Chapter 4

Identifying the Organizational Culture of the Surveyed Firms

The purpose of this chapter is to explain the process by which I identified organizational culture.  Given that this research and approach are somewhat different than conventional analysis, an entire chapter is devoted to explaining the methods, means, and analyses.  Because I reference the survey often in this chapter, readers might want to review appendix 1 thoroughly and acquaint themselves with the questions posed.  I draw heavily upon the survey and will note it often.

            As stated in the introduction, this analysis draws upon quantitative and qualitative methods.  The quantitative methods are cross tabulations.  What I will perform and present in chapter 5 is a comparison of one variable against another.  For example, I will compare the existence of management/supervisor training to absenteeism rate.  Based on the comparison, there is either a correlation or not.

            However, as will be found in chapter 5, quantitative methods alone do not provide insight into what works and what does not within an organization.  As stated in the introduction, there is a difference between having mechanisms for participation and having involvement.  Allow me to explicate this difference in more detail.

            The scenarios presented in the introduction highlight the difference between a participatory culture and a non-participatory culture.  In a participatory culture, management wants the employee to contribute.  In other arrangements, the firm does not seek employee involvement. 

While this may seem obvious on the surface, investigating, and, more importantly, identifying organizational culture is quite difficult.  Perhaps this is the reason that most researchers compared the existence or absence of a mechanism and some dependent variable.  The essence of the distinction is: It is quite easy to determine if a firm has a joint labor/management committee.  It is, however, quite different to determine if the firm utilizes a joint labor/management committee as a mechanism by which labor contributes to firm operations and management wants / desires / seeks / solicits / accepts labor input.

At this point, I hope the distinction between having mechanisms and utilizing those mechanisms is clear.  Given this separation, it should also be clear that the methods for studying one or the other are not the same.  For this reason and because of this distinction, I choose to employ different methods.

The use of quantitative methods is the first section presented in the analysis in chapter 5 and is where I begin here as well.  The use of quantitative methods is straightforward enough.  I compare the absence or presence of mechanisms for participation to absenteeism and turnover rates.  Given that means of participation must exist before one can even determine if the organizational supports those means, then the importance of this section is self-evident—without means, no participation occurs.  However, having the means for participation does not ensure that actual participation occurs.  How can we determine whether the organization supports involvement?

To do this, I rely on more qualitative analysis of the responses from the surveys’ open-ended questions.  I utilize these responses to make inferences.  These inferences are what I utilize to make a determination about the organizational culture.  Additionally, I rely upon other questions to make judgments about the firm.

Qualitative Analysis

            In terms of difficulty, I would have to say that the qualitative analysis performed here is much more difficult than the quantitative.  This is because of the level and depth of investigation I did within the qualitative section.  I think that the following description of what I executed will elucidate the distinction.

            Qualitative analysis involves a review of each respondent’s survey and an evaluation of each question on each survey.  This is quite a lot of assessment.  In order to make a thorough inquiry of each organization via the human-resource manager’s response to the survey, I had to review every survey returned and investigate each and every question answered.  In order to keep track of the reviews, I made notes, on a separate sheet of paper, for each and every survey examined.

            Now that you know the depth of the investigation, allow me to tell you what I did.  On the back page of the survey, there were four questions.  The top of the page contained responses for which the respondent indicated the number and types of mechanisms for participation (question 19).  The next question indicated what types of short-term incentives the company offered (question 20).  Finally, the last two questions were the open-ended question (questions 21 and 22).

            First, I examined the types and quantity of mechanisms for participation.  The question allowed the respondent to identify more than one type of mechanism.  The human-resource manager had the opportunity to state whether or not the firm offers joint labor/management committees, problem-solving teams, self-directed work teams, board representation, or other.  The obvious first question that I had was: Does the firm offer any types of mechanisms for participation at all?  If the answer to this question was yes, then I reviewed question 6d.

