The Employment Relationship and Inequality: How and Why Changes in Employment Practices are Reshaping Rewards in Organizations

Bidwell, Matthew; Briscoe, Forrest; Fernandez‐Mateo, Isabel; Sterling, Adina D.

doi:10.5465/19416520.2013.761403

Cited by 184 publications

(161 citation statements)

References 209 publications

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“…First, research has documented a steady decline in prevalence of ILMs over the past four decades (e.g., Bidwell et al 2013;Piore 2002). One of the main pieces of evidence to support this claim is the decline in the returns to tenure with same employer during the 1980s and 1990s (Cappelli 2001;Chauvin 1992;DiPrete, Goux, and Maurin 2002).…”

Section: Changing Firm-size Wage Effect Over Timementioning

confidence: 99%

Growing Apart: The Changing Firm-Size Wage Premium and Its Inequality Consequences

Cobb

Lin

2017

Organization Science

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Wage inequality in the United States has risen dramatically over the past few decades, prompting scholars to develop a number of theoretical accounts for the upward trend. This study argues that large firms have been a prominent labor-market institution that mitigates inequality. By compensating their low-and middle-wage employees with a greater premium than their higher-wage counterparts, large U.S. firms reduced overall wage dispersion. Yet, broader changes to employment relations associated with the demise of internal labor markets and the emergence of alternative employment arrangements have undermined large firms' role as an equalizing institution. Using data from the Current Population Survey and the Survey of Income and Program Participation, we find that in 1989, although all private-sector workers benefited from a firm-size wage premium, the premium was significantly higher for individuals at the lower end and middle of the wage distribution compared to those at the higher end. Between 1989 and 2014, the average firm-size wage premium declined markedly. The decline, however, was exclusive to those at the lower end and middle of the wage distribution, while there was no change for those at the higher end. As such, the uneven declines in the premium across the wage spectrum could account for about 20% of rising wage inequality during this period, suggesting that firms are of great importance to the study of rising inequality.Keywords firm-size wage premium, inequality, internal labor market, employment relationship Disciplines Management Sciences and Quantitative MethodsThis journal article is available at ScholarlyCommons:

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Section: Changing Firm-size Wage Effect Over Timementioning

confidence: 99%

Growing Apart: The Changing Firm-Size Wage Premium and Its Inequality Consequences

Cobb

Lin

2017

Organization Science

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“…Temporary working arrangements and flexible relationships between organizations and their employees are becoming increasingly common (Bidwell et al, 2013;OECD, 2014), and therefore our findings are an important part of understanding the implications of different employment modes on individual and organizational outcomes. We also considered the generalizability of study findings based on data collected from Canadian establishments, and the potential implications of collecting study data in the midst of the global recession.…”

Section: Study Findings In Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This, too, has potentially important implications because PT and other contingent employment arrangments are becoming more common (Bidwell, Briscoe, Fernandez-Mateo, and Sterling, 2013) and organizational leaders need to understand whether HR practices uniformly influence different types of employees.…”

Section: Contingent Effects Of Hr Practices On Voluntary Turnovermentioning

confidence: 99%

Human resource management practices and voluntary turnover: a study of internal workforce and external labor market contingencies

Schmidt

Willness

Jones

et al. 2016

The International Journal of Human Resource Management

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“…Further, the elite experiences of organizational practices may be very different from non-elites. For example, elites may find ways to gain from moving across organizations via short-term assignments while for non-elites such practices may result in increasingly insecure and unpredictable employment (Bidwell et al, 2013). As elite experiences are cut off from the rest, their influence may turn organizations more dysfunctional and contribute disproportionately to job losses, extreme pay dispersion, low wages and lack of benefits for most employees (Lazonick, 2014;Mintzberg, 2007).…”

Section: Elitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This includes not only wages, benefits and compensation structures but also other aspects of the employee relationship such as the rise in contingent workers, part-time workers, non-unionized workers, the overall increase in employment insecurity and the distinctions between good jobs and bad jobs (Bidwell et al, 2013;Kalleberg, 2011;Osterman, 2013). These organizational practices impact employee lives in economic terms by shaping their current and future employability and career track and it is thus important to foreground their contribution to macro-inequality.…”

Section: Organizational Locus: Dimensions Of Organizational Impact Onmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bringing inequality back in: The economic inequality footprint of management and organizational practices

Riaz

2015

Human Relations

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In this article, I argue for 'bringing inequality back in' to organizational research in order to investigate the role of management and organizational practices in macro-level economic inequality. To set an agenda in this area, I suggest considering three loci where the links between organizations and inequality may be observed: the organizational locus comprising the producer/employee, investor and consumer dimensions; the interorganizational locus to help disentangle issues related to the distribution of economic rewards across value chains, large financial versus non-financial organizations, and across occupations and organizations in general; and socio-political system as a locus where issues related to social change, political influence and the institutional system may be unpacked. In addition, I suggest considering the link between organizations and inequality from other important vantage points: elites, demographics, global inequality and debt. I also briefly highlight issues related to data and analyses. Throughout, I discuss the contributions of the five articles in the special issue and how they push us towards this agenda. Finally, I suggest that it may be helpful to think of an 'inequality footprint' of management and organizational practices, potentially leading organizations to reduce and reverse this footprint and ensure that economic benefits reach wider society.

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The Employment Relationship and Inequality: How and Why Changes in Employment Practices are Reshaping Rewards in Organizations

Cited by 184 publications

References 209 publications

Growing Apart: The Changing Firm-Size Wage Premium and Its Inequality Consequences

Growing Apart: The Changing Firm-Size Wage Premium and Its Inequality Consequences

Human resource management practices and voluntary turnover: a study of internal workforce and external labor market contingencies

Bringing inequality back in: The economic inequality footprint of management and organizational practices

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