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Cornell University ILR School DigitalCommons@ILR Articles and Chapters ILR Collection 3-2006 Flexibility and Fairness in Liberal Market Economies: The Comparative Impact of the Legal En ironment and High Performance Work Systems Alexander Col in Cornell Uni ersity, ajc22@ Follow this and additional works at : /articles Part of the Labor Economics Commons, Labor elations Commons, and the Performance Management Commons Thank you for downloading an article from DigitalCommons@IL . Support this valuable resource today ! This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the ILR Collection at DigitalCommons@IL . It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles and Chapters by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@IL . For more information, please contact hlmdigital@. Flexibility and Fairness in Liberal Market Economies: The Comparative Impact of the Legal En ironment and High Performance Work Systems Abstract This paper compares management flexibility in employment decision-making in the United States and Canada through a cross-national survey of organizations in representative jurisdictions in each country, Pennsylvania and Ontario respectively, that investigates the impact of differences in their legal environments. The results indicate that, compared to their Ontario counterparts, organizations in Pennsylvania have a higher degree of flexibility in employment outcomes, such as higher dismissal and discipline rates, yet do not experience any greater flexibility or simplicity in management hiring and firing decisions. One explanation for this result may lie in the finding that organizations in Pennsylvania experience greater legal pressures on decision making, reflecting the gene