Peter B. Doeringer

Business Strategy and Cross-Industry Clusters

Although industry clusters are becoming the focus of state economic development policies, most states continue to define clusters in ad hoc ways, often focusing only on clusters of firms in single industries. Such policies run the risk of wasting development resources by neglecting important linkages among firms that cut across industries. Exploiting the dynamic nature of the competitive advantages associated with the clustering process requires an understanding of strategic business decisions made at the firm level. This article draws on previous field research to identify several external economies that contribute to the clustering of firms across industries-collaboration economies, transfers of knowledge, local specialized labor pools, and relationships with nonbusiness institutions. The article concludes by suggesting specific development policies that can identify and use these external economies to attract industry clusters.

Hybrids or Hodgepodges? Workplace Practices of Japanese and Domestic Startups in the United States

This study examines the adoption of high-performance workplace management practices in Japanese and domestic manufacturing plants, spanning a broad range of products and technologies, that began operations in the United States between 1978 and 1988. Japanese transplants, the authors find, were likely to adopt “hybrid” systems of high-performance practices melding Japanese principles of workplace management with the American industrial relations system. Domestic startups incorporated many of these same techniques, but they tended to take a more limited and piecemeal approach. The managers of domestic startups also paid less attention to how individual high-performance practices fit into an overall system of efficient workplace management than did managers at Japanese transplants.

Determinants of the structure of industrial type internal labor markets

Focuses on the determinants of the structure of industrial type internal labor markets. Work relationship between employer and employee in a dynamic market environment; Types of labor markets; Description of the theoretical construct of the internal labor market as introduced in the Kerr model; Classification of the allocative structure within the internal labor markets of manufacturing; Internal groups of job classifications. (Abstract copyright EBSCO.)

Capitalism and Kinship: Do Institutions Matter in the Labor Market?

This study examines the determination of employment and pay on “capitalist” and “kinship” vessels in the New England fishing industry. Capitalist vessels resemble standard competitive firms in the way that employment and pay respond to changing market conditions; kinship vessels operate under work guarantees and income sharing rules. These differences in institutional rules lead to different patterns of income, employment, growth, and labor adjustment. The study shows how an understanding of the institutional structure of labor markets can contribute to the design of public policies to facilitate adjustment to change and to promote industrial growth.

Devolution of Employment and Training Policy: The Case of Older Workers

Summary The case for the devolution of employment and training programs has traditionally been based on the supply side argument that state and local governments are in the best position to assess the training needs of their disadvantaged workers. We provide a different perspective by focusing on the demand side of the labor market and the link between aiding older workers and fostering economic growth. We illustrate the importance of this focus by examining the labor market in Massachusetts, where the full employment economy of the late 1990s resulted in serious labor supply bottlenecks. Older workers, whose ranks are growing rapidly, provide the largest known labor reserve for meeting these labor supply deficits in the next decade. Tapping this reserve, however, means improving skills, deferring retirement, bringing older persons back into the labor market, and increasing full-time employment. Massachusetts already has the policy tools needed to train older workers to fill emerging job needs, but these policies will need to be substantially upgraded and reoriented. Too little funding, an emphasis on short-term programs, lack of coordination among programs, weak linkages to the private sector, and the limited flexibility of human resources practices in both the private and public sectors have left both government programs and employers ill-prepared to utilize fully the older worker labor reserve.

Japanese Direct Investment and Economic Development Policy

The increasing number of Japanese manufacturing plants locating in the United States presents new opportunities for state and local economic development policy. This article compares the location decisions of Japanese start-ups in manufacturing with counterpart domestic industry and concludes that there are substantial distinctions between Japanese and American firms. Except for a few industries, Japanese firms are not locating in those states that are most attractive to counterpart domestic industries, but are more often choosing average-to low-growth states. Interviews with a small sample of Japanese plants and industrial recruiters suggest that Japanese location decisions in many industries are based on a set of intangible considerations that differ from those that are important to domestic firms.

Market structure, jobs and productivity : observations from Jamaica

The purpose of this paper is to study the structure of the formal labor market in Jamaica. Emphasis is placed upon the key institutional features of labor markets as they affect income and employment determination, training and labor quality, labor-management conflict, and industrial organization. In particular, a distinction is drawn between those jobs (principally in the informal sector) where easy entry and work sharing are the principal determinants of income-earning opportunities, and those which are protected by formal sector internal labor markets. This distinction is critical for understanding how employment and productivity are affected by economic change, and by institutional forces at the workplace.

How intangible factors contribute to economic development: Lessons from a mature local economy

Abstract Building on a case study of a mature manufacturing region in Massachusetts, this paper provides new evidence on the importance of nontraditional cost factors in determining regional growth. Specialized mature manufacturing firms that have broken the product cycle are identified. We then discuss development strategies for using “intangible” factors to promote such firms.

Turning around local economies: Managerial strategies and community assets

Nontraditional “invisible” sources of growth are identified through a case study of a diversified industrial region in Massachusetts. Firm-specific managerial strategies are found to be an important element in the determination of economic growth. Customized and hybrid firms characterize major departures from the product-cycle model in which product specialization and service specialization attached to traditional products allow them to avoid productcycle maturity. The interaction of these business strategies with invisible community factors such as labor force quality and the labor-management environment significantly influences local economic growth. These findings indicate the importance of targeting development efforts at the firm as opposed to the industry level and the need to better utilize local invisible factors as a basis for boosting local economic growth.

Management cultures and regional development: High performance management and the location of new manufacturing plants

In-depth case studies of new manufacturing plants are used to motivate a new business location model that incorporates management practices and cultures as location factors. This model is tested using US data on the location of new manufacturing plants. It is found that plants that adopt high performance management practices and cultures rely on different criteria when making their location decisions from those plants that are managed in more traditional ways. Omitting management culture from studies of business location may result in biased estimates of the importance of various traditional location factors. By demonstrating that location decisions are differentiated according to the management practices of firms, it is argued that regional development planning should pay more attention to specific business characteristics and that regional development policy include programmes that strengthen complementarities between management practices and the regional economic environment.