Susan Mohrman explains that designing organizations in which the work team is the focal performing unit began in earnest in production settings, where “new design plants” (Lawler, 1978) or “high commitment work systems” (Walton, 1985) emerged in the 1970’s and are now widely used (Lawler, Mohrman and Ledford, 1993).
Research and Insights Archive
Research and Insights from the Center for Effective Organizations
Available Content
From Job-Based to Competency-Based Organizations
This article by Edward Lawler III challenges the basic assumption that jobs should be the fundamental building block of organizations. It stresses that with the new forms of organizations and the new demands organizations should be built around competencies not jobs.
A Perspective on Empowerment
Susan Mohrman explains that the term “empowerment” has come to express in many managers’ minds the essence of new approaches to management that are believed to be capable of delivering higher levels of performance by tapping into the energies and enthusiasm of employees.
A New Logic for Organization: Implications for Higher Education
This research by Edward Lawler III and Susan Mohrman seeks a different path in route to understanding potential. Changing tacks is based on the assumption that the qualities one finds in the mature international executive are NOT necessarily the same qualities we should be looking for in high potentials.
Identifying Leadership Potential in Future International Executives: Developing a Concept
Morgan McCall asks the questions “What does it mean to have “potential” as an international executive? Of the seemingly endless list of attributes that might serve an executive well, which ones should you look for in a high potential manager?”
Japanese Transplants
Jay R. Galbraith discusses how in the 1980s the Japanese began a high level of direct investment in the United States. There was a great deal of interest in how successful their style of management would be outside of Japan.
Hiring for the Organization, Not the Job
This article by D. Bowen, G. Ledford, Jr. and B. Nathan examines a new approach to selection in which employee are hired to fit the characteristics of an organization, not just the requirements of a particular job.
Developing Leadership: A Look Ahead
Morgan W. McCall, Jr. discusses how dramatic change has stimulated a search for a “new kind of leader,” implying that selection and development of leadership was adequate in the past but that the chosen skills are no longer adequate for today’s world.
In Transit: From Physician to Manager
Morgan W. McCall, Jr. and Judith A. Clair report that physicians are finding themselves in increasing numbers in significant managerial roles. Successful transition from a role as individual professional to a managerial role is neither automatic nor easy.
Why Physician Managers Fail
It is no small step to leave behind years of training, apprenticeship, and clinical practice to take on a new profession. Yet that is what increasing numbers of physicians are doing as they enter managerial jobs, as discussed by Morgan W. McCall, Jr., and Judith A. Clair in this article.
Using Experience to Develop Managerial Talent: A Professional’s Guide to On-the-Job Development
Morgan W. McCall, Jr., Esther T. Hutchison, and Virginia Homes discuss how developing top level executive talent is a serious challenge for U.S. corporations, and, according to some experts, essential to the future competitiveness of those firms.
Personality Measures as a Selection Tool for High Involvement Organizations
R. Nathan, Gerald E. Ledford, David E. Bowen, and Thomas G. Cummings discuss how measures of growth needs and social needs from the Personality Research Form, or PRF (Jackson, 1984) are shown to be a valid selection tool for a high involvement organization, based on the criterion of performance in a content valid pre-employment training program.
