Labor Relations Commons^™

Nonprofit Pay In A Competitive Market: Wage Penalty Or Premium?, Christian King, Gregory B. Lewis

Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

Two competing theories argue that the nonprofit sector pays differently: Nonprofit employees may accept lower pay to be able to do meaningful work for a good cause, or they may earn higher pay due to nonprofit organizations’ tax exemptions and weaker incentives to hold down wages. To test these opposing expectations, we use the 2005-2013 American Community Surveys to examine pay differences among registered nurses working for nonprofit, for-profit, and public hospitals. We also test hypotheses that public and nonprofit hospitals have smaller pay disparities by gender, race, and relationship status. We find that pay is highest in nonprofit hospitals, …

Shaping The Agenda 2: Implications For Workplace Mediation Training, Standards And Practice In Ireland, Brian M. Barry, Margaret Bouchier, Alec Coakley, Deirdre Curran Dr, James Dillon, Cyril Joyce, Treasa Kenny, Oksana Meehan, Louisa Meehan, Genevieve Murray

Reports

The Report and its sister report, Shaping the Agenda 1, give a fascinating insight into the world of workplace mediation in Ireland and abroad. It identifies key issues in relation to mediator skills, competencies and behaviours in this sector of mediation. Of enormous significance is the application of this research to the Irish context and specifically to the setting and maintenance of standards of training and practice in relation to workplace mediation. This work has put the MII, as the professional association for mediators in Ireland, in a position to build standards and policies on solid, detailed and considered research, …

Bullying At The Fire Station? Perceptions Based On Gender, Race And Sexual Orientation, John C. Griffith, Donna L. Roberts, Ronald T. Wakeham

Publications

Discrimination and strained co-worker relationships based on gender, race or sexual orientation are forms of bullying in the workplace. This research examined firefighter perceptions with regard to bullying. The web based survey was distributed through the National Fire Academy Training, Resources and Data Exchange Network, (TRADENET). Findings from 113 surveys indicated that most firefighters did not perceive bullying issues were pervasive in the fire service. However, there were large differences in perception between female and male firefighters. Significantly more female firefighters indicated they were treated differently due to gender, felt their supervisors did not address complaints concerning gender or sexual …

Boom & Bust: The Perils Of Guaranteed Long Term Contracts. Evidence From Ops100 Performance Over The Contract Cycle, Heather M. O'Neill

Business and Economics Faculty Publications

This study focuses on panel data of 256 MLB free agent hitters under the 2006-2011 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) to demonstrate that hitters, on average, increase their offensive production, measured by OPS100, during the last year of their contract and subsequently underperform the first year of the newly signed long term contract. The contract year phenomenon arises from the incentive to land a lucrative guaranteed contract for players not intending to retire. Signing a long term guaranteed contract creates an incentive to shirk (underperform) the first year of the new contract because performance and pay become unlinked and the need …

I'M Retiring ... Well, Sort Of, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

I’m 45 years old and I’m retiring ... from writing regular columns for workspan. And that has me thinking about retirement and incentives as part of a total rewards system.

Powerlessness Within A Budget-Driven Paradigm: A Grounded Theory Leadership Study From The Perspective Of Michigan Corrections Officers, Timothy Michael Eklin

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This study explored the lived-experiences of 15 correctional officers and 5 sergeants working in adult state-operated prison facilities in Michigan. In particular, this qualitative grounded theory study revealed the impact that budget driven decision-making had on the lives of correctional officers: its effect on institutional custody, security, and safety. The study finds that many recent policy changes resulted in a sense of powerlessness expressed by the participants of the study. Participants found themselves in a precarious position, situated in between the prison population and the administration. Having an understanding of how correctional officers make meaning of their work in relation …

Sabbaticals, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

With the year end upon you and many workplaces closing, reducing hours or accommodating employee vacations because of the holidays, this column focuses on rewards in the form of time away from work that is not so common -- sabbaticals. Sabbaticals are a generous benefit to those workers who have them. And they can clearly be an important part of a total rewards package. According to inc.com, while 5% of firms in the US offer sabbaticals, 25% of the companies listed in "Best Companies to Work For" offer them. Corporate sabbaticals, however, aren't typically as generous in length as those …

