Organizational Surveys: Tools for Assessment and Change (J-B SIOP Professional Practice Series) [Paperback]

Allen I. Kraut (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0787902349 | ISBN-13: 978-0787902346 | Publication Date: June 21, 1996 | Edition: 1

With escalating demands upon research and assessment growing more varied, surveys are now used to assess and drive organizational change by examining company performance, customer and employee satisfaction, empowerment, and key aspects of corporate culture.

With Organizational Surveys, you'll learn how to:
* Drive change with surveys
* Use 360* feedback
* Set expectations of results
* Deal with ethical concerns
* Facilitate feedback, action-planning, and follow-through . . . and much more!

No other book approaches this collection's range and specificity, or its emphasis on actual practice in organizations. It's your indispensible toolbox for assessment and change!

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Unprecedented competitive pressures are driving companies to employ organizational surveys in ways undreamed of in past years. With escalating demands upon research and assessment growing more varied, surveys are now used to assess and drive organizational change by examining company performance, customer and employee satisfaction, empowerment, and key aspects of corporate culture. Award-winning researcher and consultant Allen I. Kraut has brought together many of the best practitioners in the business in this wide-ranging "report from the field" on how surveys are used in leading organizations and how these tools are likely to be used in the future. Highly experienced and well-known contributors from Allstate Insurance, Delta Consulting, Ford, IBM, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, W.W. Burke Associates, and other top firms examine critical elements common to the survey process. All of the contributors stay focused on actual practice in real organizations. Learn about:

• Driving change with surveys
• Using 360° feedback
• Setting expectations of results
• Dealing with ethical concerns
• Facilitating feedback, action-planning, and follow-through...and much more!

From the Back Cover

Unprecedented competitive pressures are driving companies to employ organizational surveys in ways undreamed of in past years. With escalating demands upon research and assessment growing more varied, surveys are now used to assess and drive organizational change by examining company performance, customer and employee satisfaction, empowerment, and key aspects of corporate culture.
Award-winning researcher and consultant Allen I. Kraut has brought together many of the best practitioners in the business in this wide-ranging "report from the field" on how surveys are used in leading organizations and how these tools are likely to be used in the future. Highly experienced and well-known contributors from Allstate Insurance, Delta Consulting, Ford, IBM, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, W.W. Burke Associates, and other top firms examine critical elements common to the survey process. All of the contributors stay focused on actual practice in real organizations.
Learn about:

• Driving change with surveys
  
• Using 360° feedback
  
• Setting expectations of results
  
• Dealing with ethical concerns
  
• Facilitating feedback, action-planning, and follow-through...and much more!

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Pfeiffer; 1 edition (June 21, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787902349
• ISBN-13: 978-0787902346
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #352,916 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive - but needs an update to accommodate internet surveys and other methodological developments., January 18, 2006

By 

D. Stuart "Researcher at Kudos" (Auckland NZ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Organizational Surveys: Tools for Assessment and Change (J-B SIOP Professional Practice Series) (Paperback)

I purchased this 418pp volume in 1998 and recently re-read this book to reacquaint myself with the rich material. What Kraut has done as an editor is to select 35 pertinent papers that discuss Organizational Surveys under three main heading:
1) Purposes and uses.
2) The Survey process.
3) Special applications - such as linking survey results to "hard" figures such as productivity and performance.

The book is packed with sage advice, both academic and practical. For example it counsels researchers to work closely with insiders in order to get the most useful surveys, and it spends many pages discussing the questions of implementing the recommendations and the whole issue of raising employee expectations by even conducting surveys.

But what a lot has occurred in the 10 years since this book was edited. I find on re-reading that several cutting-edge ideas (linking internal results to customer satisfaction measures) are fairly standard now; and of-course the advent of web-based online surveys has had a major effect upon the practicability and style of conducting employee research. Online surveys, with their wonderful capacity to capture open-enders, really enable researchers to glue their quant findings much closer to qualitative styles of research including focus groups (given scant coverage here) and ethnography: the act of observing how the organisation does things. In essence, I don't feel the collection of papers deals quite adequately with the central question: what is it that makes organizational research and surveys different from other kinds of research.

One key difference is the question of culture, and the way sub-units within an organisation may act as distinct and cohesive "tribes" capable of affirming, or subverting the overall objectives of the organisation by applying their sense of values, sense of fairness and sense of direction to their day-to-day involvement. Fascinating stuff - but this volume only discusses such issues in a generic manner.

In short, the publishers might be prompted to consider a new updated edition. This book was state of the art 10 years ago, but its relevance is diminishing. I still give it four stars (just) because of the quality of the writing and the value of its insights - but the book is no longer solid gold. There's rust appearing on the bodywork, and readers will need to find other volumes to accompany this one. That's not a bad approach because the subject-matter has evolved quickly.

21 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Was good to the last chapter...then was a downer., December 10, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Oklahoma City, Ok) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Organizational Surveys: Tools for Assessment and Change (J-B SIOP Professional Practice Series) (Paperback)

Book covers a wide variety of survey topics very well. I underlined a great many thoughts. One thought that occured to me was that I was on my way to doing Organizational Surveys. But at the end was warned "I would be a 'bounder' if I read a few books and started practicing." It seems this book's final conclusion is that you need to join the Union to do surverys, ie. be a phd or working under one. The book was still a great value.