. "4 Changes in the Structure and Content of Work." The Changing Nature of Work: Implications for Occupational Analysis. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 1999.
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Team Generic
Team Specific
Transportable competencies: generic competencies that generalize to many tasks and team structures
Team-contingent competencies: competencies that are specific to a particular configuration of team members, but not to any particular task situation
Task Generic
Examples: project teams, task forces Only knowledge really necessary is the knowledge of teamwork skills and behavior. These skills are necessary to individuals involved in multiple teams.
Task situations include requiring a team of perform competently on a number of different tasks—e.g., quality circles, functional department teams, self-managed work teams.
Task-contingent competencies: competencies that are related to a specific task, but that hold across different team member configurations.
Context-driven competencies: competencies that are dependent both on a particular task and team configuration. These vary as either the task or team members change.
Task Specific
Apply to team situations where membership changes frequently due to organizational policy (learn many jobs) or high personnel turnover (e.g., military cockpit crews who rotate to relieve one another). Knowledge is detailed on the task, not about the teammates.
Important for teams performing highly demanding tasks—emergency personnel, sports teams, aircrews, military teams.
Require flexibility and rapid adaptation.
Figure 4.2
Types of team competencies
analysis are those that are generic across all teams. Thus the focus should be on team competencies that either will generalize across tasks and team situations ("transportable") or that are related to specific tasks regardless of who the other team members are ("task contingent"). Work in these categories requires the development of interactive as well as cognitive skills.
Both qualitative case studies and quantitative studies of the changing nature of blue-collar work have documented the importance of communications, problem solving, and coordination within and across teams (Adler, 1993; MacDuffie, 1996; Rubinstein, forthcoming; Appelbaum and Berg, 1997). Rubinstein
