What Determines Job Quality in Nursing Homes?

Low-autonomy work and bad jobs in postfordist capitalism

“…Hunter, 2000;Appelbaum and Schmitt, 2009). Such institutional analyses have generated critical insights on job quality and labor market outcomes, but they remain highly descriptive and there has been little attempt to develop theoretical analysis of how disparate trends in job quality -including ongoing structural demand for lowautonomy labor -may be understood as part of the systematic, institutional transformation of capitalism.…”

The Structural Contexts of Low-Wage Work: Restaurant Employment Practices Across Firm Geography, Size, and Ownership Status

“…Through corporate relationships, chain-associated establishments have access to greater resources than their independent competitors, including economies of scale when negotiating and purchasing employee fringe benefits (reviewed in Haley-Lock & Kruzich, 2008). Consistent with this account, Hunter (2000) and Haley-Lock and Kruzich (2008) found that chain-owned long-term care facilities provided better wages and health care benefits than their independent peers. Similarly, NcNabb and Whitfield (2000) reported that establishments that are part of large organizations on average pay better than single businesses.…”

“…As documented by a range of past studies but not examined here, firms' strategies for market differentiation-for example by offering a high-quality versus low-cost product-may explain some of the divergence in employer practices (Batt, 2000;Hunter, 2000). Local labor market conditions, examined in U.S. Census data primarily for purposes of creating the sample, may also have been more influential over employer practices than accounted for here.…”

“…Evidence for such variation runs contrary to classical segmented labor market arguments suggesting that lower-level jobs at the periphery of the labor market are of uniformly poor quality. Rather, a position as cashier, housekeeper, or nursing aide can be notably better at one firm than another; further, employers often establish better and worse versions of the same position title within a given firm (Batt, 2000;Bernhardt, Dresser, & Hatton, 2003;Carre, Tilly, & Holgate, 2008;Hunter, 2000;Lambert & Haley-Lock, 2004;Zuberi, 2006).…”

Understanding Employers’ Use of Labor Market Intermediaries in Filling Low-Level Jobs: Attracting Retainable Employees or Replenishing High-Turnover Jobs?

“…Recent research reveals substantial variation in the quality of low-level jobs in terms of hours and schedule stability, wages, and opportunities for advancement (Appelbaum, Berb, Frost, & Preuss, 2003;Henly, Shaefer, & Waxman, 2006;Hunter, 2000;Iversen, 1995;Johnson & Corcoran, 2003;Waxman, Hunter et al (2001) argued that though the ways in which HR managers address these difficult and often-contradictory goals are shaped by intraorganizational politics and the distribution of power inside firms, HR managers enjoy a degree of agency in implementing corporate directives. Thus, beyond business strategy and job quality, HR managers may vary in the ways they work with LMIs.…”