Innovative Work Practices and Sickness Absence: What Does a Nationally Representative Employee Survey Tell?

Böckerman, Petri and Johansson, Edvard and Kauhanen, Antti (2009): Innovative Work Practices and Sickness Absence: What Does a Nationally Representative Employee Survey Tell?

Abstract

The paper examines the effect of innovative work practices on the prevalence of sickness absence and accidents at work. We focus on several different aspects of workplace innovations (self-managed teams, information sharing, employer-provided training and incentive pay) along with the “bundles” of those practices. We use nationally representative individual-level data from the Finnish Quality of Work Life Survey from 2008. Using single equation models, we find that innovative work practices increase short-term sickness absence for blue-collar and lower white-collar employees. In two-equation models that treat innovative workplace practices as endogenous variables we do not find relationship between innovative work practices and sickness absence or accidents at work.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: innovative work practices; workplace innovation; sickness absence; accidents
• Subjects: I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I1 - Health > I12 - Health Behavior; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor > J28 - Safety ; Job Satisfaction ; Related Public Policy

References

Appelbaum E, Bailey T, Berg P, Kalleberg AL. 2000. Manufacturing Advantage: Why High-Performance Work Systems Pay Off. Cornell University Press: Ithaca.

Askenazy P. 2001. Innovative workplace practices and occupational injuries and illnesses in the United States. Economic and Industrial Democracy 22: 485-516.

Askenazy P, Caroli E. 2010. Innovative work practices, information technologies and working conditions: Evidence for France. Industrial Relations, Forthcoming.

Barker JR. 1993. Tightening the iron cage: Concertive control in self-managing teams. Administrative Science Quarterly 38: 408-437.

Barmby T, Ercolani MG, Treble JG. 2004. Sickness absence: An international comparison. Economic Journal 112: F315-F331.

Bartel, AP. 2004. Human resource management and organizational performance: Evidence from retail banking. Industrial and Labor Relations Review 57: 181-202.

Barth E, Bryson A, Dale-Olsen H. 2009. How does innovation affect worker well-being? Unpublished, National Institute for Economic and Social Research: London.

Bassanini A, Booth A, Brunello G, De Paola M, Leuven E. 2005. Workplace training in Europe. Discussion Paper No. 1640. Institute for the Study of Labor: Bonn.

Belangér PR, Lapointe P-A, Lévesque B. 2002. Workplace innovation and the role of institutions. In Work and Employment Relations in the High-Performance Workplace, Murray G, Belangér PR, Giles A, Lapointe P-A (eds). Continuum: London.

Berggren C. 1993. Lean production – the end of history? Work, Employment and Society 7: 163-188.

Black SE, Lynch LM. 2004. What’s driving the New Economy: The benefits of workplace innovation. Economic Journal 117: F97-F116.

Blasi JR, Kruse DL. 2006. U.S. high-performance work practices at century’s end. Industrial Relations 45: 547-578.

Brenner MD, Fairris D, Ruser J. 2004. “Flexible” work practices and occupational safety and health: Exploring the relationship between cumulative trauma disorders and workplace transformation. Industrial Relations 43: 242-266.

Brown S, Sessions JG. 1996. The economics of absence: Theory and evidence. Journal of Economic Surveys 10: 23-53.

Bryson A, Green F, Whitfield K. 2008. A quarter century of Workplace Employment Relations Surveys. British Journal of Industrial Relations 46: 577-586.

Böckerman P, Ilmakunnas P. 2008. Interaction of working conditions, job satisfaction, and sickness absences: Evidence from a representative sample of employees. Social Science and Medicine 67: 520-528.

Böckerman P, Ilmakunnas P. 2009. Job disamenities, job satisfaction, quit intentions, and actual separations: Putting the pieces together. Industrial Relations 48: 73-96.

Cappelari L, Jenkins SP. 2003. Multivariate probit regression using simulated maximum likelihood. Stata Journal 3: 278-294.

Cappelli P, Neumark D. 2001. Do ‘high-performance’ work practices improve establishment-level outcomes? Industrial and Labor Relations Review 54: 737-775.

Confederation of Finnish Industries. 2008. Työaikakatsaus. Työajat ja poissaolot EK:n jäsenyrityksissä vuonna 2007. (In Finnish). Confederation of Finnish Industries: Helsinki.

Dionne G, Dostie B. 2007. New evidence on the determinants of absenteeism using linked employer-employee data. Industrial and Labor Relations Review 61: 108-120.

