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Current Projects:
The Impact of Employee Participation on the Firm Performance Rainer Ammon Duration: 12/2008 - 12/2011 According to Property-Rights-Theory legally enforcable codetermination leads to a weakening of owners`coporate control rights and to lower net present value of the firm. Some authors use the term “entrenched labor” to signify that paritetic codertmination can create hold-up problems for investors. Specifically, it is argued that a certain part of investments can only be profitably realized if layoffs can be undertaken at low costs when demand for the product is low. When such an adaptation of production capacity becomes costly because of institutional barriers such as employee codetermination, this results in reduced investment activity because investors are aware of these barriers. Possibly lower risk projects are undertaken to decrease the need for capacity adjustment. At the same time positive effects on corporate profits and welfare can arise from employee participation in the form of employee shareholdings. The goal of this dissertation thesis is to identify the impact of employee participation on firm performance. Employee participation is to be interpreted in the sense of codertermination as well as participation through employee shareholding.
Explaining Security Attitudes of Employees: The Role of Labour Market Institutions, Societal Security Norms, and the Employment Relationship
Janine Bernhardt Duration: 12/2008 - 11/2011 Against the background of current debates on the European flexicurity strategy the central question of this project is if and how labour market institutions (LMI) matter for security attitudes of employees. More specifically, the purpose is to examine empirically in what way institutionalised securities (and changes thereof), such as employment protection and passive labour market policies, have an impact on security perceptions of actors protected by such policies. The project is motivated by the argument of the European Commission (2007) that induced flexibilisation of the labour market will alter individual security perceptions and preferences and consequently cause changes in individual job mobility behaviour. Taking the exceptionally high preference for job security in Germany as an example, this implies that a strong stability orientation can be transformed into a flexibility orientation by path-breaking institutional reforms. However, evidence both in theoretical and empirical terms is far from clear. Three steps will be taken to fill this gap. First, the role of the so called standard employment relationship (SER) as societal norm of post war Germany will be examined by comparing security perceptions and strategies of East and West German employees. Second, it will be shown how policy reforms are reflected by changing individual security attitudes. Third, it will be studied by European comparison how regime specific security norms and their relation to institutionalised security affect security perceptions of employees.
Personal politics for older workers – How do companies manage their aging workforces?
Silke Haberkorn Duration: 08/2009 - 07/2012 The background is the ongoing demographic change in Germany leading to numerous challenges for companies. First, the qualification profiles of older employees are often obsolescent and secondly labour market structures will change in the next few years. There will be a decline in the number of active workforce, at the same time the average age of the remaining workforce will rise. Taking the fact, that only 40 percent of German companies have experience with employees over the age of 50, there is an increasing need for action for companies to deal with these developments. The literature often deals with reasons for going into retirement at an individual level. Employment or dismissal of older employees as the result of company strategies is less regarded. On labour supply side there are especially cost-benefits analysis and human capital aspects to be taken into consideration. Entrepreneurial action always takes place in institutions controlling and influencing enterprises and their strategies. On institutional side, there are especially laws, rules and limitations influencing companies strategies. For the empirical analysis, the data from the LIAB were chosen. With this dataset it is possible to link company decisions and company attitude towards older employees with data from the German Beschäftigtenstatistik, so that managerial, institutional and individual factors can be identified. Combinations of Different Subject Areas during Vocational Education – Empirical Analysis of the Trade-Off between Financial Success and Job Satisfaction Anke Hammen Duration: 03/2007 - 09/2011
The entire educational path, and not only the highest vocational qualifying degree – as often assumed - has an effect on one’s success in professional life. This study indicates that the completion of several kinds of vocational education has a different impact on the further employment than the completion of a single occupational education. It is important to note that the difference is not due to the completion of several vocational trainings, but rather a result of the combination of their subject areas. However, which combination is the key to a successful career? In the context of this analysis, three cases can be distinguished: vocational specialisation with one vocational training, vocational specialisation with more than one vocational training and vocational diversification. In order to study the effect of specialised and diversified vocational education, two dimensions of success are considered: on the one hand, financial success, like realised income and the associated income risk, and on the other hand, subjective success, like multiple aspects of job satisfaction. Relevant questions in this context are whether the financial or non-financial dimension of success is prevailing as well as if there is a trade-off between both aspects of success. A special issue of the project is the self-selection which is inherent in the process of educational decision making and influences the decision to combine several vocational trainings and to combine special subject areas as well. Minimum Wages and X-Efficiency
Wolfgang Hoffeld Duration: 04/2008 - 03/2011
Compared with the vast body of literature regarding the employment effects of minimum wages, there are very few studies focusing on product market and firm level effects. Most of the research in this area relates to the price effects of minimum wages. Empirical evidence regarding potential efficiency enhancing effects of minimum wages is scarce. A deeper investigation of the potential relationship between minimum wages and efficiency is intended. It is believed that the introduction of the minimum wage in Great Britain has lead to a stronger reduction of inefficiencies in firms, which have been more affected by the minimum wage. Hence, the aim is to analyse the introduction of the national minimum wage (NMW) in 1999 as to its potential efficiency effects on a firm-level basis by using contemporary methods of efficiency and productivity analysis.
(International) Demand Shocks and National Labour Market Institutions – How does the labour market react on the world crisis?
