Yes, quality of work life (QWL) applications do work, and they continue to work over time. Robert Golembiewski and Ben‐chu Sun studied 231 applications of QWL (from bibliographies, journals, books, unpublished reports, dissertations, theses, and so on) that were conducted over twenty‐two years (1965‐1987). The success rates for four major classes of QWL (human processual, sociotechnical systems, technostructural, and combined), which encompass fifteen separate types, were substantial for hard‐criteria effects as well as for soft changes, such as those in attitudes, opinions, and self‐reports about worksite features. This article explains the outcomes, predictions, limitations, and perhaps the biases of their research. Despite minor inadequacies in design the authors remain adamant about the success of QWL—so much so that they recommend greater reliance on its techniques.
This report seeks to determine whether the high success rates observed in a large survey of QWL evaluative studies (N = 231) can be substantially explained in terms of the lack of rigor of research methodology and design, as the literature critical of QWL often proposes. This studyfinds statistically significant support for a positive-findings bias hypothesis, but rigor explains less than 7% of the variance in outcomes. This implies only modest supportfor the position that attractive QWL results can be substantially accountedfor by a positive-findings bias.
The New Public Management (henceforth NPM) has coalesced into a movement in a short period of time, virtually worldwide. Thus, inter alia, we hear about the allegedly-new focus on the ''customers'' of public services, which are to be provided by ''public intrapreneurs'' as well as by cadres of employees at all levels who are ''empowered.'' And so on and on-through the conventional organizational litany including
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