596 BOOK REVIEWS

In addition, the other stakeholders (i.e. the DoD and Defense Contractors) have not been in the forefront in leading or participating in the current information technology-enabled transition that is sweeping through the private sector commercial firms as they integrate their processes in order to better to serve their CUS- tomers. While much money has been spent within the defense industry on Business Process Reengineering and Enterprise Integration initiatives, the participating contractors nor the DoD components or agencies who received the support are (to this reviewer’s knowledge) ever listed in the literature as being cutting-edge imple- mentors of the new management paradigms.

Many defense scholars are aware of this problem, and while the path to successful change is less than clear, Mr Gander’s recommendations to the govern- ment are not new. Many of the issues in this book have been discussed in much detail elsewhere. (See, for example, the Congress of the United States, Office of Technology Assessment, 1992). However, a strength of this book is the assembling and discussing the issues in a single volume. We have heard the recommendations, in part, from many different sources, including govern- ment and contractor reports and the popular press. All the recommendations are directed toward the attain- ment of three aspects of civil/defense integration as emphasized throughout the book: dual-use R&D, inte- grated facilities, and the purchase of commercial parts, subsystems, and equipment.

a Issue and continuously reiterate a strong statement of the new vision of a civil/military integration strat- egy. Encourage the buying of commerical items. Immediately expand the definition of ‘commercial’ to include defense-unique items produced in a largely commercial facility. Make costs (production and support) an essential requirement for weapons’ design-at a level compa- rable to performance. Perform sector-by-sector analyses of the desired fu- ture structures-both private and public-of each critical defense industrial sector, and identify the paths and actions leading to the achievement of the new sectors. Require the use of commercial/industriaI specifica- tions and standards-unless written waivers are ob- tained. Prohibit the flow-down of any defense-unique re- quirements to the lower tiers-unless written waivers are obtained. Shift R& D resources-generic and particularly pro- grammatic-to focus on process technologies, con- current engineering, and dual-use applicability. Shift logistics support to industry (from organic), and use ‘lean’ concepts. Shift to activity-based costing to reduce industry overheads, and correspondingly, government over- sight and auditing. Create incentives for defense plants to move to dual-use operations. Revise antitrust rules to allow efficient and effective defense industry downsizing.

a Explicitly address defense firms’ capital needs- especially the small and medium-sized firms-for low-cost capital and rapid write-offs.

a Rapidly shift the defense procurement process to a ‘lean’ electronic system, to reduce the procurement period from many months to weeks but still preserve public trust. Implement and monitor a government (civilian) work force reduction plan to reduce government overhead and assure acquisition process streamlining.

a Establish an outside senior advisory group to help the DoD leadership (and perhaps other executive departments) monitor implementation and assure achievement of the envisioned changes.

While these recommendations are laudable, the over- arching question remains unanswered. How does an ‘enlightened champion’ overcome centuries of change- resistant organizational culture to implement meaning- ful change? Private sector organizations change as mar- ket share evaporates. The enablers for change in public sector organizations are more elusive. As noted by Adelman and Augustine (19921, ‘Any transition can be eased by enlightened government policy. In such an environment defense conversion largely “happens” rather than being directed or dictated.’

I recommend this book to anyone who is unfamiliar with the literature on defense conversion. It is of less value to academic researchers, policy analysts, or policy makers who are actively working in the topic area.

REFERENCES

K. L. Adelman and N. R. Augustine (1992). Defense conversion: Bulldozing the management. Foreign Af- fairs, 71, No. 2, 26-47.

Congress of the United States, Office of Technology Assessment (1992). Bidding Futiire Security: Strategies for Restnrctiiring the Defense Technology and Itidus- [rial Base, OTA-ISC-530. Washington, DC: US Gov- ernment Printing Office.

