NOS 1991

1. NOS 1991 • For decades, sociologists have been studying workplace structures and resources allocations. • However, available empirical data from U.S. census bureau provide little knowledge of workplace information. • Large national datasets such as CPS, SIPP, PSID all have workplace module, which collected information from workers’ perspective.

2. NOS 1991 • Lack of available dataset restricts organization researchers to using qualitative methods such as case studies, in-depth interviews to investigate a very limited number of organizations. • The situation drastically changed when the 1991 National Organizations Survey (NOS) comes out in 1990s. • Indeed, the NOS 1991 is the most successful national organizations survey in American Sociology during the 20th century!!

3. The Success • To give you an idea, the following are major publications using NOS 1991 • Marsden, Kalleberg, and Knoke 2002 “Surveying Organizational Structures and Human Resource Practices” • Kalleberg, Knoke, Marsden, and Spaeth. 1996. Organizations in America: analyzing their structures and human resource practices Thousand Oaks, Calif. :  Sage Publications • And at least 20 more manuscripts on peer reviewed journals including Kalleberg and Knoke 1994 on ASR and Yang, Song 2003 on Sociological Focus

4. Changing the Landscape • The emergence of 1991 NOS changed the landscape of organization studies for American Sociologists and Business Professors. Below is a detailed description of this project

5. Goals of NOS • To understand American organizations structuration such as bureaucracy and high performance organizations • Better understand complex organizations, and social stratification within organizations setting • Understand better whether American organizations are operated as a atomic close systems, or open systems, • How the contextual factors in technical and non-technical aspects effect organizations in-practice

6. Goals of NOS • Internal organizations structure and its pioneer researchers are Blau and Schoenherr (1971) about formalization, and Aston group 1969, who found tremendous variation among orgs in their differentiation, formalization, and decision centralization • External technical influence with its pioneer researcher of Lawrence and Lorsch 1967, who found complexity and uncertainty are key dimensions to which organizations must adjust

7. Institutionalization • Institutional theorists (Meyer and Rowan 1977; DiMaggio and Powell 1983) stated that non-technical aspects of institutionalization exerts external effects on organizational in-practice. • Central concerns of old and new structualism is that individual social-economic outcomes not only result from individual attributes, but also consequences of supraindividual constructs such as classes, labor market sectors.

8. Matched Dataset • A critical questions is how to collect data from establishment (organization) and individuals working in the establishments levels. • 1990 Lincoln and Kalleberg surveys of manufacturing plants and their employees in Indianapolis and Atsugi, Japan • Bridges and Villemez 1994 studies modern HR practices in Chicago, Illinois area. • Tomaskovic-Devey 1993 studies of gender and racial segregation in establishments and workers in North Carolina.

9. Methodology • Researchers encountered many difficulties and made great accomplishments in implementing the NOS 1991 design, which is detailed documented in Spaeth and O’Rourke (1994). • Many theoretical concerns in previous section requires cross-level data of both individuals and their workplaces. • Several levels of organization survey: work position, subunits, establishments/workplaces, firms

10. Which one to Use • Establishment, defined as a workplace at a specific geographic location. • UARK credit union at the 6th street is an establishment, whereas UARK credit union is a firm • An establishment/workplace encompasses most employment, and managers are quite knowledgeable about their HR policies. • Some issues are pertinent to individuals, so the research design also encompasses questionnaire items for individual workers within establishments

11. Sampling • Organization surveys have generalizability issue • Survey with fortune 500 gravitates toward large size establishments,. Findings from those survey cannot be readily generalized to represent many median and small size of American workplaces • Findings from surveys within a certain industry such as informational technology, pharmaceutical industry cannot be generalized to other types of industries. But the trade off is that those surveys generally yield detailed background info.

12. National Representatives • Many countries have a comprehensive rosters of employers, such as England, Norway, and Sweden. U.S. does not (the new Dun’s list have several major problems but was later improved). • Multiplicity and hyper-network sampling, in essence, this design ensures that random sampling of individuals necessarily yields a random samples of employers. • Because large organizations are more likely to be selected due to this random sampling from individuals, this method equals PPS.

13. NOS sample • Consequently, NOS 1991 has a disproportional large size organizations. • NOS 1991 is linked to GSS 1991. ICPSR contains both NOS and GSS 1991, one needs to download both dataset and carefully match up each case to form a combined dataset of NOS/GSS dataset, which is used in Yang’s (2003) paper examining structural (establishments) interactions with occupations (individuals) in affecting commitment (individuals).