I wrote last month about The Man Who Broke Capitalism, an analysis of the management thinking and legacy of longtime General Electric CEO Jack Welch.

While Welch is well known as "The Manager of the Century" (the 20th century, that is, per Fortune magazine), a more lasting and accurate moniker may be "The King of Reorganizations," for popularizing in management circles reorganizing and downsizing—which are often, from an employee standpoint, damaging activities.

This biography of Welch was very much on my mind as I recently came across research in Public Money & Management examining the effects of frequent reorganizations on the workforce. Not surprisingly, these effects are far from positive.

Over the years, various studies have discussed how reorganizations can cause employee resistance. Such resistance is predictable since, during reorganizations, management will be making changes (normally to reduce costs) that, in the aggregate, are not in employees' best economic interests.........

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