Worker Reciprocity and Employer Investment in Training

Leuven, Edwin; Oosterbeek, Hessel; Sloof, Randolph; Klaveren, Chris van

doi:10.1111/j.0013-0427.2005.00405.x

Cited by 53 publications

(56 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…There is of course no guarantee that this is the case. 13 In a related paper, Leuven et al (2004) showed that worker reciprocity can play a similar role as firm reputation in improving investment incentives for the other (investing) party.…”

Section: Hold-upmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Economics of Private Sector Training: A Survey of the Literature

2005

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Section: Hold-upmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Economics of Private Sector Training: A Survey of the Literature

2005

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“…12 Leuven et al (2005) are among the first investigators to introduce reciprocity in the empirical training literature. They base their definition of reciprocity on that of Fehr and Gächter (2000), who define it as an individual's response to a friendly action as "frequently much nicer and much more cooperative than predicted by the self-interested model" (p.…”

Section: Iib Personality Traits and Training Participationmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Employability-miles’ and worker employability awareness

2014

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu This article studies the use and impact of a firm-sponsored training ("Employability-miles") voucher scheme that aims to stimulate employees to develop a more active attitude toward their own employability. Using data from two surveys of the firm's workforce, we find that voucher use is related to various personality traits and personal characteristics. In particular, a worker's ambition, goal setting, and education level are positively related to voucher use. In addition, women and those with longer tenure spend their vouchers more often. Conversely, workers with a more positive self-image as well as those who are negatively reciprocal spend their vouchers less often. The negative relation between voucher use and negative reciprocity suggests that workers who are more negatively reciprocal perceive the voucher as an HR tool for outplacement. Further, we find that voucher use positively affects worker employability awareness and willingness to train. Remarkably, participation in non-voucher training shows little relation to personality traits. From a human resources perspective, this finding suggests that by employing a voucher scheme, the firm makes training participation more dependent on employee personality and individual characteristics instead of the human resources development strategy of the firm. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SJEL Classification: J24, M53

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“…In particular, Leuven et al (2005) showed that positive reciprocal inclinations of employees are critical to explaining why employers are willing to provide firm-specific as well as general training to their employees. 25 Their argument is that training positively affects the knowledge, skills and productivity of individual employees, who may therefore perceive the willingness of their employer to offer training opportunities and to pay for both firm-specific and general training as a gift, or as a signal of attention and recognition by the employer, for which they first take the arithmetic average of a respondent's answers to these three questions, and compute the sample median value.…”

Section: Positive Reciprocitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The role of reciprocal behavior by employees in relation to the human capital investments by their employer, however, is a relatively unexplored topic. A notable exception is Leuven et al (2005), who applied a gift-exchange framework to explain why employers are willing to provide both firm-specific and general training to their employees. Their argument is similar to that of the efficiency-wage literature, which predicts that higher effort levels can be achieved when employers pay wages above the market-clearing wage (Akerlof, 1982).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Training Access, Reciprocity and Expected Retirement Age

2014

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu This paper investigates whether employers can induce employees to postpone retirement by offering access to training courses that maintain job proficiency. We use unique, matched employer-employee surveys for the Dutch public sector, which include detailed information on a wide range of HR practices applied in the organization, as well as the expected retirement age of its employees. We find that training policies, as reported by employers, are significantly positively related to employee expected retirement age, irrespective of whether employees actually participate in training. We show that this positive relationship is driven by employees' positive reciprocal inclinations, indicating that provision of training may serve as a tool to motivate older employees in their job and consequently to retire later. The provision of training access may therefore complement existing pension reforms in many industrialized countries that aim to increase labor-force participation of older workers. Robustness analyses indicate that the relationship between offering training access and expected age of retirement is unlikely to be driven by reverse causality, self-selection, or the presence of other organizational characteristics. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SJEL Classification: J24, J31, I2

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Worker Reciprocity and Employer Investment in Training

Cited by 53 publications

References 23 publications

The Economics of Private Sector Training: A Survey of the Literature

The Economics of Private Sector Training: A Survey of the Literature

‘Employability-miles’ and worker employability awareness

Training Access, Reciprocity and Expected Retirement Age

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