Convergence of public and private enterprise wages in a transition economy: Evidence from a distributional decomposition in Vietnam, 2002–2014

We examine the transition of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in Vietnam during the period 2002–2014 from a wage perspective by decomposing the differences in wage distributions between SOE employees and non-SOE employees. Although SOE employees received higher pay in 2002 because of differences in the characteristics and residuals, the differences in coefficients were minimal along the wage distribution during 2002–2014. The differences in characteristics decreased over time in the middle and middle-to-high wage distribution groups. University graduates were the main contributor to the difference in endowments. By 2014, the residuals difference vanished and the pay schemes between SOEs and non-SOEs converged.     

Wage drift and minimum contractual wage: Theoretical interrelationship and empirical evidence for Italy

A two-stage wage setting process whose outcomes are identified in the wage drift, at the local level, and in the tariff wage, at the central level, is analyzed. The impact of insider and outsider factors in each stage of the bargaining process is investigated both theoretically and empirically for Italy. In the light of its extreme policy relevance, particular attention is devoted to the analysis of the interrelationships between the wage drift and the tariff wage. Panel data estimation carried out on a sample of 105 Italian three-digit industries and 41 contract groups, reveals that: (1) Insider factors (productivity, inventories and the insider workers power) are important determinants of the wage drift while outsider factors (aggregate wage and unemployment) have a prominent role in determining the tariff wage. (2) Wage drift and tariff wage are closely interrelated.     

Union effects on pay levels in Britain

The contraction of union representation in Britain raises the question of whether or not unions still achieve a wage premium. Analysis of matched employer–employee data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey shows that there is now no demonstrable premium for private sector workers in general. However, unions do achieve a wage premium of around 9% for about half of employees covered by collective bargaining arrangements. The effect of union bargaining spills over to other employees in the same workplaces. The paper identifies circumstances where union effects are strongest—employer endorsement of union membership, high collective bargaining coverage and multi-unionism.     

Game Theoretic Models of Wage Bargaining

This paper aims at being a tool to help apply game theoretic bargaining models to wage negotiations. In this perspective, we review a number of articles which explicitly deal with wage determination as well as purely game theoretical models which we believe can be fruitfully extended to account for specific features of labour markets. We discuss some common shortcomings in the wage negotiation literature, and suggest possible lines of research worth pursuing to deal with such weaknesses.     

Wage‐setting Decisions on Newly Hired Employees: Survey Evidence from Colombian Firms

This paper uses a survey on wage formation applied to 1305 Colombian firms to study wage‐setting decisions of newly hired employees. The survey indicates that wages of the newly hired are based mainly on a predefined wage structure. This may help to explain, in part, the presence of downward nominal wage rigidities in the Colombian formal labour market, since firms are unwilling to differentiate the pay of new hires from the wages of existing workers. Using multinomial logit models, we find that firm size and the share of temporary workers increase the relative risk of using a predefined internal structure over bargaining between employee and employer when setting the wages of the newly hired employees. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Militant and moderate trade union orientations: what are the effects on workplace trade unionism,union-management relations and employee gains?

This paper presents survey findings exploring the claim that trade union militancy will deliver more advantages for unions than moderation (Kelly, 1996). Responses from representatives in two unions reveal militancy is associated with stronger union workplace activity and greater engagement with management in solving operational problems and long-term business strategies. However, there was no evidence that militancy significantly affects many terms and conditions. Moderate trade unionists in this sample were no more likely to hold a unitarist frame of reference. A further factor analysis of the militancy-moderation scale revealed two separate dimensions of militancy - a 'bargaining' and a 'mobilizing' approach. Although finding some expected benefits linked with militancy, different benefits appear to be associated with a bargaining approach and a mobilizing approach. It is suggested the approach taken in collective bargaining may be at least as important as mobilizing union members in securing gains from a militant union strategy.     

Doing it for themselves? Performance appraisal in project‐based organisations,the role of employees,and challenges to theory

We explore performance appraisal in project‐based organisations and provide novel insights into appraisal processes in this context. These include the central role of employees in orchestrating the appraisal process, the multiple actors that have input to appraisal including project managers, the distance between employees and their official line managers, and the weak coordinating role of human resource specialists in these systems. We draw attention to the drawbacks of current theorising on appraisal to predict and explain outcomes from appraisal systems that are not premised on stable line manager/employee dyads. Theorising based primarily on social exchange theories needs to be reconsidered in this context and new theories developed. We also question how human resource specialists can better support employees, and managers of all kinds, in their implementation roles in polyadic human resource management systems to ensure transparency, equity, and fairness of appraisal processes in a project‐based organisational context.     

