The Census Bureau scores how structured management is at manufacturing establishments in the Annual Survey of Manufactures mail sample, from 0 to 1. The gap between the smallest and largest plants was 0.31 in 2015 and 0.34 in 2021. The approximate sampling interval for that change includes zero, so this study does not call it a change. That interval uses the published sampling standard error of 0 for plants with 2,500 or more employees and does not include nonresponse or measurement error.
In 2015 and again in 2021, the US Census Bureau asked manufacturing establishments in its Annual Survey of Manufactures mail sample how they run. Do they track key performance indicators? How often does anyone review them? What happens when a production problem appears, and what happens to a manager who keeps under-performing? The answers become a structured management score from 0 to 1, where 1 means the most formal, frequent, and explicit practices.
This study asked one question of that data: did the gap between the smallest and the largest plants change between the two surveys? The population is narrow by design. These are manufacturing establishments, meaning individual plants, not firms, and not retail, construction, or service businesses.
The answer: no clear change
In 2021, plants with 1 to 4 employees scored 0.402 and plants with 2,500 or more scored 0.742, a gap of 0.34 on the 0 to 1 scale (approximate 95% interval 0.31 to 0.37). In 2015, the same size classes scored 0.454 and 0.764, a gap of 0.31 (approximate 95% interval 0.28 to 0.34).
The point estimate of the gap was 0.03 higher in 2021. The approximate 95% interval for that change runs from negative 0.01 to positive 0.07, so it includes zero. The interval uses the registered formula, which assumes zero covariance within and across years. Because Census publishes a sampling standard error of 0 for plants with 2,500 or more employees in both years, its nonzero width comes from the 1 to 4 estimates in 2015 and 2021. This was the study’s single pre-registered comparison, and the data does not show a clear change in the gap. That is not evidence that the gap stayed the same. The sampling interval runs up to 0.07 on the 0 to 1 scale. This interval cannot separate a zero change from a change of that size, and it is not the full uncertainty of the gap.
Scores by plant size on the 0 to 1 scale. Point estimates are Census figures. Intervals are this study’s approximate 95% sampling intervals from the published standard errors, with “(Z)” standard errors set to 0.0005 (source: U.S. Census Bureau, MOPS public tables 2015 and 2021, sheet “Employment”, downloaded October 3, 2026):
| Plant size (employees) | 2015 | 2021 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 4 | 0.454 (0.425 to 0.483) | 0.402 (0.373 to 0.431) |
| 5 to 9 | 0.410 (0.390 to 0.430) | 0.407 (0.387 to 0.427) |
| 10 to 19 | 0.442 (0.430 to 0.454) | 0.438 (0.426 to 0.450) |
| 20 to 49 | 0.508 (0.502 to 0.514) | 0.501 (0.495 to 0.507) |
| 50 to 99 | 0.599 (0.595 to 0.603) | 0.582 (0.578 to 0.586) |
| 100 to 249 | 0.663 (0.661 to 0.665) | 0.645 (0.643 to 0.647) |
| 250 to 499 | 0.708 (0.706 to 0.710) | 0.685 (0.683 to 0.687) |
| 500 to 999 | 0.734 (0.732 to 0.736) | 0.704 (0.702 to 0.706) |
| 1,000 to 2,499 | 0.754 (0.753 to 0.755) | 0.720 (0.719 to 0.721) |
| 2,500 or more | 0.764 (SE 0, see note) | 0.742 (SE 0, see note) |
| All mail-sample plants | 0.549 (0.545 to 0.553) | 0.532 (0.528 to 0.536) |
Note: Census publishes a sampling standard error of 0 for plants with 2,500 or more employees, so the 95% sampling interval for that class has zero width. That does not mean the score is known exactly.
Census has reported that, in its MOPS tables for manufacturing establishments, larger plants generally show more structured management. In these tables the published point estimates increase with each size class from 20 to 49 employees upward in both years. Below that it is not uniform: in 2015, plants with 1 to 4 employees scored above plants with 5 to 9.
