Self-managing teams have a history of mixed effects for the employees involved. Organizational contexts reflecting different constellations of power may be useful for understanding these different outcomes. We theorize two different organizational mandates (management-initiated versus craft) and three social contexts (union presence, abusive management, and minority concentration) that may be consequential for work group outcomes. Content analysis of the population of workplace ethnographies (N = 204) provides data with a combination of organizational variability and rich in-depth descriptions of work group outcomes useful for evaluating these expectations. Union environments are found to be essential for the most positive team outcomes. Minority concentrated work groups benefit especially from the craft organization of work. And management abuse dramatically undercuts any positive consequences of management-initiated teams for employees. We conclude with a discussion of the centrality of power for understanding work group outcomes, an insight useful for resolving ongoing debates in the field about the conditions that underwrite success or failure of team arrangements.
Adler, Paul S., and Bryan Borys1996‘Two types of bureaucracy: Enabling and coercive’ . Administrative Science Quarterly41: 61-89.
2.
Ancona, Deborah Gladstein, and David F. Caldwell1992‘Demography and design: Predictors of new product team performance’. Organization Science3: 321-341.
3.
Applebaum, Herbert1981Royal blue: The culture of construction workers. New York: Holt.
4.
Armbrüster, Thomas, and Diether Gebert2002‘Uncharted territories of organizational research: The case of Karl Popper’s Open society and its enemies’. Organization Studies23: 169-188.
5.
Bacon, N., and P. Blyton2004‘Trade union responses to work restructuring: Exploring union orientations and action’. Work, Employment and Society18: 749-773.
6.
Barker, James R.1999The discipline of teamwork: Participation and concertive control. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE .
7.
Batt, Rosemary2004‘Who benefits from teams? Comparing workers, supervisors, and managers’. Industrial and Labor Relations Review43: 183-212.
8.
Cappelli, Peter, and Nikolai Rogovsky1998‘Employee involvement and organizational citizenship: Implications for labor law reform and "lean production"’. Industrial and Labor Relations Review51: 633-653.
9.
Cortina, Lilia M.2008‘Unseen injustice: Incivility as modern discrimination in organizations’. Academy of Management Review33: 55-75.
10.
Courpasson, David, and Françoise Dany2003‘Indifference or obedience? Business firms as democratic hybrids’. Organization Studies24/8: 1231-1260.
11.
Courpasson, David, and Stewart Clegg2006‘Dissolving the iron cages? Tocqueville, Michels, bureaucracy and the perpetuation of elite power’. Organization13/3: 319-343.
12.
Crowley, Martha, Daniel Tope, Lindsey Joyce Chamberlain, and Randy Hodson2010‘Neo-Taylorism at work: Occupational change in the post-Fordist era’. Social Problems57.
13.
Edwards, Paul K., Margaret Collinson, and Chris Rees
14.
1998‘The determinants of employee responses to total quality management’. Organization Studies19: 449-473.
15.
Ezzamel, Mahmoud, and Hugh Willmott1998‘Accounting for teamwork: A critical study of group-based systems of organizational control’. Administrative Science Quarterly43: 358-396.
16.
Foucault, Michel1988Politics, philosophy, culture: Interviews and other writings . New York: Routledge.
17.
Grenier, Guillermo J.1988Inhuman relations: Quality circles and anti-unionism in American industry. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
18.
Hackman, Richard J.2002Leading teams: Setting the stage for great performance . Boston, MA: Harvard Business School .
19.
Hackman, Richard J.2003‘Learning more by crossing levels: Evidence from airplanes, hospitals, and orchestras’. Journal of Organizational Behavior24: 905-922.
20.
Hammersley, Martyn1997‘Qualitative data archiving: Some reflections on its prospects and problems’. Sociology31: 131-142.
21.
Hanappi-Egger, Edeltraud1996‘The hidden trade-offs of cooperative work: An empirical study’. Organization Studies17: 1011-1022.
22.
Haydu, Jeffrey1988Between craft and class. Berkeley: University of California Press.
23.
Hindmarsh, Jon, and Alison Pilnick2007‘Knowing bodies at work: Embodiment and ephemeral teamwork in anaesthesia’. Organization Studies28/9: 1395-1416.
24.
Hodson, Randy2001Dignity at work. New York: Cambridge University Press.
25.
Hodson, Randy2002‘Worker participation and teams: New evidence from analyzing organizational ethnographies’. Economic and Industrial Democracy23: 491-528.
26.
Hodson, Randy, and Vincent J. Roscigno2004‘Organizational success and worker dignity: Complimentary or contradictory?’American Journal of Sociology110: 672-708.
27.
Horwitz, Sujin K., and Irwin B. Horwitz2007‘The effects of team diversity on team outcomes: A meta-analytic review of team demography’ . Journal of Management33: 987-1015.
28.
Jackson, Robert Max1984The formation of craft labor markets. Orlando, FL: Academic.
29.
Jacoby, Sanford2004Employing bureaucracy: Managers, unions, and the transformation of work in the 20th Century. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
30.
Jenkins, Alan1994‘Teams: From "ideology" to analysis’. Organization Studies15/6: 849-860.
