Workplace organization and innovation

Abstract This study uses panel data on Canadian establishments to explore the relationship between the organization of work – in particular decentralization, information‐sharing, and incentive pay schemes – and innovation. Like other studies, ours finds a clear positive link between these factors. However, the data give strong indications that this relationship is not causal. We show that: (1) the correlation between workplace organization and innovation holds for information‐sharing but is much weaker for decentralized decision‐making or incentive pay programs, (2) controls for unobserved heterogeneity significantly weaken results, and (3) lagged variables give no clear evidence that organizational changes predate innovation.     

Workplace Characteristics and Their Effects on Wages: Australian Evidence

Using data, from the 1995 Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey, which match individual employees to the firms and workplaces at which they are employed, this paper examines the relative importance of both individual and workplace characteristics for wages. Results from the estimation of 'effects' models indicate that workplace-specific effects are important, explaining 39 per cent of the variation in individual log hourly wages. Estimation of a model including both individual-level and workplace-level variables (and using a random effects approach) identified workplace size, foreign ownership, the significance of export markets, the gender composition of the workforce, workplace union organisation, the incidence of shift work, and location as the most important workplace-level influences on wages.     

Workplace risks and wages: Canadian evidence from alternative models

Three alternative models of compensating wage premiums for risk are estimated: the conventional OLS wage regression; an endogenous risk model that accounts for the simultaneity that may occur if workers of high potential earnings prefer safer jobs; and a self-selection model to account for the possibility that workers sort into jobs based on unobserved tolerance for risk that affects their productivity in dangerous work environments. The results suggest that the existing Canadian estimates, which have been based on the basic model, may seriously underestimate the wage premium for risk and hence the implied cost of fatal and non-fatal injuries. JEL Classification: J28, J31
Risques au travail et salaires: résultats canadiens pour plusieurs modèles. Les auteurs calibrent trois modèles pour évaluer la compensation salariale pour les risques au travail: l'équation conventionnelle de régression des salaires estimée par la méthode des moindres carrés ordinaires; un modèle de risque endogène qui tient compte de la simultanéité qui peut se produire si les travailleurs dont les revenus potentiels sont élevés préfèrent les emplois où il y a moins de risques; un modèle d'auto-sélection où les travailleurs se répartissent entre les emplois sur la base d'une tolérance non-observée pour le risque qui affecte leur productivité dans des environnements de travail dangereux. Les résultats suggèrent que les évaluations canadiennes en vogue, qui sont fondées sur le modèle de base, peuvent sous-estimer sérieusement la prime salariale de risque et donc les coûts des blessures mortelles ou non que les accidents entraînent.     

职场排斥与网络怠工:工作嵌入的调节作用

基于压力与应对理论,以273名员工为样本探讨了职场排斥与网络怠工的关系,并以情绪耗竭作为中介变量、工作嵌入作为调节变量。结果表明:职场排斥正向预测员工网络怠工;情绪耗竭部分中介职场排斥对网络怠工的正向影响;工作嵌入正向调节职场排斥对情绪耗竭的正向影响;工作嵌入正向调节情绪耗竭在职场排斥与网络怠工之间的中介作用。     

工会是否能减少企业工伤事故

基于中国12个城市1 268家工业企业的调查数据,考察了工会对企业工伤事故的影响。研究发现,工会显著减少了企业的工伤事故。利用倾向性得分匹配法考虑了可能的样本选择问题后,进一步研究发现,行业市场占有率较低的企业更可能抵制工会在安全生产和劳动保护方面的活动,使得工会保障职工职业健康安全权益的作用失效。通过考察工会影响企业工伤事故的可能机制考察,发现工会主要通过减少工人超时工作以及争取更多安全培训来降低企业的工伤事故。     

Workplace democracy and job flows

This paper investigates the relationship between workplace democracy and job flows by comparing the behavior of worker-managed firms (WMFs) and conventional firms (CFs). The empirical analysis relies on high frequency administrative firm-level panel data from Uruguay over the period April 1996–July 2009. The main findings of the paper are that (1) WMFs exhibit much more stable job dynamics than CFs; (2) both types of firms have decreasing in age and increasing in size gross job creation profiles; (3) there are heterogeneous employment regimes within WMFs: job creation and destruction rates are high for hired workers and very low for members. This paper contributes to the literature on the role of institutions in shaping job flows. Our results have important implications for the understanding of the allocative efficiency effects of worker participation.     

