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Labor conflict has become a serious problem in recent China. From the perspective of entrepreneur innovation, this paper aims to find an effective path to eliminate this conflict. On the basis of theoretical analyses and regression analyses, this paper finds that, with legal environment and other conditions identical, entrepreneur innovation will significantly facilitate elimination of labor conflicts.

Using theoretical analyses based on entrepreneurship theory, this paper puts forward a series of hypotheses about the effects of entrepreneur innovation on labor conflicts. With panel data during 2013-2015 from China Employer–Employee Survey, this paper examines the effects of entrepreneur innovation on labor conflicts. Using interaction term regressions, this paper examines heterogeneous effects of entrepreneur innovation on labor conflicts by ownership, market power and export behavior. With mediating effect model, this paper examine whether workers’ participation in corporation governance is an important channel in which entrepreneurial innovation can impact on labor conflicts.

First, using benchmark regressions and robustness checks, this paper finds that there exist significantly positive effects of entrepreneur innovation on workers’ job satisfaction, incentive, social security, job development and job stability, which will reduce potential risks of labor conflict effectively. Second, using interaction term regressions, this paper finds that there exist heterogeneous effects of entrepreneur innovation on labor conflicts by ownership, market power and export behaviors. The study finds that the effects of entrepreneur innovation are more concentrated in private firms, firms with stronger market power and non-exporters. Third, using a mediating effect model, the study finds that workers’ participation in corporation governance is an important channel in which entrepreneur innovation can have impacts on labor conflicts.

The paper enriches the existing research about how to eliminate labor conflicts in China. On the basis of China Employer–Employee Survey data, this paper finds the importance of entrepreneur innovation on Chinese transition, which not only has positive impacts on firm performance, but also has impacts on eliminating labor conflicts and establishing better labor relationship. Therefore, stimulating entrepreneur innovation is very important for solving conflicts during Chinese transition.

The purpose of this paper is to study the factors affecting the return to work (RTW) of injured workers in an institutional setting where workers’ earnings are fully compensated during the disability period.

The authors use a unique data set matching employer-employee panel data with Italian workers’ compensation records. The authors estimate survival models accounting for workers’ unobserved heterogeneity.

Workers with higher wage growth, higher relative wages and from firms with better histories of stable employment, RTW sooner. More vulnerable workers – immigrants, females, members of smaller firms – also tend to return sooner. But even when we control for such measures of commitment, status, and job security, high-wage workers RTW sooner.

The authors use proxies as measures of commitment and status. The authors study blue-collar workers without finer job qualifications. The authors estimate a reduced form model.

In an institutional environment where the immediate cost of workers’ compensation benefits falls largely on firms, employers seem to pressure those workers whose time off is more costly, i.e., high-wage workers. The lack of evidence of ex post moral hazard behavior also demands for a better understanding of the relationship between benefits and RTW.

Workers who are induced to RTW before full recovery jeopardize their long- term health and employability. Firms that put such pressure on employees might generate social costs that can be particularity high in the case of high productivity workers.

The paper offers the first quantitative analysis of an institutional setting where injured workers face 100 percent benefits replacement rate and have job security. This allows focus on other workers’ or employers’ reasons to speed RTW. It is one of very few economics studies on this topic in the European context, providing implications for human resource managers, state regulators, and unions.

This paper aims to examine whether labour unions influence labour conflicts and this mechanism is different in China compared with other countries.

This paper uses the data from the China Employer–Employee Survey that interviewed 1,208 firms and 10,087 workers in 2016 as the measurement of variables, and it uses Logit regression model to do the empirical research.

Unions cannot significantly influence labour conflicts. More active unions and unions whose leaders are appointed by the firms’ management are associated with a higher incidence of labour conflicts.

This paper finds a new mechanism that explains the relationship between unions and labour conflicts. The existing literature states that unions may increase labour conflicts via “monopoly power” and may also mitigate labour conflicts via “voice mechanisms”. This paper’s findings show that the positive correlation between unions and labour conflicts may be explained by the lack of “voice mechanism” rather than “monopoly power”. The findings imply that labour unions should represent the interest of workers to mitigate the increasing labour conflicts.

