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on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy |
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Issue of 2024‒04‒15
three papers chosen by Laura Nicola-Gavrila, Centrul European de Studii Manageriale în Administrarea Afacerilor |
| By: | Dylan Nelson (Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management); Nathan Wilmers (Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management); Letian Zhang (Harvard Business School) |
| Abstract: | High-paying factory jobs in the 1940s were an engine of egalitarian economic growth for a generation. Are there alternate forms of work organization that deliver similar benefits for frontline workers? Work organization varies by type of complexity and degree of employer control. Technical and tacit knowledge tasks receive higher pay for signaling or developing human capital. Higher-autonomy tasks elicit efficiency wages. To test these ideas, we match administrative earnings to task descriptions from job postings. We then compare earnings for workers hired into the same occupation and firm, but under different task allocations. When jobs raise task complexity and autonomy, new hires’ starting earnings increase and grow faster. However, while half of the earnings boost from complex, technical tasks is due to shifting worker selection, worker selection changes less for tacit knowledge tasks and very little for adding high-autonomy tasks. We also study which employers provide these jobs: frontline tacit knowledge tasks are disproportionately in larger, profitable manufacturing and retail firms; technical tasks are in newer health and business services; and higher-autonomy jobs are in smaller and fast-growing firms. These results demonstrate how organization-level allocations of tasks can undergird high-paying jobs for frontline workers. |
| Keywords: | Wage level and structure, wage differentials, human capital, skills, occupational choice, labor productivity, labor management |
| JEL: | J24 J31 M54 |
| Date: | 2024–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upj:weupjo:24-397&r=knm |
| By: | OROKU Masahiro |
| Abstract: | This study uses patents granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (applied before 2011) to analyze the relationship among the value of patents, account information of patent-holding firms, and citations of academic papers empirically. The results are summarized as follows: First, profitable firms tend to cite papers more frequently than other firms. Second, patents that cite academic papers have more forward citations than other patents do. Third, patents that cite academic papers are cited in a wider range of technical fields than those that do not. These results imply that incorporating academic knowledge increases patent value, expands utilization range, and increases firm profitability. This situation has implications for science and technology policy. Providing public support may be important if firms with low-profit firms cannot access academic knowledge because of the lack of human and material resources. |
| Date: | 2024–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:24036&r=knm |
| By: | Chiplunkar, Gaurav (University of Virginia); Kelley, Erin (World Bank); Lane, Gregory (University of Chicago) |
| Abstract: | We study how job-seekers share information about jobs within their social network, and its implications for firms. We randomly increase the amount of competition for a job and find that job-seekers are less likely to share information about the job with their high ability peers. This lowers the quality of applicants, hires, and performance on the job - suggesting that firms who disseminate job information through social networks may see lower quality applicants than expected for their most competitive positions. While randomly offering higher wages attracts better talent, it is not able to fully overcome these strategic disincentives in information sharing. |
| Keywords: | job information, social networks, labor markets |
| JEL: | L14 M51 O12 |
| Date: | 2024–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16840&r=knm |