Worker responses to teamworking: exploring employee attributions of managerial motives

Int. J. of Human Resource Management 16:2 February 2005 238-255 O Routledge^ ) j \ Taylor6.rfincliCfoup

Worker responses to teamworking:exploring employee attributions ofmanagerial motives

Nicolas Bacon and Paul Blyton

Abstract This paper examines employee views of why and how managers introducedteamworking at several sites within a steel company. Following a content analysis ofemployee comments we classify employee views of management motives into four maintypes: economic, political, institutional and cultural. Employees reported that managerswere primarily driven by political rationales and implemented teamworking forreasons of self-interest. The economic rationales for management action were interpretednegatively as favouring shareholders and increasing worker insecurity. The introduction ofteamworking also appeared to require a concerted attempt to enforce employee compliance,indicating that culture change was also an important factor. The views employees expressedof management intent are not adequately described by either recent advocates of highperformance work systems or the critical perspective on human resource managementalthough they appear central in understanding employee responses to managementinitiatives in these sites.

Keywords Teamworking; employee views; economic, political, institutional andcultural rationales; human resource management.

Introduction

Although the precise combinations of human resource management policies that deliverhigh performance remain the subject of extensive debate, it is widely agreed thatteamworking is an important or key component (see, for example, Arthtir, 1994; Huselid,1995; Ichniowski et al., 1997; Ichniowski and Shaw, 1999). The majority of recentstudies of teamworking have focused attention primarily on the implications fororganizational performance and associated managerial issues, rather than its effects uponemployees and the subsequent reception by the workforce. This may be seen as part of abroader neglect of the nature of work in general and worker views and orientations inparticular over the last two decades (Barley and Kunda, 2001; Harper Simpson, 1989;Thompson and Ackroyd, 1995) - a position which contrasts with the 1960s and 1970swhen aspects of workers' orientations, job satisfaction and the quality of working lifereceived much greater attention. When introducing a special edition of Human Relationson teamworking, Mueller et al. (2000: 1408) suggested that 'research on attitudestowards teamworking needs to be much more critical and probing to unearth employees'

Nicolas Bacon, Nottingham University Business School, Jubilee Campus, Nottingham NG8BB, UK (e-mail: [email protected]). Paul Blyton, C21, Cardiff Business School,Cardiff University, Aberconway Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff CFIO 3EU, UK(e-mail: [email protected]).

The Intemational Journal of Human Resource Management

ISSN 0958-5192 print/ISSN 1466-4399 online © 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Lid

hltp://www.tandf.co.uk/journals

DOI: 10.1080/0958519042000311426

Bacon and Blyton: Worker responses to teamworking 239

"real" rationales for their responses and behaviour'. The aim of this paper is to add tothis literature on employee perspectives on teamworking by describing andexploring employee reactions to the introduction of teamworking at several sites ofa steel company. As Guest (1999) notes, management motives have been an issueof persistent concern within the HRM literature (Legge, 1995; Keenoy, 1990) yet arestudied too infrequently. We aim to help fill this gap by examining management motivesas perceived by employees - arguably a more pertinent (and certainly an under-researched) perspective from which to view employee responses than seeking to unearthmanagement's 'real' motives in introducing work organization change such asteamworking.

Employee responses to recent work innovations

The findings from a variety of recent studies suggest employees will respond positivelyto workplace innovations. Following the introduction of teamworking and associatedhigh performance work system (HPWS) practices Appelbaum et al. (2000), for example,reported subsequent improvements in economic performance and increases in employeesatisfaction, commitment to the organization and reductions in stress levels at work.Two recent UK studies funded by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Developmenthave also recorded positive employee attitudes associated with the introduction ofteamworking. Guest discovered 'a strong positive link between the adoption of a greaternumber of progressive HR policies including teamworking and the kind of outcomeslikely to be valued by workers' (1999: 18), Similarly, Patterson and West (1998) reporteda positive impact of similar workplace innovations on employee job satisfaction andorganizational commitment (see also Steijn (2001) for a recent Dutch study reportingbroadly similar, though weaker, relationships). These findings support research(see Mueller et al., 2000) that suggests teamworking can benefit botb organizationsand employees through the appropriate adoption of self-managing work groups (Herbst,1962; Trist, 1981), the humanization of working conditions (Sandberg, 1995) andenhancing employee involvement (Lawler, 1986; Oakland, 1996), Such a view contrastswith those who have previously warned of the 'dark side' of teamworking and associatedpolicies for employees, in the form of greater work intensity and heightened peerpressure (for example, Parker and Slaughter, 1988; Rinehart et al., 1997), According tosuch studies, shopfioor employees will recognize that teamworking intensifies workeffort and adopt a critical orientation towards teamworking. In practice, and consistentwith Harley's (2001) findings, both these contrasting views over-generalize theimpact of teamworking on employee attitudes, not least because of the variety of formsthat teamworking can take and the different contexts in which it is introduced.

