Visiting Fellow Working Papers Copyright (c) 2013 Cornell University ILR School All rights reserved. http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf Recent documents in Visiting Fellow Working Papers en-us Wed, 23 Jan 2013 21:21:58 PST 3600 New Deal Labor Reforms and their Aftermath: The Flawed Evolution of the American Labor-Management Model as Regards Center Firms, 1945-1980 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/31 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/31 Thu, 03 Mar 2011 08:05:03 PST Between 1945-1980, there existed a social compact between the three main parties involved. However, from the onset one or more of the three parties contested this social compact almost permanently. As a result, about 1980 the social compact had been eroded significantly and seemed no longer viable. This doesn’t justify the conclusion drawn by different experts that the New Deal and its aftermath until 1980 should be considered as unique and as an exception in the history of American labor and industrial relations. Rather, it can be contended that if the New Deal had in time adopted more elements of the preceding factory system and welfare capitalism of large firms a less exceptional and also more linear and gradual evolution of the post-war American system of labor and industrial relations would have been more likely.

]]> Erik de Gier Paradise Lost Revisited: GM and the UAW in Historical Perspective http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/30 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/30 Tue, 28 Sep 2010 07:58:03 PDT Purpose
Analysis of historic relationship between GM and Union of Automobile Workers (UAW) from 1936 through the moment of bankruptcy of GM in 2009. How can this historic relationship be explained from the viewpoint of evolving labor and industrial relations in the US?

Design/methodology/approach
Historical and comparative analyses. Secondary analysis.

Findings
Over time the relationship has been a dynamic and flexible one. In the first decades the most important objective of the UAW was the recognition of the union by GM. From the second half of the 1940s until the 1970s the main attention of both parties shifted towards a dynamic wage policy. Finally, from the 1970s onwards the safeguarding of job security became the main objective of the UAW, whereas GM tried to maximize its room of maneuver to transform its Fordist production system into a more flexible one.

Research limitations/implications
The present study provides a starting point for further in-depth research towards the historic relationship between GM & the UAW.

Originality/value
Longitudinal approach of development of labor-management relationship between two opposite parties in differing economic and technological contexts.

]]> Erik de Gier Factor Shares, the Price Markup, and the Elasticity of Substitution Between Capital and Labor http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/29 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/29 Wed, 28 Jul 2010 12:31:23 PDT The labor income share is constant under the assumptions of a Cobb-Douglas production function and perfect competition. This paper relaxes these assumptions and investigates to what extent the actual non-constant behavior of this factor share is explained by (i) a non-unitary elasticity of substitution between capital and labor and (ii) non-perfect competition in the product market. We focus on Spain and the U.S. and estimate a constant elasticity of substitution production function under imperfect competition in the product market. The degree of imperfect competition is measured through a time series computation of the price markup following the dual approach. We show that the elasticity of substitution is above one in Spain and below one in the US. We also show that the price markup drives the elasticity of substitution away from one, upwards in Spain, downwards in the U.S. These results are used to explain the declining path of the labor income share, common to both economies, and their contrasted patterns in terms of capital deepening.

]]> Xavier Raurich et al. The Wage-Productivity Gap Revisited: Is the Labour Share Neutral to Employment? http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/28 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/28 Thu, 15 Jul 2010 14:56:15 PDT This paper challenges the prevailing view of the neutrality of the labour income share to labour demand, and investigates its impact on the evolution of employment. Whilst maintaining the assumption of a unitary long-run elasticity of wages with respect to productivity, we demonstrate that productivity growth affects the labour share in the long run due to frictional growth (that is, the interplay of wage dynamics and productivity growth). In the light of this result, we consider a stylised labour demand equation and show that the labour share is a driving force of employment. We substantiate our analytical exposition by providing empirical models of wage setting and employment equations for France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, the UK, and the US over the 1960-2008 period. Our findings show that the time-varying labour share of these countries has significantly influenced their employment trajectories across decades. This indicates that the evolution of the labour income share (or, equivalently, the wage-productivity gap) deserves the attention of policy makers.

