Collective Influence on Information Technology in Virtual Organizations-Emancipatory Management of Technology?

This contribution addresses the question of how to create an agency for emancipatory management of technology. Unions are suggested as a collective actor, since steps towards democratization and micro emancipation have few chances if they rely on management practitioners alone. Instead, unions, shop stewards and employees should acquire and demand elements of emancipatory management of technology on the basis of collective power rather than waiting for managers to change their praxis. The article looks at union activities related to virtual organizations in manufacturing companies. It is argued that although virtualization is modest, it still challenges traditional union strategies. Based on case material stemming from action-oriented research, a number of levels of possible influence and politicization are discussed ranging from the workplace to the national level, which unions can pursue in becoming a collective actor in the development of ICT and organizations.     

Collective Influence on Information Technology in Virtual Organizations-Emancipatory Management of Technology?

This contribution addresses the question of how to create an agency for emancipatory management of technology. Unions are suggested as a collective actor, since steps towards democratization and micro emancipation have few chances if they rely on management practitioners alone. Instead, unions, shop stewards and employees should acquire and demand elements of emancipatory management of technology on the basis of collective power rather than waiting for managers to change their praxis. The article looks at union activities related to virtual organizations in manufacturing companies. It is argued that although virtualization is modest, it still challenges traditional union strategies. Based on case material stemming from action-oriented research, a number of levels of possible influence and politicization are discussed ranging from the workplace to the national level, which unions can pursue in becoming a collective actor in the development of ICT and organizations.     

Social capital in community level environmental governance: A critique

Social capital is often claimed to facilitate collective action regarding the management of complex environmental goods and services. However, there is little systematic analysis in the literature that explains the way social capital aids in fostering collective action. The paper integrates ideas from institutional ecological economics, sociology and anthropology to argue that power relations, involving struggle and resistance, should be acknowledged as they affect collective action. We address the question of why social capital should not be straightforwardly associated positively with common property resource management. To unravel the complexity of the links between social capital, collective action and common property resource management, the concepts of common knowledge and symbolic power are introduced.     

The Political Economy of Social Pacts in the EMU: Irish Liberal Market Corporatism in Crisis

The economic crisis is a collective action problem. In the absence of currency devaluations, eurozone governments are faced with the painful social process of wage devaluations. This paper examines the strategic choices facing the government and organised labour in how they respond to this problem. It will argue that the European Monetary Union contains an implicit neoclassical assumption that labour markets will automatically adjust to downward wage flexibility. This ignores the politics of collective bargaining. Labour relations systems are the most regulated of all markets. Based on this institutional embeddedness, the paper will outline a typology of political choices facing national governments: neoliberal market adjustment, national or sectoral concertation and euro-coordination. Institutional pre-conditions of collective bargaining mediate what strategy governments adopt. It will subsequently examine the case of Ireland that tried and failed to negotiate a national pact in 2009. Social partnership was a central institution of Ireland's political economy for 20 years but could not internalise the adjustment constraints of the current crisis. The voluntary and exclusive nature of Ireland's corporatist wage pacts weakened the power resources of labour and enabled the government to pursue a neoliberal strategy of adjustment. As an institution, it was dependent upon the political executive of the state.     

The Duration of Industrial Disputes in Australian Mining and Manufacturing

Using a unique dispute-level database of industrial action in Australian mining and manufacturing industries, this paper investigates the determinants of the duration of industrial action. For the first time in the Australian literature, the duration of individual disputes is analysed within a hazard function framework that estimates conditional settlement probabilities over the duration of the dispute. Further, the analysis is conducted for both strikes and non-strike forms of industrial action such as bans on working overtime. A range of parametric and semi-parametric specifications are estimated in order to determine the sensitivity of the results to alternative econometric techniques. The duration of both strikes and work bans are found to be affected by a range of factors, including the state of the labour market, industry characteristics, past union experiences and the cause of the dispute. The conditional settlement rate of both strikes and bans are found to be upward sloping, implying that the longer that a dispute has already lasted, the more likely that it is to end. However, failing to control for unobserved heterogeneity results in bias toward declining conditional settlement rates.     

