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NEW CHALLENGES FOR EUROPEAN HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT This page intentionally left blank New Challenges for European Human Resource Management Edited by Chris Brewster Wolfgang Mayrhofer and Michael Morley First published in Great Britain 2000 by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-1-349-41188-7 ISBN 978-0-230-59795-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230597952 First published in the United States of America 2000 by ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, LLC, Scholarly and Reference Division, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 ISBN 978-0-312-22872-9 (cloth) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data New challenges for European human resource management/edited by Chris Brewster, Wolfgang Mayrhofer, and Michael Morley. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-312-22872-9 1. Personnel management±Europe±Case studies. I. Brewster, Chris. II. Mayrhofer, Wolfgang. III. Morley, Michael. HF5549.2.E9 N48 2000 658.300094±dc21 99±088128 # Selection, editorial matter and Chapter 1 # Chris Brewster, Wolfgang Mayrhofer and Michael Morley 2000; individual Chapters # individual contributors 2000 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2000 978-0-333-74965-4 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WIP 0LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 Contents List of Tables viii List of Figures xii List of Abbreviations xiv Notes on the Contributors xv PART I INTRODUCTION 1 The Concept of Strategic European Human Resource Management Wolfgang Mayrhofer, Chris Brewster and Michael Morley 3 PART II ASPECTS OF FLEXIBILITY 2 Flexible Working Practices: The Challenges for Europe Ricard SerlavoÂs and Mireia Aparicio-Valverde 37 3 Job Rotation: An Empirical Analysis of the Utilisation and StrategicIntegration in European Companies Andrea Friedrich, RuÈdiger Kabst, Maria Rodehuth and Wolfgang Weber 56 4 A Comparative Analysis of the Link between Flexibility and HRM Strategy Lesley Mayne, Olga Tregaskis and Chris Brewster 72 5 Flexibility in Profile: An Empirical Analysis based on the Data of 394 Belgian Companies Dirk Buyens, Tine Vandenbossche and Ans De Vos 97 6 Flexibility in Norwegian and British Firms: Competitive Pressure and Institutional Embeddedness Paul N. Gooderham and Odd Nordhaug 109 v vi Contents 7 Flexible Working Patterns: Towards Reconciliation of Family and Work Nancy Papalexandris 124 PART III TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT 8 Human Resource Development in Foreign Multinational Enterprises: Assessing the Impact of Parent Origin Versus Host Country Context Olga Tregaskis 141 9 In Search of Management Development in Europe: From Self-fulfilling Prophecies to Organisational Competence Henrik Holt Larsen 168 PART IV INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS 10 Evaluating Change in European Industrial Relations: Research Evidence on Trends at Organisational Level Michael Morley, Chris Brewster, Patrick Gunnigle and Wolfgang Mayrhofer 199 11 Communication, Consultation and the HRM Debate Wolfgang Mayrhofer, Chris Brewster, Michael Morley and Patrick Gunnigle 222 PART V HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN CENTRAL EUROPE AND THE PACIFIC RIM 12 Human Resource Policies in European Organisations: An Analysis of Country and Company-specific Antecedents Wolfgang Weber, RuÈdiger Kabst and Christopher Gramley 247 13 Human Resource Management in Bulgaria: Hot Problems during the Transition to Market Economy Elizabeth Vatchkova 267 Contents vii 14 Human Resource Management in Australia: Towards a New Metaphor Robin Kramar 280 PART VI RESEARCH IN COMPARATIVE HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 15 Coordination of Research Networks: Market, Bureaucracy and Clan in the Cranfield Network on European Human Resource Management (Cranet-E) Wolfgang Mayrhofer 303 16 Comparative Research in Human Resource Management: A Review and an Example Chris Brewster, Olga Tregaskis, Ariane Hegewisch and Lesley Mayne 324 Index 349 List of Tables 1.1 Member countries and years of surveys of Cranet-E 4 2.1 Percentage of companies who have broadened their employees' job content in the past 3 years (1995) 42 2.2 Accidents in Spain: breakdown by type of contract and sector of economy 47 3.1 Systematic implementation of job rotation according to countries 63 