European Works Councils and the dark side of managing worker voice

Andrew R. Timming, Manchester Business School, University of Manchester Human Resource Management Journal, Vol 17, no 3, 2007, pages 248264

Drawing from case study research, the article explores managerial strategies in a UK-based European Works Council (EWC), but from the perspective of workers representatives. This methodological approach offers an alternative set of lens through which to view managerial strategy from the standpoint of those it is meant to affect. The evidence suggests that employers representatives in central management appear to be proactively fragmenting worker voice, arguably in order to convert the EWC into a business-friendly instrument and to assert managerial control. However, there is no empirical basis for arguing that such tactics yield organisational benets. The employers perceived strategies reect the traditional cultural antagonisms that are historically played out between workers and managers in the particular sector in which the rm is embedded. The article has practical implications for HR managers who are viewed, rightly or wrongly, with suspicion and distrust by employee representatives. Contact: Dr Andrew R. Timming, Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, Booth Street West, Manchester M15 6PB, UK. Email: Andrew.Timming@mbs.ac.uk

he lions share of research on European Works Councils (EWCs) looks at these institutions as potential vehicles for the promotion of the position of labour (e.g. see Turner, 1996; Weston and Martinez Lucio, 1998; Wills, 1998; Whittall, 2000; Buschak, 2004; Pulignano, 2005, among others). The orientation of this corpus of work is fair enough, especially in light of the fact that EWCs do seem to open up new opportunities for workers representatives to network (Lecher et al., 2001) and to develop friendships (Stirling and Fitzgerald, 2001) at a supranational level. However, that EWCs are conventionally viewed as labour-friendly institutions does not mean that they cannot be used concomitantly as employer-friendly tools of HRM (Timming, 2006) or, in the case of worker participation more broadly, as a means of preserving managerial authority and control (Ramsay, 1977). Indeed, there is something to be said for the argument that EWCs are institutions in process (Waddington and Kerckhofs, 2003); as such, they are malleable and, with an effective strategy in place, can be used instrumentally by either workers or employers representatives. The aim of this study is to explore managerial strategies in a case study EWC, but from the perspective of its workers representatives. This approach allows for an alternative set of actors/lenses to contribute to an overall denition of the situation (Goffman, 1959, 1986). Drawing from case study research conducted at a
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UK-based EWC, the article examines the tactics that employers representatives are perceived to use in order to undercut the benets of the forum for labour and potentially to extract latent benets in the form of improved co-operation in the employment relation. It will be argued that these managerial strategies are viewed, rightly or wrongly, as an attempt to use the EWC as a management tool by which to transfer worker resistance from employers towards each other in a crossnational context. The next section reviews the EWC literature on: (1) the potential benets of employee involvement from the point of view of management and (2) the ways in which managers have previously used divide and rule tactics in order to promote vertical co-operation in the employment relation. The article subsequently examines the horizontal dynamics of transnational worker representation within the context of employer policies aimed at fostering interplant competition for jobs, investment and resources. An outline of the research methods is then provided. Next, the ndings of the study are reported and some preliminary analyses offered. Lastly, the implications of the present study in terms of worker perceptions of HR practices are discussed and some suggestions for further research are set out. Two closely related issues are important to the argument of this article. First, what, if any, are the potential benets of EWCs for management? Second, what are the strategies that central managers pursue in order to draw these potential benets? The next section weighs the responses to these questions by examining some of the extant strands of the literature on EWCs.

EMPLOYER INSTRUMENTALISATION OF EWCs Previous research provides supporting evidence to the claim that EWCs have something to offer employers representatives in terms of the promotion of business objectives. For example, Nakano (1999: 307), in a survey of the costs and benets of EWCs, concludes that a substantial majority of managers gave a fairly favourable overall evaluation of the institution. Such a conclusion seems curious in light of the fact that, according to Knutsen (2004: 21), during the tug of war up to the EWC Directive of 22 September 1994, UNICE [the European employers peak association] adopted a critical position, bordering on refusal in principle. How might one explain this apparent shift in perspective from refusal in principle to fairly favourable? A focused review of the managerial-based EWC literature provides a tentative answer to this question. Overall, 71 per cent of the respondents in Nakano (1999) positively evaluated the EWC; only 7 per cent issued a negative evaluation. Some of the advantages of participation in the forum included: (1) its ability to serve as a mechanism for the dissemination of corporate information, (2) its potential to promote co-operation and involvement in the company and (3) its utility in the formation of corporate identity. The perceived disadvantages of participation in the EWC included: (1) its adverse effect on employees expectations, (2) the sizable nancial expenses in sustaining the forum and (3) a mismatch with decentralized corporate structures (p. 324). His study suggests that EWCs not only entail tangible costs, but also some potential benets for management.
