David Marsden

• London School of Economics and Political Science

This paper seeks to contribute to the current debate about corporate governance and work relations in two ways: it extends the analysis to include employees’ subjective well‐being and it considers a wider range of ownership models using Hansmann's typology as a guide. It argues that a key input into subjective well‐being is provided by the scope to...

This article compares performance management practices in call centres from four telecommunications firms in the United Kingdom, France, Denmark, and Germany. Findings show that different combinations of institutional constraints, such as strong job security protections, and participation resources supporting worker voice were influential in shapin...

In this paper we use the national samples from the European Structure of Earnings Survey (ESES) to analyze the evolution of the wage premium of firm- and industry-level agreements in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland (the CE3) around the time of their accession to the EU. We find that despite a generalized reduction in union coverage in these...

The paper examines recent evidence on the erosion of the German industrial relations model. Although its coverage has declined, much of this has occurred in smaller and newer establishments, and compared with Britain, it has remained solid in the areas of Germany's traditional industrial strength. This is explained by the nature of high performance...

Labor markets across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries have changed greatly over the past quarter of a century.

Job moves by workers occur both between and within organizations. Movements between organizations, by means of local, national, and international labor markets, play a key role in economic adjustments. But it is easy to overlook the equally important adjustments between labor supply and demand that take place within organizations. Sometimes this is...

Learning by doing represents a major component of both workforce skills and organisational capabilities. Consequently, the boundaries of skills result from the interaction between organisational and labour market factors which shape employment systems. This chapter explores how skill systems are shaped, on the one hand, by the demands of different...

This article considers the role of individual employee voice in regulating the 'zone of acceptance' within the employment relationship, and examines the extent to which different models of collective voice inhibit or foster the operation of individual voice. It focuses especially on the role of representatives who deal with job-level grievances who...

Using a large, matched employer-employee data set, the authors investigate the impact of company and industry collective bargaining agreements on wages in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland (CE3). They also examine the changing characteristics of the union wage premium in different cohorts of establishments. Their results challenge the common...

At a time when the economic recession is more severe, and trade unions are weaker, than at any time since the War, it would be unproductive to speculate about the extent to which these changes have been imposed, acquiesced, or agreed by the workers concerned. Instead we focus on recent changes in employment relationships in Britain, and their conse...

This chapter brings new evidence on the relationship between employees' well-being, sickness absence, and four dimensions of workplace performance: productivity, efficiency, quality of service, and profitability. It uses a new panel data set with monthly observations over two years for 48 local units of a large multisite organization in the logisti...

A large number of labour markets are characterized by competitive entry. Young workers compete for entry into those firms that provide the best career opportunities, and they do so to become established in particular occupations. When labour markets are characterized by strong institutions, such competition is often concentrated at certain stages i...

Australian and New Zealand environmental economists have played a significant role in the development of concepts and their application across three fields within their subdiscipline: non-market valuation, institutional economics and bioeconomic modelling. These contributions have been spurred on by debates within and outside the discipline. Much o...

This chapter analyses the case of pay for performance in the British Civil Service since the 1980s, which progressively moved from a 19th-century classified pay system (in which pay rises came either from promotion to a higher grade or from incremental progression on a given grade) to one in which a fifth or more of pay was obtained by discretionar...

The erosion of a number of national systems of employment relations, and the evidence from large scale workplace surveys has brought attention to the considerable diversity of employment systems within major economies. This essay applies the theory of evolutionary games to explain the diffusion of different employment systems within national econom...

This article examines the relationship between individual and collective employee voice, and management-led voice (appraisal), under contrasted collective voice regimes. In the first, collective workplace voice depends on voluntary recognition by the employer, and in the second, it is based on statutory rights. It is argued that in the first, indiv...

The approach of this article is to look at participation against the canvas of the employment relationship, its organization, core processes, and their outcomes for organizational performance and social well-being. The article starts with a brief historical overview of developments over the past forty years because it is useful to set theories in t...

At the 2008 SASE meeting in San Jose, Costa Rica, David Marsden organized a session on the prospects for a renewed institutional labour economics. The debate began with introductory remarks by Paul Osterman, who sketched out an argument that at the time was still in its very early stages. The introduction and the subsequent comments were found by t...

Under the auspices of the debate about high performance work systems, it has been suggested that the evidence of positive results is disappointing and that one reason is that there has been a lack of theory. This paper argues that there is indeed a great deal of theory that could be used to reformulate the basic research questions, much of it comin...

A vast and often confusing economics literature relates competition to investment in innovation. Following Joseph Schumpeter, one view is that monopoly and large scale promote investment in research and development by allowing a firm to capture a larger fraction of its benefits and by providing a more stable platform for a firm to invest in R&D. Ot...

