Social network and family business: Uncovering hybrid family firms

What does it mean for a private enterprise in China to be embedded in a family? Our purpose here is twofold: (1) use social network analysis to describe what it means for a firm to be embedded in a family, (2) reveal from the application a new kind of firm, not family, yet akin to family. Armed with data on a large probability sample of private enterprises — a third of which meet ownership and employment criteria of being family businesses — we uncover a category of “hybrid family firms” that look modern in the style of firms that exclude family, but operate socially in ways similar to family firms. Our conclusion from summary statistics on the sample is that there are no differences in average performance level or network advantage for the three categories of businesses: family firms, hybrid family firms, and family-excluded firms. The fact that CEOs of family firms and hybrid family firms more often turn to family as key business contacts is a fact about network composition that raises no question about network mechanisms. Whether the CEO turns to more or fewer family contacts, government help is more likely with stronger political connections, and business success and survival are more likely with a large, open network. That said, the look-modern, act-traditional hybrid family firms stand alone in prospering with a CEO embedded in a closed business network. Recognition of hybrid family firms adds to the literature’s illustrations of social network analysis used to distinguish types of businesses and business people, and extends the population of organizations within which governance and strategy are likely to be better understood when viewed through a family logic.     

LABOR QUEUES AND INVOLUNTARY UNEMPLOYMENT

This paper outlines a job search model which emphasizes the placing of applications by job searchers and the firm's use of a queue of applicants as an inventory of labor. The paper analyzes the consequences of the assumption that firms hold queues of applicants both for the decisions of a single firm and for a market composed of several such firms. The aggregate results suggest that considering such labor market queuing helps explain wage rigidity and involuntary unemployment.     

Cooperation,job security,and wages in a dual labor market equilibrium

By introducing cooperation among individuals working within a firm, this paper constructs a model generating a dualistic competitive equilibrium with differentials in wages and job security in an industry with product demand uncertainty. Primary firms offer high job security to promote cooperation and achieve high productivity. Secondary firms merely take advantage of ability to adjust employment. Wage differentials arise because cooperation is more productive among members of the same social group and thus different groups of workers face different labor demand. In contrast to the Arrow-Debreu economy, firms making long-term decisions and those making short-term decisions coexist in the equilibrium.     

A Model of the Macroeconomic Effects of Privatization on Employment in Transition and Developing Countries with an Application to China

It is generally agreed that privatization of state-owned enterprises improves economic efficiency, but it is also widely feared that it exacerbates unemployment especially in transition and developing economies. This paper proposes a theoretical model of the macroeconomic relationships between privatization, efficiency, output, and employment. The model explains how privatization affects employment in transition and developing economies through different, and often opposing, channels. As a result, job losses at firms being privatized may result in overall job gains or losses in the economy, depending on the macroeconomic conditions. We apply this model to China and find that the model provides an intuitively appealing explanation for the job gains and losses caused by privatization in China during its transition. The model further suggests policies to maximize the gains and minimize the costs of privatization.     

Gender differences on the job satisfaction in the phase of implementing advanced manufacturing technology in the Chinese manufacturing firms

This research gave an effort to study on gender differences in the job satisfaction for technological innovation at Chinese manufacturing firm. The exploratory study was conducted in four Chinese furniture manufacturing firms, which are all in the phases of introducing advanced manufacturing system. The results of statistical analysis show that general satisfaction of female employees to their jobs is significantly higher than male employees. In addition, supervisory satisfaction of female employees is significantly higher than male employees. The findings of the study reveal that activities are suggested to be carried out to increase the job satisfaction of male employees, especially improve communication and relationship between the managerial and the non-managerial levels in the innovation process. In addition, the higher job satisfaction of female employees could be considered a positive factor for the successful implementation of AMT in the technological innovation, although male employees are still dominated work force in the case study firms.     

ARE SMALL FIRMS MORE BEAUTIFUL OR IS BIGGER BETTER? A Study of Compensating Differentials and Law Firm Internal Labor Markets

Research on the size–job rewards relationship emphasizes extrinsic rewards that are typically more prevalent in large, complex organizations. We examine whether certain intrinsic rewards are more characteristic of small firms and shift the focus from manufacturing industries to professional service (law) firms. We find that small is not entirely beautiful. Smaller firms offer more autonomy but no more challenging work or better coworker relations, whereas larger firms offer lucrative salaries, enhanced benefits, and greater promotional opportunities. Our results challenge the compensating differential explanation whereby large firms offer superior extrinsic rewards to compensate for a shortfall of instrinsic job rewards.     

