Corporate Governance, Employee Voice, and Work Organization: Sustaining High-Road Jobs in the Automotive Supply Industry

Corporate Governance, Employee Voice, and Work Organization explores the dynamic relations between corporate governance, employee voice, and the organization of work in the automotive supply industry. It reports on research undertaken in three countries--Germany, Sweden, and the United States--that has sought to explore and compare historical patterns of the relationships between changing governance regimes, voice, and work at plant level in an era of financialization. It also explores the prospects for high-road, sustainable jobs in the sector. Three detailed case histories from each of the countries are presented which contrast companies facing three different levels of exposure to capital markets: companies relatively sheltered from stock markets; companies that are highly exposed to them; and thirdly companies owned by private equity firms. This design allows for analysis not just across different national contexts but also within them, and questions the usefulness of the 'varieties of capitalism' appraoch in understanding these differences. The cases show that governance compromises matter, that is, that recognising the role of employee voice in corporate governance regimes is essential in any comparative analysis and understanding of corporate governance.

Inge Lippert has a PhD in Sociology and is now at the German Confederation of Unions (DGB) where she took responsibility as head of a department for sustainable industrial policy and services. Previously she worked as a Senior Researcher at the Social Science Research Centre in Berlin (WZB). As a member of the research group 'Globalisation, Work and Production' she conducted several international comparative research projects on global restructuring and industrial dynamics in different sectors and countries. Her main fields of interest are the reorganization of value chains, varieties of capitalism and institutional change, corporate governance, labour voice, and innovation in different industries and countries. She was also engaged as a Research Fellow at the Free University of Berlin (1998-1999), Department of Economic Analysis of Political Systems, and at the VDI/VDE Innovation and Technology GmbH as a project leader for a wide range of projects.

Tony Huzzard is Professor of Organization Studies at the Department of Business Administration, Lund University School of Economics and Management. He is also Visiting Professor at the Centre for Healthcare Improvement, Chalmers University of Technology. He has a PhD in Business Administration from Umeå University, Sweden. His research interests are organizational learning, change and development, industrial relations, and the sociology of work. He has also worked previously in a post-doc position at the National Institute for Working Life in Stockholm and as a Visiting Research Fellow at the National Institute for Working Life in Malmö. From 2010 to 2012 he was a member of the evaluation committee (economics) of the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) and is a member of the Steering Group for the Centre for Applied Working Life Research at Malmö University. He is also a member of the Special Advisory Group for the journal 'Action Research'.

Ulrich Jürgens is Senior Research Fellow at the Social Science Research Centre in Berlin where he heads the research group 'Globalization, Work and Production'. He is Adjunct Professor for Political Science at the Free University Berlin. He has been carrying out extensive international comparative research in the fields of industrial relations, work organisation and personnel policy, systems of innovation, and industrial policy. He is a member of the Euro-Asia Management Studies Association (EAMSA), member of the Groupe d'Etudes et de Recherches Permanent sur l'Industrie et les Salariés de l'Automobile (GERPISA), and member of the Steering Committee of the International Motor Vehicle Program (IMVP).

William Lazonick is Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where he directs the Center for Industrial Competitiveness. He is also co-founder and president of The Academic-Industry Research Network. Previously, Lazonick was Assistant and Associate Professor of Economics at Harvard University, Professor of Economics at Barnard College of Columbia University, and Distinguished Research Professor at INSEAD in France. He also holds an honorary doctorate from Uppsala University (1991). He is a visiting professor at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia. Lazonick's research focuses on the social conditions of innovation and economic development in advanced and emerging economies. His book, Sustainable Prosperity in the New Economy? Business Organization and High-Tech Employment in the United States (Upjohn Institute for Employment Research 2009) was awarded the 2010 Schumpeter Prize by the International Schumpeter Society.