High Performance Work Organization: Improving Oregon's Competitiveness in the Global Economy.

Because of increasing competition resulting from globalization of the economy, Oregonians have, in the past 8 years, experienced declines in income and standard of living despite the creation of 300,000 new jobs in the state. Many experts have stated that work organization and management style are the key to gaining the competitive edge in an increasingly global economy. High performance work organizations are firms that give top priority to product quality and customer service and that achieve high levels of productivity, efficiency, and innovation by giving frontline workers better skills, broader responsibility, and more authority. Oregon has good reason to encourage its firms to consider the high performance model. Included among the actions that Oregon might consider to promote the high performance model are the following: informing business, industry, and educators about the model and its potential for improving productivity and competitiveness; establishing a training fund to be managed by business and labor; providing technical assistance to firms; establishing continuous improvement users' groups; teaching high performance in schools from middle school onward; making the Oregon Quality Award available to all firms; and adopting International Standards Organization certification as a new Oregon benchmark for key industry development. (Contains 34 references.) (MN)