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This article discusses why it is difficult to measure the effects of management practices on organizational performance. In spite of these difficulties, a collage of evidence suggests that innovative workplace practices can increase performance, primarily through the use of systems of related practices that enhance worker participation, make work design less rigid, and decentralize managerial tasks. A majority of U.S. businesses have adopted some innovative work practices. However, only a small percentage of businesses have adopted a full system of innovative practices. We outline several constraints on the diffusion of new work practices, and suggest directions for future research

This paper deals with a variety of issues regarding participation that may have received too little attention or that may be viewed from a different perspective. These include the sometimes faddist interest in the topic, participation as a form of bargaining, and alternate research strategies. It also reports on the current status of several once-publicized participation sites.Worker Participation-Some Under-Considered Issues I         '  (and a related topic, unions) for over fifty years. 1 Perhaps because of my longevity, the editors of this symposium gave me an open-ended invitation to comment on participation generally. I will take advantage of this invitation to discuss a few issues that I find particularly interesting and deserving of more attention than they currently receive. The result, I'm afraid, is a fairly disjointed paper since I seek to avoid issues already adequately covered elsewhere or at least to view them from a different perspective.My perspective on participation has always been somewhat ambivalent and sometimes cynical. I have always believed participation as a theory, in part because when it works (a key point), it provides a win-win solution to a central organizational problem: how to satisfy workers' needs while simultaneously achieving organizational objectives. Today, my view is that workers' participation can "work" (by a variety of measures) but making it work is very difficult. My hopes for it are considerably diminished.

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This is a case study of the 2005 national contract negotiations between Kaiser Permanente and the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions. Given the scale and complexity of these negotiations, their successful completion provides an exemplar for collective bargaining in this country. In 1997 Kaiser Permanente and the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions formed a labor management partnership, and negotiations were structured around the principles of interestbased negotiation (IBN). Drawing on direct observation of all parts of the bargaining process, interviews with individuals from Kaiser and the Coalition of Unions, and surveys we conducted after bargaining was completed, we conclude that the parties employed a mix of interest-based and traditional negotiation processes across an array of integrative and distributive issues. We find that IBN techniques were used extensively and successfully to reach mutually satisfying agreements when the parties shared interests. When interests were in greater conflict, the parties resorted to more traditional, positional tactics to reach resolution. Strong intraorganizational conflicts limited the use of IBN and favored the use of more traditional positional bargaining. While a high level of trust enabled and supported the use of IBN, tensions that developed limited the use of IBN and required surfacing and release before either IBN or more traditional positional processes could proceed effectively. The use * The authors' affiliations are, respectively, Management Trust Fund has provided funds for this research. The views expressed are solely those of the authors.Bargaining Theory / 67 of IBN tools helped the parties apply the principles underlying the partnership in which these negotiations were embedded. We conclude that IBN served as a way of applying or operationalizing integrative bargaining and affected the process dynamics in ways the Walton and McKersie theory predicted. As such we see IBN as techniques that neither displace nor render obsolete other aspects of bargaining theory or practice but that show considerable promise for helping collective bargaining to address the complex issues and challenges found in contemporary employment relationships.

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An analysis of leading industrial relations journals suggests that there have been substantial changes in IR research, particularly a shift from inductive, qualitative and policy-oriented research to deductive, quantitative and discipline-oriented research. This is seen to reflect a change in the pressures under which IR research is conducted and the increased availability of computer technology and extensive IR data sets. Important differences remain in research methodology among countries, with US-based journals being the most quantitative and deductive. Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd/London School of Economics 2000.