            Question 6d asked the respondent to rate the importance of “employee representative to management.”  If the respondent indicated that the firm had mechanisms for participation, then I wanted to know if the firm placed importance on having mechanisms for labor input to management.

            The breakdown that I quickly began to see from this analysis was the following.  The firm had either no mechanisms for participation or no more than 1.  The second type of firm was the firm that had mechanisms for participation but did not place importance on having labor representation to management.  Finally, there were firms that had mechanisms for participation and placed importance on an employee representative to management.

            The next question reviewed was question 20.  This question determined the type and quantity of short-term incentives offered by the firm to employees.  There was no crosscheck question to determine the significance placed on short-term incentives.  However, this question did highlight an anomaly, which was the higher the rate of absenteeism then the higher the likelihood the company offered an attendance bonus.  While this may seem odd at first, it does make sense.  If a company already has significant problems and people are absent often or are departing the firm, i.e. turnover is high, then the company seeks an answer to its problems.  That answer appears to be that the company must offer a financial incentive to compel people to be present at work.  While the knee-jerk reaction may be sufficient in some conditions, the overall finding here is that the solution does nothing to solve the problem.  The response only addresses the symptoms—not the cause.

            The next questions reviewed were questions 21 and 22.  These were the open-ended questions.  The information garnered from these questions was invaluable throughout the qualitative review.  These questions supplied insight into the organizational culture given that the respondents were often quite blunt about how the firm operated.

            The open-ended questions allowed me to make alterations to where a firm would fit when categorized with other firms and to make judgments about the firm culture.  The open-ended questions got at the heart of the analyses and really provided me with the aforementioned distinction between having mechanisms for participation and utilizing them.  This is where I could determine if “management” believed in participation or not.  The types of responses I now provide, as examples, should clarify the point.  Respondent 3 responded to question 21 with: “Trusting each other.”  Respondent 33 stated the following for question 22: “How we balance employee ownership and employee participation.  Without giving the wrong impression to employees about the amount of control employees have on day to day operations.”  Respondent 49 said the following for question 21: “Getting employees to think and feel like owners and to find effective means for employee owners to participate in improving company performance.”

            The differences between these responses are very telling about the dissimilarities within the organizational culture of the respective firms. These differences manifest themselves in how the firm operates, structures itself, and how the members within the firm conduct themselves.  I attribute and call these differences firm culture, because the practices and customs within these firms are not the same.  In fact, if a person from firm 49 went to firm 33, then there would be a culture shock.  The person from firm 49 would be promoting and trying to find ways to have employees participate and contribute to performance, whereas the existent people in firm 33 would be trying to hinder employees from contributing.

            These differences are not subtle nuances.  Rather, this is the heart of the firm speaking.  The human-resource manager who responded to this survey is the medium or the voice of the organization and is expressing how the firm conducts itself.  What the respondent is saying: This is how we behave.  These are the practices and customs of our organization.  This is our culture.

            It would be safe to say that the open-ended questions were the ultimate crosscheck question.  Looking at respondent 33’s survey, one would find that the firm does offer some training, shares some information, and provides a mechanism for participation.  (The actual number and type of each vehicle for participation is not important.  What is important is the point.)  If one were to investigate the absence or existence of these mechanisms, then one would draw certain conclusions.  However, the response to the open-ended questions speaks volumes about the firm.  This firm could have all forms of training, shared information, and mechanisms for participation in the world, but it would not matter.  The firm does not value, want, nor desire employee input.  In fact, one could go so far as to say that the firm undermines input from the employee.

            While the open-ended questions were valuable for making judgments about firm culture, I also drew upon other hand-written responses.  Respondents would indicate in the margin caveats to certain responses.  The most common occurrence is that the respondent would state that the firm provides financial information to employees, but the human-resource manager would indicate that the firm does not share salary information.  While it is telling that the firm shares financial information with the staff, it is more indicative of the culture of the firm that the firm does not share salary information.  This is because one must ask the question: Why does the firm fail to provide salary information?  If I ask this question and I am not an employee, then employees who labor at the firm everyday would have considered the question long ago.  The probable follow-up questions would include: What are “they” hiding?  What don’t “they” want us to know? 

