Effectiveness of Employee Involvement

美国商业的最新发展之一是员工参与计划(EI)的使用--我们所说的员工参与计划指的是一系列不同的人员和管理实践，如自我指导的工作团队、全面质量管理或质量圈等，它们赋予员工在工作场所更大的权力。现有的关于企业绩效的研究没有讨论这些做法是否提高了组织绩效，是否对组织变革或人力资本增强有任何影响，或者是否会给员工带来收益。他们提出了一些问题，如工会是否提高了EI计划的有效性，为什么一些机构有EI，而另一些机构没有，最关键的是，公司必须采取一套新的做法才能使EI计划成功，以及这些做法可能是什么。为了解决这些问题，将对机构进行一系列20个案例调查，包括对有EI计划的机构和没有EI计划的机构进行配对比较，以及对这些计划失败的机构进行比较。此外，还将编制数百个机构的员工参与计划的新数据；使用LRD制造业普查文件中的纵向数据检查EI计划与生产率之间的关系。最后，将检查使用工作场所代表性和参与度调查的员工结果。这项研究将为企业、劳工和政府提供有价值的信息，说明员工参与创建和维护高性能工作场所的重要性。

One of the newest developments in American business is the use of employee involvement (EI) programs-- by which we mean a diverse set of personnel and management practices such as self-directed work teams, total quality management, or quality circles, and the like that give workers more authority at workplaces. Existing studies of EI have not addressed whether these practices enhance organizational performance save in particular sectors, whether any performance gain is do to organizational change or human capital enhancement, or the benefits that flow to workers from EI. They have raised questions as to whether unions increase the effectiveness of EI programs, why some establishments have EI and others do not, and most critically, about the set of new practices that firms must adopt for EI programs to succeed, and what those practices might be. To address these questions a series of 20 case investigations of establishments, including some paired comparisons of establishments with EI programs and those without, and of establishments where these programs have failed will be undertaken. In addition, a new data on employee involvement programs in several hundred establishments will be developed; examine the relationship between EI programs and productivity using longitudinal data from the LRD Survey of Manufacturers files of the Census. Finally, employee outcomes using the Workplace Representation and Participation Survey will examined. The study will provide valuable information to business, labor, and government on the importance of employee participation in the creation and maintenance of high performance workplaces.