Schools and Workplaces: An Overview of Successful and Unsuccessful
Practices (Letter Report, 08/31/95, GAO/PEMD-95-28).
The nation's well-being depends on its ability to create and sustain
well-paying jobs and improve the performance of U.S. business in an
increasingly complex world economy. For more than a decade, Americans
have been concerned that the nation is not doing all that is needed to
meet these challenges. In particular, they have raised concerns about
the quality of education provided by elementary and secondary
schools--especially those attended by disadvantaged students--and about
the productivity and performance of workers and their employers. This
report summarizes research findings on what has and has not been
successful in schools and workplaces.
--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------
REPORTNUM: PEMD-95-28
TITLE: Schools and Workplaces: An Overview of Successful and
Unsuccessful Practices
DATE: 08/31/95
SUBJECT: Disadvantaged persons
Elementary education
Secondary education
Secondary schools
Elementary schools
Corporations
Labor-management relations
Education or training
Productivity
Human resources utilization
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Cover
================================================================ COVER
Report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations,
Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities, House of
Representatives
August 1995
SCHOOLS AND WORKPLACES - AN
OVERVIEW OF SUCCESSFUL AND
UNSUCCESSFUL PRACTICES
GAO/PEMD-95-28
Schools and Workplaces
(973801)
Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV
DOL - U.S. Department of Labor
ESOP - Employee stock ownership plan
GAO - U.S. General Accounting Office
SAT - Scholastic Achievement Test
Letter
=============================================================== LETTER
B-262061
August 31, 1995
The Honorable Pete Hoekstra
Chairman, Subcommittee on Oversight
and Investigations
Committee on Economic and Educational
Opportunities
House of Representatives
Dear Mr. Chairman:
The nation's well-being depends on its ability to create and sustain
well-paying jobs and to improve the performance of U.S. business in
an increasingly complex world economy. For more than a decade,
Americans have been concerned that the nation is not doing all that
is needed to meet these challenges. They have focused this concern
especially on the quality of education provided by elementary and
secondary schools (particularly those attended by disadvantaged
students) and on the productivity and performance of workers and
their employers. You asked us to help you address these issues by
summarizing research findings on what has and what has not been
successful in schools and workplaces.
OBJECTIVES, SCOPE, AND
METHODOLOGY
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :1
To provide the information you requested, we reviewed a large number
of reviews and studies concerning successful organizations
(elementary and secondary schools and firms in a wide range of
businesses) and successful practices, as well as the relatively few
studies on practices that do not work. We focused on practices at
the organizations' sites that shape the work environment and human
resources within the school or business workplace, and we also
examined general curricular and instructional practices in schools
and general management processes in the business workplace. We did
not examine how practices are shaped by public policy, nor did we
attempt to cover specific instructional or business practices (such
as particular methods of teaching reading or managing inventory).
Annotated bibliographies appear in appendix I (on schools) and
appendix II (on workplaces).
We relied on the most recent reviews and studies available. With few
exceptions, the materials we examined were published in 1990 or
later. We identified the reviews and studies by searching compendia
compiled by relevant federal agencies (the Office of Educational
Research and Improvement and the Planning and Evaluation Service,
both in the Department of Education, and the Office on the American
Workplace in the Department of Labor); peer-reviewed professional
journals in education, management, and industrial relations; and
citation indexes. Given the normal limitations on such searches and
the relatively short time period for meeting the subcommittee's
needs, we cannot be sure that we identified every relevant
publication. However, we believe that our review covers most of the
major issues and practices for which evidence is available.
We searched for studies linking school or workplace practices to
particular, commonly used criteria of success. For schools, these
criteria were (1) student achievement at or above the expected level,
(2) high teacher and student engagement in learning activities, and
(3) effectiveness in overcoming disadvantage, such that students who
are behind when they enter school are able to catch up. The criteria
for workplace success were (1) increased profitability, (2) improved
productivity, and (3) high performance in the workplace.
We selected studies that used valid and reliable measures of both the
success criteria and the implementation of particular practices. We
gave preference to findings that could be generalized to other
schools and workplaces. For some of the success criteria, however,
few studies met all these standards. Therefore, we included studies
that had technical limitations (such as small sample size, low
response rates, or surrogate outcome measures) and even some that
simply summarized experts' conclusions without providing supporting
data. The annotations in the bibliographies describe these
limitations.
In using the bibliography, readers should bear in mind that the
studies are of uneven quality and that every study design has its
strengths and weaknesses, so that findings from a single study should
be interpreted with caution. For example, nationally representative
sample surveys can provide reliable estimates of how widely a
practice is used and how strongly it is associated with an indicator
of school or business success, but they typically cannot establish a
causal link between a practice and its outcome. Case studies of one
firm or type of school can provide insights into how a practice works
in a specific context, but their findings cannot necessarily be
extended to businesses or schools generally.
Given the limited time available and the diversity of measures and
designs used in the studies, we did not attempt a meta-analysis.
Rather, we drew from the studies what we judged to be the most
significant and consistent findings--findings supported by a variety
of sources--to highlight in this report. We conducted this review
from March through June 1995 in accordance with generally accepted
government auditing standards.
SUMMARY
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :2
Successful schools and company workplaces had a well-defined mission:
they knew what they wanted to accomplish. They organized the work
environment, human resource practices, and curriculum and instruction
or management processes in ways that supported that mission. The
evidence that we reviewed consistently demonstrated the need to
integrate mission and key practices. No one practice, by itself,
seems to ensure success.
The missions in schools were focused on student learning. Work
environment practices consistent with this included providing safe
and orderly sites, encouraging parents' involvement and collaboration
among staff, fostering leadership for instructional improvement, and
authorizing school-level problem solving. Human resource practices
included school-based control over entry and exit of staff and
students and the encouragement of professional development. In terms
of curriculum and instruction, successful schools established
academically rigorous and well-focused curricula, provided effective
and engaging instruction, exposed all students to challenging
curricula and instruction, and ensured that students who needed extra
assistance were given opportunities for success.
In company workplaces, successful work environments typically
developed a set of core organizational values that were transmitted
to all employees, fostering a sense of community throughout the
organization and encouraging meaningful employee participation in
work-related decisions. In addition, successful companies tended to
adopt human resource policies that featured minimizing job disruption
and providing education and training programs for employees, widely
available profit-sharing and gain-sharing plans, and a reward
structure that was perceived as fair and understandable. Also,
successful companies that went through downsizing or otherwise made
significant changes in company operations made efforts to retrain
employees or provide assistance in obtaining other employment.
We have previously reported on organizational culture and human
resource issues such as managing workforce reductions and using
employee stock ownership plans. In addition, we have reported on a
wide range of management practices such as total quality management,
organizational reengineering, and other innovations such as
benchmarking and performance measurement. Abstracts of these reports
are in appendix II.
AGENCY COMMENTS
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :3
Responsible officials from the U.S. Department of Education and the
U.S. Department of Labor provided written comments on a draft of
this report. Officials from both departments agreed that our
findings are consistent with current knowledge of effective practices
in schools and workplaces.
As we arranged with your office, unless you publicly announce the
report's contents earlier, we plan no further distribution of it
until 30 days after the date of this letter. We will then send
copies of this report to the Secretary of Education, the Secretary of
Labor, and others who are interested. We will also make copies
available to others on request. If you have any questions or would
like additional information, please call me at (202) 512-2900. Other
major contributors to this report are listed in appendix III.
Sincerely yours,
Joseph F. Delfico
Acting Assistant Comptroller General
SCHOOLS: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
=========================================================== Appendix I
WORK ENVIRONMENT
--------------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1
BRYK, LEE, AND HOLLAND
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.1
Anthony S. Bryk, Valerie E. Lee, and Peter B. Holland. Catholic
Schools and the Common Good. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1993.
SETTING
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.2
Catholic secondary schools that enroll mainstream students, including
disadvantaged students.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.3
Quantitative analyses of national data on public and Catholic and
other private schools from the High School and Beyond studies of
students, teachers, and administrators. Case studies of seven
diverse Catholic high schools in the early 1980s with a brief update
to the early 1990s.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.4
Features distinguishing Catholic from public high schools include
smaller size, academic focus, and inclusion of all students in the
core academic curriculum. Curricula are standard academic fare and
teaching is largely "ordinary." Nonetheless, student engagement,
satisfaction, and achievement exceed those in public schools,
especially for disadvantaged students. Student self-selection and
greater participation in academic courses account for some of the
difference. But communal organization (shared values, shared
academic and other activities, engagement between children and
adults, and collegial interaction) is also critical.
Catholic schools also exhibit greater autonomy than public schools,
"effective" organizational practices such as principal's leadership
and faculty professionalism, and responsiveness to the private
education market. However, data from non-Catholic private schools
suggest that these organizational features by themselves, without the
kinds of values and social equity aims that undergird Catholic
schooling, do not produce the higher achievement and lower dropout
rates of at-risk youths in Catholic schools.
COMMENTS
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.5
Students (disadvantaged or otherwise) in Catholic high schools are
somewhat academically oriented. It is not known whether the Catholic
school approach would work equally well in schools with high
concentrations of disadvantaged students.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
BRYK, LEE, AND SMITH
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.6
Anthony S. Bryk, Valerie E. Lee, and Julia B. Smith. "High School
Organization and Its Effects on Teachers and Students: An
Interpretative Summary of the Research." In William H. Clune and
John F. Witte (eds.). Choice and Control in American Education.
Vol. 1. The Theory of Choice and Control in Education. New York:
The Falmer Press, 1990.
SETTING
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.7
High schools in general.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.8
Empirical and analytical literature on high school organization and
curricula and their effect on teachers and students.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.9
School features and practices that foster teacher effort and
satisfaction and student engagement and learning include
1. Size large enough to offer adequate instruction but not so large
as to impede social relations.
2. A nucleus of motivated and academically able children to provide
a stable institutional base and avoid discipline problems and an
anti-academic peer culture.
3. Parents who provide high expectations and home support for
learning.
4. Management control over student and faculty entry, socialization,
and exit.
5. Management that facilitates informal social interactions, buffers
the core work of the school against external disruptions,
communicates information and allocates resources efficiently and
informally, administers rules justly and fairly, and monitors staff
and directs its development to coincide with teacher goals and foster
collegiality.
6. Teachers who influence students' social and personal development,
not just academic learning.
7. A cooperative work ethic and collaboration among staff.
8. A curriculum in which all students--not just the most able-- take
academic courses and receive stimulating instruction.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
HANUSHEK
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.10
Eric Hanushek. Making Schools Work: Improving Performance and
Controlling Costs. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution,
1994.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.11
School governance and management; teacher certification, pay systems,
and training.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.12
Literature reviews by economists with a broad spectrum of views who
are long-term students of education.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.13
Conventional wisdom holds that education can be improved by reducing
class size, lengthening the school year, or hiring teachers who have
more education and experience. The evidence does not bear this out.
Performance incentives may improve productivity, but designing
workable incentive systems has proven elusive. For example, the
success of performance contracting--contracting with an independent
firm for specified achievement results--depends on writing a good
contract, which is difficult to do. Merit pay for teachers is also
difficult to implement. Most attempts have been underfinanced and
have boiled down to extra pay for extra duties.
School-based management is often seen as an end in itself rather than
as a way of improving student performance. Many school-based
management programs have lacked clear goals, performance improvement
incentives, and accountability mechanisms. Few programs have been
evaluated in terms of performance, and few evaluations have shown
achievement gains.
Choice plans take a variety of forms, from magnet schools to tuition
tax credits or vouchers. Their incentives vary greatly. The mixed
evidence indicates that choice does not necessarily lead to change.
Higher education provides some lessons: poor and mediocre schools
continue despite choice and competition. And vouchers or extra
payments may be needed to ensure that the disadvantaged are served.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.14
The book presents general conclusions, referring to source documents
for supporting data.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
HILL, FOSTER, AND GENDLER
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.15
Paul T. Hill, Gail E. Foster, and Tamar Gendler. High Schools with
Character. Santa Monica, Calif.: The RAND Corporation, August 1990.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.16
Urban public and Catholic high schools attended by low-income
minority students.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.17
Intensive case studies of three Catholic schools, three special
purpose public schools, and two comprehensive (zoned) public schools,
with less-intensive studies of five additional public schools
(including two in Washington, D.C.). Hill and colleagues examined
school demographics, mission, and organizational strength and student
perceptions, attitudes, and outcomes (graduation rates, percentage
graduating with Regents diploma, percentage taking the Scholastic
Achievement Test (SAT), percentage of blacks scoring above the
national average for black students on the SAT).
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.18
The Catholic schools and special-purpose public schools have
important features in common: a clear, uncomplicated mission,
culture, and core curriculum; a focus on student outcomes; strong
internal organization; and the capacity to solve their own problems
and manage their external relationships. Outcomes for disadvantaged
students in these "focus" schools are far better than for the zoned
schools, which have diffuse missions and fragmented curricula
established by central authorities, emphasize program delivery rather
than outcomes, and have relatively little capacity for
self-definition and self-governance. Students and staff are
dissatisfied with the zoned schools. Most zoned-school students
could benefit from attending focused schools, either schools oriented
toward the mainstream student or those designed to meet special
needs.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.19
The zoned schools enroll much higher concentrations of educationally
disadvantaged students than the focus schools, and teachers consider
transience a problem. The "mainstream" focus schools might not
operate as successfully if they enrolled the same cross-section of
students as the zoned schools. Outcome measures are limited; the SAT
is a proxy for students considering applying to selective colleges.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
KELLY
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.20
Dierdre Kelly. Last Chance High: How Girls and Boys Drop in and Out
of Alternative Schools. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press,
1993.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.21
The use of continuing high schools to prevent students from dropping
out.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.22
Continuing high schools in California.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.23
Two case studies and a synthesis of research literature.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.24
Continuing high schools, sometimes called alternative or
second-chance schools, are the most common dropout prevention program
in the United States. A safety net for some students, they have not
been effective in retaining students until graduation. In
California, where 104,000 students attended continuing high schools
in 1986-87, only 10 percent have received a diploma or its
equivalent.
Continuing schools enroll students whose needs and abilities diverge
from those of students who engage in regular high school activities.
Students who choose to enroll tend to have higher completion rates
than those who are coerced into enrolling. A stigma is often
attached to continuing schools that have been assigned disciplinary
cases, limit reengagement, and push students out.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.25
The author notes that the continuing schools she studied lacked a
well-developed vision, used a remedial curriculum, and did not
prepare students for specific occupations. Because of the small
number of cases, her findings cannot be generalized, nor do they
suggest much about schools that do not share these characteristics.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
LAGUARDA ET AL.
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.26
Katrina G. Laguarda et al. "Raising the Educational Achievement of
Secondary School Students: An Idea Book," U.S. Department of
Education, Washington, D.C., 1995.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.27
Describes practices to strengthen and enrich the curriculum, create
communities of learners, link school work to students' futures, and
create networks of support for students. Also lists resources for
school improvement.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.28
Secondary schools, including magnet schools and charter schools.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.29
Volume 1 reflects conclusions drawn from the research literature on
effective secondary schools, curriculum, and instruction. Volume 2
presents profiles of 13 secondary schools, each illustrating one or
more of the described practices and citing evidence of the school's
success.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.30
Secondary schools are most successful when all students, including
low achievers, engage in work that is academically rigorous,
challenging, and makes sense to them. Ideas for increasing
engagement include covering fewer topics but studying them in depth;
interdisciplinary approaches; internships and other forms of service
learning; and integrating academic with occupational preparation.
Techniques such as cooperative learning can help lower-achieving
students succeed in the more challenging coursework of the regular
program.
Smaller school size, the creation of smaller units within schools,
and permitting students greater freedom in choosing their school can
help increase community. Flexible use of time can broaden the range
of learning experiences possible.
Peer tutoring and peer or adult mentoring provide students with a
sense of membership and support. Practices that build links to
families and social services are also helpful.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.31
For ease of use, citations to individual research reports and papers
were omitted. References are listed in volume 1.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
LEE AND SMITH
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.32
Valerie E. Lee and Julia B. Smith. "Effects of High School
Restructuring and Size on Gains in Achievement and Engagement for
Early Secondary School Students." University of Wisconsin, Center for
Organization and Restructuring of Schools, Madison, Wisconsin, April
1, 1994.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.33
Traditional organization, moderate reform practices, and
"restructuring" or organizational practices that foster continuity in
teacher-student contacts, cooperative teaching or learning, and staff
involvement in common planning and school problem solving.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.34
Public and Catholic and other private high schools.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.35
Eighth- and 10th-grade test scores and other school and student data
from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988. Analysis
covers nearly 12,000 students in 801 schools.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.36
Small size, academic emphasis, and restructuring are associated with
greater student engagement and gains in learning. The distribution
of engagement and learning gains across students of different social
backgrounds is more equitable in restructured than in either
moderately reformed or traditionally organized high schools, which
are larger and more internally stratified than the other types and
enroll higher proportions of low-income and minority students.
