...1. Labour or Industrial Relations. The term labour relations, also known as industrial relations, refers to the system in which employers, workers and their representatives and, directly or indirectly, the government interact to set the ground rules for the governance of work relationships. It also describes a field of study dedicated to examining such relationships. The field is an outgrowth of the industrial revolution, whose excesses led to the emergence of trade unions to represent workers and to the development of collective labour relations. A labour or industrial relations system reflects the interaction between the main actors in it: the state, the employer (or employers or an employers’ association), trade unions and employees (who may participate or not in unions and other bodies affording workers’ representation). The phrases “labour relations” and “industrial relations” are also used in connection with various forms of workers’ participation; they can also encompass individual employment relationships between an employer and a worker under a written or implied contract of employment, although these are usually referred to as “employment relations”. There is considerable variation in the use of the terms, partly reflecting the evolving nature of the field over time and place. There is general agreement, however, that the field embraces collective bargaining, various forms of workers’ participation (such as works councils and joint health and safety committees) and mechanisms...
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...FLEXIBILITY AND WORK-LIFE BALANCE: Comparing flexible policies in Sweden, Australia and the UK. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………………………………………………3 2. DEFINING WORKING-TIME FLEXIBILITY AND WORK-LIFE BALANCE………………………………3 3.1 FLEXIBILITY: EMPLOYERS´ APPROACH…………………………………………….……………………..4 3.2 WORK-LIFE BALANCE: EMPLOYEES´ APPROACH…………………………..………………………..6 3.3 TYPES OF FLEXIBILITY AND WORK-LIFE BALANCE……………….……….…………………………7 3. ANALYSING FLEXIBILITY AND WORK-LIFE BALANCE IN THREE DIFFERENT COUNTRIES: UK, SWEDEN AND AUSTRALIA…………………………………………….….……………………………………8 4.4 EVOLUTION OF TRENDS IN FLEXIBILITY………………………………………………………………….9 4.5 THE REGULATORY AND INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK OF THE EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIP……………………………………………………………………………………………………..12 4. MANAGING FLEXIBILITY AND WORK-LIFE BALANCE: CULTURAL FACTORS AN HR MANAGER NEEDS INSIGHT INTO, IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND THE FLEXIBILITY AND WORK-LIFE BALANCE TRADE-OFFS THAT ARE PREFERRED IN ANY PARTICULAR COUNTRY…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..16 5. GIVEN THE IMPERATIVES OF MODERN CAPITALISM, IS IT LIKELY TO SEE CONVERGENCE ACROSS COUNTRIES OR AT LEAST CONVERGENCE ACROSS THE NATIONAL OPERATIONS OF MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES?................................................................................18 6. CONCLUSIONS…………………………………………………………………………….……………………………..19 7. REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………………………………………………19 1. INTRODUCTION ...
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...3122-prelims.qxd 10/29/03 2:20 PM Page i International Human Resource Management 3122-prelims.qxd 10/29/03 2:20 PM Page ii 3122-prelims.qxd 10/29/03 2:20 PM Page iii second edition International Human Resource Management edited by A n n e - Wi l H a r z i n g J o r i s Va n R u y s s e v e l d t SAGE Publications London l Thousand Oaks l New Delhi 3122-prelims.qxd 10/29/03 2:20 PM Page iv © Anne-Wil Harzing and Joris van Ruysseveldt, 2004 First published 2004 Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means, only with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers. SAGE Publications Ltd 1 Olivers Yard London EC1Y 1SP SAGE Publications Inc 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, California 91320 SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd B-42, Panchsheel Enclave Post Box 4109 New Delhi 100 017 British Library Cataloguing in Publication data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0 7619 4039 1 ISBN 0 7619 4040 5 (pbk) Library of Congress Control Number...
