Despite increasing interest in collaborative writing in industry, little is known about the writing done in companies adopting team-based organizational designs. In such settings, teams organized to produce special documents may include members who do little or no writing for their regular jobs and thus lack experience in generating and selecting ideas, particularly in group settings. In the case study discussed here, the issue of authority provided a subtle but powerful undercurrent during the lifespan of one writing project. The collective and individual voices of team members indicated a constant tug between deep-seated expectations born of traditional systems of hierarchy in organizations and the new responsibilities of making contributions in team settings. Although environmental supports for authentic involvement seemed to be in place, those supports alone could not guarantee the sharing of authority.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Despite forecasts of the increasing use of cross-functional project teams in industry, too little is known about how such teams function and how they might come to function more effectively. One organization, a small manufacturing firm in the Southeast, and members of a selected cross-functional project team consented to have a researcher present during the life cycle of a single project. Reflections based on the resulting case study highlight three overarching areas of concern in cross-functional designs: first, equity as an evolving blueprint for project-team work; secondly, trust as the foundation upon which solid progress depends; and thirdly, authority as the visible framework of the process and products of the team's work.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>