The leader's choice

• Autores: Thomas A. Kochan
• Localización: MIT Sloan management review, ISSN 1532-9194, Vol. 57, Nº 1, 2015, págs. 69-73
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • High-road companies seek to compete through high productivity, innovation, and quality customer service that both require and support high wages and good job and career opportunities for employees. The low-road strategy seeks profits and shareholder returns by minimizing costs and controlling labor in ways that keep wages low for most employees and/or independent contractors. Two decades of research on high-road companies have documented their ability to achieve world-class productivity and service quality in industries as diverse as steel, autos, airlines, telecommunications, apparel, health care, computers, and semiconductors. Southwest Airlines Co., headquartered in Dallas, Texas, is often viewed as the prototype high-road company. Over the past 30 years, it has been the most profitable airline in the United States. In the summer of 2014, residents of New England witnessed one of the most vivid examples of the power of a high-road leadership and business strategy with Market Basket, a family-owned grocery store. High-road practices and systems are not spread across organizations and, in fact, they seem to have declined somewhat in the past decade. If all managers understood and accepted the value of the high-road model and worked together to promote it, the pace of economic progress would accelerate, fueled by the incomes of a growing middle class.