A Hierarchical Process of Applicant Screening by Korean Employers

Korean employers screen job applicants’ detailed personal backgrounds with the intent to discriminate among them. This study develops a statistical model of employers’ problem in recruiting, and identifies a hierarchical process whereby employers screen applicants’ personal characteristics in the diminishing order of their incremental predictive power or increasing order of their cost. Recognizing that benefit of marginal screening depends on information obtained through inframarginal screening, this study evaluates different elements of screening jointly using conditional count-variable and probability models, in a sample of job application forms of 365 firms. Firms are found to screen applicants systematically, according to the information content versus intrusiveness of marginal factors screened—from applicants’ appearance, through lifestyle and background, to detailed health and financial status. Companies’ working conditions, labor costs and labor-organization rate help explain the extent of companies’ screening. Working hours and mandatory compensation in the relevant market are associated positively, and bonuses and discretionary benefits negatively with the extent of screening, agreeing with theoretical predictions. Worker unionization is associated positively with screening, suggesting that unions may be protecting their membership at the cost of harming non-members and propping up firms’ traditional practices. Results for the occurrence of individual screening questions are also reported.     

Firm Ownership and Rent Sharing

In this paper we analyse—theoretically and empirically—how the degree of private versus public ownership of firms affects the degree of rent sharing between firms and their workers. Using a particularly rich linked employer-employee dataset from Portugal, covering a large number of corporate ownership changes across a wide spectrum of economic sectors over more than 20 years, we find that rent sharing is significantly higher in firms with a larger share of private ownership. Estimates from our most preferred empirical specification suggest that an increase in the private ownership share of 10 percentage points increases (on average) the rent-sharing elasticity by 0.0002. Based on a theoretical analysis that incorporates union-firm wage bargaining and efficiency wage effects within the same modelling framework, this result cannot be explained by private firms being more profit oriented than public ones. However, the result is consistent with a scenario whereby privatisation leads to less job security for workers, implying stronger efficiency wage effects.     

JOB MATCH, TENURE AND WAGES PAID BY FIRMS

Using a new data set consisting of a matched sample of workers and firms, and including explicit measures of match quality, the authors estimate a structural model and find new evidence of a strong positive relation between wages and tenure. Inclusion of firm-fixed effects does not significantly reduce the estimated returns to tenure. The results also shed light on the relative importance of human capital and job matching theories.     

The Importance of Job Training to Job Satisfaction of Older Workers

If job training has positive impacts on worker satisfaction, then job training can have desirable consequences for an organization that result both directly through its effects on productivity and indirectly through its effects on job satisfaction. Furthermore, the aging of the workforce implies that older workers will become increasingly important to firms and to the economy. This study, therefore, seeks to examine the relationship between job training and job satisfaction, focusing in particular on U.S. workers born in 1964 or earlier. The results of ordered logit regression analysis indicate that availability and quality of training received directly affect job satisfaction.     

Uneven Development in North Carolina? Job Quality Differences Between Local and Nonlocal Firms1

Abstract Do outside firms come to North Carolina or, more generally, to the rural South to take advantage of the low-wage unorganized local relations of production? Do they disrupt local labor market arrangements? We use data from a survey of North Carolina employees to examine labor market and job quality differences between local and outside firms and also the organization of regional labor markets. Results, based on multiple regression models, suggest that outside firms provide higher quality jobs, mediated by organizational resources and internal firm relations of production. Urban Piedmont labor markets provide better jobs than rural labor markets, regardless of the establishment's ownership locale. Generally, uneven development predictions are supported by additive models, but challenged by additional analyses of interactions. These analyses suggest that outside firms may be undermining local relations of production in rural North Carolina. Results of this research present rural policymakers with a challenge for future economic development strategies.     

The importance of job training to job satisfaction of older workers

If job training has positive impacts on worker satisfaction, then job training can have desirable consequences for an organization that result both directly through its effects on productivity and indirectly through its effects on job satisfaction. Furthermore, the aging of the workforce implies that older workers will become increasingly important to firms and to the economy. This study, therefore, seeks to examine the relationship between job training and job satisfaction, focusing in particular on U.S. workers born in 1964 or earlier. The results of ordered logit regression analysis indicate that availability and quality of training received directly affect job satisfaction.     

Long-Term Employment and Complementary Human Resource Management Practices

This paper identifies human resource management practices that we hypothesize will raise the return to and, hence, complement long-term-employment (LTE) contracts. Compared to firms that do not offer LTE contracts, we find that firms offering LTE contracts make greater use of a wide array of the hypothesized complementary practices relating to training, compensation, information-sharing, job design, employee-customer interactions, and responses to declines in the demand for labor. Additionally, we provide evidence of complementarities between LTE contracts and above average use of the hypothesized complementary practices in their effects on quit rates, an inverse proxy for employees’ reciprocal commitment to LTE.     

