ccountability are major issues affecting the effectiveness and acceptability of SMWTs (Is your team just a fad? 1992, pp. 67 68). Without clear lines of responsibility and authority, work teams are not truly self managing, nor are they ever likely to be fully accepted within the organization. Rather, they simply become a manifestation of the latest management fad (Is you team just a fad? 1992, pp. 67 68).
The informal organization within a firm reflects the patterns of activity through which the work of a firm is actually accomplished (Galagan, 1992, pp. 26 30). Such informal organizations reflect a phenomenon in which natural hierarchies assert themselves whenever human beings organize to work (Ross, 1992, pp. 46 51).
The creation or development of work teams within an organization structure is, in essence, a reflection of the informal organization of the firm (Denton, 1992, pp. 48 56). When such work teams are voluntarily formed, they represent little departure from the traditional functioning of a firm's informal organization (Jin, 1993, pp. 133 155). When work teams are formally created by the firm, however, the organizational structure is changed as the informal organization becomes a part of the formal structure (Banner, 1992, pp. 40 45).
Team building is especially appropriate for military health care institutions in the pursuit of quality (Horak, Guarino, Knight, and Kweder, 1991, pp. 55 71). This approach has been implemented at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
The Implementation and Application of Quality Management Programs
Deming insisted that true quality control begins with a real commitment from top management. What Deming sought was a mathematical means of controlling the level of quality by seeking ever finer manufacturing tolerances. While this system of quality control demanded a commitment from the highest management levels, it depended upon the participation of personnel from all levels ...