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Most quantitative studies analysing the nature and impact of employee involvement and participation (EIP) have used data that differentiate between its absence and presence. However, the application of EIP practices varies substantially, and impact may depend on how embedded EIP is at workplace level. Developing the concept of 'embeddedness' as a combination of measures of the breadth and depth of EIP practices, we use WERS98 to examine the impact of EIP on employee perceptions. Our results show support for propositions that greater breadth and depth of EIP practices are associated with higher levels of organisational commitment and job satisfaction.

The subject of employee involvement (El) has become much more central to debates about industrial relations and personnel management over the course of the last decade. Employers, confronted by increasingly competitive product markets and a greater emphasis on quality and customer care, have started to focus attention much more explicitly on attempts to develop and motivate employees, as well as aiming to draw more fully upon employee knowledge and talents. At the same time, developments within the EC — especially via the Social Charter — have caused British employers to think more carefully about how to involve employees at work. Amongst the academic community, the subject has also undergone a renaissance, with researchers questioning whether EI is really new, whether it is little more than a facade for u itarist management, or how it interrelates with human resource management or the “new industrial relations”. It is within such a context that our study of employee involvement was commissioned by the Department of Employment and commenced in the summer of 1989.

This series of new textbooks covers the areas of human resource management, employee relations, organisational behaviour and related business and management fields. Each text has been specially commissioned to be written by leading experts in a clear and accessible way. An important feature of the series is the international orientation. The titles will contain serious and challenging material, be analytical rather than prescriptive and be particularly suitable for use by students with no prior specialist knowledge.The series is relevant for many business and management courses, including MBA and post-experience courses, specialist masters and postgraduate diplomas, professional courses and final-year undergraduate and related courses. The books will become essential reading at business and management schools worldwide. Published

This article explores the extent to which a new contractual approach to delivering public services, through public private partnerships (PPPs), is transforming the traditional values underpinning the public sector ethos among both managers and workers. Drawing on two detailed case studies of PPPs -a Private Finance Initiative in the health sector and the outsourcing of housing benefit claims in the local government sector -we identify a range of new pressures impacting on five key elements of a traditional notion of the public sector ethos. Our findings demonstrate that the contractual relations of PPPs have led to a clear weakening of traditional notions of managerial accountability and bureaucratic behaviour, reflecting both a shift to new lines of accountability (private sector shareholders) and a vicious circle of monitoring and distrust between partner organizations, in place of the old faith in bureaucratic process. Among workers, certain traditional values -especially a concern for working in the public interest -continue to inform the way they identify with, and understand, their work in delivering public services. However, the cost cutting and work intensification associated with PPPs present a significant threat to these values.The article identifies examples of shortterm resilience of the traditional public sector ethos, as well as developments that threaten its long-term survival. KEY WORDShealth sector / local authority / public private partnerships

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 Much of the literature on inter-organizational relations assumes that firms operate as relatively autonomous and cohesive units that are (1) unimpeded by wider institutional norms governing the industry as a whole, and (2) allow little or no role for the boundary spanning agents who oversee and monitor 'contracts' on a daily basis. This perspective is not surprising given that so many studies rely solely on questionnaires completed by a single respondent within one or more of the organizations. Nor has there been much recognition of the dynamic interplay between forces at the institutional, organizational and interpersonal levels. In order to address these issues, we propose a framework that explicitly focuses on forces at these three levels, as well as the interplay between them, in order to analyse how and why inter-organizational relations take the forms they do. We argue that trusting, OCRtype relations are more likely to be produced and reproduced when there are strong institutional forces promoting common obligations on both parties, and there is a relative mutuality of power relations between the organizations. However, because the contract is maintained by boundary spanning agents, agreed norms at the institutional and organizational levels are a necessary but not sufficient factor for OCR to develop. Conversely, in the absence of these forces, there is less incentive for either organization to establish and maintain close interpersonal relations, and indeed ACR-type, distant relations may be beneficial for organizations and individuals that wish to dispense with existing contracts.