Environment, Corporate Ideology, and Employee Involvement Programs

Corporations are implementing employee involvement programs in both union and nonunion settings in response to growing environmental pressures. This study examines the relationships among environmental pressures, corporate ideology, and participative practices in union and nonunion settings and tests two industrial relations models. Questionnaires measuring environmental pressures, corporate ideology, and participation were completed and returned by the Vice President of Human Resources (or similar corporate executive) in 159 of the largest manufacturing companies in the United States. Multiple regression results show that environmental pressures exert little effect on corporate ideology, but ideology has a significant effect on participative practices in both union and nonunion settings.     

Productivity Gains from the Implementation of Employee Training Programs

This study uses data on the personnel policies and economic characteristics of businesses in the manufacturing sector to measure the impact of formal training programs on labor productivity. The major finding is that businesses that were operating below their expected labor productivity levels in 1983 implemented new employee training programs after 1983 that resulted in significantly larger increases in labor productivity growth between 1983 and 1986. This higher rate of productivity growth was sufficient to bring these businesses up to the labor productivity levels of comparable businesses by 1986.     

Workplace Transformation and the Disposable Workplace: Employee Involvement in Australia

Employee involvement (EI) programs should mainly appear either where "workplace transformation" occurs or where managers create a "disposable workplace." Cluster analysis of Australian workplace data supports the notion that transformed and disposable workplaces are distinct from one another and from traditional workplaces. These workplace categories are related to the reported incidence of EI programs as hypothesized. (JEL J41, J51, 553)     

Adaptation and Organizational Connectedness in Corporate Radical Innovation Programs*

This research examines how established companies organize programs for fostering technology‐based radical innovation. It addresses conflicts revealed in the innovation literature concerning the appropriate design of the strategic, structural, and process components of these programs. In developing innovation strategies, managers must balance the desire for strategic clarity with the need to allow for creativity and exploration. They must structure programs that ensure innovations benefit from the organization's resources while minimizing the numerous constraints that can impede these unconventional activities. Additionally, though they may favor management processes that provide accountability and effective resource allocation, managers must also ensure these do not restrict the flexibility required for successful innovation. The study is a longitudinal, comparative case analysis of interviews with managers involved in innovation programs in 12 industry‐leading multinational corporations. Site visits at each company were followed by biannual interviews with key managers in each company. A total of 81 follow‐up interviews were conducted over a three‐year period. These interviews were aimed at identifying the changes and progress in the programs over time and internal and external impacts on the organization's innovation activity. The analysis reveals (1) distinct but evolving objectives that maintain a logical strategic connection, (2) adaptive structures that shift and transform but preserve relationships with the broader organization, and (3) flexible processes that are understandable beyond the innovation program and are modifiable, both for the context and in response to learning over time. This suggests that programs introducing high uncertainty and risk into mature corporate environments are highly flexible systems that maintain organizational connectedness as they evolve. For academics, this implies a need to understand the evolution of innovation programs as an adaptive learning process that, regardless of form and purpose, preserves its connection to the traditional organization. For practitioners, it highlights the importance of considering the process, strategic, and structural connections to the broader organization when designing innovation programs and suggests the need for feedback mechanisms to help adapt these elements over time.     

The Influence of Managerial Relations on Waves of Employee Involvement

One of the most enduring issues in the debate about employee involvement (EI) and workers' participation is how it survives over time, and to what extent the dynamics of EI is linked with labour-management relations. In this article, which draws upon data collected in a two-year study of 25 organizations, it is suggested that managerial relations is a significant factor in explaining waves of EI, and one that is frequently overlooked. Waves of EI can be assessed in terms of the twin concepts of centrality and prominence, terms that are amplified below. The introduction of EI techniques is motivated by a number of forces, but one of the most important is a desire by managers to be noticed, to engage in ‘impression management’, via the creation of new schemes. Despite having high-profile introductions, these schemes soon tend to fade in importance, to a large extent because of problems within management such as internal political rivalries, low supervisory commitment to schemes, inadequate training provision or the downgrading of EI by management arising from conflicting priorities.     

