National Institutional Arrangements Research Articles

Social regulation of the gender pay gap in the EU

There has been more than 30 years of equal pay legislation in the European Union yet the gap between male and female earnings has remained remarkably resilient and is present across all Member States, regardless of national institutional arrangements. The European regulatory landscape has changed to one relying heavily on soft law approaches and with more limited ambitions in the field of gender equality than at the creation of the European Employment Strategy in 1997. In this environment the European Commission has placed greater emphasis on the role of social partners in addressing the gender pay gap. This article critically reviews the role of social partners in addressing these pay inequalities.

REASONS FOR THE SLOW ESTABLISHMENT OF PROVINCIAL SEA SYSTEMS IN MAINLAND CHINA

SEA was introduced in China in 2003 by the EIA Law. However, most Chinese provinces were slow to establish their own SEA systems. This paper reviews the Chinese SEA institutional arrangements, regulations and documents, both, at national and at provincial levels. The paper concludes that the slow establishment of the provincial SEA systems has been caused by the nature of Chinese SEA institutional arrangements, regulations and documents at national level. For example, lack of willingness to carry out SEAs; failure to strengthen Environmental Protection Bureaus (EPBs) at all levels; and the narrow range of plans requiring SEA. Suggestions are made for improving the SEA institutional arrangements and regulations. This paper provides a specific perspective by reviewing the Chinese SEA system through linking the establishment of provincial SEA systems to the national SEA institutional arrangements and regulations. Suggestions are made for further research.

Institutional complementarity between corporate governance and Corporate Social Responsibility: a comparative institutional analysis of three capitalisms

The question of why and how firms? approach to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) differs across countries is one that can only be adequately addressed by giving a strong theoretical underpinning to research on comparative CSR. To this end, drawing on institutional theory and the institutionalist arguments of the comparative capitalism literature, we identify the mechanism by which national institutional arrangements influence CSR. We do this by (a) separating CSR from corporate governance, and identifying corporate governance as the missing link between the broader institutional arrangements that govern finance and labour and CSR, and (b) using the concept of institutional comple- mentarity (a process of mutual reinforcement that enhances the value of both institutions) to specify the nature of the relationship between corporate govern- ance and CSR. We refer to three models of capitalism?liberal market economies (LMEs, e.g. the USA and the UK), coordinated market economies (CMEs, e.g. Germany and Japan) and state-led market economies (SLMEs, e.g. France and South Korea)?as empirical sites for exploration of these ideas. We argue that CSR complements corporate governance systems by a logic of similarity (a link based on similar properties) and that, as change in the broader institutional arrangements and corporate governance occurs, CSR reflects and facilities this change.

Revisualising township tourism in the Western Cape: the Migrant Labour Museum and the re-construction of Lwandle

This article uses a case study of the Lwandle Migrant Labour Museum, 40 km outside of Cape Town, to discuss how places and their histories come to be reconstituted in and along tourist routes. It argues that responsible tourism cannot merely be analysed through a hosts/guests approach that relies upon investigating impacts. This formulation does not take into account the fundamental ways that tourism is always about appropriation, systems of knowledge production, and the making of signs and values. The ways that Lwandle has been re-visualised suggests that it is much more useful to consider how places, people, cultures and histories are made and re-made in an image economy. The vast visual apparatus of tourism, depictions of place through writers, travellers and officials, gender relations, allocation of resources, claims to expertise, local and national politics, institutional arrangements and previous histories of images, are powerful mechanisms in the establishment, production and circulation of visual tourist knowledge. The journey constructed through Lwandle's past is one through a visual economy in which images are made, contested, altered and sometimes remain firmly in place.

Approaches to classifying and restoring degraded tropical forests for the anticipated REDD+ climate change mitigation mechanism

Abstract: Inclusion of improved forest management as a way to enhance carbon sinks in the Copenhagen Accord of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (December 2009) suggests that forest restoration will play a role in global climate change mitigation under the post-Kyoto agreement. Although discussions about restoration strategies often pertain solely to severely degraded tropical forests and invoke only the enrichment planting option, different approaches to restoration are needed to counter the full range of degrees of degradation. We propose approaches for restoration of forests that range from being slightly to severely degraded. Our methods start with ceasing the causes of degradation and letting forests regenerate on their own, progress through active management of natural regeneration in degraded areas to accelerate tree regeneration and growth, and finally include the stage of degradation at which re-planting is necessary. We argue that when the appropriate techniques are employed, forest restoration is cost-effective relative to conventional planting, provides abundant social and ecological co-benefits, and results in the sequestration of substantial amounts of carbon. For forest restoration efforts to succeed, a supportive post-Kyoto agreement is needed as well as appropriate national policies, institutional arrangements, and local participation.

