Worlds colliding: the translation of modern management practices within a UK based subsidiary of a Korean-owned MNC

This paper explores the factors that served to dislodge an espoused strategy of quality management with ‘soft’ HRM within a British subsidiary of a Korean owned multinational company. Accounts from British and Korean managers revealed competing sets of tensions at three levels: external organizational, intra-organizational, and internal workplace. The case is important for a number of reasons. First, research on UK based subsidiaries tends to have focused upon American and Japanese owned companies, with less evidence from MNCs from later industrialized economies. Second, evidence suggests that MNCs from Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore have been experimenting with Western influenced high-performance work systems – but there is less evidence about how these are actually translated into the workplace. Third, there is a growing literature that suggests that the transfer of management practices in MNCs can be partly understood as a ‘negotiated process’, and disagreements may emerge between organisational actors in respect of the meaning and function of such practices. This article offers further support for this contention and offers insights into how these processes affected day-to-day management of the workplace and undermined the espoused strategy.     

Multinational Companies and Human Resource Management: an Overview of Research Issues1

Anthony Ferner, who is Principal Research Fellow in the Industrial Relations Research Unit at the University of Warwick, uses a wide range of literature and recent empirical research to examine the consequences for HRM of central facets of multinational companies – corporate structure and strategy, country of operation and country of origin. How, for example, do they impact on the degree of cross-national coordination of human resource policies? Are there distinct ‘national’ cultures that infuse these policies? How does ‘corporate culture’ interact with national management cultures of ‘host’ countries? In considering the implications of the discussion for a future research agenda, he emphasises the need to redress the overwhelming concentration in the existing literature on US and Japanese companies.     

The Japanisation of British industry? Instances from a high growth area

Here the authors make two arguments, Japanese industry is characterised by distinctive practices, but these predominate in only certain ‘leading edge’ sectors and were introduced mainly to ensure labour supply. Second, Britain's managers are increasingly outside the internal labour markets of large corporations. In this respect British firms are not becoming ‘Japanese’.     

Strategic international human resource management approaches in the maquiladora industry: a comparison of Japanese,Korean and US firms

The maquiladora option has made Mexico an increasingly attractive off-shore manufacturing site for multinational enterprises (MNEs) seeking global competitiveness. However, MNEs often encounter human resource management (HRM) challenges as they attempt to leverage these maquiladora benefits. MNEs use three approaches to international human resource management (IHRM) design in addressing these challenges – a mechanistic, ‘control’ approach; a paternalistic, ‘human relations’ approach; and a developmental, ‘human resource’ approach. This paper compares and contrasts these IHRM design approaches in Japanese, Korean and US maquiladora manufacturing operations in Mexico, identifies implications for the management of diversity based on these findings, and discusses the related competitiveness implications.     

Strategic interventions of management accountants: everyday practice of British and German brewers

A popular stereotype has it that German firms are somehow ‘long-term strategically oriented’ and British firms focus on short-term financial gain. Analysing ethnographic material from British and German brewers, this paper explores how management accountants in the two countries conceive of their relationship with processes of strategic formulation and how they seek to mobilize strategic arguments in their day-to-day contacts with operational management. The focus of this study is not on the strategy debates which one might expect among senior management, but on routine interaction between management accountants and managers in which the mundane events of organizational life are made to happen in the name of loftier ‘strategic’ priorities. From observations of such interaction and management accountants' reflections on them, contrasting ways of integrating management accounting expertise with operational knowledge of the firm are suggested for the British and German brewers studied. Those contrasts are developed by drawing on the relationship between time and the possibility for strategic intervention more generally.     

Foreign remedies for local difficulties: the case of three Scottish manufacturing firms

Literature on Japanese transplant manufacturing firms in the automotive sector often emphasise the importance placed on attitude as opposed to skills in the hiring decisions for line workers. In this paper, a case study of one second-tier components supplier for a major Japanese automotive assembler in the Midwestern United States provides the opinions of senior managers and human resource associates regarding recruitment and selection practices. In-depth interviews, carried out over a two-week period in August 2000, are used to develop an understanding of the recruitment and selection process for line workers as well as to investigate the desired skills and value of previous Japanese experience. Results of the case study analysis are compared with two models from the literature: (1) a model of recruitment and selection at Japanese automotive-related firms in Japan and (2) a model of recruitment and selection at Japanese transplant automotive-related firms abroad. Deviations from the two models point not to a new paradigm of ‘second-generation’ Japanese transplants – those that have moved into regions quite familiar with Japanese firms and related management and production methods – but rather to overall weaknesses in the stereotypical models. Managerial opinions within the case study firm place limited value on familiarity with a Japanese environment, considering such experience secondary to attitudes and work ethics that are in line with the philosophy of the case study firm.     

