Teamwork: The new competitive business strategy
Abstract
Some decades ago, people were starting to realize the emergence of teamwork as an important business strategy. In the eighties, the world saw the outline of an emerging movement toward self-directed teams, cross-functional teams, and a total quality management process that was heavily base on teams. Since then, reengineering has leaped
on to the scene and been embraced with an almost religious zeal. Even more recently,
people have witnessed a fascination with something called a ―high performing
organization‖. But both of these trends – reengineering and high performing organizations
– include teams as part of their core strategy. Teams are not fading away like so many other management methods because no matter what the organizational goal, teams are integral to success.
However, in Vietnam, the definition of ―teamwork‖ or working in teams seems not
familiar with Vietnamese employees or business organizations. Thus, this research is set
to introduce about teamwork and find out strategy to use teams in business organization effectively. The study utilizes the qualitative approach with the in-depth interview method aiming to conduct a strategy to use teams successfully.
The overall findings present some benefits (which are greater productivity, job satisfaction and better problem-solving), disadvantages (such as social loafing and diversity) and characteristics (Team Composition and Structure, Team Leadership, Organizational
Support, Team Norms and Team Cohesiveness and Interdependent and the Back-up Plan)
of an effective team. Finally, recommendation proposed for managers and business organizations in Vietnam intend to use teams in their company.