            Now that you know how I utilized questions 19, 20, 21, and 22, allow me to state how I utilized other questions within the survey.  Question 14 asked the respondent to indicate the type and quantity of information shared.  The typical crosscheck for this question, as just stated, was if the respondent indicated stipulations to the flow of information.  If the firm stated that they failed to provide some type of information, then I made judgments about the firm culture.  A distinction between a participatory culture and one that is not was if the firm indicated that it somehow hindered the flow of information.

            The final type of mechanism for participation considered was that of training, question 11.  The survey offered a lot of crosschecks for this question. The first crosscheck considered was question 6b.  This question asked the respondent to indicate the importance placed on “employee development and training.”  If the firm indicated that they offered training and placed importance on it, then that would indicate that the firm does in fact value employee development.  Other arrangements found, which are similar to question 19 that asked about mechanisms for participation, were that the firm offered training but did not value it or did not offer training.

            However, there were anomalies discovered within the respondent’s answers.  Question 12 asked the respondent to indicate the percentage of the firm’s workforce that participates in at least one training course per year, and question 13 asks the respondent to indicate how training contributes to company performance: not at all, slightly, modestly, and greatly.  The anomaly occurred when the firm indicated that they provided no training but then indicated that some percentage, which would have to be greater than 29% given the choice of answers provided, participated in at least one training course per year.  The logical inconsistency created is: If the firm does not provide training but the workers are participating in training courses, then something is happening that the survey is not capturing.  Likewise, if the firm is not providing training but then states that training has some positive impact on company performance, then the survey is not acquiring something.

            Given these inconsistencies, I had to conclude that the survey was not capturing the organizational practices.  How I handled these discrepancies was to be honest and open and state that these firms confounded me and that I could not ascertain a firm culture.

            When I could, then I did ascertain a firm culture.  I utilized the methods just mentioned as an initial starting point to determine if the firm valued employee input.  After evaluating the firms and making my notes, then I began to look at my notes for patterns.  There were five patterns that emerged.  The patterns that emerged, along cultural lines, were labeled as follows: draconian, underminer, non-participatory, and participatory.  The final firm identified, given that I was unable to ascertain a culture, was labeled as confounding.

Firm Culture

            The five types of organizational culture recognized and labeled are: draconian management (n=5), under-miners (n=15), non-participatory (n=28), participatory (n=9) and confounders (n=9) [1] .  As one can see, the majority of the companies are in the non-participatory category.  This is not that surprising.  Most companies do not follow a participatory model [2] .  “Except for social events, management is seen as making most decisions in all but a small minority of Ohio ESOPs” (Logue and Yates 2001, Chapter 3, Page 22).

Allow me to explain the types of firm culture.  Simply as a matter of moving on to the other categories, I present the confounding category first.  The confounding category is quite simple.  I do not know what is going on within these firms.  However, the other types of firms do permit me to identify a firm culture given how they answered the survey.  It would be safe to say that the firm culture identified exists on a spectrum.  On the far left and the most severe in terms of harshness to the employee are the draconian firms.  Moving from left to right we find the underminers, then the non-participatory firms, and, finally, the participatory firms allow the employee the greatest amount of opportunity to contribute to the firm in terms of input.

Cultural Spectrum

Least Involvement                                                                                 Most Involvement

The “draconian-management” firm makes explicit that the firm is in charge and the employee is an absolute nuisance.  Although the firm may have some employee-involvement mechanisms, the responses on the survey suggest that the firm is openly hostile to employee participation.  Consider respondent 18 who actually took the time to write in the words, “f) none” under “vehicles for employee involvement and participation.”  Or respondent 11 who ensured that the recipient of the survey knew that the employees did not vote into the affairs of the firm by writing, “No Employee Voting,” to the question: “Which best describes your company’s voting structure?” after circling that the “trustee votes all issues.” 