ENGINEERS,MANAGEMENT AND WORK ORGANIZATION: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF ENGINEERS' WORK ROLES IN BRITISH AND JAPANESE ELECTRONICS FIRMS*

Many commentators have attributed the poor performance of British manufacturing to the ‘under-representation’ of engineers in management, and have proposed policies for bringing more engineers into management so as to develop a technologically oriented management culture. This paper argues that the under-representation of engineers in management is a symptom not the root cause of the problem, which lies in the split between technical and managerial expertise at the enterprise level. Based on a comparative analysis of engineers’ work roles and the relationship between technical and managerial functions in British and Japanese electronics firms, the paper argues that the mechanistically structured organization systems in the British firms generate a vertical polarization between technical and managerial roles, inhibit knowledge sharing and lead to the gross under-utilization of engineers in product development. A technologically oriented management cannot simply be achieved by getting more engineers into management. It requires, instead, organizational restructuring and changes in work practices to enable a better integration between technical and managerial expertise.     

Human resource management and organizational strategies in German- and US-owned companies

The development of the international economy over the past twenty years has bred considerable diversity in the form and substance of employment relations (labour-management relations, human resource management practices) throughout the world. Cases of ‘social partnership’ are today found in the ‘free market’ United States economy; some companies operating in Germany's ‘social’ market economy are rejecting traditional forms of social partnership in the name of more unilateral strategies.

This paper examines (a) the extent to which ‘strategic diversity’ – variation in human resource strategies and policies – is possible within the heavily institutionalized, co-operative and codeterminative German economy, and (b) how managers perceive the effects of different kinds of HR approaches on organizational change and industrial adjustment. It is based on empirical evidence drawn from seven large chemicals companies operating in Germany – three of them US-owned firms and four German-owned.

The main conclusions are that considerable strategic diversity is possible within the German context, and that managers perceive distinct costs and benefits to specific aspects of the typically American ‘unilateral’ style and the more German ‘negotiated’ approach to structuring the relationship with human resources. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these trade-offs for the transferability of HR strategies across international borders, giving special attention to policies to avoid some of these potential costs.     

JAPANESE AND BRITISH MANAGERIAL COLLEAGUES—HOW THEY VIEW EACH OTHER

The mutual perceptions were obtained of 113 Japanese and 100 British managers working in the London offices of 18 Japanese companies. Eighteen semantic differential items were used to permit each respondent to report his auto stereotype of his own nationality of manager, his hetero stereotype of the other nationality, and his meta stereotype (his opinion as to how they would assess his own group). The degree of agreement between the auto stereotype of each group and the hetero stereotype held of it by the other group is discussed, and the accuracy of the meta stereotypes is examined. It is also shown that the 18 semantic items can be reduced to 3 principal components which, after rotation, are consistent in meaning between the two nationalities. The three rotated factors are interpretable as ‘approval’, ‘open style’ and ‘functional’. The factors permit a more concise comparison of the stereotypes.     

National culture and its impact on the choice of managing director in international production: the case of foreign firms in Greece

The aim of this study is to determine whether attitudinal differences between British and Japanese managers observed in the workplace can be attributed to culture or to the employment system. The findings provided substantial support for attribution to the employment system. Cultural differences between British and Japanese managers were not as large as the cultural thesis claims. The stereotyped cultural characteristics of Japanese managers - high social orientation at work and unconditional priority of work over family - were observed only in limited groups such as managers on the shop floor or senior managers. Attitudinal differences in the workplace were not simply the consequence of cultural differences, but rather to be understood as rational behavioural responses. Both British and Japanese managers' attitudes were considered to be a rational response to their employment systems.     

