The nature of conflict in firm-client relations: A content analysis of public relations journal 1980–89

Determing the sources of conflict in public relations firm-client relations is the first step toward managing such conflict productively. A content analysis of firm-related articles in Public Relations Journal from 1980–1989 yielded a total of 45 conflict issues. The key issues recurring whether the conflict was attributed to the firm or the client were concerns over knowing each other's businesses, contributing to a consistent communication flow, finances, and “chemistry.”For the most part, conflict issues for public relations firms paralleled those for advertising firms as reported in the advertising agency literature. Exceptions were top ranking public relations firm issues related to research and billing and for clients, prompt payment. Advertising issues not directly found in the public relations literature included defensiveness, blame placing and the number of approval levels.     

Social harmony and the small firm: a reappraisal

Government, academics and the media have, over the past decade, entered fully into the spirit of ‘small business revival’. Many of the contributions to this debate, however, have taken for granted the nature of small firm employment relations. It has frequently been remarked that workers in a small firms behave in ways more compatible with the goals and interests of their employers than employees in large firms. Thus, industrial relations are assumed to be more harmonious. In support of this assertion attention is usually drawn to the relative infrequency of conflict and industrial disputes, and the absence of militant trade unionism as an indication of the small firm workers' greater commitment to the goals of the enterprise and the interests of the employer (Ingham 1970). This paper suggests that such assumptions are unwarranted and provide a potentially misleading starting point for studies of employment relations in small firms. Data from a small number of in-depth interviews with small firm personnel is used to illustrate some of the complex and contradictory processes through which capital-labour relations may be constituted within small enterprises.     

Unions as value-adding networks: Possibilities for the future of U.S. unionism

VII. Conclusions The decline in private sector union density in the U.S. coincided with increased innovation at the local level. One trend in particular, value-adding unionism, may offer some hope for those who believe that workers, the economy, and the nation benefit from strong, independent trade union movement. Unions that can add value to firm performance while at the same time fulfilling their responsibilities to represent the collective and individual interests of their membership have greater appeal to potential union members seeking opportunities for both representation and participation. Since they add economic value to firms, they may also reduce the level of managerial resistance that we have seen in recent history. Farber and Western (2001) argue that the overall U.S. decline in union density is almost entirely due to falling employment in unionized firms and increases in nonunion firms. This value-adding approach offers one strategy to preserve and expand union employment in firms where it is already established, thus slowing or reversing the decline. Moreover, as structural changes in the economy have led to shifts away from sectors with high levels of union density, they have at the same time put a premium on the ability of firms to respond quickly to changes in the marketplace and the competitive environment. Value-adding unions can provide the infrastructure for organizational networks that facilitate the communication and coordination necessary to adjust to such changes. Thus, new forms of representation that provide unions and their members with greater opportunities in decision making, management, and governance can add value to both management and labor. I thank Charles Heckscher and Bruce Kaufman for comments on earlier drafts of the paper and the National Science Foundation, Rutgers University, and MIT for financial support.     

The First Wave Washed up on Shore: Reform,Feminization and Gender Resegregation

The purpose of this paper is to specify the longitudinal relationship between organizational reform and feminization of a managerial position, and thereby elaborate on the nature of gender (re)segregation. Four complementary explanations for increased female representation in middle management in large, established firms are derived from the existing literature. This is done to identify paths for distinguishing the intertwining set of triggers and mechanisms that are mobilized at a given place and time. An in-depth empirical analysis of a long-term reform process in two banking firms is presented: transformative leaps (Kansallis, Finland) and gradual prudence (S-E-Bank, Sweden). Despite differences in the form of the process, the gender outcomes are similar. The bureaucratic hierarchy is seemingly flexible, but gender segregation is inherently rigid, a self-fulfilling process.     

Conflict Resolution Network Schools Development Australia

This paper outlines how a school climate and culture can be changed through the implementation of a Whole School Approach to Conflict Resolution and Peer Mediation Skilling. The role of external consultancy (Conflict Resolution Network Schools Development), consisting of specialist consultants with an education background, is part of a general “grassroots” movement, led by the Conflict Resolution Network and affecting institutions, business and groups in our society. The paper firstly emphasises conflict resolution skill training (12 Skills Toolkit) to educators by the consultant. Secondly, a 10 step implementation process is presented to educators who generally hold administrative positions. Two case studies are included to provide examples of different approaches based on the initial conflict resolution skilling of teachers. Don White from James Busby High School gives a brief history of the stages of implementation of conflict resolution skills in his school. Dilcie Singh outlines the linking of a Peer Mediation program to part of the school visison “Valuing People”.     

