Wage Effects of On‐the‐Job Training: A Meta‐Analysis

A meta‐analysis is used to study the average wage effects of on‐the‐job training. This study shows that the average reported wage effect of on‐the‐job training, corrected for publication bias, is 2.6 per cent per course. The analyses reveal a substantial heterogeneity between training courses, while wage effects reported in studies based on instrumental variables and panel estimators are substantially lower than estimates based on techniques that do not correct for selectivity issues. Appropriate methodology and the quality of the data turn out to be crucial to determine the wage returns.     

Cross‐National Analysis of Gender Differences in Job Satisfaction

Research over the past two decades has found significant gender differences in subjective job satisfaction, with the result that women report greater satisfaction than men in some countries. This paper examines the so‐called “gender paradox” using data from the European Social Survey for a subset of fourteen countries in the European Union. We focus on the hypothesis that women place higher values on certain work characteristics than men, which explains the observed differential. Using estimates from Probit and ordered Probit models, we conduct standard Blinder–Oaxaca decompositions to estimate the impact that differential valuations of characteristics have on the gender difference in self‐reported job satisfaction. The results indicate that females continue to report higher levels of job satisfaction than do men in some countries, and the difference remains even after controlling for a wide range of personal and job characteristics and working conditions. The decompositions suggest that a relatively small share of the gender differential is attributable to gender differences in the weights placed on working conditions in most countries. Rather, gender differences in job characteristics contribute relatively more to explaining the gender–job satisfaction differential.     

Occupational Stereotypes and Gender‐Specific Job Satisfaction

Using representative data containing information on job satisfaction and workers’ gender‐specific prejudices, we investigate the relationship between stereotyping and job satisfaction. We show that women in stereotypically male jobs are significantly less satisfied with their work climate and job content than in stereotypically female jobs but more satisfied with their income in those same jobs. Our findings indicate that women trade off their higher income satisfaction against the negative consequences of stereotyping. As long as we take into account that stereotypically male jobs are physically more demanding than stereotypically female jobs, men are generally more satisfied with stereotypically male jobs.     

Non‐Standard “Contingent” Employment and Job Satisfaction: A Panel Data Analysis

Contingent forms of employment are usually associated with low‐quality jobs and, by inference, jobs that workers find relatively unsatisfying. This assumption is tested using data from a representative household panel survey covering a country (Australia) with a high incidence of nonstandard employment. Results from the estimation of ordered logit regression models reveal that among males, both casual employees and labor‐hire (agency) workers (but not fixed‐term contract workers) report noticeably lower levels of job satisfaction, though this association diminishes with job tenure. Negative effects for women are mainly restricted to labor‐hire workers.     

Measuring the Union–Nonunion Wage Gap Using Propensity Score Matching

This paper examines the union wage effect among private sector wage and salary workers using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics data. We estimate the average union premium by utilizing semi (non) parametric matching techniques, as well as by linear regression model. Our analysis reveals: (1) conditioning linearly on covariates understates the union wage effect. In addition, matching results under the alternative support conditions indicate that selection on unobservables has at most a modest impact on average. (2) Log wage estimations lead to an overstatement of the union wage effect. Solving these problems yields the union membership premium as 21.5 percent.     

Unions and Profits: A Meta‐Regression Analysis1

The effect of unions on profits continues to be an unresolved theoretical and empirical issue. In this paper, clustered data analysis and hierarchical linear meta‐regression models are applied to the population of forty‐five econometric studies that report 532 estimates of the direct effect of unions on profits. Unions have a significant negative effect on profits in the United States, and this effect is larger when market‐based measures of profits are used. Separate meta‐regression analyses are used to identify the effects of market power and long‐lived assets on profits, as well as the sources of union‐profit effects. The accumulated evidence rejects market power as a source of union‐profit effects. While the case is not yet proven, there is some evidence in support of the appropriation of quasi‐rent hypothesis. There is a clear need for further American and non‐American primary research in this area.     

