Collective and individual voice: convergence in Europe?

This paper uses longitudinal survey data from Britain, Germany and Sweden to examine whether, as some researchers have suggested, there has been a convergence internationally towards individual forms of employee voice mechanism and, if so, to measure the extent and trajectory of change. The paper begins by examining the importance of the employee voice issue. It then reviews competing accounts of the utility of different forms of employee voice and their manifestations within different varieties of capitalism. It is hypothesized that there has been a general trend away from collective and towards individual voice mechanisms; this reflects the predominant trajectory of managerial practices towards convergence with the liberal market model. This hypothesis is largely rejected. The data showed only very limited evidence of directional convergence towards individual voice models in the three countries. Collective voice remains significant in larger organizations, and although it takes a wide range of forms that include but go beyond unions and works councils, this is a positive finding for proponents of those institutions.     

Channels of employee voice: complementary or competing for space?

This article identifies the existence of employee voice channels and examines how they interact within the context of an overall organisational voice system. In so doing, we can better appreciate the disparities between the micro‐level reality and macro‐level rhetoric of employee voice for highly skilled employees in the knowledge intensive sector. Drawing on an instrumental, inductive case study involving managers and, most notably, employees, the research finds that the plurality of mechanisms provided for voice appears to cause some confusion that leads to a neglect of certain channels and others competing for attention. This raises the issue, which has not received attention thus far, as to whether the availability of multiple voice channels can have counter‐productive effects whereby they start to compete with rather than complement each other.     

Market exit of firms: Does corruption act as grease or sand?

This paper examines whether corruption acts to “grease” or “sand” firms' exit. Corruption could facilitate exit when it is a tax that distorts markets, or it might retard exit when it empowers firms to obtain undue favors. Results, using panel data across US states and considering market exit and firms' death rates as dependent variables, show that greater corruption acts as grease rather than sand in that it facilitates firms' exit/death. In other findings, larger states, greater regulations, and more unemployment contributed to exit, as did some demographic aspects. Higher state minimum wages resulted in firms' death but not exit.     

The impact of initial public offerings on innovations: Short-termism or initial governance force exit?

We study the impact of initial public offerings (IPOs) on corporate innovations in China. The findings suggest that going public significantly impedes corporate innovations by lowering overall innovation quality. For firms with shareholders selling or pledging less shares after IPO, the number of patents increases, but the nonself-citations per patent decrease relative to matched non-IPO firms. In contrast, for firms with shareholders selling or pledging more shares after IPOs, both the number of patents and nonself-citations per patent decrease. The magnitudes of impact in the latter are stronger than those of former, supporting the initial governance force exit hypothesis.     

Employee voice: does union membership matter?

Industrial relations research has traditionally viewed trade unions as the primary mechanism for employee voice. With the decline in unionism in many advanced industrial economies over the past two decades, new direct non-union voice mechanisms have been introduced by employers. This focus on the mechanisms for employee voice, however, fails to take account of employees' perceptions of voice. We suggested that employee perceptions of voice vary between the different levels of an organisation and proposed that trade union membership will be more likely to enhance individual employee perceptions of voice at the wider organisational level. Contrary to our expectations, our analysis of 2,949 employees of a public sector scientific research organisation found that union membership had a significant negative impact on employee voice at the organisational level. The article concluded by offering possible explanations for this unexpected finding and the implications for theory, management and future research.     

Ethics in the Production and Dissemination of Management Research: Institutional Failure or Individual Fallibility?

Over the past 50 years, we have witnessed considerable growth in business education, increased competition among business schools, and higher expectations for faculty scholarship. Increasing competition among scholars for limited publication opportunities in top‐tier journals and the proliferation of bottom‐tier journals has given rise to a variety of systemic ethical issues and dilemmas, for scholars and their institutions. In this article, we critically examine the current state of normative publishing activities and expectations, including doctoral education, promotion and tenure processes and research expectations, editorial and peer review processes, academic freedom, acceptable breadth, depth, and accuracy or legitimacy of research designs and methodologies, academic integrity, replication, and data availability concerning the trends and implications of contemporary and future management scholarship. We also provide recommendations for additional research and discussion on these issues.     

Do Foreign Greenfields Outperform Foreign Acquisitions or Vice Versa? An Institutional Perspective

abstract Prior studies of the comparative performance of greenfields and acquisitions have advanced competing arguments, with some arguing that greenfields should outperform acquisitions because acquisitions are costlier to integrate, and others that acquisitions should outperform greenfields because greenfields suffer from a liability of newness. Moreover, while the costs of integration and the liability of newness are at their greatest during a subsidiary's first years, prior studies have tested their competing arguments on samples containing older subsidiaries. We extend these prior studies by (1) developing an institutional theory‐based framework that simultaneously considers the costs of integration and the liability of newness, (2) recognizing that both types of costs vary with the level of subsidiary integration, and (3) focusing on the stage of their life during which subsidiaries predominantly incur these costs. To measure subsidiary performance, we ask managers of Dutch multinationals how their ex ante performance expectations compare to the subsidiary's ex post performance during its first two years. Analysing a sample of 191 foreign subsidiaries and controlling for entry mode self‐selection and other factors, we find that acquisitions outperform greenfields at low and intermediate levels of subsidiary integration, but that greenfields outperform acquisitions at higher integration levels.     

