High performance teams: an investigation of the effect on self-management towards performance

Paper aims: Work design is being constantly transformed by technology and requirements for polyvalent workers piloting the work system instead of operating it. This paper investigates self-management teams’ implementation and its effects on performance. A Brazilian cosmetics company case study of team development was used as a guidance for this investigation. Originality: Consistent connection between team development theory and practice, exploring sociotechnical approach and empowerment best practices. Research method: Boxplot analysis is performed over team building stages along with One-way Variance Analysis to test average performance differences among stages’ transitions. Tukey test was sequentially applied to identify its statistic differences in pairs. Descriptive analysis and Analysis of Means are complementarily applied for shop-floor accidents performance assessment. Main findings: Team development reached the expected performance over team stages. Forming to storming, though, was the only transition with no performance average gains. Storming to norming was the highest improvement, which meets sociotechnical principles. Moreover, mean of accidents was inferior at performing stage comparing to the overall mean of accidents during the whole project, highlighting additional shop-floor safety improvements enhanced by the new work design. Implications for theory and practice: This paper is restricted to a single sociotechnical environment. Therefore, generic conclusions imply further investigation.