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Joint consultative committees (JCCs) involving employee representatives exist to stimulate positive employee relations and unlock employee involvement to build organisational performance. They are rare in Africa. Mauritius is a successful, beacon economy for Africa. We therefore investigate which categories of an organisation implemented the 2008 Mauritian government Code of Practice on JCCs, to discover how effective this “soft law” for of institutional change had been three years after its inception, when post-Code JCCs were formed.

We test propositions derived from institutional theory broadly conceived, through analysis of data from 120 organizations in Mauritius responding to a comprehensive HR survey covering a wide range of organisational level policies and practices conducted during the JCC formation period 2011–2012.

By 2012, nearly 30% of our sample had JCCs. Three quite distinct categories of an organisation created them, as follows: those with substantial union influence, those where strategic HRM was practiced and recently formed organisations. Remarkably, no interaction effects existed between the three categories.

Several contributions are made to shed light on a previously unstudied institution. First, we empirically establish that over a limited period in response to institutional change in the form of the code of practice, JCCs increased from 10% of organizations to almost 30%. Our second central contribution is to show three principal, quite separate organisational antecedents of JCCs, which do not interact statistically.

The paper investigates factors that contribute to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) surviving major exogenous shocks. Global crises such as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have increasingly heightened scholarly interest in post-crises responses. However, studies that compare the relative responses to external shocks and the outcomes for SMEs operating in different institutional settings are limited. We examine the relative degrees of success European and African SMEs experienced in avoiding the worst consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We use the resource dependency theory (RDT) with variants of institutional theory since the RDT has been shown in practice to have greater explanatory power when used in this way. We augment our framework with a feminist theory dimension. To test our hypotheses, we apply regression analyses using cross-sectional data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys (WBES), which include responses from private enterprises in 26 European and eight African countries. We construct our data by combining the COVID-19 follow-up surveys with relevant firm-specific characteristics from the WBES conducted in 2020–2021 using firm-specific unique IDs. After removing the firms with missing observations, the sample number of SMEs is 15,178.

Our empirical findings support the theoretically posited positive effects of innovativeness, institutional connectedness and governance capability on SMEs’ survival in the face of external shocks. Further, we confirm the importance of firm-specific characteristics (financial status, size and age) for SMEs’ survival. Female-owned SMEs are more likely to suffer during COVID-19, especially in Africa. The results are more nuanced when we consider industry specificity and heterogeneity of government support.

Our article helps answer the theoretical (and policy-relevant) question of whether SMEs that are resilient to major exogenous shocks may share certain characteristics despite operating in different institutional environments. If that is so, then it may be that lessons from one continent may have at least some relevance for the other. Our approach’s broad value lies in its capacity to test the degree to which established bodies of theory developed in the Northern Hemisphere may be deployed in Africa, well beyond the contexts which provided their initial empirical basis. This paper also contributes to the literature on the effect of environmental-change shocks on entrepreneurship performance outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to test Shattock’s legacy reputation thesis that non-leading universities in the UK face insuperable resource barriers to entering the leading group.

Employing regression analysis, the authors examine whether prioritizing research performance is a viable strategy for non-leading UK universities aiming to improve their organizational effectiveness. The dependent variable, organizational effectiveness, is measured by the annual Guardian rankings of universities. The main independent variable, research performance, is measured using “research power” (“RP”). RP is derived from the UK Research Excellence Framework.

For 2008-2014, the authors find that changes in research performance impacted university rankings. However, the authors also find that changes to the rankings are largely confined to non-leading universities and have not led to these institutions breaking into the group of leading universities. Therefore, Shattock’s thesis is supported.

Failing to maintain research performance can have significant negative consequences for the rankings of non-leading universities.

This is the first study that examines the relationship between the research performance of universities in the UK with a measure of their overall organizational effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the precise role of intrinsic motivation and autonomy in relation to intellectual stimulation in creating a creative climate in a professional services firm. The intention is to discover whether theories that stress the primacy of the need for intrinsic motivation and autonomy over other managerial goals such as monitoring find support.

The authors propose and test a model for the relationship of interest. The theoretical model is tested through analysis of multilevel data gathered across in two iterations over two years from 177 employees and 64 teams in one company.

The authors find that intrinsic motivation and autonomy mediate the relationship between intellectual stimulation and creative climate. Autonomy exercises a stronger mediating effect than intrinsic motivation.

