BACKGROUND

Teamwork is the process of working collaboratively with a group of people in order to

achieve a goal. The external factors of teamwork are the political, economic, social and
technological factors that affect teamwork whiles the internal factors of teamwork constitute
leadership style, diversity (culture, talent and personalities) communication, cohesiveness
etc. which affects teamwork.

Teamwork is as old as mankind, and many organizations use the term teamwork in either
one sense or the other, such as in the production, marketing processes, etc. Management
team, production team or an entire organization can be referred as a team. Cook (1998)
claimed that there is a growing consensus amo ng scholars in the world that organizations
may be getting works done through individuals, but his super achievement lies in the
attainment of set goals through teams (teamwork). It is a well-known fact that teamwork
is not only the foundation of all successful managements, but the means of improving
overall results in organizational productivity. Wage (1997) described Teamwork as an idea
of working together in a group to achieve the same goals and objectives for the good of the
service users and organizations in order to deliver a good quality of service (productivity).
Ruth (2007) claimed that employees’ teamwork is seen as constituting a larger group of
people than what job position describes. The essence of teamwork is that workload is
reduced and broken into pieces of work for everyone to take part. Alan (2003) defined
teamwork as a grouping of professionals whose members work intensely on a specific,
common goal using their positive synergy, individual mutual accountability and
complementary skills. Employees take many steps toward accomplishing key action
items and nothing important is finished. Team work is the ability to work together towards a
common vision. It is a fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.

Collective action is widely recognized as a positive fo rce for teamwork in any organization
or institution to succeed. Teams enable individuals to empower themselves and to increase
benefits from cooperative work engaged on as a group. Getting together with others also can
allow individuals to better understand the importance of teamwork and how the
organizations operate as well as promote the culture of teamwork success.

Davis (2007) claimed that employers always stress the need for emp loying those
(Employees) that can be able to work with a team and they (Employers) generally talk of
teamwork when they want to emphasize the need to various talents possessed by different
employees. The organizations however, coordinate the employees into different teams,
such as management team, production team, etc.

Organization is a social unit of people that is structured and managed to meet a need or to
pursue collective goals or organization is a systematic arrangement of people to accomplish
the same specific purpose. Every organization is composed of three elements i.e. people,
goals and system. The purpose is expressed as goals generally. Each organization has a
systematic structure that defines members and some members are managers and some are
operatives. Organization according Caroline (2008) is a social entity whose goal is directed,
deliberately structured activity systems with a preamble boundary. Alan (2008) claimed that
productivity is the rate at which an employer, company or country produces goods and the
amount, produced compared with how much time, work and money is needed to produce
them.

Productivity is about how well people combine resources such as raw materials, labour,
skills, capital, equipment, land, intellectual property, ma nagerial capability and financial
capital to produce goods and services.

This study concentrated specifically on the use of the term teamwork which involves
reshaping the way work is carried out. This includes organizing employees into teams based
on a distinct product, each team performing a particular task. These teams are given a high
degree of responsibility and are expected to work with flexibility. The interest of the study
is to understand or know how teamwork in organization has and can contribute to the
improved productivity such as Coca-Cola Bottling Company Ghana, Nestle Ghana Limited,
Windows Cooperation, Apple cooperation just to mention a few. The impact of teamwork on
organizational productivity involves internal and external factors that contribute to high
productivity. The internal factors have to do with team norms, ground rules, interpersonal
and rational skills or qualities that determines how individual’s teams will function whiles
the external factors are the organizational culture, systems and structures within which all
teams perform determines the level of teamwork within an organization. Various other
measures of organizational productivity are also included in the research study, which are
esprit de corps (Team Spirit), team trust, and recognition & rewards.

STATEMENT OF THE ROBLEM

Every organization, either large or small, struggles to acquire productivity so as to achieve

success and maintain a valuable image in this present world of organizational competitions
and it is the wish of organizations to see the input they use (resources) and the
output
(goods and services produced) they have at the end.

