nep-hrm New Economics Papers
on Human Capital and Human Resource Management
Issue of 2022‒04‒04
eight papers chosen by
Patrick Kampkötter
Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen

  1. JAQ of All Trades: Job Mismatch, Firm Productivity and Managerial Quality By Luca Coraggio; Marco Pagano; Annalisa Scognamiglio; Joacim Tåg
  2. Ownership, Governance, Management and Firm Performance: Evidence from Italian Firms By Audinga Baltrunaite; Sara Formai; Andrea Linarello; Sauro Mocetti
  3. Firm Productivity Growth and the Knowledge of New Workers By Michael Kirker; Lynda Sanderson
  4. Disentangling the attractiveness of telework to employees: a factorial survey experiment By Eline Moens; Elsy Verhofstadt; Luc Van Ootegem; Stijn Baert
  5. Who benefits from firm success? Heterogeneous rent-sharing in New Zealand By Corey Allan; David C. Maré
  6. Occupational safety in a frictional labor market By Kerndler, Martin
  7. Alternative Work Arrangements and Worker Outcomes: Evidence from Payrolling By Bas Scheer; Wiljan van den Berge; Maarten Goos; Alan Manning; Anna Salomons
  8. You Got the Job! Understanding Hiring Decisions for Robots as Organizational Members By Heitlinger, Lea; Stock-Homburg, Ruth; Wolf, Franziska Doris

