Labor Relations Commons^™

Employee Voice, Human Resource Practices, And Quit Rates: Evidence From The Telecommunications Industry, Rosemary Batt, Alexander J.S. Colvin, Jeffrey Keefe

Alexander Colvin

The authors draw on strategic human resource and industrial relations theories to identify the sets of employee voice mechanisms and human resource practices that are likely to predict firm-level quit rates, then empirically evaluate the predictive power of these variables using data from a 1998 establishment level survey in the telecommunications industry. With respect to alternative voice mechanisms, they find that union representation predicts lower quit rates, even after they control for compensation and a wide range of other human resource practices that may be affected by collective bargaining. Also predicting lower quit rates is employee participation in offline problem-solving …

The Interactive Effects Of Recruitment Practices And Product Awareness On Job Seekers’ Employer Knowledge And Application Behaviors, Christopher J. Collins

Christopher J Collins

In this paper, I draw on research from the literatures on marketing and recruitment to identify how recruitment practices and company product awareness are related to job seekers’ application behaviors through three aspects of job seekers’ employer knowledge. Based on results from a within-subjects design with data from 123 recruiting companies and 456 student job seekers, my findings suggested the relationships between recruitment strategies and application intentions and decisions are moderated by product awareness. Specifically, low-information recruitment practices are significantly and positively related to application behaviors through employer familiarity and employer reputation when product awareness is low rather than high. …

Exploring Applicant Pool Quantity And Quality: The Effects Of Early Recruitment Practice Strategies, Corporate Advertising, And Firm Reputation, Christopher J. Collins, Jian Han

Christopher J Collins

Drawing on marketing and recruitment theory, we examined relationships between early recruitment practices, organizational factors, and organization-level recruitment outcomes, predicting that low-involvement recruitment practices, high-involvement recruitment practices, corporate advertising, and firm reputation would positively affect the quantity and quality of organizations’ applicant pools. We also predicted that corporate advertising and firm reputation would moderate the effects of the two recruitment strategies. Data for 99 organizations collected from multiple sources provided some evidence that early recruitment practices, corporate advertising, and firm reputation each had direct effects on applicant pool quantity and quality. More importantly, we found that low-involvement recruitment practices were …

Retesting In Selection: A Meta-Analysis Of Practice Effects For Tests Of Cognitive Ability, John P. Hausknecht, Jane A. Halpert, Nicole T. Di Paolo, Meghan O. Moriarty Gerrard

John Hausknecht

Previous studies indicate that as many as 25-50% of applicants in organizational and educational settings are retested with measures of cognitive ability. Researchers have shown that practice effects are found across measurement occasions such that scores improve when these applicants retest. This study uses meta-analysis to summarize the results of 50 studies of practice effects for tests of cognitive ability. Results from 107 samples and 134,436 participants revealed an adjusted overall effect size of .26. Moderator analyses indicated that effects were larger when practice was accompanied by test coaching, and when identical forms were used. Additional research is needed to …

Are National Exit Examinations Important For Educational Efficiency?, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

“This paper analyses effects of national or provincial exit examinations on education quality. On theoretical grounds, the paper argues that such examinations should increase high school achievement, particularly in examination subjects, and that teachers and students and parents and school administrators should focus more on academic achievement when making school-quality decisions. On the negative side, exit examinations may lead to a tendency to concentrate on learning facts, rather than understanding contexts.”

The Impacts Of School-Business Partnerships On The Early Labor-Market Success Of Students, John H. Bishop, Ferran Mane

John H Bishop

[Excerpt] This chapter examines the effects of improved signaling of student achievement in high school on the labor market success of recent high-school graduates. The chapter is organized into three sections. In the first section, we reproduce the argument that Bishop put forth in 1985 that better signaling of student achievement to employers would improve the quality of the jobs that recent high-school graduates could obtain and strengthen incentives to learn. In the second section, we analyze longitudinal data on eight graders in 1988 and attempt to measure the effect of school-employer partnerships on their subsequent success in the labor …

Student, Staff, And Employer Incentives For Improved Student Achievement And Work Readiness, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

“This article proposes a strategy for banishing mediocrity and building in its place an excellent American system of secondary education. Before a cure can be prescribed, however, a diagnosis must be made.”

