There have been numerous anecdotal accounts of high performance work teams in both the academic and the business literature. Indeed, Peters (1987) almost raises the team working concept to that of an orthodoxy calling for modest-sized, task oriented, semiautonomous, mainly self-managing teams to be the basic building block of all organisational design. However, empirical data to confirm whether such teams aid organisations in becoming more effective is relatively scarce and, according to Buchanan & Preston (1992), this team approach to work may now be under threat due to poor conceptualisation and a lack of systematic empirical evidence. Often subsumed under the overarching concept of job redesign or job restructuring, the underlying rationale for the introduction of work teams it to improve the organisations competitive position through the more effective utilisation of human resources.