The corporate governance environment in the UK and US is generally thought to be hostile to the emergence of cooperative employment relations of the kind exemplified by labour-management partnerships. We discuss case study evidence from the UK which suggests that, contrary to this widespread...

Most large UK private-sector organisations are listed companies that are subject to intense pressures to enhance shareholder value. The question arises of whether this constrains the ability of UK managers to pursue genuine partnership arrangements with long-term stakeholders, including...

This paper tries to cast a theoretical bridge between two important phenomena which have characterised the evolution of advanced capitalist countries over the second half of this century: namely, the shift from the so-called golden age to the "unstable" macroeconomic environment of the '70s and...

This paper examines the extent to which contemporary business-led approaches designed to maximize female human capital are effective in reducing the gendered pay gap in the British labour market. In particular it asks whether the approach outlined by the latest Cabinet Office Review on women's...

Investigates how entrepreneurs in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine finance start-up and restructuring. Data from 600 de novo, privatised or state-owned firms shows the critical importance of the personal funds of the main owner(s), with a limited level of support being giving by the state.

This paper provides a rigorous analysis of the impact of training upon the employment growth characteristics of small and medium sized firms. Using appropriate statistical techniques to cope with sample selection biases and heterogenerous employment growth patterns it reveals that training is...

This paper reports the findings of a longitudinal study into manufacturing performance, lean production principles and buyer supplier relations in the Japanese, US and UK automotive industries. A total of 26 first tier component makers in the three countries were subject to detailed benchmarking...

Empirical evidence shows that the second half of the 20th century has been characterised by a dramatic change in the evolutionary pattern of firms' size structure: the general tendency towards a growing importance of big business which marked the first phase of post-war development came to a...