]]> Marika Karanassou et al. An Institutionalist Perspective on the Global Financial Crisis http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/27 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/27 Fri, 24 Apr 2009 08:27:13 PDT This essay, prepared for a forthcoming collection of perspectives on the current world economic crisis, offers an institutionalist viewpoint on the financial crisis at the center of world attention since mid-2008. It is divided into three sections. The first section provides a brief history of the institutionalist understanding of how an economy operates, with special emphasis on a tradition known as post-Keynesian institutionalism (PKI). The second section draws on PKI to offer an explanation of the global financial crisis. The third section identifies some of the public-policy steps that are required to achieve a more stable and broadly shared prosperity in the United States and abroad. At the heart of PKI is attention to unemployment and the broader economic concerns facing working families. That focus is rooted in the shared interests of John R. Commons and John M. Keynes, who saw the business cycle as an important cause of unemployment and recognized that attaining greater economic stability requires understanding the operation and evolution of financial institutions.

]]> Charles J. Whalen Sull’inadempimento dell’obbligazione contributiva nella previdenza complementare http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/26 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/26 Mon, 18 Feb 2008 07:27:08 PST Sommario: 1. Premessa. Appartenenza e libertà individuale. - 2. Soggetti del rapporto contributivo: modalità di adesione, profilo positivo e negativo della libertà di adesione e conferimento tacito inteso come mancato esercizio del potere di rifiuto. - 3. Adempimento contributivo, conferimento del TFR e novità in tema di TFR non destinato alle forme pensionistiche complementari. – 4. Protezione delle posizioni previdenziali complementari. - 5. Osservazioni conclusive sulle tutele degli aderenti e sulla vigilanza prudenziale alla luce del decreto legislativo n. 28 del 2007 di recepimento della direttiva 2003/41/CE.

]]> Michele Faioli Globalisation of HR at Function Level: Exploring the Issues Through International Recruitment, Selection and Assessment Processes http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/25 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/25 Thu, 12 Oct 2006 10:36:36 PDT Much of the debate around convergence-divergence is based around comparative analysis of HR systems. However, we need now to combine these insights with work in the field of IHRM on firm-level motivations to optimise, standardise and export HR models abroad. A series of the changes are being wrought on a range of IHRM functions – recruitment, global staffing, management development and careers, and rewards - by the process of globalisation highlighting the difference between globally standardised, optimised or localised HR processes. This paper reports on a study of firm-level developments in international recruitment, selection and assessment, drawing upon an analysis of four case studies each conducted in a different context. Organisations are building IHRM functions that are shifting from the management of expatriation towards supplementary services to the business aimed at facilitating the globalisation process, and this involves capitalising upon the fragmentation of international employees. As HR realigns itself in response to this process of within-function globalisation (building new alliances with other functions such as marketing and IS) the new activity streams that are being developed and the new roles and skills of the HR function carry important implications for the study of convergence and divergence of IHRM practice. Globalisation at firm level revolves around complexity, and this is evidenced in two ways: first, the range of theory that we have to draw upon, and the competing issues that surface depending on the level of analysis that is adopted; and second, the different picture that might emerge depending upon the level of analysis that is adopted. This paper shows that although the field of IHRM has traditionally drawn upon core theories such as the resource-based view of the firm, relational and social capital, and institutional theory, once the full range of resourcing options now open to IHRM functions are considered, it is evident that we need to incorporate both more micro theory, as well as insights from contingent fields in order to explain some of the new practices that are emerging.

]]> Paul R. Sparrow What is Strategic Competence and Does it Matter? Exposition of the Concept and a Research Agenda http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/24 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/24 Thu, 12 Oct 2006 10:20:57 PDT Drawing on a range of theoretical and empirical insights from strategic management and the cognitive and organizational sciences, we argue that strategic competence constitutes the ability of organizations and the individuals who operate within them to work within their cognitive limitations in such a way that they are able to maintain an appropriate level of responsiveness to the contingencies confronting them. Using the language of the resource based view of the firm, we argue that this meta-level competence represents a confluence of individual and organizational characteristics, suitably configured to enable the detection of those weak signals indicative of the need for change and to act accordingly, thereby minimising the dangers of cognitive bias and cognitive inertia. In an era of unprecedented informational burdens and instability, we argue that this competence is central to the longer-term survival and well being of the organization. We conclude with a consideration of the major scientific challenges that lie ahead, if the ideas contained within this paper are to be validated.