Our approach in this paper to understanding employee responses to teams is not toassess the impact of teamworking on the terms and conditions of work (see Bacon andBlyton, 1999) but to explore employee perceptions of 'why' and 'how' managers seek tointroduce teamworking. We suggest the motives that employees attribute to managementactions can moderate the subsequent effects of teamworking on employee attitudes,a point that forms an important undercurrent in recent studies. For example, in studyingthe introduction of teamworking into an aluminium smelter, Edwards and Wright (1998)discovered employees welcomed some aspects of the change although they questionedthe commitment of managers to a new approach and expressed suspicion of managementmotives, Berggren (1993) has also pointed to complex and competingmanagement rationales that result in both positive outcomes of teamworking foremployees such as greater involvement and negative aspects such as an intensification in

240 The International Journal of Human Resource Management

the pace of working. This complex mixture of outcomes may help to explain the starkvariations in attitudes towards teamworking discovered in several different work settings(see, for example, Ezzamel and Wilmott, 1998; Knights and McCabe, 2000), It issuggested by authors critical of HRM that employees will hold cynical views of themotivations of managers in pursuing workplace restructuring (see Legge, 1995; Keenoy,1990), Thus, we might expect a critical reception from workers towards teamworking.However, other studies indicate workers' reactions reflect management aims whereby thefactors that managers explicitly target when they introduce teamworking appear to haveimportant effects upon subsequent outcomes (Goodman et al., 1988; Heller et al., 1998:161), Not least this is because the reasons why managers introduce teamworking willaffect the design, implementation and operation of teams (Safizadeh, 1994), Such worksuggests management motives are an important contingent factor in shaping theoutcomes of teamworking and employee responses to workplace change (Bacon andBlyton, 2000a; Mueller, 1994),

Mueller's (1994) distinction between management's economic objectives, socialobjectives and cultural objectives usefully captures some of the different uses ofteamworking from a management perspective. Bacon and Blyton (2000b) have providedempirical evidence that 'high road' teamworking is associated with a broader range ofmanagement rationales beyond economic objectives compared to Mow road'teamworking and has 'a greater positive impact upon both organizational and humanresource outcomes' (2000b: 1425). An appreciation of the different aims managers maypursue through teamworking is important to interpret the many different types ofteamworking and the wide variety of employee responses. The extent to which managershave pursued culture change when introducing teamworking is a particular matter ofdispute in recent work. For Knights and McCabe (2000: 1511), 'the mere existenceof teamworking is normative in the sense that it seeks to transform individuals intoparticular kinds of teamworking subjects'. However, other studies have discovered littleevidence of the use of teamworking for normative regulation (Thompson and Wallace,1996) and a study of the Scottish spirits industry expressed 'scepticism about whetherteam members can be considered as socially engineered individuals who haveinternalised company normative demands' (Findlay et al., 2000: 1549),

We propose that to gain an understanding of the impact of teamworking on theattitudes and behaviours of employees it is necessary to examine workers' own views ofmanagement motives rather than rely on explanations provided by managers. Existingclassifications of managerial motives for introducing teamworking are a useful startingpoint, yet we can find no comprehensive studies of whether employees believe these arethe real motives behind management actions, although several authors believe thecontrary. If employees attribute more cynical motives to managers this may generategrievances around the design and implementation of teamworking, or even outrightemployee resistance, not least at the normative level. The aim of this paper is thus toexplore workers' views of why managers sought to implement teamworking and themanner in which managers chose to introduce teamworking.

Mettiod

In 1998 the authors commenced a two-year investigation involving workplace interviewsand surveys of the effects of introducing teamworking and related changes across fivesites of one company, two within a tinplate division (Ebbw Vale and Trostre), two largeintegrated plants (Teesside and Scunthorpe) in the sections division and one coatingsplant (Shotton), At the time of study all were owned by British Steel, now Corus pic


following British Steel's merger with the Dutch steel-making company Hoogovens inOctober 1999.

The research sites

The Corus Shotton works stands on a riverside location in Deeside, North Wales, anduntil 1980 was an integrated steelworks undertaking all aspects of steel-making from theproduction of iron from raw materials through to various steel finishing processes.In 1980 iron- and steel-making was ended at Shotton though the plant continued tooperate as a finishing mill. Since that time the main activities at the Shotton plant haveinvolved the re-rolling of incoming steel strip, much of which is then fed into coatinglines, either to galvanize the steel with zinc or zinc metal alloys or to treat the steel usingan organic paint process. The plant's annual output is in excess of one million tonnes andit employed 1,517 workers at the commencement of the study in 1998, 1,138 of these inthe manufacturing departments.

At the time of the study, the Trostre and Ebbw Vale plants comprised the British Steeltinplate division and, while located fifty miles apart in South Wales, the two plantswere operated as a single business, facilitated by their closely matching activities.Like Shotton, Ebbw Vale had formerly been an integrated steelworks, but, following theclosure of its iron- and steel-making facilities in the early 1980s, its operations, like thoseat Trostre, now centre on the production of tinplate together with galvanized steel.At the time of the study, 1,072 employees were located at Trostre and 1,213 employees atthe Ebbw Vale works (with a further 213 employees located at the Tinplate HQ, locatedadjacent to the Trostre site). In the reporting of the findings, these two sites will bediscussed in combination and referred to as 'Tinplate'.

