Harper, Earl

Stephens, David B.

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West Michigan Management MemoVolume 1 | Issue 1 Article 810-1-1980Personnel and Labor Relations Degrees for the1980's and the 1990'sEarl HarperDavid B. StephensFollow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/wmbmThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Seidman College of Business at ScholarWorks@GVSU. It has been accepted for inclusionin West Michigan Management Memo by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@GVSU. For more information, please contactscholarworks@gvsu.edu.Recommended CitationHarper, Earl and Stephens, David B. (1980) "Personnel and Labor Relations Degrees for the 1980's and the 1990's," West MichiganManagement Memo: Vol. 1: Iss. 1, Article 8.Available at: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/wmbm/vol1/iss1/8economic society is better off when more of Its citizens are engaged in productive work. This information is provided by the Michigan Employment Security Commission. The Composite Index Each of the five components in the Grand Valley Index is equally important in measuring composite economic activity for Kent, Ottawa, and Muskegon counties . Since some components fluctuate much more widely than others, it is necessary to make some adjustments to them and to the weights so that a "normal" fluctuation in one series has just as much impact as a "normal" fluctuation in any other. Employment, for example, fluctuates very little. But a small fluctuation in the level of employment is a very serious mat­ter. To get its proper impact in the compos­ite index, it is necessary to weight the raw index value a little more heavily than the other indexes. Conversely, residential con­struction normally fluctuates rather widely. A large change in the value of this index is more common and less alarming. Conse­quently, the weight given to this index is smaller than for the other indexes. The graph shows the movements of the Grand Valley Economic Activity Index for 1972 through September 1980. The 1973-75 recessionary period is clearly in­dicated, followed by a steady rise in eco­nomic activity in the Kent, Ottawa, and Muskegon regional area from 1975 into 1979. Policies adopted at the national level to slow overall economic growth in 1980 in order to slow the inflationary rate have had an impact on west Michigan. Retail sales, residential construction, bank de­bits, industrial power consumption, and employment were down during the first six months of this year. Non-residential con­struction continued throughout this period at a reasonably brisk pace. Recently, we have seen some increase in housing starts, retail sales and employment. While the economic slowdown period is not over, the economy nationally seems to be reaching the low point of the current recession. The dramatic effect of national policies on the automotive industry has also been felt in west Michigan, but not to the extent it has in Michigan generally. The west Michigan area (particularly metropolitan Grand Rapids) has a more diversified in­dustrial base and is not as dependent on the automotive industry as are the other major labor markets in the state . The west Mich­igan area also has several industries such as office systems furniture and tool and die that have good prospects for the future. In subsequent issues of the West Michi­gan Management Memo, economic activ­ity indexes for the United States and Grand Rapids will be presented. These indexes will be based on the same components as those used in the Grand Valley Economic Activity Index and will permit a compari­son of economic activity in Grand Rapids with that of the west Michigan region and the United States. A more extended anal­ysis of these comparisons will be provided. The Grand Valley Economic Activity Index is prepareg by Dr. William Peterson, of the Economics Department of the Col­lege of Arts and Sciences at Grand Valley State. Economic commentary will be pro­vided by Dr. John Bomhofen and Dr. Mar­vin DeVries, of the Seidman College of Business and Administration. The historical values of the composite Grand Valley Index as well as of the com­ponents of the index for January 1972 through September 1980 can be obtained by contacting the Dean's Office , Seidman College of Business. Personnel and Labor Relations Degrees for the 1980's and 1990's By Earl Harper and David B. Stephens During the 1950's and 1960's, graduate business schools throughout the United States experienced very large enrollment increases, and graduate degree programs proliferated. Increasingly, traditional specialized master of arts or master of sci­ences programs in the various business dis­ciplines (finance, marketing, etc.) were discarded in favor of the more general M.B.A. degree. The M.B.A. was de­signed to prepare generalists for roles as strategic decision-makers in complex or­ganizations, where they could comforta­bly and competently cross disciplinary boundaries. However, many M.B.A. pro­grams allow for some functional speciali­zation, while maintaining the essence of the degree. Currently the pool of candidates for en­try-level staff positions that require gradu­ate degrees might include persons with a very general M.B.A ., an M.B .A. with 18 to 24 hours of functional specialization, or an M.A. or M.S. degree concentrated al­most entirely within a well-defined disci­pline . hi our role as educators and academic administrators, we are frequently called upon to participate in program and curric­ulum design decisions in the areas of per­sonnel and labor relations, and to make judgments as to which of the options ex­pressed above is most useful and desirable in the personnel area. In thinking about the ",proper" paradigm for graduate education for this field for the future, we felt it im­perative to get ideas from personnel and labor practitioners who are in a position to evaluate the needs of employing organiza­tions and to assess the strengths and weak­nesses 0 f recent graduates. For these reasons, a national survey was conducted among accredited American Society for Personnel Administration (ASPA) mem­bers . The survey asked members for opin­ions on whether a graduate degree is important and, if so, what degree is most appropriate for personnel and labor work (general M.B .A., M.B.A. with speciali­zation, or M.A. or M.S. degree in person­nel or labor). We selected a random sample of 600 ASPA members for the survey. A total of 306 usable questionnnaires, or 51 % of the sample, were returned. There appeared to be no significant demographic differences between respondents and non-respondents . How important is a master's degree in personnel and labor? Table I summarizes the opinion of the respondents on this issue. There is obviously a great deal of sup­port among this group for specialized de­gree plans in personnel and labor and a feeling that in the future such programs will be more important. If the category "slightly agree" is eliminated on the as­(Continued on next page) Table 