Improved Metrics for Workplace Dispute Resolution Procedures: Efficiency,Equity, and Voice

Many debates surround systems for resolving workplace disputes. In the United States, traditional unionized grievance procedures, emerging nonunion dispute resolution systems, and the court‐based system for resolving employment law disputes have all been criticized. What is missing from these debates are rich metrics beyond speed and satisfaction for comparing and evaluating dispute resolution systems. In this paper, we develop efficiency, equity, and voice as these standards. Unionized, nonunion, and employment law procedures are then qualitatively evaluated against these three metrics.     

Workplace Transformation and the Disposable Workplace: Employee Involvement in Australia

Employee involvement (EI) programs should mainly appear either where "workplace transformation" occurs or where managers create a "disposable workplace." Cluster analysis of Australian workplace data supports the notion that transformed and disposable workplaces are distinct from one another and from traditional workplaces. These workplace categories are related to the reported incidence of EI programs as hypothesized. (JEL J41, J51, 553)     

Workplace Transformation and Worker Upskilling: The Perspective of Individual Workers

How common is workplace transformation in the American economy? What are its implications for work force skill requirements and training investments? The existing literature addressing these questions is based on firm-reported survey data. Using new data available in the 1993 wave of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), this article examines the same questions from the perspective of individual workers. Our empirical results suggest that workplace transformation is commonplace. Fully 40 percent of private-sector workers surveyed report that in the space of just one year, a change occurred at work that required them to learn new job skills. About 23 percent of all respondents reported experiencing a workplace change we term anorganizational transformation. Incidence of formal training is positively related to indicators of organizational transformation, but the effect of these indicators is found to be sensitive to the inclusion of other important workplace change variables (namely, new products, new equipment, and new government regulations). While we expected to find strong positive relationships with product development and physical capital investment, government regulation has a surprisingly large impact on formal training.     

Just Tell Me! Making Alternative Dispute Resolution Systems Fair

This study investigates fairness perceptions of alternative dispute systems utilizing a policy capturing design and a sample of four hundred and fifty non‐union, non‐management employees from seven organizations. The communication surrounding the decision, the level of employee input, and the composition of the grievance panel had larger effects on overall fairness perceptions than did outcome. Unfavorable outcomes that were reached by fair processes generate higher distributive justice ratings than favorable outcomes reached by unfair processes.     

The Conditions Promoting Compromise in the Workplace

A previous article developed a framework to understand workplace co‐operation. We now elaborate on the key structuring conditions (technology, product markets and institutional regulation) generating different patterns and illustrate from field research how these different workplace regimes develop. Conditions generating positive and sustainable outcomes for both capital and labour are feasible but rare; stronger ‘beneficial constraints’ are needed if they are to be made more frequent. This article provides an alternative to current interpretations of labour–management co‐operation in the industrial relations literature.     

Membership Participation in Workplace Unionism: The Possibility of Union Renewal

This article reports membership involvement (participation and commitment) in five case studies. Membership participation in and commitment to workplace unionism is greater than is customarily portrayed and, additionally, there are fluctuations in both. However, the solidarity dimension of commitment is more important in discussing participation than that of ideology since active members can have either an instrumental or an ideological orientation to unionism. Surges of involvement in a workplace are experienced in response to the impact of events in the local union environment, as mediated particularly by local leadership style. The possibility for union renewal comes through building up the base level of participation by careful local leadership so that members can more easily be encouraged to take part in collective activities in times of necessity.     

The Bases of Compromise in the Workplace: A Theoretical Framework

Schemes for workplace participation have long been promoted and vilified. Such conflicting views have been brought into sharp focus by the highly variable results of such practices as teamwork. Yet a theoretical framework to grasp workplace co‐operation is lacking. This paper develops a framework on the basis of theory and a review of a wide range of empirical studies. Capital and labour each have two sets of ‘concerns’: over ‘control’ of the workplace and the longer term ‘development’ of the productive forces. Cross‐classifying these concerns produces a matrix of patterns of workplace relations. Each cell of the matrix represents a different combination of the interests of capital and labour. The matrix can be used to map participation schemes so as to capture their varying features. The next task, pursued elsewhere, is to identify the conditions leading to locations in different cells of the matrix.     

The Role of Arbitration Costs and Risk Aversion in Dispute Outcomes

The effects of risk aversion and of arbitration costs on bargaining outcomes are investigated using data from 171 simulated negotiations. The results are generally consistent with predictions from a simple economic bargaining model. We find strong evidence that directs costs of arbitration lead to higher rates of agreement. There is only weak evidence the risk aversion is related to the probability of agreement, but negotiated settlements seems to favor the less risk-averse bargainer.     

