ILR Review Research Articles

ILR Review at 75: Editorial Changes and the Launch of “Novel Technologies at Work”

<i>ILR Review</i> at 75: Editorial Changes and the Launch of “Novel Technologies at Work”

A Forum on the Politics of Skills

The ILR Review invited this group of scholars who work within the fields of sociology, history, and urban planning to share their perspective on the politics of skills. We called on their expertise to draw attention to the politics that drive the definition and development of skill and its use in shaping the rights and voice of workers. The essays in this forum explore the politics of skill along three lines. First, they interrogate the definition and assessment of skill, with particular attention to the ways that structural markers of social difference—such as race, gender, class, and immigration status—shape the valuation of skill. Second, they analyze the ways that the interpretation of skill is shaped by power dynamics at the worksite and in the broader economy. This line of analysis also considers possibilities for industrial renewal and labor mobilization. And third, the essays explore how skill classifications are used to narrow political and civil rights and to justify forms of exploitation and dehumanization.

A Forum on Emerging Technologies

As part of ILR Review’s new special series “Novel Technologies at Work,” this article introduces a forum composed of five industry studies that examine the drivers and impact of recent and impending technological change. Each of the studies, condensed from longer reports published over the past two years, relies on interviews with sectoral actors and other primary data to determine the relevant technologies confronting workers and managers and the sorts of strategies and policies that will mediate their effects.

Commentary on New Theories in Employment Relations

ILR Review invited leading scholars to present short comments on paired articles in the preceding Special Issue on New Theories in Employment Relations. They identify key contributions, suggest extensions, and offer broader thoughts on the direction of future theory in employment relations.

Examination of the impacts of e-cigarettes smoking on the tobacco non-smokers

Significance and Aim: The effects of cigarettes smoking on both smokers and non-smoker have been an issue of global public health concern. This led to the emergence of e-cigarettes as an alternative to help smokers in their smoking quitting journey. However, it has remained unclear on the public health costs this has on the non-smokers. The ILR Review is developed to examine the public health the use of e-cigarettes have on non-smokers. Methods: The ILR sourced data from four databases Scopus, Medline, CINAHL, and Google Scholar. This was through a keyword search process using the ‘e-cigarettes’ or ‘vaping’ AND ‘addiction’ AND ‘non-smokers’ AND ‘effects OR ‘consequences, search phrases. The search protocol was replicated for all the databases. The findings from the search process were Scopus (419), Medline (283), CINAHL (311), and Google Scholar (321). The ILR applied inclusion and exclusion criteria and the GRADE model to assess the quality of the articles. Consequently, only 23 articles remained for analysis and inclusion in the ILR findings. Finally, the articles were screed through the EQUATOR PRISMA tool and extracted in readiness for analysis. Findings and Analysis: The results demonstrate that the use of e-cigarettes has two leading public health implications on non-smokers, namely (i) the risk of new addictions and (ii) the risk of health-related illnesses. The findings affirm that the ease of accessing the e-cigarettes, the marketing craze, and the low cost of acquiring them has exposed a rising number of young people to its new addiction. The addiction could at times progress into tobacco smoking addiction. Secondly, the findings indicate that second hand smoke exposure, also known as passive smoking exposes the public to increased lung cancer, lung diseases and COPD illnesses. Conclusion: The ILR concludes that e-cigarettes have far-reaching public health concerns on non-smokers. This necessitates the need for increased restrictions and control on the e-cigarettes access and availability. This is in addition to enacting strict regulations on smoking areas and freedom.

ILR Review Special Series: Call for Papers

<i>ILR R<scp>eview</scp></i> S<scp>pecial</scp> S<scp>eries</scp>: C<scp>all for</scp> P<scp>apers</scp>

Worker Voice in America: Is There a Gap between What Workers Expect and What They Experience?

