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This paper aims to examine the impact of the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA). It is expected that returns would have increased in response to the law’s passage, as it imposed a number of restrictions on unions vis-à-vis management and instituted many rules regulating unions’ internal affairs.

This paper uses event study methodology, which examines the impact of the law’s passage on the shareholder returns to the firms likely to have been affected by the law. Three different samples are used. Shareholder returns are examined on critical dates associated with the passage of the law to assess whether it benefited the firms in the samples.

Shareholder returns to firms expected to have been affected by the LMRDA fell in comparison to their competitors’ returns, indicating that the law was viewed by investors as being beneficial for firms. Presumably, the restrictions the law placed on unions were judged to be more important by investors than the improvement in unions’ image that might have resulted from the law, indicating that the law benefitted firms.

This is the first paper that has examined the impact of the LMRDA empirically to assess its impact on firms.

The market’s reactions to six decisions that dealt with the employment‐at‐will doctrine were examined with event study methodology. Three hypotheses were tested, all three of which were supported clearly by the data. Shareholder returns to a sample of California firms fell in response to the three California decisions that provided at‐will employees with causes of action to challenge their discharges; returns to those same firms rose in response to the Foley decision, which cut back on the employment‐at‐will erosions in California; and, returns to a sample of firms in New York rose in response to the two decisions from New York that affirmed the supremacy of the employment‐at‐will doctrine in New York. These results support the view that employment‐at‐will is beneficial for employers and that erosions to that doctrine are costly to employers.

The long-debated impact of right-to-work (RTW) laws took on more urgency with the passage of RTW in additional states in the twenty-first century. The impact of RTW on shareholder wealth of corporations located in four states is evaluated here: Oklahoma (2000), Indiana (2012), Michigan (2012), and Wisconsin (2015). Event study results show that RTW had a positive effect on shareholder wealth in these states, albeit an effect that was lower in Michigan than elsewhere. We argue that this is indirect evidence in support of research indicating that RTW hinders union organizing, raises profits, and reduces nonunion employee compensation.

In 2010, the National Mediation Board (NMB) decided to base Railway Labor Act representation election outcomes on a simple majority of those voting, rather than on the majority of all eligible voters, as had been required earlier. This was widely expected to make it easier for unions to win rights to recognition in the railway and airline industries. We demonstrate that investors expected that this change would favor unions, just as they earlier had expected rule changes that made voting easier (in 2002 and 2007) to be favorable to unions, affecting stock prices of railway and airline corporations. After the 2010 change in election procedure, between 77% and 91% of all eligible employees returned ballots in NMB elections, demonstrating that a significant portion of nonvoters were not opposed to union representation, but simply were unwilling or were unable to vote. We conclude that the current voting process is fairer than the old one. However, it has not resulted in a tide of union success in these representation elections. Apparently scholars, the parties themselves, and investors all over-estimated the practical consequences of changing NMB representation election procedures.

As US firms expand into Canada, it becomes necessary for them to be aware of Canadian law governing labour and employment. Unlike what many might think, the laws in the two countries are substantially different. Further, the effects of these differences have been demonstrated empirically. Considers the differences between US and Canadian labour law in seven areas: certification procedures; first contract arbitration; new technologies; strike replacements; successorship; employee participation programmes and union security. Discusses the effects of the laws in these areas.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the market reaction to layoff announcements of union and nonunion employees.

Event study methodology was utilized to assess the effects of layoff announcements of union versus nonunion employees. The union status of the laid‐off employees was determined for 135 layoff announcements reported in the Wall Street Journal in 1993 and 1994 and shareholder returns between the two groups was compared.

Over each event period tested, the market reaction was more negative when nonunion employees were downsized than when the announcement concerned unionized employees. Over the two days surrounding the announcement, the market reaction to the layoff announcement of unionized employees was actually positive, while the reaction was negative when nonunion employees were the subject of the announcement.

The sample included layoff announcements from 1993 and 1994 only. The market reaction to announcements in different years might be different.

While many papers have examined the market reaction to layoff announcements, this is the first paper that compares the reaction to union versus nonunion employees.

The effect of layoff announcements on the shareholder returns of 154 firms that announced layoffs in 1993‐1994 was examined with event study methodology. As expected, the returns to these firms were negative. Further, the returns to the firms that announced layoffs for “reactive” reasons were more negative than the returns to the firms that announced layoffs for “proactive” reasons. The effect of employment guarantee announcements on the shareholder returns of 13 firms that announced employment guarantees in 1993‐1994 and on the returns of 63 firms that made similar announcements throughout the 1990 s was examined. Returns of these samples also responded negatively to the announcements. When the response to the two types of announcements was compared, however, there was no clear conclusion regarding which type of announcement drew a more negative response.

Uses survey research to investigate two general questions concerning managerial competencies and performance appraisal: whether a set of managerial competencies currently being used by organizations to describe successful managers can be identified; and whether organizations are appraising these same competencies as part of their managerial performance appraisal processes. The six competencies most often identified as critical to managerial success appear to be proper choices, given the discussion of the attributes needed for a competency to be effective. The results also show, however, that many of these same organizations are not appraising these competencies in their managerial‐performance appraisal processes. Concludes that failure to appraise the competencies reduces the effectiveness of the competencies and the managerial performance appraisal programs.

We present evidence regarding how a card check recognition process affects the labor relations climate during the period preceding recognition and that which immediately follows. Interviews with managers, interviews with union representatives, and surveys of workers indicate that card check typically results in a less prolonged, costly, and stressful recognition and negotiations process. Although the resulting contracts are often similar to those in other parts of a heavily unionized corporation, sometimes they reflect a different business context – and hence are somewhat more favorable to employers without being substantially less favorable to employees. This reality is reflected in the positive reaction of the U.S. stock markets to union recognition by an employer through a card check process. Employers make card check agreements primarily for business reasons, and investors respect their judgment as to the impact of such agreements on the bottom line.

The practice of law is under pressure from various sources. Economics is one such source. The number of licensed lawyers is growing rapidly at a time when other disciplines are threatening areas of practice that were once the sole province of lawyers. Another pressure on the profession comes from the courts which are in some instances attempting to reduce legal fees. Thus, a question arises as to whether law firms may be implementing TQM techniques developed by other disciplines and by the few law firms which are leading the way for change. To answer that question a survey of Iowa law firms was conducted. The survey was sent to 100 law firms in Iowa in an attempt to determine the extent to which these firms are adopting TQM in an effort to reduce costs and increase efficiency. The research in this exploratory study shows that Iowa lawyers are not embracing even simple means of increasing efficiency such as employing paraprofessionals and upgrading employees’ skills.