Downward accountability in response to collective actions

Will autocratic governments implement policies to satisfy the people's demands in order to prevent large scale social unrest? This article explores this question through quantitative analysis of the political economy of public goods provision in Chinese provinces. Data were collected on the number of labour disputes to measure collective actions. My sample includes provincial leaders whose incentives to deliver public goods can either be explained as a result of upward accountability towards the Centre or downward accountability towards the citizens. The confounding factor of upward accountability is ruled out by using two‐step estimation, and the reverse causality between public goods provision and collective actions is controlled by using instrumental variables. This result suggests that provincial leaders will implement policies more in favour of the citizens in response to intensified labour disputes.     

Sanctions for repeat offenders: a question of wealth?

In a two‐period standard law‐enforcement model, individuals observe or break the law. In addition, individuals may offend accidentally. When sanctions are limited by individual wealth constraints, the government chooses appropriate sanctions for first and repeat offenders and the level of monitoring. We assume a welfare‐oriented government and derive subgame‐perfect equilibria for constant, increasing and decreasing sanctions depending on the individual wealth level.     

Nouvelles Relations du Travail dans les Entreprises de Service Public

The article presents the labour relations evolutions in five sectors (postal services, telecommunications, electricity, railways, air transport) and in six countries (Great Britain, Germany, Sweden, Italy, Spain and France).
True convergences appear in the management and administration of employment, in human resources management and in social law. However, sectoral diversities exist and national specificities remain strong: each country 's situation is marked by different national traditions and influenced by the States' choices. The State appears as a key actor of changes, too often forgotten.
Trades union resistance, which varies considerably according to country, represents an important risk for enterprises if they lead to the postponement of necessary changes. But it may also be the chance to ask the right questions, among which are: the future of public utilities in Europe, the possibility of considering a social project for public services enterprises, the place of law in social regulation and the labour law evolution. The choice is doubtless between a pure adjustment of the market law and "a re-institution of the labour law" by changing the central reference from the employee to a worker having the right to move from one work situation to another (A. Supiot).     

Product market competition, open shop union and wage

We show that if the product market is not very much concentrated, open shop union, where the union density is less than one, may not be a justification for a positive relationship between product market competition and unionized wage, irrespective of the union density, bargaining power of the union and the union??s preference for wage and employment.     

工会化程度、劳动争议与经济增长——基于2000～2008年的面板数据

采用线性回归模型,以劳动争议案件作为代表劳动关系状况的一个综合性指标,重点考察了工会组建率、工会会员人数和劳动争议调解委员会单位数等工会化程度指标对劳动争议案件的影响。结果表明,在控制经济增长等变量的条件下,工会化程度与劳动争议案件呈正相关关系。     

Reforming the Labour Market: An Assessment of the UK Policies of the Thatcher Era

Under Thatcher the United Kingdom introduced a major program of labour market deregulation, claimed to have made the United Kingdom one of the least regulated labour markets in the OECD. This paper reviews the measures implemented and assesses their impact. Trade union membership declined steeply, and collective bargaining was curtailed even more sharply. The impact of the legislation curbing unions can be exaggerated, given that it coincided with wider developments. At the microeconomic level there is some evidence that the decline of unions contributed to productivity gains, but no clear evidence on employment, investment, profitability or wage premia. UK macroeconomic performance improved, but not dramatically. The most marked features of the more flexible labour markets are the growth of part-time and temporary work, while job insecurity has become a common perception. The most striking development is the growth in earnings inequality, in part reflecting the weakening of collective bargaining. The evolution and consequences of inequality will be a major criterion in assessing the moves to labour market flexibility.     

领导、追随与社群合作的集体行动:基于公平相容约束的扩展

本文基于公平相容约束扩展了朱宪辰、李玉连(2007)的模型,扩展后的模型更具有现实解释力。集体行动能不能实现,除了要考虑组织者和参与者的个体理性约束以外,还必须考虑组织者和参与者的公平相容约束。符合组织者的个体理性约束但不符合其公平相容约束的集体行动照样不能实现。而且,搭便车者的破坏性作用是不容小视的。     

交易效率视角下的高校学生管理

高等学校的学生培养目标是要使其成为能独立自主发展的社会专业人才。学生个体的发展原动力并不是来源于通常意义上管理教育,而是来自学生所在大学的整体学习环境与这环境中个体间及群体间的交往水平。这种交往水平类似于经济发展中的分工水平,它既是增长的原动力,也是衡量最终个体水平的标志。交流交往的产生,一般认为是个体间各种差异的结果。实际通过超边际比较静态分析方法可以得出,这种水平的提升应为交流障碍的消除也就是制度经济学中的交易成本下降或交易效率的提升。通过不断减少交流交往的阻碍,才能真正提升学生自发交流的水平,也才能使学生在这样的交流交往中获得原发的进步。高等院校的学生管理的目标是力求学生成才,则着力点就应该是努力提升学生个体间的交流交往水平,形成群体间的交流氛围,促进学生的自我发展。     

