Managing Long Working Hours: Evidence from a Management Practice Survey

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between management practices and long working hours by combining large-scale establishment panel data on management practices with the corresponding employee data on overtime hours in the manufacturing sector. We find that the adoption of more structured bonus and promotion practices is correlated with an increasing probability of workers working more than short-to-medium overtime hours. In addition, the adoption of more structured production monitoring and targeting practices is associated with a lower probability of workers working long overtime hours, resulting in narrowing disparities in overtime hours across workers within establishments.