Search results

This chapter is aimed at filling two important gaps in the large literature on high-involvement work system (HIWS). First, the existing literature tends to focus on North America and Western Europe, and detailed information on HIWS outside of the two regions (especially Asia) is still limited. Second, while there is a large body of quantitative evidence, the literature is relatively scant on detailed account of exactly how specific HIWS practices are implemented in the real workplace. This chapter draws on our extensive field research at firms in Japan, the United States, and Korea, and presents real-world examples of HIWS of firms in Japan, Korea, and the United States. Our detailed account of the implementation of HIWS in the three countries points to an intriguing process of transnational diffusion of HIWS. Japanese firms as early experimenters of HIWS posed a challenge to U.S. firms in the global marketplace, resulting in the trans-pacific diffusion of HIWS which is modified to the U.S. corporate culture. Due to its geographical proximity and historical connections to Japan, Korean firms were initially heavily influenced by Japanese HIWS. However, with the rising link to the United States and Europe, Japanese influence appears to have been waning, and interest in U.S. style HIWS and European-style state-mandated works council has risen, suggesting that a hybrid model may be emerging in Korea.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide fresh evidence and insights on a causal link from product market competition to the nature and scope of employee involvement using a case study of two Japanese manufacturing firms.

The firm’s investment decision on two kinds of innovation activities, discrete innovation and continuous improvement, is likely to be a key driver for the adoption (or lack thereof) of the high-performance work system (HPWS) and employee involvement programs. As product market competitionintensifies (e.g., rising international competition and weakening exclusivesupplier–manufacturer relationships), the firm is likely to shift its innovation strategy from bottom-up continuous improvement activities, which almost always accompany employee involvement, to top-down discrete innovation activities, which downplays employee involvement. Such a shift of the firm’s innovation strategy results in declining employee involvement.

This study will inform policymakers, practitioners of management, and the public about the importance of paying particular attention to the firm’s innovation strategy in understanding the interplay between product market competition and the HPWS and employee involvement.

In spite of the rich body of evidence on the effects of HPWS, there are at least two relatively unexplored yet potentially important questions: (i) The conditions under which the HPWS is best introduced and best sustained; and (ii) in what way the HPWS will need to evolve when external environments change. Our findings fill this important gap in the literature by providing novel evidence and insight on the causal link from product market competition to employee involvement.

There is abundant evidence that innovative work practices (IWPs) of various kinds, such as teams, quality control circles, no-layoff policies, job rotation, and employee ownership, have spread rapidly in developed market economies during the past thirty years or so. Between 1983 and 1993, Freeman, Kleiner, and Cheri (2000) report survey evidence that the number of nonmonetary incentive programs offered by firms increased by 500% in the United States. Similar trends appear to be at work in other countries including the United Kingdom, Japan (e.g., Kato, 2000), Denmark (e.g., Datta Gupta, & Eriksson, 2004), and Finland (e.g., Kalmi & Kauhanen, 2008). Whereas the corresponding evidence for transition economies is much slimmer, the available evidence is also suggestive that such practices are limited though spreading.¹ Unsurprisingly, both theoretical and an empirical literature have appeared to examine the impact of IWPs on both business performance and employee outcomes. As different scholars from diverse fields in the broad area of industrial relations have applied varying approaches to explore several research questions, those literatures have grown rapidly. At the same time, while it is clear that analytical work of the kind is becoming commonplace for advanced economies, work that focuses on developing and transition economies is very slim. As it is important to determine whether findings for firms in advanced market economies carry over to other economies, the first contribution of this chapter is to extend the geographical coverage of the empirical literature. This we do by assembling and analyzing new survey data set for a large Croatian manufacturing firm with our chapter perhaps representing one of the first such investigations for a former communist economy.

Compensation systems have been shifting away rapidly from a fixed-wage contractual payment basis in many nations around the world (Ben-Ner & Jones, 1995). Particularly prominent is the explosion in the use and interest in employee financial participation schemes, such as profit sharing, employee stock ownership, stock option, and team incentive (or gainsharing) plans. With the rising use and interest in such employee financial participation schemes, many studies have examined their effects on enterprise performance in industrialized countries.¹ Most prior studies consider either profit sharing plans (PSPs) in which at least part of the compensation for no executive employees is dependent on firm performance (typically profit)² or employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) through which the firm forms an ESOP trust consisting of its nonexecutive employees and promotes ownership of its own shares by the trust.³ Moreover, an increasing number of firms (in particular “new economy” firms) are extending the use of stock option plans (SOPs) to include nonexecutive employees in recent years.⁴ Finally, with the rising popularity of “high-performance workplace practices (notably self-directed teams),” more firms are introducing team incentive plans (TIPs), which makes at least part of the compensation for employees dependent on performance of the team or work group to which they belong.⁵

