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The paper aims to introduce the special issue of IJM, a collection of papers that were originally presented at the 88^th Applied Econometrics Association Conference.

Provides a general outline of the focus of the issue.

The conference papers aimed to stimulate discussion on the “Econometrics of labour demand”. They focus on aspects of HRM, including incentive pay schemes, job satisfaction, promotion and social concerns.

The paper outlines the development of personnel economics over the past 25 years and introduces the papers in the special issue of IJM.

The purpose of this paper is to present a coherence analysis to evaluate the resilience for a critical infrastructure (CI). This is the new way to evaluate the CI and demonstrate that the authors need to pass from the protection towards resilience.

The authors use two approaches for this research. First is a consequence-based approach to evaluate the resilience. This approach has been used many times for evaluating the interdependencies between CIs. The second is a systemic approach to characterize the system and doing the coherence analysis.

This paper presents a methodology to evaluate the coherence in a context of CIs protection. The coherence analysis in resilience is a new concept and the first result to the application seems very good for the user of the research.

The originality of this paper is the coherence analysis applied to a resilience evaluation. The criteria for coherence analysis is innovative and it is a new way to consider the resilience and the relation between an organization and it is partners. Another value is the need for a wider scope in the analysis of hazards and how to address them that includes the infrastructure system itself, but also other related organizations and infrastructure systems.

The purpose of this paper is to present a review of recent risk management literature applied to projects, programs and project portfolios performed inside an organization with the aim of finding areas of opportunity to continue research and the development of current guides and methodologies.

The paper uses a review of recent literature published by international organizations and journals specializing in the field of project, programs, and portfolios.

The review shows that project risk management is a well developed domain in comparison to the program risk management and portfolio risk management fields, for which specifically written methodologies are difficult to find. The review also demonstrates the need to include better tools to perform a continuous control and monitoring process. Integrating a vulnerability approach is also necessary in order to consider the project, program or portfolio characteristics which mediate between consequences and the exposure to hazards and opportunities.

The review does not consider white papers or popular media.

The limitations found in current risk management methodologies show the challenges researchers must undertake to continue improving this domain for projects performed inside an organization. The paper exhibits the areas of opportunity where methodologies and guides can be further improved to evolve towards better management structures.

The purpose of this paper is to show the evolution of the concept “state of preparedness” into “state of resilience” in the context of emergency management, and the implications raised by this new concept.

This paper is a literature review (scientific and governmental) of the most important articles in the field of state of preparedness evaluation.

This article presents two trends in the state of preparedness evaluation: response capability and preparation management. These two trends contribute to the evolution of the concept “state of preparedness” into “state of resilience”, a state that is defined as the ability of a system to maintain or restore an acceptable level of functioning despite disruptions and failures.

This literature review helps define the concept of “state of preparedness” (in terms of both management and response capability) as the new trend of resilience.

This paper aims to estimate whether human resource (HR) practices influence labour demand dynamics behaviour.

Groups practices in terms of employees satisfaction and work organisation, financial incentives and individual's career perspectives, and explains how they may influence labour productivity and cost. Considering five HR variables, estimates two specifications of labour demand dynamics, under production constrained by demand or monopolistic competition regimes. Applies the two‐step GMM estimator proposed by Blundell and Bond to a balanced panel of 452 Belgian firms observed during the period 1998‐2002.

In the complete monopolistic competition specification, estimates a positive one lag relation explaining labour demand by average training hours combined with an indicator of well‐being of workers, the fact that they are engaged in long term contracts and stay in firms. Some evidence therefore seems to show that some combined HR practices can improve labour demand.

Provides information on whether HR practices influence labour demand dynamics in a Belgian context.

This paper analyses the magnitude and sources of the firm‐size wage premium in the Belgian private sector.

Using a unique matched employer‐employee data set, our empirical strategy is based on the estimation of a standard Mincer wage equation. We regress individual gross hourly wages (including bonuses) on the log of firm‐size and insert step by step control variables in order to test the validity of various theoretical explanations.

Results show the existence of a significant and positive firm‐size wage premium, even when controlling for many individual characteristics and working conditions. A substantial part of this wage premium derives from the sectoral affiliation of the firms. It is also partly due to the higher productivity and stability of the workforce in large firms. Yet, findings do not support the hypothesis that large firms match high skilled workers together. Finally, results indicate that the elasticity between wages and firm‐size is significantly larger for white‐collar workers and comparable in the manufacturing and the service sectors.

