This report examines high performance work organizations as a high-wage, high-skills response to the emergent global economy. Essentially growing out of the tradition of industrial democracy that emphasizes the importance of employee participation and representation, high performance work systems hold great promise as strategies to improve firm performance and labor standards. However, the United States has only a small percentage of firms that have made the transformation to high performance work systems. This report identifies the obstacles to this transformation and then analyzes policies at the state level designed to assist firms to overcome these obstacles.
--Author's foreword.