Schools get best results when they build a strong core of operation
by adopting only a few restructuring reforms--along with such
conventional reforms as emphasizing academic requirements, parent
involvement, and staff stability. Small size makes both types of
reform easier to implement.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.37
The scores used to measure growth in student achievement were not
highly reliable, and the survey data comprised relatively rough
indicators of student engagement and school practice. The authors
cite case study research as evidence that their findings are on
target despite these limitations.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
LEVINE AND ORNSTEIN
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.38
Daniel U. Levine and Allan C. Ornstein. "Research on Classroom and
School Effectiveness and Its Implications for Improving Big City
Schools." The Urban Review, 21:2 (1989), 81-95.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.39
Elementary schools enrolling high proportions of disadvantaged
children.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.40
Literature on effective schools and teaching.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.41
Unusually effective elementary schools for disadvantaged students are
characterized by (1) an orderly environment, (2) a clear mission, (3)
the principal's instructional leadership, (4) a climate of high
expectations, (5) high time-on-task, (6) frequent monitoring of
student progress, and (7) positive home-school relationships.
Effective teaching for such students combines direct instruction
(aimed at building basic skills) with techniques designed to elicit
participation and facilitate comprehension and higher-order thinking.
Efforts to apply the organizational principles of effective schools
to improve other schools have met with mixed success. It is useful
for schools seeking improvement to (1) focus on a few clearly defined
instructional goals, (2) provide technical assistance and time for
staff development, (3) be guided by data and by approaches that have
succeeded elsewhere, (4) practice "vigorous selection and replacement
of teachers," and (5) be flexible in their approach and maintain a
judicious mixture of faculty autonomy and central office
directiveness.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.42
This article usefully summarizes the principles of effective schools
for a general audience. These principles were derived from research
on inner-city elementary schools, and it may not be possible to
generalize to other settings (such as secondary schools or schools
that serve students from middle-income families).
WORK ENVIRONMENT
MOHRMAN ET AL.
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.43
Susan A. Mohrman et al. School-Based Management: Organizing for
High Performance. San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass, 1994.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.44
School-based management.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.45
Reviews of program materials and research literature.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.46
School-based management is a popular reform that ranges from electing
school governing boards to enhancing decisionmaking authority for
principals or teachers. In some places, it has improved classroom
practice and student achievement. Overall, however, evidence of its
efficacy is not compelling.
Typically, school-based management programs and the concepts behind
them are vaguely described and focus on changing governance, not on
improving school outcomes. Although the programs decentralize
decisionmaking power, most do not provide a school's participants
with the knowledge, skills, and other resources to enable them to
improve teaching and learning.
Creating new governance structures, by itself, is not enough.
School-based management must also be linked to improving a school's
goals and processes. Both the district's and the school's roles in
these processes must be clearly defined, real decisionmaking
authority must devolve to the school, and administrators' roles must
be changed accordingly. It is useful to employ a variety of
mechanisms (not just a governing council) to involve teachers,
parents, and others in the school's management and improvement. A
school's participants should have access to information about it and
its performance and about performance and practice in other schools.
School-based management is more likely to help improve instruction if
the school's participants are held accountable for outcomes and
rewarded for improving school performance.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.47
Information about existing programs is too sketchy to sustain
conclusions about cause and effect. The authors' conclusions reflect
a conceptual analysis of school-based management program design,
informed by knowledge of school improvement processes and
high-performance businesses.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
PAULY
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.48
Edward Pauly. The Classroom Crucible: What Really Works, What
Doesn't, and Why. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.49
Mainstream elementary and secondary schools.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.50
Site visits and interviews with school principals, teachers,
students, and parents in schools in California, Connecticut,
Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Review of
relevant research.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.51
Successfully implementing programs depends on
1. devising new classroom membership policies, including improved
attendance, team teaching, and increased parent and student choice;
2. introducing new classroom support policies, including principals'
responses to unique classroom problems;
3. increasing teachers' salaries to enlarge and improve the pool of
potential teachers;
4. stabilizing classroom membership by providing transportation
subsidies for students who move during the school year, providing
2-hour high school classes, and maintaining the same classroom
membership for 2 school years;
5. creating alternative schools that recruit teachers and students
who wish to work in nontraditional settings;
6. increasing outreach activities to encourage dropouts to return to
school by, for example, contracting with community agencies to
recruit and support them.
Successful innovations often cannot be replicated in other settings:
people tend to work harder when they think they are part of a new,
important activity, but many effects tend to fade away over time.
Teachers alter and reformulate the innovations that they are supposed
to implement.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.52
Findings are based primarily on observational data but are supported
by external educational research evidence.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
RAYWID
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.53
Mary Ann Raywid. "Alternative Schools: The State of the Art."
Educational Leadership, 52:1 (September 1994), 26-31.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.54
Alternative organizational structures and instructional strategies.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.55
Secondary schools for students who have not fared well in
conventional schools.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.56
Synthesis of case study literature.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.57
Alternative schools that succeed with students who do not prosper in
conventional settings have in common that they (1) generate and
sustain community and are caring places that feel like family, (2)
make learning engaging, and (3) provide school organization and
structure to sustain community and engagement. All three factors
must be present: no one factor is effective without the others.
Successful alternative schools tend to be small, designed and led by
the people who operate them, and reflective of those teachers'
strengths and interests. Newly hired teachers choose and are chosen
by a school, which operates with few specialized staff. Students and
families choose the school as well. Such schools operate relatively
autonomously. Curricular thrusts and instructional strategies vary,
but each school offers a challenging, inviting learning environment
and opportunities for students to succeed.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.58
This article presents general lessons learned from case studies,
drawing particularly from studies of schools in Community District 4
in New York City. It does not present data on student outcomes. The
author is a leading authority on schools of choice.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
ROSENHOLTZ
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.59
Susan J. Rosenholtz. Teachers' Workplace: The Social Organization
of Schools. New York: Longman, 1989.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.60
School goals and work environments.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.61
Elementary schools in Tennessee.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.62
Survey data from 1,213 teachers in 78 elementary schools in 5 rural
and 3 urban or suburban districts in Tennessee; school demographic,
attendance, and achievement data; interviews with 74 teachers from 23
schools that were either very high or very low on measures of goal
consensus and collaboration.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.63
Schools differ markedly along the dimensions of (1) goal consensus
with respect to teaching and learning; (2) collaboration among
teachers; (3) teachers' learning opportunities; (4) their conceptions
of teaching; and (5) teacher commitment. These differences reflect
organizational practices of teacher socialization, evaluation, and
involvement in decisionmaking and the goal-setting, monitoring, and
support activities of principals and district officials. They are
reflected in teachers' talk about students and teaching, leadership
and mutual assistance among teachers, their efforts to increase their
professional skills, and their conception of teaching as either a
routine technology or one that can vary to meet individual students'
needs.
Schools characterized by goal consensus, collaboration, and
professional growth differ from schools where teachers have no common
goal, are isolated from one another, and are discouraged from asking
for help from colleagues or the principal. Isolated teachers become
"stuck" teaching as they have always taught. They have less
motivation to achieve than teachers in settings that offer greater
professional fulfillment. Teachers' learning opportunities and
commitment are positively associated with student achievement.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.64
Some of the quantitative findings are based on small sample sizes and
should be treated with caution. Quotations from teacher interviews
graphically illustrate the differences in work environment and
conceptions of teaching across schools.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
TEDDLIE AND STRINGFIELD
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.65
Charles Teddlie and Sam Stringfield. Schools Make a Difference:
Lessons Learned from a 10-Year Study of School Effects. New York:
Teachers College Press, 1993.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.66
Rural, suburban, and urban public elementary schools in Louisiana,
with students of various socioeconomic status.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.67
School, administrator, teacher, and student data--including test
scores--from a representative sample of 76 schools, followed by case
studies of 8 matched pairs of schools (one more effective and one
less effective than predicted from students' socioeconomic status)
over 10 years. Focus on third grade.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.68
School and teacher or classroom factors account for about 25 percent
of the variance in student achievement. Effective schools for
students of both middle and low socioeconomic status exhibit (1) a
clear academic mission and focus, (2) an orderly environment, (3)
effective use of instructional time, and (4) frequent monitoring of
student progress. Teachers hold high expectations for their students
and push them to achieve. Supportive induction of inexperienced
teachers helps build and sustain effective teaching.
Other factors associated with effectiveness differ in different
school contexts. For example, principals of effective schools with
students of low socioeconomic status initiate change and serve as
instructional leaders for their generally less-experienced teaching
staff, while principals of effective schools with students of middle
socioeconomic status act as managers, giving their generally more
experienced teachers responsibility for instructional leadership.
Some schools remained effective over the 10 years (in part by
adapting appropriately to socioeconomic changes) while others
declined. Changes in principals and faculty led to marked
improvement in some formerly ineffective schools, but others remained
ineffective.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:1.0.69
Extends "effective schools" research by considering a broad range of
contexts, attending to classroom practice, and examining how schools
improve or decline. The case studies illustrate practices that
permit poor as well as good teaching.
HUMAN RESOURCES
--------------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2
BRANDT
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.1
Richard M. Brandt. Incentive Pay and Career Ladders for Today's
Teachers. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1990.
PRACTICE
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.2
Incentive pay and career ladder programs.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.3
Literature review and case studies of Arizona, South Carolina, Utah,
and Virginia programs in the 1980s.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.4
Incentive pay and career ladder programs created in many states and
school districts in the mid-1980s were largely designed locally and
varied greatly: they might feature merit pay, career ladders, or
elements of both. Some were mandatory, others voluntary. Relatively
few survived for as long as 5 years. Those that did rewarded many
teachers for performing expanded instructional duties rather than
recognizing a few for superior teaching.
The effort required to plan and implement the programs that survived
was substantial, as was the cost. Their effects on teacher
motivation were mixed. Some programs produced modest gains in
student achievement; others had little apparent effect.
The benefits from these programs stemmed mainly from their
development of more demanding, comprehensive approaches to teacher
evaluation. The tasks of identifying criteria for good teaching and
applying them through classroom observation and assessments of
student progress stimulated teachers' thinking about, and principals'
involvement in, instruction.
Had they not embarked on incentive pay systems, school districts
would not have improved their evaluation systems. The pay element
itself was secondary to these improvements as a source of benefits.
COMMENTS
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.5
Studies have relied primarily on interviews and attitude surveys for
evidence of the effect of incentive programs on teachers and
students. Only a few have examined the connection between teacher
pay incentives and student outcomes. Many variables affect student
performance, and the effects of teacher pay are difficult to isolate.
HUMAN RESOURCES
CONLEY AND ODDEN
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.6
Sharon Conley and Allen Odden. "Linking Teacher Compensation to
Teacher Career Development." Educational Evaluation and Policy
Analysis, 17:2 (1995), 219-37.
PRACTICE
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.7
Pay plans based on teacher performance, skill, and knowledge.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.8
Review of research literature on teacher motivation and compensation
and case studies of four career ladder programs.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.9
Merit pay and career ladder systems raise doubts about whether an
appropriate alternative to conventional teacher pay systems can be
found.
Individual merit or performance-based pay is not a promising
alternative. It works best when workers are independent of one
another, the technology is straightforward, and results are easy to
measure. It seems ill-suited to teaching, which is inherently
collegial. Moreover, teachers seek primarily the intrinsic rewards
from helping students learn. Money is not the primary motivator.
Job-based pay, which reflects differences in the complexity or
importance of the work performed, also has drawbacks, particularly
when many teachers must compete for scarce top-level positions.
Increases in pay can also be linked to gains in skills and
knowledge--to stages in career development. This seems potentially
advantageous in that it is connected to intrinsic as well as
extrinsic rewards, does not pit teachers against one another, and
encourages professional growth on the part of all. Evidence from
private industry, higher education, and the few districts that have
tried it suggest that skill-based pay would be beneficial to
teaching.
Changes in compensation systems must be made carefully to ensure that
the new system is compatible with organizational goals, structure,
and norms (such as collegiality).
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.10
Information on student achievement was not available.
HUMAN RESOURCES
DUKE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.11
Daniel L. Duke. "Removing Barriers to Professional Growth." Phi
Delta Kappan, 74:9 (1993), 702-12.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.12
Teacher evaluations.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.13
Public and private elementary and secondary schools throughout the
nation.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.14
Review of research literature.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.15
Traditional teacher evaluations may be of some use for new and
unskilled teachers in that they can foster accountability by formally
documenting a teacher's deficiencies and mutual agreements to pursue
corrective strategies. However, traditional teacher evaluations have
failed to promote professional growth and development.
For teachers in need of assistance, evaluations may be perceived as
negative, adversarial, and threatening, and they can thwart
improvement. Administrators typically have to conduct so many
routine evaluations that they have little opportunity to invest in
cooperative and sustained efforts to help teachers improve classroom
performance.
Most experienced teachers meet or exceed the standards upon which
they are rated. Evaluations of them reinforce their continuation of
ordinary practices and fail to make them aware of the need for
continual professional growth.
Evaluations for accountability should be separate from evaluations
for professional growth, and the latter should be emphasized for
experienced and competent teachers.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.16
Conventional teacher evaluations consist of a set of performance
standards and a series of categories by which these standards can be
rated. Administrators observe teachers several times a year and then
annually summarize the information gathered from their observations.
Professional growth plans, in contrast, reflect progress toward
individual or organizational goals, with this progress evaluated by
both administrators and teachers.
HUMAN RESOURCES
FIRESTONE AND PENNEL
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.17
William A. Firestone and James R. Pennel. "Teacher Commitment,
Working Conditions, and Differential Incentive Policies." Review of
Educational Research, 63:4 (1993), 489-525.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.18
Differential incentive policies, including merit pay and career
ladders.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.19
Public and private schools.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.20
Review of qualitative and quantitative studies of teachers'
commitment, working conditions, and incentives.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.21
Working conditions, including incentive systems, shape the teachers'
commitment to the school, to teaching, and to students. Committed
teachers are motivated to change instructional practices and maintain
a drive for excellence.
Commitment is enhanced by meaningful and varied work, participation
in decisionmaking, feedback, collaboration, learning opportunities,
an orderly work environment, administrative support, a reasonable
workload, a suitable physical environment, appropriate instructional
resources, adequate pay, and job security.
Differential incentive plans have had mixed effects. Merit pay and
other programs that attempt to link pay and individual performance
raise concerns about fairness and may reduce collaboration and
diminish learning opportunities.
Career-ladder and mentoring programs that mix financial and intrinsic
rewards and have weaker competitive aspects enhance commitment by
increasing collaboration, participation, and learning opportunities.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.22
Details of individual differential incentive plans vary greatly.
This makes it difficult to evaluate the effect of these plans
collectively.
HUMAN RESOURCES
FRASE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.23
Larry Frase (ed). Teacher Compensation and Motivation. Lancaster,
Pa.: Technomic Publishing Company, 1992.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.24
Teacher incentive pay and career ladder programs.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.25
Public and private elementary and secondary schools.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.26
Literature on motivation in schools and workplaces; case studies of
state and local public school incentive pay and career ladder
programs and private school pay systems.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.27
Some local school districts have developed incentive pay and career
ladder programs that, according to superintendents, have increased
professionalism and encouraged marginally qualified teachers to
depart. Reviews of pilot programs in several states point to similar
perceived benefits when they enhanced professional opportunities
rather than simply raising pay.
Incentive programs, however, are costly. Many have been ill-designed
for the context of teaching and soon abandoned. (Programs restricted
to awarding extra pay to a few "outstanding" teachers are a case in
point.) State programs have been implemented unevenly and have
departed little from conventional practice in some places.
Conclusions about success have been based largely on attitudinal data
from teachers and administrators, not on performance measures.
Overall, the effect of incentive pay on teacher productivity and
performance is unclear.
The element of these programs most popular with legislators--merit
pay--is the most difficult to implement and is weakly related to
teacher motivation. Other elements, such as better teacher
evaluation procedures and expanded opportunities for professional
growth, are more likely to have motivating power. These elements can
be instituted within conventional pay plans.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.28
The book covers only plans directed toward rewarding individual
teachers. School-based incentive programs are too new for their
effects to have been studied.
HUMAN RESOURCES
FULLAN AND STIEGELBAUER
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.29
Michael G. Fullan and Suzanne Stiegelbauer. The New Meaning of
Educational Change. New York: Teachers College Press, 1991.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.30
Teacher staff development and teacher evaluation as tools for change.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.31
Review of research on policies and practices connected to educational
change.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.32
Instructional innovations significant enough to affect student
learning require complex changes among teachers and in schools. Many
innovations fail because they are technically unsound (fads and quick
fixes) or poorly implemented or because the schools are overloaded
with demands for change.
Staff development is an important tool for implementing innovations.