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...| International Human Resource Management | Essay Title: I am an academic consultant to a British based Cosmetics PLC whose principal markets are in Britain where it has the largest market share of ‘ecologically and ethically friendly’ cleansing products. The Board of Directors is considering a proposal to move 50% of the company’s production process from Britain to China. You have been asked to advise the board on the implications for the company of making such a move. In your essay, critically evaluate the various industrial, economic employment relations and ethical factors, which the board will need to consider before deciding whether to move part of their manufacturing operation to China. | | Name & ID: Sharmin Sarna Word count: 2194 | 3/30/2012 | | International Human resource management (IHRM) describes as human resource management issues and problems arising from the internationalisation of business, and the HRM strategies, policies and practices that global firms pursue in response to the internationalisation process. The process of globalisation - the integration of markets, new markets (e.g. China) increased foreign direct investment by many multinational companies (MNCs), and cross-border integration of production and services. MNCs with distinctive competencies can potentially realise higher profits by applying those competencies in foreign markets, where local competitors lack similar competencies (Bratton & Gold, 2007). As firms...
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...International Comparative Trends in Collective Bargaining Susan Hayter Collective Representation, Coverage & Scope As Figure 1 shows, trade union membership has declined in many countries. There are a number of reasons for this. First, structural changes in labour markets, involving a decline in the share of manufacturing in total employment and increase in the share of services, eroded the traditional membership base of trade unions. In some regions, the dramatic decline in public sector employment as a result of structural adjustment and privatization had a detrimental effect on union membership. Second, legal reforms introduced in some countries prohibited compulsory unionisation (closed shops) and encouraged individual contracts. Third, the increase in international competition as a result of globalization undermined the bargaining power of trade unions and strengthened the hand of management. Finally, the growth of non-standard forms of employment, for example part-time or fixed-term contracts put a brake on union Trade union membership has declined in many countries. Collective bargaining is a key means for improving wages and conditions of work and for regulating employment relations. Integration into global markets has intensified competition. In response, enterprises sought to be more flexible by introducing new forms of work organization and changing their employment practices. These changes present important challenges for collective bargaining. Collective bargaining...
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...how the heritage of state socialism continues to influence the context of HRM in transition economies, and •• discuss the effects of cultural and institutional context on the HRM role and on employee expectations. 23 24 ESSENTIALS OF INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT Springtime in Paris As she savored the last bite of her croissant, Martha Pereaux, HR director for C3 Technologies, thought about how she would approach her latest “cross-cultural collision,” as she had come to think of them. In the year since she had moved to Paris from Houston, there had been many, but none quite as bizarre as this one. Martha had taken the big promotion to head up the HR division of the joint venture between Houston-based SuperChem and the French company. C3 developed technology for the oil industry, primarily new types of concrete that formed the barrier wall for offshore oil and gas wells. The joint venture was meant to take on the likes of the giant Schlumberger on its own turf and compete with them for valuable technical staff. Everyone said she was the perfect choice, having grown up in a bilingual family in Canada, with a chemical engineering degree and an MBA with an emphasis in international management. But nothing had really prepared her for the day-to-day challenges she faced in Paris. Every time she thought she had the French figured out something new would arise that mystified her. They could be so “French” she thought. She had called the meeting this...
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...Journal of Business Ethics (2007) 75:273–284 DOI 10.1007/s10551-006-9252-9 Ó Springer 2007 Cultural Values and International Differences Bert Scholtens Lammertjan Dam in Business Ethics ABSTRACT. We analyze ethical policies of firms in industrialized countries and try to find out whether culture is a factor that plays a significant role in explaining country differences. We look into the firm’s human rights policy, its governance of bribery and corruption, and the comprehensiveness, implementation and communication of its codes of ethics. We use a dataset on ethical policies of almost 2,700 firms in 24 countries. We find that there are significant differences among ethical policies of firms headquartered in different countries. When we associate these ethical policies with Hofstede’s cultural indicators, we find that individualism and uncertainty avoidance are positively associated with a firm’s ethical policies, whereas masculinity and power distance are negatively related to these policies. KEYWORDS: business ethics, codes of ethics, cultural values JEL: G300, L210, M140 Introduction Are there differences with respect to the ethical policies of firms that are headquartered in different countries? And are there differences among firms that belong to different industries? Chryssides and Bert Scholtens received his Ph.D. at the Universtiy of Amsterdam. Since 1999 he has been working at the Department of Finance of the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. His research...
