A Look Back on 1942 Combatant Production: An Example of Successful Employee Empowerment at Higgins Industries

1995 ◽  
Vol 11 (03) ◽  
pp. 159-170
Author(s):  
Graham Haddock ◽  
Robert Latorre

World-class ship production in the United States will be achieved by shipyards using production planning based on the strengths of their workforce and technology base. While a large portion of technical literature deals with ship production technology, there is a growing awareness that the employee empowerment can realize substantial savings in labor hours and material usage. In 1942 the demands for military landing craft resulted in Higgins Industries opening two new boat building plants in New Orleans. By the cessation of hostilities in 1945, over two thousand 50–56 ft LCM landing craft and one hundred 180 ft FS cargo ships were delivered. The LCM and FS ship production were maintained in the face of wartime shortages in propulsion engines, steel, and a skilled workforce. This paper describes Higgins Industries' production planning and how what is now termed employee empowerment was utilized to achieve reduction in manhours and material usage. This ship production achievement 50 years ago provides many lessons in utilizing the workforce intelligence with a positive corporate culture to achieve world-class shipbuilding in the United States

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-281
Author(s):  
Sylvia Dümmer Scheel

El artículo analiza la diplomacia pública del gobierno de Lázaro Cárdenas centrándose en su opción por publicitar la pobreza nacional en el extranjero, especialmente en Estados Unidos. Se plantea que se trató de una estrategia inédita, que accedió a poner en riesgo el “prestigio nacional” con el fin de justificar ante la opinión pública estadounidense la necesidad de implementar las reformas contenidas en el Plan Sexenal. Aprovechando la inusual empatía hacia los pobres en tiempos del New Deal, se construyó una imagen específica de pobreza que fuera higiénica y redimible. Ésta, sin embargo, no generó consenso entre los mexicanos. This article analyzes the public diplomacy of the government of Lázaro Cárdenas, focusing on the administration’s decision to publicize the nation’s poverty internationally, especially in the United States. This study suggests that this was an unprecedented strategy, putting “national prestige” at risk in order to explain the importance of implementing the reforms contained in the Six Year Plan, in the face of public opinion in the United States. Taking advantage of the increased empathy felt towards the poor during the New Deal, a specific image of hygienic and redeemable poverty was constructed. However, this strategy did not generate agreement among Mexicans.


Author(s):  
William W. Franko ◽  
Christopher Witko

The authors conclude the book by recapping their arguments and empirical results, and discussing the possibilities for the “new economic populism” to promote egalitarian economic outcomes in the face of continuing gridlock and the dominance of Washington, DC’s policymaking institutions by business and the wealthy, and a conservative Republican Party. Many states are actually addressing inequality now, and these policies are working. Admittedly, many states also continue to embrace the policies that have contributed to growing inequality, such as tax cuts for the wealthy or attempting to weaken labor unions. But as the public grows more concerned about inequality, the authors argue, policies that help to address these income disparities will become more popular, and policies that exacerbate inequality will become less so. Over time, if history is a guide, more egalitarian policies will spread across the states, and ultimately to the federal government.


Author(s):  
Richard Gowan

During Ban Ki-moon’s tenure, the Security Council was shaken by P5 divisions over Kosovo, Georgia, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine. Yet it also continued to mandate and sustain large-scale peacekeeping operations in Africa, placing major burdens on the UN Secretariat. The chapter will argue that Ban initially took a cautious approach to controversies with the Council, and earned a reputation for excessive passivity in the face of crisis and deference to the United States. The second half of the chapter suggests that Ban shifted to a more activist pressure as his tenure went on, pressing the Council to act in cases including Côte d’Ivoire, Libya, and Syria. The chapter will argue that Ban had only a marginal impact on Council decision-making, even though he made a creditable effort to speak truth to power over cases such as the Central African Republic (CAR), challenging Council members to live up to their responsibilities.


2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-107
Author(s):  
Richard Francis Wilson

This article is a theological-ethical Lenten sermon that attempts to discern the transcendent themes in the narrative of Luke 9-19 with an especial focus upon “setting the face toward Jerusalem” and the subsequent weeping over Jerusalem. The sermon moves from a passage from William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying through a series of hermeneutical turns that rely upon insights from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., Will Campbell, Augustine, and Paul Tillich with the hope of illuminating what setting of the face on Jerusalem might mean. Tillich’s “eternal now” theme elaborates Augustine’s insight that memory and time reduce the present as, to paraphrase the Saint, that all we have is a present: a present remembered, a present experienced, and a present anticipated. The Gospel is a timeless message applicable to every moment in time and history. The sermon seeks to connect with recent events in the United States and the world that focus upon challenges to the ideals of social justice and political tyranny.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-477
Author(s):  
Sascha Lohmann

Abstract The ideal of the European Union (EU) as a global peace and security actor is increasingly clashing with the reality of a multipolar world defined by militarised conflict, and a loosening of the formerly close trans-Atlantic relationship with the United States. European policy-makers have identified strategic autonomy as a possible remedy in the face of a growing number of internal and external security threats. This paper adds to the conceptualisation of strategic autonomy by contextualising its current usage and political genealogy. Empirically, European strategic autonomy is examined concerning the efforts to preserve the Iranian nuclear deal after the Trump administration had ceased US participation in May 2018. In particular, the paper assesses the European response to counter the re-imposed unilateral United States (US) sanctions against European individuals and entities by updating the so-called blocking regulation, and setting up a special purpose vehicle (spv) for facilitating trade with Iran. The results show that the European struggle toward achieving strategic autonomy has largely failed, but that it holds valuable lessons to approximate this ideal in the future.


