A popular approach to operating organizations in the 1990s is the implementation of work teams. The current literature offers little information on the use of performance management techniques in work team settings. This case study examined the effects of employing a performance improvement strategy on employee performance in a work team environment comprised of part-time graduate students. The performance improvement strategy included composing job descriptions, job aids (e.g., work organization charts), task request logs and posting weekly and monthly performance feedback. Improvements were observed in some aspects of team performance. Some of the improvement was due to task clarification and improved scheduling produced by the antecedent interventions. Performance feedback had little effect on measured performance but seemed to facilitate discussion and problem-solving.

<P>The study of work teams has captured the attention of academics and practitioners throughout the latter stages of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century. There has been much debate and one could be forgiven for thinking that we 'know' the answers. However, there are still substantial gaps in our knowledge of the practical operations of work teams.</P><P>The are many complications involved in the study of work teams, including the lack of suitable and consistently used definitions and the failure amongst researchers to distinguish between the nature of different forms of teamworking. Furthermore, the labelling of formal work groups is rather ambiguous, even clichéd. Academics and practitioners hold different perceptions about what makes a team and much of the literature reflects production processes within manufacturing organisations. With the growing size of the service economy further research must be undertaken to understand teams within this context.</P><P>On the basis of these difficulties, one may expect that it is impossible to compare teams that exist in different organisations, different product markets, different labour markets and indeed, different sectors of the economy. However, reflecting upon earlier industrial sociology that compares diverse industries this thesis makes such a comparison. A Government-owned call centre and a food-processing organisation are compared throughout this thesis. Both are smaller worksites of larger organisations. The intent of this thesis is to examine such diverse teams to consider how teams influence factors such as control, cooperation and resistance within organisations.</P><P>This thesis was developed to consider all employee actions in the workplace. This includes actions that would be viewed by management as positive and actions that would be considered by management as deviant or negative. Hence, a research methodology was required that was able to investigate actions that occur below the surface of formal and consensual rules and uncover any covert actions that were present in the workplace. To investigate such actions it was essential for the researcher to develop relationships with the research subjects that allowed a free exchange of information. Consequently, an ethnographic case study method was determined to be the most appropriate form of data collection. With the majority of fieldwork taking place over a period of eight months, the researcher was able to uncover some interesting actions in each workplace. Hence, a contribution to the literature can be made considering employee acts of resistance in new workplaces that are not changing to, but begin with a team structure.</P><P>This thesis investigates how work teams influence the level of control, cooperation and resistance within new organisations. It has been found that the work teams have little clear influence on aspects of worker control; this is primarily driven by managerial strategy. Where management maintain a hierarchical decision-making structure (even if it is flatter than the structure could be), then limited control will be devolved to the members of the work teams. The levels of both cooperation and resistance on the other hand are influenced primarily by the amount of off-task time that the team members have. Where employees have a greater level of off-task time, they have the scope and opportunity to engage in higher levels of cooperative acts, as well as higher levels of resistance. Furthermore, this thesis adds support to the notion that teams can exist in organisations without there being a high level of teamworking present. Teams in these organisations are a structure of social organisation and managerial control rather than employee empowerment. The notion of the managerially constructed work team seems to have some longevity and hence, cannot be completely dismissed as a managerial fad.</P>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Texas, Aug., 2009. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Increasingly, knowledge-based tasks such as new product development and market research are being conducted by geographically dispersed teams. Early evidence from knowledge-based view of the firm and geographically dispersed work literatures suggests that at least four kinds of knowledge gaps---transactive memory system, mutual knowledge, categorization and situated knowledge---exist because of the (dispersed) structure of the knowledge management context . Dispersed members therefore cannot take for granted that they have a common context, making dispersed collaboration problematic. / The dissertation - a qualitative, theory-generating exercise - seeks to address the question, 'how do dispersed teams collaborate to create useful knowledge?' Specifically, the research question examines the integral elements of the knowledge creation process, the negotiation of knowledge gaps for co-creating a common context, and the association between the negotiation of these gaps with the efficiency of the knowledge creation process, effectiveness of new knowledge created, and cohesion in the team. This research has been conducted in two phases - an exploratory ethnographic study followed by a replication study. / Analysis of the data instead directed my attention to the critical role of moderating variables such as degree of familiarity among dispersed team members, degree of redundancy of knowledge structures among them and the nature of task on the perceived presence or absence of gaps. These findings clarify the literature by differentiating between the structure and the properties of the knowledge management context and therefore develop a more comprehensive model of these moderating variables that have the potential to affect the dispersed knowledge creation process. Specifically, the findings demonstrate that degree of redundancy is positively associated with the efficiency of the knowledge creation process. These studies also suggest that dispersed collaboration may be less different from collocated collaboration than previously thought. Finally, these studies contribute to the dispersed work literature by suggesting that all kinds of dispersed work are not alike and face-to-face meetings may not be necessary for all types of dispersed work. / These findings are used to develop a theory of dispersed knowledge work and have implications for determining whether and in what contexts geographic distance matters for conducting knowledge work. One implication is that perceptions of distance may be at least as important as the objective aspects of distance. Another implication is that whether geographic distance matters will actually depend upon the competitive strategy of the firm.

This dissertation examines the emergent understanding of the dynamics of Remote Employment in an organisation. It reflects on the workings of value adding employment where individual employees operate from home and away from the "office environment". In so doing, it hopes to raise within organisations new levels of awareness that will make this employment form meaningful and fruitful. Within the body of the dissertation, relevant theoretical constructs are outlined. These form the basis on which emergent understanding using Systems Thinking is discussed. These theoretical constructs are placed upon an underlying foundation that focuses upon Systems of Meaning and the influencing factors that both encourage relationships and best accommodate participant stakeholders. Meaningful relationships are explored from a cognitive perspective. Such an approach also serves as a proposition for sustaining all forms of employment relationships irrespective of the participants particular work locality. / Thesis (M.Com.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2002.

Thesis (MProjectManagement)--University of South Australia, 2007.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- McMaster University, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 149-166). Also available via World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph.D. in Information Sciences)--Naval Postgraduate School, September 2007. / Dissertation Advisor(s): Nissen, Mark ; Arquilla, John "September 2007." Includes bibliographical references (p. 239-277). Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Pepperdine University, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-71).

Univ., Diss.--Göteborg, 2004.