Why do companies obtain the B corporation certification?

Purpose This study identifies the factors that influence companies to obtain the B corporation certification. Drawing from institutional isomorphism, gender socialization theory, the ethics of care and social identity theory, the authors examine the impact of geographic locality, product market competitions and owners’ demographic characteristics on a firm’s decision to be a certified B Corporation. Design/methodology/approach Using two sets of data, a hand-collected sample of 743 small businesses receiving a B Corporation certification between 2007 and 2014 and a sample of 902 firms participating in a B Lab survey from 2011 to 2013, the authors examine factors that influence firms’ decision to obtain the B Corporation and their environment, social and governance (ESG) performance. Findings Firms in states that are democratic-leaning, have a lower hourly wage rate or have a greater religious population are more likely to be early adopters and leaders of the B Corporation movement than those in other states. On average, states with a higher unemployment rate and more democratic-leaning voters have more B Corporation certified firms in each year and over the years. Additionally, product market competition is positively associated with firms’ likelihood of obtaining B Corporation certification and their ESG scores. Practical implications This study brings new insights to the understanding of purpose-driven enterprises and factors that influence firms’ decision to go through the B Corporation verification and certification process. Originality/value This study establishes a theoretical foundation that becoming a B Corporation is a corporate social responsibility (CSR) action and shows that existing theories explaining the factors motivating companies to engage in CSR can also be applied to explain firms’ motivation to become B Corporations.

Church attendance, faith and the allocation of time: evidence from Australia

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of church attendance and the formation of “religious human capital” using a Becker-inspired allocation-of-time framework. Design/methodology/approach Data derived from three waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey were used to estimate a reduced-form two-equation system where the endogenous variables were frequency of attendance at religious services and intensity of faith. Findings The results indicate that while the hourly wage rate accounts for some of the variation in the attendance and faith regressions (i.e. higher wages lead to lower levels of attendance and faith), “allocation of time” variables like working long hours also influence these dimensions. The findings also suggest that the decision to attend or not or to have any faith at all is generally independent from economic factors. However, once the decision to attend or to have faith is made, an individual’s wage influences the degree of attendance or faith to a significant level. Originality/value The study contributes to this embryonic body of empirical literature by providing – to the best of the authors’ knowledge – the first results for Australia.

The Relative Power of Employment-to-Employment Reallocation and Unemployment Exits in Predicting Wage Growth

We study the cyclical comovement nominal wage growth (either monthly earnings or hourly wage rate) and labor market flows. We use microdata from the Survey of Income and Program Participation over 1996-2013 to purge composition effects in worker and job characteristics and to isolate the reallocative effect of Employer-to-Employer (EE) transitions. We find an “EE wage Phillips curve”: wage inflation comoves positively with EE as strongly as with the employment rate. This correlation holds for job stayers; we interpret the EE rate as a measure of labor demand. We find no analogous evidence for the job-finding rate from unemployment.

Productivity costs of nonviral sexually transmissible infections among patients who miss work to seek medical care: evidence from claims data

Background Productivity losses can arise when employees miss work to seek care for sexually transmissible infections (STIs). We estimated the average productivity loss per acute case of four nonviral STIs: chlamydia, gonorrhoea, syphilis and trichomoniasis. Methods: We extracted outpatient claims from 2001–2005 MarketScan databases using International Classification Disease ver. 9 (ICD-9) codes. We linked claims with their absence records in the Health and Productivity Management database by matching enrolee identifiers and the service dates from the claims such that our final data included only those who were absent because they were sick and were diagnosed with an STI on the day of their visit. To ensure that the visit was for the STIs being examined, we restricted the criteria to records with the specified ICD-9 codes only, excluding claims with other codes. We estimated the average number of hours absent and multiplied it by the mean hourly wage rate including benefits ($29.72 in 2011 United States dollars) to estimate the average productivity loss per case. Results: The average productivity losses per case were: $262 for chlamydia, $197 for gonorrhoea, $419 for syphilis and $289 for trichomoniasis. There were no significant differences between males and females. Conclusions: Among those who take sick leave to seek care, productivity losses associated with treating nonviral STIs may be higher than their estimated direct medical costs. These productivity cost estimates can help to quantify the overall STI burden, and inform cost-effectiveness analyses of prevention and control efforts.

Wages, Hours, and Overtime Premia: Evidence from the British Labor Market

Unlike the United States, Britain has no national laws regulating overtime hour assignment or compensation. Using individual-level data on male non-managerial workers from the 1998 British New Earnings Survey, the authors investigate relationships among the standard hourly wage rate, hourly earnings (including overtime), the overtime premium, and the length of overtime hours. They find that when overtime is accounted for, average hourly wage earnings are fairly uniform across firms in a given industry, because firms paying below-market-level straight-time wages tend to award above-market-level overtime premiums, and, conversely, firms paying above-market-level straight-time wages provide below-market-level overtime premiums.

The Impact of Ceta Programs on Components of Participants' Earnings

This paper provides the first estimates of the net impact of CETA participation on the components of CETA participants' post-program earnings. Employing a sample of 1975 CETA enrollees and comparison groups drawn from the March 1978 CPS using a nearest-neighbor matching technique, the authors estimate statistically significant negative effects on men's earnings and statistically significant positive effects on women's earnings. These results stem partly from the impact of CETA participation on the likelihood of being employed after leaving the program (negative for men, positive for women), but also from a negative impact on hours worked during the year and hourly wage rate for men and a large positive impact on hours worked per week and weeks worked per year for women.