Efforts to make schools more collaborative are likely to evoke concerns and conflicts regarding territory, as administrators, teachers, and staff members are compelled to interact differently in both physical and psychological spaces. Territoriality, as an organizational construct, examines how people negotiate issues of space, ownership,…

This study examines the effects of four team-based structures on the organizational commitment of elementary teachers in an urban school district. The study model focuses on organizational commitment and includes three intervening, endogenous variables: teacher empowerment, school communication, and work autonomy. Team teaching had both direct and…

Trust is a significant factor in collective action. A composite case illustrates the value of trust as a critical element of effective teamwork in a self-managed school context. Trust depends on individuals' predilections, intensive communication and interaction patterns, team composition, guiding principles, and teammates' emotional bonding.…

This paper reports on a study that examined the concept of trust-a critical element in the social glue that bonds the organizational team together and enables effective collective action in schools. It delineates an organizational context for consideration of the concept of trust in interactions in restructured schools. The study suggests that the…