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This thesis presents a study of the regulation of weekly working time in the context of the UK industrial relations system following the implementation of the working Time Directive (WTD) into UK law in 1998 and seeks to make a significant contribution to learning on the subject of enhancing the contextual sensitivity of regulatory strategies and legal mechanisms. The study offers a normative and positive evaluation of various provisions of the WTD and of reforms to the Directive proposed by the EU institutions. In particular the concern is with the provision allowing individual workers to opt-out of the 48-hour limit on average weekly working time, the provision allowing a derogation from the weekly 48-hour limit for workers whose working time is unmeasured and the provision allowing the reference period for averaging the 48-hour limit to be extended from four months to twelve months by a collectively negotiated agreement. An original qualitative empirical study, using the case study research method, investigates the application and operation of the different legal mechanisms provided for in the Directive and the perceptions of various industrial relations actors and public officials as to the efficacy of the regulatory provisions and the potential impact of prospective revisions to the WTD. This original empirical material is supplemented by a meta-analysis of existing qualitative and quantitative data that investigates the health, social and economic effects of long working hours. The empirical inquiry and normative evaluation are framed by an analytical framework that draws on insights from autopoietic systems theory and the law and economics academic literature. The thesis argues in favour of a reflexive legal strategy of regulated self-regulation which entails the retention of the individual opt-out from the 48 hour limit on weekly working hours but with more stringent conditions applying to employers’ use of opt outs.

Why do managers keep adopting and operating performance pay even if it frequently does not work as intended? The answer calls for a contextual analysis of the factors that influence managerial choice of payment systems. China provides a particularly interesting country for research, because its relatively young market economy has a recent history of heavy state intervention. This thesis uses case study research method which draws on two competing theories: Institutional Theory and New Economics of Personnel. Five hypotheses deriving from this framework provide the basis for an analysis of both national Chinese survey data and of six detailed case studies at enterprise level in the Chinese automotive industry. The analysis suggests that the six Chinese automotive companies were influenced by external institution isomorphic pressures to adopt market-oriented, performance-related and job-based payment systems. Pressures arose from both market reforms and government promoted national wage policies. The strength of these companies’ response appeared to be influenced by their ownership characteristics: whether state-owned, privately owned, or jointly owned with foreign firms. Strategic considerations of product market competition and of job programmability were among the key determinants of payment systems and of the degree of leverage of performance pay. In addition, core employees’ perceptions of equity and comparability played an important role in reshaping the payment systems and pay structures. This thesis concludes that management have had to reconcile these competing demands on the payment systems and pay structures. The consequence is that, in practice, payment systems and practices diverged substantially from firms’ official pay strategies.

This dissertation considers how and why the labour market disadvantage of disabled people persists. Unpacking debates about how disabled people and labour market disadvantage can be conceptualised it reviews how theoretical insights from labour economics and sociology/disability studies can enrich a social model of disability. Drawing on the concepts of social claims and capabilities, the main task becomes one of exploring how a range of social actors and institutions are involved in enabling or constraining the capabilities that may facilitate the economic functioning of disabled people. Having noted the diversity embodied in the social category disabled people the emphasis is on capturing at least some of this diversity. This is done by exploring the experiences of people in the communities in which they live their everyday lives within the changing context of the labour market and public policy. The research uses an empirical base of material drawn from two localities in East London and Greater Manchester. It is interview based developing case studies at a number of levels: employed and non-employed disabled people, local employment projects and support services and public and private sector employers. Issues around the benefit system, and economic security, emerge as particularly prominent in the lives of the non-employed. Via an exploration of policy and practice, the quality of and balance between supply and demand-side policies that are ostensibly geared towards moderating the incidence and experience of labour market disadvantage are questioned. In so doing, there is criticism of the accounting framework that underpins capitalist employment relations and public policy . In concludes that both the supply and demand sides of the labour market are of fundamental importance in nourishing capabilities. There is a need to develop a policy framework that has a focus on how capabilities can be enabled with more pro-active measures to acknowledge and address inequalities of circumstance and the desire of disabled people to participate.

The primary focus of this research is to assess vertical occupational gender segregation and its cases in the context of Britain's contemporary labour market, both in general terms and at the level of an employing organisation. By way of introduction, the concepts relating to occupational gender segregation (vertical, horizontal and overall), which are used throughout this study, are explained in detail. In doing so, the common confusion surrounding these definitions, and thus their application in many previous studies, is demonstrated. The first stage of the research constructs an overview of men and women in the public and private spheres of British society. This entails a quantitative illustration of both sexes in terms of life-styles (including family), education, work patterns, domesticity, employment status, pay and in general, how these are reflected in terms of contemporary occupational gender segregation in the British labour market. Following this analysis, prevalent theories which claim to explain gender inequality within the labour market are critically analysed. These range from psycho-physiological and male dominance theories, to the theory of patriarchy and male organisation, to rational choice and preference theories. In moving beyond the limitations of these theories, distinguishing the horizontal dimension of occupational gender segregation from the vertical dimension becomes paramount. This distinction underlies the principle question of the thesis: '<I>what are the main contributors to gender inequality as indicated by vertical occupational gender segregation?'</I> The second section of the thesis is centred on the empirical analysis of a British case study organisation. The case study services as an environmental of 'optimal conditions' for gender equality, and thus a critical case study to test the causes of vertical occupational gender segregation. The methodological approach is both quantitative and qualitative. In terms of qualitative research I have used the seminal Cambridge approach of the 'segregation triangle method' to measure and analyse occupational gender segregation and its two components, the horizontal and vertical dimensions.

This thesis studies some issues related to intergenerational conflicts and resource management and international labour standards within a political economics framework. The thesis includes a collection of four self-contained essays. The thesis is based on the idea that politics is an essential factor in the formation of economic policy. We argue that policy making should be viewed as an endogenous process in which the interests of politicians, voters and lobby groups over the relevant policy are traded off. In chapter 2, we study the political economy of resource management in an OLG framework with an intertemporal externality problem. The externality arises because a common resource used for production is depleted by production of “dirty” goods. An intergenerational conflict arises because the young generation cares about the level of current production of dirty goods. This is so because production of dirty goods affects the future availability of the resource. The old, on the other hand, has no such concern, and tries to maximise current resources use. We assume that the interests of the two generations are represented by two pressure groups. They lobby the government to affect the policy choice – an upper limit on the resource use allowed for production of dirty goods – in their favour. The game between the two lobby groups and the government is modelled as a dynamic common agency. We study stationary equilibria focussing on a particular class of strategies which we called “Take It or Leave It” (TIOLI) strategies, where a principal makes a positive contribution only when her payoff maximising policy is implemented. It is shown that political competition may lead to a “greener” environment policy and to less resource exploitation than in an unregulated economy. More surprisingly, we also find that resource exploitation may be lower in political equilibrium than in an economy run by a social planner. In chapter 3, we consider a simple two-period version of the model analysed in chapter 2 and study political equilibria in “truthful” strategies, as suggested by Bernheim and Whinston (1986). In contrast to the “TIOLI” strategy equilibrium, the “truthful” equilibrium is efficient. The comparison between the truthful and the TIOLI equilibrium highlights the difference between the logic of political compromise and that of partisan politics. Chapter 4 investigates the controversial relationship between labour standards and globalisation (a fall in transportation costs) within a two factor-two sector Heckscher-Ohlin-Mayer political-economy trade model. The right to collective bargaining is one of the core labour standards. Chapter 5 develops a two-country model of political competition between industry lobbies and unions that can explain regulation that relate to this labour standard. We compare equilibrium outcomes in a number of different institutional frameworks.

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