This paper uses a combination of workplace and matched-employee workplace data from the British 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey to examine the impact of unions and firm-provided training (incidence, intensity/coverage, and duration) on establishment performance. The performance effects...

An interesting aspect of British research on unions based on the Workplace Industrial/Employment Relations Surveys has been the apparent shift in union impact on establishment performance in the decade of the 1990s compared with the 1980s and the recent scramble to explain the phenomenon. In...

Among the steps to improve a country's competitiveness, several commentators and international institutions include a general emphasis on deregulation and decentralization of industrial relations. In this paper, we contribute to this debate by studying whether and how firm-level unionism and...

This paper is the first to study the distinct effects of Information Technologies (IT) and Communication Technologies (CT) on the skill, age, and age-skill composition of labour demand. The analysis is conducted on a sample comprising 10 developed countries, 30 industries covering the largest...

The world of work is in constant change. Demographic shifts, technological innovation, institutional reforms and global economic integration affect the way people work. Technological innovations have a major impact on occupations and industries, changing the ways economies in different world...

The article examines the relationship between lean production and Industrie 4.0 focusing on the question of autonomy in the work process. In contrast to the claim made by official Industrie 4.0 concepts that the autonomy of the employees would increase, we see in the current implementation...

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...

Because theoretical arguments differ on the economic impact of collective bargaining agreements in developing countries, empirical studies are needed to provide greater clarity. Recent empirical studies for some Latin American countries have examined whether industry- or firm-level collective...

This paper addresses three questions: (1) How big is lifetime employment in Japan? (2) How unique is it? and (3) How is it changing? Through the use of multiple data sets and methods, I find that no more than 20% of workers in Japan are likely to be employed under informal lifetime employment...

Facing a stochastic market wage, which is independent of their own hiring policy, employers offer contracts specifying fixed wage, revenue share and employment duration. In ongoing employment relations it depends on the treatment whether fixed wages can be only increased or also decreased. Will...