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A similar conclusion is reached on the basis of Cresseys (1998) case study of the NatWest Group and its voluntary implementation of the EWC Directive. As with Nakano (1999), the nancial costs of convening the EWC were highlighted as a key drawback. Still, he concludes that [t]he longer term advantages of the council were considered to outweigh the costs (Cressey, 1998: 76). He argues that the
overall advice generally offered to other managements embarking on the setting up of an EWC was to make sure it tted with their needs and not that of an external agency. The message was to not be afraid of the costs rather, see them as an investment and an opportunity to improve the business and increase skills and learning in the process. (p. 76)

The main benets for managers included the opportunity for them to communicate corporate strategy, to allow discussion of change, to foster international contact and to encourage identity among staff of belonging to an international company (p. 78). Quintana Fernandez (2003) provides another example from a managerial perspective. First, she argues that the EWC can serve as a tool of communicating an integrated HR strategy across several European sites and as a tool of communication among employers representatives themselves. Second, she argues that managers can gain something from an upward ow of information originating from their workers (see Marchington and Wilkinson, 2005: 283). Third, she notes that EWCs can promote commitment and an awareness of corporate culture in the workforce. Finally, she argues that EWCs can be helpful paciers during times of restructuring and change. Taken together, each of these points suggests that, following Wills (1999: 33), managers appear to be able to bend these institutions to suit their needs. In short, there seem to be several benets that managements can draw from EWCs. It is beyond the scope of this article to assess empirically the impact of managerial strategy on the range of benets mentioned earlier. Thus, the remainder of the article focuses on only one of the potential benets: the promotion of co-operation in the employment relation via the EWC (Nakano, 1999). The question now becomes: what managerial strategies can be used to encourage vertical co-operation between workers and central managers? A further review of the literature on EWCs addresses this question and yields some interesting, albeit somewhat dark, insight into potential managerial strategies. There are several empirical accounts of employers who make use of evil and fear-based management practices (Roy, 1980; Dundon, 2002) in order to divide and rule the workforce, and thereby to cultivate employee compliance to managerial prerogative. For example, on the basis of her own case study research, Wills (2001: 495) states that
[i]n practice, managers dominated the agenda at the EWC meetings, using them to reinforce the message that workers needed to keep costs down and remain competitive if they were to retain jobs. When workers were already feeling vulnerable to possible closure, downsizing, internal competition and investment elsewhere, these meetings probably increased tensions between employee representatives from different locations.
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Comments such as these illustrate what appears to be an effort on the part of central managers to use the EWC in order to encourage competition between geographically dispersed workforces. As such, they are able to convert an ostensibly labour-friendly institution into a business-friendly managerial tool. By proactively fragmenting the workforce, employers representatives paradoxically can compel their workers into a partnership of an involuntary nature. Tuckman and Whittall (2002) provide a ne illustration of the uses of this Machiavellian strategy in a case study of the EWC at Norsk Hydro, a Norwegianbased rm. The authors use the metaphor of musical chairs to analyse the nature of cross-national labour relations in the forum. They argue that workers
are involved in a game to compete for investment needed to sustain jobs on their own site against others within the corporate matrix. Not only do they have to appear effective and efficient in production but also show commitment to corporate values. In the party game children run around a circle of chairs until the music stops when they must nd one to sit on. In each round a chair is removed. Musical chairs has also become a commonly used metaphor for corporate restructuring and reorganisation, indicating processes where participants work faster as less remain within the game. (Tuckman and Whittall, 2002: 70)

Among the potential benets of this strategy for managers is that workers engage in a race-to-the-bottom of sorts. New alliances are formed locally with managers and the vertical problem of conicting interests is channelled into a horizontal, i.e. cross-national context. This strategy amounts to a strategic transference of resistance and blame. The results are twofold: (1) greater commitment to company objectives and (2) willingness on the part of employee representatives to concede demands in order to retain jobs and attract investment. Hancke (2000) further explains the logic of regime competition in EWCs (also see Streeck, 1997) in the context of restructuring in the European motor industry. Rather than naively viewing EWCs as bastions of labour internationalism, contends Hancke (2000), they can alternatively, and perhaps more accurately, be viewed as bastions of labour parochialism. In other words, EWCs paradoxically can have a disintegrating effect on cross-national labour relations, especially inasmuch as the agenda is set by employers representatives. Although he does not completely exonerate workers for the active part they play in using EWC to promote their own local interests, he argues that management deploys [the forum] as a pan-European human resource institution (p. 55) in order to achieve their objectives. By emphasising the nature of horizontal competition between workers, managers are thus able to extract businessfriendly concessions at local level. In sum, previous research on EWCs provides supporting evidence to the claim that institutions of employee involvement can be used by managers in order to realise or promote strategic company aims. This section examined the EWC literature on the potential benets of such institutions and on the managerial strategies that are used in order to secure one such benet: the promotion of co-operation in the employment relation. The next section examines the managerial logic underlying the strategy of proactive fragmentation.
