Work Teams in Organizations

Abstract

Societies, governments, businesses, and families are built around the tenet of working with others. This chapter examines the enduring entity of teams throughout history in order to trace the development of the study of work teams and team work. Under a zeitgeist approach, this chapter highlights critical incidents in history that motivated or inspired researchers in their study of team work. This historical approach is used to extract high-level themes and relevant time periods of intense research productivity from 1890-2020. Throughout the historical analysis, the authors identify lessons learned and provide ties to how past findings provided a foundation to the study of teams today. In closing, the authors urge modern theorists, researchers, and practitioners to draw from the lessons learned over the past 130 years of group and team history to navigate new challenges to team work.