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The purpose is to provide explanations for why some self-managing teams survive and develop over a long period of time.

The research design is longitudinal, having worked with several research projects over a period of 20 years. Interviews, observation, field notes have been widely used, and also participative methods while one of the authors has worked on the shop floor for six weeks.

The authors offer several explanations: the maturity of teams; the process of institutionalization and creation of strong normative values; practices being “infused with meaning” and decoupling of practice from official policy.

The weakness is that the research presented is from one company, and within a Norwegian context which has certain characteristics. The contribution is the emphasis on institutional elements and the methodological implications regarding informal practice where explicit information is incomplete.

By offering an explanation for why self-managing teams can survive, one can also prescribe some important learning. Mutual cooperation and high level of autonomy prove to be important.

The main contribution is the authors' access to unique empirical data, and that they show and explain the social mechanisms for institutionalization of teamwork through participative observation.

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.

Firms around the world are facing an ever‐increasing array of employee‐related problems, such as decreasing productivity, faltering quality of products, persistent absenteeism, worker dissatisfaction, and high levels of turnover. Exacerbating this situation, there is a worldwide recession and explosive geopolitical developments, which have led to great uncertainties in world markets. For many organizations, the need to respond effectively to these problems is of paramount importance, as their economic viability hangs in the balance. To deal with the challenges of today′s global environment and to stay competitive in the world marketplace, organizations need to look beyond the sphere of traditional directive management and the limited application of participative management. One concept, which is showing particular promise in this regard as a comprehensive solution, is that of self‐managing teams (SMTs). Explores the essence of this concept, the unique role which it assigns to management, some of its drawbacks and benefits. Also suggests some critical requirements for successful implementation.

This article re‐examines the theoretical foundation of self‐directed teamwork theory in light of current developments in organizational America, and suggests propositions about the relationship between teamwork and organizational policies such as downsizing. Teamwork is the exercise of creativity and autonomy by employees in pursuit of organizational goals. Effective teamwork requires a sense of trust and inclusion on the part of these employees. Organizational practices such as downsizing and contingent labor can erode this trust. If organizations wish to avoid undermining the financial, productivity and morale gains of teamwork, while observing their broader social responsibilities, they should reconsider their reliance upon downsizing and contingent workforces as a quick and dirty means of achieving cost savings.

High-involvement work processes (HIWPs) are associated with high levels of employee influence over the work process, such as high levels of control over how to handle individual job tasks or a high level of involvement at team or workplace level in designing work procedures. When implementations of HIWPs are accompanied by companion investments in human capital – for example, in better information and training, higher pay and stronger employee voice – it is appropriate to talk not only of HIWPs but of “high-involvement work systems” (HIWSs). This chapter reviews the theory and practice of HIWPs and HIWSs. Across a range of academic perspectives and societies, it has regularly been argued that steps to enhance employee involvement in decision-making create better opportunities to perform, better utilization of skill and human potential, and better employee motivation, leading, in turn, to various improvements in organizational and employee outcomes.

However, there are also costs to increased employee involvement and the authors review the important economic and sociopolitical contingencies that help to explain the incidence or distribution of HIWPs and HIWSs. The authors also review the research on the outcomes of higher employee involvement for firms and workers, discuss the quality of the research methods used, and consider the tensions with which the model is associated. This chapter concludes with an outline of the research agenda, envisaging an ongoing role for both quantitative and qualitative studies. Without ignoring the difficulties involved, the authors argue, from the societal perspective, that the high-involvement pathway should be considered one of the most important vectors available to improve the quality of work and employee well-being.

As members of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra arrive for rehearsal you would not think anything out of the ordinary. The usual number of musicians are gathering, and there is the usual banter as they take their places and start to tune up. It is only when the practice begins that you notice what is missing – there is no conductor.

As members of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra arrive for rehearsal you would not think anything out of the ordinary. The usual number of musicians are gathering, and there is the usual banter as they take their places and start to tune up. It is only when the practice begins that you notice what is missing – there is no conductor.

Although cross-cultural research tends to compare deeply held values across nations, different cultures can exist within nations, as evidenced by clashes of cultures in Israel, Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. We refer to multicultural teams (MCTs) to reflect our interest in team dynamics involving people from varying cultures (which may or may not include people of different nationalities). MCTs are likely to be characterized by “cultural value diversity,” or varying cultural values among members, and we present data in support of the hypothesis that MCT performance is influenced more significantly by cultural value diversity than by the aggregated level of any particular cultural value or demographic diversity within the teams.

This paper aims to map the incidence of teamwork in European manufacturing industries and describe the process of teamwork diffusion over time. The impact of country, company size, manufacturing sector and other factors on teamwork diffusion is identified.

The study is based on data from 3,522 companies gathered by the European Manufacturing Survey covering ten European countries with a common survey tool.

Overall, six out of ten manufacturers with more than 20 employees have implemented teamwork in production. Furthermore, the authors show that implementation rates vary significantly by country, firm size and, to a lesser extent, sector of the company's activity. R&D expenditure, product complexity, innovation capability, strategy and to a lesser extent international competition and supply chain position create significant differences between firms opting for teamwork as a work organization practice and companies neglecting it.

The main limitations of the paper derive from the concept of EMS as a multi-purpose survey and the lack of adequate representation across European countries.

The value of this research is the ability to offer recent, international and relevant figures about teamwork implementation and diffusion. Furthermore the data set makes it possible for the first time to describe the process of teamwork diffusion over time.

This empirical study examines the impact of context‐team factors and team‐employee factors on perceived uncertainty in self‐managed service teams. The results of our study show that context‐team factors rather than team‐employee factors are critical to the extent of uncertainty employees perceive when providing customer service. Furthermore, perceived uncertainty has negative impact on self‐managed team outcomes in terms of job satisfaction and intention to leave the team. Besides this, our findings indicate that team commitment to customer service quality can serve as an effective tool to handle the negative consequences of perceived uncertainty in self‐managed service teams. Finally, in addition to the cross‐sectional analysis, a longitudinal exploration has been carried out, the outcomes of which suggest that the structural relationships are changing over time, underlining the need to take dynamic considerations into account in analyzing the effectiveness of self‐managed work teams.