Industrial Relations

ENDÜSTRİ İLİŞKİLERİNİN YENİ YÜZÜ İNSAN KAYNAKLARI YÖNETİMİ: EMEĞİ ÖRGÜTSÜZLEŞTİRME STRATEJİSİ

by Volkan ISIK

Employee participation in the private sector in Malaysia: The Applicability of Favourable Conjunctures Model

by ASEAN Marketing Journal (AMJ)

Author: Balakrishnan Parasuraman*, Di Kelly**, and Balan Rathakrishnan***

Institution: *Industrial Relations Program, School of Social Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, P.O Box 22144, 88781 Luyang, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, East Malaysia, Email: bala@ums.edu.my, bp05@hotmail.com, Tel: + 60128396343; ** School of History and Politics, University of Wollongong, Australia, Email: di@uow.edu.au; and *** School of Psychology and Social Work, Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS)

Suggested Citation: Parasuraman, B., Kelly, D., and Rathakrishnan, B. (2009) Employee participation in the private sector in Malaysia: The Applicability of Favourable Conjunctures Model. ASEAN Marketing Journal, 3(1), 91-106, ISSN: 2085-5044

Employee Participation (EP) is one crucial aspect of the employment relationship in both private and public... more Employee Participation (EP) is one crucial aspect of the employment relationship in both private and public organisations in many countries. In 2001, Poole, Lansbury and Wiles developed a model for comparative EP, which they named the Favourable Conjunctures Model. So far, this model has only been applied in developed countries such as the United States of America, United Kingdom, Australia and Europe. There it was applied in order to examine worker participation from the national perspective. No extensive study has
been conducted using this model to explain worker participation practices at the company level. In parallel with this aspect, this model also has never been used to explain the nature of EP in the Asian developing countries.
This current research will use the Favourable Conjunctures Model to examine the nature of EP in private enterprises based on empirical study carried out in Malaysia. The argument of this paper is that the Favourable Conjunctures Model of Industrial Democracy (Poole et al. 2001) is inadequate to elucidate the characteristics of EP in Malaysia. Based on empirical findings from three private companies in Malaysia, the paper argues that there are many contextual factors that influence the nature of EP in Malaysian private companies that are not taken into account by the model. They are: multi-ethnic (cultural) influences, the repressive role of state in the Malaysian industrial relations, the New Economic Policy and industrialisation plan, Islamic working ethics, the influence of a British colonial history, lack of training among non-managerial employees in EP, the impact of foreign direct investment on industrial relations, to identify a few. Based on this study, it is proposed that the present Favourable Conjunctures Model of Industrial Democracy (Poole et al. 2001) be modified based on the contextual factors discussed above. The paper concludes that the western model of EP could not be directly applied in Malaysia without some adjustment of the model.

Keywords: Employee participation, Favourable Conjunctures Model, Industrial Relations.

Choosing Lesser Evils: The Role of Business in the Development of the German Welfare State from the 1880s to the 1990s (Diss.)

by Thomas Paster

Die Rolle der Arbeitgeber in der Sozialpolitik

by Thomas Paster

Whither the Japanese employment system? The position of the Japan Employers' Federation

by Terje Gronning

Industrial Relations Journal, Volume 29, Issue 4, pages 295–303, December 1998

This article analyses a policy of the Japanese Employers’ Federation regarding the ‘desired direction’ of the Japanese... more This article analyses a policy of the Japanese Employers’ Federation regarding the ‘desired direction’ of the Japanese employment system. The analysis shows that the Federation in a number of respects advocates radical change, but also that the overall position regarding the relationship between continuity and change is of an ambiguous or unresolved character.

イギリス：イギリスの資本主義•日本の資本主義 (Great Britain: Japanese Capitalism - British Capitalism)

by Peter Matanle

Book chapter in Japanese.

Matanle, P. (2005) Igirisu: Igirisu no shihonshugi nihon no shihonshugi (Great Britain: British capitalism - Japanese capitalism). In A. Kudo, T. Kikkawa and G.D. Hook (eds) Gendai nihon kigyō 3: gurōbaru rebiu (The contemporary Japanese enterprise 3: Global review), Tokyo: Yuhikaku: 143-166.

In 1973 the British academic Ronald Dore published what was to become one of the most influential books ever written... more In 1973 the British academic Ronald Dore published what was to become one of the most influential books ever written in the fields of industrial sociology and Japanese studies. British Factory-Japanese Factory: The Origins of National Diversity in Industrial Relations (Dore, 1973) was a brilliantly conceived comparative investigation of two factories, English Electric in the UK and Hitachi in Japan. Coming as it did against the backdrop of a relative decline in Britain’s economic performance and international prestige, and at a time when western commentators and policy makers were becoming more aware of the seriousness of the Japanese industrial challenge, this book was as much a wake-up call for British industry as it was a presentation of a thorough and deep empirical study of the two factories.