The plants at Teesside and Scunthorpe are major integrated works in the north ofEngland, importing raw materials through dock facilities, processing iron in blast furnaces,converting iron to steel that is continuously cast into semi-finished slabs and blooms forfurther processing in rolling mills. The two plants comprised the Corus Sections, Plates andCommercial Steels Business, and will be referred to in combination as 'Sections'.

The 1999 workplace interviews and surveys followed the introduction ofteamworking at three of the plants (and outline agreement at the other plants), whichin the iron and steel industry has represented the most radical change in workorganization in several decades (Blyton and Bacon, 1997). Shotton was the first plantwithin British Steel to introduce teamworking, which was phased in during the mid-late1990s. Former occupational hierarchies based on seniority, together with distinctionsbetween craft and production workers, were replaced by a system based on managementselection of team leaders and the integration of many former maintenance craft workersinto production teams. At Shotton, teams, mainly of five to eight employees, areresponsible for all aspects of production, together with inspection, day-to-daymaintenance and resolving the majority of breakdowns. Lower manning levels andincreased responsibilities held within the teams have resulted in teamworking beingassociated with job enlargement and a heavier workload (Bacon and Blyton, 2001).

In Tinplate, teamworking was introduced mainly in 1998 with a small number ofremaining areas introducing teamworking in January 1999. Shift teams becameresponsible for unit operation, first line maintenance, material handling, stock control andmost technical testing. Management sought to make teams largely self-sufficientand internally accountable for operations, quality and routine maintenance. More majormaintenance activities and diagnostic work are carried out on down (non-production)days by engineering support teams.


After an initial failure to introduce teamworking in the early 1990s at Teesside, a'Teamworking Enabling Agreement' was signed in Sections in January 1998. The overallprinciples of teamworking were agreed subject to further ratification and agreement byemployees and unions within each working area. At the time of the survey managers hadintroduced teamworking into 50 per cent of the works although industrial relationsproblems were holding up the further diffusion of teamworking, with variousdepartments described by the Director of Personnel as 'digging in on pay'. Whereas themodel for teamworking was described as 'very rigid' in Tinplate, in Sectionsdepartmental managers drew up their own plans with variations in the wage bands agreedlocally. Teams were to involve up to four grades of employees headed by a team leader(grade 1) with each team responsible for key tasks 'defined as all operational, service andmaintenance tasks required of the team' (plant document). Creating the 750 teams intwenty-two manufacturing units in Sections involved training 5,200 employees overthree years and 400 employees accepted redundancy terms to leave the company.

The introduction of teamworking at Sections sought to 'improve performance incustomer service, quality, [and] manufacturing costs, through the most effective utilisation ofemployees' {Teamworking Implementation Manual, September 1998). Specific perform-ance improvements were identified for each unit through the introduction of self-managingteams to 'achieve manpower reduction targets identified for each business unit across thebusiness directly through the introduction of teamworking' (ibid.). At Shotton, teamworkinghad three main stated objectives: to improve performance in quality, delivery and cost; jobenrichment; and customer satisfaction (Memorandum of Agreement made on 14 April1994). In a meeting to discuss the details with unions, a senior manager offered theprospect of job enrichment, explaining 'all involved in teams would see their jobs enhancedand there would be an opening up of career paths. People's employment package would beenriched because they would be able to develop extra skills and increase their wage'(Minutes of teamworking meeting, 16 February 1994).

At Tinplate, teamworking was an essential part of a broader Business RestructuringProgramme that involved the 'strengthening of our long-term customer relationships,continuous quality improvement, reducing all aspects of our cost base' (Works document- 'Teamworking at British Steel Tinplate').

Data and analysis technique

Data on employee responses were taken from employee comments in response to an openinvitation to make any further comments at the end of a survey of employees. In all,13,638 surveys were distributed across the plants with 4,270 returned (a combinedresponse of 31.3 per cent). Of these, over 800 employees wrote comments in response tothe open question and over 35 per cent of these related to teamworking. A contentanalysis of these comments enabled us to categorize a number of themes and categoriesfollowing established analytic techniques to analyse qualitative data (Strauss, 1987;Weber, 1990). It is recognized that those making comments cannot be assumed to berepresentative of either the broader sample or the population. At the same time thesefreely offered comments are often overlooked by those analysing questionnaires,yet can provide an important insight into the key concems and views of employees.Many (though by no means all) of the comments were critical of management, over boththe way teamworking was introduced and other work-related issues. However, this wasconsistent with quantitative measures of perceived management style, levels of trust andindustrial relations climate (Bacon and BIyton, 2001,2002), indicating that those makingcomments were not an unusually critical sub-group. Further, the large number of


comments in the present study gave some grounds for confidence that the mostcommonly expressed views - particularly where these originated in different sites andamong different groups - were views relatively widely held.

