Teams Between Hierarchy and Commitment: Change Strategies and the ‘Internal Environment’*

ABSTRACT The main objective of the article is to put forward a broader resource‐based view, outlining the influence exercised by the ‘internal environment’on the conception and implementation of teamworking strategies in two multinational automobile companies. While the influence of various external contingent factors — industry, product, technological environment — is often considered in the literature, the role of a firm's internal resources is mostly neglected. the publicity of greenfield‐site teamwork arrangements and the concurrent lack of ‘grounded’research has nurtured the idea that within the same industry environment, a best model of teamwork can be identified. One implication of the resource‐based view presented here is that a best model of teamwork may have little relevance for many established companies, where the choice to embrace such a model does not exist. the article analyses companies’approaches to accommodating business policy objectives within their existing structural and historical constraints, including traditional modes of control, management style, and company culture. the article thus identifies firm‐specific rather than nation‐specific variations within the same industry environment.