Restructuring teams for the re-engineered organization

Abstract

Executive Overview Despite the increased use of teams throughout American businesses, their success has been limited. The increased reliance on teams can be traced, in part, to the use of teams in Japan. But Japanese culture differs radically from U.S. culture. Techniques that work in a collectivist, homogeneous and conforming society (Japan) are not likely to survive wholesale transfer to an individualistic, heterogeneous and conflictive society (the U.S.). It is not surprising, then, that the use of teams has fostered results less dramatic in the U.S. than in Japan. We discuss how teams can be designed to take advantage of dominant (and unique) U.S. values. Teams that value and endorse dissent, that adopt fluid structures, and that recognize how they are embedded in a social and political network will succeed, even in a highly individualistic culture.