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The purpose is to analyse the impact of team responsibility (the division of job regulation tasks between team leader and team members) on team performance. It bases an analysis on 36 case studies in The Netherlands which are known to have implemented team‐based work. The case studies were executed in 1997 by means of face‐to‐face interviews with HRM staff and line management. It concludes from the analyses that two different types of team responsibility prevail. In a “hierarchical team” team leaders take responsibility for decisions concerning work preparation, support and control, while in the “shared‐responsibility team” decisions are taken by the team members themselves. The analyses show that “shared‐responsibility teams” are thought to contribute more substantially to team performance outcomes than “hierarchical teams”. The analysis helped gain a better understanding of the relationship between HRM and organisation performance, as it is viewed in the “human resource‐based view of the firm”.

The purpose of the present study is to introduce the elements characterising the work context of high responsibility teams (HRTs) operating in high reliability contexts such as medicine or aviation. Based on these elements, the authors reflected on the function of teamwork in these contexts, which is strongly dominated by a notion of flexibility under complexity, based on the technical, normative, and governance dimensions of teamwork.

Problem‐centred interviews (n=11) based on semi‐structured guidelines were conducted. Subsequently, a survey was conducted using a questionnaire inventory in six different HRT work contexts (n=551).

The interviews and survey results show significant differences regarding, for example, hierarchy or stress posed on the HRTs. However, they also demonstrate relevant similarities regarding, for instance, dimensions of complexity occurring in the teamwork contexts. Both differences and similarities influence how the support systems of the teamwork dimensions should be set up.

The study provided an excellent overview of similar and differing characteristics of the work context of different HRTs. However, it represents six specific HRTs and might not be generalisable to teams in other high reliability organisations, such as in the energy sector.

It is recommended that the characteristics of work contexts in HRTs should be taken into account in order to set up support systems of teamwork dimensions that enable teams to transfer the prevalent safety discourse into safety practice.

The innovative approach, which combines qualitative and quantitative data, provided insights that can be used to support team functioning in the team's specific work context.

This paper aims to explore the influence of collective orientation (CO) on coordination and team performance for interdependently working teams while controlling for person-related and team variables.

A total of 58 two-person-teams participated in a simulation-based firefighting task. The laboratory study took 2 h for each team. The effects of CO in tasks of increasing complexity were investigated under the consideration of control variables, and the relations between CO, coordination and team performance were assessed using a multivariate latent growth curve modeling approach and by estimating indirect effects in simple mediation models.

Team members high on CO performed significantly better than low-scoring members. The effect of CO on team performance was independent from an increasing task complexity, whereas the effect of CO on coordination was not. The effect of CO on team performance was mediated by coordination within the team, and the positive relation between CO and performance persists when including group efficacy into the model.

As CO is a modifiable person-related variable and important for effective team processes, additional research on factors influencing this attitude during work is assumed to be valuable.

CO is especially important for highly interdependently working teams in high-risk-organizations such as the fire service or nuclear power plants, where errors lead to severe consequences for human beings or the environment.

No other studies showed the importance of CO for coordination and team performance while considering teamwork-relevant variables and the interdependence of work.

This paper aims to illustrate how employees in self‐managing teams handle the fact that each self‐managing team includes traditional as well as non‐traditional team members.

This paper, based on two case studies from Post Danmark A/S, the Danish national postal service company, examines the work organization of self‐managing teams as well as the mobility of self‐managing teams' traditional and non‐traditional employees in the teams.

In terms of its contribution to research, this paper illustrates the paradox of an organization using self‐managing teams consisting of traditional and non‐traditional employees. This article argues that two characteristics contribute to this situation. First, self‐managing teams are unique in the sense that they are open to the participation of employees with different qualifications and with varying levels of contribution and, second, the position of “traditional” and “non‐traditional” employees means that non‐static mobility is allowed in both directions, contributing to cohesiveness and conflict reduction, as the empirical study shows.

One of the limitations of the research presented is its focus on only one organization, Post Danmark A/S. Identification of this limitation is based on available indicators in the absence of quantitative evaluations of the team's performance.

This paper provides an example for researchers and practitioners (e.g. managers and HR personnel) on how production teams can handle the challenge of dealing with teams that consist of traditional and non‐traditional employees.

Based on empirical data, this paper describes the positions, internal mobility and relationships between traditional and non‐traditional employees in self‐managing teams comprising skilled and unskilled workers.

The purpose of this study was to explore the team process-sequences executed within and across performance episodes and their relation to team performance. In doing so, this effort responds to the call for examining the temporal and dynamic aspects of teams.

Data (i.e. observations and audio recordings) was collected from the stand-up meetings of three high-performing Scrum teams across six points in time during two consecutive performance episodes (i.e. beginning, midpoint, end). After content coding the data, lag sequential analyses was used to examine patterns of executed team processes to determine whether particular process-sequences occurred significantly different from others.

