Table Of ContentVarieties of Capitalism, Corporate
Governance and Employees
Varieties of Capitalism, Corporate
Governance and Employees
Edited by Shelley Marshall, Richard Mitchell
and Ian Ramsay
MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY PRESS
An imprint of Melbourne University Publishing Limited
187 Grattan Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia
[email protected]
www.mup.com.au
Text © Shelley Marshall, Richard Mitchell and Ian Ramsay, 2008
Copyright of chapters remains with the individual authors
Design and typography © Melbourne University Publishing Ltd 2008
This book is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968
and subsequent amendments, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted by any means or process whatsoever without the prior
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misattributed may contact the publisher.
Text design by Phil Campbell
Cover design by Phil Campbell
Typeset by J&M Typesetting
Printed by Melbourne University Print and Design Centre
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Varieties of capitalism, corporate governance and employees / edited by Shelley
Marshall, Richard Mitchell and Ian Ramsay.
www.mup.unimelb.edu.au
Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Publishing, 2008.
9780522855487 (pbk.)
9780522855494 (pdf)
Includes index.
Bibliography.
Corporate governance—Australia.
Industrial management—Employee participation—Australia.
Corporations—Investor relations—Australia
Industrial relations—Australia.
Capitalism.
Corporate governance.
Industrial relations.
Marshall, Shelley.
Mitchell, Richard.
Ramsay, Ian.
330.122
Contents
Preface vii
Contributors ix
1 Varieties of Capitalism, Corporate Governance and
Employment Systems in Australia 1
Shelley Marshall, Richard Mitchell and Ian Ramsay
Part I Theoretical Approaches
2 Varieties of Capitalism, Corporate Governance and
Employment Relations Under Globalisation 19
Nick Wailes, Jim Kitay and Russell D. Lansbury
3 Partnership, Bargaining and Production in ‘Liberal Market’
and ‘Co-ordinated Market’ Economies 39
Richard Gough and Max Ogden
4 Legal Origin, Legal Families and the Regulation of Labour
in Australia 60
Meredith Jones and Richard Mitchell
5 What is Labour Law Doing About ‘Partnership at Work’?
British and Australian Developments Compared 95
Richard Mitchell and Anthony O’Donnell
Part II Empirical Studies
6 The Market for Corporate Control at Tooth and Co. 133
Mark Westcott
7 Corporate Governance, Shareholder Primacy and the
Interests of Employees: Evidence From a Survey of
Australian Directors 158
Meredith Jones, Shelley Marshall, Richard Mitchell and Ian Ramsay
v
8 What Do Company Directors Think About Partnerships
Between Companies and Their Employees? 188
Meredith Jones and Shelley Marshall
Part III Corporate Social Responsibility and
Regulatory Approaches
9 Does Socially Responsible Investment Influence Employment
Relations? 221
John Lewer, John Burgess and Peter Waring
10 Do Australian Institutional Investors Aim to Influence the
Human Resource Practices of Investee Companies? 245
Kirsten Anderson, Shelley Marshall and Ian Ramsay
11 The Role of ‘Light Touch’ Labour Regulation in Advancing
Employee Participation in Corporate Governance: The Case
of ‘Partners at Work’ 277
John Howe
Index 309
vi Varieties of Capitalism
Preface
The papers published in this volume were delivered at a workshop
held in the Law School at the University of Melbourne on 7 and 8
December 2006, under the title ‘Corporate Governance and the
Management of Labour: Australian Perspectives’. The workshop
formed part of a larger Australian Research Council – funded project
titled ‘Partnerships at Work: The Interaction Between Employment
Systems, Corporate Governance and Ownership Systems’. That five-
year project commenced in 2003, and the workshop was designed to
provide a vehicle for discussion of some of the research results arising
from the project. The workshop also provided us with the opportu-
nity to involve a number of other scholars whom we knew to be
undertaking research projects which were engaged with similar ques-
tions and issues to our project generally.
