Transformation to self-managing teams: lessons learned. A look at current trends and data
| Date | 09 April 2018 |
| Pages | 81-84 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/SHR-10-2017-0072 |
| Published date | 09 April 2018 |
| Author | Maarten Renkema,Tanya Bondarouk,Anna Bos-Nehles |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Employee behaviour |
Research and Results
Transformation to self-managing teams:
lessons learned
A look at current trends and data
Maarten Renkema, Tanya Bondarouk and Anna Bos-Nehles
The Dutch healthcare sector has
witnessed a recent shift
towards self-managing teams
(SMTs), wherein many organizations
are undergoing a transition from a
top-down hierarchical organization to
a bottom-up team-based
organization. We have known
challenges and benefits of team work
for decades: in the 1960s, Emery and
Trist began their work on this subject
(Emery and Trist, 1965). In 1993,
Caudron (1993) warned that “the
decision to implement self-directed
teams should not be taken lightly. The
process requires an enormous
amount of organization and planning”.
Currently, we are witnessing the next
wave of SMTs. Let us not disputethe
most appropriate terms, whether
these are “self-directed”,
“empowered”, “autonomous”,
“regulating” or “self-managing”
teams. The classifying characteristics
survived through the years: the group
has a whole task, and each member
is equipped with certain skills
required to accomplish thesetasks;
the group has autonomy for decision-
making and performance
management. Then, why do we talk
about SMTs and their
conceptualization again?We suggest
two answers here. First, there is
enough empirical evidence
suggesting that SMTs are often
accompanied by more flexibility,
better use of employees’ creative
capacities (Wageman, 1997),
increased quality of work lifeand
decreased employee absenteeism
and turnover (Moorhead et al., 1998),
eventually resulting in increasedjob
satisfaction and increased
organizational commitment(Cohen
and Ledford Jr, 1994,Cordery et al.,
1991). It means that working with
SMTs offers a variety of positive
outcomes. Therefore, the second
reason for our increased interest is
that organizations, leadershipand
technologies (work processes)were
not yet ready to establish SMTs, and
often played a terminating factorfor
the implementation of SMTs. Hence,
SMTs require a new way of
organizing, structuring andleadership
in organisations. With rapid
technological developments,as well
as globalisation and digitization,and
active involvement of customersand
clients in the business value
proposition, we observe that the
“forgotten” SMTs are returningto the
business agenda.
Challenges of the transition
towards SMTs
One of the major challenges currently
in the SMT routines is to transfer
organisations from a traditional
functional hierarchical structure
towards a self-managing one. The
Dutch healthcare sector became the
Maarten Renkema is based at the
University of Twente, Enschede, The
Netherlands.
Tanya Bondarouk is Chair and
Anna Bos-Nehles is Assistant
Professor, both at the Department
of Human Resource Management,
University of Twente, Enschede,
The Netherlands.
DOI 10.1108/SHR-10-2017-0072 VOL. 17 NO. 2 2018, pp. 81-84, ©Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1475-4398 jSTRATEGIC HR REVIEW jPAGE 81
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