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How and why has the wage distribution in U.S. grocery stores changed between 1984 and 1994? Unlike other industries in the time period, the important change in the wage distribution is not rising inequality, but the real wages fell across the entire wage distribution. Changes in labor market institutions explain more than half of the change in the wage distribution in grocery stores. Specifically, the decline in the real value of the minimum wage explains little of the decline in the mean real wage but much of the change in the shape of the distribution between 1984 and 1994, and 95 percent of the decline at the lowest 10th percentile. The decline in union coverage in grocery stores and the narrowing of the union-nonunion wage gap explains much of the decline above the 25th percentile. A third institutional change, the use of part-time employees, is not associated with the changes in grocery industry wage outcomes. One might think that the major changes in operation and technologies that occurred during this time period are at least contributing factors, but we find quite the contrary. If average store size, weekly operating hours, and the use of scanning technology had remained at their 1984 levels, the real wage decline would have been even greater than that actually seen, and for the entire wage distribution. Changes in grocery retailing prevented and even greater decline in real wages. Again unlike many other industries, skill-biased technological change does not appear important for grocery industry wage outcomes. The basis of our analysis is a statistical technique which combines nonparametric kernel density estimation with a parametric re-weighting, applied to Current Population Survey data supplemented with secondary data sources on the Grocery industry.

This work analyzes the importance of education and training in economic endeavors in the light of the changes brought about by globalization and new technologies. It focuses on the changes that education and training are causing in the organization: specifically in worker profiles and organizational structures. It also justifies the need for education and training in cooperatives because of their particular form of democratic management. An important element in this article is the empirical study, where we analyze the education and training of people involved in olive oil-producing cooperatives in the most important olive oil production area in the world, Jaén, Spain. Prior to our analysis of education and training, we first demonstrate the importance of cooperation in the Spanish olive oil sector. The thesis underlying this work is that the poor level of formal education and the lack of specific training represent a serious obstacle to the business development of these societies. After looking at the central problem of this study, we analyze the formal education of the various groups making up cooperatives (members, elected boards, managers and workers), as well as the specific training (offered by the firm itself or by other bodies), in terms of the number of courses attended or made available to the members. In this article we also pose the following question: are professionalization of the cooperative and education in cooperative values enough to solve the problem of management in cooperatives? Finally, we draw some conclusions from this study.

In the kibbutz debate about changes, payment for work of the members is considered a fundamental change. Several kibbutzim have experienced this change since the beginning of the 1990s. What actually happens in a kibbutz community after it starts paying members for their work? How do people react to this change? Is it a final change or only a step toward a deeper change, such as the introduction of differential wages? These questions are treated in this paper. On the basis of qualitative data, it is suggested that: The different prevalent agreements of payment for members' work result in unequal opportunities to work for money. First and foremost, they seem to upset the classic stratification by discriminating against the highest strata (managers in the economic and social sectors). More than seven years after the introduction of remuneration for work, no stable rules have been found and this topic is in perpetual negotiation. Finally, Bourdieu's theory of social field seems to provide adapted tools to describe and explain the process involved in this specific change: with financial reward from work the kibbutz community figures as a social field where all the actors (the members) are involved. In this field, the increase of members' private income from work is at issue. To achieve this aim, the actors developed different strategies. But beyond the manifest and short-term "struggle" for accumulation of economic capital, a latent struggle is discernible. In this, at stake is the completion of technocrats' domination of the kibbutz community and the predictable coup de grace to the egalitarian ideology.

The basis of this teaching case is a small nursery and landscape business in the Northeast United States. The case describes how the company attempted to implement a decentralization and employee empowerment program to move relevant decision-making closer to the work site. It illustrates that shifting from a centralized top-down style of management to a decentralized incentive driven style can create many challenges for a small business. Moreover, top management should be cautious about delegating responsibilities to line managers. Not all employees will be successful in this new environment, and without procedures for monitoring and control, significant learning may be necessary as employees move into this environment.

