Nick Wailes

ICT and Organizational Change Introduction to the Special Issue

In this introduction to the special issue, the authors explore a number of connections between recent thinking about change in the organization studies (OS) literature and debates about information and communication technology (ICT) and change in the information systems (IS) literature. The authors examine these debates and highlight their potential significance for understanding ICT and organizational change. They argue that what is needed are studies such as those in this special issue that draw on and combine the insights provided by both the OS and the IS literatures to advance the study and practice of ICT-related change.

Guest editorial: discourse and organizational change

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the contribution that discourse analysis can make to understanding organizational change.Design/methodology/approach – It identifies five key contributions. Discourse analytic approaches: reveal the important role of discourse in the social construction of organizational change; demonstrate how the meaning attached to organizational change initiatives comes about as a result of a discursive process of negotiation among key actors; show that the discourses of change should be regarded as intertextual; provide a valuable multi‐disciplinary perspective on change; and exhibit a capacity, to generate fresh insights into a wide variety of organizational change related issues.Findings – To illustrate these contributions the paper examines the five empirical studies included in this special issue. It discusses the potential for future discursive studies of organizational change phenomena and the implications of this for the field of organizational change more generally.Origina...

Looking forwards: discursive directions in organizational change

Purpose – This paper aims to review the discursive formation of organizational change and to consider the possible directions that change management initiatives may take in the future.Design/methodology/approach – This closing piece identifies a traditional change discourse and an emerging change discourse. This is achieved through a review of the extant literature and the contributions to the special issue.Findings – The paper highlights a shift of emphases in organizational change due to environmental imperatives. In particular, it reveals a move from problem‐centred, discrete interventions to a focus on continuous improvements. It also draws attention to the emerging significance of discourse‐based approaches concerned with image, identity, organizational learning and knowledge management.Originality/value – Provides a framework for classifying different forms of organizational change activity and posits directions for future development.

Contrasting Systems? 100 Years of Arbitration in Australia and New Zealand

Supporters of collective employment regulation in New Zealand would have celebrated a centenary of arbitration a full decade before Australia, in 1994. Yet fate intervened and New Zealand’s arbitration system formally collapsed in 1991 following the introduction of the Employment Contracts Act. Despite a series of challenges during different periods, the Australian arbitration system has survived, if badly scathed, to see its 100- year anniversary. The present paper traces the historical similarities and differences in the advent, development and decline of the Australian and New Zealand systems of compulsory arbitration. Given the many structural similarities between the two systems, the paper explores important differences in the economic and political interests that both underlay the introduction and development of the two systems, and contributed to the earlier demise of the New Zealand system. The experience of the more extensive labour market reform in New Zealand provides some salutary lessons for those seeking further changes to weaken the Australian arbitration system.

The importance of small differences: the effects of research design on the comparative study of industrial relations reform in Australia and New Zealand

The aim of this paper is to explore the limitations associated with a most similar case research design. It argues that by adopting a most similar case research design, comparative work on industrial relations reform in Australia and New Zealand during the 1980s and 1990s has systematically ignored important historical differences between the two countries, underestimated the similarities in recent reforms and privileged organizational and institutional explanations for changes in industrial relations systems, at the expense of those which are based on systemic factors and material interests. More generally, this paper argues that methodological choices have significant consequences for the types of explanations generated by comparative research and that more serious attention needs be given to the epistemological assumptions embedded in research designs that are taken up by industrial relations researchers.

The Impact of Globalisation on Employment Relations: Some Research Propositions:

While there is widespread agreement that changes in the international economy associated with globalisation have important consequences for employment relations, there is less consensus about their nature and significance. One view is that globalization has created pressures for convergence between different countries in regard to employment relations. Another is that national level institutions play a mediating role in maintaining cross-national differences, leading to divergence. A third school rejects the convergence/divergence dichotomy and argues that complex interactions between global and national (or local) forces shape employment relations outcomes. Results outlined in this paper of a preliminary study of employment relations in the auto and banking industries in Australia and Korea reveal evidence of both similarities and differences on a range of dimensions. This implies that the relationship between globalization and employment relations is best explained by an interaction approach.

Economic Change and Domestic Industrial Relations Institutions: Towards a Theoretical Model

version of this paper was presented at ’Globalisation and Labour Regulation in Small Open Economies’, University of Newcastle, 13-14 May 1999. The author would like to thank Mark Bray, Gregor Murray, Tony Giles and two anonymous referees from the JIR for their comments and suggestions. ow does ime1ïwtio11al econottrir rbattge affect the domestic institutions of industrial 7-elatioizs? Most comparative industrial relations scholars are acutely aware of the intimate connection between inte171ational economic chazzge and changes in national industrial ,’elatio11s. Neve1theless, in attempting to accoullt fir rross-national diffirences in industrial a elatiotzs institutions and outcomes, they have adopted an ’institutionalist’ approach that treats the exten1al pressures faced by developed countries

The Transfer of Management Ideas to a Western "Periphery": The Case of Corporate Social Responsibility in Australia

Previous research has revealed that management knowledge can be transferred across national borders as a result of different carriers, but also acknowledges that the institutional context of different countries can shape how management knowledge is diffused. We demonstrate the importance of macro institutional arrangements on the transfer of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to Australia since the early 1990s. Taking examples of financial markets (socially responsible forms of investment) and international environmental management standards (International Standardization Organization certification) as illustrative of how CSR practices have been diffused in Australia, it is argued that the Australian institutional context has produced a limited transfer of CSR in a largely instrumental and legitimating form.

Globalisation, Institutions and Interests: Comparing Recent Changes in Industrial Relations Policy in Australia and New Zealand

Abstract This article explores the possibilities for an integrated theoretical framework which is capable of explaining similarities and differences in national industrial relations policies in the context of globalisation. The first half of the article reviews three theoretical frameworks that can be used to compare industrial relations developments in different countries- simple globalisation, the new institutionalism and a material interest approach to political economy. It argues that whilst institutionalist arguments tend to dominate analysis of the effects of globalisation on national patterns of industrial relations, a model which combines institutionalist and material interest approaches can overcome some of the anomalies attendant in institutionalist analysis. The second section demonstrates the benefits of an integrative theoretical framework for explaining patterns of industrial relations reform in Australia and New Zealand during the 1980s and 1990s. The article concludes by examining the implications of this discussion for broader debates about relationship between globalisation and national patterns of public policy.

Varieties of employment relations: continuity and change in the global auto and banking industries

This paper examines continuity and change in employment relations in two key industries – auto assembly and retail banking – across five countries: the USA, Australia, Germany, South Korea and China. The subsequent papers that constitute this symposium are discussed drawing on the varieties of capitalism (VoC) approach. Particular emphasis is laid on the interplay between continuity and change in employment relations in different types of capitalism, the conceptualization of Asian VoC and the industry-specific effects of globalization on employment relations.