Unionization Structures in International Oligopoly

We examine how competition in international markets affects a union's choice of wage regime, which can be either uniform or discriminatory. Firms are heterogeneous with regard to international competition. When unions choose their wage regimes sequentially, a discriminatory outcome becomes more likely when international competition increases. However, for intermediate levels a union may stick with a uniform wage regime even if the rival union adopts a discriminatory regime. When competition is sufficiently intense, both unions revert to the discriminatory regime. Paradoxically only in those latter instances all parties (consumers, workers, and firms) may be better off (each in aggregate) if all unions adopt a uniform wage regime. We conclude that union incentives to coordinate their wage regimes should then also become largest.     

委托-授权、工会合并及企业合并行为选择研究

基于委托-授权下的Cournot寡头竞争市场模型,分析了工会的合并是否会刺激企业的合并.通过4阶段博弈的子博弈完美纳什均衡解,发现2个相互独立的工会将会为了得到更大的利益而合并,但这种合并不利于企业所得的增加.     

Union Bargaining,Wage Differentials and Employment

Abstract. Reviewing empirical studies concerning the corporatism-flexibility-performance nexus the paper discusses decentralized and centralized bargaining systems. Revenue pay systems, concession bargaining and two-tier wage systems as means to enhance wage flexibility at the firm level are also considered. Both theoretical and empirical evidence is presented, showing that unions are bargaining for greater employment security for the already employed (the insiders). In return, unions are ready to accept greater wage flexibility and even wage decreases. By contrast, the insider-outsider theory does suggest how unions may accentuate involuntary unemployment, because there may be ways in which a union can help to raise the wages of the insiders without reducing their chances of continued employment.     

Collective voice mechanisms,HRM practices and organizational performance in Italian manufacturing firms

The literature on employee voice has grown enormously over the past decades. However, the relationships between different employee voice mechanisms and organizational performance are far from being fully understood, and the existing research shows mixed evidence. Moreover, the HRM literature tends to concentrate on individual voice mechanisms (e.g. employee involvement) and to underestimate the role that collective voice may have in the HRM performance relationship. This paper aims to analyze how collective employee voice mechanisms (i.e. union voice and team voice) affect organizational productivity and how these relationships vary when voice mechanisms are adopted in combination with other HRM practices (i.e. variable pay, training, performance appraisals and multitasking). The analysis of a sample of 223 Italian manufacturing firms matched with an external database (AIDA) containing balance sheet information found that union voice is positively related to labor productivity, while team voice does not show any significant relationship with labor productivity. Moreover, both union and team voice have important moderation effects in the HRM-performance relationship. Union voice moderates positively the relationship between variable pay and performance and negatively the relationship between training and performance. Team voice positively moderates the relationship between training and performance. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Crime and the Decline of Unions

In this paper we investigate the relationship between union membership and crime. Using state level data between 1993 and 2006, we find the elasticity of crime with respect to union membership is roughly −0.5. From our results, we predict the decline in union membership has increased crime by 15 per cent since 1993. Furthermore, we find the elasticity between union jobs and crime is larger in absolute value when using an instrumental variable approach to control for the impact unions have on labor market efficiency.     

Quality circles—Are they working in British factories?

A survey of Quality Circle programmes in British manufacturing companies reveals that Circles introduced and used properly with full management and trade union support can and do work and have many benefits. The findings suggest that current management attitudes and actions are more detrimental to the establishment and success of a circle programme than that of the trade unions. Based on the findings, indications are made of the factors which will assist companies who are considering the introduction of a Quality Circle programme and also help those companies currently using Circles to make and keep them effective.     

Endogenous Contracts in Unionized Oligopoly

We study the endogenous determination of contracts in a unionized oligopoly and the welfare implications thereof. Alternative contracts specify the sequencing in the selection of R&D and wages. They can be classified as ‘fixed’ when the unions set wages before the firms make their R&D decisions or ‘floating’ when the sequencing of these choices is reversed. If the unions are highly employment‐oriented, we find that either all firm–union pairs choose floating‐wage contracts or both contract types may coexist depending on the degree of technological spillovers. However, when the unions have stronger preference over attaining a good wage deal, then it becomes very likely that fixed‐wage contracts will endogenously emerge because they can serve as an insurance device against oppor tunistic wage increases. Our welfare analysis suggests that welfare‐improving contracts may nevertheless not always arise in equilibrium.     

A Social Welfare Theory of Trade Unions

There have been recent advances in the understanding of trade unions by modeling union objectives as maximizing a neoclassical utility function. While this literature is most relevant for autonomous and homogeneous local unions, there are also numerous large, heterogeneous trade unions in many countries. This paper illustrates that social choice theory presents a more realistic framework for explicitly modeling the aggregation of potentially diverse preferences within trade unions.     

