Rigorous and Relevant Employment Research
The research conducted by IWER scholars is motivated by important real-world questions and challenges that will help shape work’s future. Our faculty members' research projects address a wide range of timely topics, from identifying sources of income inequality to reducing bias in organizational processes.
“If you organize work so that people are doing the same simple, repetitive thing day after day, they are less likely to be learning and developing human capital than if you have a job rotation where people move across multiple tasks within a workplace.”Read More
New Research by IWER Faculty
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Institute for Work and Employment Research Understanding South Korea’s Gender Gaps in Employment and Wages
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Institute for Work and Employment Research IWER Faculty Members Win Seed Grants to Explore Impacts of Generative AI
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Institute for Work and Employment Research Highlighting Management Practices That Benefit Disadvantaged Workers
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Institute for Work and Employment Research Identifying the U.S. Locations that Most Facilitate Cross-Class Mingling
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Institute for Work and Employment Research Gendered Language in Job Postings Has Little Effect on Applicant Behavior, New Research Finds
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Institute for Work and Employment Research Shedding New Light on Contract Employment in the U.S.
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Current IWER Faculty Projects
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Worker Well-Being
Professor Erin L. Kelly studies ways to redesign work to benefit both employees and firms. She is leading a study in warehouses that seeks to improve job quality as well as workers’ health and well-being. Her work also investigates how work-family challenges can be managed.
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Reducing Bias in Organizations
Professor Emilio J. Castilla researches companies’ people management processes, with a particular focus on reducing bias. His current projects include applying people analytics to reduce bias in hiring and other people-related processes key for organizational success.
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Income Inequality and Economic Mobility
Professor Nathan Wilmers studies income inequality, including an ongoing study of how changing work tasks for low-wage workers can boost their pay.
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Worker Voice and Power
Professor Anna Stansbury is a labor and macro economist, with a particular focus on issues to do with market power and labor market institutions. Her work includes quantifying the macroeconomic effects of the decline in U.S. worker power and investigating firms’ incentives to comply with labor and employment law.
Professor Thomas A. Kochan focuses on worker voice and engaging frontline workers in shaping work’s future. With colleagues, he is launching a multi-university project that examines worker efforts to gain greater voice at work.
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Skills Training
Professor Paul Osterman recently completed new research on how U.S. workers gain their skills, and is now conducting a follow-up study on workers’ training and skills development during COVID-19.
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Conflict Management
Professor Mary P. Rowe’s work explores topics related to negotiation and conflict management, including the organizational ombuds profession, harassment and bullying, micro-inequities and micro-affirmations, and the role of bystanders in organizations.
Inequality and Worker Activism
Recent Publications by IWER Faculty
Kelly, Erin L., Hazhir Rahmandad, Nathan Wilmers, and Aishwara Yadama. ILR Review Vol. 76, No. 5 (2023): 792-832.
Kochan, Thomas. The Hill, August 2, 2023.
Kochan, Thomas, Janice R. Fine, Kate Bronfenbrenner, Suresh Naidu, Jacob Barnes, Yaminette Diaz-Linhart, John Kallas, Jeonghun Kim, Arrow Minster, Di Tong, Phela Townsend, and Danielle Twiss. Work and Occupations Vol. 50, No. 3 (2023): 335-350.
Rowe, Mary. Journal of the International Ombudsman Association Vol. 16, No. 3 (2023): 1-7.
Rowe, Mary. Journal of the International Ombudsman Association Vol. 16, No. 3 (2023): 1-12. Download Preprint.
Basbug, Gokce, Ayn Cavicchi, and Susan S. Silbey. Journal of Business Ethics Vol. 184, No. 3 (2023): 571-587.
Bahat, Roy E., Thomas Kochan, and Liba Wenig Rubenstein. Harvard Business Review, July 2023.
Stansbury, Anna, Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, and Karen Dynan. Applied Economics Letters (2023).
Rowe, Mary. Conflict Resolution Quarterly Vol. 40, No. 4 (2023): 497-504.
Ben A. Rissing and Emilio J. Castilla. In Sage Research Methods: Business, 2023.
