Theodore Roosevelt and Asian Immigration
Professor of history Gary Gerstle explains that Theodore Roosevelt was a great admirer of the Japanese and welcomed Japanese immigrants, despite popular sentiment in the United States against the perceived "invasion by yellow people." Professor Gers...
Increasing Productivity
One way to increase productivity is by improving technology. Another is through long-term investment. Research and development, capital improvements, and workforce training can all be extremely expensive and may not pay off for years. But they do ge...
Productivity and Quality
At one time in industrial America, quality and productivity were considered almost mutually exclusive. Today that is not the case, thanks in part to very different attitudes about the role of workers. American managers today are much less likely to ...
Origins of Total Quality Management
The origins of the Total Quality Management philosophy can be traced back more than half a century to the work of W. Edwards Deming. In working with Japanese engineers and scientists to rebuild Japan's industrial capacity following World War Two, De...
Organizational Culture and Quality
In the 1980's, the issue of quality became so critical that an entire philosophy of management--known as total quality management, or "TQM,"--evolved. It was based on the notion that, ultimately, corporate success rests on quality. The impact of thi...
Racism During World War II (Part One)
Professor of history Gary Gerstle talks about what he calls one of the great ironies of World War II and the twentieth century. "On the one hand," Professor Gerstle explains, "...the illegitimacy of racial prejudice was put before the American peopl...