Earnings on the Information Technology Roller Coaster: Insight from Matched Employer-Employee Data

This article uses matched employer-employee data for the State of Georgia to examine workers' earnings experience through the information technology (IT) sector's employment boom of the mid-1990s and bust in the early 2000s. The results show that even after controlling for pre-boom individual characteristics, transitioning out of the IT sector to a non-IT industry generally resulted in a large wage penalty. However, IT service workers who transitioned to a non-IT industry still fared better than workers who took a non-IT employment path. For IT manufacturing workers, there is no benefit to having been touched by technology, likely because of the nontransferability of manufacturing experience to other industries.     

Corporate Cultural Change – Is It Relevant For the Organisations of the 1990s?

Partly as a consequence of the popularity of the ‘excellence’ literature of the early 1980s, there was a widespread acceptance that ‘corporate cultural change’ was one of the effective mechanisms within a strategic HRM approach to people management. However, recent research into imposed cultural change programmes in the late 1980s raises doubts about their effectiveness as change mechanisms, as management control devices and as contributors to business performance. This article engages in the current debate concerning the aims, design and implementation of cultural change but goes on to question the relevance of such an idea for organisations in the context of the 1990s. the article extends the many debates within the HRM and corporate culture literature by contextualising them within the emerging features of organisations in the 1990s.     

Information value and efficiency measurement for risk-averse firms

This paper has three goals. First, we demonstrate that standard arguments and methods from production and duality analysis can be used to provide a comprehensive and general treatment of the value of information for a risk-averse firm with expected-utility (linear-in-probabilities) preferences and a general stochastic technology. Second, we place bounds on the value of information for a risk-averse firm and relate these bounds to characteristics of the technology and the producer’s preferences. The third and final goal is to derive the implications that information differences can have for measured efficiency differences and to relate the bounds on the value of information to those measured differences.      

THE MANAGEMENT OF NEW OFFICE TECHNOLOGY: CHOICE, CONTROL AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE IN THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY

Amongst the growing literature on the technical and social aspects of microelectronics in work organizations, a considerable portion has direct or indirect pertinence to the question of managerial practice. That segment of the literature relating to new office technology is perhaps especially conscious of this angle — not least because this sphere of innovation has a clear bearing on the managerial role itself. Drawing both on theoretical issues extracted from this literature, and on empirical studies in three insurance companies, it is argued that while control is of crucial long-term importance in shaping the general direction of organizational change using new technology, there are sound sociological reasons why the path which is beaten out in that direction remains a far from straight one. Moreover, while differences in organizational practice between these organizations are found to exist, these appear to be associated only indirectly with the diverse levels of technological sophistication.     

INTRODUCING MARKET FORCES INTO MANAGERIAL DECISION-MAKING IN CHINESE INDUSTRIAL ENTERPRISES

This paper focuses on the fundamental changes in the management of state enterprises that are taking place in China. Specifically, we discuss the expansion of enterprise autonomy and changes in the managerial decision-making structure. The genesis of the reform programme is traced back to inefficiencies caused by the over-centralized state planning system which reduced enterprise management to little more than an administrative function dominated by the Party secretary. As a consequence, managerial and technical cadres became demoralized and the growth of staff functions such as accounting, marketing and personnel management was stunted. From a series of experiments launched in 1978 has grown the realization that tinkering around with the state planning apparatus is insufficient to stimulate entrepreneurship and vigorous industrial expansion. Accordingly, reform has been launched on a broad front both within the state apparatus, in an endeavour to roll back external constraints on enterprise, and within the enterprise itself, by seeking to provide powerful incentives both to managerial cadres and workers through a system stressing individual responsibility and rewards commensurate with results. A number of severe constraints on the reform programme are analysed, in particular, the changing balance of power within the enterprise between the factory director, the Party secretary, the workers’congress and the trade union. Contradictions exist within the new structure of decision-making but, given a period of political stability and sustained economic growth, there should be sufficient surplus to mollify discontent and stifle those who refuse to give up their belief in the virtues of having‘politics in command’of the industrial enterprise.     

Intended electoral participation in transition countries

This paper examines the determinants of intended electoral participation. We analyze attitudes to both referenda and voting in national elections. Sample survey data are obtained from the Eurobarometer survey of transition countries in Central and Eastern Europe. The empirical results suggest that intended electoral participation increases with age, income and education. But attitudinal variables are also important and in particular confidence in the free market economy and satisfaction with the general development of the country impact positively on intended electoral participation. Received: Received: April 2003 / Accepted: August 2004, Accepted: Received: April 2003 / Accepted: August 2004, JEL Classification: H26, K42 We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of CERGE-EI. We are also grateful for the helpful comments of three anonymous referees, the journal editor and R. Filer and L. Squires.     

The impact of the WARN Act on firm value

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act of 1989 mandated that at least 60 days advance notice be given to employees. Critics argued that its passage would decrease managerial flexibility in closing plants, subsequently reducing firm values. This study addresses this issue by examining the stock market's reaction to announcements leading to the eventual enactment of the WARN legislation. We find evidence indicating negative effects of the legislation on stock returns of small firms.