Analysing the forces shaping employee involvement and participation (EIP) at organisation level in liberal market economies (LMEs)

Employee involvement and participation (EIP) continues to attract significant interest from academics and practitioners alike, often in terms of so‐called newer forms of employee engagement and informal consultation. However, although the history of EIP shows that multiple channels are the norm in most organisations, it is still rare for representative, direct and informal EIP to be discussed in the same study. This article breaks new ground by developing measures for the breadth and depth of EIP, as well as analysing the forces at and beyond organisation level which shape management choices about which forms to adopt and how to embed them more deeply in organisations. Data were collected from 86 interviews and associated documentary analysis at and beyond organisational level in four liberal market economies (LMEs) (UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand) in order to identify how forces at national and organisational level shaped the breadth and depth of EIP in 25 case study organisations. The article's main conclusion is that while institutional forces – such as legislation, government action and intermediary bodies – do have an influence in LMEs, the way in which management interprets more immediate organisational forces remains significantly important in embedding EIP within organisations.     

Employee involvement and participation: developing the concept of institutional embeddedness using WERS2004

It is widely accepted that employee involvement and participation (EIP) is a key component of the high commitment bundle of HRM, but that it can take a range of forms in practice. Much of the analysis to date has either treated different forms of EIP as a single construct or has measured EIP by virtue of its presence or absence alone. Drawing on earlier work based on the data from WERS1998 examining the link between various forms of EIP and employee outcomes such as job satisfaction and organisational commitment, the authors re-apply and extend these ideas to data from WERS2004. In particular they develop the concept of institutional embeddedness, in order argue that both the depth and breadth of EIP have important associations with commitment though not with satisfaction.

This association held for workplaces employing 25 or more workers, and here it was apparent that the more that employees are involved at workplace level – through a wider number of EIP practices that are held more frequently and include opportunities for workers to have their say – the more likely it is that investments in EIP will reap the reward of organisational commitment. For smaller establishments, given that they tend to operate with relatively few formal schemes, it is likely that managers in these workplaces find alternative ways in which to engage the workforce, and that informal EIP offer similar levels of embeddedness in these situations. A clear implication to be drawn from the findings is that, in a context of lower levels of formality within organisations (large and small), line managers are more than ever the key link between HR policy and the embodiment of actual practice at the workplace.     

Protecting expatriates in hostile environments: institutional forces influencing the safety and security practices of internationally active organisations

Abstract

The operations of internationally active organisations continue to encroach on hostile locations that are vulnerable to the negative consequences of crises such as political upheaval, terrorist attacks or natural disasters. Yet research into how firms ensure the physical and psychological safety and security of international staff in these locations is limited. This article reports an empirical study exploring the expatriate safety and security practices of 28 internationally active organisations from three industries that commonly operate in hostile environments. We unveil starkly different approaches across the three industries, and label these approaches ‘regulatory’ (mining and resources), ‘informal mentoring’ (news media) and ‘empowering’ (international aid and development). We use institutional theory to propose that these configurations reflect legitimacy-seeking choices that these organisations make in response to the various institutional environments that affect each sector. Our results provide a platform for initial theory building into the interrelated elements of organisations’ safety and security practices, and the institutional factors that shape the design of these.     

The management of an ageing workforce: organisational policies in Germany and Britain

Demographic change as well as pressure from the European Union and national government are forcing organisations to change age‐discriminatory HRM approaches. Based on a qualitative analysis of eight British and German organisations, we found that commitment, scope, coverage and implementation of age management differ due to country‐specific institutions, particularly government, in nudging employers and unions to preferred age practices. This confirms the path dependency concept suggested by institutional theory. Nevertheless, we also found that industry‐specific factors mediate the implementation of age management, leading to some convergence across countries. This indicates that organisations deviate from the institutional path to implement practices that they deem important.     

Understanding graduate recruitment,development and retention for the enhancement of talent management: sharpening ‘the edge’ of graduate talent

Graduates are deemed to be a key source of talent within many organisations and thus recruiting, developing and retaining them is viewed as a logical talent management (TM) strategy. However, there has been little attention paid to university graduates as part of an organisation’s TM strategy. Such a specific focus addresses the need for further research into the segmentation of talent pools and the specific challenges different talent pools are likely to create. This research, which utilised a qualitative data collection strategy, examined the experiences and practices of six large UK organisations in relation to graduate TM. Drawing from Gallardo-Gallardo, Dries and González-Cruz’s (2013. What is the meaning of ‘talent’ in the world of work? Human Resource Management Review, 23, 290–300.) framework for the conceptualisation of talent, the findings from this research indicate and explain why graduate employers are frequently compelled to use the object approach (talent as characteristics of people) due to the unique characteristics that recent graduates possess, even though other studies have found that a subject approach (talent as people and what they do) is preferred by most employers. Ultimately, employers conceptualise graduate talent by what they describe as ‘the edge’ which needs to be ‘sharpened’ to fully realise the potential that graduates offer.     

