Documents Kruse, Douglas 5 results

"Flexible work hours potentially influence productivity through effects on absenteeism and turnover, organizational attachment, job attitudes, work-related stress, and other areas. Prior studies suggest positive effects on productivity but are inconclusive because of small sample sizes, failure to apply direct productivity measures, or failure to account for other associated changes. We apply alternative fixed- and random-effects models to estimate production functions using panel data, with controls included for firm effects, time effects, capital quality, autocorrelation, and specification error. The results suggest that flexible work schedules contribute to improvements of about 10 percent in productivity."

" The authors investigate potential discrimination against people with disabilities through a field experiment that sent job applications to 6,016 accounting positions for which the applicants' disabilities are unlikely to affect productivity. One-third of the cover letters disclosed that the applicant had a spinal cord injury, one-third disclosed the presence of Asperger's syndrome, and one-third did not mention disability. The disability applications received 26% fewer expressions of employer interest. This gap was concentrated among experienced applicants and small private companies that are not covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Tests suggest possible positive effects of the ADA, but not of state laws, in reducing the disability gap. Results indicate there may be substantial room for employer and policy initiatives to improve employment opportunities for people with disabilities."

"Do firms with employee ownership (EO) programs exhibit greater employment stability in the face of economic downturns? In particular, are firms with EO programs less likely to lay off workers during negative shocks? In this article, we examine the relationship between EO programs and employment stability in the United States using longitudinal Form 5500‐CompuStat matched data on the universe of publicly traded companies during 1999–2011. We examine how firms with EO programs weathered the recessions of 2001 and 2008 in terms of employment stability relative to firms without EO programs, and also whether such firms were less likely to lay off workers when faced with negative shocks more broadly. In our econometric analyses, we use a rich array of measures of EO at firms, including the presence of EO stock in pension plans, the presence of employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), the value of EO stock per employee, the share of the firm owned by employees, the share of workers at the firm participating in EO and the share of workers at the firm participating in ESOPs. We also consider both economy‐wide negative shock measures (increases in the unemployment rate, declines in the employment‐to‐population ratio) and firm‐specific negative shock measures (declines in firm sales, declines in firm stock price). Our results indicate that EO firms exhibit greater employment stability in the face of economy‐wide and firm‐specific negative shocks. "

"In this article we re-examine the relationship between group-based profit sharing and productivity. Our meta-regression analysis of 313 estimates from 56 studies controls for publication selection and misspecification biases and investigates the impact of firm level unionisation and national differences in values and culture. Profit sharing is positively related to productivity on average, with a stronger relationship where there is higher unionisation and in countries where honesty is less highly valued and there are higher levels of individualism. The latter two results suggest profit sharing works best in settings where cooperation does not naturally occur. The positive effect of profit sharing on productivity is larger in cooperative firms and in transition economies."

" We analyse competing explanations for the lower pay of employees with disabilities, using 2008–2014 data from the American Community Survey matched to O*Net data on occupational job requirements. The results indicate that only part of the disability pay gap is due to productivity‐related job requirements. The remaining pay gap — experienced by employees whose impairments should not limit their productivity — reflects potential discrimination. The discrimination‐related pay gaps appear to be smallest and possibly non‐existent for women and men with hearing impairments, and largest for those with cognitive and mobility impairments. Overall the results indicate that discrimination is likely to remain an influence on the pay of many workers with disabilities."