Productivity is a major concern in the 1990s of all profit oriented organizations, regardless of size (Rothschild, 1993, pp. 17 18). Productivity levels within an organization are the product of a combination of physical, financial, and human resource inputs (Miles and McCloskey, 1993, pp. 40 45).
How best to attain productivity improvements is an issue of both concern and dispute. Among the many proposed solutions to the productivity problem, one suggested approach to improved productivity is the formation of self directed work teams within organizations to replace the more traditional hierarchical structure (Wellins, R. S. (1992, pp. 24 28). An older remedy that is receiving renewed attention is the use of profit sharing to boost productivity (Collins, 1993, pp. 77 104).
Some organizations have developed productivity improvement programs that include elements of both team building and profit sharing (Schatz, 1992, pp. 127 128). This research examines the effectiveness of productivity improvement strategies that contain elements of both team building and profit sharing.
A concern with organizational performance is one of the more significant of the problems which confront organizational managers in the last decade of the twentieth century (Hakim, 1993, pp. 46 49). The costs to an organization of sub standard performance involve profit deterioration, the diversion of financial and human resources from production to diagnostic and corrective actions, and the introduction of discontinuity into organizational activities, just to enumerate a few (De Long and Summers, 1992, pp. 5 29).
Lagging productivity growth affects the ability of firms to compete effectively in both domestic and international markets. In early 1990, Business Week declared that the American economy was "desperately searching for a dose of productivity" (Cooper, and Madigan, 1990, p. 27). The realization that lagging productivity was a major pro...