Reforming Public School Systems Through Sustained Union-Management Collaboration

Presents case studies of sustained collaboration between teachers' unions and management in school reform; common elements in initiating events, strategic priorities, supportive system infrastructure, and sustaining factors; and lessons learned

Innovation in Isolation: Labor-Management Partnerships in the United States

In the United States, as in other advanced industrial countries, worker participation in management has taken on increasing importance, placing pressures on employers and unions to change how they deal with employees/members, and with each other. This paper examines two of the most impressive cases in the U.S.: the partnerships between General Motors (G.M.) and the United Autoworkers union (U.A W.) at Saturn and between BellSouth and the Communication Workers union (C.W.A.). We outline the evolution and the basic features of these innovations, as well as highlighting certain ongoing problems. These problems, we argue, confront the parties to employment relations in the U.S. more generally, reflecting profound ambivalence about such experiments, and their continued isolation as ‘islands of excellence ’. As such, these cases both illustrate the vast potential for labor-management partnerships as well as the dampening effect of the employment relations context in the U.S

Saturn, The GM/UAW Partnership

The Impact of Co-Management and Joint Governance on Firm and Local Union PerformanceDesigned and implemented as a partnership between GM and the UAW, Saturn breaks new ground in firm governance,management and industrial relations. Through detailed study of Saturn?s partnership arrangements we have found that thelocal management and union leaders have not only implementedthe contractual joint governance institutions which involvelabor in business strategy, product development, supplier andretailer selection, and manufacturing policy, but have also created a system of co-management which gives hundreds ofjointly selected unionoperations management.1members theIn order toresponsibilities ofunderstand the impact ofthe involvement of union members as management, we analyzedthe relationship between the behaviors of both representedand non-represented middle managers, the dynanics of theirindividual union-management partnership relations,differences in their patterns of communication andcoordination, and Saturn?s quality performance. We alsoexamined each partner?s use of time to explore the balancingof social and economic tasks between represented and nonrepresentedpartners. These data were combined with analysesof the tensions within the union between its traditional rolein membership representation, and its new role in managementand governance. Finally, we raise questions regarding thelearning from and diffusion of Saturn to the rest of the GMand the UAW organizations.Funds for this researchwere provided by the AlfredP.SloanFoundation,the MIT InternationalMotorVehicleResearchProgram,the MIT Leadersfor ManufacturingProgram,and the NationalscienceFoundation.

Toward a Stakeholder Theory of the Firm: The Case of the Saturn Partnership

This paper seeks to engage the organization theory community in contemporary debates over the role of the corporation in American society by building a stakeholder theory of the firm. We develop a set of normative premises and positivist propositions derived from these debates, from a combination of organization and industrial relations theories, and by using data from the Saturn Corporation. Three questions are posed for a stakeholder theory: (1) Under what conditions is a stakeholder firm likely to emerge, (2) what are the critical determinants of performance in a stakeholder firm, and (3) what will determine the sustainability and diffusion of this organizational form in the American environment? The history, design features, and dynamics of the labormanagement partnership at Saturn are used to illustrate and interpret a specific case of employees as stakeholders. Saturn's governance structure, work organization, and internal processes fit the characteristics of a stakeholder firm. Employees establish themselves as critical stakeholders by using their knowledge to improve organizational performance. The local union likewise contributes to firm performance by organizing workers into a dense social network that contributes to problem solving, conflict resolution, and quality improvement. However, the legal and political environment in which the firm operates produces considerable uncertainty over the sustainability and diffusion of Saturn's features in particular, and the stakeholder organizational form in general. Additional hypotheses and research questions are proposed to continue theory building around the more general model of the stakeholder firm. Organization theorists are encouraged to take up the analysis of stakeholder models and thereby contribute to the contemporary and future debates over the role the corporation in American society

The Effects of the GM/UAW Saturn Partnership on Quality Performance: A Brief Overview of Preliminary Findings

