Most multicultural teams are not as successful as expected. Germany and Sweden are close trade partners and one form of cooperation are German-Swedish project teams. In this thesis the reader will get answers to the following questions: What are the problems and benefits among German-Swedish project team members due to cultural differences and in which way can problems be coped with and benefits be enhanced. This thesis does not focus on virtual teams, the leadership of multicultural teams and the formation of German-Swedish project teams. The main components of the theoretical framework are cultural models which serve as basis for our analysis are Hofstede’s five dimensional model, Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner’s model and Hall’s model. For our research we interviewed eight members of German-Swedish project teams. We discovered problems among German-Swedish project team members deriving from differences in the communication styles, in the focus on cooperation versus task and in dealing with rules. Beneficial in the German-Swedish collaborations is that the cultures complement each other in focusing on the facts versus broadening the subject and in the focus on team spirit versus goal achievement. Another beneficial characteristic is the similarity of the German and Swedish culture. After analysing the problems and benefits due to cultural differences in German-Swedish project teams, we present our concept to reduce the problems in German-Swedish project teams. The concept consists of steps which build up on one another and therefore represent an overall concept which can serve as a basis and inspiration for enhancing the collaboration in German-Swedish project teams. Our concept includes the steps: intercultural training, a mentor system in the team, internal advisors in the company and a cultural evaluation.

Studien söker utreda hur anställda inom en västerländsk organisation som arbetar med forskning och utveckling i Kina kan nå sin fulla potential och göra vad som är bäst för organisationen. Detta innebär att vi måste förstå vad som hindrar de anställda från att göra vad som är bäst för organisationen samt hur de anställda bäst bör styras eller uppmuntras. Med ett kvalitativt synsätt har en fallstudie genomförts hos ett västerländskt företag som etablerat sig i Kina för att sänka sina utvecklingskostnader samt komma närmare den växande marknaden. Management control systems används som ramverk för att utforska hur de anställda påverkas av de olika sätt som de styrs i sitt arbete. Användandet av personnel controls lämpar sig väl för västerländska organisationer som arbetar med FoU i kina. Det är av yttersta vikt att anställa rätt person till rätt arbetsuppgift. För att detta ska vara möjligt är det inte tillräckligt att endast erbjuda en god miljö. Lönen måste även vara hög nog för att inte påverka de anställdas motivation negativt samt göra det möjligt att anställa rätt personer. Förutom detta måste alla arbetsteam hållas stabila under lång tid för att de anställda ska kunna prestera. Cultural controls kan också användas men kräver att organisationens strategi anpassas till de kinesiska normerna samt lägger en större vikt vid att arbetsteam hålls stabila. Goal-setting fungerar väl för att motverka styrproblemet lack of direction men FoU-anställda i Kina motiveras mest i sitt arbete genom autonomi, personligt mästerskap samt ett ”högre syfte”. / The study seeks to investigate how employees in a western organization that works with research and development in China can reach their full potential and do what is best for the organization. This means that we need to understand what prevents employees from doing what is best for the organization and how employees should best be guided or encouraged. With a qualitative approach, a case study is conducted in a western company which was established in China in order to lower their development costs and get closer to the growing market. Management control systems is used as a framework for exploring how the employees are affected by the different ways they are controlled in their work. Use of personnel controls is well suited for western organizations working with R & D in China. It is of highest importance to hire the right person for the right job. For this to be possible, it is not enough to just provide a good environment. The salary must also be high enough to not affect the employees’ motivation negatively and make it possible to hire the right people. Besides this, all teams must be kept stable for a long time in order for the employees to reach high performance. Cultural controls can also be used but requires that the organization’s strategy is adapted to the Chinese norms and puts a greater emphasis on work teams remaining stable. Goal-setting works well to counteract the steering problem lack of direction, but R & D employees in China are most motivated in their work by autonomy, personal mastery, and a “higher purpose”.

Develops the cultural and creative industry is the main policy of the Taiwan government in recent years. Entrepreneurial as cultural creative industry in different stages, what an opportunity, resources and entrepreneurial team to influence an entrepreneurial activity, this is a main topic discussing in this research. This research topic¡¦s is focus on an opportunities, resources and entrepreneurial team. To perform a new business that should existence the natures both of dynamic and complexity. Furthermore, to had sort out three issues within internal factors, this expect to awareness what the differences between with opportunity, resources and entrepreneurial team through this research as well as tries to understand the entrepreneurial team how to respond it when opportunity and resources change in the different entrepreneurial processes. And other, this research had been analyzed an entrepreneurial team how to influence by these factors. The results obtain from research that social culture, industrial environment and technological progress still influencing in the first stage of entrepreneurial processes obviously. Under the social culture's vicissitude, people's life accomplishment had been promoted; the most of people are pursue to balancing between the life and culture. Thus, this makes the industrial environment have to the change, in other, the traditional creators should out of box as well, and establish a model of culture creativity. Entrepreneurial processes within gestation stage, it had emphasis the entrepreneurial team's composition and characteristic. Prior knowledge and shared values have influence obviously in this stage. It can be explain that entrepreneurial team's composition has complementary or similar in the prior knowledge. Let the members of entrepreneurial team no matter can complement one another in the communication or the specialty. Because they can be share their values with other into the team members, to conduct and policy-making standard. It should reduce the nonessential conflict. Finally, entrepreneurial processes within infancy stage that can explanation as the competitive advantages of entrepreneur from intangible assets. Intangible assets are from philosophy, annotation technique and style of creator. In this way, creator's intangible asset is not the tangible asset or the organizational capability can substitute.

