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Skill development, bargaining power, and a theory of job design
Author(s) -
Moon Seongwuk
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of economics and management strategy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.672
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1530-9134
pISSN - 1058-6407
DOI - 10.1111/jems.12250
Subject(s) - human multitasking , bargaining power , job design , task (project management) , production (economics) , context (archaeology) , power (physics) , labour economics , business , economics , microeconomics , job performance , psychology , job satisfaction , cognitive psychology , management , paleontology , physics , quantum mechanics , biology
We examine the job design decision in the context of skill development and bargaining power. The choice between specialization and multitasking requires employees to develop either specialized or varied task‐specific skills. Employees' (i.e., the owners of the acquired skills) bargaining power depends on their skill sets, which differentiate their ability to hold up production and threaten to leave a firm. When a firm cannot meaningfully elicit skill investments through job design, it will pursue inefficient multitasking to reduce production holdups or inefficient specialization to prevent skilled employees from leaving. We obtain inefficient job design results only for mediocre ability workers.