However, conventional practice does not go far enough to be
effective. Simply equipping teachers with new skills in a workshop
setting (the typical approach) does not ensure that they will apply
these skills in the classroom. They need follow-up support to help
link their new skills to their prior knowledge, try them out, adjust
them to their own classroom circumstances, review the results with
colleagues, and adjust them again--in short, to help them learn by
experience in a supportive environment.
Teacher evaluation systems that are pro forma (as is common) are a
waste of time. Evaluation systems that are oriented toward teacher
accountability are costly and yield few benefits. Both typically
reflect minimal competency or "effective teaching behavior" rather
than improving teachers' skills. Exemplary systems oriented toward
professional development foster growth and change among capable
teachers. Under such systems, teachers who receive low ratings for
several consecutive years are likely to leave the profession.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.33
The author evaluates each practice in terms of its potential for
successfully implementing needed change. The practices may serve
other purposes as well.
HUMAN RESOURCES
JOHNSON
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.34
Susan Moore Johnson. Teachers at Work. New York: Basic Books,
1990.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.35
Public, Catholic, and independent elementary and secondary schools.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.36
Interview with a purposive sample of 115 top-rated teachers who work
in economically and demographically diverse schools.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.37
Intrinsic and extrinsic rewards promote good teaching. Schools that
attract and retain well-educated and highly motivated teachers are
focused, foster a sense of belongingness, and offer substantial
psychological rewards.
However, adequate pay, opportunities for promotion, and external
rewards that signify status and respect for the profession are
generally equally important in recruitment and retention. In the
sample of teachers studied, private-school teachers who could afford
the lower salaries that their schools usually paid were more
satisfied with their workplaces than were their public school peers.
Traditional supervisory practices do little to improve the overall
quality of teaching. Most administrators do not have either
sufficient pedagogical and subject area skills to help proficient
teachers or time for extended and multiple observations. Teachers
profit from training others, collaborative activities, and peer
reviews involving extended observations, student evaluations, and
self-assessment practices.
Virtually all teachers from both public and private sectors agreed
that supervision for improved performance should be separate from
evaluation decisions that determine salary or job status. None
expressed confidence that merit pay could be implemented fairly.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.38
Given the relatively small size of this sample and the diversity that
it included, the findings should be considered suggestive.
HUMAN RESOURCES
LIEBERMAN
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.39
Ann Lieberman. "Practices That Support Teacher Development." Phi
Delta Kappan, 76:8 (1995), 591-95.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.40
Teacher development.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.41
Selected successful schools across the nation.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.42
A review of the history of teacher development activities and related
research and an examination of practices at successful schools.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.43
If school improvement plans are to work, new and expanded teacher
development models are needed to teach knowledge and strategies.
Unlike conventional teacher development approaches that provide
short-term instruction outside the school and classroom, newer
approaches provide long-term, continuous learning within them. Newer
approaches also actively involve the teacher, unlike conventional
ones.
Some of the new approaches expand the teacher's role (as
teacher-leaders, peer coaches, or teacher-researchers). Others
establish professional groups within the school to solve problems,
make decisions, or learn about particular learning strategies.
External networks, partnerships, and coalitions can also effectively
provide access to new ideas and support for implementing them.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.44
The success of a new approach depends on the commitment of principals
and teachers to improving instruction through collegial and
participatory action and on their ability to evaluate its effect on
student learning. How the new approaches affect student achievement
has not been documented.
HUMAN RESOURCES
LITTLE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.45
Judith Warren Little. "District Policy Choices and Teachers'
Professional Development Opportunities." Educational Evaluation and
Policy Analysis, 11:2 (1989), 165-79.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.46
District programs for teachers' professional development.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.47
Survey of practice in 30 California school districts, sampled
according to size. The study collected descriptions of local
practice, data on more than 800 discrete staff development
activities, and information from teachers and administrators in these
and other districts.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.48
Districts control much of the money that is available for staff
development, although teachers have some say about what is offered.
The bulk of the funds pay for central-office specialists or external
consultants (who typically have little connection to the district) to
conduct workshops or other activities. The emphasis of professional
development programs tends to reflect current state or district
priorities and to vary from year to year.
The range of activity is determined largely by the marketplace of
presenters and programs--by what is available and packaged to fit the
limited time available. Most activities are generic and are not
tailored to a specific curricular area or degree of teacher
experience. Most are relatively short term and entail little or no
follow-up after the teacher has returned to the classroom.
District evaluation of staff development is generally confined to
soliciting teachers' opinions at the close of each activity. The
practices summarized above are not promising. Research has
established that without follow-up "coaching" or other peer support,
teachers are unlikely to incorporate new ideas (especially generic
ones) into their teaching. Staff development unconnected to broader
efforts to improve the school, the curriculum, or an individual's
career development plan is similarly unlikely to yield much benefit.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.49
The study is limited by its absence of outcome data. The author's
judgment is based on research on effective practices in staff
development.
HUMAN RESOURCES
OFFICE OF TECHNOLOGY
ASSESSMENT
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.50
Office of Technology Assessment. Teachers and Technology: Making
the Connection. Washington, D.C.: 1995
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.51
In-service training: training teachers to use technology to enhance
learning.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.52
Public and private elementary and secondary schools throughout the
nation.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.53
Broad-based literature review; site visits to schools at all grade
levels; interview with teachers, administrators, and researchers;
case studies of exemplary training programs; survey of faculty and
recent graduates of colleges of education; review of past and present
federal programs; and analysis of trend data from several studies on
the use of new technologies.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.54
By 1995, schools will have 5.8 million computers for use for
instruction, about one for every nine students. However, most
teachers have not been adequately trained to use computer technology
in teaching. Most funds for technology are spent on hardware and
software, with districts devoting at best 15 percent of funds to
teacher training. Experts recommend doubling this.
The current approach to teacher technology training is typically a
short in-service course for large numbers of teachers on one topic.
This is particularly inappropriate for technology training, which
requires hands-on work with software and hardware, curriculum
specific applications, and follow-up support.
Lack of teacher time, inadequate training options, rigid school
scheduling, and attitudinal barriers limit teachers' ability to learn
to use technology. They have little compensated staff development
time, and multiple demands compete for it.
Most training emphasizes the mechanics of operating equipment with
scant information about how to integrate technology into classroom
instruction, choose software, or organize classes for maximum
technological benefit. On-site support to help teachers use
technology is rare. Only 6 percent of elementary and 3 percent of
high schools have full-time computer coordinators.
HUMAN RESOURCES
PAULY
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.55
Edward Pauly. The Classroom Crucible: What Really Works, What
Doesn't, and Why. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.56
Traditional school district hiring.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.57
Mainstream elementary and secondary schools.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.58
Site visits and interviews with principals, teachers, students, and
parents in schools in California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New
York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Review of relevant research.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.59
For several reasons, many schools hire and continue to employ
teachers who are not effective:
-- the need to have a teacher for each classroom and an
unwillingness to raise taxes to pay the salaries that will
attract a better teaching force,
-- an unwillingness to spend money on a personnel system that can
evaluate applicants critically (by targeting the recruitment of
good teachers or by observing applicants in student teaching or
current classroom situations),
-- a reliance on centralized hiring, and
-- an unwillingness to spend the time required to document a
teacher's incompetent performance as grounds for dismissal.
Management strategies for retraining, reassignment, early retirement,
career change subsidies, and termination can reduce the number of
unsuccessful teachers but not unless traditional recruiting, hiring,
placement, and evaluation strategies are changed. In the schools
studied, assigning new teachers to classrooms with large numbers of
students who were difficult to teach and assigning more-experienced
teachers to less-demanding classrooms obstructed teaching success.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.60
Findings are based primarily on observational data but are supported
by external educational research evidence.
HUMAN RESOURCES
SPARKS AND LOUCKS-HORSLEY
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.61
Dennis Sparks and Susan Loucks-Horsley. "Models of Staff
Development." In W. Robert Houston, M. Haberman, and J. Sikula
(eds.). Handbook of Research on Teacher Education. New York:
MacMillan Publishing Company, 1990.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.62
Staff development for teachers.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.63
Research studies and reviews of research on effective teacher
development practices.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.64
Research since 1980 has demonstrated that staff development can
enhance teacher performance and improve student learning. Effective
approaches include
-- Learning activities undertaken or initiated by teachers to meet
individually defined needs or goals or to explore issues of
common interest.
-- Systematic observation and assessment of classroom teaching,
followed by feedback and discussion--an approach sometimes
called peer coaching or clinical supervision, which is
especially powerful when used as a follow-up to training in
effective instructional practices.
-- Participation in curriculum development or school improvement
processes, in which teachers design a strategy for solving a
school problem or attaining a goal.
-- Training to improve teachers' knowledge, thinking, and classroom
skills. A complete training process includes presentation and
demonstration of the new skills, trainee practice of the skills
under simulated conditions, and follow-up coaching and feedback
in the trainee's own classroom.
These approaches work best in schools where staff share common goals
and high expectations and administrators promote collegiality, place
a high priority on continuous improvement, and provide the resources
needed to support it.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:2.0.65
The training approach is well supported by data, including student
achievement data. The other approaches are supported by theory,
teacher perceptions, and case examples, but studies of them have
rarely included data on student outcomes.
CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION
--------------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3
ALEXANDER ET AL.
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.1
Karl Alexander et al. On the Success of Failure. Cambridge, Eng.:
Cambridge University Press, 1994.
PRACTICE
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.2
Retention in the primary grades.
SETTING
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.3
Elementary schools in the Baltimore City Public School system.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.4
Longitudinal study that tracks a sample of 775 grade 1 students for 8
years.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.5
Retention is applied to (1) students who enter school far behind and
make little progress in first grade and (2) students whose
performance is adequate initially but declines sharply by the end of
some later grade. Retention boosts achievement and self-confidence
during the repeated year. Retained students subsequently lose ground
but not as rapidly as before. Over the long run, the boost from
retention appears to have little benefit for students in the first
group or those who are put into special education. However, some
students in the second group get back on track at modest levels of
achievement.
Students who are retained are likely to be placed in the "low" group
throughout their primary years and in remedial courses in middle
school. The ill effects traditionally attributed to retention may
instead reflect the deficits that preceded retention plus the
cumulative effects of low-track placement. Being overage for a grade
appears to contribute to problems adjusting to middle school.
In view of retention's short-term benefits and its ability to stem
performance decline among those who start out only modestly behind,
it must be considered a qualified success and a viable option.
(Decisions concerning retention should be made case by case.) The
real need, however, is to figure out how to avoid failure in the
first place.
COMMENTS
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.6
Retention may have different effects in districts where very few
students are retained. The study is unusual in that it documents the
academic deficits that led to retention and students' educational
placement subsequent to retention. It followed students only to
middle school and thus does not examine the effects of retention on
dropping out.
CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION
BECKER
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.7
Henry Jay Becker. "Computer-based Integrated Learning Systems in
Elementary and Middle Grades: A Critical Review and Synthesis of
Evaluation Reports." Journal of Educational Computing Research, 8:1
(1992), 1-41.
PRACTICE
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.8
Integrated learning systems as the central component of the
instructional program.
SETTING
----------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.9
Elementary and middle schools.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.10
Reanalysis of the results of 30 evaluations of integrated learning
systems.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.11
A growing number of districts have invested in integrated learning
systems technology (comprehensive software offering extensive
instructional activities and covering a range of subjects and grades)
to teach core academic skills. It has had a moderately positive
effect on student achievement. The clearest research findings are
that computer-based activities, in general, are motivational and
increase engagement because students enjoy working with them.
Evaluation reports provide insufficient information to compare the
effects of integrated learning systems on achievement with those of
other computerized technologies or traditional approaches such as
reducing class size and increasing teacher development activities.
Thus, evidence is not available to help districts make purchasing
decisions between competing products. More research is needed to
understand how differences in the organization of instruction in
classes that use such products affect student outcomes.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.12
As the author cautions, the evaluations of integrated learning
systems that he reviewed contained methodological weaknesses that
limit the ability to generalize from the findings.
CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION
FUNKHOUSER ET AL.
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.13
Janie Funkhouser et al. "An Idea Book on Extending Learning Time for
Disadvantaged Students: Deciding on a Strategy." U.S. Department of
Education, Washington, D.C., 1995.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.14
Fourteen programs to extend learning time for disadvantaged students.
All programs extended instructional time beyond the time required in
the school day, week, or year. All demonstrated anecdotal evidence
of success or were reputed to be successful.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.15
Volume 1 presents analyses of strategies used by 14 programs that
experts had identified. Volume 2 presents a profile of each program,
including evidence of its success.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.16
Promising extended-time programs link the added time to the regular
school academic experience by giving students the opportunity to
build on the skills and knowledge that they have acquired in the
regular school program. This linkage involves communication and
coordination between regular and extended program staff to ensure
that the added instruction is relevant to the regular curriculum and
academically appropriate for the students.
Promising strategies for extended-time programs include setting goals
for students and establishing systems for monitoring student
progress, planning enrichment activities that involve hands-on
experience or that involve themes of interest to the students, and
providing an appropriately challenging curriculum.
Most extended-time programs are developed by schools or districts.
Some are developed by partnerships between schools and outside
agencies. Programs may be staffed by paid teachers or rely on
volunteers.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.17
Data on student outcomes were specific to each site. Therefore, it
was not possible to compare the relative effectiveness of different
extended-time program models.
CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION
GUTIERREZ AND SLAVIN
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.18
Roberto Gutierrez and Robert E. Slavin. "Achievement Effects of the
Nongraded Elementary School: A Best Evidence Synthesis." Review of
Educational Research, 62:4 (1992), 333-76.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.19
Nongraded programs.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.20
Mainstream kindergarten to grade 3 and kindergarten to grade 4
programs.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.21
A synthesis of research findings that compares the achievement, as
measured by standardized academic tests, of students in two types of
nongraded groupings with that of students in traditional classroom
groupings.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.22
Students in comprehensive nongraded programs (those that use
nongraded groups for more than one subject) make greater academic
gains than students in traditional classroom groupings.
Research on less-comprehensive nongraded programs (those that
incorporate individual instruction such as one-to-one tutoring,
programmed learning, and learning activities) demonstrates similar
gains for students in nongraded and graded organizations, indicating
that as nongraded programs become more complicated, they lose their
advantage.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.23
The nongraded programs employed a continuous process curriculum that
organized skills hierarchically and spanned the grades they included.
It might not be possible to generalize the findings to nongraded
programs that do not have continuous process curricula.
CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION
KNAPP ET AL.
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.24
Michael S. Knapp et al. Academic Challenge for the Children of
Poverty. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, 1992.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.25
Elementary schools in which the student population overall varied
from moderate to high levels of poverty.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.26
Qualitative and quantitative data from 140 classrooms in 15
districts: student backgrounds, scores from standardized tests and
other assessments, classroom observations, teacher interviews and
survey results, and examination of instructional material.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.27
Compared to traditional practices, alternative instruction that
emphasizes meaning and understanding is more effective in teaching
advanced skills and engaging students in learning and at least as
effective in teaching basic skills. Alternative instruction methods
are at least as effective for low-performing students as for
high-performers.
In mathematics, students exposed to alternative instruction perform
substantially better on measures of computation ability than students
taught only arithmetic skills. In reading and writing, alternative
instruction produces positive effects in all skill areas but one.
Supplemental programs, including Chapter 1 pullout, English as a
second language, and compensatory education services, have mixed
effects on achievement. Results indicate that they should give less
emphasis to basic skills and more to more-advanced skills.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.28
The findings are limited to the acquisition and retention of learning
over a 12-month period in only three states.
CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION
LEGTERS, MCDILL, AND
MCPARTLAND
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.29
Nettie Legters, Edward McDill, and James McPartland. "Rising to the
Challenge: Emerging Strategies for Educating Students at Risk." In
Alesia Montgomery and Robert Rossi (eds.). Educational Reforms and
Students at Risk: A Review of the Current State of the Art.
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1994.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.30
Retention and grouping of low achievers.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.31
Elementary and secondary schools enrolling students at risk.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.32
Review of research on traditional approaches to compensatory
education.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.33
Schools have traditionally responded to low achievers by grouping
them together for instruction and by retaining them in grade. They
can benefit thus for subjects such as reading in the elementary
grades, but the whole-day grouping and high school tracking that are
currently practiced appear to do them more harm than good. Tracking
can be limited in a number of ways, such as by grouping students only
for specific courses. Research has not determined whether such
approaches produce a more positive learning climate for students at
risk. However, research has identified methods for making
heterogeneous classrooms work well.
Retention as generally practiced also has many negative consequences,
including dropping out. Retained students who receive extra help
make progress but not as much as similar students who receive help
and are promoted. Retention appears to be useful in the very early
grades and at key transition points (such as high school entry) but
only if it is accompanied by high-quality special programs.
