The impact of country-level factors on the use of new work practices

The present work analyses the impact of country-level factors on the use of new work practices such as job rotation, autonomous teams, job autonomy and upward communication. Using employee-level information on 16 European countries from the "Fourth European Working Conditions Survey", the paper shows that the use of these practices is more common in countries with low power distance, high individualism, low masculinity, high uncertainty avoidance, high indirect worker participation and low labour market rigidity. The results help to explain why new work practices vary across countries.

[1]  David Goodwin,et al.  Ethical Judgments Across Cultures: A Comparison between Business Students from Malaysia and New Zealand , 1999 .

[2]  Lee P. Stepina,et al.  Hofstede's Country Classification 25 Years Later , 1997 .

[3]  John Paul Macduffie,et al.  The Adoption of High‐Involvement Work Practices , 1996 .

[4]  C. Brewster.  Comparative HRM: European views and perspectives , 2007 .

[5]  J. M. Macpherson,et al.  Global Competition, Institutions, and the Diffusion of Organizational Practices: The International Spread of ISO 9000 Quality Certificates , 2002 .

[6]  Wei Chi,et al.  Adoption and Termination of Employee Involvement Programs , 2007 .

[7]  Glen D. Murphy,et al.  High performance work practices: Perceived determinants of adoption and the role of the HR practitioner , 2003 .

[8]  A. S. Blinder,et al.  Paying for productivity : a look at the evidence , 1990 .

[9]  John R. Schermerhorn,et al.  Cross‐cultural leadership dynamics in collectivism and high power distance settings , 1997 .

[10]  Chris Brewster,et al.  Similarity, Isomorphism or Duality? Recent Survey Evidence on the Human Resource Management Policies of Multinational Corporations , 2008 .

[11]  Beryl Hesketh,et al.  Power Distance, Individualism/Collectivism, and Job-Related Attitudes in a Culturally Diverse Work Group , 1994 .

[12]  I. Björkman,et al.  Handbook of Research in International Human Resource Management , 2007 .

[13]  E. Ziegel.  Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Econometrics , 1989 .

[14]  G. Dietz,et al.  Commonalities and contradictions in HRM and performance research , 2005 .

[15]  Sanford M. Jacoby,et al.  The Effect of Employer Networks on Workplace Innovation and Training , 2003 .

[16]  P. Dorfman,et al.  Leadership and Organizations: The GLOBE Study of 62 Societies , 2004 .

[17]  G. Hofstede.  Culture′s Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions and Organizations Across Nations , 2001 .

[18]  Robert W. Armstrong,et al.  The relationship between culture and perception of ethical problems in international Marketing , 1996 .

[19]  Emanuela Todeva,et al.  Models for Comparative Analysis of Culture: The Case of Poland , 2000 .

[20]  E. Parry,et al.  The Influences on Direct Communication in British and Danish Firms: Country, ‘Strategic HRM’ or Unionization? , 2006 .

[21]  Irene Nikandrou,et al.  HRM and organizational performance in northern and southern Europe , 2008 .

[22]  Sumita Raghuram,et al.  Flexible employment practices in Europe: country versus culture , 2001 .

[23]  H. Triandis.  The Self and Social Behavior in Differing Cultural Contexts , 1989 .

[24]  Jette Schramm-Nielsen.  How to interpret uncertainty avoidance scores: a comparative study of Danish and French firms , 2000 .

[25]  Bradley L. Kirkman,et al.  A quarter century of Culture's Consequences: a review of empirical research incorporating Hofstede's cultural values framework , 2006 .

[26]  M. Kamil Kazan,et al.  CULTURE AND CONFLICT MANAGEMENT: A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK , 1997 .

[27]  Odd Nordhaug,et al.  Institutional and Rational Determinants of Organizational Practices: Human Resource Management in European Firms , 1999 .

[28]  Peter Cappelli,et al.  External Churning and Internal Flexibility: Evidence on the Functional Flexibility and Core-Periphery Hypotheses , 2004 .

[29]  C. Kwok,et al.  National culture and life insurance consumption , 2008 .

[30]  Irene Nikandrou,et al.  Changes in HRM in Europe: A Longitudinal Comparative Study among 18 European Countries. , 2005 .

[31]  Zhan Su,et al.  An examination of human resource management practices in Iranian public sector , 2008 .

[32]  Toby D. Wall,et al.  The romance of human resource management and business performance, and the case for big science , 2005 .

[33]  Joy Peluchette,et al.  Examining the impact of the cultural dimension of uncertainty avoidance on staffing decisions: a look at US and German firms , 1999 .

[34]  C. Earley,et al.  Creating hybrid team cultures: An empirical test of transnational team functioning. , 2000 .

[35]  Karen L. Newman,et al.  Culture and Congruence: The Fit Between Management Practices and National Culture , 1996 .

