Lessons from the ‘made in Switzerland’ study: What makes a world-class manufacturer?

Many executives are currently striving to develop world-class manufacturing operations to ensure that they remain competitive in increasingly global markets. To do this, they are adopting a range of practices, from organisational changes such as empowerment and teamwork to the use of techniques such as pull production. Their goal is to substantially improve performance: faster cycle times, reduced manufacturing costs and greater customer satisfaction.The question of how far companies have moved towards world-class manufacturing is at the heart of the ‘Made in Switzerland’ project, a major benchmarking study of Swiss manufacturing practice and performance. The study was carried out in 1995 by IMD faculty and researchers working with consultants from IBM Switzerland. It is part of the internationally-based ‘Made in Europe’ project comprising similar studies in the UK, Germany, The Netherlands and Finland.The central hypothesis of the studies is that the adoption of best practice leads to high performance. The objective is to establish a benchmarking database for participating manufacturers around the world. The studies, which are highly structured, examine six areas of manufacturing practice and performance in detail and assess the relationship between them at individual plants. The areas covered in the study are quality, organisation and culture, concurrent engineering, logistics, lean production and manufacturing systems.Plants in each country are grouped according to their position on the practice and performance indices and then studied in order to pinpoint the issues and challenges facing the manufacturers within that group. Less than three per cent of the 800 plants currently on the ‘Made in Europe’ database are considered ‘world-class’. Yet for manufacturers striving to reach this level of performance, this small minority can provide some valuable insights for the way ahead.This article discusses many of the issues raised by the analysis described above, with particular reference to the ‘Made in Switzerland’ study. In the first section, it looks at the key lessons arising from the Swiss study and what insights these can provide for manufacturers, not only in the Swiss market, but across Europe. In the second section, it looks at how the study can be used for benchmarking and provides manufacturers with some general recommendations to help them focus their improvements and move closer to becoming world-class.     

Career Adaptability in Adults: A Construct Whose Time Has Come

This article describes Donald Super's construct of adaptability and reviews research on the construct. The review is followed by a discussion of related counseling research that uses the construct, and research in the area of organizational psychology that addresses the concept but does not use the term. The author summarizes other approaches to the need for adaptability in adult career development, and finally, presents suggestions for practitioners.     

Planning for permanency planning in foster care

The perceived severity of the problem of “drift” in the foster care system has encouraged agencies nationwide to accept permanency planning, but perhaps with limited attention to the planning process. This article examines the phenomenon of permanency planning from a planning perspective by focusing on: (a) definition of the permanency planning problem, (b) understanding of issues relevant to permanency planning (caseworker, program and systemic), (c) appreciation of the operational context (political, economic and social factors), and (d) evaluation of available options and possible consequences in developing or improving a permanency planning program. Permanency planning is not a simple, ready-made program applicable to any situation; it involves coordinated efforts by workers, service systems, and society in general, and requires time, commitment and resources. Successful planning for permanency planning can permit more children to grow up in homes providing continuity and stability.     

Three faces of cruelty: Towards a comparative sociology of violence

Conclusion In our contemporary society, ferocious cruelty is no longer structurally induced; it is no longer part of the dominant ceremonial order, although we still find individual cases. In this sense, modern society appears more humane. But at the same time, the dangers of callousness increase; and the technological efficiency of modern instruments of destruction makes its consequencess all the more appalling while it hides them from view. Between these opposing trends, ascetic cruelty has had its ups and downs, cresting during periods of mobilized conflict.There is no evolutionary trend towards kindness and happiness. Ferociousness once increased, then declined; callousness and asceticism now oppose each other as defenders and challengers of the status quo. And the institutionalized asceticism of a victorious revolutionary movement easily amalgamates with the callousness of an established bureaucratic regime.The demons can be exorcised, but only by seeing them for what they are. Those who claim that the demons can be exorcised only by action in the world, not by theorizing about them, seem to be possessed by demons of their own, especially the demon of asceticism; one senses here the communal hostility of the ascetic to the individual luxury of intellectual contemplation. And here is the danger. Those who deny everything for the self deny it as well for others; our altruism, taken too exclusively, is an infinite regress, passing a bucket from hand to hand that never reaches the fire. When we act, we call out the demons to meet us. Be careful: they are ourselves.     

