Nicolas Bacon
Biographic Data
| ID | 3975771 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nicolas Bacon |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nicolas |
| FAMILY NAME | Bacon |
| SIGNATURE | BACON N |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Nottingham |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1031-1246 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 104 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
High-performance work systems and organizational performance across societal cultures
Social partnership and political devolution in the National Health Service: Emergence, Operation and Outcomes
This article explores the emergence, operation and outcomes of social partnership in the National Health Service (NHS) in Scotland and Wales. Social partnership emerged in the NHS following political devolution in 1998 which transferred powers to left-wing governments in Scotland and Wales. These arrangements helped improve health services, modernize industrial relations and enhance staff terms and conditions. In NHS Scotland, union participation…
Employer disability practice in Britain: Assessing the impact of the Positive About Disabled People 'Two Ticks' symbol
This article assesses the extent to which employers displaying the Positive About Disabled People 'Two Ticks' symbol adhere to the five commitments they are expected to uphold and whether adherence to these commitments is greater in Two Ticks than non-Two Ticks workplaces. It also assesses levels of employer support for and dialogue with Disability Champions in Two Ticks workplaces. These issues are explored in the public and private sectors sepa…
Unions, joint regulation and workplace equality policy and practice in Britain: Evidence from the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey
This article provides an empirical assessment of the relationship between unionization and the adoption of equal opportunities (EO) policies and practices in British workplaces, using data from the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey. The results demonstrate an association between union recognition and the adoption of a range of EO practices. However, this association largely only holds where unions are able to influence EO decision-making…
Union representation and training: The impact of Union Learning Representatives and the factors influencing their effectiveness
This article provides an assessment of the impact of Union Learning Representatives (ULRs) on both employer-funded and non-employer funded training in Britain. The findings, based upon the largest and most comprehensive national survey of ULRs conducted to date, suggest that while a significant proportion of ULRs have influenced training levels positively, a further 26 percent have had no positive impact on either employer-funded or non-employer …
Assessing the impact of Union Learning Representatives on training: Evidence from a matched sample of ULRs and managers
Drawing on a matched sample of pairs of Union Learning Representatives (ULRs) and managers in 90 workplaces, this article evaluates managers' views of the impact of ULRs on training and compares these views with those of ULRs themselves. Although managers are less positive than are ULRs about the impact ULRs have had, a significant proportion of managers nevertheless state that ULRs have had a positive influence. The article also uses the matched…
The Sage Handbook of Human Resource Management
The impact of organizational change on steelworkers in craft and production occupational groups
This article examines the impact of organizational change on different occupational groups in the steel industry. In difficult financial circumstances and resulting pressure to downsize, a move to new forms of team-based working, in combination with staffing reductions, led to differential effects on craft and production occupational groups. Job satisfaction declined as a result of these changes with production workers reporting work intensificat…
Assessing the impact of private equity on industrial relations in Europe
Private equity firms are accused by trade unions of changing industrial relations in buyouts by demonstrating an unwillingness to recognize and work with trade unions, and by downgrading information and consultation. To explore these important policy issues, this article reports the first representative pan-European survey of managers’ perceptions of the impact of private equity on industrial relations. Managers report that private equity investm…
The contents of partnership agreements in Britain 1990-2007
This article assesses the contents of the majority of employer-union partnership agreements signed in Britain from 1990 to 2007. Few agreements contain the expected partnership principles and most express modest overall aims and limited ambition. Typical agreements are substantively hollow with more than one-third containing no substantive provisions; and procedurally biased, with more than four-fifths offering unions greater involvement in emplo…
Partnership agreement adoption and survival in the British private and public sectors
This article assesses the adoption and survival of labour-management partnership agreements in Britain. In contrast to predictions that British employers will avoid partnership agreements, significantly more agreements have been signed than expected with 248 partnership agreements signed between 1990 and 2007. Partnership agreements covered almost ten percent of all British employees in 2007 and one-third of public sector employees. The majority …
