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o Academy of Management ¡oumal 1996. Vol. 39, No. 4, 1005-1023.

FROM CHIMNEYS TO CROSS-FUNCTIONAL TEAMS: DEVELOPING AND VALIDATING A

DIAGNOSTIC MODEL

DANIEL R. DENISON University of Michigan and Hitotsubashi University

STUART L. HART JOEL A. KAHN

University of Michigan

This article develops a Tratnework for studying cross-funclional teams in organizations that focuses on three domains: organizational context, internal process, and outcome measures. The framework was developed from qualitative data from over 200 individual and group interviews, written descriptions, and team observations. We then operationally de- fined this model through a set of questionnaire items and validated it through quantitative analysis of data from 565 members of cross- functional teams. The resulting framework provides a base for the future study of cross-functional teams.

Cross-fimctional teams (CFTs) are spreading rapidly in organizations as they attempt to improve coordination and integration (Ford & Randolph, 1992; Knight, 1976), span organizational boundaries (Ancona, 1990; Ohmae, 1990), and cut cycle time in new product development (Ancona & Caldweli, 1992a; Hitt, Hoskisson, & Nixon, 1993; Takeuchi & Nonaka, 1986). Cross- functional teams take many forms, hut they are most often structured as working groups, created to make decisions lower in an organization's hierar- chy, that have links to multiple subunits—or "chimneys"—and are designed as an overlay to an existing functional organization (Galbraith, 1994). CFTs share many characteristics with conventional teams, but they also differ in important ways: First, they are usually representative groups in which each member has a competing social identity and obligation to another subunit of the organization (Alderfer. 1987; Alderfer & Smith, 1982; Brown, 1983). Second, they are often temporary task teams experiencing abundant pressure and conflict, so the early development of stable and effective group processes

We wish to Ihank Susan Ashford, Jane Dutton. Richard Hackman, Susan Schneider, James Walsh, Karl Weick, and the members of the Michigan Interdisciplinary Organization Studies Seminar for their comments on earlier drafts of this article, as well as the many managers and executives who participated in and supported this study. In addition, our thanks to this journal's editors and anonymous reviewers for their comments and advice. Finally, we wish to thank Karen Gromala for her many contributions to this article.

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is critical to their success (Ford & Randolph, 1992; Gersick & Hackman, 1990). Third, cross-functional teams typically confront a different set of performance expectations than conventional work teams and are often ex- pected to reduce cycle time, create knowledge, and disseminate organiza- tional learning (Nonaka, 1991; Pinto & Slevin, 1988a, 1988h).

Empirical research on cross-functional teams, however, has lagged well behind their rate of adoption (Knight, 1976). Existing research on teams and their organizational contexts provides a useful point of departure hut has left many important questions unanswered (Ancona, 1990; Ancona & Caldwell, 1992a; Gladstein, 1984; Hackman, 1987, 1990). In this article, we sought to develop a framework and a set of measures for examining cross-functional teams by first collecting and analyzing qualitative data from 200 members of CFTs to develop a conceptual framework and an item pool. We then refined those measures through the analysis of survey data from three separate samples totaling 565 team members. Tbus, the primary contribution of this research is to examine a new and emerging organizational form and to de- velop a framework and a set of measures that can be used in studying that form. In addition, this article makes a contribution by contrasting CFTs witb other types of teams and linking this researcb witb the existing literature on teams and their contexts.

CROSS-FUNCTIONAL TEAMS: BUaOING ON THE LITERATURE

Although there is little existing literature directly on cross-functional teams, two related streams of research have served as a starting point: The first of these is the literature on teams and their organizational contexts (Ancona, 1990; Ancona & Caldwell, 1992b; Gladstein, 1984; Hackman, 1987, 1990), and the second is the work on product development teams, which has frequently addressed the process of combining varied sources of expertise to create innovative outcomes (Gohen & Ledford, 1991; Donnellon, 1995; Katz, 1982; Katz & Allen, 1985; Pelz & Andrews, 1976; Takeuchi & Non- aka, 1986).