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COMPETITION AND CO-OPERATION IN A TRANSNATIONAL CONTEXT The dynamics of competition and co-operation in EWCs are viewed in this article with a certain degree of irony. Because of the multidimensional nature of the EWC, it is possible to conceptualise increased vertical co-operation as coterminous with increased horizontal competition. In other words, partnership at local level can be manufactured by central managers who exploit the diversity of national forms of regulation in a transnational arena. From a social psychological viewpoint (Sherif et al., 1961; Sherif, 1966), internal coherence at one level theoretically depends on an external rivalry at another level. On the basis of this principle, central managers can conceivably use the EWC, as the previous literature has stated, in order to foster cross-national conict between workers, and thus, to secure greater vertical co-operation in the employment relation. The proactive forging of divisions within multinational workforces is an HR strategy that is seldom discussed openly among managers, for obvious reasons. The logic of pursuing such a strategy is fairly straightforward. It rests on the assumption that workers will always be, in some measure, dissatised with certain elements of their employment situation. Several factors contribute to this dissatisfaction, including recognition of the unequal power differential inherent within the employment relation (Kelly, 2000) and the realities of job insecurity and work intensication (Burchell et al., 2002). Under these circumstances, the ability to assign and direct blame is the key to maintaining vertical integration in the employment relation and promoting a form of co-operation between workers and managers. By, in effect, redirecting worker dissatisfaction and fostering competition between spatially stratied workforces, central management can channel the apparent source of workers problems into a transnational context. This channelling of blame recongures the appearance of workermanagement relations and thus facilitates vertical co-operation. Mueller and Purcell (1992) provide an illustration of this strategy within the context of the European automobile industry. They argue that multinational rms use so-called reward-and-punish investment decisions as a basis for extracting bargaining concessions from workers at local level, thus, promoting organisational change in the direction of convergence. As in the present study, they argue that, paradoxically, the vertical integration of operations is linked to the horizontal fragmentation of workers. This analysis is extended in Mueller (1996), where he argues that multinational rms use a combination of forcing and fostering in order to persuade workers of the need for concessions and co-operation with managements agenda. In similar vein, Martinez Lucio and Weston (1994) offer case study evidence of proactive fragmentation on the part of central managements. They contend that managerial strategy in their case study rms rested on four factors: (1) the playing of one plant against another in order to foster an acceptance of managerial prerogative; (2) the use of investment decision making in order to provoke competition between non-compatriotic workers; (3) the reframing of employee rights so as to incorporate workers into managerial vision; and (4) the construction of a new corporate culture in order to legitimise change. These four factors are viewed by the authors in the light of an overarching HRM strategy aimed at effecting organisational change.