This article is the fifth in a series to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the ILR Review. The series features articles that analyze the state of research and future directions for important themes this journal has featured over many years of publication. The decline in unionization experienced in the United States over the past 40 years raises a question of fundamental importance to workers, society, and the field of industrial relations: Have workers lost interest in having a voice at work, or is there a gap between workers’ expectations for a voice and what they actually experience? And if a “voice gap” exists, what options are available to workers to close that gap? The authors draw on a nationally representative survey of workers that both updates previous surveys conducted in 1977 and 1995 and goes beyond the scope of these previous efforts to consider a wider array of workplace issues and voice options. Results indicate that workers believe they should have a voice on a broad set of workplace issues, but substantial gaps exist between their expected and their actual level of voice at work. Nearly 50% of non-union workers say they would vote for a union, compared to approximately one-third in the two prior national surveys, which points to continued interest in unions as a voice mechanism. Additionally, the authors find significant variation in the rates of use of different voice options and workers’ satisfaction with those options. The results suggest that a sizable voice gap exists in American workplaces today, but at the same time, no one voice option fits all workers or all issues.

Industry Studies Research: ILR Review Paper Wins 2018 First Place Award

Industry Studies Research: <i>ILR Review</i> Paper Wins 2018 First Place Award

The Poverty Reduction of Social Security and Means-Tested Transfers

This article is the fourth in a series to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the ILR Review. The series features articles that analyze the state of research and future directions for important themes this journal has featured over many years of publication.Starting with Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) data from 2008 to 2013, the authors link administrative data from Social Security and five large means-tested transfers—Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), public assistance (PA), the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and housing assistance—to minimize errors within the SIPP data. Social Security cuts the poverty rate by a third—more than twice the combined effect of the five means-tested transfers. Among means-tested transfers, the EITC and SNAP have the largest effects. All programs except for the EITC sharply reduce deep poverty. The relative importance of these programs differs by family subgroup. SSI, PA, and housing assistance have the highest share of benefits going to the pre-transfer poor, whereas the EITC has the lowest. Finally, the SIPP survey data alone provide fairly accurate estimates for the overall population at the poverty line, though they understate the effects of Social Security, SNAP, and PA. Differences in effects are striking, however, at other income cutoffs and for specific family types.

Introduction to a Special Issue on the Impact of Immigrant Legalization Initiatives: International Perspectives on Immigration and the World of Work

This article is the third in a series to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the ILR Review. The series features articles that analyze the state of research and future directions for important themes the journal has featured over its many years of publication. In this issue, we also feature a special cluster of articles and book reviews on one of the most critical labor market issues across the globe—the legalization and integration of immigrants into national labor markets. Despite the urgent need for immigration reform in the United States, there is a paucity of US research that looks at the impact of a shift from unauthorized to legal immigrant status in the workplace. The US immigration literature has also paid little attention to immigrant legalization policies outside of the United States, despite the fact that other countries have implemented such policies with far more regularity. The articles in this special issue draw on studies of legalization initiatives in major immigrant destinations: Canada, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Together they underscore the importance of cross-national perspectives for understanding the range of legalization programs and their impact on immigrant workers, the workplace, and the labor market. These findings contribute to key questions in migration scholarship and inform the global policy debate surrounding the integration and well-being of immigrants.

Corrigendum: Equality for Whom? Organizational Policies and the Gender Gap across the German Earnings Distribution

First Published October 13, 2016 | Correction Original article: Matt L. Huffman, Joe King, Malte Reichelt. 2017. Equality for Whom? Organizational Policies and the Gender Gap across the German Earnings Distribution. ILR Review 70(1): 16–41. doi: 10.1177/0019793916673974

Corrigendum: Credible Research Designs for Minimum Wage Studies: A Response to Neumark, Salas, and Wascher

First published February 1, 2017 | Correction Original article: Sylvia Allegretto, Arindrajit Dube, Michael Reich, and Ben Zipperer. 2017. Credible Research Designs for Minimum Wage Studies: A Response to Neumark, Salas, and Wascher. ILR Review 70(3): 559–592. doi: 10.1177/0019793917692788 Arindrajit Dube received financial support from the Russell Sage Foundation for this research. This information was inadvertently omitted from the original article’s acknowledgment section.