<p>Bakgrund: Tanken bakom att arbeta i team är att det skapar mervärde då det möjliggör integrationen av specialiserade egenskaperna hos teamets medlemmar. I detta sammanhang används ofta begreppet synergieffekt. Men ofta föreligger det exceptionella svårigheter att få team att fungera överhuvudtaget. Flesta misslyckanden i teamarbete handlar om dålig gruppdynamik och ineffektivitet. </p><p>Syfte: Att undersöka gruppdynamiska mönster i integrerade arbetsteam och utforska tänkbara återkommande mönster som skulle antyda att gruppdynamik kan hanteras mer framgångsrikt genom styrning av de faktorer och processer där dessa mönster utvecklas. </p><p>Genomförande: Det empiriska materialet har samlats genom intervjuer med arbetare och ledare från ishockeylag och förskoleteam, två arbetsområden som skiljer sig i ett flertal avseenden; ramarna och villkoren för skapandet och uppehållandet av teamen, samt deras arbetsprocesser och produkter. Detta i ett försök att fånga in det väsentliga i gruppdynamiken genom att söka efter likheter och väga dem mot skillnaderna i hur man löser sina respektiva svårigheter i teamarbetet. </p><p>Resultat: Studien tyder på att återkommande gruppdynamiska mönster existerar i integrerade arbetsteam. Identifiering och styrning av de faktorer och processer där dessa mönster utvecklas förbättrar möjligheterna att skapa ett effektivt presterande arbetsteam.</p> / <p>Background: Teamwork is thought to create added value, because it ables the integration of the specialised qualities of its members for a common goal. Often the term synergy effect is used in this context. However, in many cases there are exceptional difficulties to get the teams to work at all. Most failures in teamwork deal with inefficiency and poor group dynamics. </p><p>Purpose: This study examines group dynamic patterns in highly integrated work teams, and explores possible reoccurring patterns that would suggest that group dynamics could be managed more successfully by monitoring the factors and processes where these patterns arise.</p><p>Research Process: The empirical material was collected by interviewing people from professional ice hockey and pre-school teams, two areas that seemed to differs in most aspects; the framework and conditions for teamwork, maintenance and work processes. This in a quest for determining the essence of favourable group dynamics by searching for similarities and weighing them with the differences in how they solve their respective issues in working as a team.</p><p>Results: The study made indicates the existence of reoccurring group dynamic patterns in highly integrated work teams. The identification and monitoring of the factors and processes from where these patterns arise improves the odds for creating a high performing work team.</p>

Recent reports in the field of medicine have recommended the use of teamwork training to reduce the number of injuries and fatalities from human error. Teamwork training in the field of medicine appears promising, but few empirical evaluations of such programs have confirmed their effectiveness. Existing teamwork training studies have tended to use a traditional, lecture approach to training, with positive but modest results upon teamwork attitudes and behaviors. The current study developed and evaluated a more active teamwork training protocol for trauma resuscitation teams. The training protocol supplemented several medical and non-medical role plays with a lecture and guided discussion for feedback. Forty-one residents participated in the training on one of two days (groups) and completed evaluation measures prior to and immediately following the training program. The training was evaluated with measures of trainee reactions, attitudes towards teamwork, and responses to a situational judgment test (SJT). Analyses compared item and scale scores between pre-training scores and post-training scores. T-tests generally found higher means for post-training behavioral responses than pre-training responses. However, mean comparisons with teamwork attitudes and learning goal orientation did not yield significant differences. An item analysis of the SJT responses (using chi-square) indicated significant response shifts in many items that correspond to the teamwork training content. In summary, results indicated that teamwork training on behavioral choices, but little effect on the self-reported attitudes of trainees.

The relationship between team cohesion and team performance has been extensively studied, but behavioral mediators of this relationship have not been adequately assessed. This study proposed that backup behavior mediates the relationship between team cohesion and team performance. In addition, it was also hypothesized that team goal commitment would moderate the relationship between team cohesion and team backup behavior. 138 participants forming 46 teams of three were assigned to one of fours conditions to test this framework: high cohesion/high goal commitment, high cohesion/low goal commitment, low cohesion/high goal commitment, and low cohesion/low goal commitment. Results indicated no significant differences between conditions. However, correlations and regressions based upon self and observer ratings suggest that team cohesion and team goal commitment, but not backup behavior, hold strong relationships to team errors. Finally, exploratory analyses revealed an interaction between team cohesion and team goal commitment on team performance indices. Lowest performance occurred in teams with low cohesion and low goal commitment, but there were no apparent difference between high and low goal commitment in teams with high cohesion. Implications of these results are discussed in the paper.

