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Alice Rangel de Paiva Abreu is Director of the Office of Science and Technology of the Organization of American States in Washington DC, and Professor of Sociology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. For three years she was Vice President of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). She is also a member of the Executive Committee of the International Sociological Association and President of RC30 Sociology of Work. Her research interests include industrial restructuring and gender and work. alice.abreu@br.inter.net Graciela Bensusán is a professor/researcher at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco, and is also affiliated with FLACSO in Mexico City. She is the author of numerous books and articles on comparative labor policy, organizations, and institutions, including Trabajo y Trabajadores en el México Contemporáneo (co-editor, 2000), which received the Latin American Studies Association Labor Studies Section award for best book. bensusan@servidor.unam.mx Leni Beukema is Assistant Professor of Labor Studies in the Department of General Social Sciences at the University of Utrecht. Her research activities and publications have – beside matters concerning labor movements – focussed on quality and organization of work, network-organizations and time management, and globalization/localization at work. l.beukema@fss.uu.nl Bob Carter is Senior Lecturer in the Sociology Department, the University of Leicester, UK. His original interests were focused on the class position of white-collar workers and the nature of their organizations. He has taught trade unionists, has written on labor process theory and the distinctiveness of public sector employment, and is currently developing research on comparative US/UK union strategies. bc20@leicester.ac.uk Harry Coenen is a Professor of Social Sciences (labor studies) in the Department of General Social Sciences at the University of Utrecht. His research activities and publications include among others the theories of structuration and the risk-society, citizenship and social participation, union movements and labor relations and the research methodology of action research. h.coenen@fss.uu.nl Maria Lorena Cook is associate professor in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University. A political scientist, she has published widely on Mexican labor politics, labor reform, regional integration, and transnational movements. Professor Cook is writing a book on labor law reform and union responses in Latin America. MLC13@cornell.edu Rae Cooper teaches industrial relations in Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney. Rae’s research addresses organising and membership renewal strategies of Australian unions. In 2002, she edited a special edition of Labour History on union organising and mobilisation in Australia and New Zealand. Rae is an active union member and the Chair of the New South Wales Working Women’s Centre. r.cooper@econ.usyd.edu.au Daniel B. Cornfield is Professor of Sociology at Vanderbilt University and Editor of Work and Occupations. His research has addressed the growth, decline and revitalization of labor movements, the wellbeing of immigrants, changing workplace social organization, the employment relationship, and work & family. Among his recent publications is his volume co-edited with Randy Hodson, Worlds of Work: Building an International Sociology of Work (Kluwer/Plenum, 2002). daniel.b.cornfield@vanderbilt.edu Rick Delbridge is Professor in Organizational Analysis at Cardiff Business School. His research interests include the changing nature of work and organizational innovation. He is author of Life on the Line in Contemporary Manufacturing (Oxford University Press) and co-editor of Manufacturing in Transition (Routledge). Peter Fairbrother is a Professorial Fellow in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University, Wales. He researches in the area of trade union and labour studies. This work includes work on changes in public services, international trade unionism and labour rights and the impact of globalisation and de-industrialisation on labour. He has published broadly in these areas and has made a major contribution to debates about trade union renewal. FairbrotherPD@cardiff.ac.uk Enrique de la Garza Toledo is former Visiting Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Professor in the Graduate Program in Labor Studies at the Metropolitan University of Mexico, and Editor of the journal Trabajo. A prolific writer on labor and work in Latin America, he was recently awarded the National Prize for Labor Research for his work on productive restructuring, firms, and workers in México in the beginning of the 21st century. egt@xanum.uam.mx Edmund Heery is