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...Ltd Article. English Language. doi: 10.1386/jots.2.2.83/1 Towards a generic international human resource management (IHRM) model Jie Shen University of South Australia Abstract Keywords Reflecting the prevailing Western literature and based on an empirical study in Chinese multinational enterprises (MNEs), this study develops an IHRM model and argues that it can be widely applicable. The model indicates that an MNE’s IHRM policies and practices are the interaction of the home HRM system, firmspecific factors and host-contextual factors. The firm-specific and host-contextual factors have a differentiated, changing and concurrent impact on IHRM policies and practices. There is also interplay between IHRM policies and practices. Intervening factors and their impact may vary over time and in different contexts. IHRM IHRM model intervening factors Chinese IHRM multinational enterprises (MNEs) Internationalization and the effective use of international human resources are two major issues facing firms in today’s global economy. As more and more firms operate internationally, there is a clear need to develop an understanding of how to manage human resources that are located outside the domestic environment. An IHRM system is a set of distinct activities, functions and processes that are directed at attracting, developing, and maintaining the human resources of a multinational enterprise (MNE). These activities, functions and processes result from the...
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...SMEs and the Networks Governance Structure in Tanzania: Literature Review and Research Issues Lettice Rutashobya Issack Allan Faculty of Commerce and Management, University of Dar es salaam P.O Box. 35046 Dar es salaam, Tanzania Tel: 255 741 323661, 255 22 2410221 Fax: 255 22 2410510 Email: Lettice@fcm.udsm.ac.tz Jan-Erik Jaensson Umea University school of Business Administration and Economics, Sweden Jan-Erik.Jaensson@fek.umu.se Abstract This paper reviews the networks and the IMP literature to inform research on the network phenomenon in small and medium enterprises in Tanzania. It is noted that while a lot of work in this area has been done in Western Industrialized countries, little by way of serious research has been undertaken in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. The role of networks in enterprise development and growth in these countries remains unexplored and therefore unclear. It is argued here that research on networks needs to be contextualized if it is to gain currency. Integrating the networks and the IMP perspectives this paper identifies three crucial areas relevant for future research in Tanzania: viz, the network-performance nexus, female versus male networks and social networks. Introduction The main purpose of this paper is to provoke research on networks in Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) in Tanzania. We integrate the networks, IMP and entrepreneurship literature to justify research in this area. In the entrepreneurship literature networks have been...
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...Human Relations http://hum.sagepub.com/ 'Cultural diversity' at work: 'National culture' as a discourse organizing an international project group Ester Barinaga Human Relations 2007 60: 315 DOI: 10.1177/0018726707075883 The online version of this article can be found at: http://hum.sagepub.com/content/60/2/315 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of: The Tavistock Institute Additional services and information for Human Relations can be found at: Email Alerts: http://hum.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://hum.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Citations: http://hum.sagepub.com/content/60/2/315.refs.html >> Version of Record - Mar 6, 2007 What is This? Downloaded from hum.sagepub.com at Univ of Newcastle upon Tyne on October 26, 2011 Human Relations DOI: 10.1177/0018726707075883 Volume 60(2): 315–340 Copyright © 2007 The Tavistock Institute ® SAGE Publications Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore www.sagepublications.com ‘Cultural diversity’ at work: ‘National culture’ as a discourse organizing an international project group Ester Barinaga A B S T R AC T Research to date concurs in maintaining that performance of nationally homogeneous workgroups differs if compared to heterogeneous ones. Yet, results are mixed on the relationship between cultural diversity and workgroup outcomes. The article argues that cultural...
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...country’s overseas market includes foreign customer market, industrial market and government market. 2. Investigate global market Investigate global market is the process of gathering materials and information about target market, compare and analyze these information, to withdraw the fluctuation tendency of global market in every production lines, production groups to build a foundation to every business strategy of international companies To investigate global market, we must study the environment of the target market, more specifically, study about every details of the region of this market. The term Business Environment is composed of two words ‘Business’ and ‘Environment’. In simple terms, the state in which a person remains busy is known as Business. The word Business in its economic sense means human activities like production, extraction or purchase or sales of goods that are performed for earning profits. On the other hand, the word ‘Environment’ refers to the aspects of surroundings. Therefore, Business Environment may be defined as a set of conditions – Social, Legal, Economical, Political or Institutional that are uncontrollable in nature and affects the functioning of organization. Business Environment has two components: 2.1 Internal environment 2.1.a. Capital: Capital has a crucial role in establishing the type of business, in the optimal use of resources in business operations, the most important conditions for...
