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Articles 1 - 30 of 46
Full-Text Articles in Labor Relations
Regional Labour Market Integration In England And Wales, 1850-1913, George R. Boyer, Timothy J. Hatton
Regional Labour Market Integration In England And Wales, 1850-1913, George R. Boyer, Timothy J. Hatton
George R. Boyer
[Excerpt] This chapter examines the integration of labour markets within the rural and urban sectors of England and Wales during the second half of the nineteenth century. Although there is a large literature on internal migration and emigration in Victorian Britain, historians typically have focused on the direction and causes of migration rather than on its consequences for the labour market. Broadly speaking, the literature has found that workers did indeed migrate towards better wage-earning opportunities, that most moves were short-distance moves, and that once certain patterns of migration were established they often persisted. The studies leave the strong impression, …
Occupations, Organizations, And Boundaryless Careers, Pamela S. Tolbert
Occupations, Organizations, And Boundaryless Careers, Pamela S. Tolbert
Pamela S Tolbert
[Excerpt] The central premise of this chapter is that, as organizations become less important in defining career pathways and boundaries, occupations will become increasingly more important. While occupational demarcations have always had a significant, albeit often unacknowledged, impact on individual career patterns, the significance of such demarcations for careers is likely to be heightened by current trends in employment relationships. In this chapter, then, I review the sociological literature on occupational labor markets and on the structure of professional occupations, in an effort to shed light on a number of issues associated with occupationally based careers. Of specific concern are …
On Organizations And Oligarchies: Michels In The Twenty-First Century, Pamela S. Tolbert, Shon R. Hiatt
On Organizations And Oligarchies: Michels In The Twenty-First Century, Pamela S. Tolbert, Shon R. Hiatt
Pamela S Tolbert
[Excerpt] A central problem for those interested in studying and explaining the actions of organizations is how to conceptualize these social phenomena. In particular, because organizations are constituted by individuals, each of whom may seek to achieve his or her interests through the organization, questions of how decisions are made in organizations and whose preferences drive those decisions are critical to explaining organizational actions. Although early organizational scholars spent much time wrestling with these questions (e.g. Barnard 1938; Simon 1947; Parsons 1956; March and Simon 1958), more recent work in organizational studies has tended to elide them, adopting an implicit …
Experimentation And Decentralization In China’S Labor Relations, Eli D. Friedman, Sarosh Kuruvilla
Experimentation And Decentralization In China’S Labor Relations, Eli D. Friedman, Sarosh Kuruvilla
Sarosh Kuruvilla
In this introduction to the special issue ‘Changing work, labour and employment relations in China’, we argue that China is taking an experimental and decentralized approach to the development of new labor relations frameworks. Particular political constraints in China prevent interest aggregation among workers, as the central state sees this as posing a risk to social stability. Firms and local governments have been given a degree of space to experiment with different arrangements, as long as the categorical ban on independent unions is not violated. The consequence has been an increasingly differentiated labor relations landscape, with significant variation by region …
From Governance To Political Economy: Insights From A Study Of Relations Between Corporations And Workers, Harry W. Arthurs, Claire Mumme
From Governance To Political Economy: Insights From A Study Of Relations Between Corporations And Workers, Harry W. Arthurs, Claire Mumme
Harry Arthurs
This study explores four postwar attempts to re-imagine the role of workers within the corporation and especially their relation to the processes of corporate governance. Employees have been variously conceptualized as "citizens at work," whose rights of association, speech, assembly, and due process can be secured through collective bargaining; as "stakeholders," whose interests are entitled to consideration analogous to those of corporate shareholders; as "human capital," worth preserving and enhancing through enlightened employment policies and practices; and as "investors"-actual holders of corporate equity through pension funds and other vehicles. Despite the descriptive power and normative appeal of these approaches, each …
