Conformance or evasion. Employment legislation and employment practices in self-contained tourist resorts
| Pages | 1183-1204 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-08-2018-0209 |
| Published date | 07 October 2019 |
| Date | 07 October 2019 |
| Author | Ali Najeeb,Mary Barrett |
| Subject Matter | Hr & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
Conformance or evasion
Employment legislation and employment
practices in self-contained tourist resorts
Ali Najeeb
Villa College, Faculty of Business Management, Male, Maldives, and
Mary Barrett
School of Management, Operations and Management,
University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to investigate how resort managers respond to employment
legislation (Law No. 02/2008).
Design/methodology/approach –The qualitative case study data from seven self-contained tourist
resorts in the Maldives were used to investigate the managerial responses to employment legislation.
Findings –Resort managers’responses ranged from passive compliance to active resistance, with
decoupling through opportunism as the dominant strategy used to circumvent the legislation. Some human
resource management (HRM) practices emerged from resort managers’interactions with external
stakeholders and employees. Strategic responses and HRM practices were driven by a search for
legitimacy or efficiency and sometimes both. The findings show that there are differences between strategic
responses and HRM practices by organisational subfield, local resorts and international hotel chains.
The resorts’market orientation also influenced resort managers’responses and HRM practices.
Research limitations/implications –The findings of this paper have limitations because it was limited to
a single industry/sector and to a particular piece of legislation. However, it demonstrates the complexity of the
relationship between institutional context and HRM.
Originality/value –This paper shows that res ponding to employment le gislation entails a h igh
level of interplay bet ween the institutional environment and HR acto rs, and between stakeh olders
(e.g. employees) and HR a ctors. It demonstrates t he difficulty of reconc iling institutional re quirements
with the preferences of d ifferent stakeholde rs and organisational interests. HR actors actively ma ke
sense of institutional requirements and modify HRM practices to accommodate stakeholders’
varying perspectives and preferences. This suggests that in countries such as the Maldives,
uneven institutional co verage (e.g. incomplete emp loyment legislation) a llows room for organisatio ns to
innovate –forbetterorworse.
Keywords Maldives, Industrial relations, Employment law, Hospitality industry, Resorts
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Studies of human resource management (HRM) and employment relations (ER) in
multinational corporations (MNCs) have primarily adopted a culturalist, and more
recently, an institutional perspective (Almond et al., 2005; Gunnigle et al., 2015;
Vaiman and Brewster, 2014). Most have focussed on how elements of the institutional
context such as employment laws constrain organisational practices (Mayson and Barrett,
2017; Van Gestel and Nyberg, 2009). However, the institutional environment is not always
restrictive. HR managers can create leeway in selecting HRM practices as a response
to the institutional environment (Barrett et al., 2014; Boon et al., 2009; Oliver, 1997).
HR managers’role in interpreting the institutional environment and implementing HR
strategies in response to institutional forces has not received much attention
(Watson, 2004) and requires further theoretical development and empirical illustration
(Van Gestel and Nyberg, 2009).
Comparative institutional analysis has focussed on the differences between the
first world institutional archetypes and how these affect the making and remaking of
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 41 No. 6, 2019
pp. 1183-1204
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-08-2018-0209
Received 3 August 2018
Revised 28 February 2019
26 March 2019
Accepted 27 March 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0142-5455.htm
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Employment
legislation and
employment
practices
formal rules (Morgan and Hauptmeier, 2014) and, consequently, HRM practices. However,
this stream of research has largely examined mature economies (McPherson, 2008;
Parry and Tyson, 2009; Vaiman and Brewster, 2014), ignoring differences between
developed and developing countries (Brewster and Mayrhofer, 2012; Budhwar and
Debrah, 2009). There is a dearth of literature on HRM in the context of small
developing economies such as the Maldives, despite these countries’fluid institutional
arrangements and the alternative perspectives they offer for understanding how
institutional-organisational interactions shape HRM practices (Gunnigle et al., 2015;
Rupidara and McGraw, 2011).
Accordingly, this paper addresses the following research questions:
RQ1. How does employment legislation affect HRM practices in Maldivian resorts?
RQ2. How do resort managers respond to the legislation?
RQ3. What motivates them to adopt specific responses? and
RQ4. How do strategic responses and HRM practices vary between resorts, e.g. between
international hotel chains and local resorts?
This paper addresses these questions using qualitative case study data from seven
self-contained tourist resorts in the Maldives, thereby shedding light on a context that so far
lacks adequate academic investigation. Its theoretical framework is institutional theory,
which is well suited to analysing how institutional forces such as employment legislation
affect, and are affected by, organisations (Burbach and Royle, 2014; Holm, 2014).
The paper is structured as follows. We first briefly review relevant literature on
institutional theory, strategic choice, sensemaking and HRM practices. We then discuss the
study’s research methods and present our findings. We conclude by discussing the findings,
their implications, limitations of the study and recommend future research directions.
New institutionalism and HRM
Institutional theorists argue that organisational practices are shaped by the institutional
environment (Barley and Tolbert, 1997) and that organisations in the same field
have homogeneous structures and practices (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983).
The organisational field is defined as “those organisations that, in the aggregate,
constitute a recognised area of institutional life: key suppliers, resource and product
consumers, regulatory agencies, and other organisations that produce similar
services or products”(DiMaggio and Powell, 1983, p. 148). These authors contend
that homogeneity in organisational structures and practices results from three main
isomorphic processes –coercive, mimetic and normative.
“Isomorphism is a constraining process that forces one unit in a population to resemble
other units that face the same set of institutional conditions”(DiMaggio and Powell, 1983,
p. 149). Coercive isomorphism, a central focus in this paper, results from formal and
informal pressures (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983), which organisations perceive as force,
persuasion or invitation to collude (Meyer and Rowan, 1977), and which cause them to
align their behaviour to fulfil their role as societal constituents (Meyer and Rowan, 1977)
or to gain legitimacy. Coercive mechanisms include influence from social partners
(e.g. trade unions and work councils), and government, including via employment law.
As any new law strengthening employee rights will affect HRM practices, organisations
may need to change their HRM policies and practices in response (Harcourt et al., 2010;
Tsai, 2010; Najeeb and Barrett, 2016). Consequently, HRM practices in organisations
that belong to the same organisational field become similar overtime (DiMaggio and
Powell, 1983; Hammonds, 2006).
1184
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