David Farnham, The Changing Faces of Employment Relations: Global, Comparative and Theoretical Perspectives

David Farnham, The Changing Faces of Employment Relations: Global, Comparative and Theoretical Perspectives, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015; 672 pp., ISBN 978-1-137-02712-2, £42.99 (pbk).

Antecedents of Concession Bargaining in the Great Recession: Evidence from Ireland

Concession or ‘give back’ bargaining involves firms seeking changes in pay and conditions of employment from trade unions in return for pledges of enhanced job security and sometimes other forms of reciprocation. Several distinct modes of concession bargaining are distinguishable in the literature, and three modes of concession bargaining have been identified in Ireland during the Great Recession: integrative, distributive and minimal engagement. Deploying qualitatively informed quantitative data on the conduct of collective bargaining during the Great Recession, this article examines a series of antecedent influences on the choices firms make in conducting concession bargaining with unions.

At the dawn of Italo-Chinese modern relations: Ludovico Nocentini's experience

In 1904 Ludovico Nocentini described China as a hub of colonial and commercial development for European powers. Europe in the Far East and the Italian Interests in China was Nocentini’s last and most critical book, in which he compared the performance of the Italian government with that of other countries and showed Rome’s inefficiency overseas. The book expatiated on the “carving up” of China into spheres of influence by the Western powers, while examining how the Italian government’s scant regard for the definition and pursuit of the country’s national interest jeopardized not only the development of its colonial policy, but also its foreign trade and industrial progress.

Process Selection Using Variation and Cost Relations

Variations are inherent in all manufacturing processes and can significantly affect the quality of a final assembly, particularly in multistage assembly systems. Existing research in variation management has primarily focused on incorporating GD&T factors into variation propagation models in order to predict product quality and allocate tolerances. However, process induced variation, which has a key influence on process planning, has not been fully studied. Furthermore, the link between variation and cost has not been well established, in particular the effect that assembly process selection has on the final quality and cost of a product. To overcome these barriers, this paper proposes a novel method utilizing process capabilities to establish the relationship between variation and cost. The methodology is discussed using a real industrial case study. The benefits include determining the optimum configuration of an assembly system and facilitating rapid introduction of novel assembly techniques to achieve a competitive edge.