Interpreting budget deficits in Latin America: the methods with application to Argentina

Fiscal policy in Latin American countries is too often evaluatedon the basis of raw deficit figures. This study demonstrateshow the effects of inflation on the deficit must be removedin order to derive the discretionary component of fiscal policy.Once this correction is made, fiscal policy can be evaluatedby testing the movement of the deficit with respect to alternativepolicy targets. As an illustration I employ Argentine data inorder to decompose the deficit and determine the degree to whichit is a reflection of budget endogeneity versus populism/socialconflict.     

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.     

Employee Representation and Consultative Voice in Multinational Companies Operating in Britain

Multinational companies (MNCs) from different countries of origin are widely held to have distinct preferences regarding the presence of employee representative structures and the form that employee 'voice' over management decisions takes. Such preferences are said to derive from the national models that prevail in the different countries of origin in which MNCs are based. Findings from a large-scale survey of the UK operations of MNCs indicate that country-of-origin influences on patterns of employee representation and emphasis on direct or indirect channels of employee 'voice' are attenuated by other factors, notably sector and method of growth. They also reveal significant recent innovation in representation and voice arrangements by this key group of employers.     

The conditions for international human resource management: two case studies

A move towards the transnational or global corporation is widely canvassed. Rather less attention has been devoted to how the multinational company

actually organizes its HR activities or to the conditions which permit a transnational form of organization to emerge and survive. The paper explores these two issues, using case study evidence from two British-owned companies. The model of the transnational suggests that authority is devolved and control is dispersed. The paper shows, however, that central control was greater than is often thought. As for the conditions for transnationality, key immediate influences were the length of time for which the firms had been multinationals and the routes taken to attain this state; these influences were underpinned by differences in market structure. Even where a transnational approach had been developed, future competitive trends suggested that it might be under threat. The implication is that the‘transnational solution’may be attainable only in certain types of firm and that it may prove to be unstable.     

Conceptual approaches to the transfer of employment practices in multinational companies: an integrated approach

This article examines the transfer of employment practices across borders within multinational companies. We contrast market‐based, cross‐national comparative and micro‐political perspectives on this issue and argue for an integrated approach that focuses on interrelationships between markets and institutions on the one hand and the material interests of actors on the other. We develop this argument using data from a multi‐level case study of a multinational in the US and Britain.     

Coming unstuck? In search of the “corporate glue” in an international professional service firm

Much has been made of “networks” and corporate “culture” as sources of cohesion in increasingly loosely structured international firms. But how strong is the “corporate glue”? Using a case study of human resource management (HRM) in an international accounting firm, this article shows that growth and internationalization may themselves weaken the corporate glue, just as the need for global integration of activities increases. The resulting stresses lead to a greater emphasis on formal bureaucratic structures and processes, further calling into question the role of traditional culture. Alternative strategies for managing these tensions are proposed. © 1995 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Leadership and the aggregation of international collective action

Political entrepreneurs, or leaders, play an important rolein overcoming under-provision and coordination problems inherentin international public goods. Recent examples include the MontrealProtocol on ozone depletion and NATO peacekeeping. We demonstratethat the Prisoner's Dilemma need not be a fait accompli of internationalcollective action, owing to the various means for aggregatingcontributions (summation, best shot, better shot, weakest linkand weaker link). Using evolutionary game theory, we examine'leading by example', whereby a leader unilaterally providesan intermediate contribution, and matching behavior there beyond.It is shown to be a noncooperative means for achieving cooperativeprovision.