Globalization and Job Insecurity in Danish Firms: A Multilevel Study

Globalization is on the agenda as a cause of job insecurity, but knowledge regarding the relationship between globalization, management practices, and employee job insecurity is in fact limited. This study aims to investigate this multilevel association, defining globalization by the interrelated aspects of competition, liberalization, and technological innovation, and management by offensive practices such as external collaboration, organizational change, numerical flexibility, and work intensification. Questionnaire data were collected in 2010 from 3392 employees of 569 Danish companies and analyzed with multilevel modeling. The results show that international collaboration and numerical flexibility are associated with higher job insecurity. The level of job insecurity varies with occupational position, age group, and company size. Because globalization and the management of globalization are associated with employee job insecurity, companies should react in a timely way to globalization pressures: for example, by involving employees, communicating clearly, and supporting employees with lower education

Capabilities for Innovation: The Nordic Model and Employee Participation

Technological developments combined with increasing levels of competition related to the ongoing globalization imply that firms find themselves in dynamic, changing environments that call for dynamic capabilities. This challenges the internal human and organizational resources of firms in general and in particular their ability to develop firm-specific innovative capabilities through employee participation and creation of innovative workplaces. In this article, we argue that national institutional conditions can play an enhancing or hampering role in this. Especially the norms and values governing relations between employers and employees are expected to be of vital importance. This article will follow a resource-based perspective on developing dynamic capabilities in order to test the importance of enhancing human and organizational capabilities for innovation in firms. In particular, the article will focus on some of the important institutional conditions in Danish firms derived from the Nordic model, such as the formal and informal relations of cooperation between employers and employees in firms and their function in building capabilities for innovation. The foundation of the empirical analysis is a survey that collected information from 601 firms belonging to the private urban sector in Denmark. The survey was carried out in late 2010

Capabilities for Innovation: The Nordic Model and Employee Participation

Technological developments combined with increasing levels of competition related to the ongoing globalization imply that firms find themselves in dynamic, changing environments that call for dynamic capabilities. This challenges the internal human and organizational resources of firms in general and in particular their ability to develop firm-specific innovative capabilities through employee participation and creation of innovative workplaces. In this article, we argue that national institutional conditions can play an enhancing or hampering role in this. Especially the norms and values governing relations between employers and employees are expected to be of vital importance. This article will follow a resource-based perspective on developing dynamic capabilities in order to test the importance of enhancing human and organizational capabilities for innovation in firms. In particular, the article will focus on some of the important institutional conditions in Danish firms derived from the Nordic model, such as the formal and informal relations of cooperation between employers and employees in firms and their function in building capabilities for innovation. The foundation of the empirical analysis is a survey that collected information from 601 firms belonging to the private urban sector in Denmark. The survey was carried out in late 2010