Amira Khattak, Nigel Haworth, Christina Stringer and Maureen Benson-Rea
This paper aims to examine the relationship between economic upgrading (implementing higher value-added activities) and social upgrading (improvements in workers’ rights and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the relationship between economic upgrading (implementing higher value-added activities) and social upgrading (improvements in workers’ rights and employment) of supplier firms in global value chains (GVCs) governed by multinational enterprises (MNEs). This paper answers Buckley and Ghauri’s (2004) and Buckley and Strange (2015) calls to incorporate other theoretical approaches within the international business (IB) literature. Furthermore, the paper also responds to Lee and Gereffi (2015) argument, published in Critical perspectives on international business, of the need to incorporate the social impact of upgrading in the IB literature.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with representatives from five supplier firms each in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, as well as with industry representatives.
Findings
Governance patterns within GVCs can create the conditions for economic upgrading leading to social upgrading achievements. Institutional factors also affect the conditions for social upgrading. Although moving to higher value-added activities is critical for supplier firms, this does not necessarily lead to social upgrading. This paper’s research findings suggest that the combination of economic and social upgrading is positively associated with suppliers manufacturing high value-added products and operating in relational networks. In contrast, economic upgrading, by itself, was limited to those firms manufacturing low value-added products, typically those in captive networks.
Originality value
This research is among an emerging body of literature seeking to integrate the GVC literature with the IB field. Importantly, it also contributes to the GVC literature by providing insight into an under-theorized aspect – the relationship between social and economic upgrading.
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Elena Obushenkova, Barbara Plester and Nigel Haworth
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how company-provided smartphones and user-device attachment influence the psychological contract between employees and managers in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how company-provided smartphones and user-device attachment influence the psychological contract between employees and managers in terms of connectivity expectations and outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected using qualitative semi-structured interviews with 28 participants from four organizations.
Findings
The study showed that when organizations provide smartphones to their employees, the smartphones become a part of the manager-employee relationship through user-device attachment and this can change connectivity expectations for both employees and managers.
Research limitations/implications
Due to participant numbers, these findings may not be generalizable to all employees and managers who receive company smartphones. However, the authors have important implications for theory. The smartphone influence on the psychological climate and its role as a signal for workplace expectations suggest that mobile information and communication technology devices must be considered in psychological contract formation, development, change and breach.
Practical implications
The perceived expectations can lead to hyper-connectivity which can have a number of negative performance and health outcomes such as technostress, burnout, absenteeism and work-life conflict.
Social implications
Smartphone usage and user-device attachment have the potential to redefine human relations by encouraging and normalizing hyper-connected relationships.
Originality/value
This study makes an original contribution to psychological contract theory by showing that smartphones and attachment to these devices create perceived expectations to stay connected to work and create negative outcomes, especially for managers.
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Nigel Haworth and Harvie Ramsay
Unions are the potential but secure democratic counterforce to capital. The creation of “objective conditions” for international co‐operation has preceded but must result in…
Abstract
Unions are the potential but secure democratic counterforce to capital. The creation of “objective conditions” for international co‐operation has preceded but must result in “subjective conditions”. This theme survives little challenged as a central tenet of the official labour movement in country after country. The pervasive complacency in other circles concerning the prospects for industrial democracy to be achieved through the internationalisation of the evolutionary, pluralistic collective bargaining model, particularly at a time when that model seems unable to cope with born again free market philosophies even at a national level.
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Abstract
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Through a survey of 200 employees working in five of the thirty establishments analysed in previous research about the microeconomic effects of reducing the working time (Cahier…
Abstract
Through a survey of 200 employees working in five of the thirty establishments analysed in previous research about the microeconomic effects of reducing the working time (Cahier 25), the consequences on employees of such a reduction can be assessed; and relevant attitudes and aspirations better known.
David Dunlop Williamson and Erling Rasmussen
The purpose of this paper is to present a narrative history of the birth of human resource management in the New Zealand hotel sector. This historical development is analysed…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a narrative history of the birth of human resource management in the New Zealand hotel sector. This historical development is analysed through the influence of changes in the national economic and employment relations context, the demise of national corporatist structures and individual and enterprise level agency. Thereby, the paper provides a new explanatory framework for the origins of human resource management in hotels and also presents this unique birth of human resource management as a microcosm of the wider social, political and economic “big bang” that fundamentally changed the course of employment relations in New Zealand during the 1980s and 1990s.
Design/methodology/approach
The data for this paper were gathered as part of a larger historical study of employment relations in the New Zealand hotel sector from 1955 to 2000. The sources for the study included semi-structured interviews and archival research, which were interpreted using manual thematic analysis.
Findings
The paper presents an original explanation of the birth of human resource management in New Zealand hotels by drawing on historical changes in national frameworks, corporatist approaches and individual agency, and thereby, it illustrates the uniqueness and intensity associated with the implementation of human resource management in New Zealand hotels.
Originality/value
This paper makes a significant contribution to the scant literature on the historical origins of human resource management. It also explains the historical and contextual embeddedness of various employment relations approaches in New Zealand hotels.
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The following is an annotated list of materials dealing with information literacy including instruction in the use of information resources and research and computer skills…
Abstract
The following is an annotated list of materials dealing with information literacy including instruction in the use of information resources and research and computer skills related to retrieving, using, and evaluating information. This review, the twenty‐first to be published in Reference Services Review, includes items in English published in 1994. A few are not annotated because the compiler could not obtain copies of them for this review.
Wilfred Ashworth and Ian Pettman
This is a most important study of an essentially modern situation. The first part, “Getting in Print”, introduces the way short‐run publications can be produced without…
Abstract
This is a most important study of an essentially modern situation. The first part, “Getting in Print”, introduces the way short‐run publications can be produced without sacrificing quality or being priced out of the market. There has been considerable polarisation in the publishing trade as huge multinational combines have continued to take over smaller units and now dominate the publishing, marketing and distribution of English language titles worldwide. This could well have made it difficult indeed for authors of low‐volume, less profitably saleable works to find a publisher. Paradoxically, however, helped by computer technology it has opened up the field for enterprising new small‐scale publishers, with an eye for scholarly specialist subjects and new authors, to issue short‐run editions and even to achieve a better return on capital and higher profit ratios than do the major publishers. The total number of titles produced has actually grown, causing bibliographical problems for librarians who need to keep track of publication, and greatly increasing the number of works going out of print before they can be acquired. The reprint trade is similarly in confusion because the economics of reprinting have become more chancy for some works and potentially easier for others.
Index by subjects, compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals: Facilities Volumes 8‐17; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐17; Property Management…
Abstract
Index by subjects, compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals: Facilities Volumes 8‐17; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐17; Property Management Volumes 8‐17; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐17.