Are Short‐lived Jobs Stepping Stones to Long‐Lasting Jobs?*

This article assesses whether short‐lived jobs (lasting one quarter or less and involuntarily ending in unemployment) are stepping stones to long‐lasting jobs (enduring 1 year or more) for Belgian long‐term unemployed school‐leavers. We proceed in two steps. First, we estimate labour market trajectories in a multi‐spell duration model that incorporates lagged duration and lagged occurrence dependence. Second, in a simulation we find that (fe)male school‐leavers accepting a short‐lived job are, within 2 years, 13.4 (9.5) percentage points more likely to find a long‐lasting job than in the counterfactual in which they reject short‐lived jobs.     

Training and development deficiencies in ‘high skill’ sectors

Policy debates across advanced industrial economies are stressing the centrality of skills and training to compete in the new ‘knowledge economy’. In the UK increasing importance is being placed on improving workplace learning, yet policy has so far failed to confront the issue of employers' lack of investment in training and development. This article examines whether the high skill sectors that exist within the UK can provide a model of workplace learning for other such sectors to emulate. By using case study research from the aerospace and pharmaceutical industries, training and development practices are examined in relation to the requirements of the business and individual employees. The article will argue that the companies in question, despite their favourable product market position, remain constrained by the broader institutional environment.     

Masculine identities and low‐paid work: young men in urban labour markets

This article brings together debates about labour market change, work‐based identities, growing concerns about the problem of working‐class, low‐achieving boys and the identification of a contemporary crisis of masculinity. It draws on a longitudinal study of young men in Sheffield and Cambridge — contrasting local labour markets in England — examining the initial workplace experiences of white working‐class male school‐leavers. Two individual cases are explored in depth, looking at initial working pathways in order to assess the attitudes and actions of young school leavers and their responses to the structural changes in the labour market that have transformed their opportunities compared with both their fathers' generation and their female peers. The implications for theoretical debates about working lives and the trasformation of gender divisions are assessed.     

Promise and peril in implementing pay‐for‐performance

Why would managers abandon pay‐for‐performance plans they initiated with great hopes? Why would employees celebrate this decision? This article explores why managers made their decisions in 12 of 13 pay‐for‐performance “experiments” at Hewlett‐Packard in the mid‐1990s. We find that managers thought the costs of these programs to be higher than the benefits. Alternative managerial practices such as effective leadership, clear objectives, coaching, or training were thought a better investment. Despite the undisputed instrumentality of pay‐for‐performance to motivate, little attention has been given to whether the benefits outweigh the costs or the “fit” of these programs with high‐commitment cultures like Hewlett‐Packard was at the time. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The High‐Rise Home: Verticality as Practice in London

This article investigates the relationship between verticality and home. It develops the idea of ‘verticality as practice'. This appreciates verticality not as something that takes place in three‐dimensional landscapes, but as the outcome of everyday practical activity. Examining a modernist high‐rise estate, the Aylesbury Estate in London, the article identifies and examines a range of vertical practices, illustrating how they are intertwined with home. Vertical practices, such as those associated with the view, help to make a unique and special home, becoming intensely meaningful to residents. However, they also unmake dimensions of home when they interact with the estate's marginality.     

Recurrent unemployment in young black and white males

In this article the author, using data drawn from the experience of West Indians and white school leavers, examines the problem of recurrent unemployment and its relationship to the structure of local labour markets.     

‘McJobs’, ‘good jobs’ and skills: job‐seekers' attitudes to low‐skilled service work

This article focuses on unemployed job‐seekers' attitudes towards entry‐level jobs in three areas of the service sector – retail, hospitality and call‐centre work. The article examines whether job‐seekers are reluctant to pursue these opportunities, and provides an analysis of the motives of those ruling out service work. A range of potential barriers is discussed, including the extent to which job‐seekers perceive the service economy as offering only so‐called ‘McJobs’– low‐skilled, low‐paid jobs with few opportunities for development. However, the article also focuses on perceived skills mismatches, with some job‐seekers arguably over‐qualified for entry‐level service jobs, while others consider themselves to lack the necessary ‘soft’ skills. The analysis is based on interviews with 220 unemployed people in Glasgow. The article concludes that policy action may be required to encourage job seekers to consider a broader range of vacancies and to provide tailored training in partnership with service employers. On the demand side, service employers must address the need for entry‐level positions that offer realistic salaries, decent work conditions and opportunities for progression and development.     

