TEAM-WORK

Team-Work Forces Employees To Internalise Managerial Controls

Team-Work Forces Employees To Internalise Managerial Controls

Teamwork has been at the centre of debates about whether new forms of work organisation are emerging in advanced capitalist societies. The growth of teamwork has been depicted as a major factor breaking down the hierarchical and conflictual nature of traditional Taylorist forms of work organisation by promoting an organisational design that enhances both managerial objectives of increased productivity and employee selfrealisation and well-being. It has been widely suggested that organisations have moved towards more decentralised patterns of responsibility, which offer employees greater initiative and control over their jobs, and which thereby better engage their creative potential and productive capacities. However, other researchers, while agreeing that teamwork is increasingly prevalent, have developed sharply contrasting perspectives on its implications, with some arguing that it has negative effects for experiences of work and others sceptical about whether it makes any significant difference either way.

A number of studies provide some empirical support for the generally positive effects of teamwork. For instance, Cohen and Ledford (1994), examining more than eighty self- managing teams at an American telecommunications company, found that self- managing teams had significantly better job performance and higher employee job satisfaction than traditional working groups or departments. Hamilton et al. (2003) found that the adoption of teams at the plant level improved worker productivity even after taking into account the selection of high-ability workers into teams. Batt (2004) showed that self- managed teams were associated with significantly higher levels of perceived discretion, employment security and satisfaction for workers and were effective in improving objective performance measures. In a wider European study, Benders et al. (2001) also found a positive effect of group delegation for reducing employee absenteeism rates and improving organisational performance. A review of survey based research over the last decade concluded that the great majority of studies had found positive effects on operational measures of organisational performance (Delarue et al. 2007).

A central argument for linking teamwork to higher productivity is that it gives employees a sense of empowerment, by increasing the control they can exercise over their immediate work environment. Workers with higher control over their jobs are likely to feel more committed to their organisations and more satisfied with their jobs. As a result, they will be more willing to deploy discretionary effort, thereby enhancing organisational performance. This assumption also underpins theories of 'high commitment' and 'high performance' management systems where teamwork is viewed as one of a set of structural features that enhances organisational effectiveness by raising employee motivation.

It has also been argued that teamwork enhances performance through the increased scope it gives employees to use their knowledge, skills and abilities. This raises motivation, thereby reducing shirking and enhancing employee retention. At the same time, it facilitates employee learning and skill acquisition, as well as information sharing, which may be particularly important in conditions of growing economic uncertainty. In an economy in which employee expertise and specialist knowledge are increasingly important to corporate performance, ...