What Goes Around, Comes Around

Abstract

This article examines the ideological and philosophical antecedents of current popular management approaches that advocate empowerment through teamwork. These approaches frequently assume that a predisposition toward teamwork is an uncontested historical fact. The author argues that this invokes largely an invented tradition of teamwork, one based on romanticized and mythical depictions of preindustrial work. This invention serves useful ideological and practical purposes for advocates of teamwork, as it depicts extensive organizational change as a return to a more natural form of organization. Accepting, without question, the myth that we have always worked in teams can even give rise to the view that any other way of organizing must be anomalous. In its most extreme form, this involves the assertion that teamwork is an expression of our biologically determined human nature. By revealing the mythical roots of this tradition, this article contributes to a developing critique of the relationship between teamwork and empowerment.

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