The article gives an overview about scientific research on individual behavior in organizations. A number of reasons are discussed why it is difficult to obtain a coherent body of knowledge about this topic, some of them meta-theoretical and methodological, others political, organizational and...

The erosion of standard forms of employment is creating new needs and management requirements in organizations. This article examines the polarization within the workforce. The classical approach of the core and marginal workforce based on the work of Doeringer and Piore (1971) will be reshaped...

The paper examines the determinants of the division of labor within firms. It provides an explanation of the pervasive observed changes in work organization away from the traditional functional departments and towards multi-tasking and job rotation. Whereas the existing literature on the...

This paper explores the links that the allocation of decision rights on the shop floor maintains with labor transaction attributes and several structural traits of the firm. The approach is based on the transaction cost apparatus and harnesses the theoretical and empirical background provided by...

This paper investigates differences in worker turnover characteristics between periods of workforce expansion and contraction in a firm. We derive a Cox proportional hazard model from a simple model of job separation based on the expected surpluses from the firm and its workers. We account for...

In this paper we analyze the relationship between family and community links and future intentions to quit from employees at the export processing zone (EPZ) in Tijuana, Mexico. With survey data gathered in an organization belonging to a Tijuana EPZ, we applied the theory of embededdness to...

I use employer-employee matched panel data from Brazil to study the relationship between the firm's pay structure and worker mobility. Heterogeneity across firms in the pay structure is characterized by two components: an idiosyncratic firm-specific wage premium and a firm specific wage-tenure...

Product reliability is a key concern for manufacturers. We examine a significant but under-recognized determinant of product reliability: the rate of workers quitting from the product's assembly line, or its worker turnover. While modern manufacturers make extensive efforts to control defects...