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  • Decentralization has been an important international development in large organizations, including those in the public sector, in recent years. The introduction of self-governing trusts in the U.K. National Health Service in the early 1990s serves as a paradigm case of public sector decentralization, managerialism and marketization. Local managers were able to develop their own employment arrangements in order to improve the recruitment, retention and deployment of labour. This article finds that pay initiatives were subverted by environmental constraints but change proceeded in the organization of working time. The findings have implications beyond the U.K. and health service context, notably the conceptual relevance of the "firm-in-sector" framework and the policy limits and potential of decentralization.

  • New Zealand is a relatively prosperous OECD member with a tradition of liberal democracy. Fiji remains a developing nation with a large subsistence agriculture sector and one-quarter of its people living in poverty. Its socio-economic difficulties have contributed to four Coups d'Etat since Fiji attained independence in 1970. This comparative study examines these South Pacific neighbours' considerable employment regulatory change amid economic liberalisation framed by neo-liberal market ideology, before focusing on the gendered impacts of this change. A thematic analysis of qualitative survey and documentary evidence reveals a link between regulatory forms and working women's progress, mediated by national and international pressures. The findings inform a model of regulatory approaches that can influence women's relationship with the labour market.

  • It is generally accepted that employment regulation offers mechanisms to generate orderly economic growth as well as provide for the protection of workers. Both these efficiency and equity arguments particularly pertain to developing country contexts. The evolution and impact of employment law and industrial relations institutions in large developing countries is of growing interest to western scholars, but small developing countries have been ignored. This lack of research inhibits understanding of the political economy of employment regulation in developing country contexts. This article explores developments in labour regulation in three small developing countries in the South Pacific—Nauru, Tonga, and Papua New Guinea—that have been impacted by globalization and international labour regulation in different ways. The comparative research adopts a stakeholder analysis approach based on programs of qualitative interviews and documentary analysis. The paper identifies a number of structural and agency constraints on the development and effective implementation of employment regulatory systems that primarily reflect political factors. These include disorganized employment relations, under-developed civil society institutions, concentration of power networks, the under-resourcing and compartmentalization of state institutions and a broader context of political change and instability. These factors, which are related to country size as well as stage of development, subvert the introduction, implementation and review of employment regulation even where efficiency and equity arguments may be accepted by policymakers. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications and need for future research.

Last update from database: 11/10/24, 4:10 AM (UTC)