Michael L. Moore

Performance-rating accuracy: A critical review

Abstract Models of performance-rating accuracy were reviewed and combined into an integrative framework. Components of this framework included the rater, ratee, context, training, and rating format. This framework was used to review the empirical studies on performance-rating accuracy. The implications of this review for performance-appraisal researchers and practitioners were then discussed.

The stability of longitudinal and cross-sectional occupational prestige rankings

Abstract The stability of occupational prestige rankings over time and among cross-sectional subgroups was demonstrated. Undergraduates from different regions, hometown sizes, and political orientations ranked occupations similarly in terms of relative prestige. Compared with other studies, the rank-order correlations of prestige were .88 with a 1925 study, .93 with a 1947 study, and .95 with a 1968 study. Changes in rankings over time were examined against functionalist and conflict theories of social stratification. Both theories were necessary to explain shifts in relative rankings since 1925, but the functionalist approach appears to more adequately define why shifts begin to occur.

Hoshin Kanri planning: the system of five alignments behind the Toyota Production System

The Toyota Production System (TPS), also termed lean manufacturing, is famous for its ability to improve productivity, quality, space utilisation, customer focus, suggestions and positive employee outcomes. It is also known to be difficult to imitate and implement. This paper explores the secrets to the successful implementation of TPS/lean production. The discovery that the TPS is grounded in a Hoshin Kanri planning system composed of five major alignments is reported. Characteristics of each Toyota alignment and linkages to US planning literatures are explicated. The US alignment literature is critically analysed using the Toyota framework. Examples from the field are provided. Implications for operations management practitioners, consultants and those attempting mass to lean conversions or lean launches are drawn. A call for research on a taxonomy of alignments is provided.

Time-Serial Substitution Effects of Absence Control on Employee Time-Use

A 6-year study tracked the effects of a group-level absence control program within a Midwestern urban bus company. By modeling employee time-use options systemically, effects were examined graphically with daily precision. Short-term nonlegitimate absence decreased and time worked increased, but unintended substitution effects occurred as employees discovered legitimate ways to exploit absence and time scheduled off. Propositions for future research and methodological insights are noted.

A brownfield lean conversion: a case study of Opel Belgium

This case study examined the brownfield conversion from mass to lean production in a large automotive company. This case presents the critical factors in the lean transformation of the Opel Belgium (OB) plant, which is located in Antwerp approximately 30 miles from Brussels. This case offers a coherent transformational model for converting brownfield sites into lean production facilities. The model includes key technical components in the lean conversion, which includes changes in assembly layout, changes in takt time, jobs per hour as well as other technical elements. The change to lean also identifies and discusses culture and people system, change efforts instrumental to this change. Some of the key elements include creating a common vision for lean, establishing people systems in harmony with lean and parallel organisational structures.

Organization Development Impacts Interrupted A Multiyear Time-Serial Study of Absence and other Time Uses

Time-serial statistics show the daily impact of organization development (OD) on five systemically interdependent employee time use variables across the first 2 years of an absence control intervention. Tume worked, time scheduled off, short-term excused absence, long-term excused absence, and short-term nonexcused absence all showed interdependent daily changes in annual time use as OD techniques were aggressively and widely introduced, later overtaken by events and severely restricted, and eventually replaced with a mechanistic policy-based absence control system. OD induced strong and constructive increases in work and decreases in excused forms of nonwork while it continued to operate, but those changes eroded quickly under competing pressures once investment in OD was curtailed. After the OD impetus toward self-control was replaced with a mechanistic management model, unexcused absence began to drop, but time use began shifting into excused nonwork activities. This trend eventually caused significant erosion of the gains in time worked.

Review of no-fault absenteeism cases taken to arbitration, 1980–1989: A rights and responsibilities analysis

No-fault absenteeism control programs represent an emerging counterpoint to traditional misconduct-based approaches. By altering the policies governing absence in the work place, the rights and responsibilities of both the employee and employer may be modified. This article examines the arbitral standards applied in the disposition of grievances arising under no-fault absenteeism plans. Arbitration cases from 1980 to 1989 are analyzed; a taxonomic structure for reviewing arbitrator rulings on the unilateral imposition of no-fault programs, as well as discipline and discharge arising under no-fault policies, is developed. While advocates of no-fault plans have asserted that arbitrators will embrace these plans, the results of this analysis indicate that arbitrators will infuse standard elements of reasonableness and just cause into no-fault policy. Trends in arbitral standards in absence cases, policy-making strategies for managements and unions, as well as implications for the rights and responsibilities of employees and employers are outlined.

General Motor's great experiments: foundations for Lansing Grand River Assembly

This paper revisits the past and provides an extensive overview and analysis of the three major experiments conducted by General Motor’s (GM) in the 1980s. Each experiment offered an entirely different paradigm for auto manufacturing, for union-management and employee-management relations. Although all aspects of the three experiments can be viewed today in Lansing Grand River Assembly (LGRA), there is one system has clearly become dominant. In this study, we examine the elements of all the three systems and demonstrate how the success of NUMMI led to the wide-spread adoption of lean manufacturing by GM in the past two decades.