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...Master programme in Economic Growth, Innovation and Spatial Dynamics Corporate social responsibility as an organizational innovation: a comparative analysis of its implementation in the institutional frameworks of Sweden and the United Kingdom Klara Simcikova klara.simcikova.111@student.lu.se Abstract: Corporate social responsibility is a management concept originating from the Anglo-Saxon background and associated with the tradition of arm’s length relations between business and institutions in society. However, different institutional systems handle organizational innovations in dissimilar ways, and in the age of globalization, national institutions often interact with global ones. This study discusses how these mechanisms might affect CSR’s implementation in contrasting institutional frameworks – that is, Sweden and the UK, and finds that while explicit CSR seems to have converged, likely due to global pressures for equivalence, on a more fundamental level, domestic institutions remain major actors in influencing what version of CSR will develop. Even though the use of the concept, practices and motivation may appear similar, important differences emerge. CSR in Sweden seems to have a normative justification and an international focus due to the Swedish tradition of corporatist integration whereas in the UK, CSR is justified instrumentally, with a national focus, and is viewed as a complement to or substitute to state action. Key words: Corporate social responsibility,...
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...INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT: Definitions of IHRM: Scullion (2005) tracked the evolution of definitions of IHRM. He observed that although there has been little consensus, definitions have broadly concentrated on examining the HRM issues, problems, strategies, policies and practices which firms pursue in relation to the internationalization of their business. Schuler et al (2009) similarly recently positioned the different views that have existed about the nature of IHRM. IHRM encompasses: ‘. . . the worldwide management of people in the multinational enterprise’ (Poole, 1990; p1) ‘. . . human resource management in an international environment . . . problems created in an MNC performing business in more than one country, rather than those posed by working for a foreign firm at home or by employing foreign employees in the local firm’ (Briscoe and Schuler, 2004; p1) ‘. . .how MNCs manage their geographically dispersed workforce in order to leverage their HR resources for both local and global competitive advantage’ (Scullion, 2005; p5) ‘. . . a branch of management studies that investigates the design of and effects of organizational human resource practices in cross-cultural contexts’ (Peltonen, 2006; p523) ‘. . . all issues related to the management of people in an international context [including] human resource issues facing MNCs in different parts of their organizations [and] comparative analyses of HRM in different countries’ (Stahl and Björkman...
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...customers and guiding employee behavior. Furthermore, the results point out that core values internally indicate how the vision is to be achieved and that the vision may be more useful as a management tool than internal branding tool. Subcultures appear to be present in all three cases and the results suggest that corporate brands are strengthened by internalizing a main corporate culture which allows cultural interpretations within subcultures and by assuring that subcultures co-exist in harmony. Internal communication seems to support corporate and internal branding by applying a pull-principle in communications, creating forums for personal interaction and facilitating employees’ information search and processing. In terms of human resourcecontributions to brand building, practices such as recruitment, phasing in of new employees, internalization of core values among current employees and internal brand evaluations are put forward. Moreover, two additional concepts of importance in corporate and internal branding were found: acknowledgment and involvement. A total of 14 propositions of how internal branding practices contribute to corporate brand success, summarized in a holistic model, are presented. Keywords: Internal branding, corporate brand success, corporate branding, human resource management Author: Marjam Malmberg (21104) Tutor: Professor Björn Axelsson...
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...industrializing countries, have been able to purposefully use the elemental force of trade to boost growth and development within a relatively short time span. At the same time many other developing countries, especially the least developed countries (LDCs), have embarked on unilateral trade liberalization in recent years, with very limited results at best in terms of increased growth and development. To act as an engine of development, trade must lead to steady improvements in human conditions by expanding the range of people’s choice, a notion that the concept of human development 3 tries to capture. From this standpoint, the trade and development performance of a country cannot be seen as the mere sum of its economic growth and export performance. Instead, it is a composite notion, reflecting how trade relates to the range of choices available to people in a country at a particular point in time. The extent of such choice, in turn, depends much on the interplay among factors that determine both trade outcomes and human development outcomes. The trade and development index (TDI) provides a quantitative indication of the trade and development performance of countries by systematically accounting for the interactions among factors...
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