Teams management: conflict and organizational behaviour

In response to growing demands for efficiency and flexibility, organizations are shifting to team-based structures (Boyett and Conn 1991). Between the characteristics of a Successful Employee for a Fortune 500 Company, identifies “Ability to Function as Part of a Team” (Fortune, 2011). The reasons given to justify why teams are important, if not fundamental, for organizations are diverse. The concepts of teamwork, team building, and self-directed work teams have penetrated nearly every segment of the business world in recent decades. The first part of this chapter introduces both mainstream views and critical studies of teams at work. On one hand, mainstream view elaborates the assumptions and the importance attached to the idea that teamwork is good for organizational performance (Drucker, 1992; Katzenbach and Smith, 1993; Wheelan, 2009), and that teamwork favours flexibility, motivation and learning. Summarizing the arguments of both popular and academic mainstream literature, we can suggest that team working ranks highly on these dimensions that are central for today's organization: flexibility, motivation and learning (see Hackman, 1987; Campion, Medsker and Higgs, 1993; Cohen, Ledford and Spreitzer, 1996; Tannebaum, Beard and Salas, 1992; West, 2004). On the other hand, critical studies present the problems of teamwork to show that can become prescriptions and lose their relevance for understanding the challenges and difficulties of organized life. Organizational life is complex, ambiguous and embedded in relations of power. Teamwork is neither intrinsically good nor new.