Trade Union Preferences in Double Dividend Models

This paper analyses wage formation in a unionized economy where consumers as an externality in their utility function have the level of local pollution. If modelled in a microeconomically consistent way this externality should also be present in the preferences of the trade union. The key result is that when this trade‐off between pollution and employment is included in the trade unions’ preferences then they are willing to lower wages to generate substitution towards higher employment and lower pollution. As a consequence, an increase in the pollution tax will lead to lower wages. At a more general level the results show that in models analyzing pollution issues, such as the double dividend literature, it is very important for the policy conclusions how trade unions are introduced.     

Trade Union Action and Privatisation in Western Europe: Recent Dilemmas*

Abstract. The Author examines the policies of privatisation in Western Europe and the responses made by trade unions. Privatisation seems to induce the trade union movement to shift its emphasis from traditional issues toward new and challenging ones, such as a major co-operation in the management of the privatised companies. Therein, the extension of interest and control by the unions into new areas such as investment, planning, work organisation and design constitute a challenge to trade union core mandate. In some union circles there are fears about unions embracing what appear to be managerial strategies in a period of deep transformation and turbulence. Moreover, according to some union leaders any attempt by the unions to go beyond the “oppositional and defensive role” would result in a confusion and misrepresentation of their members' interests.     

Unions and the Welfare Impact of Foreign Direct Investment — A Wisdom Extension

Abstract. This paper extends the recent literature, e.g. Leahy and Montagna (Economic Journal 110: 80–92, 2000), in relation to the link between unionization, inward foreign direct investment (FDI) and country welfare in an oligopoly market structure. It is shown that the common results, that unions may reduce welfare under FDI while multinational enterprises (MNEs) will strictly trade off union wages at each location, are generally driven by the assumption relating to the scope of the bargaining with the union, namely the ‘right to manage’ (RTM). In particular, our extension to efficient bargaining (EB) demonstrates that union power may increase welfare in the presence of FDI, while the MNEs’ choice between FDI and exports will include profit‐sharing arbitrage with unions, in addition to the usual wage comparison considerations.     

Commitment to the union: a survey of research and the implications for industrial relations and trade unions

This paper presents an overview of the literature on union commitment. The aim is to survey the main approaches, findings and implications of the research. The nature and dimensionality of union commitment are examined, and the antecedents and consequences of union commitment are discussed in detail, including a review of the implications for union participation. There is also a discussion of the possibility of dual commitment to union and employer, and of the 'multiple constituencies' view of commitment. An attempt is made to link the union commitment findings to the wider industrial relations literature on, for example, why people join unions and the 'union renewal' thesis. The article concludes by discussing the implications of the literature for union–management relationships and for unions themselves, and with some suggestions for future research.     

REENGINEERING CHANNEL REORDERING PROCESSES TO IMPROVE TOTAL SUPPLY-CHAIN PERFORMANCE

This paper discusses the relationship between business process reengineering and channel performance for firms implementing electronic data interchange (EDI) linkages within the U.S. grocery industry. Both quantitative and qualitative data sources are combined to test the hypothesis that channel transformation involving adoption of EDI and redesign of replenishment processes enables performance improvements more than an order of magnitude greater than implementation of EDI alone. This new process, enabled by EDI, provides retailers with 50- 100% higher inventory turns for products on continuous replenishment processes (CRP) relative to retailer performance using traditional ordering processes. Firms adopting EDI without using CRP to reengineer the ordering processes have failed to realize any statistically significant improvements in either inventory levels or warehouse stockouts. This research provides evidence to support the claims of process reengineering that are common in the popular business press, but for which statistically significant empirical evidence is minimal. The findings of the research also demonstrate the potential improvements that firms can realize through extending the business process reengineering concept to include the firms' entire supply chain.     

Building Blocks for a Precautionary Approach to the Use of Nanomaterials: Positions Taken by Trade Unions and Environmental NGOs in the European Nanotechnologies Debate

As partners in the European capacity‐building project NanoCap, trade unions and environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have established positions on the development of nanotechnologies. Key in their positioning is their view that the use of nanomaterials with currently unknown occupational and environmental hazards must have consequences for the risk management and use of nanoproducts. They have made proposals for responsible manufacturing and for applying the precautionary principle to the use of nanoproducts and they urgently call for the acceptance and the operationalization of a precautionary approach by the industry and governments. The trade unions and NGOs are calling for transparency and openness regarding processes and products that contain nanomaterials and have proposed specific tools for nanomaterial use that put the precautionary principle into practice, including the principles no data → no exposure and no data → no emission. The proposed tools also include compulsory reporting of the type and content of nanoparticles applied in products, a register of workers possibly exposed to nanoparticles, and the use of nano reference values as guides to assess workplace exposure to nanoparticles.     