Dips and Floors in Workplace Training: Gender Differences and Supervisors

This article provides a detailed decomposition analysis of the gender differences in workplace training throughout the working life with a particular focus on parental leave and supervisors using personnel records from a large German firm. Females obtain less training during the early career, and more at higher age. The timing of the training gap seems to be driven by diverging career paths associated with employment interruptions. However, we find no evidence for catching‐up effects after parental leave. Furthermore, including supervisor‐fixed effects cannot explain the gender differences in training. The training of both male and female employees is positively associated with the training of the supervisor.     

Workplace Accident Compensation Reform A Reappraisal

Despite the considerable time and money spent by various states investigating mounting financial problems in workers' compensation in recent years, we still do not know very much about the causes of the problems. An important reason for this has been that the debate in Australia has suffered from a number of misconceptions and lack of analytical rigour. This article outlines how some basic economics can provide a framework for analysing many issues in the workers' compensation debate. In doing so the analysis casts doubt on a number of conventional wisdoms, particularly the belief that employers pay for workers' compensation and the assumption that current levels of government involvement in worker disability insurance arrangements are justified. In addition, data from New South Wales are presented that suggest the main reason for increased costs is higher income maintenance payment per claim. As with overseas experience, higher benefit levels appear to give workers more incentive to stay away from work and make claims for injuries whose severity is harder to measure.     

Left luggage: finding the relevant context of Austrian Economics

Recently a number of scholars, including Tony Judt and Corey Robin, have attempted to discredit Austrian economics by emphasizing the (cultural) distance between the context in which the Austrians made their contributions and our current society. This article argues that the cultural and social context is indeed relevant for how we understand the contribution of the Austrians, but that the critics fundamentally misunderstand or misrepresent the Austrian and Habsburg context. It is argued that the relevant context, particularly for the interwar contributions of Mises, Schumpeter, Hayek and Popper is the despair about the breakdown of their civilization, which includes the rise of mass political movements such as socialism and fascism. It is only against this background that we can understand the intent of their work, and the problems which they sought to address. It is further argued, in contrast with earlier work which has tended to emphasize the philosophical and methodological context in which they operated, that this cultural and social context is at least as relevant to understand the meaning of their work.     

Why Has the Workplace Become Safer?

This paper asks whether the fall over 1983–1993 in the aggregate injury-to-workforce ratio (the injury rate) that occurred in Queensland was due to improvements in industrial safety or due to shifts in employment away from 'unsafe' industries. The conclusion, based on data from the Queensland Employee Injury Data Base, is that improvements in industrial safety were the main reason for the State's workplace becoming safer. The paper then conducts an econometric investigation in to why industrial injury rates in Queensland fell over 1983–1993. The evidence is that in Mining, Manufacturing and Construction, there was a significant autonomous decrease in the injury rate. The problem is that since the data available were only for those injuries against which compensation was claimed, it is difficult to say—except as a matter of judgement—whether improvements in injury rates in these sectors were due to genuine improvements in safety or caused by a fall in the propensity to claim compensation. Changes in general economic conditions—particularly, rising unemployment—have also contributed to falling injury rates.     

职场排斥对国有企业员工工作绩效的影响——基于组织自尊的缓冲效应

研究发现职场排斥作为一种普遍现象,对员工的工作绩效产生影响,并受一些员工个体特征和情境因素的影响。本文采用问卷调查法,以环渤海地区国有企业员工为调研对象,使用SPSS16．0分析组织自尊、职场排斥与工作绩效的关系。研究表明：职场排斥对工作绩效中的任务绩效与关系绩效均有显著的负向影响;组织自尊对工作绩效中的任务绩效与关系绩效均有显著的正向影响;组织自尊在职场排斥与工作绩效之间起到调节作用。研究结果有利于澄清职场排斥、组织自尊和工作绩效的关系,有利于管理者分析影响员工工作的因素,对管理实践有着重要的启示意义。