Examining human resource management outsourcing in Hong Kong

This study explored the state of human resource (HR) outsourcing in the Asian context, a particularly important subject given its rapid proliferation in Europe and North America, the inconsistent and limited evidence from prior research, and its strategic importance to the human resource management (HRM) function. Drawing on both quantitative and qualitative data and the transaction cost, resource-based, and institutional perspectives, we found that although respondents were generally favourable towards outsourcing, that in practice its adoption and diffusion were in a nascent stage in Hong Kong. Decisions to outsource were, by and large, incremental and experimental and influenced by a range of contextual factors (e.g., availability of in-house expertise, skills and creativity, strategic priorities, legislation (coercive), availability of external service providers, and industry and peer (mimetic) influence). Despite considerable pressure to cut costs, instead of outsourcing in the first instance, firms placed greater emphasis on maximising internal resource utilization (insourcing). Implications for practice and suggestions for future research are also provided.     

Friend or Foe? The effects of contingent employees on standard employees' work attitudes

Using data from a large-scale national survey of employers and employees in Britain, we examine the impact of the presence of contingent employees on work attitudes of standard (full-time, indefinite-term) employees. Drawing on differing explanations for the increased use of contingent employment arrangements, we derive competing hypotheses about how this use affects standard employees' work perceptions and attitudes, and explore the impact of a number of potentially intervening factors. We find that contingent employees have little effect on standard employees' perceptions of work overload, but strongly reduce perceived job security, which in turn, mediates the negative effects of contingent employees on job satisfaction and organizational loyalty.     

Human resources in the German maritime industries: ‘back-sourcing’ and ship management

In today's global shipping industry have management functions often been outsourced to separate companies and to overseas locations. With the appearance of socalled ‘flags of convenience’ the world shipping industry has increasingly registered commercial vessels overseas. Following this trend, human resource management functions have also been relocated, with the opening of recruitment offices and the use of HR agencies outside OECD countries. Recently, new German regulation has sought to attract previously outsourced HRM functions back to Germany. A case study of such a newly established firm, called ‘Reimarus’, will exemplify the impact of the new regulation on HR firms in shipping. The following paper analyses this process based on an empirical study of Germany's commercial shipping industry.     

四步减少供应商风险

那些依靠供应商提供商品或服务的公司总是面临着由此而带来的财务风险.在经济环境艰难的时候,总有一些供应商要走向破产,在他们无力偿还债务的同时,金融机构又拒绝为他们提供每日运营所需的短期贷款.当企业走到快要山穷水尽的时候,他们会被迫不惜以降低产品质量和延长交付时间为代价来削减成本,而当企业这样做的时候,破产也就离他们不远了...     

Is fairness blind?—The effect of framing on preferences for effort-sharing rules

This paper uses a choice experiment to study citizens' preferences for effort-sharing rules for reducing carbon dioxide emissions. For a given global cost and level of emission reduction, we study the willingness to pay for various rules that imply different distributions of the cost between EU, the US, China and Africa. The focus of this paper is on the use of two different treatments, one where the respondents were informed about the country (or country group) names and one where the names were replaced with anonymous labels A-D. This allows us to test whether people's preferences for effort-sharing rules depend on the framing of the problem. We find that the ranking of the rules and the strength of the preferences are not significantly different between the two treatments, and hence we find no evidence of ingroup bias in preferences for effort-sharing rules.     

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 glass menagerie of urban governance and social cohesion: concepts and stakes/concepts as stakes

Social goals and social action are increasingly framed by a host of ambiguously egalitarian notions. The ambiguity of notions like ‘social cohesion’ originates principally in the tentative accommodation of competition and social justice that former radical approaches considered in fundamental contradiction. The social cohesion terminology has become part of political realism and the question is whether such notions are or could be fuelling practices that promote social justice, overcoming the ambiguity/contradiction of the different/competing interpretations nebulously juxtaposed in their fluid definition. This article comments on interrelated ambiguities in the content of social cohesion, governance and tolerance starting with a reformulated goal (social cohesion) which necessitates new means of implementation (‘new governance’) that entail the dominance of non‐conflictual social relations (tolerance). Social cohesion, governance and tolerance are Janus‐faced concepts, full of restrictions and contradictions but also full of possibilities related to the mobilizing potential of their inherently positive meaning. Social cohesion and governance would become real stakes if radical discourse and politics tried to invest them with content and meaning that would effectively transgress their legitimating function of conservative social regulation, and create massive demand for more social justice both in terms of redistributive justice and of democracy. L'action et les objectifs sociaux sont de plus en plus conditionnés par une foule de notions soi‐disant égalitaires. L'ambiguîté de concepts tels que la cohésion sociale émane surtout de l'essai d'adaptation entre concurrence et justice sociale, considérées précédemment par les approches radicales comme fondamentalement contradictoires. La terminologie de la cohésion sociale s'est peu à peu intégrée au réalisme politique, mais il s'agit de savoir si de telles notions nourrissent ou pourraient nourrir des pratiques favorables à la justice sociale, en éliminant la contradiction/ambiguîté des interprétations diverses/concurrentes vaguement juxtaposées dans le flou des définitions. L'article étudie des ambiguïtés corrélatives contenues dans cohésion sociale, gouvernance et tolérance, en partant d'un objectif reformulé (cohésion sociale) nécessitant des moyens originaux de mise en uvre (‘nouvelle gouvernance’) porteurs de relations sociales non‐conflictuelles (tolérance). Ces trois notions à deux visages sont empreintes de restrictions et contradictions, mais aussi de possibilités liées au potentiel mobilisateur de leur sens intrinsèquement positif. Cohésion sociale et gouvernance deviendraient des intérêts réels si le discours radical et la politique s'efforçaient de leur donner des contenus et significations qui transgresseraient effectivement leur fonction justificative de régulation sociale conservatrice, et créeraient une demande massive pour davantage de justice sociale en termes de justice redistributive et de démocratie.