Teamwork: A case study on development and performance

The most popular model of team development in Dutch socio-technical literature is a linear approach, which states that teams develop in four successive phases. A method for defining the particular phase a team is in was developed a number of years ago and was recently used in a large-scale survey at Volvo's cab manufacturing plant in Umea (northern Sweden). Thirty-seven semi-autonomous teams were studied at this plant during a seven-month period. This paper examines the development of the teams and addresses the effects of team development on overall team performance. The aspect of team development was correlated to both performance in terms of quality of working life (QWL) and business performance (BP), which is an empirically unexplored field within team literature. The linear phase approach of team development could not be proved. Nevertheless, teams were found to develop in four important areas, with each aspect significantly affecting team performance