Human Capital and Human Resource Management http://lists.repec.org/mailman/listinfo/nep-hrm Human Capital and Human Resource Management 2026-05-11 Power to the Personnel? The Impacts of Managerial Discretion vs. Worker Democracy in Employee Recognition https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35138&r=&r=hrm Worker agency—workers' influence over organizational decisions—is a commonly-cited determinant of employee engagement, productivity, and organizational culture. We conducted a firm-level RCT in India, randomizing whether employee recognition and associated bonuses were allocated: based on a worker vote (agency treatment), at the discretion of the manager (managerial discretion treatment), or at random and unrelated to performance (control). We find that workplace democracy increases worker attendance, but managerial discretion improves productivity. There are also implications for firm culture and knowledge spillovers, with the manager arm reducing work-related discussions between workers. Winners in the manager arm are positively selected on attendance and productivity, while those in the democracy arm are positively selected on attendance, social interactions, and likelihood of sharing the reward with co-workers in exchange for votes. These results highlight how what is valued in the workplace impacts worker behavior and firm culture, as well as the potential for informal contracts among workers to interact with workplace incentives. Namrata Kala Madeline McKelway 2026-04 What Do (Thousands of) Unions Do? Union-Specific Pay Premia and Inequality https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:2558&r=&r=hrm We study the role of union heterogeneity in shaping wages and inequality among unionized workers. Using linked employer-employee data from Brazil and job moves across multi-firm unions, we estimate over 4, 800 union-specific pay premia. Unions explain 3-4% of earnings variation. While unions raise wages on average, the standard deviation in union effects is large (6-7%). Validating our approach, wages fall in markets with higher vs. lower union premia following a nationwide right-to-work law. Linking premia to detailed data on union attributes, we find that unions with strike activity, collective bargaining agreements, internal competition, and skilled leaders secure higher wages. High-premium unions compress wage gaps by education while the average union exacerbates them. Post right-to-work, however, worker support for high-premium unions falls when between-group bargaining differentials are large. Our findings show that unions are not a monolith - their structure and actions shape their wage effects and, consequently, worker support. Ellora Derenoncourt François Gerard Lorenzo Lagos Claire Montialoux Wage Level and Structure, Wage Differentials; Trade Unions: Objectives, Structure, and Effects 2025-08 Firm Pay, Amenities, and Inequality https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35149&r=&r=hrm We estimate firm-specific amenity valuations using discrete choice experiments embedded in a large-scale survey of German workers linked to administrative records. Workers rank hypothetical offers from real firms they would consider joining, with randomized wages identifying money-metric valuations. Valuations vary substantially across firms and demographic groups, yet a single index performs surprisingly well. Valuations are approximately orthogonal to firm wage premia; they therefore do not offset between-firm wage inequality. However, male-female differences in amenity valuations explain part of the gender wage gap. Sydnee Caldwell Ingrid Haegele Jörg Heining 2026-04 Up to the Top or Stuck in the Middle: Does Gender Influence How Far Machiavellian Personalities Climb the Corporate Ladder? https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18571&r=&r=hrm Concerns about corporate scandals and abusive leadership suggest that individuals with an opportunistic and manipulative personality sort into managerial positions. Indeed, a fledgling number of econometric studies have shown that individuals high in Machiavellianism are more likely to hold a management position. Our study takes that research an important step further by analyzing the moderating role of gender. It examines whether gender has an influence on how far Machiavellians climb the managerial hierarchy. Using representative data from Germany, we find that Machiavellianism increases the likelihood of holding a middle management position for both men and women. However, Machiavellianism is associated with a higher likelihood of occupying a top-level management position only among men but not among women. For men, the impact of Machiavellianism even appears to increase the further they climb the managerial hierarchy. These findings fit theoretical considerations. Baktash, Mehrzad Jirjahn, Uwe Machiavellianism, gender career gap, women, top-level managers, managerial hierarchy 2026-04 Toward a Bad Job Economy: AI Adoption, Agency Costs, and Job Design https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18574&r=&r=hrm We study how AI affects compensation and job design when performance depends on workers’ non-contractible effort. In a principal–agent model with limited liability, AI reduces effort costs but disproportionately lowers the cost of achieving satisfactory performance. This raises the incentive cost of sustaining high effort and can induce firms to replace high-wage, high-effort good jobs with low-wage, low-effort bad jobs, even when good jobs create more total surplus. As a result, AI can lower wages, reduce worker welfare, and even depress profits. If workers can adopt AI unilaterally, adoption occurs even when the resulting equilibrium harms both parties; when adoption requires worker cooperation, resistance is strongest where AI erodes rents embodied in good jobs. In a search-and-matching extension, endogenous outside options amplify these forces, reinforcing a bad-job economy and potentially reducing employment. Fahn, Matthias Li, Jin Sun, Chang artificial intelligence, agency costs, job design, labor contracts, limited liability, incentives, search and matching 2026-04 Flexibility and Social Protection in the Gig Economy: Experimental Evidence on Work Location and Scheduling https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18589&r=&r=hrm Debates on gig work often treat flexibility and social protection as substitutes. This paper shows that gig workers value different forms of flexibility differently, and that preferences for flexibility and social protection can be complementary. Using discrete-choice experiments with digital freelancers in Malaysia, with standard workers as a benchmark, we examine preferences for work location and scheduling autonomy. Four findings emerge. First, gig workers strongly value spatial autonomy and are willing to pay to work-from-home. Second, preferences for scheduling flexibility are heterogeneous, with many, including freelancers, preferring fixed schedules. Third, willingness to pay for long-term protection in the form of retirement savings increases with both types of autonomy. Fourth, willingness to pay for unemployment insurance is linked only to work-location flexibility. Gig workers possibly associate remote work, but not flexible hours, with greater employment uncertainty, and therefore demand stronger protection against unemployment risks. Flexibility and protection can therefore act as complements rather than substitutes in the gig economy. Ghorpade, Yashodhan Jasmin, Alyssa Abdur Rahman, Amanina gig economy, flexible work arrangements, work-from-home, work scheduling, job amenities, social insurance, labor market risk, discrete choice experiments 2026-04 When Does Coordination Matter? Large-scale Evidence On Structural Contingencies In The Team Player Effect https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12626&r=&r=hrm The value of being a "team player" is not fixed – it depends on how work is organized. Using 1.5 million matches among 30, 459 players in temporary teams formed by quasi-random matchmaking, we measure each player's coordination ability as a stable trait distinct from solo technical skill. This "team player effect" has a standardized coefficient ratio to individual skill (TPE/SELO) of about 47% in team contests but near zero in solo play. The return to coordination is strongly context-dependent: across a team-size × task-structure grid, the TPE/SELO coefficient ratio shifts from 35% to 72% (2.1×; 1.28×–1.49× within player), driven by team scale increasing coordination demands and task interdependence attenuating the predictive power of individual skill. Teammates perceive this quality, re-selecting high-coordination partners 23% more often. These findings connect individual coordination capabilities to organization design, providing field-scale evidence for classical contingency theory's prediction that the value of coordination depends on structural context. Christoph M. Flath Fabian Kosse Victor Klockmann Alicia von Schenk Nikolai Stein Nico Elbert team performance, coordination, social skills, team player effect, familiarity, e-sports 2026