High Performance Work Practices and Employee Voice: A Comparison of Japanese and Korean Workers

Using a unique new cross‐national survey of Japanese and Korean workers, we report the first systematic evidence on the effects on employee voice of High Performance Work Practices (HPWPs) from the two economies that are noted for the wide use of HPWPs. We find for both nations that: (i) workers in firms with HPWPs aimed at creating opportunities for employees to get involved (such as shopfloor committees and small group activities) are indeed more likely to have stronger senses of influence and voice on shopfloor decision making than other workers; (ii) workers whose pay is tied to firm performance are more likely to have a stake in firm performance and hence demand such influence and voice; and (iii) consequently workers in firms with HPWPs are more likely to make frequent suggestions for productivity increase and quality improvement. As such, this paper contributes to a small yet growing new empirical literature that tries to understand the actual process and mechanism through which HPWPs lead to better enterprise performance.     

TRADE PATTERNS AND EXCHANGE RATE REGIMES: TESTING THE ASIAN CURRENCY BASKET USING AN INTERNATIONAL INPUT‐OUTPUT SYSTEM

This paper aims at analyzing exchange rates and trade patterns of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, China, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan in relation to Japan and the United States, with reference to the Asian currency crises in 1997. In order to analyze these issues, we constructed an international input‐output model linked with macroeconometric models of the ten countries/regions. Analyses on the Asian exchange rates with a currency basket peg framework show that the Asian exchange rate policy was the de‐facto dollar peg policy. As for trade patterns in relation to the yen‐dollar rate; when a country/region's industrial structure is similar to that of Japan's and the yen is weak, the appropriate change of the yen's weight proves to hold its competitiveness. By contrast, the weak yen shows a decrease of its imports, regarding complementary structure. In either case, however, effects are limited.