ABSTRACT
During the past two decades, inspired by the apparent success of Japanese work and production systems, many US firms have been experimenting with new forms of work organization, often referred to as ‘high performance’ or ‘co-operative’ work practices. These work system experiments push decision-making responsibility to the lowest appropriate level in the organization. They also typically involve some combination of hierarchy compression, team-working, continuous improvement and training. In exchange for accepting greater responsibility for production and output, employees are often given employment security, and a proportion of their income is linked to performance through such arrangements as bonus, gain or profit sharing schemes. Although most studies find that these new workplace techniques generate substantive productivity and quality gains for manufacturers implementing them and financial results that are at least equal if not superior to those associated with more traditional work systems, in the United States, they have proven difficult to maintain (Appelbaum and Batt, 1994; Huselid, 1995; Ichniowski et al., 1996, 1997; Black and Lynch, 1997; Pfeffer, 1998; Baker, 1999). Diffusion is relatively slow and not extensive and the medium and long-run survival of even the most promising new workplace techniques is far from guaranteed (Osterman, 1994; Pfeffer, 1996; Doeringer et al., 1998). Using case studies of three American manufacturing firms, our study examines this issue and its implications for firms attempting to implement and maintain cooperative work systems in unregulated markets.
