David Knights, a professor of management at the Lancaster University, whose work involves

organization studies and he has contributed to higher education and the financial sector. His work has

academically benefitted students in business schools and has been helpful in dealing with the global

financial crisis. The co-author of this article, Darren McCabe is also a professor of management from the

same university, and has done research on financial services and published on teamwork in business

institutions. It is evident from the qualifications and work of the authors that they are very well-suited to

write on this issue of teamwork.

The article was published in the Human Relations journal and it is placed 37th amongst 192

journals in 2015, which sets it in a popular spot for presenting issues that will be recognized and given

importance to. To begin with, the authors make the following statement about the aim of this paper, Our

concern in this paper is not one of classifying types of team working but of providing a tentative analysis

of its effects on the subjectivity of employees and their behavior. (p.1482). Though the purpose is very

precise and clear, the authors have filled the literature section with too many sources and have not used

them effectively, to state their purpose in a simple articulated language. For instance, a piece of writing

that demonstrates this is as follows,

Teamworking is often considered to be innately good (Batt, 1998); an

approach that is more satisfying to team members and boosts morale
(Oakland, 1996: 12). It is seen as a key to economic success for, if the
organization is to perform, it must be organized as a team (Drucker, 1992:
102). It is frequently contrasted with working in an atomized, Tayloristic, or
Fordist way (Womack et al., 1990; Wickens, 1992). One might expect,
therefore, that all parties to the employment relationship will simply welcome
teamworking. For, as Oakland (1996: 12) points out, teamwork builds up
trust, improves communication and develops interdependence.(p.1486).

Analyzing this from an audiences viewpoint, the purpose of this paragraph aims to go nowhere in

explaining the citations made by the author, as they do not analyze it. This is ineffective in relating the

purpose of the article to its literary content and as it is particularly expected that the audience will be the

employees of the automobile company, it does not serve them much purpose other than misperception.

1
 As per this article, the authors aimed to divide the employees, who will be involved in teamwork,

into three categories: bewitched, bothered and bewildered. This might seem to the audience, who are

expected to be managers and or simply the team players, the fact that the establishment of a forced

behavioral identity may in fact be far from reality. This is because the employees, might call out to claim

that they do not fall in any of those categories. However, the authors eliminate that idea by clearing out

that they only use it as a heuristic to simplify a complex human behavior. This is stated as follows,

Moreover, we also acknowledge that the employees that we identify as bewitched or bothered may

respond differently under different circumstances or at different times. (p.1489).

Another noticeable and appreciable methodology that the authors employed in presenting the

three types of experiences of employees (bewitched, bothered and bewildered), is to take model examples

of firms. This is an effective way to support their idea and also relate to the audience. This helps them

make conclusions, as stated here by the authors, To ask workers to cut down on waste, or to do their job

correctly the first time, implied to Ian that management did not trust the workforce to do a good job.

(p.1501). As per the cited statement, employees emotional state can be understood, which further

strengthens authors claim by helping to draw conclusions.

Overall, the authors have compiled multiple literary content and real-time models to support their

arguments through experiences of other people and using work done by other researchers. Though as per

the target audience, the text has been articulated in a complicated manner, it serves the purpose of an in-

depth research material that is sure to help others working to understand behavioral nature of workforce.