• International Journal of Quality Innovation
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.1-21
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• 2008

A Purpose. As organizations become more team oriented, research on teams continues to increase especially involving how teams contribute to organizational performance and effectiveness. Although there has been existing research on Kaizen teams in the private sector, very little research has included Kaizen teams in the public sector. In this paper, we present a method to study Kaizen teams in a local Spanish government that have been using Kaizen teams for more than ten years. Design/methodology/approach. Quantitative research was adopted for this study. Twenty teams participated in the study by filling out the Team Learning and Development Inventory (TLI) proposed by Lingham (2004). In addition, we interviewed members of the teams in order to clarify and assure our quantitative results. Findings Based on the findings, we propose that Kaizen teams should practice both Continuous (CI) and Process Improvements (PI) in their projects. We also propose that Kaizen teams should not be teams skilled only at developing better improvement processes (both CI and PI) for the organization but that such teams should also be skilled at engaging in team development using both CI and PI processes internally-a Kaizen within Kaizen teams approach. Research limitations. Its based in one case study. However, it is working paper and the research project still is developing. Practical Implications (if possible). Serve as a guide to practitioners (Public managers) who desire to understand how their Kaizen teams involves both internal (conversational spaces) and external (methodology) perspectives that would contribute to both team and organizational effectiveness. In this paper, we focus on the Internal Processes (both CI and PI) using the TLI as an effective method for Kaizen teams to engage in the Kaizen process. Originality/value. This study is one of the first to look at team's performance using Team Learning and Development Inventory in Spain's public sector. It is also the first to mention about the relationship of the team's performance and the implementation of process improvement methodologies in Spain local government environment.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.1-22
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• 2017

This article explores the relationship between the gender composition of scientific research teams and scientists' individual performance. The gender composition of research teams is an important feature of workplace settings and influences the way people interact and communicate; however, previous research has not directly examined its relationship with scientists' individual performance. Drawing on data collected on university faculties in China in 2016, this article tests several hypotheses about individual's performance in teams with different gender compositions. The results show that team gender composition has a clear gendered effect on scientists' individual performance. The effects of tokenism for women in men-majority teams is proven, but men in women-majority teams appear to be unaffected by tokenism. Moreover, the theories claiming that homogenous teams are more conducive to better individual performance than mixed teams are supported for men but not for women. The findings of this research suggest that recruiting more women into the scientific workforce may improve their performance and thereby help diminish the gender gap in performance. It also indicates that the Chinese preferential policies towards women in science formulated in recent years have had positive impacts. However, considering that more than half of the researchers in the survey are working in men-majority teams, the task of narrowing the gender gap in performance remains a challenge. Further work is needed to explore the tensions and benefits of working with the opposite gender.

• Journal of Engineering Education Research
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.3-14
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to analyze the characteristics of efficient problem-solving teams and inefficient problem-solving teams using SYMLOG. In this study, 35 college students majoring in engineering education at C university were organized into 7 teams and carried out technological problem solving projects over one semester. Based on the results of the team project, the top 2 teams were defined as efficient problem solving teams and the bottom 2 teams were defined as inefficient problem solving team, and analyzed the characteristics of the team using SYMLOG. The main results are as follows: First, an analysis of SYMLOG from efficient problem solving teams and inefficient problem solving teams showed that there was a difference between self-awareness and others' perception in terms of U(Upward)-D(Downward) dimension. Second, in the inefficient problem solving teams, there was a significant difference between self-awareness and others' in the F(Forward)-B(Backward) dimension. Third, there was no difference between self-awareness and others' in both efficient and inefficient teams at the P (Positive)-N(Negative) dimension. Fourth, an efficient problem-solving team had a clear leader, and there was a team member who supported the leader. On the other hand, the inefficient problem-solving team did not have a clear leader, or one person played the role of leader and there were no team members supporting the leader.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.53-90
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• 1992

THis study examines a contingency relationship between task uncertainty and structure of project teams in conjunction with the leader-member communication patterns. Multivariate analyses are used to analyze the data from 63 R & D project teams of research laboratory in a large manufacturing corporation. Major findings for this study can be summarized as follows. First, project teams with an organic structure are found to yield high performance when task uncertainty is high, while project teams with a mechanistic structure achieve high performance when their tasks are relatively certain. Second, patterns of leader-member comunication are significantly associated with both task uncertainty and structural characteristics of project teams. This implies that leaders of project teams communicate with their members in more conslutative manner when their tasks are uncertain or when their team structure exhibits organic characteristics. Finally, task uncertainty playus a significant moderating role in the relationship between consultative communication patterns and performance of project teams. Based upon these findings, this study offers several theoretical, practical, and methodological implications.

