Today's organizations are increasingly relying on teams, rather than individuals, to complete tasks in the workplace. For some teams, these tasks require them to make high stakes decisions under stressful conditions. In military, medical, and emergency response fields, for example, workers are regularly asked to make decisions under high time pressure, uncertainty, and risk. The purpose of this study is to summarize previous team decision-making perspectives and create a model for team decision-making under stress. A literature review was conducted to examine the current state of team decision-making research. Several existing models of the team decision-making process were identified, representing multiple decision-making perspectives. Using this information, four primary characteristics of the team decision making process were identified. Team decision making appears to be multi-level, multi-phasic, dynamic, and cyclical process. An additional search examined the effects of stress on performance. Using this information and the characteristics outlined from the team decision making literature, a model was designed to describe the effects of stress on team decision making. This model offers several propositions regarding the effects of stress on specific cognitive and team processes and their relationship team decision making This study provides the theoretical basis for an empirical investigation of the relationship between stress and team decision making. This line of research has the potential to lead to practical solutions that may improve outcomes for workers in high stress occupations.

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In light of the growing worldwide competition among industrial manufacturers as developing nations become more technologically viable, it becomes imperative that we, as a nation, become more conscious than ever of quality and productivity. Our most serious competitors, the Japanese, have developed a nationwide sense of quality consciousness and have evolved a management and manufacturing system to achieve their goals of superior quality that is currently unrivaled. One important element of their productive system is the concept of Quality Control (QC) circles; generally described as a problem solving group of working people, who as members of a team, identify, solve, and implement solutions to work-related problems. Circles have served to tap a vast reservoir of energy, productivity, and ingenuity among the Japanese workforce, aiding them in their quest for manufacturing and quality superiority. We must learn more about these circles, what they are, how they operate, what they can do for us, and how we, as a nation can apply them to our manufacturing problems. They have already been successfully transplanted into America by many firms and are achieving excellent gains in productivity, quality, and worker-management relations.

This study examines how gender as a socio-cultural construction factors in the currently occurring change from a bureaucratic work organization to more interactive and team-based structures. Informed by Joan Acker's theory of gendered organization, I identify processes that produce and reproduce gendered relationships of domination and subordination in self-managing teams, despite the premise that self-managing teams foster more egalitarian workplace relations. In a multiple case study, using in-depth interviews and participant observation, I examine four currently functioning, mixed-sex, self-managing teams in two service sector organizations and one manufacturing plant. The objective of the study is to uncover how and in what ways gender is present in teamwork and shapes various routine work processes. The so-called “gendered processes“ I found to occur in the four case-study teams include a gender division of team tasks that required women to perform clerical work even when teams were supposed to implement cross-functional task sharing. Gendered processes also took place through interaction and team metaphors of “family“ and “football team.“ I illustrate how the construction of emotions in teamwork marginalized women's contributions and how women and men consciously employed strategies to fit into expectations of gender-appropriate behavior. Despite these gender divisions, I suggest that one possible way for teams to improve organizational gender equality is that they emphasize non-hierarchical spatial arrangements. Finally, although I found gendered processes in all four teams, the ways in which gender shaped teamwork varied according to the organizational status position of a team. Also self-management proved the most comprehensive in teams that functioned at the higher organizational levels. I thank the Finnish Work Environment Fund, The Foundation for Economic Education, and Ella and Georg Ehrnrooth's Foundation, all of Helsinki, Finland, for their financial support towards the completion of this dissertation. This study was also supported by dissertation grants from Eemil Aaltonen's Foundation of Tampere, Finland and Oskar à flund's Foundation of Espoo, Finland, for which I am grateful. / Ph. D.

With the increasing involvement of state and local governments in the professional sports industry over the last quarter of a century, the debate has arisen over whether the luring of a professional sports franchise or the construction of a stadium for a professional sports franchise provides any type of significant economic stimulus to a city. There are those who have engaged in this debate who believe the potential impact of these events to be significant and positive for a city. There are others who believe the potential impact of these events to be insignificant and/or negative for a city. The goal of this thesis is to add to the debate by presenting an econometric analysis of whether or not introducing a professional sports franchise and/or constructing a stadium for a professional sports franchise has any effect on a city's employment level. Our research based on taking data for each of the four major professional sports (Basketball, Baseball, Football, and Hockey) for various cities from 1979 to 1999 provides some very interesting results. The results of our econometric analysis suggest that building a new football stadium in a city or luring a basketball or hockey franchise into a city has a negative impact on a city's employment growth rate. However, our results also indicate that building a new basketball or hockey arena in a city for a current franchise or attracting a new football franchise to a city has a positive impact on a city's employment growth rate. Our research concludes that depending on the professional sport and the event involved the impact on employment in a city may be positive, negative, or not significant at all. Results that to a certain degree contradict previous econometric studies on the subject. / Master of Arts