1 Statement: A master's degree in personnel and/or labor will be increasingly important in the 1980's and 1990's. Responses Number Percent Strongly Agree 122 40.1% Agree 135 44.4 Slightly Agree 29 9.5 Slightly Disagree 17 5.6 Disagree I .3 ~Cumulative Percent 40.1% 84.5 94.1 99.7 100.0 5 (Continued from page 5) sumption that this cell contains a great deal of ambivalence, 85% of the sample still agree with the proposition. Almost exactly the same percentage (82.1) agreed with a related proposition, that the market value of such degree programs will increase in the near future. This response is no doubt somewhat provincial and self-serving, but the fre­quency of agreement is still impressive. Furthermore, many practitioners do not possess graduate degrees. In our sample, 46 percent held graduate degrees while 54 percent held bachelor's degrees or less. Thus, the belief that additional formal training will be important in the future likely indicates a real perceived need and is perhaps not merely an attempt to lend superficial importance to the discipline. Wiult graduate degree is most appropriate? The second area of inquiry asked the participants to compare the appropriate­ness of a generalized M.B.A. to an M.B.A. with some degree of functional specializa­tion, to a narrower but deeper M.A. or M.S. degree in the field . Table 2 gives the comparative statistics. Table 2 indicates that a specialized M.A. or M.S. is only slightly preferred over a general M.B.A. and that an M.B.A. with a degree of specialization is overwhelm­ingly preferred over an M.A. The pre­ferred model seems to be the M.B.A. background embellished with enough spe­cific course work to provide a technical base for the fledgling personnel or labor administrator. An explanation for this pref­erence was provided by the many respon­dents who indicated in the "comments" section that staff administrators with grad­uate training are often moved from staff to line and from line to staff, thus making a case for the flexibility inherent in a more specialized M.B.A. but not in a narrower M.A. or M.S. program. Another frequent comment was that personnel staffers need to "understand and appreciate" line prob­lems and the problems of other staff func­tions, again bolstering the case for the broad M.B.A. background, but allowing for the development of usable, functional expertise by expanding the hours of M.B.A. elective specialization. Based on practitioner feedback, we believe the M.B.A. with expanded elective speciali­zation is the most appropriate format for advanced study in personnel and labor. It is apparent that personnel and labor practitioners have a preference for a mid-Table 2 Statement M.A. or M.S. more valuable than general M.B.A. degree M.B .A. with personnel and labor specialization more valuable than M.A . or M.S. degree Strongly Agree 39.3% 39.1 Cwnulative Agree Percent 13.2% 52 .5% 51.3 90.4 dle-of-the-road approach to graduate edu­cation in the field, capturing the broad­based foundation of the general M.B.A. curriculum with the addition of enough electives and options to provide at least a beginning for the development of special­ized technical expertise and skills. Spe­cialized M.A. or M.S. programs are certainly not thought to be preferred or even essential for the future . Academic program planners should not rush to de­velop very specialiLed M.A. or M.S. per­sonnel programs unless local or regional conditions so demand or unless resources are abundant. A more widely differen­tiated M.B.A. offering a personnel or la­bor specialization or major would be more economical and more widely demanded and accepted by employing firms. The rea­son for this preference seems to center on the issues of flexibility and transferability for managers trained at the graduate level. During the 1980's and 1990's addi­tional growth and development in person­nel and labor degree programs will no doubt continue. In light of the findings reported herein, the design of such pro­grams should be moderated, capturing the essence of the general M.B.A. degree but allowing for increased functional speciali­zation. The multiplication of M.A. and M.S. programs is not as strongly sup­ported by practicing managers as faculties and academic administrators appear to have assumed. Dr. Earl Harper is an Associate Professor of Management in Seidman College of Business and Administration. Dr. David B. Stephens is an Associate Professor of Management at the University of Texas at El Paso. Management Development/or M.B.A. Students By Ken DeYoung One doesn't have to be around business long to realize that having an M.B.A. de­gree is no guarantee of success in a man­agement position. There is no question but that the devel­opment of knowledge and skills involved in earning an M.B.A. enables the individ­ual to understand and solve many technical and business problems with greater effec­tiveness and efficiency than would have been the case otherwise. Many manage­ment situations call for precisely the kind of knowledge and skills which are devel­oped so well in most M.B.A. programs. However, many problems which the manager faces and deals with in the course of a working day are not of the type usually considered in a business school. Many are personnel problems, which most people with an M.B.A. are no better prepared to deal with than anyone else. Many are problems having to do with using one's personal resources most effectively and trusting others to accomplish objectives not easily obtained through the application of one's own energies. Some problems faced by managers in real life settings have to do with handling stress" self-doubt, and personal anxieties and apprehensions. Still other problems have to do with the per­sonal concerns of subordinates, peers, and supervisors. Most personal management failures do not seem to arise out of technical incom­petence. Most people who fail at manage­ment do so because they cannot effectively handle some of the personal, social and/or organizational situations which arise and must be dealt with. There is, therefore, an obvious need for some educational experiences within the M.B.A. program which can help students develop some knowledge, skills and in­Sights which will enable them to handle these noncognitive, nontechnical situa­tions more effectively. In the M.B.A. program of the F. E. Seidman College of Business and Admin­istration, we have tried to address these issues within the regular academic frame­work and curriculum. From the beginning of its existence, Seidman College has been committed to the belief that one goal of the M.B.A. program is to increase the success of its graduates in the organizations in which they are employed . This principle implies that the education and training programs in 6 

Personnel and Labor Relations Degrees for the 1980\u27s and the 1990\u27s

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Personnel and Labor Relations Degrees for the 1980\u27s and the 1990\u27s

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