• The International Journal of Costume Culture
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.141-152
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• 2009

In this study, the business structure and characteristics of buying offices used by buyers for apparel productions through global sourcing were analyzed in specifics. Data were acquired through in-depth interviews of twelve merchandisers at representative apparel buying offices. The results of this study can be summarized as following. The business structure of a buying office varied depending on the functions, the item characteristics of products to be manufactured or the characteristics of the major buyers who were the customers. Overall, teams were formed by brands or organizations were formed by functions. Functional teams were divided within each brand team when business teams were divided by brands and personnel was divided by brands occasionally within each functional team when business teams were divided by functions. Business teams were composed of MR which managed the overall business about orders such as factory sourcing, price decision and production management and teams with various specialized skills. The teams with specialized skills were composed of Technical team, Fabric Development team, Colorist team, Quality Assurance (QA) or Quality Control (QC) team, Logistics team, Factory Audit team, and etc. For the future directions on the improvements, ways to increase international competitiveness of buying offices need to be researched and many expressed the opinion that it would be effective to move the offices to countries close to buyers or manufacturing locations as most buyers demand lower prices and shorter lead time than before and it is increasing trend for buyers and factories to do business directly without buying offices in the middle.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.144-152
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• 2016

Human capabilities, such as technical/nontechnical skills, have begun to be recognized as crucial factors for nuclear safety. One of the most common ways to improve human capabilities in general is training. The nuclear industry has constantly developed and used training as a tool to increase plant efficiency and safety. An integrated training framework was suggested for one of those efforts, especially during simulation training sessions of nuclear power plant operation teams. The developed training evaluation methods are based on measuring the levels of situation awareness of teams in terms of the level of shared confidence and consensus as well as the accuracy of team situation awareness. Verification of the developed methods was conducted by analyzing the training data of real nuclear power plant operation teams. The teams that achieved higher level of shared confidence showed better performance in solving problem situations when coupled with high consensus index values. The accuracy of nuclear power plant operation teams' situation awareness was approximately the same or showed a similar trend as that of senior reactor operators' situation awareness calculated by a situation awareness accuracy index (SAAI). Teams that had higher SAAI values performed better and faster than those that had lower SAAI values.

• Journal of Integrative Natural Science
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.55-61
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• 2022

Recently people require complex access to problems in various fields of health, medical and welfare by an aging society. For this reason, the need for interprofessional education is required at the site of university education. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of interprofessional education (IPE) on attitudes towards health care teams. The subjects were 29 sophomores in the fields of health, medical and welfare in a university. Attitudes Towards Health Care Teams Scale (ATHCT) was used to measure the attitudes towards health care teams of subjects. The subjects were provided with a IPE program. The collected data were analyzed by descriptive analysis and paired t-test using the SPSS 26.0 version program. The attitudes towards health care teams of subjects increased significantly after IPE education (t=-4.28, p<.001). And there were significant differences in the three sub-factors of attitudes towards health care teams (Team efficacy, t=-4.44, p<.001; Benefit of communication, t=-3.30, p=.003; Team value, t=-3.21, p=.003). Therefore, the IPE program is considered to be an effective education program to improve attitudes towards health care teams.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.109-114
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• 2011

The number of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), especially those involved with research and development (R&D) programs and employed virtual teams to create the greatest competitive advantage from limited labor are increasing. Global and localized virtual R&D teams are believed to have high potential for the growth of SMEs. Due to the fast-growing complexity of new products coupled with new emerging opportunities of virtual teams, a collaborative approach is believed to be the future trend. This research explores the effectiveness of virtuality in SMEs' virtual R&D teams. Online questionnaires were emailed to Malaysian manufacturing SMEs and 74 usable questionnaires were received, representing a 20.8 percent return rate. In order to avoid biases which may result from pre-suggested answers, a series of open-ended questions were retrieved from the experts. This study was focused on analyzing an open-ended question, whereby four main themes were extracted from the experts' recommendations regarding the effectiveness of virtual teams for the growth and performance of SMEs. The findings of this study would be useful to product design managers of SMEs in order to realize the key advantages and significance of virtual R&D teams during the new product development (NPD) process. This is turn, leads to increased effectiveness in new product development's procedure.

• Journal of electromagnetic engineering and science
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.29-34
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• 2003

In this paper, we fabricated an 1.8 ㎓ differential VCO using a commercial 0.5 ${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$ SiGe BiCMOS process technology, The fabricated VCO consumes 16 ㎃ at 3 V supply voltage and has a 1.2 $\times$ 1.6 $mm^2$TEX>chip area. A phase noise measured at 100 KHz offset carrier is -110 ㏈c/Hz and a tuning range is 1795 MHz~1910 MHz when two varactor diodes are biased from 0 V to 3 V.

• Journal of Information Technology Applications and Management
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.83-97
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to examine the impacts of media symbol variety on group performance in virtual teams. Symbol variety is defined as the number of ways in which information can be communicated and includes Daft and Lengel [1986]'s multiplicity of cues and language variety. According to media richness theory and media synchronicity theory, the use of media with high symbol variety is assumed to facilitate and promote communications among virtual team members. Therefore, it is expected that the media symbol variety is positively associated with group performance in virtual teams. Furthermore, online relationship building is expected to mediate the impacts of symbol variety on the performance. To confirm the suppositions, a controlled lab experiment was conducted with 60 undergraduate students as subjects. In the experimental virtual teams, subjects were allowed to communicate with other members using text-based messenger with emoticons. Subjects in the control virtual teams were allowed to communicate using only text-based messenger. The direct impact of symbol variety on group performance in virtual teams was found insignificant. However, the online relationship was found to completely mediate the positive impact of symbol variety on group performance. The implications and limitations of this study are also discussed for future research.