Marc Weinstein

Strategic and environmental determinants of HRM innovations in post-socialist Poland

In the last two decades, research in human resource management has increasingly focused on the strategic linkage between the activities of the human resource function and the business goals of enterprises. Most of the theoretical and empirical work in this area has focused on the US context. This paper extends this research to a non-US business environment. Specifically, we examine data from 303 state-owned, domestic private and foreign-owned Polish firms to test how strategic and environmental variables are related to the adoption of human resource innovations. This analysis suggests that business strategies, local labour markets and the presence of foreign competition are related to the complexity and extensiveness of firm-level human resource practices.

Immigrant Construction Workers and Health and Safety: The South Florida Experience

Immigrants are a growing percentage of the U.S. construction labor force, so the safety of their working conditions deserves study. This article reports on research surveying 283 immigrant construction workers in south Florida about their safety training, use of personal protective equipment, and employer safety practices. Potential impacts of unionized status and documented legal status are tested through regression analysis. Results show only a minor positive relationship of unionization with more training and safer conditions and essentially no relationship between documented legal status and training or safe conditions. Reasons for the weak results are discussed, and further research questions are posed.

Ergonomic best practices in masonry: regional differences, benefits, barriers, and recommendations for dissemination.

Within construction the masonry trade has particularly high rates of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). A NIOSH-sponsored meeting of masonry stakeholders explored current and potential “Best Practices” for reducing MSDs in masonry and identified potential regional differences in use of practices. To verify and better understand the regional effects and other factors associated with differences in practice use, a national telephone survey of masonry contractors was conducted. The United States was divided into four regions for evaluation: Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, and West Coast. Nine practices with the potential to reduce MSDs in masonry workers were evaluated. Masonry contractors, owners, and foremen completed 183 surveys. The results verify regional differences in use of best practices in masonry. Half-weight cement bags and autoclave aerated concrete were rarely used anywhere, while lightweight block and mortar silos appear to be diffusing across the country. The Northeast uses significantly fewer best practices than other regions. This article examines reasons for regional differences in masonry best practice, and findings provide insight into use and barriers to adoption that can be used by safety managers, researchers, and other safety advocates to more effectively disseminate ergonomic solutions across the masonry industry.

Social Ecology and Worksite Training and Development: Introducing the Social in Instructional System Design

Human resource development (HRD) is recognized as an interdisciplinary field covering the breadth of behavioral and social sciences. However, since its inception, instructional systems design (ISD), a methodology widely used in the HRD field, has been based on a narrow range of behavioral science. Grounded in general system’s theory, the ISD framework has primarily been presented as asocial in orientation and application, drawing primarily on individual theories of learning. This manuscript considers the emergence and history of current ISD technologies, and presents a social ecological framework to facilitate the integration of behavioral and social science theory into the ISD process. Research and training initiatives using the social ecological framework are discussed as are implication for HRD research and practice.

Self-Limiting Dominant Logic: An Exploratory Study of Chinese Entrepreneurial Firms

Previous research has found that cognitive frame, mental models, and schema embody a dominant logic of firms that structure the behavioral routines of managers and can become a central force shaping a firms decisions and actions. This exploratory study seeks to provide insight into an emerging dominant logic among recently established private-sector Chinese enterprises. Using multiple case studies of Chinese entrepreneurial firms, we identify convergence on a surprisingly similar dominant logic based on closely aligned concepts and accompanying behaviors: a defensive perspective of business environment; a conservative strategic decision-making process; and full involvement of owners and top managers in daily operations that substitute for development of elaborate routines and systems. Although a dominant logic may facilitate decision making and growth, it may also act as a perceptual blinder limiting opportunity search as firms seek to minimize risk in an uncertain environment.

Computer-based training (CBT) intervention reduces workplace violence and harassment for homecare workers

BACKGROUND The study examines the effectiveness of a workplace violence and harassment prevention and response program with female homecare workers in a consumer driven model of care. METHODS Homecare workers were randomized to either; computer based training (CBT only) or computer-based training with homecare worker peer facilitation (CBT + peer). Participants completed measures on confidence, incidents of violence, and harassment, health and work outcomes at baseline, 3, 6 months post-baseline. RESULTS Homecare workers reported improved confidence to prevent and respond to workplace violence and harassment and a reduction in incidents of workplace violence and harassment in both groups at 6-month follow-up. A decrease in negative health and work outcomes associated with violence and harassment were not reported in the groups. CONCLUSION CBT alone or with trained peer facilitation with homecare workers can increase confidence and reduce incidents of workplace violence and harassment in a consumer-driven model of care.

The power of local action in occupational health: the adoption of local exhaust ventilation in the Chicago tuckpointing trade

Background: Silica is a pervasive and potentially deadly occupational hazard in construction. The occupational risk posed by silica has long been known, but efforts to use engineering controls to minimize dust generation in tuckpointing operations, a masonry restoration specialty, have been slow. Objectives: The objective of this study is to explore how local innovation in occupational safety and health may emerge, absent the establishment of national standards. Method:This study uses a case study to explore the adoption of local exhaust ventilation in tuckpointing operations in the Chicago area. Sources of data for this research include interviews with a diverse range of key informants and the review of archival material. Results: This case study found local unions, municipal regulators, contractors, and major public users of construction services played a central role in the events and milestones that led to the early adoption of local exhaust ventilation in Chicago. The adoption of local exhaust ventilation technology in Chicago demonstrates the potential for local actors to fill an important void when rulemaking in vital areas of occupational of health impedes effective national regulation.

Job Structure and Organizational Burnout: A Study of Public School Bus Drivers, Bus Aides, Mechanics, and Clerical Workers

This study examines the relationship between job structure and the different dimensions of job burnout. The study has two related empirical components. First, the authors administered Karaseks job control inventory to workers across four occupational categories at multiple sites in one organization to explore how different positions in a single organization vary systematically in terms of job demands and decision latitude. This analysis confirms that different occupational groups are distinguished by different levels of control and job latitude. In the second phase of analysis the authors relate these differences to distinct submeasures of Maslach, Jackson, and Leiters organizational burnout inventory, finding that individuals in distinct occupational categories experience different forms of burnout. These results suggest the need to address the conditions of specific occupations in organizational development efforts to mitigate the risk of worker burnout and its associated costs.

Book Reviews : The Autocratically Flexible Workplace: A History of Overtime Regulation in the United States. By Marc Linder. Iowa City, IA: Fanpihua Press, 2002. 532pp. paper

the membership must be ready to take action within six months of arriving on campus. Thus, while graduate student unions may undertake the same types of ideological and organizing challenges as other professional unions, they do so on a much shorter timetable. How do you take weak-willed academic suck-ups and turn them into militant union members in less than a year? It is in answering this question that Cogs makes its most useful contribution. The book’s essays describe a series of actual faculty and graduate student campaigns over the past decade, with nearly every chapter focused on the question of how various campaign strategies succeeded or failed in transforming the union consciousness of academics in a short period of time. While the answers vary, and there is obviously no formula, the richness of the book is its ability to place the concrete details of campaign stories in the context of this theoretical question of how unions transform the consciousness of their members. Because academia is, in fact, not unique, these essays should prove valuable to organizers of a wide range of professional workers. Labor educators preparing to teach organizing skills to academic unionists-or teaching credit classes to graduate students-will also find this book useful.