Chinese migrant worker representation and institutional change: social or centralist corporatism?

This article argues that the Chinese state has more highly articulated policies to deal with social disturbance than previously recognized by specialists. It does so by highlighting and critically analyzing the policies followed to improve the opportunities for migrant worker representation. The state has adopted a three-pronged policy. It has improved migrant worker rights, encouraged the official unions to help enforce these rights and allowed NGOs to offer certain services. The official unions are encouraged to adopt a legal watchdog role by a combination of legislation and limited external organizational competition. We argue that the dynamic of organizational competition is a previously unrecognized factor in moving China in a 'socialist corporatist' direction

Malaysian labour and the theory of interdependent power

We reflect upon Malaysian labour’s efforts in advocating reform. Its actions to focus political attention on labour issues at the 2013 general election are analysed. Although the election presented a rare opportunity for labour to bring workers’ issues to centre stage, it did not do so. Piven’s theory of “interdependent” power provides a useful lens through which labour’s failure can be analysed. Reflections regarding the utility of the theory for social movements in non-liberal contexts are offered

Union renewal in historical perspective

This article revisits contemporary union renewal/revival debates through comparison with the late 1930s resurgence of trade unionism in the UK’s engineering industry. It is argued that the 1930s union renewal arose from more favourable contextual conditions than those currently obtaining. It was led by political activists, with better-articulated organisation and greater resonance in the working class than their contemporary counterparts, and who were assisted by state policy and pro-worker forces. Conclusions are drawn in relation to current debates

National and international labour relations in oil and gas trans national corporations in Kazakhstan

The paper examines labour relations in Kazakhstan’s oil and gas TNCs, contributing to recent debates on the Global Union Federations’ (GUFs) and national unions’ roles in building a global system of industrial relations. These debates suggest a need for GUFs to involve national unions in organisation within and dialogue with TNCs. The GUF considered here judged them insufficiently capable of this and they therefore had only limited involvement in GUF-led activities. Theories of an emerging ‘global system of industrial relations’ must recognise such issues deriving from trade unionism’s global heterogeneity and the weak spots it creates within the emergent system. Keywords: Asia; labour relations; oil and gas industry

Editorial: research methods and management

This article introduces a virtual special issue comprising a selection of innovative and highly-cited articles recently published on methodological questions in the British Journal of Management (BJM). In an initial context section, it is argued that while management research has drawn on methods from the core social sciences, it has cast its net wider to adopt methods from subjects and fields on the edge of the social sciences as they are normally conceived. These have also been important. It has in turn made significant methodological contributions both to those subjects and fields, and indeed more widely. The contributions of the articles selected for inclusion in the special issue are delineated within this broad context

Horizontal DNA transfer mechanisms of bacteria as weapons of intragenomic conflict

Horizontal DNA transfer (HDT) is a pervasive mechanism of diversification in many microbial species, but its primary evolutionary role remains controversial. Much recent research has emphasised the adaptive benefit of acquiring novel DNA, but here we argue instead that intragenomic conflict provides a coherent framework for understanding the evolutionary origins of HDT. To test this hypothesis, we developed a mathematical model of a clonally descended bacterial population undergoing HDT through transmission of mobile genetic elements (MGEs) and genetic transformation. Including the known bias of transformation toward the acquisition of shorter alleles into the model suggested it could be an effective means of counteracting the spread of MGEs. Both constitutive and transient competence for transformation were found to provide an effective defence against parasitic MGEs; transient competence could also be effective at permitting the selective spread of MGEs conferring a benefit on their host bacterium. The coordination of transient competence with cell-cell killing, observed in multiple species, was found to result in synergistic blocking of MGE transmission through releasing genomic DNA for homologous recombination while simultaneously reducing horizontal MGE spread by lowering the local cell density. To evaluate the feasibility of the functions suggested by the modelling analysis, we analysed genomic data from longitudinal sampling of individuals carrying Streptococcus pneumoniae. This revealed the frequent within-host coexistence of clonally descended cells that differed in their MGE infection status, a necessary condition for the proposed mechanism to operate. Additionally, we found multiple examples of MGEs inhibiting transformation through integrative disruption of genes encoding the competence machinery across many species, providing evidence of an ongoing "arms race." Reduced rates of transformation have also been observed in cells infected by MGEs that reduce the concentration of extracellular DNA through secretion of DNases. Simulations predicted that either mechanism of limiting transformation would benefit individual MGEs, but also that this tactic's effectiveness was limited by competition with other MGEs coinfecting the same cell. A further observed behaviour we hypothesised to reduce elimination by transformation was MGE activation when cells become competent. Our model predicted that this response was effective at counteracting transformation independently of competing MGEs. Therefore, this framework is able to explain both common properties of MGEs, and the seemingly paradoxical bacterial behaviours of transformation and cell-cell killing within clonally related populations, as the consequences of intragenomic conflict between self-replicating chromosomes and parasitic MGEs. The antagonistic nature of the different mechanisms of HDT over short timescales means their contribution to bacterial evolution is likely to be substantially greater than previously appreciated

Alessandro Stanziani, Bondage. Labor and rights in Eurasia from the sixteenth to the early twentieth centuries

Book revie

Employee involvement in Ukrainian companies

This paper examines the hypothesis that the introduction of Western quality standards has brought some development of employee involvement in Ukrainian manufacturing and service companies and analyses the consequences for managements' use of the institutions of employee representation. The subject is pursued through eight case studies, four in a test and four in a control group. Quality developments were driven by top managers and not by human resource (HR) practitioners. In the test companies, managerial hierarchies were flattened and process orientations adopted; training was increased; communication was improved and in some cases teamwork was established. These developments were largely absent in the four control cases. The consequences for employee representative institutions are examined. In three cases, management revived the previously anachronistic 'Assembly of the Working Collective' as an employee involvement tool, thereby demonstrating a preference for picking workplace institutions 'off the path' for adaptation rather than either using unions or limiting involvement to non-institutional modes