Unions’ and Firms’ Attitudes Towards Research Joint Ventures: When Will the Incentives Be Aligned?

Abstract. This paper studies the relationship between unionization and innovation activity. Under a unionized labour market, we find that when R&D spillovers are relatively low (high), cooperative, as well as non‐cooperative R&D is a strategic substitute (complement). Furthermore, irrespective of the spillover rate, cooperation increases firms’ profits, whereas it increases union utility only if spillovers are sufficiently high. Alignment of incentives between firms and unions requires that firms pay transfers in the form of ‘rent‐sharing’ to make a Research Joint Venture attractive to unions. Our results suggest that if spillovers are low enough, the amount of money that firms give up in order to buy unions’ acquiescence weakens their incentives to form a Research Joint Venture.     

Manufacturing Proactiveness and Performance*

Since Skinner's [40] landmark article depicting the manufacturing function as the “missing link” in corporate strategic processes, a portion of the blame for inferior performance in many firms has been attributed to the subordinate strategic position of manufacturing. It has been argued that part of the solution to misalignments between the capabilities possessed by manufacturing and the requirements dictated by customers is for manufacturing to take a more proactive stance. However, little research has been reported which examines manufacturing proactiveness empirically. In this paper, we address this gap by developing an operational definition of manufacturing proactiveness and testing empirically whether a link exists between proactiveness and performance based on data collected from a sample of manufacturers. Based on the manufacturing strategy literature, we identify two major dimensions of manufacturing proactiveness: (1) the degree of manufacturing's involvement in the strategic processes of the business unit; and (2) the degree of commitment to a long-term program of investments in manufacturing structure and infrastructure aimed at building capabilities in anticipation of their need. We develop reliable scales for measuring each of the dimensions of proactiveness and use the data to provide evidence of a clear link between manufacturing proactiveness and business performance. We show that investments in structural programs coupled with either high levels of manufacturing involvement in strategic processes or planned investments in infrastructural programs correlate with higher than average performance.     

Improving operational plant performance in international manufacturing networks: the effects of integrative capabilities and plant roles

Abstract

This study adopts the resource-based view to examine how two integrative capabilities of a plant embedded in a manufacturing network enhance operational performance: the capability to connect with other plants in its manufacturing network (a networking capability, NC), and the capability to integrate manufacturing processes with new product development processes (a new product development capability, NPDC). Our model tests the indirect effect of NC on cost, quality, flexibility and delivery through NPDC. Furthermore, we test if the relationship between NC and NPDC depends on the strategic role of the plant. Using survey data from a sample of 521 plants, we confirmed the mediating effect of NPDC. However, the moderation effect was not confirmed. Our findings reveal that plants can deploy NPDC capabilities, fostered by NC, independently from their role in the network. This study contributes to the understanding of plant capabilities and plant roles in manufacturing networks.     

Is there a physician union in your future?

Physician unions are in the news. Patient management and patient care decisions are increasingly being taken out of the hands of physicians and put into the hands of "The Suits." To take their case for a return to physician-driven patient care to the people, some physicians are joining unions. Some are even collectively bargaining for salary and other issues that are historically more closely associated with unions. The simple fact is that physician unions exist and the number of physicians joining them is expected to increase. What are the pros and cons of unionization? What motivates physicians to join unions, and what potential negative and positive factors are associated with physician unionization? This article reviews the pros and cons and the issues related to physician unions, for physicians attempting to answer the question, "Is there a union in my future?"     

ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE AS A DRIVER OF SUPERIOR QUALITY

We explore theoretically and empirically how efforts to enhance environmental performance may enable other types of manufacturing improvements. Drawing on a unique data set comprised of detailed surveys of 42 automotive assembly plants, associated quality metrics, and in‐depth qualitative data from 17 automotive assembly plants, we show that attaining superior environmental performance can be a significant driver of superior quality. We highlight the synergistic and reciprocal nature of environmental and broader manufacturing improvement efforts, and show that environmental improvement tools and know‐how can be an important source of competitive advantage.     

Trade Union Priorities and Wage Rigidity

ABSTRACT: The starting point of the paper is that trade unions engage in substitution once certain targets have been met. This implies that a priority-based or hierarchical model might be a better approximation to union behaviour. This model requires a two-part union utility function which changes when a satisfactory (or target) level of the priority variable (e.g. the wage rate) is met. After demonstrating the workings of such a model in a monopoly union framework, it is shown that there is real wage rigidity when the wage is below the target level. Employment increases only when the target wage has been achieved.