We employ the EU KLEMS database to estimate the real rate of return to capital in 14 countries (11 in the EU, three outside the EU) in 10 branches of the market economy plus the market economy as a whole. Our measure of capital is an aggregate over seven types of asset: three ICT assets and four non-ICT assets. The real rate of return in the market...

Using a large matched employer-employee dataset, the authors investigate the relationship between collectiveagreements, wages and restructuring in transition in three former centrally planned economies (Czech Republic,Hungary and Poland). They adopt a natural experiment approach and capture the restructuring process triggeredby the launch of transi...

Executive summary: The report demonstrates that health and wellbeing policies at Royal Mail Group have had a number of significant and material effects:  Royal Mail Group has successfully tackled the issue of absenteeism (CHAPTER ONE): Royal Mail achieved significant reductions in absence – from 7% to 5% – between January 2004 and May 2007, equiva...

In 1995, Industrielle Beziehungen published a special issue on the 'Future of the German Model'. It was based on a symposium sponsored by the Anglo-German Foundation, and involved a dialogue between academic researchers from Germany, Britain, the US and France and officials from trade unions and employer organisations from Germany and the UK. At th...

This year, 2008, is the twentieth anniversary of the first appearance of Amitai Etzioni's The Moral Dimension: Towards a New Economics (New York: The Free Press, 1988). The book was a major foundational text behind the inauguration of SASE, the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, from which Socio-Economic Review originated. The editors...

The article analyzes the individual employee voice and performance management within public services. Performance management, which is a combination of employee goal setting, performance related pay, and appraisal, has been widely adopted within British public sector organizations, and is effective in making organizations flexible. The author exami...

This paper starts by reviewing some of the evidence relating to movements in relative wages, asking what have been their causes and whether they serve to allocate labour across labour markets. Much of the research has tended to focus on the statistical sources available, and therefore to focus on movements of pay between industries rather than firm...

Technical change, economic internationalisation and generally increased competition have caused management in many firms to adopt new employee management systems such as “lean production”, TQM, and have placed a premium on “high performance” cooperative industrial relations systems. This article seeks to provide a first analysis of their likely eff...

Will European economic and monetary union bring about a unification of European labour markets, and is there likely to be a convergence of patterns of labour market organisation among Community countries? The evidence discussed suggests that a major increase in unskilled mobility across the EC is unlikely, at least concerning EC citizens. Among ski...

This paper reviews the changing pattern of labour market segmentation in Britain since the mid-1970s. In the early 1980s, industrial labour markets in Britain, along with Germany, could be characterised as dominated by occupational labour markets for skilled workers compared with the predominance of firm internal labour markets in France and Italy....

Incentive pay systems have undergone major changes in recent decades. This paper investigates use of incentive pay systems in British and French private sector establishments in 2004, focusing onpayment-by-results, merit pay, and profit sharing, using British and French workplace surveys: WERSand Réponse. Despite the stereotypes of Britain as a der...

This paper uses a natural experiment approach to identify the effects of an exogenouschange in future pension benefits on workers’ training participation. We use uniquematched survey and administrative data for male employees in the Dutch public sectorwho were born in 1949 or 1950. Only the latter were subject to a major pension reformthat diminish...

Periodically, the 'zone of acceptance' within which management may use its authority to direct employees' work needs to be adapted to the changing needs of organisations. This article focuses especially on the non-codified elements of employees' work, such as those commonly the subject of 'psychological contracts', and considers the role of individ...

Texte en hommage à François Sellier - chercheur au LEST. En tant qu'économiste, François Sellier s'est toujours intéressé à la question du salaire qui ne renvoie pas, à ses yeux, simplement à la fonction de production, mais apparaît fondamentale pour la reproduction de la société. Le salaire est l'un des enjeux primordiaux dans cette société où les...

The introduction of performance-related pay in England's schools has had a generally bad press. But David Marsden and Richard Belfield find that it is starting to have a positive impact both on school management and pupils' academic achievements.

What is the relationship between the structure of earnings within firms and their business and employment performance? A major CEP project led by David Marsden has been using new European data to examine the role that firms' performance management systems play in the macroeconomy. In particular, the project has explored the ways in which these syst...

This paper uses a natural experiment approach to identify the effects of an exogenouschange in future pension benefits on workers’ training participation. We use uniquematched survey and administrative data for male employees in the Dutch public sectorwho were born in 1949 or 1950. Only the latter were subject to a major pension reformthat diminish...

The development of the ‘network economy’ and the project-based work challenge established methods of regulating employment relationships. There appears to be an unsatisfied demand for its greater use, especially among employers, and this may be blocked by the lack of suitable contractual forms. Project-based work seeks to retain some of the open-en...

Performance-related pay (PRP) and performance management (PM) are now a part of the organizationallandscape that unions face in the UK's public services. While PRP and PM threaten the scope of traditionalunion bargaining activities, they simultaneously offer a new role to unions as providers of 'procedural justiceservices' to both union members and...