The Organizational Context of Teamwork

Many authors have addressed the topic of team-based organizational design (Galbraith, 1973; Hackman & Walton, 1986; Leavitt, 1975; Manz, 1992; Pasmore, 1988), but relatively few have discussed the organizationai context of teams—the overarching structures and systems external to a team that facilitate or inhibit its work. We begin by reviewing two distinct approaches to organizational context that appear in the literature, the first focusing on an organization's impact on teams (Hackman, 1987, 1990) and the second examining the teams' attempts to influence the larger organization (Ancona, 1990; Ancona & Caldwell, 1992a, 1992b).

Tbese two approacbes sbare several characteristics. For example, both perspectives examine context by looking at the interactions that occur in the interface between individual teams and their organizational environment. As such, they share a definition of context as something external to the team

1996 Denisan, Hart, and Kahn 1007

yet interna! to the organization. In both approaches, team effectiveness is also a concern and is addressed through three-stage context-process-outcome models. These models are linked to more traditional social psychological input-process-outcome models (Hackman & Morris, 1975; Sundstrom, De- Meuse, & Futrell, 1990) and incorporate many of the suggestions offered hy Guzzo and Shea (1993), Mowday and Sutton (1993), and O'Reilly (1991) in their discussions of the importance of developing a contextual perspective in group and organizational research.

Hackman's (1987,1990) model of team effectiveness conceptualizes the impact of organizational context on teams in terms of three main influences: (1} the design of a team and its task, (2) the transfer of information, resources, and rewards to the team, and (3) the existence of process assistance that can he provided to facilitate a team's work. These three factors define the context domain and incorporate it within a general model of the effectiveness of work teams that also includes team processes and task outcomes. Our research was also influenced hy Hackman's discussion of the relationship between context, team processes, and outcomes as well as by Gladstein's (1984) study showing that contextual factors were more potent determinants of team effectiveness than internal team processes.

The second approach to studying teams and their organizational contexts focuses on how teams manage their interface with the larger organization (Tushman, 1977; Tushman & Katz, 1980). Ancona and Caldwell (1988), for example, examined how project teams managed their organizational contexts in high-technology companies. Ancona (1990) extended this research by descrihing the role orientations of effective and ineffective consulting teams in an educational organization. Teams that were isolated, passive, or overly technical were far less successful than teams that proactively managed the political dynamics of their client organization. Ancona and Caldwell (1992b) reported similar findings from a study of product development teams.

Both of these perspectives have been applied to a wide range of teams, and they help to explain many aspects of the functioning of cross-functional teams. But several aspects of the multifaceted context of such representative teams are not addressed, since the primary purpose of these models is to conceptualize a team's interaction with a primary context. Hackman's model, for example, conceptualizes context in terms of the transfer of information, resources, and rewards from organization to team and pays only limited attention to possihle conflicts and inconsistencies among the sources of these inputs. In addition, little empirical research has been done on the factors outlined in Hackman's (1987, 1990) model of team effectiveness.

Ancona (1990) and Ancona and Caldwell (1988, 1992a, 1992h) also presented a model that tends to conceptualize the influence of a team on a relatively unitary (albeit complex) organizational context. They argued that team memhers manage context through their strategic role orientations— teams with "task coordinators" or "ambassadors," for example, will be hetter able to control their context than teams whose members play the more passive role of "scout." These authors paid less attention, however, to the targets of

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a team's scouting or diplomacy, or to the need to scout one context, coordinate with a second context, and be diplomatic toward a third. CFTs must, however, coordinate action among a diverse set of functions, interests, and areas of expertise in order to he successful (Donnellon, 1995; Manz & Sims, 1987).

