This paper estimates the effects of systems of human resource management policies on the performance of U.S. manufacturing businesses. OLS results for labor productivity and Tobin's q models both reveal that nonunion businesses that employ a human resource management system with flexible job...

This study develops and tests a production function that includes a plant's grievance filing rate as a determinant of productivity. Application of that function to data on nine unionized paper mills for 1976-82 shows that the more grievances that were filed in a mill, the lower that mill's...

This study presents new empirical evidence on the relationship between investments in new computer-based information technology (IT) and productivity by investigating several plant-level mechanisms through which IT could promote productivity growth. We have assembled a data set on plants with a...

This paper uses longitudinal data provided by a large unionized grocery store chain to examine the relationship between profitability and compensation adjustments between 1976 and 1985. Consistent with the predictions of a Nash bargaining model, negotiated compensation adjustments were inversely...

This study explores the strengths and weaknesses of economic reasoning in explaining, and suggesting remedies for, the stubborn presence of racketeering in New York City construction. In this industry, the authors argue, transactions cannot be conducted efficiently either between a large number...

To study the effects of new information technologies (IT) on productivity, we have assembled a unique data set on plants in one narrowly defined industry-valve manufacturing-and analyze several plant-level mechanisms through which IT could promote productivity growth. The empirical analysis...

This study documents a significant inverse relationship between grievance rates and productivity. It is argued in the theoretical model in the paper that this significant inverse relationship reflects greater discrepencies between reported and effective labor hours as grievance rates increase....

In this study we examine whether a workplace can induce good or bad attitudes among its employees andwhether any such ¿workplace attitudes¿ affect economic outcomes. This study analyzes responses ofthousands of employees working in nearly two hundred branches to the emp loyee opinion survey of...

This study documents a strong inverse relationship between accident rates and production in a sample of eleven firms in the same narrowly defined industry classification. Given the detailed set of input controls and controls for plant-specific and time-specific factors used in the analysis, the...