Rather than legal enactment and collective bargaining being the main engines of the 'Europeanisation' of industrial relations, benchmarking and 'soft' forms of regulation are increasingly to the fore. This article traces the origins of benchmarking from management tool to regulatory instrument,...

The growth of variable pay schemes (VPS) appears to threaten collective approaches to pay determination, which are based on standardization and centralization. This article utilizes case study research to analyse the still little-known relationship between collective bargaining and VPS. It...

Trade unions face major challenges in developing effective responses to the growing international scope, integration and complexity of multinational companies' operations. There is marked variation in trade unions' responses, which may be local and national or cross-border in nature. Focusing on...

In the face of continuing European market and economic integration, European industrial relations has become more fractured. This fracturing is occurring in two senses. First, the main institutional pillars of the industrial relations dimension of the European social model (or models) are...

This paper addresses two related issues: the effect of the `regulatory shock' of the National Minimum Wage on small firms and the consequent effects on the commonly observed practice of `informality'. It draws on a survey of such firms but primarily uses case study evidence from five firms to...

Report and results from "The Great New Zealand Employment Survey 2013." The annual Great New Zealand Employment Survey (TGNZES) began in 2009. It responded to a need to examine the employment relationship from both the manager and employee points of view in the New Zealand context. It also came...

Books reviewed in this article: Collective Bargaining in the Private Sector Edited by Paul F. Clark, John T. Delaney and Ann C. Frost. Industrial Relations and European Integration: Trans- and Supra-national Developments and Prospects Edited by Berndt Keller and Hans-Wolfgang Platzer. Industrial...

The introduction of the National Minimum Wage (NMW) had potentially significant implications for small firms. Orthodox economic theory predicts adverse consequences, though institutional analysis points to potential efficiency as well as fairness effects. Using longitudinal data on 55 firms,...

Commercial firms in industries once under public ownership generally have well-organised trade unions with significant disruptive capacity, yet overt confict is often low despite major change. This paper examines the experience of two major rail and energy companies after privatisation. The...

Pay determination in small firms is widely expected to follow the dictates of the market. Research on 81 firms in three competitive sectors finds, instead, loosely defined and variable pay structures. This variability is explained in terms of the interplay between labour and product markets,...