Family-Related Factors ingredients in quality, productivity, value, organizational ex- cellence, and all of the other factors that affect global com- petitiveness. Students who enter the workplace unable to perform at competitive levels in reading, mathematics, sci- Math Science Country Country Literacy Literacy Human resources are a critical part of the competitive- ness equation. Just as one of the most important factors in fielding a competitive athletic team is having the best pos- ence, and problem solving just handicap their employers. sible players, one of the most important factors in fielding a competitive company is having the best possible employees. Consequently, the quality of the labor pool is important. The more knowledgeable, skilled, motivated, and able to learn members of the labor pool are, the better. Well-educated, well-trained, motivated members of the labor pool quickly become productive employees when given jobs. Although providing ongoing training for em- ployees is important in the age of global competitiveness, the type of training provided is important. Organizations that can offer training that has immediate and direct ap- plication spend less than those that have to begin by pro- viding basic education for functionally illiterate employees. Since the 1970s, U.S. businesses have had to devote increas- ing amounts of money to basic education efforts, whereas foreign competitors have been able to provide advanced training that very quickly translates into better quality and productivity. Many factors account for this difference. Some of these can be traced directly to the family. If the family unit, regard- less of how it is constituted, is the nation's most important human resource development agency, the labor pool from which U.S. companies must draw their employees cannot match that in competing countries. Single parents who must work full-time have little or no time to help their children excel in school. Children with parents who do not value education are unlikely to value it themselves. If the family has a strong influence-positive or negative, by design or by default-on the attitudes of chil- dren toward learning and work, the United States faces deep- seated problems that must be solved if its companies are going to compete in the global marketplace. Hong Kong 550 Finland 548 Finland 544 Jарan Hong Kong 548 Figure 2.3 compares annual expenditures per pupil for leading industrialized countries. Of the top seven, the United States spends the most, whereas Korea spends the least. Figure 2.4 compares the number of school days required of students annually in the leading industrialized countries. With this criterion, the order is reversed when comparing the United States and Japan. Figures 2.5, 2.6, 2.7. and 2.8 show the actual rankings of student performance on international tests of reading. mathematics, science, and problem solving as tracked by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Figure 2.5 shows the relative performance rank- ings of students in mathematics literacy. The average score Korea 542 539 Netherlands 538 Korea 538 Liechtenstein 536 Liechtenstein 525 Japan 534 Australia 525 Canada 532 Масао 525 Belgium 529 Netherlands 524 Macao 527 Czech Republic New Zealand 523 Switzerland 527 521 Australia 524 Canada 519 New Zealand 523 Switzerland 513 Czech Republic Iceland 516 France 511 515 Belgium 509 Denmark 514 Sweden 506 of students from the United States is well below the inter- France 511 Ireland 505 national average (483 versus 498). Figure 2.6 shows similar results in science literacy. Figure 2.7 shows that students from the United States scored an average of 495 on reading while the average international score was 500. These scores do not bode well for the United States or for its employers who must compete in the global arena. In fact, what the scores mean is that if global competition were a footrace, the United States would be starting 100 yards behind in a 200-yard race. Sweden 509 Hungary 503 Austria 506 Germany 502 Germany 503 Poland 498 Ireland 503 Slovak Republic 495 Slovak Republic 498 Iceland 495 Norway Luxembourg 495 United States 491 493 Poland 490 FIGURE 2.6 Mean Achievement Scores in Science Literacy. Source: www.ed.gov, 2014. 490 Hungary Spain 485 Latvia 483 United States 483 capital, materials, and energy). The graph compares the average hours required by the most productive plants to produce one automobile. Japanese plants located in Japan are able to produce an automobile in an aver- age of 15 hours. European manufacturers require more than twice that much time. Such U.S. manufacturers as General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler require an average of 20 hours per automobile. Japanese manufacturers with assembly plants in the United States using U.S. workers, such as Mazda, average 19 hours per automobile. Because hourly wages in Europe tend to be higher than those in Japan and the United States, European firms operate at a double competitive disadvantage. European and U.S. firms are nibbling away at these productivity differences to the point that the gap between the best and worst producers is slowly but steadily closing. Another area in which Japanese firms have gained a competitive advantage is product development. The prod- Country Annual Funding ($) FIGURE 2.5 Mean Achievement Scores in Math Literacy. Source: www.ed.gov, 2014. United States 7,560 Italy Japan Germany 6,783 5,771 4,237 U.S. Manufacturers and Global Competition France 4,777 The most important sectors in determining the quality of life in a country are manufacturing and agriculture. The United States has led the world in agricultural production for many years and still does. The United States also led the world in manufacturing productivity for many years. Beginning with the 1960s, however, this lead began to slip. The decline continued and accelerated through the 1980s to the point that the U.S. manufacturing sector entered the 1990s struggling uphill to regain ground. In the mid- 1990s, however, the United States began to reemerge as a world-class competitor. No longer is the United States, or any other country, the clear-cut leader in terms of manu- facturing productivity. With the dawning of the new mil- lennium, Japan, the United States, Germany, and Korea became increasingly competitive. Figure 2.9 compares the productivity of automobile manufacturers in Japan, the United States, and Europe. In this chapter, the term productivity is used several times. In this context, the term should be viewed as "total fac- tor productivity" (ratio of outputs to inputs from labor, Education-Related Factors United Kingdom 4,416 Korea 3,714 The transition from classroom to workplace has never been easy, but in the age of global competition it has only become more difficult. The needs of employers have increased mark- edly. Unfortunately, the academic performance of students in the United States has not kept pace with changes in the global marketplace. High school graduation rates in the United States rank near the bottom when compared with those in other leading industrialized nations-nations that America must compete with. In addition, the performance of those students who do graduate from high school is mark- edly lower than that of their contemporaries in competing industrialized countries. On international tests of academic performance in such key areas as reading, mathematics, science, and problem solving, American students lag well behind their contem- poraries in other countries. This is bad news for employers in the United States that must compete in an increasingly global environment. Human performance is one of the key FIGURE 2.3 Comparison of Per-pupil Funding in Selected Industrialized Countries. Source: www.ed.gov, 2014. Average School Days Country 240 Japan Korea 222 Taiwan 222 uct development cycle-the time it takes to turn an idea into a finished product-is typically shorter in Japan than in the United States and Europe. This allows Japanese firms to get new products to the market faster. Japanese automobile manufacturers take an average of two years to complete the product development cycle compared with more than three years for their competitors in the United States and Europe. Israel 215 Scotland 191 Canada 188 United States 178 FIGURE 2.4 Comparison of School Days per Year in Selected Industrialized Countries. Source: www.ed.gov, 2014.