Labor Economics Commons^™

Lived Experiences Of African American Women Encountering Barriers In Executive Level Advancement In The Business Services Industry, Sheriley Yvonne Smith

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

It is unknown how African American Women (AAW) perceived experiences involving the experience of the barriers faced when attempting to advance to executive levels in their corporate jobs. Existing literature showed that AAWs experienced several forms of discrimination, including racism, oppression, and limitations which were critical to examining their work experience and progressing up the corporate ladder. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to develop an understanding of lived experiences of AAWs when they apply for and fail to reach executive positions in the business services industry. The glass ceiling theory (GCT) and intersectionality theory (IT) were used …

Logistics Leader Strategies For Retaining Employees, Sandra Northern

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Low employee retention can lead to a lack of the knowledge, skills, and abilities required for sustainable logistics operations. Logistics leaders are concerned with employee retention because turnover increases business costs, reduces operational efficiency, and decreases profitability. Grounded in Herzberg’s two-factor theory, the purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore strategies logistics leaders use to increase employee retention. The participants were three senior leaders from a logistics organization in the northeast region of the United States who possessed knowledge and experience of the research phenomena. Data were collected through semistructured interviews, company documents, publicly available data, and …

What Has Digital Transformation Changed? A Chinese Case Study Of Hidden Costs Using A Socio-Economic Approach To Management, Tony Huang, Emmanuel Monod, Alan Eisner, Helaine Korn, Yuewei Jiang, Bin Bai, Samuel Wilson

Management Faculty Publications

Digital transformation is regarded as a way to solve business problems in an organisation. However, the impact on the company’s hidden costs should also be more precisely analysed. This research relies on the socio-economic approach to management to describe the impact of digital transformation maturity growth on hidden costs in a Chinese manufacturing company. This paper combines the case study research method with some quantitative techniques by conducting correlation analyses of staff turnover, low-quality work and occupational injuries and diseases. The results indicate that digital transformation maturity growth is correlated with the financial consequences of staff’s excess salary in terms …

Gender-Based Pay Inequality In The Canadian Insurance Companies, Mostafa Shayangogani

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractThe problem in this study was gender-based pay inequality among women at Canadian insurance companies. The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to understand gender-based pay inequality for women at Canadian insurance companies. Aigner's, Cain's, Arrow's, and Phelps' statistical discrimination theory guided the study. The theoretical foundation also included the human capital theory by Becker and Schultz. The research questions focused on understanding C-suite and V-level executives’ lived experiences of gender-based pay inequality and identifying effective strategies that should be adopted to overcome the problem at Canadian insurance companies. This study used purposeful sampling to recruit 15 C-suite and …

Examining The Effectiveness Of Nba General Managers At Determining Value In The Nba Draft, And The Impact Of Drafting Team On Player Future Value, Benjamin S. Glass

CMC Senior Theses

This study examines the effectiveness of NBA general managers at accurately drafting in accordance with the future values of players. Using draft position as a metric representing perceived value at the time of the draft, and second contract size to represent value of a player at the time of free agency, I compare the effects of different draft positions on the expected size of a players second contract. By examining divergences in the expected negative linear trend, I can identify positions in the draft which are being over/undervalued. I additionally look at the effect of team on second contract size …

The Impact Of Cluster Strength On Wages: An Empirical Analysis, Devan Schaefer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I examine the relationship between clusters (i.e., the grouping of competitive, interconnected industries within a geographical area) and wages, building upon the work of Marshall (1890) and Porter (2003) on the importance of clusters for regional economic development. I seek to answer two research questions. First, after accounting for robustness tests, do clusters continue to affect wages positively? Second, is labor force productivity the only channel through which this relationship occurs? In my analysis, I employ ordinary least squares, two-stage least squares, and fixed effects regression analyses using panel data from 2009 to 2014 for every U.S. …

Boom And Bust: Job Churn In The Technology Industry In The Covid-19 Pandemic Era, Aliza Mayer

Scripps Senior Theses

Layoffs in the technology sector since 2021 have dominated news cycles and raised concern amongst everyone, from investors to employees. However, there is limited literature regarding the reasoning behind these layoffs and whether they really are as concerning and dramatic as our modern-day news has expressed. In this paper, I examined the historical trends of employment and contributing factors and discerned that the current wave of layoffs has occurred for a few reasons. In the past, the technology sector has been very strategic with hiring and only does so when revenue permits. However, during the pandemic, the technology sector became …

A Qualitative Study On The Financial Education Of Young Black Men, Sue M. May

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Financial literacy awareness is low among young adults, and financial literacy among Black college students is significantly lower than in other groups (Singh, 2018). However, there is little to no research on why financial literacy is so low among young Black men between 18 and 25. Few studies specifically show how financial literacy and decision-making may be related to their family economics and socialization for young Black men. Using Critical Race Theory and Family Financial Socialization theoretical frameworks, this dissertation project examined a sample of seven young self-identified Black men ages 24 to 25 years old in Northern California Bay …

Using The Lsat As A Labor Market Thermometer For Lawyers, James V. Koch, Barbara Blake-Gonzalez

Economics Faculty Publications

We rely upon a 50-state, 20-year panel to find that the number of Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) takers is only loosely related to economic conditions—although slightly more for men than for women, who in 2020 accounted for 58% of all LSAT takers. The number of test takers rose more than 35% between 2014 and 2020. This wave accentuated an already existing downtrend in the median real income of lawyers, and thus provides support for the hypothesis that most states have more lawyers than they need.