The Sage Handbook of Industrial Relations
The effects of private equity and buy-outs on HRM in the UK and the Netherlands
Regulatory authorities, politicians and trade unions across Europe have recently accused private equity institutions of improving the performance of buy-outs merely by reducing employment costs with negative implications for jobs, working conditions and training investments. These claims are assessed by analysing high commitment management practices and changes in these practices in private-equity backed and non-private equity backed buy-outs in …
Investors in People and training in the British SME sector
Successive UK governments have encouraged small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to pursue Investors in People (IiP) recognition in order to increase levels of employer-provided training in the sector. Using data from the 1998 and 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Surveys, this article reports the extent of change in the proportion of workplaces in small, medium and large firms with IiP recognition and assesses the relationship between IiP a…
The Effects of Co-Operating or Conflicting over Work Restructuring: Evidence from Employees
This paper examines patterns of worker response to the introduction of teamworking at two similar large work sites. We consider whether the patterns of response are significantly different where change has been introduced through a more cooperative or a more conflictual bargaining process. In the cooperative negotiations that more typified one site, trade unions made concessions, generating both dissatisfaction with the terms under which teams we…
The antecedents of training activity in British small and medium-sized enterprises
Analysing data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey we establish the extent to which levels of training activity in Britain are lower in SMEs than in larger firms.The antecedents of training activity within the SME sector are examined in terms of the workplace characteristics that are associated with high or low levels of training. Both managers and non-managers receive less training in SMEs compared with larger organizations.Trainin…
A longitudinal study of the influence of shop floor work teams on expressions of ‘us’ and ‘them’
A discourse analysis of employee rhetoric before and after the introduction of shop floor work teams in a steel mill reveals important changes in expressions of ‘us’ and ‘them’ attitudes. The normative rhetoric of teamworking used by managers, insisting that all employees are working towards the same goal, raised an expectation of change in the traditional ‘them’ and ‘us’ divide between managers and workers. When workers detected little subsequen…
Trade union responses to workplace restructuring: Exploring Union Orientations and Actions
In this article we identify four distinct types of union responses to workplace restructuring on the basis of different combinations of ideological orientations and actions in collective bargaining. Four union branches are described, each making one of these different types of response when required to negotiate the introduction of teamworking in two steel plants. We report a wide variation in the subsequent outcomes from teamworking for manageme…
Job Insecurity: A Review of Measurement, Consequences and Implications
Competitive Advantage through Human Resource Management: Best Practices or Core Competencies
Management Practices and Employee Attitudes: A Longitudinal Study Spanning Fifty Years
This paper reports findings from a third consecutive study to re-visit a steelworks that provided a classic elaboration of the industrial enterprise as a social system. The social system of the works in the 1950s (Scott et al., 1956) was used to explain the positive orientation of steelworkers to change. A later study of the plant in 1991 uncovered a remarkably similar positive orientation to change in the plant indicating a number of continuitie…
High Road and Low Road Teamworking: Perceptions of Management Rationales and Organizational and Human Resource Outcomes
In this article, we explore the relationship between two different types of teamworking, perceptions of management rationales for introducing teamworking and organizational and human resource outcomes. Teamworking is classified into two different types: `high road' and `low road' teamworking. Management rationales for introducing teamworking are categorized as economic, social and cultural. Organizational performance is assessed by perceptions of…
The Realities of Human Resource Management
Union Derecognition and the New Human Relations: A Steel Industry Case Study
This paper presents a detailed case study of a non-union company that adopts a comprehensive HRM approach. Recent accounts of such workplaces identify benefits for employees inducing a perceived lack of need for union membership. This paper reveals a rather different picture in a case where some of the gains for employees proved illusory. Managerial strategy was geared towards attitudinal compliance, work intensification and the suppression of an…
Re-Casting the Occupational Culture in Steel: Some Implications of Changing from Crews to Teams in the UK Steel Industry
Teamworking developments in the iron and steel industry potentially have far-reaching implications for steelworkers' occupational culture. The traditional seniority-based crew system is examined and is shown to have exerted a considerable influence in shaping the occupational culture in steel. Recent changes in work organisation are discussed, including the nature of teamworking developments at two steel plants. The authors conclude that the chan…
