Nurse managers did not challenge flexible staffing practices and high turnover rates. Information on turnover and costs is needed to develop strategies that retain nurses as knowledge-based workers.

This study represents the most comprehensive survey to date of labour turnover and employee loyalty in New Zealand. The widely held view that the New Zealand worker has become more mobile in the contemporary labour market is shown to be somewhat simplistic. Instead, the picture is one of increasing employment stability as people get older and as they become better paid, lending support to the idea that there are identifiable developmental stages affecting the careers of both men and women. In terms of the reasons for employee turnover, the study demonstrates that motivation for job change is multidimensional: no one factor will explain it. While interesting work is the strongest attractor and retainer in the labour market, the results also show that there is a strong employee expectation that management should make personnel decisions based on merit, demonstrate that extrinsic rewards (such as pay, promotion and security) play a role in both employee retention and turnover, lend support to the idea that there is growing concern with work-life balance, and underline the retention value of good relationships with co-workers and supervisors. The results demonstrate that employee turnover is not riskless for individuals: some benefit a lot (for example, in finding worthwhile promotion), while others do badly out of it. The study offers suggestions for improving retention in firms with dysfunctional employee turnover.

Part-time employment in Denmark has undergone some interesting longitudinal changes, which differ considerably from the experiences of other countries. As such, an analysis of part-time employment in Denmark may cast new light on the usual explanations of part-time employment and their underlying premises. The article focuses on the level and composition of part-time employment to present key areas of disagreement with the traditional understanding of part-time work. The article shows that the traditional gender and age distribution has become less pronounced as have the negative implications often associated with part-time employment. In Denmark, part-time employment has increasingly become a `youth phenomenon', the distinctive gender patterns could disappear totally in the near future, and the often portrayed employer strategies of using part-timers as `cheap labour' has less currency in a tight labour market with a growing focus on committed service and `knowledge' workers.

This paper discusses two interlinked topics: the shifts in the employment relations system and the role of unions in the two countries. An initial impression is that there is a growing divergence between the employment relations systems in the two countries over the last fifteen years. The implementation of free-market policies in New Zealand can be contrasted with a more mixed philosophical basis of the Danish reforms. However, the paper tries to demonstrate through an analysis of key employment relations regulations that a more complex pattern of divergence and convergence exists. When it comes to the role of unions, the paper presents a clear-cut divergence pattern. This raises two questions. Why have the Danish unions avoided the widespread decline in unionism? Why has the decline in union presence been so marked in New Zealand, and will the unions rebound from this decline?

The Employment Contracts Act 1991 radically transformed the system of employment relations in New Zealand. Proponents of the Act claim that it gives employers and employees “freedom of choice” and the ability to arrive at “flexible” working arrangements which are mutually beneficial. But how much “freedom of choice” do employees in the secondary labour market have, and to what extent are the “flexible” agreements mutually beneficial? This paper reports on research carried out in the retail sector. It finds that retail workers have little freedom of choice, and flexibility is all one way. The paper also raises questions about research in the secondary labour market. Given the concerns of so many about issues of equity under the Employment Contracts Act, why has there been so little research in this area?

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The rise of human resource management (HRM) has been associated with a quest for more strategic influence and higher managerial status. Findings from the 2004 New Zealand Cranet Survey are used to evaluate these normative assumptions. There are indications of a growing awareness of ‘people issues’ and an increase in the influence of HRM practitioners on strategic decision-making and an improvement in their professional status. Formalized references to people and people management have been high and stable over time. However, formalized HRM strategies are less prevalent and there are still many organizations that do not have an HRM department. Furthermore, there has been no increase in the proportion of senior HR managers who have a place among the organization’s senior executives.

In New Zealand in the 1990s, labour market decentralization and new employment legislation precipitated a sharp decline in unionism and collective bargaining coverage; trends that continued well into the 2000s even after the introduction of the more supportive Employment Relations Act 2000 (ERA). The ERA prescribed new bargaining rules, which included a good faith obligation, increased union rights and promoted collective bargaining as the key to building productive employment relationships (Anderson, 2004; May and Walsh, 2002). In this respect the ERA provided scope for increased collective bargaining and union renewal (Harbridge and Thickett, 2003; May, 2003a and 2003b; May and Walsh, 2002). Despite these predictions and the ERA's overall intent, the decline in collective bargaining coverage begun in the 1990s has continued unabated in the private sector. It has naturally been questioned why the ERA has not reversed, or at least halted, this downward trend. So far research has focused on the impact of the legislation itself and much less on employer behaviour and perceptions, or on their contribution to these trends. This article addresses the paucity of employer focused research in New Zealand. The research explores views of employers on the benefi ts of collective bargaining, how decisions to engage or not engage in collective bargaining are made and the factors instrumental to them. It is demonstrated that the preferred method of setting pay and conditions continues to be individual bargaining. This is especially so for organizations with less than 50 employees, by far the largest majority of fi rms in New Zealand. Frequently, these smaller organizations see no perceived benefits from collective bargaining. Overall, these fi ndings suggest that despite a decade of supportive legislation there are few signs that the 20 year decline in collective bargaining coverage in New Zealand will be reversed.