Some Thoughts On The Cost Effectiveness Of Graduate Education Subsidies, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

[Excerpt] How much should doctorate training be subsidized? The answer proposed is, "Doctorate training should be subsidized to the extent and only to the extent that it produces externality or public benefits – i.e. benefits received by people other than the one receiving the diploma." This value judgment derives from three propositions: (1) In general, an adult knows better than anyone else what is best for himself; (2) the price (measured in both time and money) he is willing to pay for graduate education is the best measure of how much he values it relative to other offerings; and (3) …

In Search Of A Niche, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

"As enrollment in secondary vocational education programs declines and employers re-evaluate the attributes needed for success in today’s job market, some observers of the U.S. education system have called for schools to limit – or even eliminate – the teaching of occupational skills. Does this mean employers don’t reward such training?"

Making Vocational Education More Effective For At-Risk Youth, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

"Occupationally specific vocational training pays off for disadvantaged students, but only if graduates work in the jobs they were trained for. Implication: Vocational educators must help make sure that the skills they teach are used."

Retesting In Selection: A Meta-Analysis Of Practice Effects For Tests Of Cognitive Ability, John P. Hausknecht, Jane A. Halpert, Nicole T. Di Paolo, Meghan O. Moriarty Gerrard

Jane Halpert

Previous studies indicate that as many as 25-50% of applicants in organizational and educational settings are retested with measures of cognitive ability. Researchers have shown that practice effects are found across measurement occasions such that scores improve when these applicants retest. This study uses meta-analysis to summarize the results of 50 studies of practice effects for tests of cognitive ability. Results from 107 samples and 134,436 participants revealed an adjusted overall effect size of .26. Moderator analyses indicated that effects were larger when practice was accompanied by test coaching, and when identical forms were used. Additional research is needed to …

International Labor Standards, Soft Regulation, And National Government Roles, Sarosh C. Kuruvilla, Anil Verma

Sarosh Kuruvilla

[Excerpt] In this article, we briefly describe the different approaches to the regulation of international labor standards, and then argue for a new role for national governments based on soft rather than hard regulation approaches. We argue that this new role shows potential for significantly enhancing progress in international labor standards, since it enables governments to articulate a position without having to deal with the enforcement issues that hard regulation mandates. We justify this new role for governments based on the increasing use of soft regulation in the international arena. Of course, this approach is not without its own problems, …

Human Resource Management, Service Quality, And Economic Performance In Call Centers, Rosemary Batt, Lisa M. Moynihan

Rosemary Batt

This paper examines the relationship between human resource practices, operational outcomes, and economic performance in call centers. The study draws on a sample of 64 call centers serving the mass market in a large telecommunications services company. Surveys of 1,243 employees in the 64 centers were aggregated to the call center level and matched to archival data on service process quality, as measured by customer surveys; call handling time, revenues per call, and net revenues per call. Our path analysis shows that human resource practices emphasizing employee training, discretion, and rewards lead to higher service quality, higher revenues per call, …

Net Working: Work Patterns And Workforce Policies For The New Media Industry, Rosemary Batt, Susan Christopherson, Ned Rightor, Danielle Van Jaarsveld

Rosemary Batt

This report, based on a study of a group of highly accomplished professionals in New York City, is one of the first to take up labor market issues in the new media industry. It describes the challenges faced by professionals and employers alike in this important and dynamic sector, and identifies strategies for success in a project oriented environment with highly complex skill demands and rapidly changing technology. Our findings suggest three central issues.

The Indian Call Centre Industry: National Benchmarking Report Strategy, Hr Practices, & Performance, Rosemary Batt, Virginia Doellgast, Hyunji Kwon, Mudit Nopany, Priti Nopany, Anil Da Costa

Rosemary Batt

Report of the Global Call Centre Industry Project

The dramatic growth of the call center industry is a world-wide phenomenon, fueled by advances in information technologies and the precipitous decline in the costs of voice and data transmission over the last two decades. As part of this global industry, call centres in India have experienced spectacular growth in the last five years. They generate seventy percent of the revenues of the Indian Business Process Outourcing (BPO) industry, according to estimates by Mckinsey (www.nasscom.org).

This rapid growth has also brought managerial challenges in terms of recruitment,staffing, training, and retention of workers …