Union Derecognition and the New Human Relations: A Steel Industry Case Study
This paper presents a detailed case study of a non-union company that adopts a comprehensive HRM approach. Recent accounts of such workplaces identify benefits for employees inducing a perceived lack of need for union membership. This paper reveals a rather different picture in a case where some of the gains for employees proved illusory. Managerial strategy was geared towards attitudinal compliance, work intensification and the suppression of an…
Employer disability practice in Britain: Assessing the impact of the Positive About Disabled People 'Two Ticks' symbol
This article assesses the extent to which employers displaying the Positive About Disabled People 'Two Ticks' symbol adhere to the five commitments they are expected to uphold and whether adherence to these commitments is greater in Two Ticks than non-Two Ticks workplaces. It also assesses levels of employer support for and dialogue with Disability Champions in Two Ticks workplaces. These issues are explored in the public and private sectors sepa…
High Road and Low Road Teamworking: Perceptions of Management Rationales and Organizational and Human Resource Outcomes
In this article, we explore the relationship between two different types of teamworking, perceptions of management rationales for introducing teamworking and organizational and human resource outcomes. Teamworking is classified into two different types: `high road' and `low road' teamworking. Management rationales for introducing teamworking are categorized as economic, social and cultural. Organizational performance is assessed by perceptions of…
A longitudinal study of the influence of shop floor work teams on expressions of ‘us’ and ‘them’
A discourse analysis of employee rhetoric before and after the introduction of shop floor work teams in a steel mill reveals important changes in expressions of ‘us’ and ‘them’ attitudes. The normative rhetoric of teamworking used by managers, insisting that all employees are working towards the same goal, raised an expectation of change in the traditional ‘them’ and ‘us’ divide between managers and workers. When workers detected little subsequen…
Trade union responses to workplace restructuring: Exploring Union Orientations and Actions
In this article we identify four distinct types of union responses to workplace restructuring on the basis of different combinations of ideological orientations and actions in collective bargaining. Four union branches are described, each making one of these different types of response when required to negotiate the introduction of teamworking in two steel plants. We report a wide variation in the subsequent outcomes from teamworking for manageme…
Re-Casting the Occupational Culture in Steel: Some Implications of Changing from Crews to Teams in the UK Steel Industry
Teamworking developments in the iron and steel industry potentially have far-reaching implications for steelworkers' occupational culture. The traditional seniority-based crew system is examined and is shown to have exerted a considerable influence in shaping the occupational culture in steel. Recent changes in work organisation are discussed, including the nature of teamworking developments at two steel plants. The authors conclude that the chan…
Social partnership and political devolution in the National Health Service: Emergence, Operation and Outcomes
This article explores the emergence, operation and outcomes of social partnership in the National Health Service (NHS) in Scotland and Wales. Social partnership emerged in the NHS following political devolution in 1998 which transferred powers to left-wing governments in Scotland and Wales. These arrangements helped improve health services, modernize industrial relations and enhance staff terms and conditions. In NHS Scotland, union participation…
Unions, joint regulation and workplace equality policy and practice in Britain: Evidence from the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey
This article provides an empirical assessment of the relationship between unionization and the adoption of equal opportunities (EO) policies and practices in British workplaces, using data from the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey. The results demonstrate an association between union recognition and the adoption of a range of EO practices. However, this association largely only holds where unions are able to influence EO decision-making…
Assessing the impact of private equity on industrial relations in Europe
Private equity firms are accused by trade unions of changing industrial relations in buyouts by demonstrating an unwillingness to recognize and work with trade unions, and by downgrading information and consultation. To explore these important policy issues, this article reports the first representative pan-European survey of managers’ perceptions of the impact of private equity on industrial relations. Managers report that private equity investm…
The effects of private equity and buy-outs on HRM in the UK and the Netherlands
Regulatory authorities, politicians and trade unions across Europe have recently accused private equity institutions of improving the performance of buy-outs merely by reducing employment costs with negative implications for jobs, working conditions and training investments. These claims are assessed by analysing high commitment management practices and changes in these practices in private-equity backed and non-private equity backed buy-outs in …
