Teams and their Context: Moving the Team Discussion Beyond Existing Dichotomies

Abstract

The dichotomies which have been proposed to distinguish between what can belabelled `sociotechnical' and `Japanese' teams oversimplify the `team discussion'.They combine team characteristics and contextual factors which should beseparated, contain biases, and have an in®rm basis. As an alternative we proposean analytical framework to improve our theoretical understanding of how relevantcontextual factors impact the design of jobs and organizations.