The Choice Of Technology In Economic Development, Lei Wen, Haiwen Zhou

Economics Faculty Publications

The impact of capital accumulation on job creation is an important and interesting issue in economic development. This model provides a general-equilibrium framework for studying technology choice with unemployment in a developing economy based on micro-foundations. Unemployment in the urban sector results from the existence of efficiency wages. Manufacturing firms engage in oligopolistic competition and choose technologies to maximise profits. A more advanced technology uses more capital and less labour. In the steady state, an increase in the amount of capital induces firms to choose more advanced technologies and the wage rate increases. While a higher capital stock always induces …

The Managerial Factors Influencing The Retention Of Firms' It Capability, With Some Global Implications, Jinho Kim, Kayoung Park, Timothy Komarek, Li Xu

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

Researchers have explored firms’ IT capability and its effects on business performance, yet the factors influencing the long-term retention of this capability have not been fully investigated. Therefore, our study examines what managerial and financial factors influence the retention of firms’ IT capability by utilizing survival analysis. The results show that IT executives’ managerial power does not contribute to retaining the firms’ IT capability. However, the change of IT managers can introduce fresh insights and expertise to an organization, enabling firms to maintain their IT capability, and the degree of retaining IT competency in firms can vary based on industry-specific …

Three Essays On Political Economy, Colin Michael Steitz

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The first chapter studies the impact of conventions and multi-day events on
hotel demand in the Indianapolis metro area. Using hand-collected data on
sporting events and conventions, we study the impact on hotel metrics: ADR,
Occupancy, Daily Rate, and Revenue. We show that traditional sporting
events generate little impact when compared to multi-day conventions. We
show that mega-events such as major championship games generate significant
increases in hotel demand. We find large and statistically significant effects for
multi-day conventions on hotel demand with very little evidence of crowding
out. A single day of a multi-day convention brings in approximately $928,000 …

Freedom To Choose: The Economic Impact Of Reduced Abortion Access On Women’S Labor Market Outcomes, Zaara A. Masud

Senior Projects Spring 2023

This project aims to look at the economic impact of a reduction in abortion access on women's labor market outcomes. To do this, I use Sen and Nussbaum's capabilities approach to analyze the different capabilities that would be impacted and find that women's educational attainment, income, and labor force participation rates are all lower without access to abortion.

Essays In Applied Microeconomics, Joshua C. Martin

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The first chapter examines the role that same-sex marriage legalization had on the number of adoptions of children from foster care in the United States. We do so by employing a synthetic difference-in-differences estimator which leverages both the differential timing of these laws across states and the subsequent wave of state-level legal protections which give foster-care agencies the right to deny service to same-sex couples based on religiously-held beliefs. Using highly detailed, county-level data of nearly 20 million children in the foster care system from 1995-2020, our findings reveal that same-sex marriage legalization led to a 3.8%-5.9% increase in the …

Exploring The Rise In Anti-Immigrant Violence In South Africa: An Interdisciplinary Analysis Of Historical, Economic, And Political Factors, Yaseer Bolaji Abdulfatai

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

The Labor Share In The Post-1980 Economy: An Analysis Of The Contributing Factors, Mia Bellucci

Honors Theses

During the Neoliberal period, which roughly began in the early 1980s in the U.S., there was a substantial slowdown in the growth rate of real hourly compensation, while productivity had continued to grow. The last two decades of the Neoliberal period (2000 – 2020) also experienced somewhat of a substantial decline in the labor share. In recent decades, there has been a growing amount of literature attempting to explain the major factors that have contributed to these recent labor market developments. This study provides a means of investigating the changes in the labor share and its components (i.e., real hourly …

An Examination Of Transitioning Meso-Institutions And Markets In The Landscape Of American Politics, Devin Thomas Marconi

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This paper bridges the gap in the literature between sociological accounts of market actors provided by Mark Granovetter and Douglas North, meso-institutional examinations of polarization provided by Paul Pierson and Eric Schickler, and the psychological exploration into cross-cutting identities provided by Liliana Mason. I argue that the nationalization and concentration of markets, identities, and politics have led to a transition within the meso-institution of the market from maintaining self-regulating punishment mechanisms to replacing them with self-reinforcing mechanisms, exacerbating affective polarization. Previous works explore the transition within the meso-institutions of the media, interest groups, and political parties. I include the market …