Employee explanations of management motives in introducing teamworking

Content analysis of comments made by employees on teamworking identified four maincategories of response relating either to why or to how managers were seen to haveintroduced teamworking (Table I). For heuristic purposes we have classified thesecomments into four categories: economic, political, institutional and cultural. Examples ofeconomic rationales included comments on teamworking improving returns toshareholders and facilitating job cuts. Examples of political rationales included managersintroducing teamworking to advance their own career and to protect their existing jobs.Examples of institutional rationales included a perceived desire by managers to launchinitiatives and to follow company fads. Examples of cultural rationales included managersbeing seen to enforce greater consent, partly by breaking up traditional crews. There areoverlaps between these categories because motivations are complex but we believe it isuseful to try to distinguish between different vocabularies of motive in a complex data set.

Using this classification revealed, first, that responses relating to political motivationsbehind management action were mentioned far more frequently than those suggesting

Table 1 A classification of workers comments: why and how did managers pursue teamworking ?

Economic rationalesShareholder concernsJob cutsSubcontractingProductivity

Economic rationales total

Political rationalesManagers looked after their own jobs/management

greedManagers career development/eredentialismRhetoric or a smokescreenIntimidation and fear'Them and us' rationalesTake but don't give

Political rationales total

Institutional rationalesFads/to launch more initiativesManagers appeared incompetentManagers verv distant

Sections

16148

-38

18

10852

-43

191412

Shotton

_5319

-

6-21

_9

1-_

Tinplate

631

-10

20

613

134

47

142

Total

222212

157

38

229

10164

99

211814

Managers disagreeInstitutional rationales total

Cultural rationalesManagers enforced consentTo break traditional teamsTo introduce peer discipline

Cultural rationales total

45

1361

20

10

10

54

1022

14

3383

44

244 The tnternational Journal of Human Resource Management

other motivations. Among the political rationales, responses suggesting that managerslooked after their own jobs and pursued their own career ends were the most common.Second, employees attributed institutional and economic rationales to managementaction to a greater extent than cultural rationales. Interestingly, employees identified bothpolitical and institutional rationales for introducing teamworking more frequently thaneconomic rationales. In none of the plants were economic motives considered the mainfactor. The two most frequently cited explanations of management action were the desireof managers to look after their own interests and jobs (a political rationale) and toincrease consent (a cultural rationale) through the implementation of teamworking,A secondary group of factors was also considered important: meeting the needs ofshareholders (an economic rationale); cutting jobs (economic); managers seeking todevelop their own careers through the teamworking initiative (political); and introducingteamworking because it was the latest fashion (institutional). Only a few employeesidentified some of the traditional rationales for introducing teamworking, such as toincrease productivity, introduce peer discipline (Barker, 1993) or improve the quality ofworking life (Sandberg, 1995),

A comparison between the three different businesses reveals some variations in therationales employees attributed to management (Table 1), These differences reflectthe varying approaches that management took to implementing teamworking in theplants. In the Shotton plant, for example, a broadly similar proportion of employeesidentified economic, political and cultural rationales. The future survival of the Shottonplant was in question at the time of the research, many employees still remembered theclosure of steel-making at the site and managers were pursuing extensive subcontractingof work, Gonsequently, employees identified an underlying economic rationale inmanagers' activities linking reductions in the number of jobs and subcontracting with theintroduction of teamworking. Employees at Shotton were less likely to claim thatmanagers were unequally looking after their own jobs and interests (in the year beforethe survey the number of middle managers had fallen with technical and laboratory worksubcontracted to other companies).

In Tinplate, political rationales were far more prominent. Employees felt particularlythat managers had looked after their own jobs and interests, reflecting a deeplyfelt perception of 'them and us'. In particular, employees were aggrieved that thesimultaneous introduction of a new rota system with teamworking reduced the flexibilityto organize social life outside work (see Bacon and Blyton, 2000a), This system affectedonly blue-collar employees in teams working shifts whereas managers continued to worktheir traditional day shift.

In Sections, political and institutional rationales were identified as the most important.The relative significance attached to institutional rationales reflected employee resistanceto teamworking, Teamworking was not introduced in many departments until 2000, withcertain union branches refusing to sign the necessary industrial relations agreement.Another implication of the ability of employees to resist teamworking was that managerswere forced to compromise, reducing the chances that managers would be able to gaininordinately at the perceived expense of employees. Employees at these sites were alsomore likely to challenge the commitment of managers to teamworking and dismiss it asthe latest management fashion among many initiatives that were never fullyimplemented.

In order to appreciate the variety and richness of employee explanations ofmanagement action in the next section we explore in more detail the nature of the fourtypes of rationales.