THOMAS R. GULLEDGE George Mason University

The Institute of Public Policy Faiqfkx, VA 22030-4444, USA

STAGG’S UNIVERSITY: THE RISE, DECLINE,

CHICAGO by Lester, R., Urbana and Chicago: Uni- versity of Illinois Press, 1995, 301 pp., $32.95

AND FALL O F BIG-TIME FOOTBALL AT

John D. Rockefeller A wonderfill man is he,

Gives all his spare change to the U. of C.

Now the home of Robert Lucas, Ronald Coase, and other Nobel laureates in economics, both living and dead, the University of Chicago was once identified more closely with the names of Walter Eckersall, Jay

BOOK REVIEWS 597

Berwanger (the first Heisman Trophy winner), and Amos Alonzo Stagg. Long before the Chicago Bears appropriated the school’s ‘C’ emblem and ‘Monsters of the Midway’ moniker-and overblown claims by the author of Michigan’s ‘Victors’ fight song aside-Stagg’s Maroons were truly the ‘Champions of the West’. Indeed, the first national football cham- pionship was awarded retroactively to the 1905 Chicago team.

The University of Chicago accumulated an impres- sive series of ‘firsts’ during its days of football glory. It was the first institution of higher learning to establish a Department of Physical Culture and Ath- letics, and to appoint its head (Stagg) as a tenured faculty member. Its intercollegiate football team was the first squad to travel extensively, scheduling con- tests with an impressive list of intersectional rivals. As a matter of fact, during Stagg’s second season as head coach (1894), the Maroons toured the West Coast at year’s end, playing four games, including a match against Stanford on 25 December. It helped launch a football tradition by playing the University of Michigan on Thanksgiving Day. The first ‘training table’ was set on the Midway and Chicago led the way in developing effective (but not necessarily ethi- cal) methods of recruiting and retaining student- athletes. Two of Stagg’s noteworthy efforts in this regard were a series of interscholastic track meets that brought hundreds of promising schoolboy ath- letes to campus and annual, all-expenses-paid trips to Japan for the varsity baseball team, most of whose members also played football. Chicago, a founding member of the Big Ten (then called the Intercolle- giate Conference) and, at least until 1924, its most prosperous sports powerhouse both on the field and off, was also the first-and still only-major Ameri- can university to abandon big-time college football forever.

Stugg’s Uniuersity offers a fascinating account of the birth, life, and death of the U. of C. football tradition. As told by Robin Lester, the story is part biography, painting as it does an engrossing though, in some respects, an unfinished word picture of the lives and times of the legendary Amos Alonzo Stagg and the university’s entrepreneurial first president, William Rainey Harper. StuggS University is also part social commentary, discoursing from time to time on larger questions concerning the proper place of sports in American higher education. But more than any- thing, Lester tells a story of petty academic politics, bald rent seeking, and the perils of faculty ‘gover- nance’ that should serve as a warning to modern-day reformers of big-time college sports. Amos Alonzo Stagg put the University of Chicago ‘on the map’ by fielding football teams that generated unprecedented levels of financial support and national publicity. Robert Maynard Hutchins, the ‘educational evange- list’ (p. 177) who presided over the decision to aban- don football at the end of the Maroons’ disastrous 1939 season, nearly destroyed one of the world’s great universities.

Although counterfactual hypotheses are impossi- ble to disprove, it is not unreasonable to think that,

but for Amos Alonzo Stagg, Bob Lucas would have had to look elsewhere for a place to call home. Hired by President Harper as Associate Professor and Di- rector of the Department of Physical Culture and Athletics four months before the new university was set to open in 1892, Coach Stagg brought a national reputation-and instant credibility-to a school that embarked on its academic odyssey with a major inferiority complex. Stagg, born in August 1862, had been a star pitcher at Yale and also played football for the Elis on teams coached by Walter Camp. The early gridiron success of Stagg’s Maroons helped offset the negative image created by the institution’s financial association with a noteworthy ‘robber baron’. (Wags referred to Chicago’s first teams as the ‘Rockefellerites and wondered aloud if they flew the ‘Standard Oil Colors’.)

