Study Context Balancing Individual and Collaborative W
scope at every level of the organization [12]. Self-management can also directly influ- ence team effectiveness since it brings decision-making authority to the level of op-
erational problems and uncertainties and, thus, increases the speed and accuracy of problem solving [13].
Even though there are several studies on the benefits of self-organizing teams, there is substantial variance in research findings regarding the consequences of such
teams on such measures as productivity, turnover, and attitudes [10, 13]. Tata and Prasada [13] found that employees really need to affect managerial decisions in order
to achieve the putative benefits of a self-managed team. It is important that the team does not experience autonomy that is only symbolic.
The fact that autonomy can simultaneously reside at both the group and the indi- vidual level in a work group is often neglected in studies of self-management [1]. A
group may have considerable discretion in deciding what group tasks to perform and how to carry them out, but individual members within the group may have very little
discretion or control over their jobs.
Encouraging individual autonomy has been shown to have many positive effects in both laboratory and field research [2]. Offering workers greater individual autonomy
increases: the degree to which extrinsic motivation offered employees is internalised [14], job satisfaction and positive work attitudes [15-17]. Greater internalisation of
extrinsic motivation has been shown to lead to effective performance on tasks requir- ing creativity, cognitive flexibility and conceptual understanding [18-20]. These are
the very characteristics of software development work. Practices that increase indi- vidual autonomy are, therefore, extremely valuable, especially if they can be lever-
aged to provide real value to the employer.
Kirkman and Rosen [21] emphasized the importance of taking both individual and group effects into account, stating that ”what is needed most in the team effectiveness
literature is research that examines empowerment at the individual and team levels simultaneously.” Additionally, a practical implication of Langfred’s [1] findings is
that, if an organization believes in letting teams be more self-managing, great care must be taken in the implementation. Autonomy at the individual level may conflict
with autonomy at the group level, producing countervailing influence on the cohe- siveness and, indirectly, effectiveness of the team. An organization could thus experi-
ence little or no results from empowering employees. As far as the authors are aware, there is no empirical work from the software industry on how the balance between
individual and team autonomy can be achieved.
3 Research Method
Given the focus discussed above, we choose a case study that would allow us to in- vestigate our research question.