Responses to low achievement include special education and the
Chapter 1 program. Special education for children who have mild
academic handicaps offers them little benefit beyond what the regular
classroom can provide. The Chapter 1 program has produced modest
gains, but they tend to fade.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.34
The authors do not discuss social promotion or the effects of
tracking and grouping on students other than low-achievers.
CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION
MEISELS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.35
Samuel J. Meisels. "Doing Harm by Doing Good: Iatrogenic Effects
of Early Childhood Enrollment and Promotional Policies." Early
Childhood Research Quarterly, 7 (1992), 155-74.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.36
Four entrance and promotion practices: raising the age to enter
school, retaining children in grade, adding extra-year and transition
programs, and parents' holding children out from kindergarten.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.37
Early childhood and elementary schools.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.38
Synthesis of research literature; analysis of data from the National
Education Longitudinal Study of 1988.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.39
Today's students are often older when they enter and progress through
school than their counterparts were a decade ago. In many districts,
10 to 15 percent attend 2-year kindergarten programs. About 19
percent of all students are retained at least once in elementary
school. Forty-four percent of African American boys are retained at
least once. In two localities, as many as 18 to 20 percent of boys
and 9 to 13 percent of girls were held out of kindergarten by their
parents. Economically advantaged parents are more likely to hold
children out than are disadvantaged parents.
These practices have been harmful. Raising the entrance age does not
improve later school outcomes and is costly. Students who are over
age for their grade are more likely to drop out. Retention in one
grade appears to increase this risk by 40 percent; in two grades, by
90 percent. The negative effects of 2-year kindergarten programs are
similar to those of retention. Holding students out has raised the
age span in kindergarten from 12 to 24 months, increasing the
pressure to escalate the curriculum to meet the needs of older, more
advantaged, and maturationally different students within a classroom.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.40
This study looks at the effects of retention on students who are over
age for their grade placement. Effects on other students are not
considered.
CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION
MONTGOMERY AND ROSSI
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.41
Alesia Montgomery and Robert Rossi (eds.). Educational Reforms and
Students at Risk: A Review of the Current State of the Art.
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1994.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.42
Instructional and organizational strategies for educating students at
risk of making inadequate educational progress.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.43
Elementary and secondary schools enrolling at-risk students.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.44
Review of research on student background and school environment
factors that place children at risk and strategies for educating such
children.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.45
The climate and typical instructional practices in schools attended
by at-risk students offer them few incentives or pressures to engage
in school activities and to invest the effort needed for academic
success.
Promising instructional practices include (1) early prevention
programs, (2) education that is adapted to differences in cultural
background and learning styles, (3) curricula that focus on
real-world learning and integrate academic with vocational skills,
(4) instruction that incorporates adult volunteers as mentors or
advocates, (5) cooperative learning and other strategies that
incorporate peer support, (6) adult or peer tutoring, and (7) rewards
for progress as well as for high levels of attainment. Alternative
assessments and technology have promise but are difficult to
implement broadly enough to provide consistent exposure to at-risk
students as they move from school to school.
Promising school organizational features include (1) smaller,
special-focus programs that offer close, sustained, positive contacts
between teachers and students; (2) decreased departmentalization and
tracking, with modifications in classroom procedure to help teachers
deal with the greater range of students, (3) closer connections with
work or college, and (4) greater involvement with parents and
community organizations.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.46
The authors call these practices "promising" because there is at
least short-term or case study evidence of their success. Data
limitation and cautions are noted for each practice.
CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION
NATRIELLO, MCDILL, AND
PALLAS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.47
Gary Natriello, Edward L. McDill, and Aaron L. Pallas. Schooling
Disadvantaged Children: Racing Against Catastrophe. New York:
Teachers College Press, 1990.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.48
Elementary school compensatory education programs of several types.
Secondary school programs aimed at improving academic success,
motivating students to attend and exert effort, and providing
supportive conditions outside school.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.49
Schools enrolling educationally disadvantaged students.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.50
Review of research on educational practices and evaluation studies of
specific approaches and programs.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.51
Educationally disadvantaged students benefit from attending
kindergarten and, particularly, whole-day programs. Effective
approaches in the elementary grades offer academically focused,
teacher-directed activities that teach students a hierarchy of
skills, evaluate their progress frequently, and adjust instruction to
their individual needs. Examples include the DISTAR program for
teaching mathematics, reading, and language; cooperative learning
approaches; structured peer-tutoring programs; and some
computer-assisted instruction programs. Many of the more powerful
approaches are aimed at all students, not just the lowest achievers,
and hence have fallen outside the scope of traditional Chapter 1
programs.
Effective high school programs provide disadvantaged students with
(1) opportunities for academic success through remedial assistance,
rewards for growth, and classroom exercises that draw on a variety of
abilities; (2) positive social relationships with staff and peers and
a sense of membership in and ownership of the school; (3) a sense of
the relevance of school to their future lives; and (4) strategies to
mitigate the unfavorable effects of external conditions on their
participation and performance in school. The first of these is
critically important, given that lack of academic success is one of
the strongest predictors of dropping out.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.52
Reviews the strengths and limitations of Chapter 1, Upward Bound, and
Job Corps and many other specific approaches.
CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION
OAKES
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.53
Jeannie Oakes. Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality.
New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.54
Low- or remedial-track placements.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.55
Secondary schools throughout the nation.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.56
Case studies of 25 geographically and demographically diverse junior
high and high schools and a synthesis of research literature.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.57
No group of students has been found to benefit consistently from
being in a homogeneous group. The prevalence of tracking is based on
the persistence of four assumptions. Three of these are false--that
bright students are held back in mixed groups, that students in low
and average groups do not develop better self-concepts and attitudes
toward school than those in heterogeneous groups, and that the
placement procedures used to separate students into groups fairly and
accurately reflect their past achievement and native ability. The
fourth assumption may be true--that it is easier for teachers to
accommodate individual differences and to teach and manage students
in homogeneous groups (particularly if they are bright)--but this
benefit is not worth the negative educational and social effects of
tracking.
Students in different tracks have fundamentally different educational
experiences. Teachers of high-track classes demand critical
thinking, problem solving, and the evaluation and synthesis of
knowledge. Teachers of average classes emphasize a simplified
version of the skills and knowledge demanded in a high-track class.
Teachers of low-track classes require only simple memorization and
comprehension.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.58
The 25 case study schools were not a nationally representative
sample.
CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION
OAKES AND GUITON
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.59
Jeannie Oakes and Gretchen Guiton. "Matchmaking: The Dynamics of
High School Tracking Decisions." American Educational Research
Journal, 32:1 (1995), 3-33.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.60
Low or remedial track placements.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.61
Secondary schools.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.62
Qualitative and quantitative case studies of three high schools,
including analyses of course offerings, enrollment practices, and
background and transcript data.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.63
High school tracking decisions result from the interaction of three
factors: (1) differentiated, hierarchical curriculum structure; (2)
school structures committed to both common schooling and
accommodating differences among students; and (3) political decisions
within those structures that influence the distribution of advantage.
Teachers and administrators viewed students' abilities and motivation
as fixed. High-performing students were given access to large
numbers of high-quality courses and to a culture of high
expectations. In contrast, low-performing students were placed in
courses that provided few opportunities to learn and diminished their
expectations. Therefore, the schools offered programs that
accommodated rather than altered abilities and motivation.
High-achieving students received a disproportionate share of school
resources. More-qualified teachers were assigned college-track
classes, and counselors gave more time and consideration to these
students. College preparatory courses were less likely than others
to be reduced because of budgetary constraints. The college
preparatory curriculum was very stable because it was well defined by
state college admission requirements and logically sequenced. Other
programs were less coherent and subject to cutbacks.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.64
Basing the report in case studies of three high schools allowed an
in-depth analysis of a wide variety of source data. However, it
limited the ability to generalize from the findings.
CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION
OFFICE OF TECHNOLOGY
ASSESSMENT
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.65
Office of Technology Assessment. Linking for Learning: A New Course
for Education. Washington, D.C.: 1989.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.66
Distance-learning technologies to improve the quality of student
education and teacher training.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.67
Selected elementary, secondary, and postsecondary schools.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.68
A comprehensive overview of state and district policies and
practices, a review of the literature, and site visits to districts
implementing successful, leading-edge practices.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.69
New distance-learning technologies provide advanced and specialized
courses to students and training to teachers, allow interaction
between distant learner communities, and bring experts and
information into the classroom. Telecommunications technologies,
including fiber optics and computer linkage systems, enable
geographically dispersed learners and teachers to ask questions,
discuss ideas, and receive quick feedback.
For adult learners and advanced high school students, distance
learning appears to be as instructional as classroom learning. Its
relative effectiveness for all students is not known.
States and districts are embracing distance learning as cost-
effective in meeting the diverse needs of students who are
academically talented, culturally isolated, disabled, home and
hospital bound, and in need of specialized motivational, enrichment,
or remedial activities.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.70
This study's eclectic strategies provided broad coverage of a variety
of distance-learning issues and settings. More research is needed to
compare the effectiveness of different technologies on student
outcomes.
CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION
SLAVIN AND MADDEN
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.71
Robert E. Slavin and Nancy A. Madden. "What Works for Students at
Risk: A Research Synthesis." Educational Leadership, 46:5 (1989),
4-13.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.72
Instructional practices to accelerate learning. In
continuous-progress programs, students proceed at their own pace
through a series of defined instructional objectives in small groups
with similar skills. Cooperative learning programs, in which
students work together in small groups to master material presented
by the teacher and receive group rewards, have been effective in
accelerating achievement in basic skills.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.73
Preschool and elementary schools enrolling at-risk students.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.74
A synthesis of research findings that compares student reading and
mathematics achievement in traditional classes to achievement in
classes with instructional practices designed to prevent failure by
providing extra resources, such as more time on learning tasks.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.75
Continuous progress and cooperative learning in grade 1 prevention
programs--both of which provide intensive resources such as tutors
and small-group instruction--increase reading achievement more
successfully than conventional programs, including in-class and
pullout remedial models.
Prekindergarten programs have strong positive effects on the language
and learning ability of disadvantaged children immediately after the
preschool experience. These tend to diminish in each subsequent
year. Other long-term effects (such as graduation rates and
delinquency) appear to be positive but data are limited.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.76
The study's findings on the effects of preschool do not control for
the quality of subsequent educational experiences.
CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION
STRINGFIELD ET AL.
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.77
Sam Stringfield et al. Urban and Suburban/Rural Special Strategies
for Educating Disadvantaged Children. Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Department of Education, 1994.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.78
Twenty-five urban, suburban, and rural school districts. All were
eligible for or participating in the federal Chapter 1 program, and
all had implemented special strategies that held promise for
educating disadvantaged students.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.79
Observations of classroom behavior; surveys of principals, teachers,
parents, and students; interviews with school staff; and analysis of
standardized test scores.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.80
The special strategies fall into three categories: philosophical,
schoolwide, and adjunct. Prerequisites for success in all include a
faculty desire for change, well-managed settings, funds for
additional resources, principals with effective leadership skills,
effective staff, and parental involvement.
Successful philosophical strategies are based on the ideas of the
Coalition of Essential Schools, the Paideia Program, and Comer's
School Development Program. They present the greatest challenge to
implement and replicate because they involve changing curriculum,
school decisionmaking, and instructional methods.
Successful schoolwide strategies, funded as a Chapter 1 option,
depend more on the principal's leadership skills than the others do.
They typically use Chapter 1 funds to reduce class size, eliminate
pullout services, extend school time, improve staff development,
purchase materials, and implement adjunct programs.
Adjunct strategies such as Success For All, Reading Recovery,
extended time, and peer tutoring programs are the least intrusive and
the easiest to implement and replicate because they do not change
traditional structures or curriculums.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.81
The authors discuss findings only in terms of a special strategy.
They do not consider the effects of school or neighborhood
characteristics that are not associated with the three strategies.
CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION
WALBERG
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.82
Herbert J. Walberg. "Enhancing School Productivity: The Research
Basis." In Pedros Reyes (ed.). Teachers and Their Workplaces.
Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1990.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.83
Numerous instructional methods (such as reinforcement, accelerated
learning, programmed instruction, and reduced class size) and
supportive practices (such as graded homework, class morale, and
television viewing).
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.84
U.S. public and private elementary and secondary schools.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.85
Meta-analyses of several thousand investigations of factors related
to learning, reviews of productive factors in learning.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.86
Of the instructional practices studied, reward or reinforcement for
correct performance had the largest overall average effect on
learning. Accelerated learning programs and training in reading
ranked second and third. Other methods, including cooperative-team
learning, personalized instruction, and tutoring also had strong
effects. Smaller class size and programmed instruction had, on the
average, very little effect.
Of the supportive practices studied, graded homework, high class
morale, and family involvement in learning had strong positive
effects on learning. Twelve hours or more of leisure-time television
viewing a week had a negative effect.
The author concluded that improving the amount and quality of
instruction, and enlisting the involvement of families, can vastly
improve academic learning.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.87
The methodology combines the outcomes of a vast number of studies
about a particular practice into a common base of information. The
author could not report many details of the original studies,
including those relating to research design, methods, and conditions,
because of the large number of studies analyzed. The author
encourages individuals who want a more complete and critical
understanding of specific practices to read the original research.
CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION
WHEELOCK
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.88
Anne Wheelock. Crossing the Tracks: How Untracking Can Save
American Schools. New York: The New Press, 1992.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.89
Multilevel instructional groupings.
SETTING
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.90
Mainstream urban and suburban elementary and secondary schools.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.91
Review of selected research and classroom observations and interviews
at sites with multilevel instructional groupings.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.92
Multilevel instructional groupings require abandoning tracks that
sort students by perceived ability. Multilevel instruction expands
their exposure to knowledge and enables them to prepare for highly
skilled occupations.
Students' learning appropriate grade-level skills in groups of mixed
ability is contingent on compatible instruction practices: a
meaningful, multifaceted curriculum; team teaching opportunities;
multiple and flexible opportunities to offer students extra help; and
greater professional development in new instruction techniques.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:3.0.93
The schools that had moved from ability tracks to heterogeneous
groupings had changed core curriculum, instruction, and assessment
practices, changes that were supported by explicit state and district
policies allowing them the autonomy to change, protection from
resistance, and financing to purchase resources.
WORKPLACES: ANNOTATED
BIBLIOGRAPHY
========================================================== Appendix II
WORK ENVIRONMENT
-------------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1
BOWER AND CHRISTENSEN
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.1
Joseph L. Bower and Clayton M. Christensen. "Disruptive
Technologies: Catching the Wave." Harvard Business Review, 73:1
(January-February 1995), 43-53.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.2
Failure of successful companies to plan for customers of the future.
The downside of staying close to the customer.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.3
Selected case studies.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.4
Most established companies are consistently at the head of their
industries in developing and commercializing new technologies.
Keeping focused on main customers can blind companies to important
new technologies in emerging markets. The technological changes that
typically damage a company are not usually radically new or different
but typically have a package of performance attributes not initially
valued by customers. The performance attributes that existing
customers in established markets do value improve so rapidly that the
new technology can later invade them.
While disruptive technologies may perform worse along one or two
dimensions, they generally make possible the emergence of new
markets. Rapid innovations can then improve performance and even
satisfy the needs of customers in the established markets. Sony's
early transistor radios are an example of a new technology that
sacrificed sound fidelity by offering new attributes--small size,
light weight, and portability.
Because managers are evaluated on their ability to place the right
bets, it is not surprising that well-managed companies back projects
in which the market seems ensured. Established companies need to
build a disruptive-technology business in an independent section of
the organization. Risk is reduced and careers are safeguarded, but
the corporation consists of business units with finite life spans:
technological and market bases of any business will eventually
disappear.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.5
Disruptive technologies are an important part of the business cycle
and the forerunner of leading-edge technology.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
BOYETT AND CONN
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.6
Joseph H. Boyett and Henry P. Conn. Workplace 2000: The
Revolution Reshaping American Business. New York: Plume Books,
1992.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.7
General management changes.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.8
The authors, who are management consultants with a large
international firm, researched material from a variety of sources:
the popular press, academic research, case studies of the best
practices in U.S. industry, and the advice and assistance of various
individuals at national productivity and quality associations.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.9
Recent changes in management and compensation practices were not
planned and American management did not set out to create new
workplace conditions. The flattening of organizations, the greater
sharing of information with employees, the motivation and leadership
practices, the pay systems and team systems, all were a response to
competitive need. American businesses had to adapt to survive.
Workplace practices and changes were not implemented in a systematic
or coordinated manner, but many experiments were successful. Case
studies of companies document their problems and progress. Key
changes the companies made provide guidance for others.
The workplace of the future will be flatter, leaner, and more
aggressive. Continued advancement in technology will require fewer
employees in organizations that will offer fewer opportunities for
advancement. Employment security may be a concept of the past, and
although large companies will offer a limited guarantee of long-term
employment, it will not necessarily be in the same job or workplace.
