Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey Research Articles

Job attitudes between unionized and non-unionized employees

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study job attitudes between unionized and non-unionized employees in Australia as recent research on attitudes among unionized employees has centred on topics such as attitudes towards unionization and involvement, but not on work-related attitudes.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a data set of over 5,000 responses from the Australia at Work survey. Ten attitudinal survey questions adapted from the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey and the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes were used to compare work-related attitudinal differences between unionized and non-unionized employees.FindingsFindings show that unionized employees perceive less manager–employee consultation, health and safety, dispensability, time flexibility, workload flexibility, managerial trust, fair treatment and pay equity.Originality/valueNot much is known about the attitudinal differences between unionized and non-unionized employees, given the paucity of research on unionist job attitudes. Recent research in this area has centred on employee attitudes towards unionization and involvement as opposed to studying work-related attitudes. The findings can help the management predict behavioural responses between unionized and non-unionized employees for improved decision making.

The Importance of Comparative Workplace Employment Relations Studies

Comparative employment relations is a well-established field within industrial relations. At the macro level it has been important in identifying the role of institutions, culture and economic conditions in understanding differences and similarities in employment relations across countries. In particular, the works coming out of the varieties of capitalism literature (Hall and Soskice 2001) have highlighted the importance of historical legacies and path dependencies which substantially constrain (as well as explain) the structures and orientations of labour market actors and institutions. At the micro level, it has traditionally been dominated by case-study qualitative research which has sought to unpick differences in practices and perceptions of actors faced with seemingly similar working environments but in different national and local settings. Studies such as Nichols and Cam’s (2005) investigation of the labour process in the white goods industry in seven different countries and four different continents have been seminal in shedding light on the extent of the heterogeneity within seemingly similar settings. Comparative studies offer opportunities to identify the role played by national and local factors in shaping practices and outcomes, such as attitudes to management, the climate of employment relations and workplace financial performance. The availability of comparative data also allows the analyst to test hypotheses about the nature of differences. Our special issue seeks to reflect some of this work, together with studies that build on two recent developments in the field. The first of these fairly recent developments is the use of large-scale surveys which, because they share a number of features — such as the unit of analysis, sampling and survey content — permit analysts to undertake comparative work based on large-scale quantitative data. Perhaps the most significant of these are the surveys of workplaces undertaken in Australia (Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey), Britain (the Workplace Employment Relations Survey [WERS]), France (Relations Professionnelles et Negociations d’Entreprises), Canada (Workplace and Employee Survey), Norway (the Norwegian Workplace Employment Relations Survey) and

Family Provisions at the Workplace and Their Relationship to Absenteeism, Retention, and Productivity of Workers: Timely Evidence from Prior Data

Using data from the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey, this study provides timely evidence on the effects of on‐site child care at the workplace and employer‐provided family leave on worker absenteeism, turnover, and productivity. The study found that workplaces with on‐site child care compared with workplaces with no on‐site child care had lower rates of absenteeism and higher ratings for worker productivity. Workplaces that had a family leave policy also had lower rates of absenteeism than workplaces that had no such policy in place. Analyses also suggest that workplace characteristics, such as presence of a human‐resources manager or union representative, are associated with higher worker productivity. Firm size, mission, and shift work were other predictors of worker performance. The findings argue strongly for an extensive, new workplace survey that can elucidate how parents today manage to abide by new workplace agreements while still handling the demands of family life.

The Determinants of Employee-Involvement Schemes: Private Sector Australian Evidence

Using data from the 1995 wave of the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey, this article estimates the determinants of four types of group employee-involvement (EI) schemes: autonomous groups, quality circles, joint consultative committees and task forces.The results indicate that EI is associated with employees having longer expected tenure and higher labour force attachment. The authors argue that this is sensible as EI will be more successful in settings of interdependent production, settings in which such employees are at a premium. The results also show that complementary HRM practices, such as formal training and incentive pay, are associated with an increased likelihood of EI. Unionization, size of workplace and the extent of competition are also confirmed as determinants.