In this dissertation, I integrate research on role-based coordination with concepts adapted from the team effectiveness literature to theorize how minimal team structures support effective coordination when people do not work together regularly. I argue that role-based coordination among relative strangers can be interpersonally challenging and propose that team scaffolds (minimal team structures that bound groups of roles rather than groups of individuals) may provide occupants with a temporary shared in-group that facilitates interaction. I develop and test these ideas in a multi-method, multi-site field study of a new work structure, called pods, that were implemented in many hospital emergency departments (EDs) and were sometimes designed to function as team scaffolds.

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Sciences

The present study attempts to extend leader-member exchange theory to the team-level by including team social cohesion and two team-level exchange relationship constructs (i.e., team-level leader-member exchange [LMX] and team-member exchange [TMX]) simultaneously, and by examining antecedents and outcomes associated with these variables. The research model includes transformational leadership and team-members' individualism-collectivism as antecedents of the team relational environment and both team performance and team viability as effectiveness measures. Survey data were collected for a field sample of 89 Airborne Special Operations (ASO) teams in the Korean Army. Each team's effectiveness was rated by three different sources: team members (N=823, 7~11 people per team; M=9.4), regional unit (RU) peers (31~42 peers for each team; M=37.2), and RU commanders (N=17). The hypothesized model and several alternative models were tested three times, using team effectiveness measures from each of the three sources in a separate model. Overall, results from path analyses conducted using EQS were consistent with the hypotheses. Specifically, both team-level LMX and TMX were positively affected by transformational leadership and team members' collectivism. TMX showed a stronger positive association with team social cohesion than did team-level LMX. Team performance was positively affected by TMX, team social cohesion, and transformational leadership in the model that employed team members' ratings as team effectiveness measures. However, when the ratings from RU peers were used as team outcome measures, the path from team social cohesion to team performance remained significant, but the other two paths became non-significant. None of the three variables significantly predicted team performance as rated by RU commanders. When viewed in terms of team viability, team social cohesion showed a significant association with team viability across all three models. Although TMX predicted team viability when team members' ratings were used in the model, it did not predict team viability when the ratings were from either RU peers or RU commanders. Finally, transformational leadership showed a significant positive and negative relationship with the number of collectivists and individualists within a team, respectively, across all three models. The limitations of the present study and recommendations for future research are presented.

Šiuolaikinėje visuomenėje komandinis darbas yra ganėtinai populiarus bei užima svarbią poziciją. Komandos kuriamos remiantis įvairiais tikslais, tačiau vienas iš pagrindinių komandinės veiklos taikymo argumentų – greitesnis bei produktyvesnis sprendimų priėmimas bei kokybiškesni rezultatai. Šis magistro darbas yra ganėtinai aktualus, kadangi komandinio darbo plėtros galimybės Lietuvos švietimo įstaigose yra labai perspektyvios bei gali būti plačiai įgyvendinamos. Darbą sudaro keturios dalys: trys teoriniu pagrindu pagrįstos dalys bei tyrimas. Teorinėje darbo dalyje išanalizuoti įvairių Lietuvos bei užsienio autorių komandinio darbo teoriniai aspektai, pritaikant juos švietimo organizacijoms. Įgyvendintas pagrindinis šio darbo tikslas: išnagrinėta komandinio darbo samprata bei ypatumai, išanalizuota jo nauda, privalumai bei trūkumai, išanalizuota darbuotojų motyvacijos problematika dalyvaujant komandinėje veikloje bei nustatytos komandinio darbo panaudojimo galimybės švietimo įstaigose. Taipogi atskirai nagrinėjama vadovo bei komandos narių atliekamų vaidmenų įtaka komandos darbui, atsakyta į klausimą, kokiais kriterijais remiantis vykdoma komandos narių atranka bei aptartos psichologinės ypatybės. Taip pat išanalizuota bei įvertinta komandinio darbo patirtis Europos šalyse ir jo populiarumo priežastys. Remiantis teorinėmis prielaidomis bei analize, atliktas komandinio darbo tyrimas švietimo organizacijoms. Šioje darbo dalyje buvo stengiamasi įgyvendinti tam tikrus... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / In the modern society team work is quite popular and has a very important role. Teams are created based on different tasks, however, one of the basic arguments while applying team work is quicker and more productive decision making and results of a better quality. The paper is relevant, as possibilities of development of team work in educational organizations in Lithuania are perspective and could be widely realizable. The paper consists of four parts – three parts deal with the theoretical aspect, and there is a research. Theoretical parts analyze how different Lithuanian and foreign authors view theoretical aspects applied in educational organizations. Implementation of the main aim of the paper is carried out that is the concept of team work, benefits, advantages and disadvantages, the topic of employees’ motivation in team work, and possibilities of application it in educational organizations. Furthermore, the influence of leader and members’ role on team work is analyzed, the answer is given on what basis the choice of members is fulfilled and psychological specifications are discussed. The experience and popularity of team work in European countries is analyzed and evaluated. Based on the theoretical assumption and analysis, the research on team work in educational organizations is carried out. This part was aimed at the following tasks – to find out teachers’ opinion and evaluation of the importance of team work and its application and benefit at their working places... [to full text]