Job Anxiety,Work‐Related Psychological Illness and Workplace Performance

This article uses matched employee–employer data from the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey to examine the relationship between employee psychological health and workplace performance in 2004 and 2011. Using two measures of work‐related psychological health — namely employee‐reported job anxiety and manager‐reported workforce stress, depression and anxiety — we find a positive relationship between psychological ill‐health and absence, but not quits. The association between psychological ill‐health and labour productivity is less clear, with estimates sensitive to sector, time period and the measure of psychological health. The 2004–2011 panel is further used to explore the extent to which change in psychological health is related to change in performance.     

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.     

From monopoly to voice effects? British workplace unionism and productivity performance into the new millennium

Britain has featured prominently in debates about unionism and productivity. This article suggests a recent revolution in the productivity effect of British unionism. A thorough review of extant evidence at various levels of aggregation indicates that whatever the broader cost to employee welfare and well-being, the hollowing and erosion of workplace unionism under Thatcherism delivered a one-off productivity dividend. However, by the turn of the millennium, extant Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) analysis shows that workplace unionism, where it remained, was no longer robustly linked to poorer productivity performance. Our private sector analysis of WERS2011 confirms this, while our analysis of the WERS2004–2011 panel indicates that stronger workplace unionism now positively promotes private sector productivity. A thorough contemplation of the shifting concomitants of modern British unionism suggests a variety of processes which may underlie our striking panel findings, underscoring the suggestion that there has been a revolution in British unionism's productivity implications, but also indicating mechanisms which may underlie positive productivity effects of joint regulation already apparent in other countries.     

The Effect of Works Councils on Employment Change

Despite recent changes in the relationship between unionism and various indicators of firm performance, there is one seeming constant in the Anglophone countries: unions at the workplace are associated with reduced employment growth of around ?2.5% a year. Using German data, we examine the impact of the works council—that country's form of workplace representation—on employment change from 1993 to 2001. The German institution appears to have much the same negative effect on employment growth. That said, survival bias seems to play a small role, and works councils do not seem to further slow the tortuous pace of employment adjustment in Germany.     

Is There a Public Sector Training Advantage? Evidence from the Workplace Employment Relations Survey

Using matched employer–employee data from the Workplace Employment Relations Survey (2004), we find a significant training ‘advantage’ exists for public sector workers over private sector workers even after accounting for differences in the composition of the two workforces. This finding is robust to all but one change in specification, designed to account for worker sorting effects which can lead to unobserved workplace‐based effects being correlated with individual worker characteristics. Using the average characteristics of workers within an establishment as a control for these sorting effects all but eliminates the estimated public sector training advantage, which has otherwise been an empirical regularity of many individual‐based training models.     

The Ethnographic Contribution to Understanding Co‐worker Relations

Relations among co‐workers are becoming both more important and more complex in modern workplaces as authority over job decisions is shifted from supervisors to quasi‐independent teams. The author develops a model of co‐worker relations that recognizes these changes and evaluates this model using data content coded from the full population of published book‐length workplace ethnographies (N = 204). Confirmatory factor analysis techniques support the existence of three distinct aspects of co‐worker relations: cohesiveness, conflict and peer supervision. The most important determinants of co‐worker relations are employee involvement programmes and management behaviour. Returning to specific case studies allows a theoretical elaboration of how employee involvement and management behaviour condition co‐worker relations. The author concludes by noting the importance of intellectual exchanges between qualitative and quantitative methods for generating new advances in the study of work and employment relations.     

Does imitation reduce the liability of foreignness? Linking distance,isomorphism, and performance

Research summary : Research demonstrates that foreign firms from institutionally distant countries imitate the practices of domestic firms (i.e., adopt an isomorphism strategy). The conjecture has been that pursuing such a strategy can help foreign firms counteract the deleterious performance consequences associated with institutional distance; yet there is scant evidence of such. This study treats isomorphism as an endogenously selected strategy influenced by institutional distance to examine its performance consequences. Using a dataset of 80 foreign banks from 25 countries operating in the United States, we find that foreign firms from institutionally distant home countries benefit initially from selecting an isomorphism strategy. However, the benefits diminish with experience. Managerial summary : Multinational companies experience great difficulty in managing institutional distance, and research suggests that one way to overcome distance‐related constraints is to imitate the strategies of local companies. Unfortunately, we do not know enough about the performance‐related consequences of engaging in such imitative behavior. This study examines whether imitating local firms improves performance for multinational companies from institutionally distant markets. We find that imitation improves a firm's performance at first; however, with experience those same strategies result in performance decrements. Managers of multinationals should therefore be careful not to get locked into imitative strategies that provide performance benefits upon entry, but that fail to provide benefits over time. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How Does Workplace Monitoring Affect the Gender Wage Differential? Analysis of the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings and the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey — A Research Note