Investigating the Cause of Death: Industrial Relations and Plant Closures in Australia

This is the first study to focus on how unions affect the likelihood of plant closures in Australia. Australia is of special interest in this connection, the authors argue, because of its unique industrial relations institutions, which, at the time of the study (1990–95), limited the capacity of established unionized firms to remove unions except through plant closure. An analysis of Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey data shows that two of three measures of unionization had a robust positive influence on the probability of plant closure, and the third had a weaker positive influence. Depending on the specification, for example, a 10 percentage point increase in union density (one of the two measures found to have strong influence) was associated with a 1.3–1.7 percentage point increase in the probability of plant closure—representing a substantial increment, since the mean closure probability among these plants was about 16%.

Performance Appraisal Systems: Determinants and Change

Using establishment data from the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey, this paper estimates the determinants of performance appraisal systems. The results indicate that performance appraisal is associated with workers having shorter expected tenure and greater influence over productivity. We argue these results reflect those circumstances in which the net benefits of performance appraisal are likely to be greatest. The results also show that complementary human resource management practices, such as formal training and incentive pay, are associated with an increased likelihood of performance appraisal, but that union density is associated with a reduced likelihood of performance appraisal.

On the Conceptualisation and Measurement of Horizontal and Vertical Occupational Gender Segregation

In a series of papers, Blackburn et al. claim to solve the conceptual and measurement issues associated with vertical gender segregation by occupation. In this paper it is argued that the authors misinterpret the conventional index measures of segregation, which leads them to a misspecification of their vertical and horizontal components of segregation which are alleged to be orthogonal. As a consequence, the two components are conflated, so that neither component of segregation is correctly calculated. There are also conceptual and measurement difficulties with the cross-national empirical work of Charles (2003). The absence of hierarchical employment data by occupation from the typical Labour Force Survey precludes the estimation of country wide vertical segregation. Data from sources such as the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey will enable the calculation of vertical gender segregation, in addition to the generation of insights about the factors contributing to vertical gender segregation. Case studies too will enable a greater understanding of the extent and causes of vertical gender segregation.

Organizational trustworthiness and workplace labor productivity: Testing a new theory

Based on a secondary analysis of the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey, this study explores several relationships that may link trust to changes in labor productivity. Drawing on Hodson’s work, we examine how - and under what conditions - supportive employment practices and management’s operational competence may contribute to workers’ trust in management, which in turn is hypothesized to lead to an improvement in labor productivity over time. The findings support the hypothesis that more supportive employment practices lead to higher trust in management. However, a similar relationship between management’s operational competence and trust did not obtain, and there was very little connection between trust and improvements in workplace productivity. Further analysis showed that there was considerably more support for our hypotheses when applied to service sector firms: both supportive employment practices and management competence contributed to trust and higher trust led to more rapid incre...

Worker Participation and Firm Performance

Assessing the robustness of empirical estimates, and thus the generality of theoretical models, is an important objective in applied research. Accordingly, this paper offers a further test of the Freeman-Lazear employee involvement model. The theoretical model posits that the form and level of bargaining has an important bearing on levels of employee involvement chosen by management. Sub-optimal levels of employee involvement are predicted for firms engaged in workplace level distributive or competitive bargaining. In contrast to earlier tests of the model based on British and German data, findings in this paper (based on the 1995 Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey) provide little support for the theorised relationships.

The Role of Training and Innovation in Workplace Performance

This paper uses workplace-level data from the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey to examine the extent to which the use of training and/or innovation by a workplace increases the likelihood that is has higher labour productivity than its competitiors, and experiences high labour productivity growth.

Is Under‐Employment due to Labour Hoarding? Evidence from the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey

In this paper, Australian data are used to study the characteristics of workers who are constrained in their hours of work. Matched employer–employee data allow us to control for their employers’ characteristics as well. In particular, the information on the firms’ state of demand provides useful evidence on the underlying cause of under‐employment. The labour hoarding model cannot explain the observed patterns involving under‐employment. Alternative explanations are offered.

