European employment models in flux: Pressure for change and prospects for survival and revitalization- Gerhard Bosch, Steffen Lendhorff and Jill Rubery - publié le 26/02/2013

Résumé du document

The text is a chapter extracted from a book about employment models in Europe and their evolutions. This is the first chapter of the book so it is a kind of general introduction (although it is long, comprehensive and well-structured) to the rest of the book.

This document seems to be a research article, with a lot of empirical examples to validate theories. In this chapter, authors try to understand how both external and internal pressures can change institutions which determine employment models. Their aim is to make the employment relationship central in order to understand changes on a national scale in the recent context of globalization (service economy in western countries) and the development of new technologies.

As they assert it in the introduction, these national models have to face challenges which necessarily change them. What is interesting is that, in order to understand how such changes occur, these scholars look further than typologies and try to explain that employment models are really typical of one country because all countries do not have all the same capabilities to respond to challenges.

The first part of the chapter is a summary of what previous scholars did in order to classify models in typologies. In my opinion, this part is particularly relevant because they insist on the fact that typologies are not sufficient to explain changes in models.

Extraits

[...] However, as the authors underline it, there are some missing factors to understand such flux. These factors which are not contained in the typologies are national characteristics because typologies only emphasize main common features of a certain number of countries. These factors are the macroeconomic management, the cycles of national employment, the national particularities and the size of the country. In my opinion, the authors could insist more on the importance of ideologies defended by different parties on a political scale. [...]

[...] European employment models in flux: Pressure for change and prospects for survival and revitalization- Gerhard Bosch, Steffen Lendhorff and Jill Rubery The text is a chapter extracted from a book about employment models in Europe and their evolutions. This is the first chapter of the book so it is a kind of general introduction (although it is long, comprehensive and well- structured) to the rest of the book. This document seems to be a research article, with a lot of empirical examples to validate theories. [...]

[...] This article is quite recent so information is still valid even if in my opinion, it would be relevant to write a new article in order to observe the changes due to the economic crisis. Two possibilities seem to be likely: either Europe tries to unify national employment models in the course of its construction; either national models will be more and more segmented because all countries differ in their response to the crisis (rupture, incremental change ) References Bosch, Gerhard, Steffen Lehndorff and Jill Rubery (eds.) (2009). [...]

[...] The first approach they are interested in is the ‘varieties of capitalism' approach which differentiate ‘liberal' from ‘coordinated market economies' (LME/CME). Above all the differences they state, they explain that both systems have met success and hence, we can argue that there is not one best way and several paths may be taken. One relevant aspect of this article is that weaknesses of this literature are highlighted: this kind of approach is too much focused on manufacturing economies whereas most of European economies are now based on services. [...]

[...] These architectures are characterized by changes in many areas: economy, demography, society, individual change In order to study institutional change, we can first be interested in the relationship between production and employment: national employments were changed in terms of ownership and governance structures. Secondly, it is also important to study the change in the relationship between welfare and employment which is characterized by internal and societal changes such as the ageing of the society or the changes in gender roles. [...]