Transfer of labour‐management partnership in multinational companies

There has been a growing interest in how multinational corporations transfer various management practices from one country to another. The positions vary from an extreme where all practices will become globally standardised; to claims that the local context will be a decisive factor. In this article, the research question is why an MNC would want to transfer the partnership practice and what the key elements to success might be. As pointed to, partnership is a part of the company's business system, the way they are used to operating. Also important is that the risk of failing in terms of technological issues was important, and thus commitment and cooperation are crucial. Success can be understood by their effort to reduce the institutional distance as much as possible, including the choice of location, hiring policy emphasis on education and training, the strategy of building strong connections to the senior shop steward.     

Reproducing low‐wage labour: capital accumulation,labour markets and young workers

Drawing on evidence from Greater Manchester, this article examines how structural changes in capital accumulation have created particular labour market outcomes, which have led to young people becoming a source of cheap labour for the growing low‐wage service economy. Greater Manchester has been selected as a case study because of the sectoral composition of its labour market and because levels of low pay for young workers are above the national low‐pay average of 40 per cent. The research reveals that it is necessary to move beyond sociological explanations that concentrate on the ‘essential youthfulness’ of young people and instead draw on analytical categories from political economy in order to understand the structural causes of young people's material circumstances.     

The implications of the national minimum wage for training in small firms

This article investigates the extent to which small firms' training practices have altered since the introduction of the national minimum wage (NMW). Low pay is particularly widespread among small firms and they are thus likely to have been disproportionately affected by the NMW. Drawing on survey data collected from 258 establishments, the study provides information about training practices and identifies the steps that employers have taken to offset the impact of the NMW. The study also assesses the extent to which firms have made use of lower ‘development’ rates for young workers and new adult recruits, and whether this has been associated with an increase in training activity. The findings suggest that the NMW has provided a positive boost to training in some cases, although this has primarily come about as a result of efforts by firms to offset increases in labour costs, as opposed to take‐up of the development rate.     

Collective and individual benefits of trade unions: a multi‐level analysis of 21 European countries

In light of internationally declining union density, this article examines to what extent employees derive advantage from trade unions. Data collected in 21 countries through the European Social Survey 2010 are being used. Multilevel analyses show that it is not so much individual membership but unions' collective power that matters. Perceived union influence and a union‐friendly industrial relations regime (mainly the organized corporatism in the Nordic countries) are positively linked to the occurrence of regular workplace meetings and to the impact of these meetings on organizational decisions. Employees also appear to benefit from unions' collective power in terms of appropriate pay and job security, although the regime pattern is then less clear.     

‘We Live on Estimates': Everyday Practices of Prepaid Electricity and the Urban Condition in Maputo,Mozambique

This article examines the transition to prepaid electricity happening in Maputo, Mozambique, in order to reflect on the contemporary geographies of urban energy infrastructure and urbanization in sub‐Saharan Africa and other cities of the South. The article draws on fieldwork and archival research conducted in 2013 and 2014, arguing that prepayment constitutes a productive juncture in the urban experience of electricity infrastructure in Maputo's postcolonial moment, not merely a neutral technology or a disciplining technique of government (as argued by some scholarship). The article examines the multiple rationalities implicated in the use of the electricity infrastructure via prepayment and the organization of urban life it engenders (and of which it is also a product) by focusing on the everyday practices surrounding prepaid electricity of urban dwellers in neighbourhoods where the ‘modern infrastructural ideal' may never be fully realized. As a result, it contributes to an understanding of the experience of urban energy in cities where ‘slum urbanism', uncertainty and provisionality are dominant aspects of the urban condition.     

Understanding leadership for cross‐cultural knowledge management

This article examines the role of leadership in cross‐cultural knowledge management (CCKM) because both knowledge management and cross‐cultural management are now regarded as popular topics in both academic and practical research in the age of globalization. We discuss the existing literature on the relationship between leadership and cross‐cultural management as well as the relationship between leadership and knowledge management to illustrate the importance of leadership in each field. The concept of cross‐cultural knowledge management—an ambiguous term—will be presented from Nguyen, Umemoto, and Medeni's (2007) work, establishing an expanded role of cross‐cultural management, which could be viewed as a subset of knowledge management. To emphasize the impact of leadership on CCKM, we discuss the influence of leadership on each factor in the theoretical model of CCKM. Our understanding of the role of leadership in CCKM suggests that international leaders should pay careful attention to managing fragmentation, integration, and differentiation when they want to create and manage the cross‐cultural knowledge of their employees.     

