Group Dynamics for Teams

About the Author Daniel Levi is a professor in the Psychology and Child Development Department at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, California. He has an MA and a PhD in environmental psychology from the University of Arizona. He teaches classes in teamwork and in environmental and organizational psychology. His teamwork class was designed primarily for engineering and business students at Cal Poly. He has conducted research and worked as a consultant with factory and engineering teams for companies such as Nortel Networks, TRW, Hewlett-Packard, and Philips Electronics. In addition, he has worked on international team research projects in Europe and Asia. Dr. Levi’s research and consulting with factory teams primarily has focused on the use of teams to support technological change and the adoption of just-in-time and quality programs. This work examined a variety of team issues, including job redesign, training, compensation, supervision, and change management approaches. His work with professional teams primarily has been done with engineering design teams. These projects examined the use of concurrent engineering, self-management, and the globalization of teams. The topics of this work included the impact of information technology on teams, facilitation and training needs for professional teams, and the impacts of organizational culture and leadership. Early work on the present book was sponsored by an engineering education grant from NASA. This project focused on the development of teamwork skills in engineering students working on multidisciplinary projects. This project led to the development of cases and activities for learning teamwork skills and research on teamwork training and evaluating and rewarding student teams. Recent research on student teams examines gender and cross-cultural issues, social support within teams, and bullying and hijacking in student teams.