International Journal of Manpower

Guido Citoni; Benoît Mahy; François Rycx

2012 International Journal of Manpower

doi: 10.1108/01437721211234129

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce this special issue on work organization, performance and health. Design/methodology/approach – The authors provide a general review of the literature and describe the main findings of the papers appearing in this special issue. Findings – This issue provides new evidence regarding the impact of work organization (essentially defined in terms of payment methods, teamwork, workforce age structure and labour contracts) on performance (measured through employment, productivity and sickness absenteeism indicators). It also sheds more light on the determinants of workers’ health by gender, with particular attention to working conditions and mobbing. Originality/value – The papers collected in this special issue provide some fine examples of recent work at the crossroads of health and personnel economics.

Tor Eriksson

2012 International Journal of Manpower

doi: 10.1108/01437721211234138

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to note that the current discussion about employer behaviors appears to be more concerned with how these affect the physical world than the consequences of the adoption of new management practices and organizational changes for the physical and psychological wellbeing of their employees. Design/methodology/approach – Keynote speech (review of the literature). Findings – This paper argues that the overlap between health and personnel economics is a new, fruitful area of research that can fill this void. Recent research in health economics has taught us that the life cycle perspective is key, and accordingly, the importance of childhood conditions have become increasingly better understood. However, the determinants of adult health, and the role of work life and working conditions and changes therein, are less well understood. Originality/value – The paper discusses what economists can contribute to this area of research, and then selectively reviews some previous studies, including an investigation of the relationship between job design and health in Europe. Finally, some thoughts are given regarding promising areas for further research and a brief discussion of the major challenges involved.

Emmanuel Dhyne; Benoît Mahy

2012 International Journal of Manpower

doi: 10.1108/01437721211234147

Purpose – To ease adjustments in the labour market, many countries have softened their legislation since the 1970s by introducing flexible labour contracts or by making their use easier. The purpose of this paper is to document labour management of temporary contracts during the last 20 years in Belgium, compared to the situation in its neighbouring countries. The authors investigate the determinants of the use of flexible labour contracts and the consequences of their introduction on labour dynamics. Design/methodology/approach – A dynamic Probit is considered to model the use of fixed term labour contracts (FTCs) and standard dynamic labour demand equations are used to test the impact of labour contracts on the labour adjustment at the firm level, using a panel of around 8,000 firms during the period 1998‐2005. Findings – The results indicate that some firms follow labour management based on a core (indefinite term contracts – ITCs) and a peripheral component (FTCs) and manage temporary contracts on a “permanent” basis, from a long run perspective. Estimates also confirm a much faster temporary contracts employment adjustment, while ITCs adjustment does not depend on whether firms employ FTCs. ITCs short‐term employment elasticity with respect to wages suggests that workers protection against redundancies is strengthened when firms manage work organisation with both types of contracts. In contrast to ITCs, FTCs are used to meet unexpected demand shocks. Originality/value – This paper contributes to the growing literature on the impact of the introduction of new flexible contracts on the labour demand at the firm level.

Alessandra Cataldi; Stephan Kampelmann; François Rycx

2012 International Journal of Manpower

doi: 10.1108/01437721211234156

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate empirically the relationship between workforce age, wage and productivity at the firm level. Design/methodology/approach – Panel data techniques are applied to Belgian data on private sector workers and firms during 1999‐2006. Findings – Results (robust to various potential econometric issues, including unobserved firm heterogeneity, endogeneity and state dependence) suggest that older workers are significantly less productive than prime age and young workers. In contrast, the productivity of middle‐aged workers is not found to be significantly different compared to young workers. Findings further indicate that average hourly wages within firms increase significantly with workers’ age. Overall, this leads to the conclusion that young (older) workers appear to be “underpaid” (“overpaid”). Originality/value – These findings contribute to the growing literature on how the workforce age structure affects productivity and wages.

Harald Dale‐Olsen

2012 International Journal of Manpower

doi: 10.1108/01437721211234165

Purpose – Performance pay is growing in importance. Even in a centralised economy such as the Norwegian economy, the prevalence of performance pay has increased significantly from 1997 to 2003, and internationally changes in payment methods also occur increasingly. The purpose of this paper is to analyse how performance pay and team organisation and the interaction between these affect publicly‐financed sickness absences of workers. Design/methodology/approach – Standard panel and cross‐section non‐linear and linear regression techniques are applied to Norwegian panel register and questionnaire data on private sector workers and workplaces during 1996‐2005. Findings – Team organisation and performance pay are found to be negatively related to sickness absence incidence rates and sick days, partly due to strong negative relationships in workplaces providing jointly performance pay and team organisation. The negative effect of performance pay on sickness absence survives even when fixed job effects are taken into account. The negative effects were stronger for weak incentives than stronger, and they are primarily related to group‐based incentive schemes. Practical implications – Introducing weak group‐based incentive schemes might be one way to successfully tackle absenteeism for firms. Originality/value – The paper's findings contribute to the growing literature on how performance pay and team organisation affect absenteeism.

Elena Cottini

2012 International Journal of Manpower

doi: 10.1108/01437721211234174

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how different measures of working conditions affect the health at work of female and male workers of 15 European countries. Particular attention is paid to the gender dimension of this relationship. Design/methodology/approach – Using the European Working Conditions Survey from 2005 the author describes differences in health at work by gender accounting for both psychosocial and physical hazards at work. A Probit OLS estimator is used to obtain the relevant estimates and endogeneity problems have been properly addressed. Findings – Results show that controlling for a broad selection of personal and work attributes, working conditions are associated with more work related health problems – both physical and mental. Importantly, some evidence is found in support of a different pattern by gender. With respect to mental health at work, males suffer more from high work demands/low job autonomy compared to females. Task segregation may play a role in explaining these differences. A less clear pattern across gender is found with respect to physical health problems at work. When the endogeneity of working conditions is taken into account, results are confirmed and show that the effect of working conditions on health at work is under‐estimated when endogeneity is not accounted for. Originality/value – The paper's findings contribute to shed more light on the controversial analysis between working conditions and health according to gender.

M. Angeles Carnero; Blanca Martínez; Rocı´o Sa´nchez‐Mangas

2012 International Journal of Manpower

doi: 10.1108/01437721211234183

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to evaluate the effect of mobbing in workers’ health. Design/methodology/approach – Using a dataset of Spanish workers from the VI Spanish Survey on Working Conditions, the authors identify mobbed and not mobbed workers and use two different health indicators: the worker's perception that work affects health, and the presence of bad health symptoms. The authors analyze the incidence of both indicators in mobbed and not mobbed workers then estimate an econometric model to explain the probability of suffering bad health in terms of mobbing and a set of job and workers’ characteristics. The authors deal with the potential endogeneity of mobbing. Findings – It is found that, regardless of the health indicator used, the probability of suffering bad health is significantly higher among mobbed workers than among those not being mobbed. Moreover, when the health indicator is based on the worker's perception, not taking into account the endogeneity of mobbing leads to underestimation of its effect on health. Practical implications – The results can be of interest for workers, firms and policy makers in charge of designing policies related to working conditions. Given the well‐known link between worker's health and productivity, the paper's results can have implications from the economic point of view. Originality/value – To the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first attempt to empirically analyze the relationship between mobbing and health at Spanish workplaces.