面向环境的战略重构

在以环境为视角的主流战略管理理论中,都认为战略应该与环境相匹配。但是,适应环境的战略观存在许多缺陷。企业的环境总存在一定的不确定性,而这种不确定性可以经过企业的改造转化为企业的竞争优势,并且使某些战略具有期权价值。因此,需要抛弃传统的战略制定思维,依据环境的不确定性重新构筑企业战略。通过相应的战略手段,企业可以塑造环境、改变环境、适应环境以及追随环境来实现企业的目标。     

Determinants of Union Recognition and Employee Involvement: Evidence from London Docklands

This article examines the determinants of union recognition and of employee involvement structures in London Dockland's workplaces, by means of multivariate analysis. The authors found that the respective dependent variables are significantly associated both with each other and with certain enterprise and establishment-level characteristics. Significant independent variables include workplace size, ownership status, the presence of a personnel manager and the incidence of skill shortages.     

中小企业技术创新的公司治理环境调查研究

公司治理结构与机制决定着中小企业技术创新行为。文章设计并发放包括中小企业公司章程、股权结构、三会状况、经营者、利益相关者五个方面内容的调查问卷,分析了中小企业技术创新的治理环境及其存在的主要问题,并为进一步提高中小企业公司治理水平提出政策建议,以更好地指导中小企业公司治理实践,进而提高中小企业技术创新的能力,培育持久竞争优势。     

Corporate Culture and Commitment: Impact on Performance of International New Product Development Programs

To achieve success in today's competitive environment, firms increasingly must develop new products for international markets. To this end, they must leverage and must coordinate broad creative capabilities and resources, which often are diffused across geographical and cultural boundaries. Recent writings in the globalization and in the new product development (NPD) literatures suggest that certain “softer” dimensions that define the behavioral environment of the firm—that is, the firm's organizational culture and management commitment—can have an important impact on the outcome of these complex and risky endeavors. But what comprises these dimensions and what type of behavioral environment scenario is linked to high performance in the international NPD effort of firms has not been articulated clearly. This research focuses on these softer dimensions, with the objective of understanding and idengifying their specific makeup as well as their relationship to the outcome of international NPD programs. Based on an integration of three literatures—organizational, new product development, and globalization—the present study develops a research instrument, comprising 18 behavioral environment measurement items as well as several outcome measures, that is administered to a broad empirical sample of goods and services firms active in NPD for international markets. Using empirical results from 252 international NPD programs, three key dimensions are idengified: (1) the innovation/globalization culture of the firm; (2) the commitment of sufficient resources to the NPD program; and (3) top management involvement in the international NPD effort. These dimensions are used to derive four clusters of firms, where each grouping represents a distinctly different behavioral environment scenario. In a preliminary analysis, it is ascertained that other aspects of the firm such as “degree of internationalization,” location of the respondent to the NPD center, and other company parameters do not form the basis of cluster membership. By linking measures of performance to the four behavioral clusters, findings are developed that clearly support this study's hypothesis that international NPD outcomes are associated with the softer behavioral environment dimensions. Scenario performance ranges from “very high” to “very low” and appears to be linked clearly to the dimensions studied. The lower‐performing firms tended to emphasize positively only one, or sometimes two, of the three dimensions. The “best performers” were found to be firms with a “positive balanced” approach to international NPD, where all three behavioral environment dimensions are supported strongly. In other words, firms in this scenario have an open and innovative global NPD culture, they ensure that sufficient resources are committed to the NPD program, and their senior managers play an active and involved role in the international NPD effort. Given this evidence of a direct link between behavioral environment and international NPD performance, the present study's findings suggest some important messages for managers charged with the development of new products for international markets.     

Accounting for Cross‐Country Differences in Employee Involvement Practices: Comparative Case Studies in Germany,Brazil and China

Employee involvement is a contested concept in organizations. While the mainstream of the research debate has focused on measuring the strength of employee involvement (EI), this article emphasizes the existence of very different forms of EI. It draws on case studies of the German, Brazilian and Chinese plants of a German automobile manufacturer to analyse forms of EI and to investigate their societal determinants. The article reveals considerable differences in the design of employee involvement between the self‐organization model and the competition/social involvement model. It shows how industrial relations and cultural factors lead to these very different approaches.     

