Opening the Box : Information Technology, Work Practices, and Wages

We examine the association between different kinds of information technology (IT), work practices, and wages for the job of customer service representative in 303 U.S. bank branches. We test for main effects and for interaction effects between IT and "high-involvement" work practices. Off-line high-involvement practices (measured by the presence of quality circles) are related positively to wages, as is more extensive use of IT that supports sales efforts. Where IT is used more extensively to automate routine processes, wages are lower where branches do not have high-involvement work practices. The effects are partially explained by higher education requirements and levels of introductory training for higher-wage jobs