[Federal Register Volume 86, Number 143 (Thursday, July 29, 2021)]
[Notices]
[Pages 40807-40808]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2021-16151]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Census Bureau


Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the 
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment 
Request; Management and Organizational Practices Survey (MOPS) 2021

AGENCY: Census Bureau, Commerce.

ACTION: Notice of information collection, request for comment.

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SUMMARY: The Department of Commerce, in accordance with the Paperwork 
Reduction Act (PRA) of 1995, invites the general public and other 
Federal agencies to comment on proposed, and continuing information 
collections, which helps us assess the impact of our information 
collection requirements and minimize the public's reporting burden. The 
purpose of this notice is to allow for 60 days of public comment on the 
proposed reinstatement, with change, of the Management and 
Organizational Practices Survey, prior to the submission of the 
information collection request (ICR) to OMB for approval.

DATES: To ensure consideration, comments regarding this proposed 
information collection must be received on or before September 27, 
2021.

ADDRESSES: Interested persons are invited to submit written comments by 
email to [email protected]. Please reference Management and 
Organizational Practices Survey (MOPS) 2021 in the subject line of your 
comments. You may also submit comments, identified by Docket Number 
USBC-2021-0018, to the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. All comments received are part of the public 
record. No comments will be posted to http://www.regulations.gov for 
public viewing until after the comment period has closed. Comments will 
generally be posted without change. All Personally Identifiable 
Information (for example, name and address) voluntarily submitted by 
the commenter may be publicly accessible. Do not submit Confidential 
Business Information or otherwise sensitive or protected information. 
You may submit attachments to electronic comments in Microsoft Word, 
Excel, or Adobe PDF file formats.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Requests for additional information or 
specific questions related to collection activities should be directed 
to Marlo Thornton, Assistant Division Chief, Economy-Wide Statistics 
Division, at [email protected] or 301-763-7170.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Abstract

    The Census Bureau plans to conduct the Management and 
Organizational Practices Survey (MOPS) for survey year 2021; the survey 
was previously conducted for survey years 2010 and 2015. The survey 
will be conducted as a joint project by the Census Bureau, the 
University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Stanford School of 
Humanities and Sciences, and the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered 
Artificial Intelligence. The MOPS will utilize the Annual Survey of 
Manufactures (ASM) mail-out sample and will collect information on 
management and organizational practices at the establishment level. The 
Census Bureau has conducted the ASM since 1949 to provide key measures 
of manufacturing activity during intercensal periods. In years that we 
conduct the Economic Census, years ending in ``2'' and ``7'', we do not 
mail the ASM but collect the data as part of the Economic Census 
covering the Manufacturing Sector. The ASM is an integral part of the 
Federal Government's statistical program, furnishing up-to date 
estimates of employment and payroll, hours and wages of production 
workers, value added by manufacture, cost of materials, value of 
shipments, inventories, and expenditures for both plant and equipment 
and structures. The data obtained from the MOPS will allow the Census 
Bureau to estimate a firm's stock of management and organizational 
assets, specifically the use of decentralized decision rights and 
establishment performance data such as production targets in decision-
making. These data will provide information on investments in 
management and organizational practices, which will lead to a better 
understanding of the benefits from these investments when measured in 
terms of firm productivity or firm market value. This survey on 
management and organizational practices will provide information on the 
dimensions of organizational capital for this sector not currently 
available elsewhere. This clearance request will be for the survey year 
2021. The Census Bureau plans to make the following changes to the 2015 
MOPS content for the 2021 survey:
     Add a new purchased services module on the establishment's 
use of its own employees, contractors, temporary staff, or leased 
workers for select business expenses.
     Update the data and decision-making module by removing 
five of the six questions, maintaining a question asking who decides 
what data to collect for continuity, and adding nine questions focused 
on the frontier uses of data to inform artificial intelligence.
     Add three questions to the background characteristics 
module on the establishment's use of an external Certified Public 
Accountant.
     Simplify questions on the location of decision-making in 
multi-location firms in the organization module by combining them into 
a single table and removing write-in responses.
     Remove four forecasting questions in the uncertainty 
module.
     Remove two questions related to the establishment's 
background characteristics.
     Remove all questions about a five-year recall period.

II. Method of Collection

    The 2021 MOPS will be mailed separately from the 2021 ASM and will 
utilize an entirely electronic collection. Unlike the ASM that mails to 
the headquarters of companies with multiple locations, the MOPS will be 
mailed directly to the individual establishments. Initial contact with 
respondents will be a mailed letter directing them to report online. 
Respondents will report electronically through the Census Bureau's 
Centurion online reporting system. The sample for the 2021 MOPS will 
consist of the approximately 50,000 establishments in the 2021 ASM 
mail-out sample. The mail-out sample for the ASM is redesigned at 5-
year intervals beginning the second survey year after the Economic 
Census. For the 2019 ASM, a new probability sample was selected from a 
frame of approximately 100,000 manufacturing establishments in the 2017 
Economic Census that had paid employees, were located in the United 
States, and were associated with multi-

[[Page 40808]]

location companies or were large single-establishment companies. On an 
annual basis, the mail-out sample is supplemented with large, newly 
active single-establishment companies identified from a list provided 
by the Internal Revenue Service and new manufacturing establishments of 
multi-location companies identified from the Census Bureau's Company 
Organization Survey.

III. Data

    OMB Control Number: 0607-0963.
    Electronic Path ID: MP-10002.
    Type of Review: Regular submission, Request for a Reinstatement, 
with Change, of a Previously Approved Collection.
    Affected Public: Business or other for-profit organizations.
    Estimated Number of Respondents: 50,000.
    Estimated Time per Response: 45 minutes.
    Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours: 37,500.
    Estimated Total Annual Cost to Public: $0. (This is not the cost of 
respondents' time, but the indirect costs respondents may incur for 
such things as purchases of specialized software or hardware needed to 
report, or expenditures for accounting or records maintenance services 
required specifically by the collection.)
    Respondent's Obligation: Mandatory.
    Legal Authority: Title 13, United States Code, Sections 131 and 
182; Sections 224 and 225 make reporting for this survey mandatory.

IV. Request for Comments

    We are soliciting public comments to permit the Department/Bureau 
to: (a) Evaluate whether the proposed information collection is 
necessary for the proper functions of the Department, including whether 
the information will have practical utility; (b) Evaluate the accuracy 
of our estimate of the time and cost burden for this proposed 
collection, including the validity of the methodology and assumptions 
used; (c) Evaluate ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of 
the information to be collected; and (d) Minimize the reporting burden 
on those who are to respond, including the use of automated collection 
techniques or other forms of information technology.
    Comments that you submit in response to this notice are a matter of 
public record. We will include, or summarize, each comment in our 
request to OMB to approve this ICR. Before including your address, 
phone number, email address, or other personal identifying information 
in your comment, you should be aware that your entire comment--
including your personal identifying information--may be made publicly 
available at any time. While you may ask us in your comment to withhold 
your personal identifying information from public review, we cannot 
guarantee that we will be able to do so.

Sheleen Dumas,
Department PRA Clearance Officer, Office of the Chief Information 
Officer, Commerce Department.
[FR Doc. 2021-16151 Filed 7-28-21; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-07-P