Firms' investments in general training and the skilled labour market

An adverse selection model is analysed, where firms can train or hire a skilled worker. In equilibrium, the market wage is determined by supply and demand. The quality of the supplied skilled labour is negatively biased, because workers stem from firms that shut down and from firms that observed their trainee's bad quality during the training. If fewer firms were to shut down, then the supplied average quality deteriorates and the incentive to train increases. The incentive is inefficient, because firms must share the informational rent and they free-ride. Ex ante workers may wish to increase the firms' bargaining power.     

Reframing resistance to organizational change

We examine the literature on resistance to organizational change and identify two dominant yet contrasting approaches: the demonizing versus the celebrating of resistance to change. We show that both of these approaches fail to address power relations adequately and, in so doing, raise practical, ethical and theoretical problems in understanding and managing change. We propose an alternative, more critical approach, which shows how both power and resistance constitute organizational change. We highlight how power-resistance relations lie at the heart of organizational change.     

Dissecting aggregate output and labour productivity change

This paper is about the relation between output and labour productivity measures for individual production units and for aggregates such as industries, sectors, or economies. In the framework of discrete time periods several useful, symmetric expressions are derived and confronted with results from the literature.     

Employee acceptance of organizational change:the role of organizational commitment

This study tests a causal model that predicts the acceptance of organizational change using a sample of 761 employees from a large public hospital in the state of Victoria, Australia. The LISREL results indicate that employee acceptance of organizational change is increased by organizational commitment, a harmonious industrial relations (IR) climate, education, job motivation, job satisfaction, job security and positive affectivity, and is decreased by union membership, role conflict, tenure and environmental opportunity. Organizational commitment was found to act as both a determinant and mediator in the change process. Implications for the management of organizational change using human resource (HR) strategies and policies are discussed.     

Implementation costs of IS-enabled organizational change

Organizations incur substantial costs in managing organizational changes associated with the implementation of information systems (IS). However, the relationship between organizational changes and IS implementation costs is not well understood. Extending current research on IS-enabled organizational change, we draw on configuration theory to develop propositions identifying drivers of IS implementation costs. To test the propositions, we analyze the changes and implementation costs involved in three IS implementation initiatives. The analysis confirms that interdependencies between changes are key drivers of IS implementation costs. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

The impact of ICT on the demand for skilled labour: A cross-country comparison

This paper provides a unique cross-country comparative perspective on the impact of information and communication technology on the demand for skilled labour. It employs panel data for the US, the UK and France, comprising several skill categories for each country for the 1980s and 1990s. The paper considers the issue of whether skill bias is transitory or permanent both by considering changes through time and by dividing the highly skilled into IT specific and other occupations. The results indicate that the impact of technology on the demand for skilled labour is slowing down, at least in the US, supporting a transitory interpretation.     

The myth of flexibility in organizational change

In this article we examine the complex nature of organizational flexibility. We question the myth of flexibility as exclusively a top management interpretation of constant adaptiveness to environmental change by exploring the various rigidities involved in a seemingly adaptive organization. Our long-term study of a major Finnish commercial bank under deregulation identified several dominant forms of temporal flexibility–rigidity configurations: formal rigidities, flexible rigidities, rigid flexibilities and defensive rigidities. These configurations were revealed by focusing on the structural tensions which emerge between different levels of management and on the different interpretations given by competing groups to the notion of “organizational flexibility” within a process of change.     

A longitudinal study of supply organizational change

This research examines the high level of change in supply organizations of large North American companies using data collected from 51 large North American supply organizations in 1987, 1995 and 2003. Analysis is supplemented by an additional 55 companies for which data were collected in 1995 and 2003. The availability of longitudinal data from individual companies over a 16-year period provided a unique opportunity to trace changes made to each company's supply organizational structure and their roles and responsibilities. Findings suggest that the respondents made major changes in supply organizational structure, supply chain responsibilities, use of purchasing teams, supply involvement in major corporate activities (MCA) and CPO reporting line, title and background.     

制度变迁与城市规划的组织变革

为降低交易费用、促进分工、推动经济增长,社会发生从计划经济体制向市场经济体制的制度变迁.在制度变迁过程中,城市规划也需要支付必要的市场交易成本.政府要在招商引资中通过城市规划主导城市空间演化方向,在城市经营中加强成本意识、营销意识.为适应制度变迁和公共服务的要求,城市规划的管理和编制都面临组织变革.     

