CHANGING ORGANIZATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS AND
TRAINING PROGRAMS*
Song Yang
Anna Zajicek
Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice
211 Old Main
University of Arkansas
Fayetteville, AR 72701
*Direct all correspondence to Song Yang by email at yangw@cavern.uark.edu or by writing to
Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, 211 Old Main, University of Arkansas,
Fayetteville, AR 72701. We are grateful to Erin Kelly who provided and explained her dataset
for this project. We thank Ivo Beloubek and Susan West for their research assistance.
Data
We use the 1997 National Organizational Survey of Human Resources Policies, with
principal investigators as Frank Dobbin and Erin Kelly. The sampling frame was from the wellknown Dun and Bradstreet Market Identifier dataset. Dun and Bradstreet initially provided 1,714
organizations, among which 1,478 establishments with at least 50 employees were declared as
eligible for the study. This list of 1,478 establishments was stratified by size and industry prior to
random sampling selection, which later produced a randomly selected 695 establishments.
Interviewers first sent letters out to the 695 establishments, followed by telephone interviews.
Totally 389 establishments completed the telephone interviews, which yields an acceptable
response rate of 56 percent (389/695 = 56%).
The research is designed to study the diffusion of various human resources programs,
particularly work family practices, of U.S. organizations over the past 30 to 40 years.
Interviewers asked establishments’ human resources managers or functional equivalent
personnel who are knowledgeable of the history of the human resources policies. To analyze and
compare across sectors, researchers over-sampled public, non-profit, or large organizations.
Researchers used a minimum 50 employees as threshold to select establishments because those
with less than 50 workers are less likely to have written documents of various human resource
practices. Consequently, the sample consists employers more likely to have formalized human
resources policies than the general population of employers.
Measures
Training provided to core workers (core training) is our dependent variable, measured by
one questionnaire item: “Apart from one-the-job training, is your organization currently
providing core workers with formal training? (yes = 1; no = 0).” Researchers have defined core
workers as those workers with the job title that has the most employees at the establishment
(Dobbin and Kelly 1997).
This paragraph describes construction of our independent variables. Organization age is
measured by taking nature log of the actual age of the organization, calculated by subtracting the
year the establishment opened from 1997. Union is measured by a single question: “are core
workers in this establishment covered by a collective bargaining agreement? (yes = 1; no =0).”
Organization type is measured by asking “is this establishment an independent organization (1),
a branch or local office of a larger organization (2), or the headquarter for a multi-establishment
organization (3: the reference group in the regression)?” Minority percentage is measured by
subtracting the white worker percentage from 100. Women percentage is measured by asking
respondents to report the percentage of women employees in the establishment. Affirmative
Action plan is measured by asking whether organizations currently have a written affirmative
action plan (yes = 1; no = 0). Diversity policy is measured by asking respondents whether the
establishment currently have diversity policy (yes = 1; no = 0). Federal compliance is measured
by a single questionnaire item “has this establishment ever had a compliance review by the office
of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (yes = 1; no =0)?” Core worker occupation was
measured with a single questionnaire item “including both full-time and part-time employees,
what is the job title or position that has the most employees at this location?” Table 1 provides
descriptive statistics for all the variables in our analyses.
We investigate the historical data of workplace demography, institutionalization, high
performance practices, and training provision to study the changing characteristics of American
workplaces. The survey asked respondents to report the year when the training program started
and the year when the establishment was founded. We categorized organizations along the two
measures into six time slots: before World War Two, 1945-1959, 1960-1969, 1970-1979, 19801989, and 1990-1997. We then divide the number of organizations providing training programs
by the totally number of organizations alive during that period to produce the percentage of
organizations adopting training program for each historical period. For example, prior to WWII,
totally 12 establishments among the 116 active organizations had employee training programs,
producing a percentage of 10.34. In contrast, 266 organizations among the total 389
establishments adopted training programs from 1990 to 1997, producing an adoption rate of
68.38%.
Interviewers asked respondents to report the percentage of women and white employees
in 1967, 1977, 1987, and 1997. We compute the average percentage for the four time periods
respectively. The computation for diffusion of affirmative action plan, diversity policy, federal
compliance program, teamwork practice, and quality circle are similar to the method for training
program. We first classify organizations into four historical periods in terms of the first time they
had affirmative action plan, diversity policy, receiving federal compliance, adopting teamwork,
and quality circle. We then divide the numbers of organizations with those programs by the total
number of living organizations in that historical period to obtain the percentages in each period.
Findings
We first study the proliferation of a variety of organizational characteristics in training
provision, workforce composition, institutionalization, and high performance practices. We
found that 10.34 percent of organizations provided training to their workers before WWII. That
number has been increasing to 14.11 percent during 1945 to 1959, 20.98 percent during 1960s,
33.45 percent during 1970s, 53.58 percent during 1980s, and 68.38 percent during 1990s. To
save space, we produce four figures to succinctly illustrate our findings of the changes in
different organizational characteristics. Figure 1 shows that the percentage of organizations with
training programs has been increasing with an accelerating rate. Figure 2 displays that women
and minority percentage in U.S. workplaces have been increasing from 1967 to 1997 at an
almost constant rate. Women percentage has been leading minority percentage by approximately
20 percent. From 1987, women account for more than half of total employees, after which the
rate of increase is slightly lower than it was before 1987. In 1997, minority workers account for a
little less than 30 percent of total number of employees. Figure 3 demonstrates the diffusion of
organizational institutionalization over time with three indicators. Organizational diversity
policy, denoted in the figure by a thick solid line, has been diffusing at an accelerate rate. More
than 20 percent of establishments adopted diversity policy from 1990 to 1997. The percentage of
organizations receiving periodic federal compliance scrutiny, indicated by the dotted line in
figure 3, has been increasing till 1979, after which the percentage remains unchanged till 1997.
