New methods of evaluating physical demand at work areas

The manufacturer's requirement of increasing productivity results in the need to design work stations that are increasingly more effective and specialized. However, this procedure can bring about an overloading of the worker, a lack of motivation, and, consequently, a reduction in productivity.Ergonomics adapts the work station to the worker with the object of improving his welfare and satisfaction at his post. One aspect that this science concerns itself with is the evaluation of physical demands connected to productive tasks. Mechanical movements are also studied in order to perform tasks efficiently.We here propose a new method of physical demand analysis that determines the risk factor for muscular skeletal lesion. This method uses, as a base, the system of predetermined times, MTM-UAS. It includes a computer system that allows us to easily analyse the operations at a work station and generates charts similar to those of UAS, but, instead of times, it measures the quantity of mechanical work necessary for each movement.The information that the method provides can be used by different divisions within companies in making decisions about improvements at work stations.     

Can employee ownership and human resource management policies clash in worker cooperatives? Lessons from a defunct cooperative

The article analyzes the interaction between employee ownership, HRM policies and practices, and HRM outcomes in what was the world's biggest industrial worker cooperative for decades, and now defunct, Fagor Electrodomésticos. Using longitudinal internal data and detailed interviews with key stakeholders, this paper sheds light on how employee ownership conditioned HRM policies. HRM outcomes—such as job satisfaction and absenteeism—are also analyzed over a long period of time. Chronic nepotism when recruiting new members, failures in the training policy, impoverished and Taylorist working systems, and reverse dominance hierarchies are analyzed as factors that increased free riding and caused low satisfaction and the disengagement of working members. This case study contributes to the literature on HRM and worker cooperatives as it provides some insights that are rarely found in that literature. It also provides guidance to worker cooperatives about increasing the fit between employee ownership and HRM policies and outcomes.     

Product Innovation Management in Spain

In line with the latest studies of product innovation management, Angel Martinez Sanchez and Luis Navarro Elola report results from their study of 56 industrial firms in Spain. The results reveal a systematic process of new products development with little consideration given to innovation, but with a contrasting preoccupation with market activities.     

The strength of science and technology drivers for SME innovation

This analysis feeds into the academic debate on the most proficient innovation mode across firms, placing special emphasis on the characteristic case of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Of the three main approaches considered, the first stresses the importance of innovation based on science and technology (STI) drivers, such as research and development (R&D) and human capital, whereas the second approach emphasises innovation based on learning by doing, by using and by interacting (DUI); the third, more recent approach is conceived as a combination of the former two (STI?+?DUI). In this paper, the three models are tested on a sample of 409 SMEs that have been supported by a public programme for innovation promotion developed by the Basque Government in Spain. The result is quite different from what is expected, yet it is insightful and potentially useful for both academics and policy-makers. Contrarily to what one would expect, SME innovation output is in fact more sensitive to STI drivers than to DUI drivers.     

The dilemma facing multinational enterprises: transfer or adaptation of their human resource management systems

This study, within the discipline of International Human Resource Management, analyses the readiness of multinational enterprises to export their human resource management (HRM) system to their subsidiaries abroad, depending on the perceived quality of the system and the differences in the cultural contexts of the headquarters and subsidiaries. Using a qualitative exploratory study of 8 Basque firms and another quantitative study of a sample of 58 Spanish industrial multinationals, we conclude that the quality of the headquarters-based HRM system has a significant influence when it comes to deciding whether to export it to the subsidiary, whereas the difference in cultural contexts is not decisive when transferring the basic principles of the human resource system, although it is possibly decisive in the transfer of practices and sub-processes.     

Social capital,internationalization and absorptive capacity: The electronics and ICT cluster of the Basque Country

This article analyses the case of a successful young high technology cluster in an old industrialized European region, the electronics and information and communications technology cluster in the Basque Country (Spain). Based on the findings of this case study, we propose that social capital and internationalization play an important role in increasing the absorptive capacity of clusters (thus, the capacity of a cluster to absorb, diffuse and creatively exploit extra-cluster knowledge), and hence, in sustaining their growth and dynamism. Absorptive capacity depends on the capacity of firms to establish intra- and extra-cluster knowledge linkages. We put forward in this article the fact that social capital fosters intra-cluster knowledge linkages, and cluster's internationalization the extra-cluster knowledge ones. Therefore, social capital and internationalization are key elements to increase the absorptive capacity of a cluster and its growth. Given the accumulative, path- and place-dependent nature of social capital and knowledge creation and accumulation, we employed a largely qualitative and historical analysis, combining statistical and qualitative cluster data and interviews with key actors.