Shareholder Value and Workforce Downsizing, 1981–2006

Jung, Jiwook

doi:10.1093/sf/sou108

Cited by 68 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 178 publications

(299 reference statements)

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“…A number of important studies have documented factors that have led to fundamental alterations in employment and inequality, including globalization (Alderson and Nielsen 2002), technological change (Acemoglu 2002), financialization Lin and Tomaskovic-Devey 2013), and shareholder pressures (Cobb 2015;Jung 2015). Further, other studies have focused squarely on changes in employment practices, including the decline in ILMs (Cappelli 2001), new wagesetting practices ), the increased use of external hiring (Bidwell 2011), and the rise of nonstandard work arrangements (Ashford, George, and Blatt 2007;Cappelli and Keller 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Growing Apart: The Changing Firm-Size Wage Premium and Its Inequality Consequences

Cobb

Lin

2017

Organization Science

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Wage inequality in the United States has risen dramatically over the past few decades, prompting scholars to develop a number of theoretical accounts for the upward trend. This study argues that large firms have been a prominent labor-market institution that mitigates inequality. By compensating their low-and middle-wage employees with a greater premium than their higher-wage counterparts, large U.S. firms reduced overall wage dispersion. Yet, broader changes to employment relations associated with the demise of internal labor markets and the emergence of alternative employment arrangements have undermined large firms' role as an equalizing institution. Using data from the Current Population Survey and the Survey of Income and Program Participation, we find that in 1989, although all private-sector workers benefited from a firm-size wage premium, the premium was significantly higher for individuals at the lower end and middle of the wage distribution compared to those at the higher end. Between 1989 and 2014, the average firm-size wage premium declined markedly. The decline, however, was exclusive to those at the lower end and middle of the wage distribution, while there was no change for those at the higher end. As such, the uneven declines in the premium across the wage spectrum could account for about 20% of rising wage inequality during this period, suggesting that firms are of great importance to the study of rising inequality.Keywords firm-size wage premium, inequality, internal labor market, employment relationship Disciplines Management Sciences and Quantitative MethodsThis journal article is available at ScholarlyCommons:

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Growing Apart: The Changing Firm-Size Wage Premium and Its Inequality Consequences

Cobb

Lin

2017

Organization Science

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“…Most important was the percentage of shares held by “pressure resistant” institutional investors such as pension funds, as opposed to “pressure sensitive” institutional investors, such as insurance companies, which may do other business with the company. This study reemphasizes power in the study of organizational change and shows “how the influence of institutional investors has contributed to reformulating the prevailing norm of employment relations at large U.S. corporations” (Jung, , p. 1363).…”

Section: Organizational Power At a Distancementioning

confidence: 96%

Power at a distance: Organizational power across boundaries

2019

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Organizational approaches can help to make sense of social phenomena, including inequality, politics, and culture. This is partly because large organizations exercise great power, both over employees and in their external environments. Revising Charles Perrow's classic account of the “society of organizations” in the 20th century, we argue that the organizational landscape has changed. There has been a dis‐embedding of individuals from organizations that contrasts with Perrow's idea of individuals being “absorbed” by organizations. Despite this hollowing out, there is a persistence of concentrated economic power or “concentration without centralization.” Organizational power in this landscape is increasingly exercised at a distance, not only geographically but also in the sense of moving across organizational boundaries and through technologies of valuation. Three bodies of research exemplify different types of power at a distance. (a) Research on global production networks shows how power travels across geographic and network distances. (b) Research on financialization and its consequences shows how power is mediated by frames and metrics. (c) Emerging research on big data and Artificial Intelligence shows how power is encoded into seemingly neutral technologies and made to seem inevitable. This work helps to update the sociology of organizations and opens up new research questions.

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“…Through their provision of equity to the firm and attendant voting rights, institutional investors have become crucial resource‐providing stakeholders for most firms, and resource dependence research shows that firms engage in specific strategic actions to appease them (e.g., Certo, ; Higgins & Gulati, ; Johnson & Greening, ; Jung, ). Thus, executives intend to actively manage their interdependency with institutional investors by adopting strategies favored by the latter (Connelly et al, ).…”

Section: Theory and Hypothesis Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

The adoption of chief diversity officers among S&P 500 firms: Institutional, resource dependence, and upper echelons accounts

Shi

Pathak

Song

et al. 2017

Human Resource Management

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The importance of workforce diversity has become a salient management concern given that demographic minorities comprise key sources of the workforce and consumers. As a result, some firms created chief diversity officer (CDO) positions to manage workforce diversity. This study takes a multitheoretic approach, drawing upon institutional, resource dependence, and upper echelons theories to explain firms' adoptions of this key position. Using Cox event history analyses based on a sample of S&P 500 firms, we find that, from an institutional theory perspective, firms are more likely to adopt CDOs when they are headquartered in legalized gay marriage states and the accumulative number of industry CDO adoptions is high. From a resource dependence perspective, we find that firm innovation intensity, diversification levels, transient institutional ownership, and industry female and African American employment bases can predict firms' adoptions of CDO positions. From an upper echelons explanation, we find that female top management team representation is positively associated with firms' adoptions of CDO positions.

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Shareholder Value and Workforce Downsizing, 1981–2006

Cited by 68 publications

References 178 publications

Growing Apart: The Changing Firm-Size Wage Premium and Its Inequality Consequences

Growing Apart: The Changing Firm-Size Wage Premium and Its Inequality Consequences

Power at a distance: Organizational power across boundaries

The adoption of chief diversity officers among S&P 500 firms: Institutional, resource dependence, and upper echelons accounts

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