]]> Paul R. Sparrow et al. Solidarity Whenever? A Framework For Analysing When Unions Are Likely to Practice Collaboration With the Community http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/23 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/23 Mon, 17 Apr 2006 12:05:14 PDT In Seeking Solidarity, Turner et al consider the opportunities and choices that make city-wide union movements more or less likely to shift towards community unionism and practice labour-community coalitions (Turner and Cornfield forthcoming). This paper takes a narrower frame of analysis – the single local union – and considers the opportunities and choices that influence likely community unionism practice. Community unionism is defined as the range of strategies that involve unions 'reaching out' to the community. These include labor-community coalitions (reaching out to community groups), broadening the frame of union campaigns to embrace 'community concern' (reaching out to community issues), and campaigns that seek to control place (reaching out to local communities). The paper builds a typology of factors that suggest when community unionism, or union collaboration with the community, is likely to develop. It first considers an 'opportunity structure' including environmental/economic context, union identity, structure and characteristics and union relationships. Secondly it considers the internal choices that unions make, noting the organisational, identity/interest and scale dimensions of union agency. I conclude that a union is most likely to undertake collaboration with the community when its accesses and embodies the 'attributes of community' in both its opportunity structure and choices. It explores this framework with reference to the shift to community unionism using examples from the Australian and US union movements.

]]> Amanda Tattersall Labor Regulations and Unionization Trends: Comparative Analysis of Latin American Countries http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/22 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/22 Mon, 17 Apr 2006 08:41:21 PDT This paper discusses the influences of labor regulations on unionization rates through the comparative analysis of Argentina, Chile and Mexico, expecting to contribute to the understanding of the determinants of unionization in Latin America. These regulations, though only one of the factors determining unionization levels, have a crucial role, their influence being at least threefold: they define entitlements to and exclusions from the right to unionize, affect union recruitment strategies and, by generating incentives and disincentives, contribute to shape individual membership decisions. After discussing historical aspects of unionization in the three countries, the analysis centers successively in two periods in which the countries compared showed both similarities and contrasts relevant to the analysis of unionization trends. In the first, the comparison is between Argentina (1976-83) and Chile (1973-89), both under military regimes that had much in common, but with contrasting unionization trends. In the second, the focus is in Argentina (1991-2001) and Mexico (1984-2000), where the reforms implemented to liberalize the economy and ensuing social-economic and labor market transformations were similar, but unionization trends differed. It is argued that, in each case, the divergent behavior of unionization, in spite of the similar economic and sociopolitical contexts, may at least partly be attributed to differences in key labor institutions.

]]> Adriana Marshall Labor and Management Relations in Large Enterprises in Korea: Exploring the Puzzle of Confrontational Enterprise-Based Industrial Relations http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/21 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/21 Wed, 21 Dec 2005 08:20:48 PST Changwon Lee Development of Free Economic Zones and Labor Standards: A Case Study of Free Economic Zones in Korea http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/20 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/20 Wed, 21 Dec 2005 08:15:39 PST Changwon Lee The Change Of Labor Regime After 1987 In South Korea http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/19 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/19 Tue, 13 Sep 2005 09:10:57 PDT Hyo-Rae Cho The Organizational Characteristics Of Locals Of An Industrial Union In South Korea: The Case Of Kyung-Nam Branch Of The National Metal Workers’ Union http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/18 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/18 Tue, 13 Sep 2005 09:06:30 PDT Hyo-Rae Cho The Internal Politics of an Enterprise Union: a Case Study on the Shopfloor Militants’ Organizations in the Hyundai Motor Corporation Union http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/17 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/17 Tue, 13 Sep 2005 09:03:03 PDT Hyo-Rae Cho Trade Union Democracy in Metal Industry http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/16 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/16 Tue, 13 Sep 2005 08:58:37 PDT In metal trade unions, there are two party system based upon the competition of the shop-floor militants’ organizations. These shop-floor militants’ organizations are divided by ideological difference or perception on direction of union movement. In metal industry, union democracy is not representative democracy that confines to elect only the union leaders, but delegation democracy which include the recalling delegates and final approval of the negotiation result by the rank and file. In the aspect of members' participation, the tendency toward 'instrumental collectivism' is strengthening. While members participate in the activities of union, it is limited on instrumental participation around the workplace issues for collective bargaining in enterprise level. The rank and file’s participation based upon blue-color workers' community or ideological commitment is weakening. Both the union officers and the rank and file regard lack of members’ participation as the most important problem for union vitality. While the union members of political class orientation tend to participate actively in the union activities, the members of economic interest orientation show the most low participation level. Many union members normatively agree to participate in the activities of the federation of enterprise unions beyond the enterprise level. However, they don't participate in the activities of metal union federation and didn’t support voting for the transition from enterprise union to industrial. These facts seem to agree with the thesis of 'instrumental collectivism'. Because the traditional practice of activities of enterprise union and employee consciousness of union members are strong, it seems that some institutional changes from the top should be ahead of transition to industrial union system.