The percentage of organizations adopting affirmative action plan, indicated by the thin solid line,
have been increasing drastically from about 6 percent before 1970 to 25 percent during 1980s,
after which the number dropped to less than 20 percent from 1990 to 1997. Figure 4 illustrates
the trend of change in the number of organizations adopting high performance practices of
teamwork and quality circle. Teamwork practice, indicated by the solid line, has been increasing
dramatically since 1970s till 1997, when 25 percent of organizations had teamwork. Quality
circle has been diffusing at a slow rate till 1979, followed by a drastic increase till 1989, then
followed by a slight increase till 1997.
Table 1 reports descriptive statistics of the variables in the analysis. Approximately 79
percent of organizations provided training to their core workers. Women on the average account
for more than half of workforce in current American organizations, whereas non-white minority
workers account for a little less than 30 percent of the entire workforce. Although 66 percent of
companies embrace affirmative action plan, only 33 percent have diversity policy and 34 percent
received federal compliance scrutiny. About 34 percent of organizations implement quality circle
or teamwork programs. Totally 66 out of 218 organizations are completely independent
establishments, 77 are branch establishments, 75 are organizational headquarters. Among the 218
organizations reporting their core occupations, 25 of them have managerial core occupation, 70
have professional/technical core occupation, 29 have low-level white collar as their core
occupation, and 94 have manual labor core occupation.
To investigate variation in training provision to core workers among different
organizations, we conducted logistic regression analysis of the core training provision (training
provided = 1, not provided = 0). Table 2 reports that each unit of increase in women percentage
decreases the odds of training provision by 3 percent (1 – exp.(-0.029) = 0.03). Organizations
subject to federal programs compliance review have 273 percent higher odds of providing core
training than organizations not subject to such review programs. Organizations implementing
quality circle have 218 percent higher odds to provide core training than organizations without
quality circle programs. In the controlled variable, independent organizations have 63 percent
(1 – exp.(-.992)= .63) lower odds to provide core training than organizational headquarters. Due
to pairwise deletion for regression analysis, our sample size decreases drastically from 389 to
218 in our logistic regression. Consequently, our analysis are susceptible to sample selection
bias, a biased sample that can distort parameters estimates for regression analysis (Heckman
1979). To correct for such a possible bias, we apply heckman two-step procedure to our analysis
and report the results after such a correction.
Table 1: Descriptive Statistics of the Variables in the Analysis
Mean
Median St.d.
Variable types
Valid Cases
Core job training (the
dependent Variable)
0.79
1.00
0.40
Binary dummy
387
Organization age (logged)
3.40
3.49
1.06
Continuous
389
Women percentage
53.27
52.00
22.89
Continuous
369
Minority percentage
29.22
24.50
23.21
Continuous
334
Unionization
0.34
0.00
0.47
Binary dummy
387
Affirmative Action Plan
0.66
1.00
0.47
Binary dummy
384
Diversity Policy
0.33
0.00
0.47
Binary dummy
382
Federal Compliance
0.35
0.00
0.47
Binary dummy
346
Quality Circle
0.34
0.00
0.48
Binary dummy
382
Team Work
0.34
0.00
0.48
Binary dummy
379
Organization type
--
--
--
Multi-categorical
binary dummy
294
Core worker occupation
--
--
--
Multi-categorical
binary dummy
372
Table 2: Logistic Regression of Organization Core Training Provision
Coefficients
Constant
Organization characteristics
Organization age
Organization type (complete independent)
Organization type (a branch)
Organization type (reference: headquarter)
Core occupation (managerial)
Core occupation (professional/technical)
Core occupation (low white-collar)
Core occupation (reference: manual labor)
Workforce composition
Minority percentage
Women percentage
Institutionalization
Affirmative action plan
Diversity policy
Federal compliance
High performance practices
Quality circle
-.401
(.830)
-.088
(.184)
-.992*
(.475)
-.139
(.482)
-.269
(.682)
.309
(.459)
.265
(.623)
--
.004
(.008)
-.029***
(.009)
-.502
(.434)
.467
(.417)
1.317**
(.503)
χ2 (df)
1.158**
(.397)
.274
(.409)
40.742***(14)
Number of establishments
218
Teamwork
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Before WWII
1945-1959
1960s
1970s
YEARS
1980s
1990s
60
50
40
30
20
MINORITY
10
1967
WOMEN
1977
1987
YEARS
1997
.30
.25
.20
.15
.10
Af firmative Action
.05
Diversity Policy
0.00
Before 1970
1970s
1980s
Year
1990-1997
Federal Compliance
30.00
27.50
25.00
22.50
20.00
17.50
15.00
12.50
10.00
7.50
5.00
Team Work
2.50
0.00
Before 1970
Quality Circle
1970s
1980s
Years
1990-1997