Firms in the underminer category are there because they are doing something that hinders participation and involvement.  The most striking and hard-hitting point discovered is that these firms have all of the necessary ingredients for participation, but they are engaging in behavior that thwarts it.  A common occurrence in the review is that the firm provides all training listed, shares information, and maintains no mechanisms for participation.  Also, the comments reveal that the firms often consider the employees of little value or state that the employees attempt to engage in too much “participation.” 

The characteristics found within a non-participatory firm are lack of components: training, shared information, mechanisms for participation, and short-term incentives.  The company is more likely than not to focus exclusively on management training and provide joint labor/management committees.  The firm fails to provide employees with skills to engage management.

Moving from severe treatment of employees to participation is uplifting.  In fact, one respondent highlighted how participation works so well that I isolated out the respondent so as to utilize it as an example.  Respondent 3 provided useful information in that they described the difficulty of creating a participatory culture was trust.  The response to the open-ended question: “What is the single largest human resource challenge facing your company,” is worth taking special note to highlight (Please see appendix 2 for a list of responses to the same question for the categorized firms.).  The response is: “trusting each other, which we are getting better at, so we can get to the hidden factory.”

            No other respondent was quite so eloquent and clear in stating the one necessary condition that must precede all others.  Trust is so important in a participatory firm, because all employees must rely on each other.  The old adage: “If you want something done right, often you must do it yourself,” cannot be part of the participatory mentality.  Management and labor must trust each other and believe that the other is performing actions in the interest of the other [3] .  As highlighted in chapter 2, employees must know that management acts in the employees’ interest.  Likewise, management must recognize that the employees will act in the interest of management.

            The benefit of trust and working together is that the employees of the firm can consider other issues.  After accepting that all employees of a firm are working together and in each other’s interest, then the firm can consider options such as expansion, how to increase productivity further, or what new investments or horizons are possible.  By creating trust, then the firm lays the groundwork for true participation, which is the final type of culture reviewed.

The elements of a participatory culture are that the firm provides training, shares information, and maintains mechanisms for contribution.  While these types of arrangements may exist in other firms, the necessary spark is a continual focus on ensuring that employees know that participation is accepted, wanted, and promoted.

The consistent theme of a participatory culture is: Does management really believe in this stuff?  Without a commitment from top management and a genuine solicitation from management to employees for input, then having mechanisms for participation is a futile exercise.  Without commitment, everything else is just a waste of time.  With commitment, though, the firm becomes a participatory firm by creating the proper practices and customs necessary to have employees contribute to firm performance.

Now that we know what the characteristics of each of the cultures are and how I placed them into their respective categories, let us examine some of the differences of the respective cultures and how a participatory culture is beneficial to firm performance.  The essence of the next section is that a participatory culture is a better place in which to work.  Given that it is such an inviting place, employees want to be present at work and stay with the firm.

Culture Differences and Benefits of a Participatory Culture

  As will be seen from the absenteeism and turnover scores presented in chapter 5, participatory firms seem to have an advantage on the other firms given that they are able to focus on other issues (See appendix 2 for some of the items on which these firms focused as compared to the other firms.)  The benefits of a participatory culture are that the firm can move beyond scrambling for people.  Now, what are the benefits of pondering these other issues?  If reducing health-care costs, for example, can be achieved, then firm capital increases.  Likewise, understanding the market and competition enables the company to determine future needs and demands.  Instead of scrambling just to ensure survival for day-to-day operations, the focus is on where are we going as a company?  What do we need to do in order to stay ahead of the crowd?  What are we doing now that prepares us for the future?  Clearly, the responses illustrate that the human-resource role can be more than hiring people. 

However, the other firms do not have the luxury of focusing on issues such as health-care costs nor expansion.  Rather, their main concern is on the next crisis.  The main concern of firms categorized as non-participatory is on absenteeism and turnover.  Some of these companies choose to implement an attendance bonus.  The outcome of this action is less than satisfactory.  Others choose to continue to do business the old way, but the old way is not working. 