Fast-Food Workers Fight For A Raise And Create A Movement, Angela B. Cornell

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Paid Workers And Volunteers, Side By Side, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

Millions of Americans volunteer annually and, on average, volunteers are highly skilled individuals. With unpaid volunteers working alongside W2-paid employees, sometimes it is difficult in a workplace to distinguish one from the other. Motivations for volunteering are many and the author does not intend to fully explore the myriad reasons identified by social scientists for this behavior, including to gain experience, create a path to a paid job, offer service to others or gain personal recognition. An interesting study of volunteerism is Richard Freeman's Working for Nothing: The Supply of Volunteer Labor. Using data from a unique survey, Freeman showed …

Do Hitters Boost Their Performance During Their Contract Years?, Heather M. O'Neill

Business and Economics Faculty Publications

Each season, baseball fans and journalists alike identify which players are in the final years of their contracts because a lot rides on how the players produce in their “contract year.” Will a player boost his effort and performance in an effort to improve his value and bargaining power? Or will he crumble under the pressure? Or are players’ performances uncorrelated with where they stand in their contract cycles?

Paying To Put Out Fires, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

There is surprisingly little academic work on the compensation of firefighters. This may be, in part, because their wages are often set by collective bargaining agreements and that those paid as firefighters are regularly paid by seniority. But many aspects of the labor market can still be studied through this interesting occupation, including labor unions, compensation for job risk and even volunteerism. Consider the mountains of papers on Fortune 500 CEOs relative to the number (500) of employees doing this job in the US. In contrast, consider the tiny number of papers on firefighters relative to the large numbers who …

Systematic Ict Surveillance By Employers: Are Your Personal Activities Private?, Arlene J. Nicholas

Faculty and Staff - Articles & Papers

This paper reviews the various methods of information and communications technology (ICT) that is used by employers to peer into the work lives and, in some cases, private lives of employees. Some of the most common methods – such as computer and Internet monitoring, video surveillance, and global positioning systems (GPS) – have resulted in employee disciplines that have been challenged in courts. This paper provides background information on United States (U.S.) laws and court cases which, in this age of easily accessible information, mostly support the employer. Assessments regarding regulations and policies, which will need to be continually updated …

Titles As Compensation, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

Wages and salaries are just part of total rewards. Insurance, vacation time, bonuses, and working conditions are other important forms of compensation. Each of these costs the organization something. But there are other attributes of jobs -- less easily measured in dollars -- that employees value. These can include colleagues, company reputation, and even job titles. At the margin it is possible to imagine a tradeoff between a higher salary and a job title. In fact, some have argued that some firms offer titles in absence of raises where salary budgets are slim. When thinking about job titles as a …

Reflections On The Metamorphosis At Robben Island: The Role Of Institutional Work And Positive Psychological Capital, Wayne F. Cascio, Fred Luthans

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners from South Africa were imprisoned on notorious Robben Island from the mid-1960s until the end of the apartheid regime in 1991. The stark conditions and abusive treatment of these prisoners has been widely publicized. However, upon reflection and in retrospect, over the years, a type of metamorphosis occurred. Primarily drawing from firsthand accounts of the former prisoners and guards, it seems that Robben Island morphed from the traditional oppressive prison paradigm to one where the positively oriented prisoners disrupted the institution with a resulting climate of learning and transformation that eventually led to freedom …

Employee Choice Over Pay Mix, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

Suppose the company set the level of pay and then let employees choose the fractions they wanted as guaranteed salary, stock options and at-risk bonus. The fraction in at-risk bonus was capped at 20% of total pay and the payout was between 0 and 2.5 times the amount put at-risk and was a function of individual and group performance. This is not a theoretical example; it's real. And, it is interesting for a variety of reasons, including that it is so extreme and because the organization invited some researchers inside to study the fascinating choices made by employees. They were …

Do Mlb Hitters Boost Performance In Their Contract Year?, Heather M. O'Neill

Business and Economics Faculty Publications

This study focuses on 256 MLB free agent hitters playing under the 2006-2011 CBA to determine whether they boost their offensive performance in their contract year. Prior studies’ results are mixed, depending on the econometric technique used and the choice of the offensive performance measure.

