• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.165-191
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• 2013

A long debate has been made about whether job satisfaction facilitates or impedes union participation. This study analyzed the moderating effect of union instrumentality in the relationship between job satisfaction and union participation. The data collected from 826 employees of 22 workplaces were empirically evaluated. The result of the research revealed that both positive effect and negative effect were observed in the relationship between job satisfaction and union participation. The positive effect was noticed in the direct influence of job satisfaction on the union participation. However, given the interaction between job satisfaction and union instrumentality, the job satisfaction showed the negative effect on the union participation. Based on this result, we can conclude that the direct influence of job satisfaction on the union participation supports dissonance theory about the union participation and the interaction effect between job satisfaction and union instrumentality confirms the utility theory. The present study indicates that the effect of union participation is more reinforced when job satisfaction and union instrumentality are closely connected than when job satisfaction independently affects union participation. Thus, the result implicates that for the revitalization of the labor union, the organization needs to offer a variety of services to satisfy the expectation of whole union members in practical terms instead of concentrating on the labor movement for the political struggle. This point says a lot for a new direction of labor movement.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.29-60
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• 2005

This paper investigates how firms adjust wages, employment and hours in response to demand shifts. It focuses on rigidities and asymmetries in such adjustments. Major findings are as follows. First, wage adjustments are fairly small compared with worker adjustments. Second, wage adjustments are asymmetric with respect to sales growth: there is no responsiveness of wage growth when sales are declining, while adjustments are significantly positive when sales are rising. On the contrary, worker adjustments are symmetric with respect to demand shifts. Third, while workers are linearly adjusted to the sales growth, some nonlinearity is observed in the wage adjustment. Fourth, hours are generally nonresponsive to demand shocks. Finally, union firms cut wages rather than workers in the face of negative demand shocks.