Employee Relations: An International Journal

Jane Bryson

2003 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/01425450310453490

Mergers are big, risky business and they frequently fail. This article reviews the literature around managing human resource management (HRM) risk in a merger. It finds that poor merger results are often attributed to HRM and organisational problems, and that several factors related to maintaining workforce stability are identified as important in managing HRM risk. Gaps are exposed in the extensive merger focused literature, particularly its lack of consideration of the role of unions and different employment relations policy approaches. The New Zealand‐based banking merger of Westpac and TrustBank is used to illustrate and explore the impact of union involvement alongside HRM initiatives, and to extend Guest's employment relations policy choices taxonomy. This article contributes an important additional dimension to a theory of managing HRM risk in a merger.

Asaf Darr

2003 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/01425450310453508

This study focuses on control and autonomy among an emerging class of knowledge workers in sales, from the employees’ perspective. The sales engineers studied were not only technical experts, they also worked on their own in client's plants over extended periods of time, where they customised the emergent technology offered by their company. How did management control the work of the sales engineers? This paper will attempt to answer this question using ethnographic and interview material collected at a small engineering boutique. Market control emerges in this study as a central control mechanism. The sales engineers became a part of a quasi‐firm arrangement, composed of them and the client's engineers and managers, who supervised their work. Management effort to ensure detailed documentation emerges as a second control mechanism. The necessity to document created a dilemma for the sales engineers. They perceived documentation as a managerial tool designed to enhance control and limit their autonomy, but also as a professional norm.

Philip Lewis

2003 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/01425450310453517

This paper attempts to evaluate the extent to which the introduction of human resource management (HRM) practices in Chinese state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) is likely to boost the organisations’ performance in the way in which the advocates of HRM bundles claim. It has examined the organisational context of one SOE in particular and analysed the literature on people management in Chinese organisations in general. The HRM practices covered are: recruitment, selection and staffing; compensation and benefits; employee training and development; and employee relations. The paper examines the problems raised in the literature and evaluates the extent to which these seem apparent in the organisation. The study concludes that considerable caution must be exercised in assuming that the introduction of coherent bundles of HRM practices would boost organisation performance. However, the picture that emerges is not wholly depressing for the Chinese economy. A high degree of interest in management education and remarkable industry and enthusiasm among young workers provided grounds for optimism.

Bartolomé Marco Lajara; Francisco García Lillo; Vicente Sabater Sempere

2003 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/01425450310453526

The aim of the present study is to synthesise the main aspects associated with human resources and their influence on the success or failure of strategic alliances. With this purpose, and starting from the strategic process of co‐operation, we analysed the role played by such variables as the management and leadership system, and the corporate culture or human resources practices in general in the formulation and implementation of an agreement. The study was carried out both from the perspective of the co‐operating firm and from the alliance's point of view. It also considers the particular characteristics of international alliances and its influence on the human resources management and the corporate culture.

Beatrice van der Heijden

2003 Employee Relations: An International Journal

doi: 10.1108/01425450310453535

The present study investigates the relationship between two career‐related variables and occupational expertise of higher‐level employees from large working organisations in three different age groups. The factors in question are: total number of jobs that have been performed; and the average period spent in each job. Survey data from 420‐higher level employees and 224 direct supervisors have been utilised. We may conclude that it is not experience as such that counts for the development of occupational expertise. We assume that it is rather the allocation of different jobs that determines competence growth. Results are considered in relation to possible explanations of the outcomes.