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The aim of the thesis is to provide an analysis of the British steel industry's attempts to deal with the reform of industrial relations in the period 1964-74, and to evaluate the contribution of productivity bargaining to that process. After a first introductory chapter, Chapters Two to Four are concerned with outlining the industry's problems, the employer's response, and with the negotiation of industry-wide productivity agreements. The contribution of productivity bargaining is evaluated in Chapters Five to Eight in which industrial relations at Corby and Ravenscraig Works are examined. The methods of investigation include the use of primary sources such as private letters, minutes, reports and statistical data, and also published material; this was possible through the author being employed at Ravenscraig during 1965-70. Other data was gathered through interviews with union officials and managers at various levels, the interview programme being carried out while the author was employed at the Steel Industry Management College, 1971-75. In addition, employee attitude surveys conducted at both Corby and Ravenscraig provided relevant material. The thesis tries to improve understanding of the collective bargaining process by a detailed examination of bargaining structures, by tracing the reaction and interactions of management, unions and work groups to changes in the awareness of their interests as they either react to a structural change or introduce a new one which thereby alters behaviour. The principal arguments are contained in three sequential but integrated hypotheses which identify the key explanatory variables and the nature of their interaction. The main contribution of the thesis is to refine and make more precise the application of both systems theory and job regulation theory to the factory level reform process. The conclusions follow from the testing of the hypotheses and are as follows: (i) The collective bargaining structure is a major variable explaining industrial relations behaviour. (ii) A major weakness of both systems and job regulation theories is the one directional nature of their causal sequence and the thesis illustrates a systematic process of two way interaction between the key structural factors and the behavioural response. (iii) The more centralised, standardised and formalised the key structural variables (that is, the collective bargaining arrangements, management and union organisations) the greater the power of leaders to assist or resist reform. Conversely, the more structures are fragmented with power devolved the weaker the leaderships' influence. (iv) The adherence to a definite causal sequence of key variable interaction increases the probability of a successful outcome. The hypotheses are tested and the conclusions validated in Chapters Five to Eight of the thesis.

Using the results of postal surveys of teachers and trainees as well as case studies the provision for the Youth Training Scheme (YTS) during 1983/4 made by a representative sample of Further Education colleges is examined. The policy intentions of governmental and quasi-government bodies are placed in their political context, focussing on the curricular policies of the Manpower Services Commission (MSC) and the Further Education Unit (FEU). The policy of the government and the MSC to change the image of youth training measures from that of a short-term social support measures (current under the Youth Opportunities Programme) to one of a permanent national training scheme is judged to have had a large measure of success. YTS in the year concerned was integrated with existing examination and apprenticeship structures. However, a streaming process according to educational level is identified, whereby lower stream trainees on college based courses receive a student-centred curriculum to a greater degree than trainees on employer based YTS courses. The influence of the FEU, struggling to preserve a liberal educational philosophy in vocational preparation, is judged to have more relevance for the (minority) lower stream courses. It is suggested that if the FEU wishes to extend its influence to the rest of YTS it will have to examine how its educational philosophy may be reconciled with the teaching style associated with traditional examination courses in FE, which have generally been adapted for YTS by teachers. The views of trainees lend justification to the MSC policy of promoting work-based learning, since trainees bring to YTS a perspective that places great value on experiences that seem like, or may lead to, real work. However, several aspects of MSC policy designed to promote work-based learning are judged to have failed, and an examination of employers' provision is recommended.

