The Gain Was Always Shared · Chapter Nine

How to Know It Worked

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

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

Abstract

Every leader who starts a participation system will, at some point, be asked whether it worked. The question usually arrives late: at a budget meeting eighteen months in, from a new chief executive, from a board member who was not there at the start. By then the honest answer is often unavailable, because nobody wrote down what the organisation looked like before, what it expected, or what else happened in the meantime. The leader is left to answer from impression, and impression is the weakest evidence there is. This chapter is about answering that question well, and about arranging matters at the start so that it can be answered at all. It is the measurement companion to the field manual in Chapter 8. It covers what to count, how to establish a before, how to read a change against the background of everything else that moves, how researchers have done this in the published studies, and how to read your own results with the same honesty this book has tried to apply to theirs.

Read the PDFRead the whole bookdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989518

Cite this chapter

Santa Anna, A. (2026). How to Know It Worked. In The Gain Was Always Shared. Luminous Prosperity Inc. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23989518

@incollection{santaanna2026the9,
  author    = {Santa Anna, Ammanuel},
  title     = {How to Know It Worked},
  booktitle = {The Gain Was Always Shared},
  chapter   = {9},
  publisher = {Luminous Prosperity Inc.},
  year      = {2026},
  doi       = {10.5281/zenodo.23989518},
  url       = {https://business.hautelumiere.life/library/the-gain-was-always-shared/09-how-to-know-it-worked/}
}

References

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  2. Kaufman, R. T. (1992). The effects of Improshare on productivity. ILR Review, 45(2), 311–322. https://doi.org/10.1177/001979399204500208
  3. Hatcher, L., & Ross, T. L. (1991). From individual incentives to an organization-wide gainsharing plan: Effects on teamwork and product quality. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 12(3), 169–183. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.4030120302
  4. Schuster, M. (1984). The Scanlon Plan: A longitudinal analysis. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 20(1), 23–38. https://doi.org/10.1177/002188638402000107
  5. Arthur, J. B., & Jelf, G. S. (1999). The effects of gainsharing on grievance rates and absenteeism over time. Journal of Labor Research, 20(1), 133–145. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12122-999-1029-3
  6. Hanlon, S. C., Meyer, D. G., & Taylor, R. R. (1994). Consequences of gainsharing: A field experiment revisited. Group & Organization Management, 19(1), 87–111. https://doi.org/10.1177/1059601194191005
  7. Wagner, J. A., Rubin, P. A., & Callahan, T. J. (1988). Incentive payment and nonmanagerial productivity: An interrupted time series analysis of magnitude and trend. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 42(1), 47–74. https://doi.org/10.1016/0749-5978(88)90019-2
  8. Hanlon, S. C., & Taylor, R. R. (1991). An examination of changes in work group communication behaviors following installation of a gainsharing plan. Group & Organization Studies, 16(3), 238–267. https://doi.org/10.1177/105960119101600302
  9. Petty, M. M., Singleton, B., & Connell, D. W. (1992). An experimental evaluation of an organizational incentive plan in the electric utility industry. Journal of Applied Psychology, 77(4), 427–436. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.77.4.427
  10. Bullock, R. J., & Tubbs, M. E. (1990). A case meta-analysis of gainsharing plans as organization development interventions. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 26(3), 383–404. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021886390263011

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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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.