Does High Involvement Management Improve Worker Wellbeing?

Alex Bryson, Petri Böckerman () and Pekka Ilmakunnas

CEP Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Performance, LSE

Abstract: Employees exposed to high involvement management (HIM) practices have higher subjective wellbeing, fewer accidents but more short absence spells than "like" employees not exposed to HIM. These results are robust to extensive work, wage and sickness absence history controls. We present a model which highlights the possibility of higher short-term absence in the presence of HIM because it is more demanding than standard production and because multi-skilled HIM workers cover for one another's short absences thus reducing the cost of replacement labour faced by the employer. We find direct empirical support for the assumptions in the model. Consistent with the model, because long-term absences entail replacement labour costs for HIM and non-HIM employers alike, long-term absences are independent of exposure to HIM.

Keywords: Health; subjective wellbeing; sickness absence; job satisfaction; pain; high involvement management; high performance work system; performance-related pay; training; team working; information sharing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 J28 J81 M52 M53 M54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-hap, nep-hea, nep-hrm, nep-lab and nep-lma
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Does high involvement management improve worker wellbeing? (2012)
Working Paper: Does High Involvement Management Improve Worker Wellbeing? (2012)
Working Paper: Does high involvement management improve worker wellbeing? (2011)
Working Paper: Does High Involvement Management Improve Worker Wellbeing? (2011)
Working Paper: Does high involvement management improve worker wellbeing? (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1095

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