Casey Ichniowski

Social Capital and Organizational Change in High‐Involvement and Traditional Work Organizations

We present new evidence indicating that changing from a traditional human resource management (HRM) environment to an innovative one entails a change not only in formal work practices, but also in the informal networks and patterns of interaction among employees. We focus on differences in the social capital of these workplaces and measure differences in the structure of interactions and information transfer among employees across a sample of manufacturing lines with a common production technology and different HRM systems. We then consider the implications of these differences and show that the change from one form of workplace practices to the other is therefore not just a matter of paying for the direct costs of a new set of HRM practices. Rather, it would involve a disruptive overhaul in the entire network of interactions among all workers at the plant.

Using "Insider Econometrics" to Study Productivity

Griliches’ 1994 presidential address considers the limited success economists had in trying to account for the productivity slowdown of the 1970’s and 1980’s, and “urges us toward the task of observation and measurement.” In the 1990’s, the high rates of productivity growth emphasized the need for new models of productivity, this time turning to estimating organization-level determinants of productivity focusing on businesses’ use of new computerbased information technologies (IT), and new methods of work organization (Timothy Bresnahan et al., 2002). In this paper, we take up the charge to develop new data and new methods for modeling the productivity of organizations. We summarize three methods for assembling data for an “insider econometrics” study of the productivity of organizations, and we illustrate one method that we refer to as “informed survey analysis.”

Collective Bargaining Laws, Threat Effects, and the Determination of Police Compensation

This article demonstrates that state collective bargaining laws are important determinants of union and nonunion public employee compensation. State laws that provide stronger bargaining rights and ensure closure to the bargaining process increase the direct effect of police unions on compensation. Moreover, indirect threat effects on the pay of nonunion police also increase with stronger bargaining laws. In each law category investigated, nonunion police receive most of the compensation premium enjoyed by unionized police. Previous studies that have not adequately controlled for these effects of bargaining laws have therefore underestimated the full effect of public-sector unions on compensation.

The American workplace : skills, compensation, and employee involvement

Preface 1. What works at work: overview and assessment Casey Ichniowski, Thomas A. Kochan, David I. Levine, Craig Olson and George Strauss 2. Diffusion and performance of modular production in the US apparel industry John T. Dunlop and David Weil 3. The performance effects of modular production in the apparel industry Peter Berg, Eileen Applebaum, Thomas Bailey and Arne L. Kalleberg 4. Participative bureaucracy and productivity in the machine products sector Maryellen R. Kelley 5. Methodological issues in cross-sectional and panel estimates of the HR-firm performance link Mark A. Huselid and Brian E. Becker 6. The adoption of high-involvement work practices Frits K. Pil and John Paul MacDuffie 7. The effects of total quality management on corporate performance: an empirical investigation George S. Easton and Sherry L. Jarrell 8. Implementing effective total quality management (TQM) programs on financial performance: a synthesis of evidence from quality award winners Kevin B. Hendricks and Vinod R. Singhal 9. Public policy implications David I. Levine.

Right-to-Work Laws, Free Riders, and Unionization in the Local Public Sector

Empirical models of local government unionization reveal substantial reductions in union membership due to right-to-work laws. Free riders, rather than underlying antiunion sentiments, are probably responsible because the unionization models include better measures of sentiments than right-to-work laws. Furthermore, these laws reduce the probability that bargaining unions form by more than they reduce the probability that nonbargaining associations form in three of five local government functions. These results also confirm the importance of free riders because union security clauses that prohibit free riders in states without right-to-work laws exist only in collective-bargaining contracts.

Bargaining Laws and Unionization in the Local Public Sector

This paper analyzes the effects of bargaining law characteristics on rates of unionization in over 10,000 local government departments, representing five different government services, that were without bargaining units in 1977. Duty-to-bargain laws significantly increased the probability of bargaining union formation between 1977 and 1982. The results of the analysis reject the hypotheses that this effect reflects only underlying union strength, the release of pent-up demand for unionization, or the transformation of nonbargaining unions into bargaining unions. The changes in unionization attributable to duty-to-bargain laws are so large that they account for nearly all of the differences in average unionization rates between states with and without these laws.

The Persistence of Organized Crime in New York City Construction: An Economic Perspective

This study explores the strengths and weaknesses of economic reasoning in explaining, and suggesting remedies for, the stubborn presence of racketeering in New York City construction. In this industry, the authors argue, transactions cannot be conducted efficiently either between a large number of firms or within a few large firms. Consequently, criminals can “sell,” and profit from, their ability to impose organization on the industry. Criminal activity can persist because of barriers to entry in certain markets within the industry and because of industry characteristics such as constant changes of, and restricted access to, work sites. The role of unions as a monopolizing institution may also facilitate criminal control. These and other economic hypotheses are relevant to policy making, the authors maintain, even though they cannot be adequately tested with available data.

Public Policy Implications

For the last few decades, ecosystem services have been a popular theme in conservation policy. By preserving or restoring areas of natural habitat, the argument goes, important goods and services such as clean air and water, flood control, and crop pollination will be provided to society. Those goods and services, if properly accounted for, may even be worth enough to justify the protection of the forests, grasslands, wetlands, and other ecosystems that provide them. It is not surprising that the logic of ecosystem services has struck a chord. To some, the appeal of ecosystem services is that all the environmental benefits that “the market” has purportedly failed to account for might now be factored into public and private decision-making. To others, the possibility of structuring payments for ecosystem services that assign and respect property rights, and bringing the power of that same “market” to bear, may seem equally appealing. But the situation is not as simple as these caricatures might suggest. If it is just a matter of structuring payments for the delivery of services of known and agreed value, it is difficult to explain why so much public-sector effort is being put into studying ecosystem services and enhancing their provision.

Excludability and the Effects of Free Riders: Right-To-Work Laws and Local Public Sector Unionization

Benefits of collective bargaining in the local public sector are always nonrival for covered employees. In states with public sector right-to-work laws, they are also nonexcludable. Among 10,308 county and city departments that were nonunion in 1977, the probability of engaging in collective bargaining as of 1982 was signifi cantly and substantially lower in states with right-to-work laws. Furthermore, the larger the department the greater the reductton in the probability of forming a bargaining union. These results are the first nonexperimental evidence of the effects of free riders on the provision of a public good They support the hypothesis that, without excludability, free riders reduce the levels of public good provision.

Profitability and Compensation Adjustments in the Retail Food Industry

This paper uses longitudinal data provided by a large unionized grocery store chain to examine the relationship between profitability and compensation adjustments between 1976 and 1985. Consistent with the predictions of a Nash bargaining model, negotiated compensation adjustments were inversely related to the pre-negotiation operating income of the relevant stores. Concessionary compensation adjustments in response to relatively low levels of prior profitability occurred in the first year of contracts and subsequent compensation growth was unaffected by differences in prior profitability. Decreases in compensation rates led to significant improvements in subsequent economic performance. Estimates of this relationship, however, indicate that the impact of compensation adjustments on profitability changes was less than dollar-for-dollar.