Teams between Neo-Taylorism and Anti-Taylorism

Abstract

Team working is of ten associated with sophisticated management control and inten-sification of work; however, many authors suggest that an alternative type exists to which this does not apply. One of the problems in the teams discussion is a confusion about terminology. The Toyota production system was relabelled 'team working'to increase its acceptability. Also, team working was used as a metonym for industrial democracy in order to increase its appeal to managers. A second problem is determinism: a tendency to prematurely lock different types of team working into different fields of production. This article presents a systematic, empirically grounded typology of team working. Neo-Tayloristic and anti-Tayloristic team working are contrasted to classical Taylorism. Neo-Tayloristic and anti-Tayloristic teamworking both entail intensification of work. However, autonomy in anti-Tayloristic team working is real; there is little evidence of a 'brave new teams'scenario. Neo-Tayloristic team working builds on the strengths of Taylorism. For anti-Tayloristic team working, the opportunity structure is less favourable; improving it remains a challenge.

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