This paper outlines the development of a new data source that combines workplace information from the Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) with employee data from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE). Illustrative analysis of the gender wage differential demonstrates how the inclusion of additional workplace characteristics collected from WERS can be utilized to understand better‐observed patterns in earnings within ASHE. Analysis reveals that monitoring gender equality at the workplace is not associated with a reduction in the gender wage gap. Matching WERS/ASHE provides the opportunity to investigate a wider range of workplace phenomena than would be possible based only upon the WERS Survey of Employees.     

Disability and Perceptions of Work and Management

Matched employee–employer data from the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey are used to examine differences in work‐related perceptions between disabled and non‐disabled employees. Even after accounting for differences in personal, job and workplace characteristics, disabled employees are found to hold more negative views on the treatment of workers by managers and, consistent with this, they express less job satisfaction and commitment towards their organization. The influence of disability is also examined across workplaces defined by sector, the presence of disability‐related policies and practices, and employee views of management to explore the role of corporate culture.     

Evaluating the impact of TRIZ creativity training: an organizational field study

Creativity training is used by many organizations in an attempt to improve the innovativeness of their employees, yet there has been relatively little systematic evaluation carried out of the impact of such training. This study reports on the evaluation of the effectiveness of a theory of inventive problem solving (TRIZ)‐based creativity training program in a major international engineering firm. Cross‐sectional, longitudinal and multisource evaluation strategies were used to assess the impact of the training on a sample of design engineers (n = 123) and to make comparisons with nontrainees (n = 96). Results indicate that participation in TRIZ training led to short‐term improvements in both the creative problem‐solving skills and motivation to innovate of engineers, and these were associated with longer term improvements in their idea suggestion in the workplace. There was variable support for the translation of these ideas into new innovations and improved performance at work as a result of the training. Theoretical and practical implications for enhancing the effectiveness of creativity training interventions are discussed.     

The Determinants of Performance Appraisal Systems: A Note (Do Brown and Heywood's Results for Australia Hold Up for Britain?)

This article offers a replication for Britain of Brown and Heywood's analysis of the determinants of performance appraisal in Australia. Although there are some important limiting differences between our two datasets — the Australia Workplace Industrial Relations Survey (AWIRS) and the Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) — we reach one central point of agreement and one intriguing shared insight. First, performance appraisal is negatively associated with tenure: where employers cannot rely on the carrot of deferred pay or the stick of dismissal to motivate workers, they will tend to rely more on monitoring, ceteris paribus. Second, employer monitoring and performance pay may be complementary. However, consonant with the disparate results from the wider literature, there is more modest agreement on the contribution of specific human resource management practices, and still less on the role of job control.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Books reviewed: How Institutions Evolve: The Political Economy of Skills in Germany, Britain, The United States, and Japan by Kathleen Thelen. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004, xv + 336 pp., ISBN 0 521 54674 5, £18.99.
Agents of Change: Crossing the Post‐industrial Divide by Charles Heckscher, Michael Maccoby, Rafael Ramírez and Pierre‐Eric Tixier. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003, ix + 237 pp., ISBN 0 19 926175 X, £22.50, paper.
Reviewed by David Marsden
London School of Economics The Global Evolution of Industrial Relations: Events, Ideas, and the IIRA by Bruce E. Kaufman. International Labour Office, Geneva, Switzerland, 2004, xxv + 720 pp., ISBN 92‐2‐114153‐5, $74.95.
Reviewed by Sanford M. Jacoby
University of California Los Angeles Trade Unions: Resurgence or Demise? edited by Susan Fernie and David Metcalf. Routledge, London, 2005, xvii + 268 pp., ISBN 0 415 28412 0, £21.99, paper.
Reviewed by John Pencavel
Department of Economics, Stanford University Strategic Unionism and Partnership: Boxing or Dancing? edited by Tony Huzzard, Denis Gregory and Regan Scott. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2004, xxiii + 362 pp., ISBN 1 1403917566, £55.00.
Reviewed by Miguel Martinez Lucio
Bradford University School of Management Pay without Performance: The Unfulfilled Promise of Executive Compensation by Lucian Bebchuk and Jesse Fried. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA and London, 2004, xii + 278 pp., ISBN 0‐674‐01665‐3, £16.95.
Reviewed by Simon Deakin
Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge The Economics of Affirmative Action edited by Harry J. Holzer and David Neumark. An Elgar Reference Collection, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA, 2004, xxxii + 688 pp., ISBN 1 84376 117 3, £175.00.
Reviewed by Karen Mumford
University of York Welfare for the Unemployed in Britain and Germany: Who Benefits? by Frances McGinnity. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA, 2004, x + 228 pp., ISBN 1 84376 220 X, £55.00.
Reviewed by Malcolm Sawyer
University of Leeds The Mismanagement of Talent: Employability and Jobs in the Knowledge Economy by Philip Brown and Anthony Hesketh with Sarah Williams. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004, x + 278 pp., ISBN 0 19 926954 8, £18.00, paper.
Reviewed by Phoebe Moore
University of Manchester     

