Bewitched,bothered and bewildered: The meaning and experience of teamworking for employees in an automobile company

Abstract

Recent managerial discourses share similar assumptions about organizations and the means to their greater efficiency. One of these is a faith in teamworking as a method of ensuring that human resources are effectively mobilized to achieve the unquestioned benefits of any specific technology or prescriptive programme. In this article we will explore what teamworking means for employees' lives within an automobile manufacturing company. We question the taken-for-granted assumption within managerialist accounts that teamworking will simply be welcomed by, and is beneficial for, employees. We also offer a ray of hope to those critics who warn of the normalizing effects of teamworking. We argue that, just as there is no single form of teamworking, there is also no single experience of teamworking. We broadly identify the reactions of three types of employees as a heuristic device. First, there are those who seem `bewitched' by the discourse of teamworking and who internalize its norms and values. Second, there are those who are `bothered' by the ideology in the sense that they are disturbed by its incessant intrusion into their lives and by the reactions of colleagues who seem enthralled by the team discourse. Finally, there are employees who are `bewildered' by teamworking mainly because of its attack upon established ways of doing things. There are, of course, overlaps and variations between and within these categories but we believe that they provide a useful way of presenting a complex set of research findings. Overall, we argue that employees are not nearly as convinced by the discourse of teamworking as its advocates presume or its critics fear