IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ilrrev/v66y2013i4p989-1011.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effects of Organizational Change on Worker Well-Being and the Moderating Role of Trade Unions

Author

Listed:
  • Alex Bryson
  • Erling Barth
  • Harald Dale-Olsen

Abstract

The authors explore the effects of organizational change on employee well-being using multivariate analyses of linked employer-employee data for Britain, with particular emphasis on whether unions moderate these effects. Nationally representative data consist of 13,500 employees in 1,238 workplaces. Organizational changes are associated with increased job-related anxiety and lower job satisfaction. The authors find that job-related anxiety is ameliorated when employees work in a unionized workplace and are involved in the introduction of the changes.

Suggested Citation

  • Alex Bryson & Erling Barth & Harald Dale-Olsen, 2013. "The Effects of Organizational Change on Worker Well-Being and the Moderating Role of Trade Unions," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 66(4), pages 989-1011, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ilrrev:v:66:y:2013:i:4:p:989-1011
    DOI: 10.1177/001979391306600410
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/001979391306600410
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/001979391306600410?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. Nicholas Bloom & John Van Reenen, 2007. "Measuring and Explaining Management Practices Across Firms and Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(4), pages 1351-1408.
    2. Askenazy, Philippe & Caroli, Eve, 2006. "Innovative Work Practices, Information Technologies and Working Conditions: Evidence for France," IZA Discussion Papers 2321, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Paul Smith & Gary Morton, 2001. "New Labour’s Reform of Britain’s Employment Law: The Devil is not only in the Detail but in the Values and Policy Too," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 39(1), pages 119-138, March.
    4. repec:dau:papers:123456789/10093 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Gallie, Duncan & White, Michael & Cheng, Yuan & Tomlinson, Mark, 1998. "Restructuring the Employment Relationship," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198294412.
    6. Malcomson, James M, 1983. "Trade Unions and Economic Efficiency," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 93(369a), pages 51-65, Supplemen.
    7. Christian Lévesque & Gregor Murray, 2005. "Union Involvement in Workplace Change: A Comparative Study of Local Unions in Canada and Mexico," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 43(3), pages 489-514, September.
    8. Xiaohui Zheng & Sophia Rabe-Hesketh, 2007. "Estimating parameters of dichotomous and ordinal item response models with gllamm," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 7(3), pages 313-333, September.
    9. Eve Caroli & John Van Reenen, 2001. "Skill-Biased Organizational Change? Evidence from A Panel of British and French Establishments," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(4), pages 1449-1492.
    10. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2003. "Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(3), pages 489-520.
    11. Green, Francis, 2011. "Unpacking the misery multiplier: How employability modifies the impacts of unemployment and job insecurity on life satisfaction and mental health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 265-276, March.
    12. Duncan Gallie, 2005. "Work Pressure in Europe 1996–2001: Trends and Determinants," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 43(3), pages 351-375, September.
    13. Ann C. Frost, 2001. "Reconceptualizing Local Union Responses to Workplace Restructuring in North America," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 39(4), pages 539-564, December.
    14. Rabe-Hesketh, Sophia & Skrondal, Anders & Pickles, Andrew, 2005. "Maximum likelihood estimation of limited and discrete dependent variable models with nested random effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 128(2), pages 301-323, October.
    15. Alex Bryson & Lorenzo Cappellari & Claudio Lucifora, 2009. "Workers' Perceptions of Job Insecurity: Do Job Security Guarantees Work?," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 23(s1), pages 177-196, March.
    16. Ichniowski, Casey & Shaw, Kathryn & Prennushi, Giovanna, 1997. "The Effects of Human Resource Management Practices on Productivity: A Study of Steel Finishing Lines," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 291-313, June.
    17. repec:dau:papers:123456789/7143 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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 & Harald Dale-Olsen, 2020. "Unions, Tripartite Competition and Innovation," DoQSS Working Papers 20-02, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    2. Bryson, Alex & Dale-Olsen, Harald & Barth, Erling, 2009. "How does innovation affect worker well-being?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 27781, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Böckerman, Petri & Bryson, Alex & Ilmakunnas, Pekka, 2012. "Does high involvement management improve worker wellbeing?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 660-680.
    4. Viete, Steffen & Erdsiek, Daniel, 2018. "Trust-based work time and the productivity effects of mobile information technologies in the workplace," ZEW Discussion Papers 18-013, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    5. Viete, Steffen & Erdsiek, Daniel, 2020. "Mobile Information Technologies and Firm Performance: The Role of Employee Autonomy," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    6. Fibla Gasparín, Ma. Teresa, 2010. "Productivity in southern European small firms: When and how work organization complements process innovation," Working Papers 2072/179600, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    7. Steven Blader & Claudine Gartenberg & Andrea Prat, 2020. "The Contingent Effect of Management Practices," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(2), pages 721-749.
    8. Jieun Chang & Youngho Kang, 2019. "Instrumental Variable Estimates of the Effect of Management Practices on Firm Performance in Korean Firms," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 106-125, March.
    9. Pouliakas, Konstantinos & Russo, Giovanni, 2015. "Heterogeneity of Skill Needs and Job Complexity: Evidence from the OECD PIAAC Survey," IZA Discussion Papers 9392, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Adel Ben Youssef & Ludivine Martin & Nessrine Omrani, 2014. "The Complementarities between Information Technologies Use, New Organizational Practices and Employees' Contextual Performance: Evidence from Europe in 2005 and 2010," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 124(4), pages 493-504.
    11. Guido Friebel & Matthias Heinz & Mitchell Hoffman & Nick Zubanov, 2023. "What Do Employee Referral Programs Do? Measuring the Direct and Overall Effects of a Management Practice," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 131(3), pages 633-686.
    12. Andy Feng & Anna Valero, 2020. "Skill-Biased Management: Evidence from Manufacturing Firms," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(628), pages 1057-1080.
    13. Viete, Steffen & Erdsiek, Daniel, 2015. "Mobile information and communication technologies, flexible work organization and labor productivity: Firm-level evidence," ZEW Discussion Papers 15-087, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    14. Isabel Maria Bodas Freitas, 2011. "Technological learning environments and organizational practices--cross-sectoral evidence from Britain," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 20(5), pages 1439-1474, October.
    15. Phillipe Aghion & Nicholas Bloom & John Van Reenen, 2014. "Incomplete Contracts and the Internal Organization of Firms," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 30(suppl_1), pages 37-63.
    16. Bauer, Thomas K. & Bender, Stefan, 2004. "Technological change, organizational change, and job turnover," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 265-291, June.
    17. Hottenrott, Hanna & Rexhäuser, Sascha & Veugelers, Reinhilde, 2016. "Organisational change and the productivity effects of green technology adoption," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 172-194.
    18. Michael Beckmann & Thomas Cornelissen & Bern Schauenberg, 2009. "Fixed-term employment, work organization and job satisfaction: Evidence from German individual-level data," Working papers 2009/09, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    19. Kathrin Manthei & Dirk Sliwka & Timo Vogelsang, 2023. "Talking About Performance or Paying for It? A Field Experiment on Performance Reviews and Incentives," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(4), pages 2198-2216, April.
    20. David C. Chan, 2016. "Teamwork and Moral Hazard: Evidence from the Emergency Department," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(3), pages 734-770.

    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:66:y:2013:i:4:p:989-1011. 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.