Job Applicant Screening by a Japanese Transplant: A Union-Avoidance Tactic

Saltzman, Gregory M.

doi:10.2307/2524914

Cited by 7 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…Japanese plants also use pre-employment training programs to evaluate problem-solving skills and personal interaction in team settings (Saltzman 1994).5 This was most evident in Georgia, where all but one of the transplants in our sample took advantage of a pre-employment program that was partly subsidized by the state. One Japanese transplant in Georgia asked applicants to take 15 hours of such "pre-employment training" on weekends and evenings without pay, and a small assembly plant in Georgia invited 32 applicants, from a pool of 1,000, to an unpaid 40-hour training course to allow management to observe "work habits" and social interaction during breaks.…”

Section: Recruitment and Selectionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Hybrids or Hodgepodges? Workplace Practices of Japanese and Domestic Startups in the United States

Doeringer¹,

Evans-Klock²,

Terkla³

1998

ILR Review

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This study examines the adoption of high-performance workplace management practices in Japanese and domestic manufacturing plants, spanning a broad range of products and technologies, that began operations in the United States between 1978 and 1988. Japanese transplants, the authors find, were likely to adopt "hybrid" systems of high-performance practices meldingJapanese principles of workplace management with the American industrial relations system. Domestic startups incorporated many of these same techniques, but they tended to take a more limited and piecemeal approach.The managers of domestic startups also paid less attention to how individual high-performance practices fit into an overall system of efficient workplace management than did managers at Japanese transplants.Rates of adoption of these practices are now being used as an indicator of the extent to which American workplaces are adopting "high performance" human resources practices (Appelbaum and Batt 1994; Osterman 1994). However, adoption rates appear to be relatively low in U.S. manufacturing.Even among Japanese transplants operating in the United States, the evidence on adoption is inconclusive. Studies that focus on Japanese auto plants tend to find that major components of the Japanese employment system are being successfully transferred to the United States and Europe, but other studies (largely of electronics assembly plants) conclude that Japanese transplants tend to copy American workplace practices, particularly those of nonunion companies.' This paper substantially extends our understanding of the "fit" between Japanese workplace management practices and the American system of industrial relations. We analyze the adoption of high-performance, Japanese-style workplace practices in a sample of newJapanese and domestic plants, spanning a wide range of technolo-'Osterman (1994) found relatively low adoption rates in the United States. For adoption rates among Japanese transplants in the United States, see Womack, Jones, and Roos (1990); Dunphy (1987); Abegglen (1985); Cole (1971); Cool and Legnick-Hall (1985); and Kenney and Florida (1993). For evidence of the diffusion of the employment system found in Japanese auto plants, see White and Trevor (1983); Oliver and Wilkinson (1989); Morris (1988); Kenney and Florida (1993); Fucini (1990); Abo (1994); and MacDuffie (1995). Three studies reporting evidence of emulation of American practices byJapanese transplants are JETRO (1989); Milkman (1991); and Kenney and Florida (1993).One possible reason for the contradictory findings, for which we offer supporting evidence from our study, is that electronics and auto plants have different adoption rates. A second is that Japanese practices have changed over time, with early transplants imitating U.S. practices and transplants from the 1980s onward adoptingJapanese practices (Cutcher-Gershenfeld et al. 1995). No such shift seems to have occurred either in our sample ofJapanese transplants or among a larger sample of transplants and joint ventures examin...

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Section: Recruitment and Selectionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Hybrids or Hodgepodges? Workplace Practices of Japanese and Domestic Startups in the United States

Doeringer¹,

Evans-Klock²,

Terkla³

1998

ILR Review

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“…Field of dreams Saltzman (1995) analyzed attitudes toward unions in job applicants for a Japanese auto parts greenfield. Applicants who ultimately declined greenfield plant job offers through self-selection were significantly more supportive of unions than applicants who accepted job offers.…”

Section: Case Study Designsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Field of dreams: team implementations and greenfields

Becker

2007

Team Performance Management: An International Journal

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If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -Greenfields are new plants -typically, but not exclusively manufacturing -that belong to an existing organization. They are ideal settings for teams, but implementation of the technology and people systems during start-up can be difficult. This review aims briefly to describe the origin of the greenfield concept, three decades of research, and recommendations for work practices that promote teams. Design/methodology/approach -A total of 37 research studies evaluating greenfield operations were located, including quasi-experiments, surveys and case studies. A brief description of the study is provided, as well as information regarding productivity and employee attitudinal and behavioral outcomes.Findings -The paper finds that greenfields are frequently used to implement team-based systems, with varying results. Outcomes such as productivity, quality, employee satisfaction, absenteeism and turnover are described. Research evaluating greenfields is limited due to proprietary and competitive concerns and the reluctance to discuss failures. Three broad areas in which greenfields are unique are identified and discussed in the interest of promoting future research; these include employee attitudes and behaviors, organizational culture and human resource practices. Practical implications -A total of 24 human resource practices that support team-based work systems in new greenfield plants are recommended and described. Originality/value -This paper fills a void in the team literature by reviewing greenfield facilities as distinctive organizations for team-based systems. Paper type Literature reviewManagers opened a new $200 million agricultural team-based greenfield facility with a vision that addressed four key stakeholders: customers, owners, employees and the community. Early success led to a plant expansion from 120 to 500 employees and corporate investment grew to $500 million. The plant received productivity and safety awards; its three-year injury rate was 56 percent below industry average and its lost workday rate was 64 percent below industry average. Managers attribute plant success to an innovative team hiring process and effective team leadership. They caution new g...

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“…Former research provides suggestive evidence for a negative impact of (disclosed) union affiliation on hiring chances, job tenure and wages (Cooke, 1985b;Leap et al, 1990;Redman et al, 1990;Saltzman, 1995;Servais, 1977;van den Broek, 2003). Most of these contributions rely on the qualitative analysis of unfair labour practices heard by national labour relation boards or the analysis of recruitment methods (designed to be antithetic to workplace unionism) and therefore do not provide a clear measure of discrimination based on union affiliation.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…These researchers' results are inherently subjective and may be driven by the survey participants' goal to demonstrate the (non-)existence of discrimination. An exception is Saltzman (1995) matching data on real job applicants eager to vote for union representation with their hiring outcomes. Notwithstanding his ingenious research design, however, Saltzman's (1995) results also cannot be interpreted as causal because applicants who appear very similar based on the observable characteristics in the researcher's data except for their pro-union view may look very different with respect to employers in various aspects that are unobservable to the researcher but drive productivity (such as motivation and ability).…”

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confidence: 99%

Hiring Discrimination Against Pro-union Applicants: The Role of Union Density and Firm Size

Baert

Omey

2015

De Economist

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We study the causal impact of revealing pro-unionism during the recruitment stage on hiring chances. To this end, we conduct a randomised field experiment in the Belgian labour market. When matched with employer and sector data, the experimentally gathered data enable us to test the heterogeneity of discrimination against pro-union applicants by the union density in the sector and the size of the firm. We find that disclosure of pro-unionism affects hiring chances in a negative way and that -in line with our expectations based on the literature -this negative impact is stronger in highly unionised sectors.

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Job Applicant Screening by a Japanese Transplant: A Union-Avoidance Tactic

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

Hybrids or Hodgepodges? Workplace Practices of Japanese and Domestic Startups in the United States

Hybrids or Hodgepodges? Workplace Practices of Japanese and Domestic Startups in the United States

Field of dreams: team implementations and greenfields

Hiring Discrimination Against Pro-union Applicants: The Role of Union Density and Firm Size

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