THE DEGREE OF DECENTRALIZATION AND INDIVIDUAL DECISION MAKING IN CENTRAL GOVERNMENT HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT: A EUROPEAN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

This article reports a comparative study of human resource management (HRM) practices in Europe. We focus on the extent to which decision-making authority is decentralized, that is, passed down to management, and individualized in the sense of being in the discretion of a single decision maker. Using these two dimensions, this paper gives a picture of the distinct way HR decision-making practices are organized in Europe: although decentralization has been a common goal of modernization initiatives, we still find a rather high degree of centralization. Moreover, we find that decentralized decision making frequently goes hand in hand with a higher degree of shared decision making. In addition, we examine the influence of several cultural and institutional factors to address the question of embeddedness in more detail. Our results show that national culture, administrative traditions and institutional arrangements play an important role as explanatory factors for the organization of HR decision-making in Europe.

GLOBALISATION AND VARIETIES OF EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS: AN INTERNATIONAL STUDY OF THE AUTOMOTIVE ASSEMBLY INDUSTRY

This paper reports preliminary findings of a study of employment relations in the automotive assembly industry in seven countries. It provides evidence that the impact of globalisation on employment relations varies systematically across liberal, co-ordinated and, to a lesser extent, Asian market economies. It also provides evidence of considerable diversity within varieties of capitalism. This within-variety diversity suggests that while they are important, national institutional arrangements are not fully determinate and that the agency of managers and workers influences how individual companies in the auto-assembly respond to the challenges posed by globalisation. The study also provides evidence of diffusion of employment relations practices across multinational companies in the industry.

Making Decentralization Work: A Cross-national Examination of Local Governments and Natural Resource Governance in Latin America

There has been increased emphasis in the last three decades on the decentralization of natural resource governance decisions to local government in developing countries as a means of improving environmental quality, public service delivery, and the accountability of local officials. We examine the performance of decentralization of natural resource management services in a large sample of municipal governments in four Latin American countries. Our analysis includes a variety of factors discussed in the literature as important in influencing the responsiveness of government officials to local needs. We provide a nested institutional model in which local officials respond to incentives created by the structure of formal political institutions at both the local and national level. The results provide support for the importance of considering local and national institutional arrangements as these co-determine the political incentives within decentralized systems.

The institutional context for transboundary environmental impact assessment in Belgium: multi level setting — a matter of smooth governance?

Due to its particular institutional context, Belgium has different environmental assessment systems based on separate sets of legislation (federal and regional). All sets contain arrangements on transboundary approaches as well as provisions to assure the quality of the statements or reports. Regarding the intra-Belgian environmental assessment systems, the Espoo Convention has inspired the regional governments to adopt a cooperation agreement. This convention is also applied in the bilateral arrangements of the regional government of Flanders with the neighbouring state of the Netherlands. Internal (at national or subnational level) institutional arrangements have an impact on the feasibility of good impact assessments in a transboundary context. Experiences with transboundary impact assessment may inspire internal policy developments.

Transition from Educational System to Labour Market in the European Union

Theoretically, the central research question of this article pertains to the way in which national institutional arrangements, namely educational systems, and related modes of labour markets and welfare provisions, affect the aggregate effectiveness of youth labour market integration in the new EU member states in comparison to the old EU countries. The study utilizes the European Union Labour Force Survey 2004. Results of the cluster analysis provide substantial support for distinct patterns of labour market entry in terms of the stratification of labour market exclusion, downgrading risk and labour market mobility of LM entrants in different CEE countries. Furthermore, the article reveals also new aspects of labour market entry in the EU-15 countries while considering not only educational signalling but also the labour market flexibility dimension.

