Chris Rees

Employee voice and engagement: connections and consequences

This paper considers the relationship between employee voice and employee engagement. Employee perceptions of voice behaviour aimed at improving the functioning of the work group are found to have both a direct impact and an indirect impact on levels of employee engagement. Analysis of data from two organisations confirms that the direct connection between perceptions of voice behaviour and engagement is mediated by both employee trust in senior management and the employee–line manager relationship. Key concepts are outlined, and the implications of the findings for future research and for the management of engagement are discussed.

Quality management and HRM in the service industry: some case study evidence

Considers management views on the operation of quality management (QM) strategies in two service sector organizations, financial services and hotel and catering – based on open‐ended interviews with managerial staff. Considers some of the soft/HRM aspects of quality management. Finds that there have been moves towards the more quantifiable measurement of outcomes and tighter management control. Employee empowerment is conceived of as the major defining feature of QM in the two organizations. Both companies have also sought greater flexibility through delayering and through efforts to break down demar‐ cations. QM does not necessarily involve these latter trends. However, a thoroughgoing management commitment to empowering employees to take greater responsibility for problem solving and decision making will tend to go together with at least some reduction in organizational hierarchy.

Management strategy and HR in international mergers: choice, constraint and pragmatism

The article combines consideration of the range of contextual factors that impact on management strategy and HR in the post-merger period (such as corporate structures and cultures, pressures from shareholders and regulatory and legal environments at national and international level) with an examination of the interests and power of various groups of actors within the firm. Specifically, we apply a framework which integrates the insights of market-based, institutionalist and micro-political approaches. We locate our analysis within the relevant international HRM literature, most notably recent debates concerning multinational corporation (MNC) merger dynamics. International mergers and acquisitions provide particularly useful scenarios through which to explore the interdependence between choice and constraint, illustrated here by processes of negotiation, compromise and balance across a range of issues in several case study organisations. The key areas highlighted concern: (1) the integration of HR strategies, and (2) processes of post-merger rationalisation.

Teamworking and service quality: the limits of employee involvement

This article reports employee attitudes towards quality management (QM) at two organisations in the private services sector. It examines the nature and extent of employee involvement in QM through teamworking, describes the methods which managements use to encourage teamworking, and assesses the levels of responsibility and autonomy that teams have. Actual levels of discretion and responsibility afforded to teams are found to be low, and yet employees consistently report feeling a strong “sense of teamwork”. Managers are using various mechanisms to increasingly control or limit the extent of employee “‘empowerment”. At the same time, however, there is strong employee support for teams, and employees feel that teamworking allows them to have more input into problem‐solving and decision‐making. This article argues that what has occurred in each case is a “re‐organisation of control”, such that there has been a general increase in the level of employee involvement, but within increasingly defined and measurable limits.

National Industrial Relations Systems and Cross-Border Restructuring: Evidence From a Merger in the Pharmaceuticals Sector

This article examines the restructuring process following a cross-border merger in the pharmaceuticals sector. We show how national industrial relations systems account for some aspects of cross-national differences in the process and outcomes of restructuring. However, we also argue that institutionalist approaches to comparative analysis must be complemented by a focus on the material interests of organizational actors and the resources that they can deploy.

Theorizing advances in international HRD

There is a tension between the national context and the global reach of the field of human resource development. The core concepts and language of HRD are by origin Anglo-Saxon, yet increasingly come under challenge with the emergence of a global community of HRD scholars. Furthermore, the differences within the Englishspeaking world of HRD scholars have long been apparent. In this issue of Human Resource Development International, this diversity is displayed in relation to core HRD concepts such as e-learning, professional learning, competence, and workrelated learning. However, before commenting on the papers that illustrate these diverse international perspectives, we shall start by commenting upon Bob Hamlin’s comparative study of Britishand American-derived models of leadership – a study that paradoxically points towards convergence. Every once in a while Human Resource Development International receives papers that generate controversy because they go against the grain of current discourse. Hamlin’s is such a paper. It is controversial because current research into leadership takes a contingent, contextual and cultural-specific approach as axiomatic. Therefore it is somewhat surprising to see Hamlin arguing for the ‘universality’ of managerial leadership effectiveness constructs. A comparative analysis of the criteria and function of leadership shows that the majority of the behavioural competencies comprising the two models are strongly and significantly similar across cultures and are more universalistic than contingent. By contrast, Françoise Delamare Le-Deist and Jonathan Winterton are coming from the opposite direction in their exploration of the definitions and usage of ‘competence’, especially in the context of public policy training and development initiatives in the USA and Europe. They argue that;

Culture Against Cohesion: Global Corporate Strategy and Employee Diversity in the UK Plant of a German MNC

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to highlight employee diversity at the workplace level in a MNC, and consider its impact upon management attempts to promote a global corporate culture.Design/methodology/approach – The investigation took the form of an ethnographic participant‐observation study, which involved interviews and archival research plus a three‐month period when the lead researcher worked on the plants final assembly line. This provided insights into the personal and psychological issues of individuals within the workforce, and an experiential dimension to the study which is difficult to replicate in other ways.Findings – The management approach to cultural and diversity issues worked both for and against the development of cohesion and improved employee relations. Managers sometimes ignored the real impact of local ethnic diversity, focusing instead on inter‐management conflicts, which contributed to employee morale and communication problems. But where diversity was recognised, more su...

Managing Change, or Changing Managers? The role of middle managers in UK public service reform

Abstract Drawing upon interview data from three case study organizations, we examine the role of middle managers in UK public service reform. Using theory fragments from organizational ecology and role theory, we develop three role archetypes that middle managers might be enacting. We find that rather than wholesale enactment of a ‘change agent’ role, middle managers are balancing three predominant, but often conflicting, change-related roles: as ‘government agent’, ‘diplomat administrator’ and, less convincingly, ‘entrepreneurial leader’. Central government targets are becoming the main preoccupation for middle managers across many public services and they represent a dominant constraint on allowing ‘managers to manage’.

Small Business and Social Irresponsibility in Developing Countries: Working Conditions and “Evasion” Institutional Work:

Small businesses in developing countries, as part of global supply chains, are sometimes assumed to respond in a straightforward manner to institutional demands for improved working conditions. This article problematizes this perspective. Drawing upon extensive qualitative data from Tirupur’s knitwear export industry in India, we highlight owner-managers’ agency in avoiding or circumventing these demands. The small businesses here actively engage in irresponsible business practices and “evasion” institutional work to disrupt institutional demands in three ways: undermining assumptions and values, dissociating consequences, and accumulating autonomy and political strength. This “evasion” work is supported by three conditions: void (in labor welfare mechanisms), distance (from institutional monitors), and contradictions (between value systems). Through detailed empirical findings, the article contributes to research on both small business social responsibility and institutional work.

Capital transnacional ¿el fin de los acuerdos sociales nacionales?: La evolución reciente en Suecia

Este texto pone en entredicho el punto de vista generalizado de que la internacionalizacion economica necesariamente socava las politicas economicas nacionales, haciendo inviable la accion estatal en apoyo a la proteccion social y la reglamentacion social del empleo. Aunque sea comun suponer que la globalizacion debe borrar las particularidades del llamado «modelo sueco», cuando se manejan cuidadosamente los datos disponibles se encuentra poca base para pensar que los regimenes nacionales hayan perdido sentido ni se hayan erosionado. Al contrario, la ponencia presenta una amplia gama de informacion (sobre el empleo, la formacion, la remuneracion y la desigualdad, la negociacion colectiva, y la estrategia empresarial) que demuestra la persistencia de las especificidades.