Dry pet foods are composed of cereal, proteins, fats, fibres and other minor components. The manufacturing process comprises a first step where the dry ingredients are ground to a suitable particle size and blended, a second step where the dry powder is mixed with water and steam in a preconditioner and then extruded and a final step where the product is dried and coated. The aim of this work was to study the effects of the unit operations prior to thermos mechanical extrusion in the dry pet food process. The study focuses especially on the structure of the final product therefore, after studying a typical pet food recipe, a model system using cereal only or cereals and fats was considered. The grinding process was shown to impact on the physicochemical characteristics of a pet food premix by affecting the degree of starch damage, the water absorption and water solubility properties or the total charge of the mix. The grinding method was also found to be critical as grinding ingredients together and multiple pass grinding produced more starch damage. The resulting premixes from different grinding methods were affecting the extrusion process and the extrudates characteristics. Extruded mixes with the lowest starch damage, obtained by single pass grinding presented higher expansion than mixes produced by two pass grinding. Few studies have reported the effect of preconditioning on extrusion, therefore, a model preconditioning apparatus was first built to analyse the effect of residence time and initial moisture on maize grits physicochemical characteristics. The results of this study showed that limited precooking occurs at the preconditioner stage (0 to 80% loss in crystallinity). This precooking reduces water self diffusion coefficient in the particle, as measured by pulse field gradient NMR, decreases powder bulk density and increases powder compressibility. At the highest moisture contents (33% wb) and the highest residence time (240s), maize grits can lose its hydrated powder state and form a viscous paste. The different particle sizes used (from 240 to 476 µm modal diameter) did not show different behaviours. The effect of preconditioning on extrusion was also studied using the model preconditioner. Results showed that prehydration and pre-heating increased homogeneity of the material entering the extruder and reduced the specific mechanical energy (SME). This increased in homogeneity allows a more homogeneous starch conversion in the extruder as no remnant native starch granule was found in the preconditioned sample for 240s. The results from the model system were then partially confirmed using a pilot plant double-shafted Buhler preconditioner on maize grits of various particle size (330 to 1365 µm modal diameter). The results showed that preconditioning decreases SME but also allows a higher expansion. The SME was negatively correlated with the temperature of the mix immediately after preconditioning (at the extruder inlet) and the compressibility of the preconditioned material. The crystallinity of starch in the end product (Vh or Eh and Vh) was also dependant on the preconditioning treatment. Pre-heating reduced the Eh pattern of the extrudates. Finally, the interactions between fats and starch during extrusion have also been studied. It has been shown that the levels of free fatty acids in fats commonly used in the dry pet food industry (sunflower oil, beef tallow and poultry fat) can affect markedly the expansion, foam structure and pasting characteristics of extrudates. This was especially correlated to the formation of crystalline complexes between amylose and free fatty acids.

This thesis analyses foreign intervention in oil-rich African states which have contributed to the resource curse problem in the latter. It concentrates on the role of former colonial powers-France and Britain-as well as new players-the United States, China and multinational agencies who have deployed policies and carried out practices in securing Africa’s oil resources. This study argues that ‘Foreign intervention contributes to the likelihood of the resource curse through both political and economic means,’ based mainly on the resource curse theory and concept of neo-colonialism. Apart from factors addressed by the existing literature on the resource curse, namely, economic malfunctions, government policies, social foundations, resource types, country size and initial conditions, this research hypothesizes that foreign interventions display a strong linkage to the resource curse. African countries have experienced poverty and conflicts even if they have had the greatest dosages of foreign interventions from the slave trade through to the present date, as explained by neocolonialism. This is contrast to the neo-liberal economists which promote foreign interventions and resource exploitation which they argue are necessary for African economic and political development. This study includes two theoretical approaches which address the relationship between continuing foreign intervention and the resource curse in Africa: neo-Marxism and realism. Marxist dialectical materialism allows us to look back over the history of the relations between Africa and foreign powers both materially