Work‐life balance and the software worker

This article examines the impact of employer flexibility to work‐life issues and negative spillover from work to non‐work life on the attitudes of software developers. Software workers present an interesting case for work‐life balance issues – Ackroyd et al (2000) designate them the key occupation to examine in future studies of ‘knowledge workers’, and Barrett (2001) states that they are the ‘vanguard’ of new working practices, with the separation of work and life being substantially more ‘blurred’ than for more traditional occupations. Despite this general perception of the work‐life boundary, our results show that intrusion of work into private life for this group of workers still has a substantial impact on work‐related attitudes. Work‐life boundary variables affect trust in the organisation which plays a mediational role in these variables' relationship to job satisfaction and organisational commitment. Our results suggest that even within this industry, where employees are relatively individualistic in orientation, highly marketable and unlikely to show attachment to a single organisation, mutual gains for employee and employer can be attained by an accommodating approach to non‐work commitments which may lead to greater organisational attachment.     

The union recognition dispute at McDonald's Moscow food‐processing factory

This article reports on the union recognition dispute that took place at the McDonald's food‐processing plant in Moscow. It examines this dispute in the context of McDonald's employment practices worldwide, the interventions made by international and local unions, and Russian government bodies. Despite these interventions it became impossible to either organise the workforce or establish a collective agreement. The case illustrates the difficulties facing both local unions and global union federations when confronted by intransigent multinational companies, especially in low‐skilled sectors in transitional economies.     

When trade unions turn to litigation: ‘getting all the ducks in a row’

Driven by their members' demands and the need to adopt more combative legal strategies in order to oppose the deterioration of working and employment conditions, British trade unions have developed in‐house legal expertise and supported many individual and multiple claims. This article investigates the variation in unions' legal practices and examines their organisational responses to law and the role of compliance professionals in the regulation of employment litigation. It provides a nuanced account of the influence of legal rationality on the framing of union strategies and shows that, under certain conditions, trade unions are able to build multi‐pronged tactics by using litigation as a complement to other forms of action.     

Management commitment and company policies on education and training

This article presents evidence from a 1991 survey of 406 large companies indicating that corporate education and training practices are shaped by four company characteristics: (1) human resource innovativeness, (2) management resistance to change, (3) work redesigns to enhance quality and involvement, and (4) firm downsizing. When managements create an innovative climate, their companies invest more in worker retraining and contribute more to public schooling; when they resist change, they find it more difficult to recruit entry-level employees. When managements redesign work, their companies place greater emphasis on training, development, and school relations. When managements downsize, their companies take more interest in entry-level training and apprenticeship programs. © 1993 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Board Effectiveness and CEO Pay: Board Information Processing Capacity,Monitoring Complexity,and CEO Pay‐for‐Performance Sensitivity

We have developed an information processing theory of board effectiveness to examine board‐chief executive officers (CEOs) pay relations. We theorize that CEO pay reflects the information processing context of boards. Boards have limited information processing capacity and therefore prefer to use outcome‐based CEO pay when they have difficulty in processing information for monitoring their CEOs. Using a longitudinal sample of Standard and Poor's (S&P's) large‐, medium‐, and small‐cap manufacturing firms in the United States from 1998 through 2005, we found support for our theory. Large boards and boards in less complex monitoring contexts tend to link CEO pay less tightly to firm performance by providing less stock‐based incentives, and the tendency of large boards to decrease outcome‐based CEO pay is even greater when boards are not busy or when boards are in less complex monitoring contexts. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The Pervasiveness And Trajectory Of Methodological Choices: A 20‐Year Review Of Human Resource Management Research

This article examines the methodological choices of researchers studying the HR practices–outcome relationship via a content analysis of 281 studies published across the past 20 years. The prevalence and trajectory of change over time are reported for a wide range of methodological choices relevant to internal, external, construct, and statistical conclusion validity. While the results indicate a high incidence of potentially problematic cross‐sectional, single‐informant, and single‐level designs, they also reveal significant improvements over time across many validity relevant methodological choices. This broad‐based improvement in the methodological underpinnings of HR research suggests that researchers and practitioners can view the findings reported in the HR literature with increasing confidence. Directions for future research are provided. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.