我国城镇正规就业与非正规就业工资差异的实证研究——基于分位数回归与分解的发现

本文利用2009年CHNS数据对我国城镇正规就业与非正规就业的工资差异进行实证研究,分位数回归与分解的结果表明:正规就业与非正规就业的教育回报率的差异,随工资分布由低端到高端呈现先升后降趋势,经验—工资线在正规就业与非正规就业明显不同,前者为单调递增的线性关系,后者为倒"U"形曲线关系;正规就业与非正规就业的工资差异主要是由中低端的工资差异引起的;在工资分布中低端和歧视等非市场因素是工资差异的主要原因,而在工资分布高端,工资差异主要来自于教育和经验等个人禀赋差异。     

Employee perceptions of performance appraisals: a comparative study on Indian banks

Performance appraisal is the most critical human resource practice and an indispensable part of every organization; however, the practice continues to generate dissatisfaction among employees and is often viewed as unfair and ineffective. Indian banking sector is one of the biggest and fastest growing financial service sectors. The post-liberalization era has witnessed significant changes in the structure and operations of banks operating in India. Arrival of new private and foreign banks has given a cause to public sector banks to be more competitive, effective and innovative in their approach. Past researches have compared public and private sector banks and have indicated that new private sector banks are outscoring public sector banks in terms of technical and economic efficiency parameters. However, no study could be found that compared public and private banks in India on fairness perceptions of performance appraisal system. Therefore, this research studied the differences between public and private sector banks with respect to perception of fairness of the performance appraisal system and performance appraisal satisfaction. Perception of fairness of the performance appraisal system has been studied through nine factors. The study used independent samples t-test and qualitative analysis to study the mean differences between the two banks. Results indicated that private sector bank employees perceive greater fairness and satisfaction with their performance appraisal system as compared to public sector bank employees.     

The effect of trade and FDI on inter-industry wage differentials: The case of Mexico

Taking advantage of the liberalization process under NAFTA, this paper assesses the relative importance of the degree of trade openness and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in explaining inter-industry wage differentials for the case of Mexico. Using INEGI's National Survey of Urban Employment for the period 1994–2004, the empirical analysis is conducted on two stages. In the first stage, individual wages are regressed on worker characteristics, job and firm attributes, informality and a set of federal entity and industry indicators. In the second stage, inter-industry wage differentials (derived from the coefficient estimates of the industry indicators) are regressed on trade and FDI variables. The main findings show that trade openness does not have a statistically significant effect on inter-industry wage differentials, whereas for the case of FDI, a positive nonlinear relationship is found to exist.     

LOCAL PAY DETERMINATION

Abstract. Theoretical models of local pay are reviewed, ranging from neoclassical perspectives, unemployment/wage trade-off models, and segmented labour market approaches. The empirical work on U.S. North-South differentials is discussed. For the U.K., studies of the extent of and trends in geographical pay differentials are considered, as well as behavioural explanations focusing on the role of excess demand. The issue of adjustment processes is then discussed, both in theory and in relation to empirical work for the U.S. and U.K. This discussion focuses largely on geographical spillover effects, in terms of origins, evidence, and issues of identification. Finally, the impact of certain impediments in the adjustment process are considered, specifically in relation to the U.K. These concern the role and influence of national wage bargaining, as well as factors inhibiting labour migration, stemming from the housing market and the climate of the national labour market.     

Cross-national differences in trade union membership in OECD countries

This article examines how trade union membership varies across 16 OECD countries in the 1980s. Higher density of membership is found to be associated with a higher degree of centralisation of wage bargaining, higher percentage of employees covered by collective bargaining, a larger public sector and a more leftist party of government.     

Self/paid-employment, public/private sector selection, and wage differentials

We use Probit models to account for the double selection problem of choice between, on the one hand, self- and paid-employment and, on the other, employment in the public and private sector. These models provide corrections for sample selection in wage equations for paid employees in the public and private sectors. Using a modified version of the Oaxaca and Ransom [J. Econom. 61 (1994) 5] procedure, we decompose the wage gap between the public and private sectors into a portion attributable to differences in characteristics, the public sector advantage, the private sector disadvantage and unobserved selection effects. Rich data for the Republic of Cyprus, a thriving economy with institutional features reminiscent of a developing economy, help determine the choice of type (self/paid) and sector (public/private) of employment. The human capital model describes the wage determination process satisfactorily. The size and distribution of public sector rents between men and women are similar to those in North America and are bracketed by results for developing countries.     

