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Why do employers pay seniority wages? The principal-agent theory stresses that employers might want to retain and motivate their employees by paying them a low entry wage and higher wage increases with longer tenure rather than productivity development. This contribution tests the empirical relevance of this seniority wage interpretation on the basis of German linked employer–employee panel data. It focuses on the role of works councils and unions. The theoretical hypotheses that predict a positive impact of both forms of employee participation (and their interaction) are confirmed. The chapter also gives an outlook on management options when seniority wages are no longer sustainable in the face of ageing workforces.

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.

Traditionally, hiring indefinite duration contract employees has been the dominant method used by U.S. organizations to staff their labor needs. Indefinite duration contract employees, hereafter referred to as “regular” employees, have three defining characteristics: (1) they are hired directly as employees of the organization whose work they perform; (2) the duration of the employment relationship is unspecified, with a mutual expectation that it will continue as long as it is mutually satisfactory; and (3) the employment relationship provides ongoing – as opposed to intermittent – work. When their demand for labor increases, organizations staffed exclusively by regular employees can respond by having their employees work overtime or by hiring additional regular employees. Conversely, when their demand for labor decreases, such organizations can either maintain “inventories” of excess regular employees or reduce labor inputs by laying-off or reducing the work hours of regular employees.

In this paper we use a large linked employer-employee data set on German establishments between 1993 and 2012 to investigate how the gender composition of the top layer of management affects a variety of establishment and worker outcomes. We use two different measures to identify the gender composition of the top layer based on direct survey data: the fraction of women among top managers, and the fraction of women among working proprietors. We document the following facts: (a) There is a strong negative association between the fraction of women in the top layer of management and several establishment outcomes, among them business volume, investment, total wage bill per worker, total employment, and turnover; (b) Establishments with a high fraction of women in the top layer of management are more likely to implement female-friendly policies, such as providing childcare facilities or promoting and mentoring female junior staff; (c) The fraction of women in the top layer of management is also negatively associated with employment and wages, both male and female, full-time and part-time. However, all of these associations vanish when we include establishment fixed effects and establishment-specific time trends. This reveals a substantial sorting of female managers across establishments: small and less productive establishments that invest less, pay their employees lower wages, but are more female-friendly are more likely to be led by women.

In this article the authors examine how corporate social responsibility (CSR) affects the wage policy of firms. At the first glance, one may think that socially responsible firms want to attract employees via ethical concerns and corporate culture, thereby inducing a negative link between CSR and wages. On the other side, socially responsible firms can be expected to increase wages as social entrenchment strategies.

In order to correct for potential endogeneity bias, the authors employ a simultaneous equation model (SEM) on a French data set that includes 13,186 employees.

The authors show that CSR has an ambiguous impact on corporate wage policy depending on the type of monetary incentives and employee's occupation considered.

The authors extend prior research on the CSR–wage relationship by distinguishing between different forms of monetary incentives: the base wage, total wage and premium wage. Their results draw attention to the fact that the employees' occupation do matter. The evidence confirms that the effect of CSR on the wage is not to be taken for granted: it is wage form and occupation specific.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify whether the age-productivity curve is different for low-waged and high-waged employees.

Productivity growth is decomposed at the firm level into contributions by hired, separated and staying workers. Based on a matched employer-employee database of Estonian firms from 2006 to 2014 and considering the age as well as wages of employees, a panel data model with fixed effects is constructed to show the relative productivity of each cohort of employees.

High-waged employees appeared to be relatively more productive than low-waged employees and middle-aged were more productive than young or old employees. However, the productivity difference between young and old employees was not statistically significant. The age-productivity curve of high-waged employees appeared to be flatter than that of low-waged employees. Only in knowledge intensive services were the low-waged old employees statistically significantly less productive than high-waged old employees. In the manufacturing industry, the young were more productive than in services, in knowledge intensive services the old were less productive than in traditional services.

The productivity of employees is only analysed for cohorts of employees.