Having multiple year observations per player, one can incorporate the unobserved traits of the players (ability, risk aversion, work ethic, etc.) by using Fixed Effects (FE) estimation. Since these unmeasured player traits are likely to be correlated with observed predictors of performance (games played, playoff contention, age, etc.), traditionally used Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and …

Corporate Social Responsibility, Daniel H. Brown

Senior Honors Theses

This paper will address Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and its far-reaching implications. Initially, the term CSR will be introduced and defined to provide the backbone for the following discussions. The paper will address the theoretical constructs of CSR, managerial strategies for implementing CSR and the application of stakeholder theory. The thesis is built upon Dr. Archie Carroll’s four-part CSR construct. In addition, international standards of CSR, with a focus on Nike, Inc.’s actions, will be evaluated.

Pay In Nonprofits, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

In the US, April 21-April 27 is National Volunteer Week, a time to recognize all those who work without pay to support important missions or causes championed by nonprofits. Many of the issues that come up when designing pay systems in for-profits (strategy, internal equity, performance, motivation, fairness, transparency, etc.) are as important to consider in nonprofits as they are in for-profits. But some of the facts and issues differ. Using a sample of data from the 2000 US Census of Population about approximately 3 million people between the ages of 16 and 65 who worked full year and full …

A Phenomenological Exploration Of Black Male Law Enforcement Officers' Perspectives Of Racial Profiling And Their Law Enforcement Career Exploration And Commitment, Gregory A. Salters

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This phenomenological study explored Black male law enforcement officers’ perspectives of how racial profiling shaped their decisions to explore and commit to a law enforcement career. Criterion and snow ball sampling was used to obtain the 17 participants for this study. Super’s (1990) archway model was used as the theoretical framework. The archway model “is designed to bring out the segmented but unified and developmental nature of career development, to highlight the segments, and to make their origin clear” (Super, 1990, p. 201).

Interview data were analyzed using inductive, deductive, and comparative analyses. Three themes emerged from the inductive analysis …

Valuing Employee Stock Options, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

It helps to remember that employee options and market-traded options are quite different. The difference between them makes valuing employee options more complicated, but it also offers a lesson about how the employer's cost for a given piece of the total rewards package may not be the same as its value to a given employee. Organizations too often miss this and, as a result, can find themselves leaving money on the table. A stock option is the right to buy a share of stock at a specific price (called the strike or exercise price) at some point in the future. …

Pay And Relative Income Within Couples, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

In "U.S. Labor Market Challenges Over the Longer Term," labor economist David Autor shows that the fraction of young adults who are currently married plummeted, dropping by 30% to 70% depending on gender, education and race/ethnicity (paper prepared for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, 2010). At the same time, women's labor earnings have steadily increased. An interesting and provocative new working paper, "Gender Identity and Relative Income Within Households", by Marianne Bertrand, Emir Kamenica and Jessica Pan (working paper, November 2012), tries to determine how these two trends are related. One of the things Bertrand, Kamenica and Pan focus …

Top Athlete Pay, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

The US has a history of discussing the pay of the relatively well-paid. This is partly because pay levels of some are revealed publicly (e.g., CEOs of publicly traded companies). Americans are also characterized as being celebrity-obsessed. So discussing the pay of superstars seems inevitable. However, they do not have quality data on the compensation of the relatively highly paid in many organizations and professions. When the author speaks about compensation in front of large groups, someone (and in many cases, many people) gets incensed over what they term "outrageous" or "egregious" levels of executive compensation. Athletes are rarely mentioned. …

Economic Effects Of The Minimum Wage, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

The US minimum wage, at almost 75 years old, remains the topic of many academic studies and much policy debate despite the fact that only about 5% of hourly employees are currently paid at or below the federal minimum. There are many possible and interesting economic effects of the minimum wage. The issue that has received by far the most attention is whether increasing the minimum wage has a negative effect on employment, and if so, for whom and by how much. Economists first approach this question through the basic theory of a perfectly competitive labor market where all workers …

