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The purpose of this paper is to consider how recent changes in Japanese labour management and industrial relations are affecting its traditional “stakeholder‐oriented” governance model, where special recognition was given to company employees.

This paper critically analyses a range of recently published (2000‐2006) works on Japanese labour management and industrial relations with a view to predicting future trends in Japanese employment practices.

The paper finds that Japanese firms are breaking with tradition and experimenting with Western style employment practices. Changes in such practices indicate a move away from the traditional model of governance. It may be that a hybrid model of governance is emerging.

This paper fulfils an identified information/resources need and contributes to the study of recent changes and developments in corporate governance in South East Asian countries.

The paper aims to describe the career and contributions of Joseph Scanlon in gaining labor‐management cooperation through employee participation and sharing the gains from cost savings.

The paper makes use of archives and unpublished sources; correspondence with Scanlon's daughter and a previous colleague; Scanlon's writings; and secondary sources as needed.

Joseph Scanlon used his experiences to develop a plan that encouraged union‐management cooperation and workers and managers sharing gains from improved productivity. Scanlon's background is examined and how his colleagues at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, especially Douglas McGregor, provided the venue for his ideas to flourish and gain widespread acceptance. An analysis of 117 studies over a period of six decades is used to identify the conditions that appear to promote or to interfere with the Scanlon Plan.

The Scanlon Plan illustrates a means to promote labor‐management cooperation and a means to involve employees through sharing cost savings.

This is the first biographical study to use archival and unpublished sources to provide new insights into Scanlon and how his plan for cooperation and Gainsharing developed.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between high commitment human resource practices (HCHRPs), conceptualized at the workplace level and employees’ attitudes, including affective commitment (AC) and turnover intention (TI). The study also tests the moderating role of cooperative labor–management relations (CLMR) between HCHRPs and organizational trust (OT).

Based on social exchange theory and trust commitment theory, the authors build a research model that explains employee behavior and empirically prove the model by using samples of 407 employees from South Korea. This study uses hierarchical linear regression and cross-level hypotheses based on hierarchical linear modeling.

The results demonstrate the positive impact of HCHRPs on an AC and TI, through OT. However, no moderating effect of CLMR between human resource management (HRM) practices and OT is observed.

Few theory-based studies test the direct linkage between HRM practices and outcomes. This study is designed with a multi-level research method to provide a conceptually comprehensive and deeper understanding of how HRM practices work in an organization by testing the relationship between organizational practices and employees’ outcomes.

This paper proposes a new theoretical framework to explain enterprise unionism and conducts the first systematic comparative study of union structure in nine Asian countries. Our framework emphasizes political dynamics and the role of the state in labor relations and argues that the initial period of the collective bargaining era constituted a critical juncture (state labor policy) that occurred in distinctive ways in different countries and that these differences played a central role in shaping the different union structures in the following decades. The nine countries are mainly divided into three groups, depending on the type of state labor policy: enforcement of enterprise unionism; centralization/laissez-faire (non-enterprise unionism); and dual unionism/gradual transition (middle-ground). Governmental data were used for the study. A clear correspondence between state labor policy and union structure in each of these groups was found. We believe that our framework significantly enhances our understanding of the Asian cases. Future research should explore the validity of the proposed framework through comparative studies of Latin American cases where enterprise unions have also been observed.

Defines downsizing before outlining the legal responsibilities for employers. Covers the role of top management and the human resource department. Looks at the requirement of the National Labour Relations Act, the Labour Management Relations Act and the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act before covering the involvement of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in any case. Gives the basic requirement of the Employment Retirement Income Security Act and the use of an assessment table to attempt to cover employers within such a degal minefield. Provides an overview of the action required from managers and supervisors and maintains that the best protection from any claim is good preparation.

Addresses the standardization of the measurements and the labels for concepts commonly used in the study of work organizations. As a reference handbook and research tool, seeks to improve measurement in the study of work organizations and to facilitate the teaching of introductory courses in this subject. Focuses solely on work organizations, that is, social systems in which members work for money. Defines measurement and distinguishes four levels: nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio. Selects specific measures on the basis of quality, diversity, simplicity and availability and evaluates each measure for its validity and reliability. Employs a set of 38 concepts ‐ ranging from “absenteeism” to “turnover” as the handbook’s frame of reference. Concludes by reviewing organizational measurement over the past 30 years and recommending future measurement reseach.

While labour arbitration is established as the final stage of dispute resolution in virtually every collective bargaining agreement, there has been no attention focusing on its role in the service sector. Relying on five years of arbitration data, examines the categories in which arbitration cases arise as well as their outcomes. Finds that disciplinary issues pertaining to absenteeism, dishonesty, drug/alcohol abuse, and insubordination comprised the majority of cases arbitrated for the service sector firms examined.

The manufacturing strategy literature suggests a number of areas in which decisions are of strategic importance. This study uses a survey of manufacturing executives from 213 business units in the United States to explore empirically the concept of strategic decision categories and improvement programmes that are related to each category. The concerns expressed by the 213 manufacturing executives are categorised and are shown to correspond fairly well with the strategic decision categories from the literature. The survey responses to questions about plans for programmes and activities to improve manufacturing over the next 2 years are also categorised. The relationships between planned programme categories and the strategic concerns that underlie them are explored and summarised.