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Most countries around the world base their old‐age pension programs largely on the pay‐as‐you‐go defined benefit (PAYGO DB) model. However, due to a number of factors including population aging, the maturing of these schemes, rapidly increasing old‐age pension costs, and the perceived need to become more competitive in international markets, many nations have become increasingly concerned about the present (or projected future) economic burden of paying for the pension benefits promised by these schemes. This concern has led policy makers to look for alternative models. One of the most innovative alternatives to emerge during the past ten years is the notional defined contribution (NDC) model. In this article we describe this model and discuss some of the implications of a shift to this model for women and low‐wage workers. We conclude that in the industrial nations women and low‐wage workers are likely to do less well with schemes based all or in part on the NDC model because such schemes are typically designed to be less redistributive (from higher to lower income groups) than the PAYGO DB schemes they will be replacing. However, in developing countries the reverse will often be true as the NDC schemes are likely to be replacing PAYGO DB schemes that tend to redistribute from low‐income groups to higher income groups. Relative to funded DC schemes a major advantage of the NDC model is that it does not subject individual pension benefits to the volatility of financial markets. This issue is relevant to workers in both developed and developing nations, but it is a particularly important consideration in developing nations.

With an increasing number of Chinese private firms establishing primary level CPC Party committees, it is important to study the role of Party organizations in these firms. Using a nationwide survey of private firms in 2006, we empirically study the firm-level CCP committee's effect on workers' benefits and firm performance.

To overcome the potential endogeneity, we employ the regression discontinuity approach by utilizing the following rule from the Constitution of the CCP: Primary party committees should be established in any basic work unit with more than 3 full party members.

Our empirical results show that party committees in private firms have positive and statistically significant effects on many types of workers' benefits, including pension, unemployment insurance and workplace safety.

This paper highlights CCP committees as an important alternative mechanism in coordinating labor relationships in China when formal labor protecting institutions are weak.

The questions of when and what types of human resource (HR) support are needed tend to be unanswerable for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This article addresses this gap in the strategic HR literature. Hiring, training, employee retention/satisfaction, wages and benefits programs, and worker's compensation insurance are important to SMEs seeking to build strong capabilities and resources and to increase their competitive advantage.This article presents an analysis of the existing HR literature for SMEs. It introduces a decision model to help SMEs choose a cost-effective HR strategy, listing a range of options from hiring the HR function to electronic HR (eHR) and outsourcing

This paper aims to build on the presumption that defining the spatial solution of the activity-based office environment through user-centred interdisciplinary dialog would strengthen understanding of interdependencies between the environment and the worker. Secondly, this presumption also contributes to the idea that the shared and clarified concepts of a spatial solution through location-specific structuring, would support the research outcomes in being communicated to the design practice, and further improve the work environment design in the future. Thirdly, this supposition is that understanding, documenting and communicating of the interdependencies between the environment and the worker would contribute to increased interdisciplinary understanding, ultimately benefitting the end-user, the worker.

The driver of this conceptual paper is to encourage understanding across disciplinary boundaries and communication of work environment research results for implementation in design practice. The authors introduce an ecosystem-based approach to discuss the spatial solutions of activity-based office work environments. This approach is motivated by a need to understand the contradictory findings in former knowledge work environment research, such as ambiguities with shared concepts concerning interdisciplinary spatial discourse and shortcomings with user-centred methodologies in architectural design research. The transdisciplinarity forms the methodological framework of this paper, and it is reflected in relation to the design research approach Research by Design (RbD). RbD considers the professional designer’s viewpoint, which includes creative knowledge production, carrying out the operations of research in a real-life context with interdisciplinary interactions together with the worker’s user-experience.

The research outcome is the proposal of an activity-based office ecosystem-based approach, in which the physical environment is structured into two entities: architectural envelope and interior orchestration. In this twofold approach, both qualitative and quantitative contents are meant to be seen as part of the time-location-based framework of an office space. This integrative approach is intended to support the process of searching for understanding and unity of knowledge across disciplinary boundaries. The twofold structuring also has an essential role in supporting methodological choices and the communication of the research outcomes both between disciplines and to design practice. The twofold model also has a role in engaging users as participants and evidence providers in the design or research processes.