This project analyzes the effects of the co-management arrangements built into the first line of supervision (module advisors) at the Saturn Corporation on first time quality (FTQ) performance and improvements in first time quality. This is a very unique organizational arrangement wherein represented (i.e., unionized) and non-represented (i.e., managers) partners share responsibilities for co-managing production work teams. The purpose of this portion of our work is to test whether this co-management arrangement contributes to the performance of these work units and thereby adds value to Saturn as a whole. We focus on first time quality as the performance measure. In order to analyze the value-added to quality performance by Saturn's system of comanagement, represented and non-represented operations department-level middle managers were studied. A detailed analysis of the supervisory system at the department or module level across Saturn's three plants (called business units) allowed us to test whether the variations in the comanagement system and quality performance are systematically related. We analyzed the relationship between the behavior patterns and supervisory methods of both union and non-union middle managers, attributes of their individual union-management partnerships, differences in the patterns of communication and coordination of each group, and performance outcomes, in particular first-time-quality improvement. We also studied time use and the dynamics of partnerships, including the balancing of social and economic tasks, as well as the division of labor between represented and non-represented management. Specifically, we examined: 1) Whether represented managers were indeed managing people and technical aspects of the production process (called resources); 2) If represented managers were managing, did they manage their time, priorities, and communications differently than did their non-represented partners. 3) Whether the behaviors of represented managers added value to quality performance. 4) Whether the nature of the individual represented and non-represented manager partnerships at the department level had an impact on quality performance. These questions are important because some industry observers believe that while over half of the middle management positions at Saturn were indeed being filled by union members, Saturn had simply bought labor peace at a high price. They contended that only the non-represented managers were truly functioning in that role while the union members were either free riders or acting as grievance committeemen focusing exclusively on people issues. Another explanation for Saturn's remarkable quality performance is that a new 'effort bargain' was struck between GM and the UAW (i.e. workers simply work harder). We test our alternative hypothesis that this system of partnership and co-management systematically adds value by increasing the rate of first-time-quality improvement. These data allow us to test which, if any, of the specific attributes of the partnership (i.e. task balancing, represented and non-represented relationships, communication density, problem solving, etc.) predict quality performance. Data were collected via surveys from 150 managers across the three business units. Multiple regression techniques were used to analyze these data, and to test for the relationship of these specific aspects of the co-management system to first-time-quality improvement. Managers provided data on how they used their time during the day, how they thought they should allocate their time, and on their communications with others in the Saturn operations. The communications data were collected over a two week time period. The differences in the level and nature of communications were then analyzed to see if they affected quality performance outcomes. Two measures of quality serve as the performance outcomes to assess the impact of the Saturn partnership arrangements: 1) first time quality; and 2) quality improvement

Saturn, The GM/UAW Partnership: The Impact of Co-Management and Joint Governance on Firm and Local Union Performance

Designed and implemented as a partnership between GM and the UAW, Saturn breaks new ground in firm governance, management and industrial relations. Through detailed study of Saturn's partnership arrangements we have found that the local management and union leaders have not only implemented the contractual joint governance institutions which involve labor in business strategy, product development, supplier and retailer selection, and manufacturing policy, but have also created a system of co-management which gives hundreds of jointly selected union operations management. members the In order to responsibilities of understand the impact of the involvement of union members as management, we analyzed the relationship between the behaviors of both represented and non-represented middle managers, the dynanics of their individual union-management partnership relations, differences in their patterns of communication and coordination, and Saturn's quality performance. We also examined each partner's use of time to explore the balancing of social and economic tasks between represented and nonrepresented partners. These data were combined with analyses of the tensions within the union between its traditional role in membership representation, and its new role in management and governance. Finally, we raise questions regarding the learning from and diffusion of Saturn to the rest of the GM and the UAW organizations. The key findings from our work to date are summarized in Figure 1 and our research methods, detailed findings, the implications we draw from these results, and suggested next steps for our research are discussed in more detail in the following sections.Sloan Foundation, IMV

Sweepouts of amalgamated 3-manifolds

We show that if two 3-manifolds with toroidal boundary are glued via a `sufficiently complicated' map then every Heegaard splitting of the resulting 3-manifold is weakly reducible. Additionally, if Z is a manifold obtained by gluing X and Y, two connected small manifolds with incompressible boundary, along a closed surface F. Then the genus g(Z) of Z is greater than or equal to 1/2(g(X)+g(Y)-2g(F)). Both results follow from a new technique to simplify the intersection between an incompressible surface and a strongly irreducible Heegaard splitting.Comment: This is the version published by Algebraic & Geometric Topology on 24 February 200

Cross-Boundary Coordination Under Organizational Stress: Communication Patterns and Resilience

Coordination is one of the key activities that organizations must carry out on a day-to-day basis to maintain reliable performance in the face of changing conditions. When organizations come under stress it is important that they continue to maintain high levels of coordination. Yet extensive evidence suggests that organizations and individuals within them respond differently to stress, in ways that are sometimes functional and sometimes dysfunctional. We study the Continental air control tower in Newark that was built to co-locate representatives from key airline functions and key external parties in order to facilitate communication among them. Initial research was based on informal interviews and site visits, as well as secondary analysis of company documents and industry reports. In addition, using communication network data, we explore how cross-boundary coordination occurs under conditions of predictable and unpredictable stress, and how co-location can facilitate adaptation to changing conditions