Condition Monitoring/Predictive Maintenance

Abstract:
Purpose – This paper aims to explore a leadership development intervention activity to solve an organisational problem and seeks to identify critical success factors for the design and delivery of such activities. Design/methodology/approach – This is a case study employing a mixed-method approach within an action research methodology. The participants were a student group of 19, plus the teaching team and client-training adviser. The project used questionnaires for identifying and ranking critical success factors and focus groups to explore transferability and other issues. These were supplemented by e-mail and telephone communications. Findings – The critical success factors involved people, task, process, and location and facilities dimensions. Most were deemed transferable, but with certain warnings about key factors. Research limitations/implications – This is a small-scale study and issues of transferability of findings are acknowledged. Contextual details are presented to reduce the effect of the limitation. Practical implications – The findings are of high practical value for leadership development and for organisations seeking new ways of addressing organisational challenges using internal staff. Originality/value – The paper has value in its practical and theoretical contribution. The identification of critical success factors for such intervention activities is new and the opportunity for application adds further value to the work.

Abstract:
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to establish how teams view the relative importance of team learning behaviors in comparison with other predictors of team performance. Design/methodology/approach – A survey was administered to 30 team members, 19 team leaders, and 21 supervisors of 22 teams from eight Dutch organizations, Respondents were asked to indicate which criteria they applied to evaluate team performance, and which factors they deemed the most important ones in distinguishing between high and poorly performing teams. Findings – The most frequently applied criteria to measure team performance were satisfying quality requirements, reaching the target goals, and customer satisfaction. Respondents evaluated team leadership, goal clarity, and team learning behaviors as main factors influencing team performance. Attitudes of team members, team leaders, and supervisors differed in some respects. Research limitations/implications – The study uses a cross-sectional approach and a relatively small sample size. Further research using larger samples should focus on determining differences in subjective and objective performance ratings across tasks and across team types. Multi-wave designs can provide more specific information about the stability of the variables and their over-time relationships. Practical implications – This paper can help to raise awareness of differences in attitudes towards team performance criteria among team members, team leaders, and supervisors; as well as increase their ability to determine the value of factors contributing to team performance enhancement. Originality/value – The paper provides insights into the attitudes of team stakeholders towards team performance rating criteria and influencing factors. These can have substantial impact on intended and actual behaviors within the team.

Abstract:
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how the proportional representation of men and women in a group, along with the gender-orientation of the group's task, can impact member displays of helping behavior. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on the gender role socialization approach, the structural approach to gender differences, as well as the social psychology-based perspective embedded in status characteristics or expectation states theory. Elements taken from each of these models permits assessment of the impact of gender, group gender composition and the gender orientation of the task on helping behavior in a group context. Findings – There is ample evidence to confirm the critical importance of member citizenship behavior in contributing to overall team performance. Practical implications – Given the presence of increasingly demographically diverse teams, it is vital to understand those factors that may enhance or inhibit helping behavior in the group context. This theory paper presents a model which examines how the gender composition of a team, as well as the gendered nature of the team's work, can influence citizenship behavior among team members who are in the numerical minority. Originality/value – This paper offers a unique and novel approach to understanding the dynamics behind helping behavior in mixed gender teams.

Abstract:
Purpose – This paper aims to describe a study of interactive and collaborative behaviours of software product development teams across horizontal, geographical and value chain boundaries. The objective is to understand the influence of boundary on these behaviours. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is a questionnaire-based study of 63 software product-development teams. Findings – The study shows, that interactive behaviour is used more by teams as compared to collaborative behaviour while developing software products. The interactive behaviour is not influenced by the boundary crossed, while collaborative behaviour is influenced by the boundaries crossed. Originality/value – The study is relevant for practitioners and researchers. Collaboration is considered important for product development, but the study shows that it is not used extensively. Researchers can look into why low level of collaborative behaviour has been exhibited.

Abstract:
Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to classify the full scope of hazards in the way to effective project- and decision-management in teams, and to present team leaders with a practical set of guidelines for coping with those obstacles, towards successful achievements. Design/methodology/approach – The paper provides a classification of the full spectrum of possible factors responsible for mishaps, faults and failures which regularly tend to occur within managerial and organizational activities at all levels. It goes on to present a set of two tools that, jointly applied, can provide managers with the necessary control to lead more team processes and projects towards successful terminations: the “revised decision square model” and the “capi” model. Findings – The paper provides evidence in the form of quotes from testimonies of managers who have adopted the proposed strategy for their every-day use within their teams. Practical implications – The paper offers a practical step-by-step set of guidelines to lead managers towards a relatively high level of control in the management of effective and efficient team decision making and implementation processes, ensuring their route towards successful achievements. Originality/value – Limited attention has been given in the literature to the studying of practical and applicable managerial techniques to successful decision-implementation in teams. This paper focuses on this neglected domain, proposing a solution, in the form of an integrative strategy.

Abstract:
Purpose – The overall purpose of this paper is to explain theoretically the autonomy phenomenon of teams working within the auto manufacturing context and its implications for the technical and social aspects of group work. Design/methodology/approach – Three auto component companies were studied. The procedures of a qualitative methodology were followed, adopting naturalistic observation techniques of work teams, and unstructured and semi-structured interviews conducted with operators, supervisors and middle managers. To analyse and interpret the qualitative data obtained, the grounded theory technique was used. Findings – In this paper 33 concepts were obtained, which resulted from the constant comparative method applied to data. The relationships between those concepts allowed the construction of a theoretical model that is settled in the “bridge” concept. This “bridge” is a metaphor that translates the process which binds operational work group goals to the needs of external clients. This process is supported by social aspects – team decision making, participation, mutual helpfulness, and social and emotional relationships, and by technical aspects – operations and information. The bridge has four pillars that are critical to the effective functioning of self-directed teams: team facilitation, hierarchical relationships established within the teams, quality of manufactured components, and productivity achieved. Research limitations/implications – The present investigation was carried out in a specific industry, which does not allow for the generalization of the model to other industries. Furthermore, it may be questioned whether the same results be obtained if the operators of the teams observed were interviewed, not individually, but in a group situation. Other kinds of research design and other industries organized on the basis of autonomous work groups must be studied, applying the grounded theory technique, in order to compare diverse theoretical models. Practical implications – The organization of the industrial automotive production based on self-directed teams, which

Abstract:
Purpose – Businesses are increasingly using teams as their fundamental organisational unit. This paper aims to explore the impact of demographic antecedents and the social-network structure, measured in terms of task-related advice-network density, centralisation and fragmentation, on work-team performance. The paper seeks to examine: the impact of the social-network structure (dense, fragmented or centralised) on work-team performance and the origins of the social structure. It also tests whether team diversity (in terms of variety with regard to gender and separation with regard to age and education) has an impact on team performance. Design/methodology/approach – A survey was conducted on 76 work teams (499 employees) representing 48 different organisations. Findings – With regard to the first question, density was positively related to team performance. The impact of advice-network fragmentation was also positive, and this is in line with the results of other studies focusing on teams conducting standard tasks. In addressing the second question the paper explored whether diversity as variety (age) and diversity as separation (age and education) had an effect on the work team's social-network structure. Age and education had no effect, but gender diversity was related negatively to density and positively to fragmentation. It was also related negatively to team performance. Originality/value – The contribution of this research is twofold in that it explores social-structure effects on team performance and examines the possible antecedents of the team's social structure. The results of the investigation strengthen the rationale behind integrating the literature on social-network analysis and teams.