Political explanations

To recap, a greater number of employees attributed political motives to the changesmanagement had introduced than any other reason. We classified as political motivesworkers' suggestions that managers sought to gain as a group by benefitingdisproportionately from teamworking in comparison to other employees. At the Tinplateworks in particular, employees felt that teamworking was introduced to enhance the careerdevelopment of managers - or at a minimum to protect the managers' own jobs - and thatan unequal burden of teamworking fell upon shop-floor employees:

Cost is always a concern with management, yet the level of management is extremely high.When teamworking was announced, the management level was reduced to 3 levels. Yet not onemanager or expediter lost his job If management keep reducing floor-manning levels then thestrain on the workforce will be high and production will surely be affeeted. If they really want toreduce costs they should be drastically reducing management/staff/personnel levels,

(Tinplate)

At the moment too many managers and not enough workers. Costs eould be cut if BS [BritishSteel] got rid of some of the managers,

(Shotton)

If cut backs have to be made they should be equal throughout the business. Senior managementshould not get all new cars as they talk about eost savings. Production areas seem to suffer whilstpersonnel and commercial are unaffected by job/eost reductions,

(Tinplate)

There is nothing worse than knowing you must work all three nights on a weekend without beingable to take a holiday or swap a shift, I wish some of the managers or higher directors that makethese decisions worked shifts themselves,

(Trostre)

In addition, it did not escape the notice of employees that successfully implementingteamworking would enhance the promotion and career prospects of managers (see Hopeand Hendry, 1995; Huczynski, 1993), As a result, a number of employees adopted anaccusatory tone, detecting managers could 'move on' after the successful implementationof teamworking, were concentrating on impression management rather than effectiveman-management and were preoccupied with seeking status and promotion:

It seems obvious that most managers are not interested in teamworking or business effieiency.They are more interested in their status and promotion prospects,

(Tinplate)

Senior management,,, their goal is their personal advancement,

(Tinplate)

Management broke up happy shift crews,,,, Those same managers that have created the messwere then systematically seconded to other departments and works so that they did not have toface or take the blame for the mess they had created leaving behind young inexperiencedmanagers to try and clean up,

(Tinplate)


The suggestion by employees that managers are motivated by self-interest and takegreater rewards relative to employees reflects accusations that managers have benefitedinordinately from employment restructuring (Gordon, 1996) resulting in the polarizationof experiences and rewards between managerial and professional groups and non-managerial employees (Bach and Sisson, 2000: 25). In the Tinplate and Shotton works inparticular, a widespread perception was that managers had gained significantly fromteamworking and workers had borne the costs. For many employees this reinforcedfeelings that managers had an ideology of 'them and us' and had 'taken' much fromworkers but 'given' little in retum (Schuster, 1985):

The actions taken to compete are understandable but all the time you have the feeling that themanagement are willing to take but never give.

(Tinplate)

When teamworking was introduced to Shotton it was said that the old them and us barrierswould come down. People would be given opportunity to improve their lot, well I am afraid thatI and many of the workforce would have to disagree with these sentiments. The workforce isunder more pressure than ever before and it appears the management's goal is to run Shotton as a'contracted out plant' run by British Steel management.

(Shotton)

In Sections, where teamworking was not fully operating in many areas, someemployees expressed a view that managers would ultimately not implement teamworkingin all areas, suggesting that they felt management belief in teamworking was partlyrhetorical. The suggestion that many recent innovations in HRM are more the substance ofrhetoric rather than reality is an important feature of academic debate (Legge, 1995;Keenoy, 1999). A number, for example, commented on the apparent level of managementcommitment to implementation. An example of such comments is the following:

Teamworking has become a 'dogma' from the board, they have not convinced the majority ofsenior managers and managers that it will work, particularly regarding fewer employees. Theworkforce is increasingly sensing this situation, therefore the effectiveness of introducingteamworking is under question.

(Sections)

Economic explanations

We classified as economic motives those workers' explanations of management actionthat were expressed in terms of business and market factors. The two most prominentexplanations suggested were, first, that teamworking was introduced as a result of thecompany prioritizing the claims of shareholders over the interests of employees and,second (and relatedly), as a way of reducing the number of workers. In both Sectionsand Tinplate, employees perceived managers as more concerned with shareholders.This was particularly strongly expressed at the Ebbw Vale tinplate plant (the plant whosefuture was most in doubt and where closure was subsequently announced in 2001).As some Ebbw Vale workers commented:

Management is more concerned with the share dividend to the shareholders rather than the wellbeing of their employees and the condition of plant machinery.

I feel it is [a question of] the balance of a person doing a good job in an industry against theneeds of investors. To reap massive profits in the steel market has seriously affected the qualityof life for workers. Health and morale has seriously eroded.


All BSC thinks about is saving money and stuff the workforce.

Job security and the wider issue of the local community no longer appear to be a consideration oftoday's management.

At the Shotton works employees were less likely to offer such macro-explanations andlinked teamworking instead firmly to job cuts. This was an explanation offered byproduction employees in different parts of the works:

Teamworking is job cuts under a new name,

Teamworking was Just a way of cutting jobs and getting rid of people that management didnot like.

Teamwork in theory is sound business sense and most people would agree in Shotton,The original worry was that teamwork within Shotton was designed as a vehicle for jobreduction. This fear was denied [by management] but has proved to be correct. The workforcemorale is as low as I can remember,

I feel that teamworking is a useful tool when used to improve performance of the businessoverall. Unfortunately, British Steel management seems to view it primarily as a job reductionexercise. It is also employed with a definite bias towards the employer rather than employee.

