Book Reviews

Books review in this article: The Control of Industrial Relations In Large Companies: an Initial Analysis of the Second Company Level Industrial Relations Survey (Warwick Papers In Industrial Relations No.45) Paul Marginson, Peter Armstrong, Paul Edwards and John Purcell with Nancy Hubbard     

Book Reviews

Inside Japan–Wealth Work and Power in the New Japanese Empire Peter Tasker Managing Owners: The National Freight Consortium in Perspective K. Bradley and A. Nejad Sharing the Success: the Story of NFC Sir Peter Thompson The Political Economy of Industrial Relations: Theory and Practice in a Cold Climate Richard Hyman Beyond the Workplace: Managing Industrial Relations in the Multi-Establishment Enterprise . Paul Marginson, P. K. Edwards, Roderick Martin, John Purcell and Keith Sisson New Perspectives on Human Resource Management John Storey (ed.) Precarious Jobs in Labour Market Regulation G. and J. Rodgers (Eds.) A Secretary and a Cook, Challenging Women's Wages in the Courts of the United States and Great Britain Steven I. Willborn Change in Industrial Relations P. B. Beaumont Changing Patterns of Employee Relations Mick Marchington and Philip Parker Industrial Relations Strategies M. W. Nuttall     

Multinational Britain: Employment and Work In an Internationalised Economy

Paul Marginson, who is a Senior Lecturer in Industrial Relations at the University of Warwick, draws on the second Company Level Industrial Relations Survey to provide new data on, and an assessment of, the role of Britain in a global economy increasingly shaped by the corporate decisions of multinational companies. He emphasises the multinational character of Britain's economy as compared with those of other large industrialised countries; considers the contrasting implications of the activities of multinational companies for employment practice; and explores the factors underlying the considerable variation evident in the actual practice of multinational companies.     

The ‘New Agenda’ and Human Resource Management: A Roundtable Discussion With John Edmonds

John Storey and Nick Bacon discuss trade union reactions to HRM initiatives with John Edmonds and Phil Wyatt. John Storey and Nick Bacon are respectively Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management and Research Fellow at Loughborough University Business School. John Edmonds is General Secretary and Phil Wyatt Research Director of the General, Municipal and Boilermakers’ Union.     

Book reviews

Book reviewed in this article: The Industrial Relations Practices of Foreign-Owned Firms in Britain Peter J Buckley and Peter Enderwick Japanese Participation in British Industry John H Dunning Employee Consultation and Information in Multinational Corporations edited by Jacques Vandamme The Transformation of American Industrial Relations Thomas A Kochan, Harry C Katz and Robert B McKersie The Making of Labour Law in Europe edited by Bob Hepple Mansell Management and Society in Sweden Peter Lawrence and Tony Spybey Routledge and Kegan Paul The Trade Union Situation and Industrial Relations in Hungary The Trade Union Situation and Industrial Relations in Norway The Trade Union Situation and Industrial Relations in Spain The Trade Union Situation and Industrial Relations in Yugoslavia Labor-Owned Firms and Workers' Cooperatives S Jansson and A B Hellmark (eds) Towards a Democratic Rationality The Cooperative Workplace—potentials and dilemmas of organizational democracy and participation J Rothschild and J Allen Whitt Power and Performance in Organisations: An Exploration of Executive Process I Mangham Warwick Papers in Industrial Relations—School of Industrial and Business Studies, Industrial Relations Research Unit, University of Warwick     

Book Reviews

Book review in this article: The Dynamics of Employee Relations Paul Blyton and Peter Turnbull Banking on Flexibility: A comparison of flexible employment in retail banking in Britain and France Jacqueline O'Reilly New Impacts on Industrial Relations S. Tokunage, N. Altmann, and H. Demes (Eds) Managing Human Resources and Industrial Relations John Storey and Keith Sisson Managing Reward Systems Michael Armstrong Human Resource Management: Key Concepts and Skills P. B. Beaumont Human Resource Management: Theory and Practice John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold Stress in Academic Life—The Mental Assembly Line Shirley Fisher Trade Unions in the European Union: A Handbook Wolfgang Lecher (Ed) Labour Law and Freedom: Further Essays in Labour Law Lord Wedderburn Employment Law Christopher Waud Essentials of Employment Law David Lewis Trade Unions, Employers and the Law Gillian Morris and Timothy Archer     

Book reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Call Centres and Human Resource Management
Stephen Deery and Nicholas Kinnie (eds) European Integration and Industrial Relations: Multi‐Level Governance in the Making
Paul Marginson and Keith Sisson (with the collaboration of James Arrowsmith) Understanding Work and Employment: Industrial Relations in Transition
Peter Ackers and Adrian Wilkinson (eds)     

Restructuring the Personnel Function: the Case of Nhs Trusts1

Stephen Bach, who is Lecturer in Industrial Relations at the Warwick Business School and an Associate Fellow of its Industrial Relations Research Unit, examines the impact of the internal market in the NHS on the role, organisation and influence of the personnel function. He argues that personnel specialists have not been able to fulfil expectations of them and occupy a peripheral role within NHS trusts. This has occurred because of their limited involvement in corporate decision making, the difficulties of decentralising personnel practice and the absence of a strategic direction for the management of human resources at national level. In this context, he argues that the prospects for the personnel function and the potential for an integrated, long-term approach to the management of staff in the NHS remain at best uncertain.     

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.     

