19,572 research outputs found
The Economic Costs and Benefits of Self-Managed Teams Among Skilled Technicians
This paper estimates the economic costs and benefits of implementing teams among highly-skilled technicians in a large regional telecommunications company. It matches individual survey and objective performance data for 230 employees in matched pairs of traditionally-supervised and self-managed groups. Multivariate regressions with appropriate controls show that teams do the work of supervisors in 60-70% less time, reducing indirect labor costs by 75 percent per team. Objective measures of quality and labor productivity are unaffected. Team members receive additional overtime pay that represents a 4-5 percent annual wage premium, which may be viewed alternatively as a share in the productivity gains associated with innovation or as a premium for learning skills
Pay It Forward: Guidance for Mentoring Junior Scholars
Based on interviews with William T. Grant Scholars Program mentors and mentees in the social, behavioral, and health sciences, explores building mentoring relationships, mentoring across differences, supporting career development, and managing conflict
Mass Layoffs and Unemployment
Mass layoffs give rise to groups of unemployed workers who possess similar characteristics and therefore may learn from one another's experience searching for a new job. Two factors lead them to be too selective in the job offers that they accept. The first is an information externality: searchers fail to take into account the value of their experience to others. The second is an incentive to free ride: each worker would like others to experiment and reveal information concerning productive jobs. Together these forces imply that in equilibrium the natural rate of unemployment is too high.
A Spillover-Based Theory of Credentialism
I propose a model in which credentials, such as diplomas, are intrinsically valuable; a situation described as credentialism. The model overcomes an important criticism of signalling models by mechanically tying a workerâs wages to their productivity. A workerâs productivity is influenced by the skills of their coworkers, where such skills arise from an ability-augmenting investment that is made prior to matching with coworkers. A workerâs credentials allow them to demonstrate their investment to the labor market, thereby allowing workers to match with high-skill coworkers in equilibrium. Despite the positive externality associated with a workerâs investment, I show how over-investment is pervasive in equilibrium.Credentialism; Matching; Spillovers; Signaling
Teachersâ framing of studentsâ difficulties in mathematics learning in collegial discussions
This study investigates the diagnostic and prognostic framings of Swedish mathematics teachers regarding the difficulties experienced by students in mathematics learning. Collegial discussions among 65 mathematics teachers in nine collegial groups were videotaped during a professional development (PD) program entitled Boost for Mathematics for analysis. The results show that the diagnostic framings of the teachers were mainly attributed to the cognitive abilities of students, whereas the prognostic framings were mainly related to lesson organization such that students should collaborate. While the teachers emphasize collaborate group work, they put little emphasis on how they could act in these learning situations. These results contribute to the understanding of Swedish mathematics teachersâ framing of studentsâ difficulties in mathematics learning and to the role of collegial discussions in PD initiatives.publishedVersio
The business-social policy nexus: Corporate power and corporate inputs into social policy
It is increasingly impossible to understand and explain the shape and delivery of
contemporary social policy unless we consider the role of business. Several factors have been at
work here. First, many of the changes in social policy introduced since the 1970s have been in
response either to business demands or more general concerns about national competitiveness
and the needs of business. Second, globalisation has increased corporate power within states,
leading to transformations in social and fiscal policies. Third, business has been incorporated
into the management of many areas of the welfare state by governments keen to control
expenditure and introduce private sector values into services. Fourth, welfare services, from
hospitals to schools, have been increasingly opened up to private markets. Despite all this, the
issues of business influence and involvement in social policy has been neglected in the literature.
This article seeks to place corporate power and influence centre-stage by outlining and critically
reflecting on the place of business within contemporary welfare states, with a particular focus
on the UK. Business, it argues, is increasingly important to welfare outcomes and needs to be
taken into account more fully within the social policy literature
Students' epistemological framing in quantum mechanics problem solving
Students' difficulties in quantum mechanics may be the result of unproductive
framing and not a fundamental inability to solve the problems or misconceptions
about physics content. We observed groups of students solving quantum mechanics
problems in an upper-division physics course. Using the lens of epistemological
framing, we investigated four frames in our observational data: algorithmic
math, conceptual math, algorithmic physics, and conceptual physics. We discuss
the characteristics of each frame as well as causes for transitions between
different frames, arguing that productive problem solving may occur in any
frame as long as students' transition appropriately between frames. Our work
extends epistemological framing theory on how students frame discussions in
upper-division physics courses.Comment: Submitted to Physical Review -- Physics Education Researc
The Economics of Teams Among Technicians
This paper examines the economic logic of organising field technicians into self-managed teams, an approach to work organisation that shifts the division of labour from a hierarchical to horizontal one. Economic efficiencies arise through the integration of direct and indirect labour tasks and the alignment of the organisational structure with the occupational logic of communities of practice among technicians. Self-managed teams absorb the monitoring and coordination tasks of supervisors, substantially reducing indirect labour costs but without adversely affecting objective measures of quality and labour productivity. For technicians, team membership means longer work hours, but higher wages through overtime pay
Students, Faculty and Sustainable WPA Work
In lieu of an abstract, here is the chapter\u27s first paragraph:
Despite several cycles of reforms spanning the last fifteen years, we three composition colleagues were unable to achieve widespread student engagement in our required one-semester writing course. At California State University, Chico, the WPA oversees faculty development and program assessment for a first-year writing program that serves 2700 students each year with over 100 sections of first-year writing. Several different WPAs experienced fatigue as they undertook challenging and often unproductive work: resisting an outdated California State policy on the aims and goals for General Education, including what constitutes appropriate aims for writing courses; revising notions of student writing that are too tied to the âmodesâ and views of information literacy that end in exercises rather than in the activity of scholarship; developing and delivering assessments whose findings frequently conflict with budgetary, ideological, or departmental constraints; and promoting the complex underlying assumptions of our work despite widespread and reductive beliefs about the writing capabilities of first year students
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