2021 ◽  

Politics in the United States has become increasingly polarized in recent decades. Both political elites and everyday citizens are divided into rival and mutually antagonistic partisan camps, with each camp questioning the political legitimacy and democratic commitments of the other side. Does this polarization pose threats to democracy itself? What can make some democratic institutions resilient in the face of such challenges? Democratic Resilience brings together a distinguished group of specialists to examine how polarization affects the performance of institutional checks and balances as well as the political behavior of voters, civil society actors, and political elites. The volume bridges the conventional divide between institutional and behavioral approaches to the study of American politics and incorporates historical and comparative insights to explain the nature of contemporary challenges to democracy. It also breaks new ground to identify the institutional and societal sources of democratic resilience.


2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 82-103
Author(s):  
Juhani Rudanko

This article focuses on face-threatening attacks on the Madison Administration during the War of 1812. The discussion is framed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, with the language of the Amendment protecting freedom of speech, and also by the Sedition Act of 1798, which, if it had been made permanent, would have seriously curtailed freedom of speech. The War of 1812 was intensely unpopular among members of the Federalist Party, and their newspapers did not shy away from criticising it. This article investigates writings published in the Boston Gazette and the Connecticut Mirror during the war. It is shown that the criticism took different forms, ranging from accusing President Madison of “untruths” to painting a picture of what was claimed to be the unmitigated hopelessness of his position, both nationally and internationally, and that the criticism also included harsh personal attacks on his character and motives. It is suggested that some of the attacks may be characterised as exhibiting aggravated impoliteness. The article also considers President Madison’s attitude in the face of the attacks.


Author(s):  
Kai Erikson

This chapter tells the story of peasants from rural Poland who entered a migrant stream around the turn of the twentieth century that carried them, along with tens of millions of others, across a number of clearly marked national borderlines as well as a number of unmarked cultural ones. The peasants were a couple named Piotr and Kasia Walkowiak, and the words spoken by them as well as the events recalled here are based on the hundreds of letters and diaries gathered in the 1910s by two sociologists from the University of Chicago, W. I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki. The chapter first describes the world into which Piotr and Kasia were born, focusing on family, village, and land. It then considers their journey, together with millions of other immigrants, and how they changed both the face of Europe and the face of the United States.


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 366-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masumi Ueda ◽  
Renato Martins ◽  
Paul C. Hendrie ◽  
Terry McDonnell ◽  
Jennie R. Crews ◽  
...  

The first confirmed case of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the United States was reported on January 20, 2020, in Snohomish County, Washington. At the epicenter of COVID-19 in the United States, the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and University of Washington are at the forefront of delivering care to patients with cancer during this public health crisis. This Special Feature highlights the unique circumstances and challenges of cancer treatment amidst this global pandemic, and the importance of organizational structure, preparation, agility, and a shared vision for continuing to provide cancer treatment to patients in the face of uncertainty and rapid change.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (14) ◽  
Author(s):  
David F. Lozano Treviño ◽  
José N. Barragán Codina ◽  
Sergio Guerra Moya ◽  
Paula Villalpando Cadena

Abstract: The main purpose of this document is to give statement of the importance that the innovative ideas of the Mexican commercial films organizations have, so they can create attractive movies for the spectators in the United States market and increase the film business. Also, we discuss the need that the organizations have to create production plans that allow them to reduce the costs, as much as possible, during the production. This will be the beginning to develop an appropriate commercializing into the United States by the Mexican organizations that will allow us to obtain an attractive revenue,always looking towards the United State customers´ satisfaction. Finally, we analyze the critical factors of success or failure in the Mexican commercial film productions, taking into account the financial aspects, like the production investment, government supports and the return over the investment; theinternational marketing, that includes the film promotion and the distribution and exhibition; and the artistic aspect composed by the human talent and the movie story.Key Words: Causal factors of success, film commerce, film production enterprise, human resources, innovative ideas, production planning, revenueResumen: El presente documento tiene como finalidad plasmar la importancia que tienen las ideas innovadoras de las organizaciones de producciones cinematográficas en México para que puedan crear películas atractivas para los espectadores en el mercado estadounidense y aumentar la comercialización de las mismas. También, se comenta la necesidad que tienen dichas organizacionesde crear planes de producción que les permitan reducir los costos, lo más posible, durante la filmación. Lo anterior será el inicio para desarrollar una comercialización adecuada a los Estados Unidos por  parte de las organizaciones mexicanas, que les permitirá obtener atractivos rendimientos, buscando siempre la satisfacción del consumidor estadounidense. Por último, se analizan los factores críticos de éxito o fracaso en las producciones cinematográficas comerciales mexicanas, mencionando los aspectos financieros, como lo son la inversión en la producción, los apoyos gubernamentales y el retorno sobre la inversión; el marketing internacional, que incluye la promoción de películas y su distribución y exhibición; y el aspecto artístico comprendido por el talento humano y la historia que se cuenta en la película.Palabras Clave: Comercialización de películas, factores causales de éxito, ideas innovadoras, organización de producción cinematográfica, planeación de la producción, recursos humanos, rendimientos


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document