]]> Hyo-Rae Cho The Value Orientation Of Leadership In The Industrial Unions: A Comparative Study On The Metal Workers' Union, Financial Industry Union, Health & Medical Workers' Union http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/15 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/15 Tue, 13 Sep 2005 08:52:14 PDT In South Korea, the leaders of the important Industrial Unions are less concerned about the collective bargaining and joint regulation with an employer in plant level. They are more concerned about socio-political function of trade union and have an orientation to labor movement for a whole working class.

Most of leaders regard the role of labor leaders as a part of the movement for social change. There are few careerist leader and many leaders regard the role of labor leaders as personal sacrifice. In ideological aspect, most of leaders have an orientation to 'Democratic Socialism' and 'Socialism'. It means that the leaders of Industrial Unions regard the organizational change from Enterprise Union to Industrial Union as a part of the efforts for social change.

The leaders of Financial Industry Union are more moderate in value and ideology than the leaders of the Metal Workers' Union, Health & Medical Workers' Union. They have more instrumentalist orientation to trade union. There are many career-oriented leaders and norm-motivated leaders at the sacrifice of personal interest in financial industry Union. In latter unions, A few leaders are career-oriented and the most of leaders are ideological-oriented. Mainly the ideology and value orientation of the leaders in the Industrial Unions have statistically relationship with the personal experiences as a union leader.

]]> Hyo-Rae Cho HRM and Performance: What’s Next? http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/13 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/13 Fri, 12 Aug 2005 10:13:02 PDT The last decade of empirical research on the added value of human resource management (HRM), also known as the HRM and Performance debate, demonstrates evidence that ‘HRM does matter’ (Huselid, 1995; Guest, Michie, Conway and Sheehan, 2003; Wright, Gardner and Moynihan, 2003). Unfortunately, the relationships are often (statistically) weak and the results ambiguous. This paper reviews and attempts to extend the theoretical and methodological issues in the HRM and performance debate. Our aim is to build an agenda for future research in this area. After a brief overview of achievements to date, we proceed with the theoretical and methodological issues related to what constitutes HRM, what is meant by the concept of performance and what is the nature of the link between these two. In the final section, we make a plea for research designs starting from a multidimensional concept of performance, including the perceptions of employees, and building on the premise of HRM systems as an enabling device for a whole range of strategic options. This implies a reversal of the Strategy-HRM linkage.

]]> Jaap Paauwe et al. The Role of Corporate HR Funcitons in MNCs: The Interplay Between Corporate, Regional/National and Plant Level http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/12 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/12 Fri, 12 Aug 2005 07:54:09 PDT The HR literature has been abundant in providing typologies of the roles of HR professionals in their organisation. These typologies are largely related to the changing nature of HRM over time, and the context in which empirical work was carried out. In this paper we focus on the context of the increasing internationalisation of firms and how this has an effect upon modern-day typologies of HR roles. We explore these roles by focusing on the way in which HRM practices come about. Especially in a MNC setting of increasing internationalisation of firms the issues of coordination, shared learning and standardisation versus leeway for adapting to the local context (customisation) are prominent. These issues present themselves both at the corporate and regional level and at the national and local (plant) level. On all these levels HR practitioners are active and find themselves amidst the interplay of both (de-)centralisation and standardisation versus customisation processes.

This paper thus explores the way in which HR practices come into being and how they are implemented and coordinated. These insights help us understand further the roles of international corporate HR functions that are being identified. Our data is based on 65 interviews, which were held (as part of larger study of HR-function excellence) with HR managers, line managers and senior executives of six multinational companies in eight countries from September to December 2004. This data reveals new classifications of processes by which HR activities are developed, implemented and coordinated, both in terms of who is involved and how these processes are carried out.

]]> Elaine Farndale et al. Human Resource Function Competencies in European Companies http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/11 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/intlvf/11 Thu, 11 Aug 2005 10:47:43 PDT This paper presents an overview of recent empirical research on human resource competencies in Europe. The data were collected in 2002 in the global Human Resource Competence Study, an initiative of the University of Michigan. The results suggest that personal credibility and HR delivery have a positive effect on the relative ranking of the HR function and its professionals. According to non-HRM respondents strategic contribution is the competency that will lead to financial competitiveness, while HR managers consider business knowledge to be crucial for added value of the HR function.

]]> Jean Paul Boselie et al.