While innovative work practices (IWPs), such as self-directed teams and performance related pay, have become commonplace in firms around the world, little is known about their nature and effects in emerging market countries. This study uses new data collected from face-to-face interviews with large samples of workers from two manufacturing firms in Lithuania in 2005 mainly to investigate hypotheses concerning the effects of IWPs on firm and worker outcomes. In these cases we find: (i) the range of IWPs is limited though particular IWPs, notably self-directed teams, are strongly evident; (ii) in view of the historical legacy, the incidence of some outcomes, notably monitoring, was surprisingly high; (iii) typically self-directed teams positively impact worker outcomes, notably job satisfaction and employee involvement, though effects on monitoring and effort are less frequent; (iv) typically equity ownership and bonuses do not affect worker outcomes, though positive impacts on effort and peer monitoring sometimes are found; (v) the evidence for complementary effects of teams and performance pay or financial participation is very weak. In the main, these findings do not support the mutual gains theory that IWPs positively impact both firm and worker outcomes.

The study here examines how business actors adapt to changes in networks by analyzing their perceptions or their network pictures. The study is exploratory or iterative in the sense that revisions occur to the research question, method, theory, and context as an integral part of the research process.

Changes within networks receive less research attention, although considerable research exists on explaining business network structures in different research traditions. This study analyzes changes in networks in terms of the industrial network approach. This approach sees networks as connected relationships between actors, where interdependent companies interact based on their sensemaking of their relevant network environment. The study develops a concept of network change as well as an operationalization for comparing perceptions of change, where the study introduces a template model of dottograms to systematically analyze differences in perceptions. The study then applies the model to analyze findings from a case study of Norwegian/Japanese seafood distribution, and the chapter provides a rich description of a complex system facing considerable pressure to change. In-depth personal interviews and cognitive mapping techniques are the main research tools applied, in addition to tracer studies and personal observation.

The dottogram method represents a valuable contribution to case study research as it enables systematic within-case and across-case analyses. A further theoretical contribution of the study is the suggestion that network change is about actors seeking to change their network position to gain access to resources. Thereby, the study also implies a close relationship between the concepts network position and the network change that has not been discussed within the network approach in great detail.

Another major contribution of the study is the analysis of the role that network pictures play in actors' efforts to change their network position. The study develops seven propositions in an attempt to describe the role of network pictures in network change. So far, the relevant literature discusses network pictures mainly as a theoretical concept. Finally, the chapter concludes with important implications for management practice.

Citizen participation has attracted attention in the context of decentralization. In a disaster reconstruction process, a business plan for reconstruction can be modified in line with diversified situations of disaster-affected areas by citizen participation. In Japan, the central government makes a decision about the authority in charge of an overall disaster reconstruction and the budget planning, whereas local governments are in charge of creating and implementing a business plan for reconstruction of each local municipality. Therefore, local governments play an important role in organizing citizen participation to realize the reconstruction that fits reality. It has yet to be shown as decentralization reform and citizen participation system in Japan produce the socio-spatial inequality after the Great East Japan Earthquake. However, it remains to be elucidated how local government and community have to operate the institution about citizen participation during the disaster reconstruction process. I have been doing fieldwork on three tsunami-affected sites in Miyagi Prefecture over past 4 years: Onagawa Town, Higashimatsushima City, and Natori City. I have investigated the social processes of making and implementing a reconstruction plan, and citizen participation. The findings from my fieldwork are as follows: First, citizen participation is based on organizing residents at the community level. Second, traditional community organization (such as neighborhood organization abd industrial associations) contribute to organize residents especially in the emergency phase. Third, as the disaster phase moves, local government and community organization need to change the previous participation frame to ensure residents representation and policy legitimacy.

The purpose of this research was to investigate a successful company, Atlas Container Corporation, that practices the values of egalitarianism, democracy, mutuality, and transparency. Moreover, this research sought to identify the human resource policies and practices (HRPP) used to reinforce these values and create a distinctive culture.

An ethnographic approach was used to produce a case study. Interviews, observations, archives, and documents were all part of the collected data.

The HRPP were distinctively different from the normal practices in the industry. Thus, these differences appeared to explain its success.

While this case study focused only on a single organization, it provides an illustration of the importance of reflecting the organization’s culture through its HRPP, and of how they could operate synergistically for optimal impact.

This case illustrated how a company following a set of HRPP contrary to industry norms could succeed. In addition, it pinpointed some areas where HRPP either reduced costs or made the company more responsive to customer needs.

This case illustrated that a company can be both humanistic and efficient. Moreover, it demonstrated a number of ways that the financial success of the company could be shared with its employees.

A review of the literature found that companies that practiced a progressive set of HRPP and made decisions based on democratic principles are rare. Thus, knowledge of such a company should be valuable.