This instability and enormous competitive demands on businesses will
put extraordinary pressure on employees for maximum performance.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.10
The authors' hypotheses are supported by selected case studies of
companies. Predictions about the future workplace practices of
successful American companies are based on a wide variety of sources.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
COLLINS AND PORRAS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.11
James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras. Built to Last. New York:
HarperCollins, 1994.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.12
"Visionary" companies that do not have flawless records but are
resilient and have "woven themselves into the fabric of society."
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.13
A comparison of 18 companies, from their beginnings to the present,
that since 1926 have outperformed the general stock market by a
factor of 15 to a matched set of companies that had similar
opportunities but did not attain the same stature. The authors ask,
"What makes the exceptional companies different from other
companies?"
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.14
Much of what are today called "new" or "innovative" management
methods--employee ownership, empowerment, continuous improvement,
total quality management, common vision, shared values--are versions
of practices that date to the 1800s. Contrary to popular belief,
visionary companies do not require a great idea or charismatic
leaders. In the combined 1,700-year life span of the visionary
companies, the authors found only four incidents of going outside for
a chief executive officer, and those in only two companies.
Visionary companies have unchanging core ideologies. Their
underlying dynamic is "Preserve the core and stimulate progress."
They do not need to bring top management in from the outside for
change and fresh ideas. No one aspect makes them work: it is the
dynamic of all the small pieces together.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.15
The historical approach, while suggestive, clearly cannot be
generalized to other companies.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
GASKILL, VAN AUKEN, AND
MANNING
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.16
LuAnn Ricketts Gaskill, Howard E. Van Auken, and Ronald A. Manning.
"A Factor Analytic Study of the Perceived Causes of Small Business
Failure." Journal of Small Business Management, 31:4 (October 1993),
18-31.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.17
Business failure.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.18
Retail industry in Iowa. The study examined perceived causes of
small-business failure between 1987 and 1991 in apparel and accessory
retailing, consolidating many previous research findings and
identifying common themes. The Iowa Department of Revenue and all
chamber of commerce directors in Iowa were asked to identify failed
business owners. A telephone survey confirmed the information, and a
questionnaire was mailed to each of the businesses that were
identified as having discontinued because of financial reasons. The
survey yielded a 70-percent response rate.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.19
Four major factors explain the principal reasons for small business
failure: inadequate managerial and planning functions, poor
relations with vendors and difficulties receiving merchandise,
inability to compete in the competitive environment, and premature
business growth or overexpansion.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.20
The authors recognize that the research should be duplicated with
other geographic areas of the country and other business sectors if
results are to be generalized.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
HOGARTY
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.21
Donna Brown Hogarty. "Beating the Odds: Avoid These Mistakes at All
Costs!" Management Review, 82:2 (February 1993), 16-21.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.22
Common pitfalls that threaten new businesses.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.23
Management Review's informal survey of venture capitalists, business
owners, consultants and other experts elicited their nominations for
common small-business set-up errors. Selected case studies.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.24
Countless product launches and new divisions fail each year in
corporate businesses for the same reasons that cause the demise of
small business. To avoid becoming another business failure,
entrepreneurs need to learn from others. The 10 most common
new-business mistakes are
-- failing to do initial market research,
-- failing to find a market niche,
-- not developing a business plan,
-- developing an inadequate bookkeeping system,
-- running out of money,
-- failing to keep investors informed,
-- not setting quality standards,
-- being quick to hire and slow to fire,
-- failing to get business early, and
-- not asking for help.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.25
Results are based on nominations of various groups. The number of
respondents and sampling strategy were not provided, so that
validity, reliability, and the ability to generalize from the
findings cannot be ascertained.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
JACOB
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.26
Rahul Jacob. "Corporate Reputations." Fortune, March 6, 1995, pp.
54-94.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.27
The attributes of a company's management, products, and services that
respondents to Fortune's 13th annual Corporate Reputations (Most
Admired) Survey deem most important.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.28
More than 10,000 senior executives, outside directors, and financial
analysts rating the 10 largest companies in their own industry, taken
from companies in the 1994 Fortune 500 Industrial and Fortune 500
Service directories. They measured the contenders by eight
attributes: quality of management, quality of product or services,
financial soundness, value as a long-term investment, use of
corporate assets, innovativeness, community or environmental
responsibility, and ability to attract, develop, and keep talented
people. Their scores were averaged to reach the total.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.29
The bond between the individual and the organization becomes stronger
in high-performing companies. Successful companies have mastered the
art of maintaining continuity while fostering perpetual renewal. A
company's culture is the characteristic that sets apart the
top-ranking "most admired." Like character in a person, a company's
culture guides and defines, allowing it to change and grow while
remaining true to its core self. Such culture can be passed down
successfully through generations of management.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.30
The sampling strategy and response rate were not provided. Employees
were not sampled.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
KOTTER AND HESKETT
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.31
John P. Kotter and James L. Heskett. Corporate Culture and
Performance. New York: The Free Press, 1992.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.32
Low-performance corporate culture.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.33
A small subset of 207 firms that focused on the largest 9 or 10 firms
in 22 different U.S. industries. The findings are based on the
histories of 20 firms in diverse industries and geographical
locations whose circumstances have led to the development of cultures
that undermine their economic performance.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.34
A consistent pattern of events helps shape an important part of the
cultures of low-performance firms, a pattern that differs in at least
one or two critical respects from that found in the histories of
high-performing firms. The low-performance firms usually began with
some combination of visionary leadership and luck. Each firm
implemented good business strategy from a strong position in some
market or markets and had the means of sustaining that position.
However, sustained growth and increasing success created internal
challenges. In response, executives hired, developed, and promoted
skilled managers who were not necessarily leaders. They might have
understood systems and budgets but not vision, strategies, and
culture. Eventually, any collective sense of why the firm had been
successful in the first place was lost.
Unhealthy cultures have three general components. First, managers
tend to be arrogant. At one company, no one was ever encouraged to
look outside the firm for new ideas; managers acted as if they
already had all the answers. Second, managers tend not to value
highly customers and stockholders and employees. They act insularly,
sometimes politically. Third, leadership and other mechanisms of
change are treated with hostility. These firms already had very
strong managerial orientations, a perspective that values stability,
and order. Executives at some companies who demonstrated "too much"
leadership were often not promoted.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.35
The sample was based on corporations that had been successful at one
time. The economic performance was compared to other corporations in
the sample. Retrospective analysis makes it difficult to generalize
from the results.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
LABICH
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.36
Kenneth Labich. "Why Companies Fail." Fortune, November 14, 1994,
pp. 52-68.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.37
Main reasons why companies fail.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.38
Expert opinion.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.39
Some 97,000 U.S. businesses failed in 1992. Others lost ground to
competitors or key pieces of businesses disappeared. Senior managers
must take the responsibility. To avert failure, they must avoid
-- identity crisis. Without a mental model of the business,
decisionmaking becomes capricious and the company drifts.
-- failure of vision. In recent years, one of the most common
disasters stemming from management shortsightedness is getting
stuck with yesterday's technology. Trouble starts when people
are afraid to talk to the boss and ideas do not get to the top.
-- the big squeeze. Many companies have fallen into debt by paying
too much for an acquisition or overreacting to the predations of
corporate raiders.
-- the glue sticks and sticks. Companies fail when they cannot
abandon strategies that no longer work.
-- anybody out there? Many companies fail because they have lost
touch with their most important customers.
-- enemies within. Top managers, whatever their public
declarations, who take a narrow view of their employees can be
subject to strikes or hostilities. Corporate leaders who pump
up their own bonuses and perks while telling the troops to
tighten their belts provoke discord and unrest in the workplace.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.40
Six very general topics are presented with selected case studies.
The consensus of experts and retrospective analysis lack solid
methodological underpinnings.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
LEVERING
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.41
Robert Levering. A Great Place to Work: What Makes Some Employers
So Good (And Most So Bad). New York: Avon, 1988.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.42
Essential elements that contribute to a satisfying workplace (and
descriptions of patterns of undesirable workplaces).
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.43
Interviews with lower-level employees, top officers, and founders of
20 of the best from The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America
(Levering's 1984 book co-authored with Milton Moskowitz). Research
on management theory, industrial psychology and sociology, economic
history, and social and moral philosophy.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.44
Creating a good work environment and increasing profits are
compatible goals. Some personnel fads (cafeteria benefit plans,
quality circles, employee stock ownership or 401(k) savings plans)
genuinely improve employees' income and benefits, but a piecemeal
approach is not the essence of a great workplace. Most important is
the quality of the relationship between the company and the
employees. Employees from divergent companies use the same terms
(trust, pride, freedom, family, being treated fairly, being allowed
to make mistakes); they are willing to work hard but emphasize their
need for a sense of respect.
Theories of management have serious political implications within a
company; they are not abstractions. Particular policies and
practices cannot define a great workplace, and successful companies
are not necessarily good workplaces. On the whole, the better
employers enjoy more financial success than their competitors.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.45
Findings from selected case studies cannot readily be generalized.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
LEVERING AND MOSKOWITZ
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.46
Robert Levering and Milton Moskowitz. The 100 Best Companies to Work
for in America. New York: Doubleday, 1993.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.47
Descriptions of exceptional workplaces.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.48
Material from the authors' Everybody's Business: A Field Guide to
the 400 Leading Companies in America and nominees from magazines,
newspapers, and others' recommendations. Some companies nominated
themselves, and some individuals responded to inquiries for companies
with reputations as good workplaces. The authors asked the firms for
written material that would show why they should be considered and,
at the 147 top candidates, interviewed nonsupervisory employees, a
similar number of first-line supervisors and middle managers, human
resource executives, and the chief executive officer or another top
officer. Then the top 100 companies were profiled and rated for pay
and benefits, opportunities, job security, pride in work and the
company, openness and fairness, and camaraderie and friendliness.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.49
The top 100 companies are all highly successful. In downsizing their
workforces, 18 still adhere to a no-layoff policy, and several keep
to it even when confronted with steep erosions in profits. Employees
believe that job security is important and can easily detect
manipulators--those who use practices common to good workplaces
simply to enhance the bottom line. This is especially true in
companies that jump on the quality bandwagon and institute
employee-involvement programs without altering managerial attitudes
or workstyle.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.50
Four of the companies have won the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality
Award. The authors resist generalizing that good workplaces are
superior because they help a company succeed. They acknowledge that
no company is perfect for everyone, particularly companies that have
their own culture, and try to indicate what kinds of people do and do
not fit into each company. They focus on the treatment of people
during companies' rocky periods.
The sampling procedure was not systematic or representative, so it is
impossible to generalize. Moreover, how each firm was rated on the
dimensions was not clear.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
LEVINE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.51
David I. Levine. Reinventing the Workplace: How Business and
Employees Can Both Win. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings
Institution, 1995.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.52
Employee involvement.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.53
Empirical evidence, case studies, and social science theory.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.54
With varying degrees of success, employee involvement works.
However, broad employee involvement in the U.S. workforce remains
the exception. Although it can raise productivity, satisfaction, and
product quality, it may not always do so.
Various forms of representative participation can improve company
performance when they are part of a package of participatory
policies. Alone, they may improve labor-management relations but may
have little effect on productivity. Measuring the relationship
between participation and performance is exceedingly difficult.
The main obstacle to employee involvement is that many managers
prefer to retain control and avoid change. Another major obstacle is
the importance managers place on short-term gains: investment in
employee involvement is difficult to monitor, and the market
initially yields low results. Managers are given little incentive to
raise employee involvement to the level that would maximize profits.
Further, unions have typically gained power by confronting
management. Employee involvement would require new styles of
interaction, skills, and risks.
U.S. employers train workers less than their foreign competitors do.
Companies reason that training workers who quit leaves them with no
return on their investment. Workers are unwilling to pay for much
training because they are unsure of the value of their training to
other employers if they are laid off; in any case, few employees can
afford to pay tuition or take the low wages that the company pays
during the training period. Young workers, who have the greatest
need to acquire training, are particularly likely to have no liquid
assets.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.55
The author acknowledges that much of the book derives from research
and articles previously undertaken with co-authors. Numerous
research studies are cited.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
LEVINE AND TYSON
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.56
David I. Levine and Laura D'Andrea Tyson. "Participation,
Productivity, and the Firm's Environment." In Alan S. Blinder (ed.).
Paying for Productivity: A Look at the Evidence. Washington, D.C.:
The Brookings Institution, 1990. Pp. 183-241.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.57
The relationship between three broad forms of employee participation
and a firm's productivity, accounting for the influence of the firm's
external environment and industrial relations system. Forms of
participation were characterized as consultative, such as quality
circles; substantive, such as work teams; and representative,
including workers' councils, joint labor-management consultation
committees, and representation on company boards.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.58
An extensive literature review, including a detailed analysis of 43
studies relating participation and productivity in the United States,
Europe, and Japan. All 43 studies included quantitative measures of
productivity.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.59
For conventional firms, most studies found no significant positive
effect from consultative participation on productivity, perhaps
because programs such as quality circles do not last long. But
substantive participation, especially on shop-floor issues, is
usually related to higher productivity, and increases in
participation are related to higher productivity gains.
Representative participation is related to higher productivity when
part of a broader set of participatory policies but when not standing
alone. For employee-owned companies, most studies found a positive
relationship between participation and productivity, but these
companies also tend to have other characteristics that could affect
productivity, making it hard to draw definitive conclusions.
Successful participation systems have four characteristics: profit
sharing or gain sharing, long-term employment relations, increased
group cohesiveness, and guaranteed individual rights for employees.
Whether firms adopt such measures may be related to product, labor,
and capital market conditions.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.60
The most important findings are based on reviews of empirical
studies, but the authors did not provide many details of the grounds
on which they selected studies to review. No meta-analysis of the
studies was undertaken.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
MACDUFFIE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.61
John Paul MacDuffie. "Human Resource Bundles and Manufacturing
Performance: Organizational Logic and Flexible Production Systems in
the World Auto Industry." Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 48:2
(1995), 197-221.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.62
Effects of "bundles" of workplace practices on labor productivity and
product quality in the automobile industry. The workplace practices
were human resource management (such as the extent to which
compensation is based on performance, the extent of status barriers
between workers and managers, and the level of training given to
employees), work systems (such as formal work teams and employee
involvement), and production buffers (such as large parts
inventories). An index was constructed for each dimension, another
for all three dimensions combined.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.63
As part of the International Assembly Plant Study sponsored by the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a questionnaire was
administered in 1989 to 90 auto assembly plants worldwide,
representing 24 producers in 16 nations and accounting for about 60
percent of worldwide capacity. Extensive follow-up procedures filled
in missing data and clarified responses where necessary. This
analysis is based on 62 responses.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.64
The relationships between the three indexes and the combined index,
and productivity and quality measures were analyzed with a
hierarchical regression model, with controls for levels of
automation, production scale, complexity of model mix, parts
complexity, and age of production design. All three indexes, and the
combined index, predicted productivity and quality at acceptable
levels of statistical significance, except that the use of buffers
was not related to quality. The results support the hypothesis that
plants bundling human resource practices into an integrated or
flexible production system and business strategy outperform
traditional mass production systems in both productivity and quality.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.65
It is not possible to generalize broadly from this study of one
manufacturing industry. It was cross-sectional, so it cannot show
causes for productivity and quality from human resource practices.
But it gives strong evidence of the correlation between such
practices and performance in the automobile industry.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
MEEKS, RAMOS, AND PALMERI
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.66
Fleming Meeks, Steven Ramos, and Christopher Palmeri. "How to Tell
an Eagle from an Icarus." Forbes, November 13, 1989, pp. 213-17.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.67
Successful small businesses.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.68
Forbes' list of Up and Comers--100 Companies in 1979.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.69
Many things can happen to a small company in 10 years. Inflation,
high interest rates, and new technologies eliminated thousands of
small businesses and once-successful companies whose management
failed to adapt.
Of the initial 100 companies, 20 are worth less than they were 10
years ago. The long-term winners, the top 15 companies, are niche
companies. Overall, the odds of success seem to favor strong little
niche companies with proven records.
Among other factors, the analysis seems to indicate that small
businesses that can adapt rapidly and have found a market niche
outperform others.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.70
The initial criteria for selecting the company were not provided.
The retrospective analysis severely limits the ability to generalize,
and projecting the findings to other companies in other times would
be perilous.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
MILLER
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.71
Danny Miller. "The Icarus Paradox: How Exceptional Companies Bring
About Their Own Downfall." Business Horizons, 35:1 (January-February
1992), 24-35.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.72
When successful practices are no longer effective.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.73
Long-term study of the evolution of outstanding firms. Case studies
illustrate and provide examples.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.74
The paradox of Icarus--whose greatest asset led to his
demise--applies to many outstanding companies whose successes and
accomplishments seduce them into excesses that cause their downfall.
