IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ilrrev/v56y2003i2p224-243.html

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

Author

Listed:
  • Larry W. Hunter
  • John J. Lafkas

Abstract

Using 1994–95 survey data on customer service representatives in 303 U.S. bank branches, the authors investigate the effects on wages of information technology (IT), of work practices, and of those two factors in combination. Offline high-involvement practices (measured by the presence of quality circles) were related positively to wages, as was more extensive use of IT that supports sales efforts. Where IT was used more extensively to automate routine processes, wages were lower in branches that did not have high-involvement work practices. The effects are partially explained by higher education requirements and more extensive introductory training in higher-wage jobs.

Suggested Citation

  • Larry W. Hunter & John J. Lafkas, 2003. "Opening the Box: Information Technology, Work Practices, and Wages," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 56(2), pages 224-243, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ilrrev:v:56:y:2003:i:2:p:224-243
    DOI: 10.1177/001979390305600202
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/001979390305600202
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/001979390305600202?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Goldin, Claudia & Katz, Lawrence F, 1996. "Technology, Skill, and the Wage Structure: Insights from the Past," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 252-257, May.
    2. Larry W. Hunter, 2000. "What Determines Job Quality in Nursing Homes?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 53(3), pages 463-481, April.
    3. repec:bla:econom:v:62:y:1995:i:245:p:89-107 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Rosemary Batt, 2001. "Explaining Wage Inequality in Telecommunications Services: Customer Segmentation, Human Resource Practices, and Union Decline," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 54(2A), pages 425-449, March.
    5. Paul Osterman, 2000. "Work Reorganization in an Era of Restructuring: Trends in Diffusion and Effects on Employee Welfare," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 53(2), pages 179-196, January.
    6. Peter Cappelli, 1996. "Technology and skill requirements: implications for establishment wage structures," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue May, pages 139-156.
    7. Paul Osterman, 1994. "How Common is Workplace Transformation and Who Adopts it?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 47(2), pages 173-188, January.
    8. Brown, Charles & Medoff, James, 1989. "The Employer Size-Wage Effect," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(5), pages 1027-1059, October.
    9. Lazear, Edward P, 1995. "A Jobs-Based Analysis of Labor Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 260-265, May.
    10. Allen N. Berger & Anil K. Kashyap & Joseph M. Scalise, 1995. "The Transformation of the U.S. Banking Industry: What a Long, Strange Trips It's Been," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(2), pages 55-218.
    11. John Paul Macduffie, 1995. "Human Resource Bundles and Manufacturing Performance: Organizational Logic and Flexible Production Systems in the World Auto Industry," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 48(2), pages 197-221, January.
    12. Alan B. Krueger, 1993. "How Computers Have Changed the Wage Structure: Evidence from Microdata, 1984–1989," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(1), pages 33-60.
    13. George P. Huber & Danial J. Power, 1985. "Retrospective reports of strategic‐level managers: Guidelines for increasing their accuracy," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(2), pages 171-180, April.
    14. Peter Cappelli, 1993. "Are Skill Requirements Rising? Evidence from Production and Clerical Jobs," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 46(3), pages 515-530, April.
    15. John E. DiNardo & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 1997. "The Returns to Computer Use Revisited: Have Pencils Changed the Wage Structure Too?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 291-303.
    16. John Bound & George Johnson, 1995. "What are the causes of rising wage inequality in the United States?," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, issue Jan, pages 9-17.
    17. Peter Cappelli & William H. Carter, 2000. "Computers, Work Organization, and Wage Outcomes," NBER Working Papers 7987, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Larry W. Hunter & Annette Bernhardt & Katherine L. Hughes & Eva Skuratowicz, 2001. "It's Not Just the ATMs: Technology, Firm Strategies, Jobs, and Earnings in Retail Banking," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 54(2A), pages 402-424, March.
    19. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Alan B. Krueger, 1998. "Computing Inequality: Have Computers Changed the Labor Market?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(4), pages 1169-1213.
    20. David H. Autor & Frank Levy & Richard J. Murnane, 2002. "Upstairs, Downstairs: Computers and Skills on Two Floors of a Large Bank," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 55(3), pages 432-447, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Frederick Guy & Peter Skott, 2008. "Information and Communications Technologies, Coordination and Control, and the Distribution of Income," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 17(3-4), pages 71-92, September.
