Changes in Teamwork: Between Demand and Breakup
This article studies teamwork at an energy plant in Moscow as an example that helps analyze the changes that have occurred in workplace relations over the past few decades. We have carried out a number of in-depth interviews, revealing the employees’ thoughts on the team’s development stages, experience sharing, and relationship structure within their workplace. By reconstructing the principles of Soviet and modern teamwork, we reveal the factors that determine whether or not the team is close-knit. Special emphasis is given to such vital teamwork elements as professionalism, flexibility, and personal initiative. We have discovered a specific feature of teamwork: namely, the team’s active efforts to assert itself as an independent social and economic entity. Out of all the elements of teamwork, the workers’ relationship with the management has experienced the most drastic transformation; this may be chiefly explained by the shift from a centralized energy sector that is fully controlled by the state to a market that is only partially governed by the state, combined with a completely new management and legal structure of the sector. This pilot research allows the development of more precise tools for studying teamwork, based on the data collected.