The existing literature on teams provides a rich base for conceptualizing the internal process of cross-functional teams, hut neither Hackman nor Ancona included a particularly rich set of process dimensions in their studies of context, process, and outcomes. Since the fragmented context in which these teams operate may in fact place significant strains on team processes, it seems important for new research to reexamine the role of such processes in conjunction with a study of a multifaceted context. Finally, the relevant range of outcomes for CFTs has received little attention in existing research on context. Although such teams' tasks are integrative and often creative, existing studies of context have typically examined conventional outcomes, such as task performance, cohesiveness. and memher satisfaction. Concern with these outcome issues, in particular, led us to examine additional re- search literature on product development teams.

Product Development Teams: Internal Processes and Outcomes

As noted in the introduction to this article, there are many different varieties of CFTs, including planning teams, ad hoc project teams, quality teams, process improvement teams, and product development teams. Al- though there are important differences among these types of teams, they all are typically task teams, with memhers representing multiple organizational functions, that are formed to integrate expertise from those functions and operate at a lower level in the hierarchy.

One research literature that helps contribute to a general understanding of CFTs is that on product development teams, a specific type of cross- functional team. Product development teams focus on comhining diverse sources of expertise in order to develop innovative new products. Although some product development is still done hy functional (for instance, engineer- ing) teams, this approach is increasingly rare. Research on product develop- ment teams in many cases helps to highlight the general problems facing CFTs of all types.

Research on project management, new product development, and organ- izing for innovation and creativity (Imai, Nonaka, & Takeuchi. 1985; Larson & Gobeli, 1988: Pelz & Andrews. 1976; Tushman. 1978; Tushman & Nadler. 1986) has shown that effective new product development occurs when two conditions are present: First, the requisite diversity of viewpoints, disci- plines, and functional specialties is represented in a team, and second, the team is able to span organizationai boundaries and integrate the functional expertise represented hy team members (Fruin. 1996).

This literature addresses the issue of the relationship between CFTs and their contexts but does so primarily in terms of the conflict created hy matrix structures (Davis & Lawrence, 1977; Galbraith, 1973, 1994; Larson & Gobeli, 1987). Most product development teams are influenced by one line of author-

Denison, Hart, and Kahn 1009

ity for the functions—the source of the specific forms of expertise required to develop a new product—and a second line of authority for the project organization developing the product (Goheli & Larson, 1987).

Implicit in this literature is the notion that cross-functional teams can perform systemic tasks such as product development better than functions working in isolation (Ancona & Caldwell, 1992a; Clark & Fujimoto, 1991; Nonaka, 1990; Takeuchi & Nonaka, 1986]. This idea, however, often neglects the fact that team membership, identity, and loyalty in CFTs may be in question (Donnellon, 1995). Donnellon argued that CFTs are less often teams with a high degree of interdependence, a group task, and a strong group identity than they are "co-acting" work groups composed of independent, highly competitive individuals who pursue their own goals over those of the teams (Hackman, 1987; Katzenbach & Smith, 1993). These issues seem to suggest that internal team processes are an important mechanism to create organizational coordination (Ancona & Caldwell, 1987, 1990; Barker, Tjos- vold, & Andrew, 1988).

The literature on product development teams also suggests a more rele- vant and complete set of outcome measures than traditional research on groups and their contexts (Gobeli & Larson, 1987; Pinto & Slevin, 1988a, 1988b). This research adds to the traditional measures of task accomplish- ment, cohesion, and member satisfaction, concerns such as time compres- sion, innovation, the integration of diverse viewpoints, learning, and capabil- ity development (Clark & Fujimoto, 1991; Takeuchi & Nonaka, 1986).

Although the team context and product development literatures have generated important insights concerning the contexts, processes, and out- comes of effective teams, they have produced less in the way of theory development, comparative research, and development of measures. Thus, our central concern, the development of a framework for understanding the effectiveness of cross-functional teams and a complementary set of valid measures, has received only limited attention in either literature.

