This paper studies the value of firms and their hiring and firing decisions in an environment where the productivity of the workers depends on how well they match with their co-workers and the firm acts as a coordinating device. Match quality derives from a production technology whereby workers...

We study how firm-specific complementary assets and intellectual property rights affect the management of knowledge workers. The main results show when a firm will wish to sue workers that leave with innovative ideas, and the effects of complementary assets on wages and on worker initiative. We...

This paper explores theoretically and empirically potentially important yet often-neglectedlinkage between task coordination within the organization and the structure of organizationand bundling of HRMPs (Human Resource Management Practices). In so doing, we alsoprovide fresh insights on the...

The research area of the new economics of personnel has a short but important and insightful history. Theory ahead of measurement asks for testing newly developed human resource concepts. These tests often need detailed firm-specific data. Repetition and comparison of results is key in finding...

What are the performance benefits of investing in human resources in a low-cost labor environment where returns to such investment are widely perceived as negligible? This paper presents a matched pair case study on the performance effect of human resource management systems at two garment...

This paper contributes to the emerging strand of the empirical literature that takes advantage of new data on workplace-specific job attributes and voluntary employee turnover to shed fresh insights on the relationship between employee turnover, adverse workplace conditions and HRM environments....

Using nationally representative workplace data we find substantial use of high-performance work systems (HPWS) in Britain's small enterprises. We find empirical support for the proposition that HPWS have a non-linear association with employees' overall job attitude, with a positive association...

Linking the Workplace Employment Relations Surveys 2004 and 2011 to administrative data on pupil attainment in England we examine whether secondary and primary schools who deploy more intensive human resource management (HRM) practices have higher pupil attainment. We find intensive use of HRM...

I examine the history of employee engagement and how it has been characterised by thinkers in sociology, psychology, management and economics. I suggest that, while employers may choose to invest in employee engagement, there are alternative management strategies that may be profit-maximising. I...

Evidence on schools' performance is confined to comparisons across schools, usually based on value-added measures. We adopt an alternative approach comparing schools to observationally equivalent workplaces in the rest of the British economy using measures of workplace performance that are...