To analyse productivity effects of performance‐related pay (PRP).

Fixed effect analysis of the productivity effects of the introduction of PRP scheme using linked employer‐employee data from Finland in 1996‐2002 and controlling for the skill structure of the employees.

PRP improves both productivity and profitability by the same magnitude of around 6 per cent, but only if the compensations are substantial enough and exceeding on average 3.6 per cent of salaries for those who receive it. Incentive effects relate to the introduction of PRP, usually accompanied by new human resource management. PRP in Finland cannot, however, be directly linked to an increase in participation of employees in decision‐making. PRP schemes have substantially improved firm performance without creating much wage pressures.

Useful information for the implementation and design of incentive‐based wage schemes.

Very few papers using large data sets have information on exact PRP payments that are separate from bonus pay or piece wages.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, the UK workforce in general has experienced a period of stagnant and falling wages in both nominal and real terms. The main parties involved remain unsure of the consequences from such a historically unusual phenomenon. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to explore the main effect on job satisfaction and organizational commitment of those employees who had experienced pay reductions (nominal wage cuts or pay freezes under a positive inflation rate) as compared with those who experienced nominal pay rises during the recent recession; and second, to examine the moderating effect of employee involvement (EI) practices on that relationship. This was done by using aggregated employee perception data to measure organizational EI practices.

Employee-employer matched data were used, involving 8,489 employees and their associated 497 organizations (medium or large sized). The number of employees from each organization was between 15 and 25. The data used were extracted from the 2011 Workplace Employment Relations Study in the UK to which the authors applied hierarchical linear regression in STATA 13.

The results indicate that when compared with those employees who had nominal pay rises during the recession, employees who had wage cuts or freezes (with 5 percent inflation rate) are significantly and negatively associated with their job satisfaction and organizational commitment, even when controlling for important variables such as perception of job insecurity and the degree of adverse impact caused by recession on the organization studied. That is to say, facing the same perception of job loss, those who experienced pay reductions are significantly unhappier and less committed than those who had pay rises. However, the adverse effect of pay reductions on employees’ work attitudes is much less in workplaces characterized by a high, as opposed to a low level, of EI practices.

Implications, limitations, and further research issues are discussed in light of current employment relations’ practices.

The intention is to extend the current debate on employment relations under adverse changes such as pay reductions. Thus, the unique contribution of this study is to examine the value of EI in modifying extreme employee reactions to adverse changes.

This article investigates whether employers are more likely to employ older workers when faced with a shortage of qualified labour. Furthermore, it analyses whether in such cases age stereotypes moderate employers' preferences towards four employment options: (1) supporting workers to continue until the retirement age, (2) encouraging workers to continue beyond the retirement age, (3) recruiting someone older than 55 and (4) (re)hiring someone who has retired.

Data were drawn from a survey conducted among Finnish employers in 2021 (response rate = 66%, N = 1,442). Applying factor analysis to questions about older workers' qualities compared to those of average workers, a distinction was made between perceptions of experience-related and adaptability-related qualities. Generalised ordered logistic regression models were estimated to analyse the relations of preferences for each employment option with experiencing recruitment problems, workplace age stereotypes and interactions between these.

Experiencing recruitment problems was positively related to preferences for hiring a retired person. Employers with difficulties in recruitment were more likely to support work until the retirement age and recruit someone over 55, but only if they had above-average positive perceptions of older workers' experience-related qualities. Employers confronted with recruitment difficulties were more likely to encourage workers to continue beyond the retirement age if they had more positive perceptions of older workers' adaptability-related qualities.

This study shows that, even when confronted with labour shortages and population ageing, workplace age stereotypes still pose a potential obstacle for employers to make the best use of an older workforce.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce this special issue on compensation policies within firms while using evidence from linked employer‐employee data.

The paper looks at the use of linked employer‐employee data over time and how this has enabled progress in the understanding of the functioning of the labour market as the arena where labour supply and demand interact, under the mediation of labour market institutions and regulations.

The example of issues that have been covered using linked employer‐employee data, generating new insights, could be extended and it is continuously being updated.

The articles collected in this special issue provide some fine examples of recent work on the field of linked employer‐employee data.