    2. Frederick Guy & Peter Skottz, 2005. "Power-Biased Technological Change and the Rise in Earnings Inequality," Working Papers 06, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    3. Michael J., Handel, 2004. "Implications of Information Technology for Employment, Skills, and Wages: Findings from Sectoral and Case Study Research," MPRA Paper 80241, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Paul Osterman, 2006. "The Wage Effects of High Performance Work Organization in Manufacturing," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 59(2), pages 187-204, January.
    5. Adam Seth Litwin, 2013. "Not Featherbedding, but Feathering the Nest: Human Resource Management and Investments in Information Technology," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(1), pages 22-52, January.
    6. Virginia Doellgast, 2010. "Collective Voice under Decentralized Bargaining: A Comparative Study of Work Reorganization in US and German Call Centres," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 48(2), pages 375-399, June.
    7. Richard Volpe, 2014. "Supercenters, Unionized Labor, and Performance in Food Retail," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(2), pages 325-355, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Larry W. Hunter & Annette Bernhardt & Katherine L. Hughes & Eva Skuratowicz, 2001. "It's Not Just the ATMs: Technology, Firm Strategies, Jobs, and Earnings in Retail Banking," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 54(2A), pages 402-424, March.
    2. Kathryn Shaw, 2004. "The Human Resources Revolution: Is It a Productivity Driver?," NBER Chapters, in: Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 4, pages 69-114, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Paul Osterman, 2006. "The Wage Effects of High Performance Work Organization in Manufacturing," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 59(2), pages 187-204, January.
    4. Handel, Michael J., 2003. "Implications of Information Technology for Employment, Skills, and Wages: A Review of Recent Research," MPRA Paper 80077, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Borghans, Lex & Weel, Bas ter, 2001. "What happens when agent T gets a computer?," Research Memorandum 017, Maastricht University, Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    6. Sandra E. Black & Lisa Lynch & Anya Krivelyova, 2003. "How Workers Fare When Employers Innovate," NBER Working Papers 9569, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Peter Dolton & Panu Pelkonen, 2008. "The Wage Effects of Computer Use: Evidence from WERS 2004," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 46(4), pages 587-630, December.
    8. Richard B. Freeman, 2002. "The Labour Market in the New Information Economy," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 18(3), pages 288-305.
    9. Uwe Jirjahn & Kornelius Kraft, 2010. "Teamwork And Intra‐Firm Wage Dispersion Among Blue‐Collar Workers," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 57(4), pages 404-429, September.
    10. Larry W. Hunter & Annette Bernhardt & Katherine L. Hughes & Eva Skuratowicz, 2000. "It's Not Just the ATMs: Technology, Firm Strategies, Jobs, and Earnings in Retail Banking," Center for Financial Institutions Working Papers 00-31, Wharton School Center for Financial Institutions, University of Pennsylvania.
    11. Ganna Vakhitova & Christopher R. Bollinger, 2011. "Labor Market Return to Computer Skills: Using Microsoft Certification to Measure Computer Skills," Discussion Papers 46, Kyiv School of Economics.
    12. Marianne P. Bitler, 2001. "Small Business and Computers: Adoption and Performance," Working Paper Series 2001-15, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    13. Bauer, Thomas K. & Bender, Stefan, 2001. "Flexible Work Systems and the Structure of Wages: Evidence from Matched Employer-Employee Data," IZA Discussion Papers 353, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Borghans, Lex & ter Weel, Bas, 2004. "What happens when agent T gets a computer?: The labor market impact of cost efficient computer adoption," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 137-151, June.
    15. Leora Friedberg, 2003. "The Impact of Technological Change on Older Workers: Evidence from Data on Computer Use," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 56(3), pages 511-529, April.
    16. David R. Howell & Margaret Duncan & Bennett Harrison, 1998. "Low Wages in the US and High Unemployment in Europe: A Critical Assessment of the Conventional Wisdom," SCEPA working paper series. 1998-01, Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA), The New School, revised Aug 1998.
    17. Rosemary Batt & Hiroatsu Nohara & Hyunji Kwon, 2010. "Employer Strategies and Wages in New Service Activities: A Comparison of Co‐ordinated and Liberal Market Economies," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 48(2), pages 400-435, June.
    18. Michael J. Handel, 2016. "What do people do at work? [Was machen Menschen bei der Arbeit?]," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 49(2), pages 177-197, October.
    19. Angel de la Fuente & Antonio Ciccone, 2003. "Human capital in a global and knowledge-based economy," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 562.03, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    20. Fredrik Andersson & Clair Brown & Benjamin Campbell & Hyowook Chiang & Yooki Park, 2008. "The Effect of HRM Practices and R&D Investment on Worker Productivity," NBER Chapters, in: The Analysis of Firms and Employees: Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches, pages 19-43, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    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:sae:ilrrev:v:56:y:2003:i:2:p:224-243. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ilr.cornell.edu .

    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.