THE COMMON EXTERNAL TARIFF IN A CUSTOMS UNION: VOTING, LOGROLLING, AND NATIONAL GOVERNMENT INTERESTS

Missing from the analysis of customs unions has been a consideration of collective decision-making by countries regarding the union's common trade policy. In the case of the common European external tariff, how governments voted was not public information. This paper uses a unique dataset to derive member states' tariff preferences, which are then used to establish the decision rule before 1987, when individual governments had veto power. Results indicate a principle of unanimity, as well as the presence of logrolling. The political equilibrium for the common external tariff is also illustrated to have shifted as a result of union enlargements.     

试析中国新世纪的外交战略和和谐世界理念的意义

新中国成立后,我国奉行独立自主的和平外交政策,作为处理国家关系的基本准则。而新世纪新的领导集体提出的“和谐世界”理念是在此基础上实现的伟大创新,它高度概括地回答了在新的历史条件下,如何以和平共处五项原则为基础建立和平稳定、公正合理的国际政治经济新秩序的问题。     

Labour unions and leverage: evidence from firm-level union data

ABSTRACT

Using firm-level labour union data from Japan, this paper investigates the effect of labour unions on firm leverage. We find that as union coverage increases, both the level of and extent of change in leverage decreases. These relations remain robust when a firm falls into deficit. We also find that firms with higher union coverage have a higher interest coverage ratio. In addition, we find that firms with higher union coverage are less likely to choose issuing debt compared to issuing equity when they face financial distress. Our results imply that significant employee influence enhanced by labour unions increases fixed costs, crowds out the firm’s debt capacity and consequently reduces the firm’s leverage.     

征地费使用方式与农村社会养老保险的实证研究

在城市化进程中,除了征地权滥用外,由于集体土地产权的模糊性使得征地补偿费如何在农民集体和个人及其他相关利益主体之间的分配难以形成公正、合理的格局。在我国社会保障实行城乡分割的二元化政策下,失地农民缺乏应有的保障。这些现象对我国社会经济正常运行以及社会稳定发展造成了不可忽视的影响。文章以杭州市拱墅区为例,对征地费使用方式与农村社会养老保险进行了实证研究,探讨了征地费的使用方式及其对农村社会养老保险的影响并提出了规范征地费的使用和管理,促进农村社会养老保险的建议。     

Sick pay reforms and health status in a unionised labour market

We theoretically analyse the effects of sick pay and employees' health on collective bargaining, assuming that individuals determine absence optimally. If sick pay is set by the government and not paid for by firms, it induces the trade union to lower wages. This mitigates the positive impact on absence. Moreover, a union may oppose higher sick pay if it reduces labour supply sufficiently. Better employee health tends to foster wage demands. If the union determines both wages and sick pay, we identify situations in which it will substitute wages for sick pay because adverse absence effects can be mitigated.     

Wage Returns to Experience and Tenure for Young Men in Italy

This paper provides estimates of wage returns to experience‐, firm‐, sector‐ and occupation‐specific tenure for a sample of young Italian male workers. By comparing returns obtained using different estimators, I evaluate the importance of endogeneity and selection problems generated by specific unobserved components and individual fixed effects. After controlling for the role of collective bargaining agreements and occupation categories, results indicate that general labour market experience is the fundamental source of wage growth for blue and white collars, while returns to firm tenure are insignificant. There is some evidence of positive returns to sector and occupational tenure for white collars. Estimates from different sectors suggest that union coverage can be relevant in offsetting the role of search and matching in wage determination.     

Industrial Relations Reform: Chasing a Pot of Gold at the End of the Rainbow?

This article reviews the economy‐wide effects of the Work Choices and Fair Work reforms to Australia's industrial relations system. Outcomes examined are wages growth and earnings inequality, labour market adjustment, labour productivity growth and industrial disputes. Little evidence is found of an effect from the industrial relations reforms made in the 2000s. I argue that this is consistent with the nature of the reforms, being primarily oriented to distributive rather than efficiency goals. I finish by describing how private interest can explain current lobbying for further reform to Australia's industrial relations system.