New Plant Working Practices

Abstract

In a series of recent articles, Lawler has argued that new established plants are especially likely to embody high (employee) involvement work systems. These work systems contain a significant number of mutually reinforcing arrangements and practices such as antonomous work groups, quality circles, gain sharing plans, etc. Indeed he goes as far as to content that in these new plants “… almost no aspect of the organisation has been left untouched. The reward systems, the structure, the physical layout, the personnel management system and the nature of jobs have all been changed and in significant ways” (pp. 6–7). There are certainly individual case studies of the arrangements of such plants in the United States, but in the absence of comprehensive survey data the extent to which they are representative of the population of newly established plants as a whole has been called into question.