of firms to compete effectively in both domestic and international markets. How best to attain productivity improvement, however, is an issue of both concern and dispute. With respect to human resource inputs, one concern is the management style that is likely to yield the most productive outcomes. Most contemporary theorists tend to favor a participative style, although there are dissenters from this position, and there are numerous examples of highly productive organizations where the management style is not highly participative in character. Participation in the context of organizational management means permitting organizational members other than senior managers make some of the important organizational decisions (Barner, 1994, pp. 33-36). One of the most significant of the contemporary initiatives to introduce greater levels of participation in an organization is the implementation of team-based organization (Rolf, 1993, pp. 11-12).
Increasing concentration in the American railroad transportation industry led Santa Fe management to initiate reviews of potential strategies that would lead to increased productivity. The hostile takeover bid of the Union Pacific Railroad and the friendly takeover bid by the Burlington-Northern Railroad intensified the Santa Fe efforts.
Increasing competitiveness in the transportation industry in the United States demands that Santa Fe become a more productive organization. One functional area that is especially critical for a transportation company is customer service. Improvements in the level of customer satisfaction is a major objective at Santa Fe. One proposed strategy to achieve this objective is the reorganization of the company's Customer Service Department around high-performance, self-directed work teams. Implementation of team-based organizational concepts in service areas, however, poses special challenges. The success of such an innovation, however, would yield substa...