Researching the Toyota Effect: A Comment On Winfield

Chris Smith, Lecturer in Organisational Studies and Industrial Relations at Aston University Business School, and Tony Elger, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Warwick, offer some constructive criticisms of the research design, reported in a recent issue of the HRMJ, for the large-scale project being carried out in the East Midlands to establish the degree of influence of the newly-built Toyota assembly plant at Burnaston near Derby on human resource policy and practice in the surrounding area.     

Models of Personnel Management: A Means of Understanding the Diversity of Personnel Practices?

Kathy Monks, who is a Lecturer in Human Resource Management at Dublin City University Business School, discusses the results of a survey of the roles and responsibilities of personnel managers in Eire. She describes four main models of personnel practice which she found and compares them with those developed by Tyson and Fell in 1986 drawing on research in the UK. She goes on to consider why organisations adopt simple or complex personnel management pratices.     

Performance Related Pay In Operation: A Case Study From the Electronics Industry

Stephen Procter, Louise McArdle, Michael Rowlinson, Paul Forrester and John Hassard draw on the evidence of a longitudinal case study of a large electronics company to discuss the problems arising from the introduction and operation of a performance related pay system. These included resource constraints, difficulties in criteria selection, and subjectivity. Underlying these problems was the workforce's lack of confidence in the principle as well as the appication of the system. the authors conclude that companies face great difficulty in using such systems to effect cultural change: the necessary culture may already have to exist for such pay systems to work. Stephen Procter, Paul Forrester and John Hassard, respectively, are lecturers and Professor in the School of Management and Economics at the University of Keele, Louise McArdle is in the Department of Organisation Studies at the University of Central Lancashire, and Michael Rowlinson is in the Department of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Southampton.     

Opinions On the Benefits of Employee Share Ownership: A Comparison Between Managers of Two New Zealand Companies

Stephen Keef, who is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Commerce and Administration at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, reports on an investigation designed to determine the degree that opinions on the benefits of employee share ownership differed between managers of two organisations. Analyses of covariance showed that it was not possible, in a practical sense, to distinguish between the two firms. He goes on to consider the implications of these results.     

The Utilisation of Human Resources: A Comparative Study of British and Japanese Engineers In Electronics Industries

Alice Lam, who is Lecturer in Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations in the Canterbury Business School at the University of Kent, examines how the organisation of technical work affects the utilisation and skills development of engineers. Evidence is drawn from a detailed investigation of the roles and career experience of some 60 Japanese and 55 British engineers in the electronics industries. the analysis highlights the importance of effective on-the-job learning for engineers and the need to view the structure of work organisation as one main determinant of skill formation. the author argues the inappropriate work organisation in the British firms has led to poor utilisation of the skills of engineers. This has caused low motivation and inhibited the innovative performance of firms.     

Transnational Corporations and the Dynamics of Human Capital Formation: Evidence From West Yorkshire

John Knell, who is Lecturer in Industrial Relations in the School of Business and Economic Studies at the University of Leeds, draws on published material and the evidence of case studies in West Yorkshire to discuss the impact of foreign direct investment on human capital formation in Britain. He argues that the ‘transformative’ effects of such investment have been very limited and that the key to understanding this outcome lies in the position of the British economy within the evolving international division of labour.     

The Managerial Limits to Japanization: A Manufacturing Case Study

Geoffrey Broad, who is Lecturer in Comparative Industrial Relations in the Department of Business and Management Studies, University of Salford, reports on his detailed longitudinal study of the views of British and Japanese managers introducing a ‘high-involvement management’(HIM) strategy in a Japanese electronics plant in Wales. He suggest that the formal arrangements for activating such a strategy – extensive information sharing, team briefing, consultation and quality improvement teams – raised fundamental issues for power sharing and control between the two groups, as well as having significant implications for shop floor relations. In particular, the employee involvement actively encouraged by Japanese managers contrasted markedly with the preferred ‘traditional’ prerogatives of the British managers. In the circumstances, he challenges the popular stereotype of ‘Japanisation’ and points to a range of implications for management development in such initiatives.     

The ‘New Competition’ and Working Time

Jill Rubery, who is Senior Lecturer at the Manchester School of Management, and Sara Horrell, Lecturer in the Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge, draw on a study for the Equal Opportunities Commission to discuss the significance of the competitive conditions said to lie behind changes in working time. They argue that the existing approaches to understanding these changes – they are ‘determined’ by the ‘market/technology’ or relate to a redefinition of power relations within the workplace – are both inadequate. What is required, they suggest, is a more complex analysis of competition which takes into account both the factors that shape market conditions and the factors inside the organisation that influence responses to them.     

Organisational practices and the post‐retirement employment experience of older workers

This study compared people aged 50 to 65 who had retired and returned to work (n = 90), who remained in their career jobs (n = 198), and who retired and remained out of the workforce (n = 321). The significant differences between post‐retirement and career employment were associated with the HR practices within organisations and were not related to the characteristics of the organisations in which post‐retirement and career jobs were found. The HR practices were rated as especially important in influencing the decision of retirees to return to work. The findings suggest that people in post‐retirement jobs are drawn to organisations that provide HR practices tailored to the needs and desires of older workers. The results also indicate that if employers expect to address labour shortages by encouraging retirees back into the workforce, they are going to have to implement those HR practices that are important to this group.     

FOUR PROPOSITIONS ABOUT INTERNATIONAL LABOUR STANDARDS

International labour rights organisations pay considerable attention to the working conditions in less developed countries. For labour rights activists, labour standards such as collective bargaining rights and maternal leave promote economic progress. We argue that this perspective has the causation backwards and that it is economic development that causes the codification of improved working conditions.     

