Research Paper on:
Team Based Businesses and Applications of Incentives

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
This question and other significant factors are considered in the use of incentives as a motivation tool to keep company teamwork on track. Many firms are responding to the  current pressure to improve their business by creating organizational structures designed to promote cross-functional and cross-company communication, coordination, and collaboration. In order to support this, cross-functional teams have become increasingly  important, particularly as firms attempt to develop leading-edge strategies and practices. While nearly eighty percent of the major United States firms surveyed plan to emphasize the use of teamwork  through the next several years, the success of this approach will vary widely from company to company and team to team, even across teams within the same business. KEEPING  TEAMS MOTIVATED In a corporation using a team-based approach to business, there are many factors that point toward the effectiveness in awarding incentives to keep employees motivated and willing to  work their hardest. There is mounting evidence however that awarding these incentives to the teams rather than to individuals is a more realistic approach and will work more to  the advantage of the company. When arguing the fact that a team-based incentive program is far preferable to that of an individual-based incentive program there are several reasons that this  is true. Many companies have found that giving incentive awards to individuals in many cases is just rewarding them for behavior that should be part of their job in  the first place. Giving awards based on teamwork and the efforts put forth by the entire team is more in keeping with the focus of the team. "The  best incentive is the internal one," says one manager. "Once you start giving external rewards, they become requirements and you cant take them away" (Neff, 1999, 90). INDIVIDUAL