Unemployment Insurance: Fix It And Fund It, Christopher J. O'Leary, David E. Balducchi, Ralph E. Smith

Upjohn Institute Policy Papers

During the 2020–2021 pandemic, the federal-state unemployment insurance (UI) system in the United States nearly reached the breaking point. The surge in joblessness was matched in history only by the Great Depression of the 1930s. Congress hurriedly crafted temporary pandemic benefit assistance programs to fill benefit and eligibility gaps in state-run UI programs, handing them off to capacity-starved state UI agencies that fitfully served millions of workers and employers. After years of policy neglect and contraction, state UI programs have low benefit recipiency, meager earnings replacement rates, and inadequate benefit financing. It is time for comprehensive federal UI reform legislation, …

影視業勞工狀況中期研究報告2023, 嶺南大學政策研究院, 嶺南大學文化研究及發展中心, 嶺南大學「青年貧窮與就業」研究團隊, 鄧立賢, 蔡美琦, 楊皓鋮, 梁仕池, 潘毅

CCRD Research Report

文化及創意產業是近年香港政府重點發展的產業，銳意將香港打造成「中外文化藝術交流中心」。然而文化及創意產業行內的運作模式、勞動條件和文化卻鮮有被研究。近期，業內發生了幾宗轟動的工業意外，備受社會關注。此外，媒體不時報導從業員被「拖糧」、長時間超時工作、行業前景受限等，反映需要深入研究創意產業勞工的工作狀態。在眾多的創意產業行業中，影視業的從業員人數較多，每年亦有大量畢業生投入市場，因此本研究報告集中討論影視行業的狀況。我們在今年四月至八月透過訪談接觸了30位從業員，訪問他們的入行經歷、勞動狀態、待遇等問題。另外在六月至八月，我們利用問卷調查了123名從業員，主要收集他們的接案協議及酬勞、工時及勞動強度、職業安全等數據。

研究發現

外判制度導致影視業工作普遍零散化、延遲支付酬勞（即「拖糧」）情況常見。問卷顯示，有42.3%回覆者表示在現時或上一份工作，開工前僅前有口頭或訊息協議，14.6%回覆者則在開工前沒有任何形式的協議。影視業的外判制度其來有自，經歷九十年代港產製作大幅萎縮，投資商須緊縮成本製作預算，改以承包及自由工作方式聘用勞工，導致從業員缺乏正式僱傭關係和相關勞工保障。零散化的勞動模式亦造成普遍的不合理待遇，包括「拖糧」、欠缺清晰的工作協議、內容修改和工時安排等。

影視業從業員的勞動強度普遍較高，過勞和工傷普遍，但甚少有適當處理。超過六成回覆者表示「頗多」或「經常」連續兩天工作12小時以上；76.4%回覆者表示試過或目睹工傷，不過，只有11.7%回覆者表示有向勞工處呈報工傷。

政策倡議

訂立從業員基本待遇守則。影視業應制訂標準合約以保障從業員的基本權益，包括明確的酬勞支付方式、日期、付款分期，以及具體的休息時間規定。在盡量減低各持份者的行政成本下，標準合約讓自由工作者享有合理保障。行業亦應規範每組拍攝之間的最短休息時間及每週休息日。政府應負起帶頭責任，規定受資助團體或個人必須以不亞於行業標準合約的待遇聘請製作人員。

訂立工業安全指引。業界組織、勞工團體和勞工處應盡快共同制定工業安全指引。勞工處應研究拍攝場地的安全隱患，參考現行法例和工作守則，製作適用的宣傳材料和訓練課程。確立工作守則後，勞工處可研究不同執法的可行性，例如要求呈報拍攝現場、巡查、鼓勵舉報不安全的拍攝環境等。勞工處應審視勞工法例，研究同時保障僱員、日薪從業員、自由工作者的工傷補償。另外，勞工處應積極研究將中暑和過勞納入工傷保障範圍。

政府須完善對影視業的資助。政府應完善電影發展資助階梯，並鼓勵影視製作人擴展到不同平台，開拓市場。同時須增加畢業生支援，並聯同業界和學界，研究影視製作的區域分工及香港影視界的比較優勢，並按此推行相關的教育、人才培訓和資助計劃，使香港影視業能在區域分工中突圍而出。

Unwilling Gamblers And Loaded Dice: Considering Recession And Crisis As A Natural Effect Of Financial Capitalism, Darlene N. Moorman

The Downtown Review

Under financial capitalism, ordinary people are increasingly becoming 'unwilling gamblers' of a risky and unstable system. This paper explores the social and institutional change behind the neoliberal movement and considers how the politics and policies of neoliberalism have contributed to a certain environment of financial instability. Looking at the changing nature of the economy, the rapid expansion of the financial sector, and the persisting issue of moral hazard underlying risky and speculative behaviors among other items, reveals a financial system in which recessions and crises can be considered a natural, although not inevitable, effect.