Trade Globalization, Politics, and the Choice of Policies and Institutions: Three Varieties of Institutional Divergence

Much recent research in political economy has focused on how globalization might affect the politics of institutional and policy choice. Research examining whether globalization will contribute to convergence of national institutional arrangements or policies is the preeminent example. In this paper, we use an extension of basic trade theory that reveals the links between trade globalization, politics, and institutional/policy choice (except trade policy) to examine the impact of trade globalization on three varieties of institutional divergence. In the analysis, we place particular emphasis on examining institutional divergence caused by political coalitional politics. We focus our analysis on the role of trade globalization, one aspect of globalization, and argue that each aspect of globalization needs to be investigated individually. Our analysis challenges the general assumption of those examining globalization that globalization can be expected to exert a common pressure for convergence. Our conclusion is that trade globalization should not be expected to create a general, common pressure for institutional/policy change, and because it does not generate a general, common pressure for institutional change, it does not contribute to institutional convergence. To the contrary, trade globalization can be expected to broadly reinforce institutional/policy diversity. Thus, the impact of trade globalization is exactly opposite that generally assumed in the literature.

Country capabilities and the strategic state: How national political institutions affect multinational Corporations' Strategies

This article presents a framework for the analysis of how MNCS' strategies interact with stateS' industrial strategies. It first shows how national institutional arrangements can systematically contribute to state strategic capabilities that form a basis of competitive advantage. It then examines conditions under which these arrangements and capabilities affect, or fail to affect, the international strategies and organization structures of home firms, incoming foreign direct investors, and home firmS' international customers, collaborators and competitors.

Why Do European Home Owners Experience Loan Repayment Difficulties? Some Preliminary Results of Combining Macro and Micro Approaches

ABSTRACT In recent decades, more and more European households have become home owners. Typically, this has been achieved with the help of a loan, repaid over a number of years to cover a proportion of the purchase price. Some households in some countries and at some times experience financial hardship in repaying the loan, which may lead to mortgage default and eventually repossession. Understanding why some individuals experience financial difficulties, and why that may be translated into housing loan difficulties, non-payment and then the loss of the home, has significance in both scientific and policy terms. The present paper reports preliminary results from ongoing work that aims to combine two approaches to the study of loan repayment difficulties. Reporting first on results from a study using macro data that identifies the importance of national institutional arrangements such as labour and financial markets, these are used second to inform analysis using micro data obtained from the European Commun...

Banking crisis management in the European Union: Multiple regulators and resolution authorities

Failures of internationally active banks some years ago pointed to deficiencies in private and public governance for such banks as Banco Ambrosiano, BCCI and Barings. As the European Union makes progress towards integrating the financial system within the enlarged EU, the financial safety net has again become a topic of prominent discussion. This paper presents the national institutional arrangements to preserve financial stability and focuses on the coordination among prudential regulators/supervisors, deposit insurance and resolution authorities between EU countries. Regulators' incentives to share information on banks' financial condition and coordinated action in a context of asymmetric information deserve especial attention. The paper concludes that the EU's safety net is a work in progress — much has already been accomplished, but its development is still ongoing.

Human resource management practices in international joint ventures in mainland China: a justice analysis

International joint ventures (IJVs) now abound in mainland China and have become a driving force of its economic development. However, because of differences in national culture and social institutional arrangements, Chinese and foreign partners often regard different human resource management practices as fair. This article reviews the major human resource functions in IJVs: recruitment, compensations, performance appraisal, training and development, and exit. The sources of disagreement between the Chinese partner and the foreign partner in each of these human resource practices are analyzed from a justice perspective. Our review shows that the Chinese and the foreign partners often diverge on what constitutes a legitimate justice rule and criteria upon which these rules are applied. Directions for future research and applied implications are discussed.

