Retirement Reforms: Occupational Strain and Health

A concurrent increase in the demand for state age pensions and health care has led to reforms in delaying retirement. We employ thirteen waves of longitudinal data to examine the mental and physical health effects of Australian men and women at “early” and “traditional” retirement. We use before and after propensity score matching (PSM) estimates between treatment and control groups of retired and not retired individuals aged 60 and 65 years. The results indicate a negative health effect according to occupational strain for both genders but a positive mental health effect for retirees with access to self‐funded retirement.     

Union suppression and union substitution strategies of multinational enterprises in Ghana

This article complements the literature by furthering the understanding of an ‘African dimension’ of multinational enterprise (MNE) union avoidance. The evidence suggests that MNEs engaged in both union suppression and union substitution strategies by (i) exploiting young employees' apathy to promote opposition and indifference for union organisation (evil stuff), (ii) implementing union member‐centred employee retrenchment (fear stuff), (iii) using enterprise‐level collective bargaining arrangement to suppress union bargaining power (fear and fatal stuff), (iv) exploiting the fragmented labour union environment to suppress union organisation (fatal and evil stuff) and (v) promoting individual employee voice and involvement mechanisms (sweet stuff). Although MNEs in Ghana engaged in both union suppression and union substitution strategies, they appear to particularly favour the adoption of ‘union suppression’ strategies and what might be termed as ‘corridor tactics’. Our article highlights four transitional issues underpinning the emerging success of ‘corridor tactics’ in union suppression in a less developed host country.     

Macro‐institutional conditions in Ghana and the challenges to HRM program development and implementation

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) originating from advanced economies with operations in less developed host countries need to have a good understanding of the macro‐institutional conditions of the host country. Given HRM practices are context‐specific and embedded within the institutional and cultural settings of the host country, an exploratory qualitative study approach was employed to ascertain the host country's institutional dimensions (drivers) likely to undermine HRM program implementation in large local companies and in MNEs. Data were drawn from key stakeholder participants, including HR managers from MNE subsidiaries, domestic firms, and officials from key stakeholder institutions. The evidence points to six (6) dimensions of a less‐developed host country's macro institutions that undermine firms' HRM advancement. These include the regulatory system, education and training arrangement, labor market conditions, cultural barriers, political actors' intrusion, and economic uncertainty. The implications thereof are discussed.