IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/20017.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Why do voice regimes differ?

Author

Listed:
  • Willman, Paul
  • Bryson, Alex
  • Gomez, Rafael

Abstract

In this paper we seek to explain the emergence of different voice regimes, and to do so by using approaches from institutional economics. In particular we analyse the emergence of different voice regimes as a contracting problem; a ¿make¿ or ¿buy¿ decision on the part of the employer. A unique feature of the model is that the firm, having chosen its particular employee management regime, faces switching costs if it attempts to alter its original make or buy decision. A particular dimension of the employee management regime decision is the use of the union as agent or supplier of voice, or elements thereof. We argue that there are circumstances in which the employer may, on grounds of cost or risk, seek to subcontract aspects of the management of labour to a union and, further, that this (along with the presence of switching costs) helps explain the continued recognition of trade unions in many firms. In other circumstances, however, the employer may seek to construct voice mechanisms without union involvement. Workplace data from Britain are used to test these and other implications of the model.

Suggested Citation

  • Willman, Paul & Bryson, Alex & Gomez, Rafael, 2003. "Why do voice regimes differ?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20017, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:20017
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/20017/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alex Bryson, 2000. "Have British Workers Lost their Voice, or Have they Gained a New One?," PSI Research Discussion Series 2, Policy Studies Institute, UK.
    2. Paul Willman, 2001. "The Viability of Trade Union Organization: A Bargaining Unit Analysis," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 39(1), pages 97-117, March.
    3. Gallie, Duncan & White, Michael & Cheng, Yuan & Tomlinson, Mark, 1998. "Restructuring the Employment Relationship," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198294412, Decembrie.
    4. te Velde, Dirk Willem, 2003. "Foreign Ownership, Microelectronic Technology and Skills: Evidence for British Establishments," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 185, pages 93-106, July.
    5. Stephen Machin, 2000. "Union Decline in Britain," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 38(4), pages 631-645, December.
    6. David Blanchflower & Alex Bryson, 2002. "Changes over time in union relative wage effects in the UK and the US revisited," NBER Working Papers 9395, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Willman, Paul, 1982. "Opportunism in labour contracting : An application of the `organisational failures' framework," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 83-98, March.
    8. Andrew Hildreth, 1999. "What Has Happened to the Union Wage Differential in Britain in the 1990s?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 61(1), pages 5-31, February.
    9. John T. Addison & Claus Schnabel (ed.), 2003. "International Handbook of Trade Unions," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2705.
    10. Alex Bryson, 2001. "Union Effects on Workplace Governance 1983 -1998," PSI Research Discussion Series 8, Policy Studies Institute, UK.
    11. Henry S. Farber & Bruce Western, 2002. "Ronald Reagan and the Politics of Declining Union Organization," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 40(3), pages 385-401, September.
    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. Alex Bryson, 2004. "Unions and Workplace Closure in Britain, 1990–1998," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 42(2), pages 282-302, June.
    2. Aleksandra Gregorič & Thomas Poulsen, 2020. "When Do Employees Choose to Be Represented on the Board of Directors? Empirical Analysis of Board‐Level Employee Representation in Denmark," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(2), pages 241-272, June.
    3. Alex Bryson & John Forth & Simon Kirby, 2005. "High‐Involvement Management Practices, Trade Union Representation And Workplace Performance In Britain," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 52(3), pages 451-491, July.
    4. Howard Gospel & P Willman, 2003. "High Performance Workplaces: the Role of Employee Involvement in a Modern Economy Evidence on the EU Directive Establishing a General Framework for Informing and Consulting Employees," CEP Discussion Papers dp0562, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.

    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. Alex Bryson & P Willman, 2007. "Union Organization in Great Britain," CEP Discussion Papers dp0774, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    2. Bryson, Alex, 2001. "Union effects on managerial and employee perceptions of employee relations in Britain," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 4957, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. John H. Pencavel, 2004. "The Surprising Retreat of Union Britain," NBER Chapters, in: Seeking a Premier Economy: The Economic Effects of British Economic Reforms, 1980–2000, pages 181-232, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Blanden, Jo & Machin, Stephen & Van Reenen, John, 2005. "New survey evidence on recent changes in UK union recognition," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 768, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Blanchflower, David G., 2006. "A Cross-Country Study of Union Membership," IZA Discussion Papers 2016, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Dr Alex Bryson & John Forth, 2009. "Unions and Workplace Performance in Britain and France," National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) Discussion Papers 327, National Institute of Economic and Social Research.
    7. Metcalf, David, 2001. "British unions: dissolution or resurgence revisited," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20124, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Blanchflower, David G. & Bryson, Alex, 2008. "Union Decline in Britain," IZA Discussion Papers 3436, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. David G. Blanchflower & Alex Bryson, 2022. "Union Membership Peaks in Midlife," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 60(1), pages 124-151, March.
    10. David G. Blanchflower & Andrew J. Oswald, 2005. "The Wage Curve Reloaded," NBER Working Papers 11338, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Lixin Cai & C. Jeffrey Waddoups, 2011. "Union Wage Effects in Australia: Evidence from Panel Data," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 49(Supplemen), pages 279-305, July.
    12. A Charlwood, 2003. "The Anatomy of Union Decline in Britain: 1990-1998," CEP Discussion Papers dp0601, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    13. Alex Bryson, 2014. "Union wage effects," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 1-35, July.
    14. Schnabel, Claus & Zagelmeyer, Stefan & Kohaut, Susanne, 2005. "Collective bargaining structure and its determinants : an empirical analysis with British and German establishment data," IAB-Discussion Paper 200516, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    15. Alex Bryson & Richard Freeman & Rafael Gomez & Paul Willman, 2017. "The Twin Track Model of Employee Voice: An Anglo-American Perspective on Union Decline and the Rise of Alternative Forms of Voice," DoQSS Working Papers 17-13, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    16. Hornstein, Andreas & Krusell, Per & Violante, Giovanni L., 2005. "The Effects of Technical Change on Labor Market Inequalities," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 20, pages 1275-1370, Elsevier.
    17. Brändle, Tobias & Baumann, Florian, 2013. "Union Bargaining and Intra-Industry Productivity Differentials: Theory and Evidence from Germany," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 79852, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    18. John T. Addison & Alex Bryson & Paulino Teixeira & André Pahnke, 2011. "Slip Sliding Away: Further Union Decline In Germany And Britain," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 58(4), pages 490-518, September.
    19. Elisabetta Magnani & David Prentice, 2010. "Outsourcing And Unionization: A Tale Of Misallocated (Resistance) Resources," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 48(2), pages 460-482, April.
    20. Edgar Preugschat, 2009. "Unionization Patterns and Firm Reallocation," 2009 Meeting Papers 1114, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    trade unions; voice; transaction cost economics; switching costs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J51 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Trade Unions: Objectives, Structure, and Effects
    • J5 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining
    • J50 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - General
    • L5 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy

    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:ehl:lserod:20017. 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.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.