Phil Almond

Phil Almond
University of Leicester | LE · School of Management

PhD, Manchester

About

61
Publications
32,511
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Introduction
I am a comparative researcher, interested in how work, management and organisation are shaped by economic, social, political and geographical contexts. Most of my research focuses on multinational companies, examining both their internal coordination, and the ways in which the disruptions to national and local business systems caused by corporate globalisation shape the decisions of managers, social actors and policy makers.

Publications

Publications (61)
Article
Full-text available
This paper analyses how research in cross-national comparative human resource management deals with ideas, values and norms. On the basis of an analysis of the articles with that focus that were published in selected leading journals between 2001 and 2010, it first identifies the main approaches to comparative work, which are labelled as materialis...
Article
Full-text available
This paper provides a defence of, and framework for, comparative research in industrial and employment relations based on a long-term, in-depth engagement with the social contexts under study. It locates such 'slow' research strategies in relation to predominant comparative research strategies, and establishes a number of basic precepts of slow com...
Article
Full-text available
Open access full text of published version is at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1748-8583.12350 This paper contextualises and analyses global norm-making concerning the nature of work within multinational companies. We develop a framework for analysing the relations between formal and informal elements of global norm-making, stressing...
Article
The formation of global norms that affect work is a crucial element to how multinational companies (MNCs) achieve a degree of HR integration internationally. We establish a 'strategic action fields' framework to guide research into global norm-making in MNCs in general and for analysing the work of those that we term 'globalizing actors'-those who...
Article
The notion that multinational companies (MNCs) are comprised of multiple subsidiaries in different countries is one that underpins voluminous research in international management. This body of research was recently the subject of an authoritative and comprehensive review in this journal (Meyer, Li and Schotter, 2020). However, we share the concerns...
Article
Full-text available
While there is substantial literature on global mobility, roles in the global integration of multinationals are not limited to internationally mobile staff. We focus on ‘globalizing actors’, defined as those within multinationals who are involved in global norm-making. Using interview-based qualitative data, we categorize individuals’ involvement i...
Article
Full-text available
The formation of global norms that affect work is a crucial element to how multinational companies (MNCs) achieve a degree of HR integration internationally. We establish a ‘strategic action fields’ framework to guide research into global norm-making in MNCs in general and for analysing the work of those that we term ‘globalising actors’—those who...
Data
Blog post explaining the context in which this paper was written (or, how a paper on comparative methodology needs also to be a statement of resistance).
Chapter
MNCs are important players in the diffusion of management ideas, knowledge and norms across borders because of pressures to standardize practices as much as possible, while adapting to local differences as much as necessary. The international management literature increasingly highlights the important role of individuals within those MNCs in cross-...
Article
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This paper examines how governance actors in regional business systems engage with foreign-owned multinational corporations which are present within their territory, in attempts to retain investment and link their regions to global production networks. This is done through a qualitative analysis of policy and practice in six sub-national regions in...
Article
This paper uses an embeddedness framework to reconceptualize HRM agency over the external labour market, and in so doing bring into focus the societal implications of HRM. Drawing on qualitative data from 53 key informants in two English regions, we identify the ways in which the subsidiaries of foreign multinationals (MNCs) engage with labour mark...
Article
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Based on Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario and Saguenay-Lac Saint-Jean, Quebec case studies, we link inward investment regimes (IIR) to the strategic relational approach to the state. The state continues to be significant in (i) selecting Multi-National Enterprise (MNE) value chain segments; (ii) policies maximizing foreign direct investment (FDI) spillo...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
This paper addresses cross-national comparative research in employment relations and related fields. Its purpose is to argue the case for research which makes a long-term, in-depth engagement with the local and national social contexts under study, in order to gain deeper and more reliable insights into the nature of, and reasons for, cross-nationa...
Article
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This paper examines how the international competition to attract and retain foreign direct investment shapes the governance of business and employment systems. Through an examination of global production networks and the changing role of the state in economic governance, it highlights the sub-national regional space as an important level of institu...
Article
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PurposeThis chapter will discuss the extent to which existing models on expatriate functions within the international business literature, still effectively capture the roles currently performed by expatriate managers. It analyse the Edstrom and Galbraith (1977) typology and present a conceptual framework on the roles currently performed by expatri...
Article
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In a context in which multinational companies are increasingly able to choose their locations of production, this paper examines how social and political governance actors in host regional economies attempt to attract and retain foreign direct investment. Based on a comparative study of two regions in each of Canada, Ireland, Spain and the UK, it s...
Chapter
Full-text available
In the context of the transnationalisation of productive systems and changing dynamics of competition to host foreign direct investment (FDI), it is commonly argued, both in economic geography and in discussions of the political economy of FDI, that relatively local, sub-national governance actors play an increasing role in attempting to connect re...
Article
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In the context of the competitive global fragmentation of production of contemporary capitalism, this paper examines how governance actors at sub-national regional levels have constructed responses to the international competition for FDI. It is based on intensive qualitative comparative research across eight sub-national regions in four advanced i...
Article
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This article examines variability in pay and performance management systems (PPMS) across foreign multinational companies (MNCs) in the UK, using a representative survey. It examines factors shaping PPMS for two groups, managers and the largest occupational group (LOG). It finds that US MNCs tend to have more PPMS practices in combination than do n...
Article
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This paper analyses relations between sub-national institutional actors responsible for the attraction and retention of foreign direct investment, other governance' actors in regional business systems - local and sub-regional government, cluster/sectoral bodies, RDA and LEP executives, and those involved in the coordination of skills provision - an...
