Teams and Technology: Critical Issues for Research and Practice

Over the last five to ten years there has been a resurgence of interest in teams or groups at work. This renewed interest appears in the proliferation of teams in organizations such as quality teams, labor-management groups, and self-designing teams. At the same time, there has been a proliferation of new technologies. In the factory, innovations in group technology, CAD, CAE, and JIT can impact on group functioning. New forms of computer mediated communication such as teleconferencing and Email can redefine the spatial and temporal boundaries of groups in any work context. So, the proliferation of teams and technology in organizations provides an important opportunity for the researcher and the practitioner. The intersection between teams and technology will impact on team and organizational effectiveness. The opportunity is both to understand the nature of this intersection and to better design the intersection between teams and technology. In this short paper, our goal is to delineate some critical issues in thinking about this intersection.