31.
Knights, David, and Darren McCabe1999‘"Are there no limits to authority?" TQM and organizational power’. Organization Studies20: 197-224.
32.
Knights, David, and Darren McCabe2000‘Bewitched, bothered and bewildered: The meaning and experience of teamworking for employees in an automobile company’. Human Relations53/1: 1481-1517.
33.
Kochan, Thomas A., and R.D. Landsbury1997‘Lean production and changing employment in the international auto industry’. Economic and Industrial Democracy18: 597-620.
34.
Leicht, Kevin1989‘Unions, plants, jobs and workers: An analysis of union satisfaction and participation’. Sociological Quarterly30: 331-362.
35.
Lloyd, Timothy C., and Patrick B. Mullen1990Lake Erie fishermen: Work identity and tradition. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
36.
Maguire, Steve, and Nelson Phillips2008 "‘Citibankers" at Citigroup: A study of the loss of institutional trust after a merger’. Journal of Management Studies45/2: 372-401.
37.
McCarl, Robert1985The District of Columbia’s fire fighters’ project . Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
38.
McHugh, Patrick P.2007‘Collective bargaining context and worker attitudes: Comparing team and traditional work systems’. Journal of Labor Research28: 697-713.
39.
McNabb, Robert, and Keith Whitfield1997‘Unions, flexibility, team working and financial performance’. Organization Studies18/5: 821-838.
40.
Milkman, Ruth1997Farewell to the factory: Auto workers in the late twentieth century. Berkeley: University of California Press.
41.
Minssen, Heiner2005‘Challenges of teamwork in production: Demands of communication’. Organization Studies27/1: 103-124.
42.
Mouly, V. Suchitra, and Jayaram K. Sankaran1997‘On the study of settings marked by severe superior-subordinate conflict’. Organization Studies18/2: 175-192.
43.
Mueller, Frank, Stephen Procter, and David Buchanan2000‘Teamworking in its context(s): Antecedents, nature and dimensions’. Human Relations53: 1387-1424.
44.
Niemel, Jukka, and Satu Kalliola2007‘Team membership and experiences of work in the Finnish context’. Economic and Industrial Democracy28: 552-588.
45.
Ortiz, Luis1998‘Union response to teamwork: The case of Opel Spain’ . Industrial Relations Journal29: 42-57.
46.
Ospina, Sonia1996Illusions of opportunity. Albany, NY : State University of New York Press.
47.
Pelled, Lisa Hope, Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, and Katherine R. Xin1999‘Exploring the black box: An analysis of work group diversity, conflict, and performance’ . Administrative Science Quarterly44: 1-28.
Roberts, Glenda S.1994Staying on the line: Blue-collar women in contemporary Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
50.
Roscigno, Vincent J., Randy Hodson and Steven H. Lopez2009‘Understanding workplace incivilities: Interest conflicts, social closure and organizational chaos’. Work, Employment and Society23: 747-773.
51.
Roscigno, Vincent J., and Randy Hodson2004‘The organizational and social foundations of worker resistance’. American Sociological Review69: 14-39.
52.
Salin, Denise2003‘Ways of explaining workplace bullying: A review of enabling, motivating and precipitating structures and processes in the work environment’. Human Relations56: 1213-1232.
53.
Sewell, Graham1998‘The discipline of teams: The control of team-based industrial work through electronic and peer surveillance’. Administrative Science Quarterly43: 397-428.
54.
Sinclair, Amanda1992‘The tyranny of a team ideology’. Organization Studies13: 611-626.
55.
Smith, Vicki1990Managing in the corporate interest: Control and resistance in an American bank. Berkeley: University of California Press.
56.
Sprigg, Christine A., Paul R. Jackson, and Sharon K. Parker2000‘Production teamworking: The importance of interdependence and autonomy for employee strain and satisfaction’ . Human Relations53: 1519-1543.
57.
Stinchcombe, Arthur L.1959‘Bureaucratic and craft administration of production’ . Administrative Science Quarterly4: 168-187.
58.
Swerdlow, Marian1998Underground women: My years as a New York City subway conductor. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
59.
Tope, Daniel, Lindsey Joyce Chamberlain, Martha Crowley, and Randy Hodson2005‘The benefits of being there: Evidence from the literature on work’. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography34: 470-493.
60.
Townsend, Keith2007‘Who has control in teams without team-working? ’ Economic and Industrial Democracy28: 622-649.
61.
Tsui, Anne S., and Barbara A. Gutek1999Demographic differences in organizations. New York: Lexington .
62.
Vallas, Steven P.2003‘Why teamwork fails: Obstacles to workplace change in four manufacturing plants’. American Sociological Review68: 223-250.
63.
Vallas, Steven P.2007‘Paleo-paralysis? Work, organizations and the labour process debate’. Organization Studies28/9: 1379-1385.
64.
Whitley, Richard2006‘Understanding differences: Searching for social processes that construct and reproduce variety in science and economic organization’ . Organization Studies27/8: 1153-1177.
65.
Zárraga, Celia, and Jaime Bonache2005‘The impact of team atmosphere on knowledge outcomes in self-managed teams’. Organization Studies26: 661-681.