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Also worthy of mention are two studies by Ferner and Edwards (1995) as well as Coller (1996), both of which frame the debate on this strategy using the suggestive language of coercive comparisons. With an emphasis on power and the channels of inuence in multinational corporations, the former researchers examine the ways in which corporate best practice can be diffused cross-nationally. They argue that the use of coercive comparisons between plants can be a highly effective tool by which to encourage the uptake of what are identied at the corporate level as best practices. Coller (1996) similarly views coercive comparison as a form of unobtrusive control aimed at promoting compliance with specied corporate objectives. In both studies, the implication of the arguments is that central management has at least something to gain, i.e. workers submission to managerial suggestions, by proactively seeking to divide the workforce. What does all of this mean in relation to the ongoing debates surrounding co-operation and partnership? In short, the analysis presented in this section lends some credibility to those critics who challenge the integrity and the goodwill of partnership arrangements (Kelly, 1996). It further questions, on an ontological level, what partnership really means. Teague (2005) is right to argue that enterprise partnership is essentially about building a procedural consensus and promoting collusion between workers and top managers. However, he, along with much of the optimistic literature on partnership (Kochan et al., 1986; Kochan and Osterman, 1994), may be well off the mark in couching the term in an aura of goodwill, trust, fairness and equity. The realisation of vertical co-operation, insofar as it is dependent on the disintegration of cross-national labour relations, is not a clearly moral path towards partnership. Indeed, partnership thus achieved, even if it does improve co-operation between workers and managers, is cynical at its best, especially when it is not entered into voluntarily. This analysis suggests that co-operation between two parties can conceivably emerge in the absence of mutual trust (see Cook et al., 2005). METHODS Similar to Marchington and Armstrong (1981), the methodology of the present study uses workers insight to throw light on managerial strategy. Four points justify this distinctive approach. First, research similar to that conducted in the present study has already been undertaken from the point of view of management. For example, Dundon et al. (2004) use case studies to examine the variable meanings of employee voice and the range of potential outcomes, or benets, for managers. They argue that there is a need for further research on how workers interpret and inuence the range of employee voice mechanisms used at enterprise level (p. 1168). Second, previous work has already legitimised the method employed. For example, Gouldner (1955) suggests that an organisational context can only really be understood in full when the diverse perspectives of multiple actors are taken into account. Marchington et al. (1994) further examine involvement from the point of view of workers attitudes, highlighting the importance of locating these within their organizational context (p. 886). Third, there is evidence that workers perceptions of organisational climate are not substantively different from management perceptions (Nicholson, 1979) anyway. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, management would not likely be forthcoming were they actually
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adopting a strategy based on the exploitation and fragmentation of workers. The social desirability effect (Singleton et al., 1988: 113) would thus likely lead to a concealment of intentionality and to dubious statements by managers. No doubt, these four points do not mask the limitations of the method, i.e. the obvious bias in the respondents perceptions of managerial strategy, the possibility of imperfect extrapolation as a result of an information gap and the phenomenological difficulties of grasping the intended meaning (Schutz, 1997) of others actions. These limitations obstruct the emergence of any concrete generalisations from the empirical research. However, it is not the purpose of this article to present one, true denition of the situation, but instead, to demonstrate that a single organisational context consists of a series of realities that are constituted through multiple lenses. The multinational rm that served as the subject of the case study is hereafter referred to as Britco. In order to maintain the anonymity of the rm and protect the condentiality of the respondents, key identifying details of Britco are withheld in the article. Still, it is important to provide as much context as possible within the connes of anonymity of the company and the protection of respondent condentiality. An obvious characteristic of the rm that deserves mention is its geographical reach. Britco is a UK-based company with its headquarters in London. Its operations are spread across England and Wales, although it also has subsidiaries in Europe and the US. It is important to note the branch of industry where it is located as well. Production at Britco ts squarely within the traditional manufacturing sector. This key point plays a major role in the discussion section in terms of explaining what appear to be proactive fragmentation strategies on the part of central management at Britco. A third factor worthy of mention is that Britco is the result of a cross-border merger. As such, horizontal integration in the rm is obstructed by the idiosyncrasies associated with national business systems (e.g. see Lane, 1995; Whitley, 1999). Fourth, perhaps as a result of the above points, unionmanagement relations, especially on the UK side of the rm, are traditionally militant and based on attitudes of antagonism. This point is reinforced by the fact that union membership at Britco hovers at around 90 per cent for the UK workforce. A total of 19 British workers representatives were interviewed in 2004. This number represents complete coverage of the UK delegation. All of the subjects were trade unionists, although the unions themselves had no formal role in the EWC in spite of the fact that their national officials were allowed to attend as experts with advisory roles. In late 2004, the author attended two days of meetings at the Britco EWC as an observer with no active function in the proceedings. These observations, along with some archival work on previous EWC minutes and three interviews with experts from the Trades Union Congress (TUC), are factored into the present study. The bulk of the data, however, derives from the interviews conducted with workers representatives. The interviewees were employed at Britco in various capacities. They ranged from shop oor workers to middle managers. Each of the interviews was conducted on a one-on-one basis. The discussions with the subjects were semi-structured. The interviews were undertaken as part of a broader research project on trust in industrial relations. As such, there was no intention on the part of the author to
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elicit responses in specic respect to managerial strategy in the EWC. Accordingly, the data emerged in a comparatively natural context. The interviews lasted approximately one hour. With explicit consent, the dialogue for each respondent was digitally recorded and transcribed. The transcriptions were thoroughly revised in order to identify the foundations of trust and distrust in the case study EWC. During the revision, notes were taken of repeated examples of what were perceived to be unscrupulous practices on the part of management to use EWC for their own collective ends. These observations were seminal to the present study.

