When contracting with private companies for support services, districts should define goals and requirements; develop requests for proposals; and create a team with legal, financial, user, and task-management expertise. Contracts should be in plain English, avoid open-ended lists, define terms, and specify service provision details. (MLH)

The learning organization learns continually and has the capacity to transform itself. This article presents a model addressing three levels of interrelated learning (individual, team, and organizational) and discusses seven action imperatives. Creating continuous learning opportunities, promoting dialog and inquiry, and building teams are vital…

Tests an integrative model of the relationships among diversity, conflict, and performance, using a sample of 45 electronics-industry worker teams. Functional background diversity drives task conflict; multiple types of diversity drive emotional conflict. Task conflict affects task performance more favorably than does emotional conflict. (102…

Uses a network study of 120 projects undertaken by 41 divisions in a large electronics company to examine development of new products in the least amount of time. Weak interunit ties help project teams search for useful knowledge in other subunits but impede transfer of complex knowledge. (49 references) (MLH)

A tower-building exercise originally intended to illustrate how to direct subordinates was redesigned to reflect contemporary organizational structures. It helps participants examine the issue of who really leads in nonhierarchical, self-managed teams. (JOW)

Technology is allowing people with differing venues and schedules to meet and form powerful teams. To succeed, virtual teams must hold some synchronous, real-time meetings, follow a five-step continuous-improvement model, provide coaching and support, encourage face-to-face contact, and expect trial and experimentation. (MLH)

In a geriatrics course 15 undergraduates participated in problem-based tutorials on interprofessional health-care teamwork during clinical placement. Compared with 15 controls, the experimental group showed significantly greater knowledge but no difference in perceptions of interprofessional functions. (SK)

Examines three theses: (1) work teams should be analyzed as object-oriented activity systems; (2) the nature of teams depends on the type of production in which they are implemented; and (3) fluid forms of collaborative work organization are displacing stable teams. (SK)

Teachers are separated by isolated classrooms and tightly packed schedules, rarely working with colleagues on matters related to teaching and learning. This paper describes benefits of collaborative team structures in schools, discusses potential pitfalls, and notes that the challenge is to develop teams with a high group IQ that can work…

Suggests that many undergraduate management faculty use teams for case study analysis but few give students the opportunity to experience teamwork in an organizational setting. Describes courses at Western Michigan University that provide a team-based learning experience to management-education majors. (JOW)

A study of 178 graduate students in organizational behavior assessed their learning style with Kolb's Learning Style Inventory. Factors that affected effective teamwork included motivation, attitude toward group work, learning style, and valuing other people's learning styles. (SK)

Today's companies are looking for managers who are independent and have the courage of their convictions. Although companies want leaders who will speak their minds, the new leaders must be team players who are devoted to helping to realize the chief operating officer's vision. (JOW)

For 345 Asian participants in adventure learning, the cultural value of collectivism was negatively related to changes in task participation and social support. Changes in these two teamwork attitudes predicted similar changes in team spirit and organizational identification. Adventure learning might produce higher attitude changes in Western…

Interviews with female employees of a clothing company moving to lean production and teamwork indicate that Taylorism is being reinvented in the contemporary workplace. Restructuring produces higher productivity but greater work pressures and lower wages, despite rhetoric about autonomy, job satisfaction, and workplace democracy. (Contains 57…

Describes how one school district transformed its cleaning program to increase efficiency, improve performance, and reduce errors and training time. Equipment cost savings and other benefits experienced from the new cleaning program are revealed, as is how the district overcame worker resistance to change. (GR)