Reaching through the fog: Institutional environment and cross‐border giving of corporate foundations

Research Summary : Corporate philanthropy has long been recognized as an important part of multinational strategy, yet we know relatively little how charitable giving is allocated across countries. Using a sample of 208 U.S.‐based corporate foundations from 1993 to 2008, we find that the foundations give more in countries with opaque institutional environments, but they do so through international intermediaries. They also give more when the funding firms have new entries in countries with weak institutions—hence greater needs for the social license to operate—or when their operations require stronger connections with local suppliers or customers. These findings point to the use of corporate philanthropy as part of corporate diplomacy when the local institutions are ineffective and the importance of reaching out to local constituents is high. Managerial Summary : Corporate foundations play an important role in firms' charitable giving across countries. This article analyzes how foundation giving is associated with the funding firm's need to navigate the local business environments. Using a sample of 208 U.S.‐based corporate foundations from 1993 to 2008, we find that foundations give more in countries characterized by weak rule of law and high levels of corruption, and when the funding firms have newly established subsidiaries or stronger need to connect with local stakeholders there. However, donations to countries with weak institutions are more likely to go through international intermediaries to avoid potential liabilities. The results are consistent with the view that corporate foundations support corporate diplomacy and help obtain the social license to operate in the host countries.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Books reviewed: Marx's Revenge by Meghnad Desai. Verso, London and New York, 2002, xi + 372 pp, ISBN 1‐8598‐4644‐0, £19/$27.
Reviewed by Andrew Glyn
University of Oxford
Bob Sutcliffe
Bilbao United We Stand: A History of Britain's Trade Unions by Alastair J. Reid. Allen Lane, London, 2004, xvii + 471 pp., ISBN 0‐7139‐9758‐3, £25.
Reviewed by David Metcalf
London School of Economics Personnel Economics edited by Edward P. Lazear and Robert McNabb, 2 vols. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, Mass., 2004, 1040 pp., ISBN 1‐8406‐4892‐9, £240.
Reviewed by Martin J. Conyon
Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania Industrial Relations in China by Bill Taylor, Chang Kai and Li Qi. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK, and Northampton, Mass., 2003, x + 267 pp., ISBN 1‐8406‐4578‐4, £59.95.
Reviewed by Jackie Sheehan
Nottingham University The Other Women's Movement: Workplace Justice and Social Rights in Modern America by Dorothy Sue Cobble. Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 2004, xiv + 315 pp., ISBN 0‐6910‐6993‐X, £19.95.
Reviewed by Mary Margaret Fonow
Arizona State University What's Class Got to Do With It? American Society in the Twenty‐First Century edited by Michael Zweig. ILR Press, Ithaca, NY, and London, 2004, vii + 211 pp., ISBN 0‐8014‐4259‐1, $37.50/£21.50; ISBN 0‐8014‐8899‐0, $17.95/£10.50.
Reviewed by Dan Clawson
University of Massachusetts Amherst Creating Cooperation: How States Develop Human Capital in Europe by Pepper D. Culpepper. Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 2003, xvi + 239 pp, ISBN 0‐8014‐4069‐6, US$35/£23.50.
Reviewed by David Finegold
Keck Graduate Institute, Claremont, CA Leadership in Organizations: Current Issues and Key Trends edited by John Storey. Routledge, Taylor & Francis, London/New York, 2004, xiii + 349 pp., ISBN 0‐4153‐1033‐4, £22.99 paper.
Reviewed by Mary S. Logan
London School of Economics Culture and Management in Asia edited by Malcolm Warner. Routledge Curzon, Taylor & Francis Group, London and New York, 2003, xiii + 266 pp., ISBN 0‐4152‐9727‐3, £65.
Reviewed by Jackie Sheehan
Nottingham University     