Overconfidence, carelessness, and complacency are pitfalls for
strategy, leadership, culture, and structure. Many companies simply
extend and amplify the networks they credit for their success.
The dangers to large successful organizations are likened to great
civilizations in Arnold Toynbee's A Study of History that collapsed
or stagnated from internal rigidity, complacency, and oppression.
Some successful organizations have adopted potentially powerful
methods for avoiding these problems:
-- building thematic, cohesive configurations,
-- encouraging managers to focus on the direction of the company,
-- scanning widely and monitoring performance assiduously, and
-- temporarily uncoupling renewal activities from established
operations.
One way for a large organization to "have it all" is to establish
small, independent units that can experiment and do new things
outside the configuration of existing operations.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.75
Earlier research on outstanding companies yielded four "trajectories
of decline." The author studied the long-term evolution of
outstanding firms conforming to these established types by tracking
them for "many years." His research methods are not provided.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
NATIONAL CENTER ON THE
EDUCATIONAL QUALITY OF
THE WORKFORCE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.76
National Center on the Educational Quality of the Workforce, "First
Findings." EQW National Employer Survey. The Wharton School,
Institute of Research on Higher Education, University of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1995.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.77
Employers' attitudes, practices, and expectations.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.78
Firms were identified by drawing on the World Bank's multinational
survey of firms and their employees. A telephone survey was
administered in 1994 to more than 4,000 establishments. Firms in the
manufacturing sector and those with more than 100 employees were
oversampled. The survey was administered by the Bureau of the
Census, and the study was supported under the Educational Research
and Development Center and administered by the Office of Educational
Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.79
High-performance work systems remain the exception: a quarter of the
establishments reported using benchmarking programs, and only 37
percent have adopted a formal total quality management program. Few
workers engage in high-performance work practices: 12 percent of
nonmanagerial workers participate in self-managed teams, only 17
percent in job rotation. However, 54 percent of nonmanagerial
employees participate in meetings on work-related problems.
Only 5 percent of the establishments indicated any reduction in the
skill requirements of their jobs, while 56 percent reported
increasing their skill requirements. Virtually all establishments
provide formal or on-the-job training. Over half increased their
formal training over the last 3 years. More than 80 percent of their
workers are fully proficient in their current jobs. Although years
of schooling and applicants' skills certificates are a factor in
employers' hiring decisions, they pay little attention to school
performance. More important is an applicant's attitude,
communication skills, and history of successful work experience.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.80
The sampling strategy was not provided. The rate of cooperation and
the titles of the persons responding to the survey were not provided.
Therefore, representativeness remains uncertain.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
NATIONAL CENTER ON THE
EDUCATIONAL QUALITY OF
THE WORKFORCE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.81
National Center on the Educational Quality of the Workforce. "The
Other Shoe: Education's Contribution to the Productivity of
Establishments." A second round of findings from the EQW National
Employer Survey. The Wharton School and The Institute for Research
on Higher Education, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1994.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.82
Hiring decisions.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.83
A 1994 Bureau of the Census telephone survey of more than 4,000
establishments drawing from the work of the World Bank. The study
was supported under the Educational Research and Development Center
and administered by the Office of Educational Research and
Improvement, U.S. Department of Education.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.84
Increasing workers' education produces twice the gain in workplace
efficiency that increasing the value of tools and machinery does. A
10-percent increase in education yielded an 8.6-percent increase in
productivity; a similar increase in capital stock (tools, buildings,
and machinery) yielded only a 3.4-percent productivity increase. The
effect rises to 11 percent in the nonmanufacturing sector, which has
the greatest job growth. Education had the lowest effect on
productivity in wholesale and retail trade. Employees in certain
sectors were less likely to receive education, and the training they
did get was not portable, effectively condemning them to low-paying
jobs.
Some employers are divorced from schools and lack confidence in their
ability to train students for the workplace. They frequently base
hiring criteria on attitude, communication skills, and previous work
experience. Employers who base their hiring decisions on academic
performance or who have links to schools through internships or
training programs show higher productivity and more innovative
workplace practices.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.85
The sampling strategy was not provided. The rate of cooperation and
the titles of the persons responding to the survey were not provided.
Therefore, representativeness remains uncertain. The study's
sponsors plan to repeat the survey in 3 years because of the rapid
pace of change in the economy and labor market.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
PULLINGER
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.86
David Pullinger. "The Anorexic Organization." Personnel Management,
24:3 (March 1992), 4.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.87
Cost-cutting.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.88
Expert opinion.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.89
An analogy is drawn between the cost-reduction efforts of some
companies and the anorexic young adult. Faced with managing a
difficulty, the classic response is to cut costs. This may leave an
organization leaner, but it may not be fitter. Cost-cutting may
actually weaken the organization's ability to generate revenue. The
more that cost-cutting affects the company's development activities,
the more the company's ability to sustain itself in the long term
will be impaired; it may not be strong enough to defer bankruptcy or
acquisitions.
Before implementing drastic measures, the organization should
identify its problems and their causes. The next step is to identify
actions appropriate to the issues. Short-term goals need to be set
and met. At the same time, the organization must engage employees in
building for the future because while it recovers and focuses on
internal matters, the world moves on. Markets change: opportunities
open and close. Human resource personnel have a significant role to
play in the recovery process.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.90
This article is not based on a systematic analysis of representative
data.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
SMITH AND OLIVER
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.91
Jim Smith and Mark Oliver. "The Baldrige Boondoggle." Machine
Design, 64:16 (August 6, 1992), 25-29.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.92
Quality awards.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.93
Selected case studies.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.94
High quality is not free and does not ensure success. Wallace
Company won the 1990 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. It
increased on-time deliveries from 75 percent to 92 percent and
increased market share more than 8 percent but spent more than $2
million annually in extra overhead. Customers had said they wanted
more timely deliveries, but they were not willing to pay extra for
them.
Other companies, too, have discovered that high quality costs a great
deal of money and that customers prefer slightly less-than-perfect
service from firms that charge less. The fiscal performance of other
Baldrige winners has been mixed, and companies that have not won have
consistently outsold winners they compete with.
Some argue that the Baldrige Award was never meant to reward
financial success. Some exemplary companies have decided that
pursuing the prize is not cost-effective. The reality is that no
company has performed better than average after winning the Baldrige
and most have had serious earning declines.
The authors conclude that the Baldrige has virtue on its side.
Unfortunately, it takes virtue and solid business fundamentals to
survive in the modern world. A little less virtue and a lot more
pragmatic business sense is what America needs.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.95
Systematic sampling of Baldrige winners was not done.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING
OFFICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.96
U.S. General Accounting Office. Organizational Culture: Techniques
Companies Use to Perpetuate or Change Beliefs and Values,
GAO/NSIAD-92-105. Washington, D.C.: 1992.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.97
Developing and maintaining organizational culture, defined as the
underlying assumptions, beliefs, values, attitudes, and expectations
shared by an organization's members.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.98
Discussions with five academicians who have done research on
organizational culture and officials of nine large companies, three
of which were attempting to perpetuate, and six to change, their
corporate cultures, particularly in regard to inventory management.
The report grew out of a series of studies on managing defense
inventories.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.99
Changing an organization's culture is a long-term effort, taking at
least 5 to 10 years to complete. Company officials reported that two
key techniques for promoting cultural change are commitment of top
management in both words and actions and training that promotes and
develops skills related to the desired values and beliefs. In
addition to these, company officials indicated that successful change
requires a combination of other techniques, including distributing a
written statement of desired values and beliefs to employees;
creating a management style that reinforces these values and beliefs;
offering rewards, incentives, and promotions to support behavior that
reinforces these beliefs; holding company gatherings to discuss them;
developing an organizational structure that is compatible with them;
using systems, procedures, and processes to support organizational
values; and using stories, legends, myths, and slogans to communicate
values and beliefs. Experts noted that the same techniques could be
used to perpetuate an existing organizational culture.
WORK ENVIRONMENT
WAGNER
-------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.100
John A. Wagner III. "Participation's Effects on Performance and
Satisfaction: A Reconsideration of Research Evidence." Academy of
Management Review, 19:2 (1994), 312-30.
PRACTICE
-------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.101
The effects of various forms of employee participation on employee
performance and job satisfaction: employee ownership, participation
in work decisions, and consultative, short-term, informal, and
representative participation.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.102
A meta-analysis of 11 previous literature reviews on the associations
between job performance and satisfaction and one or more forms of
subordinates' participation in processing information, making
decisions, or solving problems.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
-------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.103
Employee participation is associated with improved job performance
and job satisfaction among employees, even though the studies used
different review methods (narrative, simple quantitative,
meta-analytic) and examined different samples of research studies.
But while the association is statistically significant, it is small;
thus, if the costs of initiating and maintaining such participation
programs are high, companies are not likely to adopt them. No
statistically significant differences appeared between the types of
participation in terms of either performance or satisfaction.
COMMENTS
-------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:1.0.104
The study's statistical method might underestimate the variation in
types of participation but, given the small effect sizes, this is not
likely to present problems.
HUMAN RESOURCES
-------------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2
ARTHUR
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.1
Jeffry B. Arthur. "Effects of Human Resource Systems on
Manufacturing Performance and Turnover." Academy of Management
Journal, 37:3 (1994), 670-87.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.2
Differences between commitment systems and control human-resource
systems on the performance of steelmaking minimills. Compared to
control human-resource systems, commitment systems involve greater
decentralization of management, fewer workers per supervisor, more
employee participation in problem solving and decisionmaking,
higher-skilled workers, higher levels of general training, more
formal grievance procedures, more social activities, higher wages,
and a higher percentage of compensation accounted for by benefits and
a lower percentage by bonus or incentive payments.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.3
A survey of human resource managers at 30 of the 54 existing U.S.
minimills. The data were used to construct 10 variables on different
aspects of the mills' human resource systems. Cluster analysis
yielded six clusters, but to preserve degrees of freedom, these were
collapsed into the commitment and control categories by judgment.
(Reliability was tested by six student raters.) Respondents also
provided data on two measures of performance (labor efficiency and
scrap rate) and on turnover.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.4
Regression analysis found that commitment human-resource systems are
related to higher performance than control systems, signified by
fewer hours of labor to produce a ton of steel and a lower ratio of
scrap to finished steel. This was interpreted to mean that
commitment systems avoid a tradeoff between production quality (scrap
rate) and efficiency (labor hours). Commitment systems also have
lower turnover than control systems. Finally, the type of human
resource system affects the relationship between performance and
turnover such that, in commitment systems, higher levels of turnover
consistently harm performance, whereas this is not true for control
systems.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.5
This study focused on only one manufacturing industry, so it cannot
be broadly generalized. The small sample size limited the analysis,
so that broad categories of systems had to be constructed, based on
the author's judgment; and while the categorization was supported by
other raters, its validity and reliability remain at issue.
HUMAN RESOURCES
BASSI
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.6
Laurie J. Bassi. Smart Workers, Smart Work. Washington, D.C.: The
Southport Institute for Policy Analysis, 1992.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.7
Workplace education and reorganization of work.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.8
Case studies of 72 small and medium-size companies (fewer than 500
employees). Mail and telephone survey of a random sample of members
of the National Association of Manufacturers and a random sample of
firms from lists of a professional mail house.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.9
A third to a half of nonmanufacturing firms and half to three
quarters of manufacturing firms have undergone at least some
reorganization of work; only a small fraction have undergone
substantial change in the way work is done. The most frequently
cited type of work reorganization is giving greater responsibility to
workers.
Larger firms are more likely to have reorganized work and implemented
education programs. Few firms have a workplace education program.
Among those that do, most commonly taught are skills for identifying
problems and techniques for their solution and interpersonal skills,
such team building. Manufacturing firms are much more likely to
teach academic skills such as reading, writing, mathematics, and the
GED curriculum, and improvements in terms of profits are most
pronounced from teaching them.
Firms that have instituted programs are not strikingly different from
those that have not, but they do have compensation packages that are
equal to or better than those of others; they are also more likely to
promote from within and have somewhat less turnover. The most
frequently reported direct effects of workplace programs are improved
communication and employee morale and greater customer satisfaction,
self-confidence, and ability to solve problems.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.10
The sample was drawn from an organizational membership and is not
necessarily representative of the industry. The survey yielded a
response rate of 18 percent, severely limiting any attempt to
generalize from the findings.
HUMAN RESOURCES
CONTE AND SVEJNAR
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.11
Michael A. Conte and Jan Svejnar. "The Performance Effects of
Employee Ownership Plans." In Alan S. Blinder (ed.). Paying for
Productivity: A Look at the Evidence. Washington, D.C.: The
Brookings Institution, 1990. Pp. 143-81.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.12
The relationship between employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) and
related ownership forms and corporate performance in the United
States and, to a limited degree, Europe.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.13
Six studies of U.S. ESOPs supplemented by a brief review of studies
of other forms of employee ownership. Data from the studies were not
aggregated or meta-analyzed.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.14
The evidence on the effects of ownership through ESOPs on corporate
performance (productivity and profitability) is contradictory: some
studies show a direct effect, but they often lack control variables,
which generally reduces the effect to a negligible level. However,
the evidence is stronger that employee participation in
decisionmaking in employee-owned companies is associated with better
performance. What the literature does not address is whether
participation has the same effect in nonemployee-owned companies and
whether employee ownership itself leads to more participation.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.15
The authors were aware of variations in the strength of the studies
they reviewed and appropriately tempered their conclusions. The
overall findings are suggestive but hardly definitive.
HUMAN RESOURCES
COOKE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.16
William N. Cooke. "Employee Participation Programs, Group-Based
Incentives, and Company Performance: A Union-Nonunion Comparison."
Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 47:4 (July 1994), 594-609.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.17
Employee participation programs, group-based incentives, and company
performance.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.18
Survey of 841 manufacturing firms in five Michigan counties in
1989-90. About 27 percent of the respondents were unionized.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.19
Employee-participation programs and group-based incentives yield
gains in a company's performance when measured as value added net of
labor cost per employee. On the average, the unionized companies
have higher value added per employee, pay much higher hourly wages,
have lower ratios of labor costs to total costs, are less likely to
have profit- or gain-sharing plans, are older and larger, and employ
a substantially larger proportion of skilled tradesworkers than the
nonunion firms.
Unionized companies with work teams but no group-based pay achieve
the highest level of performance--estimated at 35-percent higher than
comparable, nonunion firms without teams or group-based pay.
Unionized firms provide the better place for evaluating the benefits
of employee-participation programs; nonunion firms generally provide
the better place for estimating group-based pay as a performance
incentive.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.20
Data came only from Michigan, although responses were received from
70 percent or more of the firms in each county. However, the
regression analysis was based on about 34 percent of the responses
because data were missing on key variables. Much more research is
required, since the data have limitations and since this is the first
study to examine the effect on company performance of the
interactions between union representation and employee-
participation, profit-sharing, and gain-sharing programs.
HUMAN RESOURCES
CSOKA
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.21
Louis Csoka. "Closing the Human Performance Gap." Report 1065-94-RR.
The Conference Board, New York, 1994.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.22
High-performance practices.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.23
A survey of human resource executives of a representative sample of
medium to large manufacturing and service firms requesting
information on current business practices in developing and
maintaining a high-performance workforce: 166 U.S. and European
companies responded. In-depth interviews were conducted with
executives of companies selected for their emphasis on innovations in
human performance improvement systems.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.24
Less than 5 percent of the companies spent more than $5,000 on
internal classroom and on-the-job training for new employees in the
first year. They placed more emphasis on external programs, such as
partnering with technical schools and high schools.
Although education and training are crucial to gaining a critical
edge, meeting the educational needs of the workforce is only part of
the answer. A systematic view of performance leads to outstanding
learning programs. Human resource programs emphasize accountability
for business results by focusing on the business and human resource
practices that address performance. The respondents show significant
agreement on factors that affect high performance. However, these
factors do not correspond to the causes of deficient performance.
Survey results reveal that frequently interventions are single,
quick-fix programs that do not address underlying causes of
performance problems.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.25
The respondents were self-selected and self-identified as requesting
information on current business practices for developing and
maintaining a high-performance workforce. The number surveyed and
the response rate were not provided for this group.
HUMAN RESOURCES
CUTCHER-GERSHENFELD
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.26
Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld. "The Impact on Economic Performance of a
Transformation in Workplace Relations." Industrial and Labor
Relations Review, 44:2 (January 1991), 241-60.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.27
Conflict and cooperation in labor-management relations.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.28
Longitudinal analysis of changing patterns in labor-management
relations across work groups in a large unionized manufacturing
facility over a 3-year period. Data were collected from union and
employer records and interviews.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.29
The focus was on two core elements of labor-management relations:
the resolution of disputes and the pursuit of common concerns. Work
areas with "traditional" labor-management relations, rooted in
adversarial assumptions, have higher costs, more scrap, lower
productivity, and a lower return to direct labor hours worked than
work areas with "transformational" relations, characterized by
increasing cooperation and improved dispute resolution.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.30
This company and the union are uncommon in that they have a long
tradition of positive relationships and the company has traditionally
placed a high value on human resources. Results of this study
clearly cannot be generalized.