Inter-city wage differentials and intra-city workplace centralization

We explore the interaction of inter-city and intra-city wage differentials by occupation. The paper makes two main contributions. 1) We construct an occupation-specific index of workplace centralization that accounts for the difference between average employment density from the perspective of employees in each occupation and average employment density from the perspective of all employees. 2) We provide empirical evidence that relative wages of central to non-central occupations increase with city size, or equivalently, the elasticity of wages with respect to city size increases with occupational centrality. We conjecture that this empirical regularity arises because, as city size increases, workers in more central occupations face an increasingly less desirable locus of housing prices and commuting times relative to workers who have jobs in residential areas. The results are robust to the inclusion of individual-specific human capital variables and city-specific fixed effects.     

Line managers’ AMO to manage employees’ performance: the route to effective and satisfying performance management

Abstract

Performance management systems are used to increase employees’ performance with the ultimate aim of increasing organizational performance. Organizations rely on line managers to implement performance management systems and to engage in a continuous process of goal-setting, feedback, coaching and performance appraisal with their employees. Drawing on the AMO theory, we predict that the effectiveness of performance management implementation will be a function of three factors. First, line managers should have the Ability to enact the activities that are involved in performance management. Secondly, they should be Motivated to perform these activities. Thirdly, line managers should have sufficient Opportunity to fulfill these activities on top of the demands from other organizational. If not, they could experience role conflict. We developed several cross-level hypotheses. The data came from 71 line managers and 318 employees working in Flemish education. Hierarchical linear modelling found that line managers’ AMO to implement performance management systems was positively related to employees’ satisfaction with the system. These relationships were mediated by employees’ perceptions that the performance management system is strong. A strong system signals that its features are salient across employees and that the system is clear and understood. This study has several theoretical and practical implications.     

Rising wage inequality,the decline of collective bargaining,and the gender wage gap

This paper investigates the increase in wage inequality, the decline in collective bargaining, and the evolution of the gender wage gap in West Germany between 2001 and 2006. Based on detailed linked employer–employee data, we show that wage inequality is rising strongly — driven not only by real wage increases at the top of the wage distribution, but also by real wage losses below the median. Coverage by collective wage bargaining plummets by 16.5 (19.1) percentage points for male (female) employees. Despite these changes, the gender wage gap remains almost constant, with some small gains for women at the bottom and at the top of the wage distribution. A sequential decomposition analysis using quantile regression shows that all workplace related effects (firm effects and bargaining effects) and coefficients for personal characteristics contribute strongly to the rise in wage inequality. Among these, the firm coefficients effect dominates, which is almost exclusively driven by wage differences within and between different industries. Labor demand or firm wage policy related effects contribute to an increase in the gender wage gap. Personal characteristics tend to reduce wage inequality for both males and females, as well as the gender wage gap.     

The determinants of pay settlements: the influence of the national context

This article studies the influence of national context and collective bargaining on the factors taken into account when adjusting wages. Using data from Spanish and British manufacturing establishments, we examine the relative importance of the cost of living, the ability to recruit or retain employees, the financial performance of the organisation and the industrial relations climate on wage adjustments of manual workers at the establishment level. Our findings show that there are significant differences on the importance given to these factors in both countries. In part, these are related to differences in the incidence of collective bargaining.     

Rated to exhaustion? Reactions to performance appraisal processes

Performance appraisal systems are a popular tool within organisations to enhance employee commitment and productivity. This paper examines the consequences of three aspects of a performance appraisal system (distributive justice, procedural justice and the performance rating) on the level of emotional exhaustion reported by employees in a large public sector research organisation.     

The changing union and bargaining landscape: union concentration and collective bargaining trends

Unions in Western Europe have tended to merge in larger organisations, straddling across traditional bargaining demarcations. Despite the trend towards union concentration, cross‐national differences remain in the degree of fragmentation and the balance across private and public sectors. In the past years, wage moderation was common to nearly all bargaining systems, partly as a result of coordinated incomes policies or pattern‐setting wage settlements. Tripartite concertation has proven more difficult because of increased dissatisfaction with modest pay increases and insufficient employment effects.     

The bargaining position of low-skilled and high-skilled workers in a globalising world

This paper extends the assessment of the impact of globalisation and technological change on the bargaining power and preferences of employees, by taking worker heterogeneity into account. In contrast with previous studies, two separate unions – representing low-skilled and high-skilled workers respectively – are considered. Using Belgian firm-level data, labour bargaining power and relative wage preference have been estimated by skill level. When these estimates are subsequently regressed on a set of potential determinants, the bargaining power of low-skilled workers appears to fall with imports and offshoring, whereas the bargaining power of high-skilled workers is only positively affected by R&D activities. In addition, a significant effect of globalisation is found on the relative preference of unions for wages over employment, indicating that the effect of globalisation on the behaviour of labour unions is more encompassing than frequently assumed.