  1. By: Luca Coraggio (Università di Napoli Federico II); Marco Pagano (University of Naples Federico II, CSEF and EIEF.); Annalisa Scognamiglio (Università di Napoli Federico II and CSEF); Joacim Tåg (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN))
    Abstract: Does the matching between workers and jobs help explain productivity differentials across firms? To address this question we develop a job-worker allocation quality measure (JAQ) by combining employer-employee administrative data with machine learning techniques. The proposed measure is positively and significantly associated with labor earnings over workers’ careers. At firm level, it features a robust positive correlation with firm productivity, and with managerial turnover leading to an improvement in the quality and experience of management. JAQ can be constructed for any employer-employee data including workers’ occupations, and used to explore the effect of corporate restructuring on workers’ allocation and careers.
    Keywords: jobs, workers, matching, mismatch, machine learning, productivity, management.
    JEL: D22 D23 D24 G34 J24 J31 J62 L22 L23 M12 M54
    Date: 2022–03–30
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sef:csefwp:641&r=
  2. By: Audinga Baltrunaite (Bank of Italy); Sara Formai (Bank of Italy); Andrea Linarello (Bank of Italy); Sauro Mocetti (Bank of Italy)
    Abstract: We explore the role of ownership, governance and management characteristics as potential drivers of the performance gaps between firms located in the Centre and North and in the South of Italy. First, we document that southern firms are characterized by more frequent family ownership and a higher fraction of local and family directors on the board. Moreover, entrepreneurs and managers of southern firms have lower education levels and are less inclined to adopt structured managerial practices and advanced technology. Second, we examine to what extent these differences account for the performance gap between the two areas. We find that managers’ human capital explains one tenth of the difference in firm size, while family ownership accounts for one tenth of the differences in productivity. Although the analysis is purely descriptive, our findings suggest that ownership, governance and management play a significant role in explaining firm performance and account for a non-negligible fraction of the North-South divide.
    Keywords: ownership, family firms, corporate governance, managerial practices, human capital, firm size, productivity, technology
    JEL: G30 L20 M10
    Date: 2022–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_678_22&r=
  3. By: Michael Kirker; Lynda Sanderson (The Treasury)
    Abstract: Linked employer-employee data from New Zealand is used to study the relationship between a firm’s productivity growth and its exposure to outside knowledge through the hiring of new workers with previous work experience. The estimated relationship between productivity growth and hiring is compared to the predictions implied by two different channels: worker quality and knowledge spillover. Although it is not possible to identify a causal relationship, the productivity of a worker’s previous employer is correlated with subsequent productivity growth at the hiring firm. The patterns of this correlation are consistent with both the worker quality and knowledge spillover channels operating simultaneously. Furthermore, if knowledge spillover is occurring, the results suggest the type of knowledge spilling over relates to technological knowledge allowing firms to become more capital intensive, rather than knowledge that improves the efficiency of utilising existing inputs.
    Keywords: productivity; labour mobility; human capital; knowledge diffusion
    JEL: D24 J24 J62 O33
    Date: 2022–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nzt:nztwps:22/01&r=
  4. By: Eline Moens; Elsy Verhofstadt; Luc Van Ootegem; Stijn Baert (-)
    Abstract: This research adds to the literature on the attractiveness of telework to employees. To this end, we set up an innovative factorial survey experiment in which a high-quality sample of employees evaluates job offers with diverging characteristics, among which a wide variation in telework possibilities. We find that the relationship between the possibility to telework and job attractiveness is approximately linear: 10 percentage points more telework hours yield a rise of 2.2 percentage points in job attractiveness and, therefore, the willingness to give up an increase of 2.3 pp in wage in the new job. Our experimental design also allows us to investigate the underlying mechanisms of this relationship as well as its moderators. We find that the attractiveness of telework is particularly explained by expectations of an improved work-life balance, more work scheduling autonomy, a higher job satisfaction, and more work methods autonomy in jobs with a greater possibility to telework. In addition, our analyses show that less conscientious employees are on average more attracted to jobs with greater telework possibilities, so that it is important that self-selection in jobs with more telework is well-monitored.
    Keywords: telework, job attractiveness, factorial survey experiment
    JEL: J24 J81 J31 J63 I31
    Date: 2022–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rug:rugwps:22/1042&r=
  5. By: Corey Allan (Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment); David C. Maré (Motu Economic and Public Policy Research)
    Abstract: We continue our examination of inclusive growth at the firm level by examining heterogeneity in rent sharing in New Zealand using linked employer-employee data. We test for heterogeneity in rent sharing across a range of worker and firm characteristics including gender, ethnicity, age, qualifications, tenure, firm size, firm age, and industry. We also refine our measure of quasi-rents and estimate the level of excess quasi-rents per worker, or the amount of rents above the threshold beyond which rent sharing occurs. We find that between 20% and 30% of workers are in firms that earn zero excess rents. These workers are concentrated in the hospitality, administrative services, and retail industries and are more likely to be women, to be M?ori or Pacific peoples, and have lower-level qualifications. We find an overall rent-sharing elasticity of 0.03, which is equivalent to a $38 increase in annual wages in response to a $1,000 increase in excess rents per worker. We find differences in rent sharing by levels of highest qualification, tenure, and ethnicity. We find no differences in rent sharing by firm size or firm age. Rent sharing is similar across industries, with workers in most industries receiving between $1,500 and $2,000 of rents per year. The auxiliary finance and professional, scientific, and technical services sectors share the most, while grocery retailing, food and beverage manufacturing and utilities share the least. Insurance type behaviour by firms is consistent with the variation in rent sharing across industries, although differences in bargaining power are also likely to play a role in explaining differences in rent sharing across groups.
    Keywords: Wage determination; Rent-sharing; imperfect competition.
    JEL: J3 J71 J10 D22
    Date: 2022–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mtu:wpaper:22_03&r=
  6. By: Kerndler, Martin
    Abstract: This paper studies the provision of occupational safety when the labor market is subject to search frictions. While safety measures are costly for firms, they reduce workers' mortality. We show that the presence of search frictions decreases the socially optimal level of occupational safety relative to a frictionless labor market, leading to excess mortality. In a decentralized setting where wages and safety measures are bargained at the firm level, matching externalities and a labor supply externality may further reduce safety provision. We obtain conditions under which these externalities are internalized by firms and workers, and discuss the role of policy for promoting occupational safety. Calibrating the model to the US, we find that search frictions explain 8%-14% of the work-related mortality rate, which indirectly makes them the third largest cause of work-related death.
    Keywords: occupational safety,mortality,search frictions,Nash bargaining
    JEL: J17 J28 J32 J38 J64
    Date: 2022
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:tuweco:022022&r=
  7. By: Bas Scheer (CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis); Wiljan van den Berge (CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis); Maarten Goos; Alan Manning; Anna Salomons
    Abstract: The rising incidence of alternative work arrangements raises questions about worker outcomes in non-standard labor contracts. However, causal evidence on the effects of flexible contracts on labor market outcomes of individual workers is scarce. We study this question using data on payrolling, a work arrangement where employees are on the payroll of one company while performing their job duties at another firm. Like employment agencies, payroll companies can offer flexible employment contracts. Payrolling is a growing phenomenon on the Dutch labor market, and is particularly prevalent in low-wage jobs in the service sector. We show that employees who receive a payrolling contract subsequently have a reduced chance of employment, a lower incidence of permanent contracts, lower pension contributions, and lower growth in hourly wages. Some of this effect disappears in the three years after payrolling as employees switch jobs. These findings are based on payrolling prior to the 2020 enactment of new labor law in the Netherlands (Wet Arbeidsmarkt in Balans WAB). This law equates the legal protection of employees on payrolling contracts to that of standard contracts, including pension accrual. Future research could consider whether adverse effects for individual employees have indeed been remedied since the introduction of this law.
    JEL: J31 J32 J41 J42
    Date: 2022–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpb:discus:435&r=
  8. By: Heitlinger, Lea; Stock-Homburg, Ruth; Wolf, Franziska Doris
    Abstract: As social robots will likely be central to future human-robot interactions at work, we assess hiring decisions for social robots as a natural first step prior to their integration into organizations. With a basis in the technology acceptance model and social identity theory, this study focuses on differences between humanoid robotic, android robotic and human candidates. We first examine performance-based evaluations of the applicants by focusing on expectation disconfirmation. While for the human candidate, the interplay between expectations and experiences is decisive for the judgement, for social robots, the actual experience of the hiring situation dominates the decision. Besides the rational decision criteria, we further look into social-cue-based evaluations as social biases in hiring situations. Categorization as social ingroup leads to an absolute preference for the human candidate (i.e., ingroup favoritism) with no differences in preference for the robotic social outgroup (i.e., outgroup homogeneity effect).
    Date: 2022
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dar:wpaper:131771&r=

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