Teams shifted between transition and action phase processes during performance episodes. During and across performance episodes, process-sequences primarily consisted of transition processes. When teams executed process-sequences consisting solely of action phase processes, their focus was on monitoring processes.

This study hopes that the findings here will serve to spur researchers to more fully investigate the relationship between process-sequences and team performance across various team types. However, limitations (e.g. small sample size, unknown point of teams’ life cycle and focus on explicit team processes) should be taken into account when building on the present findings.

This study contributes to a better understanding of the temporal and dynamic nature of team processes by analyzing how the team process and process-sequences occur across time. In addition, this study moves beyond most studies that assess team processes as static retrospective perceptions and consider their natural ordering.

The paper is based on the presumption that sustainable organisational performance cannot be achieved without continuous organisational development as well as continuous development of the employees. The paper is of the opinion that, in a company or any other organisation, creating the conditions for knowledge development is of utmost importance. These conditions should enhance innovation processes fostered by employees. The paper aims to investigate this premise.

The basic idea for the research in the paper arose from the findings that proved that organisational structures do substantially facilitate creativity processes. The main part of the paper focuses on researching team cohesion and obtaining information on interpersonal relationships as a starting‐point for new knowledge to emerge.

The main finding of the qualitative case study, conducted on 172 employees of a certain manufacturing company, are that interpersonal relationships in smaller groups of people are of better quality than those in larger groups.

As a consequence of research on the company involved in the case study, suggestions in terms of improving knowledge management were made and concrete measures were taken.

Lord Carter’s (2015) “Review of Operational Productivity in NHS providers” stated that to improve National Health Service (NHS) England’s efficiency, operational productivity should be targeted in four main areas, one being estates management. NHS England’s estate includes a variety of buildings some of which are considered no longer fit-for-purpose, thus creating risk to patients and staff. These built assets require continuous maintenance, adding pressures to NHS England’s precarious financial situation. The purpose of this paper is to identify positive strategies and major constraints to achieving sustainable management of backlog maintenance (BM) across the NHS assets, and thus suggest balanced actions.

The research adopts a qualitative approach and combines: literature review of current BM methodologies; interviews with estates and facilities directors from seven NHS trusts on BM strategies; and a NHS trust detailed case study.

The major finding is that sustainable management of BM is achievable if there is a consistent, pro-active and long-term strategic approach where critical levels of BM are prioritised. Additional issues (i.e. appropriate methodology, performance metrics and links with clinical service delivery strategies) also need to be considered.

This study is relevant to the management of the NHS estate including development and adoption of sustainable strategies.

This paper offers original insights to the factors influencing healthcare estates’ BM at a time when the UK policy agenda is targeting infrastructure operational efficiency and organisations are seeking more comprehensive methodologies.

This editorial seeks to explore changes in both teamwork and developments in teamwork research over the last decade.

The editorial review importantly focuses on the key debates that emerge from the papers covered in this special issue.

A review of the papers in this special issue, as well as historical analysis of teamwork research, indicate that while traditionally, analysis of teamwork was embedded in a manufacturing archetype, much of the contemporary research on teamwork is centred on service sector work where issues of cultural diversity, customer service, and lack of normative integration or task interdependence are increasingly apparent. This editorial suggests that we need to take account of the expansion of the service sector when attempting to conceptualise teamwork and the challenges that collective forms of working in such an environment bring.

This editorial and the special issue more generally provide an important contribution to the development of understanding of how changes in the workplace have had an impact on organisational and academic interest in teamwork.

The purpose of this paper is to study the potential for management development in non‐governmental organization (NGO)‐private sector partnerships.

The paper is an in‐depth case study of a program run by the British subsidiary of a large European financial services company that had sent 60 middle and senior managers and two external consultants over a ten‐year period (1994‐2004) on capacity building assignments to nine NGO partners in southern India. Questionnaires, interviews and archives of the program were the sources of data.

The study finds that assignees described the effect of the assignments on them as profound, some as transformational. Managers completed the capacity building assignments successfully and returned with greater self‐awareness and enhanced self‐confidence, and with a greater ability to handle ambiguity and uncertainty. Based on the input provided by the NGO partners, they also benefited from the assignments. However, the benefits to the private sector company (financial services organization) are not clear from the study.

This theoretical contribution is situated in the literature on self‐awareness and proposes management development as a viable objective in NGO‐private sector partnerships. Limitations of generalizing from a single case study are acknowledged and future research avenues identified.

The ten‐year experience of a large European multi‐national organization of partnering with nine Indian NGOs highlights rich potential for management development in such partnerships, through the development of self‐awareness and self‐confidence of key managerial talent. The circumstances under which such interventions might be appropriate are suggested.

To the authors' knowledge, the potential for management development in NGO‐private sector partnerships has been under‐studied in the academic literature. The authors believe that the paper offers interesting insights and suggests further avenues for exploration.