Accounting for Cross‐Country Differences in Employee Involvement Practices: Comparative Case Studies in Germany, Brazil and China
| Date | 01 June 2017 |
| Published date | 01 June 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12230 |
British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/bjir.12230
55:2 June 2017 0007–1080 pp. 321–346
Accounting for Cross-Country
Differences in Employee Involvement
Practices: Comparative Case Studies
in Germany, Brazil and China
Martin Krzywdzinski
Abstract
Employee involvement is a contested concept in organizations. While the
mainstream of the research debate has focused on measuring the strength of
employeeinvolvement (EI), this article emphasizes the existence of verydierent
forms of EI. It draws on case studies of the German, Brazilianand Chinese plants
of a German automobile manufacturer to analyse forms of EI and to investigate
their societal determinants. The article reveals considerable dierences in the
design of employee involvement between the self-organization model and the
competition/social involvement model. It shows how industrial relations and
cultural factors lead to these very dierent approaches.
1. Introduction
Employee involvementis a contested idea: while some authors see it as a core
element of HR concepts influencing employee motivation and engagement
(Appelbaum et al. 2000; Pil and MacDue 1996), others question its impact
(cf. Vidal2007) or criticiz e it as a managerialtechnique of work intensification
(cf. Ramsay et al. 2000). In this article, I suggest that this controversy is in part
due to the implicitly universalistic assumptions of many studies, which focus
on measuring the strength of employee involvement (EI) and the outcomes
for workers and companies, but neglect dierences between various forms of
EI.
This article develops a new set of indicators that can be used to distinguish
dierent forms of EI. It draws on case studies of the German, Brazilian
and Chinese plants of a German automobile manufacturer (referred to
here as ‘GerCar’) to investigate the factors shaping employee involvement
practices. Findings show considerable dierences in the design of employee
involvement in the three plants. In the German case, EI practices focus
Martin Krzywdzinski is at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center
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2017 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.
322 British Journal of Industrial Relations
on self-organization. The Brazilian case is similar to the German case in
some respects, but diers in that social involvement activities are accorded
a much higher importance. The Chinese case represents a very dierent EI
model that puts considerable emphasis on social involvement and creating
work engagement through competitions. These dierences are explained by
two factors: first, industrial relations (in particular institutionalized labour
bargaining rights and the organizational powerof trade unions), and second,
organizational culture (in particular sector-specific organizational legacies
regarding employee involvement).
The article is structured as follows. Section 2 presents the theoretical
framework. In Section 3, the methods and research field are described.
Section 4 is devoted to the case studies in Germany, Brazil and China. Section
5 discusses the explanations forthe emergence of dierent models of employee
involvement, while Section 6 concentrates on general conclusions.
2. Employee involvement: state of the research and hypotheses
What Is Employee Involvement and How Can It Be Measured?
Employee involvement(EI) can be understood as encompassing very dierent
practices; sensu stricto, it is usually understood as the direct (face-to-face)
participation of individuals or small employee groups in activities and
decisions within the company — this is also the understanding in this article.
We thus distinguish EI from interest representation through trade unions or
works councils and high-level participation in strategic managerial decisions
by employee representatives (Marchington and Wilkinson 1992, 2005). Our
concept of EI is limited to practices, which are not based on statutory rights
of employees, but are usually granted (and thus controlled) by management.
There are various definitions of employee involvement that do, however,
overlap to a considerable extent (see Kim et al. 2010; Marchington
2007). Marchington and Wilkinson (2005) distinguish between four main
dimensions: task-based participation (understood as multi-skilling, job
rotation etc.), self-management in teams, participation in problem-solving
activities and direct communication between workers and management. We
find these dimensions of employee involvement in all classical texts (e.g.
Appelbaum et al. 2000; Pil and MacDue 1996) and in manyempirical studies
(see Posthuma et al. 2013).
Comparative empirical research has mainly focused on measuring the
strength of EI with the help of additive indexes (e.g. Doellgast et al. 2009;
Gallie 2009). The implicit assumption has been that there is a universal
concept of EI that allows us to add up the various EI practices and classify
countries according to EI strength. This argument has particularly been
advanced in research on high-involvement work systems (HIWS) (Boxall and
Macky 2014).
In contrast to the above-mentioned studies, the dependent variable here
is the form of employee involvement. I argue that EI is a multi-dimensional
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2017 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.
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