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The purpose of this paper is to offer a critical examination of industrial relations in Denmark.

The approach is based upon available data and a mixture of Marxist theory and systems theory. The theoretical position is discussed in relation to the academic discourses on the main characteristics of Danish industrial relations and provides a review of the foundation and historical development of the Danish system.

From this basis, it is analysed how the stagnation or decline has taken place in recent years regarding representation of workers’ interest as well as the ability of the Danish system to maintain its key importance when challenged by decentralisation, decreasing union affiliation rates, cuts in unemployment insurance and social dumping due to labour migration.

It is an original paper which offers a critical analysis of the institutional decline and increasing inequality that are the result of the liberalist political-economic hegemony.

The purpose of this work is to comparatively study human resources management (HRM) areas in Brazil, at the national level, analyzing how companies considered labor market and labor relations aspects when building their strategies and when configuring people management models in place in the country (2014–2019), based on local conditions.

The subject was approached through qualitative analysis, encompassing document survey, systematic literature review, specialists' panel discussions, eight focus groups (43 human resources [HR] managers), interviews (16 union members), applying institutional approach to people management.

In regards to labor market and unions, HR areas faced different conditions across Brazilian regions. They have dealt with those influences on their strategic and quotidian decisions in an unstructured fashion. HR areas remain constructed as traditional, adjuvant and far from strategic level. In the institutionalization process – normative isomorphism – a professional HR jargon use was identified. HR areas usually act in collective bargaining, resorting to specialized professionals or consulting companies. During the economic crisis, HR professionals' attitude had a reactive nature, responding to organizations leadership, with little dedication to the emerging context.

This work enables important players like HR managers, union members and specialists in public policies to interpret the institutionalization phenomena of practices related to management, labor market and labor relations in the country.

Understanding the effects of the relations among state, companies and unions allows the different power vectors, acting upon the institutionalization process of people management areas in the Brazilian case, to be outlined.

This study applies the institutional approach to understand the economic and social heterogeneity affecting organizations in Brazil. It enhances the knowledge on HRM areas scope and their articulation toward labor market and relations.

On 12th June 2015, a strike by contract workers was declared at Rampur terminal, All India Business in oil corporation (ABC) Ltd. The strike had disrupted the normal services of the terminal. Under such circumstances, Mr Ravi Sharma (Head human resources of the eastern region, ABC Ltd.) was unable to decide how to save the company from such a disorderly situation without any increased loss of production and manpower cost liabilities. Could Mr Ravi Sharma resolve the issue of strike through an approach of strategic rapprochement when the disruptions made by workers and local miscreants went out of control?

In-depth interview in the year 2019 was conducted with the protagonist Mr Ravi Sharma and the trade union members at the regional office of ABC Ltd., Kolkata and Rampur Terminal, respectively, to convert the narratives in the form of a fictitious case study. Four rounds of interviews were conducted by the author to complete the data collection procedure. The company™s-related information was sourced through a secondary database furnished by company™s officials. However, the data about the company, the key characters and other recognizable information have been disguised to preserve the confidentiality of information.

The strike was called by the contract workers at Rampur terminal for two primary reasons, namely, wage increase and giving preference to local people for employment whether regular or contract. Mr Ravi Sharma could pacify the unforeseen situation by adopting two-pronged strategies, namely, first, he could successfully gain the confidence of the union leader and secondly, set the environment for the conciliation proceeding so that agreement settled will not be failed to be implemented.

The case uses a system perspective of Industrial relation proposed by Dunlop (1958) to highlight the interplay between employer, government and trade unions influenced by politics and mafia that determine eventually the industrial peace in the organization.

This paper presents an account of the UK campaign for the voluntary Living Wage, an example of civil regulation. The purpose of this paper is to identify and characterize the actors involved in the campaign, describe methods used and examine direct and indirect consequences of the campaign.

A mixed-method design is employed, reflecting the broadly framed purpose of the research. The research used semi-structured interviews with campaigners, union representatives and employers, observation of campaign activities and the creation of a database of Living Wage employers.

The campaign originated in the community organizing movement, but has involved a broad range of labor market actors, both “new” and “old.” A continuum of campaigning methods has been used, stretching from community mobilization to appeals to employer self-interest and corporate social responsibility. The campaign has recruited 3,000 employers, led to wage increases for thousands of workers and registered indirect effects by shaping the policies of governments, employers and unions.

The research presents a novel account of the UK’s distinctive Living Wage campaign, a notable example of the civil regulation of the labor market.

A “living” wage (LW) is conventionally defined as enabling meaningful participation in society above subsistence through, for example, recreation, supporting a family, and savings. There is increasing debate over LWs due to growing inequality, rising living costs and welfare reform but this remains largely framed by the econometric cost-benefit parameters that apply to minimum wage regulation. The capabilities approach advocated by Sen (1999) offers a different perspective that is inclusive of choice, contingencies and the inter-connections between quality of (paid) work and private life. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The paper adopts this framework and utilises a qualitative exploration of the narratives of 606 New Zealand employees to understand perceived wage effectiveness. The results suggest that a focus on a specific LW rate might be conceptually limiting, in comparison to a LW range.

First, the findings indicate that there is a pivot range in which people move from self-assessed “survival” to “decent” income. Second, a LW may have more than a simply monetary effect in better meeting employees’ living costs; it can also improve well-being through subjective perceptions of valued freedoms to do with job satisfaction, equity and security.