Ceos Off The Clock, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

There is new and interesting academic work on how executives spend their time and the personal choices they make to maximize utility. From a compensation point of view, one issue that has been at the forefront with respect to executives is perks. One CEO compensation perk that has also received increased scrutiny but is surviving better than club memberships is the use of private aircraft. In a related April 2012 paper, "Executives' 'Off-The-Job' Behavior, Corporate Culture and Financial Reporting Risk" (National Bureau of Economic Research working paper), Robert Davidson, Abbie Smith and Aiyesha Dey consider other off-the-clock behaviors of CEOs …

Paying Professors, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

One of the most interesting quirks of academia is professional tenure. Many argue that tenure is necessary so that faculty can be protected by "academic freedom" to study the issues they find important without outside interference or pressures to conform. It is also, obviously, a nonmonetary reward and this security for life could offset higher salaries. Few accounts of the tenure system, however, recognize that while tenure essentially grants a job for life, it does not come with guaranteed lifetime raises. Some academic organizations, however, give roughly across the board annual raises. They don't seriously reward performance until a faculty …

Whole Foods Market ™ Case Study: Leadership And Employee Retention, Kristin L. Pearson

MBA Student Scholarship

Employee retention can be a challenge for Human Resources in today’s business climate, especially in retail food service occupations due to long and sometimes unpredictable hours, limited benefits, and growth potential to name a few. Despite the obstacles, Whole Foods Market has been able to overcome such limitations allowing employees flourish and as a result have set an industry benchmark for reducing voluntary turnover. This case study research is an examination of Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey and his modern approach to leadership and its effect on employee retention. The purpose of the research is to examine the association …

F.A.C.E.S. (Faculty Academic Community Education Showcase): Professional Growth Experiences In A Career University, Paul J. Colbert, Ph.D.

MBA Faculty Conference Papers & Journal Articles

Institutes of higher education exist for the purpose of developing, fostering, nurturing, and stimulating the intellectual growth and development of students. The core values of a college education provide students conceptual and practical educational opportunities that focus on improving their skills and knowledge. These skills and knowledge translate into purposeful, real-life learning experiences. However, in the academic community, learning is not restricted to students. Faculty, too, must be supported and provided opportunities for personal and professional growth and development. Although professional development is not a novel concept in the education profession, schools often take up the gauntlet, but fall short …

Alternative Work Arrangements: An Examination Of Job Sharing, Compressed Workweeks, And Flextime, Joseph D. Lutz

Senior Honors Theses

Alternative working arrangements have become increasingly popular in workplaces across America and the world. One segment of alternative work arrangements is schedule flexibility. The three types of flexible schedules examined include: job sharing, compressed workweeks, and flextime. Each arrangement will be examined individually. First, a definition and background information will be given. Then, the benefits of the arrangement will be discussed. Next, the risks and challenges of the arrangement will be examined. Finally, there will be analysis of what conditions are necessary for the arrangement to be successful.

Securing Access To Lower-Cost Talent Globally: The Dynamics Of Active Embedding And Field Structuration, Stephan Manning, Joerg Sydow, Arnold Windeler

Management and Marketing Faculty Publication Series

This article examines how multinational corporations (MNCs) shape institutional conditions in emerging economies to secure access to high-skilled, yet lower-cost science and engineering talent. Based on two in-depth case studies of engineering offshoring projects of German automotive suppliers in Romania and China we analyze how MNCs engage in ‘active embedding’ by aligning local institutional conditions with global offshoring strategies and operational needs. MNCs thereby contribute to the structuration of field relations and practices of sourcing knowledge-intensive work from globally dispersed locations.Our findings stress the importance of institutional processes across geographic boundaries that regulate and get shaped by MNC activities.

Is There Deadweight Loss In Holiday Rewards?, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

An interesting and provocative study was conducted by Joel Waldfogel of the University of Minnesota some 20 years ago. He wrote "The Deadweight Loss of Christmas." Waldfogel was not only discussing Christmas but noted that the ideas could apply to other holidays with gift-giving rituals. The study noted that although gift giving is generally applauded by economists since it is a way to help the macro economy, there is another side to the story. A problem with gift giving (or non-monetary rewards) is that the gift giver often does not perfectly know the preferences of the person receiving the gift. …