Market Characteristics, Intra-Firm Coordination, and the Choice of Human Resource Management Systems: Evidence from New Japanese Data

Takao Kato and Hideo Owan

No 07-10, Working Papers from University of Aarhus, Aarhus School of Business, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper explores theoretically and empirically potentially important yet often-neglected linkage between task coordination within the organization and the structure of organization and bundling of HRMPs (Human Resource Management Practices). In so doing, we also provide fresh insights on the interplay between the firm’s technological and output market characteristics and its choice of HRMP system. We begin with constructing a team-theoretic model and derive three task coordination modes: vertical control, horizontal coordination, and hybrid coordination. The model provides rich implications about complementarity involving task coordination modes, HRMPs, training and hiring, and management strategies, and illustrates how such complementarity is affected by the firm’s technological and output market conditions. Guided by the theoretical exploration, we analyze unique data from a new survey of Japanese firms which provide for the first time data on newer forms of HRMPs adopted by Japanese firms (such as cross-functional offline teams and self-managed online teams). One novel finding (which is consistent with the theory) is that the adoption of both self-managed online teams and cross-functional offline teams usually arises in firms with shop-floor committees while the introduction of cross-functional offline teams alone often takes place in firms with joint labor-management committees. We also confirm implications from our theory that firms in more competitive markets are more likely to adopt both types of teams while firms facing more erratic price movement tend not to adopt self-managed online team

Keywords: No keywords (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D20 J53 L20 M50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 60 pages
Date: 2007-01-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.hha.dk/nat/wper/07-10_taka.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 500 Can't connect to www.hha.dk:80 (nodename nor servname provided, or not known)

Related works:
Working Paper: Market Characteristics, Intra-Firm Coordination, and the Choice of Human Resource Management Systems: Evidence from New Japanese Data (2007)
Working Paper: Market Characteristics, Intra-Firm Coordination, and the Choice of Human Resource Management Systems: Evidence from New Japanese Data (2007)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:aareco:2007_010

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from University of Aarhus, Aarhus School of Business, Department of Economics The Aarhus School of Business, Prismet, Silkeborgvej 2, DK 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Helle Vinbaek Stenholt ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).