WORKPLACE CHARACTERISTICS AND HEALTH-CARE COST-CONTAINMENT PRACTICES

Working from an institutional perspective, this study tested hypothese s about the relationships between workplace characteristics and health care cost containment practices. The analyses show that urban locatio n of the workplace, number of employees, and education level of the wo rkforce are related to three different cost containment strategies: th e management of utilization with traditional indemnity insurance plans ; offering of alternative health insurance plans (HMOs); and employee development relative to health care consumption. Workplaces with great er proportions of black or female employees were less likely and those with older workers were more likely to engage in employee development practices. The race, gender, and age variables were not significantly related to the other strategies. Unionization was not significantly r elated to any of the three strategies in the multivariate model. These findings are proposed to have implications for human resource managem ent, as well as for health care policy and reform efforts.