We present evidence on the effect of social connections between workers and managers on productivity in the workplace. To evaluate whether the existence of social connections is beneficial to the firm's overall performance, we explore how the effects of social connections vary with the strength...

During the 1930s and 1940s, collective bargaining emerged as the workplace governance norm in much of the U.S. industrial sector. Following its peak in the 1950s, union density in the U.S. private sector fell steadily, to only 7.4 percent in 2006. Governance shifted from a formalized union norm...

There is substantial evidence of minimum wage noncompliance in the US and the UK. In this paper, I compile new, comprehensive data on the costs minimum wage violators incur when detected. In both countries, the costs violators face upon detection are often little more than the money they saved...

Perhaps no other country in recent years has witnessed greater change in its collective bargaining framework than the UK. This paper describes the dramatic developments and their consequences. Like Gaul, it is in three parts. The first part charts the six major pieces of legislation –...

Drawing on evidence from the United States and Germany, this paper offers a survey of the effects of worker representation (in unions and works councils) and innovative work practices on firm performance. The focus is on the growing links between these two historically separate literatures. The...

Building on existing studies of national employment systems, we take a multi-dimensional approach to comparative employment relations where the national level remains meaningful but which emphasises within-country dynamics and heterogeneity. Analysing nationally representative workplace surveys...

Does employers' association (EA) membership affect wages? Such effects, positive or negative, could follow from increased productivity, employer collusion, or other channels. We analyse this question drawing on matched employer-employee panel data, including time-varying EA affiliation and...

While works councils provide a highly developed mechanism to promote workplace democracy, research on their consequences has been dominated by economic aspects. This study brings a new perspective to the understanding of works councils by examining their influence on workers' political behavior....

This paper contributes to the emerging strand of the empirical literature that takes advantage of new data on workplace-specific job attributes and voluntary employee turnover to shed fresh insights on the relationship between employee turnover, adverse workplace conditions and HRM environments....