The impact of employee involvement on organisational commitment and ‘them and us’ attitudes

This article presents a measure of ‘them and us' as a basis for evaluating an employee involvement programme in British Rail. The results of a longitudinal study with control groups and various forms of post-training intervention show no change in organisational commitment but some evidence of a shift towards a more local pattern of identity which excludes union representatives from ‘us'.     

The Influence of Environmental Pressures, Diversification Strategy, and Union/Nonunion Setting on Employee Participation

This study tests the hypotheses that environment, diversification strategy, and union/nonunion setting affect the number and variety of employee participation programs. A survey of large U.S. manufacturing firms measured the implementation of employee participation programs. Regression results suggest that environmental pressures exert a direct effect on participation in union settings. However, in nonunion settings, environment and diversification strategy both correlated directly with participation. These results suggest that unions could potentially affect participation program implementation.     

Labor education as a method of enhancing employee rights and responsibilities

University-based labor education programs conduct classes designed to provide union members with the skills necessary to perform their organizational and civic responsibilities and to provide union members with opportunities for personal growth and development. In conducting these programs, university labor educators enhance the protection of employee rights and the fulfillment of employee responsibilities. This article describes the manner in which labor education enhances collective and individual rights and responsibilities within unions, vis-à-vis employers and within the larger society.     

So what’s the news? Management strategies towards non–union employee representation at News International

In an environment of what would appear to be a widening ‘representation gap’ developing in many organisations, there has been considerable discussion on the effectiveness of non–union employee representation (NER) structures as communication devices and mechanisms for employee involvement, or as a substitute for unions in the collective bargaining process. The underlying debate centres on whether NER forms make trade unions unnecessary, or whether NER forms have a role different from, but complementary to, that of unions at the workplace. The findings of this study suggest that a ‘substitute’ or union avoidance strategy as used at News International Newspapers could have limitations. The implications of not recognising these limitations could result in greater indirect union influence in workplace issues and greater employee dissatisfaction at the workplace.     

Employee involvement in American corporations

At the direction of the U.S. Senate subcommittee on Governmental Affairs, the general Accounting Office (GAO) conducted a survey of employee involvement practices within American companies. The population consisted of top management within Fortune's 500 largest manufacturing and 500 largest service companies. An analysis of the data examined three broad areas relating to employee involvement: (1) the existing organizational programs and processes such as personnel practices, information sharing, and training; (2) the degree of corporate participation in specific employee involvement programs including the reasons for undertaking employee involvement programs, and the perceived barriers to the implementation of employee involvement programs; and (3) the perceived effect of employee involvement on organizational operation as measured by changes in indicators of performance and activities within the internal business environment.     

Union suppression and union substitution strategies of multinational enterprises in Ghana

This article complements the literature by furthering the understanding of an ‘African dimension’ of multinational enterprise (MNE) union avoidance. The evidence suggests that MNEs engaged in both union suppression and union substitution strategies by (i) exploiting young employees' apathy to promote opposition and indifference for union organisation (evil stuff), (ii) implementing union member‐centred employee retrenchment (fear stuff), (iii) using enterprise‐level collective bargaining arrangement to suppress union bargaining power (fear and fatal stuff), (iv) exploiting the fragmented labour union environment to suppress union organisation (fatal and evil stuff) and (v) promoting individual employee voice and involvement mechanisms (sweet stuff). Although MNEs in Ghana engaged in both union suppression and union substitution strategies, they appear to particularly favour the adoption of ‘union suppression’ strategies and what might be termed as ‘corridor tactics’. Our article highlights four transitional issues underpinning the emerging success of ‘corridor tactics’ in union suppression in a less developed host country.     

Unions,organisation change and alcohol policy

There is little doubt that company policies which successfully attempt to change employee behaviour patterns require a high level of trade union involvement. Workplace alcoholism policies are an example of this kind of initiative. This article presents some preliminary, survey evidence on the extent to which alcohol policies have been introduced in Scotland.     

Employee Representatives on Company Boards in Sweden

Data from a survey indicate that a large majority of managing directors in Sweden have a positive experience of employee representation on company boards, and regard it as a resource for the company. The survey also shows that employee representatives are well integrated in local union activities.     