Success Factors for Service Innovation: A Meta‐Analysis

Service sectors form a considerable part of the world economy. Contrary to the logical assumption that service innovation research should represent a significant share of all innovation research, the vast majority of innovation studies focus on products as opposed to services. This research presents a meta‐analysis of the antecedents of service innovation performance conducted on 92 independent samples obtained from 114 articles published between 1989 and 2015. This research contributes to our understanding of service innovation in three major ways. First, this is the first meta‐analysis that specifically assesses the relative importance of antecedents of service innovation performance, while also pinpointing the differences in meta‐analytic findings between antecedents of service and product innovation performance. Although there are some universal success factors that transcend the boundaries between services and products, the presence of marked differences implies that it would be wrong to treat the development of new services and new products as the same. Second, the meta‐analysis demonstrates that the antecedents of service innovation performance are contingent on the sector context (i.e., explicit versus tacit services). Comparing results between products and services, and between tacit and explicit services, there appears to be a continuum where explicit services sit interstitial between tacit services on one side and products on the other. Third, the meta‐analysis compares and contrasts the antecedents of two dimensions of service innovation performance (i.e., commercial success and strategic competitive advantage). Previous meta‐analyses treated these two dependent variables collectively, which falls short of identifying issues that may affect management decisions when faced with different objectives. Additionally, this research investigates the effect of several other moderators (i.e., culture, unit of analysis, journal quality, and year of publication) on the relationships between the antecedents and service innovation performance. The results are discussed in relation to their implications for research and managerial practice.     

Consequences of New Product Development Speed: A Meta‐Analysis

Five meta‐analyses previously have been published on the topic of new product development involving the concept of new product development speed. Three of these studies have investigated antecedents to new product development success, of which just one was new product development speed. The other two studies used new product development speed as the dependent variable, and analyzed antecedents to achieving speed. This article extends previous empirical generalizations in this domain by using a meta‐analytic methodology to understand the link between new product development speed and new product success at a more granular level. Specifically, it considers the relationship with different dimensions of success as measured overall or compositely, operationally (i.e., the process measures of decreasing development costs and proficiently managing market entry timing and the product measures of technical product performance and product competitive advantage), and relative to external success outcomes (i.e., customer based and financial success). While the results indicate that, in general, new product development speed is associated with improving success outcomes, those relationships may diminish or even disappear depending upon a number of methodological design decisions and research contexts. A subsequent meta‐analysis of the antecedents of development speed provides a more holistic picture of development speed. These results are broadly consistent with those produced by another recent meta‐analytic investigation of the issue. Together, these findings have important implications for academics pursuing further research in this domain, as well as for managers considering implementing a program to increase new product development speed.     

What Do Unions Do to Productivity? A Meta‐Analysis

The impact of unions on productivity is explored using meta-analysis and meta-regression analysis. It is shown that most of the variation in published results is due to specification differences between studies. After controlling for differences between studies, a negative association between unions and productivity is established for the United Kingdom, whereas a positive association is established for the United States in general and for U.S. manufacturing.     

Meta‐Analysis of the Effects of Sexual Orientation on Earnings

Most studies show that gay men earn less and lesbians earn more than their heterosexual counterparts, but the size of estimated sexual orientation differences varies greatly across studies. Using studies published between 1995 and 2012, a meta‐regression shows that the gay sample size, sexual orientation measure, and controls for work intensity explain variation in estimates for men. For women, there are few conclusive influences although controlling for work intensity seems to be most important.     

The Part‐Time Job Satisfaction Puzzle: Different Types of Job Discrepancies and the Moderating Effect of Family Importance

Although part‐time employment often appears as a substandard form of employment, evidence that part‐time employees are less satisfied than full‐time employees is ambiguous. To shed more light on this puzzle, I test an extended discrepancy theory framework using data from the German Socio‐Economic Panel. The results help explain previous inconsistent findings: Part‐time employment increases the chances of being underemployed while it reduces the likelihood of working more hours than preferred, and the negative effects of both types of working time mismatches on job satisfaction are similar in size. Furthermore, the importance attributed to family roles mitigates the negative effect of part‐time employment on job satisfaction.     

Absorptive capacity and openness of small biopharmaceutical firms – a European Union–United States comparison

The complementarities between internal capabilities and external linkages have been widely acknowledged in the open innovation literature, yet little is known about the extent to which internal capabilities affect firms' openness within different institutional contexts. This paper therefore empirically explores the relationship between absorptive capacity (ACAP) and openness in the United States and European biopharmaceutical sectors. Based on analysis of data from a large‐scale international survey of 349 biopharmaceutical firms in the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany, the results suggest that exploratory openness depends more strongly on the research and development (R&D) aspect of firms' potential absorptive capacity, whereas exploitative openness is more conditional on firms' realized absorptive capacity (RACAP). The results also highlight the major differences between firms' openness and ACAP in the United States and Europe – in the United States, firms' skill levels prove more significant in contributing to firms' engagement with exploratory relationships, whereas in Europe, continuity of R&D proves more important. Engagement with exploitative relationships, however, is more conditional on firms' RACAP in Europe only.     