Industrial Relations and Human Resource Management Practices in Australian and Overseas-Owned Workplaces: Global or Local?

This paper compares human resource (HR) and industrial relations (IR) practices in the workplaces of predominantly Australian and predominantly overseas-owned organisations. It advances understanding of HR/IR in Australia and elsewhere by considering two questions. First, whether Australian-owned workplaces have different HR/IR practices from overseas-owned workplaces. Second, whether there has been a convergence or divergence of practices between the two groups in recent years. The analysis is conducted using the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey data from the years 1990 and 1995 (AWIRS 90/95). The main findings are that there are significant differences in HR/IR practice between Australian and overseas-owned workplaces. Both groups have increased their use of sophisticated HR/IR practices, but the overseas-owned workplaces have increased their usage at a faster pace. On the basis of these findings, we suggest caution in accepting the argument that globalisation pressures necessarily lead to a uniform convergence of HR/IR practices across the globe. While it appears that globalisation has stimulated local and overseas-owned firms to move in qualitatively similar directions, they are doing so at rates sufficiently varied for the gap to be increasing when measured quantitatively. In this sense, the locals might best be described as lagging behind the overseas firms in the adoption of HRM practices.

The effects of technical and social conditions on workplace trust

This paper investigates the extent to which the technical and social contexts of organizations independently affect levels of workplace trust. We argue that, in an organizational context, trust is not just a relationship between an individual subject (the truster) and an object (the trustee) but is subject to effects from the conditions of the work relationship itself.We describe the organizational context as comprising both a technical system of production (where work gets done through the specification of tasks) and a social system of work (where problems of effort, compliance, conformity and motivation are managed). We analyse the relationship between trust and these two aspects of workplace context (technical and social systems). We also operationalize this in terms of differences between industries, occupational composition and human resource management practices.The model is tested using data drawn from the 1995 Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey. The results confirm that differences in industry, occupational composition and HRM practices all impact on levels of workplace trust. We review these results in terms of their implications for future research into the problem of analysing variation in trust at both the workplace and individual levels.

Employee involvement, organizational change and trust in management

Trust is an important concept in social science research as a key factor in organizational success and human resource practice. Few models of organizational change encompass the role of trust in the process of change. Further, little empirical research has focused on the potential effects of change strategies on employee trust in management. To address this gap, this paper explores the effect that different types of change strategies may have on employee trust in management. More specifically, it examines the effect of several types of major organizational change – technological, structural and work role – and types of employee involvement. Using data from the most recent Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey, covering over 2,000 workplaces and over 19,000 employees, statistical analysis reveals significant negative effects of change on trust. However, the effects vary by type of change and employee involvement. Structural reorganization is particularly corrosive of trust in management. However, given the imperative of change for organizational success, the key question for management is: how can change be managed to minimize its corrosive effects? The analysis also indicates a central role for senior management in the process of change in Australian workplaces. In particular, the results for human resource management suggest an important role for direct consultation between employees and higher management (i.e. above the workplace level) in major change processes.

Accidental outcomes: Attitudinal consequences of workplace injuries.

A model of the attitudinal outcomes of the occurrence and severity of occupational injuries was developed and tested. The model postulates that workplace accidents result in a perceived lack of influence and a distrust of management, with the former also affecting the distrust of management. Both are hypothesized to predict job dissatisfaction. Exit (turnover intentions) and voice (perceptions of union instrumentality) are hypothesized as outcomes of job dissatisfaction. A sample of 9,908 employees was tested with the 1995 Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey database. Structural equation modeling provided strong support for the model with respect to accident occurrence, and the model was replicated across 8 different occupational groups. There was less support for the model with respect to accident severity.