Although Lester’s own concerns about the latter- day consequences of the marriage between the academy and big-time football occasionally slip out, his admiration for the entrepreneurial spirit that brought the University of Chicago to national atten- tion is evident. Harper was keenly aware of the strong link between football and philanthropy, and while in his public statements the president often endeavored to place athletic competition on a higher moral plane of temperance, religion, and manly virtue, he and Stagg utilized intercollegiate sports ingeniously to market the U. of C. to key constituen- cies, including prospective students, alumni, and most important, financial backers. They did so by adopting a scheduling strategy characterized by heavy doses of home games (to promote the game locally and to capitalize on the advantages of the Chicago market- place), early season victories against relatively weak opponents (to promote attendance and enthusiasm), and shrewdly timed road trips to play the ‘Big Three’ (Harvard, Yale, Princeton) and other well-known east coast teams (to show the U. of C. flag). Booster- ism was pumped for all it was worth. Both Harper and Stagg worked hard to hitch the school’s academic reputation to its gridiron fortunes. They were ulti- mately so successful that ‘Rockefeller gifts were cele- brate like football victories, and football victories like the Second Coming’ (p. 34).

On-field innovations were no less important. Stagg introduced wind sprints, tackling dummies, and the diagnostic use of X-ray equipment (operated by Nobel-prize-winning physicist Albert Michelson). The first scoreboard was erected at Stagg Field (at Harper’s suggestion) and the Maroons sported the first football jerseys with numerals. While Stagg ap- parently did not invent the forward pass, he was among the earliest coaches to exploit it. And he adopted and refined the ‘open game’ of football, which emphasized strategy and speed, to crush oppo- nents who continued to rely on the older ‘mass game’ based on simple brute force.

These efforts paid huge dividends. By 1905, foot- ball revenues had outpaced football expenses to such an extent that the surplus covered the costs of all other activities in the Department of Physical Cul- ture and Athletics, including women’s basketball,

598 BOOK REVIEWS

and then some. (Indeed, until Chicago abandoned big-time football, it was the only member school that fielded teams in all thirteen sports sanctioned by the Intercollegiate Conference.) At the ftood tide of their football prowess in 1924, the Maroons netted $200 000 on a gross $236 000 (p. 124), and Stagg was poised to contribute that much and more to the university every year toward the construction of a new field house and a new football stadium with a capacity at least twice that of the then 32000-seat Stagg Field. (His incentive to do so was due in part to the fact that his compensation was tied to athletic department receipts; Stagg’s 1905 salary of $6000-$3500 of which was paid from the athletic fund-placed him among the institution’s highest paid faculty members.)

Many of the ills now seen to plague big-time college football were present at the creation as well. Occasionally responding to subtle pressure from Stagg-and occasionally acting on their own-some U. of C. faculty bent academic rules to help players maintain their eligibility. ‘Student service’ scholar- ships meant for more worthy causes were covertly awarded to varsity athletes who also benefited from part-time employment and summer jobs arranged by alumni and other boosters. Hitchcock Hall, dubbed the ‘millionaires’ den’, the newest and most luxurious residence hall on campus, was reserved for Stagg’s men. They were treated to ‘postgame theater parties, dinners, and trips to other campuses to view football games, accompanied by proud professors and paid for by the game receipts’ (pp. 54-55). The athletes’ studies suffered predictably. Like many of his team- mates, the great Walter Eckersall, celebrated in story and song, and the proud recipient of a gold time- piece presented in token of appreciation for services rendered to the University during the half-time of his final home game, never graduated from the U. of C.

