In this paper, we analyse the effect of promoting workers’ employability on labour productivity. To this end, we adapt a simple efficiency-wage model that includes the employer’s decision on the provision of opportunities for enhancing workers’ employment prospects in a context of job insecurity. We show that (i) by facilitating workers’ employability, the firm increases its labour productivity; and (ii) the higher the job uncertainty the higher the productivity gains due to the increase in employability. One of the advantages of our model is that it is simply enough to allow us to formulate two testable hypotheses, namely (i) the increase of jobs’ potential to enhance workers’ employability results in higher level of workers’ effort, and (ii) the provision of employability is more profitable for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) than for large firms. More precisely, SMEs should obtain higher effort levels from employees by fostering workers’ employability than large firms. We provide some evidence supporting these hypotheses from a highly representative sample of Spanish manufacturing firms. Copyright Springer 2007employability, worker effort, SMEs, Spain, J24, J31, M21,
Document de Treball núm. 07/3La sèrie Documents de treball d'economia de l'empresa presenta els avanços i resultats d'investigacions en curs que han estat presentades i discutides en aquest departament; això no obstant, les opinions són responsabilitat dels autors. El document no pot ser reproduït total ni parcialment sense el consentiment de l'autor/a o autors/res. Dirigir els comentaris i suggerències directament a l'autor/a o autors/res, a la direcció que apareix a la pàgina següent.A Working Paper in the Documents de treball d'economia de l'empresa series is intended as a mean whereby a faculty researcher's thoughts and findings may be communicated to interested readers for their comments. Nevertheless, the ideas put forwards are responsibility of the author. Accordingly a Working Paper should not be quoted nor the data referred to without the written consent of the author. Please, direct your comments and suggestions to the author, which address shows up in the next page.
AbstractThis paper analyses the impact of a series of managerial and organisational factors on occupational injuries. These consist of occupational safety measures, as regards both the intensity and the orientation of risk prevention in companies, and the adoption of certain work organisation practices, quality management and the use of flexible production technologies. We estimate a negative binomial regression based on a sample of 213Spanish industrial establishments, defining a constant random parameter to take account of non-observable heterogeneity. Our results show that occupational safety measures, the intensive use of quality management tools and the empowerment of workers all help to reduce the number of injuries. We have also confirmed the presence of synergies between the organisational factors analysed and the development of an occupational safety strategy featuring participation and the extension of prevention to all levels of the organisation.
PurposeThe concept of Safety Capital was developed by analyzing the creation and composition of the Intellectual Capital embedded in Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) systems. The paper aims to address this relationship.Design/methodology/approachBy drawing a theoretical link for the relationship between OHS activities and intellectual capital, guidelines for the management of organizational knowledge on OHS systems are outlined.FindingsThe paper shows that occupational health and safety should be considered among the sources of intellectual capital of the firm.Originality/valueThe theoretical framework is a potential guide for substantial improvement of advanced OSH management systems, a key element to visualize incentives to invest in safety and a powerful instrument for research in intellectual capital quantification.
In this paper, we show that workers’ performance in firms is conditioned by a set of informational factors and expectations about the future. We also demonstrate that any corporate action that successfully raises workers’ employment expectations will translate into performance gains. In the current uncertain context, firms can raise productivity by offering higher‐value jobs that provide workers with greater opportunities to improve their employability. In this sense, high‐performance work organizations can play an important role.
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