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Up to date, it remains an unresolved issue how firms shape inequality in interaction with mechanisms of stratification at the individual and occupational-level. Accordingly, the authors ask whether workers of different occupational classes are affected to different degrees by between-firm wage inequality. In light of the recent rise of overall wage inequality, answers to this question can contribute to a better understanding of the role firms play in this development. The authors argue and empirically test that whether workers are able to benefit from firms’ internal or external strategies for flexibility depends on resources available at the individual and occupational level. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Matched employer-employee data from official German labour market statistics are used to estimate firm-specific wage components, which are then regressed on structural characteristics of firms.

Between-firm wage effects of internal labour markets are largest among unskilled workers and strongly pronounced among qualified manual workers. Effects are clearly smaller among classes of qualified and high-qualified non-manual workers but have risen sharply for the latter class from 2005 to 2010.

The most disadvantaged workers in the labour market are also most contingent upon employers’ increasingly heterogeneous policies of recruitment and remuneration.

This paper combines insights from sociological and economic labour market research in order to formulate and test the new hypothesis that between-firm wage effects of internal labour markets are larger for unskilled than for qualified workers.

Aims to extend internal labour market theory by identifying sub‐markets that influence administrative staffing decisions, and to test a theoretical model regarding the role of sub‐markets in explaining decisions to hire or promote. Hypothesizes that two latent dimensions (hierarchical and functional) of labour markets would explain these decisions. Analyses data from personnel records for position vacancies in a major university for three years 1982‐85 (n = 840), and confirms the fit of the theoretical model. Staffing decisions are directly influenced by characteristics associated with the sub‐markets of the position.

This paper analyses the effects of both training and overeducation on upward mobility in the internal labour market, the professional market and the “supplementary labour market”. The latter segment can be considered as a broadly defined secondary labour market as it is not restricted to the low‐level unskilled jobs only. This broader definition – also found in initial segmentation theory – allows for the changed character of the secondary labour market in the industrialized countries. As expected, “career training” influences upward mobility positively. However, contrary to the predictions of segmentation theory, particularly in the supplementary labour market career training is a means of gaining promotion to a higher level job. Overeducation also affects upward mobility positively, which indicates that overeducation is to some extent a temporary phenomenon at the individual level. However, this also holds in particular in the supplementary segment of the labour market. The estimation results show that the supplementary labour market is less of a dead end than the segmentation theory predicts and is a more valuable place to get training than has been recognized. The supplementary market probably plays an important role in the transition process between initial education and the labour market. Although workers may be initially overeducated in their first jobs, a supplementary segment job could be an attractive step towards reaching a more suitable position in the labour market.

This article is principally a case study establishing the existence of an internal labour market in British Rail, and its significance for the long‐term wage structure. Drawing on the work of Doeringer and Piore it outlines the advantages that internal labour markets would be expected to offer both employers and employees, and the implications which these have for the process of wage determination. It briefly reviews previous case studies supporting the importance of the role of comparisons, both internal and external, in wage bargaining; and then turns to the study of British Rail. Finding the characteristics expected of an internal labour market, it then establishes that the wage structure of the industry has demonstrated a considerable degree of stability over the period 1950‐85, despite considerable changes in relative productivities. This degree of consistency is regarded as being difficult to reconcile with the dominance of market forces in wage determination.

In recent years a considerable amount of work has been done in Britain and America utilising dual labour market theory. In America, the ideas of Doeringer and Piore have been taken up by radical economists such as Edwards and Bluestone, while in Britain a group of Cambridge economists have also been seeking to develop the theory. These studies have all retained the basic duality incorporated in the theory by Doeringer and Piore. Moreover, the work of Barron and Norris, Bosanquet and Doeringer and Blackburn and Mann has provided some qualified empirical support to the notion of two separate labour markets.

Addresses the standardization of the measurements and the labels for concepts commonly used in the study of work organizations. As a reference handbook and research tool, seeks to improve measurement in the study of work organizations and to facilitate the teaching of introductory courses in this subject. Focuses solely on work organizations, that is, social systems in which members work for money. Defines measurement and distinguishes four levels: nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio. Selects specific measures on the basis of quality, diversity, simplicity and availability and evaluates each measure for its validity and reliability. Employs a set of 38 concepts ‐ ranging from “absenteeism” to “turnover” as the handbook’s frame of reference. Concludes by reviewing organizational measurement over the past 30 years and recommending future measurement reseach.

This paper analyses whether low‐skilled workers' training participation and task flexibility contribute to their firm‐internal and firm‐external mobility, and find that both training participation and task flexibility contribute only to firm‐internal employability. However, the workers' participation in training plays a much more explicit role in their firm‐internal career than their task flexibility does, as the former appears to be an important means to increase their opportunities in the firm‐internal labour market. Neither the low‐skilled workers' participation in training nor their task flexibility contributes to their external employability. Task‐flexible, low‐skilled workers are less likely to expect to be externally employable than non‐task flexible workers are. The focus of the low‐skilled workers on their firm‐internal employability can be explained by the fact that such workers usually have more opportunities to improve their position in the firm‐internal labour market than in the external labour market.

The use of internal (intra‐organizational) or external (inter‐organizational) labor markets in men and women’s past employment is examined here as an explanation for differences in turnover behavior. A sample of 700 employees from eight medical organizations in seven labor markets was used to assess the importance of previous internal and external shifts and organizational level opportunities on men’s and women’s present job change choices. Women’s job changes were more affected by previous intra‐organizational moves, whereas men’s job changes were increased by previous inter‐organizational moves. These results suggest that gender differences in job shifts are due to women’s greater reliance on internal labor markets.

In neo‐classical economic theory labour is a commodity and the ultimate value of the employer's services is determined by the sales value of the product of these services: the cost of supply reflects both the disutility of work for the recruit and his equalisation of net advantages between jobs. For modern labour economists the assumption that entrepreneurs require identical inputs of labour and the new recruits will therefore possess similar skills (the conditions of free competition) is an unrealistic one. Hence segmental labour market theory has grown out of the need to explain differences between shared needs and commonalities within each group of consumers (employers) on the one hand and suppliers (employees) on the other. In this way it has been possible to carry on assuming the existence of perfect competition on both sides of the market within the boundaries of labour markets thus defined.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.