            As for the underminer firms, they are an interesting case.  These firms thwart participation, but they do so covertly.  While it is clear that these firms have problems, the major issue is that which the researcher confronts.  If one were to examine only the statistical data, then the true nature of the culture within these firms would be lost.  These firms do provide training, information, and mechanisms for participation.  Tabulating the data would reveal that the points-of-concern are present, but then the question becomes: Why do these firms have such problems?  This should direct the investigator to examine the firms.  When doing so, then, and only then, does the researcher begin to uncover discrepancies.  For example, respondent 12 states that they provide financial information.  However, written in the margin is that the firm provides all financial data except salary information.  Respondent 42 provides training, information, and mechanisms.  Everything seems good to go.  However, the question that confronts them is: “Whether to continue a particular segment of the business comprising roughly 10% of sales and 20% of employment.”  What do those 20% think?  They might not feel comfortable forgoing the segment if it means their jobs are gone.  There is no mention of how the employees react to this.  Also, this firm states that they value representation of employees to management at “most important.”  However, they have no employees who sit on the board and no board representation.  These types of firms are the scariest that could exist, because on the face value they seem like ideal firms—employee owned and providing employees with all of the necessary ingredients to act as owners.  Looking underneath the façade reveals that these places could be frustrating and demeaning places in which to work.

            Firms in the draconian category face a huge problem—cynicism.  At face value alone, these firms perform poorly.  It is no surprise that there are few firms in this category.  Few firms could afford to endure such high absenteeism and turnover rates—and I doubt that these firms can continue on their current path.  People do not want to work here.  Employee absenteeism and turnover is high.  However, rather than taking a look at the firm itself, the respondents choose to blame the employee.  Well, thou shalt reap what thou soweth.  In this case, the firm does not care about the employee, and the “worker” does not care about the organization.  The manifestation of this indifferent, or absolutely unconcerned, attitude towards one another is that the employee withdrawals from the firm.  What these firms should do is take the time to train the employees, stop blaming them, and start trusting them.  Only by ending a circle of cynicism can the firm overcome the problems they bemoan. 

            Clearly the benefits of a participatory culture are reduced absenteeism and turnover rates.  As stated above, though, the benefits extend beyond reduced absenteeism and turnover rates.  Having employees focused on issues other than that which should be their primary focus, in this case the human-resource managers concerning themselves with issues other than recruitment and retention, is a real achievement.  These employees are owners in the true sense.  They have moved beyond the issues and wondering whether or not a task is part of their “job description.”  The people who work in these types of firms constantly have their eye on the ball.  They concern themselves with running a business.

            At this point, you should have an understanding of how I categorized the firms, the types of culture found within the organizations, and the benefits of a participatory culture.  This next section, however, gets into more detail.  In this next section I will present some initial analysis that will provide you with a more numerical and theoretical understanding of how I placed the firms.  I will show you the quantity of mechanisms that would be found within the categorized firms and if and how I made judgments about where to place a firm within a particular category.

Defining Attributes

            Now that you have a familiarity with the firm types, let me present the analyses run to show the defining attributes of each firm.  The following tables show cross tabulations and how each firm’s characteristics place it within their respective category.

Within this analysis, I utilize indices. The indices consist of summed items for each category: training, shared information, employee-involvement mechanisms, and short-term incentives.  (One note on this method.  When I computed the totals, I included the category of other for each component.  For example, although the listed number of training items without other is four, one could have a score of five given that the respondent provided a response to other.)  Therefore, if a company provides two forms of training, then that company would have received a value of 2.  The range for the indices are:  training—0 to 7, shared information—0 to 5, employee-involvement mechanisms—0 to 5, and short-term incentives—0 to 6.