[36]  Zeynep Aycan,et al.  Impact of Culture on Human Resource Management Practices: A 10-Country Comparison Влияние культуры на практику HR-менеджмента: сравнение 10 стран , 2000 .

[37]  Eileen Kaplan,et al.  The country’s uncertainty avoidance measures as a predictor of the degree of formalisation applied by organisation in it: propositions for the European Union countries , 1998 .

[38]  Ulke Veersma,et al.  The Diffusion of Calculative and Collaborative HRM Practices in European Firms , 2006 .

[39]  Frederick Guy,et al.  Contested Resources: Unions, Employers, and the Adoption of New Work Practices in US and UK Telecommunications , 2007 .

[40]  Thomas A. Kochan,et al.  What works at work : overview and assessment , 1996 .

[41]  Thomas A. Kochan,et al.  The Transformation of American Industrial Relations , 1988 .

[42]  H. Triandis,et al.  Review of Culture's Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values , 1982 .

[43]  C. Brewster,et al.  Converging or diverging? A comparative analysis of trends in contingent employment practice in Europe over a decade , 2006 .

[44]  Mikael Søndergaard,et al.  Research Note: Hofstede's Consequences: A Study of Reviews, Citations and Replications , 1994 .

[45]  G. Hofstede,et al.  Culture′s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values , 1980 .

[46]  James R. Barker,et al.  The Discipline of Teamwork: Participation and Concertive Control , 1999 .

[47]  Mark A. Huselid,et al.  THE DETERMINANTS OF HIGH PERFORMANCE WORK SYSTEMS: CROSS-SECTIONAL AND LONGITUDINAL ANALYSES , 1997 .

[48]  J. Gould-Williams.  The Effects of ‘High Commitment’ HRM Practices on Employee Attitude: The Views of Public Sector Workers , 2004 .

[49]  Y. Debrah,et al.  Rethinking comparative and cross-national human resource management research , 2001 .

[50]  Michael Morley,et al.  Human resource management in Europe : evidence of convergence ? , 2004 .

[51]  B. McSweeney.  Hofstede’s Model of National Cultural Differences and their Consequences: A Triumph of Faith - a Failure of Analysis , 2002 .

[52]  Charles Koeber,et al.  Manufacturing Advantage: Why High-Performance Work Systems Pay off , 1999 .

[53]  Fred Luthans,et al.  A contingency matrix approach to IHRM , 1997 .

[54]  T. Eriksson,et al.  The Adoption of Job Rotation: Testing the Theories , 2006 .

[55]  Mary Anne Devanna,et al.  Strategic Human Resource Management , 1984 .

[56]  G. Hofstede,et al.  Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind , 1991 .

[57]  Ingmar Björkman.  International human resource management research and institutional theory , 2012 .

[58]  John W. Meyer,et al.  Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony , 1977, American Journal of Sociology.

[59]  Brent R. Moulton.  An Illustration of a Pitfall in Estimating the Effects of Aggregate Variables on Micro Unit , 1990 .

[60]  M. Handel,et al.  Editors' Introduction: The Effects of New Work Practices on Workers , 2004 .

[61]  Malcolm Warner,et al.  The IEBM Handbook of Human Resource Management , 1995 .

[62]  Linghui Tang,et al.  A framework to update Hofstede's cultural value indices: economic dynamics and institutional stability , 2008 .

[63]  T. Kostova,et al.  Adoption of an Organizational Practice by Subsidiaries of Multinational Corporations: Institutional and Relational Effects , 2002 .

[64]  Trevor A. Williams,et al.  Career commitment in collectivist and individualist cultures: a comparative study , 2002 .

[65]  Maury Gittleman,et al.  “Flexible” Workplace Practices: Evidence from a Nationally Representative Survey , 1998 .

[66]  D. Levine.  Participation, Productivity, and the Firm's Environment , 1990 .

[67]  John W. Meyer,et al.  Organizational Environments: Ritual and Rationality , 1984 .

[68]  Low Sui Pheng,et al.  An exploratory study of Hofstede’s cross‐cultural dimensions in construction projects , 2002 .

[69]  W. Powell,et al.  The iron cage revisited institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields , 1983 .

[70]  Lydia J. Price,et al.  A Cross-Cultural Study of Interpersonal Information Exchange , 1996 .

[71]  Ann Marie Ryan,et al.  AN INTERNATIONAL LOOK AT SELECTION PRACTICES: NATION AND CULTURE AS EXPLANATIONS FOR VARIABILITY IN PRACTICE , 1999 .

[72]  J. Godard.  A Critical Assessment of the High-Performance Paradigm , 2004 .

[73]  J. Pfeffer.  Seven Practices of Successful Organizations , 1998, California Management Review.

[74]  James T. Bennett,et al.  What do unions do?: A twenty-year perspective , 2006 .