Why do small firms produce the entrepreneurs?

Employees are significantly more likely to quit small rather than large firms to found new ventures. I examine empirically three alternative theories that might explain this finding: a transmission theory; a blocked mobility theory; and self-selection of workers. A representative sample of British panel data containing information on workplace, job and personal characteristics from 1991 to 2003 are used to explore the relationship between firm size and transitions into self-employment. The transmission and blocked mobility theories do not receive consistent empirical backing whereas the selection theory does. The implications of these findings for researchers and policy-makers are discussed.     

Group Styles of Justice or Service: How Ticket Inspectors Manage Contested Citizen Encounters

People who interact with citizens in their job often have to use discretion when facing complex situations. Research shows that how people understand their job regulates this use of discretion. Yet, little research has conceptualized how group culture shapes these understandings and discretionary actions in real-life citizen encounters. This article addresses this gap with a microsociological theory of group culture. To demonstrate the merits of this theory, I use a sample of 11 interviews and 88 body-worn camera recordings to analyze how ticket inspectors perceive and act in contested ticket-fining events. The analysis identifies two group styles of moral inspection characterized by tight or loose regulation: justice or service. These styles are associated with the two operating teams in a traffic company and influence how inspectors manage contested events with a risk of escalation. I discuss how these findings contribute to the sociology of culture and enhance the understanding of how group culture shapes discretionary actions in citizen encounters.     

Determinants of Police Job Satisfaction

This paper reports the results of a partial replication and extension of Reiss's (1967) study of police job satisfaction. Utilizing indicators similar to those employed by Reiss, the study first determines the applicability of his results to a second sample of police officers at a more recent time. Second, it explores two new variables potentially related to job satisfaction: years on the force and years in current rank. Third, it employs multiple regression analysis to isolate the most predictive of the variables related to job satisfaction. Four variables account for most of the variance explained. The implications of the findings for enhancing police job satisfaction are examined.     

Flexible employment: Positive work strategies for the 21st century

V. Conclusion The United States has thus far wisely rejected the European path of low jobs growth and high unemployment and has instead embraced flexibility. Moreover, attention is starting to be paid to the need for change in the laws affecting the workplace to accommodate and promote this new flexibility. The “jobs clearinghouse” role of temporary help and staffing firms is one of the most salutary developments in the labor market in this century and should be encouraged. Not only is there no need for laws to regulate or limit temporary work, consideration should be given to providingincentives to firms that provide those services, such as tax credits based on the skills training provided and the job placements made. This would help promote a vigorous and efficient private sector job service that has become increasingly essential to American workers’ ability to find the right job at the right time in an increasingly complex and mobile work force.     

INVOLUNTARY, EMPLOYMENT IN CONTRACTS WITH RISKY JOB SEARCH

The implication of partially insurable job search risk for incentive compatibility in a standard contracting framework are explored. When unemployment spells provoke job search, workers face risk in spell duration and reemployment wages. When search effort is not variable, contracts including unemployment insurance will yield involuntary employment. When search effort is diminished by UI benefits, firms shift some compensation back to wages, increasing the relative attractiveness of employment. The analysis begins with a theorem on incomplete insurance by Imai, Geanakoplos and Ito [1981] for which a simple proof and economic intuition are provided.     

Gender Differences in Unemployment Dynamics and Initial Wages over the Business Cycle

Using administrative data from Spanish Social Security for the period 2002–2013, we explore differences between unemployed men and women in: their probabilities to find a job, their initial wages if they find a new job, and the likelihood to fall back into unemployment. We estimate bivariate proportional hazard models for unemployment duration and for the consecutive job duration for men and women separately, and decompose the gender gap using a non-linear Oaxaca decomposition. Gender differentials in labour market outcomes are procyclical, probably due to the procyclical nature of typically male occupations. While a higher level of education protects women in particular from unemployment, having children hampers women’s employment and initial wages after unemployment. There are lower gender gaps in the public sector and in high technology- firms. Decompositions show that the gender gaps are not explained by differences in sample composition. Indeed, if women had similar characteristics to men, the gender gap would be even wider.     

Employer attitudes towards refugee immigrants: Findings from a Swedish survey

Based on a large‐scale survey of Swedish firms, the authors identify significant heterogeneity in their attitudes towards refugee hiring, job performance, wage setting and discrimination, though experience of employing refugees reduces negative attitudes. Firms’ reasons for discontinuing their employment of refugees are not related to discrimination by staff or customers, but rather to refugees’ suboptimal job performance. While the majority of firms do not regard the collectively agreed minimum wages as an important obstacle to the hiring of refugees, firms with a large share of refugees on the payroll report that reducing those wage rates would enhance employment substantially.