and in regard to how these relations, time and again, affect and shape Africa’s structure. By discussing the ‘world order’ in terms of production structure that leads to exploitation, oppression, enslavement and the struggles of the lower social classes in weaker states, Marxist perspectives shed light on the relationship between foreign interventions and Africa’s underperformance. With realist main assumptions of power and profits maximization, this study explains that foreign interventions in African oil-rich countries will be maintained and will intensify as global situations surrounding oil become more hostile. I offer to use these theories to explain specific policies and practices of foreign interventions with relation to the African oil industries. The foreign powers involved in the interventions for Africa’s oil, the mechanism through which they are carried out and the outcomes of these actions are neither addressed nor evaluated in these theories. Although the abovementioned Marxist strands indicate that neo-colonialism will contribute to poor performance in Africa, it does not relate to the resource curse discussion which mainly assumes that resource-rich countries are doomed to fail. This is the gap which this study has filled by linking these theories to real-world practices. By applying the concept of neo-colonialism, this study compiles the empirical evidence of continuing interventions by former colonial powers and new powers as they seek oil security in African states. The result of this study is that oil-related foreign intervention is linked to the resource curse discussion. In effect, the resource curse theory is refined by stating that a foreign intervention variable must be included into its discussion and policy considerations. This study records oil-related incidents of foreign interventions in Africa and systematically categorizes oil-related foreign interventions using political and economic approaches. Foreign political interventions include the balkanization of Africa, the use of state policies, political meddling and military involvement. Economic approaches used by foreign players to secure African oil are categorized into two central themes: financial involvement and business conduct. The former refers to the following practices: neo-liberal policies, petrodollar monetary order, economic sanctions, financial support and money corruption. With regards to business conduct, the following practices will be investigated: circumventing environmental standards, enclave oil operations and unsuitable philanthropic projects. This study examines these interventions from the first scramble in Africa during the colonial era, through to the second scramble during the Cold War and the current scramble of Africa’s resources. The study displays these occurrences in any oil-rich African countries including Angola, Sudan, Libya, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. A specific case study is devoted for Nigeria which is the biggest oil-rich African countries but paradoxically experiences endemic poverty and conflicts. Primary data and interviews conducted in the Niger Delta, Lagos, Cape Town, and London are used extensively.

The objective of this thesis is to examine the effect of pension system design on saving. Chapter II analyses the relationship analytically, in a two-period two-generation partial equilibrium Samuelson-type of OLG model in the logarithmic format, augmented by design of the public pension system and by the mandatory funded pension programme with the displacement coefficient. The model predicts higher household saving for countries with a lower contribution rate, higher redistribution within the public system and greater importance of private pension savings, i.e. systems that could be classified as ‘Beveridge’. Partial derivatives of the model are numerically simulated. Chapter III first deals with the measurement issue, defining the set of ‘pension design indicators’ that will be used later for the empirical analysis. Then it tests the ‘convergence hypothesis’ of pension models using several methods. The results unambiguously suggest that, despite a convergence in pension policy goals, convergence of pension models has not occurred i.e. the pension systems around the world are still influenced by their historical paths. Chapter IV empirically investigates the effect of pension system design on saving rates. The first part of the analysis closely follows work in Disney (2005), with somewhat differently calculated public pension design variables and with data for the 2000s. I also tested the impact of private pension component on household saving. The overall pension system design was estimated using principal components composite indices. The results obtained using a number of estimation methods have not confirmed the predictions of the theoretical model, and are actually counter-intuitive. In addition to methodological issues related to household saving data, a possible explanation for this could be the complexity of household saving behaviour that needs to be adequately controlled for. The final chapter summarizes the findings, discusses limitations of empirical investigation and sets forth directions for future research.

