NEW CHALLENGES FOR EUROPEAN HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
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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 658.3 0 0094±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 List of Figures List of Abbreviations Notes on the Contributors viii xii xiv 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 boardlevel 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 mailed and returned in the countries examined 253 12.2 Proportion of the organisations surveyed with policies in HRM areas 253 12.3 Influencing factors of HR policies for pay and benefits 255 12.4 Influencing factors of HR policies for training and development 256 12.5 Influencing factors of HR policies for recruitment and selection 257 12.6 Influencing factors of HR policies for employee communication 257 12.7 Influencing factors of HR policies for equal opportunity/ diversity 258 12.8 Influencing factors of HR policies for people management philosophy 259
List of Tables xi 12.9 Influencing factors of HR policies for high-fliers 260 12.10 Direction and explanatory value (chi-square improvement) of the significant correlation between organisation- and country-specific antecedents and HR policies. 261 14.1 Typologies for approaches to labour management 282 15.1 Organisational failures framework 306 15.2 Cranet-E ± sample size and response rates in years of survey 309 16.1 Countries surveyed 341 16.2 European survey response rates 341
List of Figures 1.1 Different paradigms of HRM 16 2.1 Atkinson's (1984) flexible firm model 41 2.2 Percentage of Spanish and European firms that have increased their use of different kinds of job contracts during the past three years (1995) 43 2.3 Proportion of workforce on temporary contracts in Spanish and European companies (1995) 43 6.1 Organisational environments and types 110 9.1 Percentage of organisations with a high-flyer policy and a corporate strategy 182 9.2 Percentage of organisations with a high-flyer policy and appraisal system(s) to determine promotion potential 183 9.3 Percentage of organisations with a high-flyer policy and appraisal system(s) to determine career development 183 9.4 Percentage of organisations with a high-flyer policy and line manager responsibility for training and development 185 11.1 European averages of percentage of organisations reporting an increase/decrease in the use of various methods 232 12.1 Conceptual frame for the analysis of HR policies in the European context 251 12.2 Conceptual framework for the analysis of country-and organisation-specific influences on HR policies in the European context 252 12.3 Proportion of organisations surveyed with policy in HRM areas 254 12.4 Classification of the HR policies according to the dominant antecedents 262 13AI.1 Percentage of organisations indicating the approximate proportion of the workforce on shift working contracts 276 13AI.2 Percentage of organisations indicating the approximate proportion of the workforce on temporary/casual contracts 276 xii
List of Figures xiii 13AI.3 Percentage of organisations indicating the approximate proportion of the workforce on fixed-term contracts 277 13AI.4 Percentage of organisations indicating the approximate proportion of the workforce on shift-working contracts 277 13AI.5 Percentage of organisations indicating the approximate proportion of the workforce on annual hours contracts 277 13AI.6 Percentage of organisations indicating the approximate proportion of the workforce on part-time contracts 278 16.1 Response rates across countries for 1995 342 16.2 Survey industry distribution for 1995 342 16.3 Survey size distribution for 1995 343
List of Abbreviations CEE Central and Eastern Europe Cranet-E Cranfield Network on European Human Resource Management DFA Discriminant Function Analysis EAPM European Association of Personnel Management HFO High Flexibility Organisations HR Human Resources HRD Human Resources Development HRM Human Resource Management IR Industrial Relations IRC Industrial Relations Commission LFO Low Flexibility Organisations MNE Multinational Enterprises SHRM StrategicHuman Resources Management xiv
Notes on the Contributors Mireia Aparicio-Valverde is a researcher at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain. Chris Brewster is Director of the Centre for International Human Resource Management at Cranfield School of Management, UK. DirkBuyens is Professor at the De Vlerick School voor Management, University of Ghent, Belgium, where he is Head of the Human Resource Department and Director of the Executive MBA programme. Ans De Vos is co-ordinator of the Executive MBA programme at the De Vlerick School of Management in Ghent, Belgium. Andrea Friedrich is researcher at the University of Paderborn, Germany. Paul N. Gooderham is Professor at the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration in Bergen, Norway. Christopher Gramley is human resource officer at Bosch in BuÈhl, Germany. PatrickGunnigle is a Professor at the University of Limerick. Ariane Hegewisch is Lecturer in European Human Resource Management at Cranfield School of Management, UK. RuÈdiger Kabst is Assistant Professor of Human Resource Management at the University of Paderborn, Germany. Robin Kramar is Associate Professor at the Centre for Australasian Human Resource Management, Macquarie Graduate School of Management, Macquarie University, Australia. xv
xvi Notes on the Contributors HenrikHolt Larsen is Professor and Associate Dean at the Institute of Organisation and Industrial Sociology at Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. Lesley Mayne is an independent researcher and part-time student at Cranfield School of Management. Wolfgang Mayrhofer is Professor of Management and Organisational Behaviour at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, Austria. Michael Morley is Lecturer in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations at the Department of Personnel and Employment Relations, College of Business, University of Limerick, Ireland. Odd Nordhaug is Professor at the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration in Bergen, Norway. Nancy Papalexandris is Professor of Human Resource Management at Athens University of Economics and Business Administration. Maria Rodehuth is an independent researcher and managing director of Paderborner Stadthallen Betriebsgesellschaft in Paderborn, Germany. Ricard SerlavoÂs is Professor of Human Resource Management at ESADE School of Management in Barcelona, Spain. Olga Tregaskis is a researcher at De Montfort University, Leicester. Tine Vandenbossche is an independent researcher and consultant at Ernst & Young in Brussels, Belgium. Elizabeth Vatchkova is Associate Professor at the International University, Sofia, Bulgaria. Wolfgang Weber is Professor of Human Resource Management at University of Paderborn, Germany, and also its President.