How Credible Is Trade Union Research? Forty Years of Evidence on the Monopoly–Voice Trade-Off

This article is the second in a series to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the ILR Review. The series features articles that analyze the state of research and future directions for important themes this journal has featured over many years of publication.In this article, the authors assess the credibility of research that has tested the theoretical contests between the monopoly and the collective voice model of unions developed by Freeman and Medoff in What Do Unions Do? The authors go beyond prior analyses by examining more than 2,000 estimates that consider the effects of unions on a broad range of organizational and individual outcomes, including productivity, productivity growth, capital investment, profits, and job satisfaction. They advance our understanding of the current empirical findings and credibility of this research by using meta-statistical analysis to evaluate research quality, publication selection bias, statistical power, and heterogeneity. The authors conclude that compared to other areas of economics, research on union effects has lower bias but larger problems of statistical power. They argue that Freeman and Medoff’s monopoly–collective voice model helped produce more credible results, and they suggest ways to reduce the power and heterogeneity problems in existing research.

In Search of the High Road: Meaning and Evidence

This article is the first in a series to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the ILR Review. We will be highlighting important research themes that have been featured in the journal over its many years of publication. In this article, Paul Osterman reviews research on the quality of jobs and recent debates over “High Road” and “Low Road” approaches to employment practices. Scholars and policy advocates frequently utilize the distinction between High Road and Low Road firms as a framework for efforts to improve the quality of work in low-wage employers. This article assesses the logic and evidence that underlies this construct. The author provides a definition of the concept and examines the evidence behind the assumption that firms have a choice in how they design their employment policies. He then takes up the assertion that firms that adopt a High Road model can “do well by doing good” and adds precision to this claim by reviewing the evidence that a profit-maximizing firm would benefit from following the High Road path. The article concludes by suggesting a research agenda and providing a framework for policy that flows from the conclusions drawn from the existing research base.

Commentary on Mindfulness in Action: Discovering How U.S. Navy SEALs Build Capacity for Mindfulness in High-Reliability Organizations (HROs)

Academy of Management DiscoveriesVol. 3, No. 3 Commentaries on Previously Published ArticlesCommentary on Mindfulness in Action: Discovering How U.S. Navy SEALs Build Capacity for Mindfulness in High-Reliability Organizations (HROs)Timothy J. Vogus and Kathleen M. SutcliffeTimothy J. VogusVanderbilt University and Kathleen M. SutcliffeJohns Hopkins UniversityPublished Online:28 Apr 2017https://doi.org/10.5465/amd.2017.0047AboutSectionsView articleView Full TextPDF/EPUB ToolsDownload CitationsAdd to favoritesTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail View articleREFERENCESBraun D. E., Prusacyzk W. K., Goforth J. H. W., & Pratt N. C. 1994. Personality Profiles of U.S. Navy Sea-Air-Land (SEAL). Personnel, ▪▪▪: 94–22363 [San Diego, CA: Naval Medical Research and Development Command.]. Google ScholarCrum A. J., Salovey P., & Achor S. 2013. Rethinking stress: The role of mindsets in determining the stress response. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 104: 716–733. Google ScholarFraher A. L., Branicki L. J., & Grint K. 2017. Mindfulness in action: Discovering how U.S. Navy SEALs build capacity for mindfulness in high-reliability organizations, Academy of Management Discoveries. Google ScholarJackall R. 1988. Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers. New York: Oxford University Press. Google ScholarMcDonald D., Norton J., & Hodgdon J. 1988. Determinants and Effects of Training Success in the U.S. Navy Special Forces. (NHRC 88-34). San Diego, CA: Naval Medical Research and Development Command. Google ScholarRochlin G. I., LaPorte T. R., & Roberts K. H. 1987. The self -designing high-reliability organization: Aircraft carrier flight operations at sea. Naval War College Review, 40: 76–90. Google ScholarSchulman P. R. 1993. The negotiated order of organizational reliability. Administration & Society, 25: 353–372. Google ScholarSchön D. A. 1983. The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. New York: Basic Books. Google ScholarScott C., & Myers K. K. 2005. The socialization of emotion: Learning emotion management at the fire station. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 33: 67–92. Google ScholarVogus T. J., & Iacobucci D. 2016. Creating highly reliable health care: Reliability-enhancing work practices affect patient safety in hospitals. ILR Review, 69: 911–938. Google ScholarWeick K. E. 2006. The role of values in high-risk organizations. In E. D. HessK. S. Cameron (Eds.), Leading with Values: Positivity, Virtue, and High Performance: 55–67. New York: Cambridge University Press. Google ScholarWeick K. E., Sutcliffe K. M., & Obstfeld D. 1999. Organizing for high-reliability: Processes of collective mindfulness. In B. M. StawL. L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in Organizational Behavior, 21, 81- 123. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, Inc. Google ScholarORIGINAL ARTICLE:Fraher A.L., Branicki L.J., & Grint K. 2017. Mindfulness in action: Discovering how U.S. Navy SEALs build capacity for mindfulness in high-reliability organizations, Academy of Management Discoveries. doi:10.5465/amd.2014.0146 Google ScholarFiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Vol. 3, No. 3 Permissions Metrics in the past 12 months History Published online 28 April 2017 Published in print 1 September 2017 Information© Academy of Management DiscoveriesDownload PDF