The results thus draw attention to a wider notion of a LW in terms of personal and family well-being, utilising a capabilities approach, with implications for organisational practice, policy and theory concerning sustainable livelihood and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

This article empirically assesses the extent to which factors rooted in the cultural and institutional framework in sub-Saharan African organisational contexts challenge and resist the penetration of global practices and how these dynamics impact on human resource management (HRM). This article examines whether universalistic perspectives are significant for African HRM. The article discusses the tensions between the contributions derived from local and historical factors and that of other environmental agents to African HRM practice.

The study is based on a survey among 100 practising African HRM executives representing significant organisations in sub-Saharan Africa.

The main findings established that in spite of westernisation and globalising trends in learning and development in Africa, human resource practices are still profoundly embedded in the African cultural fabric. Significant elements of cultures in sub-Saharan Africa pervade organisational processes; such aspects include collectivism and paternalism, which persistently resist change. The article, however, concludes that the resisting parts of sub-Saharan African cultures which are viewed as counterproductive can have positive resonance if constructively deployed.

This article contributes to African HRM literature, a significantly under-researched field. The paper provides an opportunity for African HR managers to be more pragmatic in identifying the contextual issues and aspects of African culture that could be value-adding in a fast-changing managerial field. The findings demonstrate that human resource strategies and policies have specific cultural orientations and reflect the societal predispositions of a particular collectivity; this epitomizes the intertwining of cultural paradigms, political spheres and organisational life in sub-Saharan Africa.

As a crucial institutional form established since the Chinese economic reform, the system of competitive local governments has been shaping the characteristics of China's socialist market economy to a considerable degree.

This study not only adopts the view of existing studies that attribute the economic motive of local governments to rent and consider land public finance as a means through which local governments carry out strategic investment but also attempts to further develop the view within a Marxist analytical framework.

As a result, the local governments have helped to maintain an incredibly high investment rate over a considerable period of time, facilitating the continuous, rapid growth of the Chinese economy.

This study concludes that China's local governments function as the productive allocator and user of rent in the strategic investment based on land public finance and thereby embed themselves in the relative surplus-value production initially arising from competition amongst enterprises, forming the dual structure of relative surplus-value production unique to China's economy.

At present, the Chinese economy has entered the “new normal” phase with the transformation of development stages from the low-income to the middle-income ones. Accordingly, there appear a series of innovations in development theories. Innovations involve creative destructions. Therefore, innovative development theories at the present stage either deny the prevailing principles of development economics, or deny the theories that once effectively guided development at the low-income stage, or even sublate some of the development polices which were propelled and proved effective at the beginning of the reform and opening-up. The fundamental reason is that, as the development stages evolve, there occur new development tasks, new periodical characteristics and new laws of development. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Any development theory from abroad will find it difficult to correctly guide and clarify development problems in a socialist country, such as the huge population and the extreme imbalance between the urban and the rural and among regional developments.

In conclusion, China, as a large world economy, has made innovations in its economic development theory, which indicates that it intends to perfect itself rather than seek hegemony. As the world’s second largest economy, China should adapt to the transformation and further free people’s minds instead of adhering to the old patterns of thinking. It should think over the path of development for a great world economy from the historical starting point of a large world economy and find development strategies to transform itself from a large economy to a great economy, so as to realize the dream of the Chinese nation to build a powerful country.

Only political economy studies both the relations of production and the productive forces, and only a theory combining both can correctly guide China’s economic development, which especially needs to be promoted by taking advantage of socialist economic system. Therefore, the first and foremost principle for a socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics is to insist on liberating and developing productive forces.

The challenges of the 21st century, post-industrial society are increasingly complex. They will not be solved by the actions of individual, “heroic” leaders; instead, they require the participation of diverse stakeholders in order to make progress. Through a discussion of the evolution of leadership theory, we demonstrate that theories emerging from a post-industrial paradigm highlight the collective dimensions of leadership in contrast to the leader-centric theories of the Industrial Era. We draw from this literature to problematize the leader-centric nature of community leadership programs in the United States by specifically examining their sponsorship, content, and structure. Finally, we offer a vision for how to re-imagine community leadership programs so that they are more responsive to the complexity of the 21st century by drawing upon collective leadership and postmodern curriculum theory.

The socialist construction with Chinese characteristics must be based on history and reality. According to the requirements of liberation and development of productivity, efforts must be made to reform and improve the production relations, as well as continually consolidate the socialist system with Chinese characteristics. The purpose of this paper is to prove the necessity and superiority of a socialist system through China’s modernization achievements.

Marxist political economics is a critical legacy from classical economics. Its core question is also social production and distribution, which is epitomized in the labor theory of value and the theory of surplus value.

Regarding the significant principles that must be followed, these speeches summarized the logical system and prominent features of the socialist political system in the new normal from several significant and interrelated aspects such as basic methods, core propositions, main tasks and fundamental goals.

The socialist system with Chinese characteristics will gradually appear through further research and prove its superiority. How can a socialist system with Chinese characteristics innovate and develop? Does the system have a future? Is there any historical necessity for the socialist system to replace the capitalist system in human history? These are the questions that need urgent answers and in-depth exploration.