Management Research News: Volume 19 Issue 4/5
Table of contents
Micro‐Macro Linkages in Higher‐Performance Employment Systems
Clair Brown, Michael ReichOur analysis of Japanese and US employment and wage systems examined institutional constraints upon firms' human resource systems, especially for high performance workplaces. We…
Financial Markets and Human Resource Management: Short‐term Dictation or Missing Information? — The French Personnel Report Experiment
Charles‐Henri D'ArcimolesIt is often said that financial markets and investors do not fully consider human resource management issues. Speculation and short‐term pressures sometimes dictate investors…
The Missing Link: High Performance and HRM
Jim Lowe, Rick Delbridge, Nick OliverIn recent years certain writers have put forward the notion that a distinctive and definite change has occurred in the way in which employees are managed (Beer et al, 1985; Guest…
20 Years Later — What Have We Learned on the Measurement of Organizational Effectiveness Since Steers Model?
Yehuda BaruchIn his seminal work, published in the ASQ (1975), Steers identified the main problems concerned with the measurement of organizational effectiveness (OE). He suggested a general…
Reshaping Work Organization in British Firms
Martyn WrightThere has been much discussion of the reform of work organization in British companies in recent years. Much of the debate has been informed either by case studies of a small…
The Emergence of Banking Panopticons
Mark HughesThe research is based upon HRM and technological changes and explanations of these changes offered to employees in the “big four” clearing banks between 1990 and 1994. The…
Organising Employment for Higher Performance in the UK Television Industry
Gillian Ursell“Man is the measure of all things”, to paraphrase the Sophists. Alternatively, one could invoke the Marxist assertion of the social and relative character of the concept of value…
The Whitecoated Worker in the High Performance Company
Keith RandleThe environment within which the pharmaceutical industry is operating is dynamic and highly competitive. Government cost‐ cutting in healthcare, the rise of generic drugs…
High Trust, High Knowledge, High Stress — The Inherent Ambiguities of Japanese High Performance
John SalmonFew western commentators now seriously doubt the industrial achievements of Japanese manufacturing industry. Not many, however, can find a common explanation for the era of high…
HRM in the New Economic Environment: An Empirical Study of India
Paul R. Sparrow, Pawan S. BudhwarThis paper is developed from the second author's ongoing Ph.D. research, which focuses on the managerial thinking (personnel specialists) about strategic management of human…
Change in Employee Relations — Can Line Managers Deliver?
Jeff Hyman, Ian CunninghamThis paper originates from a 30‐month study funded by the Leverhulme Trust on ‘Preparing Managers for Changes in Employee Relations’. The study consists of two linked empirical…
Perspectives on Employee Performance
Peter StannackThis paper describes a research project which was designed to identify
Productivity, Machinery and Skills in the United States and Western Europe: Precision Engineering
Geoff Mason, David FinegoldPrevious intra‐European comparisons carried out at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) have identified close links between inter‐country differences in…
The Link Between HR Strategy and Training: An Examination of French and UK Organisations
Olga TregaskisTraining and development has traditionally been excluded from strategic organisational issues. However, increasing competition and the conceptualisation of human resources as a…
Involving Doctors in Management: A Survey of the Management Development Career Needs of Selected Doctors in NHS Wales
Richard Walker, Philip MorganThe pace of the development within the NHS initiated both by recent government reforms aimed at introducing a more businesslike attitude to health care, coupled with advances in…
Strategic Interventions? Realising the potential of strategic training and development for high performance
Brian Blundell, Lyn Daunton, Mike Saunders, Bob TownleyThe attitude of owners and senior managers in small and medium sized businesses towards training and development is a significant factor in determining the provision of…
The Perception of Training and Development for a High Performance Economy in the People's Republic of China
Mohammed BranineThis paper is an eye‐witness account of how training and management development policies are put into practice in Chinese state‐owned enterprises. Observations are made on how…
The Distribution of Financial Participation Schemes in British Workplaces
Keith Whitfield, Michael PooleFinancial participation schemes have become much more prevalent in recent years. It is clear that many organisations view them as an important component in the search for…
The New Pay — Losing Sight of Reality?
Geoff WhiteThe growth of more contingent pay systems has been a key development in the 1980s and 1990s. Various contextual changes — such as the pattern of employment, the decline of…
Linking Corporate and Reward Strategies for High Performance: The Case of the NHS
Paola BradleyCurrent management thinking centres on the concept that the “customer is king”. However, poor performance by demoralised staff erodes service quality and customer satisfaction…
Peformance Culture: The Causes and Effects of Performance Pay in Public Services
Edmund HeeryIt is commonly argued, not least by the Conservative Government, that failings in public services stem, not from inadequate financing but from poor management. Accordingly, the…
TQM and Employee Involvement in Context
Adrian Wilkinson, Graham Godfrey, Mick MarchingtonThere is a basic ambiguity in TQM in that, while managers seek the commitment and co‐operation of their employees, increased control over the work process is a cornerstone of TQM…
The Case for Employee Empowerment as a Means of Enhancing Organisational Performance
Penny GardinerThe potential for increasing organisational performance by empowering employees at all levels of the workforce and providing opportunities for participation and learning is now…
High Performance Teams: Riding the Cycle
Tony J. Watson, Julie RosboroughThe paper attempts to make generalisations about high performance work systems drawing on a study of the implementation of team working and the replacement of traditional…
The Consequences of Flexible Working Times on German Industrial Relations
Michael WhittallIn the UK the flexibilisation of working time in relation to part‐time working has been one of the key areas identified in the growing polarisation of the workforce along with…
Flexibility, Job Security and Self‐Employment in the UK Construction Industry
Peter NisbetDoes flexibility in employment relations necessarily mean a polarisation into desirable and undesirable jobs? The Core/Periphery labour force structure was developed as the model…
Workplace Industrial Relations Under Stress: Ten Year After the Single Union Deal at Norsk Hydro
Alan TuckmanIn 1985 workers for the Norsk Hydro Fertilizers signed new contracts under the company's New Personnel Package, effectively — through pressure on individual workers and the…
The Flexible Psychological Contract? Career Management in an Era of Insecurity
Patrick McGovern, Philip Stiles, Veronica HopeThis paper proposes to examine the management of the psychological contract — particularly that for professional and managerial staff — in the context of organizations with a…