Human Resource Management and the Institutional Perspective: A Comparative Study of the Relationship Between the Context and the Firm

One of the most influential debates across business and management studies has centered on the relative impact of institutions on the fortunes of firms and nations. However, analyses have primarily focused on institutional effects on societal features, rather than actual firm practices. This volume brings together recent trends in comparative institutional analysis with a rich body of data on firm-level human resource management practice, consolidating and extending more than a decade of research on the topic.

Human Resource Management and the Institutional Perspective explores the overlapping and distinct elements in work and employment relations both within and across country lines. The authors focus on intra-firm relations, internal diversity within varieties of capitalism, and the uneven and experimental nature of systemic change, all the while employing an impressive level of theoretical rigor and empirical evidence. In a single volume, this text unites soundly based, theoretically strong and empirically new chapters that bring advances in institutional theory to bear on the subject of international and comparative human resource management.

This book is a valuable resource for students and scholars interested in contemporary developments in institutional theory, the relationship between regulation and practice, and innovation and continuity in human resource management.

Geoffrey Wood is Professor and Associate Dean at Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, UK. He is also Adjunct Professor at Griffith University, Australia, and Visiting Professor at Pecs University, Hungary, and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, South Africa.

Chris Brewster is Professor at Henley Business School, University of Reading, UK and Visiting Professor at the University of Nijmegen, Netherlands and Vaasa University, Finland. He researches international and comparative human resource management and has published over twenty-five books and more than 175 articles.

Michael Brookes is Reader at Middlesex University, UK, as well as Director of the Khanyisa Project, a non-profit partnership seeking to address employability issues in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. His research interests include labor market discrimination, industrial relations and comparative human resource management.