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11 – 20 of over 3000This paper presents the second-generation estimates for the Italian engineering industry in 1911, a year documented both by the customary demographic census, and the first…
Abstract
This paper presents the second-generation estimates for the Italian engineering industry in 1911, a year documented both by the customary demographic census, and the first industrial census. The first part of this paper uses the census data to estimate the industry’s value added, sector by sector; the second further disaggregates each sector by activity, and estimates the value added, employment, physical product, and metal consumption of each one. A third, concluding section dwells on the dependence of cross-section estimates on time-series evidence. Three appendices detail the specific algorithms that generate the present estimates; a fourth, a useful sample of firm-specific data.
Stephen G. Bronars, Melissa Famulari, Paul Bingley and Niels Westergard-Nielsen
Tiina Saari and Tuija Koivunen
This study aims to analyse the role of tacit knowledge in fulfilling employees’ side of the psychological contract in blue-collar work.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyse the role of tacit knowledge in fulfilling employees’ side of the psychological contract in blue-collar work.
Design/methodology/approach
The research questions are as follows: How is tacit knowledge acquired in blue-collar work and how do blue-collar workers use tacit knowledge to fulfil their obligations within the psychological contract? This qualitative study comprising 30 interviews uses theory-led content analysis.
Findings
Blue-collar workers need time and experience to acquire tacit knowledge. An important aspect of tacit knowledge is knowing the ways in which the work is best done in practice and seeking better ways of doing the job. Workers use their tacit knowledge to perform their work well and efficiently, even in problematic situations, and to improve their work to fulfil their side of the psychological contract.
Practical implications
Organisations should see the value of the tacit knowledge blue-collar workers possess and develop actions that involve the workers in sharing their tacit knowledge and also in planning the actions related to this knowledge sharing.
Originality/value
This study adds to the limited body of studies on the relationship between tacit knowledge and the psychological contract.
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Carlo Dell′Aringa and Claudio Lucifora
Existing research concerning the impact of unions on relative wagesprovides evidence for the existence of significant union/non‐union wagedifferentials. However, union practices…
Abstract
Existing research concerning the impact of unions on relative wages provides evidence for the existence of significant union/non‐union wage differentials. However, union practices are deemed to have a more pervasive effect on the overall distribution of wages, reducing wage differentials across and within establishments. Attempts to explore union effects on wage dispersion in the context of the Italian labour market. Several indicators of wage dispersion are computed, using both industry and establishment level data, in the attempt to ascertain the different routes through which union presence affects the structure of wages. The empirical evidence shows that Italian trade unions have pursued “egalitarian” objectives and have succeeded in shaping pay policies which, through central and local negotiations, raise low wages and reduce wage differentials both among skill categories and across establishments.
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The role and contributions of blue and gray collar employees in strategy making in practice are generally ignored, and left out of scientific inquiry. However, the authors argue…
Abstract
The role and contributions of blue and gray collar employees in strategy making in practice are generally ignored, and left out of scientific inquiry. However, the authors argue that they are “hidden actors” in the strategy making process, and “silent heroes” of the strategy. Their participative role is generally seen limited to operational phases of strategy. Nevertheless, recent literatures have fruitful implications on blue and gray collars workers’ contributions in formulation phase. Upper echelon (Hambrick, 1987; Hambrick & Mason, 1984) and strategy as practice (SAP) literatures (Jarzabkowski & Spee, 2009; Whittington, 2006) are suggested to be closely scrutinized since the former has incorporated the middle- and low-level teams of management in the explanation (Carpenter, Geletkancz, & Sanders, 2004), and the latter takes “practice” as a prominent research perspective, and thus enable us to approach strategy phenomena from a wider context of practitioners, practices, and praxis (Jarzabkowski, Balogun, & Seidl, 2007; Jarzabkowski & Wilson, 2002). Overall, this chapter suggests that future studies could question the hidden assumptions behind strategy approaches to trace the assumed image and role of blue and gray collars in strategy making, and go further to integrate their deserved role in strategy process, content, context, and cognition.
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The authors wanted to find out if workers' values had changed compared with previous generations. This is a vital issues for HRM departments who need to know how to keep their…
Abstract
Purpose
The authors wanted to find out if workers' values had changed compared with previous generations. This is a vital issues for HRM departments who need to know how to keep their workers from moving elsewhere.