The population of workers in an organization may be very large and yet that organization
achieves a very low productivity and with no improvement in their products. This could
occur as a result of absence of teamwork in such organizations and if so, then there are
other organizations that have teams and yet achieve little or no productivity at all. It may
be as a result of the following problems:
Lack of Teamwork in the Organization: That is the failure of an
organization to coordinate works into work groups in order to tap from the
respective human resources the organization possesses.
Poor Leadership Styles in the Organization: It may be as a result of the leadership
style of the organization possibly not favourable to teamwork.
Poor Leadership of the Work Teams: Different work teams may exis t, but lacks the
persons with the team leading acumen to lead them.
Lack of Motivation of the Workforce: The way in which organizations reward their
workforce may also lead to low organizational productivity even when their staff
work in teams.
Prevailing Conditions that hinder growth in an Organization: The conditions
permanently occurring in an organization (lack of picking-up of innovative ideas)
thus, absence of designing motivational programs, educational growth, bonuses,
job rotation and the use of old technologies, etc., may be the cause of low
organizational productivity

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The general objective of this study is to investigate the contributions of teamwork on

organizational productivity. The specific objectives of this study are as listed below:
Determine the effect of teamwork on organizational productivity.
Investigate the ways of leadership styles used by the organization , affecting the
organizational productivity
Determine the effect of poor leadership on work team’s leadership
Investigate the benefits of motivation to workforce
Determine the prevailing conditions that hinder growth to organizational productivity.
Determine the effect of teamwork on organizational productivity.
• Investigate the ways of leadership styles used by the organizations affect
• Determine the effect of teamwork on organizational productivity.
• Investigate the ways of leadership styles used by the organizations affect
HYPOTHESIS

The following hypothesis were formulated for the study

HO: Teamwork has no effect on employee performance
H1: Teamwork has positive effect on employee performance
HO: Esprit de corps has no effect on employee performance
H2: Esprit de corps has positive effect on employee performance
HO: Team trust has no effect on employee performance
H3: Team trust has positive effect on emp loyee performance
HO: Employee rewards & recognition have no effect on employee perfo rma nce
H4: Emp loyee rewards & recognition have positive effect on employee perfo rma nce

Discussion

This study examines the relationship of teamwork, esprit de corps, team trust,
recognition and
rewards and employee performance. Hypothesis one states that teamwork has positive
effect on
employee performance and was found significant in this study. The result of hypothesis
one is
consistent with previous study of (Cohen & Manion, 1999; Frobel & Marchington, 2005)
which
stated that those organizations which focus more on teams have results in increased
employee
performance and greater productivity.

Hypothesis two states that esprit de corps has positive effect on emp loyee performance and
was
found to be significant. The result of the hypothesis two is consistent with the study of (Lusch
&
Naylor, 2001; Boyt, Lusch & Mejza, 2005) which stated that team spirit will result in
better
employee performance and contributes in organizations achieving a common goal.

Hypothesis three states that team trust has positive effect on emp loyee performance and was
also
found to be significant and strongly correlated with teamwork in achieving
organizational
productivity. This finding also is in view with (Mickan & Rodger, 2000; Manz & Neck,
2002).

Hypothesis four states that employee rewards & recognition has significant positive
effect on
employee performance and found to be significant in this study. This result is supported by
the
(Rabey, 2003) which states that recognition and rewards are the main focus of the individuals
who
are working in teams.

Conclusion

The research shows a strong positive significant relationship between the independent
variables namely teamwork, esprit de corps, team trust, recognition & rewards and
employee
performance. However, teamwork was highly correlated with employee performa nce.
The overall results revealed that teamwork w hic h brings
be ne fit s in ter ms of higher pro d uc tivity, be tt er or ga niza t iona l performance,
competitive advantage and increased product quality and quantity highly contributes to
organizational productivity compared to other factors.

Employers may be able to improve their performance by increasing the volume of teamwork
and taking action to raise the performance level of the individual, but to succeed in this they
need to pay attention to the quantity and type of teamwork offered. Teamwork activity
within the organization is very much beneficial and its effect is directly on employee
performance. When an employee acquires adequate opportunities of teamwork his/her
performance automatically improves and he/she will be satisfied with the job and this could
ensure that skills are better utilized. This might reduce the possibility of an employee quitting
a
job.