The purpose of this study was to compare middle level teachers' perception of their working environment under two different organizational structures: departmental (DEP) and Interdisciplinary Teaming Organization (ITO). In addition within the ITO schools, this study compared the working environment perception of teachers between different schools and between team members and non-team members. ITO is characterized by organizing teams of teachers around a core of subjects and providing them with a block of time, a common planning period, and shared students. Studies suggested that ITO provided circumstances for increased cooperation among teachers and enhanced decision making participation comparing to DEP schools. As a consequence teachers reported more job satisfaction and higher level of efficacy. However, very few studies were found to study these differences at the school level. The sample of this investigation consisted of 78 middle level teachers--Forty-seven teachers from two middle schools with ITO and thirty-one teachers from two DEP junior high schools. Subjects were administered a slightly modified questionnaire, previously used with elementary teachers, consisting of 16 different scales depicting the various aspects of the teachers' working environment. In addition, in order to enhance the analysis of the results other data was collected through open-ended interviews, as well as 2-way Analysis of Variance of teacher background components was conducted. The findings revealed: (1) ITO teachers felt more positive than DEP teachers with regard to the factors: faculty cohesiveness; socialization and recruitment of new teachers; goal-setting; teacher evaluation; instructional coordination; homogeneity and shared values; and instructional rewards. No significant differences were obtained with regard to job satisfaction, efficacy and decision making participation. (2) No significant differences in attitudes were obtained between ITO members and non-members within each ITO school. (3) Teachers in ITO 2 school felt more positive than ITO 1 teachers on only three scales: decision making participation, managing student behavior, and instructional rewards. Results suggest that ITO has a positive impact on the teachers' working environment, however, decision making participation, job satisfaction and efficacy level may be affected more by other factors. Future research should focus on improving the effectiveness of ITO.

This study investigated the individual power of teachers as subordinates in elementary schools. It focused on the informal social structure in "good" elementary schools and the roles played by principals, teachers who held formal governance positions, itinerant teachers, and participants in the district's career ladder pilot program. Roles sampled were (1) providers of moral support, (2) sources of teaching expertise, (3) dispensers of procedural information, and (4) those able to "get things done" in the school. Peer and principal dependency data were also collected. Teachers and principals in five elementary schools in a single school district were sampled twice in a two year period. Findings were: (1) Although "good" principals received high total scores for providing resources to the faculty, there were instances when individual teachers scored as high or higher than the principal. (2) Faculty and principals depended on providers of moral support more than they depended on any of the traditionally power-producing roles. (3) Teachers depended on peers mostly for moral support, less for teaching expertise and "getting things done," and least for information. Teachers depended on the principal for moral support and information, less for "getting things done," and least for teaching expertise. (4) Full-time classroom teachers and specialists were most active in the social structure. Part-time teachers, itinerant teachers, and special services personnel, such as psychologists, speech/language pathologists, etc., were not key participants. Some full-time teachers, such as fine arts, physical education, and self-contained special education teachers were less active. (5) Teachers holding formal governance positions in the school established or gained influence while holding the formal positions, and they apparently did not lose influence the year after leaving the positions. Formal positions were held by full-time classroom teachers and only occasionally by a specialist. (6) Career ladder candidates or participants established or gained influence in the school's social structure during the career ladder process. Itinerant teachers and individuals who teach specialized curricula were more active in the career ladder program than they were in the school governance network.

This dissertation describes the successful implementation of a work group infrastructure to support electronic meetings. An exploratory study was undertaken to observe and document the broad range of activities necessary to implement an infrastructure for work groups in a field setting. Activities falling within the scope of this dissertation include the design of a set of work group software tools, the implementation of that software, the gathering of field data, and the interpretation of those data in reference to the software's impact. The dissertation also reports on the effects of the implementation on work group performance, group characteristics, task characteristics, and the technology itself. The final product of the study is a set of factors critical for the successful implementation of a work group infrastructure, including observations and insights related to facility design, software design, facilitation training, and management involvement.

This dissertation investigated the effects of group size, group member proximity and the interaction of these two variables on the performance of brainstorming groups in a synchronous, computer-mediated environment. A laboratory experiment was employed to manipulate the independent variables group size (4- and 8-member) group member proximity. Group member proximity was manipulated by allowing proximate groups to work in a single meeting room, while members of distributed group worked in separate rooms. The subjects, upper-level, undergraduate business students, were asked to identify and discuss all "people, groups and organizations" that would be affected by a proposed policy to require all undergraduate business students to have individual access to a personal computer. The computer-mediated brainstorming system allowed all group members to enter and share information simultaneously, as all communication was electronic. Group performance was assessed by counting the total number of unique solutions generated and by the sum of expert rated quality scores for each unique solution. Groups in all conditions contributed approximately the same number of comments and felt equally satisfied. Contrary to an ample body of noncomputer-mediated brainstorming research, large groups were more productive than small groups for both idea quantity and quality. Small groups were, however, more productive than large groups on a per person basis, as increased group size yielded diminishing returns. Remote groups were more productive than proximate groups. Group researchers have found that group interaction produces productivity gains and losses, each of which increase in strength as the group size increases. This research found group productivity losses for computer-mediated brainstorming to be relatively constant, as the technology mitigated productivity inhibitors in conditions where prior noncomputer-mediated research has found these losses to increase (i.e., larger groups).

Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) is a set of constructs, principles, and tools aimed at continually improving organizational processes. While thousands of organizations worldwide have adopted CQI, there are still many gaps in our knowledge of how to get the most out of CQI efforts. This paper addresses several of these gaps, including the limitations of existing CQI theory and the inconsistencies regarding the implementation of CQI at team and departmental levels. After discussing the basic principles of CQI, a framework for understanding and utilizing CQI is offered. Then, the results of 102 interviews, conducted with team leaders and department heads in a large hospital in the Southwestern United States, are presented. These results suggest that CQI team effectiveness is most influenced by goal specificity, team composition, and team leader training in statistical process control (SPC). Other factors, including team leader attitude toward CQI and team CQI skills, were also related to CQI team effectiveness. Departmental results were less clear. Only department head attitude toward CQI was significantly correlated with departmental CQI implementation. Potential meanings and implications of these findings are discussed, suggestions for implementing CQI in teams and departments are offered, and directions for future research are provided.

A national study of clinical dietitians was undertaken to determine: (1) current clinical activities performed, (2) techniques used to influence physicians and (3) level of confidence for successfully influencing physicians in seven areas of practice. Questionnaires were received from 458 (77%) of the dietitians. Data indicate dietitians are less likely to participate on patient care teams and attend medical/surgical rounds, but more likely to check meal trays than their 1982 counterparts. Factor analysis of clinical activities revealed three postures: diet oriented, physician oriented and case oriented. Factor analysis of the influence techniques, identified five postures: block/threaten, ingratiation, coalitions, assertive and the most used posture, rationality. Multiple regression analysis found associations between age and education and the use of rationality and ingratiating postures and between age and the assertive posture. Frequency analysis of confidence levels found dietitians most confident influencing the physician in the area of food consistency modification and least confident in nutritional laboratory data.

This paper extends recent research studying biases in venture capitalist's decision-making. We contribute to this literature by analyzing biases arising due to similarity between a venture capitalist and members of a venture team. We summarize the psychological foundations of such similarity effects and derive a set of hypotheses regarding the impact of similarity on the assessement of team quality. Using data from a conjoint experiment with 51 respondents, we find that venture capitalists tend to favor teams that are similar to themselves w.r.t. the type of training and professional experience. Our results have important implications for academics and practitioners alike. (authors' abstract)

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Ingeniero Civil Industrial / La industria del acero a nivel mundial está pasando momentos difíciles, y se hace cada vez más relevante para los actores del mercado acercarse a sus clientes empresa y conocerlos de mejor forma, cambiando el paradigma histórico en el cual las siderúrgicas se dedican únicamente a producir acero, y luego esperar a que se venda, estrategia que solía funcionar principalmente debido a la escasa competencia, pero dado el contexto actual descrito en el presente trabajo ya no basta con simplemente producir el acero, sino que hay que acercarse al cliente del producto y conocerlo en profundidad. La problemática planteada ha sido abordada desde la metodología Discovery Teams, la cual consiste en crear equipos multidisciplinarios para visitar a los distintos eslabones de una cadena industrial, con un fuerte foco en el cliente final, buscando ideas revolucionarias para beneficiarlos mediante nuevos y/o mejores productos. La metodología ha sido adaptada al contexto de Gerdau Chile, principal proveedor de acero de la industria nacional en la actualidad. El hito principal de la metodología es la visita a terreno, y el principal foco de interés del trabajo presentado consiste en el levantamiento de los procesos necesarios para una correcta aplicación de la metodología, para así abarcar toda la estructura de lo que debe suceder tanto antes como después del hito principal, tanto para corroborar que la visita está bien planificada, como para también asegurar la continuidad en el tiempo de la metodología. El trabajo contempla la descripción detallada del programa Discovery Teams, siendo los programas de desarrollo e introducción de producto una tarea a futuro al interior de la organización, pero haciendo mención a la labor del equipo de exploración en ambas etapas. El trabajo presentado también contempla un capítulo dedicado exclusivamente a analizar las posibles barreras al interior de una organización que podrían dificultar la implementación, donde es posible destacar que existe un miedo al cambio y un escepticismo con respecto a los resultados de algo tan desconocido, pero también hay elementos facilitadores que permiten desarrollar la metodología adecuadamente, como una fuerte red de contactos y una gran reputación y reconocimiento a la calidad del trabajo hecho.

The purpose of this research study was to identify the specific components of team training that contribute most to a team's ability to perform effectively. The analysis conducted involved examining the relationship between the Training Support System Survey (Hall, 1998) along with the Training Strategies and Training Content sub-scales, and the overall measure of team performance from Beyerlein's (1996) Perceptions of Team Performance survey. Results were mostly inconclusive, due to limitations of the research. However, a few interesting findings were found related to team training for different types of teams. In addition, this research is helpful in moving toward a better understanding of the relationship between team training and team performance and pointing toward the need for additional research in this area.