In this sense Dore’s book was to the UK what Ezra Vogel’s (1979) Japan as Number 1: Lessons for America, was to the United States. Published six years after Dore’s work, Japan as Number 1 was aimed at goading American policy-makers and business leaders into taking decisive action to counter the emergence of Japan as the world’s pre-eminent industrial manufacturer and it can be said that Dore, when he wrote his book, was also as much aware of the climate of opinion in the UK as he was of Japan’s rise. For, around the time Dore’s book was published the British industrial system was under tremendous strain, not least because of the consequences of a disastrous macro-economic and industrial relations climate that included among its effects a collapse in the value of Britain’s currency and external trading position, rampant double-digit inflation, the introduction of a three day working week and, in a failed effort to assert the government’s authority over the trade unions, the first of two general elections in 1974 called and lost by the then Prime Minister Edward Heath, under the slogan: ‘Who governs Britain?’. Indeed, towards the end of that decade the term igirisu byō, or the British disease, had gained common currency in Japan to describe, with not a little irony, a relative and perhaps terminal decline in Britain’s international prestige and power as a consequence of class conflict and general social malaise, as well as indicating the rise of Japan to becoming a member of the top rank of the world’s industrialised countries.

This chapter presents a historical analysis of some of the principal social science research on the Japanese firm produced in the United Kingdom since Dore published British Factory-Japanese Factory. Prominent within this research have been studies on foreign direct investment (FDI) by Japanese firms in the UK, industrial relations in Japan and in Japanese plants in the UK, the employment system in large Japanese enterprises and more theoretical and wide-ranging discussions on Japanese-style management and Japanese-style capitalism and their relationship to worldwide economic development and the possible convergence of industrial systems.

Assessing the impact of incomes policy: the Italian experience

by Francesco Pastore

International Journal of Manpower, 31(7): 793-817 (also available as IZA DP, n. 5082, October 2010).

Purpose – The Saint Valentine's Decree (1984) and the ensuing hard-fought referendum (1985), which reduced the... more Purpose – The Saint Valentine's Decree (1984) and the ensuing hard-fought referendum (1985), which reduced the automatisms of scala mobile, started a process of redefinition of wage fixing in Italy, which culminated with the final abolition of scala mobile (1992) and the approval of Protocollo d'intesa (1993). Since then, following new corporatist principles, a national system of centralised wage bargaining (concertazione) and so-called “institutional indexation” have governed the determination of wages. Does incomes policy generate greater coordination in the process of wage formation? Does it cause greater co-movement of wages, prices, labour productivity and unemployment? This paper aims to answer these questions with reference to one of the G8 economies.

Design/methodology/approach – After testing for unit root each component by using the ADF, Phillips and Perron, DF-GLS and Zivot and Andrews statistics, the paper tests for co-integration the so-called WPYE model using different methods. The Engle and Granger approach is used to assess the impact of incomes policy on the speed of adjustment of real wages, productivity (and unemployment) to their equilibrium value, while the Gregory and Hansen procedure serves as a means to endogenously detect the presence of a regime shift. The paper estimates coefficients before and after the structural break.

Findings – Incomes policy based on the 1993 Protocol has caused a regime shift in the process of wage determination. The long-run estimates of the WPYE model do not generate stationary residuals except when a dummy for 1993 is added. The share of wages over GDP reduces by about ten percentage points in the early 1990s and has stood at about 57 per cent since 1995. The link with productivity is close to one-to-one only before the break. The feedback mechanism, as measured by the coefficient of lagged residuals in short-run estimates, is increased from -0.46 in the pre-reform to -0.79 in the post-reform period, suggesting that incomes policy has increased real wage flexibility indeed. In recent years the link between real wages and (very low) labour productivity growth has weakened. In a sense, incomes policy has introduced a new form of (upward) wage rigidity. Last but not least, incomes policy has changed the correlation with the unemployment rate from positive to not statistically significant.

Research limitations/implications – Future developments will focus on disentangling the impact of incomes policy vis-à-vis other policy interventions on WPYE and on unemployment.

Practical implications – The analysis calls for a careful revision of the 1993 Protocol aimed at better protecting the purchasing power of real wages without losing control on inflation, and introducing growth-generating mechanisms.

Originality/value – The paper studies the impact of incomes policy on WPYE and the Phillips curve by means of co-integration and structural break analysis. It proposes to interpret the effect of incomes policy on the Phillips curve as changing the coefficient of the error correction mechanism that leads real wages to their long-run equilibrium value.

From the 70s strike wave to the first cyber-strike in the 21st century: strike activity and labour unrest in Belgium

by Kurt Vandaele

Published in: Strikes around the world, 1968-2005. Case-studies of 15 countries. Edited by van der Velden, S., Dribbusch, H., Lyddon, D., Vandaele, K., Amsterdam: Aksant, 2007, pp.196-221.