This thesis consists of three empirical essays within the field of labour economics. As a whole, it explores the (un)intended consequences of labour regulation, with each chapter providing an independent analytical contribution to a specific aspect of the field. Chapter 1 analyzes the effect of a reduction in standard working hours on employment tran- sitions. In this chapter, I study Chile's reduction of weekly working hours from 48 to 45, which was announced in 2001 but implemented in 2005. This policy was innovative, compared with those in other countries, because it isolated the reduction in working hours from other policy changes, such as working time flexibility and financial incentives to firms. Thus, this policy is an interesting example for other countries to study, especially those without the scale capacity to provide such incentives, as it allows them to identify its effects on employment. Our results, which are confirmed by several robustness checks, suggest that despite the pre-announcement of the policy, firms displayed non-anticipatory behaviour on key variables. Furthermore, we find that firms waited to implement the reduction in working hours until just before the deadline. Overall, we find that a reduction in standard hours had no significant effects on employment transitions, although we do find a significant e¤ect on hourly wages (i.e., wage compensation). Chapter 2 extends the analysis of Chapter 1 to health outcomes. This is important, as the health effects of reductions in working hours have not been addressed by the existing literature; instead, most of the empirical evidence concerns employment outcomes, family life balance, and social networks. Using panel data from France and Portugal, this chapter exploits the exogenous variation of working hours coming from labour regulation and estimates its impact on health outcomes. In this way, our contribution to the existing literature is threefold: first, this is the first evaluation of health outcomes of policies that reduce working hours. Second, we avoid the problem of endogeneity with health outcomes by using exogenous reductions of working hours. Third, as the effects on health might depend on the level of working hours, our analysis is performed for two different countries with differing weekly hour thresholds (France, 35 hours; Portugal, 40 hours). Our results suggest a non-monotonic relationship between weekly working hours and health outcomes. In particular, a negative (positive) effect is found for young men (women) in France, and no e¤ect is found in Portugal. Chapter 3 (coauthored by Eugenio Rojas and Mauricio Villena) examines childcare policies and analyzes who effectively pays for childcare when it is not publicly funded. This is interesting, since in several countries governments provide and fund childcare, but in many others it is privately funded, as labour regulation mandates that firms have to provide childcare services. For this latter case, there is no empirical evidence on the effects generated by the financial burden of childcare provision. In particular, there is no evidence about who effectively pays for childcare (i.e., firms or employees) and how it is paid for (i.e., via wages and/or employment). Our study is the first one to provide empirical evidence on the effects generated by the finan- cial burden of childcare provision. For this, we exploit a Chilean labour regulation requiring that firms with 20 or more female workers provide and fund childcare for their workers. Our hypothesis is that, in imperfect labour markets (e.g., oligopsonistic), firms will pass childcare costs on to their workers. To analyze this, we exploit a discontinuity in the childcare provision mandated by the Chilean Labour Code. Our results suggest that firms pass almost the entire childcare cost (nearly 90%) on to their workers via lower wages (not only to female but also to male workers) and not by altering the share of male workers within the firm.

This thesis discusses the relationship between identity and learning in cross-functional teams (CFTs). It focuses on how aspects of members’ identity affect the process of developing cross-functional (CF) teamwork and examines how emerging identity issues can account for different outcomes in the learning of CF teamwork. More specifically, the research focuses on what these emerging identity issues entail in terms of underlying and action-orienting meanings, and on how this can favour or hinder the learning of CF teamwork. This study argues that the collective process of learning how to operate as a CFT is influenced by relational, social and contextual issues. Theoretically, the thesis offers a number of contributions. A critique of current approaches to CF teamwork is provided, where a review of the relevant literature reveals a largely functionalist stance, with a main focus on researching the factors contributing to the effectiveness of CFTs. The thesis advocates an alternative interpretative stance to investigating the role of identity in learning cross-functionality, offering the possibility of an interpretation which is situated in the specific context and which is open to the understanding of emerging, possibly revealing issues. Furthermore, this thesis argues that, within this interpretative approach, by studying what favours or hinders the learning of CF teamwork, it may be possible to deepen our understanding of CFT dynamics. The learning of CF teaming has also been identified as one of the gaps in the relevant literature. The situated learning theory (SLT) and community of practice approach (Lave and Wenger, 1991) is thus adopted as an appropriate theoretical framework for researching the learning of CF teamwork, which is understood here as a practice. SLT