THE CASE STUDY EWC: BRITCO The results of the eldwork generally indicate that managerial strategy in the EWC appears to have a dark side. It will become clearer what is meant by this in the present section. Irrespective of managerial intentions, there is evidence to suggest that employers representatives are perceived to be pursuing potentially surreptitious and morally questionable methods by which to convert the forum into a businessfriendly tool. It is furthermore argued that there is insufficient evidence to link these tactics to enhanced organisational performance or increased co-operation in the employment relation, as argued in the previously cited literature. Precisely why Britco management appears to pursue a strategy of fragmentation in the absence of a tangible benet will be addressed in the discussion section. At a supercial level, the managerial strategy in the EWC at rst appears innocuous. Employers representatives used the forum as a platform to communicate corporate aims. For example, embedded into their presentations were motivational catchphrases that explained how we are all going to do it (emphasis in original). The delegates were repeatedly instructed on how to unlock and transfer best practices via benchmarking and told of the importance of embedding continuous improvement through the development of a common, specically Britco, language. The company objectives were reiterated throughout the presentations. These included, for example, the improvement of performance, the restoration of protability, the unication of the Britco team and, in typical UK style, the building of shareholder value. Thus, there was a concerted effort on the part of central management to use the EWC as a means by which to communicate the need for restructuring, to build company culture and to co-ordinate a Europe-wide strategic HRM policy. This supercial view of managerial strategy within the case study reects many of the benets highlighted by Cressey (1998), Nakano (1999) and Quintana Fernandez (2003), among others. But a closer inspection of the Britco EWC provided evidence that employers representatives were not only striving to use the forum in order to promote their vision of change, but also perhaps to undercut the potential benets for workers. There were some indications of a possible strategy of evasion with respect to central managers responsibilities to inform and consult workers on the present state of, and future plans for, the company. For example, one of the EWC delegates recalls
[At the] last European Works Council . . . we found out that: a) [the Chief Executive] is a big Arsenal supporter, b) [Mr Trade Unionist] . . . is a bit
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of a Chelsea supporter. And Arsenal happened to be playing Chelsea that night. So they were having this sort of, you know, debate on their table. And when [the Chief Executive] actually got up to give what he would normally give, like his formal speech or whatever, what he said was, Look. Do you want to listen to me, or do you want to go into the bar and watch the football game? So everybody said, Well, well go into the bar and watch the football game.

No doubt, in line with what was argued in the methodology section, there are multiple interpretations of this episode. For example, more innocently, perhaps the Chief Executive thought it might be difficult to hold the attention of the delegations. However, employers actual intentions are irrelevant insofar as some of the workers perceive their actions as evasive, as was the case. Previous empirical work conrms that, arguably because of instances such as this one, many workers are dissatised with the level of information sharing in EWCs (Waddington, 2003). Evidence of a potential dark side of managerial strategy becomes clearer in the following observation. One possible way in which central managers can contain EWC interaction even further is to impair the workers abilities to reason sensibly. As an observer of the Britco EWC, I took note of the extent to which the consumption of alcohol was actively encouraged prior to the Q&A session held on the nal morning of the meetings. It is convenient that the bar tab is covered by the company until late at night, arguably as a means to ensure that the delegates are sleepdeprived and, to use a colloquialism, hung over for the vital meeting with the Chief Executive the following morning. It is also convenient that the Q&A proceedings are scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. Needless to say, of the delegates who are able to attend the meeting in person, few are there in mind. Thus, managers are able to manoeuvre more freely through the meeting with minimal resistance, as was recognised by some of the EWC delegates with whom I spoke. These scenarios point to the possibility, from the point of view of workers, that central management may be using the EWC in a manner such that the prospective benets of involvement for workers are undercut or at least minimised. But to what extent have employers representatives used proactive divide and rule tactics as a way of obstructing the cohesion and collective action of the workers? The eldwork yielded solid evidence on this matter as well. For example, one delegate recalls when
they tried to set up, like, an inner council of the works council that they would only give certain information to and they asked us not to share that information with other members of the European Works Council. We stood hard and fast against that and we said, No, weve all signed the official secret act or whatever you want to call it; we are all entitled to the same information at the same time . . . We were not happy with the fact that they wanted us to keep certain sensitive information within that core group, and not let it out to the entire works council.