Book reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Labour Legislation and Public Policy: A Contemporary History Paul Davies and Mark Freedland The Nissan Enigma: Flexibility at Work in a Local Economy P. Garrahan and P. Stewart Mansell Negotiation: Strategies for Mutual Gain Lavinia Hall (Ed) British Industrial Relations Howard Gospel and Gill Palmer Routledge Attending to Work: The Management of Attendance and Shopfloor Order. Paul Edwards and Colin Whitston Industrial Relations and European State Traditions Colin Crouch Industrial Relations Theory: its nature, scope, and pedagogy Roy J. Adams and Noah M. Meltz (eds) Contested Domains Robin Cohen Towards Social Adjustment Guy Standing and Victor Tokman Industrial Training in a Cold Climate. An Assessment of Britain's Training Policies Peter Senker Trade Unions: The Thatcher years—Ten Years of The Jim Conway Foundation Annual Memorial Lecture 1981–1990 , Jim Conway     

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.     

Book reviews

A Restatement of Economic Liberalism Samuel Brittan Macmillan Japanese Style Management Transferred: The Experience of East Asia K. John Fukuda Routledge Japanese Management in America and Britain Donald Duncan Gordon Gower The Japanization of British Industry Nick Oliver Barry Wilkinson The Finances of British Trade Unions 1975–1985 Paul Willman Industrial Relations in Small Firms—Small Isn’t Beautiful Al Rainnie Routledge Managers of Discontent: Trade Union Officers and Industrial Relations Managers Diane Watson Routledge Recruitment and Selection in the Labour Market Paul Windolf and Stephen Wood Gower Safety at work: the limits of self-regulation Sandra Dawson, Paul Willman, Martin Bamford and Alan Clinton Debating Coal Closures: Economic Calculation in the Coal Dispute 1984–5 David Cooper and Trevor Hopper Helping the Unemployed Professional Roland Pearson and Anne Heyno Wiley Incompressible Unemployment John Naylor and Barbara Senior Avebury The Individual in the Economy: A Survey of Economic Psychology Stephen E. G. Lea, Roger M. Tarpy Financial and Economic Analysis of Enterprises Karl Hedderwick     

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.     

BOOKS IN REVIEW

Book reviewed in this article: The System of Industrial Relations in Great Britain H. A. Clegg Manpower Planning: A Bibliography C. G. Lewis Managerial Effectiveness William J. Reddin Job Enrichment and Employee Motivation W. J. Paul and K. B. Robertson Improving Business Results John Humble Human Relations in Management E. W. Hughes The Battle of Downing Street Peter Jenkins     

The Effect of Educational Background On Performance and Organisational Commitment

In this research note Gedaliahu Harel, Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management at the Israel Institute of Technology, and Yehuda Baruch, Visiting Fellow at the City University Business School, explore the effects of a special educational and training programme that affects the backgrounds of employees in technical jobs measured by variables such as level of performance, professionalism, and organisational commitment. the results are considered in terms of the particular population examined and the implications discussed for the use of special vocational education and training.     

Book Reviews

A Bibliography of British Industrial Relations 1971–1979 G.S. Bain, J.D. Bennett Industrial Relations: an International and Comparative Bibliography John Bennett and Julian Fawcett Employee Relations Bibliography and Abstracts Arthur Marsh Innovation and the Auto Industry: Product, Process and Work Organization R. Whipp and P. Clark Trade Unions and Politics Ken Coates and Tony Topham Just Managing: Authority and Democracy in Industry Peter Cressey, John Eldridge and John MacInnes Women Managers: Travellers in a Male World Judi Marshall A Development Programme for Women in Management Mike Smith, Kay Smith Eddie Wood, Lynne Davidson, Sandra Langrish and Christine Mogridge The Social History of Occupational Health Paul Weindling (ed.)     

Book Reviews

Books review in this article: Intervention In Occupational Stress: A Handbook of Counselling For Stress At Work Randall R. Ross and Elizabeth M. Altmaier Managing Human Resources and Industrial Relations John Storey and Keith Sisson Shaping Strategic Change, Making Change In Large Organizations, the Case of the National Health Service A. Pettigrew, E. Ferlie and L. McKee Attending to Work: the Management of Attendance and Shopfloor Order Paul Edwards and Colin Whitston Trade Unions: the Thatcher Years. Ten Years of the Jim Conway Foundation Annual Memorial Lecture 1981–1990 Stockton on Tees     

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 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.     

Bookshelf 2005

Books reviewed: The Emergence of European Trade Unionism Jean‐Louis Robert, Antoine Prost and Chris Wrigley (eds) Ashgate, 2004, 254 pp., £49.50
Reviewed by Ralph Darlington
University of Salford Complying with Europe: EU Harmonisation and Soft Law in the Member States Gerda Falkner, Oliver Treib, Mirian Hartlapp and Simone Leiber CUP, 2005, 404 pp., £45.00 (hardback), £19.99 (paperback)
Reviewed by Brian Towers
University of Nottingham European Integration and Industrial Relations: Multi‐level Governance in the Making Paul Marginson and Keith Sisson Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, 360 pp., £60.00 (hardback)
Reviewed by Tony Royle
National University of Ireland, Galway The Future of Work in Europe Paul Littlewood, Ignace Glorieux and Ingrid Jonsson (eds) Ashgate, 2004, 262 pp., £45.00
Reviewed by Paul Teague
Queen's University, Belfast