PROFESSIONALIZATION AND BRITISH MANAGEMENT PRACTICEPROFESSIONALIZATION AND BRITISH MANAGEMENT PRACTICE: CASE EVIDENCE FROM MEDIUM-SIZED FIRMS IN TWO INDUSTRIAL SECTORS*

High levels of occupational specialization, problems of cross-functional integration and distinct bureaucratic tendencies have traditionally been seen as problems endemic to British management practice. Over the last decade, these problems are expected to have disappeared - or at least diminished - as major developments in management and organizational theory, as well as changing economic circumstances, have redirected management thinking towards ‘new’ ideas of flatter, simpler organizational structures, increased flexibility and decentralization, improvements in the quality of inter-functional relations and the like. Yet, despite these developments, there is comparatively little research that has investigated actual patterns of change within management and, in particular, what is happening in what could be regarded as the mainstream of British industry - namely, ‘ordinary’, medium-sized firms operating in ‘traditional’ industrial sectors. Moreover, rarely does such research focus upon the implications of management change for the strategies of professionalization adopted by competing specialist occupational groups within management. This paper sets out to help fill these gaps, by reporting the findings from case studies of four such firms, taking into account the particular contexts and historical circumstances that have helped shape any such change and drawing out the key influences on changed management practice.     

Coping with an emerging market competition through strategy-human resource alignment: case study evidence from five leading Japanese manufacturers in the People's Republic of China

This paper documents how PRC-based Japanese affiliates can align their human resource management (HRM) policies and practices with their business strategies based on in-depth interview surveys of the five leading Japanese manufacturers in China. In particular, using a multiple-informant research design to interview both top and human resource managers in each site, the study has attempted to clarify the strategic fit between the business strategies pursued and HRM practices adopted in China. Our interviews with top management for each affiliate revealed three types of business strategies that the PRC-based affiliates adopt to gain competitiveness in the Chinese market. Separate interviews with HR managers further clarified that affiliates' HRM efforts are aligned with the strategy each affiliate is pursuing. The findings are used to suggest several hypothesized relationships between the particular strategies pursued and the HRM practices adopted in China. Furthermore, this study has provided some important insights as to how the choice of affiliate-level business strategies in China affects the ‘hybridization’ processes of the HRM policies and practices used in the cross-national business environment.     

Managing transformational change: the role of human resource professionals

In the past decade human resource management issues featured prominently in debates over the competitiveness and human resource professionals were expected to ascend to positions of greater influence in corporate strategy making and implementation. Despite numerous calls for a paradigm shift towards a more ‘strategic’ focus for human resource management research, developments in both practice and research fell far short of expectations. Thus, the process of transforming human resource policy into a strategic asset for employees, individual firms or the American economy is not yet complete. The paper suggests that the ‘strategic’ human resource management models of the 1980s were too limited and reactive in character because they depended so heavily on the values, strategies and support of top executives and line managers. A model capable of achieving sustained and transformational change needs to incorporate more active roles of other stakeholders in the employment relationship, including government, employes and union representatives as well as line managers and top executives. The paper starts by reviewing the evidence on innovations in human resource management in the past decade and then outlines the implications of the change model for human resource management and industrial relations theory, policy and practice. Special emphasis is given to the role of human resource professionals as potential change agents or facilitators of the transformational process.     

The take-up of human resource management by mainstream companies: key lessons from research

Drawing upon a major British study involving over 300 interviews in fifteen case organizations from the private and public sectors, this paper draws out the essential elements of recent changes in industrial relations. In particular, it examines the significance of human resource management initiatives for the practice of industrial relations. The main thrust of the paper examines the ways, and the extent to which, mainstream organizations have transposed and absorbed concepts and practices from the highly publicized ‘lead cases’ into their own routines.

The central argument has three component elements: a whole array of managerial initiatives was launched in the period covered by the research; many of the more far-reaching of these were devised and driven from outside personnel or industrial relations management; cumulatively, these initiatives have impacted on the conduct of industrial relations.

A key concept which is identified and explored is that of HRM/IR ‘dualism’. This is the attempted bolting-on of HRM techniques and language alongside prevailing, albeit to some extent diluted, IR proceduralism. Many of the significant changes in labour management practices stemmed from initiatives taken by general managers, manufacturing directors and line managers. Transformative initiatives in the guise of culture change and structural change often carried profound implications for industrial relations even though these initiatives would not traditionally be regarded as part of industrial relations proper.     

