Abstract:
Organisational agility is growing more prominent within the banking sector. Performance
of self-managed teams is specified as a component critical to better organisational agility.
The contributing factors, which make self-managed teams, perform so well, are still not
clearly understood. The high rate of failures in organisational change, brought on by
employee resistance to change can also deter the adoption of these teams.
The main objective of this research was to determine whether fulfilling the intrinsic
motivators of autonomy, competence and relatedness described in self-determination
theory, increased the overall willingness to adopt change and a desire to be part of a selfmanaged
team. To a lesser extent, this study sought to determine whether age, gender
and ethnicity could alter the perceived fulfilment of these basic psychological needs. This
research contributes to the academic understanding of self-managed teams and provides
insight into future research in this field.
Using quantitative data, a descriptive research design was followed, with the data
collected through the use of a questionnaire administered in a survey format. The
questionnaire was put to a sample of banking employees in the process of adopting selfmanaged
teams within their organisation.
The results revealed that the more a person perceives that a self-managed team fulfils his
or her need for autonomy, competence and relatedness; the increased desire to be part
of these teams exists, and more openness to adopt the change to a self-managed team.
Further insight drawn from the research shows that age, gender and ethnicity have no
significance to the adoption of self-managed teams. Overall this research demonstrates
that leadership s consideration of the basic psychological needs can greatly increase
chances for success in the change to an agile organisation.
The practical implications of this study were demonstrated in the conclusion of this
research.
