This paper compares human resource (HR) and industrial relations (IR) practices in the workplaces of predominantly Australian and predominantly overseas-owned organisations. It advances understanding of HR/IR in Australia and elsewhere by considering two questions. First, whether...

Since the early 1990s, there has been increasing academic interest in a range of labour management practices labelled variously as "high commitment management", "high involvement management" and "High Performance Work Systems" (HPWS). Such sets of practices - which include performance-related...

Building on the study of innovation in American national unions, this article specifies and tests a model of the determinants of innovation in Australian trade unions. The results generally support the principal Delaney, Jarley, and Fiorito (1996) finding that the degree of union innovative...

This paper reviews literature that examines the design, implementation and use of Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERPs). It finds that most of this literature is managerialist in orientation, and concerned with the impact of ERPs in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and business...

We revisit Karen Legge's (2001) critique of HRM in which she argues that the attempt of modernist/positivist HRM research to show that HRM improves organizational performance is a 'spent round'. We note that despite spirited challenges by Legge and others, the discourse of HRM is becoming...

This paper identifies four sets of textual practices that researchers in the field of organization and management theory (OMT) have used in their attempts to be reflexive. We characterize them as multi-perspective, multi-voicing, positioning and destabilizing. We show how each set of practices...

Most work on high-performance work systems has examined only the direct relationship between a set of management practices and performance outcomes. This presumes that any connection operates through the incentive and motivational effects captured as 'high-commitment' or 'high-involvement'...

In spite of the growing body of research on high performance work systems (HPWS), there is little evidence on their application in the service sector. It is commonly argued, however, that occupational segmentation in services is a barrier to HPWS. Analysis of data from aged-care workers...

Recent Australian federal governments have responded to broadening global markets and expanding international trade with policies of deregulation, labour market reform and industrial relations decentralization. This has thrown up major challenges for unions across the board, but the differential...