Subcontracting was also identified by workers in Sections and at Shotton as anunderlying rationale behind teamworking. At the Sections plants teamworking wasintroduced simultaneously with the creation of a separate business unit (North EastEngineering) that many craft workers feared would be sold to another company.Craft workers, in particular, identified subcontracting as an issue, although it was also feltin certain production sections under greater perceived threat of subcontracting.Individual craft employees in Sections commented:

The feelings of myself and the majority of my workmates is that with the introduction ofteamworking and North East Engineering, British Steel is creating a two-tier workforce inpreparation for the contracting out of anyone not in a team. This has demoralized the workforceby further eroding the prospects of long-term employment.

We at the Scunthorpe site are being asked to embrace teamworking. We are not being offeredany assurances on job security. We wonder if this is another way of segregating groups in orderto contraet them out as with Emergency Services, Transport, Catering, IT, Bricklayers,Platelayers, North East Engineering?

The majority of employees across these plants supported teamworking and realized itmay prolong the survival of their plant but they also resented the possibility that thisextracted more effort from them and plant closure may not be avoided. Many employeestherefore appear to have adopted an air of 'resigned behavioural compliance' (Ogbonnaand Wilkinson, 1990) due to difficult economic conditions (see also Osterman, 2000;Scott, 1994), As one Tinplate employee put it, 'they have put more of a workload on peoplewithout the financial rewards, but in the economic climate they know they can do sowithout any repercussions'. However, it is worth noting that, whereas managersimplementing teamworking are more likely to stress the potential positive impact onproductivity and plant survival, employees may regard economic factors more cynically.For example, employees are more likely to view meeting shareholder expectations not as'mutual gains' but as increased uncertainty when faced with job cuts and the increased


threat of subcontracting. Although these employees still complied with teamworking theywere not yet 'resigned' to it, but rather many appeared to be holding onto a distinctlypluralist frame of reference, criticizing managers for prioritizing the interests ofshareholders.

Institutional rationales

Employees also suggested several institutional reasons for management pursuingteamworking. Institutionalist theory suggests that managers may select new initiatives tocopy others and follow the latest management fashion (Abrahamson, 1996; Powell andDi Maggio, 1991; Watson, 1994). Reflecting the fact that Sections was introducingteamworking after both the Shotton and Tinplate plants, a number of employees inSections commented that managers appeared to be following changes or 'fads' elsewhererather than genuinely innovating. Several Sections employees drew upon their pastexperiences where managers had not followed through previous initiatives, commenting:

There are in my opinion several faults in the management style of British Steel managers. Thefirst lies in the almost obsessive use of new initiatives - these flower briefly and then quicklyvanish in the face of management apathy. Hardly anything is carried through. Agendas are setthen abandoned. Buzz words, flavour of the month, all are created then forgotten.

BS often introduce good work practices i.e. NVQ, TQP, but do not follow it through and thesenior management/hoard do not realize how demoralising it can be for those implementingthe ideas. Teamworking appears to be another of those ideas. If they wish to follow the trueconcept of teamworking they should try working in 'the team'.

I agree wholeheartedly with the concept of teamworking as do the vast majority of mycolleagues. The main stumbling block is once again going to be the BS plant management whotraditionally are pretty poor at taking on board new ideas. In the past TQP, NVQ, IIP andtraditional training have all been miserable failures mainly due to lack of management effort.

Other employees felt that too many initiatives were being pursued:

It still seems to me that we have initiative overload - TQP, IIP, briefings, teamworking etc. etc.. . . . In principle it seems an obvious and sensible policy . . . However my experience tells me that. . . managers . . . refuse to confront the issues.

(Tinplate)

Whilst appreciating external financial constraints 'put on' the company, there does seem at timestoo many new initiatives running at once, i.e. I.M.S, teamworking. North East Engineering. Thebiggest problem at the moment within the business is worker dissatisfaction due to uncertaintiesbrought about by such as teamworking and North East Engineering.

(Sections)

My personal view is that British Steel are trying to undertake too many changes in too short aspace of time. For many years I have been very satisfied in my work, but in recent months/yearshave got less job satisfaction. This is partly due to the frequent mistakes that are occurring as aresult of the significant changes in structure.

(Sections)

Several employees commented that managers seemed to introduce change for no otherreason than 'for change's sake', leading to distress at the cost of such initiatives at a time

Bacon and BIyton: Worker responses to teamworking 249

when the company faced financial difficulties. As a production worker from a Sectionsblast furnace commented 'at the moment the company is on a change for change's sakeroller coaster with teamworking', while a craftsman similarly noted 'BSC constantlyemploy apolicy of "change for change's sake'". Similarly, a technician linked the cost ofsuch initiatives to declining morale: 'All these changes in direction obviously have a costto the business especially where outside agencies are used and have a demoralizing effecton the workforce which in turn is not good for business.' As Manz and Sims (1993)have noted, employees in low trust environments may resist the introduction of teamsbecause of a history of fashion-induced management initiatives. Employees linkedmanagement's pursuit of fashion with the career aspirations of managers (and in terms ofour categories, linked institutional and political motivations), one employee for examplecommenting: 'We seem to be moving from one system of working to another just forthe sake of a catch phrase, i.e. TQP, teamworking, high performance. This is justfor management to be seen to be doing something and making changes' (Tinplate).Whereas Abrahamson (1996) conceptualized managers as blind followers of fashion,employees also identify individual managers and the company as adopting fashionscynically and selectively (see Benders and van Veen, 2001).