According to Lester, big-time college football’s dark side helped propel the school down the road to its fateful 1939 decision. But perceived corruption was probably not the determining factor. President Hutchins’s ‘New Plan’ for undergraduate education, implemented in 1931, was ultimately decisive. ‘Year- long courses were instituted that did not require attendance and were completed by sitting compre- hensive examinations at the end of the spring quar- ter’ (p. 133). Facing heavy demands on their time under the best of circumstances, this new schedule meant that while Stagg’s men could devote them- selves wholly to football during the fall, spring prac- tice the following term was disrupted by exam prepa- rations.Most of the instruction and conditioning the players traditionally acquired during the early months of the year had to be shifted to the fall, thereby interfering with preseason drills aimed at readying the team for its upcoming games. In addition to the New Plan’s adverse impact on team preparation, substantial tuition increases reduced the number of applications for admission and, hence, the size of the pool of undergraduates from which Stagg could se- lect his players.

At the same time, Chicago’s gridiron foes were aggressively recruiting players and their football for- tunes were on the rise. Notre Dame, in particular, became a beacon to a large group of young Catholic immigrants, combining an informal national scouting network of seminarians and lay people ‘with rela- tively low admission requirements and financial help to ensure a continual and impressive supply of play- ers’ (p. 137). Beginning with Wisconsin in 1910, most of Chicago’s Intercollegiate Conference rivals intro- duced a physical education major to lighten their athletes’ academic loads; graduates of these pro- grams subsequently became coaches and PE instruc- tors who sent promising players back to their alma maters.

Chicago simply failed to meet the competition. After winning the Intercollegiate Conference cham- pionship in 1924, a season highlighted by a titanic Stagg Field match with a University of Illinois team led from behind by the heroic efforts of Red Grange to a 21-21 tie, Chicago never again had a winning season. As their fortunes sank, the Maroons were deserted quickly by their fellow students-by 1929, the proportion of the U. of C. student body who purchased season tickets was the lowest in the con- ference (p. 131). Area football fans switched their loyalties to Notre Dame, which usually played its home games in Chicago, and to the Bears, especially so after they signed Red Grange in 1925 to play in the newly built Soldier Field, located just four miles away from the Midway campus (p. 132).

Stagg departed in 1933 to become head football coach at the College of the Pacific, a team he brought back to Chicago in 1938 to defeat the Maroons 38-0. The end came on 21 December 1939, following a horrendous season during which Clark Shaughnessy’s gridiron warriors could best only Wabash College and Oberlin. In comparison with the mythic glories of the institution’s past, these humiliations were too much to take. The choices open to a university administration unwilling to ‘subsidize players or en- courage our alumni to do so’ (p. 185) in order to field competitive teams were to schedule more games against smaller schools or to abandon the sport al- together. President Hutchins argued strongly against the former option: ‘Our scholastic reputation and our geographical position make it hard for us to play small-time football. We do not like to be classed with Monmouth and Illinois Wesleyan. We are too far away from the New England colleges to make them the backbone of our schedule’ (p. 185).

The die was cast. With some concern about the financial consequences, the Board of Trustees voted unanimously to accept Hutchins’s recommendation to discontinue intercollegiate football.

The concerns were justified. While the decision to drop football met with general editorial approval, the school’s Fiftieth Anniversary Campaign, launched soon after the announcement o f the Board’s vote, ended up $3 million short of its $12 million goal. During the remaining years of the Hutchins adminis- tration, the University of Chicago ‘lost its place as endowment leader in American higher education (p.

BOOK REVIEWS 599

193). By the end of the Hutchins era, the school was in ‘terrible trouble’-its baccalaureate degree was not recognized by any graduate school and it was experiencing significant financial problems (p. 195).

The U. of C. survived, of course, in large part due to the strength of its graduate and professional pro- grams. Stagg’s University should, however, give pause to those who want to reform big-time college football nowadays by giving college presidents more control over the game. Rhetoric aside, these modern-day reform efforts are triggered by the same impulse that led Chicago’s trustees to ‘cast covetous glances at Stagg’s independent athletic fund’ in 1921 (p. 100): during a period of financial stringency for academics, the huge sums of money generated by big-time col- lege sports are awfully attractive. There is a substan- tial amount of empirical evidence, however, that academic philanthropy is highly correlated with ath- letic success. Winning intercollegiate athletic pro- grams are important sources of national publicity and help generate both more money and more-and better-applications for admission. The danger of current reform proposals is that under the guise of putting the student back into student-athlete, the critics of big-time college sports will end up killing the gander that lays the golden egg.