The location-specific ecosystem-based approach of the physical work environment compiles of a twofold entity architectural envelope and interior orchestration. This approach supports affordance-based thinking, understanding the ecosystem’s complexity and underpins spatial documentation. Furthermore, this location-specific ecosystem-based approach enables communication of the research outcomes to the design practice and participation actions with the users.

The paper seeks to empirically identify the theoretically ambiguous relationship between employer fringe benefit provision and worker job satisfaction.

Using the five most recent waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, both pooled cross‐section and fixed effects estimates explain the relationship between fringe benefits and job satisfaction. The potential endogenous relationship is also tested using a recursive bivariate probit procedure.

Fringe benefits are significant and positive determinants of job satisfaction. The potential endogeneity between fringe benefits and job satisfaction is not shown in this dataset while controlling for fixed effects does not remove the significant impact of fringe benefits.

A limitation is the inability to control for total compensation within the estimations and control for wage changes as a result of fringe benefit provision.

Higher levels of worker job satisfaction, potentially resulting from fringe benefit provisions, have been linked to important productivity measures such as lower quit rates and absenteeism.

The paper is the first to study the relationship between fringe benefits and job satisfaction in detail while additionally testing for the endogeneity of the relationship and controlling for fixed effects.

The purpose of this paper is to integrate work values research with the Job Demands–Resources model to assess the role that work value orientations play in self-employed workers’ subjective well-being.

The paper analyzes unique data on freelancers participating in an online labor market (n=9,984).

Intrinsic work values are associated with greater subjective well-being, whereas extrinsic work values are associated with lower subjective well-being. Consistent with the buffer hypothesis, intrinsic work value orientation reduces the negative effect of working hours on worker’s well-being, and extrinsic orientation enhances the negative effect.

This paper calls into question the importance of working conditions relative to worker values when assessing the role that job demands and resources play in the new economy. As work becomes more demanding and employment relations more flexible, personal resources such as work value orientations may become increasingly important for worker’s well-being.

Outline the position of Workers’ compensation systems and the small role played by the state. Discusses the usual entitlement and details the five types of compensation benefit available to workers, medical care, funds to cover temporary disablement, permanent disability, vocational rehabilitation and death benefits. Provides details of the mandatory requirements for employer liability and states the procedures and responsibilities of employers when an injury occurs. Touches upon the return to work programme and safety programmes and recommends that employers take serious action towards prevention through safety training to reduce liabilities.

Prior research showed that danwei, the work unit, was very important in determining workers' social, economic, and political lives in pre-reform urban China. In this chapter, we argue that danwei continues to be an agent of social stratification in contemporary urban China. Using data from a 1999 survey that we conducted in three large Chinese cities, Wuhan, Shanghai, and Xi'an, we assess the extent to which workers' socioeconomic well-being depends on the financial conditions of their danwei. Results show that the financial situation of danwei remains one of the most important determinants of earnings and benefits. However, the explanatory power of danwei's financial situation is much greater for earnings than for benefits.

Labor contracts are built on the basis of different latent premises about expectations of the organizations and the workers. Paternalism is widespread in Latin America, and its diverse forms should be taken into account in the design of HR policies and management practices. The paper seeks to compare two Chilean banks and show that different forms of paternalism exist. As long as the organization is consistent with the premises it works with, productivity is not hindered by either form.

By means of a case study two banks's contractual premises are compared. Each one represents a different set of cultural expectations for the labor contracts.

Paternalistic and non paternalistic premises for labor contracts differ widely, but as long as the organization is coherent with them in its human resources policies and practices, productivity can be achieved indistinctively.

The cases are representative of main types of organization's labor contracts, but not statistically representative. Generalizations are possible insofar as other organizations show similar cultural pre‐contractual premises.

Human resource management policies and practices need to be consistent with the premises underlying the labor contract and the social bond in order to allow for productivity increases.

Paternalism is still present in Latin American organizations, instead of dismissing it as traditional or premodern, acknowledging it will allow for organizations to act more realistically towards its labor force.