Professor Ashraf Esmail
Sociology of the Workplace
June 27, 2012
Self-Directed Work Teams: Annotated Bibliography
Cartmell, K. (2000). Self-Directed work teams in a health care environment. Home Health Care manager Prac, 12(6), 38-40. This article defines what a self-directed work teams are. It gives an overview of what qualities make a good team and the qualities that make an employee a good team member. Empowerment is based on trust, open communication, and shared decision making. Through education and empowerment the teams become powerful decision makers for recruitment, interviewing, performance measures, and team-based budgets. Benefits of self-directed work teams in health care organizations improve quality of care, increase efficiency in the delivery of care, and enhance customer satisfaction. All this translates into an organization that is financially stable and an organization that has high employee satisfaction.
Carton, A., & Cummings, J. (2012). A theory of subgroups in work teams. Academy of management review, 37(3), 441-470.
This article discusses several theories of subgroups in work teams. To be considered a subgroup it must be a subset of the members of the same work team whose membership and task are formally recognized by the organization. A subgroup is characterized by the interdependence that is unique because of a shared culture value or knowledge frame. A particular subgroup in a work team is likely to have between two and six members. The article has a table that shows a topology of subgroups in work teams. It identifies three types of subgroups. One subgroup is called "identity- based" which are cliques, those identifies relationally and socially. Another subgroup is referred to as "resource-based", which are built around coalitions, factions, alliances, and blocs. The last subgroup is called "knowledge-based" that are made up of information processing, cohorts, clusters, and task-related.
For large organizations
Bibliography: Cartmell, K. (2000). Self-Directed work teams in a health care environment. Home Health Care manager Prac, 12(6), 38-40. Carton, A., & Cummings, J. (2012). A theory of subgroups in work teams. Academy of management review, 37(3), 441-470. Douglas, C., & Martin, J. K. (2006). Communication in the transition to self-directed work teams. Journal of Business Communication, 43(4), 295-321. Frankforter, S., & s, C. (2006). Finding competitive advantage in self-managed work teams. Business Forum, 27(1), 20-24. Langfred, C. (2007). The downside of self-management: A longitudinal study of the effects of conflict on trust, autonomy, and task interdependence in self-managing teams. Academy of Management Journal, 50(4), 885-900. Muthusamy, S., Wheeler, J., & Simmons, B. (2005). Self-Managing Work Teams: Enhancing Organizational Innovativeness. Organizational Develpement Journal, 23(3), 53-66. Proeca, T. (2010). Self-managed work teams: an enabling or coercive nature. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 21(3), 337-354 Roy, M. (2003, June). Self-directed workteams and safety: a winning combination. Safety Science, 41(4), 359-376. This article looks a self-directed work teams (SDWTs) and how it affects the occupational and health safety in an organization Stewart, G., Courtwright, S., & Barrick, M. (2012). Peer-based control in self-managing teams: Linking rational and normative influence wiht individuals and group performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97(2), 435-447.