Leading for Change

EDD 8511: Leading for Change Week Six Assignment: Essay #2

by Mr. Timothy Lamar Shannon, B.A., M.S. Ed.

Assignment Presented to the Fischler School of Education and Human Services in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education

Dr. Ron Parlett, Ed.D., Instructor Leading for Change Course Number: EDD 8511—CRN: 50250

Nova Southeastern University 2011-2012

2 In recent years, a myriad of empirical research findings and claims by scholars postulate that organizational teams can have positive benefits and may even improve organizational performance. Today, organizational trends have encouraged working in groups or teams, rather than working as individuals. More specifically, teams are said to contribute to better outcomes for business organizations due to improved performance of employees (Applebaum & Batt, 1994), productivity (Glassop, 2002; Hamilton, Nickerson, & Owan, 2003) or organizational responsiveness and flexibility (Friedman & Casner-Lotto, 2002). At best, the assertion that teams can have a positive, albeit modest, impact on enhancing employees’ performance and attitudes is evident in the author’s work site. By definition work teams: (a) are composed of two or more individuals, (b) who exist to perform organizationally relevant tasks, (c) share one or more common goals, (d) interact socially, (e) exhibit task interdependencies (i.e., workflow, goals, outcomes), (f) maintain and manage boundaries, and (g) are embedded in an organizational context that sets boundaries, constrains the team, and influences exchanges with other units in the broader entity (Alderfer, 1977; Hackman, 1987; Hollenbeck, Ilgen, Sego, Hedlund, Major, & Phillips, 1995; Kozlowski, Gully, McHugh, Salas, & Cannon-Bowers, 1996a; Kozlowski, Gully, Nason, & Smith, 1999; Salas, Dickinson, Converse, & Tannenbaum, 1992). Team work can be defined as a group of individuals interdependently working together to solve problems or accomplish task (Manz &...