Fall 2010 Colloquia

Monday, September 27, 2010 - 12-1pm

Job Losses and Economic Consequences of the Great Recession

Sylvia Allegretto, Research Economist, IRLE

» Slideshow

Monday, OCTOBER 11, 2010 - 12-1pm

The Labor Market in the Great Recession: The View from Washington

Jesse Rothstein, Professor of Public Policy and Economics

» Slideshow

Monday, OCTOBER 18, 2010 - 12-1pm

Determinants of Lifetime Unemployment

Achim Schmillen, Visiting Scholar, Institute for Employment Research, Germany

Monday, OCTOBER 25, 2010 - 12-1pm

Managing Knowledge Workers in Global Value Chains

Clair Brown, Professor, Economics, Center for Work, Technology, and Society (with Greg Linden)

Global value chains that span national and organizational boundaries characterize a growing number of industries. Innovating in these diffuse networks is more complex than in the centralized R&D process of the past because significant pieces of the development process have been moved offshore and/or outside the company. Unlike the one-way transfers of the past, knowledge must now flow bidirectionally along a firm's value chain.

Knowledge creation and exchange across boundaries is difficult, costly, and time-consuming. When handled badly, it can bust budgets and slow, or even kill, projects.

This research, based on extensive fieldwork with engineers and managers in multinational headquarters and subsidiaries in semiconductors, contract manufacturing, personal computers, and flat panel displays, analyzes alternative modes of managing knowledge workers in this global setting. Strategic human resource management (SHRM), of which formal HR policies are but a small part, is necessary to structure formal and informal network activities, both within and beyond the firm. Informal personal networks, including those provided by workers' experiences at universities and at jobs with more than one company, are an important part of the knowledge networks that workers use.

We compare two archetypal high-performance SHRM systems and describe how they have evolved in practice. We analyze SHRM for global knowledge flows with offshore subsidiaries, value chain partners, allies, acquisitions, and corporate ventures. We also look briefly at knowledge flows in informal personal networks and the global circulation of knowledge workers, which constitute a vital, though often invisible, part of any global knowledge network.

Firms continue to experiment with SHRM. The cases discussed here are not presented as best practices, but rather as examples that contribute to an understanding of how various global SHRM systems function in the real world. We draw upon these examples to discuss lessons learned about SHRM practices to create and manage knowledge workers in global value chains.

» Working Paper

» Seminar Handout

Monday, NOVEMBER 8, 2010 - 12-1PM

Changes in Job-based Coverage under the New Federal Health Law: A Preliminary Look Using a Micro-simulation Model of California Employers

Ken Jacobs, Chair, Center for Labor, Research and Education

Monday, NOVEMBER 15, 2010 - 12-1pm

Mobilizing Against Water Privatization: Labor-Environmental Coalitions in the United States and Canada

Joanna Robinson, Visiting Scholar, Sociology, University British Columbia, Canada

Monday, NOVEMBER 29, 2010 - 12-1pm

Stock Options and Incentives

Nicole Johnson, Professor, Haas School of Business

All events are located at the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, 2521 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA.

TO ATTEND AN EVENT, PLEASE R.S.V.P. Myra Armstrong, zulu2@berkeley.edu