Partnership agreement adoption and survival in the British private and public sectors
This article assesses the adoption and survival of labour-management partnership agreements in Britain. In contrast to predictions that British employers will avoid partnership agreements, significantly more agreements have been signed than expected with 248 partnership agreements signed between 1990 and 2007. Partnership agreements covered almost ten percent of all British employees in 2007 and one-third of public sector employees. The majority …
Management Practices and Employee Attitudes: A Longitudinal Study Spanning Fifty Years
This paper reports findings from a third consecutive study to re-visit a steelworks that provided a classic elaboration of the industrial enterprise as a social system. The social system of the works in the 1950s (Scott et al., 1956) was used to explain the positive orientation of steelworkers to change. A later study of the plant in 1991 uncovered a remarkably similar positive orientation to change in the plant indicating a number of continuitie…
Assessing the impact of Union Learning Representatives on training: Evidence from a matched sample of ULRs and managers
Drawing on a matched sample of pairs of Union Learning Representatives (ULRs) and managers in 90 workplaces, this article evaluates managers' views of the impact of ULRs on training and compares these views with those of ULRs themselves. Although managers are less positive than are ULRs about the impact ULRs have had, a significant proportion of managers nevertheless state that ULRs have had a positive influence. The article also uses the matched…
Re‐casting the politics of steel in Europe: The impact on trade unions
In this article we explore the response of European trade unions to the 1990s steel crisis. Trade unions have faced wide ranging challenges including: the globalisation of the industry; steel companies becoming increasingly international; privatisation; the eastern European steel market; the liberalisation of world trade; the new emerging priorities of the EU and internal company reorganisation. Our key argument is that their response has been hi…
Union representation and training: The impact of Union Learning Representatives and the factors influencing their effectiveness
This article provides an assessment of the impact of Union Learning Representatives (ULRs) on both employer-funded and non-employer funded training in Britain. The findings, based upon the largest and most comprehensive national survey of ULRs conducted to date, suggest that while a significant proportion of ULRs have influenced training levels positively, a further 26 percent have had no positive impact on either employer-funded or non-employer …
The impact of organizational change on steelworkers in craft and production occupational groups
This article examines the impact of organizational change on different occupational groups in the steel industry. In difficult financial circumstances and resulting pressure to downsize, a move to new forms of team-based working, in combination with staffing reductions, led to differential effects on craft and production occupational groups. Job satisfaction declined as a result of these changes with production workers reporting work intensificat…
The contents of partnership agreements in Britain 1990-2007
This article assesses the contents of the majority of employer-union partnership agreements signed in Britain from 1990 to 2007. Few agreements contain the expected partnership principles and most express modest overall aims and limited ambition. Typical agreements are substantively hollow with more than one-third containing no substantive provisions; and procedurally biased, with more than four-fifths offering unions greater involvement in emplo…
The Effects of Co-Operating or Conflicting over Work Restructuring: Evidence from Employees
This paper examines patterns of worker response to the introduction of teamworking at two similar large work sites. We consider whether the patterns of response are significantly different where change has been introduced through a more cooperative or a more conflictual bargaining process. In the cooperative negotiations that more typified one site, trade unions made concessions, generating both dissatisfaction with the terms under which teams we…
The antecedents of training activity in British small and medium-sized enterprises
Analysing data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey we establish the extent to which levels of training activity in Britain are lower in SMEs than in larger firms.The antecedents of training activity within the SME sector are examined in terms of the workplace characteristics that are associated with high or low levels of training. Both managers and non-managers receive less training in SMEs compared with larger organizations.Trainin…
The Realities of Human Resource Management
Re‐casting the politics of steel in Europe: The impact on trade unions
In this article we explore the response of European trade unions to the 1990s steel crisis. Trade unions have faced wide ranging challenges including: the globalisation of the industry; steel companies becoming increasingly international; privatisation; the eastern European steel market; the liberalisation of world trade; the new emerging priorities of the EU and internal company reorganisation. Our key argument is that their response has been hi…
