Marijana Baric

Public policy innovations: the case of undeclared work

Purpose – For many decades, European national governments sought to stamp out undeclared work using a repressive approach. In the changing economic context of declining employment participation rates, however, the European Commission has called for a new approach to transform undeclared work into declared work. This necessitates public policy innovations. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the degree to which this European Commission call for policy innovation has been adopted by European national governments.Design/methodology/approach – To evaluate this, the results are reported of an e‐survey conducted in 2010 of 104 senior stakeholders from government departments, trade unions and employer organisations in 31 European countries, and 24 follow‐up in‐depth interviews.Findings – The finding is that although European nations have responded to the changing economic context and the resultant call by the European Commission for a new approach by adopting an array of innovative new policy measures to facili...

Sovereign wealth funds, productivity and people: The impact of Norwegian Government Pension Fund‐Global investments in the United Kingdom

Sovereign wealth funds have an increasing presence in the global financial ecosystem, principally through their investments in equities, which, in turn, may influence HRM. This study examines the influence of the worlds largest sovereign wealth fund, the Norwegian Government Pension Fund‐Global (NGPF‐G), on employment in its U.K. investee firms. We find that firms with NGPF‐G investment are significantly less likely to reduce their demand for labour, more specifically in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. When a drop in the demand for labour does occur, it is less extreme when compared to similar organisations without a NGPF‐G shareholding, and this is evident even in the case of relatively small NGPF‐G investments. These findings are in line with the funds objective of promoting corporate sustainability and Norwegian values. We draw out the key implications of our findings for HR practice.

Tackling undeclared entrepreneurship in a transition setting: the case of Croatia

This article argues that informal entrepreneurship in Croatia is part of a wider problem of undeclared work arising from incongruence between formal and informal institutions. It is therefore argued that settings similar to the one Croatia finds itself in should focus on indirect approaches that seek to improve the tax morale of enterprise owners, as well as its citizens more generally. Specific recommendations emphasising the improvement of formal institutions (such as improving administrative capabilities and increasing transparency) as well as awareness raising and knowledge improvement of citizens are outlined as based on the identified problems.