Manufacturing Advantage or Global Environmental Challenges of the Twenty First Century

Manufacturing Advantage: Why High Performance Work Systems Pay Off

Author: Eileen Appelbaum

Much of the hoopla surrounding quality circles, teams, and high-performance work systems has been based on anecdotes and very thin evidence. It has not been established that those employee involvement strategies amount to anything more than another series of management fads or ruses designed to get more out of workers without giving them anything in return. This revelatory book, written by some of the skeptics, lays some of the suspicion to rest.

Based on their visits to 44 plants and surveys of more than 4,000 employees, Eileen Appelbaum, Thomas Bailey, Peter Berg, and Arne L. Kalleberg concluded that companies are indeed more successful when managers share knowledge and power with workers and when workers assume increased responsibility and discretion.

The study of steel, apparel, and medical electronics and imaging plants revealed much. In self-directed teams, workers were able to eliminate bottlenecks and coordinate the work process. In task forces created to improve quality, they communicated with individuals outside their own work groups and were able to solve problems. Expensive equipment in steel mills operated with fewer interruptions, turnaround and labor costs were cut in apparel factories, and costly inventories of components and medical equipment were reduced.

And what did the employees think? The worker survey showed that jobs in participatory work systems often provide more challenging tasks and more opportunities for creativity. Employees in apparel had higher hourly earnings; those in steel had both higher hourly earnings and higher job satisfaction. Workers in more participatory settings were no more likely than others to report heavy workloads or excessive demands on their time. They were, however, less likely to report involuntary overtime or conflict with co-workers, and were more likely to be satisfied with their surroundings.

Manufacturing Advantage provides the best assessment available of the effectiveness of high-performance work systems. Freestanding chapters near the end of the book provide full documentation of research data without interrupting the narrative flow.

About the Authors:
Eileen Appelbaum is Research Director at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. Formerly Professor of Economics at Temple University, she is author or coauthor of several books including The New American Workplace: Transforming Work Systems in the United States, also from Cornell.

An expert on the apparel industry, Thomas Bailey is Professor of Economics of Education and Director of the Institute on Education and the Economy at Columbia University. He is author or coauthor of three books, most recently Learning to Work.

Peter Berg, formerly a labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute, is Assistant Professor in the School of Labor and Industrial Relations at Michigan State University.

Arne L. Kalleberg is Kenan Professor of Sociology and Chair of the department at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He has coauthored or edited four books, the most recent of which (coauthored with David Knoke, Peter Marsden, and Joe Spaeth) is Organizations in America: A Portrait of Their Structures and Human Resource Practices.

Choice

In high performance work teams, managers provide opportunities for substantive participation in decisions, incorporate appropriate incentives, and establish training and development policies that ensure an appropriately skilled workforce. The authors investigate how successful these work teams are in the steel, apparel, and medical electronics industries in the U.S.

(Booklist) - David Rouse

[This] study analyzes productivity improvement and the effects fo workplace practices within high-performance work systems (HPWS) on trust, intrinsic rewards, stress, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment among workers in the steel, apparel, and medical electronics industries. . . . EPI's conclusion here that HPWS will help U.S. manufacturing companies meet competitive challenges should stimulate discussions between labor and management.

(Financial Times) - Robert Taylor

[Manufacturing Advantage] seeks to focus on what may sound an unfashionable topic nowadays—the future of US manufacturing in a competitive global economy...What this impressive book demonstrates is that manufacturing and information technology, far from being separate sectors, are in fact firmly interrelated.

EPI Journal

Manufacturing Advantage provides the best assessment available of the effectiveness of high-performance work systems.

What People Are Saying

Jeffrey Pfeffer
Manufacturing Advantage is a splendid book—well written, well referenced, filled with data and insight. If high-performance work practices make a difference, can we really just rely on evolutionary processes for their diffusion?
—(Jeffrey Pfeffer, Professor, Stanford Business School and author of The Human Equation: Building Profits by Putting People First)

Paul Osterman
Manufacturing Advantage is essential reading for anyone interested in work organization in the United States. It is unique in its combination of establishment and employee data and its power is enhanced by its research across three quite different industries. Its findings are important and persuasive—a terrific book.
—(Paul Osterman, MIT, Sloan School)

Thomas Kochan
Manufacturing Advantage is a very thorough, technically sound, original contribution to our understanding of the role that high performance work systems are playing in manufacturing.
—(Thomas Kochan, MIT, and President, Industrial Relations Research Association)

Harry Katz
This is an excellent piece of research that will be of interest to a large audience in both academic and public policy circles.
—(Harry Katz, Cornell University)

Charles Derber
Fresh and surprising evidence for the idea that employee empowerment and shop-floor participation are not only good for workers but a major source of competitive advantage. Skeptics in management and labor will have to come to terms with this book.
—(Charles Derber, author of Corporation Nation: How Corporations Are Taking Over Our Lives and What We Can Do About It)

Book review: Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family or Sport Physiology for Coaches

Global Environmental Challenges of the Twenty-First Century: Resources, Consumption, and Sustainable Solutions

Author: David E Lorey

The most serious environmental problems of the twenty-first century have the potential to alter the course of life on this planet. Global warming, toxic waste, water and air pollution, acid rain, and shrinking energy supplies are frightening challenges that may threaten our future if we do not face up to them. Global Environmental Challenges provides important information and gives us hope about the environment. This book first helps us to grasp these difficulties, then shows us the choices we can make. How long to leave a light on, whether to take the car, the train, or bicycle to work, whether to recycle or throw away, whether to vote to curb continued suburban sprawl-all of these decisions can make a difference. This collection of some of the best essays and articles on the environment comes from a variety of sources, including journals, magazines, websites of ecological/conservation organizations, and other publications. Five major sections investigate the interaction of population growth, consumption, and environment; the emerging crisis in freshwater around the globe; global climate and atmosphere (including global warming); biodiversity loss; and the concept of sustainable development-using natural resources to place future human development on a sustainable path. The final section on sustainable development reveals how we can take action. As individuals, we can make a difference readily and easily without making huge personal sacrifices. As societies, we can work together in a global community of interest to sustain the earth. This valuable resource offers readers a better understanding of our environmental problems and presents solutions to improving the health of theplanet.

Table of Contents:

	Introduction
	Driving Forces
1	Environment and Health: Population, Consumption, and the Environment	1
2	Food Security, Population, and Environment	15
3	Population and Consumption: What We Know, What We Need to Know	37
	Water
4	Water for Food Production: Will There Be Enough in 2025?	51
5	Water Wars	71
6	Water and Conflict in Asia?	87
7	Life - or Death - for the Salton Sea?	103
	Global Climate and Atmosphere
8	Synthesis of Scientific-Technical Information Relevant to Article 2 of the UN Framework Convention	113
9	Shadows of the Climate Future	131
10	Human Alteration of the Global Nitrogen Cycle: Causes and Consequences	143
	Biodiversity
11	Losing Strands in the Web of Life	159
12	Riches from the Rainforest	185
13	Dying Seas	191
	Sustainable Solutions
14	Easter Island's End	205
15	Neotropical Restoration Biology	215
16	What Are Ecosystem Services?	227
17	Marine Ecosystem Services	233
18	Environmentally Sustainable Business Practices	251
19	NGOs and the Environment: From Knowledge to Action	269
20	The Real Impacts of Household Consumption	289
	Suggested Readings	311