The Role of Workplace Chaplains in Industrial Relations: Evidence from Australia

This paper examines a neglected and largely invisible actor within the field of industrial relations. Taking the case of industrial chaplains in Australian workplaces, it demonstrates that not only do chaplains play an important and independent role in their own right, but that their ostensible neutrality is also used to help achieve the interests of both management and trade unions. The location of chaplains in industrial relations and their need to develop workplace legitimacy accounts for this finding. This suggests that future studies that seek to explore the purpose and activities of new and non‐traditional groups in industrial relations will need to place their analyses within the context of more established actors.     

"Flexible" Work Practices and Occupational Safety and Health: Exploring the Relationship Between Cumulative Trauma Disorders and Workplace Transformation

This article matches establishment-level data on workplace transformation (e.g., quality circles, work teams, and just-in-time production) with measures of cumulative trauma disorders at these same establishments to explore the relationship between "flexible" workplace practices and workplace health and safety. The results reveal a positive, statistically significant, and quantitatively sizable relationship between cumulative trauma disorders and the use of quality circles and just-in-time production.     

A Resolution Of The Multiple Rate-Of-Return Paradox

This paper presents a new and better method for teaching the derivation of the appropriate form of a multi-attribute utility function under various assumptions of utility independence. This new method has three advantages over the usual mathematical method for teaching this subject. First, because our method is a natural elaboration of the method often used to teach single-attribute utility assessment, students learn multi-attribute utility assessment as an extension of single-attribute utility assessment. Second, because our method uses the same visual representation used in teaching single-attribute utility assessment (the tree), students who learn by using visual representations may learn the multi-attribute concepts better. Finally, our method clarifies the assessments needed to determine the weights for each term in the multi-attribute utility function.     

企业文化的改造——促进民营企业持续发展的必然选择

目前我国很多民营企业的领导者都已经意识到企业文化对企业发展的重要作用,也在通过不断地努力加强企业文化的建设,尽管取得了一定的成绩,但也突出了一些问题,有些甚至是相当普遍。本文针对这些存在的问题进行分析,提出一些对民营企业文化进行改造的途径。     

澳大利亚废弃物回收责任引起的争议

澳大利亚是一个环境优美的国家，海外访客对澳大利亚蔚蓝的天空、新鲜的空气、绿化的公园和干净的市容与街道往往赞赏有加。尤其是每逢收垃圾的日子，住宅区的街道两旁处处可见挨家挨户排列整齐的垃圾箱，统一发放的垃圾箱旁边则有装塑料、玻璃瓶罐的废物回收箱，然后还有一落包扎好的报章杂志与广告有待收集。这种景象使人对澳大利亚人民维护环境清洁的习惯以及井然有序的废物回收工作留下了深刻的印象。     

The Relationships of Informal High Performance Work Practices to Job Satisfaction and Workplace Profitability

Recent empirical evidence reveals considerable divergence between management reports and employee reports regarding organizational high performance work practices (HPWPs). This divergence implies that employees may not participate in some HPWPs that are formally present in their organizations, but also, that employees may participate in HPWPs that are not formally present in their organizations. In this study, we examine the implication of the latter case (i.e., employee participation in “informal” HPWPs) for employee‐level and organization‐level outcomes. Our analyses, using data from the Statistics Canada Workplace and Employee Survey, suggest that employee participation in informal HPWPs is associated with enhanced job satisfaction and workplace profitability in a similar way as employee participation in formal HPWPs is associated with these outcomes.     

The Role of Planning and Workplace Support in Returning to Work after Maternity Leave

The paper reports a longitudinal study of the post‐pregnancy work outcomes for full‐time working women who were pregnant with their first baby. Regression analyses revealed that women who did not return to work as intended were differentiated from those who did return to work by the amount of planning they had done in pregnancy, as well as having lower pre‐natal income and less anti‐cipated support within the workplace. Almost one third of those who returned to work part‐time reported reduced job status. The study shows the importance of workplace planning and support in return to work after maternity leave.     

The Views of Members towards Workplace Union Organization in Banking between 1999 and 2008

In tracing the changing perceptions of members in banking of trade union workplace organization between 1999 and 2008, this article illustrates a pattern of decline in terms of the coverage and performance of workplace organization. Contrary to the claims made by proponents of partnership arrangements, merger involvement and organizing, these strategies were not sufficient to arrest the decline in workplace organization. In consequence, members remained reliant on trade union full‐time officers for support.