Accounting for teamwork: A critical study of group-based systems of organizational control

This paper examines the role of accounting calculations in the process of reorganizing the manufacturing capabilities of a vertically integrated global retailing company. In contrast to mainstream analyses that emphasize the novelty and mutual benefits of teamwork, we show how its introduction to replace line work extended rather than supplanted traditional, hierarchical systems of management control. Management's intention was to engender a self-managing means of continuous improvement of working practices, but the self-managing demands of teamwork contravened workers' established sense of self-identity as "machinists" and "mates." Output was raised by changing to a group bonus system, but the move to teamwork had the unintended effect of fermenting hostility toward the managerial goal of making the teams fully self-managing.