IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp3105.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Market Characteristics, Intra-Firm Coordination, and the Choice of Human Resource Management Systems: Evidence from New Japanese Data

Author

Listed:
  • Kato, Takao

    (Colgate University)

  • Owan, Hideo

    (Waseda University)

Abstract

This paper explores theoretically and empirically potentially important yet often-neglected linkage between task coordination within the organization and the structure of organization and bundling of HRMPs (Human Resource Management Practices). In so doing, we also provide fresh insights on the interplay between the firm’s technological and output market characteristics and its choice of HRMP system. We begin with constructing a team-theoretic model and derive three task coordination modes: vertical control, horizontal coordination, and hybrid coordination. The model provides rich implications about complementarity involving task coordination modes, HRMPs, training and hiring, and management strategies, and illustrates how such complementarity is affected by the firm’s technological and output market conditions. Guided by the theoretical exploration, we analyze unique data from a new survey of Japanese firms which provide for the first time data on newer forms of HRMPs adopted by Japanese firms (such as cross-functional offline teams and self-managed online teams). One novel finding (which is consistent with the theory) is that the adoption of both self-managed online teams and cross-functional offline teams usually arises in firms with shop-floor committees while the introduction of cross-functional offline teams alone often takes place in firms with joint labor-management committees. We also confirm implications from our theory that firms in more competitive markets are more likely to adopt both types of teams while firms facing more erratic price movement tend not to adopt self-managed online teams.

Suggested Citation

  • Kato, Takao & Owan, Hideo, 2007. "Market Characteristics, Intra-Firm Coordination, and the Choice of Human Resource Management Systems: Evidence from New Japanese Data," IZA Discussion Papers 3105, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3105
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp3105.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. DeVaro, Jed & Farnham, Martin, 2011. "Two perspectives on multiskilling and product-market volatility," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 862-871.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    task coordination; HRM systems; teams;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • M5 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics
    • L2 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior
    • J53 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Labor-Management Relations; Industrial Jurisprudence
    • D2 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3105. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.