived from a very big sample and it arranges its findings in correlation with the existing research in the field. One positive aspect of this study is that it puts forth a theoretical framework of resistance. It also has prepared ground for future research to create an “integrative theoretical framework” for teamwork (Kirkman, Jones and Shapiro, 87). McCabe, D., The Team Dream: The Meaning and Experience of Team-Working for Employees in an Automobile Manufacturing Company, In S.Proctor and F.Mueller (eds) Teamworking, London: MacMillan.Print. Questions the commonsense promoted at managerial levels of organizations that teamwork is beneficial to employees and it will enhance productivity. All the same this study also balances its criticism of teamwork by providing some proof for positive outcomes of teamwork. In this way, this study has attempted to be as unbiased as possible and as inclusive of the complexities of this social phenomenon. One factor that creates resistance to teamwork is, according to this study, the “employee intransigence born of their earlier life experiences” (McCabe, 204). This study also throws light into the fact that “discourse of teamworking is open to interpretation and manipulation” (McCabe, 204). The suggestion put forth by this study is that teamworking has to be “reconstituted and re-represented so as to secure ends other than those intented by management” (McCabe, 204). The study, in its literature review has presented previous studies done, both supporting and criticizing teamwork. This study also has revealed that employees, in general, view teamwork aspect as technical rather than normative. This reinforces the study done by Findlay et al. (2000) discussed above. One interesting observation made by the researcher is that the employees were initially “bewitched” into teamworking rather than being logically convinced (McCabe, 209). It is also revealed that, by introducing teamwork, managements were trying to convince the employees that they were entering a new and more democratic cultural ambience. But the respondents of this study questioned this notion because they were finding inconsistencies in the management position. Another interesting inference made by this study is that a majority of employees were “bothered” and “bewildered” by the introduction of teamwork (McCabe, 213-217). The conclusion made by this study is that “an alternative to the official teamworking discourse …(is)…beginning to emerge” (McCabe, 219). This study gives an insight into the proposed research questions from a different angle. It provides a context based on ground realities for the proposed discourse involving questions, why do many managers prefer that their employees work in teams, and also whether this necessarily deliver the workplace outcomes that these managers envisage. It shows teamwork as the dynamics of an evolving and growing concept. The strength of the study is in that it makes a qualitative rather than empirical analysis so that the subtle nuances of a complex social phenomenon can be taken into consideration. The weakness of this study is that it does not provide statistical data regarding the subject so that future comparative studies can be conducted and the findings validated. Proctor, S., How Teamworking Works in the Inland Revenue, Personnel Review, Vol.31, No.3, (2002): p.304-319. Print. Views teamwork “within the context of the employment relationship and …as a management strategy for the organization of work” (Proctor, 304). The whole concept is examined by giving prominence to employees’ angle. This study has taken one single organization and tried to find out the different aspects and consequences of teamwork in that organization. By limiting the study to one single organization, this study has been able to become more focused and exhaustive of the issues involved. The review of literature and the discussion on it concludes that “only in a few aspects does…(teamworking)… resemble what the literature suggests…(it)…might look like” (Proctor, 305). This argument is based on the facts that after teamworking was introduced, “the range of work is little changed, employees exercise little in the way of new skills, they appear reluctant to adopt responsibility for the work of others, and the performance management system continues to operate on the basis of individual performance” (Proctor, 305). All these suggest great ineffectiveness of this new concept. This study recognizes the role of teamworking only within the purview of organizational needs. It is also inferenced that, at performance level, “simple multi-skilled teams are …most likely to impact most heavily on an organization’s costs, self-managed teams will have their main effects on value, and self-led teams on innovation” (Proctor, 306). On this aspect, this study provides a reason to look forward to teamwork as a positive factor. One conclusion made in this study is regarding the contradictions involved in the role of the team leader. It is revealed that “the tension inherent in the team leader role is that the pressure for results might cause a reversion to methods that may be more familiar or seem more capable of generating short-term improvements” (Proctor, 315). Because of this contradiction, “teamworking and the performance management system were widely seen as being simply inconsistent with each other” (Proctor, 316). The final conclusion made by this study is that “any attempt to isolate and quantify the effect of teamworking would almost certainly be futile” (Proctor, 317). But in general, it is concluded that the employees are welcoming teamworking as a concept having the potential to bring in positive change. But it is reminded that the employees are taking the concept at their own stride. The proposed research will benefit from this study in that a new angle of view is offered. The question of how the employee mindset is altering the very concept of teamwork is addressed and this will give a new dimension to the research questions of the proposed research. The weakness of this research is that it cannot be generalized much because it is conducted in one single organization and no comparison of data is offered. Read More