Gerald E. Ledford

A Predictive Model of Self-Managing Work Team Effectiveness

This paper tests a theoretically-driven model of self-managing work team effectiveness. Self-managing work team effectiveness is defined as both high performance and employee quality of work life. Drawing on different theoretical perspectives including work design, self-leadership, sociotechnical, and participative management, four categories of variables are theorized to predict self-managing work team effectiveness: group task design, encouraging supervisor behaviors, group characteristics, and employee involvement context. Data is collected from both a set of self-managing and traditionally managed teams from a large telephone company, and the model is tested with structural equations modeling. Support is found for hypotheses concerning group task design, group characteristics, and employee involvement context, but not encouraging supervisory behaviors.

The Effectiveness of Self-Managing Teams: A Quasi-Experiment

This study used a quasi-experimental design to assess the effectiveness of self-managing teams in a telecommunications company. These teams performed customer service, technical support, administrative support, and managerial functions in a variety of locations. The balance of evidence indicates that self-managing teams were more effective than comparable traditionally-managed groups that performed the same type of work. The study illustrates the value of a collaborative research project in which researchers and clients jointly define the research questions, study design, and methods.

Total quality management: practice and outcomes in the largest US firms

The application of TQM practices has rapidly increased in US organizations over the past six years, particularly in organizations facing severe competitive pressures. A survey of the 1,000 largest companies shows that these practices fall into two main categories: core practices and production‐oriented practices. Companies perceive benefit in three areas: improvement of work performance, company competitiveness and profitability, and employee outcomes. Service organizations experience these benefits primarily from implementing core practices more extensively. Competitiveness and profitability in manufacturing organizations are positively affected by the implementation of the production‐oriented practices. Analysis of financial outcomes suggests that core practices are positively related to market share for manufacturing companies. Production‐oriented practices are positively related to return on equity and collaboration with suppliers in quality efforts is positively related to total factor productivity i...

Demographic Dissimilarity and Workplace Inclusion

This study examined the relationship between individual demographic dissimilarity from co-workers and three indicators of inclusion by an organization: decision-making influence, access to sensitive information, and job security. Data from 345 individuals in eight work units showed that individual dissimilarity in race and gender were negatively associated with inclusion, and the effect of race dissimilarity was more pronounced for whites than for non-whites. In contrast, individual dissimilarity in tenure and education level were positively associated with inclusion, and these effects were more pronounced for those with greater tenure and greater education, respectively. Overall, the results suggest that whether being different hinders or helps organizational inclusion may depend on whether that difference is visible and whether it reflects job expertise. Further, they suggest that, when being different is a hindrance, it may be hardest on those who have traditionally been the majority in organizations.

Developing Effective Self-Managing Work Teams in Service Organizations

A large body of research has emerged on the effective implementation of self-managing work teams (SMWTs). However, virtually all of the research has been conducted in manufacturing settings. This article draws upon the authors’research on SMWTs in two service organizations: an insurance operation and a telecommunications company. The authors focused on two research questions: First, they examined the relationships among different dimensions of SMWT effectiveness. Second, the authors explored the key success factors for SMWTs in a service context. They found that the different dimensions of SMWTs’effectiveness do not reinforce one another and are largely unrelated, and that creating an employee involvement (EI) context, work design, and team characteristics were important predictors of SMWT effectiveness. Surprisingly, team leadership was not important for SMWT effectiveness; in fact, sometimes, team leadership was negatively related to effectiveness.

Reward Innovations in Fortune 1000 Companies

Compensation professionals are flocking to seminars on innovative reward practices, buying books, and reading journals. But what are the leading companies actually doing? This article summarizes data on reward innovations from a unique new study.

Self-Design for High Involvement: A Large-Scale Organizational Change:

We present a case study of a 5-year action research project in a 12-plant division of a multi-billion dollar firm. The division is attempting to design new plants and re-design all established plants as high involvement, high performance work systems (Lawler, 1986). The design process is based on a self-design learning model (Mohrman & Cummings, 1989). The history of the change process and data about its effects are reported. We review in detail how the self-design learning system is shaped by the nature of change in a large, multi-level, multi-site organization. We also consider the unusual role of the action researcher in large-scale change.

A skill-based approach to human resource management

Skill-based human resource management has many advantages over the job-based approach, and can provide firms with a new source of competitive advantage. Edward Lawler and Gerald Ledford explore all aspects of this emerging new model of HRM and, in particular, review the strategic, structural and cultural conditions in organizations which favour its implementation. Modern economies are giving rise to an environment in which these conditions are flourishing and hence skill-based HRM seems more relevant. As leading firms adopt the model and gain in competitive advantage, others will be obliged to follow.

Who Uses Skill-Based Pay, and Why

Skill-based pay may be an advantageous option for companies that face intense competitive pressure, that are downsizing, or that encourage employee involvement.

Three Case Studies on Skill-Based Pay: An Overview

Asserting that skill-based pay is one of the most rapidly spreading pay innovations in the United States, the author previews and summarizes the three case studies that follow.