Using matched employer-employee level data drawn from the 2004 UK Workplace and Employee Relations Survey, we explore the determinants of a measure of worker commitment and loyalty (CLI) and whether CLI influences workplace performance. Factors influencing employee commitment and loyalty include...

I examine the history of employee engagement and how it has been characterised by thinkers in sociology, psychology, management and economics. I suggest that, while employers may choose to invest in employee engagement, there are alternative management strategies that may be profit-maximising. I...

Using nationally representative linked employer-employee surveys of workplaces with 50 or more employees we find the adoption of High-Performance Work Systems (HPWS) in the private sector is largely positively correlated with employee job attitudes pre-recession. However, high intensity HPWS has...

We evaluate a firm’s unusual, worker-centered, solution to the agency problem: enabling employees to reduce the cost of effort rather than pushing them with performance rewards. We randomize the roll-out of the firm’s "Discover Your Purpose" intervention among 2,976 white-collar employees...

It has been claimed that many workers in modern economies think that their job is socially useless, i.e. that it makes no or a negative contribution to society. However, the evidence so far is mainly anecdotal. We use a representative dataset comprising 100,000 workers from 47 countries at four...

Based on a unique case study-dataset, the paper analyses job satisfaction and public service motivation in Germany. A special issue of the investigation is related to the evaluation of performance pay scales that were introduced some years ago to German public employees within the frame of...

Low employability among specific populations (e.g., religious/traditional women, the elderly, disabled workers, immigrants) has unfavorable consequences on the: unemployed individual, society, and the state economy. The latter include: poverty, a heavy toll on welfare budgets, diminished growth,...

This study explores the impact of a particular low marginal-cost employee benefit on employees' intended retention and performance. By utilizing a unique data set constructed by surveying full-time faculty and staff members at a public university in the United States, we study the impact of this...