Two Paths To The High Road: The Dynamics Of Coalition Building In Seattle And Buffalo, Ian Greer, Barbara Byrd, Lou Jean Fleron
Two Paths To The High Road: The Dynamics Of Coalition Building In Seattle And Buffalo, Ian Greer, Barbara Byrd, Lou Jean Fleron
Ian Greer
[Excerpt] Labor-community coalitions are not a new concept. Unions approach such coalitions now, as in the past, as one way to enhance their bargaining power with an employer. Such coalitions are temporary and often issue-based. In recent years, however, some local labor movements have begun to look at coalitions in a broader way – as a means of improving their public image and building power in the political arena. This broad-based approach requires the development of coalitions for the longer run, not just for temporary expediency. This paper develops the notion of a high road social infrastructure as a way …
Beyond National “Varieties”: Public-Service Contracting In Comparative Perspective, Ian Greer, Ian Greenwood, Mark Stuart
Beyond National “Varieties”: Public-Service Contracting In Comparative Perspective, Ian Greer, Ian Greenwood, Mark Stuart
Ian Greer
[Excerpt] In this chapter, we will explore how work in contracted-out public services, including that in the voluntary sector, maps onto the broader international political economy of work. Comparative scholars often write about society correcting the excesses of the market, and it is hard to imagine a more relevant phenomenon to this than the voluntary sector. Yet this sector is itself subject to market forces, ironically perhaps, due to its ever-closer relationship with the state. Our study of employment in welfare-to-work services in the UK and Germany, whose findings are summarised below, shows how this relationship works and what its …
When Does Marketisation Lead To Privatisation? Profit-Making In English Health Services After The 2012 Health And Social Care Act, Nick Krachler, Ian Greer
When Does Marketisation Lead To Privatisation? Profit-Making In English Health Services After The 2012 Health And Social Care Act, Nick Krachler, Ian Greer
Ian Greer
Governments world-wide have attempted to use market mechanisms and privatisation to increase the quality and/or reduce the cost of healthcare. England’s Health and Social Care Act 2012 is an attempt to promote privatisation through marketisation in the National Health Service (NHS). While the health policy literature tends to assume that privatisation follows from private-sector entry points, we argue that this is more likely if firms expect to make a profit. This paper examines the link between privatisation and marketisation in England drawing on 32 semi-structured interviews with private-sector and public-sector respondents, campaigners, and other experts conducted 6-10 months after the …
Welfare Reform, Precarity And The Re-Commodification Of Labour, Ian Greer
Welfare Reform, Precarity And The Re-Commodification Of Labour, Ian Greer
Ian Greer
While welfare reform matters for workers and workplaces, it is peripheral in English-language sociology of work and industrial relations research. This article’s core proposition is that active labour market policies (ALMPs) are altering the institutional constitution of the labour market by intensifying market discipline within the workforce. This re-commodification effect is specified drawing on Marxism, comparative institutionalism, German-language sociology, and English-language social policy analysis. Because of administrative failures and employer discrimination, however, ALMPs may worsen precarity without achieving the stated goal of increasing labour-market participation.
Industrial Relations, Migration, And Neoliberal Politics: The Case Of The European Construction Sector, Nathan Lillie, Ian Greer
Industrial Relations, Migration, And Neoliberal Politics: The Case Of The European Construction Sector, Nathan Lillie, Ian Greer
Ian Greer
Transnational politics and labor markets are undermining national industrial relations systems in Europe. This article examines the construction industry, where the internationalization of the labor market has gone especially far. To test hypotheses about differences between “national systems,” the authors examine the United Kingdom, Finland, and Germany, alongside European-level policy making. Regardless of overall national institutional framework, employers seek to avoid industrial relations rules, while unions attempt to relocalize labor relations. Both use shop-floor, national, and European power resources. The authors argue that comparative industrial relations should take seriously the connection between action at the national and transnational levels.