Again, whether or not this can be viewed as proactive fragmentation is irrelevant for all practical purposes. What matters is that many workers, either rightly or wrongly, assumed that employers actions were geared towards this end. Thus, it was perceived, in support of the conclusions drawn by Wills (1999: 33), that
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managers deliberately attempted to stage manage the event . . . [and] bend the game in order to achieve their desired aims. Although many of the workers resisted the establishment of a privileged inner council, it was eventually set up nonetheless. One of the representatives reected that this bifurcation had a negative impact on trust in the EWC, as expected
This sub-committee is going to cause a lot of problems within the European Works Council because some people said, Well, this is an elite group wholl be in receipt of information that we havent got. And this elite group may not be properly representative . . .. So there was an example of the wider European Works Council even having trust issues with some of their colleagues on the council itself.

Another of the delegates admitted that he often wonder[ed] . . . whether management didnt want the European Works Council to work. He continued, its as if they use it to keep the divides there. The divide-and-rule-via-the-privileging-one-group-over-another strategy was identied by one EWC expert from the TUC as specically characteristic of Britcos managerial approach. He pointed out
I think management can generate distrust, and do . . . [Britco] is probably at the top of this league. I mean theyve done it pretty well . . . The best one is to suggest to one group that theyre gonna be privileged, but not to mention it to anyone else.

He went on to argue that any self-respecting multinational company will set parts of [its] workforce against each other. All of this lends evidence to the argument that the actions of Britcos central management have what appears to be a sinister side to them. Employers representatives on the EWC are perceived to have an ulterior motive with respect to their tactics and there was little sense of a duciary obligation (see Barber, 1983) between the two interest groups. To what extent were coercive comparisons made in the EWC as a means by which to generate a concession mentality between spatially located workers? On this front, the evidence points to the fact that managers not only threatened production site transfers, but even carried one out during the course of the eldwork. As one worker commented, its survival of the ttest. Thats what this companys based around . . . And part of the sub-business philosophy for [Britco], whether it be UK or Europe, is, If you dont make any money, shut it down and well look at some way that we can make more money . Along similar lines, another UK delegate explained how this sub-business philosophy impacted horizontal trust relations: At the end of the day, that strategic planning might say that theyre gonna shut X and transfer the work to Y. They can say that, and because they can say that, theres always going to be seeds of, that we dont trust each other. Such comments imply that employers representatives are perceived to be actively engaging in the dynamic that plays off one plant against another (Hancke, 2000). Hence, from an ethical vantage point, it appears that central managers in the case study EWC are pursuing a series of what might be seen as morally questionable tactics in order to assert managerial control in the forum. The arsenal of tactics
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ranges from the use of the forum as a propaganda tool through the potential evasion of their responsibilities to inform and consult, and the possible proactive fragmentation of the workforce via coercive comparisons and the creation of privileged groupings. Taken together, these tactics are indicative of what I have called the dark side of managing worker voice. But the ndings reported thus far only answer half of the question that was posed in the opening of this article. Having examined the potential strategies, it is now worth examining the extent to which central managers draw benets from them. In particular, I am concerned to discover whether or not managers were able to use the EWC in order to secure increased co-operation in the employment relation. Dundon et al. (2004) are right to argue that researchers should exercise caution in attempting to causally link the various forms of worker participation with enhanced organisational performance. Accordingly, and taking the eldwork results as a whole, there is little empirical evidence from the present study to corroborate the argument that the fostering of horizontal competition promotes vertical co-operation within the employment relation. The results suggest that the meaning of partnership is much more complex than it appears on the surface. On the one hand, the impact of employers behaviour, whether intentional or not, was such that the workers often did not trust each other. For example, one of the delegates admitted, I dont know what my other colleagues from the UK have said, but I personally wouldnt trust [our European counterparts] . . . They always see us as a threat, and if youve got something thats threatening you all the time, the easiest way is to do away with it, exterminate it. There was an agreement between the UK delegates that the European workers have their own agenda, which in turn resulted in what several referred to as an us and them split. So it could be argued that there has been something of a transference or a reassignment of resistance into a horizontal context, as was discussed previously. It would be a fair assessment of the eldwork to argue that