An analysis of staffing efficiency in U.S. manufacturing: 1983 and 1989

Peter Ward, James Storbeck, Stephen Mangum and Patricia Byrnes

Annals of Operations Research, 1997, vol. 73, issue 0, 67-89

Abstract: A DEA framework is used to examine changes in administrative employment in U.S. manufacturing industries between 1983 and 1989, using data collected by the U.S. Department of Labor. Among other findings, the analysis suggests that production technology is an important factor in explaining inter-industry differences in administrative staffing. In addition, "best practice" staffing efficiencies for Batch industries are shown to hold a distinct (and statistically significant) advantage over that for Line industries. On related issues, this research uncovers no evidence of the "dramatic decreases" in overhead staffing that were suggested in the popular business press during this time period. Clear structural differences in administrative staffing intensities, however, are noted with respect to manufacturing production technology. In their usage of overhead staff, Batch industries tend to be more "professional-worker" intensive, while Line industries are relatively more "non-professional-worker" intensive. These patterns hold up over time and are statistically con-firmed in an analysis of DEA "cones". Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 1997

Date: 1997
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1023/A:1018901916907 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:annopr:v:73:y:1997:i:0:p:67-89:10.1023/a:1018901916907

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/10479

DOI: 10.1023/A:1018901916907

Access Statistics for this article

Annals of Operations Research is currently edited by Endre Boros

More articles in Annals of Operations Research from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().