This article discusses the diffusion of employment practices across borders in multinational companies (MNCs). Case study data are used to address two central questions: whether all MNCs attempt to engage in diffusion, and how this process occurs. We argue that diffusion is not a universal...

This paper surveys recent case study evidence addressing the implications of task-based teamworking for front-line employees. It refers primarily to three manufacturing companies in the UK. All three companies faced significant external challenges deriving from increased competition, and in each...

The paper challenges the pervasive view that economic internationalisation necessarily undermines national political economies and renders unworkable state action in support of social protection and the social regulation of employment. Whilst it is commonly assumed that globalisation must erase...

Although the sociology of organisations and work increasingly focuses on multinational firms, we still know very little about the impact of the internationalisation of production on the tendency for isomorphism observed in the plants operated by multinational firms. Drawing from a study of three...

This article reports employee attitudes towards quality management (QM) at two organisations in the private services sector. It examines the nature and extent of employee involvement in QM through teamworking, describes the methods which managements use to encourage teamworking, and assesses the...

Total quality management has been a central element in many efforts directed towards organizational change. Theories tend to fall into two extreme camps, which hold either that TQM transforms attitudes and behaviour or that it is nothing but a means to intensify work and tighten managerial...

The current model of corporate governance needs reform. There is mounting evidence that the practices of shareholder primacy drive company directors and executives to adopt the same short time horizon as financial markets. Pressure to meet the demands of the financial markets drives stock...

The rise of modern corporations has been accompanied by an expansion of salaried executives who have replaced owner-managers. With this expansion, the new class of managers/executives came to regard themselves as stewards of large and complex corporations, and not principally or exclusively as...

1. The rise of corporate social responsibility as a challenge for trade unions / Lutz Preuss, Michael Gold and Chris Rees -- 2. Belgium : unions questioning the added value of CSR / Celine Louche -- 3. Finland : positive union engagement with CSR / Anna-Maija Lamsa and Soilikki Viljanen -- 4....