Competition in business today has created a desire and need for work groups. The delegation of duties is occurring through this redesign of the work process. The delegation process is in turn creating team environments in organizations. The redesign of the work process is also due to downsizing, a collapsing of the organization's ranks, and the retiring of employees. David Cleland (1996) states that "the traditional model of organizational design is an endangered species" (p. vii). As teams are more readily seen as an effective way to involve employees and solve problems, they have modified the organizational design of many businesses. Consequently, teams are noted as the "common denominator of organizational change" (Cleland, 1996, p. 9).

The team philosophy has become prevalent throughout business. Teams, which began as social-technical-business experiments as part of the total quality management concept, have become an accepted norm in a majority of...