3.2 Systematicimplementation of job rotation in European companies according to economic sectors 64 3.3 Systematic use of job rotation according to the number of employees 64 3.4 Expected relationships between variables 65 3.5 Correlations of independent variables 66 3.6 Results of logisticregression 66 4AI.1 Discriminant function analysis (DFA) ± summary table 88 4AI.2 Classification results 88 4AI.3 Characteristics of high and low users of flexible working practices 89±90 4AII.1 Results for UK data 90 4AII.2 Results for Norwegian data 90±1 4AII.3 Results for Swedish data 91 4AII.4 Results for German data 92 4AII.5 Results for French data 92 4AII.6 Results for five-country European data 92±3 5.1 Proportion of organisations using flexible working arrangements 99 5.2 Change in the use of flexible working arrangements over the last 3 years 100 5.3 Proportion of workforce who are on specific contracts 102 5.4 Proportion of organisations with changes in the specification of jobs over the last three years 105 6.1 Recognition of unions as counterparts in bargaining 116 6.2 Reported changes in the influence of unions within the firms during the last 3 years 117 6.3 Operationalisation of variables 119 viii List of Tables ix 6.4 Effects of trade union power, national context, sector and degree of competition on changes in the use of temporary employees, part-time employees and subcontracting 120 7.1 Percentage of organisations with a change in the use of flexible practices in Greece 132 7.2 Percentage of organisations using flexible practices for more than 5% of their workforce 133 8.1 Training and development indicators and questionnaire items 152 8AI.1 List of significant and non-significant results ± organisations % and mean scores on each of the training and development indicators 160 8.2 HRD practices discriminating between MNEs and indigenous organisations 156 9.1 Percentage of organisations with a `high-flyer' policy 180 9.2 Percentage of organisations where there has been a change in responsibility of line management for training and development over the last 3 years 186 9.3 Percentage of organisations where there has been a change in the use of coaching over the last 3 years 186 9.4 Percentage of organisations where there has been a change in the use of mentoring over the last 3 years 186 9.5 Percentage of organisations where there has been a change in the use of on-the-job training over the last 3 years 187 9.6 Percentage of organisations where there has been a change in the use of line managers over the last 3 years 187 9.7 Percentage of organisations considering people management and supervision, as a training area, to be important to them over the next 3 years 188 9.8 Percentage of organisations where there has been a change in the specification of managerial jobs over the last 3 years 188 9.9 People employed by the organisation 193 9.10 Percentage of organisations with a corporate strategy 193 9.11 Percentage of organisations using the appraisal system(s) to determine the following 194 9.12 Primary responsibility for major policy decisions on training and development 194 10.1 Union density in European countries (1994) 209 x List of Tables 10.2 Proportion of employees in a trade union 210 10.3 Proportion of employees in a trade union: 4-year trends 210 10.4 Trade-union recognition 212 10.5 Trade-union recognition: 4 year comparisons 212 10.6 Trade-union influence 214 10.7 Trade-union influence: 4 year comparisons 214 10.8 Where policy decisions on industrial relations are mainly determined 216 10.9 Primary responsibility for major policy decisions on industrial relations 216 11.1 Incidence of statutory works councils/statutory board- level employee representation in the 12 member states 226 11.2 Percentage of organisations reporting a change in the use of direct verbal or written methods to communicate major issues to employees during the last 3 years 231 11.3 Briefing of different groups of employees 233 11.4 Percentage of organisations reporting a change in number of employees communicating their views through more individualised ways of communication 234 11.5 Percentage of organisations reporting a change in the use of representative staff bodies to communicate major issues to employees during the last 3 years 236 11.6 Percentage of organisations reporting a change in number of employees communicating their views through more collectivist ways of communication 236 12.1 Questionnaires