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Discussion Questions:

1. Volvo made the right decision to use self-directed teams as team approach because self-
directed teams can be highly effective. It enables employees to feel challenged and find
their work meaningful, thus can boost employees’ morale and self-worth.
Then eventually they would feel their importance to the company which in turn would
build loyalty and trust to the company. Despite availability of job offers from other
companies and the current high taxes on their pay raises, employees would stick to the
company where they would feel satisfaction as workers.

2. Cross-functional team or a task force is a group of employees from different departments


which are formed to deal with a specific activity and existing only until the task is
completed while self-directed teams are permanent teams which include employees with
several skills and functions and these combined skills are sufficient to perform a major
organizational task

3. The factors which contribute to the increasing usage of virtual and global teams are the
globalization of companies, international market opportunities and geographic locations.
If given the opportunity, I would like to be a part of a virtual team because I consider it
a career challenge to disseminate information accurately despite language and cultural
barriers through email, voice mail, video-conferencing and other internet technologies
such as softwares which effectively aids as communication tools.

4. As a team leader, my understanding of the five stages of team development can improve
my team’s effectiveness because facilitating social interchanges in the forming stage will
lead to member’s harmonious working relationship; dealing with disagreements and
encouraging participation during storming stage will build smooth interaction and unity
among members; clarification of team member’s roles will lead to elimination of
redundant responsibility during the norming stage; facilitating task accomplishment shall
create a systematic approach to problem solving during the performing stage; and
signifying completion during the adjourning stage would emphasize each member’s work
accomplishment as part of the team as well as personal satisfaction for a job well done.

5. During my high school days, we have a project team which must create a collage that
would demonstrate our team’s campaign against drug addiction. The team’s unstated
norm is to create a collage without cheating by copying other team’s work or spying on
their plan in creating their collage. This norm was developed when our team leader
announced that we have to create a collage which would not only depict our campaign
against drug addiction but also would reflect our personal views regarding that issue.
Although unspoken, we knew that cheating by copying other team’s collage will not
our uniqueness.

6. As a leader of a special-purpose team, I would facilitate communication to team members


with differences or conflicts. I would use mediation technique by discussing the problem/
issue then worked towards a collaborative solution which would be amicable to both
parties involved.
7. As a member of a team, I’m more of a task specialist which means I tend to focus more on
the accomplishment of the task over human needs. On the other hand, I believe that both
the task and socioemotional roles are important for the team’s effectiveness as a whole.
Too much sole usage of each of the abovementioned roles could lead to a team’s failure
of: (1) meeting the social needs of team members; (2) and accomplishing the tasks
assigned to the tam as a whole

8. Team cohesiveness can affect team performance in a positive way because aside from
productivity improvement it could boost member’s morale due to increased
communication, friendly climate and personal satisfaction.

9. The advantages of using teams are: (1) satisfaction of members due to personal
accomplishments, affinity and belongingness to the group; (2) expanded job knowledge
and skills resulting from gathered intellectual resources during team’s decision making
approaches; (3) and organizational responsiveness which means employees become
more flexible to reorganization / reassignment as needed in order to rapidly respond to
changing customer needs while the disadvantages are: (1) power realignment which
creates difficulty among managers who fear the loss of their status and sometimes even
their jobs; (2) free riding of some team members whom does not exert equal effort in
accomplishing tasks compared to the other team members; (3) coordination costs during
task performance wherein there are time and energy losses due to conflicting schedules
of team members; (4) and revising systems would require changes in the organization
which would not be acceptable to other employees.
On a situation like system revision, the disadvantages sometimes outweighs the
advantages because some employees could not cope with changes.

10. The dramatic turnover of one company wherein 40% of its workers and 20% of its
managers resigned during the first year of reorganizing them into teams shows that there
wasn’t a smooth transition happened.
Top management failed to address / weigh properly the advantages and disadvantages of
using teams in their organization and / or studied the feasibility of using teams as the new
management approach.
Managers can ensure smooth transition to teams by facilitating open communication,
information dissemination and proper overseeing of the team’s stages of development.
Questions:

1. The teams described in the case for critical analysis about Acme Mineral Extraction
Company are horizontal teams which are: (1) the task force or cross-functional teams
such as SPITS (“select a problem and implement a tailored solution”) which were formed
to work on specific problems that arises or mentioned during chat meetings, then
disbanded when the problem was solved; (2) and permanent cross-functional teams that
were empowered to make their own decisions and elect their own leaders.

2. The team project succeeded at Wichita plant because Suzanne Howard was fortunate in
finding a cooperative employee named Donald Peterson who agreed to serve as a leader.
And since he was highly respected by his co-workers who believed he knew and
understood their problems encountered at work, the workers decided to give the team
project a try and eventually succeeded in reaching their goal which is to boost
employees’ morale and minimize costs while at Lubbock plant, Howard did not found
anyone like Peterson, an insider that could help her in the team project which Lubbock
plant workers could trust and respect.

3. I would advise Suzanne Howard and her team to talk to top executives and make them
understand that: (1) Lubbock is not Wichita and vice versa; (2) that comparison would
not help (3) as well as pressuring Lubbock employees to become Wichita employees in
terms of productivity and cost reduction would be unfair (4) and to suggest that her team
would consider a different approach of creating the team project at Lubbock which would
be more applicable and acceptable to the employees at the said plant.
I would further tell her that to accomplish the latter: (1) she could formulate a plan of
finding the factors / problems / issues which contributes to the decline in the employees’
morale which affects their productivity and manufacturing costs; (2)and relaying these
issues to the top management and have it known by the employees that she and her team
are helping them and that they are not spies or threats to their jobs.
Once top management resolved the problems, Lubbock employees would be grateful to
her and eventually would become cooperative in her team project since she already
gained their trust and respect.
Ethical Dilemma Case 5 Consumer Safety or Team Commitment

What do you do?

2. Resign. There is no reason to stay in this company and be punished for ethically correct
behavior. Testing the drug will become someone else’s responsibility.

Nancy should not stay or remain in a company which does not: (1) give importance or
weight with her capability and knowledge as a medical personnel; (2) care for the
consequences / outcome / result of testing the original formulation of Loperamide liquid
treatment for diarrhea which contains 44 times more saccharin content than the allowed
amount on a 12-ounce softdrink by the FDA until the newly-reformulated one became
available, on old people and children, treating them as just laboratory experiments;
(3) and respect her decision of not signing the forms which allows testing and instead
threatens to have her removed / demoted, declared her as a poor team player whom lacks
judgment, unable to work with marketing people and thus cannot be promoted.

Nancy should value more the welfare and well-being of the people to be tested on, than her
commitment to her team because the team could be disbanded anytime and the company
could create another team and/or replace her in the team but she would carry the burden in
her conscience that she was the one who approved the testing in case there would be
harmful effects and side effects on the people tested on.

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