Labor Relations Commons^™

Complementary Or Conflictual? Formal Participation, Informal Participation, And Organizational Performance, Adam Seth Litwin, Adrienne Eaton

Adam Seth Litwin

Most studies of worker participation examine either formal participatory structures or informal participation. Yet, increasingly, works councils and other formal participatory bodies are operating in parallel with collective bargaining or are filling the void left by its decline. Moreover, these bodies are sprouting in workplaces in which workers have long held a modicum of influence, authority, and production- or service-related information. This study leverages a case from the healthcare sector to examine the interaction between formal and informal worker participation. Seeking to determine whether or not these two forces—each independently shown to benefit production or service delivery—complement or undermine one …

Superbugs Versus Outsourced Cleaners: Employment Arrangements And The Spread Of Health Care-Associated Infections, Adam Seth Litwin, Ariel C. Avgar, Edmund R. Becker

Adam Seth Litwin

On any given day, about one in 25 hospital patients in the United States has a health care–associated infection (HAI) that the patient contracts as a direct result of his or her treatment. Fortunately, the spread of most HAIs can be halted through proper disinfection of surfaces and equipment. Consequently, cleaners—“environmental services” (EVS) in hospital parlance—must take on the important task of defending hospital patients (as well as staff and the broader community) from the spread of HAIs. Despite the importance of this task, hospitals frequently outsource this function, increasing the likelihood that these workers are under-rewarded, undertrained, and detached …

Technological Change At Work: The Impact Of Employee Involvement On The Effectiveness Of Health Information Technology, Adam Seth Litwin

Adam Seth Litwin

The link between employee involvement (El) and organizational performance is not clear-cut, and the diffusion of information technology (IT) in the workplace complicates this relationship. The author argues that new technologies offer an important avenue by which El can improve hrm performance. He also contends that those studies that do consider El in the context of technological change may be focusing exclusively on workplace-level features of the employment relationship, ignoring variation in functional- and strategic-level aspects of employment relations. To test this hypothesis, he uses Kaiser Permanente Northwest Region’s patient scheduling module as an exemplar to investigate the extent to …

The Future Of Human Capital: An Employment Relations Perspective, Thomas Kochan, Adam Seth Litwin

Adam Seth Litwin

[Excerpt] It is not surprising that most theories of human capital treat the firm as the key unit of analysis, given the deep imprint that Becker (1964 [1993]) left with his early efforts to distinguish between general and specific human capital. It is especially understandable for research that focuses on American institutions and practices. Ever since the passage of the New Deal employment policies of the 1930s, firms have been assigned central roles in the delivery and financing of a variety of labor-market services, including the provision of workforce training and development (Osterman et al, 2001). Most of the chapters …

The Quality Of Jobs Created By Entrepreneurs, Adam Seth Litwin, Philip Phan

Adam Seth Litwin

Few dare to challenge the conventional wisdom that small business is the engine of job creation. Indeed, in the United States, the image of the small business owner left largely unfettered to create novel products and services sits on the same cultural plane as baseball and apple pie, and one would be hard-pressed to find a policymaker who would openly question the wisdom that most new jobs arise either directly or indirectly from these small businesses. This near religious belief in the small business owner as job creator yields a steady stream of policies offering tax relief to small businesses, …

Measurement Error In Performance Studies Of Health Information Technology: Lessons From The Management Literature, Adam Seth Litwin, Ariel Avgar, Peter Pronovost

Adam Seth Litwin

Just as researchers and clinicians struggle to pin down the benefits attendant to health information technology (IT), management scholars have long labored to identify the performance effects arising from new technologies and from other organizational innovations, namely the reorganization of work and the devolution of decision-making authority. This paper applies lessons from that literature to theorize the likely sources of measurement error that yield the weak statistical relationship between measures of health IT and various performance outcomes. In so doing, it complements the evaluation literature’s more conceptual examination of health IT’s limited performance impact. The paper focuses on seven issues, …

Rethinking Work And Family Policy: The Making And Taking Of Parental Leave In Australia, Marian Baird, Adam Seth Litwin

Adam Seth Litwin

Despite the continued increase in female participation rates, Australia remains one of only two developed nations in the world without a paid maternity leave scheme. While research interest and public policy debate about paid maternity leave entitlements continues, little is known about the actual utilization of the 52 weeks unpaid parental leave that is currently available to all employees. Moreover, research and policy debate on the availability and provision of paid paternity leave has only just begun. This paper argues that, given the gendered nature of employee entitlements, it is time to re-evaluate all aspects of parental leave policy in …

Not Featherbedding, But Feathering The Nest: Human Resource Management And Investments In Information Technology, Adam Seth Litwin

Adam Seth Litwin

This study draws on employment relations and management theory, claiming that certain innovative employment practices and work structures pave the way for organizational innovation, namely investments in information technology (IT). It then finds support for the theory in a cross-section of UK workplaces. The findings suggest that firms slow to adopt IT realize that their conventional employment model hinders their ability to make optimal use of new technologies. Therefore, the paper advances the literature beyond studies of unionization’s impact on business investment to a broader set of issues on the employment relations features that make organizations ripe for innovation.

