ABSTRACT

As we turn the corner in the 1990s and head toward the 21st century, it is clear that organizations of the future will be more technologically sophisticated and team-based. Gone are the behemoths operating in stable environmentstoday’s organizations tend to be high-tech fluid entities interacting with dynamic environments. This changing nature of the world of work presents many challenges to human resource professionals, not the least of which is the necessity to develop assessment strategies for diagnosing and developing teambased organizations (Cohen, 1993). The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate a methodology for assessing processes within and between organizational teams operating in nuclear power plants (NPPs). We begin by sculpting a brief theoretical overview of team processes in the context of sociotechnical systems theory. Next, we outline a method for gathering and analyzing team process assessment data using a small demonstration sample. Finally, we discuss the application of our approach to other high-tech dynamic settings.