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Most traditional research on work groups has studied groups and teams that are homogeneous with respect to culture. To alleviate the dearth of material on culturally heterogeneous teams, this chapter provides an overview of the impact of cultural diversity on groups and teams in today’s workforce. First, we focus on the problems involved in defining the constructs of “teams” and “culture.” Second, we provide a brief review of the cultural factors that have been identified as affecting human performance. This review serves as the basis for the third section of this chapter, which investigates if – and how – cultural heterogeneity affects team performance. Finally, we conclude with how culturally diverse workplaces can be managed and how to improve performance when faced with cultural diversity.

This chapter provides a definition of group as used by group communication scholars or inferred by articles published by group communication scholars. The chapter considers group size, group identity, group member interdependence, group goal, and group structure as fundamental to groups. Additionally, the chapter examines the distinction between the use of the group and team labels, and the role of context in defining groups.

Self‐managing teams have been credited with many positive payoffs. These include increased quality, productivity, employee quality of work life, and decreases in absenteeism and turnover. Significant attention has been devoted to the actual benefits derived from these group applications. What is typically lacking is exploration of the road‐blocks to self‐managed team success. Examines an important challenge to SMT success – the threats that groups face when making decisions. Notable evidence indicates that cohesive groups (such as self‐managing teams) tend to create internal pressures towards conformity that interfere with constructive critical analysis and ultimately lead to dysfunctional decisions. The term groupthink has been coined for this process that threatens effective group decision making. Addresses this challenge in some detail. In particular, proposes a new effective group condition – teamthink – a group decision‐making process that enables groups to make effective decisions while avoiding the pitfalls of groupthink.

The purpose of this paper is to use survey data to rank the relative importance of perceived factors that inhibit the transfer of knowledge across projects and examine the statistical relationship between various “higher order” dimensions of project management competencies and project efficiency among a sample of project-based firms (PBFs).

The research philosophical approach adopted was post-positivism, a half-way house between positivism and phenomenological approaches. The author used a largely structured survey questionnaire with an inclusion of few open-ended items. The survey data collected were largely based on the “perceptions” of mostly experienced project management practitioners, whose perspectives on project processes and performance are likely to be more dependable. Because of budget limitations, a total of 260 questionnaires were mailed to randomly selected PBFs (with an enclosed self-addressed and stamped return envelope). Of the 260 questionnaires sent to PBFs, 58 questionnaires were returned, representing a return rate of just over 22 percent.

Results indicate that “high time pressures towards the end of the project,” “too much focus on short-term project deliverables,” and “fear of negative sanctions when disclosing project mistakes” were three top-ranked factors that inhibited knowledge transfer across projects. Some “higher order” project management competencies like “dynamic competencies” have relatively a greater impact on predicting project efficiency. Dynamic competencies will only continue to increase in importance as today’s project environments are characterized as continuously evolving, turbulent, and complex and require the need to be effective in dealing with various uncertainties. Once included in the regression equation, the “ownership variable” dominates all other explanatory variables in predicting project efficiency among a sample of PBFs in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), most likely driven by the project management competencies of multinational corporations (MNCs). However, the project efficiency of state-owned PBFs did not differ significantly from that of “international firms that were not MNCs.” Specific conditions may have led to such an outcome. The author shows that enhancing project efficiency requires the reinforcement of multiple but specific factors.

As the study was largely conducted on a limited budget and time frame, the author was not able to employ a multi-method approach. The inclusion of a few case studies would have facilitated triangulation of the current findings. In addition, the study captures “perceptions” and practical experiences of project management practitioners. Future studies could possibly develop what may be seen as “objective” measures of project learning and project management competencies. A larger survey supported by a larger budget would be one option in which some of the findings could be tested across PBFs located in different sectors and countries.

The author argues that the creation of a client-led “no-blame culture” within PBFs can ensure the development of a “safe” environment in which project team members can acknowledge project mistakes without the fear or danger(s) that may come with such admission. This may require changes in project organizational culture that reduces power distance, lowers sensitivity to hierarchal power relations, enhances team building efforts, and fosters a “learning climate” that tolerates “trial and error” experimentation. It may also require strengthening clients’ specific capabilities. Such change may require time and patience but could take advantage of “positive” aspects of participatory practices, personal relationships, and consensus decision-making approach that is prevalent in the UAE culture. One managerial implication points to the need to tailor scarce resources in building up multi-dimensional “higher order” competencies like “dynamic competencies” that have a relatively higher significant impact on enhancing project efficiency. Linking MNCs with local PBFs as collaborative mega project delivery partners may lead to enhancing project management competencies of the latter, conditional on their absorptive capacity.