Design/methodology/approach
The author conducted semi-structured interviews into the work values of Chinese blue-collar workers. The interviewees were 25 employees at German multinationals in the auto-making industry in Shanghai. There were 17 blue-collar workers and eight white-collar managers. The blue-collar interviews focused on personal demographics, perceptions of the job and company, attitude toward work, goals in life, main reasons to quit and incentives offered to stay. The white-collar interviews were more focused on managerial issues.
Findings
The authors concluded that HRM systems should be adapted to meet the preferences of the employees. Companies needed to take into account the value changes of blue-collar Chinese workers. Interviewee comments also revealed that, although pay was still important, career development had become more significant for some workers.
Originality/value
The author said her paper could help talent managers to get the best out of their employees. In particular, if HRM processes were improved it would reduce voluntary employee turnover, a major problem for employers.
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Anna Siukola, Clas‐Håkan Nygård and Pekka Virtanen
The purpose of this paper is to focus on the associations of employees’ attitudes and human resource arrangements to sickness absence from the perspective of absence culture and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to focus on the associations of employees’ attitudes and human resource arrangements to sickness absence from the perspective of absence culture and work ability.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was conducted in one of the largest food industry companies in Finland. Sickness absence register data were obtained from the years 2003 to 2005 and a survey from 2005. This survey included single propositions about work arrangements (five propositions) and attitudes (three propositions) during sickness absence. These were analysed by absence days and short (1‐7 days) and long spells (>7 days).
Findings
The attitude of blue‐collar workers who agreed that it is a matter of course that someone is absent was statistically significant regarding sickness absence. They had increased risk for sickness absence days and for short spells. From work arrangements during absence the fact that jobs will wait returning to the workplace decreased the risk for short and long sickness absence spells in both groups. In addition, the fact that the employer will take a substitute during workmates’ absence increased the risk for all measured sickness absence rates among white‐collar workers.
Practical implications
These findings should be noted in enterprises’ human resource management and occupational health services to manage and understand sickness absence.
Originality/value
Although sickness absence has been widely studied, very little is known about sickness absence related work arrangements and attitudes associated with sickness absence. This study increases knowledge about these issues.
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To establish the differences between the perceptions of white‐collar managers and blue‐collar workers with respect to the factors that affect construction labour productivity, and…
Abstract
Purpose
To establish the differences between the perceptions of white‐collar managers and blue‐collar workers with respect to the factors that affect construction labour productivity, and to show that integrating the differences could lead to productivity improvements.
Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire survey administered to a purposive sample of 400 project managers and a convenience sample of 152 construction workers, eliciting current trends of their perceptions towards 59 factors that were extracted from an extensive literature review and exploratory study. This was followed by the identification of good practice examples from site observations across two project sites.
Findings
The study found distinct differences between the two groups, with white‐collar managers being more concerned with resource planning issues and the blue‐collar workers placing more value on the utilisation of resources. Furthermore, the site observations demonstrated that integrating these differences through employee involvement could lead to productivity improvements.
Originality/value
The study should extend previous productivity research, which had hitherto focussed on shorter‐term work content and work environment factors from a managerial perspective, with relatively lesser focus on the perspective of the general workforce.
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Filipe Almeida-Santos, Yekaterina Chzhen and Karen Mumford
We use household panel data to explore the wage returns associated with training incidence and intensity (duration) for British employees. We find these returns differ depending…
Abstract
We use household panel data to explore the wage returns associated with training incidence and intensity (duration) for British employees. We find these returns differ depending on the nature of the training, who funds the training, the skill levels of the recipient (white- or blue-collar), the age of the employee and if the training is with the current employer or not. Using decomposition analysis, training is found to be positively associated with wage dispersion: a virtuous circle of wage gains and training exists in Britain but only for white-collar employees.
This paper is the first to present empirical evidence consistent with models of signaling through unemployment and to uncover a new stylized fact using the 1988–2006 Displaced…
Abstract
This paper is the first to present empirical evidence consistent with models of signaling through unemployment and to uncover a new stylized fact using the 1988–2006 Displaced Worker Supplement (DWS) of the Current Population Survey (CPS), namely that, among white-collar workers, post-displacement earnings fall less rapidly with unemployment spells for layoffs than for plant closings. Because high-productivity workers are more likely to be recalled than low-productivity ones, they may choose to signal their productivity though unemployment, in which case the duration of unemployment may be positively related to post-displacement wages. Identification is done using workers whose plant closed as they cannot be recalled, and no incentives to signal arise.
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