The persistence of, and challenges to, societal effects in the context of global competition

The persistence of, and challenges to, societal effects in the context of global competitio

A 'slow' manifesto for comparative research on work and employment

This paper addresses cross-national comparative research in employment relations and related fields. Its purpose is to argue the case for research which makes a long-term, in-depth engagement with the local and national social contexts under study, in order to gain deeper and more reliable insights into the nature of, and reasons for, cross-national similarities and differences. We call this form of engagement “slow comparativism”. We aim to establish a number of basic precepts of ‘slow comparativism’ as a practical methodological approach. In presenting these, we will raise a number of questions which we think are important to all attempts at in-depth comparison, and which, we argue, need to be considered at all stages of the research process (research design, execution, and the presentation of findings). These questions include: (i) challenges in accessing the local ‘common sense’ of actors, through research processes which should be seen as much more encompassing than what happens in formal research processes such as interviews; (ii) challenges, both literal and figurative, of acquiring local ‘languages’; (iii) challenges of avoiding ethnocentrism through creating and maintaining a critical distance from the assumptions of research subjects through part-alienation and ensuring reflexivity; (iv) challenges of comparability between fieldwork conducted in different countries, and the need to think of comparative research as constituting ‘federal’ projects, thinking of fieldwork in different countries as constituting linked, but to some extent separate projects. Our analysis is developed through an examination of comparative literature in industrial relations, as well as through reflection on the challenges the two authors have faced in executing in-depth comparative research on labour management, industrial relations, and trade union organisation. Our presentation of these challenges, and the difficulties that comparative scholars of work and employment face in resolving them, can, we hope, be used to provoke a discussion among those conducting comparative research on work and employment about how truth claims are generated in general. We also seek to provide a basis by which those conducting slower forms of comparativism, through what we term ‘implicit ethnographies’, can find better ways of developing and defending their modes of research within a broader academic political economy which is not always favourable to such approaches

International human resource management in multinational companies: Global norm making within strategic action fields

The formation of global norms that affect work is a crucial element to how multinational companies (MNCs) achieve a degree of HR integration internationally. We establish a ‘strategic action fields’ framework to guide research into global norm-making in MNCs in general and for analysing the work of those that we term ‘globalising actors’—those who are active in globalising a firm's management of its human resources—in particular. We position our framework with relation to existing research in international human resource management, and show how the field can benefit from achieving an approach to global norm-making that is contextualised, personalised and contested

Global norm-making processes in contemporary multinationals

This paper contextualises and analyses global norm-making concerning the nature of work within multinational companies. We develop a framework for analysing the relations between formal and informal elements of global norm-making, stressing dynamic interdependencies between formality and informality on four dimensions: the codification of norms; enforcement mechanisms; the use of “platforms”; and aggregation with wider contexts. We investigate four cases of transnational norm-making spaces across two multinationals, and analyse how these interdependencies work, both for norms and practices that emanate from the upper levels of corporate hierarchies, and those developed at lower levels among global operational teams

Forgotten globalizing actors: towards an understanding of the range of individuals involved in global norm formation in multinational companies

While there is substantial literature on global mobility, roles in the global integration of multinationals are not limited to internationally mobile staff. We focus on ‘globalizing actors’, defined as those within multinationals who are involved in global norm-making. Using interview-based qualitative data, we categorize individuals’ involvement in global norm-making according to the function within norm formation in which they are involved, their source of influence, and their geographical and organizational reach. We identify nine distinct types of globalizing actors. We demonstrate that many individuals play important roles in global norm-making without having formal hierarchical authority or being globally mobile. Our approach draws attention to the ways in which many globalizing actors use ‘social skill’ to further their aims. Our categorization of such ‘forgotten globalizing actors’ facilitates future research by allowing a fuller understanding of the ways in which individuals across multinationals contribute to global integration

Self-productivity and complementarities in human development : evidence from MARS

This paper investigates the role of self-productivity and home resources in capability formation from infancy to adolescence. In addition, we study the complementarities between basic cognitive, motor and noncognitive abilities and social as well as academic achievement. Our data are taken from the Mannheim Study of Children at Risk (MARS), an epidemiological cohort study following the long-term outcome of early risk factors. Results indicate that initial risk conditions cumulate and that differences in basic abilities increase during development. Self-productivity rises in the developmental process and complementarities are evident. Noncognitive abilities promote cognitive abilities and social achievement. There is remarkable stability in the distribution of the economic and socio-emotional home resources during the early life cycle. This is presumably a major reason for the evolution of inequality in human development

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead