Digital Commons Network^™

Correlates Among Teachers’ Anxieties, Demographics, And Telecomputing Activity, Judith B. Harris, Neal Grandgenett

Judith Harris

Are educators' anxiety levels or demographics related to their voluntary use of networked resources? In this study, one year of logins and online time for 189 randomly selected educators with accounts on Tenet (Texas Education Network) were correlated with six interval-level subject attribute variables: (a) writing apprehension, (b) oral communication apprehension, (c) computer anxiety, (d) age, (e) teaching experience, and (f) telecomputing experience. The usage data were also correlated with three nominal-level subject attribute variables: (a) gender, (b) professional specialty, and (c) teaching level. Results indicated that writing apprehension was significantly and negatively correlated with network use, and that telecomputing …

Vertical Disintegration And The Disorganisation Of German Industrial Relations, Virginia Doellgast, Ian Greer

Virginia Doellgast

Drawing on case studies from the telecommunications and auto industries, we argue that the vertical disintegration of major German employers is contributing to the disorganisation of Germany’s dual system of in-plant and sectoral negotiations. Subcontractors, subsidiaries, and temporary agencies often have no collective bargaining institutions, weaker firm-level agreements, or are covered by different sectoral agreements. As core employers move jobs to these firms, they introduce new organisational boundaries across the production chain and disrupt traditional bargaining structures. Worker representatives are developing new campaign approaches and using residual power at large firms to establish representation in new firms and sectors, but …

Institutional Change And The Restructuring Of Service Work In The French And German Telecommunications Industries, Virginia Doellgast, Hiroatsu Nohara, Robert Tchobanian

Virginia Doellgast

This study analyses recent changes in collective bargaining institutions and their implications for employer strategies in the French and German telecommunications industries, drawing on case studies and survey data from call centre workplaces. Findings demonstrate that differences in both formal institutions and past logics of action influenced actor responses to changing markets and ownership structures. French trade unions were more successful in establishing encompassing bargaining structures and reducing pressures for pay differentiation, due to state support for the mandatory extension of agreements and unions’ strategic focus on centralizing bargaining. In contrast, bargaining in Germany has become increasingly fragmented and decentralized …

Collective Voice Under Decentralized Bargaining: A Comparative Study Of Work Reorganization In Us And German Call Centres, Virginia Doellgast

Virginia Doellgast

This article compares the process of and outcomes from work reorganization in US and German call centres, based on four matched case studies in the telecommunications industry. Both German cases adopted high-involvement employment systems with broad skills and worker discretion, while the US cases relied on a narrow division of labour, tight discipline and individual incentives. These outcomes are explained by differences in institutional supports for collective voice. Works councils in the German companies used their stronger participation rights to limit monitoring and encourage upskilling at a time when US managers were rationalizing similar jobs. Findings demonstrate that industrial relations …

Contesting Firm Boundaries: Institutions, Cost Structures, And The Politics Of Externalization, Virginia Doellgast, Katja Sarmiento-Mirwaldt, Chiara Benassi

Virginia Doellgast

This article develops and applies a framework for analyzing the relationship among institutions, cost structures, and patterns of labor–management contestation over organizational boundaries. Collective negotiations related to the externalization of call center jobs are compared across 10 incumbent telecommunications firms located in Europe and the United States. All 10 firms moved call center work to dedicated subsidiaries, temporary agencies, and domestic and offshore subcontractors. A subset of the firms, however, later re-internalized call center jobs, in some cases following negotiated concessions on pay and working conditions for internal workers. Findings are based on 147 interviews with management and union representatives, …

Health Information Literacy And Competencies Of Information Age Students: Results From The Interactive Online Research Readiness Self-Assessment (Rrsa), Lana Ivanitskaya, Irene O'Boyle, Anne Marie Casey

Anne Marie Casey

This study aimed to measure the proficiency of college-age health information consumers in finding and evaluating electronic health information; to assess their ability to discriminate between peer-reviewed scholarly resources and opinion pieces or sales pitches; and to examine the extent to which they are aware of their level of health information competency.

Vertical Disintegration And The Disorganisation Of German Industrial Relations, Virginia Doellgast, Ian Greer

Ian Greer

Drawing on case studies from the telecommunications and auto industries, we argue that the vertical disintegration of major German employers is contributing to the disorganisation of Germany’s dual system of in-plant and sectoral negotiations. Subcontractors, subsidiaries, and temporary agencies often have no collective bargaining institutions, weaker firm-level agreements, or are covered by different sectoral agreements. As core employers move jobs to these firms, they introduce new organisational boundaries across the production chain and disrupt traditional bargaining structures. Worker representatives are developing new campaign approaches and using residual power at large firms to establish representation in new firms and sectors, but …

The Effects Of Customer Satisfaction, Relationship Commitment Dimensions, And Triggers On Customer Retention, Anders Gustaffsson, Michael D. Johnson, Inger Roos

Michael D. Johnson

In a study of telecommunications services, the authors examine the effects of customer satisfaction, affective commitment, and calculative commitment on retention. The study further examines the potential for situational and reactional trigger conditions to moderate the satisfaction–retention relationship. The results support consistent effects of customer satisfaction, calculative commitment, and prior churn on retention. Prior churn also moderates the satisfaction–retention relationship. The results have implications for both customer relationship managers and researchers who use satisfaction surveys to predict behavior.

Overestimating Wireless Demand: Policy And Investment Implications Of Upward Bias In Mobile Data Forecasts, J. Armand Musey Cfa, Aalok Mehta

J. Armand Musey, CFA

In this paper, we present evidence of persistent errors in projections of wireless demand and examine the implications for wireless policy and investment. Mobile demand projections are relied upon in academic and government research and used for critically important telecommunications policy decisions, both domestically and internationally. The Federal Communications Commission, for example, used such projections to estimate a 275 MHz spectrum shortage by 2014 and featured such estimates in the U.S. National Broadband Plan as evidence for allocating additional spectrum for cellular services. The International Telecommunications Union Radiocommunication Sector endorsed in 2006 an estimate of a 1,280- to 1,720-MHz spectrum …

From Bureaucracy To Enterprise? The Changing Jobs And Careers Of Managers In Telecommunications Service, Rosemary Batt

Rosemary Batt

[Excerpt] In response to technological change and product market deregulation, longstanding U.S. telecommunications firms are radically restructuring their business strategies and organizations to improve competitiveness. While the popular and business press as well as academic researchers have focused attention on the dramatic changes occurring in the collapse of industry boundaries, megamergers, and the rise of new strategic alliances, they have largely ignored how these structural changes are profoundly altering the employment and careers of employees. In the Bell operating companies, where bureaucracy is seen as the major obstacle to competitiveness, managerial workers have become a significant target of reform because …

Human Resource And Employment Practices In Telecommunications Services, 1980-1998, Rosemary Batt, Jeffrey Keefe

Rosemary Batt

[Excerpt] In the academic literature on manufacturing, much research and debate have focused on whether firms are adopting some form of “high-performance” or “high-involvement” work organization based on such practices as employee participation, teams, and increased discretion, skills, and training for frontline workers (Ichniowski et al., 1996; Kochan and Osterman, 1994; MacDuffie, 1995). Whereas many firms in the telecommunications industry flirted with these ideas in the 1980s, they did not prove to be a lasting source of inspiration for the redesign of work and employment practices. Rather, work restructuring in telecommunications services has been driven by the ability of firms …

Validating Information Complexity Questionnaires Using Travel Web Sites, Chen Ling, Miguel Lopez, Jing Xing

Dr. Chen Ling

With the prevalent use of visual interfaces and the increasing demand to display more information, information complexity becomes a major concern for designers. Complex interfaces affect the system effectiveness, efficiency, and even safety. Researchers at the Federal Aviation Administration have developed two sets of psychometric questionnaires to evaluate information complexity of air traffic control displays. This study adapted the questionnaires for commercial visual interfaces and validated them with directed and exploratory tasks on three travel websites. The results confirmed that both complexity questionnaires have satisfactory reliability, validity, and sensitivity. But questionnaire B demonstrated higher sensitivity than Questionnaire A.

Close But No Cigar: Telecommunications In Cuba, Jodi Benassi

Jodi Benassi

No abstract provided.

Administrative Procedures, Bureaucracy, And Transparency: Why Does The Fcc Vote On Secret Texts?, Scott J. Wallsten

Scott J. Wallsten

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) does not reveal the text of regulations on which it votes. Instead, after the vote the Commission grants the relevant bureau “editorial privileges” to continue drafting the order. It then releases the final version days, weeks, or even months after the vote. As a result, it is not possible to know if everything in the final rule was actually subject to a vote. In particular, it raises the question of whether the delay between vote and publication is truly for “editorial” changes or if more substantive changes occur after the vote.

In this paper, …

Federal And State Authority For Broadband Regulation, Tejas N. Narechania

Tejas N. Narechania

Trinko: Going All The Way, George A. Hay

George A. Hay

No abstract provided.

The Tipping Point Of Federalism, Amy L. Stein

Amy L. Stein

As the Supreme Court has noted, “it is difficult to conceive of a more basic element of interstate commerce than electric energy, a product that is used in virtually every home and every commercial or manufacturing facility. No state relies solely on its own resources in this respect.” And yet, the resources used to generate this electricity (e.g., coal, natural gas, or renewables) are determined largely by state and local authorities through their exclusive authority to determine whether to approve construction of a new electricity generation facility. As the nation finds itself faced with important decisions that directly implicate the …

Collusive Bidding In The Fcc Spectrum Auctions, Peter Cramton, Jesse Schwartz

Jesse A. Schwartz

This paper describes the bid signaling that occurred in many of the FCC spectrum auctions. Bidders in these auctions bid on numerous spectrum licenses simultaneously, with bidding remaining open on all licenses until no bidder is willing to raise the bid on any license. Simultaneous open bidding allows bidders to send messages to their rivals, telling them on which licenses to bid and which to avoid. This “code bidding” occurs when one bidder tags the last few digits of its bid with the market number of a related license. We examine how extensively bidders signaled each other with retaliating bids …

An Economic Analysis Of The Proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable Merger, Scott J. Wallsten

Scott J. Wallsten

This paper examines the potential benefits and costs of the proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable that antitrust authorities must weigh in deciding whether to approve the deal.

Residential And Business Broadband Prices Part 1: An Empirical Analysis Of Metering And Other Price Determinants, Scott J. Wallsten, James Riso

Scott J. Wallsten

For this project, we assemble a new dataset consisting of more than 25,000 residential and business broadband plans from all OECD countries from 2007–2009. We explore three issues: the relationship between plan components—such as metering—and consumer prices, price changes over time, and how broadband prices vary across countries.

This paper, part 1 of the project, discusses pricing for broadband plans and, specifically, the relationship between plan components and pricing. We find that residential broadband plans with data caps—plans in which consumers pay a base price for a set amount of data—cost less than plans with unlimited data, other things being …

Network Nepotism And The Market For Content Delivery, Tejas N. Narechania

Tejas N. Narechania

Internet Nondiscrimination Principles: Commercial Ethics For Carriers And Search Engines, Frank Pasquale

Frank A. Pasquale

Unaccountable power at any layer of online life can stifle innovation elsewhere. Dominant search engines rightly worry that carriers will use their control of the physical layer of internet infrastructure to pick winners among content and application providers. Though they advocate net neutrality, they have been much less quick to recognize the threat to openness and fair play their own practices may pose. Just as dominant search engines fear an unfairly tiered online world, they should be required to provide access to their archives and indices in a nondiscriminatory manner. If dominant search engines want carriers to disclose their traffic …

Telecommunications: Collective Bargaining In An Era Of Industry Reconsolidation, Jeffrey Keefe, Rosemary Batt

Rosemary Batt

[Excerpt] In this paper, we examine the reconsolidation of the industry, between 1995 and 2001, focusing on the merger, acquisition, and business strategies of the major corporate players; union responses to those strategies; and the resulting evolution of union-management relations and collective bargaining outcomes. We argue that the nature of the industry and technology, coupled with its institutional legacy, provides incentives for consolidation and recentralization of the ownership structure. In this process over the last decade, former Bell affiliates have sought union support before regulatory commissions, and the unions have leveraged their political power to make important gains in collective …

Labor Market Outcomes Of Deregulation In Telecommunications Services, Rosemary Batt, Michael Strausser

Rosemary Batt

[Excerpt] This paper examines the labor market outcomes of deregulation in the telecommunications industry, focusing specifically on changes in union density, real wages, wage inequality, and employment levels. Deregulation of telecommunications long distance and equipment markets began in 1984 with the dismantling of the highly unionized Bell System into AT&T (the long distance and equipment provider) and seven Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs, the local service providers). Deregulation of local service has proceeded fitfully: while Congress intended to increase local competition with the passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, the RBOCs continue largely as monopoly providers. Despite only partial deregulation, …

Labor Market Institutions And Restructuring In U.S. Deregulated Telecommunications Services, Rosemary Batt

Rosemary Batt

[Excerpt] This chapter summarizes some of the recent literature concerning the changing nature of markets, technology, and employment relations in deregulated telecommunications services in the United States. It draws on arguments and evidence from a series of studies over the last five years, most of which were undertaken by researchers at Cornell, MIT, and Rutgers universities in the United States. The research focuses on the relationship between market deregulation and technology change on the one hand, and changing business strategy, organizational structure, union relations, and work organization on the other. This chapter focuses on the extent to which labor market …

Deregulation And Restructuring In Telecommunications Services In The United States And Germany, Rosemary Batt, Owen Darbishire

Rosemary Batt

[Excerpt] Because of the slower pace of reform, however, Telekom also stands to learn from the mistakes made in the United States, where deregulation has led to increased inequality among consumers and workers. For consumers, the restructuring has benefited businesses because they no longer pay rates that subsidize universal residential service. Both business and high-end retail customers can take advantage of falling prices for long-distance calling, high-speed networks, or enhanced features such as voice messaging. For lower-income consumers, however, the basic costs of local service have risen, and these consumers are less likely to be able to take advantage of …

Outcomes Of Self-Directed Work Groups In Telecommunications Services, Rosemary Batt

Rosemary Batt

[Excerpt] The purpose of my presentation is to consider whether the use of self-directed teams enhances competitiveness in services. In the context of heightened competition brought about by deregulation and the internationalization of service markets, do "team-based" work systems produce higher quality service and customer satisfaction? Do workers benefit as well? Should unions as well as management support this innovation? If so, under what conditions and why? This presentation complements that of the other panelists in this session in important ways. First, while Verma provides an overview of the array of workplace innovations being introduced in telecommunications firms (from joint …

Unrepentent Policy Failure: Universal Service Subsidies In Voice And Broadband, Thomas Hazlett, Scott J. Wallsten

Scott J. Wallsten

In the first half of 2013, the Universal Service Fund levied a nearly 16 percent tax on users of fixed, mobile, and VoIP communications, spending nearly $9 billion to extend networks. Yet, USF expenditures – about $110 billion (in 2013 dollars) since 1998, of which $64 billion went for telephone carrier subsidies – extend voice services to, at most, one-half of one percent of U.S. households. This generous estimate of about 600,000 residences implies a cost-per-home of $106,000, just counting the federal carrier subsidies. Entrenched interests make the program exceedingly difficult to change. These interests include hundreds of rural telephone …

Copyright, Neuroscience, And Creativity, Erez Reuveni

Erez Reuveni

It is said that copyright law’s primary purpose is to encourage creativity by providing economic incentives to create. Accepting this premise, the primary disagreement among copyright stakeholders today concerns to what extent strong copyrights in fact provide efficient economic incentives. This focus on economic incentives obscures what is perhaps copyright doctrine’s greatest weakness—although the primary purpose of copyright law is to encourage creativity, copyright doctrine lacks even a rudimentary understanding of how creativity functions on a neurobiological level. The absence of a cohesive understanding of the science of creativity means that much of copyright theory is premised on antiquated assumptions …

Two Cheers For The Fcc's Mobility Fund Reverse Auction, Scott J. Wallsten

Scott J. Wallsten

The United States held its first competitive bidding, or “reverse auction,” for universal service subsidies in September 2012. While it is far too early to investigate whether this national auction generated improvements in mobile voice and broadband service in underserved areas, it is not too soon to evaluate the auction itself. This paper investigates the outcome of the Mobility Fund Phase 1 Auction (Auction 901) and considers what we could learn from it for universal service and for future planned reverse auctions, such as the upcoming incentive auction, which aims to reallocate spectrum from broadcasters to those who place a …