Professor of Human Resource Management at Cardiff Business School. His main research interests are trends in union organising and union representation of workers with non-standard contracts. Professor Heery is an editor of the British Journal of Industrial Relations and an academic advisor to the New Unionism Task Group of the Trades Union Congress. Russell D. Lansbury is Professor of Work and Organisational Studies and Associate Dean (Research) at the University of Sydney. A Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences, his recent publications include After Lean Production: Evolving Employment Practices in the World Auto Industry, with T. A. Kochan and J. P. McDuffie (Cornell University Press, 1997) and Working Futures: The Changing Nature of Work and Employment Relations in Australia, with R. Callus (Federation Press 2002). He is joint editor of the Journal of Industrial Relations. r.lansbury@econ.usyd.edu.au Héctor Lucena is Professor of Labor Relations and Coordinator of the Doctoral Program in Social Science at the Universidad de Carabobo, Valencia, Venezuela. He has written widely on processes, institutions, and transformations in labor relations in Venezuela and Latin America. hlucena@postgrado.uc.edu.ve Holly McCammon is Associate Professor of Sociology at Vanderbilt University. Recently she has studied the changing strategies of the U.S. labor movement, particularly its shift from strike activity to legal mobilization. Her interest in collective strategies has also led her to study the U.S. women’s suffrage movement and its use of various tactics and arguments. José Ricardo Ramalho is professor of sociology in the Graduate Program of Sociology and Anthropology of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His main research interests have been related to the sociology of work, trade union and working class movements, and development studies. jramalho@ifcs.ufrj.br John Salmon lectures in industrial relations and Japanese management at Cardiff Business School. He is Joint Coordinator of the Asian Pacific Research Unit at Cardiff. His research interests have been largely associated with workplace relations. Currently, he is involved with empirical research of union organising campaigns in both Britain and Japan. Rachel Sherman is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Yale University. Her dissertation, “Class Acts: Producing and Consuming Luxury Service in Hotels,” is an ethnographic investigation of inequality in interactive service work. Melanie Simms is a lecturer in industrial relations and human resource management at Canterbury Business School, which is part of the University of Kent. Her research interests focus on trade union renewal, specifically attempts to organize groups of workers who are under-represented in the trade union movement. M.Simms@ukc.ac.uk David H. Simpson is a Lecturer in Industrial Relations and Director of the Trade Union Research Unit at Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University. His main interests centre on trade unions, particularly in South Wales, and has conducted research projects for the GMB, GPMU, UNISON, UNIFI and NAHT amongst others. He is currently a member of the ACAS Single Panel of Arbitrators. Doowon Suh is an assistant professor at the Graduate School of International Studies of Korea University in Korea. His research areas of interest cover social movements, historical sociology, sociology of work, and modern Korean society. His current research project addresses the issue of how social movements influence democratic transition and consolidation in the Third World. dwsuh@korea.ac.kr Lowell Turner is professor of international and comparative labor at Cornell University, in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Among his books are Democracy at Work: Changing World Markets and the Future of Labor Unions (1991) and Fighting for Partnership: Labor and Politics in Unified Germany (1998), along with several edited volumes including Rekindling the Movement: Labor’s Quest for Relevance in the 21st Century (2001). Kim Voss is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of The Making of American Exceptionalism: The Knights of Labor and Class Formation in the Nineteenth Century and is co-author of Inequality By Design, Des Syndicats Domestiques, and the forthcoming Hard Work: Remaking the American Labor Movement. Her current research is focused on social movement unionism in the U.S. and elsewhere, on the life history of labor activists, and on the impact of participatory democracy on civil society. Mark Westcott is a lecturer in the School of Business at the University of Sydney. His research interests include union structure and activity within workplaces as well as the effects of corporate structure and strategy upon the management of labor.