WILLIAM F. SHUGHART 11 Depaflrnent of Economics and Finance

University of Mississippi Uniwrsity, M S 28677, USA

GLOBAL DISASTERS: INQUIRIES INTO MAN- AGEMENT ETHICS, By Allinson, Robert E., En- glewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1994, $34.95 (cloth).

This is not just a book about major technological disasters, nor about management ethics. It is about management practices, policies and philosophies, but for me it is mostly about the regard for human beings in organizations, and how this regard can prevent the types of disasters described and analyzed so vividly by Allinson.

On 6 March 1987, the Herald of Free Enterprise, a roll-on/roll-off passenger and freight ferry, capsized and sank in 5 minutes off the coast of Zeebrugge, Belgium, with a loss of 193 lives. It was caused by a combination of factors, including the actions or lack of actions of both line staff and senior management. The report of the formal investigation allocated re- sponsibilities for the disaster among the top manage- ment, including the board of directors, and the junior superintendents. The disaster’s immediate cause was its putting to sea with the bow doors open. The assistant bosun had opened the doors and ac- knowledged it was his duty to close them. He had been released from duty by the bosun, fell asleep and had not been woken by the call of ‘harbour stations’. But, although the assistant bosun was nominally in charge, he was not the only person in charge, and not the only person who ever closed the doors. There was no clear system.

The system of checking the doors was the respon-

sibility of the chief officer, but the system required him to be in two places at the same time: checking the bow doors and taking up his position on the bridge. Also, the bosun was the last person to leave the area of the bow doors and could have closed them. He said that it had never been part of his duties to close them! Also, the captain did not check with the chief officer if the ship was secure when he came onto the bridge, and the chief officer did not make a report.

The standing orders of the company were that ‘Heads of departments are to report to the Master immediately they are aware of any deficiency which is likely to cause their departments to be unready for sea in any respect at the due sailing time. In the absence of any such report the Master will assume, at the due sailing time, that the vessel is ready for sea in all respects.’ This therefore accepts that nega- tive reporting is sufficient to count for a positive information transmission. That is, no report is con- sidered to convey positive information. Therefore, if there is a failure to make a report for other reasons, the wrong communication may be transmitted. This also does not give the captain any responsibility to request the information: absence of information is regarded as sufficient to put to sea. This does not, however, preclude bottom-up responsibility. While standing orders were interpreted so that no checks were made on whether the bow doors were actually closed or not, managers (e.g. the bosun) could also be held responsible for not questioning these am- biguous orders and the interpretations of these or- ders by senior managers (captain and superintending captain).

How might this disaster be understood? Allinson suggests that it may be understood in terms of dys- functional management: as there was a total lack of safety priority for crew and passengers; because of a non-assignment of responsibilities and issuing of un- clear orders; as there was an apparent lack of ethical consciousness and lack of understanding of the re- sponsibilities of a manager; and because of a lack of proper management structure.

How might it be possible to implement a safety-first consciousness? Allinson proposes that this could be achieved by: a clear attribution of domains of re- sponsibilities for specific officers; an issuance of clear orders and instructions; safety not being seen to be an add-on but an intrinsic feature of good business management; a shared responsibility (perhaps bot- tom-up and horizontally as well as top-down); a will to communicate, including respectful listening. (A similar disaster had been averted in 1983 when the assistant bosun of the Pride of Free Enterprise had fallen asleep. Some masters had requested lights on the bridge to indicate that the doors had been closed. These requests were ignored until after its sister ship Herald went down).

Thus Allinson focuses on this, and the major disas- ters of the launch of the Challenger space shuttle, the King’s Cross Underground fire, and of that of the Air New Zealand DC10, flight TE 901, on Mount Erebus. He concludes that, above all, management