IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v25y2011i1p118-131.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Getting personnel

Author

Listed:
  • David A. Spencer

Abstract

This article seeks to critique and transcend the economics of personnel, a new and fast growing area of mainstream labour economics that focuses upon the study of human resources issues. Personnel economics is presented by its founder Edward Lazear as a superior alternative to research in other established fields, including HRM and the sociology of work. It is argued against Lazear that personnel economics offers a limited and flawed conception of work and work relations. The key problem comes with its adoption of mainstream economic concepts and methods that are unsuited to the proper study of work matters. Critical comments are also directed at the ideology as well as the imperialistic intent of personnel economics. Going beyond personnel economics, the article argues for an alternative approach to the integration of economics with work research that encompasses and develops ideas and methods from within the heterodox economics or political economy literature.

Suggested Citation

  • David A. Spencer, 2011. "Getting personnel," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 25(1), pages 118-131, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:25:y:2011:i:1:p:118-131
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017011401165
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017011401165
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017011401165?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. Edward P. Lazear & Kathryn L. Shaw, 2007. "Personnel Economics: The Economist's View of Human Resources," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(4), pages 91-114, Fall.
    2. Lazear, Edward P, 2000. "The Future of Personnel Economics," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(467), pages 611-639, November.
    3. Ian Clark, 2009. "Owners and managers," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 23(4), pages 775-786, December.
    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. David J. Cooper & Krista Saral & Marie Claire Villeval, 2021. "Why Join a Team?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(11), pages 6980-6997, November.
    2. Christophe Loussouarn & Carine Franc & Yann Videau & Julien Mousquès, 2021. "Can General Practitioners Be More Productive? The Impact of Teamwork and Cooperation with Nurses on GP Activities," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(3), pages 680-698, March.
    3. Pupato, Germán, 2017. "Performance pay, trade and inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 478-504.
    4. von Davier, Z. & Bahrs, E., 2008. "Leistungsorientierte Lohngestaltung in der Landwirtschaft - Ergebnisse einer empirischen Analyse," Proceedings “Schriften der Gesellschaft für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften des Landbaues e.V.”, German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA), vol. 43, March.
    5. Bassi, Vittorio & Nyshadham, Anant & Tamayo, Jorge & Adhvaryu, Achyuta, 2020. "No Line Left Behind: Assortative Matching Inside the Firm," CEPR Discussion Papers 14554, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/3t1fcs7p369jmaalnboqhpgknn is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Lazear, Edward, 2003. "Output-Based Pay: Incentives, Retention or Sorting?," IZA Discussion Papers 761, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Edward P. Lazear, 1995. "Personnel Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262121883, April.
    9. Mion, Giordano & Opromolla, Luca David, 2014. "Managers' mobility, trade performance, and wages," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 85-101.
    10. Isabelle Vialle & Luis Santos-Pinto & Jean-Louis Rullière, 2011. "Self-Confidence and Teamwork : An Experimental Test," Working Papers 1126, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    11. Heursen, Lea, 2023. "Does relative performance information lower group morale?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 209(C), pages 547-559.
    12. Pierre Brochu & Till Gross & Christopher Worswick, 2020. "Temporary foreign workers and firms: Theory and Canadian evidence," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(3), pages 871-915, August.
    13. David J. Deming, 2017. "The Growing Importance of Social Skills in the Labor Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(4), pages 1593-1640.
    14. Carpenter, Jeffrey & Matthews, Peter Hans & Tabb, Benjamin, 2016. "Progressive taxation in a tournament economy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 64-72.
    15. Prado, Melissa & Evans, Richard B. & Zambrana, Rafael, 2020. "Identity, Diversity, and Team Performance: Evidence from U.S. Mutual Funds," CEPR Discussion Papers 14305, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Jed DeVaro & Oliver Gürtler, 2020. "Strategic shirking in competitive labor markets: A general model of multi‐task promotion tournaments with employer learning," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 335-376, April.
    17. Sacchetti, Silvia & Tortia, Ermanno, 2012. "The internal and external governance of cooperatives: the effective membership and consistency of value," AICCON Working Papers 111-2012, Associazione Italiana per la Cultura della Cooperazione e del Non Profit.
    18. Gallus, Jana & Bhatia, Sudeep, 2020. "Gender, power and emotions in the collaborative production of knowledge: A large-scale analysis of Wikipedia editor conversations," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 115-130.
    19. Ina Ganguli & Ricardo Hausmann & Martina Viarengo, 2021. "Gender Differences in Professional Career Dynamics: New Evidence from a Global Law Firm," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 88(349), pages 105-128, January.
    20. Dragoș Adăscăliței & Jason Heyes & Pedro Mendonça, 2022. "The intensification of work in Europe: A multilevel analysis," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 60(2), pages 324-347, June.
    21. Kvaløy, Ola & Olsen, Trond E., 2016. "Teams in Relational Contracts," Discussion Papers 2016/23, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.

    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:woemps:v:25:y:2011:i:1:p:118-131. 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.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    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.