Meaningful Workplaces: Reframing How and Where We Work

Great Workplaces

In 1988, Robert Levering and Milton Moskowitz wrote The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America, a book based on six years of research about the elements of great work environments. Levering attributes his interest in pursuing the inquiry in part to Peters and Waterman’s work on identifying the elements of excellent companies, In Search of Excellence (1982). According to Levering, Peters and Waterman’s book represented a departure in how organizations tended to be analyzed and judged. Until then, productivity was considered a result of efficient use of resources, and effectiveness was measured in terms of profit and stock dividends. In Search of Excellence identified elements concerned with how a company was managed, especially ...