Article
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Flexibility research has, in a sense, been founded on implicit international comparisons from the outset: much talk of the need to move towards more flexible working systems was built on an understanding of the differences between Western and Japanese models of management, as the latter were seen as increasingly dominant in the 1980s, the period wh...
Conference Paper
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This paper is based on interim results for an ongoing, cross-national research project into thelinks between foreign-owned multinational firms, economic governance actors present at asub-national level in their host countries, and issues relating to the governance of labour markets. The current paper covers regions in four advanced economies (Canad...
Article
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This article argues that international human resource management has failed to examine adequately the relations between multinational corporations (MNCs) and the geographies they operate in at sub-national levels. In particular, it needs to go much further in integrating insights from literatures on changing levels of governance, the role of sub-na...
Article
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In this chapter we address three particular issues concerning case studies of MNCs using multiple research sites. First, if the elephant has many different parts, how should the fleas be arranged around it? Or in other words, how can international research teams be organized when research-ing MNCs? We contrast approaches based on a controlling centre...
Article
This article builds on the existing literature on ‘country of origin’ effects on the management of human resources in multinational corporations (MNCs). It adopts a relational perspective in order to examine how actors at different levels within multinationals develop identities, and how these interact. Exploring the different sets of relations pre...
Book
Some of the key questions in employment relations, comparative business, and globalization revolve around the extent to which businesses embody a national business system, and what happens when these employment models are exported to other national settings. By exploring the variety of ways in which US multinationals deal with these issues, and the...
Article
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This paper examines the influential Varieties of Capitalism argument (Hall and Soskice 2001) that economies tend to one of two forms of capitalism - liberal market and coordinated market economies - with different employment policies being conducive to economic success in each. An analysis of the relationship between financial and labour market sys...
Chapter
This chapter analyses the management of pay and performance in the case study companies, against the background of the embedded systems of the USA and the host countries. Both wage classifications and the issue of performance management are examined. Patterns of decision-making on both dimensions are found to be generally more centralized than is t...
Chapter
This chapter examines the distinctive and evolving nature of the American model of capitalism, emphasizing the links between embedded features of the US national business system through a review of its historical development. It argues that American industrial capitalism developed against a background quite different to those of European countries,...
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This book addresses some of the major contemporary issues in comparative business and employment relations. At its core are the findings of a four-year international exploration of the management of employment relations in American multinational companies in the UK, Germany, Ireland, and Spain. Data from detailed case studies are used to illuminate...
Article
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This article examines the impact of contemporary business practices within the American business system on established patterns of industrial relations (IR) management in European subsidiaries of US multinationals, specifically how established firm-level settlements for the management of IR may or may not combine with host-country effects to constr...
Article
This paper examines the policies towards unions and collective representation in US multinationals in the UK. It uses detailed case-study data to argue that the dominant 'ideological norms' of anti-unionism in the US business system shape, but do not determine, the behaviour of US multinational subsidiaries in the UK. Within the structural constrai...
Article
This paper addresses the issue of 'reverse diffusion' of employment practices in multinational companies, which is defined as the transfer of practices from foreign subsidiaries to operations in the country of origin. It adds to the literature by examining the influence of the parent business system in multinationals. Specifically, it addresses how...
Article
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This paper uses a comparative institutionalist approach combined with a power/interests perspective to examine the processes whereby diversity policy is ‘internationalised’ by US multinational companies. It argues that the process of policy transfer to UK subsidiaries is complicated by incomplete and contested ‘institutionalisation’ of diversity wi...
Article
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This article argues that the institutional “home” and “host” country effects on employment policy and practice in multinational corporations (MNCs) need to be analyzed within a framework which takes more account both of the multiple levels of embeddedness experienced by the MNC, and processes of negotiation at different levels within the firm. Usin...
Article
This article examines the effects of changes in the dynamics of the American national business system on industrial relations settlements in the UK subsidiaries of American multinational corporations (MNCs). While institutionalist analyses of country-of-origin and host-country effects must take account of changes in national business systems, such...
Article
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This article analyses the differences in the post-war study of employment relations in the UK and France, examining both the orientations of the main literatures, and more recent developments in response to the changes of recent years. Through a comparison of the literature, the article seeks to analyse the implicit assumptions behind research in t...
Article
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This article revisits a central question in the debates on the management of multinationals: the balance between centralized policy-making and subsidiary autonomy. It does so through data from a series of case studies on the management of human resources in American multinationals in the UK. Two strands of debate are confronted. The first is the li...
Article
This article reviews recent development in employment relations in MNCs, within the context of the varied and changing business systems within Western Europe. Focusing on Germany, France, Sweden and the UK, we analyse both the effects of national corporate governance systems on MNCs, and the extent to which MNCs specifically, and globalisation more...
Chapter
The widely discussed ‘globalization’ of economic activities has given rise to a renewed interest in the relations between such tendencies, the nature and demarcation of societies, and the nature and strategies of various actors and organizations within and cross-cutting societies. One approach to capture and express these themes has been Societal A...
Article
The proposal to introduce a national minimum wage in Britain has drawn attention to the importance of general systems of wage determination and wage protection for gender equity. Two-thirds of the likely beneficiaries of a national minimum wage are likely to be women and the U.K. government has even identified its minimum wage policy as one of its...

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