| The purpose of this study was to contribute to our understanding of work improvement as conducted by a manufacturing improvement team, and in particular, to our understanding of the role that reflection might play in team members' learning and the success of the initiative. An agricultural marketing cooperative, owned by member food-processing cooperatives, was selected as the site for this study because tasks and reflection on practices might be more observable in work done by natural competitors engaged in cooperation. The following questions guided this research: (1) How do team members prospectively and retrospectively describe and understand their project work and the role that learning plays in achieving project objectives? (2) What work tasks are actually performed by the team during their work together, and how do the tasks compare with those prescribed by the literature? (3) According to Schon's ladder of reflection, which "rungs" of reflectivity are engaged by or accessible to project team members while conducting their improvement work? (4) How, if at all, does teamwork performed at different rungs of reflectivity seem to connect with a qualitatively more or less comprehensive kind of learning?;Open-ended qualitative interviews were conducted with all team members immediately before, immediately after, and then again seven weeks after teamwork sessions. Interviews were analyzed along with data from observation and tape-recording of the team's meetings and review of relevant documents.;Participants hold expansive prospective aspirations about what the group might accomplish, hoping or even expecting that teamwork will identify problems at "root cause" of the work process under review. Despite the expansive aspirations, the teamwork process effectively narrows the scope of its work. It redefines an "adaptive" challenge (problem known, solution and implementation unknown; learning required) into a "technical" one (problem, solution and implementation known; learning not required). It also prevents reflection from taking place at any but the lowest rungs. The group's suppression of a single dramatic instance of higher rung reflection is crucial to its maintaining a narrower focus that produces success as a modest procedural remedy rather than a substantive engagement of systemic improvement. |