            Tables 1 - 4 provide a snap shot of firm culture to the respective components for participation and re-enforce graphically—in tabular form—the characteristics defined earlier.  Take, for example, the underminer category.  From the tables, one sees that these types of firms provide a decent amount of training and information, but then they are woefully inadequate and retract sharply when it comes to supplying mechanisms for participation.  Contrast this categorization with the participatory category.  In the participatory category, the firm goes out of its way to provide training, information, and mechanisms for participation.  This provision is starker when one considers the options available on the questionnaire (please see appendix 1).  Given that 33% of participatory firms provide six forms of training and there are only seven forms when one includes other, then these firms are stressing training.  This pattern continues throughout the components in terms of shared information and mechanisms for participation.

            The differences within the firms become more apparent when reviewing short-term incentives.  Participatory firms fail to provide short-term incentives.  Again, compared against the underminer firms, participatory firms do not engage in such practices.  Underminer firms, however, utilize short-term incentives greatly.  What appears to be happening is that participatory firms focus on providing a decent environment in which to work.  Underminer firms provide only half of the arrangement, and then try and rely on money—or bribes—in order to motivate their employees.

            This issue of short-term incentives seems to be one that centers predominantly on an attendance bonus.  The likely scenario is that a firm attempts to address absenteeism, and possibly turnover, by using money to encourage people to be at work.  The other components do not operate in a manner conducive to bribing.  Additionally, short-term incentives, in particular an attendance bonus, may be wreaking havoc on the analyses performed.  Therefore, an analysis that focuses on all of the components minus short-term incentives seems appropriate.  The analysis of the index against absenteeism reveals nothing significant.  However, the analysis of the index against turnover reveals a significant relationship between providing training, sharing information, and employee-involvement mechanisms and reduced turnover rates (Table 5).

From Table 5, we can see that there is a relationship between offering the components necessary for involvement and turnover [4] .  What is most striking is that there is any relationship of significance at all.  However, a relationship exists nonetheless, but the problem is in interpretation.  From the results, I am unable to determine what one should do.  There seems to be an indication that having more components of participation correlates with reduced turnover, but the results are mostly ambiguous. What I think is appropriate is that future researchers who have a larger sample size can utilize the information garnered conceptually and re-test this analysis. 

            Now, looking at the preceding tables does allow a reader to make some observations warranting explanation.  From the tables, one can see that there are a few underminers who do offer a decent amount of mechanisms for participation.  Fair enough.  Allow me to explain.  Given that the overriding characteristic of the underminer category is that the firm provides training and information but thwarts participation, then comments or other questions that allow me to infer their culture compelled me to place them into that category.  For example, Respondent 5 does provide all mechanisms for participation.  However, on the question of importance of employee representation to management, the firm stated that they were indifferent.  This is especially striking when they answered that employee development and training was important and long-term strategic planning was most important.  This type of answering scheme was similar to that of respondent 12, which also circled all of the employee-involvement mechanisms.  In this case, however, the respondent stated that employee representation to management was of least concern.  Finally, respondent 13, which circled 3 of the 5 employee-involvement mechanisms with one being other, answered similar to that of Respondent 5.

            Moving on to the draconian category, the most telling aspect of this company type came from the comments.  These companies generally provided no components of a participatory culture, but then they went the next step and stated, in the open-ended questions, that there were problems with employees.  Often these problems centered around the poor quality of the labor pool and how the community—meaning the schools—did a poor job of preparing people for the work force.  While it may be true that the community is doing a poor job, the reality of the situation is that all employers within a community face the same problems.  If the firms are not going to do anything to increase the value nor provide skills to employees, then the firms will always face the same problems.

            The non-participatory category can best be described as the typical firm.  It is true that they offer training, shared information, and mechanisms for participation.  But these are the typical and usual instruments offered in any type of firm.  When reviewing the types of training offered, 82% of non-participatory firms offer an employee orientation and 64% provide a management/supervisor training course (Analyses performed but not presented in tabular form.).  This is not very exciting.  While it does explain why there is at least some training going on in this category, the type of training states the obvious: there is little to no participation happening in these firms.  The point becomes more obvious when 42% of non-participatory firms have a board representative as their employee-involvement mechanism (See appendix 1 for comments on the issue with this question.)  While this may be the case, having a management board representative who is from management does little in terms of providing non-management personnel with a voice.  This category represents what is typical of many companies—non-participatory, have the employees show up for work, do their jobs, and go home.  This may work for some, but the results are mediocre at best.