HUMAN RESOURCES
FITZ-ENZ
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.31
Jac Fitz-enz. "The Truth About 'Best Practice.'" Human Resource
Planning, 16:3 (1993), 19-26.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.32
Best practices.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.33
Company-operating data from the annual SHRM/Saratoga Institute Human
Resource Effectiveness Report. Screenings and multiple interviews
with the top 25 percent (defined by objective performance data) of
600 reporting companies. Interviews were designed to verify that the
firm had a plan, had succeeded, and could point to objective evidence
of that success in terms of productivity, quality, sales, or improved
customer service.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.34
The top 25 percent of companies have nine "best practices" in common.
Combining and redefining factors the following year confirmed eight
best practices in human resource management: communications,
continuous improvement, culture consciousness, customer focus and
partnering, interdependence, risk taking, strategy and commitment,
and value focus.
"Best practice" is not a set of discrete actions but, rather, a
cohesive, holistic approach to organizational management that is the
antecedent to and transcends the visible activity.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.35
Case study and business article authors who focus on "best practices"
frequently come to misleading conclusions because they isolate a few
elements that supposedly account for a firm's success. Because of
this narrow view, this literature presents an incomplete and shallow
description of activities. The author of this article selected a
sample of the top 25 percent of companies based on their performance
data. From them, he identified fundamental factors that drive a
business enterprise. The article's findings are presented as a
general guide rather than a specific action plan, and consequently
they are subject to wide interpretation.
HUMAN RESOURCES
GREER AND IRELAND
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.36
Charles R. Greer and Timothy C. Ireland. "Organizational and
Financial Correlates of a 'Contrarian' Human Resource Investment
Strategy." Academy of Management Journal, 35:5 (1992), 956-84.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.37
In the "contrarian" human resource investment strategy, a company
selectively hires key employees during a major business downturn,
helping it avoid personnel shortages, link human resource planning
with corporate strategy, provide access to higher-quality applicants
than during better times, assist in meeting affirmative action goals,
ensure a regular age distribution among employees, provide
developmental and career planning opportunities when business demands
are relatively low, and contribute to long-term financial
performance.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.38
A three-wave survey of 500 firms drawn randomly from the 1987
Standard and Poor's Register of Corporations, Directors, and
Executives that met three criteria: (1) noninclusion in an earlier
survey, (2) 2,000 or more employees, and (3) listing on the 1986
Center for Research in Security Prices monthly tape file. Financial
performance indicators came from the center's data. The first wave
produced 106 responses, the follow-up only 45. The third wave
checked technical issues on the first two.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.39
Regression models showed the relationships between the benefits and
risks of selective countercyclical hiring along with contextual
variables (total company employment, industry, and product demand
during downturns) and total hiring, hiring of managers and
professionals, and self-report of corporate countercyclical hiring.
Countercylical hiring is positively related to avoiding personnel
shortages, development and career planning, and financial
performance. Age distribution was mixed: positive for hiring
managers but negative for professionals (possibly reflecting their
higher pay and more rapid skill obsolescence). Costs are negatively
associated with countercyclical hiring, which may become more
important to long-term success as key projected labor shortages
emerge in the 1990s.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.40
The sample size was small (not more than 45 in most cases), making it
hard to generalize from the results. Since there were no data on the
actual performance of the companies, whether countercyclical hiring
actually produced the benefits expected could not be tested.
HUMAN RESOURCES
HOLZER ET AL.
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.41
Harry Holzer et al. "Are Training Subsidies for Firms Effective?
The Michigan Experience." Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 46:4
(July 1993), 625-36.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.42
State-financed funding for a training grant program for manufacturing
firms in Michigan with 500 or fewer employees that were implementing
some new type of technology.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.43
Survey of the amounts of formal job training (measured by the numbers
of employees participating in training programs and hours spent per
employee). Questions were also asked on the quality of output for
each year, using a variety of measures that firms use in their own
quality control programs.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.44
Training grants increase training in the year they are received but
not beyond. The quality of output, as measured by the scrap rate, is
affected positively, and the effect on training and scrap rate is
"not completely lost in subsequent years."
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.45
The first to apply for grants were the first to receive them. In
1988-89, 498 firms applied, and 270 were awarded grants. Only 24
percent of the firms that received a grant responded to the survey,
so the findings may contain unknown biases.
HUMAN RESOURCES
KRUSE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.46
Douglas L. Kruse. Profit Sharing: Does It Make a Difference?
Kalamazoo, Mich.: Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 1993.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.47
The effects of employee profit-sharing plans on productivity and
stability.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.48
A telephone survey of 500 public companies, half with profit sharing
for employees other than management and half without. An attempt was
made to match profit-sharers with their counterparts in the same
industry. Productivity data were matched with publicly available
data from public companies on their 1970-91 financial characteristics
and performance.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.49
The adoption of profit sharing is statistically associated with
significant productivity increases, with no negative postadoption
trend. However, a substantial number of adopters experience no
productivity increase. Increases are largest for small companies,
cash plans, and plans with high average contributions. Profit
sharing does not appear to vary greatly by occupational status or
firm size but does appear to be less common among unionized
employees.
Advantages for workers and unions appear to be the potential for
fewer layoffs under adverse conditions and for higher pay from better
performance. Gains to employment stability accrue to the entire
economy as workers' purchasing power is maintained without
unemployment insurance or government assistance. Profit sharing
potentially yields greater productivity, less unemployment, and
macroeconomic stability, which are central to economic performance,
security, and the standard of living.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.50
Companies with publicly traded stock are listed in Standard and
Poor's CompuStat database. There was no information about how the
sample was chosen or how the paired control was selected. While the
overall findings are suggestive, they are not definitive.
HUMAN RESOURCES
MITCHELL, LEWIN, AND
LAWLER
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.51
Daniel J. B. Mitchell, David Lewin, and Edward E. Lawler III.
"Alternative Pay Systems, Firm Performance, and Productivity." In
Alan S. Blinder (ed.). Paying for Productivity: A Look at the
Evidence. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1990.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.52
The relationships between alternative pay systems--profit sharing,
gain sharing, stock options, ESOPs, and incentive or bonus plans--and
on the economic performance and productivity of firms. The effects
of incentive plans on wages and profit-sharing plans on compensation
levels.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.53
For the main analysis, 495 responses to a survey of 7,000 business
units about 1986-87 human resource policies and practices (from the
Columbia (University) Business Data Set) matched to 1983-86 financial
performance data (from COMPUSTAT). For the relationship between
incentive plans and hourly wages, Bureau of Labor Statistics 1979-86
wage surveys; for the relationship between profit sharing and other
fringe benefits, National Industrial Conference Board surveys from
the early 1950s.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.54
Regression analyses showed that an index of the five alternative pay
variables is associated positively with higher productivity among
production workers but not clerical workers. Profit sharing is
associated with higher productivity for both types of employees;
ESOPs are associated with higher productivity among production
workers. Similar results were not found for performance, measured as
return on investment or return on assets. When related to changes in
the productivity and performance measures, both profit sharing and
ESOPs showed positive associations. Firms with such plans are able
to respond more quickly to economic downturns than other firms.
Incentive plans are associated with higher hourly wages, and
profit-sharing plans do not appear to substitute for pension or other
fringe benefits.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.55
The main analysis was based on a survey with only a 6.5- percent
response rate, making generalizations impossible. The authors used
indexes for many of their variables, raising questions about whether
their analytical techniques were appropriate. Some data were quite
old, in one case dating to the 1950s.
HUMAN RESOURCES
SNELL AND DEAN
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.56
Scott A. Snell and James W. Dean, Jr. "Integrated Manufacturing
and Human Resource Management: A Human Capital Perspective." Academy
of Management Journal, 35:3 (1992), 467-504.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.57
Four human resource management practices--selective staffing,
comprehensive training, developmental performance appraisal, and
equitable rewards--and how they are related to three components of
integrated manufacturing--advanced manufacturing technology,
just-in-time inventory controls, and total quality.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.58
Surveys of plants of 512 firms in the metalworking industry, drawn
from the Harris Pennsylvania Industrial Directory; 160 plant managers
responded. In addition, human resource managers and nonmanagerial
employees were surveyed, with up to 120 responding. Multiple-item
scales were used as measures of the human resources management
practices and manufacturing innovations. Controls for organization
and industry environment were based on data from the surveys,
Standard and Poor's Directory of Corporate Affiliations, and the
Department of Commerce's Survey of Manufactures.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.59
The authors tested the relationships between the three components of
integrated manufacturing, including all their possible combinations,
and personnel practices. Firms using integrated manufacturing--
especially advanced manufacturing technology and total quality-- are
more likely than traditional firms to exert effort to develop
operations and quality workers. Just-in-time inventory controls,
however, are sometimes negatively related to personnel practices;
they may actually limit employee discretion, reducing the need for
innovations in personnel practices. The interaction of all three
components shows consistently negative relationships with human-
resource practices for production control workers. The authors
suggest that this is because when all these processes are in place,
production control may become superfluous, requiring less
human-resource investment.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.60
The sample size was small and drawn from only one industry. The
study did not address whether firms actually perform better when they
use the human-resources management practices studied.
HUMAN RESOURCES
U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING
OFFICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.61
U.S. General Accounting Office. Employee Stock Ownership Plans:
Little Evidence of Effects on Corporate Performance, GAO/PEMD-88-1.
Washington, D.C.: 1987.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.62
Employee stock ownership plans.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.63
Within a broader study of ESOPs, GAO compared the performance of a
subsample of 111 firms sponsoring ESOPs with that of a comparison
sample of firms that did not sponsor ESOPs. In the comparison
sample, each firm matched an ESOP firm on measures of industry and
size. For each firm in the two samples, GAO obtained corporate tax
returns covering 6 years, including the 2 years before an ESOP was
established, the year it was formed, and 3 years afterward. Data
from these returns were used to construct measures of productivity
and profitability. Other data on ESOPs and sponsoring firms came
from a survey of 1,100 ESOP firms, with a response rate of 77
percent.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.64
Using analysis of covariance techniques, GAO found that firms did not
have higher rates of productivity growth or profitability after they
adopted ESOPs, compared to the matching non-ESOP firms. GAO
suggested that the lack of ESOP effects on corporate performance
could reflect a number of factors. First, the ownership benefits of
ESOPs appeared to be too limited and too delayed to motivate higher
performance levels among employees. Because ESOPs are organized
under retirement law, participants did not have access to the stock
until separation from the sponsoring company. Moreover, few firms
passed through stock dividends to employees, and voting rights were
limited. Second, although ESOPs were designed to assist firms in
financing capital expansion, few firms actually used them for that
purpose, so the potential productivity and profitability gains from
investments were necessarily limited.
In a separate analysis of the ESOP firms only, GAO found that those
that also featured a high level of employee participation in
decisionmaking had considerably higher productivity improvements
after starting an ESOP. Since this finding was only associational,
GAO could not determine whether ESOP firms that gave employees higher
levels of participation improved performance or whether
better-performing companies called upon their employees to
participate more than did other firms.
HUMAN RESOURCES
U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING
OFFICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.65
U.S. General Accounting Office. Workforce Reductions: Downsizing
Strategies Used in Selected Organizations, GAO/GGD-95-54.
Washington, D.C.: 1995.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.66
Downsizing an organization's workforce.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.67
Reviews of documents and interviews with corporate and government
officials in 25 organizations reputed in literature searches and
discussions with experts and consultants to have successfully met
downsizing goals. The organizations included 17 companies, 5 U.S.
state governments, and 3 foreign national governments. Information
was collected on planning for workforce reductions, approaches used
to carry them out, and the human resource aspects of the downsizing
efforts.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.68
The private companies reported that their downsizing decisions were
related to restructuring decisions designed to make work processes
more efficient or eliminate unnecessary work; only seldom were they
designed to reduce employment. In contrast, the states reported that
downsizing was generally undertaken to cut costs, regardless of work
considerations. Of the 25 organizations, 15 reported that it was
important to plan how reductions would be carried out in order to
retain a viable workforce. Organizations that said they did not plan
their downsizing efforts properly acknowledged that they cut needed
employees, suffered skills imbalances, and were often forced to
rehire or replace separated employees.
Most of the organizations used monetary incentives to encourage "at
risk" employees to leave voluntarily if they could not be redeployed.
Among these incentives were early retirement without penalties,
credit of additional years of service in retirement benefit
determinations, and lump-sum severance payments of up to one year's
salary. Attrition and hiring freezes were reported to be useful but
not always effective in achieving short-term workforce reductions.
Involuntary separations were usually a last resort; where possible,
they were targeted to meet restructuring goals. The organizations
were also concerned to minimize disruptions through frequent and open
communications, along with counseling, outplacement, and retraining
programs to help employees.
HUMAN RESOURCES
WEITZMAN AND KRUSE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.69
Martin L. Weitzman and Douglas L. Kruse. "Profit Sharing and
Productivity." In Alan S. Blinder (ed.). Paying for Productivity:
A Look at the Evidence. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings
Institution, 1990. Pp. 95-141.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.70
Profit-sharing plans (including gain sharing and cooperatives) and
their relationships with corporate economic performance in the United
States and Europe.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.71
Five surveys of the case study literature, 6 employee surveys, 15
employer surveys, 6 statistical studies, and 16 econometric studies
that were conducted between the 1950s and 1980s.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.72
Profit-sharing plans are related to higher productivity across all
types of studies. The strongest evidence comes from the econometric
studies. Meta-analysis shows that 60 percent of the 226 reported
coefficients relating profit sharing to productivity are positive and
statistically significant; the median estimated effect of profit
sharing on productivity is 4.4 percent. Virtually all the
statistical studies also reported higher productivity for firms with
profit-sharing plans than those without. Both employers and
employees reported positive profit-sharing effects on productivity
and firm performance, although employees showed concern over
fluctuating income. The case studies, too, reported positive
results. The evidence, while not definitive, supports the
theoretical argument that profit sharing is linked to higher
productivity.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.73
Many of the studies were apparently methodologically weak, but the
authors do not sufficiently discuss their methods for selecting
studies to permit judgments about the adequacy of the evidence they
present. The literature review was probably, as most such reviews
are, affected by a bias toward the publication of positive results in
the literature.
HUMAN RESOURCES
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.74
U.S. Department of Labor. What's Working (and What's Not): A
Summary of Research on the Economic Impacts of Employment and
Training Programs. Washington, D.C.: January 1995.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.75
Employment, training, and education programs.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.76
Comprehensive review of more than 100 nonpartisan social science
studies on the economic effects of employment, training, and
educational programs.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.77
At least some programs have been successful for every population
examined: disadvantaged youths and adults, single mothers, and
displaced workers. A large number of programs for disadvantaged
youths have not produced significant earnings gains; the authors
suggest that it is important to help them complete high school.
Programs for disadvantaged women have probably demonstrated the most
success. However, given the low base earnings of mothers on welfare,
even substantially positive programs have not greatly reduced their
poverty rates. Even a year or two of successful training for
displaced high-tenure jobs does not often lead to income gains large
enough to restore predisplacement earnings. Training can blunt the
effect of displacement on income but does not eliminate it.
On the average, the gains from successful programs are moderate.
However, they represent real gains for society and for individuals:
returns to society of $1.40 or more per dollar invested in some
programs for disadvantaged adults, welfare-to-work programs, and job
search assistance for displaced workers. The study's findings argue
against a "one-size-fits-all" model and for an attempt to make a wide
variety of training choices more accessible to disadvantaged persons,
those who are unemployed, and those who need to upgrade their skills.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:2.0.78
This review summarizes major quantitative studies. Experimental
designs using randomly assigned individuals are included in addition
to quasi-experimental studies with matched comparison groups. The
authors acknowledge the difficulties in generalizing from a
demonstration project to "real world" situations. The paucity of
acceptable impact studies may bias the findings.
MANAGEMENT PROCESSES
-------------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3
AMERICAN MANAGEMENT
ASSOCIATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.1
American Management Association. "1994 AMA Survey on Downsizing."
Research reports. New York, 1994.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.2
Downsizing.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.3
The sample consists of 713 human resource managers in AMA companies
that are members of the American Management Association. The
respondent base is a sampling of the association's corporate
membership of 7,000 organizations, which together employ one fourth
of the American workforce.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.4
Almost half (47.3 percent) of respondents reported job eliminations
in the 12 months ending in June 1994. Overall, profits rose at only
51 percent of the companies that downsized between 1989 and 1994 and
actually declined in 30 percent. Worker productivity increased in 34
percent and decreased in 30 percent of the reporting companies.