Re-Casting the Occupational Culture in Steel: Some Implications of Changing from Crews to Teams in the UK Steel Industry
Teamworking developments in the iron and steel industry potentially have far-reaching implications for steelworkers' occupational culture. The traditional seniority-based crew system is examined and is shown to have exerted a considerable influence in shaping the occupational culture in steel. Recent changes in work organisation are discussed, including the nature of teamworking developments at two steel plants. The authors conclude that the chan…
The Realities of Human Resource Management
Union Derecognition and the New Human Relations: A Steel Industry Case Study
This paper presents a detailed case study of a non-union company that adopts a comprehensive HRM approach. Recent accounts of such workplaces identify benefits for employees inducing a perceived lack of need for union membership. This paper reveals a rather different picture in a case where some of the gains for employees proved illusory. Managerial strategy was geared towards attitudinal compliance, work intensification and the suppression of an…
High Road and Low Road Teamworking: Perceptions of Management Rationales and Organizational and Human Resource Outcomes
In this article, we explore the relationship between two different types of teamworking, perceptions of management rationales for introducing teamworking and organizational and human resource outcomes. Teamworking is classified into two different types: `high road' and `low road' teamworking. Management rationales for introducing teamworking are categorized as economic, social and cultural. Organizational performance is assessed by perceptions of…
Job Insecurity: A Review of Measurement, Consequences and Implications
Competitive Advantage through Human Resource Management: Best Practices or Core Competencies
Management Practices and Employee Attitudes: A Longitudinal Study Spanning Fifty Years
This paper reports findings from a third consecutive study to re-visit a steelworks that provided a classic elaboration of the industrial enterprise as a social system. The social system of the works in the 1950s (Scott et al., 1956) was used to explain the positive orientation of steelworkers to change. A later study of the plant in 1991 uncovered a remarkably similar positive orientation to change in the plant indicating a number of continuitie…
Trade union responses to workplace restructuring: Exploring Union Orientations and Actions
In this article we identify four distinct types of union responses to workplace restructuring on the basis of different combinations of ideological orientations and actions in collective bargaining. Four union branches are described, each making one of these different types of response when required to negotiate the introduction of teamworking in two steel plants. We report a wide variation in the subsequent outcomes from teamworking for manageme…
A longitudinal study of the influence of shop floor work teams on expressions of ‘us’ and ‘them’
A discourse analysis of employee rhetoric before and after the introduction of shop floor work teams in a steel mill reveals important changes in expressions of ‘us’ and ‘them’ attitudes. The normative rhetoric of teamworking used by managers, insisting that all employees are working towards the same goal, raised an expectation of change in the traditional ‘them’ and ‘us’ divide between managers and workers. When workers detected little subsequen…
The Effects of Co-Operating or Conflicting over Work Restructuring: Evidence from Employees
This paper examines patterns of worker response to the introduction of teamworking at two similar large work sites. We consider whether the patterns of response are significantly different where change has been introduced through a more cooperative or a more conflictual bargaining process. In the cooperative negotiations that more typified one site, trade unions made concessions, generating both dissatisfaction with the terms under which teams we…
The antecedents of training activity in British small and medium-sized enterprises
Analysing data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey we establish the extent to which levels of training activity in Britain are lower in SMEs than in larger firms.The antecedents of training activity within the SME sector are examined in terms of the workplace characteristics that are associated with high or low levels of training. Both managers and non-managers receive less training in SMEs compared with larger organizations.Trainin…
The Sage Handbook of Industrial Relations
The effects of private equity and buy-outs on HRM in the UK and the Netherlands
Regulatory authorities, politicians and trade unions across Europe have recently accused private equity institutions of improving the performance of buy-outs merely by reducing employment costs with negative implications for jobs, working conditions and training investments. These claims are assessed by analysing high commitment management practices and changes in these practices in private-equity backed and non-private equity backed buy-outs in …
Investors in People and training in the British SME sector
Successive UK governments have encouraged small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to pursue Investors in People (IiP) recognition in order to increase levels of employer-provided training in the sector. Using data from the 1998 and 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Surveys, this article reports the extent of change in the proportion of workplaces in small, medium and large firms with IiP recognition and assesses the relationship between IiP a…
