Teamworking in its Context(s): Antecedents, Nature and Dimensions

This introductory chapter looks at the antecedents, the nature and the various dimensions of'teamworking'. Teamworking is drawing on a variety of traditions, which has resulted in a number of different types and designs of teams. It is necessary to keep all dimensions in mind in order to reach a historically informed judgement of the current forms of teamworking and their shortcomings. Variants of teams need to be analysed by employing a multidimensional framework - teamworking will be more appropriate in some settings than in others. This caution, which had been an aspect of sociotechnical systems thinking from its inception, is shared by all the papers selected for this special issue.

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