Is Incorporation Of Unauthorized Immigrants Possible? Inclusion And Contingency For Nonstatus Migrants And Legal Immigrants, Maria Lorena Cook
Is Incorporation Of Unauthorized Immigrants Possible? Inclusion And Contingency For Nonstatus Migrants And Legal Immigrants, Maria Lorena Cook
Maria Lorena Cook
[Excerpt] What does inclusion for nonstatus migrants look like? How do we recognize and measure inclusion for this population? How might we model inclusion for nonstatus migrants? This essay addresses these questions, drawing primarily on empirical examples from the United States and Spain. Although Spain has become a country of immigration relatively recently, both countries have received large numbers of unauthorized immigrants, especially in the early part of the 2000s. These two countries also illustrate different means of inclusion for unauthorized migrants. During most of the 2000s opportunities for the “regularization” of unauthorized migrants have arguably been greater in Spain …
Regional Integration And Transnational Politics: Popular Sector Strategies In The Nafta Era, Maria Lorena Cook
Regional Integration And Transnational Politics: Popular Sector Strategies In The Nafta Era, Maria Lorena Cook
Maria Lorena Cook
[Excerpt] This chapter argues that although economic integration between the United States and Mexico had been taking place for some time, it was the formal recognition of this process as represented by the discussions surrounding the North American Free Trade Agreement that facilitated transnational political action by non-state actors. Whereas the globalization of the economy and the prevalence of neoliberal economic policies may be considered by some to undermine popular sector organization and actions, formal recognition of regional economic integration in North America has produced a ‘transnational political’ arena that has expanded the resources available to non-governmental groups, increased their …
Decomposing Ldc Inequality, Gary S. Fields
Decomposing Ldc Inequality, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] At the present time, there is great interest among development economists in the problem of economic inequality in less developed countries (LDCs). Studies of the determinants of inequality follow either of two general approaches. The more traditional approach is associated with names like Kuznets (1963), Chenery and associates (1960, 1968, 1975), Adelman and Morris (1973), Ahluwalia (1976) and Chiswick (1971). These studies share a common methodology, consisting basically of looking at a cross-section of countries, and (1) measuring the degree of inequality in each, (2) measuring other characteristics of each country (e.g., level of GNP, its rate of growth, …
Changing Labor Market Conditions And Economic Development In Hong Kong, The Republic Of Korea, Singapore, And Taiwan, China, Gary S. Fields
Changing Labor Market Conditions And Economic Development In Hong Kong, The Republic Of Korea, Singapore, And Taiwan, China, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
In the newly industrializing economies (NIEs) of Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan (China), the entire working population has benefited from labor market institutions. The East Asian NIEs attained and maintained generally full employment, improved their job mixes, raised real earnings, and lowered their rates of poverty. This article reaches two principal conclusions. First, labor market conditions continued to improve in all four economies in the 1980s at rates remarkably similar to their rates of aggregate economic growth. Second, labor market repression was not a major factor in the growth experiences of these economies in the 1980s. …
Higher Education And Income Distribution In A Less Developed Country, Gary S. Fields
Higher Education And Income Distribution In A Less Developed Country, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] The primary purpose of this paper is to empirically test among both the intra- and the inter-generational version of these three hypotheses for higher (i.e. post-secondary) levels of education for one less developed country, Kenya. A secondary purpose is to investigate other economic aspects of spending on higher education, most notably the question of horizontal equity in school finance. Before proceeding, a methodological point is in order. There is no consensus in the public economics literature on what is a suitable criterion for assessing the equitability of a fiscal programme. At least three criteria may be distinguished (the terminology …
Private Returns And Social Equity In The Financing Of Higher Education, Gary S. Fields
Private Returns And Social Equity In The Financing Of Higher Education, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] A widespread phenomenon in developing countries has been the rapid growth of schools and institutions of higher learning resulting in a so-called ‘education explosion’. One possible explanation for the education explosion is that education is a profitable personal investment, as evidenced by high private rates of return. The high private returns are translated into demands on politicians for additional schooling spaces. To gain or maintain public favour, each politician uses his influence to try to increase the number of schools in his constituency. By this chain of events, growth of educational systems might be anticipated as long as private …
The Dynamics Of Poverty, Inequality And Economic Well-Being: African Economic Growth In Comparative Perspective, Gary S. Fields
The Dynamics Of Poverty, Inequality And Economic Well-Being: African Economic Growth In Comparative Perspective, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
Two hundred and fifty million Africans (about 45% of the population) are poor. In rural areas, where most Africans live, there is, alas, a 'poor majority'. Rural poverty rates range from 37% in Madagascar and 41% in Kenya to 88% in Zambia and 94% in Ghana (Table 1). It is hard to imagine an issue in development economics that is of greater importance to humankind than the effects of economic growth on poverty and economic well-being. Yet there is remarkably little consensus on this vitally important issue, as illustrated by the following two polar positions: New patterns of growth will …
Changes In Poverty And Inequality In Developing Countries, Gary S. Fields
Changes In Poverty And Inequality In Developing Countries, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
This paper presents new data on poverty, inequality, and growth in those developing countries of the world for which the requisite statistics are available. Economic growth is found generally but not always to reduce poverty. Growth, however, is found to have very little to do with income inequality. Thus the "economic laws" linking the rate of growth and the distribution of benefits receive only very tenuous empirical support here.
