Research

What rules govern work, how do they shape workers’ opportunities, and how can we measure them?

My research connects questions about power in labor markets with the measurement of organizational practices. I study how employment rules, institutional conditions, and technology shape worker mobility and the organization of work.

A central challenge is that the practices governing a workplace are often difficult to observe. I use text from job postings and organizational documents to build data that make those practices available for empirical research. Developing open tools is part of this agenda: it allows other researchers to inspect, repeat, and extend the work.

Research themes

Open tools for workforce research and information

My current work connects descriptions of work to shared task and skill vocabularies, enabling researchers and institutions to build and evaluate workforce information.

From job postings to workforce information with open tools — featured work in progress. Companion website with results, demonstrations, and research resources. Public project companion With Stephen Meisenbacher and Svetlozar Nestorov.
Building a Custom Taxonomy of AI Skills and Tasks from the Ground Up with Job Postings — with S. Meisenbacher. CustomNLP4U proceedings (2026).

Employer power, worker mobility, and employment institutions

How do the rules governing employment shape workers’ options and employers’ power? My work examines guest-worker programs, wage theft, and restrictions on mobility.

Wage Theft, Economic Conditions, and Market Power: The Case of H-1B Workers — with J. DeVaro. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, forthcoming (2026). Link to discussion-paper version.
Political Directors and the Recruitment of Foreign Workers — with S. Sauerwald. Journal of Management (2026).
New Evidence on Employee Noncompete, No Poach, and No Hire Agreements in the Franchise Sector — Research in Labor Economics (2024).
The Balance of Power in Franchising — IZA Discussion Paper No. 18660 (2026). Contractual evidence on declining franchisee autonomy and its relationship to private equity acquisition.

Technology and the organization of work

My research examines how technological supervision and changes in where work takes place reshape employment relationships.

How the past of outsourcing and offshoring is the future of post-pandemic remote work — with C. L. Erickson. Industrial Relations Journal (2022).
The Effects of Technological Supervision on Gig Workers — with A. Varma, N. Jukic, and S. Nestorov. International Journal of Human Resource Management (2021).

Projects and future directions

The balance of power in franchising

Who controls a franchise business? In The Balance of Power in Franchising, my coauthors and I analyze contractual provisions across 4,500 chains from 2009–2024 and survey more than 300 franchisees. We find a systematic shift toward franchisor control over pricing, suppliers, product offerings, and competition after contracts end. Greater control is accompanied by higher franchise fees, without faster chain growth or fewer complaints to the Federal Trade Commission. Chains adopting provisions favoring franchisors are also more likely to be acquired by private equity. The findings connect contractual authority, business autonomy, and the changing organization of work.

With Ulrich Atz, Blake Eliason, Michael Lipsitz, Sérgio Pinto, and Marshall Steinbaum. IZA Discussion Paper No. 18660 (May 2026).

Workforce information and matching

The project From job postings to workforce information with open tools, currently a work in progress, examines how descriptions of work can be converted into comparable measures and evaluated against external benchmarks. A future direction is to connect descriptions of workers’ experience with job requirements in ways that support more efficient matching in labor markets. Public project companion With Stephen Meisenbacher and Svetlozar Nestorov.

Collaborative research infrastructure

These projects bring together researchers across management, economics, law, information systems, and computer science. I develop tools and data with their reuse in mind, and involve students in the work of constructing and evaluating evidence.

Explore JAAT: open tools and workforce information

Journal articles and proceedings

Devaro, J., & Norlander, P. (Accepted / Forthcoming, 2026). Wage Theft, Economic Conditions, and Market Power: The Case of H-1B Workers. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics. Discussion paper version: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3858061 · Semantic Scholar record

Meisenbacher, S., & Norlander, P. (2026). Building a Custom Taxonomy of AI Skills and Tasks from the Ground Up with Job Postings. Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Customizable NLP: Progress and Challenges in Customizing NLP for a Domain, Application, Group, or Individual (CustomNLP4U), 117–130. https://aclanthology.org/2026.customnlp4u-1.11/ · Semantic Scholar record

