Changing HRM systems in two Russian oil companies: Western hegemony or Russian spetsifika?

We contrast attempts to introduce what were seen as sophisticated Western-style human resource management (HRM) systems into two Russian oil companies – a joint venture with a Western multinational corporation (TNK-BP) and a wholly Russian-owned company (Yukos). The drivers for Western hegemony within the joint venture, heavily influenced by expatriates and the established HRM processes introduced by the Western parent, were counteracted to a significant degree by the Russian spetsifika – the peculiarly Russian way of thinking and doing things. In contrast, developments were absorbed faster in the more authoritarian Russian-owned company. The research adds to the theoretical debate about international knowledge transfer and provides detailed empirical data to support our understanding of the effect of both organizational and cultural context on the knowledge-transfer mechanisms of local and multinational companies. As the analysis is based on the perspective of senior local nationals, we also address a relatively under-researched area in the international HRM literature which mostly relies on empirical data collected from expatriates and those based solely in multinational headquarters.

Entre histoire et fiction: la représentation du règne d'Arthur dans le manuscrit enluminé du Brut en prose, Londres, Lambeth Palace 6 (c. 1480)

The manuscript London, Lambeth Palace 6, contains the Middle English prose Brut, a text which benefited from a great popularity throughout the fifteenth century. It was copied by an English scribe and richly illuminated by the Master of Edward IV and his assistants at Bruges around 1480. This article studies the representation and integration of the reign of Arthur in the historical framework of the Brut or Chronicles of England, including its fictional aspects: Arthur emerges as a historical character but also as a chivalric and mythical figure. The analysis covers the miniatures ranging from the plot leading to the conception of Arthur to the end of his reign (fols. 36-66). The textual and iconographic choices of the prose Bruts are highlighted by comparisons with Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, Wace’s Brut, and later prose rewritings in the Lancelot-Grail romance cycle, especially Merlin and its Vulgate Sequel. They show the continuous interest raised by Arthur in the aristocratic and royal circles of late fifteenth century England and the relationship be¬tween continental and insular historiographical, literary and artistic traditions.

Home in British working-class fiction

Offering new readings of working-class writing that focus on the home as a key emotional and material site in writing by working-class authors from the Edwardian period through to the mid-1990s. With close readings of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, works by D. H. Lawrence, Ethel Carnie Holdsworth, Ellen Wilkinson, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Walter Brierley, Alan Sillitoe, John Braine, Nell Dunn, Sam Selvon, Sid Chaplin, Buchi Emecheta, Pat Barker, Jeanette Winterson, James Kelman and many others. The book demonstrates the importance of ideas of home and its narrative representation to the making and expression of class feeling and identity.

Better dead: J. M. Barrie’s first book and the shilling fiction market

This article provides a critical and bibliographical discussion of J. M. Barrie’s neglected first book, Better Dead, published by Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Co. in 1887. Drawing on previously unexamined evidence in the Sonnenschein archive, it shows how this shilling novel was marketed and sold to its readers at railway bookstalls, and argues that the content and style of the story was conditioned by its form. Examining the many references and allusions in the story, it proposes that the work is best understood as a satire on contemporary political, social and literary themes. The article also shows how, contrary to all published accounts, the author actually earned a small amount of money from a work which, in spite of his efforts, refused to stay dead.

Rethinking the Russian Revolution as historical divide

This monograph is the product of a series of workshops held in the UK and the USA, the premise of which was to suggest that 1917 is the wrong departure point for a full analysis of the social and cultural particularities of the Soviet Union. Breaking away from the binary of ‘change and continuity’, however, we asked how the new and the old (tradition and modernity) came together to make the Soviet experience ‘across 1917’. Building on these workshops, we have gathered 15 scholars from America, Europe, Russia, and the Middle East to contribute to this edition. This volume examines, among other things, the social and cultural frameworks that helped determine Soviet perceptions of social duty, justice, and governance.

The impact of national context effects on HRM practices in Russian subsidiaries of Western MNCs

This article contributes to the research on comparative human resource management by providing a model of the Russian business system and its effect on human resource management practices at Russian subsidiaries of Western multinational companies. Whitley’s approach was adopted to illustrate the links between institutional arenas, business systems, and human resource management practices. The empirical part is based on interviews with senior human resources managers of Western multinational companies operating in Russia. The findings provide insight into the interaction between the national business system and human resource management practices in Russia.