Institutional environment for entrepreneurship in rapidly emerging major economies: the case of Brazil,China, India,and Korea

The country institutional profile (CIP) construct has become the most widely used conceptualization of institutional environment for entrepreneurship. This construct is frequently employed to study institutional forces influencing entrepreneurial activity at the national level. However, relatively little is known about the cross-national equivalence of the construct. Moreover, the institutional environment for entrepreneurship in emerging economies remains largely under-explored. To address these issues, in the current study, we used the most frequently utilized CIP scale to collect data from 809 young adults in four rapidly emerging countries: Brazil, China, India, and South Korea. We examined the invariance of the CIP construct and unraveled differences in perceived institutional profiles among these rapidly emerging economies. Results support the CIP construct as largely invariant in the four REME countries and revealed important differences in specific aspects of institutional environments in these countries. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

Understanding the employment relationship: markets,hierarchies and power

The employment relationship is fiercely contested both in theory and practice. This article examines recent theoretical initiatives in economics that have sought to illuminate the nature, specificity, and complexities of the employment relationship. It examines claims by proponents of the new institutional economics (NIE) that they can account for the historical emergence of authority relations and the dominance of hierarchical work organisations without reference to the forces of class power, coercion and labour subordination. The NIE is contrasted with the ‘old’ institutional economics (OIE) and the distinctive insights of an industrial relations perspective. The paper considers in conclusion whether a synthesis of NIE and industrial relations research would achieve a deeper understanding of the institutional forms of wage‐labour in contemporary capitalist economies.     

Ownership Concentration,Institutional Development and Firm Performance in Central and Eastern Europe

This paper analyzes the relationship of ownership concentration and firm performance in the context of different institutional environments in 28 Central and Eastern European transition economies. We focus on private, non‐listed firms that have been largely neglected by the extant literature. Using the BEEPS data for the period from 2002 to 2009 we find an inverted u‐shaped relation of ownership concentration and firm performance for those firms that operate in non‐EU‐member countries as well as those firms that are situated in less developed institutional systems. We interpret these findings as evidence for a classic agency problem in the lower part of the ownership concentration distribution that is dominated by a ‘private benefits of control’ problem with rising ownership concentration. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sex worker unionisation: an exploratory study of emerging collective organisation

In a number of Western economies in the last two decades, sex workers have begun to organise themselves in, and be organised by, trade unions for the first time. This article examines the salient processes and outcomes of this phenomenon. It firstly explores the influence of the prostitutes’ rights movements and the emergence of the ‘sex work’ discourse where the selling of sex and sexual services are regarded as a form of ‘emotional’ or ‘erotic’ labour. The advances in sex worker union organisation are recounted before assessing the forces leading to unionisation and those forces that act as impediments to unionisation. The conclusion of the article is that extant sex worker unionisation is a fragile and embryonic phenomenon.     

Institutions and Foreign Subsidiary Growth in Transition Economies: The Role of Intangible Assets and Capabilities

Although transition economies experience significant institutional transformations that vary in their degree and pace, scholarly knowledge of what distinguishes more successful foreign subsidiaries from less successful ones in such environments is limited and inconsistent. We enhance the understanding of this subject by examining how variations in the institutional development of transition economies influence the usefulness of a subsidiary's intangible assets and capabilities and, in turn, their effectiveness in enhancing its growth. Prior research assumes that foreign subsidiaries that operate in any given environment are always better off when they possess strong intangible assets and capabilities. Our analysis of more than 33,000 observations in 14 transition economies challenges this view and enables us to explain why some subsidiaries grow more quickly in less‐developed institutional environments, whereas others more quickly in countries with institutions that are more developed. More specifically, we show that although a subsidiary's intangible assets enhance its growth in transition economies with stronger institutions, these effects are particularly weak or insignificant in transition countries with less developed institutional environments. Conversely, a completely different pattern emerges for subsidiary capabilities, with their marginal effects on subsidiary growth being significantly higher in countries that are institutionally less developed than in transition countries with more developed institutions.     

