ISE Communications was one of the pioneers in using self-managed work teams. The teams were put in place to improve manufacturing flexibility and customer service, both factors being crucial in the highly competitive circuit board industry. Its conversion from an assembly-line style of circuit board manufacturing to teams who identified with “their own” products and customers was deemed a great success by industry observers. One interesting result was that the teams became extremely obsessed with monitoring the promptness and attendance of their members, more so than managers had been before the conversion to teams. They even posted attendance charts and created punishments for slack team members.

Question 1: Use your understanding of both group dynamics and teams to explain why the employees became concerned about attendance when they were organized into teams. What had changed?