Teamwork in production: Implementation, its determinants, and estimates for German manufacturing

The progressive use of teamwork as an element of workplace practices orients researchers to dedicate important efforts to study the phenomenon and its depths. Although team research has focused on a large variety of aspects—human, psychological, positional, technical, and economico‐strategic—less is known about the factors influencing or determining the incidence of such concepts. Implementation rates and the degree of spreading, as well as variables mentioned by previous studies as determinants, were tested on a sample of 1,298 manufacturing firms located in Germany. The results show that almost 2/3 of manufacturing establishments use teamwork in production and, on average, more than 50% of employees are involved in normally four‐ to nine‐person teams. The results of this study also sustain the initial hypothesis on the positive relationship among flexibility, complexity, new products, organizational concepts, and teamwork implementation in production. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.