Does Institutional Theory Need Redirecting?

Greenwood, Hinings and Whetten (2014) present two major criticisms of current institutional scholarship, and see need for a broad redirection: institutional organization theory, they argue, has lost sight of the claim to study organizations and, with its overwhelming focus on isomorphism and similarity, has fallen short on adequately theorizing differences across organizations. In our article, we offer support as well as a riposte. First, while we agree that the organizing of collective efforts needs to be at the core of organization research, we warn that focusing on formal organization – a rationalized cultural product itself – may direct attention away from studying alternative modes of organizing, and underestimates the dynamic developments that have transformed contemporary organizations into increasingly complex objects of inquiry. Second, we are concerned that, by abandoning the analysis of similarities in favour of differences, institutional theory may eventually lose sight of its pivotal quest: to study institutions.     

Bargaining: separately or together?

This paper explores conditions under which economic agents will want to bargain collectively instead of individually with a common third party—when, for example, two firms (or unions), who are bargaining with the same, indispensable, outside party, will want to merge and bargain as one. I use a non-cooperative sequential bargaining model to analyze this question. Previous work has shown that agents prefer to bargain collectively if they are substitutes for each other in production. This result, however, depends on an exogenously fixed sequence of bargaining. I allow the bargaining sequence to be determined endogenously and investigate how incentives for collective bargaining vary with heterogeneity when delay is costly. The previous results are not robust when the agents are substitutes. In particular, substitute agents prefer individual to collective bargaining if they are heterogeneous and sufficiently patient. In the presence of transaction costs, substitutability of agents is no longer the sole determinant of collectivization. Rather, the degree of heterogeneity in production, in conjunction with the degree of substitutability between agents determine the incentives for collective action.     

Crowding-out or crowding-in? Direct voice,performance-related pay,and organizational innovation in European firms

Building on motivation crowding theory (MCT), this article contributes to the human resources management (HRM)-innovation debate by examining the potential trade-offs between HRM practices targeted to increase employees' intrinsic motivation, such as direct employee voice (EV), and the presence of extrinsic incentives in the form of individual and collective performance-related pay (PRP). The results of the analysis on more than 22,000 European establishments show support for the positive relationship between EV and a firm's organizational innovation, and that this relationship is weaker in companies that adopted individual PRP schemes (piece-rate plans). Moreover, while we found that collective PRP (profit-sharing) does not moderate the relationship between EV and organizational innovation, a positive and significant moderation effect emerged when the combined presence of individual and collective PRP was considered. By advocating that the coexistence of multiple forms of PRP could overcome the crowding-out effect of individual PRP on EV, the study contributes to the HRM debate by also calling for a better understanding of the potential contingencies between different HRM practices when innovation is focus of the analysis.     

Institutional tensions and private sector promotion in Tanzania: whose agenda?

This paper examines the current phase of transition of Tanzania's economy from state-led to market-led development, and considers the impacts of this transition on technological capabilities. The focus is on the different agendas and practices which surround private sector promotion in Tanzania, and examines these from the viewpoint of three sets of actors: the state, aid donors and the private sector itself. It is argued that while there is a consensus that private sector promotion is the way forward for Tanzania to rebuild its industrial and technological base, there are differences of opinions between the main players and there are differences between what is said (the agendas) and what is done (the practice). Historical enmities and distrust between sections of the private sector also contribute to these differences. The conclusion identifies a possible emerging consensus and new alliances between African and Asian Tanzanian business interests that can have a positive impact on technological capabilities and industrial renovation.     

Workfare: Servitude or success formula?

Neither welfare nor workfare is much of a choice. But workfare leads to real choices, freedom, and autonomy. Welfare represents the state's acceptance of its duties to honor the welfare claim rights of those citizens in real need of temporary public assistance. In contrast, workfare recognizes additional claim-rights, namely, those that enable full agency and autonomy through education for employment, with a view toward ensuring that the dependency period is indeed temporary. Critics of workfare cannot be unaware of the educational resources—especially those of open-access community colleges, open days, evenings and weekends—that taxpayers have put at the disposal of everyone who is at all serious about self-improvement.     

黎瑞刚:All in or NOT?

黎瑞刚这次的职务变动再次成为大家关注的焦点。近日,上海市人民政府发布了关于上海文化广播影视集团有限公司人事任免通知,免去黎瑞刚总裁职务,任命王建军为上海文化广播影视集团有限公司总裁。消息一出,众人哗然。黎瑞刚对此表示,他的职务调整是实至名归。黎瑞刚曾任上海文广新闻传媒集团总裁、上海第一财经传媒有限公司董事长。2002年10月,出任上海文广新闻传媒集团(SMG)总裁后,他一手主导了SMG的体制内改革,被媒体认为是体制内最像企业家的台长,在熟悉他的