The New American Workplace

Despite formidable obstacles, a small but growing number of U.S. companies rccognize that today's domestic and international markets require them to transform their production process. On the basis of more than ten years of survey data and the evidence of case studies, Eileen Appelbaum and Rosemary Batt analyze the experiences of these companies. Their findings reveal two distinct and coherent models of the new American workplace. One is an American version of team production, which combines the principles of sociotechnical systems with those of quality engineering and which decentralizes the management of work flow and decision making. The other is an American version of lean production, which relies more heavily on managerial and technical expertise, and on centralized coordination and decision making. The authors explain the organizational models from which high-performance firms in the United States have borrowed and outline the policies required to promote more widespread workplace change. They contend that U.S. firms can, in fact, compete successfully, while providing their workers with increased job security, livable wages, and enhanced job satisfaction. Certain to appeal to both union and business leaders, this volume also offers crucial insights to policy makers and to scholars of the new American workplace.

Eileen Appelbaum is Professor in the School of Management and Labor Relations and Director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University. She is author or coauthor of several books including The New American Workplace: Transforming Work Systems in the United States, also from Cornell, and the coeditor of Low Wage America.

This small book packs a big punch. We've long sought evidence that innovative work practices, such as teams and employee participation in problem solving, are worth the effort that it takes to implement them. Anecdotal studies and manager self-reports have offered some support that overall firm performance improves, but we've had little empirical evidence for our skeptical colleagues. Manufacturing Advantage delivers.

This volume makes a major contribution to the growing literature on U.S. structural change. As an interpretive work and stocktaking, it is a most important industrial-relations book.... The clear prose and broad scope offer the non-specialist a valuable introduction to the contemporary interplay of economics and industrial relations.... Institutionalists searching for a new area of research should look no further.