Exploratory, not pre-registered. Reason included: so the class table is not read selectively. Point estimates were lower in 2021 than in 2015 in every size class, and the score for manufacturing establishments in the mail sample, all employment classes combined, fell from 0.549 to 0.532. The 1 to 4 class fell from 0.454 to 0.402 and the 2,500-or-more class fell from 0.764 to 0.742. Those level shifts were not pre-registered, so this study does not test or interpret them. What is new here is one pre-registered contrast, the change in the gap between the smallest and largest classes, and that contrast shows no clear change.
Size classes differ in industry and occupation mix. Differences by size reflect both. Nothing here isolates an effect of size.
The practices plants most often reported lacking or rarely using
The 2021 survey also reports how manufacturing establishments in the Annual Survey of Manufactures mail sample, all sizes together, answered each practice question. Under a rule set before the data was analyzed, this study names the three practices with the highest share choosing the registered absence or low-use answer. Census reports these as a percent of respondents:
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- 55.1% of responding establishments said under-performing managers were rarely or never reassigned or dismissed.
- 50.1% said non-managers received no performance bonuses.
- 48.6% said they did not have any display boards.
These shares cover all plant sizes together. The public tables used here do not report them by size, so this study does not claim that small plants skip these practices more often. The full list of 12 absence or low-use shares appears at the end of this article.
What the numbers mean for a plant owner
This section and everything after it, up to Method, are interpretation and guidance drawn from the figures above and from operating practice. They are not findings of this study.
The estimated gap was about a third of the scale in both surveys: 0.31 in 2015 and 0.34 in 2021. The approximate interval for the change includes zero, so the data do not show the gap clearly closing or widening. The two surveys are snapshots of different samples, so they cannot show how any single plant changes as it grows.
The response shares show which listed practices plants most often reported as absent or rarely used. They do not rank priorities, but they are a reasonable place for an owner to start looking. Among responding manufacturing establishments in the 2021 mail sample, all sizes together, 9.5% reported having no key performance indicators. In the same group, 26.0% said non-managers never review them, 48.6% had no display boards, and 55.1% rarely or never reassigned or dismissed an under-performing manager. These are separate questions, not one measure, and the shares do not show whether the same plants gave these answers. Read side by side, reporting at least one indicator was much more common than reporting display boards, non-manager review, or prompt action on an under-performing manager.
From operating practice rather than from this data: in a plant of five or fifteen people, the owner often carries monitoring, targets, and consequences personally. That arrangement can work while the owner is present. If those routines live only in the owner’s habits, the plant can lose them whenever the owner steps away. Writing them down makes the standard less dependent on one person.
How to handle it: build structure in sequence
An analysis of earlier MOPS data groups the survey’s management questions into three areas: monitoring, targets, and incentives. That analysis, by Bloom, Brynjolfsson, Foster, Jarmin, Patnaik, Saporta-Eksten, and Van Reenen, published in the American Economic Review in 2019, found that more structured management was associated with higher productivity. That is an association, not proof that adopting a practice raises output. The order below is an operating recommendation. This study did not test it, and Census does not endorse it.
1. Monitoring first. Choose a short list of indicators, review them on a fixed weekly rhythm, and put them where the floor can see them. The answer “3-9 key performance indicators” was chosen by 48.5% of responding plants in that same 2021 group, more than any other answer. Write one standard response for production problems: fix it, find the cause, and record what changes so it does not happen again. The survey’s most structured answer adds a continuous improvement process that looks for problems before they occur, and 55.5% of responding plants chose it.
2. Targets second. A target only works if people know it exists. The survey’s widest awareness answer is that all managers and most production workers know the targets, and 46.9% of responding plants chose it. Set a mix of short-term and longer-term production targets, then post them beside the indicators so progress and target sit in one view.
3. Incentives last. Write down what happens when performance falls short and how long the review takes. The survey’s most structured answer is reassignment or dismissal within six months of identifying under-performance, and 27.2% of responding plants chose it for managers. That share is descriptive. It does not establish that six months is the right window, and any personnel rule should be checked against employment law and the plant’s own circumstances. A written process can still protect the team as much as the business, because it replaces surprise with known expectations. Tie bonuses to measures people can already see. A bonus paid on numbers nobody reviews risks rewarding luck rather than performance.
