Teams,Teamwork and Absence*

We argue that firms with interdependent worker productivity, team production, have a higher cost of absence and, as a consequence, spend additional resources on monitoring absence. As a result, firms with team production should have lower absence rates. We estimate the determinants of absence for blue‐collar workers using a sample of German manufacturing establishments. Workplace teams are used as a proxy for team production. The estimates reveal that firms with teams have lower absence rates, as do smaller establishments. The size effect, however, is unique to establishments with teams, which fits prior theoretical work that has not been previously tested.     

Does Team-Based Compensation Give Rise to Problems When Agents Vary in Their Ability?

This paper reports the results of an experiment on how team heterogeneity in terms of productivity influences both the revenue sharing proposed by the principal to the team and the employees' performance. Experimental evidence shows that when the team is heterogeneous, the principal does not try to motivate the agents through her sharing offer. Regardless of the level of team-based compensation, a large amount of free riding occurs since each agent is mainly influenced by his teammate's behavior. In contrast, when the team is homogeneous, agents are better able to cooperate, reciprocating the principal's offer.     

经营环境的多变与管理理念的转变

从工业时代到信息时代、从体力劳动到智力劳动、从人力资源到经营伙伴、从金融资本到智力资本；从有限市场到全球化、从稳定到变化；从官僚化到民主化、从命令到定向、从孤立到集体活动、从专业化到多样化；从侧重产品和服务到客户取向等经营环境的转型对管理提出了挑战。环境的挑战需要管理理念进行根本转变，包括：一种新的用人哲学，一种新的参与性和民主化的企业文化，激励工具和个人成功的融合，建立在员工需要上的管理政策和实践；与公司目标更紧密的联系，子系统结构对职能化部门的取代，决策权向中层管理者的转移；客户服务取向和价值增加的侧重；企业收缩战略和敏捷化制造；知识管理和智力资本创造的凸现；以及未雨绸缪等。     

Managing Risks in Complex Projects

Dealing effectively with risks in complex projects is difficult and requires management interventions that go beyond simple analytical approaches. This is one finding of a major field study into risk management practices and business processes of 35 major product developments in 17 high‐technology companies. Almost one‐half of the contingencies that occur are not being detected before they impact project performance. Yet, the risk‐impact model presented in this article shows that risk does not affect all projects equally but depends on the effectiveness of collective managerial actions dealing with specific contingencies. The results of this study discuss why some organizations are more successful in detecting risks early in the project life cycle, and in decoupling risk factors from work processes before they impact project performance. The field data suggest that effective project risk management involves an intricately linked set of variables, related to work process, organizational environment, and people. Some of the best success scenarios point to the critical importance of recognizing and dealing with risks early in their development. This requires broad involvement and collaboration across all segments of the project team and its environment, and sophisticated methods for assessing feasibilities and usability early and frequently during the project life cycle. Specific managerial actions, organizational conditions, and work processes are suggested for fostering a project environment most conducive to effective cross‐functional communication and collaboration among all stakeholders, a condition important to early risk detection and effective risk management in complex project situations.     

Trust,individualism and job characteristics as predictors of employee preference for teamwork

Employee resistance has long been recognized as a key constraint on the success of organizational change initiatives. However, it is only recently that employee attitudes towards working in teams has been specifically investigated as a factor influencing team effectiveness. Using data from 218 employees in 40 self-managing work teams, we examined the relationship between trust, individualism, job characteristics and team members' attitudes towards teamwork. Providing a partial test of Mayer et al.'s (1995) relational model of trust, the results indicate that the two situational forms of trust (trust in co-workers and trust in management) were stronger predictors of an employee's preference for teamwork than propensity to trust. Trust in co-workers was found to partially mediate the relationship between a person's propensity to trust strangers and their preference for working in a team. The importance of considering the dispositional variables of propensity to trust and individualism as factors that influence an employee's preference for teamwork, as well as their trust in management, trust in co-workers and their opportunity for skill utilization are discussed.     

Teamwork in Modern Organizations: Implications for Technology Education

Characteristics of teamwork in modern organizations and workplaces are examined, in order to extrapolate the means for imparting teamwork skills within technology education. Goals and tasks for the team, team composition, team-player styles, phases of team development, communication and interpersonal skills, decision making, leadership, and evaluation of team performance are discussed. Teamwork skills are acquired gradually as a result of experience. Mere provision of a joint task to a group of people does not produce teamwork spontaneously. In order to promote teamwork, technological tasks at school need to include considerable degrees of freedom and decision-making by pupils. When the teacher becomes a facilitator of the process, instead of being primarily a source of knowledge and a decision-maker, team members can determine the assignment of roles in the group by themselves. Evaluation of teamwork in technology education is an integral part of alternative assessment.     

The Fear of Exclusion: Individual Effort when Group Formation is Endogenous*

To secure their membership in a popular group, individuals may contribute more to the group's local public good than they would if group formation were exogenous. Those in the most unpopular group do not have this incentive to contribute. This may result in substantial differences in individual effort level between groups. Our model thus provides one explanation for the existence of group‐specific behavioral norms. A principal will prefer exogenous or endogenous group formation depending on whether he prefers high or low levels of the local public good. We analyze two stylized examples: social interaction in schools, and multiple‐task teamwork.     

谈如何建立团结协作与友好竞争的企业团队

文章分析了现阶段企业团队建立面临的问题,阐述了团队建立对企业发展的重要性,研究探讨了企业管理层如何从团队意识、人性关怀、团队目标、人性化管理等方面建立企业团队。     

高科技创新团队组建机理探析

高科技创新团队是完成科技创新的主力军,和一般团队相比它更加高效、更加个性、更加合理。为了满足这些不同的要求,本文构造出三个模型,通过不同的团队匹配模式,来实现高科技创新团队的有效组建。