The single company research context’s specificity; causal relationships between variables cannot be empirically investigated; the verified research model cannot claim to represent how the organization actually functions, for which qualitative work is required.

Theories stressing the primacy of employee autonomy are supported over those stressing a need for management to monitor and control autonomy-seeking employees.

This paper shows the vital mediating role of employee autonomy and to a lesser extent intrinsic motivation in a professional service firm context.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the associations between management direct communication to employees, unionization, foreign direct investment (FDI) and company performance in Mauritius, Africa's most successful economy.

The authors use firm data from a survey conducted in Mauritius in late 2011. The authors conduct regression analysis to study the relationship between direct communication, unionization and performance conditional on ownership type.

Mauritian labour unions, in common with their counterparts from mainland Africa, are strongest in the public sector. They have been characterized as weak and lacking in influence on management. Yet the authors find a strong association between unionization and management communication in the private sector. The authors also find a positive association between direct communication and company performance which the authors argue is likely to be an indirect consequence of unionization. FDI shows no particular effects.

It appears that the consequences of union presence transcend pay and conditions. The effects are unexpectedly marked, particularly when the stress by some authors on union weakness in the private sector is taken into account.

It may be that local unions’ strong focus on the enterprise – a form of representation favoured by US-based multinational companies, constitutes a strength in stimulating management communication to employees by focusing union activities at that level. Whilst the authors have suggested that this is unlikely to be primarily a result of conscious union strategy, the enterprise focus may serve to buttress existing employee attitudes. In any event, unionization is certainly closely associated in this African country with a practice that is linked to positive economic effects at the enterprise level.

The paper aims to examine the theory that trade unions' functions in a transitional economy are characterised by “path dependency”.

The research is based on case studies of employment relations in enterprises operating in Moldova. The approach is realist (critical materialism). An ethnographic approach is taken to analysing social relations in three locally and foreign‐owned companies in the clothing sector. The case studies explore union responses to managerially driven re‐structuring.

The research established that these forms of trade unionism exhibit considerable heterogeneity within continued commitment to their welfare functions. This may indicate that the “integrating collectivist” form does not presage a new “path” for Moldovan trade unionism but does demonstrate the bounded diversity within the existing paradigm.

The research studies the unionised sector. Future research might look into non‐unionised Greenfield sites. The research has established that networks are being reconstructed between workers. Whether this will generate a new path for unionism and challenge managerial control remains to be established.

Findings indicate that the welfare function corresponds to workers' historic expectations and may provide a base for unions from which other, more conflictual activity may be conducted. Conversely, it suggests that attention to local norms is essential for employer's strategies aimed at combining efficiency with quality and fairness.

The research unveils the failures of employment relations' institutions to address women workers needs in the area calling for all stakeholders to act on this issue to prevent negative consequences (poverty, migration, turnover).

Institutionalist research on transition has stressed continuity and neglected agency. This research asks how far actors have wished and have been able to reconstitute institutions across time. To this end it has established dialogues with workers and managers making comprehensive sense of their views. Findings are relevant to unionists and employers as well as other stakeholders in transformation societies.

The article examines decision‐taking in European construction companies. It confirms the increasing importance of MNEs in the industry. The extent to which corporate decision‐taking on human resource matters in construction MNEs is distinctive and is examined. Construction MNEs show an increased use of certain types of flexible working. It is shown that this is in turn linked to decreased union influence, even in some countries with strong regulatory regimes. The argument’s implication is that the emergence of a new order in the industry poses a substantial threat to construction unions. This may in the long term endanger unions’ legitimacy within the European model of co‐operation between management and employee representatives.

New developments in trust‐based working time systems (i.e. systems whereby managers formally devolve their responsibilities for monitoring working time) in Germany are examined. A picture of these systems is presented and the main debates reviewed. It is argued that the successful introduction of such systems is contingent on a number of inter‐related factors. These are: company size and management style, external and internal pressures and effective employee representation. It is concluded that such systems are most likely to be successful in larger organisations and that effective employee representation is a key requirement. Current circumstances are not necessarily conducive to the rapid spread of trust‐based working time systems.

This article examines the problems that the expansion and spread of flexible working patterns have created for the trade unions. Drawing evidence from across Europe, but focusing on the UK, it is argued that the decline in unionism has a number of antecedents, of which an important factor is the change in the way people are employed. A number of examples of flexible working are examined and the implications of each for union membership and influence are outlined. The paper ends by exploring what the UK unions are doing, and could be doing, to address these issues.