Employee morale declined in 88 percent of companies where downsizing
was ongoing.
Two thirds of the companies that eliminated jobs also added new
employees to their payrolls. Due to this concurrent job creation,
the workforce actually increased at 13 percent of companies reporting
job cuts and did not change at another 25 percent. Downsizing
targeted salaried workers in general and middle managers in
particular. Economic, organizational, and technological issues made
this group especially vulnerable. The results indicate that, for the
first time since 1988-89, downsizing was strategic rather than
reactive and cuts are being made selectively to fine-tune operations.
Downsizing tended to be more prevalent in large companies (over
10,000 employees), but the cuts were not as deep as in previous
years. And these companies are also more likely to create new jobs
as they downsize.
COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.5
Downsizing was defined as any elimination of jobs during the survey
period and not necessarily a net reduction in workforce. The study
was limited to association membership, and the response rate was not
provided. The author notes that the survey does not depict activity
within the U.S. economy as a whole but reflects policies and
practices at major U.S. firms.
MANAGEMENT PROCESSES
ARTHUR
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.6
Jeffry B. Arthur. "The Link Between Business Strategy and
Industrial Relations Systems in American Minimills." Industrial and
Labor Relations Review, 45:3 (1992), 488-506.
PRACTICE
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.7
How variation in workplace industrial relations systems is related to
differences in business strategy in steelmaking minimills. Considers
a number of workplace practices, including the decentralization of
management, number of workers per supervisor, employee participation
in problem solving and decisionmaking, workers' skills, general
training, grievance procedures, wage levels, percentage of
compensation accounted for by benefits and bonus or incentive
payments, and social activities.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.8
Thirty responses from a survey of personnel managers of the 54
existing U.S. minimills. The data were used to construct 10
variables on different aspects of the mills' personnel systems.
Cluster analysis yielded six clusters, grouped broadly as commitment
maximization and cost reduction. Plant managers at the mills were
also surveyed on business strategy. Using cluster analysis on eight
variables, the author identified four strategies: low cost and three
variants of differentiation (versatile, specialized, and customized).
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.9
Matrix and regression analyses showed that personnel system types are
significantly related to business strategy types. Thus, low-cost
producers are more likely to have cost-reducing industrial relations
systems, while companies with differentiation strategies are more
likely to adopt commitment maximizing systems. This relationship
holds even when controls for region, age of mill, company size,
unemployment, and unionization are included in the analysis. The
type of industrial relations system that a mill adopts is related to
its business strategy.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.10
This study focused on only one manufacturing industry, so it cannot
be broadly generalized. The small sample size limited the analysis.
The study was cross-sectional, so it is unclear whether an industrial
relations system was adopted to comport with the business strategy or
the strategy was contingent on the industrial relations system,
although the latter would appear to be less likely (except possibly
where unions were involved).
MANAGEMENT PROCESSES
BENSON
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.11
Tracy E. Benson. "IQS\SM : Quality Is Not What You Think It Is."
Industry Week, October 5, 1992, pp. 22-34.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.12
Quality practices that result in greater profitability, productivity,
and perceived quality.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.13
Further findings from the International Quality Study survey. The
American Quality Foundation and Ernst and Young (Cleveland) jointly
designed the survey to examine management practices that affect
various performance measures in companies around the world. Results
are based on 584 participating companies in four countries. Data
were based on questionnaires.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.14
Total quality management is not one thing or one set of initiatives
to all people. It is a management system designed and installed
entirely for the unique challenges to a company. There is no
prescription of practices that is right for every company.
Total quality management is, however, a system of interrelated parts.
Not everything one does necessarily affects quality, profit, or
growth directly, but one action may affect something else, which may
then affect those measures.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.15
Sampling strategy and response rate are not provided, raising
questions about the ability to generalize from the findings.
MANAGEMENT PROCESSES
FOSTER
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.16
Thomas A. Foster. "Searching for the Best." Distribution, March
1992, pp. 31-36.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.17
Benchmarking.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.18
Survey of the Fortune 1000 companies.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.19
Benchmarking involves tasks at three levels. Lowest is working-task
benchmarking, covering single logistic activities. Next is
function-wide benchmarking, looking at all logistic tasks at the same
time. Highest is management-process benchmarking, in which managers
look jointly at broad issues such as quality and employee reward
systems. The potential payback at this level is enormous.
Sixty-five percent of the survey respondents revealed that their
companies use benchmarking as a management tool "to gain competitive
advantage." However, experts warn that companies cannot limit
themselves to benchmarking competitors, since it is unlikely that
they will find practices that will allow them to outdistance their
competition.
Asked to name their leading benchmarking partners, 300 major
companies named 67 in six different functional areas; a relatively
few leading-edge companies received the majority of mentions in most
categories.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.20
Information regarding the size of the sample or the response rate was
not provided.
MANAGEMENT PROCESSES
HODGETTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.21
Richard H. Hodgetts. "Quality Lessons from America's Baldrige
Winners." Business Horizons, 37:4 (July-August 1994), 74-79.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.22
Total quality management. The attributes of recent Malcolm Baldrige
Quality Award winners, both the well-known firms and the
lesser-known.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.23
Site visits, telephone interviews, and secondary data.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.24
Eight characteristics are universal to the Baldrige winners.
1. Every winner has a vision of what "quality" means and uses this
vision to guide its quality plan.
2. All top management is actively involved in the total quality
effort.
3. Winners focus on customer needs, most commonly by gathering and
analyzing data on them.
4. All companies determine their objectives and then formulate a
plan of action. Some create an office or designate a senior manager
to spearhead the development of necessary infrastructure.
5. They train employees to use Statistical Process Control tools to
help them in solving problems.
6. They empower employees with the authority to take control and
make decisions.
7. They recognize successful employees positively, with financial
rewards, days off, vacation trips, choice parking spots, and the
like.
8. They make continuous improvement an ongoing challenge. Two of
the most common tools for this are benchmarking and reduction of
defects.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.25
The companies were self-selected, so the results cannot be
generalized to other firms.
MANAGEMENT PROCESSES
MAVRINAC AND JONES
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.26
Sarah C. Mavrinac and Neil R. Jones. "The Financial and Non-
Financial Returns to Innovative Workplace Practices: A Critical
Review." Preliminary report for the U.S. Department of Labor.
Office of the American Workforce, Boston, Massachusetts, September
15, 1994.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.27
Various practices.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.28
More than 100 academic papers that examined the relationships between
firms' financial and nonfinancial outcomes and various employee-,
process-, and quality-related workplace practices. These papers
employed a variety of methods.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.29
A firm's financial performance and intermediate workplace outcomes,
like product quality and customer satisfaction, generally increase
with investments in workplace practices. The most popular and
evidently successful is total quality management, which emphasizes
the integration of employee development and process management to
ensure continuous improvement, customer satisfaction, and structured
learning.
Data from 632 companies revealed that higher levels of product
quality were significantly associated with higher levels of financial
performance in three of six industry groups. One study found that
firms noted for "above average implementation" of total quality
management earned more than 15-percent greater returns over the
ensuing 5 years.
Some data failed to find an association between workplace
practices--which vary with technology, management skill, competitive
conditions, and time--and financial outcomes.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.30
The authors discuss the methodological strengths and weaknesses of
selected studies. Whether they took into account the relative
strengths of the papers in reaching their conclusions is unclear, but
the evidence presented appears to be solid.
MANAGEMENT PROCESSES
OSTERMAN
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.31
Paul Osterman. "How Common Is Workplace Transformation and Who
Adopts It?" Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 47:2 (1994),
173-88.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.32
Various flexible workplace practices--self-directed work teams, job
rotation, employee problem-solving groups (quality circles), and
total quality management.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.33
A survey of a representative, stratified sample of nonagricultural,
for-profit U.S. business establishments with 50 or more employees,
directed to the most senior persons in charge of the production of
goods or services. The response rate was 65.5 percent, yielding a
usable sample of 694 cases. Detailed information was obtained only
for "core" employees, the largest group of nonmanagerial production
or service employees.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.34
Flexible workplace practices are more likely in establishments in
which management values support increasing the personal and social
well-being of employees; those selling in international markets
(regardless of the overall level of competition in the industry);
those whose strategy emphasizes quality, variety, and service over
cost competition; those requiring more highly skilled workers; those
belonging to larger organizations; and small establishments.
However, the adoption of flexible practices is not related to an
establishment's time horizon (long-term versus short-term results),
its age, or whether it is unionized. Adoption is related to several
human-resource management practices, including pay for skill and
profit-sharing or bonus systems, emphasis on training and skills,
desire for a committed work force (and avoidance of contingent
workers), and the prominence of the human-resources management
department. It is not related to hiring and promotion policies,
explicit employment security policies, gain sharing, or wage
premiums. Establishments that adopt flexible work practices differ
from those that do not, but their specific practices do not form
identifiable clusters.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.35
This study is one of the few with a nationally representative sample
across virtually all industries, a major strength. However, a high
proportion of responses were from human-resources managers rather
than the managers of production or services to whom the questionnaire
was directed. The effects of flexible work practices on economic or
financial performance were outside the study's scope.
MANAGEMENT PROCESSES
SHEA AND GOBELI
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.36
John Shea and David Gobeli. "TQM: The Experiences of Ten Small
Businesses." Business Horizons, January-February 1995, pp. 71-77.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.37
Total quality management.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.38
Ten small Oregon businesses--manufacturing, service, and social
service operations--with 18 to 62 employees. Data were collected
from a questionnaire and from interviews with the president or
general manager and employees leading the total quality management
implementation effort.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.39
Five companies had a clearly defined program, two were applying
selected components, and three were using concepts they had learned
from books and seminars and adopted independently. The companies had
adopted total quality management for a variety of reasons, but
improving performance was a recurring theme. They had applied three
common principles: customer orientation, employee empowerment, and
continuous improvement.
All ten organizations thought the strategy was worth the cost. The
principal benefits were improved performance and customer
satisfaction. Although they used many different sources to learn
techniques, more than half hired outside consultants to facilitate
training and implementation. Each organization followed a different
implementation process.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.40
While this study suggests that total quality management principles
can be applied to small business with success, the sample size is
small and nonrandom. The results cannot be generalized.
MANAGEMENT PROCESSES
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.41
U.S. Department of Labor, Office of the American Workplace. High
Performance Work Practices and Firm Performance. Washington, D.C.:
August 1993.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.42
Employee involvement, performance-based compensations, and training.
High-performance work practices typically designed to enhance
employees' skills, incentives, information, and decisionmaking
responsibility.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.43
Twenty-nine studies.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.44
High-performance practices--involving employees in decisionmaking,
tying compensation to a firm's or an individual's performance, and
training--are usually associated with increases in the firm's
productivity but are best implemented together as a system. Employee
involvement in decisionmaking was associated with positive results in
14 studies, negative in 2, and ambiguous in 13. The link between
compensation, specifically profit sharing, and performance was
consistently positive: 3.5-percent to 5-percent higher productivity
in 27 studies. One study that examined formal training programs in
155 manufacturing firms found that those that introduced a formal
program after 1983 experienced a 19-percent greater rise in
productivity in 3 years than firms that did not.
COMMENTS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.45
Many studies reported low response rates, often below 50 percent,
possibly indicating an inherent bias in the results. Generalizations
should be made with caution.
MANAGEMENT PROCESSES
U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING
OFFICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.46
U.S. General Accounting Office. Management Practices: U.S.
Companies Improve Performance Through Quality Efforts,
GAO/NSIAD-91-190. Washington, D.C.: 1991.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.47
Formal total quality management practices and how they affect the
performance of selected U.S. companies: what was achieved, how
quality improved, and what lessons may apply to U.S. companies in
general.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.48
Twenty companies that were among the highest-scoring applicants in
1988 and 1989 for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.49
In almost all cases, companies that used quality-management practices
achieved better employee relations, higher productivity, greater
customer satisfaction, increased market share, and improved
profitability. While each company developed its practices in a
unique environment, there were common features that contributed to
their success. These included a focus on meeting customer
requirements; leadership by top management in building quality values
into company operations; training, empowerment, and involvement for
all employees in quality efforts; and integration of systemic
processes to foster continuous improvement throughout the
organization. The benefits of quality management were found in firms
varying in size and economic sector (including both manufacturing and
service industries).
MANAGEMENT PROCESSES
U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING
OFFICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.50
U.S. General Accounting Office. Management Reforms: Examples of
Public and Private Innovations to Improve Service Delivery,
GAO/AIMD/GGD-94-90BR. Washington, D.C.: 1994.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.51
Public and private innovations to improve service delivery, including
changes to the organizational culture (customer focus, results
orientation, and flexible organization), organizational mission
(strategic planning, "core business" focus), organizational structure
(partnering, commercialization, privatizing, franchising, delegation,
empowerment, and regulatory relief and reform), and organizational
processes (reengineering, streamlining, technology applications,
benchmarking, and performance measurement).
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.52
Literature searches, major clearinghouses, research firms, and other
GAO studies. The report includes an extensive bibliography on
management reforms.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.53
The primary focus of innovation is not in short-term cost or budget
savings. Organizational innovations often require up-front
investments of money and time that may be costly in the short term
but are considered necessary to enhance productivity and avoid future
costs.
Organizations became more oriented toward long-term outcomes to
improve performance. Changes typically provided a structure for
measuring and reporting program results, which helped identify
programs or services to be eliminated or improved. Successful
restructuring is more likely to occur when improvement is seen as a
long-term process rather than a "quick fix."
Successful efforts had four common characteristics: (1) the
organizations used a holistic approach rather than making piecemeal
changes; (2) changes were made only after the organizations had
carefully examined how the changes could be adapted to their
particular circumstances; (3) top management showed commitment and
employees were involved, informed, and free to innovate; and (4)
changes typically allowed managers greater autonomy in exchange for
increased accountability for their performance.
MANAGEMENT PROCESSES
U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING
OFFICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.54
U.S. General Accounting Office. Reengineering Organizations:
Results of a GAO Symposium, GAO/NSIAD-95-34. Washington, D.C.:
1995.
PRACTICE
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.55
Reengineering organizations.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.56
Five executives from manufacturing and service companies cited in the
literature or by experts as engaged in successful reengineering
activities.
FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix II:3.0.57
The symposium developed five principles. (1) Top management must
support and engage in reengineering efforts to remove barriers to
success. (2) An organization's culture must be receptive to
reengineering goals and principles. (3) Major improvements and
savings are realized by focusing on the business from a process
rather than a functional perspective. (4) Processes should be based
on a clear perception of customer needs, anticipated benefits, and
potential for success. (5) Process owners use teams that are
cross-functional, maintain a proper scope, focus on the customer, and
enforce implementation timelines.
GAO CONTACTS AND STAFF
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
========================================================= Appendix III
GAO CONTACTS
SCHOOLS
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix III:0.0.1
Gail S. MacColl, Assistant Director (202) 512-5108
Kathleen D. White, Project Manager (202) 512-8512
WORKPLACES
--------------------------------------------------- Appendix III:0.0.2
Patrick G. Grasso, Assistant Director (202) 512-5885
Nancy A. Briggs, Deputy Project Manager (202) 512-5703
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In addition to the persons named above, the following staff members
made important contributions to this report: Penny Pickett,
Communications Analyst, and Venkareddy Chennareddy, Referencer.
RELATED GAO PRODUCTS
=========================================================== Appendix 0
Teacher Training: Status and Participants' Views of Delta Teachers
Academy (GAO/RCED-95-208, June 1995).
School Safety: Promising Initiatives for Addressing School Violence
(GAO/HEHS-95-106, April 1995).
Charter Schools: A Growing and Diverse National Reform Movement
(GAO/T-HEHS-95-52, Jan. 1995).
Charter Schools: New Models for Public Schools Provide Opportunities
and Challenges (GAO/HEHS-95-52, Jan. 1995).
Best Practices Methodology: A New Approach for Improving Government
Operations (GAO/NSIAD-95-154, May 1995).
Education Reform: School-Based Management Results in Changes in
Instruction and Budgeting (GAO/HEHS-94-135, Aug. 1994).
Workplace Regulation: Information on Selected Employer and Union
Experiences (GAO/HEHS-94-138, June 1994).
Pay Equity: Experiences of Canada and the Province of Ontario
(GAO/GGD-94-27BR, Nov. 1993).
Competitiveness Issues: The Business Environment in the United
States, Japan, and Germany (GAO/GGD-93-124, Aug. 1993).
Skill Standards: Experience in Certification System Shows Industry
Involvement to Be Key (GAO/HRD-93-30, May 1993).
Technology Transfer: Federal Efforts to Enhance the Competitiveness
of Small Manufacturers (GAO/RCED-92-30, Nov. 1991).
*** End of document. ***