Veränderte KontinuitätAltered Continuity

Despite profound economic and social changes in recent decades, many school leavers in Germany still go through the dual system of vocational training. The stability of this educational institution raises the question of whether, and if so how, apprentices’ entries into employment have changed in this period. Applying the method of sequence analysis, we look at process-produced longitudinal data from the Institute for Employment Research (IAB). It can be shown that the so-called standard pattern, that is the immediate hiring by the training firm on a full-time basis, has not been the norm at any time. Since the 1980s, we have observed a slight tendency for apprenticeship graduates to leave their training firms early. At the same time, continuation of employment within the training firm persists, and apprentices more frequently work part-time. We find the standard pattern of labour market entry to be most prevalent in large firms. Whereas women very often work part-time after their apprenticeships, foreign-born apprentices in particular suffer from disadvantageous labour market entry patterns, including longer periods of unemployment.     

Service vs. manufacturing: how to address more effectively eco-innovation public policies by disentangling the different characteristics of industries

Eco-innovation is actually a fashionable topic, and several researchers are working on understanding the defining characteristics of firms that consider the environment as a priority when innovating. To date most of these studies have been carried out on manufacturing industries. This article investigates the similarities and differences among service and manufacturing firms. An empirical analysis of a sample of 5509 Spanish companies shows that the variables affecting the eco-innovative orientation of firms are quite similar. Results reveal that manufacturing firms have higher orientation toward the environment than service firms. Furthermore, highly polarized positions in environmental aspects can be found. Despite the limitations of the study, conclusions may help public policy to encourage environmental proactivity in service industry and innovation.     

Business Collaboration within the Nazi War Machine: Corporations and the State in the Austrian Semiperiphery

The military strength of German National Socialism was based on the collaboration of large corporations with the Nazi state. Business provided capital, loans, taxes, managerial expertise and production for war industries. I elaborate four ideal‐typical modes of business collaboration. Each mode is illustrated by a case study of a German corporation that acquires an Austrian firm: Krupp (traditional mode); the Reichswerke state conglomerate (coercive); Deutsche Bank (managerial nationalist); and IG Farben (competitive investment mode). The first and the last modes occurred when the state was highly dependent on large businesses for the economic requisites of war. The acquired firms in the Austrian semiperiphery contributed to Nazi war mobilization, as they exploited labor and resources from the peripheral regions of southeastern Europe. Patterns of the state's resource dependency on business led to bargaining interactions between state and business, over time shaping the mix between state and private ownership of war industry.     

Occupational safety and profit maximization: Friends or foes?

The rise of the Industrial Revolution is often depicted as a cause of hazardous working conditions and is skillfully epitomized in William Blake's tale of a child chimney sweeper. Conventional wisdom puts firm profit in conflict with occupational safety. We reexamine this argument noting that injuries are very costly to firms because they lead to higher wage premiums, worker compensation, and costly work stoppages. We hypothesize that it is precisely for these reasons that firms in the industries with dangerous working conditions have the strongest incentives to innovate and substitute more capital for labor. Using a longitudinal panel of U.S. industries, we test and confirm our hypothesis that higher injury rates lead to higher capital stock per worker, over time. Moreover, our estimates suggest that firms provide more capital and equipment per worker than what would have been there based solely on the compensating wage differential.     

Stock-price response to profit sharing in unionized settings

Prior research shows that stock price responds favorably to managerial incentive schemes which lower costs and stimulate growth. This article analyzes the consequence for shareholders of introducing profit sharing in unionized firms. Positive abnormal returns were associated with the announcement of collective agreements incorporating risk-sharing components, especially when the firm was experiencing preexisting financial distress. The realized gains generally exceeded that which could be attributed to strike activity or negotiated wage reductions. However, there was no indication that profit sharing decreased the perceived risk of investing in the firm.     

Firm Size and Work-Related Training: New Evidence on Incidence,Intensity, and Training Type from Australia

This study examines the relationship between firm size and structured work-related training by analyzing data from the 2001 installment of the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Survey of Education and Training. The results show a positive correlation between the probability of training and firm size for both male and female workers. A similar positive correlation between the intensity of training and firm size is also evident. Although the incidence of training is roughly comparable for male and female workers, males tend to train significantly more hours than their female counterparts. The findings also indicate that much less training occurs in firms with fewer than 10 workers, especially in health and safety, management and professional, and technical and paraprofessional training. Such results suggest that research on the size-training effect using firm- or establishment-level data, which generally focus only on firms with 20 or more employees, cannot detect an important source of the potential training deficit.     