High‐level employee involvement at Delta Air Lines

As described in this unique case study, Delta Air Lines operates one of the most advanced, high‐level employee involvement programs in the nation. Based on in‐depth field study and personal interviews, the development, structure, operation, and business goals of the program are described. The study then summarizes the business benefits and costs of this type of high‐level employee involvement program and concludes with 12 “lessons learned.” © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Partnership with and without trade unions in the UK financial services: filling or fuelling the representation gap?

Partnership theory proposes that an appropriate integration of direct and indirect employee participation mutually benefits the workers and the company. This study explores the putative employee voice gains and the risks for union effectiveness by comparing employees' evaluation of partnership practices at two financial service companies with non‐union and union employee representation, respectively.     

Partnership at work and worker participation: an NHS case study

This article considers issues of workplace union strategy in a study of a National Health Service hospital trust in which the focus of the investigation is the ‘employee voice’ gains, or losses, arising from partnership and worker participation. The impact of government policy on local management and, in turn, employees’ opportunities to participate in organisational decision making is therefore the main theme explored in this analysis.     

Works council and trade unions: complementary or competitive? The case of SAGCo.

This longitudinal case study in a Japanese owned manufacturing company examines the relationship between union‐based representation and organisation and other forms of employee voice. The study covers the period before and after the passage of the Employment Relations Act 1999. During that period the Company voluntarily agreed to the recognition of an independent trade union at the same time as abandoning a pre‐existing employee works council and its replacement by a Japanese‐style company advisory board. The study investigates, inter alia, how far, and to what extent the inpending EU directive establishing mechanisms for employee information and consultation could influence existing trade union representation and organisation.     

Direct and representative participation in Europe: recent survey evidence

Despite the wealth of literature on HRM and employee involvement, now there has been a remarkable lack of large-scale survey evidence on the diffusion employee involvement in work organizations in Europe. This gap in large-scale survey evidence on the diffusion of direct employee participation has now been filled representative sample of workplaces in ten major European Union countries which commissioned by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions in Dublin (the EPOC project). It is by far the most comprehensive overview of the implementation and effects of direct employee participation of its kind. The paper shows that, on the basis of the EPOC survey results, there appears to considerable gap between the rhetoric and reality of direct participation. The paper shows that while the incidence of different forms of direct participation was widespread ten countries, the scope, in terms of number of issues involved and the number of given to employees, was relatively limited for most direct participation forms. The survey also showed that the introduction of direct participation posed little threat to trade representatives. Indeed, works councils and union representatives were in most 'agents of change' rather than barriers to the development of the more intensive practice of direct participation.     

Exploring the interaction of firm-level change and national institutional environments in shaping employment and union relations: a comparative case study of four European airlines

Drawing on the example of the airline industry, this paper explores in a longitudinal comparative case study the question of how firm-level changes and national institutional environments interact in shaping employee and union relations. Adding to previous research in comparative institutional analysis and comparative employment relations, we illustrate that the way in which industry pressures and national-level effects play out to influence employee and union relations depends on firm-level changes, mainly in the form of firm growth, acquisitions and the foundation of new subsidiaries. We show in particular that depending on firm-level changes, the very same firm might engage differently with a given institutional context at different points in time. Hence, our work illustrates the importance of firm growth, acquisitions and the foundation of new subsidiaries in explaining the shifting interaction between the firm and its institutional environment, and its implications for changing employee and union relations within firms.     

Employee representation and partnership in the non‐union sector: a paradox of intention?

Non‐union forms of employee representation have become increasingly prominent in UK workplaces in the last 15 years. In addition, partnership working has been encouraged by New Labour, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, the Confederation of British Industry and the TUC as a route to higher commitment and higher individual and organisational performance. These trends have been further encouraged by recent European Union legislation. This article seeks to examine the implied linkages between non‐union employee representative mechanisms and partnership working and their influence on the effectiveness of employee voice as a conduit of high performance. The article is based on a case study organisation from within the UK finance sector, and data are drawn from semi‐structured interviews with managers and staff and a survey of employee attitudes. The article concludes that employers’ attempts to utilise a non‐union partnership framework for organisational gain are severely constrained by structural limitations on effective employee voice.     

