Interdisciplinary teams and the control of clients: a sociotechnical perspective

Interdisciplinary teams may provide increased opportunities for unwarranted control of clients in human service organizations. In organizations that provide community services for the mentally handicapped, for instance, interdisciplinary team members may pool control mechanisms so that the main goals of the organization are compromised. Therefore, administrators should develop ways of monitoring the decisions made by teams. Interdisciplinary teamwork is a good idea in theory, but it may be adopted without considering its application to tasks. The pooling of control mechanisms may be the result of an ineffective organizational design, in which planners failed to consider the sociotechnical aspects of the organization, or the conflict between technical and social needs.