Working Paper: NBER ID: w13233
Authors: Richard B. Freeman; Douglas Kruse; Joseph Blasi
Abstract: This paper examines cross-country differences in labour policies and practices and employee performance and attitudes toward work from a sample of nearly 30,000 employees in a large multinational manufacturing firm. The analysis shows: 1) large establishment and country differences in work practices, performance, and attitudes toward work across countries; 2) qualitatively similar responses of workers to work practices across countries; 3) a strong link between the establishment average of employee reports on the quality of labour-management relations and establishment average measures of employee performance 4) a positive relation between average employee performance and average employee-management relations at the country level, but no relation between country level performance in the firm and measures of the extent of national labour regulations or practices.
Keywords: Labor practices; Employee performance; Cross-country comparisons; Management relations
JEL Codes: J0; J00
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| country institutions (O17) | variation in outcomes (I14) |
| workplace practices (J29) | worker performance (J29) |
| workplace practices (J29) | worker attitudes (J29) |
| worker attitudes (J29) | worker performance (J29) |
| labor-management relations (J58) | employee performance (M51) |
| national labor regulations (J88) | performance outcomes (L25) |
| worker performance (J29) | quality of labor-management relations (J53) |