The Impact of the Development of Player's Associations on Australian Professional Cricket

by Paul Kitchin

UG Thesis

European Industrial Relations after the Crisis. A Postscript

by Roland Erne

European Industrial Relations after the Crisis. A Postscript

Roland Erne (more European Industrial Relations after the Crisis. A Postscript

Roland Erne (Roland.Erne@ucd.ie)

Draft of chapter 13 to be published in:

S. Smismans (ed.) (forthcoming)
The European Union and Industrial Relations
New Procedures, New Context
Manchester: Manchester University Press.

European Unions after the Crisis

by Roland Erne

Draft book chapter

- on the prospects of a counter-movement against the marketisation of society – more Draft book chapter

- on the prospects of a counter-movement against the marketisation of society –

for the forthcoming Festschrift for Colin Crouch

edited by

L. Burroni, M. Keune and G. Meardi (eds.)
Economy and Society in Europe: A Relationship in Crisis,
Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, forthcoming.

Virtual Workforces and the Shifting Frontier of Control

by Kerry Brown

Thinking About Democracy and Participation in Unions

by stuart schmidt

Co-authored with Arthur Hochner and Karen Koziara
Published in the Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Industrial Relations Research Association, Atlanta, GA, 1979.

A Half Century of Trade Union Membership. The Cyclical Macro-Determinants of Postwar Union Growth in Belgium

by Kurt Vandaele

Published in World Political Science Review, Volume 1, 2005, Issue 2.

Based on the seminal contribution of Bain and Elsheikh, this article explains the ebb and flow in trade union... more Based on the seminal contribution of Bain and Elsheikh, this article explains the ebb and flow in trade union membership in Belgium from 1948 to 1995. With only four explanatory variables, the model clarifies more than 75 per cent of the fluctuations in Belgian trade union membership. The results show that rises in
inflation, real wages and, due to the Ghent system, unemployment have a positive impact on unionization. Although there is an enforcement effect, a saturation effect takes over, indicating that further union growth is hampered by the union’s
own size. Mainly due to the ‘Allgemeinkoalitionsfähighkeit’ of the Belgian government system, the impact of leftist parties on unionization is not significant in a quantitative framework.

The Ghent-system, temporary unemployment and the Belgian trade unions since the economic downturn

by Kurt Vandaele

Published in Transfer, 16, 2009, 3-4, pp.589-596.

A report from the homeland of the Ghent system: unemployment and union membership in Belgium

by Kurt Vandaele

Published in Transfer, 13, 2006, 4, pp.647-657.

L’information et les règles de droit dans les processus de restructuration

by Franck Lecomte

Semaine Sociale Lamy special issue ‘Les restructurations’, 1376 (2008),  23.

Following the 'organising model' of British unions? Organising non-standard workers in Germany and the Netherlands

by Kurt Vandaele

Co-authored with Janine Leschke

Over the last three decades trade unions in almost all European countries have been losing members. In particular... more Over the last three decades trade unions in almost all European countries have been losing members. In particular non-standard workers (part-time employed, temporary employed and own-account self-employed) are currently less likely than those on standard contracts to be organised in unions. The paper, which is based on a literature review, has a twofold purpose. A first objective is to provide a survey of the initiatives developed by trade unions in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK for organising non-standard workers. A second objective is to assess whether, and to what extent, the Dutch and German unions are influenced by British union practices for recruiting new
members and among them non-standard workers.

Sustaining or abandoning 'social peace'? Strike development and trends in Europe since the 1990s

by Kurt Vandaele

Providing a simple quantitative overview and a short macro-comparative analysis of strike activity in Europe since the... more Providing a simple quantitative overview and a short macro-comparative analysis of strike activity in Europe since the 1990s, this working paper assesses whether three strike trends observed in the 1990s continued in the next decade. First of all, there was a continued drop in strike activity measured by days not worked due to strikes. Relative ‘labour quiescence’ was thus also the underlying feature of the 2000s in Europe. Secondly, the rank order in the European ‘strike league table’ shows remarkable stability over a 20-year period. Albeit with a tendency towards convergence, possible future dynamics of workers’ collective action and its meaning will thus almost certainly continue to vary across Europe. Finally, politically motivated mass strikes and demonstrations, especially in the public sector, directed against (planned) government action and legislation to alter employment law were on the increase in the 2000s, with noteworthy effects due to the current socioeconomic crisis. However, it remains to be seen whether an increase in public sector strikes, commonly defensive in nature and seeking to maintain existing employment regulations, will change the continued proliferation of neoliberal policies or stimulate trade union revitalisation.

Liberal convergence, growing outcome divergence? Institutional continuity and changing trajectories in the 'Low Countries'

by Kurt Vandaele