            Now, let us review the numbers for the participatory firm.  The participatory firm is one that goes out of its way to provide tools and means for the employee.  As stated, the firm provides 6 of 7, with the seventh item being other, training areas.  In terms of shared information, the company again provides 4 of 5, with the fifth being other.  When considering employee-involvement mechanisms, 55% of the firms offer 2 mechanisms and 33% grant 3.  The strengths of this category become even more apparent when reviewing the open-ended questions.  Participatory companies focus on issues other than finding and hiring good employees.  These firms direct their attention to running a business.

Summary

            At this point, the reader should know how I assigned firms into their respective culture.  The process was to review each survey and the questions on each survey.  From those questions, I took notes on how the respondents replied to the various questions.  Based on the responses, I crosschecked them against other questions that highlighted the value placed for the respective questions.  The ultimate crosscheck questions were the last two that allowed the respondent to provide hand-written responses.

            The essence of categorizing each firm was to draw upon inference and to make judgments about each firm.  Based on the theoretical section outlined in chapter 2, I was able to determine if a firm was participatory or not.  Utilizing my established benchmarks, I categorized firms into their respective culture.

            The next chapter is where I present the research and analysis performed.  So as to make the transition as smooth as possible and to foretell what will occur, I provide an overall depiction of my logic and what I intend to execute.

Logic: A firm exists.  A firm has a culture.  That culture has an impact on employees.  The manifestation of that impact is an employee’s willingness to be at work and stay with the firm or not, depending on the culture.

Evaluation Performed/Question asked: Do firms that have an employee-participatory culture have lower rates of absenteeism and turnover?

Evaluation Benchmarks: Compare the cultures within the firms against the characteristics of an employee-participatory culture.

Instrument used: The method for identifying the culture of the firm and its relationship to absenteeism and turnover is a survey (Please see the introduction and appendix 1 for more specifics on the survey and population).  In a focus group with 15 human-resource managers in November 1999, the managers stated that employee satisfaction, as measured by low absenteeism and turnover rates, could affect higher corporate performance.  Given the knowledge gained from this focus group, a survey was constructed and then conducted in March 2000 to measure employee satisfaction and how the company can deliver it.

Analysis—Quantitative: Measure the variables within the broad categories of training, sharing information, mechanisms for participation, and financial incentives against absenteeism and turnover rates.

Analysis—Qualitative: Review hand-written information to determine the climate within the surveyed firms.  Identify firms that share common characteristics.  (Already performed the initial part of this section.)  Investigate the absenteeism and turnover rates of the categorized firms.

            Quantitative variables: The following variables from the survey are analyzed.

The primary focus is on training, sharing information, mechanisms for participation, and short-term incentives.  The method for measuring their existence within this survey was to ask respondents if they provided the components listed after the following DoL factors.

Independent variables:

            Training: employee orientation, financial, problem solving, team building, management/supervisor, and computer skills [5] .

            Sharing information: customer-satisfaction indicators, financial information, safety information, and strategic-planning information [6] .

Mechanisms for participation: joint labor/management committees, problem-solving teams, self-directed work teams, and board representation [7] . 

Short-term incentives: profit sharing, year-end bonuses, gain sharing, attendance bonus, and cross-training incentive [8] .

Dependent Variables: Absenteeism and turnover rates.

Qualitative guideposts: My guide used to categorize firms based on culture was identified in chapter 2.  The pertinent points of a participatory culture identified serve as guideposts to direct the analysis and determine the extent to which firms are participatory.  (Some identification already performed.  However, chapter 2 still guides the research.)

Now that we know what we seek, how we will identify it, and where we will look, let us proceed to the analysis.