An Empirical Analysis of Team-Building Research

Abstract

Thirty-six published studies of an organization development strategy, team building, were reviewed with a focus on (1) research designs, (2) sample sizes, (3) dependent variables, and (4) the length of time the intervention was investigated. Team building appears to be an intervention with great potential for improving employee attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors as well as organi zational effectiveness. However, a lack of rigor in the research methods used to evaluate it precludes any firm conclusions about which improvements were functions of team building and which were due to uncontrolled variables. Experimental rigor is unlikely to increase because of problems inherent in organization development research. Future researchers should coordinate their efforts to reach a better understanding of the effectiveness of team building.