Unfortunately, we are not able to control for the potential non‐random sorting process of workers across firms of different sizes.

This paper is one of the few to test the empirical validity of recent hypotheses (e.g. productivity, job stability and matching of high skilled workers). It is also the first to analyse the firm‐size wage premium in the Belgian private sector.

To investigate whether significant differences exist in job satisfaction (JS) between individuals receiving performance‐related pay (PRP) and those on alternative compensation plans.

Using data from four waves (1998‐2001) of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), a Heckman‐type econometric procedure is applied that corrects for both self‐selection of individuals into their preferred compensation scheme and the endogeneity of wages in a JS framework.

It is found that while the predicted JS of workers receiving PRP is lower on average compared to those on other pay schemes, PRP exerts a positive effect on the mean JS of (very) high‐paid workers. A potential explanation for this pattern could be that for lower‐paid employees PRP is perceived to be controlling, whereas higher‐paid workers derive a utility benefit from what they view as supportive reward schemes.

As the study utilises data from the UK only, its results cannot be generalized to other countries characterized by distinct labour market contexts. Furthermore, the quality of the estimates depends on the quality of the identifying restrictions which, in these types of studies, are always somewhat ad hoc. However, the available tests for evaluating the quality of the identifying restrictions indicated that they are appropriate for the models used.

The findings of the paper suggest that using performance pay as an incentive device in the UK could prove to be counterproductive in the long run for certain low‐paid occupations, as far as employee JS is concerned.

This paper is the first to have attempted to correct for the selectivity issue when considering the effect of PRP on JS. Its implications should be of interest to human resource managers when designing the compensation strategies of their organizations.

To analyse two important effects of the level of social concern in the firm. First, the effect on the labour force composition, i.e. do particular types of concerns attract certain kinds of employees? Second, the effect on the wage level within the firm, i.e. do firm‐provided social concerns substitute for money wages, or are they provided as an additional compensation?

Empirical analysis using a survey on more than 2,000 firms, linked to administrative data for each employee in the firms. Estimates wage equations using the IV approach to deal with endogeneity of the level of social concerns. Two competing theories aiming to explain the use of social concerns toward employees, the compensating wage differential theory and corporate social responsibility, are compared.

Finds indications in favour of the compensating wage differential theory when looking at wage effects at the firm level, whereas looking at the target group level finds that white‐collar workers might experience higher levels of social concerns without having lower wages, which contrast the theory of compensating wage differentials.

The paper compare two well‐established theories within two different disciplines – the compensating wage differential theory from economics, and CSR from management. This is done using solid empirical analysis.

To analyse productivity effects of performance‐related pay (PRP).

Fixed effect analysis of the productivity effects of the introduction of PRP scheme using linked employer‐employee data from Finland in 1996‐2002 and controlling for the skill structure of the employees.

PRP improves both productivity and profitability by the same magnitude of around 6 per cent, but only if the compensations are substantial enough and exceeding on average 3.6 per cent of salaries for those who receive it. Incentive effects relate to the introduction of PRP, usually accompanied by new human resource management. PRP in Finland cannot, however, be directly linked to an increase in participation of employees in decision‐making. PRP schemes have substantially improved firm performance without creating much wage pressures.

Useful information for the implementation and design of incentive‐based wage schemes.

Very few papers using large data sets have information on exact PRP payments that are separate from bonus pay or piece wages.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the factors that influence promotions of medical staff from registrar to consultant in the Scottish NHS.

The paper addresses the question of what determines the incidence of promotion, concentrating on the impact of experience, effort and the choice of specialty in promotion outcomes. A unique panel data set is used that contains individual level information on all NHS hospital doctors in Scotland from 1991 to 2000. Probabilities of promotion are decomposed by specialty into the part attributable to the mean characteristics of the doctors in each specialty and the effect of belonging to a specialty itself.

The paper estimates a panel model of promotion and identifies specialty effects on promotion. Effort in the two years before promotion is shown to have an influence on promotion probabilities. Specialties are found to exhibit considerable differences in their rate of promotion over and above the differences explained by the characteristics of the doctors in them.

The paper examines the promotion of medical staff from registrar to consultant in the Scottish NHS during the 1990s. The paper concentrates on the impact of experience, effort and medical specialty on the probability of promotion.