The Decentralization of Decision Making and Employee Involvement within the Workplace: Evidence from Four Establishment Datasets

Participatory work practices, like teams, quality circles and joint consultative committees (JCCs) can, but do not necessarily, decentralize decision making and increase worker autonomy. We use broad, cross‐sectional establishment data from the European Union and three Commonwealth countries to measure the extent of decision making by workers across these countries, and to analyse how this measure varies with the use of participatory practices. Within Europe, workers in Sweden, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Ireland are most likely to be given the authority to make decisions. In Spain, Portugal and Italy, decentralized decision making is more unusual. While decision making is generally higher in establishments with teams, JCCs and quality circles, this result does not hold across all countries. Even where the relationships are significant, use of participatory practices explains a surprisingly small amount of the overall variation in decision making.     

Teamwork,Skill Development and Employee Welfare

There has been a sharp divergence in the literature about the benefits of teamwork. Some have claimed that it is solely in the interests of management, others that it is beneficial for employees and yet others that it makes little difference to either productivity or well‐being. This article draws upon the British Skills Survey Series. It shows that while teamwork did expand between the early 1990s and 2006, this was due primarily to the growth of the type of teamwork that allowed employees little in the way of decision‐making power. Indeed, there was a decrease in the prevalence of self‐directive teamwork. At the same time, our evidence shows that the benefits of teamwork, in terms of both enhancing work motivation and employee welfare, are confined to self‐directive teams, while non‐self‐directive teams suppress the use of personal initiative and discretion at work.     

Employee Perceptions of Job Influence and Organizational Participation Employee Perceptions

An analysis using British matched employer-employee data finds that workers in establishments operating employee participation schemes feel that they have greater influence over their jobs. Schemes involving broader forms of participation, such as representative participation and briefing groups, are shown to be more strongly associated with greater influence than those of a more focused type, such as quality circles and work teams. There is little evidence of a strong positive interaction between these types of schemes.     

Employee Participation,Ownership, and Productivity: A Theoretical Framework

A new conceptual framework to define and differentiate among diverse forms of employee ownership is developed. Two central rights associated with ownership, return and control rights, are identified. Their impact on individual motivation, individual performance, organizational structural variables and organizational performance is evaluated. We show how, over certain ranges of combinations of control and return rights, the relationship between alternative ownership arrangements and organizational performance may be nonlinear. The implications for the introduction of employee ownership and the evaluation of empirical work are considered.     

公司治理评价、治理指数与公司业绩--来自2003年中国上市公司的证据

本文基于2003年的评价样本，从中国上市公司治理指数（CCGI^NK）及其所涉及的六个维度进行实证研究发现：上市公司治理指数对总资产收益率、每股净资产、加权每股收益、每股经营性现金流量、总资产周转率、总资产年度增长率、财务预警值均有显著的正面影响．这表明拥有良好的公司治理机制有助于提升企业的盈利能力、股本扩张能力、运营效率、成长能力，有助于增强财务弹性和财务安全性。公司治理中所涉及的控股股东治理、董事会治理、经理层治理、信息披露、利益相关者治理、监事会治理机制，在很大程度上决定了上市公司是否能够拥有一套科学的决策制定机制与决策执行机制。而这将对公司业绩和公司价值产生直接而深远的影响。     

外部治理环境与公司内部治理结构效应比较

本文以深沪两市1039家上市公司2001—2005年的严格平衡面板数据作为样本.实证分析了外部治理环境的不同程度和公司内部治理结构的不同安排对公司价值的影响效应,并分行业细分了这种影响效应的差异。实证回归的结果发现。在外部治理环境当中只有法治化水平对总体样本的上市公司价值有显著的影响作用.而在公司内部治理结构当中则证实了正U型的股权结构效应。此外.外部治理环境与公司内部治理结构对公司价值的影响效应会因行业而有所差异。然而。从整体上看.前者的效应都明显地小于后者。研究结果表明。对于中国特殊的证券市场环境而言。同样存在着公司内部治理结构的合理安排可以作为公司价值保护机制的可能性。