cross-national labour relations were dominated by competitive dynamics and that these are perhaps a result of managerial choices in the EWC. On the other hand, there was no evidence to link this horizontal disintegration unambiguously to vertical integration in the form of increased co-operation. In fact, the relationship between workers and employers representatives on the forum was arguably just as strained as the perpendicular relationship between the geographically dispersed workers. Several delegates described workermanagement relations in terms of another us and them dynamic marked by confrontation and antagonism. It was broadly agreed that, as such, managers should always be viewed with suspicion. One of the workers concluded, Well, I wouldnt trust management as far as I could throw em anyway . . . because thats how we are in British industry. They want rid of us and we want as much as we can out of them like. Under such circumstances, it is difficult to envision the forging of co-operation and mutual partnership between workers and managers in the light of cross-national competition between the workers themselves. In sum, managerial action in the EWC appears to be based on the reication of competitive tendencies between workers, but it does not seem to generate any obvious benet in the form of increased vertical co-operation. The interaction dynamics in the forum are best captured in the following insight: Its a three way street here, you see. Youve got the UK. Youve got the European partners. And
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youve got management. At some stage you feel that you are ghting both simply because everyone is looking after their own interests. Hence, it could be asked, if the potential for co-operation is weakened at multiple levels through the apparent use of coercive comparisons and the creation of privileged groups, then why might central managers, for example, set up inner councils and play workers against each other? DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS The architects of the EWC Directive were perhaps naive in their vision that workers and employers representatives would happily come together in a spirit of co-operation. The present case study does not offer denitive proof of this naivety, but it does provide one more piece to an ongoing puzzle that adds to previous strands of criticism in respect to EWCs (for example, Wills, 1999, 2000; Hancke, 2000; Waddington, 2003, among many others). What makes the present study distinctive from these previous ones is that the results are meant to serve as an explicit wakeup call to managers. This point is expanded upon later in this section. In sum, the article sought to analyse managerial strategy within the case study EWC, but from the perspective of its workers representatives. After reviewing some of the EWC literature, the business logic underlying central managers attempts to proactively fragment the workforce was rehearsed. It was argued that horizontal fragmentation was, in theory, causally related with vertical integration. With this argument in mind, perceptions of management strategy in the case study EWC were examined and the outcomes weighed. Some evidence was found to support the claim that managerial strategy was based on a proactive fragmentation of the workforce, but such support is kept in check by two caveats. First, the ndings of this article are framed in terms of workers perceptions of managerial strategy, so there is a risk of imperfect extrapolation. These perceptions are obviously coloured by the workers relations to the means of production, but they can still be thought of as robust indicators of how managements might be trying to exploit the forum, as was argued in the methodology. Second, there was no evidence to suggest that such proactive fragmentation resulted in any vertical integration in the form of increased co-operation within the employment relation. This nding reects claims made by Martinez Lucio and Weston (1994) that competition between workforces does not necessarily lead to local coalitions between workers and managers. Indeed, quite the opposite was found in the present study. Workers were seemingly less willing to co-operate in light of their interpretation of managerial strategy. Hence, it was suggested that the meaning of partnership, whether entered into voluntarily or involuntarily, is not as clear-cut as it appears. There is, thus, a need for further scrutiny of this concept (Teague, 2005). These truly mixed ndings beget a perplexing question. In the absence of any demonstrable benet, why do employers representatives manage worker voice in a manner such that workers view their actions with derision? Ramsay (1977) reasoned that worker participation schemes emerged cyclically during times of union strength in order that management could assert its control over the workforce and also promote compliance. The assertion of control, however, is not necessarily causally related to compliance and, as argued here, can have the opposite effect of promoting
