Using the employee opinion survey responses from several thousand employees working in 193 branches of a major U.S. bank, we consider whether there is a distinctive workplace component to employee attitudes despite the common set of corporate human resource management practices that cover all...

This study investigates the relationship between strike activity by nonunion public employees and unionization. Examining the strike activity and unionization rates of some 600 nonunion municipal police departments from 1972 to 1978, this study finds that recognition strikes are concentrated...

This study analyzes the Consent Decree of the United States' basic steel industry which reformed plant seniority systems to accommodate issues of equal employment opportunity. The plant-by-plant litigation brought under Title VII and Executive Order 11246 is shown to be the main catalyst which...

This study tests for the empirical relationship between layoffs and the economic performance of workers who remain after the layoffs. Previous studies performed in laboratory settings have often found increases in the efficiency of workers after layoffs. This analysis is the first to test for...

This paper describes an approach for conducting empirical research into three interrelated questions that are fundamental to the field of organizational economics: 1. Why do firms in the same industry adopt different management practices? 2. Does the adoption of a new management practice raise...

Using a detailed personally-assembled data set on the performance of collegiate and professional basketball players over the 1997-2010 period, we conduct a very direct test of two questions. Does performance in the NCAA "March Madness" college basketball tournament affect NBA teams' draft...

This study investigates the professional soccer industry to ask whether the talent of an individual's co-workers helps explain differences in the rate of human capital accumulation on the job. Data tracking national soccer team performance and the professional leagues their members play for are...

Traditional human capital theory emphasizes a worker's investment in knowledge. However, when a worker is faced with day-to-day problems on the job, the solutions to the problems often require more knowledge from a team of experts within the firm. When a worker taps into the knowledge of...

Increasingly, firms are considering the adoption of new work practices, such as problem-solving teams, enhanced communication with workers, employment security, flexibility in job assignments, training workers for multiple jobs, and greater reliance on incentive pay. This paper provides...