Partnership agreement adoption and survival in the British private and public sectors
This article assesses the adoption and survival of labour-management partnership agreements in Britain. In contrast to predictions that British employers will avoid partnership agreements, significantly more agreements have been signed than expected with 248 partnership agreements signed between 1990 and 2007. Partnership agreements covered almost ten percent of all British employees in 2007 and one-third of public sector employees. The majority …
The Sage Handbook of Human Resource Management
The impact of organizational change on steelworkers in craft and production occupational groups
This article examines the impact of organizational change on different occupational groups in the steel industry. In difficult financial circumstances and resulting pressure to downsize, a move to new forms of team-based working, in combination with staffing reductions, led to differential effects on craft and production occupational groups. Job satisfaction declined as a result of these changes with production workers reporting work intensificat…
Assessing the impact of private equity on industrial relations in Europe
Private equity firms are accused by trade unions of changing industrial relations in buyouts by demonstrating an unwillingness to recognize and work with trade unions, and by downgrading information and consultation. To explore these important policy issues, this article reports the first representative pan-European survey of managers’ perceptions of the impact of private equity on industrial relations. Managers report that private equity investm…
The contents of partnership agreements in Britain 1990-2007
This article assesses the contents of the majority of employer-union partnership agreements signed in Britain from 1990 to 2007. Few agreements contain the expected partnership principles and most express modest overall aims and limited ambition. Typical agreements are substantively hollow with more than one-third containing no substantive provisions; and procedurally biased, with more than four-fifths offering unions greater involvement in emplo…
Union representation and training: The impact of Union Learning Representatives and the factors influencing their effectiveness
This article provides an assessment of the impact of Union Learning Representatives (ULRs) on both employer-funded and non-employer funded training in Britain. The findings, based upon the largest and most comprehensive national survey of ULRs conducted to date, suggest that while a significant proportion of ULRs have influenced training levels positively, a further 26 percent have had no positive impact on either employer-funded or non-employer …
Assessing the impact of Union Learning Representatives on training: Evidence from a matched sample of ULRs and managers
Drawing on a matched sample of pairs of Union Learning Representatives (ULRs) and managers in 90 workplaces, this article evaluates managers' views of the impact of ULRs on training and compares these views with those of ULRs themselves. Although managers are less positive than are ULRs about the impact ULRs have had, a significant proportion of managers nevertheless state that ULRs have had a positive influence. The article also uses the matched…
Employer disability practice in Britain: Assessing the impact of the Positive About Disabled People 'Two Ticks' symbol
This article assesses the extent to which employers displaying the Positive About Disabled People 'Two Ticks' symbol adhere to the five commitments they are expected to uphold and whether adherence to these commitments is greater in Two Ticks than non-Two Ticks workplaces. It also assesses levels of employer support for and dialogue with Disability Champions in Two Ticks workplaces. These issues are explored in the public and private sectors sepa…
Unions, joint regulation and workplace equality policy and practice in Britain: Evidence from the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey
This article provides an empirical assessment of the relationship between unionization and the adoption of equal opportunities (EO) policies and practices in British workplaces, using data from the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey. The results demonstrate an association between union recognition and the adoption of a range of EO practices. However, this association largely only holds where unions are able to influence EO decision-making…
Social partnership and political devolution in the National Health Service: Emergence, Operation and Outcomes
This article explores the emergence, operation and outcomes of social partnership in the National Health Service (NHS) in Scotland and Wales. Social partnership emerged in the NHS following political devolution in 1998 which transferred powers to left-wing governments in Scotland and Wales. These arrangements helped improve health services, modernize industrial relations and enhance staff terms and conditions. In NHS Scotland, union participation…
Political science (20 works) · Business (19 works) · Labor Movements and Unions (18 works) · Economics (16 works) · Psychology (12 works) · Public relations (12 works) · Employment and Welfare Studies (11 works) · Engineering (9 works) · Labour economics (8 works) · Law (8 works)