METHODS

This study was conducted in two separate stages; First, we gathered qualitative data from stories, interviews, written descriptions, and observa- tions. A content analysis of these data suggested a set of issues that cross- functional team members thought were important to the effectiveness of their teams. Next, we used these issues and the qualitative data from which they were drawn as a basis for generating a pool of questionnaire items that began to operationally define influences on team effectiveness (Pinto & Prescott, 1988). Drawing on previous research that has defined context, process, and outcomes as important domains in team research (Ancona, 1990; Ancona & Caldwell, 1992b; Gladstein, 1984; Hackman, 1987, 1990), we grouped the issues and items into three domains and began to identify the most salient items and dimensions for each domain. Analysis of data from two samples of members from a diverse collection of CFTs was used to refine a set of measures for the dimensions within each domain. All data were collected

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from multiple divisions and locations of one multinational organization, a large American automobile manufacturer, and included data from team members in 15 different countries. This article reports the results in detail for the final sample of 364 members of 43 product development teams.

We began collecting data by conducting 50 informal interviews with members of CFTs, including planning teams, quality teams, process improve- ment teams, and product development teams. Each interview focused on the effectiveness of a team that the interviewee had been a member of, and the data were captured as a set of stories about the important characteristics of CFTs. Next, we collected written descriptions of teams from 174 middle managers who had been members of CFTs and were participants in a manage- ment development program. They were asked to describe, in writing, an effective cross-functional team and an ineffective cross-functional team and to list the characteristics that they thought distinguished effective and ineffec- tive teams.

Data from both of these sources were content-analyzed and then summa- rized in terms of a set of concepts and themes that captured the range of issues represented in the qualitative data. We grouped these concepts and themes into the three domains of context, process, and outcomes as suggested by the literature. From this set of concepts and the coded qualitative data from which they were drawn, we then developed an initial pool of question- naire items to be used as the basis for a set of measures.

The second stage of the research focused on refining a valid and reliable set of measures for the context, process, and outcome domains suggested by the literature. In several cases in which the context was similar to existing scales in the literature, we borrowed items to help measure dimensions (Hackman, 1987; Hart, 1985). Next, we administered a questionnaire witb this set of 123 items to 200 middle managers in a company executive development program. Respondents were asked to identify a team that they had been a member of and to respond to the items with respect to that team. On the basis of resuhs, we added, discarded, or reworded items. This refinement process also involved frequent reference back to our qualitative data (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). This process was then repeated a second time on a second sample of 200 middle managers.

The resulting set of items was then administered to the members of 43 intact CFTs who were involved in three large product development programs, each of which was dedicated to one vehicle. Each of tbese programs was led by a program manager and was made up of 15-30 cross-functional teams that held responsibility for separate modules or subunits of the vehicle. Each of these teams had a core of 5-20 members who came from functional organizations such as design, body or powertrain engineering, manufactur- ing, marketing, purchasing, and so on. Since the official list of team members often included nominal members who did not attend meetings or contribute much, we asked the leaders of each team to identify core members of the team, those who attended meetings regularly, spent at least 20 percent of their time working for the team, and were central to the team's activities.

1996 Denison. Hart, and Kahn 1011

Using this procedure, we targeted 565 individuals who were members of 43 CFTs as questionnaire respondents. Surveys were distributed to core team members by their team leader at one of their regular meetings, and respon- dents were given two weeks to complete the survey and return it to us using an enclosed envelope. After three weeks, a second set of surveys was distributed to those who had not yet responded. Overall, 364 respondents representing 43 CFTs responded for an overall response rate of 65 percent. The respondents were primarily managers and engineers between the ages of 25 and 55, 85 percent of whom were men.

RESULTS

We begin by presenting a brief story for each domain, illustrating some of tbe dimensions identified by our qualitative researcb; we then present a factor analysis of the item pool for the domain. Finally, we present a second- order confirmatory factor analysis conducted to determine if the derived factors fit into the three domains suggested by the literature and by our qualitative analysis.

