Workplace innovations and employee outcomes: evidence from a representative employee survey

Working paper

In the recent literature on workplace innovations, two competing views stand out: in the high-performance work system (HPWS) literature it is argued that workplace innovations have positive outcomes for employees in the form of increased discretion, improved job security, and enhanced job satisfaction. In turn, the critics of HPWS view argue that workplace innovations lead to increased job intensity and mental strain, and compromise job security. We address these issues by using a representative data set on individual employees from Finland. On balance our results are more supportive of the HPWS view. The results also show that there are differences between individual practices. Information sharing has consistently positive effects on employees, while the impacts of training and self-managed teams are more varied. Incentive pay has a positive association only with wages.

Authors: Kalmi, P; Kauhanen, A

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: ESRC Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance (SKOPE)
• Series: SKOPE Research Paper
• Place of publication: http://www.skope.ox.ac.uk/publications
• Publication date: 2005-01-01
• Edition: Publisher's version
• ISSN: 1466-1535
• Paper number: 61, November 2005
• Language: English
• Keywords: job satisfaction; JEL:J28; job strain; JEL:J53; incentive pay; JEL:M53; JEL:M54; workplace innovations; JEL:M52; teamwork; JEL:M12; training
• Subjects: Education; Employment