The organising model of trade unionism, developed in the United States since the early 1990s, has been subject to a good deal of scrutiny. Accounts stemming from the AFL-CIO, or those close to it, are, unsurprisingly, enthusiastic and largely uncritical (Mort, 1998). On the left of American social thought, there are critics who contend that the changes wrought by the new leadership of the Federation are of little significance and charges that older forms of business unionism and class collaboration still dominate practice (Moody, 1999; Slaughter, 1999). Between these poles are a number of writers who are supportive, but have criticisms and concerns about aspects of the programme being developed by the AFL-CIO and amongst unions more generally. These issues range from union attitudes towards the Democrats (Brecher & Costello, 1999), through the lack of innovative tactics adopted to gain certification (Bronfenbrenner, 1997), to the absence of internal democracy (Benson, 1999). Questions have also been raised about the very adequacy of the organising model to address the problems facing the working class of America as a whole (Eisencher, 1999a).

Shows how the US economy has witnessed both a massive influx of immigrant workers and a sharp decline in organized labour. Examines the struggles of Latino workers in Los Angeles, USA and shows just how immigrant workers and labour unions have a complicated relationship there. Explains how the problems were eventually eased.

This study explores the interplay between levels of cultures and aspects of quality management (QM), aiming to develop a conceptual framework and introduce propositions regarding managing quality in a multinational company (MNC).

A conceptual framework delineating the relationship between the levels of cultures in MNCs and various aspects of QM is proposed. Thereafter, based on a theory elaboration approach, a case study in Swedish facilities of MNCs is used to further illustrate the link between constructs of the framework, contributing to the identification of challenges and possibilities in managing quality in MNCs.

The research identifies key propositions regarding the intricate relationship between levels of cultures and their influences on aspects of QM in MNC. Proposition 1 emphasises the impact of national cultural differences on perceptions of QM principles. Proposition 2 reveals that diverse QM perceptions affect global consistency in QM practices. However, proposition 3 suggests that emphasising technical aspects in common QM practices fosters shared perceptions and a cohesive organisational culture, leading to Proposition 4, that a QM-centric organisational culture mediates national cultural differences, facilitating the management of quality globally.

This research relies on a case study from a Swedish perspective. There is a need for quantitative or mixed method approaches to validate the proposed framework.

This research yields practical insights into cross-cultural QM challenges and possibilities in MNCs.

By integrating national and organisational culture into the QM framework, this research offers a conceptual model and propositions as a foundation for future cross-cultural QM research in MNCs.

The purpose of this study was to use relational vision as a theoretical support for an investigation of how operational competencies are developed from the interaction of shared relational resources in the supply chain and to verify how these competencies allow the resources to be able to function, unity, integration and direction.

This multihull study was based on semi-structured interviews with 13 representatives of four dyads from companies in the steel, automotive and industrial applications, pulp processing and manufacturing and application of flexible tubes.

The results indicate that information, knowledge and learning are significant constructs to influence the development of operational skills in the supply chain because they represent the ability of the company to promote skills to efficiently use resources and create a barrier to imitation.

There are limitations in the use of four companies from different industrial segments because it is possible to generalize the results. However, given the cross-sectional nature of the research, new studies may adopt a longitudinal approach to verify the evolution in the area of operations. Future studies may also expand the unit of analysis to understand the role of the relationship between the focus business and its strategic suppliers from the viewpoint of the suppliers. Thus, new research can be expanded to dyads, triads and business networks by investigating the various stages in the supply chain.

This study contributes to the literature and adds the dimension of relational operational skills, which is hitherto little explored in previous studies.

This study contributes to the literature in the area of operations management, in collaborative relationships between buyers and sellers, focusing on the relational view of competitiveness.

The growing importance of organizations and the role of collaboration, based on mutual benefits and grouping of skills, tend to increase the competitive benefits of companies operating in this context. The management of this type of arrangement becomes a challenge for researchers, reinforcing the originality of this study.

Explores the extent of employee surveillance in the western world and queries why the USA uses surveillance measures to a greater extent than other developed nations. Suggests that American managers choose surveillance methods which include the control of workers’ bodies in the production process. Lists the batteries of tests and monitoring to which US employees can now be subjected – including searching employee computer files, voice/e‐mail, monitoring telephone calls, drug tests, alcohol tests, criminal record checks, lie detector and handwriting tests. Notes also the companies which are opposed to worker and consumer privacy rights. Pinpoints the use of surveillance as a means to ensure that employees do not withold production. Reports that employees dislike monitoring and that it may adversely affect their performance and productivity. Argues that Americans like to address complex social problems with technological means, there are no data protection laws in the USA, and that these two factors, combined with the “employment‐at‐will” doctrine, have all contributed to make it possible (and easy) for employers to use technological surveillance of their workforce. Outlines some of the ways employers insist on the purification of workers’ bodies.

Questions whether, in the USA, faith‐based communities can have an important effect on politics. Contends that other areas, where there are poorer communities, are more likely to be influenced politically in civil society although does not preclude other income sectors from being similarly affected just that deprived areas are more likely to listen to faith‐based organizers.