Organizational Context

The context of cross-functional teams is complex and differs from that of more conventional teams in that it includes hierarchical, lateral, and interteam dependencies that require continuous negotiation. For teams to exist within an organizational environment, they must define their role in relation to upper management and resolve the inherent conflicts between the functions tbat tbey represent. An example drawn from an interview in one product development team shows how difficult tbis can be;

The total amount of electrical power in a vehicle is determined by the capacity ofthe alternator. This power must serve over 20 subsystems, such as the stereo, the engine, the instrument panel, and so on. These subsystems are developed and controlled hy separate "chimney" organizations, and power allocations must be made for each system. The problem was, in this vehicle pro- gram, when the requirements of all the chimneys and teams were added up, they equaled 125 percent of the capacity of the alternator. Keith, who had recently taken over as head of this vehicle program, which had made many changes in direction and was behind schedule to begin with, called a meeting ofthe Program Steering Team designed to resolve this conflict and reach a compromise. However, many of the chimney representatives who were the members of the team came to this meeting with instructions from their bosses (who, incidentally, did their per- formance appraisals . . . ) not to make any compromises, but to make certain that their chimney "got what it needed" and "didn't lose out." After Keith presented the group with the problem and the need to reach a compromise solution, their response surprised him: "It's not our problem," they replied, "it's your problem." Keith soon changed jobs again.

Tbis story illustrates several of tbe critical dimensions of organizational context and tbeir relation to team effectiveness. Power dynamics between

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teams and functional organizations can greatly limit the autonomy of a team and must be managed proactively. Furthermore, when a team's mission is a "moving target," its power is diminished. In addition, coordination with other cross-functional teams is often required. Finally, many needed re- sources and rewards, as this example illustrates, are controlled hy the func- tional organizations rather than the team itself.

Table 1 presents the exploratory factor analysis (principal components with varimax rotation) for the context domain. Factor loadings above .50, our cutoff point for including an item in a factor, are presented in hold type.

The results show six dimensions with eigenvalues greater than 1.0: coor- dination with other teams; autonomy and power; linkage to fimctions; re- sources; mission and direction; and reward for team performance.

Team Processes

The conflicting demands inherent in the organizational context place a premium on a team's internal processes. Team members need to he both representatives of their functional authority structures and creative prohlem- solvers. Meeting both of these demands requires a broad and flexible team process. The following story, taken ft-om a process improvement team, illus- trates some of these dynamics:

Our formalized approach to managing cross-functional teams can really get in the way. [For example,] . . . our organization has several common practices that make an effective team process difficult. [First,] . . . we always meet in large horseshoe shaped conference rooms and take turns making presentations to each other. Very few of these meetings actually lead to creative proh- lem solving. Sometimes, a representative from one of the chim- neys will come in and "drop the homh," (deliver unexpected bad news) and then leave. [Second.] . . . the team is really a collection of subteams that come and go during a meeting de- pending on what's on the agenda. The "heavy hreathers" (bosses) hack home in the ftmctions will sometimes even send a delegate to our mootings with instructions to just watch and "make sure nothing happens." The result is thai the group doesn't take collec- tive responsibility, and that can be very demotivating. [Third,] . . . many teams are assigned "content" leaders and "process" leaders. The content leader is the technical expert—the "real" boss—and the process leader helps run meetings and manage the team. The problem is that an effective team has to have flexihle leadership—leadership and expertise need to change according to the issue and get passed aronnd as needed.

This example illustrates the demands for hoth functional representation and creativity and the need to develop team identity and normative expecta- tions if a team is to take collective responsihility for resolving a diverse set of demands. Leaders who facilitated flexihle problem solving and team development seemed to have an advantage.

Table 2 presents the analysis for the team process domain. It reveals six factors: norms; the importance of the team's work; effort; efficiency; creative strategy; and breadth.

1996 Denison, Hart, and Kahn 1013

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Outcomes

The criteria of effectiveness for cross-functional teams are many and varied. As tbe example below illustrates, success can often require that all criteria be met, since failure on any criterion may mean failure for the en- tire project.

