Designing Team-Based Organizations

SUSAN ALBERS MOHRMAN is a senior research scientist at the Center for Effective Organizations (CEO) in the School of Business Administration at the University of Southern California. She is the author or coauthor of several books, including Employee Involvement and Total Quality Management (with E. E. Lawler III, and G. E. Ledford, Jr., Jossey-Bass, 1992). SUSAN G. COHEN is a research scientist at the Center (CEO) and serves on the executive committee for the Western Academy of Management. ALLAN M. MOHRMAN is associate director and research scientist at the CEO. He has authored or coauthored several books including Large-Scale Organizational Change (with S. Mohrman, G. Ledford, E. E. Lawler III, and T. G. Cummings, Jossey-Bass, 1989).

"A terrific book! It makes a tremAndous contribution by movingforward the state of the art in organization design." (David A.Nadler, chairman, Delta Consulting Group Inc.) "In an era when competitive forces demand that corporations movetoward a team-based organization, this book is must reading forexecutives. Based on careful research, it provides the best andmost comprehensive road map I have seen for designing andimplementing the paradigm shift companies must make to survive andprosper in the decades ahead." (Michael Beer, professor of businessadministration, Graduate School of Business Administration, HarvardUniversity) "This book is enormously important and timely. It is a scholarly,yet highly practical, guide to the future design of the 21stcentury organization--where organizations will be predominantlyteam-based and designed for high performance knowledge management."(Stuart S. Winby, director, Product Processes Change Management,Hewlett-Packard Company)

• ORGANIZATIONS AND TEAMS. Designing Organizations for Knowledge Work. Exploring the Contours of a Team-Based Organization. THE DESIGN SEQUENCE. Step One: Identifying Work Teams. Step Two: Specifying Integration Needs. Step Three: Clarifying Management Structure and Roles. Step Four: Designing Integration Processes. Step Five: Managing Performance. IMPLEMENTATION CONCERNS. Identifying New Responsibilities and Skills. Defining Empowerment for the Team Environment. Developing Organizational Support Systems. Making the Transition to Team-Based Design. Facing the Challenges Ahead.