The Gain Was Always Shared · Chapter Three

Where the Gain Goes Missing

Ammanuel Santa Anna · ORCID 0009-0008-3244-0306

Chapter Three of The Gain Was Always Shared: Gainsharing from the Scanlon Mill to the Kitchen Table.

Abstract

In 1996 the management scholar Denis Collins published a short article in Compensation and Benefits Review with a title that does not bury its subject: "Fifteen Lessons Learned from the Death of a Gainsharing Plan". Two years later he published a book, Gainsharing and Power , built on close study of six Scanlon-type plans, with a chapter on what he called the power games that decide their outcomes. That a scholar of the field would write about a plan's death so plainly is worth noticing. Most of the literature on gainsharing is written by people who believe in it, and it is a credit to that literature that it has kept a record of its failures. Chapter 2 told the origin: a failing mill, a union officer's question, a committee system with a shared measure attached. This one reads the other side of the ledger.

Read the PDFRead the whole bookdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989509

Cite this chapter

Santa Anna, A. (2026). Where the Gain Goes Missing. In The Gain Was Always Shared. Luminous Prosperity Inc. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23989509

@incollection{santaanna2026the3,
  author    = {Santa Anna, Ammanuel},
  title     = {Where the Gain Goes Missing},
  booktitle = {The Gain Was Always Shared},
  chapter   = {3},
  publisher = {Luminous Prosperity Inc.},
  year      = {2026},
  doi       = {10.5281/zenodo.23989509},
  url       = {https://business.hautelumiere.life/library/the-gain-was-always-shared/03-where-the-gain-goes-missing/}
}

References

  1. Collins, D. (1996). Case study: 15 lessons learned from the death of a gainsharing plan. Compensation & Benefits Review, 28(2), 31–40. https://doi.org/10.1177/088636879602800205
  2. Collins, D. (1998). Gainsharing and power: Lessons from six Scanlon plans. Cornell University Press. https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501722622
  3. Kandel, E., & Lazear, E. P. (1992). Peer pressure and partnerships. Journal of Political Economy, 100(4), 801–817. https://doi.org/10.1086/261840
  4. Lazear, E. P. (2000). Performance pay and productivity. American Economic Review, 90(5), 1346–1361. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.90.5.1346
  5. Kim, D.-O. (1999). Determinants of the survival of gainsharing programs. ILR Review, 53(1), 21–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/001979399905300102
  6. Welbourne, T. M., & Gomez-Mejia, L. R. (1995). Gainsharing: A critical review and a future research agenda. Journal of Management, 21(3), 559–609. https://doi.org/10.1177/014920639502100307
  7. Kaufman, R. T. (1992). The effects of Improshare on productivity. ILR Review, 45(2), 311–322. https://doi.org/10.1177/001979399204500208
  8. Bullock, R. J., & Lawler, E. E. (1984). Gainsharing: A few questions, and fewer answers. Human Resource Management, 23(1), 23–40. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.3930230104

Every chapter of The Gain Was Always Shared

  1. Chapter OneWho Holds What a Firm Learnsdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989505
  2. Chapter TwoThe Mill That Asked Firstdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989508
  3. Chapter ThreeWhere the Gain Goes Missingdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989509
  4. Chapter FourA Firm Has a Circulationdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989510
  5. Chapter FiveTwenty-One Defects in a Thousanddoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989511
  6. Chapter SixTalk Is the First Returndoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989514
  7. Chapter SevenPromises, Prices and the Operating Roomdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989515
  8. Chapter EightThe Field Manualdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989517
  9. Chapter NineHow to Know It Workeddoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989518
  10. Chapter TenThe Hard Conversationsdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989519
  11. Chapter ElevenOne Person's Gaindoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989520
  12. Chapter TwelveThe Gain Was Always Shareddoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989521
  13. AppendixThe Workbookdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989522

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The licence

Free to read, share, quote, translate and teach, non-commercially, for ever, under the Luminous Library Licence 1.0. Every other right is the Author’s. Deposited on Zenodo in the Luminous Prosperity community.