Workplace Industrial Relations under Different Regulatory Systems: A Survey-Based Comparison of Australia and Britain

The focus of the paper is upon the extent to which different national regulatory systems give rise to different institutions and outcomes at the workplace. It uses data from the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey and the third British Workplace Industrial Relations Survey to examine a number of hypotheses which suggest that the different regulatory systems of these countries have produced distinct patterns of industrial relations at the workplace. It is concluded that, while there is substantial evidence that the countries' different regulatory systems have had distinct effect on industrial relations institutions and outcomes, these are not as straight forward as earlier work has suggested.     

Look Who's Talking: Sources of Variation in Information Disclosure in the UK

The article examines the correlates of variable levels of information disclosure by management to employees in the UK. It develops several hypotheses that are tested using 1998 and 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey data. The results show that managerial perceptions of goal alignment by employees and the existence of direct participation mechanisms are positively associated with disclosure at both dates. The size of the workplace has a generally negative relationship at both dates, but less so in 2004 than in 1998. Other variables such as financial distress and the presence of trade unions and joint consultation have more complicated relationships over the two time periods. The article discusses theoretical and policy implications of the findings.     

Organizational‐Level Gender Dissimilarity and Employee Commitment

This study explores the extent to which gender dissimilarity in the workplace affects employees' commitment to their organization, using data from the British (1998) Workplace Employee Relations Survey. The results showed that the effects of organizational‐level gender dissimilarity on organizational commitment were more complex than has commonly been assumed in the literature. The relationship between organizational‐level gender dissimilarity and employee commitment was U‐shaped for women whereas it was not significant for men. The relationship was moderated by the respondents' status as measured by their level of pay. For men, the relationship between gender dissimilarity and commitment was negative for high‐paid individuals but not for low‐paid ones, while for women the U‐shaped relationship was weaker for high‐paid individuals than for low‐paid individuals.     

Management Behaviour as Social Capital: A Systematic Analysis of Organizational Ethnographies

This article explores managerial behaviour as a potential source of social capital in the workplace. Using content‐coded data from the full population of organizational ethnographies (N = 204), we explore facets of workplace behaviours and relations that have been difficult to evaluate using survey‐based techniques. Analysing ethnographic‐based data with multivariate techniques, we find that competent management leadership, in particular, has widespread and significant effects on important workplace outcomes such as job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behaviour, and co‐worker infighting. The findings highlight the value of cross‐methods techniques for evaluating and extending existing workplace theories.     

The Effect of Graduated Response Anti‐Piracy Laws on Music Sales: Evidence from an Event Study in France

Despite the problem that filesharing poses to the creative industries, there is little research on the effectiveness of governmental anti‐piracy policies. This study analyzes how the HADOPI ² graduated response law in France affected digital music sales. Using a panel of sales data from the four major labels, we applied a difference‐in‐difference approach, comparing sales trends in France to a control group of European countries. We find that increased consumer awareness of HADOPI caused French iTunes music sales to increase by 22‐25%. The observed sales increase is larger in high piracy genres than low piracy ones, strengthening the causal interpretation of our results.     

Status in a strange land? Context‐dependent value of status in cross‐border venture capital

Research Summary: While recent literature has depicted status as an intangible asset that is firm‐specific and mobile, we have a limited understanding of whether status confers advantage in a way similar to other intangible assets. This study examines the macro‐structural contingencies that influence the marginal value of firm status as firms expand to new markets. Building on the literatures on status and social approval assets, as well as globalization and international management, we hypothesize that two conditions influence how valuable home‐country status will be in a given host country: the interconnectedness of the home and host countries, and their relative position in the global network. We test our hypotheses in a study of 187 venture capital (VC)‐backed biotechnology ventures in 19 countries between 1990 and 2006. Managerial Summary: Startups typically prefer high‐status VC investors for endorsements, network connections, and resources. One might expect the benefits of high‐status VCs to be even higher when they invest across borders. Yet, we show that status is ingrained in context, and that the performance advantage of partnering with high‐status cross‐border VC firms depends on the relationship between the country of the VC firm and that of the startup. We find that, when the VC industries in the two countries are more connected, the positive effect of cross‐border VC firm status on successful exit is amplified. However, when the VC firm comes from a more central country than the startup, the benefits of VC firm status are less pronounced and vice versa.