Date of Award

1995

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Business Administration

Department

Business

First Advisor

Daniel W. Kemper

Second Advisor

Joseph Ancona

Third Advisor

Mary Hageman

Abstract

This thesis will focus on the study of self-directed or empowered work teams and on preparing a plan to implement the empowered work team in the customer Contact Center in Wentzville, Missouri.

Self-directed work teams are a relatively new concept in the workforce and could be the 90s version of the total quality concept. The philosophy is that first line management takes a step backward and the workgroup virtually leads themselves. Employees are empowered to make the decisions and then act on those decisions to produce a better quality product than before. The concept is designed around teamwork both from within the corporation and occasionally from outside the corporation.

Much has been written about the empowered work team, albeit in bit and pieces, and what makes them so successful in some corporations and unsuccessful in others. The purpose of this study is to investigate the methods utilized to implement the leaderless work team and determine the best of the best methods to implement the plan.

The study revealed that there is no formal plan for implementation documented and most corporations have relied on their own processes and resources to implement the plan. Both successes and failures are documented and the reasons for those successes and failures reviewed to select the best of the best methods for the implementation plan developed for the Customer Contact Center in Wentzville, Missouri.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Download

Included in

Business Commons

Share

COinS