Corporate Governance and Labour Management: An International Comparison

This book is about the relationship between corporate governance regimes and labour management. It examines how finance and governance influence employment relationships, work organization, and industrial relations by means of a comparative analysis of Anglo-American, European, and Japanese economies. The starting point is the distinction widely found in the corporate governance, business systems, and political economy literature between countries dominated by 'shareholder value' conceptions of corporate governance and those characterized by 'stakeholder' regimes. By drawing on a wide range of countries, the book is able to demonstrate the complexities of corporate governance arrangements and to present a more precise and nuanced exploration of the linkages between governance and labour management. Each country-based chapter provides an analysis of the evolution and key characteristics of corporate governance and then links this to labour management institutions and practices. The chapters cover the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Spain, with each written by a leading academic expert in the field. By providing a historical review of the evolution of national systems, the contributors provide judicious evaluations of the current state and future direction of national governance and labour relations systems. Overall, the book goes beyond the 'complementarities' between governance and labour management systems identified in recent literature, and attempts to identify causal relationships between the two. It shows how labour management institutions and practices may influence finance and corporate governance systems, as well as vice versa. The contributions to this book illuminate current debates about the determinants of corporate governance, the convergence of national 'varieties of capitalism', and the impact of corporate governance on managerial behaviour. The book highlights the complexities of corporate governance systems and refines the distinction between market/outsider and relational/insider systems. Contributors to this volume - Ruth Aguilera, Assistant Professor in the Department of Business Administration and Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Takashi Araki, Professor of Law at the University of Tokyo, Geert Braam, Associate Professor of Accounting in the Nijmegen School of Management in the University of Nijmegen, Bernd Frick, Professor of Personnel and Organizational Economics at the University of Witten-Herdecke, Howard Gospel, Professor of Management at King's College London, Michel Goyer, Assistant Professor in Management at Birkbeck College, London, Robert Hancke, Senior Lecturer in International Management at the London School of Economics, Martin Hopner, Research Scientist at the Max-Planck-Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne, Gregory Jackson, Senior Lecturer in Strategy in the Management Centre at King's College, London, Sanford Jacoby, Howard Noble Professor of Management, History, and Policy Studies at the Anderson School, University College of Los Angeles, Antje Kurdelbusch, DaimlerChrysler, Erik Lehmann, Assistant Professor in the Department of Business Administration and Economics at the University of Constance, Andrew Pendleton, Professor of Human Resource Management at the University of York, Erik Poutsma, Associate Professor in Labour Relations in the Nijmegen School of Management, Department Strategic Personnel Management, Wolfgang Streeck, Professor of Sociology at the University of Cologne and Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Sandro Trento, Deputy-Director in the Economic Research Department of the Bank of Italy.