The Same Yet Different: Worker Reports on Labour Practices and Outcomes in a Single Firm Across Countries

   (135 K)

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.

Published: Freeman, Richard B. & Kruse, Douglas & Blasi, Joseph, 2008. "The same yet different: Worker reports on labour practices and outcomes in a single firm across countries," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 749-770, August.

This paper is available as PDF (135 K) or via email.

Acknowledgments

Machine-readable bibliographic record - MARC, RIS, BibTeX