This article examines the role of ambiguity in processes of institutional change. One challenge for understanding institutional change is to overcome the rather "oversocialized" view of action within Institutional theory. Drawing upon recent work in sociology, the paper introduces a...

This paper investigates how employee representation affects, and is affected by, the way corporations structure themselves. In the analytical framework employed in the paper, the structure of the corporation and national labour institutions constitute key constraints on the goals of unions and...

This paper compares the characteristics of M&A in 1991-2005 across five countries: Japan, France, Germany, the UK and USA. We ask what factors explain the growth of M&A markets across these countries, and what similarities and differences exist in the ways the M&A market operates. We find that...

While stakeholder models of corporate governance support long-term employment, recent reforms have promoted shareholder-oriented corporate governance worldwide. Will reform cause employment to converge on a market system? This paper presents a comparison of the linkages between corporate...

Debates regarding corporate governance have become increasingly important in Japan as the post-war model of bank-based, stakeholder-oriented corporate governance faces the new pressures associated with globalization and growing investor demands for shareholder value. Bringing together a group of...

This essay reviews the development of approaches within the comparative capitalisms (CC) literature and points to three theoretical innovations which, taken together, define and distinguish these approaches as a group. First, national economies are characterized by distinct institutional...

Corporate governance in Germany is often described as a bank-oriented, block-holder or stakeholder model where markets for corporate control have not played a significant role. This case study of the hostile takeover of Mannesmann AG by Vodafone in 2000 demonstrates how systemic changes during...

This article proposes a simple framework for understanding an emergent diversity of linkages between corporate governance (CG) and organizational architecture (OA). It distinguishes discreet modes of their linkage by different combinatorial patterns between three basic assets: managers' human...

Do modes of management depend on company ownership? Does macroeconomic performance rely on shareholder value? The contributions collected in this book explore these questions from economic, historical and legal perspectives. They examine company ownership through the study of national...

This comparison of labor-management relations at Deutsche Telekom (DT) and NTT Group (formerly Nippon Telephone and Telegraph) demonstrates the value of considering both institutions and strategic decision-making to understand the interaction between companies and unions. As corporations...