On the manager as principal clerk

Until recently, economic theory and economists treated the management process with benign neglect. Insofar as business enterprises — the firms of economic theory – require managers to oversee their daily operations, these managers are implicitly viewed as fungible ‘principal clerks’. This paper makes this view explicit and considers whether it is valid for a particular class of manager, that of a major league baseball team.     

Strategic Practice Drift: How Open Strategy Infiltrates the Strategy Process

This paper builds theory on the process of open-strategy infiltration through an ethnographic study investigating how open strategy entered a financial services firm's strategy process behind the backs of top managers. Based on our analysis, we show how open strategy infiltrates the strategy process through a ‘strategic practice drift’, i.e., a gradual and partly unnoticed shift towards open strategy that occurs through ‘accommodating’ and ‘legitimizing’ the performance of transparency and inclusion in the strategy process. We show how the ‘goal-based ambiguity’ and ‘procedural certainty’ of initiatives that latently imply the performance of transparency and inclusion in the strategy process enable open-strategy infiltration. Furthermore, we show how top managers' ‘goal-based rationalization’ and ‘procedural renegotiation’ of practising transparency and inclusion contribute to the eventual reproduction of open strategy in the strategy process. Our model generates an understanding of how and why open strategy can enter the strategy process behind the backs of top managers and adds nuance to extant understandings of the role of top managers in this process. In addition, our findings contribute to research on strategy as practice by theorizing ‘strategic practice drifts’ and extending our understanding of the role of ambiguity therein.     

When two cultures meet: new industrial relations at Japanco

This article addresses the question of the responses of British workers to Japanese management practices through a detailed case study of Japanco, a UK Japanese implant. The argument challenges the abstract ‘ideal type’ view of Japanization, by stressing the pragmatism of Japanese management, and its willingness to adjust to the contingencies of economic pressures and British industrial culture, over time. The introduction, outlining the main themes of the Japanization debate, is followed by a brief profile of Japanco. The main empirical body of the article is divided between an analysis of the start-up characteristics of Japanco, followed by a consideration of developments several years later, based on interviews and questionnaire material. The conclusion suggests that, like Ford of a previous generation, Japanco is being changed by its British industrial culture, just as this has been shaped in recent years by Japanese influence and example.     

The costs and opportunities of doing diversity work in mainstream organisations

This paper provides insights into the impact that the shift from ‘equal opportunities’ to diversity management is having on the people who do diversity work. Equality officers have been largely replaced by diversity specialists, often with mainstream HR or business management backgrounds. They are often supplemented and supported by a new cadre of ‘part‐time’ diversity practitioners – diversity champions, drawn from middle‐senior managers. The study suggests that doing diversity work in the 2000s is a different experience from doing equality work in the 1980s/1990s. The ascendance of the business case and the depoliticisation of equality lend DM greater legitimacy and respectability. This, combined with the changing backgrounds and characteristics of diversity practitioners means that diversity work usually carries lower costs and potentially offers more opportunities than did equality work. The conclusion summarises the costs and opportunities, drawing out the main policy implications for the practitioners themselves and for organisations.     

Staffing marketing positions during global hyper-competitiveness: a market-based perspective

As organizations globalize their operations, there appears to be an imperceptible shift in focus from internal tangible resources to those of external intangible relational resources; in other words, economies of scale appear to being replaced by economies of global scope. The strategic implications of this swing in the importance of resource bases can also have a significant impact on the international human resource management area. Identifying managers with local market knowledge and contacts becomes a critical consideration in the selection process. Maintaining on-going personal relations in foreign markets also helps to cement inter-organizational relationships such as strategic alliances. In the ‘think global, act local’ relational networks of global business, inpatriate managers appear to have the necessary characteristics of both organizational trust and local tacit knowledge to be effective global managers.     

Exploring the antecedents of municipal managers’ attitudes towards citizen participation

Meaningful and representative citizen participation depends greatly on administrators’ attitudes. This study examines antecedents of municipal managers’ attitudes towards citizen participation based on their perceptions of its likely contributions and costs. Using data from two American states – New Jersey and Pennsylvania – the research found that a manager’s professional identity and knowledge of successful peer group practices involving citizens influenced both perceptions. In addition, the research found that institutional factors such as red tape and city council diversity influenced a manager’s perceptions about the cost of citizen involvement. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.