Workplace Flexibility Practices in SMEs: Relationship with Performance via Redundancies, Absenteeism, and Financial Turnover

This workplace flexibility study uses primary data on private sector small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Lancashire, United Kingdom, collected in 2009 during the recent “credit crunch” recession. Key features include: (1) objective measures of SME performance; (2) a focus on the previously relatively neglected relationship between workplace flexibility practices (WFPs) and three SME performance indicators, namely, redundancies, absenteeism, and financial turnover; and (3) a timely contribution to research on SMEs. Numerical, functional, and cost WFPs analyses, via zero-inflated Poisson and linear regressions, control for SME and market characteristics. Despite SMEs having limited resources, the results show a significant section of SMEs to be innovative and entrepreneurial organizations, embracing advancements in employment relations regarding employee discretion, training, participative working arrangements, and/or job security. Moreover, results indicate that WFPs have the potential to assist SMEs in responding to periods of constrained demand. Flexitime and job sharing are associated with low permanent-employee redundancies. Training, job security, and family-friendly practices relate to low absenteeism with reductions of up to six annual days per worker. Job security and profit-related pay are associated with high financial turnover. Staff pay-freeze links with high financial turnover, but to the detriment of redundancies and absenteeism, whereas management pay-cuts or management pay-freeze relate to low financial turnover. On a cautionary note, spending cuts, often enforced by policymakers, may be of limited benefit to SMEs, and thus other approaches would appear more fruitful

Keynes and the International Clearing Union: A Possible Model for Eurozone Reform?

Economic and monetary union in Europe, as currently constituted, has a number of structural weaknesses. Large, persistent international payments imbalances necessitate deficit nations to deflate their economies or squeeze social wages in order to restore competitiveness. Surplus nations accrue reserves, with little pressure to maintain related contribution to spending power in the real economy. The asymmetric treatment of credit and debit nations reduces aggregate demand in the Eurozone. This paper examines a solution, first proposed by Keynes, whereby symmetrical treatment of balance of payments transactions may promote economic growth and higher levels of employment. It outlines the key features of the system and highlights the relevance of the solution to the issues faced by the Eurozone

Workforce nationality composition and workplace flexibility in Britain

Purpose – The purpose of this paper, with an organisational focus, is to offer a novel examination of the association between workforce nationality composition and workplace flexibility practices (WFPs), an under-researched topic with high potential benefits at microeconomic and macroeconomic level. Design/methodology/approach – British data are used, as the UK has experienced significant immigrant flows and has a relatively high level of labour market flexibility. The Workplace Employee Relations Survey 2011, sampling 2,500 British workplaces, offers for the first time data on workforce nationality. Via zero-inflated regressions, the number of non-UK nationals employed in a workplace is assessed against a wide range of numerical, functional and cost WFPs. Findings – There are significant links between WFPs and the employment of non-UK nationals, and these are distinct for non-UK nationals from the European Economic Area (EEA) when compared to non-UK nationals from outside the EEA. The former are more likely to be in “good” employment, with job security, working from home, job autonomy and training. Yet, both types of non-UK nationals are more likely to be employed in workplaces making high use of causal contracts. The implications of these results are discussed. Originality/value – The paper addresses the need to research migration from a relatively new perspective of WFPs while also taking into account the diversity of non-UK nationals. The topic is of importance to organisations, as well as to labour market and migration policymakers. Timely results are of value in view of heightened interest in migration

Shale gas and regional economic development: Enhancing local economic impact

The expansion of shale gas extraction has been supported by the UK national government because of predicted economic benefits. However, what is largely missing from this analysis is an estimation of local and regional economic impact. This paper seeks to contribute to the deliberations of local stakeholders by outlining current estimates of local multiplier effects and indicating where policy initiatives could be targeted to maximise local economy benefit. The advocates a reorientation of public policy support for the shale gas industry to focus upon the development of educational partnerships, enhancing skills development and attracting inward investment through spillover effects, thereby enhancing local economic impact

Brexit: A Cliff Edge or a Small Bump in the Road?

It is becoming increasingly accepted, not least by the Prime Minister and opposition leadership, that the negotiation of a comprehensive trade relationship with the EU is necessary to prevent the UK economy falling off a ‘cliff edge’. This concern is shaping the UK’s strategy towards negotiations with the EU and has provided at least part of the motivation for the UK to consider requesting a transition period to facilitate the Brexit process. But how accurate are these fears? What evidence is there for the existence of a ‘cliff edge’? How disastrous would it be for the UK to revert to trading with the EU on the same basis as most other countries in the world, namely according to World Trade Organisation rules? This paper seeks to address these issues and it highlights a number of implications for policy makers which flow from understanding the available evidence a little more clearly

SMEs and Certified Management Standards: The Effect of Motives and Timing on Implementation and Commitment

Existing research on certifiable management standards (CMS) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) tends to focus on large companies and is characterised by disagreement about the role of these standards as drivers of CSR. We contribute to the literature by shifting the analytical focus to the behaviour of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that subscribe to multiple CSR related standards. We argue that, in respect of motive and commitment, SMEs are not as different from large companies as the literature suggests, as they are guided by similar institutional and economic motives. Results, based on ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 certified SMEs in Greece, demonstrate that later adopters are more susceptible to coercive and mimetic motives and are less likely to commit fully to the CMS requirements, while earlier adopters react to normative motives and considerations of internal efficiency gains and tend to carry out CMS requirements with greater diligence

The Local Economic Impact of Shale Gas Extraction

Advocates of UK shale gas expansion have focused upon predicted national economic benefits, but local and/or regional impact has been largely neglected. This paper seeks to address this deficit by creating a unique dataset, combining industry data with consumer and supply chain surveys, thereby overcoming the current absence of suitable secondary data. Local economic impact in the Bowland field is estimated via a simple Keynesian local income multiplier model. Results emphasize the importance of facilitating local employment opportunities, through skills initiatives, and development of regional supply chain clusters, to anchor economic benefits within the local economy. Policy implications are discussed

British trade unions, the 1975 European Referendum and its legacy

This paper examines the evolution of British trade union policy relating to the European Union (EU). It focuses upon the 1975 UK referendum on continued membership of the Common Market (latterly the EU), and uses this key event to illuminate the range of the debate within the trade union movement, the rationale why it determined to oppose British membership of the EU and why its scampaigning proved largely ineffective, before considering the consequences arising from the referendum defeat. The paper identifies a number of issues resonant within the labour movement–including the decline in the strength of the left and the concomitant polarisation of opinion concerning the optimality of pursuing predominantly national or super-national economic and social policy–which have resulted in the periodic oscillation in trade union strategy, from opposition to (conditional) support for the European integration ‘project’. It surmises that the inability of the trade union leadership to construct a viable strategy, able to combine full employment with social and labour market protection for vulnerable workers, implies that the questions last comprehensively aired during the 1975 referendum campaign have never been satisfactorily resolved. Consequently, an understanding of the factors pertaining to the 1975 referendum campaign has the potential to inform the contemporary debate