Income Distribution In Developing Economies: Conceptual, Data, And Policy Issues In Broad-Based Growth, Gary S. Fields
Income Distribution In Developing Economies: Conceptual, Data, And Policy Issues In Broad-Based Growth, Gary S. Fields
Gary S Fields
[Excerpt] The aim of economic development is to raise the standard of living of a country's people, especially its poor. Economic growth, particularly when broadly based, is a means to that end. 'Underdevelopment' can be defined as a state of severely constrained choices. When one is choosing from among an undesirable set of alternatives, the outcome will itself be undesirable. Standards of living will be low. If standards of living are to be improved, people must have a better set of alternatives from which to choose. 'Economic development' is the process by which the constraints on choices are relaxed. Based …
Thinking About You: Perspective Taking, Perceived Restraint, And Performance, Michele Williams
Thinking About You: Perspective Taking, Perceived Restraint, And Performance, Michele Williams
Michele Williams
Conflict often arises when incompatible ideas, values or interests lead to actions that harm others. Increasing people’s willingness to refrain from harming others can play a critical role in preventing conflict and fostering performance. We examine perspective taking as a relational micro-process related to such restraint. We argue that attending to how others appraise events supports restraint in two ways. It motivates people to act with concern and enables them to understand what others view as harmful versus beneficial. Using a matched sample of 147 knowledge workers and 147 of their leaders, we evaluate the impact of appraisal-related perspective taking …
Affect, Emotion And Emotion Regulation In The Workplace: Feelings And Attitudinal Restructuring, Michele Williams
Affect, Emotion And Emotion Regulation In The Workplace: Feelings And Attitudinal Restructuring, Michele Williams
Michele Williams
[Excerpt] Almost 40 years after publishing A Behavioral Theory of Labor Negotiations in 1965, the fields of negotiations and organizational behavior experienced an “affective revolution” (Barsade, Brief and Spataro 2003). Although Walton and McKersie could not have predicted the widespread academic and public interest in emotion and emotional intelligence, they foreshadowed this affect-laden direction in the section of their book on attitudinal structuring, which identified the dimension of friendliness-hostility as a critical aspect of the relationship between negotiating parties in the workplace and other settings.
Generational Diversity Can Enhance Trust Across Boundaries, Michele Williams
Generational Diversity Can Enhance Trust Across Boundaries, Michele Williams
Michele Williams
In interorganizational project teams, generational diversity among team members undermines the experience of trust within demographically similar dyads but enhances the experience of trust within demographically dissimilar dyads.
Ports And Ladders: The Nature And Relevance Of Internal Labor Markets In A Changing World, Paul Osterman, M. Diane Burton
Ports And Ladders: The Nature And Relevance Of Internal Labor Markets In A Changing World, Paul Osterman, M. Diane Burton
M. Diane Burton
[Excerpt] Many believe that the nature of careers has changed dramatically in the past twenty years. One scholar writes that internal labor markets have been 'demolished', while a human resources manager at Intel comments that, in contrast to the past, today, 'You own your own employability. You are responsible' (Knoke 2001: 31). The idea of the 'boundaryless career' seems increasingly popular (Arthur and Rousseau 1996). If it is in fact true that the old rules for organizing work have disappeared, this would represent a fundamental change for employees. It would also have major implications for how scholars think about the …
Being Trusted: How Team Generational Age Diversity Promotes And Undermines Trust In Cross-Boundary Relationships, Michele Williams
Being Trusted: How Team Generational Age Diversity Promotes And Undermines Trust In Cross-Boundary Relationships, Michele Williams
Michele Williams
We examine how demographic context influences the trust that boundary spanners experience in their dyadic relationships with clients. Because of the salience of age as a demographic characteristic as well as the increasing prevalence of age diversity and intergenerational conflict in the workplace, we focus on team age diversity as a demographic social context that affects trust between boundary spanners and their clients. Using social categorization theory and theories of social capital, we develop and test our contextual argument that a boundary spanner’s experience of being trusted is influenced by the social categorization processes that occur in dyadic interactions with …
Squeezed In The Middle: The Middle Status Trade Creativity For Focus, Michelle M. Duguid, Jack Goncalo
