ABSTRACT
Within the past two decades organizations have laid a new foundation. The sheer complexity of modern-day work relies heavily on new technologies, a wider range of client populations and a more distributed focus. Organizations are increasingly turning to teams to achieve their strategic objectives in this new context; that is, when the goals are difficult, tasks are interdependent and when the consequence of failure is high (Salas, Kosarzycki, Tannenbaum & Carnegie, 2005). Large corporations and small businesses alike have utilized teams as a technique to adapt to the changing environment of work. Longitudinal surveys indicate a 44 percent increase in the prevalence of self-managed work teams among Fortune 1000 companies between 1987 and 1999 (Lawler, Mohrman & Benson, 2001). Smaller organizations have also heavily instituted team-based work into their operations. In fact, 82 percent of small organizations surveyed by Training magazine in their 1992 industry report, indicated that they used some type of team (Gordon, 1992).
