METHODOLOGY
We sent a 16 question management practice survey to around 40,000 US manufacturing plants in 2010 and again in 2015. These asked 8 questions about monitoring practices (how firms collect, analyze and act on data) and 8 questions about incentives (how firms hire, fire, pay and promote workers). These 16 questions were combined into a “structured management score” which ranges from 0 for firms with no formal monitoring or incentives, to 1 to firms with a heavy focus on performance monitoring and analysis, and aggressive performance based hiring, firing, pay and promotions. We found these practices are strongly correlated with superior firm performance – those adopting more structured management practices are more profitable, productive, innovative and faster growing. In spring of 2021, a new extended version of the MOPS was developed and deployed by researchers at Stanford, University of Toronto, and the US Census Bureau, which asked questions about management practices, expectations, artificial intelligence (AI) and outsourcing in the US manufacturing sector. Below are the survey forms and summary data from the US Census.