A cross-cultural analysis of the demographics of membership in nonprofit organisations

This paper is concerned with the identification of demographic characteristics of members of nonprofit organisations across a large number of countries. It is found that there are significant differences in the demographic characteristics within countries for different types of non-profit organisations and across countries for the same nonprofit type organisation. Understanding these patterns can lead to increased efficiencies in communication by nonprofit organisations within and across national boundaries.     

Looking beyond HRM practices in enhancing employee retention in BPOs: focus on employee–organisation value fit

This paper argues that the effectiveness of HRM practices in tackling employee retention can be enhanced by improving the compatibility between employee and organisational values. We test our hypothesis using structural equation modelling on a sample of 258 employees in business process outsourcing (BPO) firms in the Philippines. The results show that the fit between employee and organisation values positively and partially mediates the effects of HRM practices on employee retention. However, employee–organisation value clash in US-owned BPOs was found to have a negative effect on employee retention. Because employees are less likely to leave when they share similar values as their organisations, HRM practices can be used strategically to improve the employee–organisation value fit to improve retention. The implications of the findings for HR managers of BPOs in developing countries are fully discussed.     

Talk,trust and information flow: work relationships between Japanese expatriate and host national employees in Indonesia

This paper broadens the understanding of work relationships between expatriate and host national employees in transnational organisations/corporations, who have tended to be investigated separately. By exploring interpersonal interactions between expatriate and host national employees, this paper highlights the importance of their relationships in the implementation of organisational activities. With a focus on both Japanese expatriate and host national employees in a Japanese organisation in Indonesia, this ethnographic study examines the ways in which they worked in unfamiliar circumstances, managed differences and provided essential support for each other. Their transnational connections, characterised by what Granovetter calls ‘the strength of weak ties’, function to diffuse information and knowledge effectively. I argue the significance of ‘talk’, particularly small talk, as an initial action that supports such information flow and builds trust. This paper attempts to demonstrate the vital roles of expatriate and host national employees as mediators, by using network analysis as a framework. Finally, I conclude that both expatriate and host national employees, the latter often seen merely as backseat players, are in fact keys to the successful activities of transnational organisations/corporations.     

The HR function in purchaser–provider relationships: insights from the UK voluntary sector

This article explores how inter-organisational relations with the state impact on the status of human resource (HR) professionals in voluntary organisations. It reveals a constrained and under-resourced HR function in voluntary organisations, implementing few strategic interventions. Explanations centre on the dynamics of power relations, institutional forces, the exercise of strategic choice and management of risk between purchasers and providers and their interaction with competencies among individual actors, attitudes of senior managers and the focus by voluntary sector managers on organisational mission. It warns that these external and internal factors will produce similar outcomes in sectors and economies characterised by arm's-length contractual relations.     

Understanding continuity in public sector HRM through neo‐institutional theory: why national collective bargaining has survived in English local government

Most HRM research over recent decades has concentrated on ‘change’, charting ever more fragmented, individualised and unitarist employment relationships. This is equally true of public sector HRM, where the emphasis has been on neo‐liberalism and marketisation. However, in many countries and sectors, collective, pluralist approaches to HRM and industrial relations have proved remarkably resilient. This article uses Neo‐Institutional theory to explain the ‘continuity’ of one such HRM system: national collective bargaining in English local government (1979–2007). We argue that this survives because it manages the political and managerial processes that link central government and central–local relations and acts as a conduit between institutional stakeholders to deliver services to the public. By understanding the ‘passive consensus’ that holds the collectivist HRM system together, we can anticipate the forces that might pull it apart.     

Institutions and preferences in settings of causal complexity: foreign institutional investors and corporate restructuring practices in France

In this article, we illustrate how the interaction between institutional arrangements and the presence of different categories of firm stakeholders with specific preferences provides important insights to understand the conditions under which corporate restructuring practices are introduced. Institutions shape the range of actors' strategic options and mediate the translation of the preferences of firm stakeholders into corporate policies. Nonetheless, strategic choice remains possible since firm stakeholders constitute subgroups with different interests and incentives that influence how they operate in an institutional framework. In particular, we examine under what conditions UK/US-based institutional investors and equity-based compensation incentives are associated with the implementation of asset divestitures and employee layoffs in France. We uncover three key findings. First, the presence of hedge funds and equity-based pay influence the likelihood of French companies undertaking asset divestitures. Second, the impact of hedge funds on employee layoffs is contingent on the ownership structure of firms. Third, layoffs in France are driven by inferior performance – a result that contrasts with the American experience whereby employee layoffs are also used as a strategic mechanism to deal with institutional investors in good times. Our findings demonstrate the importance of the institutional constraints of (national level) employment protection and the moderating effects of ownership structure (firm level) on the strategic and employment policies of French companies.     