Osei, C., Amaturraheem, F., Classen, T., Ekpo, A., Alexander, K., Connolly, S., Norlander, P., & Behnam, M. (2026). More isn’t always better: The resource paradox in neighborhood entrepreneurial support for everyday entrepreneurs. Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 25. · Semantic Scholar record

Sauerwald, S., & Norlander, P. (2026). Political Directors and the Recruitment of Foreign Workers. Journal of Management, 52(3), 1069-1099. https://doi.org/10.1177/01492063241300311 · Semantic Scholar record

Harris, D., and Norlander, P. (2023). Where the Glass Ceiling Cracks: Features of U.S. Organizations Where Women Rise to the Top. Advancing Women in Leadership Journal. 10.21423/awlj-v42.a363 · Semantic Scholar record

Erickson, C. L., & Norlander, P. (2022). How the past of outsourcing and offshoring is the future of post-pandemic remote work: A typology, a model and a review. Industrial Relations Journal, 53(1), 71– 89. https://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12355 · Semantic Scholar record

Norlander, P. (2021). Do guest worker programs give firms too much power? IZA World of Labor. https://wol.iza.org/articles/do-guest-worker-programs-give-firms-too-much-power · Semantic Scholar record

Norlander, P., Varma, A., Jukic, N., & Nestorov, S. (2021). The Effects of Technological Supervision on Gig Workers: Organizational Control and Motivation of Uber, Taxi, and Limousine Drivers, International Journal of Human Resource Management, DOI: 10.1080/09585192.2020.1867614. · Semantic Scholar record

Norlander, P. Ho, G.C., Shih, M., Walters, D.J. & Pittinsky, T.L. (2020) The Role of Psychological Stigmatization in Unemployment Discrimination, Basic and Applied Social Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/01973533.2019.1689363. · Semantic Scholar record

Gibbons, E., Greenman, A., Norlander, P., and Sørensen, T. (2019). Monopsony Power and Guest Worker Programs. Antitrust Bulletin, 64: 540-565. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0003603X19875040. · Semantic Scholar record

Norlander, P, Varma, A. (2019). H-1B and L-1 visa-sponsored guest workers in the USA: An analysis of the strategic impact of Indian and other firms. Thunderbird Int. Bus. Rev. 2019; 61: 565– 579. https://doi.org/10.1002/tie.22044. · Semantic Scholar record

Norlander, P., Sørensen, T.A. (2018). 21st Century Slowdown: The Historic Nature of Recent Declines in the Growth of the Immigrant Population in the United States. Migration Letters; Vol. 15, Iss. 3: 409-422. · Semantic Scholar record

Depew, B., Norlander, P. & Sørensen, T.A. (2017). Inter-firm mobility and return migration patterns of skilled guest workers. Journal of Population Economics. 30: 681. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-016-0607-y. · Semantic Scholar record

Norlander, P., Erickson, C., Kuruvilla, S., & Kannan-Narasimhan, R. (2015). India’s Outsourcing Industry and the Offshoring of Skilled Services Work: A Review Essay. E-Journal of International and Comparative Labour Studies, 4(1). http://adapt.it/EJCLS/index.php/ejcls_adapt/article/view/255 · Semantic Scholar record

Publications on Semantic Scholar

Public commentary and media

Commentary

Job Postings Aren’t Jobs — Work Shift, June 17, 2026. With Kyle Albert, Jeff Strohl, and Paul Daniels. On the value and limitations of job-posting data, and the need for transparent tools and public benchmarks.
Businesses Need Sound Tax Policy to Attract and Keep H-1B Workers — Bloomberg Law, March 26, 2026. Commentary by Peter Norlander.
End H-1B ‘Hiring Tax’ and Make Visas Portable to Protect Workers — Bloomberg Law, October 15, 2025. Commentary by Peter Norlander.

Quoted in the news

New Biden administration rule seeks to make more gig workers employees — The Wall Street Journal, republished by Mint (2024). On worker classification and the role of court interpretation.
For Wayfair, it’s layoffs in Boston and new hires in India — The Boston Globe, January 26, 2023. On remote work and offshoring.
DOL’s Proposed Rule Could Make It Harder to Classify Workers as Independent Contractors — WorldatWork (2022), citing my Wall Street Journal comments on litigation and policy uncertainty.