In the 1995 issue of the Journal of Cooperatives, Trechter and King reported findings from a survey of managerial compensation practices in Minnesota and Wisconsin cooperatives that was conducted in 1993. The results from that study indicated that overall compensation and bonuses received by general managers of local cooperatives were more closely associated with cooperative size measures than with levels of profitability. The results also suggested that there was not a strong relationship between compensation practices and cooperative performance, measured by return on assets. A follow-up compensation survey was conducted in 1994. The study population was expanded to include local cooperatives in North Dakota, along with the Minnesota and Wisconsin cooperatives that responded to the first survey questionnaire. In addition, new questions were added to the survey to elicit information on the use of specific cooperative performance targets in settings where there were no explicit incentive clauses in the manager's contract. Finally, collecting compensation data for a second consecutive year made it possible to analyze factors associated with changes in compensation levels. Results from this follow-up survey are reported here. In the sections that follow, data collection procedures are first briefly summarized. Then findings regarding compensation levels and changes in compensation performance are presented.

As small finns grow from employing just a few people to employing 10 or more, there is an increasing need for more fonnalized human resource management practices. The purpose of this study was to determine to what extent managers of florist crop production finns used formalized human resource management practices in their businesses. Managers of 104 florist crop production firms in New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan participated in a telephone survey designed to gather information on specific personnel management practices. The study revealed that while some finns are using fonnalized personnel management practices, the majority are not. Those who use formalized personnel management practices tend to be, but are not exclusively, larger firms. Larger finns for the purposes of this study were considered to have 10 or more employees and comprised 47% of the firms in this study. Managers surveyed were also asked to report their concerns regarding personnel management. Overwhelmingly, the concerns voiced tended to be in the areas of compensation, particularly health insurance, and recruiting a qualified work force.

A simultaneous equation model is estimated to explain labor market phenomena (including wages, employment, and labor productivity) and food prices at manufacturing and retail levels of the U.S. food industry. Dynamic simulation results show that endogenizing input costs in a fully specified markup-pricing model leads to a complex long-run pattern of food price determination. Wage determination is found to play a central role linking general price levels to food sector prices and labor market behavior. Energy price changes are shown to significantly affect food prices. Food sector labor productivity is found to decline in response to exogenous commodity price shocks.

Part-time farming in Maryland and the Northeast with full-time off-farm employment of one or more of the farm operators is competitive income-wise with many types and sizes of commercial farms. Individuals, families, and society in general will benefit in the future from the encouragement of fuller utilization of underutilized or unemployed rural resources to produce marketable agricultural output and subsistence types of food for household and local charitable purposes. Labor extensive types of crop and animal production activities have increased relatively and absolutely during the past decade on Maryland and Northeastern part-time farms. Average characteristics of a sample of 80 part-time farmers showed 1) age of male operator – 44 years, 2) education of operator − 12 years, 3) number of children on the farm − 3 children, 4) years of experience in farming − 15 years, 5) days of off-farm employment − 225 days, 6) proximity of off-farm job to a major metropolitan center − 20 miles and 7) distance to off-farm job − 29 miles.

This paper examines the determinants of labour demand by the Brazilian farm sector (m particular the role of factor prices, production levels, land use, tractor inventories, and land concentration) to aid understanding of the causes of low rates of farm labour absorption. The research was conducted within the framework of neoclassical models of factor demand, to which the Krishna model of employment decompos1tion was added. The results show that the pos1ttve effects due to neutral technical change and output growth are cancelled by negative effects due to high wages, input subsidies, and rapid expansion of the farm tractor fleet. Inferences for policy and research are drawn.

The Florida produce industry demonstrated a surprising ability to make adjustments and thus the strike by truck drivers did not seriously disrupt produce shipments. Although, there may be long-term changes in the modes of transportation utilized by the industry in the future.

This paper summarizes some results of a Sea Grant-funded economic input-output study of marine-related activity in the Southern New England Marine Region. Data were obtained from 390 personal interviews; in addition, a wealth of secondary data was used. Type I and Type II income and employment multipliers were estimated for each of the nineteen marine-related industries included in the model. The results provide a basis to assist analysts concerned with assessing the impacts on regional income and employment of marine-related policies or developments proposed for the Region.

Many state and local groups in the Northeast are attempting to increase their employment base by attracting new industry. Unfortunately the success rate of these activities is not good. Despite the public relations hype associated with “successes,” serious evaluation of these activities raise questions regarding their efficiency. For example, the Alabama Business Research Council has documented that two-thirds of the plants that accepted industrial development bonds indicate that they would have chosen the same location even if the inducements had not been offered; thus, many “successes” were illusions. In addition, others have documented the complete failure of many types of industrial inducement programs (Cornia, Testa and Stocker; Stinson). Thus, the question is why haven't location inducement programs been more successful?

Provides a framework around which a family owned retail food business can plan towards insuring it's future.