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The authors present research on the successful labor-management reform initiative in Indianapolis, IN, which used a collaboration model developed by them.

Research on grievance arbitration in the public sector suggests that creeping legalism is a problem there just as much as in the private sector. Creeping legalism undermines arbitration's traditional informality and low cost and is marked by the use of lawyers, written transcripts, and formal evidence codes. A review of the literature and data indicated that these practices were becoming more common in public sector arbitration. Usage of arbitration decreases as it becomes more legalistic.

Despite the currency of site-based management in public schools, researchers indicate that little is understood about how such collaboration works. While variants of site-based management have been identified as promising means of education reform, an understanding of the dynamics of site-based management is lacking. A major deficiency in the research has been a failure to consider the collective bargaining relationship between teacher unions and school administrators. The purpose of this research is to develop and test a conceptual model of site-based management for public schools that is predicated on the labor-management relationship. This interdependency premise asserts collaboration cannot be implemented successfully unless the collective bargaining relationship is satisfied.

Multiple abstracts of articles included in the issue are presented. Among the titles included are "The productivity paradox," by Wickham Skinner, "Keeping managers off the shelf," by Jay W. Lorsch and Haruo Takagi, and "The statesman as CEO," by Alan M. Webber.

For years, experts have built company information systems almost any way they liked. When the experts leave, however, management may get stuck with a complex, poorly documented project that the remaining computer novices don't understand. The company needs an interpreter to track the systems being built and to deal routinely with the development team. This person could be a project team member or one of the management team overseeing the project. Better still is an information systems auditor who has a background in programming and accounting and would be unlikely to undermine organizational loyalties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]