O artigo sublinha a importância do estudo da dinâmica da relação de emprego para o entendimento das mudanças recentes tanto na gestão de recursos humanos no mercado de trabalho, como nas instituições sindicais. A relação de emprego é uma instituição socioeconômica que deve satisfazer os interesses daqueles que a adotam, sejam firmas, sejam trabalha...

The article argues that we need to pay more attention to the dynamics of the employment relationship if we are to understand current developments in labour markets human resource management, and labour institutions. The employment relationship is a socio-economic institution which has to satisfy the joint requirements of those who adopt it, both fi...

New management thinking on work organisation and pay brings it into direct conflict with long-established methods trade unions have used to defend their members’ interests and their ideas of fairness. No doubt, this has contributed to the declining management interest in ‘joint regulation’ with unions in recent decades, and not just in Britain and...

Much of the academic and policy literature on performance-related pay (PRP) focuses on its role as an incentive system. Its role as a means for renegotiating performance norms has been largely neglected. This study examines the introduction of performance-related pay, based mostly on appraisals by line managers, in Britain's public services during...

A quarter of a century ago, the United States was the high unemployment economy of the "West" whereas Europe had much lower levels. Today, the position is reversed. Why should this have come about? Blau and Kahn provide a bold answer to this important question: greater wage flexibility has meant that the U.S. economy could adjust more readily to th...

Australian and New Zealand environmental economists have played a significant role in the development of concepts and their application across three fields within their subdiscipline: non-market valuation, institutional economics and bioeconomic modelling. These contributions have been spurred on by debates within and outside the discipline. Much o...

Much of the academic and policy literature on performance related pay focuses on its role as an incentive system. Its role as means for renegotiating performance norms has been largely neglected. The introduction of performance related pay, based mostly on appraisals by line managers, in the British public services in the 1990s can be considered as...

This study uses cross-section and panel data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey to explore contextual influences on the relationship between performance-related pay (PRP) and organizational performance. While it finds strong evidence that the use of PRP can enhance performance outcomes, it also determines that this relationship is qu...

Books Reviewed: Stijn Claessens, and Kristen J. Forbes (eds.), International Financial Contagion and Friedrich L. Sell, Contagion in Financial Markets Uskali Maki (ed.), The Economic World View: Studies in the Ontology of Economics Stephen Cullenberg, Jack Amariglio and David F. Ruccio, Postmodernism, Economics and Knowledge Markus K. Brunnermeier,...

This study uses cross-section and panel data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey to explore contextual influences on the relationship between performance-related pay (PRP) and organizational performance. While it finds strong evidence that the use of PRP can enhance performance outcomes, it also determines that this relationship is qu...

A Theory of Employment Systems considers why there are such great international differences in the way employment relations are organized within the firm. Taking account of the growing evidence that international diversity persists despite 'globalization', it sets out from the theory of the firm first developed by Coase and Simon, and explains why...

Unions have long bargained on the basis of “standard” rates. Today they are having to come to terms with managements rewarding individual performance. David Marsden argues that unions still have an important role to play in preserving the idea of fairness in the workplace.

The sheer scale and speed of the shift of payment system from time-based salaries to performance-related pay, PRP, in the British public services provides a unique opportunity to test the effects of incentive pay schemes. This study is based on the first large scale survey designed to measure the effects of performance related pay on a) employee mo...

Comment on "Editor's Introduction review symposium: Converging divergences: worldwide changes in employment systems, by Harry C. Katz and Owen Darbishire Boyer, George R."

The debate on this Discussion Paper took place at the London School of Economics on July 8 2000. It was made possible by a grant from DGV of the European Commission. It took place as a special mini-conference during the annual meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, SASE, hosted by LSE. Translation services were provided by M...

During the summer of 2000, the government will introduce a new system of pay and performance management for teachers. The Centre for Economic Performance is conducting a ‘before-and-after’ panel study of teachers and schools to ascertain its effects on motivation and performance. This paper reports preliminary findings from the first wave of the su...

The sheer scale and speed of the shift of payment system from time-based salaries to performance-related pay, PRP, in the British public services provides a unique opportunity to test the effects of incentive pay schemes. This study is based on the first large scale survey designed to measure the effects of performance related pay on employee motiv...

‘A theory of Employment Systems’ explains why there are such great international differences in the way employment relations are organized within the firm. It takes account of the growing evidence of international diversity. It sets out from the theory of the firm first developed by Coase and Simon, and explains why firms and workers should use the...

Linking pay to performance is something employers increasingly seek to achieve. This was once seen as an objective which could only be met in the private sector. That is no longer true. In the 1990s the British public services have experienced a revolution which has attracted the interest and concern of public service managers and unions around the...

Incl. bibl., note biographique sur l'auteur