Corporate Governance and Labour Management An International Comparison

This book is about the relationship between corporate governance regimes and labor 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. 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 nuances exploration of the linkages between governance and labor management.

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.

1 - Corporate Governance and Labour Management: An International Comparison
2 - Corporate Governance and Employees in the United States
3 - Markets and Relationships: Finance, Governance, and Labour in the United Kingdom
4 - Corporate Governance and Employees in Germany: Changing Linkages, Complementarities, and Tensions
5 - Corporate Governance in Germany: Ownership, Codetermination, and Firm Performance in a Stakeholder Economy
6 - Corporate Governance and Labour Management in the Netherlands: Getting the Best of Both Worlds?
7 - Labour in French Corporate Governance: The Missing Link
8 - Corporate Governance and Employment Relations: Spain in the Context of Western Europe
9 - Corporate Governance and Industrial Relations in Italy
10 - Corporate Governance, Labour, and Employment Relations in Japan: The Future of the Stakeholder Model?
11 - Towards a Comparative Perspective on Corporate Governance and Labour Management: Enterprise Coalitions and National Trajectories

Howard Gospel is Professor of Management at King's College London, a Research Associate of the Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics, and a Fellow of the Said Business School, University of Oxford. Andrew Pendleton is Professor of Human Resource Management, University of York.

This book provides a wonderful comparative literature review and, as such, would be of great use in graduate seminars on the topic of worldwide governance practices, conteins together a tremendous amount of information and observation about world governance, and offers great insights into current world govenance practices. The book should be of interest to any scholar inerested in international governance system worldwide are evolving.