Quality Over Quantity: Reexamining The Link Between Entrepreneurship And Job Creation, Adam Seth Litwin, Philip Phan

Adam Seth Litwin

Although much has been written about the quantity of jobs created by entrepreneurs, scholars have yet to examine the quality of these jobs. In this article, the authors begin to address this important issue by examining nearly 5,000 businesses that began operations in 2004. They investigate the extent to which nascent employers provide what many think of as quality jobs—those offering health care coverage and a retirement plan. The authors find that because of small scale, constrained resources, and protection from institutional pressures, start-up companies do not provide their employees with either of these proxies for job quality, and their …

Explaining The Health Information Technology Paradox, Ariel Avgar, Adam Seth Litwin

Adam Seth Litwin

Excerpt] The substantial gap between the promise inherent in upgrading information systems in health care and the documented reality has baffled health care scholars. Why is a technology so clearly capable of creating efficiencies, increasing safety, and promoting greater information sharing and coordination across professionals failing to live up to expectations?

Review Of Cleaning Up: How Hospital Outsourcing Is Hurting Workers And Endangering Patients, Adam Seth Litwin

Adam Seth Litwin

[Excerpt] Researchers sensitive to the plight of low-wage workers in advanced industrialized economies have long sought to convey the magnitude of the problem by retelling sorrowful tales of worker exploitation. Sadly, even their most sympathetic readers have numbed to these accounts. Author Dan Zuberi has found a clever way to transcend this apathy in his new monograph based on about 100 interviews plus behind-the- scenes observations of the impact of hospital support staff outsourcing on patients and workers. Through a well-developed understanding of the work process and changes in the employment relationship, he ties outsourcing and the resulting exploitation of …

Counting The Global Aerospace Workforce, Betty Barnett, Kevin Long, Lydia Fraile, Adam Seth Litwin

Adam Seth Litwin

As researchers on MIT’s Labor Aerospace Research Agenda (LARA), we began our work with many questions. Are other nations—like the United States—facing a “demographic cliff” as their aerospace workforce’s age? What strategic decisions are other countries making to insure adequate skills and competencies? How are offsets affecting employment levels? Are American job losses in aerospace matched by job gains elsewhere?

As it turns out, just determining the size of the global aerospace workforce has proved far more complicated than we imagined, although the initial data—and the questions they raise—suggest that this is an important undertaking. The impact of the September …

Nose To Tail: Using The Whole Employment Relationship To Link Worker Participation To Operational Performance, Adam Seth Litwin

Adam Seth Litwin

Although many employers continue to adopt various forms of worker participation or employee involvement, expected positive gains often fail to materialize. One explanation for the weak or altogether missing performance effects is that researchers rely on frameworks that focus almost exclusively on contingencies related to the workers themselves or to the set of tasks subject to participatory processes. This study is premised on the notion that a broader examination of the employment relationship within which a worker participation program is embedded reveals a wider array of factors impinging upon its success. I integrate labor relations theory into existing insights from …

Justice Or Just Between Us? Empirical Evidence Of The Trade-Off Between Procedural And Interactional Justice In Workplace Dispute Resolution, Zev Eigen, Adam Seth Litwin

Adam Seth Litwin

In this article, the authors examine the relationship between an employer’s implementation of a typical dispute resolution system (DRS) and organizational justice, perceived compliance with the law, and organizational commitment. They draw on unique data from a single, geographically expansive, U.S. firm with more than 100,000 employees in more than 1,000 locations. Holding all time-constant, location-level variables in place, they find that the introduction of a DRS is associated with elevated perceptions of interactional justice but diminished perceptions of procedural justice. They also find no discernible effect on organizational commitment, but a significant boost to perceived legal compliance by the …

Drivers And Barriers In Health It Adoption: A Proposed Framework, Ariel Avgar, Adam Seth Litwin, Peter Pronovost

Adam Seth Litwin

Despite near (and rare) consensus that the adoption and diffusion of health information technology (health IT) will bolster outcomes for organizations, individuals, and the healthcare system as a whole, there has been surprisingly little consideration of the structures and processes within organizations that might drive the adoption and effective use of the technology. Management research provides a useful lens through which to analyze both the determinants of investment and the benefits that can ultimately be derived from these investments. This paper provides a conceptual framework for understanding health IT adoption. In doing so, this paper highlights specific organizational barriers or …