Stephan Huber
Duration: 12/2008 - 12/2011 The actual economic and labour market crisis grow out of the global finance crisis. Regarding economic and labour performance some countries do surprisingly better than others. This dissertation project identifies three ways, how country specific labour market institutions (LMI) setups (especially: labor market rigidities and fiscal policy) may play are role here: First, it is argued that some LMI setups are better in dimishing the negative effects of exogenous demand shocks; second, it is proofed whether LMI have some influence on trade that worsen the demand shock for a country; third the importance of divergences in LMI setups of countries is explained. This may play a role especially by considering the interdependence of LMI, trade integration and unemployment. The introduction of heterogeneous production structure (heterogeneous firms) within the New New Trade Theory promise some potential to build new and interesting models. Political Labour Jurisprudence? Kai Kühne Duration: 09/2007 - 09/2011
While the German Grundgesetz rests on the ideal of independent and impartial jurisdiction, it is often imputed by lawyers and journalists that labour court decisions in particular might be influenced by political motives. According presumptions originate from the strong position of German labour judges: as vital parts of labour law are incomplete and imprecise, issues often can’t be solved unambiguously on the basis of legal criteria. Labour jurisdiction has ample scope and is forced to base its decisions on extralegal criteria. As a surrogate legislator, it has to be seen as a political agent whose activities have to be interpreted politically. Although the relevance of political bias in labour jurisdiction is regularly stated, there is so far hardly any secure empirical evidence for the existence of such bias. This project is thought to contribute to research by identifying employer- or employee-friendly tendencies of German labour courts and determinants of these tendencies.
Co-determination: The Growing Tension between Empirical Research and Public Discourse
The Reform of the Professor’s remuneration in Germany - the Implementation on University Level and its Consequences Firm Organisation and Employment Volatility Susanne Warning Duration: 11/2006 - 09/2011 The project examines theoretically and empirically the influence of firm organisation on variation in employment. More specifically, I am interested in the effect of M-form and U-form organisations on employment stability when there has been an exogenous shock on the product market. The basic theoretical model predicts that product-related and function-related economies of scope play an important role for the effect of the organisational form. Organisational Capital: The Power of an Economic Metaphor Dieter Sadowski; Oliver Ludewig Discussion Paper 2003/02 Organisatorische Determinanten erfolgreicher Förderung von Forschernachwuchs durch Promotionsprogramme: eine institutionenökonomische Untersuchung Dieter Sadowski; Peter Schneider; Nicole Thaller (standards of doctoral programmes) Duration: 2006-2009 (Second Funding Period) In the second phase, our project focuses once more on the effects of the different forms of governance (status quo vs. New Public Management) and on the involvement of economic departments in favour of early stage researchers. For the present phase, we presume that previously exogenous impulses for reform (incentives, sanctions) are less determinant with regard to professorial action than the internal organisation of collegial departments, which are supposed to solve the problem of fostering early stage researchers as a team. Thus, in the second phase, we intend to have a closer look at obviously strong, exogenous impulses for reform and at the problems of internal organisation. These endogenous determinants for the successful promotion of early stage researchers may result from its nature as a partial (local) collective good. In order to identify the relation between exogenous and endogenous causes of the quality of young academic researchers, we will examine universities in Great Britain and the USA which are characterised by strong incentives. We will analyse the conditions for successful change in state universities in particular due to the lack of reference in Germany. To study endogenous processes, we are also searching for cases of constant regulation and a changed research quality and changed professorial action at the same time. Additionally, the second phase of the project emphasises the professorial action of research institutes (not universities) in a comparison between Germany and the USA. Finished Projects: 2009
Regional Wages and the Micro-Economics of Human Capital Externalities in Western Germany
Daniel Heuermann
The Economic and Managerial Implications of the Legal Framework of Temporary Agency Work in the US for its Usage by Firms
Tim Montag
2008
Different Types of Institutions in Academia and Student´s Habitus: Educational Differences between University and Fachhochschule Katrin Baltes How to Explain Shifts from Coordinated Market Economies (CME) to Liberal Market Economies (LME) during the 1990s – An Empirical Analysis of Cross-Country Data
Dana Liebmann Procedural Satisfaction Matters – Procedural Fairness Does Not: An Experiment Studying the Effects of Procedural Judgments on Outcome Acceptance
Vanessa Mertins
Allocation of Decision Rights in Suggestion Schemes – Conditions and Consequences of Decentralization
Mihai Paunescu Russian faculties: successful "brokers" or a "fall between two stools"?
Maria Smirnova
Institutions and Organizations – The Change of Doctoral Studies?
Nicole Thaller
2007 The European Works Council – neither European norWorks Council? Dieter Sadowski; Kai Kühne Perspectives of Corporate Governance Dieter Sadowski 2005 and 2006 Flat or Steep Hierarchies in Research Institutes? – Empirical Findings for the Max-Planck-Institutes Catharina Leilich Complementary Organisational Practices and Strategic Organisational Designs – Myth and Facts Oliver Ludewig Educational Credentials in an International Labour Market: Perspectives of European Educational Strategies Tanja Machalet Securities Firms in China: Performance and Property Rights Cuiping Pang Annual Report on the Social Dialogue in the European Union: German Report Concerning the Collective Bargaining Situation in 2004 – 2005 Dieter Sadowski; Catharina Leilich Performance of German Universities: Positioning and Strategic Groups Susanne Warning |
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