When Bigger is Better: Differences in the Individual-Level Effect of Firm and Establishment Size

Villemez, Wayne J.; Bridges, William P.

doi:10.2307/2095690

Cited by 78 publications

(65 citation statements)

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“…Second and relatedly, sociological inquiry has long been directed toward studying how firm size affects stratification outcomes (e.g., Blau and Schoenherr 1971;Kalleberg and Van Buren 1996;Villemez and Bridges 1988). We continue that tradition by analyzing how changes in the FSWE may differ across the wage distribution and linking these differential changes to rising wage inequality.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…For instance, firm size is positively correlated with organizational complexity, formalization, vertical differentiation, and diversification (Blau and Schoenherr 1971;Child 1972;Kalleberg and Van Buren 1994;Kimberly 1976), and has been found to have a profound effect on the organization of work (see Baron and Bielby 1984). In fact, firm size is the organizational characteristic most frequently used in studies of stratification (Kalleberg and Van Buren 1996;Villemez and Bridges 1988). The attention to firm size in studies of stratification has occurred, in part, because research on employment and compensation has consistently found that otherwise identical workers earn more when working for large firms.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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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: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Cobb

Lin

2017

Organization Science

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“…Despite the anticipated importance of this variable, its expected effect is ambiguous. Villemez and Bridges (1988) found that a curvilinear relationship exists between rm size and authority attainment among minorities, but larger organizations may also bring with them greater amounts of sex and race segregation on the job (Bielby and Baron 1986). We use a logarithmic transformation (natural log) of establishment size, measured in number of employees, with the expectation that its effect on supervisor-subordinate matching is nonlinear.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethnic Matching of Supervisors to Subordinate Work Groups: Findings on "Bottom-up" Ascription and Social Closure

Elliott¹,

Smith²

2001

Social Problems

101

105

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Research on minority authority attainment tends to stress top-down processes of social closure, whereby the dominant social group produces and preserves positions of power and in uence byOne explanation for why racial and ethnic minorities are relatively unlikely to occupy positions of authority in U.S. workplaces is that, like all groups, those in power tend to prefer others like themselves, especially when relations of trust are at stake (Baron and Pfeffer 1994;Kanter 1977; Pfeffer and Salancik 1978:146;Salancik and Pfeffer 1978). Because whites have historically been the primary decision makers in organizations, they bene t most from this ingroup preference, leaving minorities under-represented in positions of authority. Kanter (1977) refers to this process as "homosocial reproduction," whereby the group in charge reproduces its ascriptive characteristics in those they select to join them (see also, Bergmann 1986; Brewer and Brown 1998:567).While we do not dispute this "top-down" process of ascription, we believe that it is incomplete, especially when it comes to understanding opportunities for minority authority attainment. In addition to top-down ascription, we believe that pressures for "bottom-up" ascription also play a key role, whereby the race and ethnicity of lower-level supervisors are matched to the numerically dominant race and ethnicity of their subordinates. As a result, blacks are much more likely to gain authority over largely black work groups; Latinos are much more likely to gain authority over largely Latino work groups; and so forth. In drawing attention to this process, we do not claim that top-down ascription is unimportant, but rather that pressures for bottom-up ascription push against it to shape when and where authority opportunities are likely to arise for minority workers.Data for this analysis come primarily from the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality (MCSUI) and are available from the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan. Direct all correspondence to: James R. Elliott, Department of Sociology, 220 Newcomb Hall, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118. E-mail: jre@tulane.edu. Ethnic Matching 259Broadly speaking, our objectives in advancing this argument are twofold. First, we wish to provide further intellectual support to the idea that labor market opportunities depend not just on individual human capital, but also on group membership. In other words, we advocate a contextual approach to understanding social mobility in which the causal dynamics of authority attainment are embedded in group composition. Second, we wish to provide a corrective to the traditional assumption, based on identity theory and truncated interpretations of homosocial reproduction, that elites only reproduce themselves. We argue that the closer one gets to elite status, the more powerful forces of top-down ascription become, but that forces of bottom-up ascription can also be very powerful at lower levels of work organization, where out-group ...

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“…Based on a much larger dataset and a more rigorous methodology than had been used before, they found that the effect of schooling does not vary systematically by establishment size. In addition, Villemez and Bridges (1988) employed a matched employer-employee dataset to investigate the linkage between organizational size and individual earnings and found the situation to be quite complicated, rather than straightforward. According to their findings, size effect varies by gender, occupation, and industry group and is differentially mediated by internal labor markets, literacy requirements, and unionization.…”

Section: Organization Size and Economic Stratificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Organization size and economic stratification in urban China: 1996–2006

Jun

2015

J. Chin. Sociol.

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A well-documented finding in social stratification research is that employees in larger work organizations earn more than those in smaller ones. This research first extends the institutional context of this topic from the typical market economy to transitional China. Mainly using two sets of nationally representative survey data, the research examines the changing pattern of size-earnings relation from 1996 to 2006. Results show that a significant size-earnings premium also exists in urban China and that it doubled during this 10-year period. Moreover, individual and organizational characteristics played contrasting roles in explaining the observed size-earnings relationship. Specifically, individual characteristics had no impact on the size effect in 1996 but did reduce it in 2006; on the contrary, organizational characteristics partly explain the size effect in 1996 but not in 2006. These findings are explained as the results of increasing labor mobility and a declining redistributive mechanism during this period, thus suggesting the development of China's urban labor market.

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When Bigger is Better: Differences in the Individual-Level Effect of Firm and Establishment Size

Cited by 78 publications

References 23 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

Ethnic Matching of Supervisors to Subordinate Work Groups: Findings on "Bottom-up" Ascription and Social Closure

Organization size and economic stratification in urban China: 1996–2006

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