Organizational Level Factors: Team Analysis

Teams can be defined as a collection of individuals with different skills, who are interdependent in their tasks, share responsibility for specific outcomes for their organisations and work toward a common goal (Cohen and Bailey, 1997; Sundstrom, de Meuse and Futrell, 1990). Since the early 1980s, there has been much literature related to the importance of teams in organisations. The terms ‘team’ and ‘group’ can be used interchangeably within the literature (Cohen and Bailey, 1997). However, it is argued that groups become teams when they develop a sense of shared commitment and strive for synergy among members (Katzenbach & Smith, 1993 cited in Guzzo and Dickson, 1996). Teams are said to offer the potential for synergy whereby a group

Benefits associated with using teams include outcomes such as increased productivity and customer satisfaction and also employee satisfaction and commitment to the organisation (Kirkman and Shapiro, 2000; Stewart and Barrick, 2000). Having a team-based culture can promote flexibility, cooperation and coordination and ultimately lead to improvements in both employee and organisational performance (Cacioppe, 1999). The team aspect of performance management can be seen as an important area of inquiry that warrants further consideration. The following essay will explore some factors that influence team performance at the team level and also organisational level factors, which will specifically focus on the area of

Cohen and Bailey (1997) maintain that team effectiveness is a function of interrelated factors namely group processes, group psychosocial traits, environmental factors and design factors. Design factors can be directly influenced by managers who have a role in creating the conditions for effective performance. Examples of task design variables include autonomy and interdependence. Interdependence is a key defining feature which involves interlinked tasks, complementary roles or shared outcomes, such as incentives (Sundstrom et al., 2000). Group processes are interactions such as communication and conflict that occur among group members and external to the group. This can then be broken down into intragroup processes which are interactions and relationships among members, such as communication, coordination, conflict, and collaboration. There are then external group processes that would be interactions outside of the group with peers, managers, suppliers, and customers, and associated variables such as external, coordination, and communication (Sundstrom et al., 2000). Group psychosocial traits or intermember relationships would be linked with group characteristics, shared understandings or beliefs. Examples of this include cohesiveness, norms collective efficacy and group affect (Cohen and Bailey 1997; Sundstrom et al.,