Productivity in the USPS
DESCRIPTION OF THE PROBLEM
Statement o
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This purpose of this study is to examine productivity in the United States Postal Service (USPS). Several years ago, the USPS was converted from a governmental department to a quasi public corporation. As a quasi public corporation, the USPS is charged with the responsibility to fund itself to the maximum extent possible through the conduct of its own operations, thereby reducing the need for funding the USPS through the federal budget (National Academy of Public Administration, 1982, p. 5). Productivity improvement, thus, became a major goal of the USPS.Unfortunately, the USPS has not made as much progress as desired over the past dozen years in the area of productivity improvement (USPS on track, 1993, p. 10). The new chief executive at the USPS, Bill Cockburn (1993, pp. 4447), however, states that the implementation of team organization, employee empowerment, and other human resource initiatives will enable the USPS to attain productivityrelated goals in the lasthalf of the 1990s. Unfortunately, at the operational level, the USPS continues to be plagued by managers who are not sympathetic to change. These lower level managers are a threat to the ultimate success of the drive to improve productivity at the USPS. Setting, History, and Background of the Problem The USPS Postal Service Center located in Bentonville, Arkansas is the setting for this study. Marginal morale, poor organization, and outmoded decisionmaking practices lower the productivity of th
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ink that innovation is fostered by an organic organizational structure, while innovation tends to be stifled by a mechanistic organizational structure (Kennedy, 1991, p. 34).
Researchers have also observed, however, that, while organic structures tend to foster innovation, they are often somewhat ineffective for the implementation of that innovation (Daft, 1992, pp. 193218). In such instances, it has been suggested that organizations adopt a composite organizational structure that incorporates characteristics of both the organic and the mechanistic organizational concepts (Daft, 1992, pp. 219221). This ambidextrous organizational structure permits a shifting emphasis as required.
Teambased organization is another form of structure "in which members of different functional departments work together in small, but more or less permanent, teams headed by the member from the most professional prestigious specialty" (Gortner, Mahler, and Nicholson, 1989, p. 111). Team members "maintain their ties to functional departments for personnel, training, promotion, and other such matters, but they work face to face principally with members of other departments to achieve the level of coordinated expertise demanded by their tasks" (Gor
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Krishnan Thompson, Employee Empowerment, Maslow Herzberg, SMWTs Barton, Mahler Nicholson, Warren Bennis, USPS Register, Compensation Productivity, Larson LaFasto, Bentonville Arkansas, organizational structure, 1992 pp, krishnan thompson, nicholson 1989, mahler nicholson, gortner mahler, gortner mahler nicholson, mahler nicholson 1989, shani grant, 1991 pp, krishnan thompson 1992, grant krishnan thompson, thompson 1992, grant krishnan, shani grant krishnan,
Approximate Word count = 4122
Approximate Pages = 16 (250 words per page)
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