Much of the "early work" on work teams comes out of the social psychology tradition, efforts that focused primarily on various aspects of group process. 

Intimacy Among Group Members - (Argyle & Dean, 1965) - Developed theory of affiliative conflict, which attempts to relate eye contact to the need for affiliation.  A basic proposition of this theory is that eye contact is influenced by both approach and avoidance forces.  Approach forces include things such as need for feedback and need for affiliation, whereas avoidance forces include such things as fear of being seen, fear of revealing inner feelings, and fear of being rejected.

Group Composition - (Zander, 1976) - Developed a theory concerned with the process of enrolling and disenrolling group members.  The processes of removing and recruiting group members are considered to be performed by the group for the good of the group.  Zander listed a set of propositions, such as "The unattractiveness of a group member is a function of the negative value of the member's recent actions and the perceived probability that those actions will be repeated in the future.