Fairris D, Brenner M. 2001. Workplace transformation and the rise in cumulative trauma disorders: Is there a connection? Journal of Labor Research 22: 15-28.

Gimeno D, Benavides FG, Benach J, Amick III BC. 2004a. Distribution of sickness absence in the European Union countries. Occupational and Environmental Medicine 61: 867-869.

Gimeno D, Benavides FG, Amick III BC, Benach J, Martínez JM. 2004b. Psychosocial factors and work related sickness absence among permanent and non-permanent employees. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 58: 870-876.

Godard J. 2001. High performance and the transformation of work? The implications of alternative work practices for the experience and outcomes of work. Industrial and Labor Relations Review 54: 776-805.

Godard J. 2004. A critical assessment of the high-performance paradigm. British Journal of Industrial Relations 42: 349-378.

Green C, Heywood JS. 2008. Does performance pay increase job satisfaction? Economica 75: 710-728.

Greene WH. 2003. Econometric Analysis, 5th ed. Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, NJ.

Handel M, Levine DI. 2004. Editors’ introduction: The effects of new work practices on workers. Industrial Relations 43: 1-43.

Harley B. 2005. Hope or hype? High-performance work systems. In Participation and Democracy at Work: Essays in Honour of Harvie Ramsay, Harley B, Hyman J, Thompson P (eds). Palgrave MacMillan: Basingstoke, U.K.

Holmlund B. 2004. Sickness absence: An introduction. Swedish Economic Policy Review 11: 3-8.

Ichino A, Moretti E. 2009. Biological gender differences, absenteeism and the earnings gap. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 1: 183-218.

Ichniowski C, Kochan TA, Levine D, Olson C, Strauss G. 1996. What works at work: Overview and assessment. Industrial Relations 35: 299-333.

Ichniowski C, Shaw K, Prennushi G. 1997. The effects of human resource management practices on productivity: A study of steel finishing lines. The American Economic Review 87: 291-313.

ILO. 1998. Psychosocial and Organizational Factors. Encyclopedia of Occupational Health and Safety. ILO: Geneva.

Jones MK, Jones RJ, Latreille PL, Sloane PJ. 2009. Training, job satisfaction, and workplace performance in Britain: Evidence from WERS 2004. Labour: Review of Labour Economics and Industrial Relations 23: 139-175.

Kalmi P, Kauhanen A. 2008. Workplace innovations and employee outcomes: Evidence from Finland. Industrial Relations 47: 430-459.

Karasek R. 1979. Job demands, job decision latitude, and mental strain: Implications for job redesign. Administrative Science Quarterly 24: 285-308.

Kauhanen A. 2009. The incidence of high-performance work systems: Evidence from a nationally representative employee survey. Economic and Industrial Democracy 30: 454-480.

Kivimäki M, Vahtera J, Pentti J, Ferrie JE. 2000. Factors underlying the effect of organisational downsizing on health of employees: Longitudinal cohort study. British Medical Journal 320: 971-975.

Lehto A-M, Sutela H. 2009. Three Decades of Working Conditions. Findings of Finnish Quality of Work Life Surveys 1977-2008. Statistics Finland: Helsinki.

Monfardini C, Radice R. 2008. Testing exogeneity in the bivariate probit model: A Monte Carlo study. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 70: 271-282.

Osterman P. 1994. How common is workplace transformation and how can we explain who adopts it? Industrial and Labor Relations Review 47: 175-188.

Prendergast C. 2002. The tenuous trade-off between risk and incentives. Journal of Political Economy 110: 1071-1102.

Ramsay H, Scholarios D, Harley B. 2000. Employees and high-performance work systems: Testing inside the black box. British Journal of Industrial Relations 38: 501-531.

Tainio R, Lilja K. 2003. The Finnish business system in transition: Outcomes, actors, and their influence. In The Northern Lights – Organization Theory in Scandinavia, Czarniawska B, Sevon G (eds). Copenhagen Business School Press: Copenhagen.

Vahtera J, Kivimäki M, Pentti J, Linna A, Virtanen M, Virtanen P, Ferrie JE. 2004. Organisational downsizing, sickness absence, and mortality: 10-town prospective cohort study. British Medical Journal 328: 555-560.

Virtanen M, Kivimäki M, Elovainio M, Vahtera J, Cooper CA. 2001. Contingent employment, health and sickness absence. Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health 27: 365-372.

Wilde J. 2000. Identification of multiple equation probit models with endogenous dummy regressors. Economics Letters 69: 309-312.