suggests that individual learning should be thought of as emergent, involving opportunities to participate in the practices of the community as well as the development of a social identity which provides a sense of belonging and commitment (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998). Theoretically and empirically justified, the new insight and main focus of this research consists of the consideration of events occurring not only within a CFT, but also beyond and before it, which are able to shape the identities involved, at different levels. This is beneficial, since it explains the different ways of engaging with the practice of cross-functionality and consequently the different learning outcomes. Within the situated learning literature there is surprisingly little explicit reference to theories of identity construction (Handley et al., 2006). A conceptualization of identity is thus derived by tapping into theories of identity which have not yet been developed in SLT, but which represent a useful theoretical development in this arena of studies. These gaps and issues were addressed by conducting qualitative research in a medium-sized Italian firm manufacturing car parts. In particular, an ethnographic study was carried out, using complementary methods such as direct observation, semi-structured interviews and documentary data. Investigations concerned two skilled workers’ CFTs devoted to developing the product ranges respectively of joints and pumps, and a managers’ CFT whose task was to design a new pump for a particular client. Three identities emerged as especially significant for the meanings they entailed and for the influence they proved to have on learning this practice: the sense of identity derived from relationships characterized by paternalism with significant others at work (i.e. the leaders), and the sense of identity derived from being a worker from Brescia, the specific geographical location of the study, and from being a worker or a manager, understood in terms of occupation and social class.

Organization studies, including studies of control and identity, has to date been almost exclusively concerned with organizations where work is paid for. By contrast, this thesis considers the dynamics of control and identity when work is unpaid, through the presentation of a qualitative case study of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. This organization relies mainly on volunteers operating in a dangerous working environment to fulfil their mission of saving lives at sea. By considering unpaid voluntary work, the thesis deepens understandings of the relationship between control, autonomy and organizational meaning and identity. There are four main themes of analysis: thick volunteering, perilous volunteering, community and offshore operations. I propose thick volunteering as a form of volunteering from which a significant sense of identity may be derived. Perilous volunteering is theorized to denote volunteering activities whereby the volunteer chooses to engage in dangerous activity which may result in serious harm up to and including loss of life. Thick and perilous volunteering together are shown to have complex effects upon the dynamic of control within the organization. The theme of community shows how volunteering is embedded in a web of social relations, rather than simply being a matter of individual choice, and these relations significantly affect meaning and identity. The 'offshore' theme demonstrates how control, meaning and identity play out differently when the volunteers are on operational duty. Overall, the thesis contributes to the theory of volunteering as well as to more general debates about organizational control, identity and meaning.

One of the main assumptions in the strategy field suggests that a manager's sequence of strategic decisions causes the evolution of resources and competitive positions to differ among firms over time. However, this evidence is not conclusive when Chief Executive Officers (CEO's) manage small firms which are located within markets with underdeveloped production of high-technology products and low technical knowledge required for production. This doctoral thesis concentrates on the investigation of how to support CEOs in their strategy development process related to an internationalisation strategy in small organisations - whose products and resources do not seem particularly unique - in giving them a competitive advantage over competitors in their target markets (e.g., fruit, wine, or fish industries). The present research has been conducted through two empirical investigations: an econometric analysis, and a case study research. The econometric analysis examines the tole played by CEOs in the export intensity of commodity-based small firms. Results from this study revealed that the CEOs' education is particularly relevant for explaining the export intensity. CEOs who developed capabilities from formal training, in companies that do not seem endowed with particular idiosyncratic resources, export intensively. The case study followed a facilitated modelling approach based on System Dynamic (SD) Modelling. This second inquiry focused on structuring, simulating, and evaluating the potential consequences of the internationalisation strategy developed by five CEOs. Findings emerging from this process provide evidence that SD modelling allowed the CEOs to identify more resources and their interrelated relationships (e.g., links, feedback, and delay effects) compared with using a simple description of the internationalisation strategy. Additionally, simulations that have emerged from SD models provided CEOs with scenarios closer to reality for both assessing strategic ideas and learning from simulated performance.