Corporate Downsizing

Fifteen years after publishing Corporate Cultures, Deal and Kennedy discuss the negative affects of recent economic forces (globalization and technology) and management trends (downsizing, outsourcing, short-termism, and mergers). They show managers how to exercise cultural leadership by finding common ground among corporate subcultures, and call for corporations to institute performance measurement systems that emphasize long-term goals.

Organizational restructuring and corporate downsizing can have a significant impact on the perceived social responsibility and responsiveness of any firm. This book analyzes the phenomenon by identifying the nature and types of structural or functional relationships that exist between downsizing and organizational performance variables, on the one hand, and organizational social responsiveness on the other. It looks at changes in the use of various restructuring techniques to improve efficiency and effectiveness and the effects of these changes on the organizational citizenship standing in the community. It goes on to add to the understanding of the general phenomenon of downsizing by examining its relationship to the level and pervasiveness of corporate social responsibility.

Presented by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, this much-needed resource offers a wealth of theoretical information, best business practices, and winning techniques for executives who must guide their companies through the often difficult processes of mergers, acquisitions, downsizings, and other transitions. Written by top experts in the field, Resizing the Organization is a field guide for applying industrial and organizational psychology theories and practices to the management of change strategies. Contributors to Resizing the Organization David T. Bastien Thomas J. Bergmann Scott M. Brooks Anthony F. Buono Wayne F. Cascio Jeffrey Crandell Kenneth P. De Meuse Daniel C. Feldman Emily L. Hause Todd J. Hostager Jill R. Kickul Scott W. Lester Raymond G. Lorenz Mitchell Lee Marks Kathryn D. McKee Philip H. Mirvis Jessica L. Saltz Roger D. Sommer Ronny Vansteenkiste Jack W. Wiley Nina E. Woodard Clifford E. Young

This book illuminates what is really happening in the American workplace. The contributors explain how the widespread restructuring of American firms--usually resulting in a reduction of the workforce to cut costs--has had a profound impact on the lives of workers. The book explains how the new relationship requires high skill levels, but does not provide training for them. Workers themselves now must take charge of their personal development instead of relying on their employers. Their alienation from their firms is compounded by the large disparity between the pay of top managers and that of workers. The future is uncertain, but the authors argue that the traditional relationship between employer and employees will continue to erode.

The authors of this text review the most current thinking on HR initiatives associated with current organisational performance and investigate how the field will need to mobilise in new ways to meet the demands of the future.

Considers the the important changes in technology and globalization in the context of communications, and theorizes the very latest developments.

This book presents a unique, in-depth examination of the effects that the popular approaches to management organizational change - downsizing, restructuring, and reengineering - had on a major American hospital. The Human Cost of a Management Failure shows what can happen when management insists on accomplishing its ends strictly by the numbers. The authors ask why top management so often, and with seemingly such a cavalier attitude, selects downsizing and similar methods when research indicates that they are all too often such poor choices. Based on a year-long longitudinal study, Allcorn, Baum, Diamond, and Stein report on their interviews with 23 senior and mid-level hospital administrators, then interpret their findings from a psychoanalytic perspective, to make clear that the human side of the workplace can only be ignored at great risk. This is essential reading not only for corporate management, but also for other professionals and academics throughout the social and behavioral sciences. Readers of The Human Cost of a Management Failure are oriented to the literature on downsizing, restructuring, and reengineering, and to the context of the study. Case material follows, enabling readers to draw their own conclusions with regard to the nature of the organizational change and its effects upon the hospital's employees, and consultants offer their own viewpoints. An update of events at the hospital after the study was conducted is provided along with summaries by each author of his own interpretation and how he interprets the others' views. In this way, readers will get an unusual opportunity to evaluate their own viewpoints against those of the psychoanalytically trainedresearchers, and to decide for themselves whether there are, in fact; better ways to make an organization economically competitive in the marketplace.

In this seminal examination of how organizations behave, Stein exposes the mystifying language of workplace downsizing, restructuring, reengineering, managed care, and community disaster. His book is about deception, about the veiling of intention through propaganda, and how these efforts to conceal, misstate, and misrepresent build on euphemism. It shows how the work of euphemism--embodied in what has come to be called "spin"--serves as a foundation for much of the thinking and action taking place today in organizations. More than an academic contribution to the study of cultural, psychological, and organizational linguistics, this book shows the immense destructiveness underlying an ingrained vocabulary that sanitizes the horror of destruction. Stein examines words and networks of words, and the resulting worlds of meaning and motivation. The result is a powerful statement for anyone interested in how we group ourselves into organizations, how we behave in them, and the damage that organizational spin can,do to us.