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In this article, the author begins with the assumptions that 1) groups are becoming an increasingly popular way of dealing with organizational challenges and problems and 2) organizations are becoming increasingly multicultural in their membership. Dr. Proehl seeks to demonstrate that the traditional ways of working with groups are not effective when the membership is multicultural. To support this contention, she identifies six commonly accepted assumptions about how to develop high performing groups and then challenges each assumption from a crosscultural perspective. The author closes the article by offering suggestions for working effectively with multicultural groups.

This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/01437739610127450. When citing the article, please cite: Rebecca A. Proehl, (1996), “Enhancing the effectiveness of cross-functional teams”, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 17 Iss: 5, pp. 3 - 10.

Organizations are increasingly using cross‐ functional teams to address broad‐scale organizational problems, and the potential of such teams is undeniable. Bringing a cross‐functional perspective to organizational problems help build understanding, problem‐solving capabilities, co‐ordination, communication and, ultimately, improved quality and productivity. While the benefits are many, this study highlights the challenges. Over one‐half of the participants viewed their cross‐functional team’s work as unsuccessful, and these same individuals felt less optimistic about cross‐functional teams than they had before participating in one. While it is apparent that organizational leaders, are enthusiastically embracing team efforts, calls for additional analysis to explore the unique challenges of cross‐functional teams so organizations can consistently benefit from their efforts. Examines those factors that contributed to the success of the teams in this study and offers recommendations for working with cross‐functional teams.

Organizational researchers studying well-being – as well as organizations themselves – often place much of the burden on employees to manage and preserve their own well-being. Missing from this discussion is how – from a human resources management (HRM) perspective – organizations and managers can directly and positively shape the well-being of their employees. The authors use this review to paint a picture of what organizations could be like if they valued people holistically and embraced the full experience of employees’ lives to promote well-being at work. In so doing, the authors tackle five challenges that managers may have to help their employees navigate, but to date have received more limited empirical and theoretical attention from an HRM perspective: (1) recovery at work; (2) women’s health; (3) concealable stigmas; (4) caregiving; and (5) coping with socio-environmental jolts. In each section, the authors highlight how past research has treated managerial or organizational support on these topics, and pave the way for where research needs to advance from an HRM perspective. The authors conclude with ideas for tackling these issues methodologically and analytically, highlighting ways to recruit and support more vulnerable samples that are encapsulated within these topics, as well as analytic approaches to study employee experiences more holistically. In sum, this review represents a call for organizations to now – more than ever – build thriving organizations.