Implementing organizational change in supply towards decentralization

This paper presents the findings from research in large companies investigating implementation issues faced by chief purchasing officers as their supply organization changed to greater decentralization. Once the decision was made to decentralize, responsibility for implementation was given to the chief purchasing officer (CPO). Firms changing their supply organization to a more decentralized structure faced a number of implementation issues, including the business unit concerns, role of the chief purchasing officer, top management involvement, changes to existing purchasing staff and the involvement of consultants. In the nine changes studied across seven companies, the decentralization process also required the CPO to address a number of simultaneous activities, including cost reduction objectives and implementation of information technology systems. A surprising “purchasing paradox” was also uncovered as top management still expected decentralized supply units to provide additional savings.     

Optimal promotions of competing firms in a frictional labour market with organizational hierarchies

We study optimal promotion decisions of hierarchical firms, with one junior and one senior managerial position, which interact in a search and matching labour market. Workers acquire experience over time while being employed in a junior position and the firm has to determine the experience level at which the worker receives a promotion which allows her to fill a senior position. Promoted workers move to the senior position in their current firm, if it is vacant, otherwise they search for senior positions on the market. The promotion cut-offs of the competing firms exhibit strategic complementarity, but we show that generically a unique stable symmetric general equilibrium exists. We find that stronger competition among firms leads to later (earlier) promotions if the initial number of firms is small (large) giving rise to an inverse U-shape relationship. In the presence of two skill groups, stronger competition among firms reduces the importance of skill differences, so the gap in wages and promotion times decreases with the number of firms. The model is compatible with empirical evidence that high-skill workers are promoted faster than the low-skilled and that internal promotions are more frequent than cross-firm moves to a higher hierarchical position.     

Coming to America: work visas,international diversity,and organizational attractiveness among highly skilled Asian immigrants

Abstract

U.S. firms are increasingly seeking foreign workers to help satisfy growing demands for technical and highly skilled labor, and many immigrants continue to seek jobs in America. Despite this, few studies in the management discipline examine immigration issues as they relate to organizational attraction and recruitment. In an experimental study, we investigated the relationship between stated recruitment policies, perceived work-related expectancy, and organizational attractiveness among graduate students from Asia as potential job seekers to companies in the United States. We found a relationship between perceived work-related expectancy and either emphasizing international diversity or work visa sponsorship. However, emphasizing work visa sponsorship weakened the effect of international diversity on perceived work-related expectancy. Perceived work-related expectancy was also found to positively affect organizational attractiveness, resulting in a conditional indirect effect of international diversity statements on organizational attractiveness. Implications for organizations and directions for future research are discussed.     

Maastricht: a fundamental change in European labour law

The Maastricht Treaty's Protocol on Social Policy provides a new framework for participation of labour and management in the formulation and application of labour law at national and Community levels. Following the Charter of Fundamental Social Rights of Workers, it marks a fundamental change of direction in European labour law     

The myths and realities of structural change in the UK labour market

Recent discussion of developments within the UK labour market has highlighted the growth of more 'flexible' types of employment: part-time work, temporary jobs, and self-employment. The structure of employment has also been shifting – away from manufacturing and manual employment and towards the service sector and non-manual employment. In this article, Peter Robinson argues that these are not new developments and in some respects the pace of structural change in the labour market has slowed down. Together with evidence that the labour market is now adapting successfully to earlier structural changes, this bodes well for the prospect of further gradual reductions in unemployment.     

Employees' attitudes toward organizational change: A literature review

Organizations are increasingly required to improve their ability to enhance employees' support or acceptance for change initiatives. In studies that have examined the conditions in which employees support organizational change, researchers have focused on various attitudinal constructs that represent employees' attitudes toward organizational change. The constructs, which frequently serve as key variables in these studies, include readiness for change, commitment to change, openness to change, and cynicism about organizational change. These constructs have distinct meanings and emphases and therefore they can provide us with different information regarding employees' evaluation of and concerns about particular change initiatives. In this literature review, the author discusses how the constructs are defined in the organizational change literature and synthesizes the antecedents of each construct. Based on the discussion, it is proposed that the constructs are susceptible to situational variables, and may change over time as individuals' experiences change; therefore, they are better conceptualized as states than as personality traits. ©2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.