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resistance to managerial prerogative. Thus, the present results support the argument that generic macro-sociological generalisations certainly do not tell the whole story, and that more particularistic research can shed light on some otherwise surprising dynamics (see Ackers et al., 1992; Marchington et al., 1993; Marchington, 2005). Therefore, instead of arguing that horizontal fragmentation is associated with vertical integration across the board, as it were, it is perhaps of greater use to be more circumscriptive in looking at this relationship. For example, it could be asked whether or not there is something specic about a given company or the sector in which it is embedded, which explains why some managers might pursue horizontal fragmentation without a clear benet. One explanation of what could be interpreted as irrational managerialism is that it is culture-based. In other words, perhaps a discussion of managerial strategy at Britco should be couched in the fact that it is embedded into the traditional manufacturing sector whose industrial relations can be very much characterised by arms length adversarialism (Hyman, 1995). In this context, it is possible that managers decisions to establish, for example, an inner council and employ coercive comparisons reect the particularistic attitudes that developed over time between workers and managers in this highly unionised industry. Insofar as these historically antagonistic attitudes become routinised and taken for granted by both workers and managers, the result can be clouded judgement on both sides with respect to what is in their interests. In the case of central managers at Britco, it is possible, then, that the actions by which they manage worker voice in the EWC are not so much based on a calculative strategy for enhancing organisational performance, but rather on a historico-cultural attitude that views workers in this particular sector as obstacles to unfettered management. Perhaps by no coincidence, the bulk of the previous literature on proactive fragmentation as a managerial strategy is grounded in case studies of the traditional manufacturing sector. Several empirical works that examine the dynamics of interplant competition are based, for example, within the automotive industry (see Dohse, 1987; also see as previously cited Mueller and Purcell, 1992, Martinez Lucio and Weston, 1994; Hancke, 2000). This apparent concentration of the research lends credibility to the present claim that managerial decision making varies within countries and between sectors. It also explains how, even in the UK, there is some evidence of partnership arrangements that have delivered for both parties (Guest and Peccei, 2001). Perhaps worker perceptions of managerial strategy in other sectors would be based on trust and mutual co-operation. There is scope for further research in this respect. To conclude, the policy implications of this study for practising HR managers, especially those with roles on EWCs, and academics deserve to be outlined. One key message to be drawn from this article is that managements must be more sensitive to how their decisions will be interpreted by employees. It is not enough to have good intentions. For example, managerial strategy at Britco may not be as dark as many of the workers representatives in this study have described it; however, regardless of whether central managers sought to fragment worker voice proactively or evade their responsibilities to inform and consult, this was the impression that was conveyed by them. Concretely, there is a need for HR managers to engage in much more effective impression management (Giacalone and Rosenfeld, 1991;
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Rosenfeld et al., 2002) from a dramaturgical perspective. Stated alternatively, managerial strategy should be calibrated not only with respect to its ability to enhance organisational performance, but also with respect to the impact its delivery can conceivably have on workers. Another implication of this study is that researchers should acknowledge that an organisational context can really only be understood insofar as multiple actors are given a chance to contribute to the denition of the situation (Goffman, 1959, 1986). In other words, it needs to be explicitly recognised that there is not one reality in case study research, but only a series of intersubjective interpretations of it. This argument implies that the results of the present study and those of countless other studies before it must be viewed as a particular shade of reality. There are a number of avenues of further research that stem from this article. First, it seems appropriate on the basis of the previous discussion to replicate this study in another sectoral context. It may be interesting to examine whether or not workers views of managerial strategy in the IT sector are as negative as in the manufacturing sector. Second, it would be useful to replicate this study in another national context so that cross-national variations of workers perceptions can be assessed. Third, it is worth looking for solid evidence where proactive fragmentation on the part of managers in fact did result in organisational benets. Perhaps one of the problems with Britco was that employers representatives were not clandestine in their attempts to use the EWC as a tool of HRM. As Mizrahi (2002) notes, it is possible for management to create an illusion of participation, while at the same time asserting control and manipulating workers for their own ends. Fourth, it is clear from this research that the meaning of partnership and co-operation is still not clear. In particular, it makes sense to look at voluntary versus involuntary partnerships and also to ask whether or not there can be co-operation without trust (Cook et al., 2005) within the employment relation. Finally, although it would be hard to overcome the problem of social desirability, one should attempt to reproduce the framework of this study with managers in order to compare and contrast the divergent perceptions. Acknowledgements I thank Mick Marchington, Christel Lane, Sue Konzelmann, Jane Wills and two anonymous reviewers for their help in the preparation of this article. I also thank the Cambridge Overseas Trust, the Cambridge Political Economy Society Trust and Clare Hall for generous funding which made this research possible. REFERENCES
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