Beyond the Union‐Centred Approach: A Critical Evaluation of Recent Trade Union Elections in China

Many Western scholars have regarded union democracy and elections as affairs that are internal to trade unions and unconnected with outside forces. Going beyond the mainstream union‐centred approach, this study critically assesses one significant type of union election that has been emerging in China since 2010 and that has been driven by different forces from previous elections. Previous workplace union elections had been ‘top‐down’ — initiated by the party‐state or its apparatuses, or else transnational corporation‐induced — but this newer type of election has been driven by workers' strikes. This study illustrates how the dynamics among the quadripartite actors — party‐state, higher‐level trade unions, capital and labour — have shaped these strike‐driven elections. Contrary to the claim that these elections have been ‘direct’ and ‘democratic’, our case studies show that they have been indirect and quasi‐democratic in nature.     

Organizational Culture and Innovation: A Meta‐Analytic Review

The relationship of organizational culture and innovation has been subject to extensive research over the last decades. The multitude of cultural variables under investigation has led to a fragmented concept of culture for innovation, and an inclusion into management theory is still missing. Further, managerial practice requires an underlying structure in order to decide what culture should be implemented in order to foster innovation, and to assess if a specific culture is an effective and efficient coordination instrument. Hence, a framework is needed which allows classification of cultural values without residuals, to draw expedient comparisons with reference to the criteria by which they are grouped, and to assess their relationship with organizational innovation. This meta‐analysis, which comprises 43 studies with a combined sample size of 6341 organizations, reveals that Quinn and Rohrbaugh's Competing Values Framework provides a meaningful structure for the ideational aspects of organizational culture. The Competing Values Framework describes value systems based on two main dimensions. Those two pairs of opposing values are flexibility versus control and internal versus external orientation. The analysis shows that the congruence of different cultures with organizational goals of innovation can be described based on that framework. Control theory is used to explain the relationship of organizational culture and innovation. While culture describes the ideational aspects of organizational values, clan control describes their coordinative effect. Managers may choose different clan control strategies according to the Competing Values Framework. They will most likely follow the strategy that provides a high level of congruence between the goals of management and the goals of their organization's social system. Individuals that have internalized the organizational values apply them as a form of self‐control. Those values will also be applied in groups, such as product development teams. While development teams may be formed and disbanded with certain projects and individuals may leave the company, the organization forms the steady frame of those activities. The cumulative data confirms the hypothesis that managers of innovative organizations most likely implement a developmental culture, which emphasizes an external and a flexibility orientation. Yet also group and rational cultures are to a certain extent consistent with the goals of an innovative organization and may thus be appropriate social control strategies. Hierarchical cultures emphasize control and an internal orientation and are less likely to be found in innovative organizations. A moderator analysis of the culture–innovation relationship revealed that it is not influenced by the differentiation between radical and incremental innovation, and only weak evidence exists for an influence of innovation adoption versus innovation generation. A potential reason is that those organizations that are geared toward innovation will pursue it consequently, without differentiating between different kinds of innovation. Therefore, managers that follow a (radical) innovation strategy should establish a developmental culture in their organization. If innovation rather represents a minor aspect of the firm's long‐term objectives, the efficiency‐oriented rational culture or a group culture may also be the right choice.     

Catching Fire: Institutional Interdependencies in Union‐Facilitated Knowledge Diffusion

I find that school union representatives’ ‘boundary spanning’ communications throughout the school district predict the diffusion of knowledge between schools. Hence, my data reveal school union representatives as critical conduits for improvement‐related knowledge transfer and innovation. Yet, I also find that these external networks interact strongly with the level of workforce participation characterizing each school: The effects of external networks on internal knowledge diffusion are considerably stronger in more participative schools compared to less participative schools. This research contributes to industrial relations scholarship by demonstrating how union‐related institutions can foster unique social structures that directly strengthen innovation‐related capabilities, as well as how the efficacy of these networks depends on managerial norms at different areas of the organization. This study is also of timely practical relevance at a time when labour unions are increasingly painted as obstacles to, rather than potential facilitators of, improvement and innovation.     