Apart from our various colleagues who have contributed papers
to this volume, several others made presentations at the workshop,
acted as chairs or commentators in the sessions, or otherwise assisted
with the organisation of the proceedings. We wish to thank, in respect
of all of these activities, Sean Cooney, Colin Fenwick, Anthony Forsyth,
Peter Gahan, Leon Gettler, Jarrod Lenne, Charlotte Morgans, Jill
Murray, Christine Parker and Geof Stapledon. We also thank Ingrid
Landau, and Dr. Tess Reyes, RMIT Vietnam, for their assistance in the
later stages of the book’s preparation.
The papers published here bring together a diverse set of per-
spectives around the broad theme indicated by the title. The content
is multi-disciplinary insofar as it draws from a number of academic
fields including management, industrial relations, law and institu-
tional economics. The work also draws upon a range of research
methodologies including case studies and survey work, as well as
reviews of theoretical works and secondary literature generally. Taken
as a whole, we believe the volume makes an important contribution
to the international debate on varieties of capitalism and national
styles of regulation from an Australian perspective.
Shelley Marshall
Richard Mitchell
Ian Ramsay
February 2008
vii
Contributors
Kirsten Anderson completed degrees in Arts and Law, and a Masters
degree in Public and International Law, at the University of Melbourne.
She then worked as a research fellow in the Law School at the same
institution. She is currently head of Research and Communications at
The Children’s Legal Centre, an organisation based at the University of
Essex, where she undertakes socio-legal research on children’s rights
and child law and policy. She has published in the areas of corporate
governance and workplace relations, international law, human rights
law and children’s rights.
John Burgess is professor and director of the Graduate School of
Business, University of Newcastle. He has a PhD in Economics from
the University of Newcastle. His research interests are in labour market
policy, contingent work, gender and work, and workplace change.
Richard Gough is a lecturer in the School of Management at Victoria
University. Prior to becoming an academic, he worked as a policy ana-
lyst in the Commonwealth public service in the areas of industrial
relations and work environment issues. His recent publications
include Employment Relations in the Asia-Pacific Region: Reflections
and New Directions (2007) and Employee Relations Management:
Australia in a Global Context (2006), both jointly edited with Julian
Teicher and Peter Holland.
John Howe is a senior lecturer in the Law School at the University of
Melbourne, and is a member of both the Centre for Employment and
Labour Relations Law and the Centre for Corporate Law and Securities
Regulation at the Law School. He obtained his PhD in law from the
University of Melbourne in 2000. His research interests are in regula-
tory theory, labour law and corporate accountability. Prior to com-
mencing an academic career, John worked in private legal practice,
and also as a researcher for public policy and advocacy organisations
in the United States. He is the secretary of the Australian Labour Law
Association, and editor of the Reports section of the Australian Journal
of Labour Law.
ix
Meredith Jones was employed as a research fellow on the Corporate
Governance and Workplace Partnerships Project at the University of
Melbourne from 2003 to 2007. She is a graduate in Arts and Law from
Monash University and has completed postgraduate studies in
research methods at Swinburne University. She also completed an
LLM by coursework at Monash in 2002. She has worked as a researcher
in a variety of organisations within the not-for-profit sector, and in
the trade union movement researching industry regulation and
employment trends. She is now research and policy officer for the
Royal Institute of Architects, Australia.
Jim Kitay was associate professor and chair of the Work and
Organisational Studies group at the University of Sydney, where he
now holds an honorary appointment. His research interests focus on
employment relations and changes at work in service industries, pri-
marily management consulting and retail banking. He is a joint co-
ordinator of a nine-country comparative study of employment
relations in the automobile and retail banking industries.
Russell Lansbury is professor of Work and Organisational Studies and
Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Economics and Business
at the University of Sydney. He holds degrees in Psychology and
Political Science from the University of Melbourne and a PhD from
the London School of Economics, where he undertook research on
British Airways. He is the president-elect of the International Industrial
Relations Association.
John Lewer is a lecturer in Industrial Relations and Human Resource
Management in the Faculty of Business and Law at the University of
Newcastle. His PhD thesis examined workplace performance during
the closure of BHP’s Newcastle steelworks. Among other areas, he is
interested in organisational change and skill formation. He is co-
author of the widely used textbook Understanding Australian
Industrial Relations, now in its seventh edition. Before joining the
university, John was a teacher and industrial relations practitioner.
Shelley Marshall was senior research fellow with the Corporate
Governance and Workplace Partnerships Project at the Law School,
x Varieties of Capitalism
