Personnel Economics teaches students about how firms manage their employees. On one hand, in most organizations, a large part of all costs are human resource related. On the other hand, the performance of organizations and firms is the sum of the motivations, decisions, and actions of the employees.
Evidence shows that management practices play a significant role in explaining differences in firm performance. Evidence also shows that management practices vary considerably across firms, even within the same industry and country. This suggests that there may be significant scope for improvement in management practices across a wide range of firms, and that such improvements may raise firm performance. This course in Personnel Economics examines a large set of management practices that are crucial for firm performance, such as the extent to which a firm hires and retains the high-quality employees, how incentives can be used to affect the performance of workers, and how bonuses can be used to reward effort and raise production.
The course will focus on conventional economic theories with heavy emphasize on empirical applications.
The course will study firm policies related to the following topics:
- Recruitment
- Motivation and effort
- Incentive schemes
- Performance evaluations
- Training and human capital investments
- Executive pay
- Promotions and career-based incentives
- Organizational structure, job design, teams
- Fringe benefits
The course will give the student an understanding of how personnel policies can be applied at a broad level, and is not overlapping or competing with other courses in HR. It can be taken alone, or as a supplement to other HR courses.