Ownership Change and its Implications for the Match between the Plant and its Workers.

Abstract

Is ownership change an opportunity for new owners to make systematic changes in the workforce of the acquired plant? This paper explores the adjustments to plant size and the composition of the workforce that occur around ownership change using matched employer-employee data. Furthermore, we explore changes in the workforce along unobservable dimensions of worker quality and the quality of the match between the plant and its workers. We observe excess labour turnover around ownership change, but only in the case of foreign acquisitions do we find an improvement in unobserved worker and match quality at the plant level.

The Effect of Employment Protection on Firms' Worker Selection

“…3 At a more general level, this study contributes to the literature looking at determinants of selectivity in worker-firm matching. Examples include the analysis of foreign ownership and hiring selectivity (Balsvik and Haller, 2015), the relation between management quality and the quality of worker flows in and out of the establishment (Bender et al, 2018), the role of networks in hiring (Hensvik and Skans, 2016), and skill sorting across firms over time (Håkanson et al, 2015). By analyzing the effect of dismissal costs on worker selection, our paper not only looks at a very different determinant of worker-firm matching than these studies, but it also offers exogenous variation in the determinant of interest, allowing us to identify a causal relationship.…”

Heuristics and Evidences Decision (HeED) Making: a Case Study in a Systemic Model for Transforming Decision Making from Heuristics-Based to Evidenced-Based

“…The inspiration of the ownership is positively influenced by the champions of change (Bartkus 1997). A change champion can make a key impact on the outcomes of a change management program (Balsvik and Haller 2015), but it is not enough to just nominate change champions and then expect them to get on with it. In order to play a meaningful role well, change champions need to be managed, developed and trained, and as a team be able to gain feedback on employees for day-to-day work and KPI measures, and given the opportunity to resolve issues through an action learning approach at low (operational) level, transferring ownership to that level (Talebi 2015).…”

The effect of employment protection on firms’ worker selection

“…3 At a more general level, this study contributes to the literature looking at determinants of selectivity in worker-firm matching. Examples include the analysis of foreign ownership and hiring selectivity (Balsvik and Haller, 2015), the relation between management quality and the quality of worker flows in and out of the establishment (Bender et al, 2018), the role of networks in hiring (Hensvik and Skans, 2016), and skill sorting across firms over time (Håkanson et al, 2015). By analyzing the effect of dismissal costs on worker selection, our paper not only looks at a very different determinant of worker-firm matching than these studies, but it also offers exogenous variation in the determinant of interest, allowing us to identify a causal relationship.…”