制度约束、国家文化差异与企业跨国并购绩效——文化差异的竞争性中介作用

本研究结合组织行为和战略管理的相关理论,从制度约束和文化差异两个方面因素入手,研究了影响中国企业跨国并购绩效的原因.先构建了这三个变量的多元回归模型,然后分别用Baron和Zhao提出的方法来检验中介变量.研究发现:(1)中国企业在制度环境复杂的国家的并购绩效比较好;(2)并购双方所在的国家文化距离越大,并购之后的协同效应越大;(3)文化差异在以营商环境指数表示的制度环境与以Tobin'q表示的并购绩效之间起到竞争性中介效应.     

Analysing the Influence of Institutional,Organizational and Interpersonal Forces in Shaping Inter‐Organizational Relations*

abstract Much of the literature on inter‐organizational relations assumes that firms operate as relatively autonomous and cohesive units that are (1) unimpeded by wider institutional norms governing the industry as a whole, and (2) allow little or no role for the boundary spanning agents who oversee and monitor ‘contracts’ on a daily basis. This perspective is not surprising given that so many studies rely solely on questionnaires completed by a single respondent within one or more of the organizations. Nor has there been much recognition of the dynamic interplay between forces at the institutional, organizational and interpersonal levels. In order to address these issues, we propose a framework that explicitly focuses on forces at these three levels, as well as the interplay between them, in order to analyse how and why inter‐organizational relations take the forms they do. We argue that trusting, OCR‐type relations are more likely to be produced and reproduced when there are strong institutional forces promoting common obligations on both parties, and there is a relative mutuality of power relations between the organizations. However, because the contract is maintained by boundary spanning agents, agreed norms at the institutional and organizational levels are a necessary but not sufficient factor for OCR to develop. Conversely, in the absence of these forces, there is less incentive for either organization to establish and maintain close interpersonal relations, and indeed ACR‐type, distant relations may be beneficial for organizations and individuals that wish to dispense with existing contracts.     

Coevolution of Institutions and Corporations in Emerging Economies: How the Salim Group Morphed into an Institution of Suharto's Crony Regime

abstract We investigate whether large family groups in emerging economies can proactively change their environment. We use a coevolutionary approach, which accounts for the influence of context on the entrepreneur and for the freedom of the latter to modify it. We find that entrepreneurs can shape institutions to their advantage, illustrated by the Salim Group, which achieved growth by aligning with and influencing politicians, eventually ‘morphing into an institution’. We unravel unique coevolutionary patterns, which we use to extend existing theories. Our first contribution is to initiate a new line of inquiry in coevolution theory, focusing on individual companies coevolving with institutions. Secondly, we document factors that increase and decrease strategic choice for family groups in emerging economies. Thirdly, we find that the Salim Group became part of the crony Suharto regime. The group became both an institutional entrepreneur and an entrepreneurial institution, demonstrating that companies and institutions are not necessarily mutually exclusive.     

The contrasting strategies of owner-managed and foreign-engaged joint ventures under market socialism in China

Drawing upon a contingency approach, this research based on case studies offers an understanding of the conditions for contrasting growth strategies in emerging business ventures in China. It offers an insight into the interactive effect of organisational processes that are likely to shape their strategic outcomes. Ownership as a key contingency factor influences the objectives of organisations and the formation of their growth models. The empirical evidence collected from key stakeholders in a selected number of company case studies suggests that organisations with “open” structures and processes that encourage the adoption of ideas, policies and methods from both internal and external forces are more likely to adopt more high value-added strategies than “closed” entrepreneurial firms typical of organisations in the conditions of market socialism in China. It demonstrates the critical role of foreign investment in shaping local management practices in the transitional economy. It also implies that irrespective of political ideology, the creation of a market economy imposes ‘standardizing’ global similarities in business structures and processes that cut across national cultures. This is discussed on the basis of empirical data collected from interviews with key stakeholders in a number of company case studies.