Self-directed work groups and team competence

The study examines the impact of self-directed group work on team competence. The sample consists of 83 production groups from 20 medium-sized enterprises: 44 self-directed work groups and 39 traditional work groups. Results based on process-analytic behavioural data, collected at the group level of analysis, show that self-directed teams are more competent than traditional work groups on seven out of 12 aspects of competence. Self-directed teams show greater methodological competence, to some extent greater professional and self-competence but no greater social competence when completing optimization tasks. In addition, the work characteristics participation, formal team communication, continuous improvement process, training and team-oriented tasks were related to team competence in the subsample of self-directed work teams.