Labor union negotiations: stepping stones or stumbling blocks for a responsible downsizing strategy? Empirical tests in Taiwan

Firms have used organizational downsizing strategies for years. But organizational downsizing not only cannot surely improves firm performance, but also harms thousands of employees and their families. A number of scholars investigating organizational change suggest that ‘a responsible downsizing strategy’ can mitigate or solve this issue. As the major stakeholder in downsizing, labor unions naturally negotiate with firms to protect employee rights and benefits. Their negotiation, therefore, may either enhance or mitigate the effect of responsible downsizing strategy on firm performance. This study used a sample of 154 downsized local firms and multinational corporations in Taiwan to examine the research construct, and invited focus groups to have a further validated explanation. The findings show that labor union negotiation may act as either stepping stones or stumbling blocks. The results indicate that firms employing labor union negotiation experience higher downsizing performance than non-unionized firms do. However, labor union interventions can also become stumbling blocks. Labor union negotiation neutralize the positive effect of employee-caring practices on downsizing performance, leading to a decline in downsizing performance when firms increase employee participation and justice consideration in the downsizing process. The research findings provide implications for further scholarly research and management practices in terms of organization change, stakeholder management and labor–management relationship.     

What Do Employee Councils Do? The Impact of Non‐Union Forms of Representation on Trade Union Organisation

The article examines how non‐union forms of employee representation impact on employee attitudes to unionisation. Through an analysis of union derecognition and the introduction of an employee council in an aerospace plant, it explores a number of factors that may be important in both sustaining and undermining support for trade unions.     

Lessons from management–union partnership in teacher performance appraisal in the New South Wales public education system

Performance appraisal is frequently seen as one of the hallmarks of the ‘new managerialism’ in public sector human resource management. It is also commonly represented as a device for individualizing the employment relationship. Yet even appraisal offers scope for employee voice/participation, both individually and collectively, and for varying degrees of management–union cooperation. This study examines an unlikely case of management–union partnership in performance appraisal – that applied since 2000 to teachers in Australia's largest public schooling bureaucracy, the NSW Department of Education and Training, whose teachers have a long history of union solidarity and industrial militancy. The experiment can be seen as a union retreat from confrontationism, a concession to managerialism, and a resignation to the dominance of individualism over collectivism. However, we argue that it has also widened the scope for both union and employee voice at workplace level.     

Gainsharing and knowledge sharing: the effects of labour–management co-operation

We compare patterns of employee knowledge sharing in the form of suggestions for reducing costs and improving productivity submitted as part of a gainsharing reward system in two organizations. Combining insights from recent studies that use employee risk sharing and organizational learning frameworks to understand how gainsharing programmes work, we propose that employees' willingness to share high-risk (second-order-learning) knowledge with management is affected by the degree of labour–management co-operation and trust. Specifically, we hypothesize that union support and involvement in gainsharing affects employee knowledge sharing by increasing employees' initial acceptance of the compensation risk associated with gainsharing and by facilitating employee willingness to take on additional compensation and employment risk over time. We test these hypotheses using time series data on employee suggestions and gainsharing performance at two locations with similarly structured gainsharing plans but different levels of labour–management co-operation. The results generally support our hypotheses. We conclude by considering the implications of these results for gainsharing design and implementation as well as the broader implications of the effect of HR practices on employee knowledge sharing and knowledge management in organizations.     

‘Riding along on the crest of a wave’: tracking the shifting rationale for non‐union consultation at FinanceCo

This article seeks to evaluate why, within the context of a fast‐moving and turbulent business environment, certain staple employee involvement (EI) practices remain so enduring. Using case study research, the article tracks the shifting justification for non‐union consultation in a medium‐sized clearing bank. It is demonstrated that the underlying motive is contingent and dynamic, changing periodically in response to a variety of stimuli. Developing Marchington et al.'s influential metaphor, it is argued that such ‘long‐wave’ involvement is related to the flexibility of the consultative process. The malleability of the intervention is seen to complement quite disparate business objectives contributing to its longevity. More broadly, the study underlines the need to build micro‐, macro‐ and sector‐level analyses into explanatory models of EI.