The 70th Anniversary of the ILR Review

The 70th Anniversary of the <i>ILR Review</i>

Corrigendum

Bosch, Gerhard. 2015. Review of Varieties of Liberalization and the New Politics of Social Solidarity, by Kathleen Thelen. ILR Review 68(3): 710−12. (Original DOI: 10.1177/0019793915575515 ) In this book review in the May 2015 issue of ILR Review, Germany should have been named instead of Denmark in the last sentence. The corrected sentence is as follows: “This prevented Germany from following their Scandinavian counterparts in creating, at an early stage, the conditions for well-paid work for the growing number of women entering the labor market and organizing service-sector workers more effectively.”

Introduction to the Special Issue on Job Quality: What Does it Mean and How Might We Think about It?

Scholars, employers, and certainly many employees share a perception that how work is organized has radically changed. The long period of relative stability that followed World War II began to erode in the 1970s with the multiple shocks of the oil crisis and accelerating international competition. Many also believe that the computer revolution, which transformed possibilities for managing firms and work processes, hastened change. Diffusion of new organizational models such as the Toyota Production system, not simply into automobiles but into a wide range of service as well as manufacturing industries, also remade employment systems. Distinctive organizational designs, such as the networked model found in the Silicon Valley, emerged. Firms redefined their relationship to their workforce as witnessed by the rise of contingent work and reduced mutual commitment. These developments are well known and add up to a transformation of work as experienced by employees. What is much less understood is the implication of these developments for job quality. We have yet to arrive at a coherent answer to this essential question. Nor do we understand how outcomes vary across national settings that differ substantially in their labor market institutions. To begin to answer these questions, in November 2011 the Cornell ILR School and the ILR Review sponsored a conference on job quality. That conference brought together scholars from a diverse range of disciplines and countries to assess changes in the job market and the attendant consequences for the workforce. The articles in this special issue were presented at the conference and have subsequently been revised in response to discussions at the conference and suggestions coming out of the ILR Review's review process.

Labor Market Monopsony

There has been a renewed interest in monopsony in labor markets in recent years that includes both the traditional static approach to monopsony, ably reviewed by Boal and Ransom (1997), and the “new” approach to monopsony with more attention paid to dynamic issues, developed in detail by Manning (2003). The articles presented in this supplement highlight both approaches and illustrate the range of labor market settings in which the exercise of monopsony power may be important. The first use of the term “monopsony” in economics is widely attributed to Robinson (1969). Robinson conceived of monopsony as analogous to monopoly. Whereas monopoly refers to the case of a single seller confronted in a market by many buyers, monopsony refers to the case of a single buyer confronted in a market by many sellers. Just as the monopolist faces a downward-sloping demand curve for his product and

Global Production, Company Codes of Conduct, and Labor Conditions in China: A Case Study of Two Factories

An attempt is made to understand the corporate ethical codes movement in China by drawing on case studies of two factories that had to respond to the corporate social responsibility programs. The process of implementation of corporate codes is examined at the company level along with the implication of code practices for labour rights.