Industrial Pricing Strategies in Singapore and the U.S.: Same or Different?

It is generally believed that business-to-business marketing strategies are more uniform worldwide than those in consumer markets, because the buying firms focus more on issues such as product performance and profits. If this is so, a strategy model validated in one industrial market should apply reasonably well in another. This study compares pricing strategies of industrial firms in two market economies, the U.S. and Singapore. A pricing strategy model validated in the U.S. was tested in Singapore to determine whether internal and external conditions incorporated in the model could adequately explain differences in strategy choices between the markets.     

End Users: Actors in the Industrial Relations System?

The paradigm elaborated by John T. Dunlop in his landmark 1958 volume, Industrial Relations Systems , described this system as consisting of three actors: unions, employers and the State. Over the past few years, the call to expand upon the notion of actors in the industrial relations environment has become more and more widespread, but no one has yet suggested how this integration might be implemented. The main objective of this paper is to propose an analytical model of the actor and to explore how the latter could be applied in the case of public urban transit users.     

Collective Bargaining and Innovation in Germany: A Case of Cooperative Industrial Relations?

At the level of theory, the effect of collective bargaining on innovation is contested. The large proponderance of the U.S. evidence clearly points to adverse effects, but other‐country experience suggests that certain industrial‐relations systems, or the wider regulatory apparatus, might even tip the balance in favor of unions. Our pooled cross‐ section and difference‐in‐differences estimates provide some weak evidence that German collective bargaining inhibits innovation. However, in conjunction with workplace representation, there is the suggestion that it might actually foster innovative activity.     

Whither Industrial Relations: Does It Have a Future in Post‐Industrial Society?

This article addresses the difficulties that industrial relations is experiencing both as a set of practices and as an intellectual tradition. It traces those difficulties to the changes in the basic structures of industrial society that have undermined the framework which the field grew up around and presumed. But it also relates them to the salience of Keynesian and Marxian thought, which defined the intellectual context in which industrial relations as a field was embedded and the way in which the decline of these traditions has undermined industrial relations as well.     

Wither U.S. Net Neutrality Regulation?

I examine the (lack of) economic logic that underlies the U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s latest iteration of network neutrality regulations. I explore potential unintended consequences and find a substantial tension between the regulations and the objective of promoting consumer choice and sovereignty. I also identify market developments that could largely neutralize the regulations unless they are expanded to constrain Internet access providers’ actions further.     

Are legacy airline mergers pro- or anti-competitive? Evidence from recent U.S. airline mergers

Due to a series of recent mergers, the number of legacy airlines in the United States has decreased from six to three. We conduct a comprehensive investigation of the effect on fares and output of these legacy airline mergers to determine whether the mergers have had an overall pro-competitive or anti-competitive effect on consumers. Our difference-in-differences regression analysis shows that these mergers have been pro-competitive, with no significant adverse effect on nominal fares and with significant increases in passenger traffic as well as capacity. Taken together, the results indicate that the recent legacy mergers were pro-competitive.     

Viewpoint: Can U.S. local soda taxes continue to spread?

Taxes to reduce the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) such as soda drinks have been endorsed by the World Health Organization and are now in place in France, Hungary, and Mexico, and scheduled for Portugal, South Africa, and Great Britain. Such taxes have so far been impossible to enact in the United States at the state or federal level, but since 2014 seven local jurisdictions have put them in place. Three necessary conditions for local political enactment emerge from this recent experience: Democratic Party dominance, external financial support for pro-tax advocates, and a political message appropriate to the process (public health for ballot issues; budget revenue for city council votes). Roughly 40 percent of Americans live within local jurisdictions where the Democratic Party dominates, so room exists for local SSB taxes to continue spreading.     

Toward Flexible Industrial Relations? Neo-Liberalism,Democracy, and Labor Reform in Latin America

Neo-liberal economic reforms have placed significant pressure on traditional industrial relations systems throughout Latin American. In this context, most countries have revised their basic labor legislation. Yet, despite similar economic pressures, countries have moved in varying directions in revising their labor laws, and industrial relations systems remain highly diverse. This paper focuses on democratization, institutional legacies, the role of organized labor, and the political negotiations surrounding labor law changes to help explain this diversity.     

Flexible Daily Work Schedules in U.S. Jobs: Formal Introductions Needed?

The incidence of flexible daily starting and ending times of work presumably reflects the various underlying motivations of employers to offer them either as a formal workplace program or on a more selective basis. Access to scheduling flexibility is greater for managerial and professional, long hours, private sector, salaried and nonunion jobs, and for parents and men. This advantage is gained primarily through means other than a formal flexi-time plan. Implementation of more formal programs would likely promote more equity in access.     

An Attitudinal Revolution in Irish Industrial Relations: The End of ‘Them and Us’?

Intensified international competition and high unemployment have characterized many Western economies since 1980. A firm's survival in such an environment demands a flexible and co-operative work-force, a requirement incompatible with traditional adversarial industrial relations. Drawing on a survey of employees in nine unionized companies in the Irish manufacturing sector, this paper examines the effect of these changes in the economy and workplace in facilitating a significant reduction in 'them and us' attitudes and an associated weakening of union structure and influence in the workplace. We found no evidence of a reduction in 'them and us' attitudes, but a cohesive and influential union was associated with less intense 'them and us'.     

New Employee Relations Strategies in Britain: Towards Individualism or Partnership?

This article addresses the themes of individualism, partnership and collectivism in British industrial relations by reporting on a detailed three-year case-study-based research project. Drawing on this data set, we offer insights into practical developments in contemporary workplaces and into the thinking of managers and employee representatives as they attempt to steer new paths in their relations. In particular, we examine what happens in practice when senior management teams, in previously collectivized organizations, set out with the explicit intent of shifting the balance of emphasis towards more 'individualized' relations with employees and/or to devise new 'partnership' arrangements.     

Reducing transatlantic barriers on U.S.-EU agri-food trade: What are the possible gains?

In recent years, the EU and the U.S. have engaged in discussions to lower trade and investment barriers and strengthen transatlantic integration. For food and agricultural trade, non-tariff measures (NTMs) such as sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS) stand out as significant barriers. This study combines sector-level econometric modeling with an agriculture-focused computable generable equilibrium (CGE) model to simulate various transatlantic liberalization scenarios on U.S.-EU agri-food trade. The simulations quantify the effect from tariff removal and addressing NTMs. The magnitude of the gains depend upon the level of tariff liberalization, the depth of integration, and possible consumer demand changes.     

How Does Market Making Affect Industrial Relations? Evidence from Eight German Hospitals

The introduction of market mechanisms matters for industrial relations. In the German hospital sector, national liberalization policies have put immense pressure on local management and worker representatives and led to the growth of a low‐wage sector. In case studies of eight hospitals, we find some locales where market making has led to union revitalization and mobilization, but this effect varies. Using an eight‐way comparison, we infer a configuration of three aspects of the local political economy — labour markets, politics and co‐determination rules — that together provide a well‐fitting explanation for both variation and change.     

Does the fourth entrant make any difference?: Entry and competition in the early U.S. broadband market

We study the importance of sunk costs in determining entry conditions and inferences about firm conduct in an adapted Bresnahan and Reiss (1991, 1994) framework. In our framework, entrants incur sunk costs to enter, while incumbents disregard these costs in deciding on continuation or exit. We apply this framework to study entry and competition in the local U.S. broadband markets from 1999 to 2003. Ignoring sunk costs generates unreasonable variation in firms' competitive conduct over time. This variation disappears when entry costs are allowed. Once the market has one to three incumbent firms, the fourth entrant has little effect on competitive conduct.