The contribution of the paper is in providing survey-based empirical evidence that goes beyond case studies to highlight the importance of enhancing “higher order” project management competencies, such as “dynamic competencies,” that have a stronger predictive power of project efficiency in PBFs. The study also ranks the relative importance of various factors that inhibit the transfer of new knowledge across projects. To the author’s knowledge, this is the first study that has demonstrated the statistical relationship between “higher order” project management competencies and project efficiency. Project efficiency is a multi-faceted construct. Its strengthening is determined by a configuration of multiple but specific factors. A more “nuanced” understanding of the relationship between project management competencies and project efficiency in a particular context may be required.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to explore sensemaking of incidents by health care professionals through an analysis of the role of professional identity in narratives of incidents. Using insights from social identity theory, the authors argue that incidents may create a threat of professional identity, and that professionals make use of identity management strategies in response to this identity threat.

The paper draws on a qualitative analysis of incident narratives in 14 semi-structured interviews with physicians, nurses, and residents at a Dutch specialist hospital. The authors used an existing framework of identity management strategies to categorize the narratives.

The analysis yielded two main results. First, nurses and residents employed multiple types of identity management strategies simultaneously, which points to the possible benefit of combining different strategies. Second, physicians used the strategy of patronization of other professional groups, a specific form of downward comparison.

The authors discuss the implications of the findings in terms of the impact of identity management strategies on the perpetuation of hierarchical differences in health care.

The authors argue that efforts to manage incident handling may profit from considering social identity processes in sensemaking of incidents.

This is the first study that systematically explores how health care professionals use identity management strategies to maintain a positive professional identity in the face of incidents. This study contributes to research on interdisciplinary cooperation in health care.

Reports on one of the key developments made to date on a three‐year EPSRC IMI research project in the fine chemicals industry. The project, Batch Route Innovative Technology: Evaluation and Selection Techniques (BRITEST), began in late 1997 with the aim to research new methods to deliver substantial benefits associated with new product development. The project will deliver a methodology, models and a suite of decision support tools sustaining and improving the new product development process, enabling novel technical solutions to be developed more in line with, and evaluated more appropriately against, the business strategy and market characteristics. The specific deliverable presented in this paper is an action research‐derived framework that integrates the detailed processes, information requirements and decision making as a model of good practice for new product (or process) development (NPD) in the fine chemicals industry.

Presents an evolutionary management technique (cladistics) which could enable organizations to formally and systematically understand the emergence of new manufacturing forms within their business environment. This fundamental, but important, insight could result in cladograms being used as a tool within a change framework, for achieving successful organizational design and change. Thus, regardless of the industrial sector, managers could use cladograms as an evolutionary analysis technique for determining “where they have been and where they are now”. This evolutionary analysis could be used to formulate coherent and appropriate action for managers who are responsible for organizational design and development.

The purpose of this paper is to argue for the need of continuously revisiting and reformulating the contributions of past research. In particular the focus is on project management writings. In addition, the purpose of the paper is to introduce the reader to the special issue on Classics in project management and give an overview of the different contributions.

The paper is based on literature in related fields and the approach is paradigmatic, illustrating the value of common literature and common language to develop a knowledge domain.

The authors provide an introductory framework and arguments for the need to revisit the contributions of the past. Since “the past” and readings of it will continuously change and develop, exploring it is not a “one‐off” job, but part of the dialogue within the academic community. From an evolutionary perspective, the authors make the point that an important role for scholars is to “store” knowledge from the past to tell the stories found in prior research, the influential ideas and their development within the knowledge domain/discipline. In a critical realm, the authors also see the role of critical engagement with the past to question what we take for granted to be able to improve our collective ability to think and from that end develop project management thinking and research. In that sense, revisiting the past might provide avenues to future research and adventurous explorations.

The authors introduce the idea of classics in project management as an ongoing and important debate among scholars within the field. This discussion has so far received only limited attention among scholars in the field of project management.