Publications

The creation of a learning environment at work has been seen as an essential concomitant of the growth of an advanced economy. This article explores the implications of direct participation for different types of employee learning, drawing upon the British Skills and Employment Surveys of 2006 and 2012. It confirms that direct participation is strongly…

The resource-based view (RBV) of the firm has focused attention on the importance of aligning employees’ needs with the requirements of the jobs they do. This article focuses on how these needs and requirements interact in terms of learning. It does so in two ways. First, it develops new survey instruments to capture the learning…

Executive Summary The aim of the 2013 ESF Leavers Survey is to assist in assessing the effectiveness of labour market interventions delivered under ESF. Telephone interviews were conducted with approximately 2,000 people who had left an ESF project delivered under Priorities 2 and 3 of the Convergence Programme and Priorities 1 and 2 of the…

The impact of performance-oriented work practices on the gender pay gap has been the subject of considerable conjecture but little empirical investigation. Using the 2004 and 2011 British Workplace Employment Relations Surveys, the analysis finds that whilst average earnings are significantly higher for men and women across private sector workplaces that have introduced so-called high-performance…

We study how job-related well-being (measured by Warr’s ‘Enthusiasm’ and ‘Contentment’ scales) altered through the Great Recession, and how this is related to changing job quality. Using nationally representative data for Britain, we find that job-related well-being was stable between 2001 and 2006, but then declined between 2006 and 2012. We report relevant changes in…

This paper examines the impact of the UK Public Sector Pay Review Bodies (PRBs) on the pay of their remit groups comparing the real weekly earnings of workers using ASHE and LFS data from 1993 to 2007 for 10 occupational subgroups. Using consecutive difference-in-differences we can identify whether the PRBs have had an impact by…

Previous research on trends in the quality of work in Britain was carried out in a period marked by long-term growth and increasing prosperity. Although often taken as an exemplar case of a ‘liberal’ regime, the implications of an emphasis on deregulation and work-force flexibility for employees’ quality of work are arguably less serious when…

There is a widespread perception that public sector offers an employment advantage for groups disadvantaged generally in the labour market. For example women are more than twice as likely to work in the public sector as men. The relative concentration of these protected groups within the public sector has increased over the past decade of…

Data from the UK Labour Force Survey (LFS) are used to examine two methodological issues in the analysis of the relationship between age and work-related health. First, the LFS is unusual in that it asks work-related health questions to those who are not currently employed. This facilitates a more representative analysis than that which is…

There is increasing interest in the emergence of a ‘global middle class’ in which high achieving young graduates increasingly look to develop careers that transcend national boundaries. This paper explores this issue through comparing and contrasting the aspirations and orientations of two ‘elite’ cohorts of graduates. Interviews with students at the University of Oxford, England,…