Innovation, workers skills and industrial relations: Empirical evidence from firm-level Italian data

The shifting of labour demand toward relatively more skilled workers has been a hot issue in the economic field for many years. A consolidated explanation for the upskilling phenomenon is that technological–organisational changes have driven the labour demand with detrimental consequences for less skilled workers (skill-biased technological–organisational change). In order to upgrade the skill workforce the firm has at least two main channels at its disposal: the external labour market strategy, mainly based on hiring and firing mechanisms; the internal labour market strategies, which improve the skill base of the employees through training activities.The main objective of the present work is to verify the relations between innovative strategies and both the workforce composition and the training activities, within an integrated framework that also leads us to consider the role of specific aspects of the industrial relations system.The firm level analysis is based on original datasets which include data on manufacturing firms for two Italian local production systems, located in the Emilia-Romagna region.The results suggest that the firms use both the two channels to improve their skill base, which is actually related to the innovation activities, although there is weak supporting evidence of the use of external labour markets to upgrade the workforce skills: the upskilling phenomenon seems to be associated to specific innovative activities in the technological sphere, while specific organisational aspects emerge as detrimental for blue collars. On the side of internal labour market strategies the evidence supports the hypothesis that innovation intensity induces the firms to implement internal procedures in order to upskill the workforce, confirming the importance of internal labour market strategies. Moreover, we have recognized the important role of firm level industrial relations in determining the training activities for the blue collar workers.     

Construction productivity

Constraints impeding the growth of construction productivity, originating largely from the fragmented structure of the construction industry are reviewed. Technological advances in design and construction have always contributed to significant increases in productivity at all levels. However, recent trends with regard to total industrial productivity (TIP) are disturbing and may reflect the dominant but adverse influence of external economic factors and their interference with the construction process; there seems a definite connection between low productivity and low industrial output. There is always a potential conflict between enhancing TIP and efforts to improve productivity in the various segments of the industry. Stagnation or further decline in TIP will lead to still higher construction costs and reduced demand on the industry in the future. The need is for an integrated management approach to strengthen the total industrial framework, especially to resist the unfavourable effects of fragmentation and unpredictable economic conditions. An example of such an approach from Japan's sector is described. Managerial efforts aiming solely at greater efficiency on job sites or in firms will produce only marginal benefits, especially if contemporary economic conditions continue.     

Gender differences on the job satisfaction in the phase of implementing advanced manufacturing technology in the Chinese manufacturing firms

This research gave an effort to study on gender differences in the job satisfaction for technological innovation at Chinese manufacturing firm. The exploratory study was conducted in four Chinese furniture manufacturing firms, which are all in the phases of introducing advanced manufacturing system. The results of statistical analysis show that general satisfaction of female employees to their jobs is significantly higher than male employees. In addition, supervisory satisfaction of female employees is significantly higher than male employees. The findings of the study reveal that activities are suggested to be carried out to increase the job satisfaction of male employees, especially improve communication and relationship between the managerial and the non-managerial levels in the innovation process. In addition, the higher job satisfaction of female employees could be considered a positive factor for the successful implementation of AMT in the technological innovation, although male employees are still dominated work force in the case study firms.     

Corporate fraud,systematic risk,and shareholder enrichment

The impact of the disclosure of alleged illegal corporate activities together with the possible motives for their use increasingly has become the subject of research by financial scholars. These studies primarily analyze the disclosure’s effect on the market returns of the firm’s equity. The consensus of these studies is that the initial disclosure of alleged illegal corporate activities results in significant negative abnormal returns to the existing shareholders. The size of these abnormal returns generally exceeds the actual fines, fees and penalties that the firms eventually experience. The impact of these disclosures on systematic risk and their possible implications for managerial behavior and corporate policy have suffered from relative neglect. The present research seeks to establish what, if any, impact the disclosure of alleged corporate fraud has on systematic risk. Using the data set provided by Karpoff and Lott (1993, The reputational penalty firms bear from committing corporate fraud. J Law Econ, 34, 757–802), this research tests whether securities experience any significant beta shifts upon the initial disclosure of alleged corporate fraud. Empirical tests find evidence consistent with the theory that agents engage in illegal activity in an attempt to enhance share price. The empirical results also provide additional insight into the question of why corporations engage in criminal activity.     