Cultural rationales

Various comments by employees supported the view that teamworking also had anormative dimension though this was mentioned less frequently than economic, politicalor institutional rationales. Two particular aspects of managerial aims and behaviour inimplementing teamworking rankled with many employees from all sites. First, managerswere frequently accused of intentional selection bias in appointments to jobs in teams,operating a 'blue-eyed boy syndrome' (Tinplate employee) particularly for the selectionof team leaders but also team members. A craftsman from Sections, for example, saw itthus: 'it seems to me that in order to get on within this company an element of being inwith some of the managers is more important than being an honest hardworkingemployee'. Other workers similarly suggested:

Management seems not to have taken into account previous experience in your section.In other words if your face fits, you are in.

(Tinplate)

It's mainly, if your face fits, not whose is best for the job, i.e. there are plenty of intelligentvery skilled men on the shop floor...but if they [management] don't like you then you aregoing nowhere.

(Sections)

Teams [are selected] with only management's say so. They have their favourites.

(Sections)

As a result, workers suggested that managers created a false consensus throughpromoting only those employees who agreed with existing management policies.Employees from all sites considered these important issues for management. At theShotton works, for example, a number of employees felt managers responded to criticismby punishing workers: 'If you speak the truth and management does not like what yousay, they say you have a bad attitude, then they degrade or deselect you. So you have tokeep telling lies and make [as though] you feel that everything is working great';

250 The Intemational Journal of Human Resource Management

'Teatnworking at Shotton has got people over a barrel, you catinot say what you feelabout anybody on the management or disagree with team leaders or you will be knockeddown the pecking order' (note: the 'pecking order' was a management-defined gradingsystem within teams which was used to temporarily allocate higher grade positions madevacant due to absence or training). Likewise in Tinplate, employees commented: 'manyworkers are afraid to air their views otherwise they are classed as troublemakers' and'The pressure on workers to "toe the line" and not "rock the boat" has been used in theselection of teams, excellent workers with an independent mind have not been chosen'.Employees at the Sections plants also noted:

The 'don't rock the boat' philosophy has grown - those who have succeeded have often beenthose who have been most politically acceptable. The worst thing is the senior managementthink they are open-minded and live in enlightened times - they are misguided as well asmistrusted.

Senior managers have surrounded themselves with people they can dominate rarely consultinganyone else.

Although some employees commented that teamworking was being introduced to breaktraditional work teams and to introduce peer discipline, neither was predominant amongworker explanations of management rationales. The attempt to 'manage throughcompliance' (Delbddge and Tumbull, 1992; Garrahan and Stewart, 1992) appeared toworkers a rather explicit example of 'favouritism'.

Discussion

The range of managerial rationales identified by employees indicates no single dominantexplanation of why managers were introducing teamworking into these plants. However,several explanations for management actions were widely shared although were notalways equally prominent at each site, suggesting that employee responses even in thesame company are sensitive to context (Marchington et al, 1994). The most prominentamong these explanations were the self-interested behaviours of managers in protectingtheir own jobs and seeking to develop their own careers. In order to secure compliancewith such a self-seeking approach to teamworking, employees felt managers enforcedconsent through promoting and favouring compliant individuals. Teamworking was alsoregarded as the latest management fashion that could also help deliver an agenda ofreducing the number of employees in the company and help to increase returns toshareholders. Although it would be rare to find such a complete account of managementbehaviour from any single employee it is possible to connect these issues and a number ofemployees combined several of these rationales in order to explain management action.The dominant account that is suggested by the employees' comments is that seniormanagers were seen to have introduced teamworking using the following rationale: inorder to meet the concerns of shareholders the company embarked on a programme ofjob cuts; the careers of managers would benefit from delivering this programme andteamworking offered a popular recipe; when implementing teamworking alongside ajob-cutting programme managers found it necessary to protect their own jobs; in order tosecure the compliance of supervisors and team leaders (or other senior employeeson the shopfioor) employees were selected for promotion who would accept and supportthe teamworking initiative.

Comparing workers' attributions of management rationales with managerialexplanations of their actions established from previous studies highlights several

Bacon and BIyton: Worker responses to teamworking 251

similarities but also some sharply contrasting views. First, the emphasis in managementaccounts on the economic benefits of teamworking (Buchanan, 1994; Mueller, 1994) wasalso recognized by employees in these plants, but employees also recognized economicmotivations that were not 'framed' as increases in productivity. In particular, employeesidentified economic rationales as direct personal threats to their job security with thepotential subcontracting of further work also undermining their terms and conditions ofemployment. Furthermore, employees extended their analysis beyond the workplace andlinked their insecurity and work intensification under teamworking to an attempt toextract more from them to enhance returns to shareholders.

