Teams in Contemporary Management

Introduction

In a world of continuously growing competition, increasing globalization, and where organizations are facing major challenges, teamwork is said to play a fundamental role for successful contemporary management. Organizations are forced to revisit their bureaucratic structure and adopt a new long-term management style enabling employees to increase their own potential by sharing a common goal. Although 80 per cent of all Fortune 2000 companies had over half of their employees working in teams (Flores et al, 2000, cited by Contu, 2007), teamwork presents defenders and critics. On the one hand, a great deal of authors consider teamwork as being an innovative way of “reshaping the organization” (Tranfield et al, 1999:148) promoting: learning, better performance, job rotation and reduced strain, and creating: flexibility, integration across functional boundaries and increasing improvement (Procter et al, 2000). On the other hand, teamwork is often criticised for its over-evaluation by authors assuming for instance that it fails to provide teams with real autonomy, that it enlarges the workload and that it is not the guarantee to any organization’s success. This essay will therefore first try to define teamwork and then critically discuss its impact on the current business environment.

Defining Teamwork

Defining teamwork is known to be a complex task as many different explanations arise from the mainstream literature. First, it is preferable to clarify the distinction between groups and teams, as this essay will only use the latter term. Groups and teams are similar because they both represent a number of individuals, between five and seven being the optimum number (Handy, 1993), sharing interests in order to achieve a common objective. However, teams are groups having matured and require both individual and mutual accountability, while groups contain members only responsible for their own results (Taborda, 1999). Roberts and Corbett (2009:) resume it by stating that “Teams start out as groups, but not all groups become mature and interdependent or teams”. Second, it is for our interest to be aware of the different types of teams that exist as in this essay I will not differentiate between those for the purpose of simplicity. The most common types of teams utilized today are: problem solving teams, cross-functional teams, virtual teams, research and development teams and self managed teams (Roberts et al, 2009). They all operate diversely for a collective aim and seek performance by using their respective attributes and skills. Furthermore teams are usually formed in line with Belbin’s model for team management , which probably lacks contextualisation. Third, it is crucial to understand the real nature of teamwork in management after