For one "high profile" new product, a program manager and core team were selected and given the responsibility for hitting specific "targets" for cost, weight, and timing. Since program management represented a new way of working, the team mem- bers necessarily "invented it as they went along." to a great extent. The excitement surrounding this new effort generated a great deal of learning and innovation, both about the product and how to work in a cross-functional environment. The team members greatly expanded their abilities and understandings over the course of the program. Despite several false starts and blind alleys, the product ultimately won "Car of the Year" honors upon its introduction. However, because the program missed the cost and weight targets established by upper management, the program managers never survived to apply their skills to a sec- ond program.

This story points to the wide range of outcomes expected from cross- functional teams: Not only are they expected to produce innovation, learning, and new capabilities, but they are also called upon to compress time and hit stringent task targets. Member satisfaction is also a key outcome if the team approach is to remain a viable way to organize future product develop- ment efforts.

Table 3 presents the analysis for the outcome domain. It reveals seven factors: information creation, time compression, image expansion, learning, growth satisfaction, overall effectiveness, and capability development.

Table 3 also shows that information creation and time compression items loaded on the same factor, as did learning and growth satisfaction items. A more detailed analysis of each of these sets of items sbowed that they sepa- rated into two factors when analyzed alone. Since some potentially important theoretical issues distinguish these constructs, they are reported separately in Table 3.

Figure 1 presents the three-domain model and the factors included in each domain. We examined tbe validity of these three domains by performing a second-order confirmatory factor analysis. In this analysis, we took the indexes from the exploratory analyses reported in Tables 1-3 as observed variables and the three domains as latent variables. Table 4 presents a correla- tion matrix for these indexes.

Table 5 presents the results of this confirmatory factor analysis. These analyses were performed with LISREL VI (Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1984). Factor loadings (ksi) are presented for each index. All measures have high loadings in the expected domain, and all are statistically significant. The fit statistics (GFI = .829, x^ = 343.02, df = 149) indicate that tbe data fit the model reasonably well, although there is some room for improvement. In addition,

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FIGURE 1 A Model of Cross-Functional Team Effectiveness

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Context

Coordination with Other Teams

Autonomy and Power

Linkage to Functions

Resources

Mission and Direction

Reward for Team Performance

Process

Norms

Importance of Work

Effort

Efficiency

Creative Strategy

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when the fit of the domain model was compared to the fit of the nested null model, the normed-fit index (Bentler & Bonett, 1980) was .891. The highest modification index value was 22.14 for the satisfaction index and the context domain. No other modification index values exceeded 10.0. No respecifica- tion of the model was done since our purpose in this analysis was simply to confirm the plausihility of the three-domain model suggested by the litera- ture and hy our qualitative analysis.

DISCUSSION

This study has examined a new, rapidly spreading organizational phe- nomenon, the cross-functional team, and has developed a grounded model and set of measures of the infiuences on team effectiveness. This model is framed in terms of the three domains—team context, internal team processes, and team outcomes—that are prominent in current research on team effec- tiveness. Thus, we have attempted to present a comprehensive model that can be used to inform both future research and practice.

The most original contributions from this research are in the context and outcome domains. In the context domain, a primary contribution is the focus on the highly differentiated organizational environment in which CFTs exist. In particular, the identification of hierarchical, lateral, and function- specific links represents a worthwhile extension of the research presented by other researchers (Ancona, 1990; Ancona & Caldwell, 1992b; Hackman, 1987). The second area of contribution, in the outcome domain, is the identi- fication of a broader set of outcome measures than appears in existing models of team effectiveness. The contributions in the process domain are clearly less unique, but the inclusion of an extensive set of process measures in this context-process-outcome model makes it a useful resource for future researchers and practitioners.

