Track 2 - Workplace relations and HR - back to collectivism?
Over the last 15 years, varying HRM practices have had a major impact on management-employee relations. Spurred by a general economic upturn and a decentralisation of negotiations, relations between management and employees seem to become increasingly company-based and in some cases even individualised. Low levels of unemployment combined with a trend towards job designs with more autonomy and increased job satisfaction appear to enhance enterprise loyalty and to erode employee interest in collective representation at company level. In some cases, the HR manager seems to have replaced the shop steward as the link between the employee and management.
The present recession may affect relations between management and employees at company level, but in many cases HR policies and developments just build on ongoing trends. Management may use the present situation to put wages and working conditions under pressure, but high investments in employees might entail that employers are reluctant to downsize the core work force and will choose other measures to stay competitive. Do SMEs apply different strategies than MNCs when under pressure? What is the interplay between national IR systems and HRM when adjustments are needed? Traditionally, well-educated and native employees have been less likely to be laid off during downsizing. However, still more employers experience migrant workers as more flexible, mobile and less unionised than native workers. How does that affect workplace relations? And to what extent do work place relations affect the overall IR system?
Track 2 papers in pdf:
Collectivism and partnership, the main drivers of workplace social innovations
Paul-André Lapointe
The distribution and determination of pay schemes among firms and occupational groups - evidence from Denmark
Jørgen Stamhus & Flemming Ibsen
Board level representation - still an unused resource?
Inger Marie Hagen
Participation and codetermination among Norwegian employees - state of the art 2009; Union members and non union members compared
Eivind Falkum, Inger Marie Hagen & Sissel Charlotte Trygstad
New psychological contracts and flexicurity HR practices
Charissa Freese, René Schalk & Jaap Paauwe
HR Personnel and Social Scientists as Evil Judges. Some Challenges in Conflict Mapping and Mediation in Working Life
Robert Salomon
Market Imperfections and Firm-Sponsored Training
Matteo Picchio & Jan van Ours
Skill formation, employment relations and institutional support. A comparison of
emerging knowledge economies in East Asia with the Nordic countries.
Daniel Fleming & Henrik Søborg
The crisis of pay determination in the UK fire and police services: a study of modernization and resistance
Roger Seifert & Kim Mather
New principles of management in modern organizations
Søren Voxted & Jens Lind
Paths to productivity: strategic alternatives for Paperiliitto in sustaining high union relevance and employment in Finnish paper.
Paul Jonker-Hoffrrén & Guy Vernon
Workplace Bullying and the Role of Trade Unions: Issues of Voice and Collectivism
Hazel Mawdsley, Duncan Lewis and Michael Sheehan
Non-union employee representation, union avoidance and the managerial agenda
Jimmy Donaghey, Niall Cullinane, Tony Dundon & Tony Dobbins
The French public trade unions facing new forms of human ressource management in the public hospitals
Catherine Vincent & Michèle Tallard
What do non-union employee representatives do? A case study
Alan Tuckman & Jeremé Snook
Work and Employment in Distribution and Exchange: The New Satanic Mills?
Kirsty Newsome
Financial participation in Germany. Management's and works councils' view
Verena Tobsch, Simon Fietze & Wenzel Matiaske
Who is in control? The effect of employee participation on the quality of the work environment
Ole Busck, Herman Knudsen & Jens Lind
Another Great Transformation? Company-Level Employment Relations during and after the Financial Crisis
Stefan Zagelmeyer
Tracing and explaining the recent history of employee involvement and workplace unionism in the British postal service
David Beale & Stephen Mustchin
The provision of work-life balance arrangements of European companies: Public versus private, a multi-level approach
Heejung Chung
Employee participation and well-being: Denmark and New Zealand
Ray Markey, Herman Knudsen, Candice Harris, Katherine Ravenswood, Gay Simpkin, Ole Busck & Jens Lind
How does multinational ownership condition variable pay and how are MNCs differing from domestic counterparts?
Barbara Bechter
Is Global Financial Crisis the Real Cause or just a Camouflage for changes in HRM strategy? - Measuring Mismatch of HRM Rhetoric and Action amongst MNCs in Finland
Maarit Laiho & Satu Lähteenmäki
Power, Communicative Action and Worker Participation
Stefan Kesting
A study of performance appraisal using Spanish data
Sara Martinez-de-Morentin, Alberto Bayo-Moriones & Jose Enrique Galdon-Sanchez