Interestingly, O’Toole and Lawler find that providing workers with more authority, tools, resources and education yields a reduction in dysfunctional stress. Hence, they say that the key to creating healthy work environments is to “carefully redesign work tasks to provide a supportive environment.” The authors argue that this approach positively affects productivity and retention.

Overall, the authors say that “Low-Cost operators” (including discount, fast food and mall store chains) and “Global Competitor corporations” (including telecommunications, consumer product and pharmaceutical firms) – which join HI companies as the major organizational types in America today – are trying to implement “tomorrow’s competitive strategies with yesterday’s managerial ideas.” Further, while they predict that smaller, HI organizations will be more vulnerable to international competition, they also claim that they stand a better chance of fueling innovation in the workplace and, thus, maintaining productivity and overall job satisfaction. That’s great news for today’s workers, who follow the same quest identified in Work in America in the early 1970s: to fill respected and useful social roles.