Employers can be encouraged to hire older employees because old employees are shown to remain at least as productive as young employees.

The decomposition of labour productivity at the firm level is further developed, as the statistical difference between the productivity of different groups of employees is analysed.

This paper aims to explore the human resource (HR) challenges faced by hotel managers in Langkawi due to the implementation of the minimum wage order (MWO).

This study collected qualitative data from 18 managers and two owners from 19 hotels of various sizes and levels of service, including budget and boutique resorts on Langkawi Island, Malaysia. A semi-structured interview was used to ask the question “What are the challenges faced by hotel managers due to the implementation of an MWO?”

The challenges faced by the managers are: low employee productivity levels, many employees with a salary below the minimum wage rate, difficulty paying staff because of low revenue and conflicting laws and guidelines relating to the issues related to the service charge.

This study provides an initial qualitative exploration of an important current legal development bearing on hotel managers in Malaysia. It provides some initial findings from Langkawi, but the findings may not represent the attitudes of hotel managers in other parts of Malaysia.

This study contributes to HR management literature by providing an insight into challenges faced by hotel managers in a developing country. To the managers, the MWO guideline is a serious challenge, as some of their employees are not productive enough to be paid at the minimum wage rate. To address the increasing labour cost, some have turned to the employment of foreign workers, whereas others have increased their casual employee numbers. These insights may serve to guide policy-makers and hotel managers in other developing countries that are planning to introduce an MWO.

For the MWO to be effective, it is crucial for the government to develop effective guidelines for its implementation and for hotel employees amongst the Langkawi community to increase their level of productivity.

The Malaysian MWO policy was introduced in 2012. The policy affects employees’ remuneration and provides a challenge in implementation for the Malaysian hotel industry, especially in Langkawi. Although many studies on MWO implementation have focused on unemployment, this study provides the managers’ perspective on the challenges faced due to the implementation of this policy and identifies reasons why the unemployment rate for local workers may increase after the implementation of an MWO.

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.

On‐the‐job training has a large positive effect on wages for employees in Sweden, and employees in jobs that require long on‐the‐job training earn significantly more than workers in jobs with short training requirements. The effects of training are large for recently hired and low for senior employees. There are significant wage effects of general and specific on‐the‐job training, and the effect is significantly larger for general training. Separate estimates for the public and private sectors show significant effects of specific training only for public‐sector employees and large effects of general training for private‐sector employees. The results suggest that the distinction between general and specific training matters, that firms are willing to pay for general training and that there is heterogeneity in the returns to these forms of training.

Efficiency of a commercial bank affects both its competitiveness and the role it plays in the process of economic development. Although great efforts have been exerted in developing the various aspects of banking efficiency, there seems to be a lack of research on examining the impact of the bank efficiency from the employee wage perspective. The mechanism of how employee wage affects commercial bank efficiency and the relationship between the two were analyzed in this paper. Based on the growing body of research on efficiency in banking, the aim of this paper is to examine if competitiveness of employee wages at any commercial bank has any impact on the bank efficiency score.

The method used was quantitative analysis, which was based on comparing the evaluated efficiencies of the banks with employee wages published in the bank reports. The empirical data in this paper were based on 16 Chinese listed commercial banks from 2004 to 2012. The per capita wage of commercial banks was selected as the wage indicator, and the efficiency value obtained by the slack-based measure (SBM) model was selected as the efficiency indicator. According to the calculated data, the Tobit regression model was built to analyze the relationship between employee wage and commercial bank efficiency.

The research results show that employee wage is the key variable that influences the efficiency of Chinese commercial banks, and the inverted U-shaped relationship between employee wage and commercial banks efficiency shows up.

The wage structure data of the composition of basic pay and bonus were not available at the time of conducting the research. Per capita wages were used instead to reflect the employee wage levels of Chinese banks.

This study can provide some help for the banking industry by analyzing the wage levels from the perspective of efficiency and also further enriches the theoretical system of the relationship between employee wage and bank efficiency.