Team‐work to green small and medium‐size enterprise?

Managing change is the crux of reducing the environmental impact of organisations. Teams are often used in large organisations to drive forward a process of change. But in small and medium‐size enterprises (SMEs), where issues of formulating and communicating change can be different, is there still a rôle for change management through teams? The authors present case studies of three SMEs that are active on the environmental agenda. We construct an “ideal‐type” team from established literature in the field and compare it with teams used in these case study organizations. Describe how they choose priorities and communicate, how working groups or teams form and relate together, the extent to which teams and organizational structures are defined formally, and how successful the companies have been in engineering environmental change. Find no clear link between an organizations’ use of teams and success at environmental management.