The strengths of this study include its focus on a new and little- understood organizational phenomenon, its grounding in an inductive re-

1018 Academy of Management Journal August

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TABLE 5 Results of Second-Order Confirmatory Factor Analysis

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Coordination Autonomy Linkage Resources Mission Reward Norms Importance Effort Efficiency Creativity Breadth Information Time Image Learning Satisfaction Effectiveness Capability

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search process, the generality of findings across a wide variety of teams, and the appiication to an intact set of product development teams. Potential limitations of the study include the fact that the data were all collected fi'om a single organization and that the final validation of the measures reported here relied upon a sample of one type of CFT, product development teams. Although the data summarized here represent literally hundreds of teams and contexts from many different countries, future validation of this model would benefit by using data from multiple organizations. The focus on prod- uct development teams, on balance, may also he more of a strength than a limitation, since such teams are one of the most demanding forms of cross- functional team [Nonaka, 1991). In addition, such teams are of continuing interest to group researchers (Ancona, 1990; Ancona & Caldwell. 1992b; Donnellon. 1995) and figure in important ways in the future research agenda in this area.

Several relationships identified in the model suggest important future research. Three examples help to illustrate: First, the results suggest that information creation and time compression are closely related. This finding appears to contradict traditional group research on speed and innovation and tends to support Eisenhardt's (1989) ohservation that innovation and speed can occur jointly. This issue clearly warrants further analysis. Second, more general questions in the literature can also be addressed within this model. For example, Gladstein (1984) and Ancona (1990) studied the rela- tionship hetween organizational context and team processes, concluding that contextual factors were more important determinants of team effectiveness

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than team process. The broad definition of context, process, and outcomes in this model provides the basis for a more robust test of the relative influences of context and process on outcomes.

Third, the multidimensional definition of the outcome domain suggests another interesting set of research questions. For example, several of the dimensions, such as time compression, task achievement, and information creation, are task-focused and relatively short-term. Other outcome dimen- sions, such as learning, capability development, image expansion, and growth satisfaction, are longer-term contributions to the future capacity of the organizational system. Are different aspects of context and process associated with these different types of outcomes? Do they differ in their prediction of "objective" indicators of performance and effectiveness?

Tbis study also collected data about the specific functional organizations represented by each of the team members. Thus, we could aggregate the data presented in this study hy function rather than by team to create measures of the linkage problems associated with each specific functional organization. The presentation of these data would be well beyond the scope of this article, but the availability of quantitative and qualitative data about each of the functions that assign members to these teams offers an alternative way for future research to examine the multifaceted context in which teams exist.

A final important issue for future research is the effect of different struc- tural arrangements on team effectiveness (Galbraith & Kazanjian, 1986; Go- beli & Larson, 1987). Gross-functional teams can, for example, exist within a matrix structure, with part-time commitment and temporary assignment of members to teams, or within a more autonomous team structure in which team assignments are full-time and long-term. The alleged merits and dynam- ics of more fully dedicated teams are the subject of heated debate in the literature (Glark & Fujimoto, 1987,1991; Denison, Hart, & Ichijo, 1994; Takeu- chi & Nonaka, 1986) and among practitioners, but very few data currently exist to inform these discussions.

This brief discussion of the future research agenda reveals only a few of the many interesting research topics that can inform the theoretical and practical understanding of cross-functional teams. Since the evolution of these teams in organizations is rapidly outstripping scholarly research on the topic, this situation represents a unique opportunity to researchers who aspire to inform both theory and practice.

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Daniel R. Denison is an associate professor of organizational behavior at the University of Michigan's School of Business Administration. He received his Ph.D. degree in organizational psychology at the University of Michigan. He is currently doing research on organizational culture and effectiveness, cross-functional teams, and organiza- tional design.

Stuart L. Hart is an assistant professor of corporate strategy and director of the Corporate Environmental Management Program at the University of Michigan's School of Business Administration. He received his Ph.D. degree in planning at the University of Michigan. He is currently doing research on strategy-making and cross-functional processes as they relate to firm environmental strategy and performance.

Joel A. Kahn is a visiting assistant professor of organizational behavior at the University of Michigan's School of Business Administration. He received his Ph.D. degree in organizational behavior from the University of Michigan's School of Business Adminis- tration. He is currently engaged in research on cognitive maps, cross-functional teams, and interpretive systems.

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