Second, some accounts identify teamworking as an attempt to change organizationalculture (Barker, 1993) and a cultural rationale was recognized by employees across theseplants. However, whereas managerial accounts typically emphasize the positive aspectsof shared aims and identification with the organization, employees were more likely tostress interactional justice issues, pointing to arbitrary and unfair employee selection onthe basis of attitudes in order to suppress opposition to management. Our findings herehave parallels with Knights and McCabe who found 'employees [were] not nearly asconvinced by the discourse of teamworking as its advocates presume' (2000: 1489), withmany employees in these steel plants highly critical of normative attempts to shapeemployee attitudes. Much of this criticism was the result of concerns about the unfairnessof selection criteria used to select team leaders and team members (i,e, procedural justiceconcerns) (see Kirkman et al., 1996) rather than employee concerns over identity and thediscourse of teamworking.

Third, employee accounts diverged from previous management accounts in thatpolitical and institutional rationales were prominent explanations for managementbehaviour. The tone of many comments was highly critical of managerial competenceand blatant self-interest. Underlying these comments was often a deeply held belief inthe continuation of a 'them and us' divide. The overall significance of politicalrationales in employee perspectives reported in this paper underlines the importance ofmanagement's treatment of the workforce in how workers respond to new initiatives(Wilkinson and Marchington, 1994), However, the importance of political rationalessuggests the relative shares of gains and costs between managers and employees maybe more important than interpersonal treatment (i,e, interactional justice) in the move toteamworking.

It is interesting that so few employees mentioned 'social' rationales despite previouswork suggesting they are important (Mueller, 1994; Bacon and BIyton, 2000b),Employees did report many of these changes elsewhere in the survey (e,g, perceivedincrease in skills, more varied work) and commented on some in a very positive fashion;however, they simply did not attribute them to management. It appears that managementare easily blamed for the negative aspects of teamworking and not easily credited for thepositive elements.

Conclusions

In recent work on HPWS the main logic for managers adopting new HR policies isidentified as a search for increased productivity and employee commitment. In contrast,the critical view suggests HRM rhetoric coerces employees and justifies a reassertion ofmanagement prerogative to increase employee effort. Although we can find aspectsof the first explanation in the economic motives that workers attributed to managementand aspects of the second in our classification of political motives, neither the HPWSnor the critical views adequately capture the number and variety of management


motives as perceived by employees. In general, many employee comments were criticalof management motives, revealing a continuing mistrust on the part of employees.Although teamworking itself delivered some positive changes - a majority were infavour of teamworking and reported increases in skill levels, variety of work, amount oftraining and influence over quality - managers received little credit for these changes.Our focus on the response of workers suggests that the trust and co-operation ofemployees is hard-won and even positive changes are not immune from a cynicalinterpretation of management motives. Furthermore, even where employees do not holdindividual managers responsible for introducing changes that employees feel areagainst workers' interests, they recognize that the pressures and rewards formanagement are not identical to those of workers and local communities.

These findings suggest that, in order to account for employee satisfaction andsubsequent organizational commitment, future studies of worker responses toteamworking and other initiatives should consider employee assessments ofmanagement motives and intent. Whereas authors developing the radical critique ofHRM have discussed management motives and the reality behind the rhetoric, ourapproach here has been to ask the employees affected to assess management motives.We suggest it is these employee views of management intent that will have asignificant impact on the attitudes and behaviours of workers, Manz and Sims (1993)have suggested a history of pursuing management fashions and poor industrialrelations are a recipe for employee resistance to teamworking. Although managerswere generally neither trusted nor well regarded in the plants we studied, employeesstill expressed favourable attitudes towards teamworking. At the same time they werealso highly critical of implementation they felt worked against their interests, theunfair application of policies and the willingness of managers to override workers'concems.

One implication of these findings is to question the normative ability of managerialinitiatives to convince, seduce or 'bewitch' employees because workers are able todistinguish between beneficial aspects of new methods of organizing work whilesimultaneously criticizing the motives of managers introducing new initiatives.Comments from employees in these plants suggest workers have frequent practice inassessing management policies given the number of new initiatives managers haveintroduced and left partially implemented. Consequently, many employees were ableto welcome teamworking and identified some positive effects without adopting amanagerial line, rather than 'buying into' managerial accounts of teamworking andthen detecting subsequent 'inconsistencies' (Knights and McCabe, 2000: 1495),Through the recent introduction of many competing initiatives managers hadbroadened the vocabulary and ideas from which employees could assess the nextinitiative. In plants marked by a low trust relationship between company andemployees it is unlikely managers will be able to control employees through managingtheir subjectivity.

Workers' assessments of management rationales for introducing teamworking maywell differ by context, as has been suggested in the variations noted between thedifferent sites in the present study. Future studies could usefully explore employeeattributions among a wider group of workers and with different types of teamworking.Comparisons could also usefully be drawn between different national contexts. Thepresent case exhibited a relatively high degree of 'them and us' attitudes perhapsreflective of the traditionally adversarial nature of industrial relations in the UK,Perhaps where those relations have been more integrative or co-operative in character.


the pattern of employee attributions of management motives will be significantlydifferent.

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Worker responses to teamworking: exploring employee attributions of managerial motives

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