Team Building

Term Paper # 103126

Business > Human Resources
Business > Management
Labor Studies

Team Building

This paper looks at the approach of a work team strategy and discusses this process within an organization.

931 words () | 8 sources | APA | 2008 United States

Paper Summary:

In this article the writer discusses that a team building strategy follows the logic model by accounting for inputs, changes, and outputs in the form of improved communications, improved performance, and increased productivity. The writer notes that this serves to assure the accomplishment and maintenance of elements of the organizational mission. The writer maintains that the use of a work team fundamentally changes the way work is organized and gives employees more control over their jobs. Adopting the work team approach is not a simple matter and involves tearing down bureaucratic barriers between departments and eliminating tiers of managers. The writer concludes that such radical changes are being undertaken by business, however, in order to gain workers' commitment and knowledge for the future.

From the Paper:

"Two primary classifications of organizational structure are mechanistic and organic. The differences between mechanistic and organic organizational structures are expressed in the context of the level of formal structure and control embodied in the two organizational concepts. Successful implementation and execution of the team development technique leads to improved communication, enhanced creativity, more effective decision-making, and higher levels of organizational performance. One of the most important manifestations of the team organization decision-making technique is the quality circles concept that was pioneered in Japanese manufacturing organizations, and which, in the 1990s, is found in a number of major American organizations. Most organizational structures are product/process- or functional-based. Mixed organizational structures, however, have long been common."

Sample of Sources Used:

Daft, R. L. 1998. Organization theory and design, 6th ed. St. Paul, Minnesota: West Publishing Company.
Deming, W. E. (1986). Out of the Crisis. Cambridge, Mass.: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Ehin, C. 1993. A high-performance team is a multi-part machine. Journal for Quality and Participation 16 (December): 38-48.
Gortner, H. F., Mahler, J., & Nicholson, J.B. (1999). Organizational theory, 3rd ed. Pacific Grove, California: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company.
Hoerr, John, "The Payoff from Teamwork," Business Week (July 10, 1989), pp. 56-62.