Tqm: Instant Pudding For the Personnel Function?

Adrian Wilkinson and Mick Marchington, who are Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in Industrial Relations at the Manchester School of Management, consider the long-running debate about the role of the personnel function and, in particular, the argument that line managers are now taking the lead in the development of HR initiatives. They argue that this debate obscures the reality of organisational diversity and that a more fruitful line of enquiry is to focus on the different roles which personnel practitioners may play. They stress the diversity and multiplicity of personnel contributions in the development of TQM initiatives uncovered in their recent case study research, and suggest that there is perhaps a more optimistic future for the personnel function than implied elsewhere.     

Strategic Recruitment and Development of the ‘International Manager’: Some European Considerations

Hugh Scullion is Senior Lecturer and Director of the MA in Human Resource Management at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. His article presents the findings from a recent study of the management of managers in international firms. Essentially, the article focuses on the problems faced by these firms in the recruitment and staffing of their overseas enterprises.     

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT AND EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT

Adrian Wilkinson and his colleagues discuss the growing importance of quality management in the UK, outline the basic principles of TQM, and examine its implications for employee involvement. They suggest that there are contradictions between the ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ sides of TQM. This can be exemplified in the relationship between TQM and employee involvement which has not been fully explored. Drawing on a major programme of research on employee involvement, three cases are analysed. They argue that the links between TQM and employee involvement are more complex than the TQM literature would have us believe and there are tensions between employee involvement and TQM. Finally, there is a wider discussion of the subject which analyses a number of constraints on the implementation of TQM in the UK. Adrian Wilkinson, Mick Marchington and John Goodman are respectively Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Professor in the School of Management at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. Peter Ackers is a Lecturer at Loughborough University Business School.     

‘Internal Marketing’ As an Approach to Human Resource Management: A New Perspective Or A Metaphor Too Far?

Colin Hales, who is a Lecturer in Management Studies at the University of Surrey, reviews the different meanings of the term ‘internal marketing’ and develops a critique of its application to the management of human resources. He argues that, while the concept has certain merits, it also has significant limitations. As a re-statement of normative HRM, it merely re-labels a questionable concept, while as a concept in its own right, it is ambiguous and highly rhetorical. As a metaphor, it seriously distorts the process of HRM and, as a broad approach and set of techniques, it is essentially manipulative, spuriously ‘scientific’ and riven with contradictions.     

The emergence of a new industrial relations actor—the role of the citizens’ Advice Bureaux?

How do employees seek representation and how is workplace conflict resolved in the absence of trade unions? This article contributes to this debate by suggesting that employees are seeking advice and representation outside the traditional labour movement and from voluntary organisations such as the Cititzens’ Advice Bureaux (CABx).     

Managing ‘difference’: understanding age diversity in practice

This paper seeks to explore how age diversity is characterised, understood and managed by HR managers responsible for its implementation. With businesses competing at a global level and demographic trends changing the landscape of the labour market, the diversity approach to managing workplace equality has been heralded as the answer to the political and moral challenges in marrying external competition with internal workplace equality. Nowhere has this been more influential than in recent debates concerning older workers in the labour market, and yet, how age‐related HR practices relate to the underpinning philosophies of diversity has not yet been explored in any depth. Drawing from interview data with HR managers from a range of industry backgrounds, this article explores the inherent tensions faced when discussing age as a diversity issue, and the persistent effects of larger social norms related to ageing. By focusing on the concept of ‘difference’ as a key tenet of diversity, the challenges in ensuring equality while being aware of contradictory messages from both inside and outwith the organisations play a key role in age diversity in practice. This leads to a discussion about the more subtle practices involved in the workplace implementation of age diversity and how awareness of inherent biases may challenge age inequality within organisations.     

A re-examination of flexible employment practices in Japan

This article re-examines commonly held perspectives on flexible employment practices used in Japanese organisations. Recent research has concluded that market conditions have caused a shift away from lifetime employment and towards flexible employment. To examine this position, the literature is compared with statistics available from Japan's Nippon Keidanren, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Public Management Ministry, Ministry of Health Labour and Welfare, the United Nations and OECD. A synthesis of these sources demonstrates that flexible employment practices are part of a historic, not recent, model of employment. Concluding with an integrated table of key labour market statistics, the article highlights a Western academic tendency to rely on the macro-level three pillars model and not use meso-level labour statistics as a reference point to define flexible employment conditions in Japanese organisations.     

A job to believe in: recruitment in the Scottish voluntary sector

The voluntary sector is an important source of employment in the UK and is increasingly providing services previously provided by the public sector. However, the ability of the sector to provide such services is dependent on the quantity and quality of suitable labour. This article examines recruitment issues in seven case‐study voluntary organisations offering social care in Scotland. Interviews were conducted with 137 managers and employees in these organisations. In addition, to assess potential labour supply, interviews and focus groups were conducted with careers advisers and potential employees. The findings suggest that, with a tightening labour market, uncompetitive pay and misconceptions about the sector, recruitment is a problem. However, job satisfaction is high for current employees, and potential employees whose values are commensurate with the sector might be attracted. The findings thus have relevance not just for the case‐study organisations, but for HRM in the voluntary sector generally.     

Learning the Organisation: Confusions and Contradictions For New Managers

Diane Preston, who is Lecturer in Human Resource Management at Loughborough University Business School, draws on a study of graduates from four sites of a multinational chemical company to discuss the process of socialisation of new managers. She argues that of particular significance is the new managers’ relationship with their own manager; where the manager is supportive and encouraging, this creates a positive lens through which other organisational activities are seen.