Understanding Urban Inequality: A Model Based on Existing Theories and an Empirical Illustration

In the debate on urban inequality, Sassen’s theory on social polarization and Wilson’s theory on spatial mismatch have received much attention. Where Sassen highlights the decline of the middle classes, Wilson focuses on the upgrading of urban labour markets. In this article we argue that both theories may be valid, but that they have to be put in a more extended theoretical framework. Of central importance are national institutional arrangements, membership of different ethnic groups and networks, and place–specific characteristics rooted in local socio–economic histories. As a first empirical illustration of our model, we use data on the labour markets of Amsterdam and Rotterdam and show that different forms of inequality can be found both in economic sectors and within ethnic groups. The model we present could be used both to reinterébatpret existing data and as an analytical framework for the analysis of different forms of urban inequality.Dans le d& sur l’inégalitéurbaine, la théorie de la polarisation sociale de Sassen et celle de la disparité spatiale de Wilson ont retenu l’attention. Alors que Sassen souligne le déclin des classes moyennes, Wilson s’attache à la revalorisation des marchés du travail urbains. Cet article soutient que, si ces deux théories sont admissibles, elles doivent étre placées dans un cadre théorique plus large. En effet, sont essentielles les dispositions institutionnelles nationales, l’adhésion de différents réseaux et groupes ethniques, et les spécificités du lieu enracinées dans les histoires socio–économiques locales. Comme première illustration empirique de notre modèle, nous utilisons des données relatives aux marchés du travail d’Amsterdam et de Rotterdam pour montrer qu’il y existe différentes formes d’inégalitéà la fois dans les secteurs économiques et les groupes ethniques. Le modèle présenté pourrait servir à réinterpréter les données existantes et fournir un cadre à l’analyse des diverses formes d’inégalité urbaine.

Reformulating the commons

The western hemisphere is richly endowed with a diversity of natural resource systems that are governed by complex local and national institutional arrangements that have not, until recently, been well understood. While many local communities that possess a high degree of autonomy to govern local resources have been highly successful over long periods of time, others fail to take action to prevent overuse and degradation of forests, inshore fisheries, and other natural resources. The conventional theory used to predict and explain how local users will relate to resources that they share makes a uniform prediction that users themselves will be unable to extricate themselves from the tragedy of the commons. Using this theoretical view of the world, there is no variance in the performance of self-organized groups. In theory, there are no self-organized groups. Empirical evidence tells us, however, that considerable variance in performance exists and many more local users self-organize and are more successful than it is consistent with the conventional theory . Parts of a new theory are presented here.

Absorption of CIS Immigrants into Israeli Schools: A Semipermeable Enclave Model

National ideology, institutional arrangements, and immigrant community self-image should be taken into account in order to understand the way immigrant students insert themselves into their host society. We found that immigrant students from the CIS (the former Soviet Union) adopted a “semipermeable enclave” mode of integration into the Israeli education system in the 1990s. CIS immigrants' high self-esteem along with the schools' so-called “pluralistic ideology” and ineffective arrangements to apply the official assimilationist national ideology produced this new absorption pattern. Because immigrant children's integration into schools is a dynamic and dialectic process resulting from the interaction between immigrants and the host society, its analysis must take into consideration not only educational policies, but also social conditions such as power relations between different ethnic groups, as well as the characteristics of the specific immigrant community.

Reformulating the Commons

AbstractThe western hemisphere is richly endowed with a diversity of natural resource systems that are governed by complex local and national institutional arrangements that have not, until recently, been well understood. While many local communities that possess a high degree of autonomy to govern local resources have been highly successful over long periods of time, others fail to take action to prevent overuse and degradation of forests, inshore fisheries, and other natural resources. The conventional theory used to predict and explain how local users will relate to resources that they share makes a uniform prediction that users themselves will be unable to extricate themselves from the tragedy of the commons. Using this theoretical view of the world, there is no variance in the performance of self‐organized groups. In theory, there are no self‐organized groups. Empirical evidence tells us, however, that considerable variance in performance exists and many more local users self‐organize and are successful than is consistent with the conventional theory. Parts of a new theory are presented here.

Recruiting the acquiescent workforce

Focuses on the workforce characteristics of the German and UK operations of McDonald’s Corporation. The UK workforce is characterised by predominantly young workers with very limited work experience, the German workforce is much older and mostly foreign workers. The analysis suggests that despite these differences and differences in labour market regulation, there is a key similarity between the workforces. The corporation is able to draw on similarly “weak” and marginalised segments of the labour market and these segments are likely to be particularly acquiescent to managerial prerogative. National institutional arrangements can still constrain the employment relations policies of multinational enterprises (MNEs). However, this analysis supports the notion that there is a growing diversity within national systems increasingly explained by MNE policies and practices. This does not necessarily mean that national systems are becoming redundant, but that there is a dynamic relationship between such systems and the needs of MNEs.