IT, Organizational Change and Wages

Recent studies emphasize the complementary relationship between information technology and organizational changes. We analyze the wage impact of computer usage at the workplace and of organizational changes in companies, taking possible complementarities into account. The analyses are based on individual-level data for West Germany in 1998-1999, including information about individual characteristics, workplace characteristics and company characteristics. We find positive wage markups for computer usage and organizational changes. Wage premiums for organizational changes exist across rather than within firms. We find no evidence for complementarities between computer use and organizational changes in terms of wages.

Bertschek, Irene and Alexandra Spitz-Oener (2003), IT, Organizational Change and Wages, ZEW Discussion Paper No. 03-69, Mannheim.