ABSTRACT
The task determines the primary focus of team activities. Confusion about reasons to work in a team and what to accomplish might be due to lack of collective regulation of work, a suitable work design and collective challenging goals. The chapter describes how collective regulation of work is the basis for building a shared perception of work. It is fundamental that a team’s work is designed in such a way that it is actually suitable for teamwork. Our contribution lies in showing how different work-design features, and the alignment of a set of interrelated features, affect individual team members, team performance and performance outcomes. The chapter covers a range of task performance and knowledge characteristics that affect individual motivation and attitudes and team performance. Work design and goals go hand in hand, and from our normative perspective this means that one should set the stage so that the team can be effective in carrying out both routine and non-routine tasks.
