Documents ILR Review 351 results

"Following research on transition economies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), and having been motivated by arguments pertaining to the business systems approach, the authors propose that the existence of a communist heritage decreases the likelihood that employees will be consulted during organizational change processes. Results based on 23,876 firms across 27 of the European Union (EU-27) countries support this proposition. Moreover, the likelihood of direct consultation decreases with the existence of formal employee representation and an increasing share of foreign ownership in firms located in CEE countries. The authors discuss these findings in the context of organizational democracy research and the recent literature on transition economies and contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of participative decision-making processes in organizations."

"This article develops and applies a framework for analyzing the relationship among institutions, cost structures, and patterns of labor–management contestation over organizational boundaries. Collective negotiations related to the externalization of call center jobs are compared across 10 incumbent telecommunications firms located in Europe and the United States. All 10 firms moved call center work to dedicated subsidiaries, temporary agencies, and domestic and offshore subcontractors. A subset of the firms, however, later re-internalized call center jobs, in some cases following negotiated concessions on pay and working conditions for internal workers. Findings are based on 147 interviews with management and union representatives, archival data on restructuring measures and associated collective agreements, and wage data gathered through collective agreements and surveys. The authors argue that variation in outcomes can be explained by both the extent of the cost differentials between internal and external labor and the ease of exiting internal employment relationships, which in turn affected patterns of contestation associated with externalization measures."

"Past research has provided mixed evidence on the relationship between High-Performance Work Practices (HPWPs) and wages. Drawing from more than 1,800 interviews with the HR managers in a stratified sample of Italian manufacturing plants collected in 2008, the authors argue that the results are inconclusive unless the configurations of the HPWPs and the mechanisms underpinning employee involvement are taken into account. Their results show that HPWPs are associated with higher wages for core employees only when they align with an ideal type, and they result in higher wage equality only when they emphasize training, competence enhancement, and power delegation."

"Theory and research surrounding employee voice in organizations have often treated high-involvement work practices (HIWPs) as substitutes for unions. Drawing on recent theoretical developments in the field of industrial relations, specifically the collective voice/institutional response model of union impact and research on HIWPs in organizations, the authors propose that these institutions are better seen as complements whereby greater balance is achieved between efficiency, equity, and voice when HIWPs are implemented in the presence of unions. Based on a national sample of Canadian organizations, they find employees covered by a union experience fewer intensification pressures under higher levels of diffusion of HIWPs such that they work less unpaid overtime, have fewer grievances, and take fewer paid sick days. Job satisfaction is maximized under the combination of unions and HIWPs. "

"The authors analyze the differences in the incidence of pay-for-performance plans across occupations in a sample of Spanish manufacturing establishments. Results show that significant differences occur across occupations in the incidence of individual, group, and firm-or plant-level pay for performance plans. They also examine the roles of establishment size, multinational ownership, and the human resource department in the incidence of pay-for-performance plans and their variability across occupations within the same firm. These factors are correlated with a greater use of pay for performance and, in most cases, this effect is similar across occupations."

"Using two new data sets from France, the authors present the first study of the comparative productivity of labor-managed and conventional firms involving large representative samples of firms in a range of industries including services. Their study offers new stylized facts on labor-managed firms, and disentangles incentive effects from those of differences in input demand behavior on factor elasticities. Contrary to received wisdom, labor-managed firms are not smaller than conventional firms; they grow as fast or faster in all industries. The two groups of firms organize production differently. Labor-managed firms are as productive as conventional firms, or more productive, in all industries, and use their inputs efficiently; but in several industries conventional firms would produce more with their current input levels if they organized production like labor-managed firms. On average overall, firms would produce more using the labor-managed firms' industry-specific technologies. Labor-managed firms do not produce at inefficiently low scales."

" The authors analyze 884 Internet-based restaurant menus from inside and outside San Jose, California, which they collected before and after the city implemented a 25% minimum wage increase in 2013. Their findings suggest that nearly all of the cost increase was passed through to consumers, as prices rose 1.45% on average. Minimum wage price elasticities averaged 0.058 for all restaurants and ranged from 0.044 to 0.109, depending on the type of restaurant. The authors' estimate of payroll cost increases net of turnover savings is consistent with these findings. Equally important, border effects for restaurants are smaller than is often conjectured. Price differences among restaurants that are one-half mile from either side of the policy border are not competed away, indicating that restaurant demand is spatially inelastic. These results imply that citywide minimum wage policies need not result in substantive negative employment effects nor shifts of economic activity to nearby areas."

" Using Spanish Social Security data merged with Labor Force Survey data, this article analyzes the effects of entry labor market conditions on workers' careers two to three decades after graduating in Spain, a country well known for its highly segmented labor market and rigid labor market institutions. In contrast to more flexible labor markets such as in the United States or Canada, the authors find that following a recession the annual earnings losses of individuals without a university degree are greater and more persistent than those of college graduates. For workers without a college degree, the effect is driven by a lower likelihood of employment. For college graduates, the negative impact on earnings is driven by both a higher probability of non-employment and employment in jobs with fixed-term contracts. Although a negative shock increases mobility of college graduates across firms and industries, no earnings recovery occurs for the individual, just secondary labor market job churning. Results are consistent with the tight regulations of the Spanish labor market, such as binding minimum wages and downward wage rigidity caused by collective bargaining agreements."

"This study tests whether the employer mandate under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) increased involuntary part-time (IPT) employment. Using data from the Current Population Survey between 1994 and 2015, the authors find that IPT employment in 2015 exceeded predictions based on economic conditions and the structure of the labor market. Of greater importance, using difference-in-difference methods, they find that the increase in the probability of IPT employment since passage of the ACA was greater in occupations with a larger share of workers affected by the mandate. The authors' estimates suggest that approximately 700,000 additional workers without a college degree are in IPT employment as a result of the ACA employer mandate."