Rethinking craft administration: Managerial position,work autonomy,and employment security in the building trades

The organization of work in the construction industry often has been presented as the exemplar of craft administration wherein managerial positions are of relatively low significance. Occupational control of employment and work structure in this context presumably is manifest through the craft union. On the other hand, research on other industries has shown the managerial position in the firm to be a source of extrinsic and intrinsic reward. This results from the manager's pivotal position in the bureaucratized labor process. This paper seeks to reconcile these perspectives. Data from a survey of 246 unionized construction workers and 14 local union officers from nine building trades are used to assess the impact of the managerial position and union involvement on work autonomy (self-direction and freedom from supervision) and employment security (unemployment and trade agreement infringements). In general, the results indicate that managerial affiliations to employers' firms are associated with greater autonomy and more employment security. Union involvement has contradictory consequences for individual tradespeople.     

Managing ambiguity: between markets and managerialism - a case study of 'middle' managers in further education

Advocates of devolved and market oriented Education reform, point to the benefits from self determination which enhance both teacher and managerial autonomy. Critics refer, on the other hand, to the ways in which running education institutions on business and accounting principles have introduced a new managerialism (Clarke et al, 1994; Pollitt, 1990; Clarke and Newman, 1997), which has driven a wedge between lecturers and senior manager interests. In Further Education, according to Elliott (1996a), this finds expression in conflict between lecturers in defence of professional and pedagogic values, and senior managers promoting the managerial bottom line (Randle and Brady, 1994). The danger in polarising such interests in this way is that it presents a plausible, if not oversimplified, analysis of organisational behaviour as market forces permeate FE. If this paper concurs with many critics on the effects of the new managerialism, it departs company from a prevailing determinism which assumes an over controlled view of the FE workplace (Seddon and Brown, 1997). Despite evidence of widespread casualisation and deprofessionalisation in FE, this paper examines changing managerial cultures in the FE workplace, in this case among academic 'middle' managers, which suggests that managerialism is not as complete or uncontested as is often portrayed. The paper draws on an ESRC research project conducted by the authors (ESRC no. R000236713), looking at Changing Teaching and Managerial Cultures in FE, at a time when the sector is emerging from a series of funding crises associated with redundancies, industrial action, mismanagement and low morale at college level.     

EXPLORING THE PARADOX

This paper explores work-to-family conflict among 77 managerial fathers in Sweden by focusing on flexible working arrangements. Sweden provides a unique setting for the study of fathers’ work-to-family conflict as it has a 30-year-old social policy tradition of promoting gender equality in the workplace and in the home. Our results show that managerial fathers experience high levels of work-to-family conflict, despite high access to flexible working arrangements. Using a border theory perspective, hierarchical regression analysis shows the importance of gender egalitarianism in the family (taking responsibility for children and being in a dual earner family), as well as flexible working arrangements (satisfaction with job flexibility and access to flexleave) in explaining work-to-family conflict for managerial fathers. Organizational time demands (time pressure at work and average work hours) and use of flextime were less important. Our results imply that gender egalitarian managerial fathers with access to flexleave have a win–win situation. They experience less work-to-family conflict and set a good example for their employees.     

COLLABORATE OR CONSOLIDATE: ASSESSING THE COMPETITIVE EFFECTS OF PRODUCTION JOINT VENTURES

We analyze collaborations in which two firms facing external competition reorganize to form an input joint venture as an alternative to horizontal merger. Under standard regularity conditions, the collaboration can lead to higher profits than a horizontal merger, though the effect on prices, quantities, and welfare depends on the form of downstream competition. In light of our results regarding profits, we provide reasons why firms might still wish to merge: imperfect information, cost synergies, and organizational asymmetries. We further consider how our comparisons change with the managerial structure of the joint venture (i.e., by delegation of input pricing). (JEL L13, L23, L42)     

Creating ethical work climates: A socioeconomic perspective

In this essay, I introduce a theory of ethical work climates and describe how ethical climates can be created in business firms by applying a socioeconomic perspective to the process of organizational design. I begin by discussing moral climate in general—presenting the concept of a moral climate continuum and identifying the positive moral climate as one especially conducive to ethical behavior by agents of the firm. Next, I suggest a process for determining where a firm falls along the continuum by obtaining information about prevailing organizational norms. I then proceed to outline the theory itself, analyzing how management can move a firm from the negative to the positive end of the continuum. In this analysis, I argue that a socioeconomic management perspective provides a particularly strong foundation for establishing positive moral climate. I then propose a strategy for designing key organizational processes to transmit this perspective throughout the firm. The essay concludes with an agenda for future research.