Managing organizational context for engineering team effectiveness

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe a study investigating the role of organizational context on the effectiveness of engineering work teams. Design/methodology/approach – Previous research was used to operationalize organizational context and work team effectiveness, and a survey was developed to assess both in this research. This study was conducted within two engineering units of a high‐technology company. In total, 16 teams of engineering knowledge workers participated in the study. Correlation and path analysis were used to investigate both direct and mediated relationships between nine organizational context variables and team effectiveness. Findings – Direct relationships between eight organizational context variables and team member satisfaction and between two organizational context variables and team performance were found. Effects of five variables on team member satisfaction were either fully or partially mediated by team processes (TP). Research limitations/implications – This study empirically validated existing models of team effectiveness and identified multiple dimensions of organizational context that are important to the development of effective teams as measured by team member satisfaction and team performance. The study took place within a single organization. Additional research is necessary to generalize the findings. Originality/value – A broader cross‐section of organizational context variables were included in this study than in previous studies. This research contributes to the body of knowledge by empirically studying organizational‐team relationships using intact work teams. This research addressed an increasingly important set of teams – teams of knowledge workers. Finally, this research was designed to specifically test for the existence of a mediating variable (TP).