Squeezed In The Middle: The Middle Status Trade Creativity For Focus, Michelle M. Duguid, Jack Goncalo
Jack Goncalo
Classical research on social influence suggested that people are the most conforming in the middle of a status hierarchy as opposed to the top or bottom. Yet, this promising line of research was abandoned before the psychological mechanism behind middle status conformity had been identified. Moving beyond the early focus on conformity, we propose that the threat of status loss may make those with middle status more wary of advancing creative solutions in fear that they will be evaluated negatively. Using different manipulations of status and measures of creativity, we found that when being evaluated, middle status individuals were less …
Organizational Performance In Services, Rosemary Batt, Virginia Doellgast
Organizational Performance In Services, Rosemary Batt, Virginia Doellgast
Rosemary Batt
The question of performance in service activities and occupations is important for several reasons. First, over two-thirds of employment in advanced economies is in service activities. Second, productivity growth in services is historically low, lagging far behind manufacturing, and as a result, wages in production-level service jobs remain low. In addition, labor costs in service activities are often over 50% of total costs, whereas in manufacturing they have fallen to less than 25% of costs. This raises the question of whether management practices that have improved performance in manufacturing, such as investment in the skills and training of the workforce, …
Groups, Teams, And The Division Of Labor — Interdisciplinary Perspectives On The Organization Of Work, Rosemary Batt, Virginia Doellgast
Groups, Teams, And The Division Of Labor — Interdisciplinary Perspectives On The Organization Of Work, Rosemary Batt, Virginia Doellgast
Rosemary Batt
The purpose of this chapter is to survey and critique this varied landscape of research on groups at work, drawing out common themes and selective weaknesses with the goal of suggesting a more synthetic and informed future agenda. Our discussion is not encyclopedic, but rather focused on three quite different research traditions: those based in psychology, in industrial relations, and in critical sociology. We outline the intellectual landscape of each case and highlight areas of agreement and disagreement. We argue that this project of cross-disciplinary theory building encounters substantial challenges, but is rich in potential. These traditions differ in their …
Introduction To Part 1: The Division Of Labor, Rosemary Batt
Introduction To Part 1: The Division Of Labor, Rosemary Batt
Rosemary Batt
The changing nature of work, technology, and the division of labor in the last quarter of the twentieth century has been a central preoccupation of scholarship on organizations. Debate has centered on the extent to which a fundamental shift in employment systems has occurred—from so-called Fordist to post-Fordist models. The stylized facts portray the former as characterized by internal labor market systems in large organizations, narrow jobs in hierarchical career ladders, and long-term employment relations. The latter include decentralized organizations, flatter hierarchies, team-based forms of work organization, and shorter employment relations that reflect external market pressures. The accumulated body of …
The Effect Of Regional Airline Attendance Policies On Pilot Self-Removal From Duty For Illness Or Fatigue, David R. Freiwald Ph.D., Csp, Michael F. O'Toole Ph.D.
The Effect Of Regional Airline Attendance Policies On Pilot Self-Removal From Duty For Illness Or Fatigue, David R. Freiwald Ph.D., Csp, Michael F. O'Toole Ph.D.
Michael F O'Toole Ph.D.
The purpose of this paper was to study the effect of current regional airline attendance policies on the willingness of crewmembers to remove themselves from duty when ill or fatigued. This study sought to determine if the current punitive attendance policies are encouraging crewmembers to operate contrary to federal regulation. A survey was given to current pilots of four regional airlines with similar attendance policies. The responses were correlated with supplied demographic and experiential data. The goal of the paper was to examine the major areas of concern and suggested solutions. The overwhelming majority of respondents felt that their companies’ …
Review: John S. Ahlquist And Margaret Levi, 'In The Interest Of Others: Organizations And Social Activism" (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2013), Rowan Cahill
Rowan Cahill
Review of the comparative study of trade union organizational behaviour by John S. Ahlquist and Margaret Levi, 'In the Interest of Others: Organizations and Social Activism" (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2013), which involves a target group of US and Australian trade unions.