Success Factors in New Ventures: A Meta‐analysis*

Technology entrepreneurship is key to economic development. New technology ventures (NTVs) can have positive effects on employment and could rejuvenate industries with disruptive technologies. However, NTVs have a limited survival rate. In our most recent empirical study of 11,259 NTVs established between 1991 and 2000 in the United States, we found that after four years only 36 percent, or 4,062, of companies with more than five full‐time employees, had survived. After five years, the survival rate fell to 21.9 percent, leaving only 2,471 firms still in operation with more than five full‐time employees. Thus, it is important to examine how new technology ventures can better survive. In the academic literature, a number of studies focus on success factors for NTVs. Unfortunately, empirical results are often controversial and fragmented. To get a more integrated picture of what factors lead to the success or failure of new technology ventures, we conducted a meta‐analysis to examine the success factors in NTVs. We culled the academic literature to collect data from existing empirical studies. Using Pearson correlations as effect size statistics, we conducted a meta‐analysis to analyze the findings of 31 studies and identified the 24 most widely researched success factors for NTVs. After correcting for artifacts and sample size effects, we found that among the 24 possible success factors identified in the literature, 8 are homogeneous significant success factors for NTVs (i.e., they are homogeneous positive significant metafactors that are correlated to venture performance): (1) supply chain integration; (2) market scope; (3) firm age; (4) size of founding team; (5) financial resources; (6) founders' marketing experience; (7) founders' industry experience; and (8) existence of patent protection. Of the original 24 success factors, 5 were not significant: (1) founders' research and development (R&D) experience; (2) founders' experience with start‐ups; (3) environmental dynamism; (4) environmental heterogeneity; and (5) competition intensity. The remaining 11 success factors are heterogeneous. For those heterogeneous success factors, we conducted a moderator analysis. Of this set, three appeared to be success factors, and two were failure factors for subgroups within the NTVs' population. To facilitate the development of a body of knowledge in technology entrepreneurship, this study also identifies high‐quality measurement scales for future research. The article concludes with future research directions.     

Revisiting General and Specific Union Beliefs: The Union‐Voting Intentions of Professionals

We examine how general and specific beliefs about unions influence the union‐voting intentions of professional employees. Previous research, mainly on nonprofessionals, has found that both beliefs are significant in predicting voting behavior, but that specific beliefs have the stronger effect. Using a structural equation model, we found a causal relationship between general and specific beliefs, and that the total effect of general beliefs is nearly three times as strong as that of specific beliefs.     

Toward Further Understanding the Market‐sensing Capability–Value Creation Relationship

Earlier writings have speculated that the components of customer focus may have differential effects on customer value. This research is responsive to this call as it identifies the behavioral and cultural components that underlie a market‐sensing capability (i.e., customer focus), and undertakes a finer‐grained examination of the impact of the routines through which customer focus is manifested. Specifically, this research investigates the market learning activities (ML) that can affect the depth of the understanding achieved regarding the buyer's requirements and usage context, and the customer‐oriented practices (CO) that can affect the breadth of potential solutions generated to address those requirements. Given the possibility that some buyers may have more sophisticated needs, the role of a customer's performance standards is also considered as a moderating variable. Based on data collected from computer and electronics manufacturers via two separate surveys, the results support that a supplier's ML and CO, respectively, affect perceived customer value. The results also show that a customer's performance standards do not moderate the ML–customer value relationship. Regardless of whether the customer's performance standards (along the lines of product quality, defect rates, and on‐time delivery) are high or low, the seller must be adept at discerning changes in the buying firm's requirements and operational realities. Thus, market learning practices are needed across all customers in order for the supplier to remain synchronized with market changes and deliver superior value to them. Additionally, the results support that the positive association between a seller's CO and perceived customer value is stronger when buyers have more demanding performance standards. The generation of a broader array of potential solutions that is commensurate with a more outward focus is likely to be needed to satisfy customers with more stringent requirements. The disaggregated approach taken in this research contributes to theory by (1) providing greater insight into the domain of the customer focus construct, (2) tracing the mechanisms through which customer focus is reified, and (3) evaluating the possibility that the components of customer focus may have differential effects on customer value. The main practical implication stems from the proposal that market sensing can serve as a core competence and thereby provide the foundation for differential advantage.