Explores workplace learning as a means of enhancing both work performance and the quality of working life. Identifies characteristics of high performance work organizations, considers the implementation of high performance work practices and investigates how far these practices are embedded in different countries. Examines ways in which public policy can be used to encourage organizations to make more effective use of the skills of their employees.

This book asks the crucial question: When does high performance supervision become abusive supervision? As more organizations push to adopt high performance work practices (HPWP), the onus increasingly falls on supervisors to do whatever it takes to maximize the productivity of their work teams. In this rigorous, research-based volume, international contributors offer insight into how and when seemingly-beneficial workplace practices cross the line from motivation to abuse. By reviewing critical issues in both high performance work practices and abusive supervision, it illuminates the crossover between these two modes of work, and forges a path for future scholarship.

In this work leading scholars take stock of the evidence and implications of the new workplace, drawing on examples from a variety of contexts, they seek to characterize the nature of contemporary workplace change, and assess its implications.

Much of the hoopla surrounding quality circles, teams, and high-performance work systems has been based on anecdotes and very thin evidence. It has not been established that those employee involvement strategies amount to anything more than another series of management fads or ruses designed to get more out of workers without giving them anything in return. This revelatory book, written by some of the skeptics, lays some of the suspicion to rest. Based on their visits to 44 plants and surveys of more than 4,000 employees, Eileen Appelbaum, Thomas Bailey, Peter Berg, and Arne L. Kalleberg concluded that companies are indeed more successful when managers share knowledge and power with workers and when workers assume increased responsibility and discretion. The study of steel, apparel, and medical electronics and imaging plants revealed much. In self-directed teams, workers were able to eliminate bottlenecks and coordinate the work process. In task forces created to improve quality, they communicated with individuals outside their own work groups and were able to solve problems. Expensive equipment in steel mills operated with fewer interruptions, turnaround and labor costs were cut in apparel factories, and costly inventories of components and medical equipment were reduced. And what did the employees think? The worker survey showed that jobs in participatory work systems often provide more challenging tasks and more opportunities for creativity. Employees in apparel had higher hourly earnings; those in steel had both higher hourly earnings and higher job satisfaction. Workers in more participatory settings were no more likely than others to report heavy workloads or excessive demands on their time. They were, however, less likely to report involuntary overtime or conflict with co-workers, and were more likely to be satisfied with their surroundings. Manufacturing Advantage provides the best assessment available of the effectiveness of high-performance work systems. Freestanding chapters near the end of the book provide full documentation of research data without interrupting the narrative flow.

There is a general consensus that deep-seated changes are reshaping the way production and work are organized, the way employees, employers and their representatives deal with each other, and the way governments seek to shape society. In this work a group of leading scholars take stock of the evidence and implications of the new workplace. Drawing on examples from a variety of national contexts, they seek to characterize the nature of contemporary workplace change, and assess its implications for the organization of work for workers, for employment relations and for public policy.

"Five years ago, in Managing Generation X, Bruce Tulgan stunned management by suggesting that the stubborn independence of young workers was more than a temporary irritant. It was the opening shot in the free-agent revolution - a massive rejection of the traditional employment relationship." "Tulgan's message was prophetic. The free-agent mindset quickly swept across the work force, luring people of all ages. But it was his diagnosis of how to deal with the resulting staffing crisis that led Fortune 500 companies - from sleek high-tech operations to old-line manufacturing firms, and even some of the most respected consulting firms - to invite him to teach their managers, step by step, how to get productivity from this new type of workforce." "In Winning the Talent Wars, Tulgan shares with the rest of us what he has learned and taught at the front lines of this war for talent, a war that many see as the single most important challenge business faces in the twenty-first century. Winning the Talent Wars is based on five additional years of research about the character and proclivities of this swelling free-agent labor force. Tulgan also brings to the table valuable, never-before-published stories about how managers at some of America's most influential corporations are quietly coming up with innovative solutions. This is a book that no manager can afford to miss."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Discusses trends toward "lean production" and some obstacles to its acceptance.