TY  - CHAP
AB  - The wide use of self-managing teams is creating a “new division of labor” where team members are expected to learn tasks beyond their own in order to perform cross-functionally. Interviews with members of four service-oriented, mixed-sex self-managing teams revealed that while teams recognized and discussed the importance of learning each others' job tasks, barriers to fully cross-functional task sharing emerged when sex segregated occupations were brought together. Although cross-training and cross-functionality are generally seen as central to the greater efficiency and effectiveness expectations for teams, full reallocation of work tasks was impeded as men in technical professions resisted taking on less-skilled, feminized clerical and relational work. We propose that for self-managing teams to become truly cross-functional, organizations should take into account gender (as well as class) biases that can present an obstacle to task integration in teams, particularly when masculine and feminine - highskilled and low-skilled - occupations are combined.
VL  - 10
SN  - 978-1-84950-097-5, 978-0-76230-766-1/0277-2833
DO  - 10.1016/S0277-2833(01)80024-8
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1016/S0277-2833(01)80024-8
AU  - Ollilainen Marjukka
AU  - Rothschild Joyce
ED  - Steven Vallas
PY  - 2001
Y1  - 2001/01/01
TI  - Can self-managing teams be truly cross-functional?: gender barriers to a “new” division of labor
T2  - The Transformation of Work
T3  - Research in the Sociology of Work
PB  - Emerald Group Publishing Limited
SP  - 141
EP  - 164
Y2  - 2024/04/25
ER  -