Employee empowerment at risk: Effects of recent NLRB rulings

Hanson, Randall K.; Porterfield, Rebecca; Ames, Kathleen

doi:10.5465/ame.1995.9506273271

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Section 8(a)(2) of the National Labor Relations Act makes it an unfair labor practice for employers to create and support so‐called company unions; nonunion forms of employee representation are generally forbidden. Even teams can be problematic if they perform employee representation functions with respect to any issue listed in section 2(5) (Chansler and Schraeder 2003; Hanson, Porterfield, and Ames 1995).…”

Section: Potential Shortcomings Of Cprmentioning

confidence: 99%

Compulsory Proportional Representation: Allaying Potential Concerns

Harcourt

Lam

2008

Journal of Labor and Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The present union certification system has many faults, the most important of which is its failure to deliver employee representation to all but a small and declining minority of workers. As an alternative, compulsory proportional representation (CPR) would have many advantages, particularly when compared with other reform proposals, most of which are designed to only reinvigorate, modify, or supplement the existing system. Would CPR have any disadvantages? We identify four potential concerns: reduced freedom to contract, increased interunion competition and raiding, depleted union strength, and compromised union independence. However, we argue that some of these problems would be more imagined than real, some less serious than expected, and some would have secondary effects to compensate any shortcomings.

show abstract

Section: Potential Shortcomings Of Cprmentioning

confidence: 99%

Compulsory Proportional Representation: Allaying Potential Concerns

Harcourt

Lam

2008

Journal of Labor and Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In contrast, the involvement of newly empowered employees in decision making within a TQM framework is designed to make use of their knowledge about their customers and the processes in their immediate work situation. Traditional job roles have been expanded to include such aspects as reporting problems, offering solutions, and anticipating market changes and their impact on product designs (Hanson et al, 1995;Mintzberg, 1994). In this context employees are generally regarded as inexperienced decision makers who need training.…”

Section: Managerial and Employee Decision Strategies In Tqm Contextsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual decision making: implications for decision training in TQM

Hartmann

Patrickson

1998

Int J Qual & Reliability Mgmt

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…It is difficult for many American workers to give up personal recognition for shared accomplishments, yield personal preferences to team consensus, and shift from self-control to managing multiple relationships and shared responsibilities. In addition, Wall Street's emphasis on short-term results, lack of union understanding and support (Hoerr, 1989), and recent NLRB legal restrictions on employer dominated teams (Hanson, Porterfield, & Ames, 1995) make the shift to teams a difficult decision for many executives. Previous attempts at quick fixes using management fads have also predisposed some employees to mistrust both team and empowerment initiatives.…”

Section: External Conditions For Empowered Teamsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Requisite conditions for team empowerment

Swenson¹

1997

Empowerment in Organizations

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

BackgroundThe classical hierarchical work structures that functioned efficiently during the 1960's and 1970's ceased being as competitive during the 1980's and 1990's. Global competition, growing information availability, technological innovations, and shifts in the demographic makeup of the workforce has brought "permanent white water" (Vaill, 1989) to the marketplace. These changes have lead most organizations to rethink their fundamental structures and processes. The resultant reengineering, downsizing, delayering, networking, teaming, and empowerment strategies have found mixed results as organizations struggle with transforming themselves into systems that are more flexible, informed, responsive, and adaptive (Drucker, 1995; Mintzberg, 1993;Strebel, 1996).A means of coping with this turbulence for many organizations is the implementation of self-directed teams in which employees are given more responsibility over their work. Team empowerment is a function of having the authority, resources, information, and accountability to carry out a job (Fisher, 1993). It also refers to the ability of teams to monitor and modify their own processes and procedures. The concept of empowered teams has grown, with the percentage of organizations using self-directed teams having increased from 26% to 35%, and penetration of teams in the organization from 10% of employees to 35% from 1990 to 1992 (Wellins, Byham, & Wilson, 1991). More recent estimates indicate that half of all major corporations are exploring the use of team-based systems (Osterman, 1994).The reasons given for moving toward self-directed teams include improved quality and productivity/service, reduced operating costs, greater flexibility, simpler job classifications, faster response time, increased job satisfaction and commitment (Nahavandi & Aranda, 1994;Wellins, Byham, & Wilson, 1991). The renewed emphasis on worker involvement has been prompted by the recognition that our competitors have already involved employees and obtained significant inputs. For example, a typical American worker submits an average of one formal suggestion every 37 years, while a Japanese counterpart submits an average of 27 formal suggestions per year (Orsburn, et al., 1990).Team empowerment embraces a rather wide range of responsibilities on a continuum rather than an all-or-none set of tasks. For example, Wellins, Byham, & Wilson (1991) describe four stages of increasing empowerment in which teams move from simple housekeeping, to quality control and hiring, to budgeting and purchasing, and finally to discipline and compensation

show abstract

Employee empowerment at risk: Effects of recent NLRB rulings

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Compulsory Proportional Representation: Allaying Potential Concerns

Compulsory Proportional Representation: Allaying Potential Concerns

Individual decision making: implications for decision training in TQM

Requisite conditions for team empowerment

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About