The reasoning behind the order is practical. Targets need indicators to measure against, and incentives need targets to be fair. A plant that installs bonuses before it has visible indicators has little basis for explaining who earned them.
What this data does not tell you
- It does not show that any practice causes better results at a particular plant.
- It covers manufacturing establishments in the Census mail sample only, not retail, construction, or service businesses.
- The practice shares cover all plant sizes together. The public tables do not show them by size, so they do not show which practices are rarer at small plants.
- Scores and answers are self-reported by the plants.
In both surveys, the smallest and largest size classes were separated by about a third of the scale. The practices the survey describes are concrete enough to install one at a time, which is how structure is usually built: one routine, reviewed until it holds, and then the next.
Method
Already published by the agency: Census has published structured management scores by plant size, state, industry, and plant age for 2015 and 2021, and has reported that, among these manufacturing establishments, larger plants generally show more structured management. New here: the change in the gap between the smallest and largest size classes from 2015 to 2021, with a pre-registered interval.
Source. U.S. Census Bureau, Management and Organizational Practices Survey (MOPS), public data tables for 2015 and 2021, sheets “Employment” and “Response Shares”, downloaded October 3, 2026. Census describes the source this way: “The Management and Organizational Practices Survey statistics are collected from the ASM mail panel only.” These tables cover reference years 2015 and 2021. Census notes that MOPS began as a pilot in 2010. That wave is not used here, and this study makes no claim about it. Data as of those releases.
Measure. Each plant’s score is the unweighted average of 16 practice questions, each normalized from 0 (least structured) to 1 (most structured). Table scores are the averages Census publishes for each size class. The size classes and the scoring rule are the same in both years.
Statistics. The primary comparison is the 2021 gap between plants with 2,500 or more employees and plants with 1 to 4 employees, minus the same gap in 2015. Its standard error combines the four published standard errors under the registered assumption of zero covariance among the estimates within and across years. Census publishes a standard error of 0 for the 2,500-or-more class in both years, and that value is used as published, so the calculated interval comes entirely from the published standard errors for the 1 to 4 class. It is an approximate 95% sampling interval under the registered zero-covariance assumption. Census does not publish the covariances, so the appropriate interval could be wider or narrower. The published standard errors measure sampling error only and do not capture nonresponse or measurement error. Where Census reports a standard error as “(Z)”, meaning above zero but below 0.0005, this study used 0.0005. Intervals are approximate 95% intervals. No multiplicity adjustment was made. All other figures are descriptive.
Protocol. The analysis plan, including the single primary comparison and the call-out rule, was fixed in a dated protocol before any size-class estimate was computed. Later amendments are listed in it: https://kamyarshah.com/public-data-protocol/
Limits. Manufacturing establishments in the Annual Survey of Manufactures mail sample only. Establishments, not firms. Survey self-reports. The 2015 and 2021 surveys rest on different Annual Survey of Manufactures samples, because Census redraws that sample every five years. These are two cross-sections, not a panel, and a plant can change size class between them.
2021 absence or low-use shares, all sizes, percent of responding manufacturing establishments in the mail sample (source: U.S. Census Bureau, MOPS 2021 public tables, sheet “Response Shares”, downloaded October 3, 2026): under-performing managers rarely or never reassigned or dismissed, 55.1%. No performance bonuses for non-managers, 50.1%. No display boards, 48.6%. Under-performing non-managers rarely or never reassigned or dismissed, 44.6%. No performance bonuses for managers, 38.6%. Key performance indicators never reviewed by non-managers, 26.0%. Never reviewed by managers, 9.8%. No production targets, 9.7%. No key performance indicators, 9.5%. No action taken on production problems, 1.8%. Non-manager promotions based mainly on factors other than performance and ability, 1.7%. Manager promotions on the same basis, 1.4%. The full answer distribution for all 16 questions is in the Census table.
The agencies did not review or endorse this analysis. Kamyar Shah sells fractional COO and CMO services.
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