Public attitudes toward the use of psychiatric medications for children

Psychiatric medication use for children has increased dramatically over the past three decades. Despite substantial media attention to the issue, little is known about how the lay public feels about the use of psychiatric medications for children. Drawing on theories of medicalization, we describe and analyze Americans' attitudes towards the use of psychiatric medications generally and Prozac specifically for children described as having three types of behavioral problems. Using data from the 1998 General Social Survey's Pressing Issues in Health and Medical Care Module, we find that more Americans (57%) are willing to use psychiatric medications for children who have expressed suicidal statements than for "oppositional" behaviors (34.2%) or for hyperactivity (29.5%). Across the board, respondents are less willing to give Prozac than the general class of psychiatric medications. While socio-demographics do little to identify Americans with differing positions, the strongest and most consistent correlates of willingness to give psychiatric medications to children are trust in personal physicians, general attitudes towards psychiatric medications, and the respondent's expressed willingness to take psychiatric medications herself or himself.     

Substance use and vulnerability to sexual and physical aggression: a longitudinal study of young adults

Using data from 2,170 individuals who participated in Waves 8 (age 23) and 9 (age 29) of a multiyear panel study, this study examined whether alcohol and marijuana use in young adulthood increase one's risk for experiencing subsequent sexual or physical assault victimization, whether victims' own violent behavior or involvement in the sale of drugs explain any effects of substance use on victimization, and whether these associations differ by gender. Controlling for prior victimization, we found that marijuana use, but not alcohol use, predicted women's and men's subsequent sexual victimization and men's subsequent physical assault victimization, and that heavy alcohol use, but not marijuana use, predicted women's subsequent physical assault victimization. Whereas the links from marijuana use to victimization were explained by users' own violent behavior, the link from alcohol use to women's physical assault victimization was not.     

Out-of-Home Placement of Children and Economic Factors: An Empirical Analysis

In this paper, we use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) to estimate the effects of income, maternal employment, family structure, and public policies on several measures of childrens living arrangements. We use both linear probability models and discrete-time event history models to explore the effects of these factors on: (1) the probability that a child is living out-of-home in a given year; (2) the probability that a child is removed from home in a given year, conditional on the child living at home in the previous year; (3) the probability that a child is removed from home for the first time; (4) the probability that a child is reunified with his/her biological parent(s) given that the child was living out-of-home in the previous year. We also analyze whether these estimates differ by types of out-of-home placements. Our results suggest that children from lower-income, single-mother, and mother–partner families are considerably more likely both to be living out-of-home and to be removed from home. A change in family structure also tends to place a child at higher risk of an out-of-home living arrangement, unless this transition functions to bring a childs father back into the household. Maternal work appears to increase the probability that a child lives at home. Additionally, once a removal has taken place, we do not find a relationship between income and the probability of a family reunification, but we do find that single-mother and mother–partner families are less likely to reunify. Finally, our analyses provide some evidence that welfare benefit levels are negatively related to out-of-home placements.Funding for this project was provided the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development through grant number 5 F32 HD044 302-02. We are grateful to Shoshana Grossbard-Shechtman, Jennifer Hill, Sanders Korenman, Leonard Lopoo, Katherine Magnuson, and Christina Paxson for their excellent comments and advice.JEL Classification: D10, I30, J13     

Aspects of guilt and self-reported substance use in adolescence

The use of addictive substances is undergoing moralization in American society-behaviors once viewed as personal preferences now carry moral significance. Research has shown that sociomoral emotions like guilt, thought to be reflective of one's internalized standards and societal mores, can be an important influence on behavior. The present study explored the relationship between college students' self-reports of adolescent substance use (cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana) and scores on indices tapping different aspects of guilt (Standards, Situational, and Chronic Guilt). Participants were 230 undergraduate students (mean age = 19; 55 percent female; 69 percent White). Substance users had lower scores on Standards and Situational Guilt than non-users, but no difference was observed in Chronic Guilt. The present results suggest that a stronger internalization of societal standards, as reflected by higher scores on Standards and Situational Guilt, may prove a useful tool in the prevention of substance use.     

The effects of early maternal employment on child cognitive development

We investigated the effects of early maternal employment on children's cognitive outcomes, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth on 1,872 children who can be followed from birth to age 7 or 8. We found some persistent adverse effects of first-year maternal employment and some positive effects of second- and third-year maternal employment on cognitive outcomes for non-Hispanic white children, but not for African American or Hispanic children. These effects are present even after we controlled for a range of individual and family characteristics that affect child development, including those that are likely to be correlated with maternal employment, such as breast-feeding and the use of nonmaternal child care. Controlling for family fixed effects reduces the effects of early maternal employment on some cognitive outcomes but not on others.