Attitudes toward teamwork: are Iranian university students ready for the workplace?

Purpose - The purpose of this research is to determine whether Iranian student attitudes toward teamwork are relatively favorable or unfavorable. The authors also examine the influence of variables that affect student attitudes toward teamwork, including concerns about teamwork evaluation and perceptions of the environment for teamwork, gender, age, GPA, education level, major, and teamwork training. Design/methodology/approach - A questionnaire developed to measure the study variables was administered to 1,811 students across different majors in three large Iranian universities. Findings - The results indicate that Iranian students have moderately positive attitudes toward teamwork, contrary to the prevalent belief that Iranians are not much interested in teamwork. The results indicate that Iranian students are concerned about how teamwork is evaluated. They believe that the environmental facilities at their universities for teamwork are weak and not supportive. Structural equation modeling showed that student concerns about teamwork evaluation and their perceptions of environmental facilities influence their attitudes toward teamwork. Positive teamwork attitudes are moderately reinforced when students are less concerned about evaluation and when the physical facilities support teamwork activities. Further analysis showed that male students have a slightly better attitude toward teamwork than women. Research limitations/implications - The findings are valuable to practitioners who may employ current students in the future, and to instructors who plan to include teamwork in their course assignments. Originality/value - This study was designed to fill the void in the knowledge about Iranian student attitudes toward teamwork and variables that influence this attitude.