ALCOHOL CONSEQUENCES OF CORPORATE RESTRUCTURING

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This research asks whether the process of corporate restructuring in the United States has adverse drinking consequences for employees. It asks, in particular, whether "downsizing" and "reengineering", increasingly common among American corporations as they face an intensely competitive world economy, contribute to problematic drinking behavior by heightening levels of stress and dissatisfaction among employees, and undermining their feelings of worth and confidence. It asks, moreover, whether restructuring and drinking practices among workers adversely affects work performance. It also asks whether participation in self-directed work teams serves as a counterbalance to the potentially destructive effects of downsizing and job reengineering. A number of data collection methods are used: (l) interviews of employees selected from all levels of the corporation being used in this study; (2) focus groups using members from selected work teams; and (3) a two-stage, longitudinal panel questionnaire survey of employees. A longitudinal panel design is used so that causal statements can be advanced with greater confidence about the impact of restructuring on drinking behavior. The research builds upon a line of research by the investigators on the link between jobs, workplace organization, and problem drinking, and attempts to fill important empirical lacunae in their research as well as that of the research literature in general. The research will be conducted in a large, west coast "cutting edge" industrial corporation characterized by wide variations in the demographic attributes and job skills (ranging from semi-skilled assembly work to engineering) of its employees, which has experienced the pressures of international competition, and which has, in response, undertaken a major program of restructuring. The proposed research has both theoretical and practical import. The research will enhance our theoretical understanding of the individual and joint effects of jobs, workplace organization, job attitudes, and psychological outlooks on drinking behavior. The proposed research also will enhance our intervention capabilities by identifying those aspects of the workplace and the job that either increase or decrease the probabilities of problematic drinking. Intervention strategies that are based on a sound understanding of the effects of the workplace and job on problem drinking should have important benefits for both individual employees and enterprise productivity.