British Journal of Industrial Relations最新文献

This article proposes a new theoretical framework of employer association (EA) adaptive innovation, a strategic organizational response to challenging environments facing EAs and/or relevant firms. Through adaptive innovation, EAs can enlarge their span of service offerings beyond collective, selective and elective goods, services typically explained by Olson-inspired, market-transactional theorizing. We identify, explain and conceptualize EA shifts into also offering common goods as community-building, relational types of collective action. Territorial ecosystems are one prominent new domain for this type of strategic adaptive intervention. In our illustrative case, this involves collectively organizing an open innovation ecosystem beyond an EA's own walls. Ostrom's theorizing on the governance of the commons better explains these initiatives than Olson's. Our new framework, therefore, integrates Ostrom's with Olson's theories. In broadening the field's understanding of EA strategic opportunities, this article also opens prominent lines of inquiry for future EA research.

In recent decades, both academic research and industrial relations practice have been increasingly concerned with whether, and to what extent, transnational forms of labour regulation might constitute a countervailing power to globally operating companies. And although numerous studies have analysed the various instruments and institutions of transnational labour regulation – such as Global Framework Agreements, trade union networks and European or World Works Councils – as yet there has been little in the way of exploration of their dynamics or interconnections. Against this backdrop and based on a comparison of three case studies of multinational companies, we focus on what we consider to be the ‘missing link’ between the dynamics of social action and the interdependencies of institutions in order to explain how transnational institution building can contribute to the development of transnational labour regulation. Specifically, we investigate how different pathways to transnational labour regulation have been the outcomes of actions taken by actors in a multinational corporation and how, in turn, these developments shaped the dynamics of subsequent action. The study underlines that those pathways can only be properly understood when seen in terms of social actors, their power resources and their willingness and capacities to deploy them.

The article examines the quality and appropriateness of the data available to measure firms' affiliation to employer associations (EAs). We find large discrepancies in affiliation rates obtained from the five different data sources available for France, leading us in particular to discard tax data. Focusing on survey data, we show that asking managers about affiliation to EAs in general or affiliation to a list of specific EAs can lead to large differences in affiliation rates, highlighting the importance of the framing of survey questions. We then provide methods to estimate an aggregate firm-level affiliation rate from surveys covering workplaces with 11 or more employees. Exploiting (i) conflicting survey responses regarding EA affiliation between distinct establishments in the same firm and (ii) survey responses for firms that report paying contributions to EAs in their financial statements, we finally estimate the shares of employers that wrongly declare being or not being affiliated to EAs, and provide a rate of affiliation corrected for such errors. The implications for econometric analysis of the high observed error rates are discussed.

On the basis of a comparative analysis of market risks (re)distribution between labour and management in public-service outsourcing in Italy and Denmark, this article examines different cross-national patterns of social solidarity in similar encompassing and co-operative employment relations regimes. It seeks to explain why similar inclusive and collaborative systems of public-sector employment relations are not functionally equivalent in preventing labour inequalities under market-making pressure, as predicted by the extant literature. The analysis demonstrates that variation between the countries considered was due to three interrelated factors which mutually reinforced each other in either virtuous (Denmark) or (semi)vicious (Italy) circles: (i) the availability of legislative loopholes; (ii) the cross-sectoral (public/private) organizational structure and strategy of trade unions and (iii) employers’ outward/inward orientation. The findings confirm the capacity of cross-sectoral public/private dynamics to either build or erode solidarity in inclusive systems, and they highlight the importance of incorporating the strategic agency exerted by unions and public employers as a crucial determinant of the granular differences emerging between similar models.

Despite the rise in women's education and their increased participation in the workforce, there is still a lack of gender convergence in working hours. This study explores how flexible working time arrangements (FWTA) affect the convergence of women's working hours to those of men with similar job-related characteristics. Using the German Socio-Economic Panel and innovative methods to address endogeneity, the analysis suggests that FWTA, compared to fixed schedules, positively influence women's convergence. This is particularly pronounced among those working full-time, the more educated, and those aged between 30 and 45. Transitioning to FWTA is associated with increased overtime and childcare hours but it is not related to more housework.