Employee Responses to High Performance Work System Practices: An Analysis of the Awirs95 Data

Since the early 1990s, there has been increasing academic interest in a range of labour management practices labelled variously as ‘high commitment management’, ‘high involvement management’ and ‘High Performance Work Systems’ (HPWS). Such sets of practices - which include performance-related pay, various employee communication mechanisms, training and team-based work- when used in combination, are said to be mutually reinforcing and to generate superior organisational performance. Advocates of HPWS argue that improvements in organisational performance are generated because these practices enhance employee discretion which, in turn, flows into improved attitudes to work. Conversely, critics suggest that HPWS practices lead to work intensification, with any gains in discretion being marginal. In spite of the volume of literature in this area, there are few studies that have examined the impact of HPWS on employees. This article seeks to remedy this gap by reporting results of analysis of the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey 1995 (AWIRS95) data aimed at assessing the associations between HPWS practices and employee outcomes. The analysis suggests that there are few such associations, and those that exist are weak, which calls into question the claims of both advocates and critics of HPWS.

The Relationship Between Time of Founding And The Composition Of The Workforce In Australian Workplaces

This paper presents the results of an analysis of the relationship between organisational age and two specific aspects of labour flexibility—numerical flexibility and workforce skill composition (as one facet of functional flexibility)—that extends earlier work in two ways. First, it uses data from a large-scale national survey (the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey [AWIRS]1995). Second, it focuses on two widely studied facets of labour flexibility, numerical flexibility and functional flexibility. Previous research has investigated the relationship between organisational age and aspects of organisation such as strategy and structure (Baum and Oliver, 1991; Henderson, 1999; Reed and Blunsdon, 1998). Henderson (1999) found that age effects were contingent on different organisational strategies and process. Reed and Blunsdon (1998) found that organisational maturity is associated with goal-directed, or strategic, flexibility—characterised by low levels of formal rules and regulations but clarity of purpose. But a more complex relationship was also identified—for example; very young organisations (founded in the 1990s) appear to have higher levels of formalisation at founding than organisations established in earlier periods. This paper investigates these questions further. The results show that the relationship between age, numerical flexibility and workforce skill composition is non-linear, but the data do not make it possible to separate age effects associated with aging, time of founding and changing environmental conditions.

Gender, part‐time employment and employee participation in Australian workplaces

The international trend in the growth and incidence of “non‐standard employment”, and its highly gendered nature, is well documented. Similarly, interest in employee involvement or participation by academics and practitioners has seen the emergence of a rapidly growing body of literature. Despite the continued interest in each of these areas, the literature is relatively silent when it comes to where the two areas intersect, that is, what the implications are for employee participation in the growth of non‐standard employment. This paper seeks to redress this relative insularity in the literature by examining some broad trends in this area in Australia. The literature lacks one clear, accepted definition of “non‐standard” employment. For ease of definition, and because of the nature of the available data, we focus on part‐time employment in this paper. The paper analyses data from the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey of 1995 (AWIRS 95). It tests the hypotheses that part‐time employees enjoy less access to participatory management practices in the workplace than their full‐time counterparts, and that this diminishes the access to participation in the workplace enjoyed by female workers in comparison with their male colleagues, since the part‐time workforce is predominantly feminised. These hypotheses were strongly confirmed. This has major implications for workplace equity, and for organisational efficiency.

The Organizational Benefits of Teams

This study presents an analysis of the benefits of two team structures - quality circles and self-managing work groups - for Australian work organizations utilizing the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey for 1995. The analysis indicates that firms with team structures have higher labor productivity, a flatter management structure and reduced employee turnover. The presence of team structures in Australian firms indicates a decrease in industrial harmony. The findings were inconclusive regarding absenteeism and profitability.

Women In Part-Time Work: A Comparative Study Of Australia And The United Kingdom

While cross-national differences in the prevalence of part-time work have long been noted, less is known about differences between countries in the conditions of part-time jobs and the extent to which these vary between long and short hours part-time workers. This article compares selected indicators of the conditions of employment (hourly earnings, training, autonomy and job security) for part-time female employees in Australia and the United Kingdom (UK), utilising data from the 1995 Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey (AWIRS95) and the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS98). Although differences are small in some cases and there are some complexities in interpretation, the analysis generally shows poorer conditions for women working shorter hours, with the relative disadvantage of short hours groups most evident in the UK.